New Zealand Adventures & Adventures in Life: March 2005

Julian and HSR at the buried village

It's a monster!!!

Lake Aniwhiwera (this is where TAL got his fish)

Lake Aniwhake

Cake.... it wasn't as good as it looks :(

The birthday bash (who's that weirdo in the background?)

At the waterfall in the buried village

Waikite homegrounds

Easter Weekend

On Easter Sunday Tim, Julian, Steve and I all went on a little road trip to Whatane ( a little beach town). We saw much of the Bay of Plenty and it was beautiful. We had a small tornado that came through the Bay of Plenty earlier in the week and we could see the evidence of it all. We saw trees snapped in two and saw a huge tree that was completely uprooted along with the grass underneath the tree. We made it to Whatane and took a short walk through the town. Then we moved on to the boys main goal of the trip....to catch a fish. Tim decided to buy a spinning rod of his own, so as we drove back from Whatane we stopped at all the fishing spots along the way. The first spot was a crowded spot, where most were sea fishing...so we kept on going. The second spot was a beautiful little lake right above a dam. It wasn't a great spot for fishing, but was a beautiful spot for a picnic. We ate some fresh fruit that we bought a fruit stand, fished a little and watched some water skiiers. The next spot was a little stream. When we arrived at the spot their was alot of commotion because their were at least 25 cows under the bridge and a horse running loose on the road. We got out of the car and tried some fishing with no luck, the only thing I got was a whole bunch of bug bites on my ankles. The final spot we stopped was at a dam. Tim and Steve were pretty tired of fishing, but Julian had a good feeling about the place. So he convinced Tim to have one last shot at fishing for the day. That is when Tim caught his first NZ fish and it was the biggest one anyone in the group had caught yet. A picture will be on it's way.
On Monday, I had the day off work and so we had another look at a few cars, played a game of tennis with our flatmates, went down to a local restaurant to get a piece of "Easter cake" ( just some really good chocolate cake), then went to see a movie (Meet the Faulkers) and feasted on Tim's smoked fish for dinner and finished the night with a couple games of cards.

Celebrate good times, come on!

Saturday was a celebration that will last throughout the year. First, the Jackson house celebrated two birthdays. Joanna, Mike's daughter, turns 24 on April 3rd, while Tim, Heather's partner, turns the quarter of a century mark (25 yrs old). The party was a small gathering of close friends and turned from dinner party to bonfire singing and merryment. After a few drinks, Julian pulled out the guitar and started singing songs and everyone joined in! From Hey Jude to Wild Thing, the night was enjoyed by all.
Earlier that day... Tim played his second game with Waikite (remember pronounceed why-kitty). For Waikite, it was there first home game in 10 years. The field had been deemed unplayable because of a huge ditch and some holes and hard spots, but after lots of money and man hours the field was repaired and this is the first year the team could play on the home grounds. The pictures will come but there are two pitches with a huge squash/club house in the middle. It is one of the nicest club houses in NZ almost the size of a ballroom inside one bar. There were about 100 people out for the first game on home grounds in 10 years... and what a game it was. Waikite versus last years BOP (Bay of Plenty) premiership men's champions, Whakatane Marist (pronounced Fack-a-ta-ne). A big game for the first home game, but the Waikite boys gave them a game! After holding them scoreless for 60 minutes of the game, the marists only scored 2 desparation tries while Waikite scorced 4 tries with 2 penality kicks. End score- 36-12. A huge upset in the BOP prims. To top it off, Jim Love and Daryl Shelford (coaches at the acadmey and 'rugby experts' on a panel who picks the winner of games in the paper) picked Whakatane Marist to win! They both had a laugh and told me that they did NOT pick us to win but they wished me good luck (not to get hurt or mauled). Icing on the cake of winning... and the cherry on top of the cake. Tim got man of the match! Rather than getting free drinks all night they gave me 20 dollars. The old men from the club have a nickname, Timmy Whakamoto (remember 'wh' pronounced F). Whakamoto is the team fauna (fauna is the clan or family coalition that all the guys are from). 2 birthdays, a win on the home grounds, upsetting Jim and Daryl's weekly rugby picks, man of the match, and a party to remember. Celebrate good times, come on!

Look at that rainbow trout!

not so buried village

Why kitty?!

TAL is playing for a rugby team in the Rotorua premiership division. There are 3 club divisions in NZ. Men's senior B, senior A, and premiers. The prims (as they call it) is composed mainly of players trying to move up in rugby. The team we played this weekend, Whakakawera or Whaka, had 6 players from the NPC side in the area. NPC is the national provical championships which is territorial competitions. The NPC is the platform from the international team aka the NZ All-Blacks.
The team's name is Waikite. It's pronounced Why-kitty. Like Y and then Kitty as in kitty cat. It's a 'family-based' team which means that the team is very tight. The team is centered around 3 families and all the players extend or are connected to these 3 families. The Millers, the Morrisons, and the McRae. I got on the team through a coach at the academy Ray Morrison. Also the head coaches wife is a Mcrae. The team is 100% maori guys who are all from NZ. An older (drunk) gentleman told me that I "am the first Chinese player on Waikite... EVER! Hahaha. Welcome to the team!" The team is the longest standing club in Rotorua dating back almost 100 years ago. It's rich in tradition and many of the players value that.

A fun filled weekend...

Hi there everyone… we love your comments and love that you are all keeping up with us over here in NZ. This weekend was a fun filled weekend. We started out of Friday afternoon we took the car we wanted to buy over to a mechanic that our homestay guy trusts to check out the car. He took it for a test drive and said it rides nice and is taken care of. But then they put it up in the air and basically tell us that they wouldn’t buy the car. We were pretty bummed out. It was a better looking car than we had looked at and we thought it rain better than all the rest, but that shows how much we know about cars. He said the cam belt needed replacement and that would cost 300-$400 bucks and once we open it up we might find more problems. So, we are back at square one and looking again.
On Saturday Tim had a game. Tim played really well. After the match they had a get together and had a hangi for dinner. A hangi is a type of Moari (the indigenous people of New Zealand) traditional cooking. All the meat,potatoes and kumura (NZ Sweet Potato) are put under the ground and cooked. The flavour is earthy and smoked. Tim enjoyed it, I thought the meat was okay, but the smoky flavour is not my favourite. It is a must try when coming to NZ though.
On Sunday, we went for a walk in the redwoods and went to the Buried Village. It was rather uneventful EXCEPT for a really cool waterfall (pics to come). The village was not so great. Therafter, Tim had his last day of work (that might have been skipped but that will come...). A Sunday night can be pretty slow in an Irish bar... So Heather, Steve, and Julian came down to celebrate and get some last free drinks. After a quiet beer, a triple of single malt whiskey, another triple single malt whiskey, and another triple single malt whiskey and a shot, they were pretty wasted. Heather had a nice raspeberry soda but enjoyed the night. Around 12, Tim had to drive him! It was rather fun though. Julian made a sailor hat and was singing Welsh songs around the bar while Steve feel his chair a few times. Good times!

110cm tall?

Rotorua

Haka

Timer photo!

That's a lot of food there Stevie-boy

Weekend update

This weekend we had a few familiar faces in Rotorua, a few rugby players from Santa Barbara (the Gruinons and Westmont) can into town to get some rugby and travel around New Zealand.
It was nice to see a familiar face and it was amazing to realize that we are actually on the other side welcoming them to our new home, Rotorua. On Friday the whole crew got a kick out of seeing Tim, the person that never drinks beer, serving beer at Henessey's. Tim has picked it up very quick and is now learning about the favorite local beers and local drinks, like the lemon squash?!!!
Yesterday Tim & I went up on the gonodola ride to the top of the hill above Rotorua to take a look at the view. We bought a year long pass to go up, in hopes to do the luge run down the hill. They had closed for the day when we went up.
We are still on our mission to find the best car for our money here. We think we might be coming nearer to the end of our search! We are looking forward to the new freedom we will have with a car, but know that the new freedom will probably cost us heaps more that sitting at home and finding things to do around home.

There she blows!

More fishing with no sucess

Really really hot mud

Whakawera thermal gardens

Look what I can do!

priceless

Bachelors of Arts, UCSB, Biology $40,000
Minor of Arts, UCSB, Antrhopology $10,000
Masters of Science, UCSB, Biology $25,000
Cerification of Personal Training $500
Working at a local Irish pub in NZ $11/hr.
Parental figures realization they
wasted $100,000 on education priceless

So I'm slipping down the slippery slope... BA to MS to CPT to working at Williams-Somona to working as a bar back. So TAL got a job to fill in some much need space in his bank account. On Monday, he got application for a job as a bar back at a local Irish pub called Hennecys in downtown Rotorua. On Tuesday he got a job offer, and on Wednesday he had his first day of work. The work is relatively simple... pour pints and mix drinks, work the register and clean up tables. Pretty close to studying evolutionary genetics.

A unique donation!

Today HSR was working away at the Sports Academy and she happened to get an interesting call. It was a call from one of the local students father and he wanted to donate a cow. He explained that he was going to kill it now and would bring it down tomorrow in quarters. Then HSR watched in amazement as one of the coaches tried to call all the local butcher shops in town trying to get someone that could clean up and package this cow for us. I can tell you that at HSR's two years at the Boys & Girls Club they received all types of calls about donations, but they never had a donation of a freshly killed cow! HSR suggested we use it as an Academy dairy cow....they didn't go for that. I don't think the Lions Tour would like to come to play rugby at the Rotorua International Stadium with fresh manure on the rugby pitch.