Thursday, August 20, 2009
My last days in New Zealand.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
From Greymouth to Christchurch to Auckland!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
fire alarms and one more note about Franz Josef, oh and the best hostel EVER!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Franz Josef Glacier
Goodbye Queenstown, you stole my heart.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Wrapping up Queenstown
Since bungy jumping I've mostly been hanging out in Queenstown with some people that I met last week at Base; other than that I've just been chilling and catching up on some sleep and much needed earlier nights. Today I've finalized the rest of my time here in New Zealand, so I'm pretty excited about that, even though it means I'll be leaving in just a few days. The people I've become friends with have slowly trickled out of Queenstown; Jay left yesterday morning so now it's only me and John here. We went on a walk around the city today to this park that's on the other side of the water, which turned out to be this really lovely forested area near the lake that wrapped around to the other side of Queenstown. After that we walked back to the downtown area and went to the post office so I could mail off some stuff I've been meaning to mail for quite some time, then we headed over to this little gelato shop and had a small ice cream (super yummy, I had tiramisu and hokey pokey, John had black forest and peanut brownie), then hung around the waterfront some more before heading back to X Base. Now we're just hanging out in my room writing in our respectful journals (blog for me, paper for John), then I think later we'll be heading out for some drinks after dinner (who knows what that's gonna be, probably just pasta). But yeah, my plans for the rest of my time here are basically: leave Queenstown and go up to Franz Josef on Saturday, then do the Franz Josef all day glacial hike on Sunday, then head up to Greymouth on Monday and spend the night there. The next day, Tuesday, I'll be taking the train from Greymouth to Christchurch, then catching a plane from Christchurch to Auckland that same night. Then I'll probably spend my last day-- Wednesday-- doing some final shopping around Auckland, have lunch with Craig and then dinner at the AMAZING Indian food restaurant near the YHA, then catch a plane back to California on Thursday. So all in all, it's pretty depressing that I'm leaving New Zealand; I've met some amazing people, seen some amazing landscapes, done some amazing things, and all around have just had an absolutely amazing time. I regret to cut my time here short, but honestly, I'm running out of money and need to get back to California and figure everything out in my life before school starts this coming September. But yeah, those are my plans. Hope you're having a good week, I love and miss you all!! I can't wait to see you-- less than a week away now!!
Monday and Tuesday....
Monday, August 10, 2009
pictures of Nevis Bungy Jump
I think this is a pretty sweet picture.
this was so so amazing, luckily it's a long enough fall so you can scared an stoked ( :
direct quote at this moment: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
downdowndowndowndowndowndown.
the not-as-graceful-as-my-initial-exit part of the jump.
jumping off a platform that is suspended by cables 134 m above a canyon and stream. Metal.
supposed to be smiling at the camera, I think the guy pressed the button too late.
getting suited up and waving at the camera that eludes me, apparently.
Nevis Bungy Jump- 134 meters!
Friday, August 7, 2009
sick in Queenstown...
Thursday, August 6, 2009
skydiving pictures!!
my master and me ( :
slide landing, haha.
entering the clouds where we pulled the parachute.
almost done with the freefall.
above the lake, above the trees, above the mountains, above the clouds.
I want to do this every day.
so beautiful, like indescribable beauty.
chubby chubby chubby chubby cheeks cheeks cheeks cheeks.
I'm so jealous that the master had a scarf thing.
I'm a biiiiiiiiird! haha.
so so so so so so much fun.
trying to smile, failing epically.
freefaaaaaaaaaaaaaall.
nosedive towards the ground, flipping around, looking where the land meets the sky.
weeeeeeee!!
first few seconds of freefall (the best seconds).
yelling while leaving the plane!
dangling out of the plane, just about ready to exit.
getting ready while climbing up to altitude ( :
Queenstown, continued.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
SKYDIVING!!
Monday, August 3, 2009
Rainy Mornings.....
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Queenstown!!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
finally, leaving Christchurch!
Monday, July 27, 2009
19 Days!!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Jesus Town
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Further Christchurch-iness
Monday, July 20, 2009
Wellington and various other subjects
Friday, July 17, 2009
ALONE!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Okay for starters, check this video out. It's a commercial that talks about the dangers of drunk driving. I think you guys will enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RDLnj1iTpk
Wow it's been long time since I've written something! Since Nelson, we've been to Kaikaura, Christchurch, back up to Auckland, Whitianga, and now we're in Tauranga. So, I'll tell you a little bit about each.
From Nelson we went down to Kaikura, which is a little town where you can go whale watching (for sperm whales, apparently they live off the coast here) and walk to a seal colony. We skipped the whale watching because the ocean was crazy rough and it cost waaaay too much to do something we've already done (Hawaii, thank you). So instead we hung out at our hotel, seeing as how there's not much else to do, and had an AMAZING crayfish (lobster) dinner. Like AMAZING. Seriously. The lobster was probably as big as my torso. We split it between the four of us and it was super yummy ( : The next day we went to the seal colony and saw some pretty cool seals (and a bunch of babies!). Oh and on the way to Kaikura we also saw some seals like 4 feet from the road just chilling, and a bunch of baby seals down farther playing in pools and sliding and being adorable. Anyway, the mountains at Kaikura were not showing because it was all cloudy, which was really disappointing. After the seal colony we had a disappointing abalone burger thing, then left and headed to Christchurch.
The road from Kaikura to Christchurch, of course, was beautiful, and Christchurch was pretty awesome as well. Unfortunately I caught a cold while down there, so that was kinda lame. The first night we got there we went out to the this Souvlaki place and had kebabs, but not really 'cause it was more a platter without the pita bread wrapped around it so yeah..... Anyway, the chicken here, I don't think it gets much better than this chicken. It was crazy delicious. Dinner was sooo good that night. The next day we switched motels to this nice one over in Riccarton, then went to this old mansion thing that had "the Bush" and a stream next to it. While my parents were checking out the house and Brad was reading, I decided I'd go sit down by the stream where a bench was and ducks. It had just rained, so I brought my poncho with me and was seriously two feet away from the bench when WHAM! FALL NUMBER THREE! Awesome, right? Yeah, totally bitchin' (but not so much). So, I finally had fall number three. But apparently the bush was cool (they preserved it and nothing had been cut down since settlers came, so it was basically what New Zealand looked like before settlers, which is apparently crazy), so my parents had a good time. We then went to the Botanical Gardens, where my parents and I walked around while Brad went downtown to check out a record store. The Botanic Gardens were pretty sweet, they had this huge greenhouse that had some amazing plants (and sooo many orchids, Ean!), and these really cute displays for kids that I thought were great. We then walked around and checked out the ducks, swans, and birds around a bond, then went and waited in the car for Brad (we barely made it out of the park before the locked the gates—our car woulda been locked in for the night!). For dinner we went to a “secret pizza place” my parents found, but it turned out to be the same place we went to while in Auckland, hah, either way it was delicious! That night I FINALLY learned how to play poker (betting noodles), it was great but I definitely didn’t win; my advice, don’t always try to go for flushes, that’s dumb. The next day we went to some museums and art galleries, which were fun, then decided to book a flight up to Auckland for the next day. All in all, Christchurch is a really beautiful place, but we went there during a school holiday so no students were really there and I guess I didn’t get the full view (plus, I was sick, lame).
Auckland was our next stop, and after a plane ride with beauuuuuuutiful views of the country (it was clear that day!) we ended up lost on our way from the rental car place to the YHA, during rush hour. Finally we got there, hung out, then headed out for dinner. We stopped by this pharmacy and picked up NZ’s equivalent to Nyquil, where the pharmacy’s owner assured me I didn’t have swine flu (definitely a relief) then recommended we go to Satya, an South Indian food restaurant just down the street. We walked down there and immediately got a table, which was great ‘cause right after we came the place didn’t have a table open, it was amazing. BUT OH MY GOSH!! Seriously, this was by FAR the absolute BEST Indian food I’ve ever had, and brad said it was in his top three favorite places. OH MY GOSH. Again, AMAZING. Like totally out of sight how amazing this stuff was. Brad had this crazy awesome spicy dry curry chicken dish, Mom had an awesome dola (? Pretty sure that’s wrong) thing, which was more or less a giant samosa, Dad had chicken tikka masala (Ean, seriously the most amazing thing ever) and I had chicken korma, which was INCREDIBLE!! Okkay okay okay I’ll stop about the Indian food (AMAZING! Haha). The next day we tried to find an observatory, which definitely didn’t happen, so we checked out Auckland’s indoor winter garden, which was fun. That night Brad and I went out to this pub that had nobody in it, then the bartender’s friend came, then another friend, then this couple from NZ. They all ended up sitting with us and we did some drinking and talking and it was pretty sweet, everyone was really nice and we had fun. We got back to the hostel and I got my water bottle from my parents room (it was like 1a, I was definitely drunk), then Brad and I went to our room and played music from his laptop as loud as possible, and apparently I sang and danced. I guess our neighbors were pissed (Brad told me when he came back from the bathroom), so I decided it’d be a good idea to hit my metal water bottle up against their wall. Whateeeeever. The next day was pretttttty lame, and Brad and I mostly slept. The next day we headed out to Bay of Plenty and stayed in Whitianga for the next couple of days. We tried to go to Hot Water Beach, but that didn’t work out so well because the waves were way to big and the low tide wasn’t very low. The second day Brad and I went out to lunch and ended up at this Chinese food place, which was the worst food I’ve ever tasted. That place is dead to us, we don’t talk about it. Then we went and got a caramel milkshake and some fries and a fried chicken butt (that’s what mom said), so we ended up not eating the chicken. The rest of the day we hung out, went to dinner (which was pretty meh, and the waitress was all dumb), and the next day (which is today!) we looked for some greenstone, then left. Now we’re in Tauranga, which is a decent-sized city. We’re about to go out to dinner, so Ima bail. I hope everything’s going well over there, and I miss you all. I’m sorry this is so long, but apparently that’s just how it is, so get used to it, haha. Hope you have a good day.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
This little bird follows you around trying to get bugs and worms that you kick up by walking. It fans out it's tail as well. The stalker bird is pretty sweet.