April 4, 2010- BGEE

April 4, 2010- BGEE
Best Greek Easter Ever

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Cape Reinga or Bust-Part I

Firstly, let me dispel a pernicious theory put forward by a gentle unnamed blog follower (will everyone except K. Larson please take one step backwards): to wit the following, “You have time off already? Do you really have a job there?” Yes, I do, thank you very much! But I do also have five out of six weekends off, AND three weeks off in six months time. Ergo, I have much more leisure time than what I am accustomed to in the US, but I think it is a schedule more in tune with the majority of the civilized world (more like a school employee’s schedule, perhaps).
Having been hard at work for two months, it was time to take a week off. One of my goals is to see as much of this beautiful country as possible in my time allotted here. Being the dead of winter, it seemed like a good time to set out for the north part of the North Island, partly to escape icy conditions. We flew from Christchurch to Auckland Saturday the 26th, rented a car, and headed north. There were a few minor travel snags, a flight delay, rental car snafu, etc. Traversing Auckland is more of a hassle than it should be. You have to travel across poorly-marked surface roads through the heart of the town. I was glad I had time to adjust to driving on the left side, and that I insisted on an automatic transmission. I didn’t want the added challenge of negotiating busy, hilly city streets trying to remember to shift with my left hand. By this time it was dark and a bit rainy, but there was a full moon and we made it to our first stop at Whangarei, about 2 ½ hours from Auckland.
“W-h” in Maori words is pronounced like a soft “eff”, which makes Whangarei “fan-gar-AY”. With 45,000 residents, it is the largest town in the north, and on a Saturday night it was lively in pubs and restaurants. We ate in a stylish Middle Eastern restaurant, the Nomad, and in addition to authentic mezzes (appetizers) and kebabs, they feature hookahs with bowlfuls of tobacco (I think) at outside tables.
Sunday we were off to explore. First stop just out of town is 85’ high Whangarei Falls, called “the Paris Hilton of NZ waterfalls” by the Lonely Planet- “not the most impressive but reputedly the most photographed”.
The scenic loop continues out to the Tutukaka coast. About 15 miles off-shore you can see the silhouette of the Poor Knights Islands, a marine reserve with some of the finest subtropical diving in the world. I didn’t have time for a trip now, but definitely would like to return to snorkel.
We continued northward. It is my goal while in NZ to see EVERYTHING in the country worth seeing. This may be unrealistic (but I will try!). I have been warned that it takes longer to get around here than it looks like on the map. I had thought I could get up to the northernmost point from Auckland in two days, but that is not going to happen, especially since I want to travel in the daytime for safety sake and to see what is there. And there is a lot to see, like the public bathroom at Kawakawa. Designed by Austrian-born artist and ecoarchitect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, it utilizes ceramics , recycled bottles, and plants and grass on the roof.
This is en route to the Bay of Islands, the birthplace of the nation of New Zealand. It is a very popular summer resort area, but is lovely to visit in the winter. There is a passenger ferry from Paiha to Russell, currently a small charming village with a colorful past. Originally called Kororareka from the Maori "how sweet is the penguin", after a wounded chief was nursed back to health by blue penguin broth. After the Europeans came, it earned the nickname "the hell hole of the Pacific" due to unsavory behavior of escaped Australian convicts, rowdy whalers, and drunken sailors. The British had to come in to clean it up, leading to the Treaty of Waitangi (more on that later). The first capitol was also nearby. The whole area is filled with history- oldest church,
oldest building, oldest commercial building, etc.(Historical Russell trivia: Charles Darwin visited in 1835 and described it as "full of the refuse of humanity" and donated money to build the church. Zane Gray came in the 1920's and promoted the deep-sea fishing.)
And we were treated to a fabulous double rainbow (not the ice cream).
We went back to Paiha for a romantic dinner on the bay and had a room with a view across the water to Russell.

(To be continued)

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Rabid Balinese Monkeys and The Spork's Bastard Cousin

Nothing like an eye-catching title! Not a lot to report today. We went down to Christchurch this last weekend to go to a conference on Travel Medicine. We stayed at the So Hotel,
an inexpensive trendy hotel.
It aspires to be like the W Hotel lite, if you ever stayed in one. Rooms are tiny but full of amenities, like wireless Internet, flat-screen TV, iPod station, mood lighting..
They had a feature I wasn't allowed to use: you could set a wake-up alert to have the room lights come on gradually, simulating the sunrise OR have the actual sunrise piped into the room. Huumm. (It probably wouldn't have worked.)
I really enjoyed the conference. The speakers were fascinating people: knowledgeable, very experienced in travel with unique insights. Things like:
1) Not much rabies in China or Korea where canines are frequently on the menu, whereas Hindu countries like Bali and India have lots.
2) Speaking of Bali, watch out for the rabid biting monkeys around the temples.
 3) There is no good Chinese word for "privacy"- the closest would have a connotation of secrecy.
4) Coronary disease is on the rise in China. Why? Driving instead of bicycling, high-rise buildings with elevators (not just the stairs), and diet are probably part of the problem.
There were also great travel quotes. Some of my favorites:
1. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain
2. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
3. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” –Robert Louis Stevenson
4. “What knows he of England, who only England knows?" - Rudyard Kipling
Lots more good information; malaria, traveler's diarrhea, dengue, a lot of other data especially important to travelers in this part of the world. Enough for me to give my first talk to the House Officers here today. it was my first use of Power Point (welcome to the 1990's!). I thought it went well.
The weather is frosty in the AM's, what with the Winter Solstice down here and all. Next week we are off to explore the North Island a bit. It will be my first of three weeks of leave I will have in my six months here. Should be "blogalicious", to coin a phrase.
Speaking of coinage, I have discovered a new utensil here. It came with kiwifruit, and is a combination knife (to cut it open) and spoon to scoop it out.
I have dubbed it The Spife, the bastard cousin of the more popular spork.
 On a serious note, my mother had a fall, broke her leg, and needed surgery. She is doing as well as can be expected in Marin, but will have a long road back. With modern technology, I have been able to keep in touch fairly well, but I miss her and love her, and our thoughts are with her.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Moeraki Boulders, Yellow-eyed Penquins, Fleur's Place, and Steampunk in Oamaru

The forecast the weekend of June 12 & 13 called for rain and sleet. Despite this, we decided to venture 90 minutes south here on the weekend, knowing if it got bad, we would skedaddle back to Timaru. Our good tourist fortune would hold, however, and it turned out to be a bright, crisp, beautiful weekend. First stop, the boulders on Moeraki beach.

http://www.newzealandnz.co.nz/destinations/moeraki.html  There is some geological explanation for these spherical concretions, but the Maori considered them eel pots discarded by the gods. I prefer to think of them as Zeus' marbles. We were there at high tide, but they were still magical. We had to dodge the waves and try to stay out of the sticky clay soil, but it was worth it.
In the afternoon we went to the tiny village of Moeraki, which reminds me of Westport. The main attraction there is Fleur's Place (http://www.fleursplace.com/), a pier-side restaurant with fish as fresh as possible and a fine reputation ("World famous in New Zealand", as they say.)
It did not disappoint. As we entered, the staff (hosted by Fleur herself) was finishing up their lunch buffet, a table piled with roast meat, fish, and veggies. My photo was a bit after the fact, but it was like a scene out of one of those foreign films about a lavish feast.
I had the sole with rarebit sauce (a cheddar cheese-based concoction on toast for those non-epicures like me) with smoked eel and bacon (they have the best bacon here) over a green salad; Fayne had the blue cod special with the sweet chile sauce and chips. "Nummy", as Linnea says. Did I mention the sticky date pudding with toffee sauce for dessert? Delightful.
After taking our time it was time to drive to the lighthouse and head down the hill for the Yellow Penguin reserve.(http://www.penguin.net.nz/species/yep/index.html)  These birds are the most endangered species of penguin. There is a wooden structure, or "hide", from which you can observe them near dusk emerge from the sea after a hard day of feeding to get upright, waddle up the hill, and hopefully find their partners. We were able to get quite close, as you can see. 
They are quite beautiful, with a yellow "headband" and golden eyes. We must have spied 15 or 20.

We decided to spend the night in Oamaru, a uniquely preserved stately Victorian era town of 12,000 residents.(http://www.historicoamaru.co.nz/) It turned out there were some ancillary benefits to this decision: a large new jacuzzi tub for Fayne; and, Satellite TV for me. I was able to watch the NZ All Blacks vs. Ireland in rugby in the PM and US vs England in World Cup soccer early in the AM. (I am a dedicated sports fan, even among those sports I know little about. I feel it is my XY duty.)
We then got to explore the town. The predicted rain and sleet never arrived. Oamaru was a very wealthy town for a brief period of time, about 1860-1880. They built magnificent neo-classical Victorian town along a very broad Thames St. using locally quarried sandstone. This stone is beautiful and easy to work with producing quite august buildings.
But then the gold rush ended, grain prices plummeted, and the shipping moved to deeper harbors. As a result the town stagnated and was preserved by the lack of "progress" and modernization, until it could be resurrected 20-30 years ago by preservationists.
Oamaru is also ground zero for the Steampunk movement in New Zealand.
You must be thinking "How is it that John is so knowledgeable about obscure things?" Like many things I am passing on, I too was completely in the dark until 24 hours ago. "Steampunk" began with science fiction/fantasy writers and fans in England in the 1970's and '80's. The central conceit is to combine a future where steam is the major source of power and Victorian-inspired fashions prevail, but throw in some ray-guns.[If you know of the "graphic novel" (ie:comic book) or film "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", that's the concept.]
Oamaru, with its well-preserved center, is the ideal breeding ground for this, and a number of creative artists and designers are producing fantastic vehicles
and fashions. (Haley Smash-Berries wet dream, I would imagine. In fact, she probably already has moved beyond it.) Check out this YouTube post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAQLNTt9lnU&feature=related
The Oamaru horse races and steeplechase was canceled due to a slide over the track, so back to Timaru in time for a brief visit to the local art museum, and then to slave over my blog.
It is a lot of fun to do. Hope you are enjoying it. You should come to New Zealand if you can. It is great.

Why I Didn't Skydive in Queenstown, and Snowy Central Otago


Because it was raining. That is my answer and I'm sticking to it. You must understand, Queenstown is considered the "Global Adventure Capital" by the Lonely Planet Guide (the first commercial bungy jump was here), and we were visiting on my niece Laura Fayne's 21st birthday weekend, so adrenaline was in the air. Laura had had a thrilling experience tandem skydiving out of Cairns, Australia, and seemed to think it would be a good thing for anyone. It seems more acceptable to me to jump out of a plane at 10.000 feet strapped to an experienced instructor than to leap off over rocks or rivers to be jerked up by your ankles by an elastic cord, or to leap off a cliff to paraglide (just two of several fairly insane human endeavors people do here). But, on Sunday June 6th, the birthday in question, it was drizzly, icy cold and overcast. So we decided to go jet-boating on the Shotover River instead. This is another classic Queenstown activity, to careen through a narrow canyon in a very souped up large jet-ski, pausing briefly to spin in vertiginous 360' turns on a dime. When the freezing rain hits you face at that speed, it is a bit like tiny stings or needles. Fortunately, I was very prepared with enough warm protection for both of us and it was actually a lot of fun.
Because of the inclement weather, we stuck close to downtown the rest of the day for window-shopping after a classic burger at Fergburger. (Saturday night we had very good pizza and pasta at a joint down an alley, a funky former milking shed which was recommended by my old friend from Mt. Zion days Jay Luxenberg, called appropriately enough "The Cow". Thanks Jay!)
The birthday celebration was capped by a visit to Minus 5, an "ice bar". You pay an entry fee for 30 minutes and a Vodka cocktail in a refrigerated sub-freezing bar with ice block walls, ice sculptures, ice furniture, even ice cocktail glasses. It seems inspired by the ice hotels first in Scandinavia. They loan you a parka and gloves. It was quite a trip; recommended at least once. Here is my best bad photo through an outside window:
(I may post some other pictures on this later if Laura can send them to me.)
None of my photos really do justice to the beauty of the area. Here is a photo of the first European settler here, Mr.William Rees, and one of his ovine friends:
The next day was Monday, the holiday. The weather was worsening and I had some worries about getting home. The gals were quite snug in the room, so my first challenge was getting the troops moving.
I figured the pass we came over Saturday would be a bit "dodgy", as they say here, so I took a different path, longer but lower elevation, through Central Otago. There had been a fair amount of snow there too. The papers where full of the tale of 40 bikers going to the yearly "Brass Monkey" rally, ignoring the road closure signs over a nearby pass and needing rescue after being stranded for seven hours.
The landscape felt a bit like driving through Wyoming, lots of sheep and cattle, but the roads were kept clear, and we got home fine after about 5 1/2 hours on the road. All in all, a splendid time was had by all, and a truly memorable 21st birthday. L. F. left on Tuesday, back to Perth to prepare to return home to New York, where she is now. But she was a great travel companion, and we loved sharing the time with her.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Slammin’ Tim Tams While Stargazing at Mount John

A large part of my reason for living and traveling is the search for the next Peak Travel Experience (PTE). Its not enough to be in Peru visiting ancient Inca ruins. You need to be in a hut huddled around a caldron of steaming yellow-green liquid with a circle of the natives drinking chicha. Or in Greece on top of Acrocorinth at the site of the temple of Aphrodite pledging  your love. These experiences are few and far between, and are to be cherished.
I had another PTE this weekend.
Fayne’s niece Laura Fayne Hedden graced us by being our first visitor in NZ, on the eve her 21st birthday yet. (We insist on referring to her by her first two names, probably much to her irritation, because she is the only person named after either of us.)
She has been studying in Perth, Australia, has finished her studies, and came to see us before returning to Albany, New York. Luckily, I have a three-day weekend due to The Queen’s Birthday Holiday June 7. Funny thing, its not the Queen’s birthday (that is in April), and it is not celebrated this date elsewhere. Anyway, we are taking the opportunity to take a wide swing through the Southern Alps of NZ.
First stop was Lake Tekapo, where we had visited two weeks ago. In the interim it has been snowing and the mountains are beautifully frosted.It was ice-cold, crystal-clear, moonless, and a perfect night for stargazing. The observatory on nearby Mt. John is run by the Canterbury University astronomy department and they sponsor nocturnal  excursions to observe the heavens. They are knowledgeable and enthusiastic and were perfect guides for gazing at the Southern sky. With little light pollution, “billions and billions” of stars are visable, the Milky Way is rich and creamy, and I finally understand the Southern Cross. We got to use the one meter lens telescope for a stunning view of Saturn and its rings. Then we went into the glass-roofed café for hot cocoa. This is where the Tim Tam slam comes in. Let me explain.
When you are in the shadow of the old British Empire, there are certain common things you find, whether you are in Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, or New Zealand. They like their tea time, meat pies, and biscuits (cookies to you and me). One such treat are Tim Tams, two chocolate malt cookies around a chocolate honeycomb-like matrix in the middle covered in chocolate. We had discovered them, and they were good. But Laura introduced us to an enhanced way to enjoy them she had learned in Perth, referred to as slamming. The technique involves biting off opposite ends and sucking a hot beverage of choice (coffee, tea, or cocoa) through the said biscuit.
This results in a transmografication, with liquidification of the center, saturation of the cookies and melting of the chocolate coating. You then inhale it before it disintegrates. I imagine it is much like converting cocaine to crack; the power of the experience increases exponentially. It is sublime. There we were, under a brilliant ceiling of stars, hot cocoa, and an instant chocolate volcano in our mouths. Truly, a Peak Tourist Experience.
(I recommending The Slam to everyone. It is described in Wikipedia, as well as information for trying to obtain Arnott’s Tim Tams in the USA.)
Saturday we headed to Queenstown (appropriate for the Queen’s Birthday), New Zealand’s #1 tourist destination. Along the way we stopped for coffee and All Day Breakfast (which I now thinks means a breakfast to last you all day, not breakfast served all day) in Tarras and learned the tale of Shrek, “NZ’s most famous hermit outlaw Merino sheep“.
It seems he had evaded the herders and shearers for six years, and when  finally corralled then sheared became a world-famous in New Zealand celebrity. We met his owner’s daughter (his cousin?) who tried to convince us he was living in quiet confined senescence nearby at a very advanced age of 16. I have my doubts.
Next was a stop in Cromwell, an 1860’s gold rush-era town (yes, there was a gold rush here too) which was relocated in 1992 when the Clyde dam flooded the old site. It is quite charming, and there is a great photo-op in front of the giant fruit salad.
Then on to Queenstown, an extensive resort area with a compact, very lively center nestled on the edge of a gorgeous alpine like. A gondola lifts you  2500 feet above the town for panoramic views.
Ski season opened here today, and it is also the center of all kinds of  outdoor adventures. It is the home of commercial bungy jumping and jet boating, with lots of sky-diving, paragliding, kayaking, rafting, and other adrenaline-stimulating activities.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

An Introduction To Auckland and New Zealand

(I meant to post this last month, but lost it somewhere in the chaos....sorry!)


Monday, 26 April
It’s a bit strange and disorienting here in Auckland. It is extremely polycultural, with people living and working here from all over Polynesia, Asia, and other parts of the old British Commonwealth. They do many of the jobs in the service areas which can make communication difficult. At times it seems English is the last language we here. We are adjusting to the time slowly. The climate is basically Northern California, but we are heading back into a second winter this year.
In the morning, we took a Gray Line tour of city highlights. It was good for an overview. The city is surrounded by countless extinct volcanoes, water is all around with both east and west coast ports, and there are many lovely parks. The grandest part of the tour was a too-brief visit to the Auckland Museum. It has an amazing collection of Maori objects including a complete meeting house and large war canoe. Very impressive. We will have to return.
In the late afternoon we ascended into the Sky Tower for the stunning view and sumptuous dinner buffet. One of the attractions was the opportunity to leap off the tower protected by cables and a jump suit. Observation deck visitors are amused by the sight of people leaping into the void and the main reason I did not attempt was the 190 NZD fee. The food at the buffet was good but hard to describe. Fayne thought it was sort of Franco-Japanese fusion; my guess was upscale cruise ship food of a class we have yet to travel. It was also memorable for the presence of a huge Asian tour group off all ages who descended on the food somewhat like a hoard of noisy, hungry locusts.
More touring on for tomorrow.
Ciao for now.

Life in Timaru- Our Neighborhood


Today was the first day clear enough to see the snow-capped Southern Alps that are the western backdrop to Timaru.
I knew they were there, but could only see them distinctly today. The Pacific is to the east, small hills to the north and south, and the Alps to the west. The hospital is six stories high and has great views to all directions. My office window overlooks the Botanic Gardens, a beautiful wooded section across the street from our house. There are two ponds,
an aviary, a play ground, a consevatory and fernery, a bowling green,
a statue of the Scottish poet Robert Burns,
and the ubiquitous cenotaph. There are lot of these around, and to be fair, I had to look it up in Wikipedia myself, and I quote: "A cenotaph is a tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of persons whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον (kenos, one meaning being "empty", and taphos, "tomb")."
Living in Timaru suits us quite well. It is not a tourist destination; travelers usually pass by here on their way to elsewhere. It is a town of genuine working unassuming Kiwis, but as you can tell from this and previous posts it has much to recommend it; the mountain and ocean views, Caroline Bay, many good restaurants and cafes. With its location in the middle of the South Island, nothing here is too far away, but being on the coast, we don't have the ice and cold the inland does. Last week was the rainiest in 35 years here, but nothing like what we are used to in Fort Bragg. To many people, coming here is to go to a smaller town, but not when you come from Fort Bragg. It is a pleasant 15-20 minute walk to a nice (but not flashy) downtown area;
it has a good movie theater, library, art gallery, and museum, several handsome older churches. As an aside, the museum has a recreation of  a machine a local man, Richard Pearse, may have flown in March 1903, before the Wright Brothers.
This thing looks unlikely to have flown to me, and I don't think even the natives think he did this. Ex Post facto oral history includes this item: "Two young girls, the Fraser sisters, remember arranging a pile of potatoes so they could 'pelt that crank Pearse' if he flew near them."  Amusing, in a Monty Pythonesque way. There is more than enough to keep Fayne and I entertained and engaged for the next six months.
This is a very comfortable place for us, especially as we settle in more. We are adapting to make our home warmer (lack of central heating is a British tradition). Everyday, we notice little things missing, things that we generally have tons of at home. We couldn't ship everything here, and we spent much of the last four months thinning out our possessions. For each item (slippers, clock radio, DVD player, etc.) we have to decide how important is it to our comfort for the next six months; do we start re-accumulating or do without.
To be honest though, our life here is a little odd. It is very much like life at home, but 20% askew, like a parallel universe. (Not really Bizarro World- that has a negative connotation.). The climate is very similar but colder. They speak "English", but not really. First of all, you will hear every kind of accent imaginable, especially from all corners of the former British Commonwealth and Asia. The New Zealand accent itself must be the strangest of all English dialects. They seem on their way to eliminating all short vowels. For example, "better" is pronounced "beeter". When one doctor said "I am looking for a simple keess", he didn't mean "kiss" but "case". And they usually speak very rapidly. At least once a day, I will be standing at a register, and the smiling clerk will pleasantly rattle off something completely incomprehensible to me. I take my best guess as to whether it is "do you have our discount card?", "paper or plastic?", or "enough rain for you?". I too smile and say either "yes" or "no" and hope it is either the correct answer or is taken as a jovial answer ironically opposite of the right answer. People don't seem to notice.
People told me before I came here "its like turning back the clock 30 years". There is something to that, but that too is a little off. They do constantly play popular music from the 60's and 70's, and many TV shows of that era are shown ("Magnum, PI" anyone?), but there is also Oprah and Letterman and American Idol, and new movies. Depressingly, there are also news stories of drugs, alcohol, crime, gangs, oil spills, etc.
Also, they do drive on the other side of the road here, and it is tomorrow (compared with the good old USA).
Foreign travel is a much different experience now than it was even 5-10 years ago. We can and do talk to and see our daughter Sofia and Granddaughter Kimarra (BTW, did you know she is the most special baby in the whole world?) nearly daily via cell and Skype, and I also call my mother weekly. It is still very far away, but time and space are warped.
Enough musings for now.
PS-A final shout-out to my Best Man, David Nishikawa. A few weeks back, I posted a mostly black nocturnal non-flash image allegedly of a kiwi bird. David "adjusted" the photo electronically to bring out a somewhat impressionistic image of the elusive avian. Bravo, David!
PPS- We have been watching "The Flight of the Conchords"...it is twice as funny after having been in NZ. We especially enjoyed the episodes with the Prime Minister and "Little New Zealand".