North Island Adventure

So this post is a little over due. It has been now a month since I actually left to go on the trip this post is about, but in my defense we got back the day before classes resumed, and frankly I've been putting double the effort in on that end since my set back.



Our expedition up north.

To sum it up in one word: Awesome!

Two words: Freaking Awesome!

I could keep going up in word number but that's be tedious for me to write and annoying for you to read.

Instead I'll give you the photo version which like my last vacation post means you'll have a novel sized version (ah got to love pictures been a 1000 words a piece!) once again.
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I'm not going into gross detail here. Rather just anecdotes and weird happenings of the trip. If I peak your interest about a certain place or event post a request in the comments and you'll get a special post on it. I took over 800 pictures this trip (I had space on my camera for exactly 2 when I got back!)!!! These are just some of the more interesting...
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Wellington

Our first major stop was the capital of New Zealand. In most regards it is just a bigger version of Dunedin.

It's only major difference is that it is indeed bigger. With tall sky skappers and everything just like a "real" city.

Wellington's waterfront was very very nice.

A major highlight for me was the Te Papa museum New Zealand's national museum


A "pygmy" Blue Whale. Still very huge for a pygmy. It took up the whole ceiling in the natural history gallery.

Lake Taupo

Having ventured up as far north as the city of Hamilton (just an hour or so south of Auckland) we ventured into the center of the North Island rather then further up. We based our selves at Lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest body of fresh water, and stayed at a batch owed by some Rebecca's friends.

Because we are teachers in training we have the same break as schools across the country, and as of such we weren't the only tourists riding around. This is my fav example of some of the cool custom painted rental vans in New Zealand.

Rotorua

The city that we in the end spent the most time in was Rotorua (affectionately known as Ro-Vegas by Kiwis). Out of everywhere I've been in New Zealand this was the first true Tourist trap, and most places in this country are focused on tourists. Not only do retailers jack their prices here (good thing we had a free batch to live at 2 hrs away), but even the museums charged admission (a true oddity for NZ as every other museum except those in this area are free).

Our first stop was the gondola and outdoor recreation joint on the edge of town. Andrew here is primed and decked out for land lugeing. Rebecca in the background also partook in this fun and fast pursuit.

I OWE YOU ONE PICTURE...

Here was our craziest activity of this day. Andrew, his friend Dan (who travelled with us for 90% of the trip), and myself partook in a bungee swing. Not quite as hardcore as a true bungee jump I'll admit, but as the one who had to pull the cord to release us into freefall (which meant my hands weren't braced and made the whole thing a little interesting) it was close.

One of Rotorua's most defining features, you can't help but notice it getting out of the car, is the smell. It is on top of Volcanically charged thermals. Which were a fun geologic component to the whole holiday.

These thermals were sacred to the Maori as well, and as of such this area in times past was a major hub of Maori settlement and culture. Hence the Maori gateway arch in the middle of the thermal hiking trail.

With so much Maori culture in the area we couldn't pass up the opportunity to take some of it in. So for our one truly late stay in Rotorua we visited a Maori traditional village.

Included was a rather cool encounter with a band of traditionally decked out and equipped Maori Warriors who made a grand enterance by war canoe.

One of the highlights was the Hangi, the traditional Maori method of cooking food in an underground coal pit. Now most of the food probably wasn't traditional, but I suspect most of the meat components of such a meal would be endangered and thus illegal. Man oh man though. I'm sad to say that all none Maori prepared potatoes are inferior as of this dinner...

Mount Tongariro

Despite being quite famous now for being the country Lord of the Rings was made in, the majority of filming sites and locations are quite remote, and sadly I've now been to a grand total of 2 of them. Being 2 hours from many of them in Dunedin I do intend on fixing that situation sometime this year.

Of these 2 one of them includes this one which was the top of my list anyways. Mount Doom is this areas middle earth name. All the mountains you see here served a purpose in the film as this major Mordor landmark. To the left (if not covered in cloud) was the longshot full on volcanic version seen in CG Mordor. To the right was the mountain they filmed all the closeups of Frodo and Sam.


Cook Strait

As our trip grew to close we had to get back to Dunedin. Now we could have flown,but we discovered one last true Kiwi cultural event we had to attend in Christchurch (north of Dunedin on the South Island) which meant we could take in the ferry ride across the strait between the islands.

As we pulled out of Wellington the weather was somewhat miserable, and unpleasant.

When we hit the open sea of the strait the wind was quite annoying for me up on deck (where I was the whole trip), but it had one advantage. Lots and lots of Albatross flying around the boat. In total I probably saw some 40 of them on the crossing. The largest was probably just a wandering, but I couldn't be certain due to distance. I'm going to get around to a birds of New Zealand post with all the avians I've seen and photographed down here.

Was a very beautiful voyage come the South Island. The weather even was amazing.

Rainbows and all.

Picton

Our first stop on the South Island was the most northerly Picton. In the 30 minutes we were in Picton I saw my favourite sign ever!

This sunken dingy should be on some sort inspirational poster. Or uninspirational poster.

We had barely walked up a block of Picton to see these two things (and discover the aquarium was $15 with 10 minutes to go) before we had to leave.

Kaikoura

During the bus ride I slept for the majority of the time due to the early get up (6am) to catch the ferry, and not sleeping during the 3 hour boat ride. The bus made a stop though in one of my favourite places in New Zealand, and that was of course Kaikoura. Though we were only there for 30min it was nice to wander up main street again.

Christchurch

Now from what little of it I've seen I'm not the biggest fan of Christchurch. Helping make up my mind about the place was our first night there I awake to a somewhat disturbing and unpleasant discovery.

Awakening to a sound like a trickle of water I look to the foot of my bed to discover some drunken dude in our hostel room peeing all over my stuff!!!

At the time this was something of a terrible thing (it's 6am, and I'm tired as), but now it's at the point I can kinda laugh at it. It did seal the deal on Christchurch being categorized as something of a dump in my books.

The only nice area of town was Cathedral square. It supported a HUGE variety and selection of buskers. These two kids are of note as their nationally known due to their opening for Jack Black when he came to play here in Christchurch in January. Part of why I found this so significant was if you recall Jack Black was ON my flight when I flew through Christchurch initial to get to Dunedin. Just a couple hours after he got off that plane he saw these kids playing, and impressed by their rocking out had them open his show.

To be honest they were cool for the first 10 minutes, but after exhausting their 3 song repertoire they got a little annoying (still impressive for kids I could be teaching in my current classroom!)

Amongst the buskers was this giant Kiwi trying to sell me stuff.

Our favourite of the street performers were the Motley Two. These guys entertained us with juggling, whip tricks, and a 10 foot high unicycle. One of the best busking routines I've seen. As we learned in the show if the street gig failed them they had the backup of returning to primary teaching.

Wonder if that was an omen of some kind?

The other big highlight of Christchurch (emphasising it's crapiness in my opinion as this is touted in every brochure as a top 3 thing to do here) is to play large size chess in the square. Me and Andrew finally got a turn at the end of the day. He was possessed to win till he made a mistake that resulted in the game being a draw.

Just off the square (but still part of it in my opinion) was the Museum. It actually is in some ways nicer then Dunedin's (though nothing compared to the Te Papa in Wellington). It also has the first Dinosaur I've seen here in NZ. Granted it's only a cast of an American Allosaur. They also have a cast of an Edmontosaur (made me almost homesick for Drum again) and the same Triceratops as the Tyrrell's mount.

Overall the layout of this museum was really well done I thought.

Later that second night (after being moved to a none peeing room) the event we'd made the journey for. An rugby game with the All Blacks, New Zealands national team.

This was a big game in the Tri-Nations Cup. The tournament between the three powerhouses of rugby New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. Tonight we'd see New Zealand eventually beat the stuffing out of South Africa. It took them till the last 5 min of the game, and it was a pretty boring match till then, but the experience was cool. That and we got to see the coolest part of the game live in person...

The concluding highlight was the Haka or traditional Maori war dance the All Blacks made famous. Man it was cool as!

So that was our trip. The brief version mind you. Again if you're curious about anything let me know via a comment on this post and I'll elaborate.

Stay tuned here again once a week as I'll be posting reliably again (just this big post took me the 2 weeks to get done inbetween homework)

More Than Meets The Eye

Alright so in a weird twist of fate New Zealand somehow got a movie released in it before North America.

We got Transformers several days early, and I went to go see it.

Going into the movie I was expecting some cool visuals and perhaps a moment or two of legitimate nostalgia coolness, but just a lame attempt at cashing in on the us aging 80's kids.

Man was I blown away. Despite the fact it was from the director of Armageddon and The Island this movie was AMAZING. Easily the years best!

I haven't seen a movie that left me as satisfied since the new Bond. I liken it's brilliance to Batman Begins in genre redefining.

I've already gone to see it twice (as a morale increaser), and it holds up easily to multi viewing.

GO SEE TRANSFORMERS!

Turns for the Worse

Well no easy way to break it.

I failed my second placement...

Simple and up front it was a disaster in the making. I was in a class of teenager wannabes (a historically difficult group for me) and my health didn't exactly help at a key moment. I blew my control period.

At the same time all is not lost. I lost the battle, but the war if far from over.


it was not an easy time for any of us. Stress was rampant and manifested itself in all of us. Sadly random handstands like Andrew is doing here in my doorway in the midst of the chaos (he too had placement) didn't help me. Andrew made out fine in his placement, but not all made it. Unfortunately myself included.


It was fairly fitting that the weather was terrible throughout this time period. We had snow and winter like Vancouver. Not really all that bad compared to Alberta. Here it only got to -5 and a cm of snow. For here though that was doomsday, and the city shut down twice in the midst of my crisis (only compounding my problem when I was delayed getting to the doctor by a day).

There is a great deal of complexity to this tale, but sadly I don't have the time to tell it at moment. I'll get it up soon.

The net effect is this. I have NOT failed the overall course. Rather simply have to redo this placement and control period. Meaning that I will have to do one final placement early next year meaning I'll be in New Zealand an extra few months more then planned. Not ideal, but yet is all at the same time. It complicates things for sure in any case.

Though I do so with some guilt I ship off up North for the break we're on now. Though I didn't pass I learned a LOT this round. The second go is going to be much better, and I'll be a better teacher from what I buggered up.

Be in touch with the rest of the story in 2ish weeks...

Sighting

I REALLY shouldn't be taking anytime from my planning for placement (which I'm on now by the way) as I'm way behind at moment.

However I need yet another brain retuning break and this won't take too long.

For a while now I've heard rumours and "legends" of unidentified birds that live in the botanic garden beside Salmond. There were said to be unmistakable from the local birds (which is saying something we have a LOT of different bird types here in Dunedin alone). They are VERY colourful parrot looking, and just look like they belong somewhere tropical.

Yesterday while walking through the park with my camera, an odd coincidence caused solely by a skool project I was scrambling to finish, I saw the fabled garden birds... two of them in fact.

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More amazing was the fact that one of them flew away and landed on a "close" by tree and remained their while its companion disappeared from view. Knowing that if these were like other rare sightings such as Bigfoot or loch ness I needed to fire off my blurry photos THEN!

As you can "see" I got two of any use.

Sadly I won't be making a million dollars from globe weekly news. The birds it turns out aren't as mysterious as student fables would led one to think. Asking Scott he promptly told me these are some escaped Australian parrots from the Aviary. Which is funny enough located in the Garden. Despite this they are now on their 2nd or 3rd generation none the less which is kind of impressive.

An odd anomaly in my otherwise work intensive life at moment so I thought I'd share it. Speaking of work need to get back to it...

RISK

Despite having tons of work to do these days last night being Friday I decided to kick it back a little bit (especially since I'd had a really stressful day).

Some of the people here at Salmond asked if I wanted to play RISK not realizing who they were inviting in.

FLASHBACK: Circa Calgary the Last 2 Years

Now before that tale is told it should be disclaimed that I've played my fair share of RISK. As of me and Brett discovering Lord of the Rings RISK it was a rare thing back in the day for us to go a month without at least one or two RISK engagements.

In fact here is a picture from my fair well party in Calgary back in December where the main event was you guessed it "the last RISK game". Fittingly I departed with victory if I recall properly (if I recall improperly then Brett won, but I made him work for it :P ).

Point is I know my RISK (especially after playing some 2 player tactic practise runs the last 2 years). The poor Salmond people had no idea what they were invoking...

THE WAR BEGINS

The suffers of the wraith Rhonwyn, Stefan, and Andy. Now overall it was a very civil and enjoyable game. Minus one problem:

They didn't know the "proper" rules...

Now in their defense they were playing consistently which is key. However being a bit of a RISK junkie who takes the game a little religiously these days I had some opposition to these delving from the rules.

So in many a ways I was the bad guy, but at the same time I was proven right about how their rule alterations led to disadvantages for the players going last.

Brett and I had gotten to a point where we'd come up with our own modified advanced rule set that made the game nearly completely fair for everyone whether first or last in turn order. This however makes us dorks of the utmost.

These guys were simply playing a rule set simplified for ease. Making them less social freakish I'll grant, but ultimately still WRONG!

For a few minutes my pointing out the real rules in the rule book was leading to a heated argument with Andy till an accident defused the whole thing, and kept the peace (above board anyways :P )

Now I've seen games of RISK where arguments were so bad players would be thrown out of the house and banned due to the disagreement about the game. This was no where near that level. However it was getting heated. Andy was getting annoyed.

I jokingly compared this to the games of old "look if this argument had happened with some of my friends they'd pick up the board and throw all the pieces everywhere." However what amazed me was that to my surprise a moment after completing that sentence (and I do mean a moment) suddenly the sound of RISK pieces scattering on the floor filled the room...

In the midst of my dramatic motion of my arms I'd taken a step backwards inadvertently stepping on the corner of the game insert holding the spare pieces not in use, and thus sending them flying all over the place (note picture above).

This completely disarmed the argumentative stage of the game as both me and Andy collapsed on the floor laughing with everyone joining in once they realized I'd somehow carried out my prophecy.

With that out of the way and moderately corrected rules in place it was down to business. Now to be both boasting and modest I cleaned house, but I still lost. They had a version of RISK with mission cards. Not as complicated as Lord of the Rings RISK missions or cards, but they made traditional RISK a little more interesting.

Sadly Stefan was dealt a very easy set of them to pull off, and won in about 8 turns (Stefan himself even commented at how easy his were to accomplish together).

I still did rather well (have to get in my boast). I got 3 of my 4 mission completed, and was in striking range of my last one. Had it been a normal kill every other players game then I was scariest at the point of completion holding Africa and South America (I lost SA to Stefan on the last turn due to a strategic modification I had to do to complete a mission, but had it been normal I'd have been untouchable in my stronghold). As it was early in the game, and with Rhonwyn set for a comeback with possibly Andy cashing in I'm not claiming I'd have won. As Brett would say though I was "scary" all game.

So hopefully we can track down Lord of the Rings RISK, and I can convert these guys to the true game...

Snow... Sorta Anyways

Occurring on what would ultimately prove to be a really stressful day at college (my own fault) we all awoke to a event that seemed to be the biggest deal since sliced bread. That is unless you're from Canada it seems.

After a streak of what we'd kept being told was extremely nice weather the climate finally went wintry last night. In the morning we awoke to the sight of snow. Or at least a tad of it. All up in the hills only, and probably only a cm or two thick.

It has just been funny to see all the locals suddenly go on about how cold it is, and the fact its snowing. The temp dipped down to a whooping -1 last night (around midnight to 2am I'm told), and apart from a nippy wind chill (which I'll admit even made me a tad cold) in the day times is comparable to Canadian fall.


Snow as seen from my window (funny second post in a row based on observation from my window. That should hopefully tell you a lot about the boringness of my blog/life lately. I never leave my desk except to eat, sleep, and go to skool!).

The Sting

So getting home from uni the other day I was surprised to find four police cars stationed 2 at either end of the mainish street I live off. Wondering what was going on, but in no position or mood to thoroughly follow up I continued home.


Glancing out my window I was surprised to see yet another police car parked in the school courtyard across the aqueduct from my room!

Meaning that in essence they had us completely surrounded here at Salmond. Or so it seemed. In the end nothing crazy occurred here or anywhere nearby (that we're aware of anyway). Just caused a momentary excitement.

Squad Car as seen from my window.

Tyrannosaurus Couldn't Chase a Jeep, but He Didn't Need Too

Biomechanical studies have revealed that Tyrannosaurus Rex probably wasn't a speed demon. In reality the massive Cretaceous killer could probably only reach speeds of up to 25 mph, and had a far slower turn radius then a human...





Though some might point to this as evidence that counters Rex as an active predator in that he couldn't chase down prey. What these people fail to recognize is that T-Rex's prey was also as large, and no doubt just as slow (I had a conversation with the Tyrrell's new Dinosaur curator in 06 about how Hadrosaurs were on the weight scale and biomechanical buildup of medium sauropods) ...

That doesn't even take into account former Tyrrell Curator Phil Currie's findings of Tyrannosaurid pack dynamics with nimbler juvenile animals (who are built along the lines of the Tyrannosaurids close relatives the speedster Ornithimimids) as part of a family hunting strategy in which the fast youngsters could run into prey herds dividing and trafficking dinner to the adult Rexs (with the strongest bite force of any known animal) who'd do the killing...

Just as in this posts picture I'd still run (in terrified glee) if I saw a Rex!

Formalities Take 2

Well last weekend was our second formal dinner, and this is the battle report.



Having a pretty hectic school and placement schedule I was BUSY on Sunday, and barely noticed as dinner time crept up on me. Managing to shower and get dressed up formally in record time I arrived at the dinner hall to find that my usual peeps were already there.



From leftish to rightish is Peter, Owain, Clare, Rhonwyn, and the German (aka Andy). Though you can't quite see him Shaleen is just behind Owain, and his night was to set the tone for the whole evening. As a vegetarian Shaleen of course couldn't join us in enjoying the Steak that was served. However one would think for the formal dinner that some effort would be put into making an at least acceptable alternate course.



I wish I'd thought to take a picture (but my camera batteries were dying) of his meal. He was presented with a craved out pumpkin full of mushrooms. Seriously it looked as though someone had prepped a mini jack o lantern and then just throw a spoonful of roast mushrooms in it. The pumpkin alone barely looked like it has been cooked (if it was at all), but we were informed they put mushrooms in EVERY vegetarian meal, and pool Shaleen was sick of eating them.

Andy suffered from a tilted reality all night due to my forgetting to reformat this picture before I posted it. He is still in rehab for world axis reorientation.

Peter on the other hand was looking rather smart in his suit jacket. Man I'd look that happy if I had a coat like that one. This was by far the highlight of the evening. Yeah Peter's jacket.
Detracting from the fun somewhat was that I was not the only one of our group to cut their dressing up to the last second. Thus when they arrived to get tables the ONLY ones available were in the front row. As you can see (enhanced further by Owain's expression) we were painfully close to the speech makers.

Man oh man. I could rant about the post dinner "show" for hours. Of all the times they pick to schedule a bloody congratulate the management and running council, they go with the build up to finals. All normal uni students have exams starting next week, and us teachers in training are all in the middle of very stressful assignment due dates and placements.

What does headmaster Bruce and his keepers seen seated behind him decide. To have 2 hours of speeches and music performances after a hour and half meal. BEEPing BEEPers BEEP is all I have to say! Attendance was manditory too I point out...

Fortunately due to my ADD like tendencies I was able to make entertainment for myself during this boring process. Though you're probably thinking this picture was taken at some point before the speeches I tell you now you think wrong! My camera was snatched to take this photo about an hour and some into the speeches. Just figured I'd give some protest to hearing yet another speech about how "Salmond is a great place to achieve at school and life" despite the fact they were keeping us all from being able to do so to hear their own BLEEPing voices...



Now fortunately I was able to get my homework done. Unfortunately I had to sacrifice sleep to do it, and with my current dodgy state of health (I've been sick twice this month) it was NOT appreciated. Right before finals who ever heard of holding students till nearly 10pm!?!



The conclusion is that my hall spirit is at an all time low. Even lower then when they signed me up for debate against my will, and conned me into doing that a month ago (once I get the video I'll have a post for that).



Anyways I sign off for now. Back to my health unit and next weeks lessons...

Internet Stuff

Well the battle of life goes on. My primary big bad as of late is still skool, and the trails and tribulations that it brings.

Tomorrow I teach my first major lesson in my placement classroom. It is on how the Moon's face changes due to it's orbiting the Earth. Keep you posted on how that goes.

Other then that not too much to report. So instead I'm combining a bunch of stuff into something resembling a post (problem with sticking to the books and assignments, not much worthy of blogging comes up).

First off for all you facebook users out there I am now it. HOWEVER due to my busy schedule, and my minor none conformity tendencies I am not an active user. I will not be searching out or requesting any friends. Rather I'm enjoying using the site on a passive filter feeding basis. Meaning that I'll accept ppl and talk to them only if I get tagged. It's a little experiment I've been doing for the last 3 weeks, and it's been quite successful.

The end of this post is just some fun videos I found on youtube, and are funny enough I think to warrant posting them. What in lue of my having anything funny going on in my actual life!




Been having a superhero withdrawal lately, and this video hit the spot. That and I have loved this song for a long time



An inspiring little animation clip that is all too appropriate being down here (even though I still haven't seen a Kiwi). Reminds me that we all must make our own lot in life, and build our dreams.



Lastly as the summer season just started in Drum and the Museum is going it without me I'm missing that whole scene. In particular the crew. So as Peter's the only with a video on youtube that I know of I've posted it cause it's funny too...

Hopefully I'll have something noteworthy of posting soon.