HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ERIC TODAY!!!

Story of The Day

The media in New Zealand is like a pack of wild dogs. It seems as if they jump on a new 'scandal' every other day which completely engulfs all media coverage. Except the scandal really isn't something of monumental importance. They just like to highlight a certain issue of the day and beat their point home. Here's a couple examples recently: (1) The NZ Rugby All Blacks Jerseys being sold by Adidas are $220 NZ. Even though this has been the price for a while, all of a sudden every newspaper, radio and TV story touched on the outrageous price when they found out the jersey could be purchased online in the US for half price. The Adidas brand managers even appeared on for an interview on the nightly news. (2) Price of Milk. This became a media target and after plenty of commentator analysis, the politicians jumped on the ride and are to be conducting a formal study on the appropriateness of the price of milk.

I couldn't imagine either of these actually being a large news story in the US. This has to be the difference between a country of 300 million plus and 4 million. Little things get more attention here. So this brings me to todays New Zealand Herald. On the FRONT page (granted not lead story: that has to do with people that leaving restaurants without paying the bill), headline states "Nervous Americans pull plug on waka ride for World Cup Welcome" (A waka is a Maori canoe). The first paragraph reads "They may have the courage to face the world's rugby giants but World Cup minnows the USA Eagles are too nervous to take a waka trip across the Whanganui River." Sensationalism to the extreme. Later in the story it notes safety and security reasons prompted the USA to decline the waka ride. Check out the comical cartoon on the right. We'll see how much coverage this gets in the next couple of days.

The NZ media is always good for a laugh. Now just wait until those USA minnows win a few games at the World Cup! It's 16 days away and the country seems ready to burst with anticipation. Dana and I are going to the USA/Ireland game and NZ/Japan games.


In other activities we visited the Auckland Botanical Gardens this week. Another fantastic public amenity at no cost to visitors. Some of our visitors may be interested in seeing this while in Auckland. Mom Hines and Mom Morris I am looking at you.  Also, Special Birthday Wishes to Pop Pop Morris this week!

Rangitoto

We visited Rangitoto this weekend. Beautiful island in the Hauraki Gulf that surrounds Auckland. It was formed around 600  years ago from volcanic activity and is thought to be the youngest island in the Hauaki Gulf and youngest volcanic field in Auckland. We took a ferry over to the island that provides fantastic views of the surrounding landscape and even saw a few dolphins riding alongside the ferry. 

Here are a few pictures from Rangitoto (try saying this....isn't it fun?) and the ferry ride:

Check out a few more photos at: https://picasaweb.google.com/114612877246919085926/Rangitoto# 

Karekare Beach

Few pictures from Karekare Beach. Western coast south of previously visited Piha Beach.

More photos posted at: https://picasaweb.google.com/114612877246919085926/Karekare#

Living in Auckland

Having spent the past couple of years living in suburbia, it’s a welcome change of pace to be living in a city again. We’re just starting to uncover all the layers Auckland has, but our experiences thus far have been top notch. Some highlights: (1) if you’re an Auckland resident you can get into museums for free. We've been to the Auckland Museum (see previous post) and the maritime museum (Auckland is the world’s capital for sailing). Planning to visit MOTAT this weekend which is a museum dedicated to transportation and technology in New Zealand. (2) Food is easily accessible. Grocery store is maybe half a mile away and within a couple blocks of the apartment is a diverse selection of ethnic restaurants. (3) The library system is amazing. They have a website that you can look up and request books be sent to the local branch. Dana is reading a few books of John Grisham and I’m working on 1491 – New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. (4) There is a bus that runs every ten minutes from our neighborhood to downtown. (5) Several cool parks with stately trees (expecting they will look even better in the summer) and well maintained open grass areas.

Couple of pictures: 



Cornwall Park



Auckland Skyline



One Tree Hill

There was a native tree at the site of this monument when British settlers arrived, however it was supposedly cut down for an unknown reason (speculated it may have been for firewood). And from my understanding there have been various trees that have been planted at the top of the hill that have either not survived or Maori activists have taken down to show displeasure with the New Zealand government. So now there is a monument, and the hill isn’t living up to its name. A little disappointing. However….the panoramic view of the city is fantastic. Not surprisingly this used to be an area of volcanic activity and this cone erupted 20 – 30,000 years ago.

I’ll leave you with two other highlights for us. Dana found some hazelnut coffee. Upon seeing it in the store she tossed it into the cart and flashed the biggest smile I’ve seen out of her in NZ. New Zealanders love their coffee strong, Dana likes her coffee weak and flavored- looks like she won this round! We also found an Asian farmers market with tons of cheap produce. Eleven kiwi fruit for $0.90 NZ. Should have bought more, we’re down to just one remaining kiwi fruit after 3 days. All of you in the US, keep an eye out for my new kiwi fruit import/export business.

This week has been bitter cold with some parts of the country seeing snow for the first time in over 35 years! Dana has the weekend off, so we are hoping it warms up enough to explore one of the islands in the Auckland harbour...



Ring of Fire

Mt. Doom  1 – Eric & Dana 0. The volcano won the first round as we visited on a day that turned out to be a challenge to ski. We braved some strange weather (a mix of snow and rain) that left us soaked to the bone. There was also a cloud hanging around the volcano all day, limiting visibility to just a few meters ahead of you. Less than optimal conditions! We struggled along, losing each other (and the trails) several times due to the visibility, and called it a day around 2 pm. Lesson learned from the experience: check the weather beforehand as it can be unpredictable in New Zealand. Maybe a little volcanic activity would have been good to warm us up!

We’re going to tackle Mt. Ruapehu again in the summer for supposedly one of the best day hikes in all of New Zealand, and see if we can even the score. It was difficult to get good pictures of the volcanoes due to the cloud cover, however we could occasionally get glimpses of the striking view of the three active volcanoes in the area (Ngauruhoe, Tongariro, Mt Ruapehu). All three are contained within Tongariro National Park, New Zealand’s first and the fourth oldest national park in the world. Thankfully we didn’t encounter any volcanic eruptions during our visit, however these three are some of the most active volcanoes in the world. The area has averaged a new eruption every two years during the past two centuries.

After our defeat on the slopes of the volcano, our travel back to Auckland the next day provided for some interesting stops. We randomly followed a sign for thermal pools and ended up in Tokaanu Thermal Park. We didn’t have the bathing suits with us to jump in, however there were some pretty amazing sites of pools of water boiling and steam eerily rising from the earth.  There was also a boiling mud pool that looked like chocolate fondue…but wasn’t.

We also drove around beautiful Lake Taupo. Seems like a popular vacation destination with a large amount of hotels and shopping in the town of Taupo. Fun fact about the lake: it was created by a volcano collapsing in on itself and still has activity occurring underneath the water. We also stopped by Haka Falls (a little north of Taupo).

More photos at:  https://picasaweb.google.com/114612877246919085926/CentralNorthIsland#

Half Way In This World

Check out our neighbor. Sometimes he just needs a little bit of fresh air....

Piha Beach

Now that we’ve finally got our internet set up, it’s time to share some photos of Auckland. Made a trip out to Piha Beach on the west coast:

Piha Beach is part of the Waitakere Ranges within a 50 minute drive from downtown (28 km) and only 30 minutes from the hospital Dana is working at. There were a bunch of houses set back from the beach with a small downtown area, however the beach was empty. There was a hiking trail along the beach where I came across a baby seal that had passed away. Sad sight. Minutes later a ranger truck pulled up alongside me on his way to the seal. He said the seal had been hanging around for a few days and was likely lost from further south on the North Island. Sad to see this little guy didn’t get saved like the Penguin from Antartica. Amazing thing about this was that I was apparently the first person to come across the seal at 10 AM on a Tuesday morning. Was in this absolutely beautiful place less than 20 miles from the biggest city in New Zealand and it felt completely isolated from the world. So if there is a spot of relative isolation and unspoiled beauty so close to Auckland, I can only imagine what the lanscape is like in the rest of the country.

We’ll start exploring more of the country this weekend. Dana has off Friday to Sunday so we’re going skiing at Mt. Ruapehu in the center of the North Island (about a 4 hour drive from Auckland). Mt. Ruapehu is famous for being Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings and is also an active volcano! Does seem to be a bit odd to be skiing on a volcano, but as New Zealand is the adventure capital of the world, I can’t say I’m too surprised!

If you're interested in more pictures of Piha Beach: https://picasaweb.google.com/114612877246919085926/PihaBeach?authuser=0&feat=directlink

All Blacks Victorious

Yesterday started off with a trip to the Auckland museum, which would rival anything you would see in the US for presentation and historical artifacts. We spent nearly three hours at the museum but were only able to get through the first of three floors. The first floor focused on Maori (the New Zealand natives) and other Polynesian and Micronesian cultures. One of the more fascinating pieces of information was the approximate age of the Maori civilization in comparison to the other pacific islands. Indonesia had its first human population around 3,000 BC, and there was a slow migration east with Hawaii and Easter Island habited around 400 AD. New Zealand was relatively recent in 1,000 AD. Take a look at the map, it’s almost unfathomable how people landed on Hawaii. It’s a long long way from anything else. There are plenty of small tropical islands in fairly close proximity to New Zealand: Fiji, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, and many more. Hopefully we’ll get to visit a couple over the next year.

New Zealand has a much different relationship with their natives than in the US. For example, in the museum a bulk of that first floor was solely dedicated to Maori artifacts and even contained an exhibit on highly disputed treaties between the British and the Maori regarding the sovereignty of the people and land. Apparently in the English version of document, the Maori agreed to hand over complete sovereignty to the British, however in the Maori version it suggests that the British are only allowed to govern their own people and lands. Just the symbolism of having an unbiased version of this in the museum seems to show a different attitude towards natives than currently exists in the US.

The Maori impact was also found at the rugby game. The NZ national anthem has two parts: first a Maori version and afterwards the English version. Furthermore the team performs a Maori warrior dance called a Haka before the match. Pretty moving stuff, the crowd goes completely wild for the dance. See picture to the right of the team performing the Haka, the guy in the front is Richie McCaw, the team captain and to his right is New Zealand’s Troy Polamalu. His name is Ma’a Nonu and he’s got the hair and style to match Polamalu complete with flashy orange cleats.

The Aussies didn’t put up much of a fight. The game was 17-0 pretty quickly. The crowd reveled in the score and the sarcastic comments coming from the stands only seemed to increase as the game went on. I still have very little idea of how the game is played, although it’s still entertaining with some bone crunching NFL style hits and clever passing. Reaching out for some help with the rules didn’t get me all that far either as the teenager/dad combo sitting next to me tried to explain things, but it seemed like even they had little explanation for the penalties and strategy. Game ended up 30-14 with the Aussies getting a late try (5 points plus 2 for a kick), so the game wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. On the crowded train back to the city, the All Blacks fans beamed with confidence and took every opportunity to take a verbal shot at an Aussie. You could tell this means a lot to the people, as New Zealand sees themselves as the smaller country in the underdog role, and rugby is the one thing they are exceptionally good at. Perhaps it’s like Canada and US in hockey.

Get used to the rugby posts, as there will be many more with the rugby world cup coming to town in September and October.   

Bring on the kiwi fruit

The last week and a half has been a crash course on Kiwi shopping. There are very few American branded retail stores outside of fast food chains: McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Subway (wow….they really took the cream of the crop from the US!). Its been an amusing experience buying things for our apartment when you don’t know what the name of the store is that carries it. A few times we’ve approached random people on the street: “Where would you go to buy sheets and towels?” “What stores carry a GPS?” Through trial and error, we’ve found a few equivalents to our US chains: The Warehouse is their Walmart, Dick Smith’s is Best Buy, PacNSave is the biggest grocery store, Briscoes is Bed Bath and Beyond. Their shopping malls are about half the size of a typical US mall. We haven’t found one yet that is not a Westfields, they seem to have the market cornered.

For restaurants there is a wide variety of ethnic food. Lots of Asian (Sushi, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, etc), Indian and  Kebab shops, English restaurants selling meat pies and fish & chips, cafes that have sandwiches and salads, burger places (the chain we see most often is murder burger, I still haven’t figured out why that is a good name. Those two words together do not make me hungry). There is a little bit for everyone, so you’re not going to go hungry in Auckland. Dana misses US coffee already though. Starbucks is available in the more populated areas and we saw a Dunkin Donuts in the airport and one mall, however they don’t do brewed coffee! Everything is a latte or americano or expresso. Dana used a coffee press for the first time yesterday after struggling unsuccessfully to buy  a coffee brewer. The coffee for purchase in the grocery store isn’t very tasty either. She will likely have anyone coming to visit us smuggle in some DDs hazelnut coffee- just a heads up!  

It took us 2 hours to go grocery shopping on Thursday. Reason being that just about every brand was different than what we’re accustomed to, and the prices can be either sky high or super low compared to the US. Here are a few examples of what strikes us as very expensive versus what is  inexpensive (note these are in NZ dollars and exchange is around .86 NZ / 1 US):

Expensive:

Chicken Breast – Cost is around $9 - $10 per lb

Corn on the Cob – You get two small ears prepackaged for $3

Peppers – Around $8 per lb

Tomatoes – $5.99 for a pint of cherry tomatoes

Cucumbers – $5 for one

Chapstick - $5 for one regular size

Soap - $4.99 for two bars of dove

Inexpensive:

Kiwi fruit – Around $0.60 per lb. We got 7 kiwi fruit for $1. Did you know that there is as much vitamin C in the kiwi fruit as there is in an orange? My new favorite fruit, don’t be surprised if you see entire future posts devoted to strictly to the kiwi fruit.

Apples – Around $0.75 per lb

Mussels - $1.00 per lb. I’m not a mussel eater, so I can’t comment on what a typical price is, but Dana is blown away by that price

Big day today. We’re making our way to the Auckland museum and tonight the locally much anticipated All Blacks vs Wallabies matchup! Oh, and thumbs up to the Auckland library system, you can get free internet up to 100 MB and they have an extensive list of travel books you can check out.

Ponsonby

Wednesday ended up being a big day for us as our exhausting weeklong search for housing and a car has finally come to an end. We found the perfect place for us in Ponsonby, a neighborhood slightly west of downtown. It’s a super modern apartment complex (12 units). Our unit has a lot of light, high ceilings, came with all the furnishings that we were hoping for, in a great location that is 15 minutes drive to Dana’s hospital. Ponsonby also has a wonderful downtown shopping area with many cafes all within a block or two from the apartment. Sorry Aunt V, no freshly cooked turkey from Dairy Flats when you come to visit; my farming experience is pretty poor, not sure the owner there would have wanted me!

Turns out that finding a furnished apartment in Auckland is very difficult. We had a list of 9 or 10 feasible locations, and they seemed to fit into two buckets: (1) they were well furnished and well located, but were very expensive or (2) Cheap but dodgy apartment/neighborhood with old furniture probably left over from a prior owner or renter that didn’t want it. There aren’t many large apartment complexes that you’d find in the US. Many of the rentals that we found were either attachments to an existing house, or sometimes a converted garage. As we found that there was little availability in the areas we wanted to live, it appears to be that life as a landlord in Auckland is good. They are able to get a clause in the lease that states that after 6 months they can adjust the rent to market value, ie raise your rent in the middle of your lease!

In other news, we also got a car today. A pretty sharp looking silver Honda Torneo with 108,000 KM, it looks like the kiwi version of an Accord. We bought it at the car auction and seem to have secured a pretty good deal, it should be reliable wheels to get us around.

So now that we have finally got settled (a week living out of a hotel and with a rental car felt like forever) we’ve shifted our focus to what we came here for: to watch rugby and travel. The All Blacks are taking on Australia on Saturday night in the Tri Nations in Auckland, and with tickets still available we’re going to go. Dana starts work on Monday but they gave her a three day weekend so we’re going to heading off for an adventure at a to be determined location. Skiing maybe?

Not expected to get internet at the new apartment until sometime mid next week, so there may be a litle lag on the blog posting. Check back mid next week for the next update.