Bear's Blog New Zealand (Beta)

Finally...

Just got rid of all the assignments at the moment, great.

Lots of interesting stuffs happened while I’m away, including the latest transport policy from National – a user pay system that charges around $5 for some sections of Motorway in Auckland. It is likely to increase the cost of an average Auckland commuter by $50 a week.

I usually refer people to this clip every time when National announces something. The user-pay system should nicely fit into that category too.

The system sounds fair, but it’s not, it only seeks fairness in the economic sense.

From a planning point of view, I’m more concerned about the accessibility issues, how to ensure that the low income people have the maximum accessibility to the opportunities provided by the CBD? Motorway is tolled; Dominion Road and Great North/South road are all in a miserable state and you cannot see a bus for half an hour in some area - well people need a way to move around a city?

Sure there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but you cannot force people to take one type of lunch or get them unfairly disadvantaged. The toll just shouldn’t go ahead without viable alternatives to people.

Earthquake

Location of the epicentre(Source:USGS, under public domain.)(click to enlarge)

Most people should know it by now ... This one's quite big, the quake happened around 23.25NZST, Geonet measured it as magnitude 5.9 , or Mw 5.4 according to USGS. just 10km south-west of Hastings.

Still have no news on any damages. The MMI is around 6, which may result some light damages but it is very unlikely to directly cause any injuries or death.

Preliminary details showed that the quake is felt across the lower part of North Island, from Taupo to Wellington. Not felt in Auckland.

At the moment one aftershock is recorded and I do expect at least another one or two around M 3.0. And I suspect the M 3.0 event recorded Monday morning is a foreshock.

That's all I can tell from the information avaialble, going back to sleep now ...

Go New Zealand!

What a great night it was! 2 gold, one silver and 2 bronze, 16 August 2008 is truly a historical day for New Zealand Sports.

My congratulations to all the medalists, and all the antheles who represented the country in the games.A special congratulation to Mahe Drysdale. To us, you've just won a gold medal.

New Zealand a small country in the world, but we are sure big in the sporting world.

Time for a break...

I don't think I can update this blog as regularly as before for next month. Amount of my work is bit out of control(partially my fault too as I didn't follow the time frame, spent too much time watching Olympics).

I'm not really a very sporty people but hey ... I'm in New Zealand.

Here has another good excuse that you can use for being lazy. The only downside of that excuse is, it's a seasonal thing so you cannot use that all year around.

not bad, but just that.

It's weekend so I didn't mind to spent pretty much whole night to watch the Olympics opening ceremony.

I didn't expected a lot out of Director Zhang Yimou（张艺谋）,so I must say it was better than I expected.

It got lots of things in it, Four Great Inventions of ancient China, the great voyage of Zheng He, teachings from "Analects" ... etc.

I don't know, non-chinese may think them as very interesting, but at least I think, the performance lacked "real substances", just 2008 people wearing ancient chinese dress or tai-chi suit running around - without a objective.

TV ONE didn't prepare well for the live coverage, it lacked commentaries. Even I found it difficult to understand what are all those people running around suppose to mean; for people who have little or knowledge on Chinese history, I imagine there is no possibility that they well ever understand any parts of the ceremony.

What I liked was the first theme - use of drums to count down.  Great light effect, very majestic, yet it is still closely linked to Chinese culture - well, if my memory serves me right, drumming in the night, or dusk traditionally is a gesture of sending the deceased on the final journey, the road to burial.

Anyway, it's not too bad  though, TV ONE should have highlights today, have look if you got time, or here.

Finally...

Aaron Deng

As the name suppression is no longer in place, I can now name the kidnapper in the Cina Ma case.

The kidnapper's name is Aaron Deng, a 25 year old real estate agent from Ray White's Pinehill branch.

What I heard is that his family is also quite wealthy and fiancially supported his study here. I understand that he's working in Ray White not because of money to support his life, but to enable him to stay here.

So I don't think he kidnapped Cina Ma for ransom. In fact, what I heard is he didn't plan to hold Cina for that long, Mr Deng just want to "give the family a warning" by hold Cina for few hours, and then release her (that's why Cina was found only a street away).

You know the rest, the police was there most of the day, and his "plan" seems to be backfired.

It is still not yet clear on what kind of dispute between those "adults" triggered the kidnap.