Slightly more filler (boo, I know)

Ok so just another quick post!

First off, things are fine here in Napier in the sense that we didn't feel anything from the earthquake in Christchurch - thank you to everyone for your concern and questions and such, but don't worry, we're fine for now! Christchurch has been...well, from some of the clips from the news, it looks like some of it has been bombed. Or, it looks as I imagine it would look if it had been bombed. It's a horrible situation, and one that there can't be much done about - I'm going to look into volunteer opportunities there, but from what I've heard they're only letting a limited number of people down to do that and if there's another earthquake on the horizon, a rumor that's being thrown around, I may wait until that one's done with...

Anyways, slightly happier news, classes are still going fine (still no cuts yet!), and I may actually have a job (!!).

But, I'm going to leave it at that because I need to be at said possible job in just over three hours and I need to do a bit of research and the likes. Aren't cliffhangers great?!

(sarcasm)

I'll do a bunch of catching up over the weekend, I promise!

Filler!

Hi!

I'm feeling a bit burned out at the moment, between classes and responsibilities and a to-do list that never seems to get smaller, so until the weekend there probably won't be any more updates.

Sorry!

There isn't *too* much left to talk about, though, because that week before classes started (they started this past Monday) was pretty tame, with me just wandering around clueless in Napier without anything exciting happening. Unless getting a cellphone and going grocery shopping five or so times because I never knew where to start buying things counts as exciting, in which case, phew, that week involved a constant stream of adrenaline.

So don't worry, there isn't much being missed!

The Auckland Sky Tower at Night, and Why Rotorua is Gross

First off, I would like to apologize whole-heartedly for forgetting to include the following in the post about Waiheke Island - this picture is probably one of my favorites of the trip so far:

Oh noooo

Ok, back to Auckland!

After returning from Waiheke, where I (fortunately) did not witness anyone jumping for the ferry, I had dinner and made my way to the Sky Tower, which looks like the Space Needle in Seattle except pointier. Even though visibility wasn't that great, and taking pictures in the dark was rather difficult, I managed to get one or two that weren't totally awful:

The Sky Tower has a nifty little thing (not sure if other tall pointy buildings like the Tower and the Needle have this kind of thing, since I've only ever been in this particular tall pointy building) where they have your usual floor and seats around the rim and windows. And then they also have glass floors which they advertise as a whopping 35mm (1.4ish inches) thick.

Now, I know, glass that thick is as strong as the concrete the rest of the floor was made out of (or so their signs said), but for someone who's not especially keen on heights, man that was a bit gut-wrenching. Even if the glass were a foot thick, if I could see through it, I would still not want to be standing on it. If the concrete was paper-thin, and the glass was the thickest part of the floor, I'd still want to stand on the concrete.

Ok, not quite true, but I would stand on the glass and look at the concrete and pretend that's the material I was standing on.

Either way, I did my duty and walked across a pair of glass floor panels once (while holding on to the railing, but at least I looked down while doing it), then went back to sitting on the benches and trying to get a decent picture.

"Well this is all nice and touristy, I'm glad he had a good time", you must be thinking (assuming that you do not hate me), "the next part is probably about him getting on the bus to Rotorua, wherever that is."

(It's 145 miles/233 km southeast of Auckland)

See, I would like to do that, except that A) that would be too easy and B) that would be skipping probably the most interesting part of the evening.

While many people can probably say "HEY I WENT TO THE SKY TOWER AND SAW THAT STUFF AND TOOK PICTURES AND I JUMPED ON THE GLASS PANELS WHICH HE DIDN'T BECAUSE HE'S A WUSS", probably not as many people can say "HEY I WENT TO SKY TOWER SECURITY AND HAD TO SHOW THEM MY PASSPORT AND GOT TO WAIT AROUND BEHIND THE SCENES WHILE THE SECURITY GUARD MANAGER GUY CAME DOWN FROM THE CASINO."

And I will leave a few spaces here for the imaginative juices to get going, since it's kind of fun to be melodramatic.

And now for the far less interesting truth as to why I wound up in security, giving them my passport and waiting for the lead security chap to come down from the casino:

At some point in my picture taking and multiple seat changes, the case containing my spare glasses fell out of my pocket. I had switched to my good glasses (gasp!) because it was dark and things were a bit far away, neither of which make good conditions for wearing glasses that you stopped using as mains about five years ago.

Now, this wouldn't have been a big deal, except I did not feel them fall out, and by the time I realized I no longer had them (I took the elevator back down and was about to leave, noticed they were gone, and hopped back on the elevator to go back up - not sure if you're supposed to do that without an attendant, since on the way up they got to push the buttons), they were gone. I searched frantically for five or so minutes, making a couple of loops of the tower, when I asked one of the attendants at the top if someone had turned them in.

Someone had! They were sitting in the lost and found, waiting for me to take them home/put them in my pocket. I went down again and was shown to the security area, where I was questioned as to what the glasses looked like and what the case was like.

I guess I passed (which was good, because I had kind of forgotten what the glasses looked like even though I wear them daily), because after taking my passport and contact information, the security guard said I could get them back - when the security manager guy on duty, who had the key to the lost and found, got done dealing with some unruly folks in the casino.

After waiting five minutes, the absurdity of the situation hit me - I was under Sky Tower, I had lost my glasses case containing glasses six years old about 15 or 20 minutes ago, and they needed my passport, a brief questionnaire concerning the lost spectacles, and now I had to wait for the lead security guard to come and open the box. All in all, it took about 20-25 minutes to reclaim my spare spare spare glasses. They may have also taken my picture, I'm not totally sure.

The funniest part about waiting was at some point, a guest who was noticeably...impaired...stumbled into the room (it was just behind a door off of the main little plaza with the elevators, and the door was open), looked around for a minute or so, then wandered off back to the plaza.

Glasses and case in pocket, I went back to the hotel, looking forward to my visit to Rotorua.

I have no pictures of Rotorua or the bus trip to it, because I do not want to remember it. Or I just forgot to take any.

So, Rotorua!

It smells.

It's got a whole bunch of hot springs and bubbly mud pools, which would be really great to visit if it didn't cost around $100 (NZD) to do anything. You can even Zorb (go zorbing?), which looks amazing and I promised someone I would do it for them. Also, it literally smells - because of the mud pools and geothermal whatnots, every now and then (five minutes) you get a lovely whiff of sulfur. It's not a constant thing, so you don't really get used to it, it just...comes and goes.

The problem with all these activities is, along with the price tag associated with *all* of them (Rotorua is a tourist hotspot), none of them are within walking distance - everything is actually *around* Rotorua, not *in* it.

And so, I decided to cut my time in Rotorua (and Taupo) short, since I had no idea how expensive things would be once I got to Napier and actually had to spend money on important things (like food).

I called up the travel agent (on the hotel's phone, the manager of the hotel was amazing and very patient with this whole ordeal) and told her of my plight - after some phone tag and fax tag (or faxes not being sent/sent to the wrong place), I had cancelled my hotel reservations and gotten a pair of bus tickets straight to Napier.

Hooray!

I had been told the bus would pick me up the next morning outside the hotel, so I wouldn't have to lug my bags into town (since I was a good six or so blocks away from the bus stop).

Hooray!

So I spent the evening watching movies on TV (Munich was *long*, but good), because I figured that was pretty much the only way I would not spend any more money.

Relaxing and cheap!

The next morning, the bus didn't come to the hotel.

Boo.

After waiting for an hour outside the hotel (the agent told me one time, the ticket said another, I waited there for both of those times), I decided to just walk into town, get my own bus ticket, and end this mess by just settling in Napier.

Which I did!

That is a story for another post, though! This one is long enough as it is.

Auckland and Waiheke Island

This is Auckland!

So!

Where did we end last time...right, checking in to the Kiwi International Hotel.

It's a pretty decent place! My room was a bit on the cozy side, as was the bathroom (the door had a piece cut away so that it could fully open without hitting the sink), but it served its purpose. The first thing that hit me was that it was rather hot.

This was probably because I was wearing a coat and long pants in what I think was low 80 degree weather, and I had just carried (well, rolled) my 50lb duffel bag and carried my two what must have been 20lb each carry-ons (it's a good thing airlines don't check the weight of carry-ons, or I would have had three checked bags most likely) uphill for about two blocks.

So, after correcting that problem and having a shower, I decided to wander around Auckland, since planning ahead is less fun.

The heart of Auckland, with my hotel marked in a lovely shade of purple

I spent most of the afternoon walking up and down Queen street and looking in the stores and such along it, which was a nice change from sitting in a plane for hours. It totalled to about 8 or 9km (about 5 miles, two round trips from the hotel to the waterfront and back), with half of that being uphill and half being downhill (to the waterfront was downhill, from the waterfront was, shockingly enough, uphill), so it was a decent amount of walking. It felt good to stretch the legs a bit.

What time wasn't spent walking around Queen street was spent making what turned out to be a big mistake, that being planning my trip from Auckland to Napier. I decided that it would be neat to take a few days to get to the school, stopping in a few places en route. In the hotel, they had a travel desk with a lovely and helpful lady who helped me plan the trip...unfortunately, I didn't catch on that she was a travel agent until it was too late, and then I didn't want to just walk away for fear of hurting her feelings after she had helped me.

I'm bad at saying no to salespeople, essentially.

Lesson learned.

So I had booked a bus trip from Auckland to Rotorua, a hotel for two nights there, then a bus trip to Taupo, a hotel for one night there, then a bus to Napier. Yay! Everything was looking good.

The next day was a day to just bum around Auckland, so instead of just walking up and down Queen Street, I decided to take a ferry to one of the nearby islands, and Waiheke Island was the one I chose to go to for no particular reason other than the lovely gal at the front desk of the Kiwi International mentioned it.

The ferry ride to Waiheke was about 35ish minutes long, and it was beautiful - the Hauraki Gulf has quite a few little islands.

Waiheke from the ferry!

I decided to go on one of the hiking trails around the island - I had no idea how big the island was at the time of this decision (12 miles long, 35 square miles) - and I stumbled upon one of their...I don't really know how to describe it. It's called "Sculpture on the Gulf", and they basically have outdoor sculptures hanging out along a walking path on part of Waiheke Island.

One of the sculptures on the gulf!

So I walked along that, and when it came time to either go to Onerua (the closest little town/village to the ferry) or continue onwards, I decided to continue onwards because I didn't know what else to do. Plus walking is free, whereas hanging out in a village would probably not be because of stores and the like.

Some of the scenery along the walking path!

So after walking around for a while, I got lost.

The path I was on just kind of hit a road and ended, with no pointers as to where to go next, so I walked up the road a bit, thinking that was the direction of town. I had gotten completely turned around by the walking path, apparently, because I was walking in exactly the wrong direction. I only discovered this when I saw a sign for a path to a bay that I had no idea existed and was far away from where I wanted to be. So, it was time to backtrack.

After backtracking along the road for a bit, I stumbled across the continuation of the path I was originally on, whose sign could only really be seen if you were walking towards the path I had come out from when I first got lost, because the sign was below and on the opposite side of the road my original walking path hit. It was one of those situations where it's good that I was just looking around cluelessly!

After continuing on the newly discovered path for a little while, it started to get a bit drizzly, which I should've been prepared for but wasn't. This was probably the most surreal part of my Waiheke trip, with loud insects buzzing all around me in the middle of a forest on a sparsely populated island with me following a path that seemed to go nowhere and having not seen or heard a person (other than some people in cars when I was wandering around on the road) for about an hour.

It was now that I was very glad to be in New Zealand and not anywhere else, because every time my tired, sweaty, slightly dehydrated mind worried about being attacked by something, I remembered that there was nothing in New Zealand to be attacked by. There are no bears, no mountain lions, no snakes, no komodo dragons, no ticks, and no mosquitoes. So I trudged on.

I wound up in a field with a horse.

I had to climb fences that were apparently ok to climb over seeing that the trail markers clearly pointed out where to climb over the fences, with little wooden stepping stools being provided, and this brought me to the horse.

I had no idea where I was at this point, but I could see houses in the distance.

I walked around the horse, up and down the field a bit, trying to find the next yellow marker to find out where on earth I was, but all I saw were more little pastures.

I climbed a fence at a sanctioned climbing point, and found myself in another field with another horse, who just lazily turned and looked up at me. I decided to opt for the field without the horse, just to give the horses their space. Not that I'm a horseophobe or anything, but at this point I didn't really want to be chased around by an angry horse in its own field.

This was when I noticed a sign for a winery/restaurant.

Why was there a sign for a winery/restaurant in the middle of a meeting point between two or three fields, most of which were occupied by lone horses?

I decided to ignore that question and follow the sign, and, lo and behold, I found the winery. Mudbrick Vineyard, to be exact. I walked in and promptly asked the host where I was, and he pointed it out on a map very kindly. The restaurant looked very nice, but it was a bit pricey and they were having a private party, so I decided to look for something cheaper and less private party-ful. From there on, I walked happily to Onerua, had a bit to eat, got more water (which I had run out of on the final leg to Onerua), and walked back to the ferry to Auckland.

My route around Waiheke Island's eastern chunk (it really doesn't look that impressive on a map...I think I was walking for 3 or so hours, maybe 4? Part of the whole experience was just the incredible feeling of isolation/being lost, not really in a bad way until I was runninglow on water, and also the slightly muggy heat)

Aaaand this is where this post ends, because the library is almost closed for the day. Thanks, weekends!

NEXT TIME, ON THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF MARK AND...HIS LUGGAGE?:

The Auckland Sky Tower at Night, and Why Rotorua is Gross

The trip over the Pacific!

So!

Here I am, hanging out in Napier, New Zealand.

Well, that's not exactly a new thing, because I've been here for almost a week, but we can pretend it's new so that I'll have something to write about.

Where to start?

I left February first, at 4:50something (I think) PM, on a wonderful flight across the US run by United. And by "wonderful", I mean, well, not wonderful. I mean, come on United, not only is it almost a 6-hour flight from 5 to 7 (well, with the time change), you don't give us individual screens *or* food? Either one would've been nice, but to have neither was a bit gross. So, I half-watched Unstoppable and half-listened to the guy behind me, who I'm pretty sure didn't stop talking for a vast majority of the flight. It got to the point where my rowmates and I started to bond a little bit because we were pointing out how much this man was talking about his family and his travels to China and how he was going to Australia after coming back from Hawaii a couple of weeks before after a honeymoon or a second honeymoon with his second or third wife and how his son was going to be a doctor and save the world from Decepticons while also helping fifteen pregnant women give birth and saving a small village in Nepal from a rabid yak. Or something.

So I started making things up after the second or third wife part...sorry.

Anyways.

I arrived in LA at 7:something PM, which was enough time to check in (why were so many people going to Tahiti/Auckland at 7 at night? Checking in took almost an hour, and I just needed a boarding pass since my bag was already checked through) and get to the gate (why is LAX so big and horribly planned? As far as I could tell, there was no transportation between terminals, so I got to walk for a good 10-20 minutes outside to get from the United end of the airport to the everybody else end). We got on the plane, which had a lot of pastel blues and pinks, and got started on the longest leg of the journey.

Air Tahiti Nui is actually a pretty decent airline, especially considering it was the second-cheapest option available. They had individual screens, food that I would actually be thrilled to eat again on an airplane (as far as airplane food goes, it was rather delicious - cheese ravioli for dinner and chocolate crepes for breakfast), and the movies were recent. Unfortunately I had seen some of them before, but that was fine. Despite not really sleeping very much, the flight was pretty painless.

We got in to Tahiti at 6:something AM on the second, and I was glad we were there that early because A) it was already starting to get humid and in the 60s and 70s and B) the airport had a surprising lack of walls. After spending most of my airport time in US or European airports, which are almost like prisons (well, US ones at least), it was astonishing to see the airport in Papeete (the capital of Tahiti!), which had its main waiting area open to the outside and the tarmac areas on one side. It had a cafe, it had a shop, and it had a seating area outside with no wall between the two.

No wall!


Other than that it was a nice airport, there were three musicians waiting at the entrance to the terminal, playing songs on, well, to be honest I'm not sure what they were but they looked a bit like ukuleles (that is rather ignorant and I am sorry!). They even gave us lovely little flowers, but unfortunately those had to be thrown away because New Zealand's customs would not have liked that. There were some people who actually didn't throw theirs away in Tahiti and the little sniffer dogs they had roaming around the baggage claim caught the flowers - no penalty because they were thrown away immediately, but still.

Lovely little flower which had to be thrown away!

The trip from Tahiti to Auckland was surprisingly painless as well, and it was also rather empty - most people got off in Tahiti, it seemed. After arriving in Auckland, by which time it was 12:30ish PM, and getting my bag and going through customs and immigration, I caught a bus to the area where my hotel was and checked in around 2.

I'll take a little break here, partially because this is already a long post, partially because I'm getting a bit hungry, and partially because the library is going to close soon, so more on Auckland and Napier soon!