Hirsute no more
When I got sick in January on our trip around the south island, I didn’t bother shaving. And when I got better, I figured what the heck? Nobody really knows me here in NZ, so if I were ever going to see what it’d be like to have a beard, now would be the chance. A sorta “bucket list” idea, if you will.
Despite the fact that it was my idea, and I kept it going despite negative reviews from family and friends (I’m looking at you, Bruce), I was always pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. Like I told Sara, I had a Princess Bride attitude: every night I’d say, “Alright, beard. You looked okay today. I’ll most likely shave you in the morning.”
That day finally came yesterday, when Sara said (very politely, but also quite firmly), “I think it’s time for the beard to go.” And off it went. Since it’s not likely to be an experiment I ever repeat, though, I had to make the most of the removal. I started by doing something I’ve always wanted to do: hack at my beard with scissors like Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. After that, I got some pictures of myself with just a mustache. I did that because it’s the one facial-hair configuration Sara has prohibited, no discussion. Her loss, of course. I now leave it to you, dear reader, to decide what she’s missing out on when she ruins her chance to get close to this handsome fella:
Would it be David Thewlis of Harry Potter (Professor Lupin) fame?
Or maybe Sam Rockwell from Galaxy Quest?
No, I’m guessing that you’re thinking of that hunky 80s dreamboat, Mr. Mustache himself, Tom Selleck, aren’t you?
Votes in the comments, please.
UPDATE: Bruce Montgomery has helpfully provided a chart that shows “the % of people that will like you, based on your hirsuticity.”
UPDATE II: Sara points out that Bruce’s graph has me losing 25% of my popularity by Week 4 no matter how hirsute I am. So either people like me less the longer they know me, or Bruce needs to take Sara’s statistics class. And she’d also like to congratulate Bruce on his productive workday.
Labels: Observation
Two pounds lighter…
For those of you keeping track of the Steen Family Facial Hair, our status has officially changed. That lovely beard you’ve all grown so fond of is gone. In a family of females, the beard made Dug just too manly for us, so today he shaved it off while I was out picking Meg up from school. If you folks out there in cyberspace are really, really lucky, he’ll post a couple of the mid-shave photos of Man with Moustache. It just doesn’t get more ‘70s than that.
South Island Days 14 – 15: Blowholes, Pancakes & Nelson
NOTE: This is the final entry in our South Island picture round-up. I had hoped to finish our south island trip pics before we left for a trip of the north island, but no such luck. So despite the fact that we have just now finished our north island trip, and have got plenty of pictures to show for it, I’m going to post these last pictures first.
And now that you’re totally confused, dear reader…
Punakaiki
After several days relaxing on the beach in Hokitika, we started the final leg of our trip: first from Hokitika (A) up along the west coast highway through Punakaiki (B) and then across the top of the south island to Nelson (C); finally, back to Picton and across to Wellington (D) on the ferry.
We stopped at least once as we traveled up the coast to shoot some photos; we could easily have stopped much more often. The only thing that I’ve seen in the states that compares to the New Zealand coast is the coast of Oregon, or possibly the Olympic peninsula in Washington, but even these seem to pale compared to the vast number of beautiful formations that just make you want to stop and stare and say, “whoa”. It’s always amazing to see what you get if you just pound rock with water for, say, a few million years.
Possibly one of the best (or at least most concentrated) examples of this are the “blowholes” and “pancake rocks” near Punakaiki. As you can see from our pictures, the layers of limestone and sediment gradually worn down from the Pacific surf create a host of otherworldly towers and portals, which then channel the water into spectacular geysers. Check it out.
Along the way up the west coast
Pancake rocks and a rainbow, to boot! (photo credit to Katie for this one)
More oddly-shaped pancake rocks
A blow-hole geyser
And finally, though it’s not a rock formation, isn’t this a nice family photo?
Our family at Punakaiki
Nelson
What is it about one city that makes you like it more than any other city? To some extent, the mid-sized towns we stayed in or passed through on our South Island trip were pretty interchangeable. That’s no slight to the Kiwis; I think that’s probably true of similar-sized towns in any geographical area. For some reason, though, I really liked Nelson. And I really can’t say why. There’s a river that winds through town (the Maitai), which is a plus in my book, especially when the town makes the effort to line the banks with walkways and parks instead of roads and the backs of light industrial buildings (as I too often saw in Tennessee, for example). And the weather was wonderful for the time we were there, so that may have influenced my feelings as well.
Our first choice for accommodations didn’t work out for us, but luckily we found a nice little motel by the river. Nothing fancy, but it did have a family suite (a kitchenette and two separate bedrooms, one with a queen, one with two twins), which is pretty common, even for smaller roadside motels. And a short walk down the river was a community playground for the girls. Perhaps it’d have been a bit boring for more than one day, but as it was, I left with the impression that if I were ever considering living on the south island, I could do worse than Nelson.
Along the river in Nelson
Playing on the playground
Home Again
After waking up in Nelson, we packed the car for the final time (for the south island trip) and headed out to the playground for a while. Then it was a pretty short trip to Picton, where we caught the ferry to Wellington. The weather didn’t hold up, unfortunately, and though we were able to have a picnic lunch without being rained on, by the time we were on the ferry it was pretty bad. The crew spent much of the three-hour journey handing out “just-in-case” bags, and when I didn’t have my head between my knees, I saw more than one passenger using them (not something I really wanted to see). Thankfully, we all made it through without the contingency; in fact, Ali barely noticed. (When we hit high seas on our trip back to the main island in Fiji—a much worse but shorter trip—Ali simply slept; I’m convinced that her equilibrium is better calibrated than ours somehow.)
Roadside picnic on the way to Picton
Sara picks up an extra child on the ferry ride
Don’t forget: as usual, there are more Punakaiki & Nelson photos available on our Picasa website.
Labels: South Island trip
Home, but not HOME
We arrived back in Wellington last night after a wonderful two week trip around the North Island (blog entries will follow soon, hopefully more timely than our South Island entries). I was surprised to feel quite sad, and realized that it was because this doesn’t feel like home. We have a lovely house here, the city is wonderful, and the girls have some friends, but our cats aren’t here, I miss our friends, and it’s just not Boulder. It is the first time I have felt like I’ll be really happy to go home. We have two more months in Wellington (serious writing time for me) before heading to Australia for two weeks and Fiji for a few days, arriving back in Boulder at the end of July. We’ll be happy to be Home Home.
South Island Days 11 – 13: Glaciers & Beach
Until I started putting these pictures together, I’d forgotten how beautiful it was between destinations in New Zealand. The west coast of the south island was particularly gorgeous; and it didn’t hurt that the weather was spectacular as well.
By this point in the trip, I was doing the driving whenever I could so that Sara would be able to enjoy the scenery. She’d gasp at the scenery around almost every corner (as would I—though I had to glance at the road every once in a while too). Eventually it would just be too much for her and she’d tell me to pull into the next lookout so that we could take some pictures. Consequently, we have a number of pictures of the drive up the west coast; one more stunning than the next.
On this trip from Cardrona up to the beach at Hokitika, we passed by a couple of glaciers: Fox and Franz Joseph. I’ve done a number of beach trips, and I’ve never before had them interrupted by glaciers. Certainly not by glaciers with such non-glaciery names. But these two glaciers are a real tourist attraction on the south island (which is not always a good thing: a week or so before our arrival some boneheaded tourist crossed the do-not-cross line and managed to get himself killed). So despite the long drive and tired kiddos, we took time for a quick stop at Franz Joseph to have a look-see.
We didn’t get as close as one is allowed; we just took the simplest walk to an overlook. But it was still pretty cool. Unfortunately, we happened by at the same time as a large German tour group (for some reason, Germans seem to be the most numerous of all foreign tourists), so we didn’t spend a lot of time at the lookout. Just up and down and back into the car and on to the beach.
A panorama from our drive up the west coast
A shot of the coast, traveling north
The bit of Franz Joseph we saw from afar
The goal of our trip up the coast was Hokitika, a beautiful little beach community on the west coast of the south island. I didn’t take many pictures, mainly, if I remember correctly, because I was reading and playing games and relaxing and walking downtown with Meg or Katie or going out for ice cream … in other words, enjoying the beach. Luckily, Katie and Sara made up for my laziness by taking some great shots. The HOKITIKA driftwood sculpture (which is about 2.5m high, btw) and the self-portrait with Ali are Katie’s; the sunset shots are by Sara.
From the driftwood sculpture competition during our stay
Katie and Ali enjoying the beach
Enjoying the front porch and some ice cream
Sunset on Hokitika
As per usual, you can see more of these shots up on our Picasa website.
Labels: South Island trip
Site Notes
I had hoped that I could bring along the computer on this trip and post pictures & travelogue as we go, but it looks like that won't work. We have Internet access, but it's slow & painful enough that I can't really post pictures. So I'll keep the pictures and try again when we get back home.
Labels: Website
NI Days 1-2: Rotorua and Hamilton
We had a LOOONG day driving on Friday, and the girls were troopers. It was Good Friday, and it turns out that almost nothing was open, so we actually had dinner at Burger King (I don’t think we’ve ever had dinner at Burger King before). Alison kept saying “good dinner, daddy! Thanks for this good dinner, daddy!”, so I guess it went over well.
We spent all day yesterday in Rotorua, first visiting the Green and Blue Lakes (which were indeed somewhat different hues, but not startlingly so), then going to Te Puia for the afternoon. The thermal activity there was amazing—bubbling mud pools, geysers, and smoke coming out of the ground everywhere. The reputed sulphur smell was there, but not nearly as bad as we’d been led to believe. We stayed in a nice B&B on the outskirts of town (definitely wouldn’t have wanted to be downtown—it’s a very touristy place, probably the most touristy place we’ve been in all of NZ) with a very opinionated host (“Auckland is terrible! The only thing worth seeing in Auckland is Waterworld” “This map [our map, a national road atlas] is terrible. I hate this map. It doesn’t even have our road on it.”) It was mostly entertaining, though I have to say that I was ready to leave this morning.
Today we made our way to Hamilton via Hobbiton, which was totally fun. Dug will fill you in on all the weird restrictions they had (they can’t wear costumes, speak Hobbit-talk, etc.), but I will just say that it was an absolutely gorgeous tour around a sheep farm that has a lot of the hobbit holes still intact. Tonight we are at a hostel, with an exceedingly friendly and helpful hostess. The beds are saggy, so my back will be shrieking tomorrow, but for now we are all happily ensconced in our space.
Potty talk
This is too good not to share. In my Maori language class the other day, one of the students who works at the New Zealand Family Council handed out a booklet with Maori phrases for use in the home (encouraging Maori to speak Te Rao Maori with their children).
One of the subsections is language for use when putting on a fresh nappy (diaper). Useful phrases include:
Have you got a smelly bum? He haunga to kumu?
Have you farted? Kua patero koe?
And, my personal favorite…
Did all that come out of you? I puta katoa mai tena i akoe?
Gosh. E hika ma.
South Island Day 10: Puzzles!
After Milford Sound, we headed north along the western side of the south island, and through the resort town of Queenstown. We got into Cardrona, a tiny little stop on road between Queenstown and Wanaka, on the evening of our 9th day, January 21st. On the 23rd we left for several days the beach at Hokitika. In between, we mostly spent time at our lodgings (The Cardrona Hotel), as it was – as far as I could tell – pretty much the only place in the whole of downtown Cardrona. It was a very comfortable break from the long driving hours and humongous sand flies that were part and parcel of our time out on Milford Sound.
The Cardrona Hotel was quite possibly my favorite place to stay on the south island trip. The hotel was primarily a restaurant, but with a large backyard and garden. The room we had was spacious, and the staff were very friendly, but it may have been the weather that tipped the balance for me. We had a lovely day of sun that meant we could sit and read/eat in the yard, while Ali (sometimes with Meg) played on the tiny swing set.
The Cardrona Hotel
Ali can’t read
When you plan a long family trip, it’s important to pick some activities that the less mature ones in your group will fixate on, so that you can get them through the difficult travel days. I imagine that this is why Sara suggested we spend part of our resting day at Puzzling World in Wanaka, and why she kept telling me I’d get a special treat if I’d just stop whining.
Unsurprisingly, we all had a great time at Puzzling World. It consists of a dozen or so illusion rooms (sloping floors, strange mirrors, etc), a large outdoor maze, and a big restaurant / gift shop with plenty of puzzles on the tables for everyone to enjoy. Nothing super spectacular, actually, but I was pleased to see that such an establishment was even possible as a mid-sized tourist attraction. (And it was quite busy.) We even took home some puzzling books and a set of Tantrix (invented in New Zealand!) All-in-all a good vacation day.
Puzzling World
Megan is larger than life
Little sister Katie (right)
Puzzling over lunch
For more pictures from Cardrona and Wanaka, see our Picasa Website.
South Island Days 8 – 9: Into the Wild
When we first talked about traveling the south island, those friends of ours who’d been to New Zealand were ecstatic. Oh yes! You have to see the south island! When X and I went, we just rented a camper-van, or found a tent and hitch-hiked, or traveled with a band of barefoot missionaries or something. It didn’t take long to figure out that these people were not traveling with multiple children and that they had visited New Zealand in their early twenties, or for a honeymoon, or in some other way that didn’t exactly match what our experience would be. So while we welcomed their suggestions for fantastic sights, we decided right at the beginning that we’d stick with hotels; not even the wimpy kind of car-camping we do in Colorado for us this time.
The one almost-exception to this was Milford Sound. Many of our NZ-experienced friends had declared that Milford Sound was the be-all and end-all of south island beauty. But it was going to take some effort: as you can see from the map, Milford Sound (point “C”) is out by itself, not on the way to anywhere. So Sara plotted a course that took us from Dunedin (point “A”) through Te Anau (point “B”), where we could take a boat trip through glow-worm caves, and then out to Milford Sound. We’d stay the night at Milford Sound Lodge, take the boat tour through the fiords the next day, and then head out to Cardrona (point “D”) to spend the night. This, it turns out, was a perfect plan for our family: just enough boating and almost-camping to get a feel for the wilderness, not so much that we’d regret bringing a toddler. And let me tell you: it was worth it.
Before I get too far into Milford Sound, though, I should mention the glow-worm caves of Te Anau. First of all, I really liked the little town of Te Anau. I’m not sure what struck my fancy; maybe it just reminded me of the one-horse tourist towns in North Carolina that I visited in my youth (I’m looking at you, Spivey’s Corner). Maybe I was finally over my virus, pushing through to good health and everything just felt better. In any case, I bought an excellent rain jacket there and we had lunch; somehow, that was very satisfying. Then it was time for the glow-worm cave boat trip.
I wish I could have taken pictures inside the glow-worm caves themselves, but the best I can offer are shots from the trip out to the caves. Inside the caves it’s wet, dark and unfortunately not a great place for a 2 year old. After a long walk through caverns and over waterfalls, all the people on the tour are herded onto what feels like a large flat rowboat, and the guide pulls you out among the glow-worms. All of the lights are off, the worms are spectacular and the silence is phenomenal. Or I imagine it would be, if we didn’t have a toddler with us. Mostly I felt bad for the others on our tour, and for Sara who ended up with thankless task of trying to explain how inside-the-cave-voice is even quieter than regular inside-voice.
(I should point out that A) she really wasn’t that bad, and B) that was probably the worst of the whole trip, for which I’m very grateful.)
On the way to the glow worm caves
Outside of Te Anau, on the way to Milford Sound
Okay, on to Milford Sound. Milford Sound has got to be one of the most beautiful places on the south island, if not the whole of New Zealand. It also has sand flies the size of kitchen appliances. Billions of them. So if you’re looking at these pictures and wondering why it’s not overrun with million-dollar beach houses, that’s it. But for a day, even the sand flies were worth it.
We stayed at Milford Sound Lodge, and it was quite comfortable for that one night. Four bunks to a room; toilet, kitchen and all other amenities shared with the other guests. And there were quite a few of those other guests; this was probably the busiest place we stayed at. “Guests” feels like the wrong word, too. Maybe “outdoorsmen/women” or “adventurers”. Rugged individuals wearing the kind of rugged outdoorsy clothes we wear in Boulder, but in this case because it was actually necessary. For everyone else at the lodge, this was obviously the high comfort point of their travels. People were putting together lavish feasts on the shared stoves and looked to be staying up playing guitar late into the night. We cooked some noodles and fell asleep.
Above the Milford Sound Lodge
A view inside our bunk room
The next day we took our boat trip, and that’s not something that I’ll easily forget anytime soon. The girls mostly stayed inside by the window reading Harry Potter, venturing out for particular sights or just to stretch their legs. Which was fine. But I think that Sara and I, given the chance, would’ve just stood at a railing the whole time and stared. This was the kind of scenery that just gazing at makes you feel like you’re meditating. My pictures won’t do it justice, of course, but I’ll try all the same.
The Milford Sound Dock
Our touring vessel
If you look closely, you can see a ship of similar size WAY down in the left corner of this next picture, for scale
One of many waterfalls along the way
Not scenery, but a favorite picture of mine nonetheless =)
Another favorite: Sara enjoying the view
This one helps you understand why LOTR was filmed in NZ
Finally, another panorama
And as always, you can see more of these on our Picasa website. In this case, many more, as I had a really hard time culling for this part.
Labels: South Island trip
The Times They’ve Already Changed
It was twenty years ago right about now when I realized that the final game of the men’s college basketball championship was playing back in the states and it made me just a little bit homesick. Back then, I was living in Leningrad, USSR, and the best I could do was to try to find the International Herald Tribune the next day to read about the score.
And here I am, twenty years later, sitting on my couch half way around the world, watching UNC trounce Michigan State as it happens. The picture quality isn’t great, and I had to downgrade the connection to “fair” to keep it from stopping every few minutes, but I’m still impressed. I’m guessing I’ll still be impressed in the year 2029 when I’m watching the championship (Brown vs Davidson, perhaps?) from our vacation house on the moon, and my grandkids are yelling at me to turn down my implant because the sound’s leaking out of my ears.
UPDATE: Well, that was boring. If I’m going to tune in from across the globe, the least they could’ve done would be to make it look like it was difficult. Oh, well. Maybe at least it helped Obama win his office pool.
Labels: Observation
South Island Days 5 – 7: Scots, Chocolate & Penguins
I’d have to say that Dunedin was the loveliest city I didn’t really see on our south island trip. My virus (or whatever it was) hit its peak while we were there, and even the parts I did see, I only vaguely remember. I do have a clear sense, however, of a city with beautiful architecture. And our hotel room beds; I remember those also.
We arrived in Dunedin on Saturday evening, and by that time it was clear that whatever I had wasn’t going away by itself. So the next morning I went to the walk-in weekend doctor, so that he could give me the Kiwi version of aspirin and tell me it would probably go away all by itself.
In the meantime, Sara & the girls went exploring. At the downtown railway station – a building prominent enough to have its own Wikipedia entry – they happened across a couple of young girls practicing their bagpipes. Kids these days! They also managed to get some pretty nice shots of churches, parks, and whatnot, which I’ve added to the Picasa website.
(The bagpipes aren’t too terribly surprising, as there seems to be a large Scottish influence in this part of the south island. In fact, Dunedin, the name, is an anglicisation of Edinborough! There now, you’ve learned something new.)
An example of Dunedin architecture
Bagpipe practice downtown
Missing an ad hoc primary school bagpipe concert is one thing (possibly a good thing?), but failing to see the Cadbury World chocolate factory, when it’s located just blocks from our hotel? I think not. So I roused myself in the afternoon, and we all took the tour. We weren’t allowed to take pictures on the tour (the Oompa Loompas are quite shy, you see), but I got some shots of the girls playing in the 1920s Cadbury delivery truck, and the mechanical puppet window which – considering its originality – was probably conceived and built around the same time (see below). The factory tour, it turns out, was a tour of a factory, and factories, it turns out, aren’t really that exciting. But we got some free candy and made it out of the gift shop with our wallets mostly intact, so I was able to put aside any feelings I might have had about paying a corporation to spend a couple of hours embedded in their advertising. And considering the quality of Cadbury’s chocolate (and ice cream!), I can’t be too upset.
Cadbury World
A ready-made Cadbury ad, if I ever saw one!
On our second day in Dunedin, we headed out to the tip of the Otaga peninsula to see the penguins. We went to a special yellow-eyed penguin reserve, located on a small beach at the end of Harington Point. That this beautiful, pristine beach, just thirty kilometers from one of New Zealand’s largest city could be a penguin reserve instead, oh, a multi-bazillion dollar resort, is a testament to the laws of supply and demand. There are many, many such beaches, and there just aren’t that many people.
There are, however, sheep. And seals. And penguins. (And albatrosses, though I didn’t get any good pictures of those.) And they all seem to be living together peacefully on the Otaga peninsula. Here are a few photos to prove the point:
The Yellow-Eyed Penguins have themselves some sweet-as beach property
They’ve even got little condos
The one little guy we were able to get close to
We saw this little fellow from within a rabbit-warren of blinds that are strung out along the edge of the sanctuary. They were so intent on keeping the people away from the natural habitats that it felt like we were on safari. In tunnels. Hunting small, flightless birds.
Not a postcard, just your run-of-the-mill NZ view
You can find more pictures, including ones of Ali & Meg who for some reason aren’t in this blog post, and a shot of Katie’s hair that goes to show just how incredibly windy it was out there, up on the Picasa website.
UPDATE
Sara complained that I’d not included some of the best pics of the Otaga peninsula, so here you go:
Lonely Seal
We got to watch this seal slowly make his way across the beach and into the water. We tried to get a good movie of it, but neither Katie’s nor mine really turned out all that well, so you’ll just have to imagine the waddling.
Sheep and Seals Living Together
It was a little hard to see in the original picture, but what you’ve got here are some sheep and some seals hanging out together in the same little meadow by the sea. Since neither is a carnivore, I suppose it’s not all that amazing, but it does feel a little strange, doesn’t it?
Labels: South Island trip
RE: Gaining Time....
Well well well. Thanks a lot mom!!! My life is ten times worse because of the time change, considering when i get home from school every day it is 4 pm, and that means it is 10 pm in colorado and i wont be able to talk to my friends :(
Just thought i would shine some light on the people here who AREN'T so happy about this time change.
grrr.....
South Island Days 3 – 5: Gardens & Antarctica
Our trip around the south island of New Zealand generally followed the pattern of a six-hour or so drive to a new city, then a day or two (sometimes three) exploring the area, then another six-hour drive, and so on. I’ll admit that I was worried that this was too much movement and not enough staying in one place for a while, but I think that in the end it was a good balance.
At this point in our travels, though, we hadn’t quite gotten the packing job down right (poor Katie had to be squished beside her luggage in the way-back seat), and I was starting to feel the sickness that would knock me out for almost all of the next week. Despite all of that, however, we managed to enjoy both Christchurch and the trip down from Kaikoura.
(As usual, you can find all of the pictures below on our Picasa website.)
We started this part of the trip with a stop at one of the many lavender farms near Kaikoura. This half-hour stop got a disproportionate number of photos just because it was so dang beautiful. Plus the lavender (and the mountains in the distance) made for a wonderful backdrop for group shots of the girls. If I were a portrait photographer living in Kaikoura I’d probably just set up my office on one of these farms.
Something the camera couldn’t capture well enough, though, was the sound of the bees. There were thousands, for all I know millions, of bees among the lavender. And the sound was cacophonous. I tried to take a short movie, but the sound doesn’t come through like it really should. The best that I could do was the close-up shot that I got below.
Katie, Megan & Ali on a lavender farm near Kaikoura
Bees on the lavender
Sara did a fantastic job on our “travel days” of finding someplace interesting or merely gorgeous where we could take a break and have lunch. On our way to Christchurch we stopped on the shore for a picnic, as you can see below. As Sara just reminded me, everyone was grumpy during this stop, but if you’re going to have a grumpy picnic, you might as well have it among the birds on the shore of New Zealand’s south island.
Our “grumpy picnic” neighbors
I’m probably not the best person to be commenting on our visit to Christchurch, since I was already sleeping through about half the family activities by this point. I do remember arriving in town that first evening and admiring the way the light hit this clock tower (though Sara was the one with-it enough to get a picture). We had ventured downtown for dinner after our semi-suburban bed & breakfast hosts had suggested a few chain restaurants at the local mall as being good family fare. (I shouldn’t give the wrong impression: they were lovely hosts; in fact, it felt more like we were staying with friends’ grandparents than at an actual place of business.)
A clock tower in Christchurch
The Christchurch Botanic Gardens was a visit that I missed, so I won’t say anything about the following pictures other than it looks fantastic. Maybe not up to Wellington standards, but certainly worth a visit.
Botanic Gardens of Christchurch
Speaking of worth a visit, the other major Christchurch attraction we visited was – our paper tells us this morning – the second most expensive tourist attraction in all of New Zealand: the International Antarctic Center. Featuring all of the good stuff about a trip to Antarctica (i.e. seeing cute penguins, riding in the ultra-cool Hagglund vehicles, surviving the first few moments of a winter storm), without all of the bad stuff (such as the possibility of frost-bite, the isolation, and anything after the first few moments of a winter storm), the International Antarctic Center was one of our favorite attractions of the whole south island.
One of the disabled penguins at the Antarctic Center
The best shot I could get of Sara & Katie riding out the Antarctic storm together
(As always, you can see more than just these pictures up on our Picasa website. Enjoy!)
UPDATE: Katie’s Pix
After I posted this, Katie reminded me that she took some good pictures from within the Antarctic center, and so she did. I’ve added several of them to the Picasa website, and posted a few more below:
Penguin Crossing Sign
Penguin crossing signs are actually pretty common in New Zealand, though I admit that this one is stranger than most.
Inside the Antarctic storm room
I didn’t go inside the Antarctic storm room, but Sara & Katie (and eventually Meg) spent a good deal of time in there, sliding down the snow slide, pretending to ride on the snowmobile, throwing snowballs and basically goofing around. By traveling to NZ at the start of Boulder’s winter season, and then heading home as NZ starts in on winter, we’re getting three summers in a row. So they had about a half hour to make up for it.
The Hagglund Ride
In the first part of this post, I didn’t expand upon the Hagglund and what a cool ride it was. This is an example of the kind of vehicle used on Antarctic expeditions, and they’ve set up an obstacle course behind the Antarctic center in order to give tourists a chance to realign their spinal columns as this thing travels straight up hills, across huge crevasses, and then swims through 3-meter-deep ponds. It is a marvel of indestructibility and complete discomfort, and I expect to see it on the roads of LA any day now.
Labels: South Island trip
Gaining time…
I knew that the daylight savings switch would happen today (a few weeks after it happened in the States), and I was thinking that we would then get back to the previous time difference (which I had finally gotten my head around and could calculate without my computer’s time conversion calculator). However (and I don’t mean to gloat here), while you unlucky saps over there lost an hour a few weeks ago, we find ourselves in fall here, so we gained an hour! So, on top of getting three summers in a row, we also get three add-an-hour time changes in a row without enduring a lose-an-hour one until this time next year in Boulder. For that, I will manage to get my head around a new amount of time difference (18 hours instead of 20 between here and Boulder).
Monsters vs. Aliens
Megan & I went to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D last night and it was great fun. Not exactly Pixar-classic, but certainly better than most of the tween-aimed drek available at your local cineplex these days. And the 3-D technology was pretty impressive; if you’re going to spend the money to see it in the theater, I’d recommend seeing it in 3-D. That’s not something you’re going to be able to watch at home.
Which brings me to the point of this post: How is that going to work at home? The theater we went to (the only one in Wellington, I believe, showing the movie in 3-D) did not charge for the special 3-D glasses, but they did make a point of letting us know that if we didn’t return the glasses, or if we broke them, we’d be charged NZD $75. That’s probably just an annoyance charge, and not the retail price of the glasses, but let’s say USD $40 just for sake of argument. That would mean that if I wanted pairs for my whole family to watch at home in 3-D using – I suppose – our special Blu-Ray 3-D disc, we’d need to pony up a couple hundred bucks. And if we needed some extras for a sleepover?
Normally I’d just assume this is an in-theater gimmick, and that the average home viewer would simply watch it in 2-D, but there seems to be a trend developing: the next big Pixar film, Up, is also going to be in the Disney Digital 3-D format. And Disney, you can be sure, is all about selling the DVDs. Eventually, people are going to insist that the movie they’ve bought for their home is as good as the one that they saw in the theater. And if MvA is any example, that means 3-D.
ps Completely apart from the 3-D question, I have to throw in a little NZ trivia: around here, they assign you seats at the movie theater. The first theater we went to, the Empire in Island Bay, is a quaint little theater/cafe with wine, beer & comfy two-person seating, so I had assumed that the seat assignments were part of the quaintness. Not so! Last night we went to downtown Wellington’s biggest multiplex, and the same was true there. Frankly, this is so much better than the first-come-first-served way we handle movie seating in the states, that I can’t imagine going back. Give the kiwis a point on the NZ vs. US score track for this one.
pps Katie’s friend, a Kiwi but also long-time Indonesia resident, tells us that assigned movie seats are the norm over most of Oceania. So maybe it’s not just New Zealand per se. But we’ll give them the points if only because the US way of doing things is so inordinately stupid.
Labels: US vs NZ
South Island Days 1 - 2: Whales & Seals
I’ve been meaning for some time to go back & chronicle our trip to the south island of New Zealand which we took mid-January. Considering that we’re about to take a trip around the north island, I’ve realized that I need to do this now or never. And I’ve got too many great shots to make it never. And so…
On January 13th, after having spent a little less than a week trying to get ourselves settled in Wellington (buying a car, setting up insurance, funding a bank account, etc), we drove aboard the InterIslander Ferry and started our longest family car trip. Sara had done an incredible job planning our travel, booking activities and lodging, learning about the places we’d be visiting, and so on. I had done pretty much nothing; my job had been getting us settled in Wellington (finances, car, etc) and so I went into the south island trip with almost no idea of what we’d encounter.
The ferry trip itself was not bad at all: The ferry is huge and comfortable, and includes a couple of playground areas, some kids’ TV areas and even a movie theater (cost money; we didn’t bother). More like a nice airport terminal than a boat, really; and like an airport terminal it was inexplicably without anywhere to lie down comfortably, except the floor. (I still don’t understand why that’s the case; they obviously want to make sure people don’t nap… but why?)
We arrived in Picton that afternoon and made our way down to Donegal House, a great little hotel/bed-and-breakfast in Kaikoura. The real excitement, though, came the next day, when we went to see Kaikoura’s most famous residents: a pod of right whales who live just off-shore all year round. Since the whale-watching boats don’t allow anyone Ali’s age (and goodness knows, I don’t blame them), we went in two shifts: Katie & I in the morning, then Sara & Meg in the afternoon.
As it turned out, Katie & I were the lucky ones. We all got to see whales (I’m guessing that around that time of year it wasn’t too hard to find them), but Katie & I were also able to spend about twenty minutes sitting right in the middle of a pod of maybe two hundred dolphins! It was tailor-made for taking digital photos and videos; I’ve uploaded some of the best ones below.
NOTE: You can see all of these (and some more) on our Picasa Web album site.
The InterIslander Ferry: A Three-Hour Tour
Inside the ferry: It’s like a waiting room… on water!!
Whale watching money shot
Dolphins, Dolphins, Dolphins!
In a family shot, getting 2/3 of the kids smiling is considered a success
I love making stitched-together panorama shots
Here’s the whale diving movie
And the pod of dolphins, too
Labels: South Island trip
Learning a new language
One of the things I’m doing here is taking a weekly Maori language class. It’s a beautiful language, similar to other Pacific Island languages. There are only 13 letters (14 if you count ‘ng’), which trips me up sometimes when I’m looking something up in the dictionary (which jumps, for example, from “a” to “e”).
Megan has gotten really interested as well. There seems to be a small amount of Maori built into schooling here, particularly at Meg’s level, so all the other kids know a few Maori songs and phrases. Meg’s teacher says good morning in Maori, and is teaching them a few other things as well, so Meg and I now spend half an hour or so together three times a week (sometimes over a hot chocolate in a coffee shop) sharing what we’ve learned. Meg also likes to jump ahead in my Maori text book to memorize things like days of the week, family members, numbers, and colors. She’s MUCH better at the memorization than I am, and she has caught onto the pronunciation really quickly.
The politics of the language are really fascinating and, to me at least, somewhat sad. New Zealand has three official languages: English, Maori, and sign language. So there is an official mandate to provide materials in English and Maori. Virtually all government buildings, for example, are labeled in both English and Maori, for example. In my experience, however, most Pakeha (white New Zealanders) don’t know what the Maori means, and many can’t even pronounce it. So, not surprisingly, the commitment to Maori language is largely a symbolic gesture.
There is a lot of racism here, some extremely overt. There was, for example, an awful column in Sunday’s paper in which Maori were repeatedly referred to as “feral”—it was shocking to Dug and I that such a column would get published in the major paper here. The Maori I have spoken with for my research definitely feel like they are living in a deeply racist society.
On a more personal (and upbeat) note, I’ve also been reading fiction by Maori authors to try to get a better sense of the culture. One of the things that strikes me is the emphasis on ancestors in the Maori culture. I think it’s quite sad that American culture seems to have lost a lot of that. In Maori culture, for example, there are two different ways to ask someone who they are. If you want to get a quick answer, you have to ask “what is your name?”, otherwise the question “who are you?” encourages a response including one’s ancestral lineage (it sounds biblical—I am Sara, daughter of Anne from Ashtabula, granddaughter of Hallie…). It’s gotten me thinking about my grandparents, in particular, and how little I know about their lives. All four of them were wonderful people, and I wish I knew more about who they were. It has inspired me to get in closer touch with my relatives, starting with my sister and brother, which has been really, really nice.
Wellington Bridge Club
Despite my interest in games, I’ve never been to a bridge club, or even played duplicate. But last night I decided to give it a whirl here in Wellington. I mean, I’ve played bridge since my parents taught Mark & I during the New York Blackout of 1977. (My mom complains that I don’t remember anything from my childhood, but what she doesn’t realize is that I just don’t remember anything not game-related from my childhood. Duh!) And I played in college, and for a year or so in my first job right after college. And that was only (good lord) almost 20 years ago. But I’d been reading the newspaper bridge column in Boulder for the last year or so, and I needed to get out & meet some people around here, so why not?
There are actually three bridge clubs in Wellington, a city of around 350,000 people. One is over in Miramar (about 20 min from our house) and the other two are within 500 meters of each other on the same road here in Thorndon. I chose the Wellington Bridge Club because I’d been invited to their open Tuesday tournament by the former renter of our house. I’d called the day before and arranged to get a partner; the woman I talked to (and the former renter) told me that it started at 7:30pm, but I needed to make sure I was there by 7:15 or so; which I was.
Good thing too. Partners had to be seated by 7:20p and my partner, a lovely lady with a goodly amount of bridge and bridge club experience, needed to check on my experience with Acol, the preferred bidding system here in NZ. Since it’d been so long since I’d used any bidding system, I figured I might as well try a new one. As it turned out, it also gave me an out for some pretty poor mistakes, only one of which I could really pin on my switch from Standard American.
(For you bridge players: the differences between Acol and the American system are pretty interesting; mostly they come down to Acol being more oriented towards limit bids. For example, 2C after 1C means “that’s it, we’re done” rather than “I’ve got weak support, carry on”.)
In the end, I didn’t fair too horribly; which is to say nobody had to call the director because I’d done something completely stupid, and that’s basically the bar I’d set for myself. My partner deserved better, and I hope that coming in 14th out of 17 doesn’t screw up her standing too much. But I had fun, and I suppose that’s what counts. I’m not sure if I’ll return, but only because I don’t know if I really enjoy bridge all that much. And when you’re playing at a bridge club, it’s all about the bridge. I’m glad I had the experience, though, because it made me think some more about what would need to happen to get a regular games group going again in Boulder, and that’s something I really do want to make work.
But that’s a subject for another post.
UPDATE: I meant to mention that we had 18 tables playing (ie around 70 people), and there were probably another 10 tables taking lessons in the next room. Well over 100 people playing bridge, and they told me that the really heavy night was Thursday, when the intermediates play. Combine that with the fact that I walked by a very busy Victoria Bridge Club on my way to my club, as well as who-knows-how-many over in Miramar, and I’d estimate there are well over 500 people playing bridge at least once a week in this city. Considering I have a hard time scraping together six people for game nights in Boulder, I’m very, very impressed.
Labels: Games, Wellington
When I got sick in January on our trip around the south island, I didn’t bother shaving. And when I got better, I figured what the heck? Nobody really knows me here in NZ, so if I were ever going to see what it’d be like to have a beard, now would be the chance. A sorta “bucket list” idea, if you will.
