Astonishment

Day four!

In Chinese, the word “four” is a homonym for the word “dead.” Hotels in the US don’t have a 13th floor (at least, not a floor labeled as the 13th floor) because the number 13 is supposedly bad luck. In China, you’ll find that there is no 4th floor, 14th floor, 24th floor, or 34th floor. I wonder, though, whether or not they just ignore the 40th to 49th floors. I’ve never been to a building in China that’s tall enough to include those….

But yes. Day four.

The Day of Death.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with by fourth day of spring break. We were still in Christchurch… I believe it was either a Friday or a Saturday. That meant the marketplace downtown was open, so our Christchurch hosts decided to bring us down for some shopping fun.

We had to walk through Cathedral Square again, which was filled up this time.

The marketplace had little cakes for sale, lots of souvenir-type-stuff, crepes, fudge, delicious Greek food, and seagulls. Yes. Even all the way across the Pacific Ocean, those birds still hunt people down for the food in their hands.

And oh! There was a street performer! He wasn’t a magician, but he did some magic-like stunts. This is him lying down on a bed of broken glass while a spectator jumped on him.

The stunts were ok, but the performance was really entertaining. He was energetic - exactly what a street crowd looks for in the middle of a marketplace.

Finally, for the Scots out there, a man in a kilt blowing a bagpipe:

Fun as.

After that, we took a bus to Sumner’s Beach. It’s not a wildly tourist-y location… and you may miss it if you’re taking a quick tour of New Zealand. It’s definitely not at the top of any lists, but it was one of my favorite places in New Zealand.

It’s a beautiful beach with soft, shell-less white sand (unlike the yucky stuff on the Jersey shore). At some points, it’s almost impossible to differentiate the sky from the water. What’s more - the beach has these giant rock structures that are absurdly fun to climb. There are random mussel shells on them. And this entire beach is the foreground to another beautiful view - there are mountains in the background, white with the winter snow. You will see pictures…

I just wanted to say, though, that I think I missed out on the climbing-everything-into-every-hole stage as a child. I have a Kiwi friend who pointed out the urge to jump into a hole that she saw (we were on a class field trip… this blog entry will come later). I would have loved to do more of that….

But here we go.

Sumner Beach:

My friends decided to take off their shoes so that they can go for a dip in the water. It’s winter… not as bad as it is here, but definitely not warm enough to go for a swim. So while they adventured forth on bare feet, my sister and I stole their shoes and ran to the top of the rock structure. I deposited their shoes there and waited for them to come.

Yes. That’s right. We stole their shoes.

Then we just climbed around the little rock thingies for a bit. People took lots of pictures… and they all ended up looking like band pictures or something. Strange…

And here’s this really tall part that had a path up it on the other side. Most people took that path. Since I was bitten by the climbing bug, I decided to take the risk and brave the climb upwards without any climbing gear. I was joined by another friend, and we had a nice climb up to the top. Didn’t climb down though… don’t think I could have managed that.

And here’s the path that most people took to get up. We used it to get down.

And don’t forget the caves.

Here you can see both the entrance to the caves and the main rock structure that we climbed up.

That night, we thanked our hosts by cooking dinner for them. The Auckland group (that’s me, my two friends, and my sister) went to the supermarket, bought taco-making things and pasta stuff, and cooked. It was fun and a good way to end our time in Christchurch.

The next morning, we hopped on a plane and headed for Dunedin - home of both the Speight’s beer factory and a Cadbury chocolate factory. More on that later… but, in the meantime, a thank you to Brad, Angelica, Shalom, Heather, and Florence for taking all these pictures.

So it’s finally spring (it’s September now). Most University of Auckland students spend these two free weeks studying and writing papers… I spent it traveling. No matter. Those two weeks were undoubtedly sweet as.

A side note: Yes. I know it’s not really September. And yes. I’m not actually in New Zealand anymore. The semester ended with the end of October, and final exams took place during the first two weeks of November. But oh well. DEAL WITH IT!

Eh… ahem. Spring break.

The original plan involved a couple days in Australia and a week and a half on the South Island of New Zealand. But, as usual, the whiny voice of my little sister decided to stalk me all the way across the Pacific Ocean… and, as the older sister, I was forced to stay behind in New Zealand and wait for her while two other friends went ahead to brave Australia’s great Outback.

Since my sister can read what I’m saying… eh… I should probably apologize and say, instead, that I was glad to have her along. Seriously though - yes. It was great to have her along. My parents were going to come and see me at the end of my semester, but she would have classes then. So she persuaded them to let her come earlier… and, though I missed Australia, we nevertheless had an amazing time.

So… Day One: Rangitoto.

You may not remember this… but Rangitoto is the volcano where a fellowship of American students in New Zealand destroyed the One Ring. I mean - eh, it was one of the first day trips that I took in Auckland. Since my sister was dead tired and completely jet-lagged - she had just gotten off the plane that morning - I decided to torture her by dragging her up a volcano.

You’ve already seen pictures of Rangitoto… but last time, we didn’t make it to the lava caves.

My cell phone doubled as a torch (aka flashlight). We were fortunate that we had it… because we managed to stumble into one particular lava cave/tunnel. We went in one end, braved the darkness, hit our heads and tripped on sharp rocks, before finding our way out the other end. No pictures because it was too dark to take them. And also because I didn’t bring my camera, and my sister neglected to take any pictures.

Then we climbed up to the summit again and sat down for some lunch. Here’s a view of the city from the top… and yes. That bird is posing for us. My sister dropped a bread crumb there as a bribe.

Christchurch

Day two was spent partially exploring Auckland… and partially riding in a plane to the South Island. We arrived in Christchurch, grabbed a taxi, and made our way to Canterbury University where we were picked up by other American friends in the IFSA-Butler program. They brought us out for some fish ‘n chips dinner and gave us a mattress to sleep on. My fellow travelers who had gone ahead to Australia arrived back in New Zealand that night.

Day three -
We spent this day exploring the city. It was beautiful… a lot more red-brick than Auckland, had a more British feel… and the place was a lot more like Amherst and Northampton.

We took a series of buses to the center of the city. It was a Saturday morning, so the place was bustling with activity. All the little stores were opened, a town crier dressed in a traditional red coat walked around yelling out random things, and street performers played flutes, juggled torches, and tried to sing.

So the town crier:

Here’s some of the random Christchurch ‘artwork’ that decorated the streets:

There was even a giant chess set in the middle of the square. Think Harry Potter… I wanted to play but two people were already battling out their conflicts on it.

The most prominent feature, though, was the giant cathedral at the edge of the square.

Let’s go inside…

Beautiful, eh? Believe it or not… this is the final resting place of Aragon. See?

Ok. Maybe not. But it’s cool.

After that, we each paid a dollar to take the winding stairs up to the top of the cathedral’s clock tower. There were 134 steps winding tightly around a central pillar. It’s designed to give the defender the advantage in a swordfight. All I experienced, though, was severe motion sickness when I went up.

Through the little window there, you can see all the bells.

And, finally, the view of the square from the top.

After the cathedral, we walked down the street pass the Dyslexic Center. The Dyslexic Center seemed to be some kind of center for… I don’t know… research on dyslexia or something? All I could get out of it was that it was pretty and weirdly decorated. I didn’t get what the figure on top meant, but we took pictures anyway.

Then onwards to the museum!

It was essentially the Christchurch Museum of everything…

After we ate the museum, we had lunch from the random food stands in Christchurch. I had a delicious kebab (think burrito with chicken and random stuff).

Then PENGUINS!!!

Yes. That’s right. Penguins. On the afternoon of Day Three, we went to the Antarctic Centre.

The place rescues wounded penguins from the south and cares for them at the Antarctic Centre. Any baby penguins that are born there, though, are returned to the wild. The Antarctic Centre in Christchurch is also the place where the rest of the world goes to prepare for trips to the Antarctic. There’s a US base (or something?) there where scientists and south pole people go. From there, they take a plan down to the bottom of the planet.

So we came.

We survived the antarctic weather. This was a room that became colder every twenty minutes or so. They would give us big red coats to wear… then we would go inside. There’s snow on the ground, an ice slide, an igloo, a tent, and a motorcycle-thingy for people to take pictures on. Every twenty minutes, it would get colder and darker… giant fans would turn on, and everyone inside would freeze to death.

Yes. You can see my sister and I smiling here. But then the lights slowly disappeared, the fans turned on, and we died.

And thus ends this blog.
Forever.

Oh. Heh. Maybe not. I lied.

>.>

<.<

Some of these penguins are so injured that they can’t swim properly. We watched them eat… one of the staff members fed them by throwing fish into the water. They dived and grabbed for the fish. One penguin could only swim clockwise….

We also learned that the penguins won’t eat fish without heads. The man who was feeding them ripped off the head of one of the fish and threw it in. The penguins grabbed for it, only to spit it out again.

So… here’s the feeding:

And this last one was hand-fed because he was too injured to jump out, swim, and fight for the food with all the other penguins.

After that, we rode on a Haglund. (Think giant tank-like vehicle that drives up and down snowy hills, over giant holes, and into lakes.)

That red one is a fake one… in the room with the freezing cold fans from earlier. Here’s a real one. We rode on it towards a muddy track. We went up and down hills, off cliffs, over holes, and into a lake. Yes, that’s right. INTO a lake.

Remember… INTO a lake. See the water?

And here’s my biggest accomplishment yet: I was in two places at once.

(My right foot is on water from the North Pole, while my left foot is on water from the South Pole).

Yeah… anyway. That’s the end of part one. There’s at least another day of Christchurch, though, before we go off to explore the rest of the South Island. Stay tuned for more.

In a time of ancient gods, warlords, and kings, a land in turmoil cried out for a hero. She was Xena, a mighty princess, forged in the heat of battle… Her courage will change the world.

And, indeed, her courage did change the world.

Let’s go back to the middle of winter: August.

IFSA-Butler (the program that I’m in) planned a daytrip for my group to the Waitakeres – in this place where the old gods once roamed, Xena and Hercules fought side by side in the New Zealand rainforests. The Waitakeres, a place transformed into Ancient Greece, was the shooting location of our favorite son of Zeus and, of course, our favorite Warrior Princess.

In this amazing rainforest, I hyperventilated, nearly froze to death, slipped and fell enough times to rival Commander Kimpulse in bruises. I also had one of the greatest experiences of my life… and the great thing? If you’re not afraid of hiking through a rainforest without a guide, you, too, can hike through ancient Greece without paying a penny.

Anyway, here we go-

Saturday morning, we hopped onto a bus with Mel (our Student Liaisons Officer aka our advisor aka our New Zealand mum) and two guides. After a long and windy bus trip through the curved roads of New Zealand (and another near-carsickness/throwing up incident), we arrived at the Waitakeres guest center for our first view of the rainforest. From the little museum-like area with its displays of the local wildlife (mainly birds and insects) and geological features, we could stand on a little balcony. Here’s the grand view:

Yep. Straight out of Xena.

We got our bagged lunches, headed back into the bus, took another winding drive up into the rainforest, and stopped right before my breakfast decided to come back up out of my stomach.

Checked our clothing (to make sure no one was wearing anything with cotton), stuck food and warm sweaters into dry bags, then started the hike.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting very much. I expected a nice, easy hike – the name of the trip was simply “Wander in the Waitakeres.” If that trip was just a wander, I’d hate to think what a real tramp through the rainforest would be.

Anyway – hiking. Or tramping. We walked downhill… through some obviously man-made slippery wooden steps, hands bracing our bodies against everything that we could see. It had rained the day before… and things in the area were just naturally wet. I grabbed several ferns and tree trunks and branches to steady myself, though I probably released and sent several sharp splinters into the face of the person behind me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t actually kill anyone…

When we reached the bottom of the steps, our guide pointed out a little pond area. At this point, I realized that I had forgotten to bring a water bottle. Our guide (I don’t remember his name, so I’ll call him Elmer) said that there were parasites in the water that could cause diarrhea… but, otherwise, it was safe to drink.

So… eh… good thing I don’t get thirsty easily?

Some more hiking.

And then. Wait. What? We were going to hike in the water? But what about our clothes? And shoes? They’ll get wet!

Yes. They will get wet.
Yes. You will fall.
Yes. You will freeze to death.
Oh. Ok. That’s fine.

So into the water we went.

Looks great, eh? We spent most of the hike knee-deep in water, carefully navigating the smooth, slippery rocks at the bottom of the river. There were random bursts of fast water and random moments of peace. It was cold at first, but after a while, it didn’t matter anymore since I could no longer feel my legs anyway.

At first, we tried for the high ground, avoiding the river whenever possible. If there were rocks above water, we climbed them. Sometimes, the water was just so deep that we had to climb them… inching slowly sideways against the rocky side of a cliff. Of course, if we slipped, we would fall backwards into the cold water… and a hike in the river would become a swim in our clothes.

But hey – I wasn’t really that wet above my knees. It was all fine and dandy.

Pretty trees. Pretty rocks. Pretty bugs. Pretty sky. Pretty mountains.

Oooh. Pretty waterfall. I wonder how we’re going to get around that.

Wait. What? Say that again?

We will be… climbing.. down this waterfall… with a rope. Abseiling. Ok. Breathe. Sounds fun. Breathe. Sounds dry. Breathe. People are doing ok. Can’t be any different from the last part of rock climbing, right? I’ve done that before… (FOOT Rocking Trip, 2006!)

You go first.

Ok. Looking down. Not scary. Nope. Not at all.

Climbing. Or… opposite-of-climbing. Lowering.

Don’t let go. Hold tight. Rope burn won’t kill me. Falling will.

Ah! I’ve made it! I’m alive! Nervous laughter.

More hiking. More beautiful scenery. More reminders of scenes from Xena… and yes. I watched the entire series all at once during exams period freshman year. So… heh.

Oh. Hiking.

Ok. More walking in water.

And then… another waterfall! We’ve already done it once. We can do it again. Look! There’s Elmer the tour guide again. He’s probably setting up another rope. Wait… what’s this? He just threw his bag down. It’s floating at the bottom now. Wait.. what? NO! NOOOO!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

He jumped!

Someone else just jumped. And then… and then…

Look at that waterfall.

Hehe.

No. That’s not it. That’s another one that we saw. We didn’t jump off of it. We probably would have died if we did. Here’s the one we jumped:

But yeah. Okay. Shouldn’t be too hard. Just jump far enough away from the rocks. Wouldn’t want to smash into them. That wouldn’t be pretty. Nope. Not at all. Okay. Don’t think about it. Climb slowly to the edge. Turn around. Wave goodbye to everyone else. Breathe. Don’t think.

Just do it.

JUMP!

Scream.

Get laughed at later for my scream – because, you know, hard to think that that kind of sound could have come out of me. Yeah… er…

Breathe. What’s this? Cold. Cold. Swim. Breathe faster. Heart racing. I think I’m hyperventilating. Paddle. Paddle paddle. I think I can see the shore but… it’s too far. Don’t think I can make it. Hyperventilating. Wait. I’m hyperventilating. That means I need to calm down… slow down my breathing. Why am I doing this? Why did I come here? It’s freezing cold… I… I…

A hand. Grab the hand. Grab. Get lifted up… climb up. Up onto the shore. Breathe. Shiver. Slow down… look around.

Whew.

I’ve made it! Wow. Don’t think I could do that again, but it was great! Amazing. Look! There’s that guy that I know with an orange jacket. He’s jumping too. He’s hyperventilating, I bet you. Haha! And… he’s swimming to the wrong spot. Over here now. He’s panicking. He’s climbing. He’s back on shore. I watch. I’m ok. Everything will be ok. I’m alive now. Nothing to worry about.

One by one, the remaining hikers jump off the waterfall. One by one, they panic in the cold. They swim. And they relax. Then comes more hiking. More walking through the river. And, almost immediately, we run into another waterfall.

And, almost immediately, we have to jump down a second (albeit shorter) waterfall. More hyperventilating. Not as bad as the first time, though, but I came out shivering. As a result… since that would be our last jump, the guides and Mel (aka our Student Liaisons Officer, if you don’t remember) gave me a nice big wooly sweater and a funny green beanie. Didn’t matter.

It was warm.

No more waterfall jumps, though. But yes. One more waterfall.

We carefully climbed down it.

Hiked more, still knee deep in water. Stopped, finally, at a little hut area for lunch. It rained for those fifteen minutes of food… but, as a Kiwi friend says, there tends to be four seasons in one day here on the North Island.

Beautiful views, of course:

More hiking. On ground now, though the ground was soft and muddy… our shoes, cleaned by the rushing water of the river, was suddenly brown and mucky again.

The mud, however, slowly transformed into a black magnetic sand as we approached the black sand dunes of the Waitakeres.

By the way – these sand dunes were actually filmed in Xena, though I don’t remember where they’re from. I’ll need to watch again and look for these places… but yeah: Black Sand Dunes.

We climbed up them… and our muddy shoes became encased in black sand. Because the sand was so soft, we ran and jumped off the edge of the dunes.

Fun. Ended up completely covered in this black magnetic sand.

Then hiked over to the beach. Beautiful views.

Relaxed. Hopped back onto the bus. Fell asleep.

And finally, home.

–

Definitely the most fun I’ve had in New Zealand. If I weren’t so worried about wandering through these rainforests without a guide, I’d bring everyone here. If I bring a friend with hiking experience, though, I think we’d manage. If you ever come to New Zealand and you have some hiking experience, this is the place to go.

Anyway, random note-

Kiwis tend to drop their r’s when they speak. Park, for example, would be pronounced pok. Orc, for example, would be pronounced ock. Thus, when you come to Auckland, you also enter Orcland.

With that said, I leave you to get back to my last week of classes. I am now updated up into mid-August. The next update may take awhile… considering that my next trip is my two-week spring break. So I’ll see you then.

I took NO pictures on this trip. All pictures are credited to Brad B, Britt O, and Helen A.

“Even i am eatable. And that my dear children is called cannibalism which is frowned upon in most societies.” -Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka

So… you want to be a cannibal?

Or, eh, you’d like to hear more about cannibalism? This post won’t be a story about “primitive man” and a “barbaric” instinct for human meat. This will, rather, be a more serious post about the nature of cannibalism among the Maori in New Zealand. And, since European sailors were the ones who originally wrote about their observations in New Zealand, this post will also be about a sailor’s morbid fascination with cannibalism.

For sailors, at least, there was always a fear that a shipwreck would force them into cannibalism. You may have heard stories about starving sailors, drawing straws to pick out the one among them who would die so that the rest could live….

These stories were foremost on the minds of the European sailors who first arrived in New Zealand. Captain Cook (the New Zealand version of Columbus) and his men first encountered cannibalism at Queen Charlotte Sound… and, since then, there has been a lot of writing on the issue. Cook, unlike others of his time, strangely insisted in his journals, “They eat their enemies slain in battle - this seems to come from custom and not from a Savage disposition - this they cannot be charged with.”

Based on my elementary understanding of Maori customs - keeping in mind that these customs varied from tribe to tribe and region to region - I’ll try to explain the basic principles of cannibalism in New Zealand.

The Maori have a concept called mana. Mana, explained simply, is the authority and respect that a person has. Though a person is born with a certain amount of mana (based on bloodlines), any person’s mana can increase and decrease based on his or her actions. Someone who kills many people in battle gains more mana while those who are cowardly lose mana. People can also gain and lose mana based on reciprocity.

Here, we have the basic anthropological ideas of reciprocity: there is some social obligation to fulfill after someone has given a gift to another person. Gift exchanges build relationships, and gift exchanges are, thus, an important part of social life. Anyone who does not return a gift in some shape or form loses mana and those who give more gain mana.

In addition to gift exchanges, insults are also a part of the concept of reciprocity for the Maori. If a person insults you, your mana will be horribly damaged unless you reciprocate that insult.

With that in mind, cannibalism in Maori society is not the practice of hunting down and eating others. Rather, cannibalism involves raising one’s mana, decreasing the mana of one’s enemies, and reciprocating insults. Oftentimes, cannibalism was only practiced after someone from another group has greatly insulted your group. In such cases, there may be no other way for you to regain your mana.

Cannibalism is the greatest insult one tribe can give another tribe, especially if the person eaten is a chief. Because the chiefs and their ancestors are extremely, extremely sacred (the Maori term would be tapu), then the simple act of changing these sacred men into profane, everyday food (profane would be noa) would be very damaging to the tribe’s mana and its reputation.

And thus ends my attempt at describing a complicated cultural practice in a short, simple post.

Fine, fine…

I realize New Zealand’s a bit more than a centre (woah - I just spelled that the Kiwi/British way) of adventure tourism. Some of you are probably interested in my daily life here… my classes, my schedule, and my weekends when I’m not out touring the country.

Because, you know, that stuff actually is very interesting.

But guess what? You will… NEVER know about it!

Or, eh, maybe not never. But you won’t hear about it today because I still have a lot of other stuff that I need to catch up on. It’s been insane lately, what with the onslaught of papers and exams that I have suddenly come in. Midterms are just about over, but I still have a lot of stuff to do.

As a result, with a lot of work… comes a lot of procrastination.

So I give you this week’s edition: Merging like a Zipper.

The excitement of the beginning has passed by this point… we’ve formed the fellowship, we’ve bypassed the initial orcs, and now… we have weeks of mindless walking in front of us. There are still battles approaching, we still have an enemy to fight, and, as always, there’s that the burden that one of our group carries around his neck. But until the next adrenaline rush, all we have is a bucket full of boredom and a field full of sheep.

BAAHHH!

But we also have archaeological field trips. As an anthropology student, it’s my duty to my fellowship to explore all the branches of my department, even if archeology’s focus on artifacts pales in comparison to my more sensible interest in people.

Right… so, eh…

Archeology field trip. About a month ago - two weeks or so after my trip to Rotorua, my lecturer from my NZ Archaeology paper brought us out on a trip to this giant hill. “Paper,” by the way, is the Kiwi term for “class.” So, lately, I’ve been writing papers for my papers.

Anyway-

Because, by that point, I had made a friend in that class, she offered to give me a ride. Otherwise, I would have to crowd into a bus with the rest of the class and suffer through a bumpy, probably vomit-inducing ride. We left early… and arrived long before anyone else was there, so she decided to give me a tour of the neighborhood.

Her tour consisted of every major and minor landmark in the area… and its thorough history. I saw a bank where a gun was fired once upon a time (a rare occurrence due to the strict gun laws in this country), and several stores with strange names. There was a clothing store called “The Carpenter’s Daughter.” No idea where that came from.

Of course, I also commented on random things that stood out to me on the streets. There are a lot of rotaries here, and there are a lot of strange signs. One of these signs is a picture with a zipper and a car. That’s right. You’ve guessed it: Merge like a zipper.

Our first stop was a dead end - the edge of the road where we could see a little lake area with a little island. That island was fascinating. It was small and.. well, take a look for yourself:

Don’t worry. You’ll see more pictures of this amazing island later.
We proceeded, then, to go to a little area by the harbor… with benches and geese and stuff. I guess it’s a park-like area. There’s a sign there that says…

No alcohol.
No smoking.
No parking on the grass.
No fishing.
No littering.
Do not collect shellfish.

Yep. That shellfish thing was random. Only… not quite. Shellfish were the main source of protein for the Maori here in New Zealand after the fauna population was depleted. Some Maori probably have continued to collect shellfish.

Only one picture of that harbor area, mainly because my fingers were freezing in the wind. August is winter here, remember?

We passed by some houses. My friend and tour guide pointed out a Maori sovereignty flag outside one house… and a New Zealand flag outside of another. I made a comment about a game of Capture the Flag, but I sensed that there are tensions in New Zealand between some Maori and some white Kiwis. The Land Wars, after all, isn’t too far back in history. More on my observations on these tensions may… or may not come later.

But-

After that, we finally hopped back into the car and drove to our field trip destination: Mangere Pa.

Our first view of Mangere Pa.

I’ll begin with some background. A pa is, in essence, a Maori fortified site. Once the original Polynesian settlers have arrived in Aotearoa (aka New Zealand) and settled into groups, conflicts began… possibly as a result of a competition for resources, which resulted from a rise in the population.

The pa formed as a defensive refuge and a lookout point. They were made on natural hills, though the land was modified with terraces and artificially flattened land. Defensive structures, for the most part. Mangere Pa had a strange crater in its center:

Around this crater, there were several holes in the ground. These holes are kumara pits - sweet potato storage areas. They were covered once upon a time (wood tends to deteriorate over time). And… yeah. They stored lots of sweet potato.

You can just make out the dips in the land.

These pits covered most of the pa, and I took a lot of pictures of them. As the only American in the group of Kiwi students, I felt obliged to play up the American tourist stereotype.

Oh! Here’s a giant kumara pit. Since we were all standing over it looking down, we created some nice shadows… so it’s pretty.

Yes, there are a lot of kumara pits. But they weren’t all used at the same time, so it’s actually fairly difficult to estimate the population of the people who once lived at the site. Sweet potato tends to rot easily, and a pit becomes disgusting and bacteria-filled after it’s stored kumara for a while.

We also got to play with a long steel stick thingy:

I’m not sure what it’s called, but it’s used to feel for midden. Midden would be a pile of prehistoric rubbish. Shells from shellfish, chips from broken tools, animal (and human) bones would be thrown into a big pile. For the most part, these pits were filled with the inedible parts of prehistoric Maori diet. And yeah - when I said that human bones were sometimes found in these sites, it means that some Maori did practice cannibalism. Not all… but some. And they have their reasons for it. It wasn’t too commonplace. Let me know if you’re interested, and I can write more about it from what I know via ethnography. But back to the kumara pits: sometimes, the Maori would take these piles and use them to fill up old storage pits.

Archaeologists love trash, and they love to analyze it, so midden is actually pretty interesting to study. They would take that stick and push it through the dirt into the ground. If it hits something hard and makes a crunch sound, then, chances are, you’ve hit midden.

Some midden, of course, rises up to the surface. When you look at it… for the most part, it’s a bunch of broken shells in the dirt. See the little white things?

And here’s a person actually using that long steel stick thing to search for midden.

Here’s some artificially flattened land. At one point, there were probably some houses or small buildings on this bit of land.

We climbed up to the top… and got a great view of the waters around Auckland and Mangere Pa.

Yep. It’s a great lookout point. Someone up here would be able to spot invading canoes long before they arrive.

Here’s a terrace - a man-made depression in the hill. A bit like a moat, I guess… only without the water. The defender has the advantage of higher ground. Moreover, wooden palisades used to jut out of the ground, further blocking the invader from attacking.

Here are some random cows on the pa. Yeah… by the way, these cows mean that I went home with my nice sneakers covered in poo.

Oh! Look! It’s that little island again! Only, this time, I’m looking down at it from the top of the pa! Yeah… I really liked that little random island.

And, finally, more of the view from the top. New Zealand’s a beautiful country….

(I was a bit embarrassed at how touristy I was. So I tried to take a picture from the top… out from my pocket… without looking at the screen. The following picture shows how wonderful my aim is.)

Mangere pa is only twenty minutes or so away from the center of Auckland. The city’s not that great, architecturally, but the area’s beautiful. I also thoroughly enjoyed this field trip. For those who don’t know what they’re looking for, the pa’s just a giant hill with livestock and poop on it. For those who do, there’s a good bit of history in the land.

After the field trip, I got a ride back to campus… where I had lunch with my friend before we parted ways. I had class, and she had to go home.

Here’s an interesting aside. You may not get it if you’ve never been to Auckland… and it’s probably a lot harder to tell this joke through text, but I want to give it a try. I thought the joke was funny.

Background notes:

-Mangere Pa is one of many pa in New Zealand. The biggest and most well-known/tourist-y pa is in Auckland… known as One Tree Hill (this is its English name).

-There are many places in New Zealand that have retained their original Maori names. Mangere Pa is one example. Rangitoto and Rotorua are two other examples.

-Maori pronunciation is different. “Wh” is pronounced with an f sound. “Whangarei,” for example, would be pronounced fong - uh - ray. “A’s” are like the “o’s” in “bog.”

-”O’s” are pronounced ah. Onehunga is pronounced Ohn - uh - hung - uh.

Okay. With that in mind… here’s the joke:

An American tourist in Auckland returned to his hotel one night. The person at the front desk asked him what he had done that day. The tourist replied, “I went to One - Hunga.” (Pronounced as the number “one” followed by “hunga.”)

The person at the front desk laughed and responded, “No… you were at Ohn - uh -hung - uh. You see, there are two languages in New Zealand: English and Maori.”

The tourist nodded. He understood. The next day, he comes back from a trip. Once again, the person at the front desk asked him what he had done that day. The tourist grinned and responded, “I went to Ohn - uh Tree Hill.”

–
End of Joke.

Get it? He actually went to One Tree Hill… but… he pronounced it in Maori and…
Er.

You need to hear it to get it. And… yeah, it’s a funny joke… because… I thought it was. And.. it was corny. I like corny jokes.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this entry. I’ll try and update again soon. In the meantime, good night.

—
The picture of sheep, I stole off of Google. I do have a LOT of pictures of sheep… but I didn’t take any of them on this particular trip, and I was too lazy to dig them up. The other pictures, I actually took myself for once.

I know. A period of nothing… and then, all of a sudden, one post after another. Heh… that’s how I tend to do things: all at once. So yeah.

And now… woah. If you ever go to New Zealand, Rotorua is the place to be. Three of us took a three day trip to Rotorua. We left one Friday (on the first day of the Olympics) and returned that Sunday. We rented a car, drove on the left side of the road, and…

Well. It was my first taste of adventure tourism in New Zealand. So let’s begin:

—

Friday

After class ended, we loaded our bags, packed it into a rental car, and left the city for Rotorua. My friend Brad drove out of the city, friend Kate navigated, and I sat in the back and tried not to get sick. The cows, sheep, horses, farms, and sights around me… bunched together with the camera in my hands… made it hard for me to concentrate on not getting sick.

Fortunately, I didn’t get sick. Not yet. Because… when I do, it gets ugly.

When we reached the halfway point, I took over the driving. Here’s some tips… if you ever end up in a situation where you have to drive on the “wrong” side of the road: stay awake, keep left, and watch out for right turns. If you’re in New Zealand, you’ll probably also run into a LOT of traffic circles.

Anyway, that night, nature was waiting for me to start driving. The moment I got in, it started to rain… and the sun started to set.

That was loads of fun….

There weren’t any close calls, considering that it was my first time driving here… though I did make a wrong exit from a rotary at one point. No worries, though. The GPS that we had helped a lot with that, and it beeped everytime I reached 100. That’s… 100km/hour, if you’re wondering. And, when I was driving… it tended to beep a lot.

Yeah… er, blame the New Jersey driver in me….

When we reached the hostel, we got our rooms and settled in. Here’s what the room looked like:

Actually, before I move on, I need to put in a little side story. After we checked in, we needed to repark the car. Brad took over the driving at that point and brought it around to the back. He thought that he saw something strange in the darkness of the parking lot, but he ignored it as a trick of the light….

Then came a BOOM against the side of the car door, and a giant… black furry creature glared at us.

It licked the window.

Brad freaked out. Everyone else (me included) thought it was funny.

But, eh, to his credit… if I had been driving, I… would have been scared too. I think the laughter that came afterwards was more of a… nervous… yes-we-survived thing, rather than a… it-was-funny.. thing.

Yeah.. er… anyway. Back to that night. We settled in, walked through the town, and stopped at Hell’s Pizza for some dinner. If you’ve never been to one, you need to go. It has at least seven pizzas. Each pizza is named after one of the seven sins… and the pizza is, in my opinion, actually… better than Antonio’s. The prices weren’t too bad either. I stuck with pasta, though, which was also pretty good.

A bit more wandering around the city.

More comments about how sulphury Rotorua smells. I didn’t mention that before… but, because the place is covered with hot pools and geysers and… signs of volcanic activity, it smells sulphury.

Played some Egyptian Rat Screw.

Then we watched the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics on the television in our hostel common room.

Struggled to stay awake through the flag thing.

And passed out for the night.

—

Saturday

While Friday was a traveling/exploring/getting oriented day, Saturday was a day of near-death experiences. Ok… eh, not quite. But I definitely experienced adrenaline rush after adrenaline rush.

After a quick Fish ‘N Chips breakfast… (or, er… as quick for me… which.. is slow… for most people), we set off for the Agrodome.

The Agrodome is a concentration of intense… adventurous activities, combined with… paddocks full of animals. I’ll let you know what I did here… and then I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Zorbing: We were placed into a big plastic ball. This ball is then filled with water… and then we were pushed off the side of the hill. We bounce down the hill and get splashed all over… all while we crushed each other within the confines of the big, plastic ball. If you have the chance, you need to do this.

Freefall: We jumped onto a giant fan. The giant fan lifted us off the ground. It’s supposed to simulate skydiving. We’ll leave it at that.

And yes… the fan distorted my face a bit.

Swoop: I call this a baby-step to bungee jumping. Don’t think it’s not scary though… because… it’s single-handedly the scariest thing I’ve done up to this point. I’m wrapped up in a giant cocoon, lifted up to… very high, and dropped suddenly… when one of us finally gets the guts to pull the cord. We freefall for a long time… then swing slowly to a stop.

I wanted to do bungee jumping before this.

I decided I didn’t want to do bungee jumping when I was at the top.

After it ended, I forgot the fear… and now I want to bungee jump again.

But… yeah – pictures:

Exciting as.

(I know. That doesn’t make sense… but it’s a saying here. You add “as” after a word to intensify it. Slang. The most common one is “Sweet as.”)

Anyway, after that, we set off for… a much safer farm tour. This included… cows, lamas (!!!!), sheep, lamb, pigs, deer, emus, ostriches, and… LAMAS! Heh… I had to say that again. But no. They’re not actually lamas. They’re alpacas or something. No one seems to be able to tell me the difference between a lama and an alpaca though… so I’ll just pretend that they’re the same.

Anyway, I stepped in a lot of poop, and I fed some animals. They kept on asking for food even when I didn’t have any more… so I backed off and tried to show my hands empty.

By the way – cows are much MUCH bigger than I thought they would be.

When all that was done, we had dinner at a little cafe place at the Agrodome (I had a Shepard’s Pie). Then we drove off to Rainbow Springs.

Rainbow Springs is a giant area, filled with habitats for fish, birds, and… yes… wallabies. Since we came at night (with the sole intention of seeing some kiwis), we missed many of the birds and animals that were awake during the daytime. And since it was freezing cold, we didn’t walk through the entire thing.

We met Jenny.

Jenny’s a kea, brought up in captivity. She also tries to talk, by mimicking humans. Her “hello” sounds more like “HA HO!” If you continue to talk with her, she says more things… but it comes out sounding like laughter. “HAHAHAHA!” The longer I stayed, the quieter she got. She didn’t stop talking… but her screech stopped sounding so much like a screech after a while. When we left, though, she purred… almost as though she were crying.

After we left Jenny, we saw some swans and some other birds. I stood beside a giant fake moa for a picture. A moa, by the way, is a prehistoric flightless bird, native to New Zealand. It didn’t have any fight-flight instincts when humans first landed on New Zealand, so it was extinct within a couple hundred years(?). It’s been gone since… at least 1600AD.

Then, of course, we saw some kiwis.

They’re small, brown flightless birds… famous in New Zealand. Local New Zealanders have adopted it as a national symbol… so much so that local New Zealanders call themselves Kiwis. They’re nocturnal so we weren’t allowed to take pictures with the flash on while we were there.

Nevertheless, one of us accidentally left the flash on for one picture… and a bird (not the one who was flashed) panicked and ran around in circles for a while.

It was… er, amusing… to watch.

Oh! And that also meant we got a great picture of a kiwi:

After that, we left Rainbow Springs, warmed up in the car, and headed for McDonald’s.

Yeah… heh. I know. Why McDonald’s? Honestly, I… wanted to try out the Kiwi Burger. It’s a hamburger with a beet and an egg on it. It was good. And I think the burger was a bit more substantial than the McDonald’s burgers back home. I’m not really sure, though, since I haven’t gotten a burger from McDonald’s in ages.

We went home, played some more Egyptian Rat Screw, and fell asleep.

—

Sunday

We woke up early Sunday, packed up, and checked out of the hostel. We weren’t quite ready to go home though… because, after a small breakfast (banana bread or something), we still had to go see the hot springs at Waiotapu. “Wai” is Maori for “water.” “Tapu” is Maori for “sacred.” So, essentially, Waiotapu means “Sacred Water.”

Anyway, beautiful pictures. Lots of pretty rocks. Mud pools. Nice, warm steam… and a decent hike.

After all that, we watched the 10:00am water-rising-out-of-geyser thingy. Yeah. I know. I’m really bad with terminology, but it was interesting. What caught me by surprise, though, was that someone actually had to go up and put something in the geyser to get it to start going. I thought that this stuff was natural… and I do think it is. This one was just weird.

But… the water did go pretty high:

After that, I started driving… for our journey home. I wanted to drive the first half because I wanted to avoid the city driving. Everything was going well. We stopped for lunch. I ate a delicious burger… though I’m not sure exactly what kind of meat was in it.

On the second half of the trip, when I sat on the passenger seat, I started to get carsick. It started off with some dizziness… a headache… and then a stomach ache. When we finally arrived back in Auckland, I was in pain and half-dead. I stumbled out of the car, grabbed my stuff… and clambered out to the front of the store. While the other two spoke with the car rental guy and took care of all that bureaucratic stuff, I was on the sidewalk outside, crouched down against the wall. I ignored passerby… while they stared curiously at me.

And I threw up.

Not pretty. My burger came right back up. I struggled back to UniLodge and was helped up to my room. I lay down on the floor for a bit before I took a shower… and… threw up there again. I cleaned it up best I could, went to my bed, and passed out.

After that nap, I felt better. My great trip to Rotorua ended on a memorably disgusting note, but I learned one great lesson:

I have a better chance of dying from a rough car ride and a bad hamburger than I do of dying from a jump off a building with a rope tied to my ankle.

(I took some of these pictures… but Brad B. took most of them. I stole ‘em from him… with his permission, of course.)

Ok.

Hello again. I realize that it’s been a while since my last update… but, eh, I’ve never been good at doings things regularly. You’re probably surprised that I’m even here… updating. But I have loads of pictures saved on my computer, and it’s about time that I… did.. something with them. Whatever that something is.

Right… er, let’s begin where I last left off.

A week (or two?) after the hike up to the summit of Rangitoto, IFSA-Butler (my program) took us to our first live rugby game. If you remember the post about orientation, then you’ll remember that I learned how to play touch rugby. Real rugby, though, is a hundred times rougher than touch rugby. Real rugby, believe it or not, is more dangerous than American football.

Real rugby is American football. Minus the padding.

And, that night… was more than real rugby.

That night was the All Blacks versus the Wallabies.
New Zealand versus Australia.

Kinda like Red Sox against the Yankees. Only… I know absolutely nothing about baseball… so, eh…

Amherst versus Williams?
Except… er… more intense. Much more intense. Take away the padding, take away that “touch rugby” stuff, throw in blood and dirt and bone…

Then you get a sense of what I saw that night.

Enough ranting now. Let’s go back to that night, and let’s begin with the costume. Since I’m in New Zealand, I set out the day before to buy myself some new All Blacks gear. I left the store with a black and white fleece jacket and a waterproof jersey underneath. Kind of stupid, when I think back on it… since, as usual, we were expecting it to rain that night. I’ll get to that later….

Once I was all set to go, I descended the UniLodge elevator to the first floor for some free pizza from Mel (the program’s “Student Liasons Officer” aka our mum for our time here). While everyone ate, a friend took out some face paints and started covering everyone’s faces in the traditional black and white.

I ventured forth… and allowed one small addition to my face: a small black kiwi bird.

Then, faces covered, we set off for the crowded train.

Since we were expecting some rain, I wore my yellow raincoat over my All Blacks stuff. I wore several layers to keep myself warm, but that yellow and blue raincoat basically hid the home team support that I was trying to give. Actually… it did more than that.

If you know anything about rugby, you’ll know that yellow and blue are the colors of the Australian Wallabies. So, in effect, I was walking around a city in the colors of the visiting ‘enemy’ team. When the rain didn’t come… and I heard some boo’s from behind me, I quickly pulled off the jacket. It wasn’t raining yet, and I was afraid that the colors of my jacket would provoke some of the pre-gamed All Blacks supporters.

We arrived at the stadium without too much trouble, found our seats, and waited for the game to begin.

The rugby game began with two national anthems – Australia’s and New Zealand’s. If you haven’t heard the New Zealand National Anthem, you should give it a listen. It’s half in Maori, half in English… and extremely interesting to listen to. It incorporates both the indigenous culture and the Kiwi culture. After that, the Wallabies stood side by side and grabbed each other’s shoulders… bracing themselves… for the All Blacks’ Haka.

A haka is a Maori war dance, traditionally done before a battle to intimidate their enemies. The All Blacks have adopted it… and, as the Wallabies stood in silence, the All Blacks stamped their feet, yelled something about death in Maori (“Ka Mate!”), stuck out their tongues, bulged their eyes, and made themselves look as scary as possible.

I kind of… felt bad for anyone who had to stand in front of them.

Then, of course, the game began.

It was intense, to say the least. There were several injuries… and there was this one move that I noticed. Everytime someone threw a ball in from the boundaries of the field, their teammates would, of course, try to catch it. But they didn’t all stay at ground level. One or two players from both teams tended to boost another player up – throw him into the air so that he could catch a ball that was… way above their heads. It worked some of the time and… I was actually waiting for someone to fall face first onto the ground from that position.

Didn’t happen. But… it was interesting.

Anyway, at the end of the day, the All Blacks killed the Wallabies by… a lot… (I can’t remember anymore, but the score reminded me of the Amherst-Williams Homecoming game two years back).

And – good news – it didn’t rain at all.

So that was that, and we all crowded into a train and made our ways back home after a brief, relaxing stop at a coffee shop.

Most of these pictures, by the way, are courtesy of Helen A. Because… you know how lazy I am with a camera.