Another postcard...

So the obligatory postcards thing that I've been doing (no I haven't gotten around to you all yet, really I've only been away for a month!) has made me realise the differences in the efficency of the postal service. The postcards I sent from New Zealand have taken their sweet time to get to Perth (in order of over 2 weeks) whilst the ones I sent on Sunday from Hong Kong have taken a mere 5 days. For less distance. And less postage.

Also should be noted that if you didn't give me your address in my little, metophorically black (in the sense that it's kinda grey) book you probably won't be getting a postcard. Alternatively email me your address & I'll consider it. Suitable threats will encourage me to write more. The best threat so far has come from Miss Tiki who said she'd buy all the chocolate peanut nougat cake from Vegie O and not let me have any. Which is really mean. So you all have to try to beat that.

For those who care, I'm currently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia staying with family for about a week before going south to Melacca (Melaka) my mother's home town for a good dose of history & a bigger dose of family before then going to Singapore to meet Simon.

My father has always said "Eating is the national pastime in Malaysia" and he's right. In a constant state of my stomach exploding since I got here. Which is not a bad thing. Though it makes trying on jeans difficult. But it's all very yummy. And the goreng pisang (fried banana) is great. And the mango. And the rumbutans. And you get the picture.

Avian flu is still in the papers, though only up north near the Thai boarder. Still slightly worried about it and they have ordered a bird cull which is sad. There are many people skeptical about what the government is saying about the safety of bird products. The ministers all had a photo shoot showing them eating chicken which reminds me alot of the British government's reaction to vCJD in beef (mad cow disease). Also the US government has released a contingency plan of what they will do if we have another flu epidemic. Am I paranoid or what?

Also it's nice to get the occassional email from home so if you are bored/procrastinating feel free to drop me a line. If you can guess the songs where most of my post topics come from, you get a big hug* when I get home.

(*hugs are limited to one per person, unless I think you are especially cute)

Let's go out tonight...

So my last night in Hong Kong, I should really head home as certain people are expected to call, but the lure of email and a iced soy mocha entraped me...

Today visited the monestary on Lantau Island where the big golden Buddha statue is. Whilst I'm not in favour of organised religion in the slightest, the monks run a vegetarian restarant and the views were awfully pretty. The artwork and detail put into the temples and statues was quiet amazing as well. Oh & they have signs banning meat. Not as cool as Jain temples (where people must remove all leather & fur before entering, Jainism is by far the most animal friendly organised religion I have studied up on) but still very funky. Oh & the food was really nice, big servings and yummy coconut sago cakes.

It's a lovely balmy night tonight so have gone for a quick walk along Victoria Harbour, HK side and had alook at the exhibition centre where the 1997 hand over to China offically took place. It's hot, but still comfortable for a stroll. I do like this heat thing for the moment, at least at night. But then I am pretty much a night person and cold nights often mean staying in or getting ill for me.

Speaking of which *touch wood* my lungs seem to be holding up rather well. The signs for "How to Prevent Avian flu" and for SARS awarness has a certain "Terrorism: Be Alert, Not Alarmed" tone to them. The paper two day's ago mentioned Avian flu had been found in pigs (which is okay as I don't eat birds or pigs, right?). And then there's the people walking around waring surgical masks. Hmmm, let's see how I handle Bangkok.

Tommorrow I head to KL to visit family (in the "everyone's your family, rather than immediate biological family" sense). Given that I haven't been to Malaysia in about 10 years (my plans to go 3 years ago were halted due to pneumonia) it should be fun.

As I watch the madness of the world below...

Still in Hong Kong, currently at "The Peak" which consists of a lovely walking trail through the tropical forest, two really big shopping centres and a tram to take you to the top. It's one of the highest points on Hong Kong Island. It also has some great views of the city and Victoria Harbor. Don't worry I have lots of pictures.

Hong Kong does shopping in a big way, which would be great if I was a shopaholic, but I'm not. It's also the shopping festival at the moment. Wandering around it in the heat is great (yay heat! yay mugginess!) though slightly crazy at times and the shopping centres are ginourmous selling shops specialising on just about everything one can imagine. Still the cityscape is amazing, especially at night when it's a mass of pretty coloured lights.

They have a spiffy museum pass which allows you entry to about half a dozen museums/galleries over a week. I tackled the Science Museum (a hands on wonderland of learning fun) which had a small but fabulous geography section including an ancient seismography which looks like a fancy copper statue with dragons & frogs. However when a small ball is balanced inside when there is an earthquake it rolls out & you can determine where the epicentre and strength of the earthquake is. Okay so I can't expalin it all that well without diagrams. But it was really cool. Honest. And maps. And those funky magic eye pictures (yes in the geography section). Currently they have a special exibition on the human body with lots of pickled and preserved human bits. Including resin displays of different systems and pickled foetuses. The cross sections of torso reminded me of bacon.

Opposite the Science Museum is the Museum of History which has an 8 gallery perminant display of Hong Kong history from prehistoric times through to the 1997 hand over to China. Really interesting and heaps of work went into it, so highly recomended if you have any interest in the development of HK.

So yes, still alive and kicking on with a iced lemon tea. How's all of you lot going?

Feeling hot... (you all know the rest)

In Hong Kong, I'm in a coffee shop as this seems to be the only place I can get net access from.

Alive (only just).

Sleep (not had much in the last 24 hours due to early flights, late nights and time zones).

Flight (was good, got the chance to see Day After Tommorrow, won't wast time ranting now).

Weather (lovely hot & humid).

Tourist (I wonder if I'll ever reach a place where I don't feel like I have "tourist" tattooed on my forehead)?

Credit card (decided it didn't want to work at the place I'm staying , grumble).

That is all.

Just in case the Mafia get me

Still in Auckland, just booked my accommodation for tomorrow night in Hong Kong and received a email from the hostel which has the ever catchy line in the directions:

"Please take the "ELEVATOR No.5" to the 14th FLOOR directly, don't trust any people on the street, they may be mafia and make you trouble! So, do not follow any of them!"

Well, now that's a way to make your guests feel safe and secure!

Came back to Auckland yesterday and met some nice Irish people whilst waiting for the bus. Ran around today changing flight details (20 minutes wait on the phone to talk to a incompetent call centre person who was totally useless). Would like to plug the nice people at STA who were very helpful and pointed me in the right direction for this. Also the nice man at Cathy Pacific who didn't charge me to change my flights (unlike certain other airlines who have a crap phone service).

Decided to go to one of the places recommended from Happycow called "Raw Power" (1st floor, 10 Vulcan Lane, Auckland city). Despite the name they do actually do cooked foods. The pumpkin soup with garlic bread and hommus was a tasty lunch (the hommus being one of the best I have ever tasted). Dessert wise they have a very moist vegan chocolate cake (covered in coconut and dried apricots and sticky fudge icing) for a mere NZ$3.50 a slice which is highly recommended. Yesterday I wandered into the SAFE (Save Animals From Explotation) store where I got into a long rant about the joys of Vegan Wares with the nice girl who works there. They also have vegan chocolate. Also went to the Hare Krishna place for a cheap lunch/dinner too. Both are on K Road.

So yes well hmm... Still puzzled/frustrated with this grammar course, am tempted to chuck it in to be honest. Really is there anyone out there who can seriously explain adverbs and contexts and tenses and all this other stuff?

Calm. Blue. Ocean.

Okay so I'm some what calmer than I have been in my two prior posts. I departed the glorious geothermal delights on Saturday and caught the bus up to Coromandel Town on the Coromandel Peninsular.

The drive up the peninsular was spectactular. There are sections where on one side of the bus was sheer mountain, on the other ocean. No rambling plains down to the sea, a tiny strip of beach (if at all). Mountain. Water. It's great :)

Coromandel Town is quiet during the winter (ie now) but during the summer the population quadruples with the summer season. Being a coastal town there is alot of fishing and most eateries have quiet an extensive range of sea life, the butcher advertises mussel sauages. The town also has a strong artistic community and there are lots of galleries and stores selling pottery and the like. One guy even built a light rail line to get clay from the top of his property to the kiln. He started in the 1960's and today it's a half hour ride to the top and they take tourists up at least twice a day. Really lovely views of the region. Also some nice bushwalks around.

Been watching the weather when I cook dinner every night. Yesterday afternoon it started snowing in Christchurch (which apparently only happens every decade or so) and the airport was closed. The forcast for snow is something I'm finding very novel.

Tommorrow heading back to Auckland before Hong Kong on Thursday morning (yay heat!)

Fly me to the moon...

WARNING: Even more geography geekiness in this post

In Taupo (about an hour or so south of Rotorua) at the moment, came down this morning, just here for the day. The town is on Lake Taupo the biggest lake in the Southern Hemisphere. The lake is also the rim of a volcano.

YAY Volcanoes!

I spent the day doing to the museum, dodging rain, looking at the waterfalls, exploring the Craters of the Moon and the Volcano Centre.

I can highly recomend the Volcano Centre (it's a little bit out of town) to anyone who is interested in natural disasters and hands on learning. They have a earthquake simulator, a geyser simulator, a funky outlay of the surrounding volcanic area (with lights), a 3D jigsaw of techtonic plates, movies on volcanoes and a tornnado box. Very VERY cool! They also have updates daily of all the Earthquakes in New Zealand as well as a computer siesmegraph (okay I can't spell but it's the thing that you measure earthquakes with!).

Craters of the Moon is (yet another) area of geothermal activity, but is mostly eerie craters with steam and pink bubbly mud. Mmmm pink bubbly mud. And moss and algea.

This stuff is incredibly interesting and wonderful and many *happy bounces*

Glorious mud...

WARNING: This post has high levels of geography related geekiness, sluttiness and ranting.

Last night there was a high school geography trip staying at the hostel. This is the second trip I have encountered on my travels the first being a bunch of students doing land use survey's and cross sections in the Auckland hostel dining room. Last night I got interviewed for a project on tourism in the Rotorua region, why did I come here? Simple. "I am a geography slut & I find geothermal activity funky." (yes that is the exact response I gave, I also gave them some tips on how to get more people to interview) It has occured to me since that really this whole trip that I'm taking is just one really big Geography Field Trip, though as Simon pointed out, without the assessment section. Yay field trip! Yay geography!

Rotorua is fantastic. It's on the edge of two techtonic plates causing pressure under the earth to result in geothermal activity. I spent the afternoon walking through a park and spent most of my roll of film taking pictures of sulphur gas, bubbling hot springs and bubbling mud.

Did I mention how fantastic this is?

I actually don't mind the smell of sulphur. I don't mind the fact that I can't see when my glasses fog over because of the gas. It's wonderful. It's also warm, unlike everything else which is freezing.

Oh and there was also the museum which had lots of stuff on volcanoes. Yay! Volcanoes. The museum is in the building of the old public theraputic baths. Yay! Geothermal heating. Yay! Hot mineral springs.

*bounces*

If you could read my mind...

I wouldn't need to learn grammar or spelling or any of those formal English things!

Currently working my way through the grammar section of the online Teaching English as a Foreign Language course I need to do for the volunteer teaching English thing I signed up for. It appears I am totally incompetent in formal details of my own language, much less my ability to teach the damn thing or learn the formalities of other languages.

Going for a walk now. Am too frustrated by tenses, verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, where to put the ruddy comma etc. Can anyone recommend a easy to follow grammar book or website? Would be much appreciated. Alternatively if you know how to communicate via telepathy and could give me details that would be useful too.

Also in Paihia on the Bay of Islands, for those who care.

(Yes the poor language use in this post is intentional)

Beneath the wild garden waits to grow...

Just a quick update, I'm currently in Rawene on the West coast of North Island north of Auckland on Hokianga Harbor. I traveled up from Auckland Tuesday to Rawene & then caught the ferry to KohuKohu where I've been staying with some lovely people as a WWOOFer (a program where people work on organic farms for food & board). It is really beautiful here and I have learnt alot about gardening as well as some more easy to make vegan dishes. All the people I have met have been really nice especially the two ladies that I stayed with. They are both pescitarians who are very kind & caring & passionate about the environment and local area. The property has alot of bush, two dams, fruit trees, vegetables and aesthetic plants. The weather hasn't been the best but still fairly good for winter. I helped with transplanting of plants, weeding, setting soil up for planting in the spring, collected pinecones & stones for paving amongst other stuff. The area is very hilly with some beautiful views of the surrounding hills and the harbour (& the pine monoculture... but don't start on that!). They also make their own chutneys, pickles and fruit wines. The boysenberry wine is really nice... and I'm someone who doesn't drink alcohol! For the first time in a long time I've been content & happy.

Off to the East coast to the Bay of Islands now on the bus. More later.

whoa!

Just been reading Aristotle's blog while waiting for the hostel kitchen to clear so I can cook dinner.

When we met, about a year ago, we had an instant connection (our mutal love of vegan wares, vegetarian orgasm cake, SF, reading, science, geek toys, environment etc etc pretty much guarenteed that... I love my fellow hippy-geeks) . He has been on the recieving end of more than one interstate call & always is excited when I say I'm visiting (the time he said he was going to slaughter a herd of cantelope in my honour was one of the most amusing) He's someone I always make time for and he's shown me alot of cool things (such as draining) and is very fun (such as threating to throw me in the pond on a sugar high).

However just reading through his blog I have learnt how simmilar we are regarding our views on relationships, intamacy and regret. It's rather creepy.

*big bug hugs for Aristotle*