Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Days Fifteen through Nineteen - Christchurch

December 25th-29th - So today we left Queenstown. I was sad to leave, this has definitely been an awesome couple of days. So we drove from Queenstown to Jamie's hometown of Christchurch, where we spent our last four days. The scenery on the way was just breathtaking (as it has been the whole trip).

One particular view that was amazing was this huge lake that was the color of pure turquoise and at the back was Mount Cook, which is the tallest mountain in New Zealand, and it was covered in snow, so it was this amazing contrast of solid turquoise and this white mountain peak. Just beautiful. I don't think the pictures do it any justice.

So we arrived in Christchurch at about 4:00 pm. We had dinner at Jamie's "mate's" (as-in "friend's") house, Jonathan, and his wife Rochelle. Since Jamie has moved to the States his friend has had two kids, a beautiful and very intelligent little girl named Meleana (four years old) and an adorable little boy named Blaise. Jamie and Jonathan picked up right where they left off - kicking a Rugby ball around, playing basketball, arm wrestling, you know, the usual guy stuff. It was a nice evening.

The next day we spent the morning at Jamie's Nana Rene's house, catching up with her and Jamie's mum, Dianne. Afterwards we met up at a restaurant downtown for lunch with our friend Ian (who we had dinner in Auckland with a couple weeks before.) It's this really great place downtown with chairs and tables set outside, and the food was really yummy as well. Afterwards we shopped around a bit in the downtown area. We made plans to meet at the Dux Delux (there's also one in Christchurch) for dinner, so we did. The food was awesome (as usual) and afterwards we decided to would be fun to watch a late movie, so we went and saw Ocean's 12 at about 10:00. It was really fun. So that's about it for our second day in Christchurch.

The third day in Chch (Christchurch) we spent the day touring around Christchurch, going to places that we went to when I had first come to New Zealand over five years before. It was really great to be at those places again, it felt like it had been forever since I had first been there. So we went to some beautiful gardens, and we stopped by Jamie's old work and said hi to one of his old workmate's. We had fish & chips at one of the best places, which is in Brighton beach. It was just a day of nostalgia for us.

That evening we had dinner at this amazing place that Jamie has always told me about, called The Sign of the Takahe. It is this amazing castle/ fort looking place on the side of the Port Hills. It is like having dinner in a castle in England, it is just so authentic, and beautiful, and the service was unbelievable, very high class. What was really amazing was that we had a view out of the windows looking down the hills and out over the city, and it was absolutely beautiful because we were there at sunset, which was a beautiful array of purples and yellows that evening. It was an amazing dinner. One of the best I have ever experienced, because that's really what it was, not just dinner, truly an experience. After we had finished eating we drove around the Port Hills and looked at the city lights below. It was a great day!

Our last full day in Chch was spent doing some more sightseeing in the morning, and then going to Jamie's mum's Bible study in the afternoon. She has some very sweet people in her study. It's wonderful how united we all are all over the world. :-) Afterwards we went over to has Nana's house and visited with a lot more of his family - aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. - and shared our trip pictures with them, all 500 of them!! Only family is obligated to be subjected to that! But they said that they really liked the pictures (and his 10 year old cousin was just thankful she made it through the presentation!) So it was nice meeting some more of Jamie's family, and meeting ones that I hadn't met before. Afterwards Jamie and I said bye for the last time to his nana and mum (which is sad because there will definitely be a space of time before Jamie sees them again) and we headed out to dinner.

We ate a nice restaurant downtown named Azure. Afterwards we made one of our most important stops, we had hot chocolate at "Le Cafe." That was a place that we went to very often when we were dating. It was one of those special places for us, so it was wonderful to go back and reminisce. As we left Le Cafe we were just amazed that our adventure was coming to end. It truly has been an amazing experience, the best of my lifetime. It's sad to see it coming to an end, but all good things must. I just feel truly fortunate to have been able to have such a great adventure, and to share it with such a wonderful man, my best friend, my husband.

So goodbye to New Zealand. You have shown us some unbelievable sights. This has been a trip of a lifetime. Until next time...

:'-)

Friday, December 24, 2004

Day Fourteen - Queenstown


December 24 - So we woke up this morning, streched, yawned, and thought to ourselves "we should go and ride in a jetboat that skims across a winding river at 50mph, dodging the sides of the surrounding cliffs, and at times is only on a few inches of water." Well not really, we didn't think that, but we did that!! Our excursion for today was to do the world famous "Shot-Over Jet." If you want to see our (embarrassing) pictures, go to:

www.shotoverjet.com
Choose "Daily Photos"
The photo numbers are:
SOJT412249778
SOJT412248786 (Embarrassing)
SOJT412249788 (I'm the retarded looking one)

So we had an amazing time doing the Shot Over Jet, despite getting wet and having my hair get tangled into a million little knots. It was worth it!!

We spent the rest of the day touring around Queenstown, just really soaking it all in. After dinner we did a little more site seeing, and then went back to the hotel. We headed down to the lobby, where there was this cozy little area with comfy couches and a fireplace. So we sat there and drank hot chocolate. It was a wonderful end to an amazing day.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Day Thirteen - Queenstown


December 23 - I have so been looking forward to coming to Queenstown this entire trip. This is such a cool town. It's another cool little town set around a huge lake flanked by snow capped mountains, and the town is really quaint, sort of like an Aspen, only SO much cooler and authentic.

So we got in to town at lunch time, so we headed downtown to find a place to eat. Well we were looking around and we saw this place called "The Dux Delux", and Jamie had heard that it was a good restaurant, so I said that we should just eat there. Well when we walked in I saw a fireplace along the back wall, so we walked back there and grabbed a table by the fireplace. Well as we were sitting down at our table I glanced at the table right in front of me, and I thought to myself about the woman sitting at the table facing me, "Hmmm, she looks familiar." So I just sat down, and then I heard her speak, and I thought "Hmmm, sounds familiar for some reason." So I took another quick look at her, and that's when I realized who it was. Of all the places in the world, we had walked in to have lunch at the place that Shania Twain was also having lunch. I then excused myself to go to the bathroom, so I could try and compose myself so that I wouldn't do anything stupid, and then when I got back to the table I tried to shield my view of her with my hair so that I could try to whisper to Jamie who it was. After I whispered to him "Oh my goodness, right behind you is Shania Twain", he just smiled, and I knew he didn't hear me. I said, "Did you hear me, did you hear who that is?" and he said "yeah, she has a bit of a twang." He thought I was talking about her voice. But he finally got what I was saying, and was also surprised and excited. As she was leaving (after having finished sharing a piece of chocolate cake with her friend) Jamie made me go and get her autograph, which was so embarrassing, but at least it's something for the scrapbook. Plus, considering how she is one of my favorite singers ever, and I have bought tons of her albums, I deserved the autograph (right?). So that was a rush!! Definitely a highlight.

After lunch we went hotel searching and we got this AMAZING hotel, just a dream. We managed to get a suite, with a view of the mountains, a full kitchen, and even a washer/dryer. The hotel is decorated like a very chic lob cabin, it is definitely one of my favorite hotels ever, right up there with the Grand Californian (in Disneyland.) What was especially wonderful was that when Jamie came back from checking in he handed me a brochure, which explained the hour massage that he had bought as a gift for me. It was exactly what I wanted and needed, especially after having spent hours in the car for the past couple of weeks.

So after my massage, I got dressed and we headed down to "The Cow" to have dinner, which is probably my favorite restaurant I have ever been to. It's the restaurant that seems to come straight out of a story book, that was written hundred of years ago. The building is this small building made of stone, and the front door is a barn door, a two part door, where the top and bottom halves open separately (not sure the official name for it). When you walk in, you almost feel like you have walked into another dimension, and are walking into somebody's cabin in the middle of some storybook's enchanted forest. You are greeted by a big wood burning stove in the middle of the restaurant, which creates a very cozy and inviting environment. The main food is wood fired pizza, and some pastas. The pizza is amazing, but you go to The Cow for the experience, not the food. So that's about it for our day in Queenstown. Great day.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Day Twelve - Lake Te Anau / Fjordland


December 22- Today was an amazing day of sightseeing. I can truly say that I have seen some of the most beautiful places on planet earth. It would truly be a hard thing to find somewhere on this planet that rivals the beauty of Fjordland. It is this amazing place of extremely sharp and high mountains, all coming straight out of the ocean, at times coming up a mile out of the ocean's surface. Just breathtaking.

Our excursion in Fjordland was a boat through the part of Fjordland named Milford Sound. It was a pretty chilly day, but the views of the mountains coming straight out of the water, with the cool mist clinging to the peaks, made for a very surreal surrounding.


There were waterfalls cascading down the sides of the mountains from all sides, and seals that had parked themselves on to rocks. It is just something that is hard to put into words. Hopefully once I get my pictures up on to Snapfish, they will help to get an idea of the beauty this place holds. So saying that, I won't try to put Fjordland into words, except for maybe one...exquisite.

Driving back to Lake Te Anau from Fjordland, we made some stops at some other beautiful places. One of the most memorable was a placed simply called "The Chasm", a deceptively ordinary name for an extraordinary place. Like the Glow Worm caves, it's this place on the side of a mountain that has been carved out by centuries of water flowing through the rocks, and creating these amazing holes and caverns, and waterfalls. It is one of those places that when you see it, the turqoise blue water cascading through these unreal rock formations, that your heart stops for a second and you just have to gasp at the beauty that you are beholding. Unreal.

The next place that we stopped off at was this place called "Mirror Lakes", and that's exactly what they were, these perfectly still lakes at the bottom of snow capped mountains, that perfectly reflected them. We also stopped at a place where we took pictures of the Lupins (wildflowers) that just grew in FIELDS all over the south island. They are in these amazing shades of vibrant purple and pink.

What a day! On to Queenstown (can't wait!)

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Day Eleven - Lake Te Anau


December 21 - We got a bit of a slow start out of Wanaka today (which was nice) and drove to lake Te Anau, which was about four hours away. We planned on making just a short stop in Lake Te Anau on our way to Fjordland, where we thought we would be spending a couple of days, but as we were having lunch in Lake Te Anau we were told that unless we wanted to stay in a backpackers hotel (no way) that we would have to stay in Lake Te Anau. So after lunch we went and bought tickets for the excursions that we wanted to do, and we headed out to find out hotel. We ended up finding a really cute hotel, right next to the lake, which was really nice. We have really done a good job of getting nice hotels. So by that time it was about 5:30, and our excursion was at 8:30, so we had a couple of hours to relax.

So at 8:30 we were on a boat, heading out across the lake to the Glow Worm caves, something that I had always wanted to do. It was a nice ride across the lake, and the Glow Worm caves were just breathtaking. The caves are basically comprised of great chasms in the side of a mountain created by flowing water, which has worked it's way through the caves, and continues to do so, so we were in boats half of the time inside of the caves, which was really neat. Once we were fairly deep into the caves they put us in one last boat and they took us in complete blackness to this area of the caves where there was this beautiful blue light shining from the ceiling of the caves, at times was only about two feet above our heads. The glowing blue lights were the glow worms, and it was just amazing, it felt like we were looking at a little city in the middle of this dark mountain. It was such a beautiful experience, something I will remember for the rest of my life. After we got out of the caves, it was about 10pm, so we boarded the boat and made the journey back. We had walked to the excursion center, and we returned, it had started to rain. We had brought our umbrellas with us, but it was still pretty chilly, so we ended up running most of the way back to the hotel, laughing most of the way. It was a great day.

On to Fjordland tomorrow!!

Monday, December 20, 2004

Day Ten - Wanaka


December 20 - Well today was a very nice relaxing day. The goal of today was to not drive too much, and to just enjoy our surroundings, and I think we did a pretty good job of that. We spent some time just sitting next to the lake that the town surrounds, just staring across the water and up onto the snow capped mountains. Just truly beautiful. We then took a drive among the mountains, where we saw tons of waterfalls and sheep and adorable baby lambs. It was beautiful. So that's about the extent of what we did today. It makes for boring reading, but it made for a wonderful day. On to Lake Te Anau and Fjordland!!! I'm so looking forward to that!

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Day Nine - Greymouth / Hokatika / Glaciers / Wanaka


December 19th, Sunday

Wow, what an amazing day we had today!! This morning we left Greymouth and stopped in Hokatika, which is where they hold the annual "Wild Food Festival", which is the time of year that people drive to this town to eat really weird things, such as Huhu grubs - voluntarily. Oh yes, they also have a great variety of beers served. I'm sure the overconsumption of the latter aids in the eating of the former. Well anyway, that's held in April, so we missed it (phew). So we ate breakfast there in Hokatika - a delicious stack of pancakes with maple syrup, and a cup of hot black currant juice which has to be the most staining substance on the face of the earth which I know because I of course managed to spill it on my tan pants. I got it out though, mostly. So after Hokatika we stopped off at Franz Joseph Glacier, and got the opportunity to hike right down to the foot of it. Since we didn't hire a guide, and are definitely not considered "experienced" climbers, we didn't climb up on to the glacier, but it was amazing enough to just be able to look up at it. It was the first time that I have seen enough ice together to know that it really is blue!! It was beautiful. We definitely had some pretty amazing photo ops.

So after we hiked to the Franz Joseph Glacier it was back on the road for us, and we stopped off to take a few more pictures of the next glacier we came across - Fox Glacier - this time from the road.

So we continued from there on our journey on to Wanaka, where we were staying for a couple of days. We arrived in Wanaka at around 8:30 PM, but since the sun doesn't set to almost 10 PM, we had almost a couple full more hours of daylight left. So after checking into our GREAT motel room (I should really say house, because it has a garage, two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a huge living area, a dining room, and a full kitchen, with a view of the Lake!) we headed off for dinner in downtown Wanaka. Wanaka is this amazing small town, absolutely beautiful, and Shania Twain has bought property down here, and it's no wonder why. It's a town set around a huge lake, which is flanked by the snow capped southern alps, so it really is picturesque - although all of New Zealand is really. So we had some really good Indian food for dinner (getting addicted to curry, in New Zealand of all places), and that was about the extent of our adventures for the day. Looking forward to a full day of relaxing tomorrow!!

Dinky entry

Hello!! No I have not fallen off of the face of the earth, but access to the internet hasn't been frequent, and this is actually the first time I've been online since we've been here in NZ. Unfortunately, all of my journal entries are on my laptop, which I still haven't been able to connect to the internet. But as soon as I can, I will post those entries.

Things are going really good here down under. We have seen and done a lot. One of the coolest places that we have been to is a place called Rotorua, which is full of geothermal activity, which means hot springs and mud pools and geysers, etc. So I guess it's more appropriate for me to say it's one of the HOTTEST places I've been too!! But I will post more on that a little later. Today we are heading to a glacier, which should be an absolutely amazing experience, and I'm really looking forward to that.

Well keep checking back on this blog, because when I can finally get my own computer connected, there will be a lot of entries, plus I will try to post pictures to my Snapfish account, so you can all see what's going on. Well I only have a little bit of time left on this internet account I'm using, so I will say bye for now, and hopefully I should make a real post soon.

Bye!

PS Oh yes, for all of those in high anticipation about whether I got all of my clothes in that suitcase, I DID!! Yay me!

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Day Eight - Wellington / Picton / Greymouth

December 18 - Wow, well today was a marathon day! We had to get up really early so that we could go and catch The Interislander, the ferry from the North Island down to the South Island, but when we got there they said that the ferry was delayed about 2 hours because of bad ocean weather. So we drove into downtown Wellington and had a really good breakfast at this nice place where we were able to sit in front of floor to ceiling windows with comfy couches (very "Friends"-esque) and eat our pancakes and eggs. So it was worth having gotten up so early after all. Well once on the boat, the ocean during the three hour journey was a bit choppy, so it made for a slightly volatile ride, but not bad. No usage of the sick bags. Thankfully.

Afterwards we were dropped off in Picton, in the middle of what seemed to be a horrible winter storm, keep in mind it is the middle of summer over here. It was like some cruel joke, I was SUPER cold, and it was raining (almost on the verge of sleeting), and we were just in shock as to how unbelievably bad the weather was. So we picked up our second rental car and hightailed it out of there. This was a bit unfortunate, as we had planned on spending a day there, oh well. I'm sure we will laugh about it someday. In the distant future. So we decided to spend the day driving to Greymouth, which took us until about 7:30 in the evening. On the way in to town we passed a Subway, and I was pretty much dying for U.S. food, so that's where we ate for dinner. Unfortunately, it's just not the same. Didn't really taste like Subway, and definitely not as good as it is over in the States. The meat was really scarce, and paper thin. Oh well. So that's about it for today!! On to Franz Joseph Glacier and on to Wanaka!!

Friday, December 17, 2004

Day seven - Wellington, New Zealand


December 17 - OK let me start off by saying that I just can't believe that it is already day seven of our trip. It's funny, but when I think of all that we have done and experienced it makes it feel like it's been longer than seven days, but just thinking of it, it really feels like the time has truly flown. Well anyway, today we drove around the area, looked for Bree, which we found, but couldn't get to, seeing that it is on a remote tip of an island, but we could see the area from the shore line!! So we spent the day really just driving around, and relaxing. Nothing too thrilling to tell about. We had dinner in downtown Wellington, at this amazing Cambodian restaurant, which I can't for the life of me remember seeing it was definitely a different name, but I can tell you the food was amazing!! So that's about all for today. Hopefully I will get to an internet cafe' tomorrow, so I can finally post these entries. On to Picton, or to Marlborough sound??? I guess I will let you know tomorrow!

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Day six - Rotorua / Wellington, New Zealand


December 16 - Today, in Rotorua, we went to a Maori cultural center (the native people), where they gave us a concert, and dance, which was truly beautiful. If any of you have seen "Whale Rider", you have an idea of some of the singing and dancing that we experienced. At the center there were also these amazing mud pools and a geyser that just went non-stop. Simply an amazing experience. Afterwards we drove to Wellington (the nation's capital). Not much to tell of the drive down, except just a lot of beautiful scenery, and we arrived at our hotel at about 12:30 am. On to Wellington...

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Day five - Matamata (aka Hobbiton) / Rotorua, New Zealand


December 15 - Today we drove down to Matamata, and we took the tour of Hobbiton. That was a really great tour!! It was an absolutely beautiful ranch, just breathtaking. Definitely one of the most memorable parts of the entire trip. The whole area was just rolling green hills, with tons of sheep and lambs all over the place. Afterwards we drove down to Rotorua, which is full of geothermal activity - hot springs, hot mud pools, geysers, etc. And you have to understand, this place doesn't have just a hot pool here and there, I mean, there is steam coming out of the drains, in the middle of parks are just clouds of steam because of the pools, and I bought a great postcard which shows an arial view of the town, which shows the town with steam coming out between what seems to be every building. It is one of the coolest, or I should say HOTTEST, cities I've ever been to!

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Day four - Keri Keri, New Zealand (In the Bay of Islands)


December 14 - Today we drive up to the Bay of Islands. It was a beautiful trip!! There is no doubt that this is an absolutely beautiful country! We went to a town named Waitangi, which is where the English signed the treaty with the Maori's, the native people. There was a great center there, so we toured that, and just really enjoyed touring around the area. That night we took advantage of the kitchen in our hotel room and Jamie cooked a wonderful traditional Kiwi meal, leg of lamb with Kumara (sweet potatoes) and salad. Yummy!! That's about all for today. On to Hobbiton and Rotorua...

Monday, December 13, 2004

Day three - Auckland, New Zealand


December 13 - So today we went to this amazing famous surfing beach named Piha. It was absolutely beautiful, it is a black sand beach, and there are these amazing rocks sticking out from the ocean. Believe it or not, it is also the home to the world's smallest penguin!! Unfortunately, despite, my efforts in searching, I saw no penguins.

We did some exploring downtown, and that night we met one of our good friends - Ian -at the Viaduct, which is an area downtown that they specifically built for the America's Cup competition which New Zealand hosted in 2002. (For those of you who don't know what the America's Cup is, it is a very famous yacht racing championship.) We ate at this really great restaurant on the water called Wild Fire. Afterwards we hit a few clubs, and, get this, one of the clubs was an ice bar!!! That means that the whole place is made of ICE!! The walls, the tables, the cash register, the cups, EVERYTHING!! That was definitely awesome. I got some great pictures in there. Yes I took pictures, and it definitely screamed tourist, but don't worry, everybody else in there was also taking pictures. So that sums up today...On to the Bay of Islands...

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Day two - Papeete (Tahiti) / Auckland, New Zealand)

December 11/12th (NZ time) - The next morning we woke up at 4:20 am and flew out of Tahiti a few hours later. We arrived in Auckland around 1:00 pm (about 45 minutes later than we were supposed to, but for some reason our flight left about that late from Tahiti, for who knows what reason, since we were the first flight to Auckland for the day. I guess it was that overly laid back island mentality, which can drive an impatient, time strict American crazy!!) So anyway, we were relieved to finally arrive in Auckland. It was great, we were starving so we headed straight for a truly authentic Kiwi meal - Burger King. What can I say, it was the first thing we saw. So we arrived at Jamie's cousin's house, were we stayed for a couple days, we had the whole place to ourselves because they are on vacation, for three months. Yes you read right, three months. Now that's what I call a vacation!! So we basically just relaxed for the afternoon and had a great dinner downtown. That's about the extent of this day. On to day two in Auckland...

Friday, December 10, 2004

Day One - LA / Tahiti

December 10, 2004 - So we flew out of LAX on Friday (USA day) and landed in Tahiti that evening. On walking off of the plane, and breaking past the wall of warm humid air, there was a lovely tahitian woman handing out fresh and wonderful smelling flowers to us, and there was a group of people singing traditional music to welcome us. It was a really great greeting to Tahiti! So we hadn't made any plans ahead of time as to what we were going to do during our 12 hour layover in Tahiti, so on the plane I heard a French speaking woman, and since Papeete (the city we were flying into in Tahiti) is a French speaking town I ventured the guess that she was from Papeete, and she was. So she told us of a decent hotel in town to stay at. So after we made it through customs, we hopped in a cab and went straight to the hotel. Thankfully it ended up being a fairly good hotel. We ended up having dinner at the restaurant at the hotel, which, interestingly enough, was a chinese food restaurant. So there we were, having Chinese food, in Tahiti. It was funny, because our waitress seemed to hardly speak or understand English, something Jamie failed to pick up on, and he asked for her to bring us a pitcher of water (which she was refilling out water out of) and she ended up coming over with a bottle of water. Jamie then proceeded to try and tell her that was not what we wanted, but that we just wanted a pitcher of water (all the while I am trying to throw all sorts of signals - hand, eye, smoke signals - to just leave it alone, because I saw the blank stare on her face that Jamie was so tragically missing). So she took the bottle of water away and after some lengthy waiting, she came back with a wine list. *Sigh* Needless to say that made it pretty clear to Jamie that she wasn't getting it, and completely gave up. After dinner we walked a couple blocks to the port area and listened to some live music, which was very interesting because it had the Pacific Island sound, but sang in French, very interesting. It was cute, because it was held in this central square area, and there were all of these little kids running in circles, and dancing, and riding their scooters in circles. It was really cute. Well that's about all for this day. On to New Zealand...

Monday, December 06, 2004

The Dilemma

OK, so we leave for New Zealand in a few days, and I have spent the weekend packing, unpacking, and re-packing. You see, at the end of our trip we have a domestic flight in New Zealand, which means that we have to, let me rephrase that, I have to, pack for that flight, which ultimately means that we can only take one suitcase each, with a max weight of 50 pounds. I know what most of you are thinking, "50 pounds, wow that's a ton", well let's just say that my suitcase weighs 20 pounds - without clothes, empty, sans anything. So I can't take that bag, which means I have to take a lighter bag, which also equals a SMALLER bag. So I now have to pack three weeks of cute vacation clothes in ONE smallish-semi-heavyish-but-not-as-heavy-as-the-first-bag bag. For those of you who know me, and the way I pack, you are probably laughing at this cruel twist of events for me. Ha ha. So I have spent the last few days pacing, staring at the bags, taking things out - putting them back in, chewing on my nails (although not hard enough to cause any pre-vacation manicure damage) wondering how on earth I am going to do this. Needless to say, it is still a project in progress. I will keep you updated.

- Sarah