Tonga

Tane's blog entry on Melbourne (and the very exciting use of the new tag "Travel in Australia and the Pacific") reminded me of another great trip I did back in 2005 to Tonga. I'd always been curious about Tonga, largely because of having Tongan family connections. My Grandpa was born in Tonga in 1914 as his parents were missionaries there, and my aunt married a Tongan man as well so some of my cousins are Tongan. As I hadn't been to Tonga before, though, these connections meant nothing to me apart from the fact that having an ancestor born there before the 1930s means that I could buy land there should I choose. That, and they fact that I know the Tongan word for 'spicy'.

In 2005, Ngaire and I decided to visit my Uncle and Aunt there, and it was a great week. It was especially neat having them to show us around, give us information about the country, and in the case of my uncle, cut open many a coconut for us to drink. Awesome.

It's true what Tane always says - visiting places where you know someone are always the best. In those trips you gain a greater level of knowledge and appreciation about a place - for example, that the frequent power cuts in Tonga were caused by the then Crown Prince stringing up his Christmas lights. Ngaire and I were talking recently about how glad we are that we went to Tonga when we did, as our Uncle and Aunt live in New Zealand now so we wouldn't have been able to visit them there if we'd gone later. And really, with regard to places when you know someone, that would have been a real shame. I certainly wouldn't have been able to cut open coconuts on my own.

At last, across the ditch

Hello all,
Crickey, it's been a while since I blogged. To be honest, I've been thinking of blogging as time better spent working on my Great Unwritten Novel, which I've actually made a bit of progress on. Not much as I should of course. For instance, I'd earmarked last Sunday afternoon for writing but instead spent many hours disemboweling a dodgy vacuum cleaner. Such is our exciting domestic life.
Anyhow, we're about to get our backpacks on again and tackle China, which is very exciting. It's gotten me back in the mood for a long-overdue mention of my visit to Melbourne.

Melbourne is one of those cities, like Vancouver or San Francisco, that no one has a bad word for. And guess what? Neither do I. It's very multicultural, with an impressive cityscape, a pretty river, the best market I've ever seen and a stack of cultural attractions - including an excellent musuem (featuring wonderhorse Phar Lap and superb sections on Aboriginies and prehistoric beasts).

The best thing about the visit though - aside from the fact that the flights were free, as it was a work trip - was the mighty MCG, the second most famous cricket ground in the world. It's enormous, holding 100,000 people, but it's the history that really makes it a treat for sports nerds. It's the home of the Australian Sports museum, which I spent hours in (Shane Warne in 3D! Try your foot at kicking Aussie Rules goals!). There's a very cool tapestry of major sporting events that have happened there - Aussie Rules finals, Bledisloe Cup rugby, baseball and of course cricket, wonderful cricket. Almost all of the greats have walked out onto that pitch, including perhaps the greatest sportsperson of all time. This is hallowed ground.

The Don

This was my first visit to Australia, which is rather embarrassing given I've been to 30-odd other countries. It's like English people who've never been to Scotland, or the many Kiwis who've not been to either the South or North Island, but have travelled to the other side of the planet. You take for granted what's in your back yard, thinking you'll get to it sometime, that it won't be new and exciting. And it's true that Melbourne didn't feel exotic - it was rather like a New Zealand city I've not visited - but it was cool. I look forward to my next trip across the ditch.

Great walks indeed

According to the Department of Conservation website, New Zealand has nine great walks. During a spate of communing with nature between 2005 - 2006, Tane and I joined Bonnie, Sarah C and a bunch of others to do two of them; the stunning Tongariro crossing day trip, and the three day Waikaremoana walk. As these walks pre-date both this blog and either of us owning a digital camera, I haven't blogged about them yet. I have recently acquired a (somewhat grainy) scanner as well as retrieved my photos from storage though so here I go. Yay!

Getting out some warmer clothes during the Tongariro crossing

The Tongariro crossing was excellent and I totally recommend it for a good day out. It took us about 8 hours, seemed to go through multiple climates, and had us constantly stopping to either put on or take off a layer. I loved it though, and after the aptly-named "The Devil's Staircase" part of the walk, the hot pools in nearby Tokaanu were very much appreciated afterwards.

Lake Waikaremoana

The Lake Waikaremoana walk the following Easter was also fabulous. Three days of walking, not showering, using long-drops and getting blisters the size of a bottle top are not every one's cup of tea. We both really enjoyed it though - the scenery was glorious and being in the bush very calming. If I did it again I think I'd take four days rather than three for more lazing around time, but it was still a great few days.

Given it's been four years since our last great walk I am looking forward to doing at least one more this summer. The only challenge though is deciding which, so if you have any recommendations about the other 7 I am very interested!

Wellington

After two and a half years away, I had forgotten about how absolutely positively nasty Wellington could get at times. The rain! The cold! The wind! The combination of all three resulting in umbrellas being discarded in rubbish bins all over the city and rain coming at your face horizontally! Every now and then though, the sun does come out. On days like today when most Wellingtonians are probably frantically catching up on doing washing, we got our bikes out and went for a ride around the bays. It's true, you can't beat Wellington on a good day.

Lost: a review

If you're a fan of the show, you might be interested in my review of the final episode. It's packed with spoilers, so if you've not seen the final and care about surprises, don't go there!

Why I stopped blogging and why I am back

As you've probably noticed, I haven't written a decent blog entry in aaaaaages. There are three reasons for this:

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1. I came home.

Arriving back in New Zealand at the end of last year was fabulous, but apart from the odd "I can't believe I'm back" moment in the first week or so things started feeling very normal very quickly. This wasn't by any means a bad thing, and the three weeks between arriving in Auckland and starting work was the most relaxing time I have had since university. For the first time in years I started filling my time with many small pleasures, rather than big exciting pleasures of the type that make for better blog entries. For the first time in years, I honestly felt like I had nothing to blog about.

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2. The website counter of lying doom

Coincidentally, near the end of last year I signed up to a free website thing that was supposed to tell me how many hits this blog received. The first month's report came through and told me that the hits on this blog was a grand total of ... zero. A second month passed, and I was once again informed that not a single person had looked at this blog. I shrugged, and decided that if no-one was reading it, I might as well just write in my diary. It wasn't until someone mentioned to me that they had been on my blog during that time that I realised that the website was in fact the website counter of lying doom.

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3. Facebook

Is it just me or is Facebook killing the blog? I know that it is all in the nature of things - after all, e-mail killed the letter, blogs killed the e-mail (and least the bulk e-mail) and now Facebook is killing the blog. Now we shall have to wait and see if Twitter is going to be the death of Facebook, but I have my doubts as I don't know anyone that actually uses it. With Facebook being as popular as it is I started to use more of that instead. How else, after all, could I keep up with that person I hadn't seen since 5th form science class? I have recently decided that blogging is much better than Facebook though, a realisation that I came to when the person I hadn't seen since 5th form science class persisted with inane updates that made me realise how little I actually cared about them. And, how little they probably cared about me in return.

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Like many other Facebook "friends" from my past I only added them as a friend in the first place because I was curious about where they were now - a curiousity which was satisfied after having a quick look at their page when we first became friends. I feel weird about de-friending people as well after I did a "cull" a few months ago and two girls I de-friended asked me to be their friend again. That left me feeling pretty silly as I didn't have anything against them, I just wanted my Facebook friends to actually be people I am friends with. At least with blogs I'll only read the ones I am actually interested in, and assume that people who read mine are interested in what Tane and I are up to. And, I get to express myself in more than a line.

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So, with that momentous warble out of the way, I will leave you with the promise that I am going to keep blogging and hope that you can find time to check in every now and then :)

Three years

Tane and I have now been hitched for three years. Being hitched for three years is a strange length of time - long enough to be well settled and not to giggle anymore about saying "husband" or "wife". On the other hand, though, it's not really long enough that we look any different from our wedding photos. Unlike our last two anniversaries, we were unable to jet off to Paris or Washington D.C. Being in Wellington was lovely, though, as we have settled very nicely to life back in New Zealand and a nice meal out to celebrate three years of married life was just as good as going on trips for the past two.

Three years

The Curious Incident of the Cat in the Daytime

A long time ago, Lady Lauren and Sir Tane paid a visit to the fairytale kingdom of Christchurch. Twas a fine tour, memorable for the most charming wedding of Princess Lucy and Sheikh Ammar. But it was also memorable for a tale nearly most drear - the curious incident of the cat in the daytime.

Sir Tane, his brother Kung Fu Master Tama and Lady Fatima of Asuncion were on their way to make a pilgrimage the mighty peaks of the Port Hills.

But first, Lady Fatima sought to assure herself of the safety of her beloved familiar, Michu the Naughty. Alas, when she returned to her castle, Michu was not to be found.

Much wandering hither and yon commenced. "Michu! Thou naughty, naughty Michu!" cried Lady Fatima.

Finally, there came a faint "mrrrow" of distress.



Alas, Michu the Naughty had sneaked inside in the highest tower of the castle.

Alas, the tower was locked. And alarmed.

Alas, there was neither food nor water.

Alas, the lady who lived in the tower was on holiday. In the Golden Coast of the Land of Oz. For sevenday. With her portable speaking-box turned off.

"Woe unto me!" cried Lady Fatima. "How shall we save foolish Michu, without storming the tower and laying waste to a window?"

But grace favoured our heroes, for the bathing room window had been left open and (Land) Lord Mike had a mighty step ladder. But who dared to brave the heights of the ladder and slip into the narrow portal?

"Fear not, Lady Fatima, 'tis I, bold Kung Fu Master Tama!" spake Kung Fu Master Tama.

And up the ladder he sprung. He tried putting his right leg in first. "Alas, I fear I cannot enter without breaking the Lady of the Tower's precious bathing room ointments!" he lamented.

He tried putting his left leg in first. "Nah." he proclaimed.

Finally he came up with a solution.



"Nice legs, brave Kung Fu Master Tama!" cried Lady Fatima. "But don't step into the Grand Hall, for it shall be alarumed!"

Would the alarum sound its terrible wail? Would the precious ointments and incenses break? Would Michu come to Tama's call? Had she shat in the bath? Great was the tension. And then, out through the window came a small, furry and frightened bundle.

And, in the fair suburban sprawl of Christchurch, there was much rejoicing.

New Zealand in the summer

When you're overseas, people are always telling you how beautiful New Zealand is (thanks, Lord of the Rings) and you can only agree - because you know it's true. But it's not until you come back from a long spell away from Aotearoa that you really appreciate it.

The Te Waiti Valley

The intensity of the blues and greens, the lack of people, the stunning clarity of the air - I spent most of the trip from Auckland Airport to Opotiki staring out the window and grinning.

Brothers on the beach

While the summer in Wellington has been cool and wildly inconsistent (never a day the same as the last), you can rely on the Bay of Plenty for sunshine. And that's what we got - two weeks of nearly continuous brilliant weather. We spent a lot of time in the sea or the river. Perhaps the highlight was our trip up into the hills behind Opotiki, deep into the native forest in the stunning lovely Te Waiti Valley. We skimmed stones, swam, picknicked, walked down the river and perfected our kung fu skills to the point where we could shatter rocks with our hands. True story.

But all good things must come to an end and we had to head back to Wellington for work. Back to the land of blasting Antarctic winds and strange fogs, but also good days when, as the saying goes, you can't beat the place.

The hills beyond Johnsonville

It's good to be home.

Christmas

After two and a half years, 30 countries, innumerable ruins, churches, museums and pubs, various elephants, camels, crocodiles and foxes, it is wonderful to be back in the place we love best with the people we love most - the folks.

Dad.

We landed on Christmas Eve, had a very nice catchup at the airport with Charyn, Sharan, Tony and Birgit, before the latter two took me down to Opotiki and Lauren jetted off to Napier. Things have changed back in 'Potes. Kieran and Rueben are huge, for a start. And while I was away Mum and Dad have been building a new house, which is flabbergastingly nice. It's all polished wood and light, with solar water heating, a thriving garden and spectacular views over the town to the Raukumara Ranges and the Bay of Plenty. Good work, parentals!

Mum in the new house.

Christmas in Opotiki is all about presents, a local pine tree, sunshine, beers and too much rich food, a trip to the beach, and family. This year was one of the best I can remember, with a big turnout of whanau - Sylvia, Tony, Birgit, Tama, Kieran and I joining Rueben, Mum and Dad from various parts of the world. It was a great day.

Home!

On Christmas Eve, Tane and I landed back in NZ. It is great to be back, although the NZ accent seems stronger than ever and everything feels much quieter than I remember. It's great to be back and already is starting to feel like we were never away at all. Yay!

With my sisters and niece at Napier airport ...

Los Angeles, where the sky is smoggy-ish blue

Yesterday Tane and I arrived in Los Angeles from Guatemala City, our third visit to the USA this year and my fourth time in LA. Los Angeles is a strange city - the sky is a strange mix of smog and sun, there seem to be about 4 million cars too many, and the famous sites are fun to visit but feel incredibly gaudy at the same time.

Spirit fingers at Venice Beach. Note the colour of the sky as well.

We did have fun visiting Hollywood though, the Walk of Fame is interesting (did you know Mickey Mouse has his own star?), and the tat shops filled with fake Oscars and Hollywood bling hilarious.

And, it also turns out that Tane has larger feet that John Wayne. According to a guide Wayne's feet look smaller than they actually were because of his boots, but as I am too dense to follow that logic myself have decided to let this photo do the talking!

Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire

We have more than our fair share of volcanos in the North Island of New Zealand, but Guatemala leaves us for dead. The country has more eruptions than a spotty teenager. In a fit of machismo, I decided to climb one of the two live volcanos near Antigua (there´s also two huge dormant cones) - Volcan Pakaya. It has lava continuously flowing down it.

Pakaya. Dodgy.

But I smirk at danger!

Until I actually get close to something dangerous.

Kids aged 6-9 on an active lava flow, where the rocks that aren´t molten are very sharp. Hmmm.

The guides were a tad more relaxed about the lava.

Mayan Time

Ah ruins, our old friends. For us there´s nothing better than spending a few hours gazing at raggedly buildings and trying to imagine what they were like when they were at the heart of living cities. In our trip to Mexico we are getting into Mayan territory, which means there are scores of ruined cities waiting for us. We called it quits after six.

All the sites were cool, each having a different highlight. We started with the newest and most famous one, Chichen Itza, which is top of the pile for impressive buildings. The pyramid is one of the new Seven Wonders of the World and deserves its title because of how brilliantly it was built. It is aligned so that when you clap in front of it you get an echo like a strange bird call, and at the spring and autumn solstices the light falls in such a way as to make a ´moving serpent´ illusion, a homage to the Feathered Serpent Kukulcan.

Uxmal was next, which had an unusual pyramid with circular corners, lots of beautiful carvings, a more laid-back atmosphere than Chichen and - bonus - iguanas.

The Pyramid of the Magician

Kabah is a relatively small but interesting site, with an amazing facade with more than 200 faces of the all-important rain god, Chaak, while Palenque is famous for its beautiful setting in jungle-covered hills, and was Lauren's favourite.

The Palace at Palenque

Bonampak's chief claim to fame is its amazing murals, probably the best in the Mayan world. Like the stonework the murals can be pretty grizzly though, as the Mayan kings loved to show themselves torturing, sacrificing and generally being mean to captives.

Captive bleeding after his nails were removed.

My pick of the bunch though was Yaxchilan, which is deep in the Lacadon Rainforest on the Guatemalan border. Getting there required a 22km trip through the jungle down a crocodile-inhabited river, which was almost worth the journey in itself. There was hardly anyone at the site and best of all, there were howler monkeys in the trees. You would not believe the racket they make. If you did not know they were monkeys you would think they were jaguars, or the smoke monster from Lost.

Yaxchilan´s main plaza.

Sadly we did not have time to fit in what is said to be the most amazing city of all, Tikal, or Copan in Honduras, famous for its stonework. But at least that gives us another excuse to come back to Central America!

Random fact about Mexico number four - Crocodiles

I discovered while in Mexico that crocodiles seen up close are ugly scary looking mo fos that I would never like to see closer than this. Tane, though, really enjoyed it so is cleary less of a wuss than I.

Random fact about Mexico number three - Guadalupe

We were lucky to be in Mexico during the Festival of Guadalupe on 12 December. The festival first came to our attention while on the long bus trip from Palenque to San Cristobel when we kept passing people running up the hills carrying torches, being followed by decorated trucks. Later we learned that they were running a relay for Guadalupe (the Virgin Mary) which covered 220 km.

Guadalupe Church

The relay ended at Guadalupe Church in San Cristabel, where the tired but jubilant relay teams arrived, yelling their praises to Guadalupe and putting out their torches outside of the church. It was an amazing sight to see, and I was impressed at the commitment of those teams for their cause whether I believe in worshipping the Virgin Mary myself or not. The festival really was the cherry on our good-time-in-Mexico cake.

Random facts about Mexico number two - The Mayans

There are almost four million Mayans living in the area covering Southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and some of Hondurous. Where we are at present, San Cristabel, Mayans make up the majority of the population. The Mayans are an interesting people with a facinating history, which the massive pyramids (that Tane will blog about later) are testament to. I am more interested in the modern Maya though, so here are some random facts about them:

1. Many Maya believe that if someone takes a photo of you they take your spirit. This also means that you can't take photos of certain churches, or people participating in religious rites. Lucky the girl above (and her mother that gave me permission) didn't mind.

2. In Mayan records, the date 22 December 2012 is an important one, leading to speculation as to why. Pity that the Spanish burnt most of the information about it so we can only speculate about it (until that date of course).

3. We have talked to three Mayan people on seperate occasions about Mel Gibson's Apocolypto. Two of them loved it, said it was funny and excellent to see the Mayan people and culture on the big screen like that. One other Mayan hated it for being historically inaccurate, which is very much is. Either way I am looking forward to seeing that movie again when I get home.

Random fact about Mexico number one - the cars

Tane and I are currently travelling around Mexico, and soon Guatemala. As I am feeling very lazy at present I have decided to break my impressions on Mexico up into bite-sized random facts. Here is random fact about Mexico number one.

In Mexico, Volkswagens are everywhere. Apparently they are still made in Mexico City, which is why they are such a popular form of transport. We haven't seen so many old cars since Bulgaria, AKA land of the Lada. Needless to say, I would much rather see a Volkswagen' than the Lada. No wonder Mexican's are so much cheerier than the Bulgarians.

Highs and lows in Southern Italy

One of the few downsides about traveling in the cities and towns of Europe is that, after a while, you get the feeling you´ve seen almost everything before, in different forms. The castle on the hill beside the river, the grand church, the narrow cobbled streets of the Old Town. Caucasians and some immigrants walking around in the same clothes you´d see on the streets of Wellington or Toronto. Sure, in Stockholm you see considerably more blondes. In the UK it´s terraced houses rather than the apartment blocks of the Continent. There´s differences in architecture and culture. But really it´s usually variations on the same themes.

Sunday morning in Sorrento's old town

So Southern Italy came as a bit of a shock. In terms of the people it´s the most distinctive area of Europe I´ve been to. There's such uniformity: almost everyone has black hair, olive skin, strong noses and shiny, puffy and ugly jackets. It´s also as close to the Developing World as you get in the European Union. Lauren lived here for most of a year in her teens and has mixed feelings about the place. Me too - Southern Italy is all about highs and lows.

What's not to love about hideous apartment blocks and manky train stations?

The reputation of Italy is that the further south of Rome you get, the poorer, more corrupt and crime-ridden it is. There´s certainly a lot of scuminess around, but also plenty of gems. Take Naples. There are some of the ugliest decaying apartment blocks you´ll see outside of Cambodia. There´s an air of dodginess around the train station. There´s the murder rate, easily the highest in the country. But there are also plenty of elegant apartment blocks, spectacular state and religious buildings, a superb ancient history museum and real buzz in the air at night.

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Then there was the day we spent trying to get to the famous Greek ruins of Paestum. We started off in lovely Sorrento, which is perched on the cliffs of the Amalfi Coast, then took a graffiti-covered Circumvesuviana train to our accommodation near Pompeii. Unfortunately, turns out near is a relative term. We were actually in Scafarti, a non-too-nice town next to Pompeii. To get to our b&b we had to trek from the train station, with its distinctive spraypaint, rubbish and concrete decor, in our backpacks down a busy road with no footpaths.

Happily, it turned out the b&b was lovely, with really nice owners and a cute garden. But we then had to get another train to Paestum, on a different Circumvesuviana line, from a different Scafarti station. That station was a whole other level of dirtiness, the ticket machine was broken and the store we were directed to for a ticket was closed.

Scafarti Stazione. Bella.

By now we were pushing it to get to Paestum in time. Some freeriding and transfers later, and a long wait at yet another ugly station, and we were finally there. Ten minutes after the gates closed. But after the day we had, that was not going to stop us. We managed to get in and as the setting sun turned the temples to gold, it was magic.

And, maybe best of all, the pizza place down the road from the b&b was sensationally cheap and sensationally good. So at the end of the day, like Southern Italy as a whole, the highs definitely outnumbered the lows.

All for just two Euros and fifty cents