Pictures Galore

It's been a while, but there hasn't been too much to report on.

In my last post I promised pictures of the famed shark and other underwater beasties, but as it turns out my underwater photography skills are not up to par. No shark picture came out when I got the photos developed. A few pictures were actually missing from the set, so I guess the guy didn't bother developing those that came out too dark. A few decent underwater shots came out, though, and you can find them in one of the new albums on the right-hand sidebar. I've addded Albums Nine, Ten, and Eleven, which span from our trip to Doubtful Sound in late March all the way through the present, so you'll find more pictures of Franz Josef, Abel Tasman National Park, and Fiji.

In other news, I've acquired a very part-time job, just doing odd work around Plunket, a child care agency's office for a few hours every week. It's not much, but it's enough to pay the rent and keep me floating for the next month Sometime in late July we'll be heading off to Australia for a trip from Cairns to Sydney and then we'll be back in the States in mid-late August.

I guess that's about it for now. Even though I don't have much to say, though, I'm sure you'll find plenty of entertainment in the new albums. There's something like 150 new pictures between the three albums. Knock yourselves out!

Bula!

We're back from Fiji! It was a great trip, even though we had two days of rain. The other three days were perfect and sunny, and even the rainy days weren't so bad since the rain mostly came at night time and it stayed warm during the day.

Over the course of our trip we explored Nadi, took a day trip to a private island, snorkelled, spent plenty of time relaxing by our hotel's pool, and endured a combined total of over 24 hours in airports. Yep, over 24 hours. Thanks to our early flight, the bus schedule from Whangarei to Auckland, and our not wanting to pay for a hostel room for only a few hours, we slept in Auckland airport both before our departure and after our return. Good thing they have padded benches!

The best day was definitely Friday, when we went out to the island. Beaches on the mainland are pretty dirty and covered in trash (near Nadi, at least). Fiji is another of those countries where most of the locals live in poverty while tourists come and live in luxury. Fortunately, the indigenous Fijians had some foresight when they became a British colony and kept some rights to themselves. Over 80% of Fiji's land is owned by the indigenous people, and it can't be taken away. Instead, they lease out the land at high cost. So all of the big fancy resorts have to pay the indigenous Fijians for the use of their land. The money goes straight back to the villages, so the Fijians in those lucky villages don't have it quite so bad.

But back to the island. The pristine, white sand beaches are found on the many smaller islands such as South Sea island. This is where we spent the day:



For a ridicuously-cheap price (especially after the exchange rate) we were ferried out to the island for the day. With less than thirty in our group, it wasn't a crowded trip. We had a huge lunch buffet, as well as all we could drink (water, beer, wine, soda) for the entire day, unlimited access to snorkelling equipment, kayaks, two snorkelling trips off a boat, and two trips in this semi-submersible boat (like glass bottom, but glass sides instead). Basically, we spent eight hours in an all-inclusive paradise.

Snorkelling made the trip for me. Apart from the two boat trips, they had a large roped-off area where you could snorkel by the beach. It turns out the reef starts only 10-15 feet away from the shore, so there was plenty to see. On the second trip out I even saw a shark! It was about 5-6 feet long and was just swimming around about ten feet below me. Only four others were out on the trip, and I swam up to the boat and said, "Uh... I just saw a shark. Is that okay?" The guide said it was probably just a reef shark and it was perfectly fine. So I swam back and found the shark again and took a picture before he disappeared into the deeper water. Very cool.

Even aside from the shark, snorkelling was great fun. I think I spent a combined three or so hours snorkelling, getting my back sunburned and my arms and legs chewed up by sea lice. Yes, sea lice. Apparently these are microscopic little nasties whose bites feel similar to a mild jelly-fish sting, but the pain only lasts for a few minutes. Seeing the many varieties of multi-colored fish in every shape and size made it all worthwhile. It certainly has gotten me excited for seeing the Great Barrier Reef when we head to Australia--as long as the mean sharks keep their distance.

Sadly, Mr. Shark and our other snorkelling pictures will have to wait. We bought a waterproof camera that uses this weird stuff called "film." And you have to "wind" this weird knob after every picture, and when it's all finished you have to get it "developed." There's not even a screen on the camera. Crazy, I know. At any rate I will try to get the pictures "deveoped" as soon as possible so you all can have a look.

We also took a half day bus tour of the Nadi area. Alexa and I ended up being the only people on the tour that day, so we more or less had a private drive around Nadi. We saw a Fijian village, a downtown fruit market, a large Hindu temple, and the Garden of the Sleeping Giant, which lies at the base of the Mountain of the Sleeping Giant:


The far left is his head, the radio tower is his belly, and the mound on the right are his feet. Actually fairly proportionate, huh? Except he has super short legs.

Here's the open air market in Fiji:


Downtown Nadi is a sketchy sort of place. We learned one lesson really quick: if a slick-looking dude comes up to you and says, "Bula!" and starts asking you a bunch of friendly questions, he isn't just being nice. He will walk and talk with you for about twenty feet, until suddenly you find yourself at the entrance to a dingy shop and your way down the sidewalk is blocked by two or three of his friends. At this point you're supposed to feel compelled to enter the shop, where they offer you Kava, show you pictures of their village, and then ask you for donations for said village while urging you to buy crappy, over-priced trinkets. We only fell for this once, but quickly left the shop after glancing at a few price tags.

We spent the rest of our time in Fiji hanging out at our hotel's pool, venturing into downtown Nadi for souviniers, and checking out a local beach. Not much else too exciting. Like I said before, the highlight was our day on South Sea Island.

Upon returning to New Zealand, we had to resume our job hunt. Boo. It actually got so bad we were seriously considering just going to Australia next week and then coming home early. But just as we'd resigned ourselves to this, Alexa got a job! She's nannying for a family with two little girls 4 days a week, with an optional extra day depending if the parents' shop is busy. Sweet. With any luck I too will find some means of employment.

Here's hoping that by my next post I'll be a working man!

Anti-bula! (Good bye in Fijian, obviously)

An inviting hammock on South Sea Island:

The view off our hotel room's balcony:

Nadi's huge Hindu temple, as seen from the front:

April Adventures, Part 3

Here we go! The final segment of our April Adventures!

Wellington - Taupo - Rotorua

We got away from Wellington later than intended and started the five hour drive to Taupo, where I was planning on doing an awesome 15,000 foot skydive! An hour into the drive, the weather began to cast doubts on whether I would actually be doing any skydiving. Skydive companies only operate in near-perfect weather: low winds, clear blue skies with maybe a cloud or two. Rainy, cloudy days are a no-go. But since the weather had turned in our favor for Franz Josef and Abel Tasman, I remained cautiously optimistic.

The rain hadn't relented by the time we pulled into our hostel in Taupo, and the next morning we woke to a sullen, grey sky. No skydiving that day, so we carried on to Rotorua. We planned on spending three nights in Rotorua, and it's only an hour from Taupo, so I figured I could easily drive back to Taupo should the weather clear up.

It never happened. It rained all three days. Fortunately rain wasn't enough to ruin our good time in Rotorua.

Sunday we went to quiz night at Hennessey's, the Irish pub Alexa and I first went to back in September. In honor of Wellington's icon, we named our team Blanket Man, and finished 7th place out of 11. Woo hoo! Some controversy: One question asked, "What's the largest predator in North America?" We wrote grizzly, but then I remembered hearing polar bears are the largest predators in the world. Furthermore, I was almost positive they lived in North America, thanks to Sarah Palin. The animal-hating witch wanted polar bears taken off the threatened species list to legalize their habitat's destruction in the name of oil-drilling in Alaska. For the first time in her meaningless life, Sarah Palin served a mildly-useful purpose: my memory was jogged and we changed our answer!

Unfortunately the "correct" answer ended up being grizzly bear. Back at the hostel I checked wikipedia, and sure enough, polar bears are the largest land predator in the world and they do live in North America, therefore polar bears are the largest predator in North America. Not that one point would've done so much as bump us up to 6th place, let alone make us the winners. As a side note, the wicked witch of Alaska didn't have her way, and polar bears are indeed a protected species.

While in Rotorua we did a handful of touristy activities. It turns out Rotorua has a gondola and luge just like Queenstown, except there are three luge tracks totalling 5 km in length, much longer than Queenstown's measly two 800 meter tracks. The luge carts themselves weren't in tip-top shape, though, so the brakes and steering didn't always work properly. Adding to that, the tracks were freshly-wet with rain, which made the rides quite interesting! We all made it down alive, don't worry.

We also went Zorbing again, since we couldn't let Mike come to New Zealand without trying the crazy sport. If you don't remember from when Alexa and I Zorbed in December, Zorbing is the where you climb into a big plastic water-filled ball and roll down the side of a hill.

Lastly, Alexa and I finally made it to a Maori cultural show/hangi. Basically you go to a Maori "village" where a bunch of Maoris await in traditional costume and they put on a show. I went in with very low expectations. I thought it would be a really cheesy sort of thing. You know, "Hoo hoo hah hah, look at us dance for the white man!" kind of deal. But it wasn't. It was actually really informative and the performers seemed genuinely interested in preserving their culture.

The best part came after the performance: the hangi.

Hangi is the method Maoris traditionally used to cook their meals. It involves heating a bunch of huge rocks on a fire for several hours, then placing those rocks into a large hole in the ground. The food (typically meats and root vegetables) goes on top of the rocks, then the food is covered with damp cloth to lock in the heat and create steam. This is left to sit for another couple hours until the food is ready. Our hangi consisted of lamb, chicken, potatoes, and kumara, along with non-traditional foods like stuffing, scalloped potatoes, a few different salads, and dessert.

Our last full day in Rotorua we just chilled out and went to the Waikite Valley thermal pools, a welcome period of relaxation after all the rushing around we did during our trip. Once finished in the geothermal capital of New Zealand, we hit the road for the last leg of our journey with Mike.

Auckland

We spent our first hour in Auckland trying to find our hostel. It was on Owens road, but what Google Maps failed to tell us is there are two Owens roads in Auckland, and the incorrect one is located across a bridge on the other side of the harbor. And of course our directions were for the incorrect one.

We finally made it to our hostel, Yaping House, quite the dirty little joint. The rooms seriously needed cleaning, and the mold growing around the windowsills and skirting boards meant Alexa had to pop Claritin whenever we were inside. Fortunately we didn't spent much time at the hostel.

Our first day was X-Men Origins: Wolverine's opening day (2 days before it came out in the US, what!) so we went to the cinema to check it out. The movie was pretty good, but the best part was seeing all the familiar scenes from Queenstown/Glenorchy. If you've seen the movie, or plan on seeing it, whenever they're in the "Canadian Rockies," they're actually in Deer Park Heights or Glenorchy. Thanks to this, there's a fantastic goof-up. About half an hour into the movie, a farmer is driving over a bridge in the "Canadian Rockies." In New Zealand it's not uncommon for arrows to be painted on the road, indicating to drive in the left-hand lane. It sounds silly, but south island roads often have no traffic. Without other cars passing by as reminders, tourists can lapse and slip into the wrong lane. Maybe by accident or maybe just for fun, one of these arrows is clearly visible as the farmer crosses the other side of the bridge--on the wrong side!

After the movie we had dinner at an awesome Japanese restaurant and walked around to take in Auckland by night.

The next morning we headed out of town a few kilometers to the Tip Top Ice Cream Factory for a tour, which ended up being my most awkward experience in recent memory. Upon arrival we realized the rest of the tour group consisted of a bunch of school kids. Picture it: Mike, Eoin, and Alexa crammed into a colorful meeting room with a bunch of uniformed tweens and their teachers (who gave us a few odd looks). If there could've been just one other small group, or a couple, or even just one individual who wasn't part of the school group it would've been okay. But nope, just us. The three American weirdos field-trip crashing. If we weren't conspicuous enough, I screwed up by taking a picture at the beginning of the tour. Just as the flash was going off, our tour guide shouted, "Sir! No pictures, please!" Whoops.

To make matters worse, our tour guide was insane. From the way she lectured the tour group, you'd think we were delinquent Tip Top employees. For example, at one stage of the tour she was discussing the process of cooking fruit ripple for the ice cream. "If you cook it too long," she ranted, "it becomes jelly! And we don't want to make jelly at an ice cream factory, do we? So it all has to be thrown out and the whole day is wasted, and that's why it's important to work carefully!" I don't know about the kids, but I sure as hell was frightened.

At least we got free ice cream.

After the tour Mike wasn't feeling so hot, so Alexa and I headed to the Auckland Museum while he rested. The Museum isn't as impressive as Te Papa, but it had several interesting exhibits. The volcano exhibit was the best. It had a simulation of one what would happen if one of Auckland's volcanoes decided to erupt. Basically, it would be Bad. They also had a replica of a giant moa, birds that roamed New Zealand before Maori and European settlers wiped them out:

The museum with Sky Tower in the background:

Later that night, Mike and I produced the greatest picture to come out of this entire trip. It took a lot of planning: First, we had to polish off the bottle of whiskey he'd bought for our night out in Wellington. Next, we had to decide it wasn't enough and surely we must go out in search of more. After that, we had to wander the outer-suburbs of Auckland (our hostel wasn't quite in city center) in search of some place, any place selling liquor after midnight. Mike's first attempt, a gas station, had him shouting through the window at the attendant, "Hey! Can I buy liquor from you?" Obviously not. Still unsatisfied, we continued into a larger shopping area where we eventually found an open bar. A girl outside told us we couldn't come in because it was a pajama party and we didn't have pajamas, but the bouncer let us in anyway. Finally, we had to make our way to the second floor, where we spotted a flashing, colorful dance floor. Only one person was dancing. A lone young man in his flamboyant pajamas. And then Mike did what he does best:

Later he would insist he was "following the lights," not dancing with the pajama dude. But we all know the truth.

Our final day in Auckland I was feeling a little under the weather for some reason, so we just sort of wandered aimlessly. At some point we found a $2 shop and went inside. I don't know what made us head to the toy section, but I'm very glad we did. We probably spent close to an hour looking at the toys. What made the toys so intriguing, you ask?

Special for you of children design. It will give you infinite pleasure!

They were all cheap knock-offs made in China. Other gems include "Pursue the Vogue," a bratz-style doll, a "4-D Reptile Puzzle" (yes, 4-D. "Three dimensions + details!" as the box explained), and a number of Spiderman-themed toys, including a set with handcuffs, badge, and gun that inexplicably had the Spiderman 2 logo attached to it.

Eventually we had to take Mike to the airport and bid him farewell. The two and a half weeks went by really quickly, but I think we all had a great time during Mike's visit. Especially dancing pajama man.

Whangarei - Kerikeri - Whangarei

After depositing Mike at the airport, Alexa and I fought Auckland's horrible traffic congestion for over an hour before finally making it on the road to Whangarei, our next stop.

It didn't take long to assess Whangarei isn't a very exciting place. Sure, it's a bigger city than Queenstown and has a larger variety of shops, but it lacks severely in the "things to do" department. Noting this, we continued on to Kerikeri the next morning. Kerikeri is an even smaller town. One grocery store, one McDonald's, one video rental shop... and not much else. If we stayed in Kerikeri, fruit-picking would be our only option for work. And the way it works out isn't that great: you stay at a hostel, and they help you find work and drive you to and from work each day. Staying at the hostel would've run us $260/week because they were out of the "cheap" rooms (cheap being relative, at $240/week). After paying the hostel, we probably would've made less than $200/week each. No good.

So we turned down the work offer (we could've been packing kiwi-fruit into crates that very day) and drove back down to Whangarei, checking out a few smaller towns along the way. The smaller towns, like Pahia, were situated on lovely little beaches and seemed really nice, but didn't have any work available.

We've been in Whangarei for a little over two weeks now, and I can assuredly say it is the ugliest little city I've seen in New Zealand. Whangarei Harbor is disgraceful. Nowhere else in New Zealand have I seen such dirty water. Even Wellington and Auckland, the two largest ports brimming with boats, have clean, clear water. But for whatever reason, dingy little Whangarei Harbor is murky and filled with floating rubbish.

BLECH.

On a redeeming note, Whangarei isn't too far from the prettier parts of Northland, and boat trips leave frequently to the Poor Knights' Islands, which Jacques Cousteau rated as one of the top ten diving spots in the world. Time and money permitting, I just may have to go and try out an introductory diving lesson.

So far we've had no luck with jobs, despite applying for many. Fortunately we secured cheap accommodation. We're staying in a room in a house owned by three Filipino guys. They're all really nice and the common areas are kept clean. So while it's not the same as having our own place like we did in Queenstown, it's still a lot better than the situation in Wellington.

In two days we're heading to Auckland to catch a plane to Fiji! Remember the holiday we booked back in February? Well, time has flown right on by and we'll be in the tiny island nation this time on Thursday. Excellent.

Anyway, I think I've written more than enough for now. I'll update again once I'm back from Fiji, and I'll be sure to fill the post with jealousy-inducing images of beautiful beaches and crazy Fijians yelling "Bula!" (Don't ask me, that's just what they do in all the Fiji tourism commercials here).

Huge Update!

This blog entry is pretty much the most action-packed piece of writing I've created since World War III, the picture-book I made in first grade that illogically pitted America, Ireland, and Canada against China, England, Russia, and Mexico. I think it had something to do with my recently-acquired ability to draw mushroom clouds.

Somehow I've let another huge chunk of time slip by since my last post (not "time of chunk," the typo/brainfart my dad was kind enough to point out in one of my previous entries), and a lot has happened since good old March 6th. Since my last post, my dad visited Queenstown, Alexa and I hiked the Routeburn Track, and we've put in our two weeks' notice at Fresh Choice in preparation for our next relocation.

Let's start with my dad's visit. He arrived a day late thanks to a storm in Chicago delaying his flight from Baltimore, and a little bit delirious from all the travel. Fresh off the plane, we headed to Harry's Pool Bar for a few beers and games of pool. Dad might remember it differently since he was so mixed up from spending so much time on a plane, but I beat him fifty games in a row. Straight. Remember: if it's on my blog, it's the truth.

Throughout the week we sampled Queenstown's many touristy offerings, some new to us and some repeats, but all fun. Thursday we took a 4X4 Lord of the Rings tour to Glenorchy, an isolated town located about one and a half hours from Queenstown. It was more about the scenery than the movies, as the guide said he wasn't much of a fan. Not sure how he landed the job if he isn't even a fan of the films, but as a local he did share a variety of local facts and the scenery was, as always, fantastic.

Friday we boarded the TSS Earnslaw, Queenstown's very own steamship from the early 1900's, and rode out to Walter Peak Station, a sheep station on Lake Wakatipu's opposite shore. It doesn't look very far away, but the trip took a considerably long time. Apparently steamboats aren't the quickest way to get around on the water. Since Alexa and I are working and living here in Queenstown, we were able to get a locals' special and the trip included a free BBQ buffet lunch. First all-you-can-eat buffet I've had since leaving the states over seven months ago. It was awesome. We also checked out a brief sheep mustering and shearing demonstration. The ewe did not look happy about the shearing process, despite the farmer's assurances that she was "quite happy" to be rid of the wool. Maybe, but I doubt she'll be happy about being turned into mutton at the end of the year (a fun fact the farmer shared with the audience--for the kids!)

The next day we fulfilled one of my Dad's dreams and went white water rafting. The water levels were lower than when Alexa and I rafted on Boxing Day, and our guide was a bit of a prick, but it was still a lot of fun and we're glad we did it.

Dad's in the front row on the right, and I'm directly behind him. As you can see, the rapids are still quite rough even though the water level has dropped significantly.

Sunday brought work for me and Alexa and souvenir shopping for my Dad, but on Monday we all took the gondola up to Bob's Peak to try out the luge track. At first we weren't sure if Dad would even make it up to the track since he wasn't too thrilled about the chair lift, but in the end it all worked out!

Here's Dad looking extremely nervous (and I'm looking extremely mature) on the chair-lift up to the start of the luge track:

The first time around I reached the bottom of the track first and had to wait about half an hour for Alexa to catch up, and then we both had to wait an additional two hours for my Dad. No exaggeration.

On the second go we weren't quite as spread out. We all met up at the bottom so we could come in for a group photo finish:

I can't decide who's making the best face in that picture. Regardless, we're all looking pretty awesome.

Later on Alexa had to work, but Dad and I took the drive up to Wanaka so he could check out Puzzling World. If you think back to the ancient times (aka December) when Alexa and I were first driving down to Queenstown, you'll remember the place that had the giant maze, crazy illusion rooms, and Roman-style toilets. Yep, that's Puzzling World. Here's Giant Eoin and Little Dad:

I want to do this when Mike's with us. It's a great puzzle in itself: if Mike stood in the tall spot, and I stood in the short spot, what would happen? Would he appear taller than me? Would we be the same height? Or, maybe, just maybe, would he still be shorter? In a few weeks we'll be able to solve one of science's greatest riddles: how to make Mike look tall! I need to stop. I don't think he even reads this, so this is essentially as bad as talking about him behind his back...with an audience. Sorry Mike. But that's what you get for not reading my blog. Gosh.

Anyway, the next day was Tuesday and St. Patrick's Day, and I really don't think any explanation is required. Obviously we spent the day at church learning about St. Patrick, Jesus, and all those other awesome folk. And there was no alcohol involved. At all. Surprisingly enough, the church had a pool table. In the course of the day I once again bested the old man. This time I conquered him in ninety nine out of a hundred games of pool (it was a long day). Not sure how I let that last slip past me. Maybe I just didn't feel right crushing his ego entirely.

And remember: if it's on my blog, it's the truth. I use only the highest level of journalistic integrity for you, my dear readers.

Here we are at the end of the holy day. Clearly no alcohol involved whatsoever.

After leaving the pub church we headed to Winnie's, a local bar/pizzeria for some delicious dinner, then caught a cab home. We crashed pretty quickly: spending St. Patrick's day at a church is more exhausting than you might think. In fact, the exhaustion carried over into the next day and manifested itself in a terrible illness with symptoms not unlike those of a hangover. Very, very strange. Dad managed to make it out of the house before I did and headed downtown for some brunch. After fighting off a crippling headache, I followed an hour later, scarfed down a kebab, and joined Dad for a trip up to Deer Park Heights.

As a quick refresher, Deer Park Heights is where this photo was taken:

Alexa had to work, so unfortunately she couldn't reenact this Kodak moment. Dad got to meet a few alpacas, however. We also saw several deer (including a few stags making their claim over the females as it's "roaring season." If you've never heard a stag "roar," it's freaking weird), miniature ponies, a water buffalo, and more goats than I ever care to see again. It seemed like there were twice as many goats as last time, and every last one of them dedicated their time to sitting nonchalantly in the middle of the road, completely unfazed as I laid on the horn.

Also, what the hell is this alpaca doing? The face he's making is like the face Napoleon Dynamite makes when he's angry:

The next day we woke early, breakfasted at a cafe in town, and headed straight for the airport. The week and a half had flown by quite quickly, and it was time for Dad to make his long, long flight home. Alexa and I bid him farewell and headed back to town without delay. We had no time to dilly-dally, as the next day we were due to start our next adventure...

The Routeburn Track!

The Routeburn Track, one of New Zealand's nine Great Walks, is a 32 kilometer (3 day) trek through the rain forest and mountains of two national parks, Mt. Aspiring and Fiordland National Parks. Only two of the Great Walks cross the border between different parks. Apart from the Routeburn, the other is the Heaphy. Do any of these names mean anything to my American readers? No, probably not. But it's information, and the more of it I spew out the more knowledgeable I can pretend to be. Perfect.

If you think back to Alexa's entry about the Tongariro Crossing, the hike we did in December, you'll remember how much she loved it. And the Tongariro Crossing was only a one day hike, and didn't require heavy backpacks! With a little imagination, then, I'm sure you can guess how Alexa felt about the Routeburn.

But in the end Alexa admitted to having an "okay" time despite her initial misgivings. After all, the Routeburn is 32 km in three days, whereas Tongariro was 21 km in one day. Apart from the first day (which is almost entirely uphill), the Routeburn Track is pretty much a combination of level and downhill walking.

The first day we hiked uphill through the rain forest alongside a river, which gave us great views of several rapids and waterfalls. We spent the night in the Routeburn Falls Hut, which had a balcony overlooking the Routeburn Flats and other areas we'd walked through over the course of the day. The second day started off with climbing up above the treeline and through a long valley. At the halfway point we reached the optional sidetrack up to Conical Hill. It's labeled as an hour to an hour and a half return trip, up the side of a "hill" and back down. Alexa stayed behind and relaxed with our bags while I climbed up the hill. And it certainly was a climb. The trail wasn't well formed, and I spent most of the ascent scrambling over huge rocks and thinking to myself "wow, this is going to suck on the way down." But the 360 degree views of the surround mountains, forest, and valleys made the climb well worth it. Off towards the west, I could see all the way to the Tasman Sea (the body of water between Australia and New Zealand)! Climbing back down Conical Hill did suck as much as I predicted. At one point I slipped on a muddy rock and fell. Fortunately I caught myself. If I hadn't, I would've rolled until I met a rock large enough to stop me, and Alexa and I would've gotten a helicopter ride out of the park.

Once I rejoined Alexa at the bottom, we began our descent towards Lake Mackenzie, site of the second hut. We spent the evening skipping stones and soaking our feet in Lake Mackenzie. A creepy American at the hut gave us directions to a secluded location where we could skinny dip in the lake, but we were quite content with just dipping our feet in. It's an alpine lake, so the water was obviously freezing.

The third and final day began with a very short climb up the opposite side of the valley, and then we once again found ourselves on relatively level ground. We came to Lake Howden around noon and stopped to eat lunch and lounge in the sun for about an hour. From that point we had another short climb, and then a brief 45-minute walk down to the car park where we once again lounged in the sun until the van picked us up.

I think the second day was probably my favorite in terms of scenery. The first picture I posted up top is from that part of the hike. I've included a few more shots in this post, but you can find the rest in my new Facebook album linked on the sidebar to the right, Album Eight: The Routeburn Track.

On that note, I've also updated Album Six: The Journey South and Queenstown, and created Album Seven: Milford Sound, Dunedin, and Dad's Visit, so there are heaps of new pictures for you guys to check out. Have at it!

Lake Mackenzie, site of the second night's hut.

Earland Falls, a little bit before we reached Lake Howden on our last day of hiking.

After returning from the Routeburn, we promptly put our noses back to the grindstone and we've been whiling our time away at Fresh Choice once again. Happily we gave our two weeks' notice last weekend!

My last day of work is Easter Sunday, but Alexa will keep working until Tuesday. Tuesday our third (and final? anyone else fancy a trip to New Zealand?) visitor, my good friend Mike arrives. After spending a few days in Queenstown, Mike will accompany us on our trip all the way back to Picton, across the Cook Straight to Wellington, and then all the way up to the top of the north island where we'll spend our last four months in New Zealand, dropping Mike off at the airport in Auckland along the way. Mike probably gets the best deal, since he gets see the sights on both islands.

Lastly, in two days Alexa and I will go on our final Queenstown-based adventure. Tuesday morning we're catching a coach down to Doubtful Sound, where we're going on an overnight cruise. Doubtful Sound, like Milford Sound, is a huge, remote body of water in the midst of mountains and rain forest. Doubtful sound is a bit further away, though, and is said to be more untouched by man and you have a better chance of seeing wildlife. In fact, our boat is likely to be the only man-made structure we'll see during the course of our cruise. It's supposed to be like a trip back to the Jurassic period (minus the dinosaurs).

Hopefully I'll get a chance to update on that before we leave Queenstown, so keep an eye out for a new post sometime next week. After that we'll be on the road again, so I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to update.

In the meantime, check out the new photo albums and enjoy this little anecdote:

Last Tuesday was the biannual stock take at Fresh Choice. One of my fellow checkout workers, Linda, is not the brightest crayon in the box. In fact, a few of the supervisors have a special hatred for her and her consistent ability to make the same, stupid mistakes over, and over, and over again on a daily basis. When she heard that we had a stock take coming up and attendance was mandatory for all employees, she got excited. Why would anybody in their right mind be excited about having to spend three-four hours tediously counting every item in the shop (including tiny sachets of seasons, packs of soup, boxes of toothpaste--you get the idea)? It turns out she took the phrase "stock take" a little too literally. She thought it was time to clear out old stock, and all the employees got to come in and take whatever they wanted for free! If only.

Most boring entry ever.

So it seems I've once again allowed a considerable time of chunk to wiz by without updating my blog. Two main factors contributed to this: 1) I've been working a metric shit ton and 2) not really much blog-worthy has happened since my bungy adventures.

For the past four weeks I've worked 45+ hours, and two of those weeks only had one day off. Lame. I haven't had two days off in a row since my bungy adventure, in fact. Like I said before, though, I can't really complain because having money is nice. Last weekend Alexa and I booked a 5 day/4 night holiday to Fiji. It was a little less than $NZ700 for each of us, which is quite a bargain when you consider that's about $US360 for airfare, hotel, and transfers inclusive. We also made bookings for the Routeburn Track, a 3 day/2 night backpacking tramp through the wilderness of Mt. Aspiring national park. It's one of New Zealand's 9 Great Walks and is renowned worldwide for its scenery. We'll be embarking on that adventure March 20-22, departing the day after my dad leaves NZ. The Fiji holiday isn't until late May.

In the little free time I've had, I've been continuing to work on my very manly baking skills. I'm happy to say I can now cross "Learn to bake bread from scratch" from my list of 101 Things, since my loaves no longer come out as dense, chewy bricks and are quite delicious. I recently expanded my repetoire to include pretzels. The first batch came out a bit dodgy, partly due to not having as much flour as I needed and having to sub in wholemeal flour. Whole wheat and pretzels don't mix so well. But batch number two is in progress as I'm typing and I have high hopes for it. I think english muffins will be my next endeavor.

In other news, Alexa's mom should be in the sky, on her way from LA to Auckland. She arrives in Queenstown tomorrow (Sunday) morning at around 9 local time. She and Alexa will embark on a variety of adventures throughout the week including a wine tour and steamship cruise. I couldn't take much leave since I'll need a lot of time off when my dad comes in two weeks, but I will join them on a trip to Dunedin next weekend. Dunedin is primarily a university town, but it also has cool tourist sites like the Cadbury World factory tour, Speight's brewery, NZ's only castle, and eco-tours to see wild penguin colonies (packs? groups? gangs? whatever the hell you call large numbers of penguins congregated in one area) a short drive from the city.

Oh! I don't think this has been mentioned yet, but Alexa finally has a job! After a month of unsuccessful job-hunting she finally broke down and joined me in the trenches of Fresh Choice Queenstown's checkout lanes. Queenstown is a tough job market in the summer. While there's new jobs popping up every day, they seem to get gobbled up as soon as they're hosted due to the high concentration of travelling workers like us.

Anyway, I think I've probably bored you enough. I know booking trips and baking aren't thrilling topics, but bungy jumping is a tough act to follow. Hopefully next week's trip to Dunedin will make a break in the lull.

And no pictures this time, obviously. Unless you guys want a picture of Fresh Choice or bread, which I'll happily supply upon demand.

Milford Sound and Brick Bread.

Hey all! Remember me? I'm Eoin, your favorite person in the world and this here is The Eoin Zone, your favorite blog. It's all coming back now, right? I apologize for the gap in time since my last post (I know you all look forward to my blog so much), but that's what happens with a full-time job. FreshChoice pretty much owns my life now. Still, if I complained about not getting enough hours in Wellington, I can't rightly complain about having too many now. Around the Christmas and New Year period my schedule was kind of flimsy, but I've had the same schedule for the past two weeks and the upcoming week, so I think they have me set into a fixed roster now. I work 4 hours (from 4-8 pm) Sundays, and 9 hours Monday-Thursday (12-9 Mon-Wed, 10-7 Thurs), coming to a grand total of 38 paid hours a week (they don't pay for breaks--what is this shit?!) Really, it isn't all that bad. Believe it or not, working checkout at a supermarket is not incredibly taxing work, mentally or physically. It can be very, very dull at times, but that's my only complaint. I am at least blessed with fun and interesting coworkers.

Still, all work and no play drives Eoin to drinking and hard drug use, so we have been having fun on my days off. Last weekend we went to Milford Sound. Milford Sound is perhaps New Zealand's most famous tourist attraction. If you've heard of anything in New Zealand (apart from Lord of the Rings), it's probably Milford Sound. A sound is a large body of water/valley carved out by rivers over thousands and thousands of years. Milford Sound is actually a fiord, though, which is a body of water/valley carved out by glacial melt over thousands and thousands of years. Apparently there was no (and still isn't) an equivilent english word for fiord, so explorers inadvertantly gave it the misnomer Milford Sound, and the title has stuck. Does it really matter? Probably not.

Anyway, Milford Sound is famous for its beauty. It's surrounded on all sides by rainforest-covered mountains. They aren't your typical tree-topped mountains, though. Since the valley was carved out by glaciers, the mountains are sheerly rock, no topsoil. The trees grow in a thin layer of lichen and moss. Somehow the lichen is able to hold up the weight of the massive trees. Unsurprisingly, though, this arrangement doesn't last indefinitely, and once a tree gets too heavy it falls down the side of the mountain, tearing down the trees below in its wake in a pyramid shape (think of how knocking down the front pin in bowling causes the others behind it to topple). Apart from pretty trees, there's also a wide array of wildlife including countless varieties of fish, dolphins, seabirds, penguins, and fur seals. Yes, once again we were lucky enough to bear witness to the stunningly majestic (or just fat and lazy) fur seal. We also saw a few seagull chicks. No dolphins or penguins this time around though, sadly.

Mitre Peak in Milford Sound:

Once again we bear witness to a colony of majestic fur seals:

The drive to Milford Sound was just as scenic as the boat ride itself. The drive from Te Anau to the Milford wharf is only a little over 100 km, and yet the brochure said the drive would take three hours. Thankfully this wasn't the fault of overly-windy and mountainous roads, but rather the never-ending display of beautiful mountains, glaciers, forests, rivers, and waterfalls. We literally pulled over every 5-10 minutes to get out and have a look. We easily passed 300-400 waterfalls, ranging in size from garden-hose trickles to massive cascades of water.

At a parking lot/lookout point along the way, we had an interesting encounter with a group of kea. Kea are a species of New Zealand parrot. Unlike the kaka we saw at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington, the kea are not shy. They landed on cars, hopped around the parking lot, and swooped at tourists without care. One even graced us by landing on the roof of the Corona. Check it out!

As you can see, it's quite a large bird. So when the call of nature struck a few seconds after this picture was taken, it's no surprise the shit dripping down the roof of our car was equally collosal. Thanks, kea. Thanks a lot.

In summary, Milford Sound is great. Waterfalls, glaciers, huge mountains, lazy fur seals, and giant bird poops. If you're ever in New Zealand, don't miss it.

Also on the fun side of things, some group or other have been putting on outdoor movies in the Queenstown gardens. Tuesday we went to check it out and sprawled out on a sleeping bag in front of a large inflatable screen to watch Lars and the Real Girl. I was expecting it to be mostly a comedy, but I should have known better. Ryan Gosling. Duh, Eoin: it's a chick flick. Still, it wasn't all bad and it definitely had its funny moments. And the experience of watching a movie out under the stars was nothing to complain about.

Turning to the mundane aspects of life, we've experienced two recent failures. Yesterday we took the Corona to get its WOF (Warrant of Fitness) renewed. The WOF inspection basically determines if the car is road-fit, testing things like oil leaks, seat belts, windshield wipers, tire alignment, etc. Unfortunately, our car failed on two minor issues that alone would have been passable, but in conjunction warranted a failure. Some metal axel thingy or another on the back tire is bent out of shape, and there's a minor exhaust leak. That would explain the weird smell! Fortunately it's not going to cost us much to fix.

Yesterday I also attempted to bake a loaf of bread from scratch, as per my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. As Alexa so gently put it, I "made a brick." Thanks sweetheart. She's right, though. If it'd been more spherical in shape my bread could've passed for a bowling ball. Despite a hard exterior, though, the inside (what little there was) did taste like bread. I later discovered that I failed to proof the yeast properly so the dough didn't rise anywhere near what it was supposed to. My second attempt is in the oven as I'm writing, so let's keep those fingers crossed. Rise, rise, rise, damnit!

In closing, here's a few more pictures:

A waterfall in Milford Sound:

Water falling down the side of a tree-covered cliff along the road from Te Anau to Milford:


The Mirror Lakes, another sight along the way from Te Anau to Milford. The DOC (Department of Conservation) is so clever!



That's all for now. Hopefully my next entry will be more timely.

Good-bye Welly, it's been nice. Hope you find your paradise.

I wish I didn't have to wear pants to work.

...or, to phrase that in a way that doesn't make me sound like a pervert, I wish I could wear shorts to work instead of pants. The weather's been very nice and warm lately. Then again, maybe pants are best for the hotel job--less exposed skin means less exposed skin being splashed with poop water.

Speaking of the hotel, an odd thing happened the other day. As part of my job cleaning the bathrooms, I have to fold the end of each toilet paper roll into an intricate triangle. Obviously the reason for this is to make the guests think, "Oh! This must be a nice hotel. They can afford to pay someone to make toilet paper origami!"

In the morning when I first went into the ladies room by the conference areas, all the toilet paper rolls were still folded from the day before. Mysteriously enough, there was also toilet paper in the toilets. So either A) the guests are bringing their own toilet paper or B) the guests are making their own toilet paper origami. I'm not sure which would be stranger.

Moving on to more exciting news, Alexa and I are planning on leaving Wellington in less than three weeks! It's a little bit sad, because I think Wellington is a really great city. But soon three months will be up, we'll be 1/4 of the way through our time in this lovely country, and there's still so much to see! Our next stop is Queenstown, a town near the bottom of the south island. Our trip won't be a direct one, however. We're going to spend close to two weeks getting there. The trip will take us on a loop up and around the north island before returning to Wellington to catch a ferry south.

As we've tenatively planned it, our action-packed trip is going to include: The Tongariro Crossing, one of the best day-hikes in the world; skydiving in Taupo (this one's just for me. Apparently Alexa has enough sense to not throw herself out of a plane); Orakei Korako Thermal Park; pretending to be human-sized hamsters and Zorbing in Rotorua; going black-water rafting with the glow worms in Waitomo Caves; and taking a two-day paddle down the famous Whanganui River! Just look at all those links! You're going to be busy for hours.

The ferry ride itself is supposed to be one of the most scenic ferry rides in the world, providing it's a fair day. Really, a lot of what we have planned could easily be wrecked by bad weather. Knock on wood.

Once we're off the ferry we'll break up the 11-hour drive to Queenstown into three chunks: Picton to Christchurch, Christchurch to Dunedin, and Dunedin to Queenstown. Once we're there, we'll restart the wild and wacky job hunting game. I'm already corresponding with two possible jobs in Queenstown: one at Subway, because apparently it is my desinty to travel the country working at American fast food places. The other is a resort hotel that would take both Alexa and myself, and would pay us in free accomodation and food for 4 hours work per day. Any work in excess of that would be paid in cash. They need kitchen, waiting, and bar staff in addition to housekeeping, so if we end up going with the hotel, I will do everything my power to not be a housekeeper again. Bartending sounds more up my alley. Hell, even reliving my high school dishwasher days in the kitchen would be preferable.

So that's that. Sometime this week we're going to put in our two weeks' notices at our jobs, the following week we'll give notice to our landlord, and with any luck we'll be on the road December 4th.

Not too much else has happened since my last post. As you may have read in Alexa's blog, last Sunday we went to Somes Island, an island in the harbor. We took a longer ferry ride that made a number of stops in different parts of Wellington, but it was a nice day for the ride. Somes is known for its population of little blue penguins and tuatara. Unfortunately it was nesting season for the penguins, so they were nowhere to be seen. And, as always, the tuatara remained elusive. I'm starting to think they don't exist. We did get to see a ton of skinks, though, as well as a few red-headed parakeets. There were also a pair of insane ducks that made the most terrible honking noise, and the male kept charging at the female and biting her neck, then running away. Crazy. We also got a look at a few old prison buildings, because the island was originally used to intern Italians, Germans, and Japanese during the World Wars.

On the bright side, I finally got the view of Wellington that I've been trying to get since we first moved here. Remember my first blog post about Wellington, when I said I would try to get a picture of the entirety of Wellington's city center, complete with the harbor in the foreground and mountains in the background? Here it is:

Also, the island claimed to be mammal-free, but we found sheep. This picture was pretty hard to get. That lamb was not as camera-friendly as he looks in this picture.

Here's a lighthouse on the island. In the background is greater Wellington.

Lastly, my mom is always complaining about how there aren't enough pictures of me and Alexa on our blogs. This isn't quite a picture of us, but it's the next best thing: a picture of me holding a dead weta!

That's all for now, but there's a bunch of other pictures from Somes Island in the new link to the right, Album 3: Even More Wellington. Enjoy!

A Real Update

I have a confession to make to you, my faithful readers. It is with a heavy heart that I must admit to an act of simple deception. Remember the carnival and fireworks from the last post? They weren't in celebration of Obama's victory. They were for Guy Fawkes Day, an incredibly insane holiday where people shoot fireworks off and party. It's kinda' like the Fourth of July, except we know why we celebrate the Fourth of July--it's the day our forefathers declared independence from England and set off down the path to becoming a great nation.

Guy Fawkes Day, on the other hand, is the day a man by the name of Guy Fawkes tried (and failed) to blow up parliament in London. It's also celebrated in the UK, and I think they have it in Australia and Canada as well. But why do they celebrate the day some dude tried to symbolically destroy the English government? No one's been able to give me a solid answer, but I suspect it's just an excuse to get drunk and blow shit up.

That works for me, I guess.

Anyway, even though the celebration wasn't in Obama's honor, the Kiwis are quite happy about his election. Literally every person I talk to who recognizes my American accent asks me if I'm happy about Obama winning, and then proceeds to tell me how happy about it they are too.

And that works for me as well.

Life has been fairly quiet since my last real update. Last Sunday, Alexa and I did see a street performer who combined silly tricks with fire juggling, sword swallowing, and escape artistry with strange and crude jokes to create a pretty amazing show. We had seen part of his act on Labour Monday, but had to leave early on because we were meeting people for lunch.

Also, as I mentioned last time, I worked a few FIFA games at the stadium, and I discovered that FIFA stands for the "Federation of International Football ANAL RETENTIVES!"

Seriously, they were nuts. Coke is one of their sponsors, so they had all these crazy rules about how nothing could be advertised if it wasn't owned by Coke. Changes ranged from the small, such as having to pour beers into cups since we couldn't give the fans labeled bottles, to the large, such as blanketing the gigantic WestPac (bank that sponsors the stadium) sign on the outside of the stadium, to the utterly ridiculous, such as covering up the manufacturer names on our cash registers, the walk-in freezer door, and the various machines that keep food hot. Because, you know, McAllister's Refrigeration INC is a direct competitor to Coca-Cola, and if our fans were to see the teeny label in the back of our kitchen, they would immediately think, "Shit! I was thirsty for some Coke, but now I'm going to leave the game and go buy a giant walk-in fridge for my home instead!"

Thank god for business people.

Also, I've been doing some writing, using the word "writing" very loosely. November is National Novel Writing Month. It's just an online thing where participants try their hardest to write 50,000 words (roughly 200 pages double spaced) in a month. You "win" if you make it to 50,000 by November 30th, but there really aren't any prizes involved in winning. I'm not sure if there's a real point to it, other than to encourage people to produce 50,000-word-long heaps of doo doo. What else can you expect when you're writing so quickly and not editing? It's the method the big bad Woolfe used when writing Mrs. Dalloway, after all, and look how that turned out (oooh, sick burn). At any rate, my heap of doo doo is currently 11,130 words long. Last time I tried, in 2006, I only made it to about 7,000 before I quit. So my doo doo making skills have improved!

When not busy making doo doo, I've been working a lot more. For the past four weeks, I've had over thirty hours every week, which means I've been saving more money for fun things, like...

Whoops! Speaking of work, I had really better be getting ready to go to Domino's. There are hungry Wellingtonians who want pizza to go with their Friday night raging, and I'm the only one who can help them!

Mission Accomplished!

On my third attempt, I finally did it! Did I get a job that will give me more than 20 hours a week? Nope! Did I find a flat where the other tenants aren't pigs? Nope! Did I cure AIDS? Certainly not!

But I did, after somewhere over an hour of not-quite-aimless but not-quite-purposeful wanderings through the forests of Mt. Victoria, manage to find one of the Lord of the Rings filming locations!

After getting a rough idea of where I was heading from good old Google Earth (including a few pictures of what the area was supposed to look like), I set off on my journey. After about fifteen minutes of walking, I came to this map and used it to figure out which way I should walk:

Keep that image in mind. There's something incredibly ironic about it, but we'll get to that later. I spent the next three quarters of an hour wandering through the forest. Eventually I came to an area Alexa and I had been to earlier, on the day we hiked up to the Mt. Vic overlook. I decided to head in the opposite direction from our last hike, and it eventually lead me to a little signpost that said "Lord of the Rings Filming Location" and had an arrow pointing in a vague direction. Sure enough, it lead to the right spot.

Are you guys ready for this little piece of Hollywood history? It's pretty exciting and intense. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Here it is:

Ooooh. Ahhhh. ....yeah, I know. It's not all it's cracked up to be. Elijah Wood didn't even spraypaint "Frodo wuz heer!" or anything. What a jerk.

Anyway, hard to tell from this picture, but the area in the center (where the sunlight is most concentrated) is a shallow alcove. It's the place where the four hobbits jumped off the road and crouched in the shelter of a massive tree's roots to hide from the Nazghul in Fellowship of the Ring. Apparently the tree was an artificial set piece/computer generated, so it's not there.

Once I was sure that was the right spot, I continued along the trail and shortly came upon the very first map (from the picture above) where I'd started. This time I noticed something I hadn't the first time. Scroll up to the picture. See the little, two-foot-tall signpost in the foreground? Guess what it says. Yep. "Lord of the Rings Filming Location." So I probably could've saved myself a good deal of wandering if I'd noticed the sign. Maybe that's where Alexa would've come in handy?

Now that I've wasted all that time talking about an over-rated patch of dirt, I'll give you a few general updates:

The weather has been uncannily fantastic for the past week. It only rained once! Alexa and I took advantage of this and checked out the Botanic Gardens. Yes, for a third time. I'm pretty sure we've seen just about everything there, though, so we probably won't go back for a while. We also took one of the free tours of the parliament buildings. I know that doesn't sound like a very exciting thing to do, but it was actually pretty interesting. We learned a bit about how New Zealand's government works. Unlike the corrupt, broken-beyond-a-grain-of-hope pile of shit we have in the US, the New Zealand government still cares enough to take their citizens' opinions into account (what a novel idea). Whenever a new bill is being discussed, the bill is advertised in the newspaper. The general public are allowed to write in a request to attend a council meeting about the proposed bill. Each and every Kiwi that sends in a request is allowed to attend, and they're all given a turn to voice their opinion to the government officials involved (house members, cabinet ministers, the prime minister; so it'd be like the average US citizen being able to talk to Bush, his cabinet, and the senators) without fear of intimidation, or being interrupted, or any other sort of rudeness. The only requirement is that they return the courtesy shown to them--anyone who interrupts or speaks out of turn will be removed from the premises and banned for six months. Of course, New Zealand's small population (four million) gives them an advantage, but I still think it's pretty cool.

In other news, I'm in the process of finding a way to quit my job at the hotel. I signed a contract saying I wouldn't write about my job at the hotel, so we're going to play a game. The game is called Pretend Eoin Works At an Imaginary Hotel. Here's how you play. I'm going to talk about imaginary, hypothetical things that might take place at an imaginary, hypothetical hotel. Your part of the game is simple: just think about how horribly gross it would be if these imaginary things were true (because, who knows, somewhere in the world they might be. Wink wink.)

At this imaginary hotel, which is not by any means a dump--they have nice rooms, nice beds, and charge a good deal--they may or may not lack standards when it comes to cleaning the rooms. Most of the imaginary rooms come with an electric kettle, tea, coffee, and mugs. Some more expensive rooms also have imaginary plates, knives, and glasses. Most people would think it makes sense to properly clean these dishes after they've been used--you know, with water and soap and all that--but not in imaginary land! In imaginary land, the dishes are "cleaned" by running them under water for a few minutes until there's no longer any visible dirt, and then put back for the next guests to use. Hopefully there's no bacteria in this imaginary world.

In the imaginary hotel, sheets are washed after each guest. You might think it would make sense to wash the comforter, or at the very least the smaller blanket, but you'd be wrong. In the imaginary hotel, the blankets and comforters are never laundered. I could go on, but I'm sure you can imagine it for yourselves.

At any rate, I have an interview tomorrow morning at Cafe Maranui. It's a popular cafe right on the beach in Lyall Bay (another suburb of Wellington, where cast members of Lord of the Rings surfed/learned how to surf during their down time--what the hell is with this entry and Lord of the Rings?). I also put in an application at a New World (grocery chain in New Zealand), plus I received a phone call from The Warehouse, another New Zealand chain I applied to back in September. One way or another I should be able to quit the job at the hotel in the immediate future, two weeks' notice be damned.

I think that's about everything for now. You may have already noticed, but I added links to my online photo albums to the right. Right above the link to Alexa's blog. The first album contains Auckland, Rotorua, and a little bit of Wellington, including the Zoo. The second album is all new, though. It includes the Botanic Gardens, parliament, and many pictures of the city in general. Go check it out!

I'll leave you with this parting advice from an old friend of mine: Confucious say, "Man who stay in imaginary hotel wake up with real herpes."

Amen.

All About New Zealand, Part 1

This post is going to be part of a new, on-going feature of my blog called All About New Zealand. As the title implies, these posts are going to focus on all the different aspects of life here in New Zealand, rather than focusing on me and the things I do. As I learn more, more will be added, and by the end of the year we'll all be New Zealand experts... or something.

Before I get into that, though, I feel I should at least touch on my job at the hotel. Right now it involves a little over two hours of work a day, cleaning the public areas and doing "spring cleaning." Public areas include five bathrooms (two male, two female, and one staff), the mirrors in the elevators, vacuuming the lobby, and emptying a few trash bins. Spring cleaning varies. Yesterday I learned all about the joy of "wall skirtings," which are little ledges at the bottom of walls. From what I can tell, they were engineered for the sole purpose of gathering dust, and they do their job quite well. Today I had the pleasure of polishing the elevator. The cleaner I used was some foul-smelling stuff in an aerosol can that said, "USE ONLY IN WELL VENTILATED AREAS." I don't know about you guys, but I can't think of any area more ventilated than a cramped elevator, so that's great!

Fortunately, I haven't encountered any poop-smeared walls or hooker bodies. Phew. But I was treated to a rather gross look at hotel sanitation. The same sponges and towels are used for the following: toilet rims, toilet lids, toilet handles, sinks, faucets, and door handles. Yeeeepppp. If that's not horrifyingly disgusting, I don't know what is. I also went out and bought my own latex gloves today, since my supervisor was kind enough to inform me that they don't have any.

Anyway, on to the feature presentation:

All About New Zealand, Part 1

The Kiwi Accent: At a first listen, the New Zealand accent is similar to a British or Australian accent. As it was once described to be, "It's a cross between British and Australian, but more awesome than both." According to the Kiwis I work with at my various jobs, the main difference is in the way they say their vowels. Bed sounds like bid, when sounds like win, what sounds like wot, etcetera. What's even better are the words that sound the same. Hair, hear, and here all sound the same, as do bear, bare, and beer, and sore and saw. The last thing I've noticed is they say some of their numbers and letters differently than we do, and some of them sound the same. The number eight, and the letters A and E sound incredibly similar, which is awesome when I'm trying to take Domino's orders over the phone. Here's an example:

Phone Person: So that's thirty-ay Wairapapa Street.
Me: Thirty eight?
Phone Person: No, Thirty-ay.
Me: Oh. Thirty A, like the letter A.
Phone Person: No, not the letter ay. The letter ay.
Me: E?
Phone Person: No, ay!

Because whether they're saying E or A, it sounds like "ay." Once that's sorted, I have to tackle the spellings of crazy Maori street names.

Food: Ah, food. Maybe it's because I've never really lived in a city before, but to me the variety of food available is incredible. By my estimation, there's approximately 87 million Asian takeaway restaurants in Wellington alone. Thai, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these... um, yeah. They've got it all is what I'm trying to say. Fish and chips takeaways are also fairly popular. And, of course, American fastfood restaurants are everywhere. Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's are by far the most widespread, but there's a smattering of KFCs and Burger Kings as well. Their menus don't vary too much from what we see stateside. Subway offers a range of "Kiwi favorites," such as lamb and pork riblet, and McDonald's has family-sized meal deals, something I've never seen in the states, and "The Big Kiwi Breakfast." Also, the McDonald's here are almost always accompanied by a McCafe, a seperate counter featuring upscale hot beverages and baked goods. That's a feature I saw a lot in Europe, but--oh damn, I just wasted four sentences on McDonald's. Moving on.

New Zealand-exclusive chains include Burger Fuel (they make the best fastfood burgers I've ever tasted, with crazy toppings such as avocado, beet root, and mango), Wholly Bagel (opened by a New Yorker disappointed in Wellington's lack of a good bagel shop), and Mr. Bun (a bakery with a twist--they also serve country fried chicken. Actually, the combination of baked goods/coffee and country fried chicken is fairly common at other cafes as well. No idea why).

As a former British colony, New Zealand is fortunate to have the same healthy snacks as Ireland and the UK. And by "healthy snacks," I mean more sugary, delicious types of Cadbury bars than any reasonable person could possibly ask for. Crunchie, Caramello, Picnic, Pinkies, and THREE VARIETIES OF MORO BARS!!! Yes, it's awesome. While we're on the topic of things that rot your teeth and make you fat, let's talk about soda. Coke is easily 75-80% more prevalant than Pepsi. In fact, I haven't even seen a Pepsi product, apart from a Mountain Dew commercial at the movie theater. There's also the New Zealand-exclusive Lemon and Paeroa, more commonly called L&P. It started off in a town called Paeroa. They took water from a natural spring, carbonated it, and added sweetened lemon juice. Now, however, it's owned and distrubuted by Coca Cola. It's still delicious, though, and New Zealand is the only place in the world to buy it (apart from a few Kiwi groceries in Australia).

There are two types of cereal I've gotten into: Weet-Bix (same thing as Ireland's Weet-A-Bix) and muesli. Muesli is composed of rolled oats, raisins, delicious dried fruits, and sometimes weird stick things that look like rabbit food. Weet-Bix is made out of the papery stuff wasps use to make their nests and gets stuck between your teeth worse than you can possibly imagine. If you don't believe me, check out this stunning x-ray image of a wasp nest and some Weet-Bix side by side. Can you tell which is which?

I could probably go on a lot longer about food, but I'll end it here for now. And don't worry, beer is not food and will get its own category later.

Let's see, uh...

Transportation:

Wellington apparently has the best public transportation in New Zealand thanks to an elaborate system of buses and trams. Most of the buses/trams are powered by overhead electric lines, and the buses that run on gas are hybrids! New Zealand's great care for the natural environment will also have its own category later on.

The buses are great, apart from two things: they're expensive. A monthly pass is $99, and without the pass an average rider would probably spend over $150 a month. The other problem is the frequent striking. In the month we've been here, bus services have been disrupted five or six times due to union meetings or strikes. I guess it's a complicated issue. I understand the bus drivers wanting fair wages (currently the starting rate is only a little over minimum wage) and benefits, but going on strike is an asshole way to go about it. They're hurting the customer, the thousands of Wellingtonians that rely on the bus service to commute to and from work each day. What they should do is drive around giving out free bus rides. That'd get the message across to their employer without inconveniencing the passengers. See? I'm a genius!


That's a wrap for this edition of All About New Zealand. If I didn't answer your questions (because so many of you responded to my last post, har har), I'll get to them later.

Quack quack quack.

Well, it's raining again.

After being lucky enough to have a handful of exceptionally bright and sunny days, this morning I woke up to what sounded like someone throwing handfuls of pebbles against the window. My first thought was, "Oh great. Hail," but it was only rain. The wind was just blowing so insanely hard it made the rain sound like hail. Wonders never cease.

I did manage to do a handful of fun things during the brief bit of nice weather we had. Last Wednesday we checked out the second museum in Wellington, The Museum of City and Sea. Friday was Alexa's first full day of work, so I was left to my own devices and spent the afternoon walking through Wellington's waterfront area. Over the weekend Alexa was sick so we didn't really do much of anything, but Monday we revisited the Botanic Gardens. They had lots of flowers. Yay flowers. Not the most exciting thing we've done, but there was a cool garden filled with surreal, Dr. Seuss-esque plants. And a bunch of ducks and ducklings. I've decided ducks are either incredibly stupid or have incredibly bad short-term memory. I watched a deranged little Kiwi girl run towards a duck. The duck quickly swam away in panic, but when the girl threw bread into the water he just as quickly stopped and turned around to eat. Did he forget he was in danger? Was he really that hungry? What the hell were you thinking, Duck? At any rate, the survival of the duck species will be a great risk as soon as their natural predators discover they're easily swayed by sliced bread.

Moving along to boring serious things, like work (ugh), I was not hired by The Organic Grocer. Boo. I did, however, get a housekeeping job at a hotel (as of about an hour ago). It only has 2/5 stars on Google's review thingy. I hope that doesn't mean I'll have to clean poop off the walls and remove dead hookers' bodies. But money is money, and the job was easily acquired since one of our fellow lodgers here at the Pickled Parrot Lodge (that's what our apartment complex is called, have I mentioned that before?) works there. It'll be nice to start making some real money, since the measly 16-20 hours/week Domino's gives me only nets me about $10 once I pay for rent and groceries. I start tomorrow, so I'll update re: poop/hooker bodies in my next post.

Some more exciting news: the CEO of all the Domino's Pizzas in Australia/New Zealand is coming by our branch today. Since the manager wants everything to look up to standard, I finally got a name tag yesterday. My life is complete.

That's about it for now. My mom just IMed me an idea for my next post: "ok. i was thinking - how about a blog entry on the mundane stuff - what's on tv, the weather, tourists, where you'll get a haircut, what the drug stores are like, what does the mcdonalds serve that's different?
stuff like that , that people want to know but are afraid to ask."

So what do you guys want to know about New Zealand? Don't be afraid to ask. Ask anything; just leave a comment. My next post will aim to answer all of you questions about the day-to-day bits and pieces of the Kiwi life.

Picture time. Did you know you can click on the pictures to see them in full size? Well, you can:

A view of Mt. Victoria from the waterfront. The treeless patch at the top is the site of the Mt. Vic overlook (see my last post):

Ducklings!

The crazy garden that I think looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book:

Happy Thursday!

Greetings from wet, windy Wellington.

Not much exciting has happened since my last post, but I figured I could scrounge something together to keep you all entertained. Besides that, I can't sleep. That's what happens when you stay in bed until noon. Having a night job really throws things off. The whole day is spent thinking, "God damnit, I've got to work tonight," and then I go to work, come home and watch a movie or TV for far too long and end up sleeping in the next day to start the whole process over again.

I actually didn't work tonight, though, since I needed the night off for the training at WestPac Stadium. It seems similar to my job at Domino's in that I'll spend most of my time standing behind a counter, taking people's orders and money in exchange for food. Unlike Domino's, however, this job actually requires a bit of skill. You see, we are legally bound to not serve alcohol to visibly intoxicated persons, as per the Major Buzzkill Act of 1989--at risk of a $2000 fine--so I'll have to carefully discern which customers are intoxicated. Finally, my college education will be put to use!

At any rate, I start this weekend, working a rugby game on Saturday and a football game on Sunday. While on the subject of jobs, I've also put in applications at an organic grocery store and The Warehouse (New Zealand's version of Wal-Mart, minus the unethical business practices and dirty stores) so hopefully I'll have something productive to do during the daytime.

I guess that's about it for this update. More of a "I'm still alive, whoopie!" update than anything, I suppose. I don't really have any pictures for you, except for this one of some odd-looking fellows I saw waiting for the bus at Courtenay Place. They seem strangely familiar...

Whoever they were, they looked pretty serious about catching the bus.

Watch out for the wild seals. They're so wild!

I know it's been a while since my last post. I know you all spend every waking minute on this website, repetitously clicking the "reload" button in hopes of finding I've written a new post, so I'm sorry about that. But on the bright side, I have a job!

Preschool, kindergarten, twelve years of grade school, and four years at a private university (from which I graduated cum laude). So what is my glorious job here in Wellington, you ask?

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

I work at Domino's! Yes, that would be Domino's Pizza, the same one from the States. Awesome, no? On the bright side, minimum wage is $12.00/hr here in New Zealand. Also, my job isn't that difficult. I stand at the front counter and take orders from customers, either in person or on the phone. The only difficult part is how absolutely boring it is when there's no customers. Oh well. Alexa and I also have part time jobs lined up at WestPac Stadium, the local stadium for rugby, soccer, and other events. They'll text us when they need us for an event, so it will just be a few times a month.

Other than that, things have been going well. Saturday we went for our first hike. We went to Te Kopahau (don't worry, I can't pronounce it either) reserve and hiked 5-6 km along the Coastal Track. It should've been 8 km, but Alexa was whining about all the walking so we headed back early. Psh. It was really scenic, like everything else in this country, but the real highlight of the walk was seeing wild fur seals. Not in cages, not part of a zoo exhibit, but just wild fur seals hanging out on the rocks. They weren't what I was expecting, though. For starters, they weren't jumping through hoops or balancing rubber balls on their nose. What the hell, fur seals? Where's the entertainment? Actually, if it weren't for the fact that the seals occasionally rolled over to get more sun, I wouldn't have even believed they were alive. Lazy, lazy animals.

Seeing the fur seals just wasn't enough, so on Monday we went to the Wellington Zoo to check out even more animals. It was a typical zoo, but a nice one. The animals all had plenty of leg room and most of them were in "natural," habitat-like exhibits rather than cages. The coolest part was the twilight exhibit, an indoor exhibit featuring a walk through a foresty area lit only by a few red lights. In there we got to see two Kiwis (they're nocturnal), which are the most ridiculous-looking animals I've ever seen. I wish I could've taken a clear shot of one, but it was too dark. They also had a few Tuatara, a species of lizard that has the longest longevity in the animal kingdom. Scientists think it might live to be two hundred years old, but can't be sure since no one has studied them for long enough to find out. Plus they haven't evolved or changed since dinosaur times, so they're pretty much modern-day dinosaurs.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. We're about to head out to walk around the city and see what we can see. Picture time!

This is Alexa crossing a "river" at Te Kopahua and thinking that she's going to fall in. Oh no! Don't worry, she made across the roaring, six-inch-deep and two-feet-wide river unharmed.

A wild fur seal, wildly scratching his face before going back to wildly sunbathing on the rocks and being wildly lazy:



There were a lot of these funny signs at the zoo with silly cartoons warning visitors not to do certain things. This one is my favorite, but you can see all the rest in my online album:


And here's a link to my facebook album again. I've added pictures from Te Kopahua and Wellington Zoo, so go check them out: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021490&l=499de&id=49800204