Parallelostory

Parallelostory from impactist on Vimeo.

Subprime

subprime from beeple on Vimeo.

World Builder

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

A strange man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.This award winning short was created by filmmaker Bruce Branit, widely known as the co-creator of '405'. World Builder was shot in a single day followed by about 2 years of post production. Branit is the owner of Branit VFX based in Kansas City.More info, background and info on future releases can be at

Fo(re)urplay

15-16th November 2008

Fourplay! Yep.

http://www.taupobungy.co.nz/Taupo_Bungy/4_PLAY_IDL=3_IDT=1370_ID=7907_.html

Skydive - http://www.taupotandemskydiving.com/

Helicopter Scenic Flights - http://www.helistar.co.nz/

Huka Falls Jetboat - http://www.hukafallsjet.com/page/5-Home

Taupo Bungy - http://www.taupobungy.co.nz/

We took this package for $500 each!!! Actually it's quite a good deal. The bungy costs $109, Skydive $249, Helicopter Flights $100 and the Jetboat also about $120. And by the way, all these will be done in half a day. All transport will be provided. We arrived abit late at Taupo Information Centre but they managed to fit us into the schedule anyway. We were wondering if we can leave the helicopter flight for last because we may be feeling naseous after the flight. Well, we can't choose.

First up, Bungy! It's barely 10 minutes drive from Taupo and we have yet to mentally prepare ourselves and we already arrived at the site! What the hell! We walked to the platform and looked down, and we froze. Legs got abit soft and palms sweaty. What did we get ourselves into? Time to get ourselves geared up, we decided to do the Tandem Bungy, 2 of us together. Hahahah. We also met this cool guy from Switzerland who is travelling around New Zealand. He offered to take photographs of the jump for us! So lucky! That's his daughter in the picture.

The jump.. they took a whole 5-7 minutes to gear us up. The two of them, they checked the cords about 5-6 times to ensure everything's nice and tight. Of course, I wouldn't expect less. The cord is Made in Malaysia btw, kinda made me feel unsafe after knowing that. Anyway, we slowly shuffled our feet and made our way to the edge. 47 metre high platform. Right into the.. water below. 3.....2.....1........... JUMP!!! The guy actully pushed us both over! He was afraid one might chicken out and the jump may not be well balanced. I screamed like a little girl. LOL. Aryen didn't scream; she did scream after the first bounce, which was not scary at all.. The boat was waiting at the bottom and ferried us to the shore and we made our way up.

Our certificates

Everyone should try it once in their lifetime. Pure adrenaline.

Before we even got over the jump, we were transported to Huka Falls Jetboat. Basically this is a highly modified boat that can do amazing stunts; 360 deg spins, high speed cornering, u name it. It has blazing acceleration man. This Jetboating takes place in a river with high cliffs on one side and what the driver does is he drives full throttle head on into the cliffs, only to drift away at the last minute, literally inches off the cliff wall. It's like Takumi in the water. Every barrier he clears, be it a rock, tree, cliff, branches is always inches away. It's an amazing ride man, just that I thought it could be a tad faster.

The moment we got off, we were transported to Helistar. The bungy is still fresh in our head! And we heading for the next one! The Helicopter flight is just a 10 flight of Taupo and you can see the Huka Falls, Taupo City and all the Thermal Reserves in the area. No need to pay entrance fee to see them. Anyway, it's a very small chopper. And it's not vey stable; almost feels like he made it in his backyard. We flew over the amazing Lake Taupo (Size of Singapore) and saw some thermal reserves. Halfway through the flight, we are already feeling very naseous. We quite literally crawled back into the shop, wanting to vomit.

Bungy Site from above

The famous Huka Falls

Last event of the day. Skydive!! My most anticipated event. Hahhaa. We already don't feel that well after all the spinning and shit.. Luckily we have afew hours to rest and recover as we are scheduled for the last jump of the day at around 5pm. We went with Taupo Tandem Skydiving. The biggest tandem skydive operator in the world. They do more jumps than anywhere else in the world. And they said that Taupo is considered the Skydiving capital of the world. Wow. I didn't expect that. The tandem dive masters working here are among the best in the world, alot of them clocked over 10,000 jumps. My tandem master had 7000+ jumps.

They are completely focused. Life and death ....

Check out the yellow plane, it's the only plane in the world specially designed just for skydiving. It costs about NZD3million each. Not too bad eh? We'll be jumping from 12,000 feet, about 30 seconds freefall. It took us 20 minutes to get to that altitude and looking out of the window at that height, its beautiful... The sun resting on the clouds. The plan door opened! Everyone is really amped up! Before I knew it, my tandem instructor threw me overboard and we fell. We reached terminal velocity of about 200km/h and when he opened the parachute, we slowed. This is not as scary as bungy, but is about 100 times more beautiful.

We glided in the sky, spinning here and there.. My tandem master introduced all the highlights of Taupo, from the sky. Till this day, I can still remember the moment when I was up there. What a sight... I love the snow and the sky.

As I was feeling abit unwell after all the action, Aryen drove us back. Lol. It took me awhile to recover from all that action. Anyway, on the way home, I suddenly asked her "why you drive so slow? Obstruct traffic leh" We looked at the speedo - 90km/h. That's alright, we thought. I thought the speedo was malfunctioning. It took us awhile to figure out why; we had been falling at 200km/h just 30 minutes ago, of course 90km/h seems slow....

LETS ROLL TO THE NEXT BUNGY! NEVIS BUNGY @ Queenstown AT 134metres!! Just kidding.

25th-27th October 2008

3 Day road trip. Check out the maps for a brief overview of the itinerary.

Itinerary: Auckland -> Hamilton -> Waitomo Caves -> New Plymouth -> Auckland

Day 01

We start off the day with a 1.5 hours drive to Hamilton, quite a big town so to speak. Places to visit there? The famous Hamilton Gardens. What else man.. I also don’t know. This trip started badly; we forgot the memory card for both the cameras! We realised that when we reach Hamilton. What the hell man.... worst possible shit to happen. So we had to rely on the good old Panasonic with an SD card from our phone. Shit does happen. Anyway, that aside, Hamilton Gardens is well worth the stop. The actual garden is huge but we prefer the smaller collection of different garden styles – from Japanese to Chinese, Indian, American and Italian. Check out the photos yeah..

Japanese Garden of Contemplation

American Garden

Indian Garden

Chinese Garden

American Modernist Garden

Next up was the Bridal Veil Falls. It is a national park en route Waitomo Caves. As its name suggests, it does look like a bride’s veil; from the back view of course. It’s about 47 metres high (About HDB 16 storeys high) I think and it looks amazing. The splashing water droplets coupled with the sun shining created a small arc of rainbow at the bottom of the falls. So nice man! As we continue our journey to Waitomo, we passed by a motel listed by Lonely Planet as one of the most unusual ones in the world. Basically, you can choose which lodge you want to stay in, a Hobbit’s Lodge, a Ship, a Plane and a Train. Mind you, these are all the real stuff. Check out the pictures. http://www.waitomo.org.nz/Accommodation-Woodlyn-Park.htm

We ended our drive for the day in Waitomo Caves and stayed overnight at Kiwi Paka Backpackers house. They have 1 other hostel at Rotorua, and that was crap too. Well, the environment is alright, just that the receptionists are quite racist towards Chinese we thought. And we had to pay $10 deposit for the cutlery and plates. WTF? This is the first I stayed at a hostel and I have to pay that! Backpackers lodge is usually based on trust and respect; apparently this one doesn’t have the soul of a backpackers lodge. Anyway, here is their website : http://www.kiwipaka-yha.co.nz/waitomo/waitomo.html

Day 02

Today is meant for the Black Water Rafting tour at the world famous Waitomo Glowworm Caves. A brief introduction on Waitomo –

“Waitomo is a Maori word made up of two parts. 'Wai' which translates as water and 'tomo' which means entrance or hole. Waitomo can be translated as the 'stream which flows into the hole in the ground'.”

It consists of underground limestone formations formed through millions of years. An underground stream runs through the caves and in the cave itself, there are waterfalls. And of course, the ceiling is littered with small ‘light bulbs’ – the glowworms. We decided to go on a tour with The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. Serious, that’s their real name. http://www.waitomo.com/caving-adventure.aspx That is the tour we took, $185 each after discount.

Most of the caves are not open to public, so to see most of the caves and glowworms, you got to go on the tours. We did abseiling 37 metres into the cave, climbed waterfalls, tubing (also known as black water rafting), and flying fox – all within the cave. Nearing the end of the tour, we had to choose between 2 paths to head out; one is the easy path, we took the tough one and man it’s a killer. We had to climb up a waterfall and go against the current. Once you fall, that’s it man. Overall it is an amazing tour, but the water is freezing, ice cold.

After the fun-filled adventure, we continue our drive to New Plymouth and visit the picturesque Mount Taranaki. We stopped by at some scenic lookouts such as the Elephant Rock and Three Sisters. Nothing much, just rocks and broken headlands. Well, it does look like an elephant but only from certain angles. When we head out to the rocks, it was low tide. After taking all the silly photos, it was bloody high tide man! We have to take off our shoes and walk through the water just to get back to the car. Damn it man. Anyway, by the time we arrived at New Plymouth, it was night time. We stayed at Sunflower Lodge – a decent place but slightly overpriced. http://www.sunflowerlodge.co.nz/

Day 03

The last day was meant for exploring New Plymouth and Mount Taranaki.

“Ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon”.

This is what this city is known for. The snow mountain and the sea is so near that you can do those 2 activities in a single day. How amazing is that? I wonder if there is any other place in the world you can do that. They have an amazing website - http://www.taranaki.co.nz/

Check that out. Anyway, it is an active volcano and god knows when they will erupt the next time. This volcano has erupted and collapsed 5 times in the past and each of the eruptions was so strong that the entire mountain is blown to bits. Cool eh? They have underground seismic detectors and they claimed it will give them weeks, if not months of advance warning in case this sleeping giant decides to wake up. We drove up the snow mountain and the snow is clearing fast. Ski season has ended but the car park still has snow! So excited to finally feel snow again. Lol.

Check out this picture. The cloud started with a small blob at the summit of the mountain and slowly, it grew... bigger and bigger until it covered most of the top. The strange thing is the cloud just keeps swirling round and round the mountain; it doesn’t move away! WTH is that man. But it really is a sight to behold. Check out the panoramic view of the mountain. All the photos in this trip is taken using my old junk Panasonic camera. Forgive the poor quality. That panoramic is joined and touched up with Photoshop so it looks decent.

After the great mountain, it is time to head on back to Auckland. It is a long long drive again. To think few weeks ago we were still contemplating whether to go to Mount Taranaki; this is a must visit for everyone. We miss Mt. Taranaki.....