Aitutaki,Cook Islands

I went to Aitutaki for nearly a week in year 2007 when I went to visit my sister in New Zealand (NZ). It is a tiny tropical island in the South Pacific Ocean, often referred to as “the Bora Bora of the cook Islands”. The land area of the island is about 18km2, if travel by car, it only takes half an hour to drive around the whole island. It is famous for the beautiful beach, see through water, and most importantly, the different varieties of the colorful reef. I was amazed by how beautiful the place is.

Aitutaki is a great place for diving, kayaking, and swimming with different kind of fish. The sea condition is always peaceful because it sits at one corner of a triangular lagoon dotted with lovely small flat islands. The lagoon sides of the uninhabited, coconut-studded small islands out on the reef have some of the South Pacific’s most beautiful white sand beaches, which is perfect for snorkeling. Because of its special geographic location, the temperature is particularly comfortable and warm all year round

Special Stone in OAMARU

I had been to a very special city called OAMARU, with all the buildings built by a kind of white stone. The architectures there create an elegant city with a rare style.

In OAMARU, those kind of white stones are very rich there. They can be used to make sculptures, architectures, and souvenirs. They are very useful and they provide the city an opportunity to be unique and beautiful. The buildings are in old style but very attractive to the visitors because many people have never seen those kind of architectures. Also, not only one or two in a row, but almost the whole city is made by that, this becomes a very grand scenery.

There is also a place called OAMARU Blue Penguin Colony, where we can see many penguins living in a very natural environment. My trip to OAMARU only took me one day but I enjoyed it a lot.

fossil

Last week, I went to the beach in Jinshitan with my friends and we got some exciting things—FOSSILS.

This is the picture of our fossils. We bought that from a countrywoman who sells the ornaments like conch and starfish along the beach to the tourists. I originally want to buy a starfish for memories, but those fossils attract us. At first we thought those fossils were not real ones, because the real fossils should be in the museum. Also, real fossils wouldn’t be such cheap—20RMB per pair. However, after a shot conversation, we knew where she got them and how they got them. Actually, they got them in an illegal way.

When the Jinshitan Beach is firstly empoldered to a scenery spot, roads and spaces for watching scenery need to be built, so some part of mountains needed to be exploded. The mountains have been there for almost 9 hundred-million-years, so fossils were very easy to found. Right during that period, farmers living around there went to pick fossils for selling. That’s why they sell them with very low prices.
I am not a expert, so I don’t know how to examine if they are fakes or not, but we finally bought there pairs of them. Until now, when we look at them, we still feel excited because we own the things which belong to hundred-million years ago.