Back Home, but still wearing my adventure hat!

Well, it's been a long road.

9 months, 8 countries, 13 plane rides, and a million unforgettable experiences.

I've been home for about a month now, as soon as I got back I hit the ground running with getting sorted for the next step in my life. I landed a spot in the Master's Program in Bioinformatics at UO, so I've gotten pretty tightly wrapped back up in academia at this point.

But you know, I'm really happy about that now.

Coming back to school has been so different since I've been back. I've spent most of my time hiding in the library, trying to catch up in Biology to be up to snuff with all my peers who have Bio degrees.... will get there eventually.

Being home has been really different, but there have been some amazing changes since I came back.

I found out my family can survive without me. Not only have I learned that, but some of them have learned that too.

And this next one may sound silly, but for me it's really a revelation.

When I'm studying, I know I want to be. I know that learning and bettering myself academically is exactly what I want to be doing, and I no longer get distracted from my work daydreaming wishing I was doing something more fun. And that's because I now know that there's nothing anywhere in the world that I'd rather be doing more. I was out there doing that, and I know what it's like, and know that right now I'd rather be learning, so there's no possible way that I'm missing out on anything. No matter what exciting thing is going on in the world, at that moment I'm doing is exactly what I want to be doing.

I WILL travel more. My next plan is for Europe, especially before my aunt & uncle move back to the states from Switzerland. But there are a couple things I would do differently next time.

NOT try to work 'whatever job'. When I travel it will be for a specific job I have already been offered (or Dar has been offered) or it will be solely for travel. Spending all that time in NZ falling into depression with no job prospects and no money was NOT what I wanted. The traveling we did around NZ, Australia, and Asia WAS exactly what I was hoping for. THAT was the real adventure.

I also learned that the adventure isn't over until I die.

Since I've been back, there has been SO much adventure!
We have seen friends.
I got into a Masters program by the skin of my teeth.
There we have already made new friends.
I've watched my little sister surprise me over and over with what a wonderful woman she has become.
I've spent amazing quality time getting to know Dar's mom better.
I got to see my grandma happy and healthy in her new home.
We moved into a new apartment
Holy crap! We just found out that Dar is going to be an uncle!
Oh yeah, and I have no idea where Dar or I will be in 3 months when we start our Masters internships.

How adventurous is all that?

The adventure is really never over, as long as you keep the adventure spirit, and think of things in life as part of a great adventure.

So, while I may not write in here about traveling around anymore for awhile, I assure you that I am, and always will, keep wearing my adventure hat :D

Too much fun for blogging :D

I made a rule in the beginning that blogging wasn't allowed to interfere with adventuring. And there has been so much adventure in the past few weeks I just haven't had the time! yay!

The last few days in Thailand were great. We took a night train from the southern part of Thailand up to Bangkok, and we had our one night in Bangkok! We ended up walking around malls for most of the day, and the night didn't seem like it had much to offer, we didn't want to spend much more money, we were pretty tired from the train, and we had already eaten dinner, so we did a sneaky phone charge on a street lamp which had a plug in hanging from it. We then bought a bottle of Hong Thong - the local beverage (~$4 per bottle) and proceeded to sit and people watch on the big tourist drag in downtown Bangkok. We ended up talking and then sharing our drink with a goofy street vendor who was working just across from us. He tried for about half an hour to try and teach us the name of this drink. Hong Thong - something like Haung Taaaung but Thai is tonal, so we were pretty hopeless at pronouncing it right. Had a fun few hours with him, he gave us friendship braclets! We are instructed to come back to his book stall next year in early May, during the giant water fight festival, show him our bracelets and try to say the name of this whiskey so that he will remember us. We eventually moved on to a bottle of Sang Som, which we are worse at pronouncing. According to our friend one is supposed to mix Hong Thong and Sang Som in equal parts on ice. We stuck to Coke.

  As the night went on another street vendor started motioning behind our new friends back that he shouldn't drink anymore, like he gets crazy or something. He seemed all fun and jolly to us, but she got more and more insistent over a few hours - seemed like she was telling us that he would start fighting if he drank more, then it seemed more and more like she was saying he was going to fight us. He did mention at one point getting in a fight the night before with some other guys, and as we started to leave, he was still friendly, but she sure wasn't. She was telling us to leave, and leave now! So Dar got the guy to let him drink the rest of his whiskey, and we headed quick to a cab. Will definitely say hi to him again if we ever in Bangkok again though!

We took some taxis in Fiji, but our ride to the airport was our first taxi on our own in Tahiland. I'd read online that to avoid getting ripped off one should ALWAYS take metered taxis, and INSIST on the driver using the meter, because they will overcharge you otherwise. And sure enough, it took 3 or 4 times of insisting to use the meter until he turned it on, and though he swore it was really far and would be 400 or 350 bot at the least, the meter said 180 as we got out.

Lucky for us the Bangkok airport doesn't close at night like the Gold Coast one, so we actually got to get a bit of a sleep that night, or at least I did. Dar was a bit sick from the hardcore whiskey drinking... though he was able to Macguyver my glasses back together which had broken on the train up to Bangkok. Scuba diving was AMAZING but apparantly the water can be a bit dirty and with all the mask removal exercises in the open water certification i ended up with a bit of an angry eye so I had to be off contacts for a bit. So i looked awesome. But better than being blind!

 

And before we knew it, we were in Japan! Seeing Takako again was so so so amazing. We can be separated for years by thousands of miles but she will always be such an important person in my life. We loved Japan so much and it was because of her and Michiko. Takako picked us up from the airport and handed us subway cards with our names on them XD We tried out the 'recommendation machine' - its a vending machine with a camera in it that looks at you and recommends a couple drinks for you. You can then use the touchscreen to choose what you want. It really liked recommending wheat tea and peach drinks for me, and red bulls if I made an angry face. Different things are also better for me when I take my glasses off.

We headed for Michiko's cute little apartment, and we had the first of our many fun sleepovers XD 

I first met Michiko a few years ago when her and Takako came to the US to get away from the radiation after the Fukushima disaster. We had a fun reunion with Takako then, and Michiko was pretty shy, also had a really hard time communicating in English. This is us with our friend Dorothy in Eugene back then.

Michiko's English has improved SO much, and my Japanese a bit too, so this time we really got to know her well. Takako mentioned her coming to the US, and we are really really hoping she will come stay with us in Eugene (maybe even this coming summer!) We want to spoil her rotten just like her and Takako did while we were there. Was also neat that Dar came along this time, since we started dating while they were in Eugene. 

First thing we did on our first morning in Japan was get me fixed up with some new glasses, and a few new shirts since I haven't bought clothes in like 9 months. And they are awesome! I kind of don't want to wear my contacts anymore. This is us at a sushi train restaurant. We kept trying to take artsy pictures down the train, and dropping our cameras on the train. Dar is in the background having a food coma.

We explored so many parts of Tokyo with Takako and Michiko. We visited a bunch of shrines, learned the order of bowing and throwing coins and making wishes at them. We got our fortunes from one of the temples too. I got a 'neutral one' and Takako got a bad one but she tied it to a structure they had nearby so I guess that means its OK. Michiko got one that said she didn't have talent though so I don't believe them. We saw Harajuku, some beautiful beautiful parks with plenty of curious koi, and street performers, tried the amazing food - one part of why we love Japan so much. YUM! Takako made sure we tried all the foods. On the last night she took us to a restaurant that had EVERYTHING. I tried many things for the first time, whole fishes, liver and raw horse among them. Felt a little weird with the horse for sure, but it's an animal just like a chicken or a cow so I tried it out, and honestly it was really delicious. I also got to meet Takako's good friend Tina! We had a couple late nights, and we tried to have early mornings. Ate chocolate every morning though, haha! I'm bummed all the pictures are on my camera and I can't get them off till we get back to the US! So many great moments!

Another night we had ended up pretty crazy. I mentioned here before my friend Lisa, who I met randomly at a Couchsurfing meetup in Auckland. She helped me get the job at Buenos Aires by introducing me to Rachel. She happened to be in Tokyo at the same time as us, so we planned to meet up. Well, I sent her Takako's phone number on fb, she sent me the number of Jungo, the lady she was staying with in Tokyo, and we planned to meet up for kareoke that night. Well I called the number around 5 when I hadn't heard from Lisa, and after 30 seconds trying to talk in broken Japanese to the frantic lady (I was frantic too) on the other end of the line, it turned out she also spoke English. She asked us where we were, said she had lost Lisa earlier that day because 'in front of the big lantern' wasn't specific enough in a place with 3 large lanterns, there was a miscommunication about phone numbers, and she had her phone on silent, but she was nearby in her car and would come pick us up since she was heading home and hoped Lisa was headed there too.

Sounded good enough to us, and a few minutes later, Jungo pulled up in her van with her ABSOLUTELY adorable 3 year old who only spoke Japanese and Spanish, and whisked us away to a different part of Tokyo. We had a really fun time getting to know Jungo and her daughter (who absolutely LOVED Dar's beard) She gave us coffee and let us relax at her house while we waited for Lisa. I checked fb to make sure Lisa hadn't messaged - turned out I had ALSO given Lisa the wrong phone number. But, Lisa came through the door not too long after, and we had a little reunion. Jungo fed us dinner and beer, walked us to the bus stop, and we headed for karaoke. We ended up SO lucky. Takako did her Japanese speaking magic and got us the room where they filmed the karaoke scene in Lost in Translantion!

 

Karaoke was way fun and definitely part of the Japan experience I think. It was NOTHING like any karaoke I've ever done before. Backstreet boys, Barbie Girl, More than This, My throat was so beautifully sore afterwards.

We had some drunchies beef rice bowls and had a quickie Taiko drum video game session before running to and missing our last trains to get home. So we took a picture together instead. You can see the impending doom in our eyes knowing that we are really happy and a little buzzed, but we know we have to walk home now.

 

While Takako and Michiko were busy, Takako's mom was amazing and arranged for Dar and I to go to Kyoto for a few days. We took the Shinkansen!

 

It was kind of funny riding that thing because I knew it went fast, like 200mph fast, but I hadn't looked at Kyoto on the map before we got there, I'm a little embarassed but no I didn't know where it was in Japan. I thought a little South, you know, just a few hours on the train sort of thing. Then I looked where I was on Google maps, and i realized we were really far away! Tokyo to Kyoto is something like 1/3 the distance from Tokyo to Seoul! That train is amazing. We got to see Mt. Fuji as well as a bunch of factories (Toyota, Fujifulm, Honda, etc) from the window on the way back too, which was cool.

We had a really great time in Kyoto, what a neat city. The weird thing is that from high up it reminds me of Eugene a bit, tons of trees, just older and more built up. What a history these places have too. We saw a couple of the famous places there like the Fushimi Inari shrine which has these walkways with tons of gates

We also checked out a place I can't remember the name, there were a bunch of Buddhist statues (1000 of them I think) -  as well as a world heritage site, Nijo-jo Castle, a castle used by the past Shoguns, and the next day we were really lucky to get in on a tour of the Imperial Palace, a palace used by the emperors themselves for thousands of years until the 1850's when the capital was moved to Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration. Learned about that in Japanese history class! :P Guess most people don't get to do that tour since it has a limited number of seats so we felt pretty lucky :D

Dar and I loved Japan. If the work ethic wasn't soo tough (it sounds like it is for Takako anyway) we'd really love to live there. We'll see what we can figure out though. If not living, we'll definetly do lots of vacationing there. It's hard to tell what it is about it that we liked. Maybe it's becuase even though it's a different language, at least I have a grip on it enough to get done what is needed, or maybe it was just that we had the fun and security of having Takako and Michiko there. While travling with just Dar and I has been really fun, it's something so so special to have friends there with you. I realized that seeing Takako at the airport was the first familiar face since I saw Karen, Emily, and Alee when we left the Eugene airport... which is almost 9 MONTHS ago! It's made me really really long to see everyone in Eugene again too. Anyway, we are both really hoping to get back to Japan again soon :D

We've had a similar experience in South Korea too. After we found out we were going to spend 10 days here in Seoul, I got ahold of Susie and Sujung, two friends who lived with me in the dorms my freshman year at UO. Susie was so sweet and offered to let us stay at her house for a few days. When we met we were all undergrads, now Susie is in her second to last year of medical school, living with her sister and CUTEST DOG EVER! And Sujung is a real business lady who has become quite the dessert chef as well! We had a really fun time spending time together, catching up, meeting all the boyfriends, and again eating all the delicious local cuisine. They've got us addicted to this street food here called Tteokbokki - For those of you in Eugene we're planning to try and make it ourselves when we get back so let me know if you are interested!

On our first day together we went together to a beautiful old Temple in Seoul - had a fun time opening doors we probably weren't supposed to open, and at the museum checking out how sounds and put together in the Korean writing system, Hangul. 

 

I'm determined to learn at least how to sound out everything by the time I come back. I've learned only 'thank you', 'here', and 'Tteokbokki' so far here, which is about as far as i got in Thailand. I'm really trying to remember for my future travels how much more you get out of a place when you can read and say basic things. Whenever I say my mangled version of "Thank you" - "Ko-map-su-mi-ta" I always make the other person smile, and sometimes surprise them a bit. So I'm promising myself to learn more before I buy tickets for a new place again.

Social eating is a HUGE part of the culture here. It's kind of neat because I guess the unsaid rule what you are meant to do at many restaurants is everyone agree on a food, then you just order an appropriate portion size of how many people there are at the table, and one giant bowl/pan is brought to the table to be shared. Dar and I confused the wait staff at least once or twice by unknowingly both ordering what we wanted, and then because they couldn't explain it to us (probably they had never had anyone do this before) they put their hands up, said OK, and brought it out to us.

Just on our day with Susie and Sujung, we had breakfast at Susie's house of a seaweed jelly stick dipped in almond flower (was so good!) Then had Ttokbokki (I can only spell this because of wikipedia) with ramen, cheese, and bulgolgi, headed straight for a cafe where we shared what I think is the unofficial national dessert - shave ice with red bean and ice cream (also so yum) then we headed over to meet the boyfriends for dinner where we had (cannot believe how popular this is here) fried chicken and beer. There are so many restaurants that specialize in just this and they are ALWAYS full.

Oh yeah on the way to dinner we found and purchased this thing.

It may be some sort of flower product or it may be some sort of deep fried animal intesine, but it is most definietly filled with icecream. It is really strangely normal for me at this point to eat things I have no idea what they are. It's a little terrifying but also keeps me on the edge.

And I cannot forget! We checked out a mall where you can dress up in traditional Korean clothes and take pictures! Princesses of Seoul!

The end of our evening with Susie and Sujung was a really good time. This coming Friday is Buddha's Birthday (guess kind of like Christmas) but it's a really big event here. We ran into a big parade with giant Buddah's, elephants, flowers, all the animals of the zodiac, and tons of bright lights. We then strolled along a river where they had more giant paper machay models of dragons and such, then grabbed some coffee together.

 Dar and I have been exploring Seoul for a few days on our own now, spent the weekend sightseeing. We went to a museum for the king that invented Hangul. It was cool enough, but had tons of strikingly blatant biases, as well as weird militaristic stuff like a 'game' where you use old guns and cannons to take out ships with enemy flags (guess it's not that much stranger than some American video games though) We have also been trying out new and completally misterious foods (as well as tons of Ttokbokki) We spent 45 minutes on the subway trying to find this place we went to with Susie and Sujung, finally found it and realized it was closed, so we went there for lunch the next day!

One of things I am really happy we tried out here was the 4-d movie. I think this picture below describes it pretty well. It's something that in the US you would find at theme parks like Disneyland, super virtual reality ride stuff. But here they use them for certain feature films.

 

We saw what I think must be one of the best movies to see in 4D. Iron Man. Dar wanted to see the 3rd one anyway, we were lucky enough to have it be in English, and to be splashed in the face with water when the Iron Man falls in the ocean, then simultaneously blown in the face with air, moved side to side, and punched in the butt when he falls over during a fight scene was a really amazing and over the top experience. If you have the opportunity to see a movie in 4d I will tell you it is definitely worth it. Apparantly there are smells too, but the people sitting next to us I am pretty sure were eating shrimp flavored popcorn so I didn't smell anything other than that. You win some, you lose some.

I got to meet up with Susie and Sujung a second time last night, we went together to dinner (hot dogs in a Korean soup - during the Korean war Spam from the US army became a popular additive to traditional Korean food) Again, yummy like everything else! I didn't realize because I usually never eat them, but hot dogs are a bit of a comfort food to me, having them for the first time in YEARS sent me back to my favorite childhood hotdog stand at Jerry's where my dad and I used to get hot dogs together often.

Susie and Sujung spoiled me rotten! They gave me a HUGE gift bag filled with Korean snack goodies! Sujung was apparantly texting Susie back and forth at the market to choose them for us! And they included a little sticker sheet which she went through and translated everything for us! Then they paid for dinner! So tricky....

After dinner we headed to N. Seoul Tower - you can go up to the top and have a beatiful panaraoma of Seoul. Pretty cool. They have this really neat thing outside too. It's this fence around the viewing area for the city - but I guess it's something couples do to come there, and take a padlock, then 'lock their love together' and throw away the key! And there are TONS of them. It lines this 3 foot high fence for probably at least 50 meters, then they have these trees like in this picture and they are also covered in locks. They also have these benches which are heart shaped to 'help' the couples to be close. hehe.

It's kind of funny there are a lot of cute-sie coupley things here in Korea. It's really really popular for couples to get cell phone cases, charms, shoes, socks, shirts, entire outfits that match, and wear them together. I actually remember this couple who I would see around campus at UO who had 2 or 3 matchy shirts they always wore together. I used to think it was a little over the top, even a sign of kind of a weird relationship, but now I realize that here that is totally normal. Another thing is everywhere else in the world you'll see men carrying the shopping bags for women, but here on the street you'll see lots of men carrying the purses also for the ladies.

Thismorning we had a last meetup with Sujung for lunch, she gave me some of her beautiful and delicious strawberry custard cake she made the night before, yum! And then Dar and I made the obligatory visit to Gungnam station to see what Psy was talking about. Samsung has a pretty neat thing there at their headquarters, it's a big showroom with their latest stuff, and a bit of a museum about the manufacturing process, etc. Lots of 3d tvs with kinects hooked up to them, tv's with more than 1080p, the newest appliances, but the coolest thing in my opinion was the touchscreen window it's acutally this same one from the video that i got to play with. I was hoping they might have some of the new flexible displays but seeing the touchscreen window was pretty amazing.

We grabbed some chicken soup for dinner because Dar is a bit sick, and took an early night. Not so early now that it's 1:30 am and I've been writing this blog post for 3 hours. Guess it's about time to close so the blog doesn't interfere with tomorrows adventuring to Dongdaemon underground shopping mall!

Thailand!

afterwell, i wanted adventure!

and i have to say i got it.

there have been many moments during this trip where i just stop and think "what is my life that i am in this situation?"
Since I've been in Thailand there have been too many of those to count.

we ended up booking a hotel online for our first night in Thailand. a guy we met hitchiking in nz recommended it to us since its 500 meters from the airport, and since our flight got in at like 9pm and we were both so exhausted and sunburnt with no idea how long customs would take ( it ended up being quite easy - a joke compared to nz where they took my shoes away and washed them for me) we paid $50 which seemed reasonable for a hotel...now that seems like a joke. We got a better hotel the next day for $25, the night after that we payed $15 and now we are paying $16 for a beach front room.

Anyway we came out of customs thinking we were ready to deal with the onslaught of taxi drivers wanting to help.

"Hello Sir! Where you going? Taxi Car?"

This call is forever burned into my brain. They have a cool bird here that can imitate most sounds and I'm surprised most of them don't say that because that's most of what you hear walking down any city street during the day here.

"Taxi car? Taxi boat? Where you go? Koh Phi Phi? 500 bot."

So with helpful directions from the tourist police we braved the 600 meters in the dark to our hotel. The tourist police are a really cool thing they have here, if you run into trouble with the real police (who can apparently be a bit corrupt sometimes) you can dial 5522 and the tourist police who speak English will come help you. There are signs that say "tourist police, your first friend" they even have an app.

And i have finally learned what it is to deal with the frustration of not speaking the language of a country you are in. I'd made sure to learn at least a boched version of thank you and hello before I got here, and i even covered my hand in phrases like where is the bathroom, etc. Thai is tonal like Chinese so there is an extra dimension of being able to say things completely wrong. Definitely asked for the toilet one time and had the girl look really embarrassed, tell me "no, no" before I guess realizing what I had meant to say and pointing me the right way. Who knows what apparently weird thing I asked her for. The phrases on my hand were handy a few times, and helped me be more polite, but common phrases sure doesn't help much when you need to buy contact solution and can't find it in a store, and good luck getting a sim card set up for your phone! Phone data here is by time not by MB, so you buy hours of internet on edge, edge+, or 3g which is confusing enough in English. And in the entirety of Phuket we found not one proper store for any phone carrier, just privately owned shops and 7-11s where you can buy sim cards. On the most part people were nice to me as I struggled, but a language barrier is a language barrier and of course I'm in the wrong here by not speaking Thai.

By our second night in Phuket I got a message from a Russian guy living in Phuket on couch surfing who said we could stay with him, so we headed over to his house. Had a relaxing day getting to know Sasha and the house mates (all also Russian - and some who didn't speak English) funny enough they had lost their water bill last month and so the water had been turned off so, they were waiting for monday to call the water company. No stress, we were planning to eat out anyway, and we headed off to the night market. The night market was really neat, stopped and checked out a soccer game on the way, grabbed some food and a coconut with a straw, attempted to haggle for a taxi but ended up walking and dodging cockroaches all the way home - I'm slowly getting a lot better at not being deathly afraid of the stupid things.

Well something I ate at the market wasn't so good later that night... and no water means no flushing toilets. It wasn't very pretty. But they came and turned on the water the next day and I can say I survived. Spent another night at Sasha's  and cooked them the most simple American meal we could think of - grilled cheese and tomato soup. We even found Annie's tomato soup at the store, Tesco Lotus. We are now promised Borsch if we ever go to Russia or Serbia. One of the guys let us borrow his scooter and we took our lives in our hands on the crazy roads here. Don't think I mentioned it here yet, the roads are kind of a free for all where people TEND to the correct side of the road and TEND to stop at red lights, but only when there is other traffic around. It is perfectly acceptable to go into the wrong lane to pass someone in the middle of a city, as well as drive on the wrong side completely if there is no other traffic around. In the words of one of the Russians, "I think you don't need licence if you going short distance." Riding along with Dar was definitely more fun than scary and I even drove alone myself when we rented a scooter a few days later on an island. It was a bit of a skill avoiding (or at least going really slowly over) the sewage overflows which run from time to time across the street. I will really love going back to non open air sewers.

And its worth noting what an amazingly hard habit refraining from throwing toilet tissue in the toilet after you wipe yourself is. The number one rule in south east Asia is no toilet paper down the toilet. This wasn't clear to me at first because signs said "don't throw paper towels" or "don't throw garbage" down the toilet and I was wondering who was dumb enough to need that sign. Me. Apparently the sewer lines aren't large enough so they actually explode underground when people flush toilet paper. This is especially bad on islands where the sewer lines are under the beach. Don't want to hurt the beautiful fishies! The locals use little spray nozzles like for a kitchen sink.

The food here is really really super yummy. I tried the spicy papaya salad tonight for dinner. They toned the spicy ness down pretty much completely, so I got to really enjoy the flavor. Yum. And I finally got my mango and sticky rice fix. They throw sweet condensed/coconut milk over the whole thing. And the curries. Wow. I think the average Thai spicyness is just right for me because its always just perfect. And the portion sizes leave you just perfectly satisfied and not bloated. But the one thing that stands out is that while the real Thai food is certainly delicious, but its not really all that far above what I get at Thai restaurants in Eugene, or a particular yummy one Rob & Sharon take me to in AZ. I think we are pretty spoiled with the Thai food we get in the states. Its pretty damn close to the real thing! The one thing they have in almost every restaurant here though, that I haven't seen before, is a dish called "no-name chicken/pork/vegetable" - a friend ordered it today and she got a deep fried fritter/tempura like pieces of chicken & veggie mix with sweet chili sauce for dipping. She said it was yum so I'll have to try it myself before we leave. And the fruit shakes! It seems every street there are at least a few stands with fresh fruit which you can also have made into delicious shakes. Just fruit and ice and yogurt if you want. Not to sweet, just perfect. And the coconut shakes are served in a coconut shell. And they cost like $1.20

So after we left Phuket we headed straight for Koh Tao, an island off the East coast in the Bay of Thailand. The island is well known for being a great place to learn to dive, and we decided Thailand would be a really great place to learn! We started our open water course a few days ago. Its been a blast. We chose a really really great school, Impian Divers. The coolest thing about going there is since the water is so calm here, the two confined water dives which are usually done in a swimming pool, you get to do in the ocean! And wow the ocean here is incredible. We were in shoulder deep water and had schools of all types of fishes, sea cucumbers, and corals all around us on our first dive! Our actual open water dives were out of control. Christmas tree worms, clown fish and their (huge!) host anemones, schools of parrotfish and wrasses, angelfish, gobies and blennies, fish that glow, brain corals the size of a car -OK so things in water are actually 30% smaller than they appear, but still! It was such a treat for me after having only seen these creatures small and in stores, to see them happy and healthy in their natural environment - and therefore HUGE since they live so long here.

We are almost done with our diving certifications. We finished all the theory and tests, have 2 open water dives under our belt and just 2 more open water dives with a few exercises to go! We went to 12 meters yesterday, and next we go to 18. Would be done today but Dar got a bug so we are waiting a day to see if he improves so he can go too. No worries if he can't because then he will just have to go in Hawaii XD

Well I think thats about it! Will take the night ferry back to the mainland tomorrow and head up to Bangkok. We leave the 2nd for Tokyo! Planning to go with Takako to Kyoto for a few days and stay with Michiko in Tokyo when Takako goes back to work. Can't wait to see Takako again :) and also have plans to meet up with 3 different friends in Seoul, so looking forward to that as well.

The Australian whirlwind!

Im sitting in the Gold Coast airport waiting for our flight to Malaysia, then to Thailand. The past week has been incredible, and I know for sure that I absolutely have to come back here, maybe even to live for a bit. What a crazy great place! The first few days were a little meh, staying at overly crowded party backpacker hostels but once we got out of those and headed to Brisbane to couch surf, the whole experience changed. Brisbane is a really amazing city. They have these ferries called city cats which are part of the public transit system so you can take them across the river which winds through the city just across the river or down the whole length for the 'backpacker tour of Brisbane' for just a few dollars. We had a really great time riding those around, and checking out the amazing public parks full of rainbow coloured birds and big lizards. The coolest place we went though, was a nature conservation park which also had a koala center with rescued koalas in it! It took 4 bus rides and a train ride for 3 hours each way to go see, but was so worth it. (Especially compared to an entire day of train and bus flowed by 15km walking only to find ourselves hitchhiking in the dark on a freeway on ramp with giant spiders, poisonous frogs, and whatever other dangerous critters we didn't see just feet from us - saving the tour of the outback for when we come back with a car! Eeek!)
Anyway, the koala centre was amazing.  They are so cute its ridiculous! And as if seeing the koalas wasn't enough, we walked out into the park after and we found a wallaby couple! Incredibly tame too, everything in the park is protected so they had no fear of humans at all. AND THEN: as I looked closer at the lady wallaby I noticed her pouch looked kind of big, and it started moving. I saw a baby wallaby poke out its little red face - I think it was eating grass or something. The cute and incredible factor was off the charts.
The next day we went with our couch surfing host for a surf lesson! We went to Byron bay. The only place ive ever seen that in more funky than Sedona. We met a lady earlier in the week telling us about the 3 crystal lines that meet in Byron bay and thats why its such a magical place. This for some reason discouraged us from going at first... snark snark... anyway it was an awesome trip, Beautiful waves and I actually stood up on the board once! Unfortunately there is no photo proof but dar and keith (our host and surf instructor) will vouch for me! I even ended up paddling fast enough to catch the wave myself at one point. Woo hop! Hope I don't become too much of a beach bum! But I would love for the next place I live to have a good surfing beach.
So, here we are about to check in for our flight. I put on sunscreen twice yesterday and I am still burnt to a crisp!  :( maybe the Thailand snorkeling will have to wait a couple days or I can buy a wet suit instead. We are also both utterly terrified. We have been so babied by first world countries for the past 8 months it is sure to be a shock!

Couldnt ask for more...

Today marks 2 years of love, adventure, and fun together. No one makes me smile, laugh, and live in the moment more, and there isn't anyone I'd rather share this adventure with. 2 years and counting <3

Southland and Fiordland Adventure Zone!

Hey there!

There are two more updates on my phone, including some fun pictures, but looks like the internet is too slow so my phone isn't going to publish them.s So I'll steal some pictures from the internet XD

It's been a fun few days. We've been hitchiking so we have met some pretty amazing, crazy, awesome people.

After a few days of exploring Dunedin, we headed South to check out the Catlins. We had a bit of a hard time finding a ride after a misunderstanding of the local bus system which left us at a pretty bad hitching spot. We ended up getting picked up by some super sketchy guys - after we got in the car we saw "Mongrel Mob", the local gang tatooed on the back of one of their necks - but they took us to a better spot and were nice enough, so I'm thankful. Ended up being picked up by a really nice dairy farmer who went out of his way to show us his farm, and then dropped us off at the door of our hostel in Invercargil!

We got a ride from a Chilean guy, and then a couple of German surfers into the Catlins, where we ended up staying at an amazing hostel called "The Lazy Dolphin" There was one of the only remaining pods of the worlds most rare dolphin who lived in this bay,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector%27s_dolphin and that night we only saw their fins far out in the bay, then we headed over to a different area to watch another rare animal the Yellow Eyed Penguin, play around on shore before roosting for the night. We met an amazing Kiwi couple and chatted till dawn about NZ politics, building regulation, and the future of humanity.

But the next morning was beyond incredible. I woke up early, grabbed a cup of coffee, and headed out to the beach to look for the dolphins. I didn't see any until as I headed back to the hostel, I looked out one last time far out into the bay, and saw them jumping!  It was so magical. And then later, when I was back up in the hostel eating breakfast, I saw they had come up to shore and were swimming around a group of people just 10 or 15 feet in the water. It didn't take me long to be in my swimsuit and down there with them. They came right up to me, only 4 or 5 feet away!

I finally got out of the water after I started to not feel parts of my hands and feet anymore, and we caught a ride out with a really nice German couple (headed to Oregon in a couple months, so we might see them again!)  We had a tea break at a beautiful lookout point, and checked out Nugget Point together.

Later that day we caught a ride with a businessman from Auckland, he picked up another 2 hitchikers not 1K after picking us up, and we all headed together for Queenstown. We decided to cook dinner together - he was from India, and I'm never going to pass up an opportunity for real curry, neither was anyone else in the car. It was way yum, but whether it was the real intense spice, or the excessive amount of boxed red wine we all had that night, the following day was a day in for me. Watched Lord of the Rings finally!

We headed back for Fiordland the next day, caught a ride in one of these...

They are all over here, and fun fact, they come with a matching blanket!

Another fun fact, the slugbug game we play in the states is also played in NZ but with tractors instead of VW bugs, and points instead of hitting. Also you get 3 points for a moving tractor.

And the next day we got a ride into Milford sound from a couple in ANOTHER Juicy van, and headed out for a boat ride which took us all the way into the Tasman Sea. I didn't take this picture but this is really what it looks like out there in Milford Sound. It's stunning.

 And if we couldn't get enough of that, our ride back was headed for Manapori, a town we'd hoped to go to, but didn't really consider it possible. It was amazing luck. And on the way back we ran into some Kea. They are the world's only Alpine parrot. I'd seen them before at the aviary in Dunedin, but these were wild. And this was exactly what they were doing. 

 They love chewing on rubber apparently.

We found ourselves that night in Manapori, a small town south of Te Anu, the jump off point for Milford Sound. The lady running this campground was really cool, she must have been 90 years old, still doing all the cleaning and caring for the campsite herself, making beds in cabins, etc. She was originally from San Fransisco, but left during the Vietnam war because she disagreed with the US politics so much. A strongly opinionated Atheist (or Secularist as she preferred) we had a good time talking about the US and New Zealand, as well as Richard Dawkins. She set us up with a cute little cabin for the night, and a tour of the Manapori Power Station for the next day.

The Manapori power station was pretty cool. It was build underground next to a lake in the 60s to provide power for an aluminum smelter near Bluff (which they are thinking of closing in the next few years)  They let the water fall down from the lake, turn turbines, then the water empties into the ocean. If the smelter was closed it could easily provide power for the entire South Island. Pretty incredible.

We also got to see a glimpse of Doubtful Sound, which was also really beautiful.

The tour driver was nice enough to drop us off at the driveway to our hostel for the night, unfortunately the only food we had was flour, cheese, and oil. So we got creative and made homemade noodles and cheese sauce with some milk powder we found.

And that night we tried to use the internet. The thing is, as we've been traveling around Southland, and anywhere outside a city, there is only roaming data, we don't have any laptops anyway, so we have been unable to do any of the basic internet things we are used to. On top of that, buying internet is INSANELY expensive here. Like as high as $10 for 30 minutes or $1 per 10MB (Full resolution on that Kea picture is 1.2MB) So, we compiled this list of internet things to do, bought a bit of internet, and found in front of us a late 90's Gateway computer that took 3 minutes to open a Firefox window. We had made only 3 CouchSurfing requests for Australia when we realized 2 hours had gone by. I am REALLY going to appreciate American internet when I get home. It's going to be like upgrading from dial up all over again!

Then we get to today! We'd planned to head |North for the Glaciers, then the first ride we caught (the first car that came by! - we were waiting less than 3 minutes!) was with a couple Otago Uni students who had been to Te Anu for a road trip and were planning to take the scenic route back to Dunedin. We'd been to Dunedin only 3 or 4 days before, but we loved it, and after learning you can't even go up and visit the glaciers without paying for a tour (which in the guidebook from 2001 said was $35pp) we decided we'd follow the wind, which was blowing to Dunedin! We had a really amazing day with these two guys, learned a lot about the life of a Kiwi Uni student - they party a lot harder than us.

We stopped by Bluff and had NZ famous Bluff Oysters with Fish and Chips on the beach, and they dropped us at the hostel we'd stayed at before in Dunedin. I bee-lined it for Countdown, the local grocery store to see if there were any Easter chocolates on sale, and it was my lucky day when I found an entire tub of chocolate labeled "Free Customer Chocolate" - And it WASNT an April fools joke. It was the broken chocolate bunnies they couldn't sell. Score! It's the simple things like chocolate :D

So tomorrow I either sleep in since this post has taken so long to write up, or I show up at 10:30 to release baby butterflies from their cages at the museum. And later we go op-shopping (thrift shopping) to find Dar a pair of pants that doesn't have a 6-inch diameter hole in the crotch!

Until next time!

Otago & southland

Hi again!
I write you from the back of a 'Chateau Britz" one of the many campervans that fly through the Southland roads every day. We got picked up by a really nice German couple outside our hostel the "Lazy dolphin Lodge" - we were a little afraid of being stuck out in the middle of nowhere (Curio Bay at the end of a dead end road) because check out time for hostels and the time people head out is 10. But at 9:45 I saw dolphins swimming around in the bay near a group of people so I bee lined it for the beach. It. Was. Incredible! I was 5 feet away from and swimming with the worlds rarest dolphin! Only 20 or 30 of them. I got about 30 or 45 minutes with them before the early stages of hypothermia set in and I had to get out... we are at near the southern most part of new Zealand. The next big land mass is Antartica and in only a bikini my hands and feet started to go numb pretty quickly! But anyway I feel pretty lucky getting the time I did with them :) Between that and getting to watch yellow eyed penguins hopping around on the rocks last night, and the seals at nugget point this afternoon, its been a pretty amazing trip!
Before heading here to the Catlins we spent a few days in Dunedin. by the way yes we did get off that bus in Christchurch. The bus driver took us way out of town and to an absolutely perfect place for hitching. We got picked up near immediately and got all the way to Dunedin that day!
Dunedin was awesome. As we drove in through town I knew it was going to be somewhere I wanted to stay for 3 or 4 days. And it was! The first day we checked out the Cadulburry chocolate factory (they make those disgustigly sweet and delicious cream filled chocolate Easter eggs) I ended up with chocolate all over my face and clothes and a huge belly ache, so of course we headed straight for the Speights brewery tour. And after a 30 minute open bar there we went out with some guys we met from our hostel. Was a really fun time! During our time there we also checked out the beautiful Botanic gardens there (including the amazing aviary there - full of tropical and native NZ birds) also checked out St Kilda, a big surfing beach and walked all the way to the edge of town to see the Sunday market and the steepest street in the world!

Now we are headed for Fjordland, Milford and Doughtfull Sounds, from what I've heard it should be a highlight of our trip. Super stoked!