The Massage

I’m leaving for Thailand, the land of the $10 full body massage. Why spend $110 NZ on an hour in a tourist town like Rotorua? I was sick. I was sore. And I hadn't had a massage in months.


Across the street from our hotel was a massage center, boasting the AIX Massage, (ironically pronounced "aches”.) It's the only one of its kind in the whole world. While you're being massaged, thermally heated naturally occuring mineral water is sprayed onto your entire body using a contraption made up of eight shower heads.

I waited in the lobby. Down the hall, a customer was walking toward me wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He was putting on a robe. Mmmmmm…I was feeling relaxed already. I took my seat in the lobby to wait for my appointment. Then, the man in the robe walked into the lobby and introduced himself to me as my therapist. Eek.

He showed me to the changing room, where I undressed, threw on a towel, and then met him in the AIX shower table room.

He started the water, and had me get up onto the table, face-down,my towel still in place. He pulled the shower heads just over the table so that they sprayed my back, butt, and legs. It felt so amazing -- I wondered why I hadn't invented laying down in the shower. He explained that he was going to remove my towel. According to the brochure, all therapists are trained in "towel placement", so there was no reason to fear exposure. I assured myself of this, yet I felt the surest sensation that I was completely naked. Later I was able to discern “towel placement” as he continually adjusted my towel thong by pulling it tight up into my butt.

Working feverishly, he rubbed oil into my calves and hamstrings. It felt SOOOO good. Add to that the pounding of the water into my back and I was in heaven. He asked if it would be OK to work my gluteous muscle, in order to loosen up my hamstrings. As he said the names of the muscles his hand touched them. "Go for it," I said. I've had a thousand massages. I'm even certified to perform them. With an elbow in my glute, he grabbed the corresponding foot in his other hand. He then began rotating my foot, which caused sharp pains to shoot through my hip. "Just relax", he said, and I tried to figure out what had betrayed me. He couldn't see my face, my hands weren't clenched...but I couldn't say the same for my butt cheeks.

"That's tight," he said, and for a moment I forgot myself and took it as a compliment.

I really don't know how he got me flipped over without seeing all of my body parts, but he did. You may be familiar with the massage phenomenon where your sinuses drain when laying on your stomach. Moreso when you’re totally sick. With all of the water spraying everywhere I didn’t notice it until I was rolling onto my back, when a huge chunk of snot stretched from my nose to the towel. I wasn’t able to ‘get it’ properly without him noticing, and so it stayed there and I prayed that he just wouldn’t look at my face. Mercifully, he announced that he “didn’t want me to drown”, and put a towel onto my face.

The massage continued. And continued. I don’t know how, but this one hour massage felt like three hours. I felt drugged. Drunk with relaxation. Mr. Massage, ‘man-in-towel’ had to lift me off of the table.

More Hitchhikers

So I finally checked out of my free luxury hotel room and decided to go to the Art Gallery and the World's Steepest Street in Dunedin just so I wouldn't miss them.  There was a neat exhibition of the "hidden and unfamiliar" in the United States which included photos of KKK members, an inbred mentally retarded white tiger with a pug nose so it had a hard time breathing, etc.  The world's steepest street is definitely very steep.

On to Omarama.  Sounds a lot like Obamarama to me.  They have towns here called Clinton and Gore, so why not Obamarama?  I'll see about speaking to the mayor.

And then on to Mount Cook! It's really pretty, and is the tallest mountain in New Zealand. it has a very snow-capped top, and is usually shrouded in clouds, but not when I saw it! It was very beautiful. On my way out of there I decided to take the trip all the way to Lake Tekapo and stay there, since it's one hour further down the road. Saw another couple of hitchhikers, this time a girl and a guy, the guy was only in a T-shirt and it was freezing out. It was totally dark. Turns out they locked their keys in their car and needed to get to Lake Tekapo. We ended up all going to the same backpackers hostel and I shared my food with them. Sorry, guys, you'll just have to endure ONE MORE DAY of me having a car and the possibility of being murdered by a hitchhiker. I leave for Bali on Sunday!


This was the view from the mountain lodge I stayed at in Lake Tekapo.

Sometimes a Hitchhiker Can Save You

So.  The other day I went out to Milford Sound.  It was quite an amazingly beautiful drive.  Super twisty-turny and up up up and then down down down.  I took the boat cruise onto the fjord and it was beautiful.  It made me miss my cousin Ross, because it was a lot like the fjord cruise we took in Norway...just as cold, but not as sunny.  It was clouded over, but gorgeous anyway.  Also there were tons of Japanese people on the boat, just like in Norway.  If you want to read about that fjord trip, click on 'Scandinavia' and rifle through those posts until you find the ones about the fjord cruise. 

After the cruise, I started the long journey back to the town of Te Anau, (pronounced like the Keanu in Keanu Reeves).  On the side of the road I saw two nice young men with a sign that said Te Anau and so I picked them up.  They were early-20 something French dudes.  They didn't stink fortunately and we had a nice drive all the way back to Te Anau.  There we went to a pub and spent 6 hours drinking beer and chatting.  They are both computer type guys who are on a working holiday Visa.  This is for people who are under 30 (dang!) and they can go someplace and work up to a year.  It's pretty easy to get one.  So they were working in a lettuce factory in Perth for a month and they made $3000 Euros.  They're using the money to tour around New Zealand in a tent.  After the pub, I dropped them at their 'campsite', (a field) so they could free camp.  Free camping is not OK, but everybody does it.  You can get a fine, but it's rare and so a lot of people take that risk.  They sleep in their cars, their camper vans, and tents and it costs nothing.  They try and get free showers when possible, and the French dudes told me that about every third night they rent a hostel room.  Anyway we got along so well that I agreed to let them ride with me the next day all the way to Balclutha, where they were to get out and free camp all through the Catlins on their way back to Christchurch. 

So here's how they saved me.  First, from dead bored driving by myself for hundreds of miles, and second: 

We stopped at a grocery store and bought food.  Then we headed out of Te Anau and I wanted to stop for coffee. I was hoping to find something on the edge of town but didn't.  So I gave up on that idea and decided to wait until Gore, our next destination.  Just then, Antonin reminded me that I promised to play him a Ramona Day song on my laptop.  So I decided to make a U-Turn, go back for coffee and play them the song.  We got to the coffee shop, and I realized I had no wallet.  We searched the entire car, and I thought it just had to be at the grocery store.  I went in and asked at the register.  "Nope." She said, and so I went back out to search the car again.  10 minutes later I went back in the store, thinking it just didn't seem right.  I decided to ask at the information desk.  They had it!  Thank goodness.  And if Antonin didn't ask to hear my song, I would have had to drive all the way back from Gore to get my wallet. 

What would happen if you lost your wallet on a trip?  Gosh, I hate to even think about it. 

Blog Clean-Up

Thank you Sarah Lindahl.  And I hate you.

I just spent HOURS and HOURS labeling and tagging old blog posts, like you did.  So now, hopefully it will be easier to read my archived posts.  Just look to the right of the blog, under "What I Write About".  Then you can click on a subject that interests you, such as "fart" or "tampons".

I hope 'all my reader' appreciates it.  ha!

Dunedin (dun-EE din)

I can't believe this but I am still laying in bed at 6pm.  From my comfy, cozy, luxurious perch, I can see that this is probably a very lovely city.  My Lonely Planet tells me that there is the Guiness Book's "World's Steepest Street", and there is a nice art gallery.  However, I can't be bothered to get out of bed! 

I have two free nights here at the LivingSpace Hotel in Dunedin, and when I opened my room door last night after check-in, I almost cried.  My own bathroom!  A queen-sized bed!  Flatscreen TV!  A fridge!  Teapot!  Toaster!  I announced in my mind "I am not leaving here until I check out."  And I haven't.

There's nothing on TV, the internet is boring though I did find this hysterical bit of video, I don't have much food...but I am loving this whole-day-in-bed concept.  And the creative juices are flowing!  I woke up this morning, and my long-johns had sort of shifted so that one leg of them was normally at my ankle and the other leg was shoved up to my knee.  I came up with this one:

"She went to bed Kady Hexum and woke up L.L. Cool J."

Nomads Hostel Queenstown

OK, so maybe I've been a little harsh on the Hostel.  Really, the concept is pretty cool.  The other night I slept in the same room with two Israeli guys, and just last night I was having beers on the balcony with a German girl and a Chilean girl, now living in Easter Island.  The German girl has been surfing for the last 6 months in Raglan, on the North Island of New Zealand.  The Chilean girl has a 15 and a 17 year-old back home, but is on a 7 week holiday working her way through the Islands of Oceana.  The common language spoken in a Hostel is English, thankfully, and so I can communicate.  Everybody's got an interesting story.  I met a couple, he from Canada and she from Germany, who met in Laos three years ago and have been travelling together ever since.  They get illegal work on boats to fund their travels. 

Another thing tht has been good about Hostels so far is that I haven't had anything stolen.  I leave my netbook laptop, my iPod, my passport and camera laying out and they're there when I get back.  Of course I'm nervous about it, and the other night when I stayed in the Hostel with no locks on the doors I was worried.  But I'm finding there's really nothing to worry about.  Everybody's got an iPod, and they don't want yours.  There's a nice sense of community, and you'll often find people making huge meals to share in the communal kitchens. 

A couple nights ago, I noticed that my towel, a blue and yellow beach towel that says 'Australia' on it, was laying on the floor by another bunk.  I had hung it on my bunk to dry.  "Gross!  Who would use my towel?!"  My head snapped over to my bunk, where I had left my towel.  And there it was.  My towel.  Somehow this strange girl and I had the exact same 'Australia' towel.  I panicked as I realized that she might think that I had stolen HER towel, and that stressed me out for the rest of the day, in much the same way that my sister Kasey keeps her hands visible at all times whilst grocery shopping, so that the employees won't accuse her of stealing.  Something she would never do.

Queenstown

This town is so cool.  It's kind of nestled in the mountains, and there is a 360 degree view of them.  Also there is a lake with a foot path around it.  This morning I took a nice jog around it.  But then it started raining, and so I have done the following:

Bought another 2000 kilometers for Kiri's car ($56, it's like a tax, and you have to post it on the windshield.)  Got a haircut.  Bought my New Zealand sweater (so beautiful...Merino Wool, assymetrical zipper and from Untouched World, which comes highly recommended by Anna's sister Susi from Melbourne.  It was a tad pricey but I justified it because I have been eating nothing but cereal and ham sandwiches all week.)  Did my laundry.  Hung it on balcony, hoping it dries in all this rain.  Bought two movie tickets for this evening. 

A quick note on the hostel I am staying in.  It's brand new, called Nomads and is pretty clean.  I sprung an extra $4 for an ensuite room, meaning the bathroom and shower are in the room, and it's a 4-share, female only.  Last night I went to bed at 10pm and drank a half bottle of wine right out of the bottle, facebook'ed for an hour and then tried to fall asleep.  None of my dorm-mates were back at the room at that point.  Just as I did lights-out, the club next door started playing music, and I layed awake for hours listening to Miley Cyrus songs clubbed up.  I could feel the bass in my stomach.  And I had ear plugs in.  And then one of my dorm-mates came back to the room and she has a cold so she coughed for a while.  And then the other dorm-mates came back.  This all sort of happened between like 11pm and 4am I think.  Anyway I was irritated about the club next door, because I am staying here two nights.  So I was going to check out at 10am and go to a hostel up the road and ask for a refund for the second night.  Except I slept until noon.  So I'm stuck here another night.  It's completely filled with early 20s partyer-type people.  But it's very very clean and I must have gotten some sleep because I didn't wake up until noon.  So that was cool.  My dorm-mate with the cold also slept in and that made it hard for me to get up because I had to take a major dump and didn't want to have an audience so I had to wait for her to leave.  I ended up facebooking again until she left.  It was weird, like we didn't even say hi to each other or anything.  And then housekeeping kept coming in and we didn't talk to those people either.  Usually you at least say "good morning" or something...maybe she had to take a dump too and we had a 'wait for the other person to leave' war.  Well I won if that's the case.

But -- yesterday I had an awesome day!  I got up early and scheduled myself for the 9:35am half-day hike up the glacier.  We all got to borrow some boots (ew) and were issued a pair of cramp-ons, or spikey things that you belt onto your boots.  This makes it easier to climp up the ice.  I started the walk with a t-shirt and jacket.  We went into the valley and walked for about a half an hour next to the river of water that flows off the glacier.  Then it was time to enter the temperate rainforest.  Our guide recommeded stripping down to t-shirts because it's 800 steps to climb up up up up up the mountain to get to the ice.  I was so happy to be doing such an awesome workout.  And it was very hot.  Then it was time to put on my wool hat and mittens, jacket, and fleece, and the cramp-ons.  It was so cool to go from stony river path, to rainforest climb, to walking on the ice!  Every day their staff goes out onto the ice to hack away at it and create some steps for climbing.  I loved the glacier.  It was so beautiful.  When the sun hit it, it looked very blue. 

Here's another link to my photos so you can see the glacier:

Click here for glacier photos (photos 75 to 98)

Again, sorry about linking to photos.  I can't figure out how to fix that in blogger.

So tonight I am going to two movies I don't even want to see because I'm desperate to see a movie.  And it's raining.

Today Gets Two Entries

After my Brewery Tour, I headed south through Hokitika (I love this one.  Pronounced: hoke-ah-TICK-ah.  I love to say it over and over.) and onto Franz Joseph Glacier and Fox Glacier.  I stopped for gas, a sandwich out of my oh-so-economical esky (cooler).  I saw a HUGE rainbow!  Wide as.  Oh, I forgot: here they say things like "Cool As" or "Sweet As".  They don't say what it's as cool as.  It's just "Cool as".

Somewhere along the way, I think in Hari Hari...seriously I love these town names...I got super sleepy and pulled over to have a nap but then got a skype chat from Summer.  We discussed some doings and goings-on for our Asia trip.  Then I drove on.

Again I started feeling very lonely.  This is just my second day of being all alone.  So far I had Teri with me and I've been staying with friends and so I haven't been alone yet.  I really don't get these ladies who travel all by themselves for long periods of time.  And yes, you meet people.  But the conversation usually goes no deeper than:

Where are you from?  MINNESOTA.

Where is that?  IN THE MIDDLE, AT THE TOP OF THE U.S.  BY CANADA.

When did you get to New Zealand? THREE WEEKS AGO.

How long are you here for? ANOTHER TWO WEEKS.

How do you like New Zealand? I LOVE IT!  IT'S REALLY GORGEOUS.

People are totally nice.  I'm just literally sick of the sound of my voice explaining where Minnesota is.  And the surface conversation.  So, I get lonely.  Thank goodness for the Phycadelic Furs CD I'm listening to in the car.

I pulled into Franz Joseph Glacier around 6:15 pm and decided to hike up to it and then hike ON Fox Glacier tomorrow.  The walk was gorgeous.  Hopefully you saw the photos from the link on my previous post to my facebook page.  And my photos don't do the glacier justice at all.  It was crazy awesome.  But, because I was late and by myself, I found that I was the last one on the walk, which meant that I would have to walk through the jungle woods all alone on the way back.  When I figured this all out, I started running.  Finally I caught up to the next last person and I decided to just keep running past him and pretend I liked running in jeans through the woods, rather than stop running once I caught up to him.  That would have been weird.  Plus, I had imagined him as my murderer, hiding off to the side of the trail waiting for me to catch up and so I was scared of him anyway. 

And now I'm at my hostel room, alone but glad for it, and sorry I said the showers suck.  I found one that nobody else discovered so it was kind of unused.  I took one and it was nice.  Hot, good pressure, and nobody saw me duck out of there in my towel.  I drank that beer those hitchhikers gave me and now I'm going to sleep at 10pm.  I gotta get up early to do that glacier walk.

Having a blast!  I'm not like pathetically lonely, I promise.  Just wish I had somebody to share all of this with.  Besides you guys of course.

Hostels = Bad, Brewery = Good

Sorry about the lack of photos, Blogger changed it's photo format on me and now it doesn't recognize any of my shots.  Argh.  Also it isn't as fast as I type, so I'm doing a ton of backspacing.  And then my palm will dust the mouse pad thingee accidentally and it brings my cursor to a different paragraph and then I'm typing in the wrong spot. 

So tonight I find myself at the "Ivory Towers", a backpackers hostel where I snagged a bunk in a 6-bed-dorm for $21.  I am the only one in my room.  YAY!  Last night I knew I had dorm mates because there were two backpacks in my room when I checked in.  But they weren't there when I went to bed.  I heard a ruckus at 1:30am of people trying to be quiet but they weren't.  This morning I found out it was two boys from Israel.  Ha!  They sounded like girls, and even their backpacks seemed girly.  I just assumed that you get like a female/male separated dorm bed.  Nope.  Staying in hostels is pretty weird sometimes. 

I always make sure to knock before I enter a shared room even with my key just in case somebody is dressing or something. Not these boys. So fortunately they didn't arrive while I was getting ready. Anyway that's why I'm excited not to be sharing my room tonight. There is plenty of space in here. But the room smells musty. I checked out the showers, they SUCK. And, no key.  I asked for one, and the lady was like, "oh, we don't worry about things like THAT around here."  OK lady, I hope I don't get raped.  I am just not a backpacker. Sorry, I'm just not.

So anyway I checked out of my other hostel this morning at 10am and then had brekky and some internet time until 11:20 when I drove a few blocks to the Monteith's Brewery for a tour and tasting. The tour was actually pretty amazing. It started with a barley tasting, with 6 different malts, and ended with an 8-beer taste plus a pour of your favorite. All for $9.00. 

So Montieth's has three breweries in New Zealand and this one mainly brews their Cider and then their original ale. On occasion they will also brew a special seasonal beer. In the 70's this brewery employed 78 full time people.  It was actually shut down at one point.  But in typical New Zealander style, the community got behind the employees and boycotted the company, so they were forced to reopen the plant.  Now there are only 6 full time employees. Two Brew Masters, an Engineer, a Mechanic to run the boiler, a front desk girl, and a guy to work on the bottling machine. All six of them have been there for a LONG time. One guy has 44 years, two more have 24 years, etc. They also employ 8 part time guys to help with bottling. They manually put bottles into cases at this place. It's pretty crazy. They have a machine that bottles run through that reminded me of Laverne and Shirley. I really wanted to put a glove on one of the bottles, but didn't know if that American humor would be lost on the New Zealanders.

We got to go up and look into an open vat of beer that was fermenting in the yeast. They use wet yeast, and then the beer goes in there and sits for 8 days. It has to be the right temperature, not too hot and not too cold, in order that the yeast can do it's job. There was a ton of froth at the top (probably a foot-and-a-half thick) that was bubbling and bubbling. I asked what happens if a hair or dust falls in there, and she showed me the filter that it goes through after and I felt better. The yeast is reused after three months, but they drain the beer, and then scrape the yeast for reuse during the three month period.

The engineer guy, who I met and forced to take a picture with me, saved the company thousands and thousands of dollars by building from scrap two machines. One is to pressure fill in dented kegs. They used to throw away kegs with too many dents because they didn't fill to 'weight' and so they couldn't be sold. They paid $400 new for them and they only scrapped out at $22. So it's expensive to get new ones. So he brilliantly made this machine to smooth out the dents for $3000. It paid for itself in the first day. The next machine was the bottling thing. They were going to have to replace it for $250,000. Instead he built one from scrap for $17,500. The guy is in the photo on the right hand side. See me, trying to get them to like, squeeze in for the photo and smile, and them, like not having it? Guy on the left has been at the plant for 44 years and he runs the boiler.

I'm going to add a link here for all of my South Island photos, you'll be able to figure out the interesting rocks from last post and the brewery pics from this post. Hopefully.

Click here to see all photos from the South Island so far

And, finally, a link to the Brewery's website.  I found the brewer's blog pretty interesting.  Check it out my brewing friends.  This means you: Kay O., Dan F., Scott T., Adam G., and Ezra M.  These guys really love brewing beer.  Their master brewers have been doing it for 24 years, and they continue to win awards.  They have a really cool contest for the South Island restaurants to come up with wild game recipes that would go well with the different brews.  (Featured on the website also.)

Monteiths' Website

First Day of Solo Road Trip

Bought TransApline train ticket from Christchurch to Greymouth for $63. Booked car for 10 days from Greymouth, drop-off in Christchurch. $280. Then got an email from car company informing me there were no cars, NONE available until April 11. And so my whole plan got derailed. Fancy footwork: my hostess with the mostest Kiri, (former tour guide in Africa, England, Europe and New Zealand) rented me her Isuzu SUV, loaned me her esky (cooler) some mittens a hat and wool socks and now I am staying in Greymouth at youth hostel in a 4-bed-room dorm.


The dorm stay is $20. I get free soup for dinner and free toast and jam for breakfast included in that price. Also my second beer is free at the bar.  By the way, and from here on out I'm just quoting all prices in US dollars for ease. 

Today I woke up at 6:30 am to call TransAlpine to cancel my train ticket in hopes of a 50% refund. Their hours were posted wrong and they didn't open until 7, so I had to wake up AGAIN and call. I was able to cancel and got my refund. Then I fell asleep again until 8:30 when Kiri gave me a tour of the car and let me know where the jack is and the spare tire and such. I got rolling at 11:30am. I had to sort of pack one bag with my winter stuff for this trip and leave all my summer stuff in another bag at Kiri's place. I felt so bad because she worked so hard on my itinerary and wrote it out several times because my plans kept changing. She recommended that I get on the road at 10am. I didn't leave the house until 11:30 and as I pulled out of her street, she was pulling in. Busted. So guilty...felt ashamed for the next hour.  I had all these imaginary recreations of her-- mad at me and wondering why I didn't appreciate all her hard work and just leave at 10am as she suggested.

Found my way out of Christchurch, and headed towards Arthur's Pass. Stopped for coffee and a toasted sandwich. Stopped at interesting-looking rocks on the way and took a nice walk around them. Drove really really slow through the mountain pass, didn't want to ride Kiri's brakes.

You cannot even imagine the gorgeous, spectacular views that I saw today. Try. Imagine the most beautiful mountain, and then multiply its' awesomeness by 1,000 and then maybe you'll come close. I took pictures of course and will try to post them. AMAZING...

Arrived in Greymouth, booked the hostel, and then drove 1 hour north of town to Pancake Rocks. Don't freak out: I picked up three hitchhikers. Total backpacker-y types, and they totally stunk bad. I regretted it instantly, not because they pulled knives and threatened to kill me, but because of their stinkiness. They were very nice, from northern California and are in New Zealand for just under six weeks. They have apparently been showerless and rained on, I gathered that from the smell. But nice people, nonetheless. They gave me a beer for the ride. I haven't drank it yet...somehow I want to work on that free beer from the hostel instead and save the bottled beer for an emergency.  And, I've got that Esky...


LOVE TO ALL.  I'm kind of lonely.

News Zealand

In the news: 

Three guys totally trashed a government satellite thingy.  They were recently acquitted of all charges by the government even though they caused a million dollars in damage because they "believed their actions to be correct" at the time of the incident.  Apparently the satellites are so that Americans can bomb people in Iraq and these guys were trying to save lives.  And they don't have to serve jail time for it.  They knew that what they were doing was illegal, in fact, they waited to be arrested when it happened.  But they believed it to be right, and the courts agreed with them.

Click here if you want the full story

New Zealanders are pretty good at protesting -- in fact they wouldn't allow nuclear test bomber boats into their harbors at all, even though the US threatened to cut ties with them.

Also they had a Green Peace boat in their harbor that would go out to float near a nuclear bomber test boat that was parked outside of their jurisdiction.  The French were testing, and it was technically their territory they were testing in, but they couldn't test if any other boats were nearby.  So this boat would just go float by it so it couldn't run it's test bombs.  Well then two French people sunk the Green Peace boat, killing one person.  They went to jail in France, got a cushy sentence, and then were hailed as heros.

All this according to my free bicycle city tour guide today.  Who seemed like he liked to smoke weed.

Pine Nuts and other Frustrations

So my pine nuts were, in fact $109.99 per kilo.  The confusion came in because they are listed as $10.99 at the place where you buy bulk nuts.  But that is per 100 grams, and at the register they charge you per kilo.  Whatevs!  I went back to the grocery store for more food and just brought the receipt with me.  So I didn't waste a trip to the store or anything.  But I was just a teensy bit embarrassed, standing there, expecting my $6 refund, then being told I didn't get one, and then still standing there in disbelief, like, "please can I just have my $6?". 

Anyway, we had TACO night last night and I made the most yummiest guacamole ever.

So now I'm trying to get serious about flights out of Christchurch through Bali and Singapore to Bangkok.  I'm finding prices to be around $700 US from NZ to Bali, and then $700 US from Bali to Bangkok with a 4 day stop in Singapore.  But now the question is, is that a good deal?  Who knows.  What is expensive?  Just because when you search, you'll find flights also for $2300, does that mean the flight for $700 is cheap?  Can't I just fly out of here for like $250?  Jeez.

I booked a train pass on something called the TransAlpine from Christchurch to Greymouth for Wednesday.  The girls here said I can leave half my stuff and just take what I need with me, so that will lighten my load a bit.  I'm going to rent a car in Greymouth so I can drive down the west coast of NZ to see glaciers (New Zealanders pronounce this 'glassy-ers') and snow-capped mountains.  I'm going to maybe do a heli-hike up a glacier, which means I'll have to rent boots with spikes on the bottoms.  Sounds like fun, eh?

Could this be my Million Dollar Idea?

Today I went "Op-Shopping", or second hand store shopping.  I went to a huge Savers'-style place, which had an entire rack of used underwear for sale.  All hung on hangers and priced to sell from $.99 - $2.99 per pair.  This idea haunted me for the rest of the day.  Why the HECK would anybody buy used underwear at a used clothing store?  And let's not forget that it's actually somebody's job to hang each pair, individually on hangers and price them.  And you know that each pair must receive at least a visual inspection.  EW.  Let's face it: some pairs probably make it all the way to the second hand shop that just don't make the cleanliness cut, even according to "Op-Shop" standards.  I imagine this poor employee's conversation at home goes something like this:  "How was your day at work honey?"  "Crappy.  Literally."

In my opinion, there are only two acceptable reasons to buy used underwear.  Number 1 -- Money.  "Maybe some people can't afford brand new underwear", you may be thinking.  This reasoning would work if they were selling at, say, 5 for a dollar.  But you can get brand new underwear for a buck a pair!  Which brings me to reason Number 2 -- The Environment.  This one I can really get "behind."  Shouldn't we applaud the re-use of anything that is still useful?  And that's when I came up with my brilliant idea for a new business.

Re-Crotching.
Yes, you got it.  Re-Crotching.  If you think of it, it's just a tiny 2 x 4" portion of our underwear that gets gross and needs replacing.  You just snip out that section, stick in my new self-sticking crotch replacement piece and VOILA!  New underwear!

How will I market this product?  Infomercials!  Imagine a woman going through her underwear drawer.  She is searching for a good pair, to no avail.  She grabs two huge handfuls of underwear.  She holds them high into the air, looks at the camera, shakes her head, then stuffs them all into a bag and grimaces as the announcer says, "Tired of bringing your underwear to the second hand shop?"  A big red circle with a line through it stamps over this scene.

Next you see a woman seated comfortably at her desk with a huge pair of scissors in hand, and a huge smile on her face.  She snips a pair of underwear in two places, removing the unwanted crotch section with great ease.  She peels back the self-adhesive strips and secures my new, gleaming white replacement piece into place.  She's surprised!  See how easy!  It's wonderful!

Later on in the infomercial, the announcer asks, "But what happens to all those unwanted used crotch sections?" and then it shows a woman who has just washed her face.  She is patting it dry, pat pat patting it dry.  Then she smiles and holds up her patchworked-off-colored cotton towel.  She winks.  Another woman rolls over in bed , running her hand over her patchwork pillowcase as her face also caresses it.  She's so relaxed.  The announcer exclaims, "Just send them in!  We recycle them too!"

The Kitchen

I didn't realize that I would miss it so much.  Chopping, slicing, sauteeing, stirring, washing, tossing, cooking!  The girls I'm staying with in Christchurch have been so gracious to let me use their kitchen.  They just aren't into home cooking.   First I went to the grocery store and bought tons of vegetables.  I filled their colorless fridge with orange carrots, purple onions, red tomatoes, green spinach, celery and cucumber, white mushrooms and garlic.  Now it looks like a proper fridge.  Yesterday I made a fantastic salad with all of the above plus some pine nuts (which, by the way I was overcharged for, but more on that later).  This morning I woke up early to make my mom's specialty breakfast: egg on a bed of spinach on a bed of sauteed vegetables.  Tonight I made "my"* famous Avocado/Lemon/Basil rice.

*I ripped it off of that 5 Ingredient show on the Food Network. 

 

I've had a couple of "I miss home" days.   I started to rifle through my .pdf files and saw some pictures and videos of an old Girls' Night where we had Karaoke at my place.  It made me miss my friends any my house.  And this kitchen time is having the same effect on me.  I'm still having a blast, and loving this vacation for sure.  I'm just saying that I'm glad June is around the corner and I can come back and see y'all for a visit. 

Today I looked into flights and it's looking like I'll be here in NZ until the 13th, then go for a week of laying on the beach in Bali, then fly through Singapore for a few "city" days and then head up to Bangkok to meet Summer on the 23rd.  She and I will trek around SE Asia, landing at some point in South Korea and then it's on home for me around June 1st-ish.  I plugged International Falls into the flight search engine and it didn't show up.  ha!  Somebody want to volunteer to drive me up to my parents' place?  10 hours round trip!  Anyone?  Anyone?

OK-- pine nuts/ripped off:  $10.99NZ for a kilogram of pine nuts.  Translation?  $7.70US for 2.2 pounds.  I bought them in bulk, where you have to put them in a bag and write a code on the bag so they can weigh them and charge you at the register.  Well when I got up to the register they weren't ringing up properly.  She asked me if I remembered the price and I told her $10.99 per kilo.  She looked confused because of whatever her computer was saying and brought the manager over.  I had like maybe three handfuls in this bag.  But even back home pine nuts are expensive and so I wasn't too shocked when she said that they had originally rung up as $2.34NZ, but that wasn't correct and that they were actually $7NZ.  I was like whatever, because she was one of those slow-poke check out girls and I was getting irritated.  Fast forward to me finding the receipt in my pocket a day or two later and just happening to see that she rung them up as $109.99 per kilo.  SO.  They should have been 70 cents.  Not $7.00.  Which made so much sense because there was no where NEAR a kilo of pine nuts.  Remember a kilo is like 2 pounds.  It's heavy.  I should have figured that out when she called the manager over.  My bad.  So, the question is: 

Do I go back to the Pak 'N Save and get a refund of the $6NZ? 

That's $4.20US.  I don't have a car.  The bus goes right by it on the way downtown, but the buses only run every half hour.  Should I make somebody bring me there?  Or just drop the whole thing?  My frugal sensibilities demand that I get a refund.  It's the principle of the thing!  But I could blow four bucks on a cup of coffee.  On the other hand, I could use the four bucks to get a cup of coffee.  Get what I mean?

Today was Good. And Bad.

Today was totally a Kady day.  I slept until 9ish, lazily had a bowl of cereal and two pieces of toast which I forgot in the toaster and didn't even eat.  Then I WENT FOR A RUN!!!  I haven't been for a run in SO LONG.  I might have run next to the office hottie on the treadmill a couple times in November, but since then, NOTHING. 

So today I threw on my running clothes and just went out for a nice walk that turned into a run.  It was fantastic.  Bloomin' fantastic.  I mean it felt really really good.  I just ran up and down the street that I'm staying on.  Palmers Road I think.  I was gone for 25 minutes, so I probably only went two miles or less, but that's good enough for me.  After that I washed my running clothes (I only brought one set) in hopes that I'll go again tomorrow.  After a shower and hanging my clothes on the line, I walked out to the bus stop.  My bus was # 84, and it was just a few minutes away from its' every-half-hour stop on Palmers.  Before I got on, I ran across the street to confirm that the returning bus was also #84.

The bus brought me to the City Center, where I basically just walked around and went shopping. At Cathedral Square, there were tons of street musicians. MY FAVORITE. One of my favorite favorite things to do whilst traveling in a city is to go to the square and just sit there with my coffee and watch the musicians. And I got to do that today! It was a group of Maori singer/dancers (pronounced Mau like Chinese leader, so Mau-ree), a lady saxophonist, a pan-flautist, and guitar/drum machine guy. Also there was a street market, where I bought a camel-leather pouch-style purse that I LOVE, to replace my stolen South Africa tote. Also I bought one of those skirts you can tie in one hundred ways. I figure that will be nice in SE Asia. Then, to get me through the next couple weeks in New Zealand, I bought a pair of long underwear and a jacket. The jacket is that brand name Columbia, probably made in America. There goes my idea of getting a merino/possum New Zealand special. They're just too expensive. Like $250 for a vest. But I like my new jacket, it seems warm, and I'll definitely wear it for my next Minnesota winter (hopefully not until 2011). I also bought a small backpack!  It was originally $159NZ and I got it for $39NZ! One other thing that I bought is a mobile internet USB thingee. It was $99NZ, or $70US, but that came with a $40NZ credit, or $28US to buy internet credits. I decided to go for it, because I HATE being without the internet! This would mean I can be on the internet whenever I want! Plus it will work all over the South Island and also in SE Asia; all I have to do is buy a new SIM card once I get there. So I was stoked (I'm irritated with the speed now that I'm using it but whatever). Anyway when I got to the register, it rang up at $30NZ or $21US! So it was on sale -- like 70% off -- and I didn't even know it! I love it when that happens!!! LOVE IT. They paid me $10NZ to take it basically, after that $40NZ credit, which I still got! ANYWAY...

So the girls I am staying with here invited me to a dinner party at 5:30pm. I agreed to show up at 4:30 in order to help them get ready. So I went to the bus station at 3:45 so I could get to their place in plenty of time. I boarded bus # 84, and at 4:30 I looked out the bus window, wondering why nothing looked familiar. Finally I figured out that I had travelled to the entire opposite side of the city. Like trying to get to Hopkins but ending up in White Bear Lake. On a bus. So the bus driver advised me that I should just stay on his bus and head back to the bus depot in the City Centre and then change buses (his turned into a #83 at the turn-around). What happened is I took the #84 the WRONG WAY.  

I didn't get back to their house until 6:15.  Two and a half freaking hours on the bus ARGH SAD FACE :(.  They saved some dinner for me (seafood chowder YUM), but I felt SO BAD.  I even borrowed a mobile phone from a school girl on the bus to text my friend in Thames to text the girl I'm staying with because I don't have her number.  They didn't get my text.  But they figured I just got on the wrong bus, and weren't worried.  I was glad, because I kept picturing them freaking out, which caused me a stress pain in my back that is only now cured by this third glass of wine that I'm drinking.

Alls well that ends well, I always say.

p.s. Here's a new TV show for you to throw in your Netflix queue. This means you: Kay and Josette. It's called Black Books. It's British. You've probably already heard of it?  Kay being British and all...anyway, very funny.

South Island

So here I am in the South Island...I really don't have anything to write about.  I'm chilling in Christchurch for a week and then I'm going to take the TransAlpine railway over to a town called Greymouth.  From there I will rent a car and drive all around the South Island.  There are plenty of things to see, like the glaciers, the fjords, snow, etc.  I'm excited to meet up with Summer in exactly one month!

When I packed for this trip I really only brought clothes for tropical, summer weather.  Yesterday, Christchurch was HOT.  I got some sun even!  Today is like a cold spring or fall day, and windy.  It feels about 60 degrees.  So I wore my little light cotton poncho with my light scarf and was pretty cold.  I want to buy a New Zealand possum/wool sweater as a souvenir, so I think I'll do that, but it costs so much money to send stuff home.  I mailed a box to my house and it was $50US.  But freed up lots of space and weight.  So if I buy a sweater I'll most likely have to haul it around with me through sweltering-hot Thailand and SE Asia.  These things cause me much stress. 

Different things used to stress me out.  Real things.  Now life is pretty 'cruisy', which is New Zealander for 'easy'.  My main concerns now aren't really real.  Basically I'm just sick of my clothes.  I'm getting lots of sleep, plenty to eat...meeting new people.  This is the life.  I'm really hoping I can figure out a way to remain unemployed for the rest of my life.  If you have any ideas or suggestions, without using the "marry a rich man" cop-out, please post them under comments.

Movin' On

I'm pretty sad to leave Thames...(pronounced Tems)   I had such a nice time here.  Yesterday I got to play touch rugby!  A group of us gathered at the high school field.  I guess we had 10 people actually so it was five on five.  Age ranged from like 10 years old all the way up to I'd say one guy in his 60's.  So everybody lines up facing eachother at the halfway point, and one team kicks it to the other.  They let it fall to the ground, then pick it up and start running.  You can only pass it backwards, so everybody tries to run in a line and sort of pass it sideways and look for gaps and run it through.  The touchdown is called a 'try'.  We weren't tackling, just 'touch' so if somebody touched you, you just drop the ball, put it through your legs (why this is so important I'm not sure) and then somebody can pick it up behind you and run it again.  But the person who picks it up can't score so you kind of have to pass it.  You get 6 touches and then it's the other team's ball.  If you pass it and the person doesn't catch it, it's automatically the other team's ball.  This I screwed up many times. 

But I got a try!  Somebody passed me the ball, and instead of passing it immediately I saw a gap and ran it into the endzone.  I kind of thought that maybe they just gave it to me, but by that point everybody was so so so tired, so I don't think they had the energy to get me.  Anyway right before I ran it in, I said, "I've got nothing left!" and then scored.  So for the rest of the game, the other players on my team would say, "I've got nothing left!" and then run off.  Oh, and they called me "Minnesota."  Which I liked.

Good times.  So now I'm off to Christchurch and some of my new friends have referred me to another touch rugby game next Sunday so I'll probably play again.  It's fun.  And a HUGE workout.  I forgot my camera, so no photo.

Ever Wonder Where Angora Comes From?

They tie up bunnies and shave them, that's how!  (It was nice to a least find out they dont get killed for their hair.)  We were told that the government strictly monitors their activities and rates them very high for humane treatment of the bunnies.  The bunny being shaved has a 6 week coat of hair (shaved every six weeks) and the bunny Teri is posing with in the middle has 3 months' worth.

Australia Photo Special

 Click here to view some of my photos from Australia

My Day with Henry

While traveling in New Zealand, my friend Teri and I stayed with the most adorable couple, Henry and Marion.  They're in their 70s and I just loved them.  So much so that after Teri went home, I stayed an extra week.  I was determined to be a good guest and so I told Henry one day that I would help him with any chores that needed to be done.

He asked me to accompany him on his errands which included a trip to the dump.  Mind you, the garbage man comes to Henry's house, and so does the recycling man.  In fact, they had just been out that morning.  But that wasn't good enough for Henry.  He wanted to deliver his own garbage and recycling.  And now I totally understand why! 

We parked outside the glass area, and chucked each and every bottle individually into it's proper bin (brown, green, clear).  He reckoned I couldn't throw very well and so I had to try it.  It was so fun to break all the bottles.  Here is Henry tossing his bottles:

This one was mine:
(Henry said, "get out your aggressions, Hexum")

Cans and plastic:

This pile of crap was home to the four gas refridgerators that Henry pinched and fixed up. Three went up to their cabin (bach) and he gave the other one away.

Then he brought me to the Foundry where he worked for many years. We got to see them melting steel and pouring it into moulds! And then of course we were kicked out for safety reasons. But then Henry talked to the guy for a while and convinced him to take us to an even better viewing spot and I got some pictures.

They made some of the Regata Sailboats here in Thames that were in a famous sailboat race in the States. Sorry, can't remember which one.  How interesting!

Henry is so full of pluck I tell you, he's always joking around. So anyway after our trip to the dump I did get a chance to help him lift some heavy bags filled with sawdust up into a truck. He had jumped up into the truck and I was handing him the bags. I found a bag that looked like it was completely full, but it was super light and so there must have been something different inside it than all the other bags. Anyway, I saved it for almost last and then pretended that the big bag was super, super heavy with my awesome acting skills and then he looked at me like I was so stupid for trying to lift something so heavy, and even coached me on how to hand it to him. He got prepared to lift a very heavy bag and when I let go he gasped!  The light-as-air bag went flying.  I got him! And then he threw it at me.