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Our first stop on our way to Queenstown was a really entertaining little place called Puzzling World. The centre started as a wooden maze, which they added another level to to make the worlds first "3D maze". That was good fun, managed to find the 4 corners but I got bored after we'd achieved that so we sneaked out one of the emergancy exits :-p Best bit was the illusion rooms, 4 different themed rooms designed to mess with your head. I love optical illusions so really loved this place! The first room is full of incredible 3D hologram photos. They really jumped out (didnt need any 3D glasses on or anthing!) and would change as you moved around. Was really really hard to except they were flat images. The next room was the "Hall of following faces". You've probably seen those photos where it looks like someones eyes are following you around the room, well this room is full of head to two inside out moulds of peoples faces, 168 of them, and each of there faces is looking at you where ever you stand. not just their eyes, but its as if their whole face is turned towards you. Really clever but a little creepy!! The next room was brilliant, the "Ames Illusion Room". Look through a window into it and it looks like a completely normal room, nothing unusual at all. But, its a complete illusion, one side of the room has a tall celling and low floor and the other has a low celling and high floor, so it's like a triangle to one side.... this means when one person stands in the first side they look tiny to an outsider and when someone else stands on the other side, they look like a giant! Got some brilliant photos, worked better than i could have imagined! The last room was the weirdest. "The Tilted House" - litterally a few room on a really big slant, which you quite quickly got used to, but then the room completely played with gravity to confuse the hell out of your logic. By putting a pool table and a waterfall on a slightly less slant it appeared to the people inside that balls were rolling up the pool table and water flowing uphill! As the floor is slanted and theres no way of knowing what is truely flat, it is bizarre as you really cant get into you head that the pool table is actually tilting down, when to you in the room it appears to be on a massive hill upwards! The weirdest example was sitting on a chair at the bottom of a slope. It looked like a chair lift but there were no mechanisms. As you released it, the chair moved up the slope! It felt so weird, because in was then effort to push it back down the slope when it had just fell up.... as you can imagine, very hard to get your head around as although you know logically the chair "lift" is actually sloping down, your eyes are telling you completely differently. There were a few more puzzles to try outside while we had something to eat, then we got some more photos outside before getting back on the bus. Had another brief stop at a big shop thing which sold loads of fruit and real ice cream which was delicious, then headed on the Queenstown!! Our first stop was the Kawarau Bridge, the site of the worlds first commercial bungy, and the bungy both my brother and my mum have done!! After lots and lots of debating about which activities I would do in Queenstown (its the adreinaline capital of the world so theres more than a few!) this one made my "to-do" list. It was also going to be Mike's only bungy jump. Everyone went inside for a video about the history of bungee jumping (it only became commercial in 1988 so it wasn't like your boring history lessons at home!) which was really interesting, then we had a short talk about the different jumps we could do in Queenstown. Me, Mike and another guy were the only people planning to do the bridge jump that day and we were meant to do it there and then but the bungy centre had double booked bus trips or something so we were told we'd have to wait, and booked it for the next day. Mike wasn't too happy as he'd been really nervous but had physched himself up!! Went on to have a traditional group photo in Queenstown, then got dropped at out hostle, Nomads, which is a pretty new one and really nice for a chain hostle. have an en-suite shower room and seperate toilet room in our 6 bed dorm for a standard rate! The drivers from both the buses arranged a big night out for us, starting in FatBadgers, a really nice bar where Kiwi customers get a brilliant deal... all you can eat for a fiver! There were absolutely HUGE pizzas and loads of garlic bread and chips, was full super quickly but it was delicious. Stayed there a while then went onto the Base bar, Alltitude. Was feeling really poorly by now, sore thraot and a cough etc but didn't want to miss out! Joined in on the jafer train which was brilliant (and lovely for my throat!), Got to see loads of people from our old bus which was great, then was put my name down for the karaoke competition that night. Although my throat killed it didn't take a lot to convince me as the prize was a 2-4-1 Skydive voucher!! As my voice was nearly gone, I really did have nothing to loose! Was first on after Matty, and sang some Blondie. Everyone was singing along which was brilliant, made it a lot more fun, and my voice managed to hold out! Was really good karaoke at first, no one was taking it too seriously but there were some really good singers all the same!! the plan was to move on to World Bar but i was ready to go home, but was told if you weren;t there when they announced the winner at the end you would miss out on the prize. The guy behind the bar said I had a good chance of winnning and I knew that if i had won, but hadn't been there for the prize, I'd have been gutted. Skydiving is still the best thing I have done! So, made the decision to stick it out. Most people moved on and I was ready to but it was fun watching other people sing, until the same 2 groups kept going and singing again and again. One was a guy who took himself wayyyy to seriously and sang really boring songs, the other was 3 girls who would run of stage half way through each song. It was a shame as loads of people didnt get a chance to sing and there were loads of good people who had sung before and wanted to sing again. Not quite sure why these groups kept going on again and again but loads of people left because of it,they werent the best and no one really knew the songs they were singing. Was starting to get realllly tired and felt really poorly, was about to head back as it was an hour after they said they'd close, when something very annoying happened. Here is my rant so skip ahead if you dont want to hear it - i'd understand but I'm due one! We were talking about things we couldnt stand earlier in the night and mine was things being unfair and this is an example of that! Advertised on the poster was "Karaoke Competition, First prize = 241 Skydive". After the last singer (a really good girl who had been waiting all night) the DJ said it was time for the draw. He then got a random girl out of the audience to come and pick a slip of paper from all the entry slips and the one she picked would win the prize!! So, not a competition at all! Then suprise suprise, the first slip drawn was the guy who took himself seriously as he had sung about 6 times! He had just left, so she picked again and it was, suprisingly, the group of girls, who had sang even more than the serious guy!! they had also left, so the girl picked again! This time, she accidently picked 3 slips, looked at them all, threw 2 on the floor and called out the name of a guy.... who was the guy she was there with!!! So yes, as you can imagine, not too happy. Obviously I would have liked the skydive but I was too annoyed at the way it was done to think about that. Just didn't seem fair! Loads of people agreed and everyone left after that. Would have been fine to advertise it as as karaoke with every entry entering a lucky dip but it was clearly advertised as a competition and the guy behind the bar made it out to be. The DJ was weird all night so we think he was just lazy. It was annoying because I really wouldnt have stuck around, could have done with an early night! Anyway, rant over, apart from that it was a good night out and I can definately see why Queenstown is everyones favourite place to go in New Zealand. :)
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