The Tuna School of Thought

Australia: Ups and Downs of Sydney

2012-01-08T14:10:00.000-08:00

Hello Fellow Fish,

So much has happened in the last few weeks since we last posted, so lets just dive right in.

We flew Emirates Air from Christchurch to Sydney, and what a flight it was. Emirates is officially my new favorite airline to fly with. Everything from their service to their personal entertainment center was spot on and made flying coach seem like we were first class members.

Sydney

We landed in Sydney and were overcome with joy. We had finally made it to the promise land that we had only heard of. We couldn't clear customs fast enough. Once we left we were greeted by our very good friends Hayley and Tanja who we met in Hawaii so long ago. They were gracious enough to pick us up from the airport, pile us in their car, and drive us an hour back to Hayley's house.

We spent most of the night catching up and talking. Hayley's parents are amazing and were kind enough to let us take over their living room to sleep in for a few days while we got settled. Over the next few days, Hayley and Tanja took turns looking out for us, as they both had jobs, and showed us around the area and the city. The northern beaches, where they live, are beautiful and full of super nice houses that celebrities live in apparently. Sydney the city is absolutely amazing. More to come on that in a bit. The girls, being that they were established and had social lives, took us out with their friends which was great. Since we didn't have many friends at the time we loved just interacting with other people in general.

The Gang

2Na's

After the first few days, the honeymoon period was over, and we needed to figure out what we were doing. We couldn't sleep in the living room forever. We spent one day going around the city trying to find work exchange at a hostel. But literally every hostel we went to was booked. We spent the remainder of that same day handing out CV's to places trying to find a job. It was time for us to move out from Hayley's house that day. So we thanked her parents, and cleaned up our mess of a space, and headed out.

Opera House

Randi

In line with picking up connections around the world as we go, we met Ariel's cousin Randi- all of us for the first time. As our luck would have it, she was the perfect person to get us on our feet here in Australia. She is Ariel's Dad's first cousin, who has been living here for about 15 years. She owns an art gallery and is a street smart socialite and New Yorker at heart. It's really refreshing to hear her voice and to see her attitude, giving one syllable words like "beer" two- "You want a bee-yah?". She has a beautiful, beautiful house with an abandoned gallery underneath in a very artsy and eclectic part of town- Newtown. We lived here as a home base for two weeks, coming and going, with a copy of our own keys. She is a hard worker who never stops, with a busy life and a business to run. A lot of times, we only saw each other late at night, or in the morning, but kept in close touch with written notes in the kitchen at morning. We became her three sons and we took good care of each other, going for dinner, drinks, and getting shown around. It is so nice to be able to get the history and point of view of Ariel's family for him. Sad as it was when we moved out, we still are in very good touch with Randi. Jeff bartended an event at the gallery, and we just got lunch with her the other day. In all honesty- if it weren't for her, we would have been in some serious trouble . And now because of her here, we just have a richer experience and a stronger base. Our lives are ever better for her. Ariel was even considering coming home and working more and then coming back out- which leads to the next point:

Sydney Opera House and Bridge

Sydney Skyline

When you apply for an Australian work holiday visa, you need to be outside of Australia when you lodge the application, AND when it's accepted. In Queenstown, Matt applied for his visa- accepted in under a day. In Christchurch, Jeff applied- accepted in one business day. To par, Ariel applied for his with three days to go before coming to Australia thinking his would be accepted as well. Different than Matt and Jeff, he put "Student" as his occupation. He was also meant to get a blood test or physical examination for Tuberculosis because of spending 6 months in India, but a quick "back" button and deletion saved that trouble ha! They asked for proof of study, and he sent a Rutgers confirmation. the Australian consulate didn't get to it in time, and there was no response. He just came to Australia anyway, hoping that it would get finalized there. After a back and forth email exchange, with nothing happening, and several trips to the embassy- they finally said that he had to leave the country for the visa to be accepted. Leave the country just for them to say "accepted". Lucky enough he still had our original ticket out of Auckland to sydney for December 9th. He got another ticket out of Sydney on the 8th, spent 16 hours in the Auckland airport, and came back to Sydney the next day. Once in the Auckland airport, his visa was accepted within an hour. One email was all it took. What a royal pain in the ass. On the positive, he got to experience the majesty and amazingness that is flying Emirates and also got a different New Zealand passport stamp without the Rugby World Cup insignia. Upon reentering Sydney, there was a small hiccup, in line with Jeff's: the visa needs to have the EXACT same name as your passport, including middle names. Once that was cleared up, we are good to work, and here for good now.

Sydney Harbor Bridge

We spent a good portion of the next week in this internet cafe that had free internet. Scouring everything we could to find jobs and places to live. I had been in touch with a lady about an apartment while we were in New Zealand and tried reaching out to her but was getting very vague answers. One day, we designated to walking to every single open house in the city that fit our needs. We started at 9am and literally walked around the entire city until 6pm looking at different apartments. The last one we looked at, was the the lady who would never give me a straight answer. She went on to explain that she was in contact with someone else who had committed to taking the apartment, but when he didn't come through she opened it back up. So we go in to take a look, and I immediately know this is the place. It is fully furnished and comes with everything we would ever need (ie: dishes, refrigerator, oven, microwave, couch, beds, shelves, etc.). It sounds silly, but this also happened to be the cheapest one we looked at. The other ones were 200-300 dollars more and had nothing that came with them. So as it stands, we are saving a TON of money because we don't have to buy things to put in the apartment. We told her we would think it over, consider our options, but we knew this was the one.

Living Room of new apartment (tour video included below)

I (Matt) was the first one to find a job. First, I auditioned to be the lead singer for a Sydney based band that tours Australia and was planning a US tour, but their music wasn't really my style. The audition went really well and we got fed afterwards, but did not worry too much about getting a call back. Then, I landed a sweet gig as a pizza chef in a really big and busy restaurant in Darling Harbor, a premiere restaurant area. Its always busy and it has a huge staff, plus lots of food to eat and bring home. I was working a good amount for the first couple weeks, but when the holidays rolled around they were cutting shifts, so I was basically out of work again and spent a lot of time at home in front of my laptop looking for other jobs. Ideally I want to get a 9-5 day job and a casual night job. I am very hopeful that this is possible. I have had 2 interviews already and another one lined up for this week. Furthermore, I will be coaching American Football in Sydney for the Sydney University Lions. So if all this pans out, I will be a very happy camper.

Jeff is in the same boat that I am right now. He was second to find a job in an art gallery framing paintings and helping around the shop. However, like me, his hours were cut and we both are looking for better jobs at the moment.

Christmas

Christmas in Sydney was like spending a day in a different dimension. With our first true day off in a while, we made it a point to go to the beach. Believe me, we know how weird that sounds. The interesting thing is coming from the New York/New Jersey area. People here talk about Sydney in a way that makes it seem huge and spread out in their eyes. For us, when we physically explore the area we understand how small it really is. New York City is HUGE compared to this. As the crow flies, we live under 5 miles from the beach- one of the most famous beaches in Sydney, Bondi Beach. It's no three blocks, like in Waikiki, but it's still close. The thing is, it doesn't feel that close at all, however once we actually made the trip it's a stone's throw away. Once we all have bikes, we will cruise hard to the beach and make it there in under a half hour.

Bondi Beach: Christmas Day 2011

We got to the beach, took off our shoes and had a nice look around. It was a big, sandy semicircle, with bustling streets, high cliffs in the distance, the soft thump of trance music in a nearby dance hall, and surfers and beach bums. The other strange thing is that relatively speaking it wasn't as busy as it could have been because it was Christmas. A lot of tourists were there in addition to people wanting to get out of the house before dinner and such. The other striking thing coming from New Jersey was that places actually close down once in a while. In the tristate area, there is ALWAYS a convenience store, a good place to eat, even if it's seedy, and a liquor store. We really just wanted to have a beer on the beach, but EVERYWHERE was closed. We settled for some Thai food and a beer from a pizza shop. Yeah, a pizza shop.

Once on the beach, we found a place to settle down and the boys went right to the water. We couldn't wait to get back into salt water- the last time was Hawaii! We were stunned, to say the least by the water. It. was. freezing. Freezing. Remember, the ocean in Hawaii was like a bathtub, 75 fahrenheit at least. Apparently, according to Australians the water doesn't get warm until a few months from now. We bobbed up and down, and the water was strong. Lifeguards patrolled on jetskis keeping the swimmers and surfers all separate. The beach looked like a Where's Waldo? picture. There must have been 2500 people at least on the beach, and about 800 santa hats. On the beach. On Christmas.

After meeting some new friends, we had had enough and went back to Surry Hills. We passed the rest of the night hanging out in the kitchen loving the soaked in sun on our skin and talking about what Christmas would be like at home.

Town Hall Building

Christmas Tree in City

Since all of the grocery stores were close, we couldn't make Christmas dinner, so we settled on the next day. We made eggplant parmigiana, roasted and sauteed vegetables, fresh salad, fruit salad, and butternut squash soup. We had to keep the menu seasonal. After tea, we taught Natalie how to play hearts, one of the most fun four player games ever. That has become a favorite late night activity for house game nights and we fear the Queen of diamonds more than deportation lately.

Christmas Dinner

New Year

New Year's Eve in Sydney is one of the biggest in the world. Anticipation for the biggest fireworks display in the southern hemisphere was all around. We thought we were smart and left the apartment around 9am to get to the Botanical Gardens around 10am when the gates opened. We were wrong. As we walked up there was a snaking line that wrapped around and through this huge open field then funneled into a walk way that lead to the entrance of the gardens. As soon as we were herded to our place in line, almost immediately after, we turn around and notice how long the line already is behind us. We waited 4 hours in line and luckily we were some of the 20,000 allowed in. Spent all day just hanging out and playing cards, while slowly roasting in the sun.

Catching some rays, and yes, I did get severely sunburnt

NYE!

Passing the time

Drunk A-holes sitting next to us

We were sitting in front of some drunken idiots who were ruining everyone's day around them, but we managed to ignore them and have a good time. The fireworks show was estimated to cost a few million dollars, and it was worth every dime. Since the Botanical Gardens are on a peninsula, there were three identical displays; one to the right, one directly in front, and one off to the left, firing from the bridge over the Opera House. It was a sight I will never forget. Worth the 15 hour wait.

FIREWORKS!

Sydney is an amazing place and it is already starting to feel like home. Sydney has so much to offer in terms of food (amazing food from all over the world my favorites the Japanese and Thai food), western amenities and comforts, as well as a diverse population that is always refreshing to be around. We are getting more and more acquainted with the city every day. We are getting more involved, making a new network of friends, and watching time fly by so fast. Just the other day, someone had asked me how long I have been in Sydney for. My first reaction was to say, "a week or so," but I had to correct myself because we have already been here over a month. Its sad that its going so fast, but at the same time its awesome because we are having such a good time and working hard to earn for more of our travels.

I hope everyone reading this has enjoyed their Holiday, Christmas, and New Year's festivities. It was a very heavy burden on all of us not being able to be around family this time of year. But we pulled through and made the best of what we could. Everyone back home were all certainly in our thoughts. Below, please find the bungy jumping video, as promised, from Queenstown. As well as the biking video. We have very high hope for this coming year and are very excited to be on this incredible journey together. We hope that you will continue following us on our adventure, and maybe even share this blog with someone else, who is not already doing so. Feel free to post comments, questions, or any concerns you may have. Thanks for tuna-ing in. Happy New Year!

Until Next Time,

The Tunas

Queenstown Videos:

Before the jump

The Plunge

Before the ride

Bikers

View from the top

Queenstown Adventure and the Ghost of Christchurch

2011-11-22T19:24:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends and Fellow Fish,

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of adventure, adversity, and the usual highs and lows that New Zealand seems to enjoy throwing our way. When we last left you, we were in the Rainforest Retreat and working for accommodation getting re-adjusted to normal life interacting with people again. So it is from here that I will pick up.

Queenstown!

While at Rainforest Retreat, we met 3 girls one night and started talking about our travels. We mentioned how we had a van that just died and how we were stranded with no way to move on. It came up that they had a van as well and were in fact going to Queenstown the next day. They seemed like very nice girls and offered to take us. We jumped at this opportunity and the next day set off for Queenstown after work.

It was about an 8 hour drive and we made a few stops along the way. One of the girls had a guitar so we put on a small concert in the back while we drove along. We pulled into Qtown around 11pm and met up with one of our friends who was staying and living/working there. He took us out to a couple places which was nice and had a solid night. Slept in the van while the girls checked into a hostel for the night.

The next few days were great and really allowed me to see Queenstown live up to its name firsthand. First, it was here that you realize how few places there are to go in New Zealand. In that, when people say, "Oh, you HAVE to go here and then go see THIS" they don't actually mean a town or place itself, but more the area around it and leading to it that they mean. The towns are generally so small and have nothing going on that its pointless to actually go to a town for that town. I realized this because Queenstown is one of the places that people say go FOR the town as well as it surroundings. While we were there we saw so many familiar faces. Travellers that we saw or talked to while we were in Franz Josef coupled with the people that live in Queenstown full time that we see walking around or working all the time. We compared Qtown to a big college, that is filled with people passing through and because there are people there that also happened to be in Franz Josef and elsewhere, we could talk about the places we all had been and swap stories. But it was the strangest phenomenon walking around a completely foreign place and feeling like you know so many people so far away from home, but Queenstown lended itself to that feeling which made us all feel like we were in a familiar place.

This "small world" mentality was made even more obvious one night when we were hanging out in a hostel that our friends had checked into. We were in the lounge and talking to new people as is customary and I see a guy who looks like someone I knew. I said to the girl next to me he looks familiar, but I just couldn't figure it out. He walks by again and I think to myself, "he looks like this guy I went to high school with." He walks out and past a window when the girl I was talking to says, "oh, he is from New Jersey too!" Thats when it clicked. I pointed at him, got his attention and the look of astonishment and disbelief was so clear on both of our faces. He came back in, and turns out he was in fact Colin Caroll from Mendham New Jersey. We sat and caught up the rest of the night and could not believe that 10,000 miles away from home, of all places, we bump into each other here. Everyone in the room was equally stunned. Small effing world.

While in Queenstown, we indulged a bit, eating out at the famous "Fergburger" almost everyday, which I do not regret one bit! The bit I do regret is our newfound love of gambling and the casinos. The good thing was that they would hold our bags for us while we were on the floor. We played a lot of roulette and figured its an easy way to win some money, until we lost it all. So we found ourselves just scraping by anyway we could. I did that by cutting corners on accommodation. Here are a few examples, one night when the other two decided to get a hostel room, I was stubborn and did not want to do that. So I went out to the big lake and slept right near the water under a tree. Another night, Ariel and I both decided to sleep in this overhang at a local park. We unrolled our sleeping bags and slept on the cement. Finally, (maybe our lowest point or our finest?) we snuck into a hostel and slept on the lounge couches, and had to move along before the opening staff found us in the morning.

Nevis

On November the 15th, 2011 in the year of our Lord, I did what few men have ever dared.

I woke up that morning, a bit sore from sleeping on the ground but the day started out just like any other. Went in search of breakfast, hung around town, and just enjoyed life. It didn't occur to me what the day had in store until around 11am. I was going to bungy jump the second highest bungy in the entire world. I forgot that it was the day and was immediately overcome with anxiety. Not in the "freak out" way that you see on tv, but in a quiet, reserved, fearful type of way. I didn't talk much and I could not stop thinking about it. I don't even know why. I have already jumped out of a plane 18,000 feet above the ground, but there was something eating at me inside this time. I just couldn't figure it out.

At 1:30pm I check in alone, as the other two decided not to do the jump, and get on a bus that takes us outside the city limits and deep into the mountains. The drive out was a good distraction because the scenery was breathtaking (do I use that word too much on this blog?) and I was able to focus on that. But once we pulled off the paved road and up along this winding, treacherous, dirt road I was brought back to the reality of my predicament.

Once we got to the top there was a small facility, and before we even got off the bus I realized the entire bus was shaking from the strong gusts of wind that were howling around at the top of this mountain. Off the bus, I got harnessed up and weighed. Then instructed to walk out the back door and out to the conveyor lift that would take me out over the canyon. The place where I jump from looked like some kind of sick twisted joke. It was a metal box, suspended by wires hanging over this immense canyon, swaying back and forth with the wind. I went out with a group of people and tried to calm myself by talking to them but ended up making an ass out of myself when I chimed in on their conversation and got weird looks. We made our way on this apparatus that took us out to the metal box described earlier. I was met with loud music and a bunch of people standing around paired with the frenzy of the employees trying to do their job.

Out there, they affix these straps to my feet and tell me to empty my pockets. It was in this in between time after I was geared up and before I jumped that my fear and nervousness were suddenly and inexplicably replaced by an adrenaline rush and thrill. I was third in line and just getting antsy waiting around. My name was called and they sat me down in a black leather chair, where they bound my feet and attached it to a rope made of rubberbands tied together. The guy who did it helped me up as I waddled to the edge. They always say, "don't look down." But I just had to. What I saw was a small river about 300 meters below me. The man counted down from three, but I took a few seconds extra. Looked down and out one more time. took a deep breath...and...SWAN DIVE!!!! Out and down. I was yelling the entire time. The ground rush was other worldly. In my peripherals I saw the canyon walls wizzing by as the small river grew larger and larger with each passing second. 8 full seconds of free fall later, the rope catches and all the blood in my body rushes to my head. The discomfort was by far the worst part of the entire ordeal but was very brief. They trained us to pull a small cord to release your feet so you don't have to get pulled up upside down, and they tell you to do it at the top of your second bounce. Unfortunately, mine got caught and wouldn't release. So I had an extra bounce. They pulled me up and I have never been more happy. I was high fiving strangers and hugging people. I felt like a different person after having done that. I still don't know what about that changed me inside, but it affected my life in such a way that I feel like a different person. Doing that bungy seriously changed my life and I don't know why. Maybe part of it is the fact I had to actually throw myself off of this ledge, maybe it was the ground rush, maybe it was the fact I went it alone. All these things could have contributed but I am a changed man because of it. I no longer fear the nightmares of me falling to my death because I have conquered it. (Ironically enough I was having those dreams in the days leading up to the jump).

For out last few days in Queenstown it was raining and miserable, so we decided to check into a hostel and lived out the rest of our days in Queenstown in the relative luxury of a big hostel. We spent our time sitting by the water, and taking naps in the park, or playing frisbee because we had all virtually run out of money.

Christchurch

We left Queenstown and flew to Christchurch. The very same Christchurch that was hit with the massive earthquake earlier in the year. When we landed we literally had no where to go. My plan was to sleep on the streets or something but when we got off the bus from the airport, we stumbled upon something just a step up. OCCUPY Christchurch. Yes, the same movement that began in New York weeks ago has made it all the way down here. They were camped in a big park (Christchurch is full of big parks) and we walked up with our tent and joined them. We talked to a few others that were camped there and immediately knew what kind of people we were dealing with. These were bona fide hippies. I sat in on one of their "General Assembly" meetings where all 15-20 of them get together and talk about things. There was one point of the meeting where we go in a circle and have one minute to talk about anything we want. This one man with dreads and tattered looking clothes starts off with, "I love that we are out here amongst the trees. I love trees. They are just so great and give us the air we need to breathe..." He was serious. Minus the random guy from Chicago, two french guys, and the hobo that wouldn't stop huffing glue from a plastic bag, these were a bunch of rag-tag individuals who most likely had no idea why they were actually there "protesting." I don't say that in a judgmental way at all, but these people literally had no idea about anything. The only thing they would say about the actual movement is how they think the corporations are taking over and they are trying to send a message to all the corporations in Christchurch.

Which leads me to my next point. THERE ARE NO CORPORATIONS IN CHRISTCHURCH. The entire city was devastated by a massive earthquake, literally the entire city center is closed off. All the corporations, businesses, and people left the city. Literally, up and left. We walked by shops that still had things in them. The shops could be functional if it weren't for the debris and sheetrock that littered the floor. Christchurch reminded me of an old western ghost town except modern. The only people walking around were those that were taking pictures of the destruction. The level of devastation really hit home when we took a bus tour through the city center and there was a lady next to us that was pointing out all the places where she worked, her friends worked, and the places she used to go. It was crazy seeing a city destroyed so badly that the people who used to live and work there just picked up and left. Its sad because it looked like Christchurch used to be an awesome place to be. I would have loved to see it when it wasn't being leveled to the ground.

Our time in Christchurch passed without much to mention. We spent a lot of our time at this mall that had free internet. We walked around the botanical gardens. After the first few days of staying in the camp we decided to get a hostel for out last night. Currently sitting in an airport almost a full 24 hours before our flight just because there is NOTHING else to do and we did not want to pay for another night/camp with the hippies. While waiting, met a girl who has been here since Sunday and is not flying until Friday. So it could be worse.

In other news, we booked tickets to JAPAN after Australia. We cannot wait!!! Going to be in Sydney in less than a day. We are ecstatic. Once again slept on the floor of an airport (in fact got to the airport 28 hours before our flight because we had no money and no where else to go. However, we were not even in the worst of situations. We met a girl who had been there since Monday and was flying out on Friday and similarly had no money and no where to go. So it could have been worse). New beginnings, new adventure, new challenges. Don't be afraid to comment or share any thoughts. Keep following fellow fish.

Until Next Time,

The Tunas

pictures and videos to come when we arrive in sydney and are not on limited internet

ARRESTED! and the Death of Vome

2011-11-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

We are finally out of Havelock and yes, we still have a bit of our souls left. So I will pick up right where Ariel left off last.

Nelson

We rolled out of Havelock late afternoon and set course for Nelson, the closest town west of where we were. It took a little over an hour and a half and when we got there we parked and walked around for a few hours. We went into a School for Music and sat in on an orchestra rehearsal which made me nostalgic for my band days back in high school. The orchestra was missing a tuba player so I was secretly hoping to be asked to step in, but no luck. We stopped in an old cathedral which was really cool and still operational and played on the organ and just looked around for a solid hour. We were really hungry and went to look for food, but unbeknownst to us, Nelson closes down around 5pm and with it so did everything else. So we walked for what seemed like hours on empty stomachs, and Jeff had the idea to go to the hostel he stayed in a few weeks back and see if any of his food was still there. He entered the code to get in and we all stroll into the kitchen. About 3 minutes there, we hear over the PA system, "Security to reception!" I, immediately about face and walk out and heard one of the staff say, "Yeah, one just left." Ariel and Jeff lingered for some reason and eventually followed me out. We found a Thai place that was open and stopped in there to get some food. Then we saw that it was BYOB so we decided to grab a few beers and come back to eat in. Turns out the only thing you are allowed to bring is wine. So we got take out and went to eat in a parking lot nearby. We were all sitting down in a deserted parking lot just enjoying a beer with dinner when a car drives by...next thing I know i hear 2 things hit the ground around us and I immediately thought water balloons. Upon further investigation, we saw that the people that drove by threw 2 eggs at us and missed wide on either side (the ones who threw them were girls). The strange part was, not one of us even flinched when it happened. For some reason it took a minute to register what was going on and when we finally figured it out, we were just surprised that some people in a small town are that bored that they have to drive around and throw eggs at 3 guys trying to enjoy their dinner. Later that night, we went to a small bar that actually had free and open Jam Sessions, that the bar provides instruments for (drums, bass, guitars, pedals, mics, the works!). We walked in and there were 3 guys playing some songs who sounded alright. When they got off stage I immediately went to get a guitar and found a bass player there and a drummer. They didn't know a lot of songs that I knew but we played a few Green Day songs, a few Blink 182 songs, a couple rap/hip-hop songs, and one of my original songs. It was tons of fun and even though there were maybe 10 people in the bar, it was awesome being able to play guitar and have a musical outlet again after not having one for over a month. I got my rounds on bass and drums as well, and jammed with a few other people. Then Ariel and Jeff found the courage to come up and play too, and we had a blast! Slept in a parking lot that night.

Abel Tasman National Park

We headed north the next day for Abel Tasman National Park, and on the way picked up 2 hitch hikers that were sitting in the rain. Turns out they were dating and the guy was Japanese, and the girl was French. The only two other languages that I am somewhat proficient in. So it was great being able to practice with them. I'm sure that they were scared of us at first because Ariel and I were belting out show tunes in the front while Jeff entertained them for the first leg of the trip. We heard about a place called "Split Apple Rock," which is exactly what it sounds like, and decided to make a quick detour there. On the way there, we picked up one more guy who was going that way and had a total of 3 absolute strangers in the back of our van (poor Jeff). The rock was cool and reminded us of Secret Beach in Hawaii (for those of you that have been following since then). We had to walk through the woods a bit, then it just opened up to a beautiful secluded beach. We took a few pictures and enjoyed the scenery, but in the end we were just looking at one rock that happened to look like an apple split down the middle. The couple decided they would tag along with us to the national park and we made our way further north of the south island.

We traversed multiple winding deadly roads which eventually opened up to the ever so majestic Golden Bay. My words can only begin to describe what we saw there, but the combination of mountains, valleys, and the ocean made for an absolutely astounding view. We drove along and followed a map that was supposed to take us to a camp site in the national park, but we ended up driving down a gravel road for about 45 minutes before realizing that the camp was at the end of the gravel road (and we were looking for places to camp along the road, over the cliff, and in the hills). The camp was cool, very open, at the foot of a big mountain, with a big bay to look at. Apparently you are supposed to register and pay for the site, but the place was closed and we planned on leaving early in the morning anyway, so we just made camp without doing any of that stuff. We collected firewood, pitched the tent then started making a fire. Our hitch hiker friends were just on the other side of the lot and would come in and out for a little bit of conversation. For dinner, we had potatoes in foil with onions, herbs, and spices. The vegetarians had beans I had some pork and peppers on skewers (kabobs). Dinner was amazing and we all passed out around 10pm. I slept well that night because I was using a sleeping bag, but the other two were really cold apparently.

We got up at 5am the next morning to watch the sunrise from the beach because it was facing directly east. Silly us, didn't realize that were islands with mountains in front of us and as a result we couldn't really watch the sunrise. So we went back and packed up our tent and cleaned, said our good byes to our friends (Keita, the Japanese man, staying true to form, insisted we exchange information, so maybe we'll see them again).

We hit the road, heading north once again, stopping at a memorial overlooking the Golden Bay and a small town for breakfast. We stopped at Waikoropupu Springs, which is the 2nd clearest water in the world! Second only to glacier water in Antarctica. The water was definitely clear and we filled up some of our water bottles with the water and it was delicious. It was pure and amazing! Afterwards, we headed for the northern most part of the southern island "The Farewell Spit." The spit is the biggest natural sandbar in the world (35km) and is notorious for having lots of beached whales. On the way, we saw some of the MOST GLORIOUS RAINBOWS EVER!! There were thick ones, thin ones, long ones, short ones, and at one point we saw a complete rainbow, from start to finish. You could literally see where it went into the ground, and no there was no pot of gold. Myth BUSTED! When we got to the spit, we realized that in order to go on the spit you need to go with a tour which was more than we were willing to pay, so we sat in the visitors center (that was run by a rather grouchy old man) looking through the free binoculars, reading the bird books, and catching up on current events by looking through a TIME magazine that they had there.

We left the spit, and headed back south the way we came. I was in the back and taking a nap, and woke up to Jeff yelling at Ariel, "COP! COP! COP!" (because we pulled over to let Ariel relive himself). The cop turns around, pulls up behind us, and puts on his lights. Walks up to the drivers side and says, "Hello boys, where are you from?" Jeff says, "America." To which the cop proceeds to say, "well alright, you are all under arrest...for theft" I thought he was kidding. This cop was super nice and reminded me of the guy from Shawn of the Dead. Unfortunately, he was dead serious. He proceeds to ask us if we stole a TIME magazine and a bird book from the visitors center at the spit. Apparently, the guy who runs the center called the cops and reported us, so the cop found us and arrested us. He asks us if we took the book and the magazine and kept on insisting that it was better that we tell him if we had it than for him to search the car and find it. We didn't have it so he searched the car, all of our backpacks, under the blankets and pillows, rummaged through our garbage and finally patted us all down. He probably felt silly and apologized then let us carry on our way.

Harwood's Hole

Once we were on our way, we made for Harwood's Hole. We had to drive another long gravel road but it was 100% worth it. We hiked about 30 minutes through the forest and then got to a pile of rocks. At the end of the pile, was an enormous hole. With towering cliffs above and this massive hole in front of us we realized why it was the biggest cave in the southern hemisphere. It was 70 meters wide and 180 meters deep, plus the cliffs above it. So it was a pretty big hole. Jeff and I climbed to the edge and Ariel enjoyed from a distance. When we were done there we found a path that led to the top of a mountain, overlooking the river and valley below. The wind was ridiculously strong and actually almost blew us over, but the view was worth it. It was so serene and peaceful we just sat there for a while looking out into the distance.

Murchison

We drove south. Stopped in Nelson for dinner then hit the open road. We drove until about midnight that night and stopped in a small dinky town called Murchison. We drove around for a while looking for a place to park and sleep. We found a gravel road we thought looked promising but at the bottom of the hill got stuck in mud. Ariel was asleep in the back so Jeff and I tried for about 30 minutes to get us out. I pushed for a while, and we both tried to drive it out. We were just about to give up and just sleep at the bottom of the hill until we got moved along in the morning and get a tow, when on my last ditch effort, I got us out and we were able to move on to a parking lot where we hid ourselves in the back until morning.

Westport, Seals, Pancakes, and Blow Holes

We continued south and arrived in Westport around lunch time and stopped at an Indian restaurant to eat. Right after lunch we went to a local brewery and did a beer tasting of the local brews which were all very delicious. Westport is the last town on the road before you head true south along the coast. So when we left town it was the real deal. Our first stop was to a seal colony. We drove out to the coast and along the western coast, the waves are a lot bigger, and the sea a lot choppier. But the seals did not seem to mind. We saw a bunch of them just lying around on the rocks and a few of them fighting here and there and I thought it was funny how they don't even care that people are around them taking pictures while they just live their lives.

As we headed south, the scenery got more and more incredible. Cliffs and ocean on either side, and off in the distances the peaks of the Southern Alps were visible with their snow capped summits. It was so much to take in, we would have wanted to stop to take pictures but they just wouldn't do the place justice. Our next stop was Pancake Rocks and Blow Holes. It was another national park type of thing, and to be honest the rocks didn't really look like pancakes. More like layered rocks, or a bunch of flat rocks piled on top of each other. As we were walking through, there are lookout points where you can look down and see the ocean water smashing against the cliffs on the bottom and it was here that I finally understood how water can actually crush rocks after years and years of relentless attacks. It was cool to learn about how the rocks and the cliffs were formed over millenniums. At one point, we thought it would be a good idea to get a closer look, so we hopped the barrier and walked to the edge of the cliff, which was terrifying. Had one of us fallen in, the fall would not be the worst part, it would be getting thrown into the rocks with the entire force of the ocean that would do us in. But we were careful and ended up ok. The track carried on and we saw a lot of the same, rocks that fell because of the water, pancake rocks that rose up out of the ocean, etc. but every bit was amazing to see. It started to rain, so we piled back in the van and hit the road.

Greymouth and a Glacier

We stopped in Greymouth to get dinner, which consisted of crackers, cheese, nutella, and hummus. Very satisfying. After dinner, we made for Franz Josef, the base town for the Franz Josef Glacier (with a brief stop in a small town called Ross, where we saw a firework show. The whole town turned up, all 200 people for a 15 minute show). We got to Franz Josef after driving all night, once again through deadly winding roads, that were wet from the rain, and even better at one point snow! Once in town, we found a parking lot to sleep in and called it a night.

The next morning, we got up early and signed up for a tour up the glacier. It was $120 for a half day hike up the glacier. Our tour started at 12:30 and we had some time to kill, so we went to the tour place and asked to get our equipment early (equipment included boots, pants, socks, gloves, hat, and a raincoat) and go on a hike of our own. We only picked up the pants, socks, and boots then walked across town to a trail head that lead through the forest, up a small mountain, and into an old area where people used to dig for gold. At the end of the path was a tunnel that was dug years ago for the gold miners. It was flooded with about ankle deep water (that was no matter to us with our water proof boots and pants) and we dove right in. It was a fairly long tunnel, but we got to see glow worms and cool looking rocks, all while keeping an eye out for gold. We got to the end of the tunnel, turned around and came back. On the way back we went the entire length of the tunnel with no light, which was awesome.

Made it back in time to catch our tour and before we knew it we were on a bus with 50 other people heading to the base of the Franz Josef glacier. We had to trek through the woods to get to the foot of the glacier, which was a massive expanse of open area with huge mountains and cliffs that had dozens of waterfalls coming out of the sides. The very ground we were standing on (which was covered in rocks) was where the glacier used to be. So we began our trek up the glacier. The tour split up into groups and we made sure we were in the fast moving group. We stayed at the front and the tour guide was nice enough, but at times just tried to hard to be funny and join our conversations, to a point where it was just annoying. He would make weird jokes and laugh too much when we would say anything, but i guess that was his job to make everyone feel good about what they were doing. On the ice, we fixed our crampons to the bottoms of our boots. Crampons are just spikes that help dig into the ice so you don't slip. We wove through crevices in the ice, under ice archways, and down an ice slide. Watched a member of our group almost fall through the ice to his death, but he caught himself. You don't even realize when you're walking just how deep down it goes. The glacier was kind of dirty, and not as blue as advertised, mainly because the ice is always melting and freezing again the dirt gets caught and frozen with it. But it was still beautiful despite the non-blue-ness. On the way down, we hung towards the back of the group which was way more fun than the front. We would just goof around and plant our feet on the ice walls and joke around throwing snow everywhere. When we got to the base, it started raining and since we had all the gear on but hardly even used it, we waded through the stream along the path and I stood under a waterfall just to say I used the gear at all. We got back to the tour center and returned all of our things, then went to dinner at another indian place in town. After dinner, we went to the spa which came complementary with our tour package. We got changed and went in to the giant hot tubs and relaxed. After about 15 minutes a big transgender woman(?), who was ominously staring at us (and everyone else in the pool for that matter) since we walked in approached us. I guess she(?) was supposed to be a chaperone of sorts and make sure nothing happened in the pools. So she tells us that we need to get out and put on bathing suits because apparently our boxers did not suffice. Even though there were girls and guys there with less on. Regardless, we went back in, showered for the first time since leaving Havelock then piled back into our van.

RIP Vome

We hit the road around 9pm and headed out of town. Everything was going smoothly until we got to a hill and tried to accelerate up it. The van starts making strange noises and then completely shuts off. We thought we ran out of gas, because we only had a quarter tank left and figured the gauge might have been broken. So we sit in the middle of this road then have to push a K-turn to turn around, then roll back down this hill and try and make it back to town. When it levels out, we push it about 2-3km down and up this road, trying to start it here and there. But every time it started, it sounded like the engine was eating rocks instead of gas. A few cars pass, one or two stop and ask if we need help but there was really nothing they could do. We were struggling our way up a hill back to town when another car stops and asks if we need a tow, so we tell him we just need gas. Turns out the guy who stops is the mechanic in town, and the entire back of his car was filled with gasoline containers. We give him about 40 bucks and buy some gas off of him, but Vome still won't start. He takes the time to look at our engine, give us a jump, fiddle around with things, the works for about 30 minutes but still no luck. He says there isn't much he can do on the side of the road and tells us to come to his shop the next day. So he gives us a tow into town back in the parking lot and we called it a night, hoping for the best and thankful that of all the people to be driving the road at that point it was the mechanic.

The next day, Clive (the mechanic) tows us to his shop which is about 4 kms out of town. He spends an hour figuring out why the van stopped, and it turns out a bolt that was holding a belt on broke and made the van stop. He gives us a high ball estimate of 700 dollars to fix, and even if he does that he wasn't sure if it was going to work because there could be engine damage. Since we obviously didn't want to spend that much money we offered to work some of it off for him. So after much thought and consultation with his partner they decide that we can. This is great news for us. So they put us to work outside the shop cutting grass with hedge clippers and weeding while he worked on the car. After a few hours, he comes out and tells us that he has it all sorted out, and just needs to order the parts. He also recommended that we get new fan belts and some other belts because they were all about to break and were in bad shape. Once we were done for the day, we had to figure out where we were going to stay for the night while we waited for the parts to come in. We get a ride into town by his partner, who had to go in to get the mail anyway. We make our way to that indian food place for dinner again and enjoy a very good hot curry meal.

After dinner, we start walking around town, asking every hostel and motel if they do work exchange for a night only. Unfortunately, none of them had any openings, except one, but there was a week long commitment. We signed up at the Rainforest Retreat. We got our own self-contained cottage, a $20 voucher to the ajoining restaurant (sound familiar?) plus 2 free beers! Not to mention the fact that there are actually other people to interact with here. Talking to new people who were traveling for the first time in months was quite a relief. It reminded us that there is life out there. It was so weird to be interacting with other people again, we were almost, dare I say, shy. So even though we weren't hungry, we went and claimed our voucher anyway at the restaurant and had our beer and ordered desserts. Needless to say, when we were done, we all felt like absolute garbage. It was at a point where it literally hurt to breathe in too deep because we were so full of food. We couldn't help but laugh at our situation, and the pattern our lives were taking. We go from the lowest of lows, to the highest of highs. Living in a van, scraping by with whatever food we come across to a real bed and free food. Its laughable really. That night, we went to the restaurant/bar with some new friends and the bar was doing a game called "Killer Pool" where if you miss a shot you lose a life, three lives, last person with a life, type of game. We slept very soundly that night.

Have to get up at 9am to start working. We work from 9-2 doing cleaning, bed making, etc. Its really not too bad. The hours go quickly and there are always other people around who are also working exchanging so its nice to not be the only one. About midday, I go to reception and hear that a mechanic was looking for us. I call back Clive and he gives me the bad news. Vome is Dead. He got the parts and tried to fix it but the engine lacks compression, which is apparently important in diesel engines, and the only way he can fix it is if he takes the whole thing apart and puts it back together. That would cost about 2000 dollars. So we have no choice but to scrap it which is a real shame. We got a good run out of it and definitely had a good time with it. Unfortunately, it was old and had run its course. It was sad seeing Vome with the engine exposed and parts lying around. I would liken it to seeing your beloved pet on the vet's table. Feeling helpless because there is nothing you can do. Wanting your pet to feel better again at all costs. Yet knowing that the best thing for you to do would be to put it down and let it go. (We will be holding a memorial service for Vome very soon. So if you wish to have your prayers or experiences with Vome read, please list all comments below).

So right now, we are at a cross roads. We still have some things we want to do before we leave this country, the issue is now how do we go about doing it. We will likely try and take a bus to Queenstown where we will stay for maybe a week or so. Then figuring out how to get to Christchurch from there. Once in Christchurch, we will try to move out plane tickets to fly out from there, and if not, the next issue becomes how do we get back to Auckland to fly out to Australia?

New Zealand has certainly been a challenge for all of us. We have had our ups and downs and loved every minute of it (sort of) but we are all feeling like we just need to get a move on. We long for the sunny weather again and the promises of riches in the land of milk and honey (Australia). Our friends there tell us how hot it is and how they have so much money they don't know what to do with it all. So we are all ready to get a move on.

In conclusion, we are all in very good health and safe. The Rainforest Retreat is a good transition to getting back into the swing of things and being real people again. We have a lot of free time now that we end work at 2 and have nothing to do after that until 9 the next morning. Good news, the bar/restaurant has ESPN and I got to watch Monday Night Football on a Tuesday evening which was amazing! Not to mention the highlights from Sunday's action (Giants over the Pats?....uhhhh.. YUP!). It felt good to be able to watch again, my first real time football this season. So, we will do our best to keep everyone in the loop. Feel free to comment, respond, or repost this so you can share with the whole world.

Until Next Time,

The Tunas

Here are all the pics from the road trip. Sorry they aren't beautifully embedded within the text like they usually are, we are about to hit the road again as we met some people with a van with 3 spots available so my time is limited. We are currently on our way to Queenstown. Keep following. Love having everyone sharing with us.

Picture Gallery Courtesy of Jeff Foster:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/110999420616082837370/albums/5673213457702039329?hl=en

Just Can't Wait To Be On The Road Again

2011-11-08T17:15:00.000-08:00

G'day Fellow Fish-

This is Ariel writing. Jeff is packing his massive 80 liter bag- when he puts it on, he looks like a snail wearing his dad's shell and Matt is washing the dishes. We have to make our motelpartment look like it did when we first got here. In other words, not a frat house. We packed up our crates of bottles that we used to brew our own beer, and our packs are packed once again. Vome is waiting patiently outside anxiously awaiting the open road again.

I'll fill you in on what's been happening-

We ended up working out a schedule where we worked for 5 and a half hours a day- weeding, cutting down non native plants and burning them, staining a deck, cleaning rooms, dishwashing, prepping, cooking, serving- for 2 days off a week and food and accommodation. Also, there was a paid shift every night. Although we had days off, we did not miss a paid shift. We weren't really doing organic farming at all or even dealing with and farming New Zealand crops. The closest we got was cutting down a really spikey plant that the Scottish brought to New Zealand to make natural fences. This stuff is EVERYwhere, and it's cool that it had such a purpose. We settled into our routine quite well, waking up at 10am, and by noon, we were sitting on the deck or looking out of the kitchen door over the Marlborough sounds and up at the different dimensions of mountains. It's pretty miraculous when you think about it. The landscape is breathtaking.

It wasn't long before we realized that our boss was a very passive aggressive and paranoid lady. We heard multiple times through the grapevine to do this or that, or that "Kelly was told to tell you to be here at ____ o'clock", or something like that. She wanted more structure out of us, and we are just living a carefree life. The weird part is, we take it easy, but we're no slackers. We do our jobs and we do it well. The staff at the restaurant and the chefs loved us, thanked us, relied on us, depended on us for our good work. But, like most restaurants, everybody slowly grew bitter and you could feel the souls start to die. Overworking at a restaurant is a breeding ground for resentment and where dreams go to die. We'd show up to work, and the nicer it was outside, the worse the mood would be because of us being trapped. No one had anything nice to say about the bosses and owners, two people quit, the chef ALSO quit to work in one of three other restaurants in town. It was fun though, needless to say, with the three of us. We ate all the cookies we wanted, drank espresso when we were bored, made ourselves little snacks, took molds of our faces in the pizza dough when no one was looking and had a lot, a lot of laughs. Some of the best times were when we would get absolutely swamped and you reach that point where a kitchen just clicks. Someone is calling out orders every minute- as an empty dish is being taken out to be plated, a freshly washed one replaces it, someone's rolling pizzas, someone's on the fryer, someone's on sautee. And then after an hour and a half that seems like twenty minutes, you all realize that you pulled together and bested the holiday lunch rush at a restaurant in the heart of Marlborough- a world famous wine region and the green mussel capital of the world.

So, if you think about it- for the WWOOF hours, 5.5, and a paid shift- 4-5 hours. We all ended up working anywhere from 45-60 hours a week. On our down time, which was minimal, we ate lots of candy, did quality control testing on our beer, and marathoned through movies and TV shows- mainly glee, which is among our top shows ever. Matt and I are sending in audition tapes. I would love nothing more than to tell you all the we have to put this trip on hold to fly to LA for The Glee Project to see if we become the next member. Imagine...

We grew pretty tired of Havelock. In either direction, the nearest towns were an hour and a half hour a way, there were no people to meet here, and not much to do. But again, this is what we wanted. People say that old cliche that "the people make a place, not the place itself". And it's completely true. We've all been wanting to discover and explore New Zealand for some time now, and we just feel like we haven't even scratched the surface. We're ready to move on, already looking forward to Australia, but there is so much here left to do. We've only been involved with greedy, bitter people and thankfully we have each other to come back to to stay happy and light hearted. Our time in New Zealand is circumstantial- we could be working in a restaurant in New Jersey, living together- we could be home saving money and just bullshitting like so many people our age, but why not live our journey WHILE we create it? We are working to make money as we go to sustain ourselves, with the ultimate goal being that we will have enough to at least get through Asia to Europe after we leave Australia. Our time here isn't ideal, and it isn't all cupcakes and sprinkles. But- we know we are on a mission and we know we have bigger plans than just the immediate. We keep our eyes on the prize, baby.

Needless to say, one day while Matt and I were working on the property that the owner's are looking to rent, Jeff came back from working at the restaurant to tell us that we were fired. Hahahaha! Can you believe that? Fired. I was actually really guilty and upset...I felt like an asshole and a taker. But Matt and Jeff couldn't stop laughing. When I thought about it, it's pretty meaningless. This job means nothing to us. Yes it's a woman's livelihood, but she is in far from dire circumstances and we've done more than beneficial and fair work for her. Also, it's the first time any of us have been given the boot. The word going around the restaurant was, "The Americans have been sacked." Most people told us how lucky we were. We still haven't gotten a concrete reason, but what she did say was that we were a bit too laid back for her liking. We were late here and there, a bit messy- carefree, loose, and flexible. It's funny, because she has been used to Asian girls working- no, really- the past 5 WWOOFers were Asian girls. This isn't racist! Matt has said so himself- the Asian work ethic is just unbelievable. We did not live up to that.

Living here for the week after we were fired was sufficiently awkward, but par for our traveling course. We are wondering if we are doomed to work for asshole bosses, or if we have to hate a place before we can leave it. (The restaurant, not the country). Another good thing, though, is that we just have this feeling that says, "it's okay to go." You don't want to stay for fear of missing something, because you just feel so content with your time in a place. You know it's time to move on. It was that way with Hawaii, and it's that way now. We have a fat paycheck coming, and the rest of the country and NOT having commitments or schedules is calling our names. We're rolling stones, and it's time to let it go again.

Really quickly, our chef took us out on his boat in the Marlborough sounds one day. We just cruised, with towering mountains, beef farms, logging posts, mussel farms on either side. Imagine a huge snaking valley, but in the valley was the water. Oh, of course we all got to drive it. The boat. Fast. 40 knots. Incredible.

When we leave today, we'll go to a hip town about an hour away, return the beer bottles we borrowed to our neighbor, Ken, and head southbound on the West coast to Queenstown. Bungy jumping (I'm not so sure if I'LL do that) snow caps, young people, more mountainous landscapes and new adventures await. There, we'll finalize the process of selling our van (tear). Will we sell it in Auckland and drive back, or sell it on the south island and fly back. Also, we might move our flight to Australia closer to today.

That's really it for now. We're eager, safe, happy, sufficiently out of shape, and ready for the next phase. Hopefully in Australia, it will be like Waikiki 2.0. We have a friend who already has jobs lined up for us in Sydney, paying cash in hand. Oh, what'd you ask? Yeah, minimum wage is $26 an hour. We are hoping, for at least the first few months, to share an apartment and have nice lives. Jobs, gym memberships, take some acting/dance classes, maybe be in a play, have a nighlife/social life.

Things are looking good, and only getting better.

We really love you guys, and it feels nice to be able to tell someone about our journey.

Write back, post, and share!

Love,

The Tunas

Havelock and Friends

2011-10-16T03:56:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

These last couple weeks have been filled with R&R as well as lots of hard work. At the beginning, it looked like Ariel was going to be working a lot at the restaurant because they needed someone with bartending experience, and he had the most of the group. So when Jeff and I were done with our work, we went around town and literally went door to door down the main road asking for jobs. A few places took our info and said they might need help, but nothing was looking very promising. Along the way we made a couple new friends who run the second hand shop in town. Leena and Jean are two very nice ladies in their mid to late 80's who were absolutely charmed that two strapping young (handsome as they said) American boys would walk into her store. When we were done in that store, we realized we had been chatting up a storm/borderline flirting with these two ladies for the better part of 30 minutes. Which was in no way a bad thing, and they are very sweet. Just goes to show how easy it can be to make friends.

Work

After failed employment attempts we gave up and just figured out a way to get everyone a fair share of the pay from the restaurant. So thats where we are now. Every morning, we go to work at 10am and work 5 and a half hours to pay off our accommodation an increase from the previous 4 hours, arranged so we could have 2 days off. We have been rotating shifts at the restaurant, washing dishes and doing other general kitchen work while the other two work on a property recently purchased by the owners up the road.

The work on the house is a lot of grounds keeping. We are clearing the brush, getting rid of invasive species, and burning everything that we cut down. Its great being able to work on our own outside and have an amazing view to look at while we do it. Our new friend Henry (the australiasian bitter) joins us everyday for lunch and has recently been hanging out while we do a lot of our work.

At the restaurant, we alternate nights where one of us will work the night shift (which is paid). Its great because whether its busy or slow, we are getting paid the same amount. Which is a stark contrast to the American tip system, which we are used to. We all have specialties in the kitchen, as designated by the head chef Dell (who is an awesome fellow. Tons of fun to work with). I am the pizza and dessert guy, Ariel is the front guy/server who takes orders, and Jeff is the all around utility guy who fills in where ever, whenever it is needed. We all love working there, and the people we work with make it all the more fun.

Non-Work

A week ago, Jeff and I took a drive to the next town (if u can call it a town) over called Canvastown. THERE WERE CANVASES EVERYWHERE!!! No there weren't. In fact there wasn't much of anything there. The "town center" consisted of a pub, a hotel, and a church. All right next to each other. The town center is about 50 feet long. BUT. If you drive down the road past the center of town there is nothing but breathtaking scenery everywhere you look. The place is SO remote that if I were on the run from anyone, Canvastown is the first place I would go. There are tons of farms with the usual sheep and cows (fun fact: New Zealand has a population of about 40 million people which is second to the sheep population of 44 million) but this time we saw llama farms! What do llamas even produce? We drove until the road was no longer paved, then kept driving and eventually stopped at a river and just hung out a bit. Then turned around and drove right back.

We have been taking trips into the neighboring town of Blenheim, which is about a 30 minute drive. The town is a bit bigger and has more to offer in terms of stores and such. However, the times we have been there it always strikes us as sort of a low key type of small city. The other day, we went into the other close town of Nelson, which is more than an hour away, and drove around there a bit. It reminded us a lot of Wellington, being right on the water. Driving in, we could see sunken boats and debris all over the ground and realized that the tide was out and some of the boats were just washed up and wouldn't be able to be moved until the water comes back in. Nelson is a much more lively city/town (I have trouble calling any of these cities "cities" because they are so much smaller than real cities) and seemed like a really cool place to hang out. Plus a friend from work said that Nelson is the place to go on the weekends for a good time.

We have started brewing our own beer. We just completed our first batch which turned out to be an absolute failure. But we are working on the recipe to try and perfect the craft. Plans are already in motion to set up our very own micro brew when we get back home.

Other News

In other news, many of you might recall my inexplicable desire to go to Antarctica, and I have just yesterday found out that the headquarters for the US Antarctica program has a headquarters in Christchurch. Which is only a days drive away from here. So I have been (and still am) doing extensive research on jumping on that bandwagon so stay tuned for more to come on that segment.

You might notice that the blog has a little bit different look. That is because Jeff is designing a new page custom made for this blog. We are all having a hard time finding a creative outlet since we left our guitars in Hawaii, but Jeff is keeping himself occupied in that regard.

The weather is starting to get warmer. This is great news. Not that it was very cold to begin with, we were just used to Hawaii and Fiji and in comparison it was a little colder. But we are going from one summer to another and cannot wait to have a reason to be outside again.

Thats all the updates for now. Like I said, we plan to take it easy while we are here and save the good stuff for right before we leave (we are already planning our south island road trip for the middle of November, which is a lot closer than we realized). Stay tuned for more, and thanks so much for joining us on our journey around the world. Don't forget to "join this site" to become a fellow fish and tell your friends to do the same!

Haven't had a lot of chances to take pictures recently. But I will post some very soon.

Until Next Time,

Auckland Bum Life and Vome On the Road

2011-09-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

Once again I apologize for the lack of updates but I assure you that this will be worth the wait and it is for good reason that I have not been able to write. When we last left you, we had just departed Fiji and were on route to Auckland New Zealand which is where I will pick up.

As soon as we landed we were struck with pure elation and a bit of cold air, as we were arriving at the tail end of winter. In the airport we cleared customs and bought a pre-paid phone right away so we could get in contact with the friends we were going to be staying with. We took a shuttle into the city from the airport and this shuttle was nice enough to take us directly to the place we were staying at, which was better than any bus would have done. Once we arrived, our gracious host Chris, who is Austrian, met us at the gate to let us into the student housing complex that he lives in. Chris is studying at the University of Auckland and had a sweet apartment that he was nice enough to let us stay in for a bit. We set our things down and met his roommates and later that night met a bunch more cool and fun people, mostly Americans studying abroad, but people from other countries as well.

Auckland City

Auckland

Matt desperately searching for a van

Our first few days were filled with ups and downs. The first task when we got here, we decided, was to find and purchase a van, as is customary for a lot of backpackers that pass through New Zealand. We literally spent the entire first day in Auckland at the apartment kitchen table with our laptops out calling and emailing people about prices and conditions of the vans we were interested in. When our eyes started burning, we walked around the city a bit and got familiar with our surroundings and found some good eats. The only issue with all this is that Auckland is extremely expensive and our money supply was quickly dwindling.

Our first few nights were spent hanging out with our new friends, attending a college class (and participating in a pure lecture, but we got a few good laughs), and watching rugby. We found out very quickly that Rugby in New Zealand is basically a religion. I would compare it to the obsession that most Americans have for Football. This Rugby frenzy is also being magnified due to the Rugby World Cup being held in New Zealand right now. All of which is great! Its a ton of fun to take part in the festivities and join in the craze, despite my indifference to the sport.

Karaoke: Serenading a nice young man

Karaoke: Jeff killin the harmonies

Karaoke: Ariel and Matt take center stage

Friends making friends

However, in the mornings it was always right back to our van search. It got to a point where we were losing hope of finding a van in our price range that actually worked. So after a few days, we started just handing out resumes to anyone and everyone in Auckland. We focused on the service industry (ie: restaurants, bars, etc.) but didn't get any bites. Then one day we walked around the entire downtown Auckland and went to literally every backpackers hostel in search of work, selling ourselves as expert hostel workers having just worked the last 4 months in Hawaii. Despite our best efforts, we were turned away because the hostels had filled their staffs weeks ago for the World Cup. Bad timing on our part. So there we were, slowly going broke, and sleeping on a floor in a student apartment quickly over staying our welcome. One night, we were all in the apartment, we had made pizza for everyone as a token of our appreciation, and I get a text message from a potential van. He told us earlier that day that someone had just beat us to it and was going to give him a good price. After much back and forth we settle on a price and tell him we will be there tonight to pick it up with cash in hand if he gives us the van. In the end, he agreed to pick US up and take us to the van and all we had to do was go into town and meet him. So we did. He was about 30 minutes late meeting us and at first I was a little on edge being that he was going to take us to the van and we had no idea where it was or who he was. He finally shows up and turns out to be a harmless looking Indian man who ended up driving us about 20 minutes outside of Auckland city to his Aunt's house where he lives. Once we pulled in the driveway and saw the van we immediately fell in love. He showed us everything it could do and the little things that were wrong with it, but the pros heavily out weighed the cons of this ol hog. It even came with a bunch of camping gear that wasn't even included in the price but we got it thrown in with the van. Needless to say we were ECSTATIC to finally get our van.

Two days later we put the van to the test and road tripped to a small town called Kawerau, which is south east of Auckland. We were following up on a house-sitting job that we came across while trying to buy the van. The man's name was Markus and he told us to come down and check out his house because he was leaving for a while. We got a bit lost and it took us about 5 hours to get there, but once we got into the town, we were stuck by a very potent stench that was similar to that of rotten eggs and human flatulence. Once we pulled up to the house we were all immediately skeptical. We walk in, and Markus is having a conversation with an old lady neighbor of his. Markus has all of 3 teeth and is a chain smoker who is moving out to live with his mistress in Thailand and getting driven by one of his 7 kids to the airport so he could stay with his ex-wife in Australia before going to Asia. It was extremely uncomfortable sitting there trying to have a conversation with the man. There were numerous silences that dragged on for at least 45-60 seconds. After the 4th or 5th silence I broke it saying we would call him in a week or so and work out details and we made up an excuse that our friends were waiting for us back in Auckland. When we finally made it back into the van we all broke out laughing at the hilarious-ness of the whole situation. We were sitting in a complete strangers house and pulling anything we could out to make a conversation, but in the end we don't owe him anything. We were the ones that drove hours out of our way to do him a favor. So we drove back home and crawled back to our beds on the floor.

The next morning we decided it was time to move out of the apartment. We said our good byes and packed up our van. We didn't exactly have a place to go but we knew it was time to leave. The following days were filled with a lot of nothing. We would walk around the city, spend money on expensive meals and sleep in a park parking lot in our van. It got to a point where every night we spent in the van, the sleep got a little bit better. Everyday we went in search of jobs/internet and spent a lot of time in cafes trying to find WWOOF work and such. We stumbled upon a teachers library that turned out to be a gem, because they let us use their internet and the library hardly ever had people in it. So we used that a bunch looking for jobs and surfing the web until it was time to go back Vome (van home) and sleep in the park.

We sent out emails to everyone we could all over New Zealand and finally got a response from a place called the Havelock Motel. I made contact with them and they said they would be happy to have all 3 of us and would be able to give us accommodation in exchange for our work. As luck would have it, as soon as we confirmed our arrangements to work there, we get responses from ALL other places we tried to contact and never heard back from saying they would love to have our help...well too little too late....our services have been taken off the market. This confirmation was made on Thursday, and we decided to leave Friday and make it down to Havelock (which is on the north end of the south island) in 3 days time, enough time for us to see the sights in between. So when the library closed we went back out into the city and had our last dumpster dinner in Auckland (and hopefully last one for a while) and we were almost too excited to sleep. The next day we slept in and went to the library to hash out some last minute details. We also found out that the library had a shower, so we took turns showering for the first time in many days which was a much welcomed luxury. We were already behind schedule but hit the road anyway around 5pm.

Road Life
Road life was exactly what we all expected, long hours on the road, incredible scenery, and even a little bit of mischief. Since we got a late start, we only had about 4-5 hours before our first stop which was in Rotorua, another smelling town near Kawerau. We stopped in a western themed bar and watched America get dominated by the Australians in rugby, much to everyone's dismay (because the Kiwi's (New Zealander) hate Australia). We ordered some disgusting excuse for food there and immediately wished we had not. So after the game we rolled ourselves to the van and drove until we found a small lake to park next to so we could sleep. We set up the van and passed out.
(some pictures from the first leg of the road trip)

Lake Number One

The next day we got up and had our normal bum life breakfast which was some combination of gummy bears, M&M's, and Salt and Vinegar Chips, then we hit the road. Our target for the end of the day was a town called New Plymouth but we made a quick stop at the Waitomo Caves. Here is a quick video account of what happened:

(video coming soon)

We drove through cow, sheep, and farm country on our drive to New Plymouth, going down the western coast to get there. Along the way we noticed that even though there are a bunch of seemingly big towns on the map, New Zealand is made up of many small towns separated by many miles of open space in between.

On the way to New Plymouth we stopped at a place called "The Three Sisters" which is a bay area where there are 3 caves. The bay was at low tide and there was a lot of black sand to be played in. We continued on from there and arrived in New Plymouth in the evening and found some food then went to a local Irish pub to watch New Zealand play France. New Zealand dominated as everyone expected. Met some cool Australians and hung out into the night. We drove to the outskirts of town and found an infrequently used road that lead to another lake that we parked next to and slept.

Lake Number Two

Woke up at the crack of dawn and hit the road. Drove through the morning and early afternoon and finally made it to the city of Wellington, which is a smaller version of Auckland but still very cool. As it turned out, nothing is open before 5pm on Sundays in Wellington. We found an Indian restaurant and ate there until it was time to watch rugby. We watched rugby the rest of the day and into the night, following around hoards of Argentinians and Scotland folk as they were playing in the stadium right down the road from where we were. Again, we stopped at an Irish pub and watch a band play before we called it a night and went back to the van.

Wellington

Operation "3 for 1 Human Cargo"

The next morning, we had a ferry to catch that was going to take us from north island to south island. The ferry was going to cost us about 350NZD for all of us and the van. So we thought about devising a plan where we would split one ticket for a person and the van and two others would be disguised as cargo (I do not want to incriminate myself in a public forum, so I will not go any further into details of this story, however if you wish to hear the details feel free to contact me in private). The ferry ride was very enjoyable. The ferry rode through the many sounds of north and south island and across the Cook strait. Dolphins were spotted and as we approached south island, we saw snow covered mountains in the distance. We disembarked and hung around Picton (the port town we arrived in).

A view of Picton from above

Went to an antiques/collectibles second hand store which had a bunch of cool things to look at but we had no use for anything. On the way out of town, we got pulled over because Ariel did not have his seat belt on and the cop saw that I was sitting in the back with no seatbelt on either, not to mention we didn't have our diesel miles bought. The officer was nice enough to let us off with a warning. So just like that we were back on the road. It was about an hour drive to get to Havelock, and on the way the scenery was the most beautiful we had seen yet (if that were even possible). The drive took us through wine country, where we were surrounded by vineyards on both sides of the road and the back drop was painted with mountains in the distance. If it were even possible, south island looked more even more scenic than north island. It basically looked like a picture, except it was real life. (click to enlarge pictures: worth it).

This picture perfectly encompasses everything New Zealand: scenic, wine, Rugby

Havelock
We arrived in Havelock, which is a small town (bigger than most, but smaller than a town that I'm used to) situated on the Pelorous Sound and is the Green Shelled Mussel capital of the world. The tide is low so there is a big mud pit on the backside of town, but the harbor is still filled with boats that lead out into the ocean. We stopped for a a famous Havelock Mussel lunch which was a bit over priced and a bit too "fishy tasting" for me. But we enjoyed it nonetheless. After lunch it was time to go meet the people who were going to be employing us. On the phone conversation with them, we told them we needed work exchange, and were hoping for an opportunity to make a little bit of money if possible. On the phone they said all this was possible, but to us it seemed a little bit too good to be true, so we all had a bit of skeptical reservation about the whole arrangement. We arrive and are met by a nice kiwi named Haley, who promptly shows us to our room...or should I say APARTMENT! Yes, we got to the room and had to contain our excitement/disbelief when she handed over 2 keys to this 2 story, 4 bedded, fully furnished apartment. As soon as she left we went nuts just laughing and hugging and not being able to believe our arrangement. We moved all our stuff in and got settled. We were instructed to go down to the Slip Inn (the restaurant/cafe run by the owners of the motel) at 6pm for dinner. So we did as we were told and walk down the road towards the water. The restaurant is right on the water and we sat down to a booth for ourselves. Within 15 minutes we were served a gourmet lasagna and salad. We scarfed it down because it was the first real meal we had in a while. The best part was...it was free. Now that we were working there, we get breakfast lunch and dinner made for us in exchange for 4 hours of work per day. At 7pm we met the owners who took us to their rental property up the road and showed us our first project. We are cleaning up the property doing gardening, weeding, cleaning, etc. so that they can rent it out as a part of their motel business. That night, we celebrated by getting a local brew 6-pack and watched a rugby game. Needless to say it was the best sleep we've had in a while. Showered, good meal in our bellies, clean sheets, and big cozy beds for us to stretch out on.

Today was our first day of work, which felt amazing after 2 weeks of literally being a bum. Ariel worked down in the restaurant and helped in the kitchen while Jeff and I worked on the rental property. We had breakfast and started work around 11am. Worked until we wanted lunch, at which point we ate our prepared lunches which were gourmet sandwiches, homemade cookies, orange, and a banana. All while sitting on a deck overlooking some of the best landscapes in the world. We sat and marveled at our lives and tried to make ourselves believe that we weren't in a dream and that what we were seeing and doing was in fact real. We sat and pondered these things until we were distracted by a rustle in the bushes below the deck. It looked like a duck. No, no wings. A kiwi. No, too big. It was an Australasian Bittern. The rarest of all pokemon...I mean birds in the land, but they are commonly found in the Havelock region.

So as you can see, we are all doing beyond well right now. We have to keep pinching ourselves to remind us that we're not dreaming right now and are in fact living this. I am fairly certain that these next few months here are going to be incredibly relaxing. Being that we have no expenses other than leisure, and the fact that we are in the countryside with virtually nothing to do after work. We are all very much excited about this much needed respite from the hustle bustle of city life. Having spent 4 months in Waikiki, a day in Nadi, and a couple weeks in Auckland. We were just discussing how a big challenge while being here is going to be getting used to having NOTHING to do. It is a good problem to have and one that I think will take some getting used to, but in the end will be beneficial, seeing as how we plan to work a lot in Australia when we get there.

More updates to come, so stay tuned for the next installment. Can't wait to share it with everyone!

Until Next Time,

M@

FIJI: Taxi Cab Adventures

2011-09-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

For this post, I will guest write with Tunesky B.K.A Ariel.

As you already know my comrades and I are headed west to New Zealand. In transit we stopped over in Fiji for 20 hours- The following is a recap of those 20 hours.

Fiji

Flying in, the first thing I noticed was the clear baby blue water surrounding every little island as far as the eye could see. It also appeared that there were white sand beaches all over the place. We got off the plane in Nadi and were immediately met with a Fijian band playing music. Their style was very similar to that of a traditional Hawaiian band. Well-traveled Jeff, for whom Fiji was his first 3rd world country, let Ariel and I know that we didn't have to pick up our checked bags as they were "in transit" straight to New Zealand, so we went right through customs to celebrate our new passport stamps. Next step was to see how we could rent scooters to tour the island a bit. It turns out that you need a massive deposit on a scooter (about $300) or a car. We were actually considering a car since it would be more cost effective than three scooters each. After hearing that a cab was a $20 flat rate into town from the airport, that's on what we decided in the end. (Note: As is common in other less organized countries, there actually is a structure- in this case a taxi meter- that is willfully ignored by the majority of people. Even the clerk at Eurocar, a well established business, went along with this.) As optimists, and firm believers in the feeling that Fiji was on first impressions hands down one of the nicest and most welcoming places on the planet (to a white foreigner), we joined the school of thought that Fijians handle tourism in a way that will benefit their fellow countrymen instead of trying to take advantage of the foreigner. This was even later explained to us later by- Enter Nazir, our driver.

We left the airport and one of the Eurocar workers showed us where the taxis were. As luck would have it, we linked up with Nazir, a Muslim Fijian man who's family dates back to Kerala, South India. There is such a large population of Indians in Fiji, whose families emigrated years ago for farm work. Ariel tried several times to use his rusted HIndi-while it did earn us some brownie points, it turned out easier to use English, since it (along with HIndi and Fijian) is a national language as well. Nazir told us that town wasn't really that exciting, it was getting late anyway, and that the nice white sand beach was 45 minutes away. We asked him where he would go for food and he brought us to a local curry shop with an outdoor deck, a small homestyle kitchen, and food so fresh that by the time we got there they had run out of the fish of the day. We washed our hands, had some water, and in minutes were silent, using our hands to shovel delicious prawn curry, lentils, squash, and home made roti into our mouths. It was intense, flavorful, fresh, authentic, and delicious. Especially in the food (and traffic patterns), the deep rooted Indian influence is very present. Over lunch we got down to brass tacks- Nazir told us that he could take us on a tour, ending back at the airport, lasting about 4 hours. This included a hike to a cave and rivers, fresh sugarcane, fresh pineapple, a cava session, and dinner at his wife's family's house. We agreed on a price. He explained to us that with the price of petroleum and the way the meter worked, that he wasn't profiting that much. I know that this sounds quite sketchy, but he said it in such an earnest way that he made us believe that an off-the-books deal was not a stupid tourist move. None of the three of us are fools, but call us suckers if you want. We each converted $50 US when we landed, and spent it all- we gave ourselves a cap, exhausted it, and made the absolute best out of 20 hours.

As is customary and generous, we wanted to arrive at his family's house with a gift- we ended up bringing passionfruit ice cream for his nieces and nephews- their favorite. We paid for most of Nazir's lunch, so he in turn bought us the cava powder. Jeff and I went into the store with Nazir as Matt watched the car. During this, Matt got approached about buying weed, and about what we were doing.Some guy pretended to be a military official who in the end was just looking either to cause trouble or for a bribe. He said that work outside of the taxi meter was illegal- yet he never even asked for Nazir's license- the first step an actual official would take. We saw the open market, school children walking home, a Hindu Temple, and the closing stores of Nadi- the closer, more touristy city to the airport on the main island of Vitilevu. Sevu, the capital- was too far.

The drive back to Nazir's in-laws was beautiful- vast fields, goats, sugarcane- and it was refreshing to be in another country. We passed the paved roads and started off into the country side, where the cab had to take it a bit easy over the rocky roads. Finally, we pull into a quaint tin-roofed home with wild chickens and roosters, multiple species of wild orchids, cows, cats, dogs, papaya and so on. Hawaii was tropical and beautiful, but the reminder that we were still in America was almost impossible to escape. Nazir's brother-in-law, Ayshan, is a sugarcane and pineapple farmer- you could see the spiky pineapple leaves in neat rows in random patches of open hillside. We were invited in, took off our shoes, has some water, and were off in the pick up truck with a machete. The five of us took a drive to a hollowed out cave fabled to be where ancient fairies would spend time- the holes in the rock side were where they would hold on to climb. Next, we were taken to a few streams, where the men fish for prawns during some nights. Upon seeing a few wild ducks, Ayshan lamented about how he didn't have his shotgun- duck makes for great curry. The air was sticky and humid, and they sky was overcast, but the breathing was clear and refreshing in that way that all country sides are. On the way back home, Ayshan cut a few fresh sugar cane stalks for us, and we smiled like kids when we chewed the fibrous stalks and swallowed the pure sweetness. The chewing and spitting of what's left over makes sugarcane one of those treats you can eat when you're bored or just want an involved food.

When we got back and the goats were herded and returned from their grazing grounds we met the father-in-law dressed in pure white Muslim robes. He gave us a firm and welcoming handshake, and his affect suggested that he was amused and thankful for these tourists who were paying his family. When we thought about it, we realized that when Nazir landed a deal like this- he got to "work" at home, hiking, talking, sitting, eating home-cooked food, not using gas. He told us that the last time he did this was seven months ago and that he could tell that we were fun and open guys. He had a very sweet disposition and tired eyes, and it was nice for us to help each other out. Frankly, we felt like rockstars having an authentic experience and dominating a layover that most would spend in an airport fast food chain. Their hospitality was very Indian and unrelenting. No one but Nazir ever partook in anything with us, as we were the guest, and he was out host and liason. They cut up the sugarcane for us, and we happily chewed and talked while their good friend and neighbor prepared the cava. None of the family drank cava because of Muslim guidelines, but as the neighbor was Hindu, he got down with us. He filled the coconut bowl and passed it to Jeff and told us to say "Bula!" ("Welcome" in Fijian) as we clapped three times. Jeff took a tentative sip since we were told it would be unpleasant, and they told him that we take it in one straight shot. Jeff downed it, and it wasn't that bad at all. So it went for the next hour- pour, Bula!, clap clap clap, and pass. We watched the sun burn a perfectly spherical lava red circle into the sky as pitch black snuck around us. We were too happy, comfortable, and relaxed to notice. If it weren't for the fluorescent porch lights, we wouldn't have been able to see our hand in front of our face. Nazir opened the door to let even more fresh air in, and we just talked and talked. At first, as most tourist interactions go, it was awkward, and then we settled into each other. We talked about infrastructure, political coups, tourism, Fijian v. Indian racism and class divisions, farming, renting land, religion and more. Contrary to India, Muslims and Hindus get along quite well in Fiji, says Nazir- BUT, that might only be if they are all Indian. As it seemed and as it was told, the native Fijians, from whom Indian immigrants rent land from, still hold and act on a superior position- no matter how many generations a non-native has been in Fiji.

Soon dinner was ready- beef curry that was slaughtered last week, home made lentils, roti, okra, tamarind chutney, rice, fresh picked chillies, and papad (packaged). The beef was cooked on the bone for such a long time that it was sitting in it's own fat and flavor and tender as ever. It was one of the most delicious meals I have had in a long, long time. Obviously our circumstance intensified the flavor- food is as much about what it means as how it tastes. Jeff was even compelled to try it- his first active meat eating in 5 years! Later on, he said it was just okay. Later on, I would say he doesn't know his ass from his elbow. When we thought we were stuffed, they brought out freshly picked papaya and scoops of passionfruit ice cream. Stuffed, satisfied, and tired, we said our thanks and goodbyes, exchanged emails and were off to the airport again. We paid the family $10 Fijian each for dinner (the exchange is .6 American to 1) and tipped Ayshan $15 Fijian. His english and dialect with us were near perfect, and he lived in Wellington, New Zealand studying electrical engineering for four years. Despite all of this modernity, he still had an arranged marriage like most of the Indian population in Fiji. What's weirder was tipping him. This is a man with a four year degree and a wife, and we tipped him about $10 American. Maybe it was self conscious, but there seemed to be some visible and unwanted embarrassment on his face. Nazir also seemed disappointed with his pay, so we gave him some more cash upon drop off. There is nothing cuter than seeing a grateful Indian man.

(Jeff eating meat for the first time)

Realizing the "International Lounge" was closed at the airport, we found a few benches and, you guessed it, slept...under them, on the floor. Fiji was welcoming as ever, but one can never be too cautious. We tossed and turned, holding shoes and covering zippers- changed positions when our arms fell asleep or our necks were stiff. When you're that tired, you'll sleep anywhere.

Matt woke us up with tea and coffee, and we went for our breezy check-in, to find out that our bags were being held and we were actually meant to collect them on arrival in Fiji. Jeering at Jeff the whole way, we were treated like VIPs as we were taken to cut lines and get our stuff. It turns out that it ended up being more convenient for us as we didn't have to take them with us, or store them. Returning to check in- we were shocked to find out that being an American and traveling wasn't as easy as we thought. Being from certain countries, some people have to work very hard for access to other countries. We were told that we needed a ticket OUT of New Zealand and that whimsical one-way ticket buying couldn't really fly. Tried as we did, there was no way to skirt this one. As we planned to go to Australia after NZ anyway, we ended up buying our Australia tickets on the spot along with an entry level visa. Three months in New Zealand it is. We were wondering if we'll be thinking "Are we leaving yet?", "We need to extend!", or "We're ready to move on, in a good way".

Finally, we went through, talked to some folks who have SCUBA dived everywhere in the world, borrowed our GoPro charger from them, enjoyed a Fijian Bitter Beer, and got on the plane. Here we are, on our way, with our World Travel actually started, sitting next to each other on a 737 to New Zealand. Our purposeful lack of heavy planning as has really worked out for us so far, and we're going to try to keep it that way. We firmly believe that the world can sense your outlook and purpose, and the type of attitude you exude, and so far we've been brilliant.

We got lucky through a friend of Ariel who had ANOTHER friend who lives in Auckland- he's going to put us up on a couch for a day or two until we can buy our van that we'll use to tour the country. Expect us to turn into crazy hermits who sniff glue and eat garbage. Oh, also going to a bar in the morning and not leaving until well into the next morning whilst watching the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

This is actually happening.

Love,

The Tunas

PS- We went skydiving!!!!!! In Hawaii, didn't have time to post it before we left Hawaii but here are some pictures.

This post read and approved by M@

End of the Beginning

2011-09-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

As the title suggests, it is the end of the beginning. This coming Sunday, me and the boys will depart Honolulu for New Zealand. We could not be more excited about this prospect and look forward to a new chapter of our travel. However, we find ourselves using the time leading up to our departure to squeeze in everything we tried to do sooner but never found the time. Now with the end in sight, its now or never. That being said, here are the main contributions to my lack of sleep (and blog updates) recently:

Ka'ena Point

We recently took a trip up to Kaena Point which is the western most point on the island of Oahu. It was a long drive up to the North Shore from Waikiki, but once we got away from the town there it is just the ocean and the mountain range to look at. The road in was not paved and we had to hike about an hour just to get around the edge of the mountains. Once around the edge there was another long walk to get to the actual point where, if you position yourself well enough, you can see all along the western shore and the northern shore which was a quite a sight to see. We almost lost Jeff to the ocean (again) to his photographer needs and fearless demeanor when we saw a monk seal in the water about 15 feet away. Jeff felt like he needed to get a closer shot for the camera and went down from the rock we were sitting on and almost got taken out by a wave that knocked him off his feet. In the end he only lost a flip-flop and was fine. The entire beach at Ka'ena Point was made of old coral and pearly white rocks which made it difficult to swim/walk but we went for a quick dip nonetheless and enjoyed ourselves. We want to go back at some point to camp in the hills along the trail to the point, but due to our time constraints we might not get a chance this time around.

Stairway To Heaven

Possibly one of the most challenging hikes of my young life. First a little background on the subject.

The Stairway to Heaven, aka the Haiku Stairs, were originally was built out of wood during World War II in 1942 for the U.S. Navy's Haiku radio station. Constant rain and mist wore out the wooden stairs, which were replaced with metal ones 10 years later. By the 1980s, the metal steps were rusted, broken or missing. Large gaps in the stairway were replaced with makeshift ropes that allowed hikers to shimmy up the slippery mountainside. In 1987, the city officially closed it, making the Stairway to Heaven Hawaii's most popular outlaw hike. As word of the climb continued to spread on the Internet, city officials feared they were exposed to liability because of the stairs' condition. They had the 3,922 steps replaced at a cost of $875,000 and hoped to reopen the trail. The plan to reopen has been complicated because the handful of access points to the stairs lie on land owned by different entities, including the city, state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, state Department of Land and Natural Resources and Hawaii's largest private landowner, Kamehameha Schools. --USA Today
(also see any google search on "stairway to heaven oahu")

This hike spawned from a story we heard about this legendary "stairway." When I first heard about it all I could think of was "NO STAIRWAY!" but after much more research i realized that this was in fact a feasible thing, and as previously mentioned, we always had it on our to-do list but always figured we would get around to it another time. That time is now.

Our good friend and hostel colleague, Jacek, had tried many times to get to the stairs. Each time his attempts were thwarted by either the guard being there, not having proper transportation, or his general lack of navigation through thick vegetation and forest environments. However, his persistence paid off when one night he finally got to the top. He came back glowing from his achievement and made sure we knew that he had done it. This obviously meant that it was our turn to go so that Sunday we rent a car and decide to go. For those of you who follow this blog regularly, you will remember that Sunday is my flag football games. So we went through our Sunday routine of football, North Shore, Sunday BBQ at the hostel, then had to wait until it was late at night to get there in between the guards' shifts. After the packed Sunday, Jeff and I decide that it is not smart for all of us to take a nap before the hike so we down some coffee and mountain dew and will ourselves to stay awake despite the lingering fatigue.

Around 2:30am, the Jersey gang and 3 Norwegian girls who came through the hostel pile into our rental minivan. By this point I had caught a second wind was was able to rally for the 20 minute drive to the trail head which at the end of a residential street. We park the car and walk to the first gate which was quite easy to slip by. We start our walk and realize we only have 2 flashlights one of which was virtually useless. I had the good light so I walked out front with Jeff navigating with directions from his phone. We walked through the forest for about an hour and about half way through the trail I spot something up ahead laying in the trail. I stop and try and figure out what it was, because to be it looked like a dead body, torn in half, and I was looking at the torso. I'm not crazy because my navigator thought the same thing when he saw it. We didn't want to scare the group so we didn't tell them why we stopped at first and I went to investigate. I did a thorough check of my surroundings to make sure I was not going to get mauled by some creature of the night and went to see what was lying in our path. It turns out our eyes/minds were playing tricks on us in the dark because it turned out to be just a small pile of leaves in the shape of a corps. So we continue on and have to go under fences, through puddles and brush until we finally...hit a dead end? We followed the directions and should have come to the stairs but found ourselves looking at a fenced off hill with no visible path anywhere. After some debate, we decide to back track a little bit and find the stairs. Turns out we made a wrong turn and after about an hour of searching, we had finally found the stairs.

We made our way around the final 2 fences that tried to keep people out but the fences were pointless as one could easily just walk around it. But going up to the second fence we almost had our first casualty. One of the Norwegian girls slipped and started sliding, but caught herself before too much damage was done. We file in line, me in front with the light and start our trek. The way up was borderline terrifying, it was dark, wet, steep, and worst of all you could not see where the top was. So every little landing we came to we thought might be the end was actually just the beginning to an even more difficult leg of the journey. Since I had the light, I would run up a a bunch of stairs before and try and light the way for the group, while calling out loose/missing stairs and railings. There were points going up where they were no longer stairs but step ladders where you would have to pull yourself up. This was of course fine for me, but being that we had some novice adventure hikers, we took frequent breaks. It was during our first break that I realized, in my haste to leave I forgot to pack water. The stairs started out going up through a hill with grass and trees and bushes on the sides, but as we got higher and the roads below got further away, the stairs just go along the ridge of the mountain with huge drops on either side. One bad step and dead, but the way up was dark, so you couldn't even see where you would fall.

The ridges got steeper as we got higher, and at one point we thought we reached the top when the next clearing looked to be a building of some sort. We scurry on up and realized its not the top and is in fact an old abandoned shelter for something. Covered in grafitti now, made of concrete and had a few rusted industrial cogs. We press on from this building and finally the summit is in sight. Only a few more treacherous passes. We are on the final push for the summit when one of the girls slips and falls down the stairs. She fell about 50 feet before she slid to a halt when the ground gave out and she fell the rest of the way.it was on of the most difficult things I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing. We were so close..I'm only kidding. We made it to the top, with everyone in tact and had to battle the wind and rain to take our group picture. We tried to hang out up there to watch the sunrise, but the old shelter up there smelled like homeless people, combined with wetness and garbage, plus we realized we were in a cloud and were too high up to see the sunrise. So we gather ourselves, and descend a bit to watch the sunrise over the east side of Oahu. We were overlooking Kaneohe and Kailua, with the incredible creased mountains on all sides and fresh green vegetation gently decorating all of it. We did not want to linger as we were all growing more and more tired, and needed to have energy to get down.

If the walk up was borderline terrifying, the walk down was downright terrifying. Firstly, now you could actually see where you would fall. So everything was that much more scary, and had everyone on edge. Second, it was extremely wet. It started to rain consistently on the way down and it rained from every direction for some reason. It was raining exactly horizontal at one point. Shortly thereafter it started raining up which absolutely blew my mind. Third, there were some portions of the stairs where you had to go backwards and lower yourself down. This combined with the wetness made me very nervous because it would be like falling off a 50 foot ladder if I fell. Needless to say, we got down with minimal incidents. The guard was there to greet us as we got to the bottom, he asked us how it was and let us pass. We trekked back which seemed to take a lot longer than the walk in. I drove back and was almost immediately hit with exhaustion. I almost dozed off while driving home and had to slap myself to stay awake while everyone else slept in the back. Right when we got back our boss was out front waiting to put us to work. I actually thought we could but then realized it had been over 28 hours since I had slept, and immediately passed out for the day. In all it took us about 8 hours to leave the hostel, climb the mountain, climb down, and get back home. I am extremely glad I got to do it, but I don't think I would do it again for a good while.

SCUBA

I am officially a certified PADI Open Water SCUBA Diver. We took two three hour classes and just completed our open water skills test this past weekend. Being certified is a life long certification and means I can dive anywhere in the world.

The dives were spread out over two days, with two dives each. For our first dive, we were on the east side of the island off a pier. The class started off with about 10 people and had 5 by the end. The 5 that quit, you could tell from the beginning that they were not going to get very far...lets just say they weren't exactly "fit." The conditions were ideal, as the visibility was very low. At the beginning we were all told to descend into about 10 feet of water, and 20 minutes later I get a tap on the shoulder from the instructor to surface. Apparently once everyone hit the bottom, all the sand was kicked up and made visibility worse (about 4 feet) so people just scattered and the instructor could not instruct. So we ended up doing our skills one at a time. We all passed the skills test with relative ease except one time when we were going over how to breath out of the alternate regulator (the regulator is the part that goes in your mouth so you can breath) from your "buddy." It was my turn to take a breath from my buddy (Jeff) so when it came time I took out my regulator and went to use his. When I did I put it in upside down and couldn't get any air. My body's first response was to take a deep breath, but I had nothing in my mouth to give it air. My body's next response was to shoot to the surface as quickly as possible to get air. My body's third and final response, panic and drown. But I had to remember my training to keep cool and I reached around for my air, then after a few breaths tried again and did fine.

The second dive was on the west side of the island at a place called Electric Beach. Its called this because it is across the street from an electrical company that uses the water to cool its generators, then spits the water back out. So the water gets super warm and fish love it. For this dive we went to 20 feet and practiced our final skills before our official dive as scuba divers. We did the skills without a problem. The visibility and conditions were much better than the day before with the exception of a small surface current which just made it harder to swim on the surface. During our dive we saw so many fish, tons of coral, and a turtle!!! We got really close to it and tried to swim with it. Some people saw an octopus but I didn't personally see it.

When we were done with the dives we filled out a few forms and got our papers and it was official.

Hostel Work

Work at the hostel, until recently was a little dull. Lots of painting and building/installing beds and general maintenance. However, this week we started working on the long awaited roof project. We have been talking about starting the roof project for about 4-6 weeks now but have only just begun work on it. Our mission is to tear up and replace the roof. This requires us to be on a 26 foot lift tearing apart rotting wood and throwing it to the ground. The condition of the wood we are taking off is very similar to that of the room we demolished then rebuilt at the beginning of the summer. It is dirty and frustrating at times but still a job nonetheless. We discovered a new species of bug that resembles a cockroach but has a very sinister pattern on its back. At the end of every day there is a big mess to clean up with debris everywhere. Everyday it looks like a tornado came through and had its way with the roof.

As you can see, there is a reason to my tardiness of blog updates but I just want to make sure that when there is a post it is something that will leave the reader on the edge of their seat. I hope that is where this post leaves you now.

Until Next Time,

M@

PS: skydiving this Saturday
PPS: finished making a music video to a song I arranged earlier this year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD9mqfi7mdM

A Recap

2011-08-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

Aloha Friends,

I apologize for the delay in my post. Now that I am back in Waikiki I find myself with less time to do the things that I need to do. But without further ado, here is what has been happening since our last chat here in paradise.

We finally finished the room that we had started working on when we first arrived here in May. It was truly a great feeling being able to work on something and see the results in a tangible way. Since that was our main project for so long, now that we are done it is a bit more difficult to find work to do. So we have been doing a lot of painting, building beds for guests, painting them, installing them, etc.
Here are a few before and after shots:

As I mentioned before, I joined a flag football league here. We play every Sunday. The best part of it (other than the football part) is we hang out on the North Shore a lot every weekend because thats where the guys live and they are all really hospitable. So after a football game in the morning we all go up to their houses which are right on the water. Last weekend we went to a polo match. My first time ever seeing the sport actually played. It took place on a big field and had skydivers land as a pregame show. There was not much to it, in fact most of the time people were just playing corn hole or throwing the football around and not really paying attention to the match. I found polo hard to stay interested in, and right when I decided to start paying closer attention, the game was over. It was a cool experience mainly because of the tailgate type environment but I don't think that I would want to go to another one just to watch.

Late last month, we were given the opportunity to start up an activity night. We decided to start up "Pizza Night with The Jersey Boys." We were given a few basic supplies and hit the ground running. We make everything from scratch. We make our own dough and sauce, and all the toppings and ingredients bought fresh the day of. The first night we did it, the owner thought it was such a great success he wanted us to do it more. Sure enough the second time is an even bigger success and what is even better is that it is work for us and its tons of fun to do.

Recently we decided we wanted to get SCUBA certified. So we signed up through a friend on the football team who got us a great deal for a 2 class course + 4 dives. A SCUBA certification lasts a lifetime and allows one to dive anywhere without the need for an instructor. We had to take the bus there for our first class which was a bit of a drag especially on the way home. Late at night the buses are never on time and sometimes just don't show up at all. So after waiting for a bus a while, we started hitch hiking, which was very reminiscent of Maui and Big Island. We got picked up relatively quickly, considering hitch hiking is not very common here. It felt good to be back in the back of a pick up.

In other news, we have officially booked our tickets to New Zealand. The Rugby World Cup is going to be happening while we are there and we might volunteer for a bit or just try and see a matchOur original plan was to work on a vineyard and be there for the wine harvest. But as we found out, the harvest is in March and April, so that is a bit of a bummer. So we plan on staying on a farm in a couple different cities for a while and then trying to work in a hostel for a bit to make some money. I am also trying to get a job with a New Zealand football team while I am there, I have heard back from a bunch of different places that said they would be happy to have m, so it is just a matter of working out the details when I get there which is really exciting. We fly out in September with a 20 hour layover in Fiji which we are super excited about having heard nothing but good things from everyone who has ever come through the hostel that has been there.

Finally, my mom and Robbie came to visit and were in town for a few days which was really nice to reconnect with them before I undertake this excursion around the world. Ariel just flew home to see his family before we leave for a while last night. He will be gone for a week and until then its just gonna be Fejj and me, and the mayhem has already begun.

Until Next Time,

M@

PS: here is a link to a video that we posted doing a cover of a band Ariel's brother writes songs for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1UAfF3B2zo

There and Back Again: A Nomad's Tale

2011-07-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

Aloha Friends,

Maui

Our WWOOF stay on Maui is over, and it certainly did not end on good terms. Coming in, we were under the impression that room and food were going to be covered by the farm (as is the case with most WWOOF farms) however, we had to keep going out and spending money to buy food, money we needed to save up to continue our journey. We approached the farm owner and explained our situation of not being able to stay as long as we had planned (we planned to stay until the end of July), but offered to stay as long as we could which we deemed was until about the 2nd or 3rd week of July. We were met with a tirade filled with "F-bombs" calling us names, mocking us, and childish remarks. Naturally, we were taken aback by this unprofessional and immature reaction to our situation. We walked away because we realized that no matter how much we tried to explain we could not rationalize with an irrational person. That night, I received and email from the owner (yes, she emailed me when we stay 50 yards away from each other) virtually calling us names all over again and telling us how if we want we can leave. Over the next day or two we weighed the options of staying or going, ultimately we decided to go and left while the owner was out of town because anyone who would have the audacity to talk to 3 adults that way is not worth staying and working for. So we wrote her a note and left.

We collected some souvenirs before we hitched out of town. Took the Hana Hwy. up to Haiku, then had to walk a ways before we were picked up again and taken to Paia. From Paia we hitched into Kahalui to go to the Wal-Mart in town. We picked up a tent, sleeping bags, food, and some other essentials for our next few days of roughing it. Our original plan was to go back to Paia and camp in the same place we did the time we went up Haleakala but it was dark, and we tried hitching back for about 2 hours before we gave up and decided on something local. We explored the wooded area behind K-Mart, but that was already inhabited by hobos, we explored an open field on the side of the road, but that was too exposed. I remembered hearing about a beach that was near the airport, and decided that we should check it out. We stumbled across an abandoned cart, which was a blessing, and started our trek to the beach.

It took about an hour and a half to get there and it lead us down a dark, post-apocalyptic looking abandoned industrial road. It was late, dark, and the whole time i actually thought Zombies might dwell in these buildings, and our cart was making so much noise as it rolled down the street. Once we reached our beach we pitched the tent, battling the wind every step of the way. The steaks had nothing solid to hold on to so the wind ripped them right up. Again, I found myself paranoid, and not wanting to fall asleep for fear of getting killed by "tweekers" in my sleep. We slept in the next day and after we packed up camp to move on, we realized someone had stolen our cart. So we walked with our stuff until we found another one. We had to kill time before our flight to Big Island the next day, so went to a Starbucks and hung out for about 6 hours, which I'm sure the staff did not appreciate as we had all of our bags, smelled bad, and took up about 4 tables. We got bored of sitting around and looked up a movie theater and went to see X-Men and Green Lantern. After the movie we went back to our campsite, started a fire, made smores and went to sleep.

The next day, Ariel and Jeff went back to the mall to look for Ariel's camera and I volunteered for cart duty (meaning I push the cart to the airport). It wasn't too bad doing so until I got to the uphill parts and the round about at the terminal. Once I got to the airport terminal I was approached by an airport security guard. He immediately threatens to arrest me for having a cart on airport property and took down my info. I told him my flight was leaving soon and would not be able to return the cart to which he replied if he found the cart on airport property he would circulate my description to other airports and have me arrested there (which I think is unlikely, but unsettling all the same). I called the cart's owner, Costco, and they said they would come pick it up and not to worry. Once the other two came back, we waited in the "commuter terminal" for the plane, which ended up being 20 minutes late. The pilot, who is from NJ, also doubled as the check-in counter guy. Our plane was a small 8 person prop plane, which I had never been on, that had to get the prop spun in order to start up. The flight was great, and it only took about 45 minutes to get to the Big Island.

Big Island

We flew in to Kona and started looking to rent a car, we negotiated with one lady who would give us a car for 3 days for $120. Unfortunately, she did not realize we were under 25 and therefore would have to charge us an extra $150. When we got back outside to start walking, it started to rain, just our luck. I was able to flag down a car to pick us up and take us into town, only I did not realize what kind of person picked us up. It was evident after about 5 minutes in the car that the man driving was severely intoxicated. He crossed into the other side of the road multiple times, he would take his eyes off the road to talk to one of us, and to top it off he was about 6'5" 235 lbs, so I did not want to be the one to tell him to stop driving and not drive. Despite the hitch hike of death, we made it into town and stopped at a Starbucks again and desperately looked for a place to stay while we were on Big Island. Nothing. After a few hours of trying, we got food from the mall next door and brainstormed places we could sleep. We settled on the roof of the mall, but the problem was that we had all our bags and had to get around security. We strategized and planned but ultimately gave up and just hit the hitch hiking road. Nothing. After 2 hours we decided to walk to the nearest beach, Big Island is not like the other islands in that it is mostly rocky volcanic terrain with beaches a little bit more scattered. The nearest one was hotel property, but caught wind of another beach that was a little further away. We walked for a long while and again down dark sketchy roads, and before we got to the beach we found a press booth for a school baseball field. I scoped it out and decided that it was better than walking the rest of the way to the beach.

Surprisingly, we slept undisturbed until about 10 am when a kids summer camp started up and played music and had screaming kids. We encountered a hobo, whose turf we were apparently intruded on. He turned out to be a nice guy just a little weird, telling us that he "is not a nobody" in the area and that that was his spot to sleep in. From there we packed up and headed back into town, we stopped to get food and ended up back at Starbucks to plan our next move. We were trying every available resource on the internet to find a place to stay when Jeff found a Craigslist ad, posted 1 minute before he opened it, asking for help working on a farm. The only thing is, the farm was in Hilo, which is on the other side of the island. We scrambled to find a way over there, and discovered a bus that would go direct, but it was leaving in 20 minutes from a place about a 25 minute walk away. We packed up quick and hit the road again. We walked and had a little trouble finding the place we were supposed to go. We sprinted the last straightaway to the bus which started to pull away as we got there, but we caught it, and luckily we were the only ones on it so the driver was understanding. Turns out the bus was free and took about 3.5 hours. The drive was very scenic and took us through the country side and coast all the way to Hilo.

Once in HIlo I was reminded of an old abandoned industrial town. With the exception of the main road, everything else was rundown and looked sad and lonely. We made our way to the spot where we were supposed to meet our farm contact which ended up being 3 miles away that we had to walk with our bags/push cart. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the farm office because it was in a residential area with apartment dorms for the WWOOFers.

We had our own room and shower with sink and toilet and felt like kings! We got up early the next day, as requested, for work and ended up sitting around for 3 hours before we headed out to the actual farm. We brought along all our bags because we were going to camp in the cottages they had out there which turned out to be tree house type places that were pretty grimey. We signed on to work 2 days worth of work in one because we stayed the night before and did not work for that so we wanted to make up for it. At the farm we had 3 hours to kill before we actually started working, but once we did we realized what we were in for.

The farm harvests, processes, and sells "noni" juice. We started at the factory, where we took the bags of noni, a foul smelling fruit, and piled them into a juicer. After we did that for a few hours we had to pile bags of noni into huge industrial size containers for them to ferment. From there we went around to different farms and collected another truck full of noni and then had to unload that into the containers. We finished with that around 6:30pm and were promptly picked up for the double shift we signed on for. We were driven out to a noni field where we were handed machetes and told to clear the vines off all these plants. We worked all night and at one point saw a red glow on the horizon which turned out to be fresh lava flow from the distance.

By 10pm we were exhausted and tried to find places to hide so we didn't have to keep cutting vines off the trees. We worked until about 12:30 and did not get back to our place until 1:30am. We slept in the next day, packed, ate lunch, prepared some sandwiches for the road, then started walking back into town to catch a bus. We wanted to go see the volcano and the lava but we missed the bus and did not have time to wait until tomorrow to catch it. Similarly, we also missed the last bus to Kona, where we needed to get to so we could fly out the next day. We walked to the edge of town and stuck our thumbs out. Our luck had been so bad with hitch hiking since being on the Big Island I was very skeptical. But after 20 minutes or so a truck stopped and said he was going to Waimea which is half way to Kona. There is nothing more satisfying than hopping into the back of a pickup after a long while hitching. The nice man dropped us off near a park and actually got out and talked to us for a while. We were soon picked up after and taken by a nice lady to the intersection where the road only leads to Kona. Despite it being the only road around, we were stuck there for a little while, but it was not too bad because we got to watch the sunset over the water which was pretty incredible. We finally got picked up and taken into Kona.

Back in Kona, we were dropped off at the Starbucks again and decided to walk up to Wal-Mart, stocked up on supplies (cheeze-its, sour patch kids, etc) and then walked across the street to another Starbucks that was open later.
We stayed there until they closed, and got to have some free coffee because they were going to throw it out. We couldn't find another place to stay so while we decided what to do we sat outside Starbucks and used the internet. Before we knew it, 5am rolls around and the opening crew arrives and lets us into the store to get coffee. We hang out there for about 5 hours and then decided to head out early to the airport. We hitched out and arrived at our terminal and waited for our plane. It was about 10 minutes before our plane took off that we realized that we were in the wrong terminal. The people who worked there told us that was our terminal and when we missed our flight we argued and got another flight free of charge.

Oahu

We arrived back at the hostel with everything just as we had left it. Our boss Richard took us out for a nice Costco pizza dinner our first night and then it was right down to business. If you will recall the first post when we were working on renovating the hostel, you will remember that when we left it the exterior had just been completed. So for the last week or so we have been working on the inside rooms doing things like hanging dry wall, sanding, painting, framing, etc. and back to working full days. It feels great to be back in civilization and meeting new people again from all over the world.

One highlight would be the 4th of July party we had here, where there was a 20 year reunion for people who stayed/worked in the hostel 20 years ago.

It was great hearing their stories and seeing how many of them kept traveling or met their spouses while out here. We invested in guitars and ukuleles to play for the party and have since played on the street at night to make a few extra bucks on the side.

On our days off we find ourselves renting scooters and going around the island. Most recently we took a trip up the coast, despite Ariel crashing his scooter in the driveway of the hostel and then having that same scooter break down in the middle of the highway. We went out to Kaiulua beach park and Lanikai beach, which is two famous beaches that I thought I had never been to. But when we started driving through I realized that I had in fact been there and it was like I was reliving a dream or just in a very intense deja vu experience. Lanikai beach is my new favorite, it was empty and beautiful.

Sidenotes: I joined a flag football league which has been a great outlet for my competitive side. Right now our team stands at 0-2 which is a little frustrating but I suppose its part of life. Also, I now know why there are so many people here (or in any tropical place) with long hair or beards, and that is because all inhibition to groom oneself slowly seeps away the longer you are out here. All the sunshine and water makes one not really care for what ones facial hair looks like, or how well one does his or her hair. But this is just one man's theory.

Until Next Time,

M@

Haleakala and Near Death on the Crest

2011-06-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

Aloha Friends,

Much has happened since my last post so I will just start from where I left off.

Ariel, Jeff, and I set out on a weekend excursion to Haleakala, the biggest mountain on Maui and from its base (below the sea) to summit it is the tallest mountain in the world. It is famous for its BREATHTAKING sunrise view from the summit, and we wanted to experience it firsthand. I had been to Haleakala before as a kid but only briefly as it was so cold we only got out long enough to take a picture. This time I wanted to experience it to the fullest, by hiking to the summit for sunrise and into the crater itself.

On Friday, we got a late start, as we were all tired from the Pohole (pronounced: pah-hole-lay) harvest the day before. But I was determined to not get sucked in to the lethargy that the rain on the mountain was creating. I did my best to rally the troops and once we all got on board with the idea we started packing and getting everything together that we needed for the trip. As we were about to leave, the others on the farm said we had no chance to get there in a reasonable time frame because we were leaving so late and no one was going that way this time of day (it was about 3-4pm). But we carried on and paid no heed to their warnings. We got a ride from a nice lady into town then started walking. Our first destination was Paia, which is back up the Hana Highway about two hours. Once in town, we started walking and did not get picked up until we were on the outskirts of town when a truck finally pulled over. We told him where we were heading and he laughed and almost drove away, but we caught him and asked him to take us as far as he would go. Which as it turned out was only 2 minutes up the road. As we got out of his truck we saw another one coming down the road and managed to get him to stop. We told him we were heading to Paia and as Maui would have it, HE WAS TOO!! We hop in the back and laugh at our good fortune. This guy turned out to be the nicest guy we were ever picked up by. He pulled over at a rest stop when it started raining a bit and said he had room in the cab for 2 of us, which we politely declined then offered us food (fried chicken, french fries, homemade bread, and a sprite). We gladly accepted and got back on the road. The rain picked up a bit and we got a little wet but it was cool to see all the amazing views from the back of a pickup.

We arrived in Paia and started asking some locals where we might be able to camp for the night. We met a lady who lives in Philly and she told us there really wasn't much to offer in terms of camping. From Paia, we went to the neighboring town of Kahului so we could stock up on supplies at Wal-Mart. We got picked up by another nice guy who turned out to be a Christian rapper. He spit some rhymes for us, much to our amusement, and offered us a place to stay in his home, but again, we respectfully declined saying we had camping arrangements. We spent a couple hours at Wal-Mart and got a few things and when we left it was already dark out, which is a hitch hikers worst nightmare, as drivers won't have time to identify you as a hitch hiker therefore will not pick you up. As a result, we wandered from different places trying to get picked up to no avail. After we made signs, begged and pleaded with passing cars, and 2 hours of walking around we finally got picked up by a truck heading our direction. We went back to Paia to camp on the beach which turned out to be a great decision. Paia is so small we found a nice little corner of the beach and made camp. It took us another 2 hours to get a fire started because it was so windy where we were. Once our fire was going, we happily started chowing down on our dinner for the night: cliff bars, animal crackers, sour patch kids, gummy bears, cheez-its, and other various healthy foods. When it came time for bed, we only packed 2 sleeping bags, so we laid one down on the ground, and one over top and all squeezed in good and close (I ended up being in the middle) for a good nights sleep.

Waking up and walking 10 feet to the beach is something I have not been able to do for a long time and it certainly felt good. We relaxed on the beach a bit and went for a quick swim. Around noon we packed up camp and headed into town to get some things and ate lunch. After lunch, we started our walk towards the mountain. We walked in the heat for what seemed like miles before we got picked up and taken to the next town called Makawao. We immediately got another ride to the Haleakala Highway (which was about a 5 minute drive from where we were dropped off). Once on the highway we walked maybe 100 yards before we were picked up again and taken to Kula which is where the park entrance to the mountain is. We had to walk from where she dropped us off to the Kula Lodge, a place where many hikers stay before they take on the mountain. On the way to the lodge as we were walking we started talking about things that would make us happy at that moment. I happened to say, "a cold Coors light" hoping that it might magically appear, but unfortunately it did not. We finally made it to the lodge and decided to take a quick rest. We refilled our water and ended up talking to the manager and a few guys who were outside. The guys outside were putting a motorcycle onto the back of a pickup and we lended a hand. After this and some more chit-chat, the man we helped walked inside, and came out with a six pack of Coors light to thank us for helping him with his bike. Yet another example of the island giving you what you want. They left and we went on our way up. We walked about 20 minutes when a Jeep pulls up for us. We talk to the guy and as it turns out, he is heading up the mountain too. We pile in the car and get on our way. The guy who pulled over's name is Jim. He is from Orange County, CA and traveling by himself. On our drive up the mountain, he starts telling us how after he sees the mountain he wants to go to Hana and see the Hana Highway, then offers to drive us back the next day too! Jim is almost 50 but hardly looks over 35 and was a great addition to our group. We made it up the mountain and saw the summit.

It was incredible being above the clouds and 10,000 feet above sea level. After some time, we went back down 3,000 feet where Hosmer's Grove is and made camp. There was a designated camp ground but that was too cramped and we weren't allowed to make fires there. So we trek out into the wilderness to seek out our own camp ground. We find a flat spot on the side of the mountain and stomp down the tall grass enough to pitch our tent. This time it only took an hour and a half to start a fire, but once it started we got it raging. Once again, we had a nice healthy dinner, identical to the one a night before. Being that we were so high up, we were at the same level as the clouds, so we could literally see the clouds rolling in through the trees and then towards us and feel ourselves getting wet. Unfortunately, that meant our tent was getting wet too. That became an after thought though after we saw what the clouds soon revealed. The stars. The stars were amazing at night and when the clouds cleared out you could see just about everything. I saw 4 shooting stars that night.

But as nature would have it, all good things must come to an end, and more clouds rolled in veiling the starry sky. We went to bed relatively early, being that we had to be up to catch sunrise. So once again, we roll out the 2 sleeping bags and cuddle up (again I was in the middle, Jim stayed in his car). However, this night did not pass idly by. We were up talking about silly things like: which way would you rather die? by fire or drowning? And things like that. (I answered drowning). At one point in the night I had both Jeff and Ariel cuddled up so tightly to me that I could not move one way or another. Another time, all six of our feet were touching almost as if we were playing footsie in our sleep. Apparently (according to Jeff) I had another night terror, similar to the one I had on the beach in Waikiki, (when I thought a tsunami was coming) except this time I was afraid someone was going to, "stab us in the face!" Again, this is all hearsay according to Jeff.

We woke up the next morning and decided not to hike up to the summit being that we now had Jim's car to use. The drive up from 7,000 feet was incredible. The sky was painted with purples, oranges, and reds as the sun was about to rise over the horizon. We got to the summit and watched as the sun came up over the clouds. The sight truly was Breathtaking.

People were just standing around in silence watching this thing of beauty manifest right before their eyes. I wanted to take a picture but did not think the camera could do what I was seeing justice (but I snapped a few anyway). We spent about an hour at the summit, then got back in the car for the drive back down the mountain. Being that it was Father's Day Jim treated us to McDonald's for breakfast. From there we started the drive back to Hana, at one point or another one of us was asleep. We got back to the farm around 10:30am after the spectacular weekend where we slept outside 2 nights and had a total of 9 hitches.

The day after we got back we went to this really secluded waterfall which was incredible. Its great having a local person be able to take us around and avoid all the really touristy places and get to see some truly amazing things. The next few days past without anything noteworthy, just the usual work on the farm where I was weed whacking (or as the call it here "weedEATING."

4 days ago, we finished work a little early and Ariel decided he wanted to try surfing. We agreed to take turns on the board and went out to the beach. The one we planned on going to had no surf, in fact it was the calmest we had ever seen it. So we heard that the beach down the street had a really good surf and decided to check that one out (we found out later that told us the surf was good was actually a professional surfer, sponsored by Nike and a few other companies and surfs around the world). The beach we went to, Koki, had really good swells. Jeff and I go in first and Ariel watches to see how the waves are breaking. Jeff and I were just playing in the waves ducking under, trying to body surf a bit. We look back and see Ariel struggling to paddle out and we make fun of him because every other wave he is getting knocked off his board and pushed 10 feet back from where he was. Jeff and I carry on and before long I look back to shore and see that we had drifted a bit far, and were getting close to the rocks/cliff. So I start swimming to get more centered but soon realize that although my swimming motion is forward, my body was stationary. I look back and yell to Jeff to watch out for the rocks. I yell a couple times and the third time all I see is Jeff's head rising and falling with the waves and being thrown against the rocks. I try to swim out to him to get him out of there but again, I find my self stationary despite trying my hardest to swim. At this point I realize the seriousness of our situation. We were stuck in a rip current with no way out, and the tide was completely over powering us. In my mind I am telling myself, "don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic. Just keep swimming". But I quickly realized trying to swim was only tiring me more, which is when I changed my plan to, keep my head above the water, but that lead to me ingesting large quantities of saltwater. I look back and see Jeff has somehow managed to hop from one rock to another and ride the waves/rocks out of the water. Seeing that it worked for him, I set my sights on the nearest rock. I begin to swim for it, but feel my body being pulled backwards despite my efforts to move forward. I look up, and at the top of the cliff is a tourist in a red tee shirt, wearing a hat and sunglasses looking down. I saw this and thought to myself, "this man is going to watch me drown. Once I've gone under, he will get back in his car, drive home to whichever hotel he is staying at and write home in an email that he saw someone drown today." After this exchange in my head I started to really resent him. I felt my body start to tire and weaken, and my mind was starting to accept the imminence of my death. I could take solace in the fact that Jeff was safe, but here I was about to drown...alone. As I was preparing my body and mind for my last few breaths, I see a surfer riding out my direction. I motion for his help and he heads my way. I let him know of my situation and he gives me his board to grab on to. We have to ride the surf out, before we can go over and in. Slowly but surely I make my way to shore, and Jeff and I share a long embrace. Ariel makes his way over and felt guilty for not even realizing that we were about to drown.

I saw the guy who saved my life get out of the water and I quickly caught up to him and thanked him for saving my life. I don't think I even factored into his day, he was so casual about it, and went along his way and drank a beer with his friends. As it turns out, he saw Jeff and I in trouble and realized no one was going to do anything, so he came out for us. We all got out of the water, and were just thankful to be alive. When we recalled the discussion about dying by fire or drowning the night on the mountain. Jeff and I chose drowning and apparently Maui saw fit to show us what it would really be like. We started walking back home, and found a lemon tree which brightened our day a bit as we made lemonade later.

In terms of future plans, we are about to head out of Maui and on to the Big Island for a few days, then will likely go back to Waikiki. We are trying to get out to Molokai and Lanai but it turns out that in order to get there it is a bit more expensive than we had thought.

I hope this post finds everyone healthy and happy. Stay tuned for the next installment.

Until Next Time,

M@

On the Road Again

2011-06-17T02:12:00.000-07:00

Aloha Friends,

I apologize for my lack of updates for the last few weeks. I have been keeping myself very busy and have only now found the time to adequately update you on my endeavors abroad. Being that this is my first post in over a year, and my first one on this trip I am hopeful that my readers are eager and anxious again to hear about my travels.

Oahu
I landed in Honolulu on the evening of the 19th of May. My original plan to WWOOF fell through when I called the night before I took off and found out that the place I had planned on staying at would not be ready for another week or so. So my plan became finding a cheap place to stay or at least find a place to park my bags until the next day when my travelmate Ariel arrived. However, both of these plans failed. I wandered the streets of Waikiki with my belongings, and stopped to sit against a wall on the beach to sleep. After some time had passed I was awoken by a strange European man who felt compelled to tell me his life story and why he was in Hawaii. After this interruption I wandered a bit more to try and find a place more suited for that of weary wandering hobos like myself to lie down in a quiet place for some rest.

I came upon a fairly empty stretch of beach and laid down under a life guard stand. The waves were breaking in the background and the ocean wind was howling, but i managed to fall asleep despite the sounds. I kept waking up, fearing that I would get mugged, so I positioned my bags so that if anyone tried to steal from me I would immediately wake up and stop them. At one point, I woke up in a frenzy grabbed my bags and sprinted away from the ocean, because I was convinced that there was a tidal wave coming in and I thought I was going to die. I must have been dreaming about a tsunami or something because when I gathered myself I realized how ridiculous it was (the sounds of the waves and the wind really put me off). I fell back asleep and sure enough I was woken up again, except this time by a cop who was very friendly and politely asked me to move along. Before I reached my next resting point, I met a fellow hobo named steve. He stopped and wanted to talk to me because I was sitting down and I guess he wanted some company. He starts telling me his life story, and how he ended up in Hawaii and some of the things he shared with me I dare not repeat. One example of his crazy is, he says that he is writing a book that he sent in to President Obama, which he claims that President Obama is now using in his speeches and other things of that nature. He also shared with me his drug use history at which point I politely excused myself and started wandering again. By this time its about 2am and I finally found a quiet place under a palm tree on the beach to sleep. I only woke up once this time to put on sweat pants and a sweat shirt because it got a little cold.

Woke up the next morning to the sound of tourists taking pictures of (me?) the beach and the sunrise (which was beautiful). I ate breakfast at McDonalds and went back to the beach. It got really hot out and I wanted to swim but couldn't because I did not want to leave my bags unattended. So I brought my things as close to the water as possible and went swimming alone. When I got out I decided to take a nap, which was nice, except for the part of me getting severely sunburned.

When Ariel flew in, we went to every hostel on Waikiki in search of a cheap place to stay. In doing so we found out about a hostel work exchange, where one can work for their board. We called and visited every hostel but none of them were hiring/none of them had reasonable rates (in our price range). There was one more on the list that was not answering their phone, and just before we were about to check into a hostel I suggest we go check out the one that is not answering their phones. We walk to Seaside Hawaiian Hostel, and inquire about work exchange. Sure enough, this place was looking for people to help out. We got set up on cots in the managers room however, which was still better than nothing.

Hostel life is/was amazing. We'd work for a few hours a day doing construction. What started out as dry walling a room turned into a complete remodeling project because as we dug deeper in to the structure we found an insane amount of termite damage, so much so that I was surprised that side of the building was still standing. So we essentially knocked down an entire wall, rebuilt it from the ground up then put the siding back on the house. The whole process took about 3 weeks to complete but it was great being able to do something and see the fruits of your labor.

When we weren't working, we were meeting new people from all over the world (lots of Canadians for some reason) and the turn over was so constant there was never a dull moment. It was always fun because the other staff that we met there and our boss, who was an ex-pat and served 8 tours of combat, made sure everyone was enjoying themselves (which is hard not to do here).

On one of our days off we rented scooters and went to the windward side of the island, which truly lived up to its name and at some points almost blew the bike over while we were riding. On the way to Kailua, we stopped at Hanauma Bay which is famous for its snorkeling.

I had been there before as a kid and remember it being a lot more colorful, but I suppose over time all the color faded with so many tourists treading on it. But all was not lost because I saw a SEA TURTLE!!! Once I found it I followed it for a solid 20 minutes just watching it gracefully glide through the water. I got really close to it and he/she didn't even seem to mind that I was hanging out with him. We stopped at a couple scenic view points and the surroundings were magnificent. Mountains, ocean, and forests, all within a 360 view. We climbed to the top of this one mountain/cliff (realized later that a few scenes from LOST were filmed where we were) and found a concrete bunker at the top. We hung out there for a bit and enjoyed the view then had to head home because it was getting dark.

We stayed on Oahu until our third and final travelmate, Jeff, arrived. He spent a couple days in Oahu with us until we shipped out to Maui. Saying good-bye to the hostel and everyone there was sad, in the three weeks there a lot of us had gotten close and by the time we come back, everyone will be gone.

Maui
When we booked our tickets to Maui we looked at one factor: Price. Unfortunately for us, we failed to take into account departure time, which in this case happened to be 5:15am. We stayed up and out all night until around 3am when we took a cab to the airport. We arrived in Maui 30 minutes later, and realized that our contact was not going to pick us up until 12-1pm. So we parked ourselves in a nice corner and I stood watch over my companions while they slept on the floor. We wandered around the airport and just watched the clock until noon rolled around. When it finally did, we met our WWOOF host Eileen and her daughter Danielle. They own and operate Hana Herbs and Flowers. They had picked up 2 stray kittens on their way, and it just so happens that these are the cutest kittens in the world (seriously, in the world). We embarked on the 2 hour drive to Hana and drove down the famous Hana Highway. I, however, was asleep for most of it because I slept very little on the plane and in the airport.

We arrived at the farm and I instantly get swarmed and eaten by mosquitoes. Other than that, walking onto this farm was like walking into the garden of Eden. Exotic fruits growing on trees all around and flowers I have never seen before all made it a bit overwhelming to take in. We were shown to our cabin, which is more of a shed that we put little mats down on, and got settled in. My work here includes picking flowers and Pahole as well as clearing patches of land. And every morning for breakfast we pick our own fruits to eat and for dinner we pick veggies to put in our meal.

Hana, as I found out, is a very small countryside kind of town. With a population of 2000 and the average graduating class of around 20 I found out quickly that everyone knows everyone here. We got to know some of the other WWOOFers that have been here a bit longer and know their way around. But the easiest form of transportation is hitch hiking. Because its such a small town, if someone passes you on the road and they are going into town they'll just pick you up. Some times you don't even need to flag them down they'll just stop for you. Hana is home to some very unique characters, most of which resemble a combination of a country hick and a hippy. But they are all friendly and as long as you respect them, they will respect you.

Being that we live with locals, we are privy to knowledge that most other tourists are not. The tourists only know what their guidebooks tell them, but the locals know the real good things. We were shown this pool that was more of a salt water lagoon, and the water was really deep, with a 30 foot cliff perfect for jumping off of. So naturally, we all take the plunge and have a grand ol time. The next day we were shown a "Secret Beach" where we literally had to scale the face of a cliff to get down to it. This beach had incredible fine black sand and huge waves, enough to knock us down a few times over. The beach truly was secret and was so secluded. One of the most amazing (in a unique way) beaches I've been to.

Within the next week we plan to go to Molokai and Lanai, which are small islands off the coast of Maui, as well as hike Haleakala. We have started planning our next move and are leaning towards spending a few days on Big Island to see the active volcano.

Lastly, we have collectively decided to extend our stay, not only in Hawaii but out in the world. We will push west to New Zealand/Australia (hopefully in time for the wine harvest) and then north to South East Asia. Our goal is to circumnavigate the globe, doing work exchange enough at each place to buy our ticket to the next. No telling how long this will take but I assure you I will do a better job of keeping up with the blog. Until next time:

MAHALO,

M@

Samui-Tokyo-Yokohama-Home

2010-08-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

The last weeks traveling the Asian continent have been some of the most fun I've had in my young life. When i last left you i was in Thailand, but have since traveled to the southern region of Thailand to a small island called Koh Samui which despite its Japanese definition of "cold" was actually quite the opposite. The following is a selected account of what transpired on the tropical paradise.

Arriving on Koh Samui was like seeing a scene in a movie where some celebrities get off their private jet and the camera pans out to a tropical island paradise. Everything about this island was tropical and awesome. Checked into the open air hotel, with my room a one minute walk to the white sand beach and incredible clear blue sea water. Walking/swimming in it reminded me of the onsens in Beppu because the water was almost that hot. The beach had really strange tide patterns. In the morning the tide would be really low, to the point where u could see the coral that was on the ocean floor. By 2 in the afternoon however, the tide was almost at the top of the beach where the resort chairs were. The hotel we stayed at had a beach front restaurant and villas (which will be mentioned later). The restaurant like most other things in Thailand were cheap and as a result frequented by many. Luckily, it was not peak tourist season so there was never a big crowd to compete with. It was great to just lie in the sun, go to the restaurant, still on the beach and just be in a complete mood of relaxation. It should be noted that i took off my watch and by the 2nd day had no idea what day it was or what time it was. Full vacation mode. One afternoon, one of the friends i traveled with made friends with some people from his country who happen to be extremely wealthy, and extremely generous. They invite my friend and me to lunch with them which we politely accept. LIttle did we know that lunch was gonna be in their villa along with other strangers they met from around the world. These guys literally just picked up random people and invited them to lunch (and dinner everday for some). We sat down and they had the hotel staff bring out fish of all sorts, fried rice, wine, salads, everything. Of course i ate a modest amount lest i over indulge and don't leave enough for others or come across as a glutton. But these guys were telling everyone to drink their wine, eat their seafood, be merry. It was hard to say no. Of course in the back of my mind i thought they were gonna try and kill me afterwards or even worse try and sell me something. But turns out these men were just genuinely nice people. It was also a good opportunity to meet people from around the world (Thailand is like the Hawaii of Europe, so there were a lot of Europeans).

One of the days me and my friends rented motor bikes. After a small accident, the group circumnavigated the entire island. Stopping along the way to climb a mountain with elephants, climb a waterfall, ride on top of a big truck, and see on of the most amazing sunsets i have ever had the privilege to see. All in a days ride. (pictures from top left clockwise: view from cliff over looking the ocean, close up of elephant, sunset on the beach [incredible. this picture does not even begin to do it justice], me with elephant as close as the elephant keepers would let me go).

At night, the streets came alive. The island looked like a different place at night than during the day that i almost had to re-learn where everything was. I spent most nights walking around listening to the different cover bands in bars (most of which were extremely good, they played all sorts of new and old music hitting every note spot on. So i would just get a drink and sit down and listen to my favorite songs being played) bargaining with street vendors, turns out i was pretty good at that. I really honed in my negotiation skills. It is important to note that while walking at night, by common logic one would assume it is unsafe for women to walk alone, but by Thailand standards the opposite is true. There are, as the locals call them, "lady boys" which prowl the streets at night in search of carnal relations with unknowing/willing to pay foreigners. These ladyboys will stop at nothing to get someone to go with them, its sad and scary at the same time. What is even more sad is the small children that roam the streets at night trying to sell little trinkets to tourists. They will swarm you (as it happened to me) and put their necklaces on you and then ask for you to pay. Some times they will demand you play a game with them and if you lose you have to pay, if you win they will play you. Its deceiving because you would think that a grown man could beat an 8 year old girl at a thumb war or connect four. But these kids are good (i learned the hard way with connect four. and when i played a girl in thumb war every time i pinned her she just let go, which i assume is how she makes all her money). At one point i had a kid on my back trying to get me to buy his necklace, a boy attached to my leg trying to sell me roses, all while playing a girl in thumb war. It was unbelievable. Eventually i got them off with the help of some friends, and went on my way. But it is sad to think that if these kids had the opportunity to put their talents and ideas of "sales" or "marketing" they might be able to help themselves out. But unfortunately, they don't have the same educational opportunities as others which is sad because some of these kids with their persistence and hard work might actually be able to make something for themselves other than just heckling tourists.

Spent a few more days in Bangkok after we left the island then i said my final good byes to the ones i was traveling with and headed back to Japan. I arrived in Tokyo and went to my aunts house. After the second day back in Japan I went up to Tokyo which was by far some of the most fun i've had. Went from Shibuya to Shinjuku. From Asakusa to Akihabara. From Harajuku to Nakano. It was great being able to see Tokyo and all that it had to offer. It was especially cool watching from a starbucks window on the second floor one of the busiest crossings in Japan in Shibuya (you know, the ones they always show in movies that feature Japan or Tokyo-video of this at bottom of page).

(above Tokyo Tower)
On the first day in Tokyo, me and some friends went to the Yebisu beer museum which was really interesting. We got samples after we took a tour of the facility. They had their different brews on tap and it was awesome to taste the different kinds of Yebisu. I would compare Yebisu to Yngling beer in America in that it is one of the oldest breweries around.

After the museum, as luck would have it, i ended up meeting more new people who are insistent on treating to food and drinks. These two guys i met were Japanese salary men who were young and successful already. Each one told me about how the other one was SOO rich. On my last night in Tokyo there was a festival with the biggest fireworks in Japan. Me and a few friends were invited by these guys to their friends house/condo that is overlooking Tokyo bay (where the fireworks were being held) to watch the show. The condo was incredible. Half the living room wall was a window and we had a perfect view of the fireworks, which did not disappoint. The shock and awe factor played a huge part in the fireworks show. From the monstrous size of each explosion to the color and shapes they took. On top of that, the guy whose condo we were in happened to own a restaurant or two and was an incredible cook. Naturally, he cook a TON of fantastic food in large quantities. Needless to say i indulged as per his request. It was a great opportunity for me to give myself a final exam of sorts to see just how much Japanese i could use in a situation.

Back in Yokohama, i had a lot of family time which was quite enjoyable. Going to ofuro's and onsens and being able to spend quality family time is rare, especially when they live in a country far away.

The day i left Koh Samui was the day i realized how close this trip of mine is to over. Leaving island paradise was like hitting a switch back to reality. One that will likely take another notch up once i return to the US and start getting ready for school. Its a sad time seeing these last 5 months fly by. I feel like it was yesterday i was writing my first post about my excitement and anticipation. Yet here i am saying good-bye to it all. Being at the end i can look back and say that my time here was time well spent and i surely do look forward to coming back in the near future. I have learned more than i can express and met some incredible people.

In conclusion, to this segment of my blog i appreciate all that have been following thus far. I hope to keep up with this blog as much as i can with relevant up to date things. Most likely they will no longer be soley about my travels in Asia but maybe one day in the future it can resume that post as travel blog. But for now it will likely become some kind of sports/political/religious/philosophical blog i think. The best combination of things in this world. Once again, thanks for sharing with me in my journey.

Until Next Time,

M@

P.S. tomorrow i arrive stateside for those immediately concerned with contacting me upon my arrival

P.P.S. more pictures to come from Thailand

Fukuoka & Bangkok

2010-08-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

I am officially done with my time at APU. I cannot even begin to describe how much i will miss it and even more so the people. But with every end marks a new beginning, and in the case of the last few days, even in the end one can experience a beginning. Take this last week for example, the end of my time in Beppu and the beginning of the remainder of my time abroad.

I had to say good bye to many friends and was surprised at how many tears were shed over my departure, even from some people i was only acquaintances with, and in one case didnt even know the person's name who was crying for me, which made me feel like a complete jerk. But it started on Friday afternoon walking through campus to the bus stop with my 30kg (about 60+ pounds) luggage being carried over my head/resting on my head because the suitcase was from about 25 years ago and 2 of the wheels broke on the way, on had its tread melt, and the other wheel cracked under the weight of the suitcase. Its a good thing i had friends to help me carry the rest of my things. But me and 3 of my friends left Beppu for Fukuoka on a bus to stay the night and then some had to catch flights the next day. We wandered the streets, hung out in parks and local clubs/bars. Ate the world reknown "Fukuoka Ramen" and discovered the best gyoza shop ever. The gyoza and ramen of Fukuoka earned their claim to fame in my book because it was just as good as advertised. I really liked the city of Fukuoka because its not a well known city like Tokyo or Osaka but it is still a good size and not too touristy. Just a little gem in my small corner of the earth. At one point in the night i was performing some music in the street and actually made a decent amount of money. We were trying to cut corners with our spending and decided not to get a hotel/hostel and try and stay up or sleep in the park (this particular park had carpet-like grass and was incredibly clean). While the sun came up we decided it would be a good idea to explore the surrounding buildings. And since there were only tall buildings around we decided to hop a fence, and climb up the outside stairs 15 stories to the roof of the building. We looked out across the city and took in the view for about 3 minutes when a security guard came out from the building. He told us to follow him in, so we did and when we came in the door there were two more guards, then they escorted us to the elevator with another guard in there, and once on the ground floor there were a few lining the hallway to the door. We made for the door discovered it was locked and found out the guards had no intention of letting us go that easy. We end up in the security office and the guy starts talking to us. So we all pretend to not speak or understand ANY Japanese. The boss cop gives us papers to fill out, we all give fake names and information and can tell the guard was getting frustrated. At one point we all start asking him questions about where to put our name and where to put our info on the paper at the same time to the point where he just got frustrated, took what we gave him and then they let us go. After that ordeal, we were all pretty gross from the humidity and from the walking so we search out an ofuro. Collected some information from a hotel nearby and got directions to one nearby. We arrived at 7am to find out it opened at 8am. which was unfortunate for us. So we sat down and waited, pretty much as soon as we sat down everyone but me fell asleep. I was trying to be noble and stand guard of all our things, but around 725am i was hit by a train of exhaustion. And passed out until a little after 8 on the side of the road. We all looked like hobos. The ofuro was incredible, it had a mat for people to just lie back and take in the sun. There were jet streamed tubs, sauna's with tv, the works, all for the low price of 700 yen. Later that morning i saw off 2 of my friends who were going back to the states. I ended up sleeping on a stone slate in a park after i saw them off for an extended period of time. The next day my friend and i checked into a local hotel and stayed our last night on a comfy bed. But that night we met up with some more people from school who stayed an extra night. And a few of us had made friends with a bartender at one of the bars the night before. So this bartender, after he got off work agreed to take us to a club that he knew the owner of and got us all free drinks and VIP lounge access which was incredible. So that hotel i got i hardly ended up staying in because i left early the next morning for...THAILAND!!

Me and a couple friends left for the airport and immediately had trouble because we ended up getting a "trainee" check-in lady at the counter who didn't speak english and had no idea what she was doing. So it took literally 25 minutes to check in. Not to mention the fact they said i wasn't allowed to carry on my guitar so i called for the manager and she was being unreasonable so i made them wrap it in bubble wrap, twice, and put it in a box to check with multiple "fragile" stickers on it. Pretty uneventful after that, but we had a lay over in Taipei, Taiwan for a couple hours then got to Bangkok. Thailand is a beautiful country and i am fortunate enough to have a friend who lives here that i am staying with. As soon as we arrived we started out our activities. My friend showed us around the area then we went out to dinner. We walked down this street that was full of foreigners and apparently is really famous for backpackers.

Today struck a chord of bad luck with the weather. I experimented with some Thai side street vendors and tasted some weird looking fruits which were really tasty. Then we went out to see the grand palace and a big Buddha statue but apparently there was some sort of royal ceremony going on so it was closed down. And as soon as we learned this it started pouring rain. Heavy rain. So in the end we settled on taking a cab to a big mall nearby which turned out to be way bigger than i expected. It was a lot of fake merchandise but still cool looking and it was easy to negotiate with the little shops. Its great because everything here in Thailand is SO cheap compared to Japan and here i don't have to worry about carrying around so many coins. After going to the mall we had reservations for a massage. Unfortunately, Bangkok is a big city and this particular city can be summed up by one word: CONGESTION with both people and automobiles alike always the roads and sidewalks are crowded. Even the people in the cars are crowded. People riding in the backs of trucks, a family of 5 plus a dog and furniture/groceries on a single motorbike, trains, etc. This being the case the road was really badly backed up so we decided to take a train, which turned out to be a good idea. The massage was everything i wanted and more. It was for 2 hours full body massage. Me and 2 other friends shared a room and at one point we all fell asleep and were all snoring. But felt SO relaxed afterwards. From there we went to dinner, and spent an hour and a half to get what would have taken 15 minutes without traffic. But i have literally NEVER seen traffic so bad as i did tonight. About half way there one of my friends needed to use the bathroom so we stopped then traffic started moving and then one thing leads to another, next thing i know, me and two of my friends are walking in the rain. We end up taking a "Tuk Tuk" which was fun. Two to be exact except the first one we got i broke down literally 20 seconds after we got in. But we found another. In the end we got to our dinner later than i ever thought we could but nonetheless enjoyed the delicacies of Thai cuisine, which evidently tastes WAY better in Thailand than America (go figure).

(above: a view from a "Tuk Tuk" a Motor bike with a carriage attached to the back)
Tomorrow i head South for the beaches of Samoii and Ko Pang Am (not sure of the spelling of those) which i am super excited about. Going to be a good relaxing week spent on the beach.

Sidenote of being in Thailand: this is the first time i have been in a place where i literally understand/speak/read/write NOTHING of the language. Its a helpless feeling but kinda fun at the same time and really makes for a good adventure anytime you go out. Which is quite a lot here because everything is so cheap we take cabs everywhere for the equivalent of 100 yen or a little over a dollar. So there are many opportunities for interacting with people who speak no english.

Until Next Time,

M@

Beginning of the End

2010-07-26T00:18:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

I write today with a heavy heart. I find myself having a hard time accepting that this week is the last week i will spend here at APU. As i mentioned before, i have been doing my best to stay busy and squeeze in some last minute sight seeing before i leave. Last week, when i said yet another farewell to a dear friend returning to his home country of Croatia me along with some friends were able to see one of the most beautiful onsens beppu has to offer.

This particular onsen was on the roof of a hotel that overlooked the entire city. I was a little skeptical about going because of the price and the location being somewhat far away, but i was anything but after i experienced this onsen. This onsen had pools on the endge of the roof that overlooked the city, and i was able to sit down in the hot water on a beautiful and clear evening and see for miles in all directions. There were countless pools of water each of varying temperature and all equally satisfying. There was a cave that they put some kind of herbal substance in the water and around the walls of the cave that made it smell like a forest and it was said to have healing powers of the forest. The sauna was amazing as well. There was an enormous window that allowed anyone inside to enjoy the view of Beppu and Oita from the comforts of the sauna. We stayed as long as we could before finally calling it a night and heading back to school.

As the title of this entry suggests i am at the beginning of the end of my trip here. It saddens me that such a great time in my life must come to an end. But i have done my best not to dwell on such grim notions. Instead i am going to fully enjoy this last week, despite the finals, and make the best of what time i have left. Exactly what that entails i do not yet know but i look forward to the numerous "last hurrahs" as they might be and need to focus on getting rid of the junk i have accumulated over the last 5 months. The idea of packing has only just crossed my mind and i hope that i will be able to fit everything. But once i get all of that sorted out i should be good and ready to go.

I leave Beppu this Friday after my last final and make for Fukuoka. Where I will see off some friends who leave that day or the next. On the first of august i embark for Thailand and plan to stay there for 10 days at which point i will return to Japan and await my final departure for the USA.

Until Next Time,

M@

Fun Times on the Road

2010-07-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

I apologize for my silence these past few weeks, but the incessant rain and fog have rendered me completely apathetic and unmotivated to do anything of any consequence. However, rainy season is now over (so they say) and the last couple days have been blissfully sunny, so much so that today i got sunburned on my face, arms, and legs completely unexpectedly. But that didn't hold me back from enjoying the sun all day and enjoying life. Furthermore, the World Cup is finally over so i am happy for 2 reason 1. being that i don't have to stay up until 330am every night when i want to watch a game and 2. i no longer have to care about soccer. which are both good things because it was getting irritating having to do one and then the other simultaneously.

Last week, i had the good fortune of taking an unexpected road trip with some friends. Our initial plan was to take a trip down to "Miyazaki" which is famous for its beaches, but as i mentioned before, it has been raining the last three weeks so we decided it was best to go elsewhere. We decided to go see Mount Aso which is about a 2 hour drive from Beppu. The scenery on the way was stunning (i feel like a broken record always talking about the nature and surroundings im in). There were luscious green fields and hills that had tall grass blowing in the wind. It was like watching a ghost gently glide through the air making the grass sway in whichever way it chose. I felt like i was somewhere in Middle Earth with the rolling hills and rural landscape. When we arrived at the mountain, i had no idea. The entire mountain was covered in fog and it was hard to see (redundant?). But we decided to drive up and go to the top anyway, which turned out to be a waste because the fog was even denser on the mountain and there were gale force winds that literally almost blew my door off its hinges and took a child airborne until the kid's dad pulled him back down. Apparently there was some sort of famous crater, but we weren't even able to see 5 feet in front of us let alone a crater more than 100 feet away.

Feeling defeated we decide to drive another 2 hours out and visit the ancient city of Kumamoto. Our first stop here was Kumamoto Castle, which is one of the biggest castles in Japan. It was surrounded by an enormous park, and had a moat dug out around its walls. Unfortunately for us, we arrived about 20 minutes before they closed. We pretended we were tourists and pretended none of us spoke Japanese (which 2 of us including me did) and tried to negotiate free entry due to the time constraints. They wouldn't budge asserting that the Japanese government has made the rules and would not like it if they gave us a discount. In the end we paid the amount because odds are it was going to be a long time before any of us came back to Kumamoto.The castle was nothing of its old self. It had been gutted and basically turned into a museum, which i thought took away from the eminence that i am sure was exuded from this castle in its hayday, at least judging by the model of what the area looked like in the old days. We went to the top, took pictures then were asked in song to vacate the premises. Which i thought was an interesting way to ask people to leave. The Japanese hate to be impolite, so what better way to be rude than to play a lighthearted song that asked people to leave? (sidenote: im reading a book on Okinawa and the WWII happenings that occured on that region and learned that because of the Japanese's politeness, to a point of insufferable vagueness and fear of failure to a point of "seppuku," the commanding officer at Midway reported to his higher ups that the damage was minimal and US casualties had been great. This kind of off base generalizations and not admitting defeat is, as this author asserts, what cause the Japanese to fall in the Pacific [other than the A-bombs]. so naturally, if the Japanese will avoid this kind of information they will have no problem using a non-confrontational method of getting customers to leave). Needless to say, we made our way out and left the castle premises.

From there we headed to Kumamoto downtown area in search of a restaurant that my friend had been to before. The restaurant served Kumamoto's famous "sashimi" which is HORSE meat. As it turns out, the restaurant was closed. So we settled on just one we stumbled upon and ordered about 6 different dishes for 4 people. The sashimi, was remarkably good. And horse meat has jumped up my favorite meat list into the top 10. What was more surprising was that it was served entirely raw, which i was not expecting. The meat came out in 2 parts the regular meat, and the fat (literally they served slices of fat. I tried one but didn't like the taste so stuck to the regular part) So in essence, if i were to happen upon a stray wild horse and be hungry, i would no longer have a problem cutting up that horse and eating the meat raw. Plain and simple. In addition to the horse meat, i also tried eel and octopus for the first time which was surprisingly good. The only taste i have yet to try is that of human meat...

It was our goal all day to go to a famous Kumamoto onsen. But by the time we were done eating, we realized that the nearest one was about a 2 hour drive away, in the opposite direction of home. So we decided on this one that was on our way home, but a little out of the way. About half way through, we decided to stop at a random hotel that looked like it had an onsen and see if we could get in even though we weren't guests. GREAT decision. The first one we stop at turned out to have a bunch of exotic onsens which was a really cool experience. There were private ones that each had their own themes(this one shown right has a cave that leads to the outside). Some with a waterfall, a cave, rocks, etc. It was really cool to be able to stop there. After about 45 minutes, we got out and debated staying the night in the hotel. But ultimately decided against it. The reason we considered it was because my Japanese friend who was the one that could drive, had gotten minimal sleep the night before, just drove literally all day, and now just got out of a hot tub. So he was understandably tired, too tired to feel comfortable driving home along the dangerous winding mountain roads that were the only roads around. Never being one to shy away from a challenge, i stepped up and offered to drive home. BAD decision. I was driving fine, but the conditions were not ideal if not downright dangerous for any driver, let alone a driver who hadn't driven in 5 months and is not used to driving on the left side of the road. Roads were winding, visibility minimal due to fog, and roads slippery because of the rain. It was weird because in America i always stayed away from the yellow line in the middle of the road, especially at night, lest a cop sees me graze it and i get pulled over. Here, there are monstrous draining ditches that run along the side of every road. So if i get to close to the edge, one wrong move and we end up in a ditch. So i did my best to stay in the middle of the road. Thankfully there was very little traffic. In fact, i made it back in about half the time it took us to get out there. It was a thrill nonetheless.

Today was another adventure in and of itself. Maybe not to the same degree as the last one but still fun. Me and some friends went to Yufuin which is on the other side of the mountain that i live on. Its a real peaceful quiet neighborhood and was really nice to walk around and enjoy the first truly beautiful day in about 3 weeks. We visited a small lake and i realized how clean the whole city is. Kids playing in the water, no litter, nothing. This quaint little town brought me back to the olden days when things were easier. Everyone here wasn't bothered by the hassles of everyday life. They were all very relaxed and down to earth.

In other news, finals are starting up soon. Subsequently, so are the good byes. Just said good bye to a good friend who is going to New Zealand to continue his studies abroad. I get depressed thinking about the good byes im gonna have to say within the coming weeks as well as the daunting task of packing. But i take heart in knowing that i will have a buffalo chicken pizza waiting for me when i get back to the states and try my best to live in the moment, what few i have left here, and really cherish the people i have met and the things we have experienced together.

Until Next time,

M@

World Festival and World Cup

2010-06-23T05:26:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

The last few weeks here at APU have been filled with various cultural themes. For example, Chinese week, Vietnamese week, Thai week, and the list goes on. Believe it or not i am actually partaking in the Thai week festivities. By doing a voice over for a skit that they are performing. Just the other day I had to go down town and subject myself to a few hours in a room with no air circulation and about 4 people clustered in a small space. The windows were closed and fans turned off due to the noise it would create. Other than those minor details it was a good experience and I am looking forward to seeing the final product.

To kick off the festivities of cultural week, there was an event held in AP House (the on campus dorm) called "World Festival." During World Festival every floor of every building organizes either a performance or a food booth that is reflective of its residents. Needless to say, there was a large variety of food to select from. There were many traditional and contemporary dances. Some better than others but all entertaining to say the least. It was during these dances that I witnessed the most cross-dressing i had ever encountered in my life. There were a few groups who were doing dances and had boys dressed up like school girls (my roommate included; boy on the left in the photo). I guess here they don't have as big an issue humiliating themselves as a drag queen. Whats more is, due to the petite frame of some of the boys, they actually looked like girls and one might be hard pressed to distinguish the difference. But like i said it was entertaining nonetheless.

Instead of partaking in my floor's performance i opted to do an individual performance for the APU's Got Talent (talent show) as well as perform a few songs with a band. Both of which were huge amounts of fun. For the weeks leading up to World Festival me and my band had hardly had any practice outside of my room (aka without full drum set and amps etc.). Therefore i was a little apprehensive when we went on stage.

Backtracking, the night before World Festival was the opening games of the 2010 World Cup. Naturally, we went downtown to the local Sports Bar for nomihoudai and game watching all for the low price of 2000 yen. I was cautious not to yell too loud lest i lose my voice for World Fest. But that is a hard thing to do when everyone around you is going insane over a goal.

When I woke up the next morning, i felt my voice was fairly groggy and was concerned that i would embarrass myself, more so than i might already have done, with the way i sound. I was slotted to play my talent show at 1pm. Once it rolled around, i was all business. I played many well known songs that i thought would appeal to an international audience and i think it was well received. I walked out to thunderous applause after my video played and got the crowd going. A few short minutes after, it was time for my band's performance. Once we started playing, i noticed the room start to slowly fill up little by little. And by the end noticed there were people standing on tables and filling the doorway trying to get in. It was also cool seeing a bunch of people with their cellphones and cameras taking videos that I'm sure have hit the web by now. I will forever be part of these people's memories and i don't even know them. It was all going really well up until we went to play my original song and at the end my microphone got turned off or unplugged. I guess they didn't really like it. But nonetheless, i had a really fun time playing and as i walked off the stage there was literally a line of screaming Japanese girls trying touch/talk to me. Never before had i felt like such a rock star...don't worry it won't go to my head. I hope...

The ensuing hours after my performance, i couldn't walk across the courtyard to get food without being stopped at least 3-4 times talking to people and having them tell me how much they liked the show. Before i knew it i was posing for pictures with complete strangers, parents, students, boys, girls, boys dressed like girls. I was waiting for someone to ask for my autograph...but that did not happen (probably for the better). Little did i know that this small amount of success at World Festival would propel me to school wide fame.

The following days and weeks, i would be waiting outside my classroom, and a young man approaches me and asks, "Are you Matto?" I reply, "yes." His response, "OOOOOOO. I see you play at warudo fesutibaru!! you berry berry goodo dayo!!" i reply, "thank you. but i still need more practice." He says, "iiee." then he motions to his friend while pulling out his phone and proceeds to ask if its ok to take a picture with me. I humbly accept and then we go on our way. Similar occurrence took place in the elevator one night where a girl asked me, "are you matto?" then she introduces herself and tells me how she saw me at World Fest and how she thought it was good. We would be here a long time if i list all the times this has happened but most of the conversations follow that general format. Furthermore, there is pressure from administrators to have me play in "Millenium Hall" which is the schools major auditorium. But the feasibility of that is slim due to my short time left.

By the end of World Festival i was exhausted. But the coming days and weeks are proving to provide 0 respite due to my heavy morning classes, and late late nights staying up watching SOCCER. I find myself becoming more and more interested in the sport that for so long has bored me. But i still think they are pansies the way that they fall down and pretend to be injured when in reality they tripped on themselves. It sickens me. I'm excited the US is doing so well and am spreading a theory of USA dominance on the global stage. That being that if the USA wins the World Cup the rest of the world will stop liking soccer. For decades, the one thing the US was not good at was soccer. If we take that away from the world the world will be inclined to lose interest in the sport all together and move to another sport which the USA does not partake in on a large scale (cricket, curling, etc.?). I heard an interesting argument from one person who said, "If America wins i will be so pissed. You guys are already good at everything..." It made me chuckle. This theory is gaining credibility if you look at the evidence. I figure that if Switzerland can beat Spain, North Korea can hold Brazil scoreless in the first half, and England can go 3 games and not win one match, then America has a chance to win the World Cup.

In other news, hitch hiking has become a hobby of mine. Instead of paying 500 yen both ways to go downtown for groceries, pay only once then hitch hike back up to school. I've done it 4 times already and thought it was funny how every time someone picked me up they would tell me how NO ONE picks up hitch hikers in Japan. Some quality irony.

Also, i have grown fond of messing with Japanese people while they walk. Some background information, Japanese hate uncomfortable situations (like most people) and do their best to avoid them. Japanese people also don't pick up their feet when they walk. So you can always hear one coming behind you. When this happens, i notice they are walking at a slightly faster pace than me and can tell that they want to pass me. So i speed up, just as they are trying to pass me and we walk side by side for probably what seems like an eternity to them until they decide to kick it into high gear and pretty much sprint away. Its the best when you do it to girls, because they never make eye contact and will just duck their heads and do their best to stay out of your way.

Lastly, classes this quarter are not all that great for me. Everyday i have 1st period which could be a contributing factor. But, the teachers aren't doing the best job holding my interest.

No major plans in the immediate future but I will do my best to keep you posted on the significant happenings in my life. Until then, enjoy these pictures and videos. I was not able to post to youtube because the videos were too long. if this site doesn't work contact me individually and i will do my best to accommodate people who want to see. The first link is the band performance (actual performance starts around the 2 minute mark) and the second is my individual performance.

Until Next Time,

M@

http://www.zshare.net/download/77549346cb6a0dbd/

and

http://www.zshare.net/video/7756844095523378/

Okinawa

2010-06-15T03:53:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

I apologize for the delay in updates. To put your concerns to rest, I am alive and well but have been supremely active these last few weeks and as a result have not had time to sit down and adequately inform you (the reader) about my endeavors of late.

When i left you last i was embarking on a trip to the island of Okinawa. We left from Fukuoka airport, and started our journey. Our first night in Okinawa i rented a bike, and me and some friends, rode around town to get acquainted with the city Naha. It was somewhat rainy that night and the two others who rented bikes with me ended up slipping and falling pretty bad. Lucky for me i got lucky and avoided the falls. Most of Naha was a tourist trap with really expensive foods and restaurants and every shop in sight sold the exact same thing with little variation (redundant).

Ran into some problems with the hostel i booked, turns out that the internet booking system they use sometimes double books people. So instead of canceling one, they cancel both and expect the customer to know. But we found an alternative, in a decent hostel which had dormitory style bunk beds and was unbearably hot during the night. It was a small price to pay due to the amount that we were paying for the night, and for the proximity to the port (2 minute walk).

The next day, we were up at the crack of dawn to catch the first ferry to Zamami Island, a small island off the western coast of Okinawa. The weather was foreboding and indecisive but we held out hope for good weather. In my research i found out that no more than 1000 people inhabit the island at one time, which turned out to be exactly the case. There were hardly any cars or tourists just peaceful tropical paradise. Upon our arrival, we split into our groups of "camping group" and "non-camping group." I was part of the camping group and we made way for our camp ground. We got eaten alive by bugs for the first hour while we set up camp. Our camping spot was just a treeline away from the beach. Which we had all to ourselves. Yes, i am saying we had our own, private, white sand/coral beach.

The water was clear blue and there was a cool breeze coming off the eastern shore when we made our way to the other side of the island to go snorkeling. I was bummed because i forgot my underwater camera at the tent, but still made the best of it. There were some spectacular fish and coral reef to be seen there. Again, there was no one else on the beach but our group. So we had the whole bay to ourselves to swim around in. Some things that i saw included: sting ray, sea snakes, starfish, clownfish, parrotfish, flying fish, fish that would follow you, and other fish that i wouldn't even know how to begin to name.

After a while, some of us decided to explore a nearby island. At first i was hesitant to swim there because it had just started to rain, and i could see a storm off in the distance. Not to mention the fact my snorkel broke and was letting water in through the side which probably not have fared so well against the waves. But i bit the bullet and swam across about 400-500 yards of open ocean, it was exhilarating, know that at any second i could get swept out to sea and drown. When i made it to the other side i noticed a sand bar that ran about half way out to the other island that we could have walked on, but failed to see it. The good news is it stopped raining and we explored the island (some of us went on further than others and didn't make it back to camp until after dark) and i collected shells and hermit crabs, big ugly ones, to use as bait for fishing which was part of my plan to do the next day. We made our way back and started cooking dinner at camp which i was designated chef for. Then went out to the beach to make a fire, which ultimately failed because it was too windy, but had an incredibly clear night to look at the stars. I realized upon my return that it was this night that will have spoiled me for the rest of my life. because it is here that i saw the stars in a way i had never seen before. The sky was white with their light and its sad to say but every time anyone says "oh its a clear night, look how pretty the stars are," i will be forced to think "i've seen better."

The next day i was able to wake up and walk 20 yards to my pristine unadultered private beach and soak in the sun. It was a gorgeous day and after an hour or two of hangin out some of us decided to snorkel again and ended up seeing a sea turtle, which was awesome. The rest of the day i spent riding around the island (4sqk) on a bike i rented and a group of us decided to try and circumnavigate the entire island on our bikes. We ended up walking half of the journey, because there were so many hills and one road we thought lead us to another road to go around the island in fact lead us to the bottom of an even bigger hill. The diamond in the rough here was the fact we discovered a "secret beach" as described on the map we had. As we found out, there was no road connecting in order to go around the island. We stumbled upon this observatory, on top of one of the hills, and it was an incredible sight to see. Atop this hill, there was a cliff that had about a 200 foot drop, and cliffs on both sides. It was really dangerous to stand near the edge because of the whipping wind that was swirling. We made our way back to the beach where the rest of our group was, and after a while got fed up with one of our group members, and as a punishment buried him in the sand. I was the main digger of the hole and was able to swiftly dig and bury in a matter of minutes.

By this point i hadn't showered in about 2 days, and i was feeling miserable. We wanted to all go out to dinner and i didn't want to offend anyone with my stench. So we convinced a local hostel that one of our friends was staying in to let us use their shower. Since our group was so big there were few places that could accommodate us, so we ended up splitting up and then meeting up at a local bar afterwards. On my way back to camp i met a few American marines and they ended up hangin out with us for a little while at our camp fire which was much more of a success this night than the previous.

The next day was dark and cloudy and had sporadic rain showers which showed no sign of breaking up. We made the decision to go back to Naha that day and made the arrangements to return all our gear and get tickets to the lone ferry setting sail that day (Sunday only had one ferry leaving). It was rather hectic but we managed to get one and everyone was terribly exhausted and most slept on the ferry back. We spent the night in Naha seeing all the touristy things and getting free samples of "Habu-shyu" which is an Okinawa delicacy meaning "snake liquor." It is exactly what it claims to be. This liquor has real snake in it and is surprisingly sweet for such a bitter animal and obscenely expensive (a big jar cost about 2,000 USD) That night myself and a few buddies prowled the street looking for fun, but being that it was a Sunday night not a whole lot was going on. Defeated, we returned back to our hostel.

The last day in Naha was rather uneventful except for the one time a Japanese bus EVER runs late, it runs late when we need to catch a flight. As a result we needed to take a taxi in order to make our flight. Our plane was not parked in a terminal so we need to take a bus to the plane sitting on the runway which was cool to be out there. The bus ride back to Beppu was as depressing and rainy as Beppu ever is but it was good to be back to a familiar place.

The trip to Okinawa/Zamami proved to me that there truly are little wrinkles in time where everything seems to slow down. Time moved sluggishly slow (in the good way, not the way classes seem to go) and i was able to really relax and enjoy the time there.

Finals Finally Finished

2010-06-01T02:54:00.001-07:00

Hello Friends,

The last few weeks you may have noticed i hadn't written anything and the reason for that is simple, there was nothing that had happened worth writing about. But today marks a joyous occasion that must be celebrated to the fullest extent and that is FINALS FOR QUARTER 1 ARE OVER!! For those of you who don't know, this is fantastic news because i can now focus my efforts on getting ready for my trip to okinawa, which i am sure will have much more fun stories to write about.

To sum up, i just wanted to let my readers know i am still alive and well doing the usual stuff (hangin on the beach at night, hiking, going to the onsen, etc.) all the things that were novelties have since lost their novelty but are still enjoyable. Just know this, i am SUPER excited about Okinawa this week and it should be a blast. I will be without internet for about 5-6 days and will therefore be unreachable. However, i will take a lot of pictures and make sure to keep everyone in the loop when i get back to school next week.

Until Next Time,

M@

Mountaineering and Beach Bumming

2010-05-15T04:28:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

I apologize for not updating in a while, but i have been in the middle of midterms and presentations and the likes. But with all of that now behind me i can now effectively update you on the happenings of my life.

Most recently, last night AP House (my dorm) hosted an event called "EARTH Hour." I was asked along with 2 other people to perform for the small concert that was going on. All this past week we were practicing for the event and of course when the time came nothing worked. The amps weren't turning on, microphones weren't working, and people were getting restless waiting for the event to start. In the end we made it into an acoustic set and it ended up being ok.

Since the weather has been getting nicer here, i have been spending more time outside, mainly on the beach downtown. We have been into making bonfires on the beach and roasting marshmallows and gyozas and sausages. It always is a good time and its a nice way to relax. Last night, I was fortunate enough to stay up long enough on the beach to watch the sunrise. It was truly majestic. I was forced to take mental images, because a camera couldn't capture what i was seeing (even though i tried). It was incredible to watch the sun literally slowly rise seemingly from out of the ocean and into the sky.

Furthermore, me and the "Hiking Crew" have been adventurous and exploring the surrounding area. We eventually decided to climb to the top of the mountain where we have been exploring. It is the 2nd tallest mountain in the area and ended up being a very formidable challenge. On the way up we stayed together and encountered snakes and other wildlife as we searched for a "passable" trail to the top. We walked along the base for about 30 minutes before deciding to split up and take different routes. Half of us went up the forest side, and my half went up the face of the mountain. We found a small trail that led to the base of the one of the steepest hills I've ever encountered. The walk up was miserable. We would walk for 2 minutes and then rest for 5. It didn't ever seem like we were making any progress and was really depressing, not to mention the sun beating down on our backs (which led to me getting severely sunburned). The last stretch of the hike up was the hardest but once we reached the top it was immediately clear how worth it it was. The view was amazing, and i wish i knew exactly how high we had climbed. But we could see for miles. After hanging out on the summit for a while, recovering from the hike, we realize there was some sort of road that led to the top that we overlooked. Which made us all feel like idiots.

As is natural, we got bored and decided to explore some more. We walk down a little bit then decide to bush whack down the other side of the mountain in hopes that it would lead us to the onsen below. We could not have been more wrong. We ended up taking the most perilous way down the mountain, stepping over fallen trees and going through thorns, avoiding hornets whose venom melts the flesh of human skin. When we got to the bottom we realized there was no where else to go, and had to make our way UP the mountain again, this time through the thick of the forest. We all kinda took our own route up, and even though we were in the shade it was unbearably hot. I ended up in some tall grass, and eventually came across a boar's nest (it was either that or a deer's bed, but boar sounds cooler). In it i found an antler which was pretty cool. We finally reach the top AGAIN, and make our way back down AGAIN this time following that road we found which evidently lead us right to the onsen. I thought it was funny how throughout the day, my definition of "passable" got broader and broader to a point where i didn't even consider if there was a place to put my feet. We hung in the onsen for a while and were able to relax and i could nurse my sunburn in the cold one. Again, relaxing and enjoying the little things about Japan that make it so great.

As a result of this hike, my legs were all scratched up, i had to throw away the pair of socks i wore that day and i had to wash my shoes, which ended up taking about 2-3 days. But overall worth it, and the fact that i have been able to really enjoy the great outdoors since i have gotten here is really making me appreciate some of the great things Beppu has to offer.

Until Next Time,
M@

When I Had to Beat Up a Girl...Or Maybe It Was The Other Way Around?

2010-05-05T02:07:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

So the month turns May and the weather here is finally taking a turn for the better. A stark contrast from the bipolar attitude it had all through April. It has been consistently sunny and warm (as opposed to the 40 and densely foggy) which is a much appreciated turn.

As it turns out, Wednesdays have become my be athletic days. Starts off with a game of football. I was able to recruit a bunch of Japanese kids as well as non-Japanese and teach them the great delicacy known as american football. At first they were skeptical and took some convincing to get them to come play. But once we started everyone was in agreement that they were having fun. Some of the Japanese kids turned out to not be too bad when it came to playing and actually did really well considering they were mostly first timers. At one point we even had a little crowd in the bleachers.

From there it I go to play basketball, and due to the fact that i SUCK at basketball i act as point guard and just try to dish the ball to the guys who can actually play. After basketball i go inside and face some asians in ping pong. Which usually ends up with me getting embarrassed. Although every now and then i'll come away with the W.

Then, the 2nd best time of the day...AIKIDO. I was really excited to join aikido in the first place because i wanted to learn a japanese martial art and aikido seemed like the best option in terms of speed of the sport and relative small size of the club (Judo-60 people, Karate-80 people, etc.) with a majority of the club being boys and about 4 or 5 girls. The purpose of aikido is to subdue your enemy without injuring him or her. So we practice a variety of moves and then practice on each other. Some moves are more severe than others, in that sometimes you are just redirecting a punch then twisting the arm but other times you need to stop someone's attack then throw them to the ground. Of course the one time we have a more severe move to practice i get paired up with one of the girls. I immediately consider what is about to happen to me...I am either gonna get embarrassed or be forced assert my dominance and subdue her. As it turns out i ended up with the former. This one particular move we needed to stop a "katana" attack then grab the enemy by the shoulder, spin them around, fix their neck in the groove between your forearm and biceps then throw them to the ground and put them in an arm bar until they tap. So before i knew i was pretending to attack this girl, i was going at half speed so i didnt surprise her but she didn't seem to pick up on that and proceeded to stop my attack, spin me, and throw me to the ground...i never felt so emasculated. I know it was just practice and i know no one else was watching but i felt like everyone just saw what happened. Once i was subdued i didn't want to take my face off the mat because i feared everyone would just laugh at me for getting my butt kicked by a girl. After i got up i had to do it again, and again, and again... until we switched. "Sweet Revenge," i thought. It was finally my turn to show everyone im not a pansy. But when push came to shove i was hesitant, and stopped the attack, did the spin, but couldn't bring myself to throw her to the ground. After a few tries i finally did it but felt so bad despite her countless demonstrations to the contrary. We had to do it a few more times and each time i felt worse and worse. Then finally it was time to take a break. At the end of practice, we had to work on our rolls. Before i knew it people were having a contest to see who could jump and roll over the most people lying on the ground. Of course i stepped in and ended up jumping and rolling over 6 people lying in a row. I definitely earned some man points for that because no one else would try 6 people. So i felt better after getting beaten up by a girl.

From there i went to the badmitton club practice that was taking place in the gym. I forgot i was in Asia where everyone takes their club sport REALLY seriously. So i walked in rusty thinking i could at least hold my own...i was wrong. I got dominated my first 2 games scoring 4 points total in both (2 each game). Once i got warmed up though i played another guy who i eventually beat then quit after my win lest i get embarrassed any more.

So throughout the days of Wednesday i managed to be extremely active which is a good thing i think. It is also helping me learn how to talk some smack in japanese which is kinda cool too. But i think they like the fact that they have an American who is interested in their club. it is mutually beneficial that i go to as many activities as i can, that way the Japanese can learn english and i can learn japanese and various other languages that are spoken here.

For those who are interested about my school work and classes can keep reading, for those who do not care i won't hold it against you if you stop reading here. This last week started out with 1 presentation and 3 midterms and a 1,000 word essay due in the first 2 days of the week. I aced the presentation and then was presented with an obstacle...a "quiz." i put quiz in quotations because the "quiz" that was given was worth 20% of our grade aka as much as the midterm but our teacher just called it something different. I was under the impression that the "quiz" was going to be 8 multiple choice questions, because that is what the teacher said it would be, so that seemed like a rational thing to assume. The quiz turned out to be 15 essay questions on topics we barely covered in class. I did my best then went home and cried (not really). I did better than some who just put their names on it and turned it in. Tuesday, i turned in my essay then prepared to take a midterm that i think i did well on (thanks to my cramming/pressure methods of studying). I have one more presentation tomorrow and a midterm on Friday that i am hoping i can do well on.

Until Next Time,

M@

"BAIKINGU"

2010-04-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

This past week has been one of relative relaxation. However, Classes are starting t pick up and in all 6 of my classes we are assigned a group presentation. And in all 6 of my classes i was chosen to be the "group leader" which is humbling and flattering but overwhelmingly exhausting. The good thing is I have outstanding group members in all my groups and hopefully i can effectively pool all our talent and create an outstanding final presentation.

In my down time I have found myself frequenting the wild onsen and exploring its immediate surroundings. There is something that is so calming and peaceful being out in the wild and just sitting in a natural hot tub. Earlier this week me and some friends discovered a new onsen (after getting on the wrong bus and ending up on the wrong side of the mountain and had to get off at some African Safari)in the same area. This one is a little more exclusive and is surrounded by high walls of sulfurous rock on all sides. And the sides that aren't are the trees of the forest. It was really cool climbing to this new onsen because the ground surrounding it you could literally feel the hot rocks, and if you weren't careful you could burn yourself. Which added a little adventure (speaking of adventure, the rest of this day ended up being quite an adventure. one that has no relevance to the topic of this post. so if you would like to hear more about i will address these concerns on an individual basis). Of course there was the ever present stink of rotten eggs but I quickly got used to it and just enjoyed my surroundings. Off in the not so far off distance is a mountain, the highest in the region, and i plan on climbing it within the next few weeks.

Quick comment on Japanese culture: I have found that in Japan when one sneezes, no body says, "bless you" in return. Which was an interesting concept to me and i find myself holding my tongue after someone sneezes lest i look like a freak who likes to comment on people who sneeze. On the flip side of that coin i feel like a social obligation has been lifted off my shoulders and hopefully will soon not even have to consciously not comment on people sneezing.

Lastly, i have officially started Aikido which is a Japanese martial art. So far i am really enjoying learning new ways to subdue an attacker other than my brute strength and ravishing charm. But on a serious note, i am always learning new things in terms of the martial art itself as well as different things in the language of Japanese. I have found that the Japanese language is extremely contextual, and there is only so much i can gain from a book telling me what to say. In fact, i conducted research and found that 4 out of 5 people in my study would consider themselves below average Japanese speakers. That is until they drink a little "liquid courage" as i like to call it (aka sake) at which point the number drastically decreases to only 1 out of 5. This theory has been applied and proven multiple times at the various "nomihoudai"'s i have engaged in. And my research concludes that people are more willing to put themselves out on a limb to talk in Japanese when they have had a few cups of sake. Which begs the question, if one made a conscious effort to talk to as many people in Japanese as they could, how much more of the language would they learn in a given amount of time? I submit that the answer would be exponentially higher than that of a person who would rather keep to themselves and take only what a text book has to offer.

PS. I have recently discovered an "all you can eat" meat restaurant which i have in fact just returned from. Funny enough the Japanese call this "all you can eat" style; "VIKING." As if one needed to pillage and plunder and wear horns on their head in order to enter. Silly.

Also, more new pics at:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3773651&id=505754940#!/album.php?aid=169157&id=505754940

OR

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3773651&id=505754940#!/album.php?aid=163055&id=505754940

Until Next Time,

M@

PPS- HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY MITCHELL!!

WILD Onsen

2010-04-18T05:29:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

The past week has been full of opportunities for me to embrace and appreciate all the intricacies of the Japanese culture. Sure, it sounds cliche but i truly feel like i am learning a great deal of the language and culture.

As i mentioned before Beppu is famous for its geothermal hot spots. so throughout the mountain you will see pillars of steam rising from the trees. these hot spots can be channeled to heat water and these naturally heated pools of water are called "onsens." there are many onsens in the Beppu region most of which are relatively inexpensive. but there was a quiet whisper of a rumor going around of a "wild onsen," meaning no cost, just in the middle of the forest. however, there was a rite of passage that one must go through to experience said onsen; a treacherous journey through the mountains to be deemed worthy of experiencing the fine natural riches of the onsen. Now some of you may be wondering, what is so great about an onsen? the answer is simple, onsens are said to have healing powers both physically and spiritually. go here and get restored and after a long week of classes i was very interested.

Myself and a group of students decide to venture to this wild onsen and see how we fare against mother nature. we had to take a short bus ride (on the way saw a small army camp with military trucks, tents, and helicopters; these instruments of war are no longer there when we passed the site a day later. seems odd?) to get to the base of the particular mountain. as soon as i set foot off the bus i was met with the unmistakeable smell of sulfur and rotten eggs. which are a by product of the natural onsens. after adjusting, we started our trek up the side of a mountain. at first there were some roads that went uphill but it gradually turned to gravel and then just nothing. a small semblance of where a road could be was barely visible. going up the mountain lead to some fantastic views of the city and ocean. i've said it before and i'll say it again, its the same city, and virtually the same view, but it truly never gets old. we got to a point where there was a small valley and what looked like the remnants of a spillway/dam. it was here that we experienced the view in all its glory. after the short break we continued up the mountain and were soon confronted by a hill that was almost vertical... the final test. we had already been hiking for 1 hour. this was the final test of stamina and endurance. mother nature was laughing in our faces saying "baka no gaijin" but i was determined to get up the mountain so i lead the charge. i want to be frank with my readers, it was completely worth it. the onsen was everything you could imagine. literally in the middle of the woods. there were 5 pools total all at different heights. the water at the top (closest to the source) was the hottest. and it gradually got cooler as it went further down. there was also a "cold pool" off to the side. when we got there we had to ask the "senpai" (senpai means senior or elder) if we were allowed to enter. this is basic etiquite for the wild onsen. then had to ask if it would be ok if the girls and some of the guys wore bathing suits because they were uncomfortable with being nude, which is the norm at any onsen wild or not. after some convincing he said it would be ok. after a while the guys who were in their bathing suits seemed hesitant to get in at all. but after those of us who didn't care much for bathing suits or looking funny got done egging on the ones that weren't they eventually caved, and peer pressure prevails again. in a good way. it was interesting to see how the japanese were probably thinking how weird it was that there were some guys wearing bathing suits. an interesting contrast of cultures.

I took the opportunity to practice some japanese. you'd be surprised how being in a naked in a tub with 3-4 other men will really bring down yours/their walls. before i knew it we were all talking and laughing and having a blast. turns out i know more japanese than i thought. which was an interesting revelation. one guy i was talking to was making a joke about how he has 6 girlfriends. at first i laughed and thought he was kidding, but as time went on he kept mentioning them...makes me think he might have been telling the truth. after a while some sweedish tourists about 20-23 in age came by and before you knew it we were talking politics and getting peoples inputs/opinions on america. in one pool i was making my way out to go to the cold pool to cool off when one of the other guys in there touched my chest and said "very good body." naturally i was flattered, but i thought this was something very odd to say to a naked man as he is walking by you. but i have found that japanese people, although sometimes very reserved, are very forward too when i comes to somethings. while in the cold pool i was photographed by a man who seemed good intentioned. but my "good" body will most likely end up somewhere on the internet. a small price to pay though. before we left me and a few others noticed a group of 4 men cooking on the upper section. we were all really hungry so a few of us walked by (now clothed) and pretended to be interested in something near them. and waited for them to offer us food. which they did. the food was so-so. i found out i ate some kind of intestines, and some other type of raw fish. but on the whole it wasn't too bad. it was the first thing i had eaten all day.

It was now after dark and we need to to get ourselves down the mountain now. and it was every bit as scary as you would imagine it to be. especially the pass where there is maybe 5-10 feet of road and then a steep hill... that part was scary in the light, 10 times worse in the dark. when we got to the spill way we went out on it again to marvel at the eye candy God had prepared for us that night. the crescent moon was just peaking over the mountain. the lights of Beppu were in full bloom. and it was like someone had painted a picture and said, here matt, enjoy this. i tried to take a picture but no camera would have been able to capture the majesty i was feasting on with my eyes. we got back to the bus stop and found out it was a 45 minute wait for the next bus because it was the weekend. fortunately, i was able to hitch hike a ride back to school. a nice man who had recently visited san francisco picked me and two others up. when we got in the car he was listening to Madonna, which made me laugh. we ended up talking and it turns out he owns a karate dojo in Oita (which is the neighboring city). we talked about music for a while and he asked what music i liked. i thought about which american artist he would know and came up with michael jackson. when i said this he got really happy and started searching for something frantically in his console area. he pulled over and found what he was looking for...a Michael Jackson CD. he popped that bad boy in and we drove home listening to the likes of Billy Jean and Thriller. we offered to give him some money for the ride, but the only compensation he would accept was a picture of us on his cell phone. we happily obliged him.

I have no divisive social commentary for this week. most of it was depleted in my classes which are turning out to be more interesting than i had initially thought. But tomorrow i will have been here for exactly one month. and i am saddened by this thought because i already feel like my time is running out so fast. i wish this were not the case but i fear that time will continue to slip by exceptionally fast. it might be all the karaoke i am doing, or all the people that i keep meeting. but who really knows? not many pictures for this time around but i hope you will continue to read and follow me on my journey.

Until Next Time,

M@

Classes Start...Finally

2010-04-12T10:38:00.001-07:00

Hello Friends,

This past weekend brought with it a slew of hilarity. Friday night, the local bar/ club was hosting a welcome back to school party for all the students. naturally, i was curious, and decided to check it out. i found out about a pre-party party and was invited by the host. of course i accept and ended up in down town beppu before night fall. Once at the Beppu Tower (the bar/club) i noticed some glaring differences between the american club/bar and the Japanese; namely in the way everyone dances. The music is the same in both countries, the participants are of the same age in both countries, but the dancing could not be any different from each other. In america you see sloppy people pair off and grinding up on each other in a very promiscuous and highly inappropriate manner. however, the stark contrast arises in this very element of the "club" atmosphere," because in Japan people gather in circles and everyone has their own individual dance space that is definitive and unimposed upon by other dancers. in these (we'll call them "dance circles") everyone is dancing as a group but performing a very individual "boogey" (would be the best way to describe their dancing). so throughout the entire dancefloor see circles of individuals dancing independent of the other members of the circle yet still moving as a group. Just a fun lil nugget i discovered.

Monday was the first day of classes! and i never thought i could be happier about the start of classes than i was today. it sounds strange but as some of you might recall the last few weeks have been a purgatory of sorts and to finally have something definite was a much welcomed assuagement from the hardship of being in between class and break. As i was getting ready to depart for my first class i found myself in my usual state of haste when it comes to getting to and from classes. always rushing to get to where i need to go and doing my best to keep up with everything going on. All day i i was trying to assimilate to the pace of japanese college life with classes in full swing. taking notes, being attentive, participating, etc. Apparently so much so that i was picked to be a group leader in my second class of the day. and was later called a "really good orator" (something i've never been called before). but every time it seemed like i was always moving faster than the japanese students. and after further investigation i have concluded the following:
The Japanese student invests 85-95% of his or her life to their academics in the first 18 years of their lives. From the time they can walk they are going to cram school on the weekends. After elementary school they are moved on to the middle schools that will prep them for their entrance exams to get into the competitive high schools. All the while balancing their clubs, extracurriculars, and weekend cram school. So while the typical American high schooler might spend his or her weekend watching TV, drinking, living care free because high school is a breeze their Japanese counter parts are studying and doing homework, not for their regular school, but for their extra school that they voluntarily attend on the weekends. Not to mention the summer vacation that they don't have. or the extra school day squeezed in every other saturday. people wonder why our generation of students are lacking in certain areas of academics. i don't think its because we're not motivated or because " Americans are fat and stupid" but its because our educational system is flawed. thats why countries like japan are so much more advanced in educational subjects like math and science. sure, some people write it off as the "asian stereotype" (aka all asians are good at math, can play violin and piano really well etc.) but the fact remains that while we sit here and crack jokes they are out changing the global market for technology. and finding alternate energy sources that are sustainable good for the environment. even so called "informed" americans, (you know the ones in class who always raise their hands and try and dispute the point the professor is trying to make when is clearly not open for discussion but they keep trying anyway) are more worried about what color underwear Obama wears than actually what effects his policy and decisions are having on our everyday life.

--- but i digress, the point here is that the educational system in america is in need of some revamping if we intend to stay competitive in the global economy. our generation has been laughed at and mocked and labeled as not caring or only wanting to drink and play video games. its not our fault, we are a product of our environment in this particular case. but the education system in america needs to evolve with the times. summer vacation was implemented when america was an agricultural country, and the citizens needed all the help they could get on the farm to help harvest... last i checked a good majority of america is no longer living on a farm. therefore the making the need for a 3-4 month summer vacation anachronistic and a virtual waste of time. america need to get its head out of the sand and see that the world is progressing without us. too long we've considered ourselves the best, and its gotten to the point where we expect to be the best but don't expect to do it ourselves. and it starts with the education we receive. we can't be expected to compete in an ever shrinking world when the entire student population takes a 3 month vacation. the gap is getting bigger and we seem to be on the losing end.

Japanese university, seems to me to be much slower paced than that of American universities. This is because they work so much of their lives to get to university, that once they do its time for them to relax and learn about being independent. i was told by a someone with great knowledge of the japanese mentality in college that when japanese companies begin hiring the students they will not look at the courses they took, but more at the clubs and groups they participated in and what role they played in the group. which was an interesting concept to me because you would think that more hinged on the class selection and performance in the classroom. as i dug deeper i found that the disparage between american and japanese classes are best compared to a bodies of water. american classes are short but go very deep, whereas the japanese go very wide but very shallow across a broad range of subjects. which makes sense that the japanese want a general understanding of all fields before delving into the specifics of each. but the difference between this and your everyday liberal arts school in america is that because these students were so ardently committed to their education in the earlier years it is easier for them to understand college level concepts.

in short, the japanese college system takes on the characteristics of senior year of high school in america. just coasting through, having fun and doing things you love within the clubs they join. i am looking forward to my classes and hope i can continue to broaden my global perspective and have a good time while doing it.

Until Next Time,

M@

Monkey Business

2010-04-09T01:14:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

So this whole week had been passing unbearably slow. Like I said before, stuck between not having classes, but still not having a full break. However, that changed yesterday much to my delight because there is now a full weekend agenda.

It started out on Thursday, when i was coming back from the health clinic I saw a group of international students getting ready to head out. I inquire as to where they are going and find out they are in fact on their way to Monkey Mountain. I was able to tag along and ended up having a blast. On the way to the mountain we drove right along the ocean, and it was a clear day so it was a beautiful time to be near the water. When we got to the mountain i noticed a monkey in the woods almost immediately. He was just in the woods all alone so i did my best to survey the trees above to make sure there wasn't a monkey ambush waiting to spring on me and got close to take a picture. As i progressed deeper into the forest i couldn't help but let my inner child nostalgia come out as i thought, "if i were a Pokemon trainer, this is what a Pokemon jungle would look like." But then my thoughts progressed to the present and i recalled the woman who got mauled by a chimpanzee and went on Oprah to show the damage to her face. There were signs all around that said, "don't feed, touch, look into the eyes of the monkeys" and my personal favorite "don't make fun of the monkeys." We came to a clearing and found a huge monkey playground where monkeys were just running free. They would literally go right by your leg and i had to do my best not to step on the slow ones lest i incite their wrath and they attack. Luckily that didn't happen the monkeys were just playing and squeaking and picking ticks off each other to eat. The longest chain of "tick picking" as i like to call it was 4. It was really cool to see this in real life up close.

After a few minutes i heard a major commotion in the center of the pen...FEEDING TIME!!!! All the monkeys went crazy to get their share of the food. It was incredible seeing their red butts, face, and long red nipples run by in a red blur to get to the grub. A monkey riot soon broke out and fights between monkeys started popping up everywhere. I witness multiple brutal attacks on certain monkeys, sometimes 5 ganging up on one, big monkeys throwing little monkeys by the head with their mouths, i watched as one monkey tried in vain to get away. He ended up being dragged by two bigger monkeys, i stared in horror but couldn't bring myself to look away when i noticed the monkey being dragged was soiling himself in fear. Literally urinating while being dragged away spraying his monkey urine everywhere.

This grisly scene got me thinking though...are we as humans so different? Is it really so hard to believe that we are descendants of these primal beasts? After seeing what i did in the monkey pen i have a hard time believing otherwise. But this is a discussion better left for another time... I managed to get some great pictures with the monkeys but not without getting some dirty from them. The rest of the experience was enjoyable and the monkeys just sat in their trees, defecated, and chucked their feces at one another. The experience on the mountain of Monkeys is one i won't soon forget. But afterwards the group went to the mall, and i was fortunate enough to get some cheap delicious sushi off the carousel. Went to the beach to relax and watch the sunset but found it was a cloudy night and couldn't see a whole lot. But a good day nonetheless. Once back at AP house i hosted some of the international students in my room for a great time of community building and culture awareness. It was fun seeing all the "gaijins" mixing with the native "nihonjins." Just a big ol' American style mixer.

猿時間,

M@

PS i wish i could put up more pics here but check out some more here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163055&id=505754940&l=631b49d508

Hot Spots

2010-04-06T03:38:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

I apologize for not posting in a while. In all honesty there hasn't been a lot to tell about. I'm in a purgatory so to speak with not having classes but not quite being on a full break. there are orientation events scheduled almost every other day which hinders one from leaving campus for an extended period of time. The most recent of which was a health check up for all international students. We all had to get up at 8am and take a shuttle down to the hospital. Once we got there i thought this would be an all day endeavor. much to my surprise i was wrong. they put us through about 10 different tests including TB shots and drew blood among others. They were so efficient i was almost overwhelmed. i suppose i am just used to getting to a hospital, waiting for 4 hours to talk to a doctor for 2 minutes. But i was done in a half hour here. and they finished about 100 students in about a 2 hours span. I don't think people give the japanese health system enough credit sometimes. because they have their act together. and i can't imagine them being too bad when it comes to getting people on their way. on the way back from the hospital a lot of the geothermal hot spots were going crazy today, so you could see the steam all over the place. which was really neat passing them just on the side of the road. one down side to it though is the smell of sulfur that usually comes along with it.

furthermore, i've been playing some basketball lately. i am not particularly good, but its a good way to meet some new folks. i should stop judging books by their cover because it gets me no where. i found myself on a court with a bunch of seemingly pedestrian asians, who didn't look the least bit athletic (a couple in jeans, one guy in loafers, another with thick glasses, etc.). so i thought to myself, i'm way more athletic than them...how wrong i was. these kids ran around and made me look like a chump. it was a definite eye opener. and made me reevaluate my life.

anyways, posting some pictures from the last few weeks. enjoy the pics, hope they do the place justice.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163055&id=505754940&l=631b49d508

Until Next Time,

M@

God's Great Earth

2010-03-31T21:02:00.001-07:00

Hello Friends,

I spent most of today and yesterday just meeting tons of new people from all over the world and getting acclimated to my new school. i truly don't think i will ever get used to the view and my surroundings here. the landscape is absolutely breath taking, and i hardly use that word. i feel like im not doing it justice by trying to describe it with mere words. the rolling mountains and view of the sea are make me sit in awe of God's great earth. i spent literally 15 minutes just looking out and around trying to take it all in. i attempted to take a picture but A. my camera is garbage and B. even the best camera wouldn't be able to capture the majesty of what i was seeing.

Tonight i found myself, along with my new friend Brad and his friend from Oita, exploring the outskirts of Beppu. We drove around and eventually wound up at an Ancient Castle in the suburbs of Beppu. There was a park and garden surrounding it with big obelisks and statues as well as a shrine which was dark and ominous. the sun was just setting when we got to the castle gate, and we realized it was closed. But just like any other group of curious foreigners in the 20's we scaled the wall and broke into the Castle courts. it was difficult to see but around it there were what looked like graves or some sort of burial grounds, marked with little statues and other stones. we made our way to the just as the moon was peaking up over the horizon, and things got kinda spooky. we were taking pictures and exploring ways to get into the castle but found none. instead we turned our focus to the full moon on the horizon that was tinted a reddish orange and shone so bright in the night time sky.

I felt like i was watching a time lapse from atop this hill, with an ancient castle at my back, watching the moon slowly climb higher from behind its heavenly curtain. Breath taking. The way the moonlight reflected off the water was almost too perfect to be real. it seemed like an over achieving, detail oriented, graphic design artist just spent the hours creating this scene and just decided to put it on display tonight. further proof for me to discredit the big bang theory. no way could this scene have been an accident. my friends were equally amazed by the scene, again it seemed TOO perfect to be real, and began snapping pictures of the full moon. but i stood and gazed just trying to burn the image into my mind because there is no way a picture or my words could have done it justice.

On the way back to school we stopped to explore a traditional japanese town/area of a town. it was cool to see that so much from the past has been preserved in this little corner of the earth. this part of japan seems to have been kept in a time capsule over the years and unmarred by the western influences over architecture, lifestyle and the likes. Once back at school i we proceeded to indulge and relax with some sake and music. how sweet it is

落ち着く

M@

Freshman Year All Over Again

2010-03-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

Today i have finally arrived in Beppu, Japan where i will be residing for the remainder of my time in Japan. Its already been a busy and exciting time and I can already tell its going to be great living here.

The trip from Yokohama to Beppu was relatively uneventful except for the argument i had with the baggage check lady who was being difficult, and for the time when i almost boarded the completely wrong train and would have ended up on the other side of the prefecture had i stayed on. But with those exceptions i made my way south to school.

I realized quickly the Beppu is very different from Yokohama. Looking out the window of the plane you can see mountains in all directions and in the other direction you see the ocean. This is a stark contrast to the urban scenery in the greater Yokohama area that i have always been accustomed to. Oita (the airport i flew in to) is a small 5 terminal airport. with only 2 baggage claim belts. Right outside the gates i saw a Japanese woman holding up a sign that read "Matthew George, APU" needless to say i was flattered by this gesture and made my way to the shuttle. I made new friends with international students who happen to be from Korea and we all travelled together to the school.

On the way i discovered just how exclusive my new school is. it literally sits atop a mountain that is overlooking the city and the ocean. its absolutely stunning. after checking in i suddenly got a very familiar feeling... i felt like a freshman again. you know that feeling when you see people and you greet them but don't really know them yet, or the feeling of not knowing anyone but your roommate and RA. i find it very enlightening to see this freshman perspective and not actually be one. i settled into my room and then was summoned to a floor meeting to meet the RAs and other residents. When it came time for the students to introduce themselves the RAs opened up the floor for people...after a long awkward pause i remembered "i'm in asia, where the timid are aplenty." so i did my American duty and raised my hand to volunteer to go first. Everyone loved the fact that i was american (rightfully so) and i think was even more taken aback that i speak Japanese as well. As people continued introducing themselves it became evident that there was a large Korean population present. And i noticed something, Koreans get to pick (or are assigned) a random common american name. i found it hilarious how a person name "Jun-sun-phu-tao-kim" could have their american name just be "Chris," this concept blew my mind and i intend to investigate further.

My roommate as it turns out is a freshman who speaks little english which will provide a good opportunity for me to work on my japanese. He brought some of his friends over and they thought i was the coolest thing since sliced bread (kakoii). of course this has become commonplace in my life, i still accept and embrace it.

I'll be honest the thing im looking forward to the most for tomorrow is the ofuro and exploring campus. tomorrow is just another arrival day for students so there are no classes or anything. The calm before the storm so to speak.

Until Next Time,

M@

Revalations, and Conspriacy?

2010-03-23T09:04:00.001-07:00

Hello Friends,

Today was my first day out in the city of Yokohama alone with out anyway of anyone reaching me via cellphone and without anyone actually knowing my whereabouts. And all day i couldn't help but feel i was forgetting something. I was in the fastest passenger elevator in the world when it occurred to me why i couldn't shake the feeling. i did not have a cell phone with me. over the years i have become accustomed to having that device in my left pant pocket all day everyday. and the fact i did not have it made me feel naked, exposed, vulnerable. i found myself walking around and constantly patting my pocket to see if it was there just out of habit. or i would feel the urge to text someone just because i was bored. when i realized. I am sick. i have an addiction to being connected and always able to communicate with someone by the touch of a button.

by the same token i feel liberated from technology (yes i realize the irony in saying that as i blog) by not having a cell phone. i don't need to worry about my mom calling and checking in every hour. or returning that text to someone who wants to do something that you don't really want to do. i can just come and go as i please and be able to honestly say "no i didn't get ur text".

as i was waiting for the crosswalk to change, i noticed a Toyota parked off to my left. and another on waiting for the light in front of me. then i realized I'M IN JAPAN. there are tons of toyotas on the road many of which are hybrids. in fact Japan has the most hybrid cars on the road in the world, mostly out of necessity, but nonetheless this fact made me wonder:

Japan has exponentially more Toyota hybrids on the road than America yet not one incident has been reported about the cars having trouble as they have in America. The Japanese are the most thorough and meticulous people around (not to stereotype but its the asian way) and for such a deadly mistake to get by them it sounds uncharacteristic. which made me think, Toyota is one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world. why only in America were there accidents such as the sticking accelerators and not anywhere else? sure some americans are just plain dumb, and probably shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car in the first place (see http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/22/driver-error-in-toyota-prius-investigation/?test=latestnews) but lets dig deeper. who are Toyota's competitors in America? GM. Ford. Chrysler. just to name a few. Who owns those car companies? THE U.S GOVERNMENT. i love america, and i have never been one for conspiracy theory. but the signs cannot be ignored. the U.S government needs to create jobs and start having people buy american. but they just have not been able to compete since the bailout. so they resort to a little mudslinging like they did in the 80's, fabricate the illusion of malfunctioning Toyotas and the people start hate Japanese products and buy American. i'm not sayin anythin i'm just sayin...

Some food for thought,

M@

Fish Out of Water

2010-03-22T22:20:00.000-07:00

hello friends,
the past few days have been wizzing by in a whirlwind like fashion. starting out at the airport where i left my mom i found myself alone in this big world. it was a very freeing feeling. but also a little unnerving. not that i ever get nervous but if i did it would have been then. but the more pressing issue at hand was the 15 hour plane ride in which i was about to embark upon and i still found myself in a state of relative disbelief that i am actually about to leave. this trip was has always been 3 months away, 2 months away, 2 weeks away, 3 days away, yet there i was sitting in the terminal about to leave. of course with my luck i ended up in the section with the child who would never stop crying or yelling. but with the exception of that the flight was enjoyable. i caught up on some movies and such as the blindside, the informant, law abiding citizen, and other movies whose titles escape me now.

once in japan i took a series of trains to my grandfather's house and after a few quick hellos i proceeded to pass out and not wake up until midday the next day. that whole day ended up with me being just a vegetable as my body tried to adjust to the jet lag (Japan is 13 hours ahead of NJ). for dinner my grandfather made a stew that was very appropriate for an 80 year old man who has health concerns and wants to eat right. but this dish was not for me. of course i ate some and proceeded to make my own lil meal afterwards. the up side to dining with him was the sake he "insisted" i drink.

the next day was a very special day. it was a day in which we mourn and remember the deceased in the family. in our case we remembered our late grandmother who passed away about 12 years ago. this is a very important tradition in japanese families for them to remember their dead and celebrate their lives periodically after they have passed. so my grandfather and i pick up one of my cousins and go over to the place where the ceremony is being held (a short train ride away). picture a funeral parlor decorated for a wake, but instead of a bunch of people mourning one dead, it is a bunch of families mourning their respective dead relatives. it was here that i had my first "i'm a fish out of water" experience. as i got in the elevator i realized that i am a full head and shoulders taller than everyone else. and as soon as i got out there was a camera guy who would not leave me alone because i was sticking out like a sore thumb.

after the ceremony went to my aunt and uncle's house where we stayed for the remainder of the evening. Fumiya "insisted" i drink with him so again i spent another night catching up and drinking sake like a wholesome Japanese man. its a good feeling.

次回までに

M@

The Beginning

2010-03-10T22:40:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends,
As many of you may already know i have been adamantly against the idea of micro blogging for a good portion of my life due in large part to the fact that i feel that it is the undoing of the fabric of american society, in that there are so many people out there who have opinions and just don't know how to filter those opinions into rational thoughts. thus inundating us with the mindless banter of seemingly unintelligent beings who undeservingly call themselves americans exercising their first amendment right of free speech. but in my frustration with the blogging world i found myself to be severely myopic in the sense that i did not allow myself to see the good that could be done through blogging. that being the case it has been made clear to me that in order for me to pass judgement on such a popular tool for communication i must first experience said tool and make draw a conclusion based on my own observations.
So, in the coming days, weeks, months, years i will do my best to update those who are interested on the happenings of my life. i hope that i will not bore with the mundane facets of the world, but intrigue with the exhilaration that is my life.
In 9 days time i will be departing my home state of New Jersey and setting my sights on living in the "Land of the Rising Sun" or more affectionately known as Japan. Through this blog i hope to interest my followers by helping them live vicariously through me and my adventures and enter into a realm of possibilities and unknown. mystery and intrigue. while providing riveting prose in which one will hardly be able to look away. save for that last piece i will do my best make all these things come true. i hope everyone will enjoy.

Until next time,

M@