Rotten Eggs and Friendly Kiwis

The bus ride to Rotorua was one of the most picturesque glimpses of nature I have ever seen. During the 4 hour bus ride, I saw hundreds of sheep, cattle, and horses, 5 rainbows (end to end), lovely rolling hills, mountains covered with luscious foliage and plump and never ending long white clouds. The best way to describe Rotorua would be Jurassic Park meets Lord of the Rings. Between the hills/mountains I had mentioned earlier, the native ferns and tuatara lizards that date to prehistoric times and the large pockets of steam emitted from the ground, Rotorua seems like an imaginary island too beautiful to even be real. We visited the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Park to observe geothermal activity. The Earth’s crust under this city is only 12 miles deep (which means if you drill down 12 miles..you will hit molten lava) thus giving space for the ground to excrete steam, mud pools, geysers, and crazy colored hot and steam pools. Due to the sulfur emitted from the ground, the entire city more or less smells like rotten eggs; the smell intensifying when you get closer to the pools etc. The best sight of the park would have to be the “Devil’s Bath” – a bright lime green pool sitting in the base of a volcanic crater – my camera could not even capture the color of this pool ( I guess you will just have to come see it in person). It seriously looks like someone poured buckets of “lime green” food coloring into the crater…unreal?!? My friend Krish always used to say “nature is putting on a show” when we used to watch the daily sunset at 1 CMP in NYC. For those of you from 1 CMP reading this blog – what I’ve seen in NZ is a hundred times more spectacular than those sunsets!

And for a daily dose of adventure (which seems to have become the norm for us here), we went zorbing. Basically a “zorb” is a hollow spherical object in which a person is strapped inside and rolled down a hill. Zorbing was invented by 2 brothers (while smoking who knows what..) who had originally wanted to call it “orb” but were unable to patent the word. They then added a “Z” from New Zealand in front of “orb” and christened it Zorb..and what is Zorb when you spell it backwards?! … “broz”..pretty cool huh? The only words that come to mind to describe zorbing is…ri-dunk-ulous, surreal, and you feel like you are born again when you plop out of the “womb like” structure.

The people of New Zealand are probably the friendliest in the world. Never have I met so many people that have talked to me at a bus stop, on a bus, or while just roaming around the country. In the past few days I’ve met a couple of Maori young ladies who briefed me on their love of American culture (Flava Flav, Jersey Shore..etc) and how American pop and hip hop culture has heavily influence the NZ youth; an ex-professor who informed me about the current economic climate and exports of NZ (and that he would make an intro to his daughter who works @ Bain..of course I had to do some MBA job networking here); and a couple of Euro backpackers on “work holiday” (something of an oxymoron that is non-existent in the US; basically other countries allow for you to apply for a working visa to holiday and pay for your expenses while you are there).

Friday night, our friend Lyndon who we had just met on the plane ride over to Auckland from LA insisted on showing us around and introducing us to the nightlife here. We met up with his sister and a couple of their friends to experience firsthand how people in NZ party it up! Dona (his sister) insisted we try the “rocket” shot that is native to this country. She had to ask the manager to make a special exception for us since they recently banned the shot since it was too strong. Essentially the shot is made up of 4 liquors – Jager- Vodka – Tequila – Chartreuse - and Red Bull (how can you go wrong with Red Bull?!?). It comes in a teapot and you just keep pouring the shots until you are done. It goes down very smooth, leaving you wanting more…within 5 minutes each of us had downed 4 shots of this magical elixir. It’s called “rocket” because you feel great once you drink it but about 10 minutes later, it starts to hit you.. FAST. You can only imagine how the night went after those shots…this was definitely an awesome time for our first night out in NZ.

We are now on a detour at Christchurch since it is heavily snowing in Queenstown. I pray the snow halts abruptly so that we can continue our trek and experience the scenic wonders of the South Island.

Thrills and Tempermental Weather in the City of Sails

Our adventure to New Zealand started in the airport with a heavy downpour and rather interesting customs requirements. They are quite anal about what is brought into the country – you can’t bring in food (somehow I managed to get in a can of Chef Boyardee which I am carrying to Singapore for my friend Lila who has been craving it since she moved there) and if your hiking gear or boots have any dirt from foreign land, be prepared to be charged a fine of $400! We (my brother came along with me for the NZ and Aussi portion of the trip) started the day by wandering around Auckland aka the City of Sails. It is a beautiful city with shores on all sides, wonderful beaches and West Haven Marina (largest marina in the southern hemisphere with over 2,000 boats).

Fear

Dictionary.com defines fear as

–noun a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain,etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling orcondition of being afraid.

It seems as though every corner I turn there is some sort of adventure or thrill to be had. What better place than NZ to face my fears and test the limits for adventure. My first encounter with adventure was riding the elevator in the Sky Tower (tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere). I can honestly say this was the first time in my life I was scared of riding an elevator, it shoots up 600 ft in about 40 seconds with a glass hole in the middle of the elevator floor so you can look down and the elevator door is open, with the city, for your viewing pleasure. I decided to do the Skywalk – which is a walk around the top of the tower on a 1.2 meter platform with no railings. Since I am in the country that invented adventure sports, might as well face my fears…

Even though the SkyWalk left me quite terror stricken, I achieved a new sense of bravery (let’s just say I would have never done this if I was not in NZ). Day 2 we did the Auckland Harbor Bridge Climb, another test of my fear of heights. We essentially climbed under the bridge, under the cars, around the bridge, and a mental enclosure above the cars. The first 15 minutes I walked slow as a snail, staring down to the water as imminent death if I were to fall…or staring above and feeling the vibrations of the cars driving over our heads. This bridge is the home of the legendary AJ Hackett Bungee jump. According to our Maori driver, AJ Hackett took a pal and a couple of chords to this bridge to bungee, the coast guard saw him and told him to get off the ledge of the bridge..and naturally he jumped off.

All in all, adventure sports are comparable to crack, you are scared shitless but you keep coming back for more. I couldn’t quite hack it and do the AJ Hackett bungee…but maybe I’ll change my mind in Queenstown (the adventure capital of the world).

Weather

This is a tough one, but the best way to describe the weather here is to say that Mother Nature is having a field day and is as fickle as Lady Gaga’s crazy outfits. I now completely understand when folks say you can experience all 4 seasons in one day in NZ. Below is a 15 minute glimpse of my time here..

1pm sun is out, yet it starts to drizzle

1:02pm I open my umbrella

1:03pm My umbrella is open, ready to go, the rain stops

1:04pm I close my umbrella

1:07pm the clouds recede and the sun comes out, I remove my North Face jacket b/c it is hot

1:10pm a large, ominous cumulonimbus cloud appears, with a strong breeze

1:11pm I put my jacket back on

1:12pm it starts raining again

1:13pm open the umbrella

Repeat cycle every 15 minutes

Interesting Tidbits about New Zealand

• The sales tax is a whopping 12.5% and is incorporated into the price of goods and could be increased to 15% fairly shortly.
• When I got my money exchanged at a local bank, they mocked me for carrying traveller’s checks (apparently extinct in New Zealand since they have rolled out a new debit/ATM card) Hopefully this will be available in the states once it works well in NZ. This is where I learned that they only have change in 10 cent increments (i.e – if you have a bill for something under 10 cents it gets rounded up or down), which makes me wonder why a store we walked into had a pen priced at $4.95..very strange.
• Sheep outnumber humans in New Zealand. Roughly a quarter of the population of NZ live in Auckland..so you can only imagine what the rest of the country looks like.
• Foreigners started calling people from New Zealand “kiwis” during WW1 based on their national bird.

We are now in Rotorua exploring geothermal parks, the countryside and Maori Culture..more in the next few days.

The Universe will take you kicking and screaming

I must confess, I am a planner..and a neurotic list maker. If I could, I’d plan every hour of my life and make lists to the end of time. I also am very ecstatic about travelling but tend to get homesick by the third day. With all this in mind, I’ll be travelling the world for 80 days with loose travel plans (since I couldn’t possibly plan out 3 months ahead of time) a few outfits stuffed into a backpack, and determined spirits. A couple of goals in mind (self discovery, learn about various cultures, read Team of Rivals, learn all of Atif Aslam’s songs, blah blah), a crucial “to do” is to test my personal limits. From how I often I shower or wash my clothes, what mountain I’ll hike, will I really go bungee jumping in Queenstown?! to the challenges of adapting to a new country every week, my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being will be tested to the core.

Come join me in my global trekking adventure through the crazy itinerary listed below…

HOME -> New Zealand -> Australia -> Singapore -> Hong Kong -> Thailand -> India -> UAE -> Spain -> France -> Kenya -> Tanzania -> HOME


So tonight, I leave my bag unpacked and apartment quite messy to savor my last night in Jersey City with good drinks and fabulous company at the local beer garden…..anxiously waiting for the universe to take me on my adventure…. kicking and screaming.