Hello there, and goodbye.

I've been putting off writing this post. I haven't though of a good ending for the blog, for this is indeed the end. I left Japan at the beginning of October, and got back to the U.S. a couple of weeks ago.

I wasn't really sure what I would write-perhaps some grandiose musing on how great it was to travel. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to spend so much time exploring the world. But after a while what I really learned was that the thing I cherish most of all is home, and family. I don't regret that I'm not going to be a globetrotter. That's not who I am.

I'll definitely travel internationally again. And I want to do a lot more traveling within the U.S. But right now what I'm really excited about is getting an apartment and a dog. Specifically a little white hypoallergenic dog.

This chapter of the Adventures is over. And the one in which I get a kickass apartment and a dog named Pencil is just beginning...

Katy

My, how time flies...

No wonder my family has been asking when I'm going to write another blog post. I didn't realize that it has been two weeks. Of course, I have been occupied. Today I am in Hiroshima. About two minutes after my train pulled in to the station, it started pouring rain. So I'm spending my time in an internet cafe this morning. It's actually a really nice one. Most internet cafes here have free pop and "coffee", but this one has free soft serve ice cream and free espresso drinks. Awesome.

I'm about ten days into my western Honshu/Kyushu trip. I spent the past week in the Kansai region, which includes the historic capitals of Kyoto and Nara. I saw more shrines and temples in one week than I think I have my entire life. Eventually I gave up. I did stay one night on Mt. Koya, one of the most sacred mountains in Japan. There is an enormous graveyard and dozens of Buddhist temples on the mountain. I stayed in a shukubo, which is lodging at a temple. They served the guests dinner and breakfast of traditional vegetarian food, called shōjin ryori. It was very good, although they did serve some soup that seemed to have moss in it. I decided not to eat that. At 6:00 AM, I attended the morning prayer ceremony, in which four monks recited/sang what I think was excerpts from a sutra. I'm not sure, because the monks didn't really speak English.

So, I got my fill of Japanese religion. The rest of my trip will mostly be focused around outdoor activities. I'm going to Kyushu in a couple of days. That reminds me... I need to book hotels.

I'm really eager to go home. I'm tired of living out of a backpack. And tourism has taken a toll on my feet--I need a pedicure real bad. Traveling has made me realize that I really love Minnesota. And I don't feel bad anymore that I haven't lived anywhere else. This trip has made me realize that I want to travel a lot more, but I always want to return to the home I love.

I'm coming home October 17.

I have a blog post sketched out, and partially written, entitled Learning to Read. In a nutshell, it's about being illiterate and unable to communicate with other human beings here in Japan.

I have wanted to write a lot more here. But it's really exhausting. I refuse to post anything that's unfinished, and I don't want this blog to be an online public diary ("Dear diary, today I got up and ate Special K for breakfast. Then I took a shower. Then I had to decide whether to wear my blue skirt..."). If I sit down to write, I might have a finished piece in two hours. Longer if I have to deal with pictures.

I have been doing a lot of cooking in Derek's apartment. Pushing his "kitchen" to its maximum culinary capacity. He has a sink, one gas burner, a toaster oven, and microwave-shaped appliance that functions both as a microwave, an oven, and a broiler. I didn't believe it until I baked in it. I'm on a bread kick. So far I've made pizza dough and bagels. The pizza was good, but I think I can tinker a bit with the recipe and make it better next time. The bagels were a failure, unfortunately. I also made homemade ricotta cheese, and used it in lasagna. With Barilla no-boil noodles. But I did make a homemade bechamel sauce for it. I learned how to make okonomiyaki, which is a sort of cabbage pancake with bits and pieces thrown in and topped with a barbecue-type sauce. And this morning I tried my hand at making tamagoyaki, a sweet rolled omelet. It was delicious. I'm going to have to perfect that one, too.

The big news though, that maybe I should have started with, is that I'm coming home on October 17. (Oh fine, I'll make that the blog title. Done.) The topic of cooking is directly relevant to this decision though. I have been away from home for nearly four months. And traveling the world is amazing. It really is. But the thing that I'm learning about myself is that the more I travel, the more strongly I feel the need to have a home. "Nomadic world traveler" is someone else's dream job, not mine. I'm certainly not yet ready to settle down with a job and a mortgage, but I need a break, and I need to go home.

Oops, I found some pictures

I uploaded a ton of pictures back near the beginning of August. There was supposed to be a blog entry to go with these. I don't know where it went... Please enjoy!

Where on Earth are you, Katy?

Tokyo! There's a tropical storm today, so I'm stuck inside. Reading Cook's Illustrated (dot com) and drooling.

I've been here for a couple of weeks. I'm apartment-sitting. Derek is in Europe, waltzing in Vienna, sipping pilsner in Prague, feasting upon schnitzel in Berlin, and being illuminated in Paris, the City of Lights. Or so I assume. So I have his apartment for another two weeks. I've been splitting my time between relaxing, sightseeing, exercising (a bit), and cooking.

Immediately after Derek left, I headed for the fish market. And I do mean immediately; we both left for the train station around 5:30 AM. He had a 9:30 flight, and I had a fish market to visit. The Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo is where they have the frantic tuna auction at 5:30 AM each morning. It's not open to the public anymore, but it's still interesting to walk around outside of the building and watch them packing up coolers full of fish, while watchfully avoiding the forklifts zooming back and forth.

Outside of the auction house there is an open-air market open to the public. There are also sushi restaurants scattered around. Long lines of tourists had already gathered by 7:00 AM. Each restaurant has only about 12 seats. By 7:30 most of the lines were gone. I chose a restaurant based on its attractive picture menu, and its one open seat. I ordered the setto, or breakfast set. For about US$21, I had the freshest, and most varied sushi that I've ever eaten. If you look closely at the picture, on the bottom left is my pair of mihashi, with my name engraved!

As far as other activities in Tokyo, I saw a kabuki play at the National Theater; I've been to the Ueno Zoo (a very good zoo, and only $6 admission); I saw a band from Okinawa that sings island music; and next Thursday I'm going to a tour of the Imperial Palace.

And now, from reading all the cooking articles, I've been inspired to make pizza tonight. I will take pictures, however I might not post pictures. I haven't been posting many lately. I'm not typing from my computer. Normally I upload to Picasa Web from Picasa on my computer. Sadly, my computer doesn't have a connection at the moment (no wireless). Since uploading photos one by one is a huge pain, you're stuck reading my blog with only one or two pictures to view.

Mmmm, pizza.

Hokkaido

I've been traveling with my friend Derek around the northern part of Japan for the past week and a half or so. Most recently we were in Sapporo, Japan's beer capital. We went on a brewery tour, saw a brewery museum, a sake museum, and four beer gardens--one for each of the four major Japanese breweries. We had all-you-can-eat Mongolian barbecue at one of the beer gardens. Which included all-you-can-drink beer. (Don't worry Mom, I'm not drinking to excess here; if I did I wouldn't be able to tell the taxi drivers where to drop us off. We've had terrible bad luck with taxis here. They seem to not know their way around the town.)

Right now we're passing time in an internet cafe. We are going to take a ferry from Tomakomai in Hokkaido back to Oarai, near Tokyo. It's a 19-hour trip, but we've got a 4-share room. And dramamine.

I'm enjoying Japan, but I also miss being in an English-speaking country. I try to find little pieces of America where I can. I found a box of Special K Red Berries at Japan's version of Wal-Mart, so I've been having cereal for breakfast, instead of the corn soup that they usually have at the free continental breakfasts.

One Japanese tradition that I'm really enjoying is the onsen. An onsen is a traditional Japanese hot springs or hot bath. A single-sex, completely nude hot springs. The first onsen I went to was in the ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel) we stayed at after the Mt. Fuji trip. Fortunately, I had someone to teach me how to do it the first time.

You start by going into a sort of locker room where you take off all your clothes and put them into a basket. Then you enter a shower room, where you sit on a wooden stool and take a shower with a handheld showerhead. Shampoo, conditioner, and body wash are provided. The very nice onsens have expensive brands. When you're all clean and rinsed, then you can go sit in the hot bath with other naked people. There are often both indoor and outdoor bath options. The temperature of the baths range from "very hot" to "sit very still and don't make any turbulence in the water so that it doesn't scorch you." Even though it's the middle of summer, it's fantastic. And when you're done you can go sit on the stool and douse yourself in cold water from the shower head.

I don't have any onsen pictures, for obvious reasons. But you can take a look at the onsen we went to yesterday: Hoheikyo Onsen. After I got out of the hot springs, I got a massage. And then delicious Indian food for dinner. Ahhhh...

Japan

I'm here! In fact, I've been in Japan for a week now. It's wonderfully hot and humid. After having to go through the Minnesota winter, followed by the New Zealand winter, summer is a welcome change.

I've already checked off one big item on my to do list. Last Saturday I climbed Mt. Fuji. There were eight of us, in total. Although many people do the ascent as an overnight trip, we decided to try to do it in one day. It was the most physically challenging thing I've ever done. To put it into context, when Josie and I hiked the Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand, we hiked up to just over 1,000 meters above sea level. The Fuji hike begins at 2,400 meters, and the summit is 3,776 meters.

The ascent took five hours. It's a brutal hike. The path is gravelly, rocky, and steep. For much of the time we were surrounded by cloud cover, and couldn't see far ahead. Every once in a while the wind would blow away the clouds and blue sky would come out. That's mainly when I took pictures. About three and a half hours into the hike, it started raining. I had my rain jacket, but not my rain pants. We hiked for about half an hour in the rain. As we walked, I kept saying to myself, "okay, it's time to give up now. I'm not going to walk for another hour in the pouring rain. I'm done."

At the next rest stop, it stopped raining and the sun came out. A rainbow appeared among the puffy white clouds to the east. And I thought, "are you kidding me??" Because I had to go on. How could I possibly give up when the universe had so clearly given me a sign that it was okay to go on. Stupid universe.

The last part of the hike went very slowly. I'd never been to such a high elevation before in my life, aside from being in a plane. It feels like there's nothing to breathe. I could hardly walk, because no air was coming into my lungs. I would hike for about 30 seconds, then have to stop and rest. I had purchased a can of aerosol oxygen at the beginning of the hike. I used it several times along the last few hundred meters of the climb. Every time I started climbing, my heart rate spiked and I was afraid I would black out. I didn't.

The last hundred meters of the climb felt like the longest. I was putting one foot in front of the other; I had ceased caring about reaching the top, and just wanted it to be over. As I climbed over the last few rocks, I wanted to collapse. I managed to make it to a bench, where I had another hit of oxygen, and a peanut butter sandwich.

We reached the summit at 6:30 PM. The descent took another four hours, and had to be done in the dark (Japan doesn't do daylight savings, so the sun set at 7:30). I had a flashlight, so it wasn't terrible, but the mountain just kept going down and down, with no end in sight. There were other hikers walking up the mountain as we were going down. We could see a winding line of hikers' head lamps shining below us like fireflies, showing us the trail down. We saw two fireworks displays from above.

I don't have any pictures from the descent, because they wouldn't have turned out in the dark. But here are my pictures from the ascent. Enjoy.

Final night in New Zealand

I wouldn't say that I'm freaking out. But I'm getting a ride from the hostel to the Christchurch airport in just a few hours. My flight is at 5:40 AM, but I said it would be fine if I got dropped off at midnight. A very nice staffperson at the hostel is taking me.

The trip will only take 14 hours (compared to 22 from Minnesota to New Zealand). I'm supposed to arrive in Tokyo around 4:40 PM local time. My first challenge will be to get myself from the airport into Tokyo on the train. I have directions. Kind of. But there are a lot of different trains. And some are express, and some are local. Some of the trains go to my final destination, but some of them pass by. There are English signs in the train stations though. And I've been on quite a few different public transportation systems, in different cities and countries. I'll be fine.

I didn't sell my car. So I spent about $250 in parts and repairs today, including a new battery, and I'm letting a friend I met at the hostel keep it for me. Better that than leaving the car on the street and hoping it doesn't get towed. Actually, after driving around this afternoon, I think the repairs gave the thing a new lease on life. It feels like it has a little more power now. And it starts on the first time you turn the key!

I'll be posting far more pictures in Japan than I have in New Zealand. In Japan, you get unlimited bandwidth. In New Zealand, you pay by the megabyte, which pretty much means that uploading a bunch of pictures has been out of the question.

There's a little going-away/birthday party tonight at the hostel. There will be wine and beer. It's nice that I don't have to drive myself to the airport.

Wow. In 24 hours I will be in a very foreign foreign country.

Packing for Japan

I leave for Japan in five days. I'm trying to figure out what to bring. My mother sent me a bunch of summer clothes expertly crammed into a flat-rate USPS box. She even got the wedge-heel sandals in there. Unfortunately, I don't have room in my bag to bring them. In fact, I don't really have room in my bag for any of the shoes I'm bringing. But I NEED all of them, and they all serve a different purpose. I've got hiking shoes, tennis shoes, dressy clogs, walking sandals, and flip-flops. However, I'm only taking two pairs of pants and one pair of shorts. Because that's all I've got.

I've extended the Japan trip to the end of September. I figure that as long as I'm going, I might as well really go. The weather will be better then, as well.

The reason I'm extending the trip is, in part, because my friend in Tokyo is going to Europe for three weeks. So I get his apartment for three weeks. Score! Don't know exactly how I'll fill my time in Tokyo, but I'm sure there's a ton to do. That reminds me, I should make sure to buy an English Tokyo guidebook while I'm still in an English-speaking country...

In Christchurch

I've got about a week and a half before I leave for Japan. Originally I was only going to stay for three weeks, but I've decided to extend that. For one thing, I'm not going to want to come back to the New Zealand winter. I haven't changed my plane ticket yet, but I'm thinking about staying in Japan until at least mid-September, when it should start to get warmer in New Zealand.

I'm staying at an inexpensive hostel right now, biding my time. Christchurch is okay. I went and saw some pretty good free live music last night. And there's a Michael Jackson dance party on Saturday night (wooo!). Next week is the start of the biannual Christchurch Arts Festival. Some of the stuff is free, but the good theater/dance performances are expensive. I can afford to see the (free) performance art going on in the park.

Planning is going well for the Japan trip. I have started a to-do-while-in-Japan list. In the #1 slot is climbing Mt. Fuji. I'm going to see the world's largest wooden building. Inside is a huge Buddha statue, originally erected in 752 (that's not a typo--752!). It has been recast since then, but that's seriously old. In comparison, in New Zealand anything from the nineteenth century is considered ancient.

There's a robot museum that I want to go to. And of course I'll be singing karaoke, and eating lots of sushi. I'm also planning to overnight at a Buddhist temple (shukubo). They feed you delicious vegetarian food, and you are invited to attend the morning prayer ceremony.

The Japanese language learning is going well. I'm studying every day, and I'm really enjoying it. Hopefully I'll be able to put it to some good use.

That's all for now!

(I think I'm) Learning Japanese

From 2009-07-06 Dunedin

I dropped Josie off at the airport this afternoon. She's going back home, although hopefully she will be headed off to another winery in a few weeks to do a northern hemisphere grape harvest. After leaving the airport I carefully drove on the left to the hostel I'm staying at, and checked in. After which I immediately drove over to the Christchurch YMCA and paid for a one-month membership. I'll only use it for two weeks, but it's cheaper doing it that way than paying on a per-use basis.

It's wonderful to step into a gym after you've been away for a couple of months. The Christchurch YMCA has a very similar feel to the YMCAs in Minnesota. They've even got the brand and model of elliptical machines that I like. I listened to Green Day while cross-training on the stairmaster and inclined treadmill. I'm trying to get in a little training before I climb Mt. Fuji on August 1 (if all goes according to plan).

I studied the Japanese language for one year in 9th grade. I don't remember much of it. But I really want to pick it up again and try to learn conversational Japanese. I've got a couple of CDs, a phrase book, and a slick iPod Touch Japanese language app. The Touch app is pretty good. I'm liking it so far. The only problem is that before they teach you a word of Japanese, they make you learn the hiragana characters. So I've had the program for a week and I don't know any actual words yet. But I can read some written Japanese, without knowing what it means. We'll see what happens when I start learning words.

Miscellany

These are some random things I've thought about blogging.

When Josie and I were in this little town called Picton, we stopped by a grocery store. The cashier that checked us out was probably 15 or 16. He casually asked where we were from (our accents give us away as non-Kiwis, of course). We said we were from the U.S. And he asked, "Kentucky--is that a real place?" And we laughed and said that yes, it's a real place. They've got... a lot of horses there. It's where they hold the Kentucky Derby. "Oh! That's real, too?"

For a while after I came to New Zealand I was having really weird dreams. Stress maybe. Or maybe it's from sleeping on horrible hostel mattresses night after night. I miss my nice bed at home a LOT. Anyway, I had a dream that there was a Target store in the next town we were visiting. And we went there to shop. It was wonderful. It was the happiest dream I've had in a long time. But I woke up greatly disappointed. I know that there are no Targets in New Zealand.

New Zealand roads are incredibly winding and twisty in many places. I'm not one to experience motion sickness, but after a while, my stomach couldn't handle it. I saw a Mythbusters episode where they tested the efficacy of different types of motion sickness cures. And ginger was actually the best cure, and had no negative side effects. Now Josie and I keep crystalized ginger in the glove box. It works.

I'm going to Japan

Josie is leaving me on July 15th to go back home to Minnesota. To extinguish the sadness and envy I'll feel when she leaves, I'm planning a trip to Japan for three weeks in August. I got a red-hot deal on the plane ticket. And a friend in Tokyo who can hook me up with accommodation. I'm going to climb Mt. Fuji. And go to the beach. So I can have some summer this summer. New Zealand winters aren't anywhere near as bad as Minnesota's, but winter is winter, and I need some summer right now.

My connecting flight is in Sydney, so I may try to make a deal with the airline to stay in Australia for a while. I have lots of time.

Addendum to Fox Glacier post

Okay, I think I made the glacier walk sound awful because I only highlighted the scary part. In fact, aside from that last hour, the glacier walk was incredible. And fun. The ice is beautiful. And it was awe-inspiring to think how small I am in comparison to the enormity of the glacier. The weather was perfect. Not too cold or windy. And although it rains about 180 days per year in the area, the skies were perfectly clear for us. I'm really glad that we did it.

For the Milford Sound kayaking trip, we may not get such good weather. Milford Sound gets about 7 meters of rain per year (that's 0.75" per day, if you averaged it over 365 days). However, if it does rain, apparently you get lots of beautiful waterfalls flowing down the fiords*. I'm glad that Josie bought that expensive waterproof case for her digital camera. We have only used it a few times, but it's totally worth it. You'll see those photos here!

*In New Zealand, they spell it "fiords."

Fox Glacier

Josie and I have been in the ski-bum town of Queenstown for the past couple of days. We had only meant to spend one day here, but I decided that I want to run the Winterfest 10k on Saturday morning. The weather forecast is cold.

There are lots of thrilling, expensive activities in Queenstown. Skiing, of course, as well as bungy jumping, jetboating, paragliding, skydiving, etc. Josie and I chose to play frisbee golf instead. We got all the thrill we needed last weekend when we hiked on Fox Glacier.

From Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier is on the west coast of the South Island, and is the third-longest glacier in New Zealand. It's hard to appreciate how large it is just by looking at a picture. It stretches 13 km from top to bottom. Most of the glacier is permanently shadowed by the surrounding mountains.

We went with a tour group. Our guide was a young Australian named Deane. There were six others in our group. We had to walk up a trail through the woods to actually get to the access point to the glacier. It took about an hour and a half. Once on the ice, there were paths and nice stairways cut into the ice with chainsaws. I thought that was great. Some of the steeper stairs had ropes.

From Fox Glacier

Deane took us first to the lower portion of the glacier. Here there were no carved steps. There was an obvious path where other groups had traveled before us. We got to climb through an ice tunnel and even had to squeeze through a narrow crevasse. I thought I just barely managed to wriggle through it.

From Fox Glacier

We stopped for a nice lunch around 1. Deane had brought hot cocoa in a thermos. It was pleasant.

After lunch we headed up toward the top of the glacier. Not surprisingly, the climb up was tougher than the climb down. As I got more and more tired, I found it difficult to concentrate on correct stomping technique to properly dig the spikes of my crampons into the ice. Then my left crampon fell off. I got it back on with help. Deane decided that instead of sticking to the already-tramped path, we were going to forge a new path.

From Fox Glacier

To bring a group to an untravelled portion of the glacier, the guide must first choose an appropriate path. If necessary, the guide must take an axe to the ice to create stairs up or down the steep ice slopes. Once the guide has chosen a path, you really have no choice but to follow, no matter how dangerous it looks. No matter if your crampon falls off again. Even if the guide decides to lead the group on a particular slope so perilous that he has to lead each person in the group through the path one-by-one. Bend your knees as you're walking down a steep traverse and trust the crampons (even the one that fell off twice) to hold your weight.

From Fox Glacier

I did weigh my options. If you break your leg on the ice, you get a helicopter ride back. However, I wasn't confident that I could successfully break a leg without also falling to my doom into one of the deep crevasses that awaited us at the bottom of each slope.

As Deane helped me with my crampon the second time it fell off, I asked how much longer it would be before we got back to the glacier entrance. He said we had maybe 10 minutes more on the ice. An hour later, Deane was walking far ahead of us, trying to figure out how to get us back, while we loitered around on a safe-ish plateau. He came back and told us, encouragingly, that he saw the other group and that the end was just beyond the next peak. By this time all I could think of was getting back to the hostel and opening a bottle of shiraz.

We did eventually get off the ice. It was the most excited I'd ever been to step into muddy dirt. Although I had feared for my knees and ankles while on the glacier, I managed not to twist or sprain anything.

So that was my extreme sport adventure. I don't feel the need to do any death-defying activities like bungy jumping. Not that I ever did. In a couple of days Josie and I are going to go sea kayaking in Milford Sound with a tour group, instead of taking a cruise boat like normal people do. I'm going to let the guide know that I'd prefer that he just stick to the company-approved route.

From Fox Glacier

The South Island

Josie and I have been busy lately. We spent nearly a week without internet access when we went to Abel Tasman National Park. The weather was beautiful, and we didn't run into too many problems aside from a lost flashlight and lost car keys (we got them back after we got a locksmith to make some new ones.

The Abel Tasman hiking trip came about because of this abiding principle: I do not camp. I don't sleep on the ground. I do not recognize a hole in the ground as being a toilet. And I don't want any forest creatures to be disturbing me or my stuff in the middle of the night.

I do however like to hike. And I don't mind carrying a big backpack full of crap I need to live. And I actually find camp cooking to be enjoyable. Going without showering for a few days is... well, not that big a deal.

The New Zealand Department of Conservation has this to say about Abel Tasman:

The Abel Tasman Coast Track, located in Abel Tasman National Park on South Island's northern shores, is one of the DOC Great Walks. The Coast Track extends for 52 km and is classified as a walking track: all streams are bridged but there are tidal crossings, which can only be crossed within a few hours either side of low tide. The track takes an average of three to five days to complete. There are huts and campsites where you can stay for a fee.

By "hut" they mean cabin. No electricity or kitchen, but they have bunks and a common room where you can cook on a camp stove. There is potable running water. And real toilets that flush. They even have showers, if you can call freezing cold water coming out of an overhead pipe behind a bush a "shower." So it's not camping. It's actually much more like camp, but without camp counselors or lanyard weaving.

Additionally, New Zealand does not have any large predators. Which means no bears. That's key. One run-in with a bear that chases you out of your campsite is enough for a lifetime.

So Josie and I decided to go for it. The trip almost got canceled due to rain, but as the date approached, the weather report got better, and we decided to chance it.

Here are the pictures.

More pictures

Here are pictures from Wellington, the Interislander ferry, and Picton/Marlborough region.

Internet catch-up day

Here are a bunch of pictures from the past week. From us, to you. I learned a new trick in Picasa. Here's a web slide show!

What's up?/The North Island

Josie claims that everyone wants to see pictures, and nobody wants to read my ramblings. I disagree. I don't have any pictures right now. There are pictures, they're just not on my computer. I'm in the kitchen of the Peppertree Hostel in Palmerston North, and I'm watching Josie make cookies.

I guess the last time I posted was last week? Since then, Josie and I visited the Coromandel Peninsula, where we stayed at a hostel overlooking the beach. We borrowed kayaks and went on a 3-hour sea kayaking trip (just by ourselves). I fell out of the kayak when I was riding a wave into shore. I came out laughing though.

We went to the town of Coromandel and visited a silly little tourist attraction, the Driving Creek Railroad. An eccentric artist/potter created this small-scale railroad track up a mountain, and they charge $20 a person for the one-hour tour. We went up a mountain and then back down in a little train. It was adorable and touristy.

On Monday and Tuesday we did a farmstay with a family in a little rural town. Don and Davina live on a 2-acre hobby farm with their three young children, an adult child, and another older child that pops in and out from time to time (much like I do with my Mom and Dad). They have several sheep, some "chooks" (chickens), and a baby cow. They were absolutely wonderful. I wish we could have stayed longer. We spent the time doing some chores (stacking firewood and raking leaves), walking a little trail near their house, as well as reading probably a dozen books to Dallas, Martin and Chance (um, 5, 6, and 3, I think?). Jos and I are disappointed that we didn't take pictures. I completely forgot to though. It was the first time since I've come to NZ that I didn't feel like a tourist.

This afternoon, while on our way to the hostel, we stopped at a wool outlet and purchased some yarn that's made from 70% merino wool and 30% possum fur. That's right, possum fur. Not Opossum, just possum. It's a non-native species of marsupial that you see all over the place on the side of the highway. As roadkill. Apparently their fur is very warm. It's certainly novel. I got a couple of different colors. Somebody is getting possum mittens for Christmas!

Jos and I are on our way to Wellington. We'll be there tomorrow sometime in the afternoon. We're going to go to some museums, and visit the Wellington Zoo, and probably try to find some night life. We'll be there over the weekend, after all. On Monday morning we're going to cross to the South Island by ferry.

Okay, not very exciting to read the blog without pictures, I guess. But they'll be up soon.

The North Island

Yesterday Josie and I went mountain climbing. We hiked the Tongariro Crossing. Well, part of it. Had we wanted to do the whole trek we would have needed to pay a guide and rent gear and stuff. We like to go our own way. And not pay $150 each to climb a mountain when we could do it partway for free.

We started at the "end" of the trail instead of the beginning. The trail started out in a forested area, and ascended very quickly. We made a good number of rest stops along the way. After about an hour the forest abruptly ended and we entered sort of a bushy area. We could see really far from here. After another hour of hiking we reached a hut where we had peanut butter sandwiches and fresh, cold, potable water.

The trail itself got very twisty when we left the hut. It was basically impossible to see where the trail went past the next turn. The trail was never that steep, but zigzagged up the hills, so the ascent was very slow.

After a while we started encountering snow. We were not equipped to walk in the snow, and I wasn't about to risk slipping on the snow and sledding all the way down the mountain. So we turned back. We did not get to see the Emerald Lakes, but we did get six hours of really good exercise.

Today we are in Rotorua. This whole town smells like sulphur pretty much all the time because of the heavy volcanic activity. We got a hot tip from a security guard to go to a little hot springs along a side road, instead of paying $25 to go to one of the tourist trap springs that are all around this area. It was super cool. The water actually wasn't that hot, but it was definitely warm.

This afternoon we're just resting and recovering from yesterday (ouch, my sore muscles!) Take a look at my photos!

From On the road

From Tongariro Crossing

From Rotorua and Thermal Explorers

Te Mata pictures

I've been writing lots of stuff for the blog, but I haven't had internet access until today. Here's a link to my pictures.

From 2009 Bike ride to Havelock North

MOBILE BROADBAND INTERNET! And planning.

Finally got mobile internet from Vodafone. It's not cheap, but I am SO glad that I now have internet access whenever I want it. Go technology.

Josie and I got together with her friend Bex yesterday to plan our trip. We have a tentative itinerary worked out. I'm sure our trip won't be exactly like we discussed, but it will be somewhat similar. We're going north from Hastings toward Rotorua and the Coromandel peninsula. Then we'll be winding our way counterclockwise around the north island, ending up in Wellington for a couple of days. Then on to the south island, where we have several contacts, and places to stay. Everything is tentative for now. The only specific plan we have is that we want to go to the winter festival in Queenstown over the July 4th weekend.

The top five things I must do in New Zealand:

1. Bathe in a hot springs

2. Go hiking (we're planning to at least hike the Tongariro Alpine crossing).

3. Visit a sheep farm. Preferably work on a sheep farm, learn how to shear a sheep, and spin my own wool into yarn.

4. See a glacier. We're planning to go to Fox Glacier.

5. Visit the fiords. We're planning to take a fiord tour at Milford Sound.

The Grocery

I haven't gotten out much yet, because I don't have a car. But I have been to the grocery store several times. I haven't taken any pictures because I wasn't sure that would be appropriate. But there are several things that I've noticed.

I think there's tax on everything. However, I can't tell. Because all prices include tax. I recall hearing that the tax is 12.5% maybe? But you wouldn't know because it's not itemized out. This is convenient though because you can actually calculate what your final bill will be at the counter.

There are no pennies. Ten cents is the smallest coin denomination. So if you're paying with cash, they round up or down to the nearest ten cents. If you're paying with "EFTPOS" (credit card or check card) they don't round the prices.

They have one- and two-dollar coins here. So you can actually have a lot of money and not know it. I keep a change purse, and I probably have fifteen dollars in there.

They sell wine and beer in the grocery store. Of course. Like every other place but Minnesota.

"Yoghurt" comes in square paper milk cartons. You can also buy just-add-water powdered yogurt.

Almost all of the milk at the store is whole milk. There's a small section devoted to low-fat milks. You can buy refrigerated milk packaged in opaque plastic bags.

Butter comes in 500 g bricks, not sticks.

They don't refrigerate eggs. At all. They're just on the shelf next to the flour. I know from a food safety standpoint that you don't need to refrigerate eggs, but it just feels wrong to me!

Half of the cereal aisle is devoted to granola and mueslix. Apparently Kiwis love their mueslix.

Nestle makes Cheerios here.

About 50% of the candy sold here is made by Cadbury. The rest is Nestle.

Nutrition content, or "energy" is measured in kilojoules, not calories. So I have no idea how much I'm eating. I can't be bothered to divide the kj content by 4 to get the approximate calorie content.

They sell pancakes by the stack in plastic bags next to the English muffins. Which are called "split muffins."

Also I made a hat.

From 2009 I Made This

The Food

From 2009 I Made This

The produce here in Hastings is amazing. They grow local grapes, apples, citrus, nuts, and olives, to name a very few. Last weekend we made fajitas, and I got to go into the back yard and pluck a couple limes from the tree to put into the guacamole (made with fresh avocados from the farmer's market, naturally). There's a grapefruit tree next to the sidewalk on the way from Josie's place to the center of town. It's all I can do to keep from stealing a couple.

Josie had a bunch of vegetables that she bought at the farmer's market. This week I was tasked with trying to use all of them up. We made an Indian-inspired dish with cauliflower and potatoes, and a pasta dish with onions and green peppers. We also made Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and sauteed cabbage. The one thing we had not yet cooked was the squash, some overripe pears, and some walnuts. Therefore, squash soup. It was a fabulous dinner for a cold autumn night.

Squash soup with pears

Ingredients:

1 small butternut squash, cut lengthwise and seeded
1 med buttercup squash, cut lengthwise and seeded
1 onion, peeled and cut in half
2 very ripe pears, peeled and cored
3-4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup cream
1 tsp. nutmeg
toasted walnuts (garnish)

Directions:

Roast the squashes and onion by lightly coating with vegetable oil and placing cut-side down on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, until soft. Toast the walnuts in the oven for about 5 minutes while the veggies are cooking. When the vegetables are done, remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Scrape the meaty part out of the squash into a blender. Throw the onion and pears into the blender. Cover with chicken stock and blend until smooth, in multiple batches if necessary. Pour into a saucepan and add the cream and nutmeg. Heat until hot.

Serve the soup garnished with a drizzle of cream and toasted walnuts.

Brrr!

It's cold and windy today, though still sunny. Hawke's Bay has amazingly good weather in comparison to the rest of the country. The forecast was rain and/or snow for the rest of the country yesterday, and the worst we got here was a few gray clouds.

Today is Josie's last day of work, so we have decided to start our expedition on Monday. We'll spend this weekend making plans and figuring out where we're going to be staying. And I'm going to try to get some more driving practice.

Yesterday I took Josie's bike out to Havelock North, a little town about 3km away. Havelock North is at the foot of Te Mata peak, which rises 400 meters above the ocean and provides a stunning view of Hawke's Bay. After reaching the town, I started up Te Mata Road, just to see where it led. Apparently there are some nice hiking trails up there. After about the third uphill bend, I found a nice scenic spot, and took some pictures. And decided that was about enough strenuous exercise for one day. No need to overdo it. Maybe Jos and I can drive up there this weekend.

I'll get the pictures up soon.

Pictures

I uploaded some pictures to Picasa Web. You can view them by clicking on the "2009 First days in NZ" link below.

The New Zealand scenery is as beautiful as I imagined.

From 2009 First days in NZ

Greetings from the FUTURE!

Hey there, superfans. I haven't been able to get on the computer much in the past few days. New Zealand has a shocking, shocking lack of wifi. I haven't found any hotspots so far. It's all internet cafes (like the one I'm at now). This particular cafe has got the same Dell computers that I used when I started working at the law firm FIVE years ago. But they do have Skype, which is nice. But not Adobe Acrobat Reader--I had to take 20 minutes to download the program yesterday so that I could print a one-page PDF file.

Speaking of telephonic communications, I have a mobile phone now. Email me if you want the number!

It's lovely here, but I'm still disoriented. It's fall, and it gets dark at about 5:30 (boo!). The weather has been nice. The sun here is blinding, and I'm thinking of buying a darker pair of sunglasses. And it's strange--the sun in the morning here, the way it casts light, feels like it should be an afternoon sun. Is it because I'm south of the equator? Or just my imagination?

The hostel I'm staying at is worth every penny of the US$50/week I'm spending to stay there. I haven't worn shower sandals in years. Probably not since college. But I went out yesterday to the K-Mart (yes, they have one here), and invested in a pair of flip-flops. I feel better stepping into the shower now. The beds are adequate and the paper-thin carpeting isn't that dirty. A room may become available in my sister's flat, and if it does, I'll be moving there in a heartbeat. But at any rate, we'll be leaving to travel around in a couple of weeks, so it soon won't be an issue.

The coffee here is pretty bad, which is unfortunate. I'm going to try to get used to drinking tea. I miss coffee.

I'm not used to the accents yet. When people ask me questions, I sometimes answer the question I think they asked, then realize three seconds later that I said the completely wrong thing. Ordering food is somewhat difficult when they start offering me different options. "Greevy? What? Oh, no gravy, thanks." My favorite number here is "seeven."

I'll get some pictures up when I figure out how to upload them from my SD card onto a computer. Since I can't use my computer, I don't have a way to get the data out of the SD card.

G'day!

Aisle seat/Keyless exit

I'm on the plane to LA. I was assigned seat 16C, an aisle seat. Northwest wouldn't let me change my seat assignment unless I paid $25. Even if I had wanted to choose a worse seat! Crazy. I'm a window seat person. I thought maybe I could deal with an aisle for a short flight. But I'm really not enjoying this.

I passed off my car keys to my sister at the airport. It's her car now. Gave back the apartment keys on Wednesday. I officially don't have anything that locks. Aside from a combination padlock, but that's for locking things at some indeterminate time in the future.

I kept my wallet though. I still need someplace to put my credit card and cash. I refuse to wear a stupid security pouch on my waist or around my neck. I'm not going to be a tourist. I'm not one of those travellers who can go around the world with two pairs of pants and three shirts. Screw that, I need a wardrobe to survive.

In other words, thank goodness for wheeled suitcases.

I'm in New Zealand!!!

Eating French toast with Josie. Delicious. Here are some pictures. The next post was written on the plane.

From 2009 Flight to New Zealand 5-14-09

Moving day

It felt for so long that this day would never come. Time has been passing slowly for me. I have this strange sense of time with this trip. As though everything will stop when I get on the plane. My world will freeze at 5 PM tonight, as I enter a liminal period, across many time zones, in which time is meaningless. And 22 hours later, time starts again, in a new continent, a new hemisphere, a new season.

I'm trying to figure out how to get a jar of pickles into New Zealand. For my sister, the pickle addict. Apparently there are no kosher dills there. I'm bringing a bottle of Cholulua hot sauce for myself. They don't have that there, either. In fact, I hear that there is no Mexican food at all.

At first, I thought I'd just bring a jar with me on the plane. But then I remembered the 3-oz rule. (Stupid 3-oz rule.) I could pack it in my checked bag, but if the jar broke, all of my clothes would smell like pickles. Not appealing. Then I thought maybe I would just take some pickles for her in a ziplock bag, minus the juice. But customs might take it away from me at the border, because they're strict about food products coming into the country. This seems like the best option though. And it's not like I'm going to get in big trouble, even if they take it away.

Back to my last-minute preparations.

Packing day

Blogging while I should be packing. I'm still new at this blogging thing. I haven't yet figured out how best to add pictures to the posts. Apparently I both post directly from Picasa on my computer, or add a link from Picasa web. I'll keep experimenting to see if I can get the layout to look like I want it to.

I didn't know how much effort it would take to blog. Coming up with ideas is easy, but actually finding time to sit down and type them into a computer is difficult. Of course, I'm running around trying to get everything in order before I leave, so it's not like I have a lot of time.

I've got two days left. I'm flying out of Minneapolis on Thursday afternoon. (EEEK!) My total travel time will be 22 hours and 30 minutes. An entire day of my life gone. Four hours from MSP to LAX, 14 hours from LAX to Auckland, and a mere hour from Auckland to Napier/Hastings.

I'm researching how best to avoid jet lag. I've settled on these principles:
1. Get a good night's sleep the night before.
2. Decrease stress. Have everything ready to go the night before so I'm not scrambling to get things done at the last minute.
3. Exercise the morning of the trip.
4. No coffee or alcohol for 24 hours before, or during the trip.
5. Drink water. Hydration good.
6. NO sleeping drugs. I've tried it. I'd rather be regular tired than feel like a zombie.

Back to packing.

Going away

 
I had my last day of work on Thursday. Ack! It was the first real job I'd ever had. I couldn't help but think as I walked out the door, "what will they do without me?" I had to remind myself that they will be fine. They're professionals.

The going-away party on Saturday was an absolute blast. Unfortunately, it was kind of short notice, so I didn't get to see everyone I would have liked to have seen. But we had a great time.

From 2009 My Going Away Party

I didn't realize how hard the goodbyes would be. Picking up everything and moving from the only home I've ever known to a foreign land? Meh, no big deal. It's a vacation. Saying goodbye to the people I love? Perhaps "heart-breaking" is too strong a word, but it's been really hard. When I told Dylan I was leaving, she asked, "will you be home by Christmas, Katy Boyle?"

Yeah, Dylan. I'll be home by Christmas. And I will see you all then.

Books I bought tonight

Rosanne Knorr, author of The Grown-Up's Guide to Running Away from Home, suggests that one must have a plan for what to do after you've run away. I have several short-term and long-term goals in mind. First and foremost, I have some knitting to do. I'm about halfway through my first-ever sweater. I'll be working on that on the plane. After that, I need to knit myself a hat. My old pink hat, sadly, was lost somewhere between the bus and the YMCA a few months back.

My second goal is to start reading more. I received a Barnes and Noble gift card as a going-away present from my thoughtful co-workers. (Well, they asked me what I wanted.) I spent a very enjoyable hour and a half at the bookstore tonight, looking through hundreds of different titles. In the end I bought four books, carefully selected to cover a variety of styles and topics.

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
I really like reading about finance. I like thinking about finance. I enjoy amending my W-4 withholdings to match my estimated tax amount for the following year. I like receiving my W-2. I like rebalancing my 401(k). I'm excited to roll over my retirement account to one or more Vanguard index funds. This one I've been meaning to read for a while. I'd like to know what Kiyosaki thinks rich people tell their kids.

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
I scanned the essays section at the bookstore to find a book about writing. I chose this one because I thought the title neatly summed up the reason I wanted to buy a book about writing. Also it had a splashy seal declaring it a "Notable Book of the Year" by the New York Times Book Review.

Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story by Tony and Maureen Wheeler
I wanted to buy a travelogue. This caught my eye because the Wheelers also picked up and traveled abroad for a year. Their journey ultimately led them to create "the world's largest independent travel publishing company." I can only assume that reading this book will inspire me to become fabulously successful. Coincidentally, I had already purchased the Lonely Planet New Zealand guide.

Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life by Len Fisher
I read A Beautiful Mind several years ago after the movie came out. I was interested in Nash's game theory, but I never followed up and learned about it. I like math.

That ought to keep me busy for a while. I weighed them. Together they're only 4 lb 9 oz, which is light enough to not be a burden in my suitcase.

Shoot, I really, really like my digital scale. I wonder how much it weighs, and if I could bring it with me. The one thing a scale cannot weigh is itself. How ironic.

Testing Picasa's uploading abilities

I just started a Picasa web album. I'm hoping that it will allow me to easily upload and share photos from my trip. We'll see...

Here's a photo of Dylan at the Minnesota zoo!

From Dylan at the Zoo March, 2009

Focus

I started this blog a while back. Just to have one. I wasn't sure what to do with it at the time, but now I'll put it to good use and blog about my New Zealand trip! I'm not going to bother taking down the other posts.

Here's a picture of a hat I made. Modeled by Dylan.