Rotorua. It Stinks.

2/18/10: Rotorua, New Zealand

New Zealand is beautiful. I can say this now with confidence because yesterday we drove all the way – three whole hours! – from Auckland to Rotorua. We passed pine tree (I think) forests, towns with cute smoking chimneys, cows lying peacefully in the grass (but oddly enough, no sheep), small ponds with clear water – all of this on and in between beautiful, endless rolling hills. It is by far one of the most beautiful countries we’ve visited since leaving home last September.

But, and there’s always a but(t), there’s Rotorua. We (i.e. Kevin the planner) decided that we should spend the day in Rotorua exploring some of the “thermal activity.” We (i.e. Kevin) also decided to stop here because it is a good point to break up the drive to Taupo, where Kevin booked his skydive. Rotorua itself is a lovely place, much like any other town in New Zealand (at least that’s how I like to think of it with my vast knowledge of exactly zero towns in New Zealand), but – oh boy – does it stink.

It was subtle at first. A kind of funny smell in our room, a bit like what your friend might smell like after spending too many hours in biology lab dissecting her fetal pig. (Too much imagery? Er, smellery?) We just assumed it had something to do with the air circulation or maybe the dirty clothes we’d been carrying around for the last two weeks. Alas, though we do need to do some laundry, in this case it turned out not to be the culprit.

We ventured out to the nearby Kuirau Park to check out Rotorua’s famous thermal activity. Apparently the heat is caused by sulfur, and apparently sulfur smells really really bad. I don’t know how this whole heat/sulfur/boiling mud/smelliness thing works, so if anybody does, please feel free to enlighten us.

The water, it is steaming. And smelly.

The mud, it is boiling. And really really smelly.

Kevin bravely poses for a picture.

The trickiest part about checking out the thermal vents was that they were often surrounded by trees and bushes so that you couldn’t really see into them unless you were actually peering over the edge of the railing that guarded it. Which meant that you were RIGHT BY IT. Which meant that it STUNK. Which meant that you had to hold your breath for dear life. Kevin and I didn’t want to miss out on seeing anything, but neither did we want to stand near the vents. So we eventually came to an agreement that one of us would scout out each pool and then call the other person over if it deserved a look. This system would have worked perfectly, except for the fact that I never wanted to be the scout. I have a very sensitive nose.

I think in the end we did manage to see much of the park. And besides enjoying the novelty of seeing boiling water and boiling mud come out of the ground, we also enjoyed another, more classic, pastime – fart jokes. “Ew! Wait until you’re in the bathroom before you let another one of those out!” Or one of us would ask “Ugh – was that you?” after a particularly strong whiff, and the other person would nod shamefacedly (or in Kevin’s case, proudly). It was fun.

The park also had a little pool that you could stick your feet in. I don’t know how it worked, other than that water flowed in one end and out the other, and somehow the water was just the right temperature for a soak.

I don't know why everyone left – I can't possibly be smellier than the bubbling mud.

After this malodorous (I admit to thesaurus usage here) expedition, we decided to cancel our plans to visit the other, larger, and therefore MORE MALODOROUS thermal park and headed back to the relative safety of our room for the rest of the night. Because even though it sometimes smelled faintly sulfur-ous in there, at least we could make our fart jokes in peace without wanting to gag.
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Picture of the Day: Me and my new snail friend.

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A Smorgasbord from Sydney to Toblerone

2/17/10: Australia to New Zealand

Most of the time I try to pick the most exciting story from the day and blog about it. I figure there is a much greater chance that you will read a post all the way through if I don’t give you an easy out in the middle of it. There’s just too much to talk about today though, so bear with me as I quickly touch on several different subjects.

Sydney: Hands down, this is the nicest city on the face of the earth. I don’t even need to go to any more cities before making this claim. When Zhou and I get rich, we will definitely buy a vacation house on the water here (even though you can’t get one for under $25 million).

Airport Shuttle: Hands down, this is the most expensive city that we’ve visited so far. We’ve now spent a total of $71.80 getting to and from the airport. And we’re only 20 minutes away! This morning the staff at our hostel forgot to tell our shuttle driver that we had a free ride to the airport, putting us in a dilemma. We had no cash left (we always try to get rid of our local currency before moving to a new country) and we needed to catch our plane. Fortunately another girl on the bus offered to loan us the money. We accepted, but unfortunately had to get off at the domestic terminal with her to pay her back. In most airports, this is not a problem, but noooo, not in Sydney. Inter-airport shuttles cost $5.50 per person! This is the only black mark on this city’s sterling reputation, but it hit our wallets hard. All in all, we paid $28 for the bus, $2 for the ATM fee and $11 for the shuttle. Ouch.

Two side notes: (1) Alfred Park quickly reimbursed us the $28, no questions asked. The staff at this hostel was helpful from the moment we checked in until long after we left. (2) The girl who loaned us the money was from Michigan, thus marking the first time anyone from Michigan has ever helped out anyone from Ohio. Of course it happened on the other side of the world.

After the shuttle hijinks there was only one way to cheer Zhou up: two McDonald's ice cream cones!

Tourists: Yesterday we saw an Asian woman borrow a random white couple’s baby for a photo. (a) I know Asian people love photos, but come on, this is ridiculous, and (b) what could the addition of a stranger’s baby possibly do to enhance your memory of the Sydney Harbour boat cruise?

New Zealand: I’ve been waiting impatiently to get to this country, and now we’re finally here. No verdict on whether or not it lives up to my lofty expectations yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

Customs: We sat on the plane debating on whether or not to declare Zhou’s few fruity snacks on the New Zealand customs card. It seems so much easier just to bypass customs rather than hold them up over some Jolly Rancher type candies. Boy are we glad we declared them. While picking up our bags from the carousel (sadly Qantas made us check them for being overweight), the fruit-sniffing dog ran up to us and alerted his masters of our imports. The officials thoroughly searched our bags, then took our customs cards to make sure we had declared it. The penalty if we would have lied? $200 minimum.

Driving: There really needs to be some international standard for driving cars exactly like we do in America. This left hand side of the road stuff is tiring! I know we’ve been in LSD (Left Side Driving) countries for five months, but it never mattered until we rented our first car today. At the onset I sweated every turn, every lane change and every stop. I got honked at once for not turning left on red. I turned on the windshield wipers countless times to signal my intention to turn one way or another. I could never find the drive shift stick thing and Zhou was always complaining that I was hugging the outside lane marker too much. I never removed my hands from the 10 and 2 position on the wheel – sometimes I kept them there 20 seconds after we parked and Zhou was on her way in to Pizza Hut.

However, like a great actor who gets fully enveloped in a role, by the end of the day I became the king of backwardness. I began shaking hands with my left hand, brushing my teeth by moving my head and sleeping head to toe with Zhou. By tomorrow I guarantee I’ll be the best driver on the road.

The condition of our rental car reminded me of Cool Runnings, the sled not the movie.

Toblerone: How in the world have I never tried a Toblerone (rhymes with “no bologna”)?!? These things are amazing! They combine the high quality of Lindt with the deliciousness of Krackel, and they look like the mountains of Nepal! Can you imagine if something else combined three of my favorite things into one? I’d own a Jamaican bobsled shaped like a chili dog wearing a Lebron James jersey. [Insert Homer Simpson drooling sound.]
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Picture of the Day: Only Zhou can turn a manly picture of me and a totem pole into a girly flower picture.

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No TPS Reports Here

2/16/10: Sydney, Australia

“Nobody likes their boss. You must be the only person in the world who would want to meet up with their boss on the other side of the world… There must be something wrong with you.”
– the oh-so-wise Kevin Curry

You know how people talk about having a work spouse? I never had a work spouse (other than my roommate Naz, but women aren’t allowed to marry in North Carolina, so that doesn’t really count, even though we had a loving relationship), but I did have a work dad. And what does a work dad do, one might ask? Well, not to worry if you don’t know – I shall tell you. He makes sure you go to the gym at least three times a week, he forces you to eat FIVE, not three, not four and half, but FIVE, walnuts every day at 3pm, and he gives you the death stare if you even think about having a soda.

Meet Howie/my work dad/my old boss/the walnut martinet.

We met up with Howie for breakfast at Dov at Delectica, where I tried Vegemite for the first time, and then we leeched onto him for the next seven hours. We went to his parents’ house and met his parents (I like to think of them as Mr. and Mrs. Howie), and then we had lunch with his sister, his brother-in-law and their brand-new, super adorable baby. So basically, Howie flew 18 hours to the other side of the world to visit with his family, whom he only gets to see twice a year – and Kevin and I crashed the party. What can I say? We are loving, caring, considerate people.

Howie, who is almost as proud of us for going on this trip as my real dad is, keeps up with our blog every day. And since he asked me not to mention how he made us go with him to T Bar so he could buy some t-shirts (“Hey – you won’t write on your blog, ‘and then he took us to the t-shirt store and we looked at t-shirts for half an hour…’ will you?”), I won’t mention that at all.

Hey Howie, thanks for breakfast! And lunch! And for showing us around! And for offering to buy me that t-shirt! I would have accepted only Kevin’s started complaining about how we have too much stuff – all ten pounds of it.

We eventually tore ourselves away from Howie so we could catch a harbor cruise with Captain Cook Cruises. If we didn’t go on the cruise, we would probably have tagged along to Howie’s family dinner, and then invited ourselves to stay the night at Howie’s parents’ house, and I think that would probably have been overstaying our welcome just a tad, so it’s probably just as well we went on the cruise.

What is everyone else looking at? Am I missing something?

This game is called Spot the Opera House.

After the cruise was over, we walked to our friendly neighborhood Coles, where we picked up some groceries for our last meal in Australia.

Sorry bub, but you're dead meat.

We had decided earlier that eating kangaroo steak at a restaurant would be a bit too pricey for us, but $3.97 for four kangaroo skewers? That’s in our budget! We cooked up the skewers alongside some onions and mushrooms and peppers, and this became our first self-catered meal that didn’t involve Shin Ramyun, pasta or sandwiches.

The verdict? Roo is yummy.
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Puzzles for Postcards

Hidden Baseball Hall of Famers (A slight twist this week – name all of the Baseball Hall of Famers included either forward or backward in the following. Hint: there are five, all of at least five letters in length.)

The Wall Street opening bell cracked, causing the need for a newer bell. “I keep one handy” the speaker said at the meeting to discuss the problem. “We can melt names onto it to copy the pattern of the original.” The banks all agreed, and the next morning the new bell was hoisted onto the old bench. Order was restored.
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Picture of the Day: We’ll be back, Sydney!

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Bonza Bonanza

2/15/10: Sydney, Australia

In Siem Reap, our overpriced bike rentals cost us each $1 per day. Those days feel like a lifetime ago. Today’s 4 hour rental and guided tour with Bonza Bike Tours: $178. (Don’t worry though – this price is in Aussie dollars, and given the strength of the good old USD these days, that’s only like $177.50.)

So what exactly makes up the $175.50 difference between a Cambodian bike rental and a Australian bike tour? Gather ’round and let me tell you today’s story.

Once upon a time (this morning), Zhou and I arrived at the Bonza Bike office in the oldest part of Sydney, affectionately called the Rocks. It was a beautiful summer morning, with a cool breeze winding through the ageless sandstone structures and my sorry excuse for a week old beard. It was while donning the shiny red Bonza Bike helmets that we realized Americans flock to Sydney as if it were a Hardee’s thickburger. In our 11-person tour, ten of us were gun-toting, straw-chewing, suspender-snapping, world-conquering descendants of George Washington.

Living up to all American stereotypes.

Our fearless leader for today’s “gander on wheels” around perhaps the most perfect city in the world was Adrian, a curly-haired native Sydneyster whose young face was hidden discretely behind his horrible attempt to rub in sunscreen. I immediately sensed that Adrian was the kind of person you’d trust leaving your kids with, as long as your kids were taking a four hour bike tour of Sydney.

Over the next few hours, we each had the time of our day pedaling around the lesser-traveled streets of the city, passing one amazing harbour view after another. We wound our way through Hyde Park, past the iconic Opera House, over the Harbour Bridge and under the thousands of mysteriously out-of-place bats inhabiting the Botanic Gardens. To grandmother’s house we go. We saw the house where Russell Crowe throws phones for most of the year, the institution that is Harry’s Cafe de Wheels (which Zhou and I have eaten at twice already), the creepily awkward Luna Park. We learned about how almost every non-Aboriginal Australian is a convict by blood and how the architect of the Opera House got so fed up with the Australian government that he never saw his completed work. We laughed, we cried and we made memories that will last a lifetime.

Under the bridge.

Over the bridge.

To the house.

Past the house.

As our tour came to an end under the increasingly scorching sunlight, I hopped off my 21-speed “adoption machine” (a term of endearment I gave the seat of my bike for its ability to eliminate any possibility of me ever having kids) and took my wife by the hand for the short walk to the library. (All good bike tours should end with relaxing amidst the musty smell of Australian books.) To paraphrase Dmitri Martin, we immediately reminisced through the 1.5 inch screen on the back of my Canon, and then we lived happily ever after.

PS – After we left the library, we witnessed a gorgeous sunset from the Opera House.

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Pictures of the Day: Color Accent orange works for every occasion.

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Will You Be My Valentine… For Only 59 Cents?

2/14/10: Sydney, Australia

To all guys who are on the fence about doing a round-the-world trip with your significant others: one of the nice features of such a trip is that it gets you out of Valentine’s Day. My proof? Last year on Valentine’s Day I bought Zhou a bunch of flowers, took her to a nice expensive restaurant, showered her with gifts such as stuffed animals and wrote her a card. This year? We ate hot dogs off a street vendor for lunch and cooked 59 cent pasta for dinner.

Although maybe if I’m really lucky, this is just how married Valentine’s Days are. Can anyone back me up here?

…

A couple of days ago Zhou and I were having a very serious conversation over buy-one-get-one-free $7 footlongs from Subway. I’ll pick up the conversation from as close to the beginning as possible.

Z: They probably don’t even know how long a foot is in some countries! I bet each Subway location takes the average length of its employees’ feet and calls that a footlong.
K: That’s discriminatory against large-footed people – what do you think Martin Luther King Jr. would think of that? I bet those countries have $7 meterlongs instead! We need to move abroad now.

Contemplative pause that slowly turns into a “Staring out the window into a stormy night” moment.

Z: So do you think we’ll be better people when we get home?
K: I’d like to think we will.
Z: How so?
K: I’ve actually been thinking about making a list of things I want to do differently after the trip.
Z: What kind of things?
K: Well, I want to play more guitar for one. And I’d like to buy less clothes. Oh, and I want to watch as many LeBron games as possible. I’ve come to appreciate that he’s definitely a once-in-a-lifetime play…
Z: You basically want to become a more extreme version of yourself!

It’s weird – I’ve never thought of it that way. But when you boil it all down, it’s very true. When you get away from your day-to-day lives for so long, you learn to appreciate the things you love the most and you want to focus more of your time on those. Zhou has realized what a luxury it is to be clean, and she’s also learned she can do without a lot of TV. Other than figuring out that I can get by on only three shirts, I’ve taken for granted how easy it is to exercise back home and also how convenient it is to buy milk.

Our conversation then turned from the things we’d like to do more of to what we’d like to become involved in. We both agree that we’re going to set aside a certain percentage of our income for charity, and we’re going to donate that to the two or three causes that matter to us the most. Zhou really wants to take part in a local fruit and vegetable co-op, where someone brings locally-grown food to your door every week. I would like to take up some form of yoga (but not the boring kind). And we are both going to work to stay on top of both national and international news.

I probably write about this topic more than you care to read, but I guess the overarching realization is that the longer we’re away from home, the more specifically we seem to filter what we want to do in life and how we think our time at home will be best spent. The obvious question is, will we remember this once we’ve settled in at home?
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Picture of the Day: This street artist actually paid the little kid $10 to jump over him. Then he begged the kid’s parents to give him $20 to cover his losses.

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