Silly Season Road Trip - Day Two

Day Two
Dad's turn to drive. Our first stop is Waipukurau, where Mom wanted to check out an art gallery. My parents bought some ceramic plates with a kiwi design done in blacks and blues, which seemed appropriate because kiwi are nocturnal - a point we had just been reminded of at our visit to Mt. Bruce the day before. I have seen many a kiwi in New Zealand, but always in the hushed artificial night of a kiwi house at a zoo or wildlife park.

We stopped for lunch in Hastings. Now we were in Art Deco country. We spent some time wandering around the town square and photographing things. Suddenly everything was art. The street lights, the bell tower, the movie theatre.

The other notable thing about Hastings is that they built the town square such that the railway runs right through the middle of the water fountain. I was hoping for a train to come by and really make a great photo, but no such luck.

We mapped a route from Hastings to Napier that would take us past a couple of wineries. We were now in the Hawke's Bay region. Know more for its Chardonnay and big reds like cabernet and merlot, this region has a lot in common with Northern California. Not a fan of big reds, we mostly stuck with Chardonnay.

Napier. This detail from a park bench says it all:

Both Hastings and Napier were devastated by an earth quake in 1931. Art deco was in high fashion at the time, so both cities rebuilt almost exclusively in this style. Only fitting since part of the mythos of art deco has to do with the dawning of a new era, a shinning future of industry and beauty. Napier has a huge advantage over Hastings, as far as I'm concerned, due to it being on the coast. A long, straight stretch of beach runs along Napier, and they have made excellent use of it, building a park along side most of it, with such features as botanic gardens, an aquarium, a skate park, and the "soundshell" - an open air sound stage:

The best feature, however, was Ocean Spa. Loren and I got a private spa bath. Kept at just barely above body temperature, the water seems not quite hot enough at first, but ten minutes in and I'm toasty warm and drowsy, looking up at the darkening sky out the window. At that moment I felt completely relaxed. And that's when I knew I was really on vacation.

Silly Season Road Trip - Day One

Christmas and Summer Break all at once? There's a reason the Kiwis call it the Silly Season. With my parents in town, Loren and I both got a week off work to tour the countryside at the end of November. It was too early for folks to be on X-mas holiday, and it was mid-week as well, so had a laid-back time of it, with very few fellow tourists on the roads.

Day one:

My turn to drive. We stop at a two fruit stands and one winery. Fruit stand number one makes fresh fruit ice cream where they take plain ice cream and whatever kind of fruit you want, and stick them in an ancient-looking device that turns it into something tasty. At fruit stand number two Dad bought perfectly ripe black berries and insisted we eat them immediately. We mentioned we were on the look out for wine, and so the ladies at the fruit stand phoned the winery just down the road to make sure it would be open for tasting. The black berries were gone before we got there. We bought a pinot noir - one of the Wairarapa region's specialities, which is just fine with us since it's one of our favourites.



Next stop was Mt. Bruce - a wildlife reserve that has breeding programs for a native birds. We got up close with the kaka which are loose in the park:

And I got to show my family some hihi (the species I volunteer with here in Wellington). By the time we finished wandering through the park, we were all ready to find a place to spend the night. The next town was Etekahuna - a town too small to rate even one stop sign, but somehow managed to claim the national bird as it's own mascot:

There were exactly two restaurants open in Etekahuna. After a dinner of fish and chips wrapped in news paper, we decided to move along - the next dot on the map looked a little larger and therefore more promising.

At Pahiatua we followed a sign which simply said "quiet motel" and found a very pleasant B&B (acutally it was a 'bed' with an option for 'breakfast' for an additional fee). It was indeed quiet, with a pleasant garden as well:

There is no night life in Pahiatua. But the night was cool and clear, and I showed Mom what the Southern Cross looks like when it's up-side-down (not a sight you can see from the Northern Hemisphere, not even in Hawaii).

And that was just Day One!

More to come!

(photos from today's post were taken by my mother, except for the one of the kaka)

long overdue

Wow! I haven't posted since the beginning of November. That's just awful! Well, I will sit down and write a proper post about our road trip to Napier soon. In the mean time, take a look at my photos of the trip on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluejupider/sets/72157603354566242/

Top Fives

I love to make mixed tapes. No one listens to tapes any more, so I no longer make them, but sometimes I still get an idea for a great mix, and a couple years back I found a new outlet for that special type of mix-tape creativity: Stealing an idea from the book & movie High Fidelity, I make "all-time top five" song lists. Then I subject you, the reader, to them. (what? you haven't seen them here on my blog before? that's because I had another blog before this one, which is where the Top Fives made their first appearances)

And so, a Top Five for Halloween....

Top Five Spooky Songs that Rock:

1)Bloodletting - Concrete Blonde
"There's a crack in the mirror and a blood stain on the bed
You were a vampire and baby I'm the walking dead"

2)Lullaby - The Cure
"be still be calm be quiet now my precious boy
don't struggle like that or i will only love you more"

3)The Dead of Night - Depeche Mode
"We are the Dead of Night
We're in the zombie room"

4) Living Dead Girl - Rob Zombie
"Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love for the dead?"

5) Humming - Portishead
(for use of fantastic spooky-sounding instrument that I don't know the name of)

Halloween vs. Guy Fawkes

Halloween isn't very popular here. However, we were lucky enough to know some American expats who were throwing a Halloween party. We knew a couple back in California who was really into it, we looked foreword to going to their parties every year. So, all dressed up and ready to go to the party the other night, I'm sitting on the couch saying to Loren "It won't be the same. I doubt anyone will end up tied up to anything. And there won't be any live tarantulas."

Well, despite the lack of bondage, it was still a great party. The guy works for Weta Studios (the special effects studio that worked on Lord of the Rings) and he went all out with the decorations. Although, when you convert your entire apartment into a Haunted House complete with sound effects, "decorations" becomes an understatement. We met some new people, and had fun trying to identify the ones we knew what with the spooky lighting and some pretty imaginative costumes. And I got my palm read by a Gypsy.

It struck all us Americans as strange that Wellington isn't into Halloween. Step out onto Courtenay Place on a Friday night and you'll see why. People around here like to dress up. Whether going to a club or a birthday party, they seem to take anything as an excuse to get in costume. In fact, Wellington supports at least four costume rental shops year round. I've gathered a few theories on why Kiwis don't get into Halloween around here, though I don't know how much weight to give any of them:

1) Halloween is seen as a uniquely American holiday, therefore Kiwis don't want anything to do with it.

2) Halloween is NOT Christian, therefore Christian Kiwis don't celebrate it.

3) Trick-or-treating teaches children poor morals (that you can get something for nothing) and that's counter to the Kiwi spirit.

4) It's only five days before Guy Fawkes day, and therefore gets overshadowed by this very British holiday. (this is my theory)

What's that? You've never heard of Guy Fawkes day? Well, basically, there were these guys that plotted to blow up Parliament with large amounts of gun powder. The plot was discovered, and various gruesome things were done to the treasonous perpetrators. This Guy Fawkes character was among them, and so people started making a straw Guy and burning him in effigy. The thing caught on, and is now more likely to be celebrated with fire works. So basically, it's a holiday celebrating the capture and execution of terrorists. Hmmm, why hasn't this one caught on in America? Kiwi expats must be scratching their heads over that one.

And lest you forget:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

And now, our brilliant low-budget Halloween costumes:



For more, check our Flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluejupider/

Some reasons I think New Zealand is a fantastic place

This is an excerpt from a response to someone who took me up on my offer from my last post. I got a little carried away... but, well, this is really how I feel about New Zealand. What, you think I just moved here on a whim or something?

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Imagine a country whose citizens do not have the constitutional right to carry a hand gun. I saw an article in the local paper the other day that said "Child terrorizes teachers with stick" Some 9-year-old threw a temper tantrum, somehow got hold of a stick, and started swinging it at teachers and students. And this made the papers. I just thought "Americans have got 9-year-old mass murderers shooting their class mates, and New Zealand's got an angry boy with a stick!"

Imagine a country where midwives are respected healthcare professionals, where pregnancy and birthing care are free, where all children are provided with free healthcare until the age of six, at which point healthcare will be highly subsidized throughout their lives. This is a place where the government has a very real stake in the health and welfare of its citizens. Every package of cigarettes here has a big label across the opening that simply says "Smoking Kills."

Imagine a country where it is expected that young adults will go on their OE (Overseas Experience) sometime after graduating high school, to go out and see what the rest of the world has to offer, and to bring this knowledge back home to enrich New Zealand's culture. Being a small country, and situated at the edge of the world, so to speak, New Zealand can't afford to insulate itself from the rest of the world.

Now think about this. This country holds about 4.4 million people and a quarter of them live in Auckland. In a country the size of Colorado, that leaves a lot of space for the rest of us. Wellington is one of the largest cities in New Zealand, and I live right in the middle of it, in the club/pub/theatre district. On a Saturday night I step outside and the streets are flooded with dressed-to-the-nines kiwis out for a night on the town. But I can walk for five blocks and be in the "town belt" a series of parks in the hills surrounding the city. Or I could walk five blocks another direction and be at the beach. If I had a car, it would take me about fifteen minutes to find a spot so remote I could hike around all day with no sign of civilization to distract me.

classic rock

It seems the radio stations here have a slightly different idea of which classic rock songs have withstood the test of time. I have heard "The Final Countdown" while shopping more times than I can count at this point. It always makes me think of Arrested Development... and a certain cousin of mine, of course. I've also heard an unreasonable number of Poison and Guns & Roses songs.... along with a wide assortment of other songs I used to know well but haven't heard since the 80's. Loren theorized its to be expected in a country that sill thinks Crowded House is pretty fantastic (and totally a Kiwi band despite the Australians trying to claim them).

I can't help thinking that a certain other cousin of mine (who is still in love with Bon Jovi) would feel right at home here. Still, I feel that way about every single person I miss. It seems I can think of some way each of them would fit right in. Perhaps it is wishful thinking, or that I'd like to share what this place has to offer. But it is also that this place has a lot going for it, and being tucked away at the edge of the earth as it were, I feel like no one back in the states really realizes this.

Would you - yes you there, reading this post - would you like to know why you'd feel right at home here? Send me an email or post a reply and I'll be happy to tell you.