The Maori.

The most interesting part of New Zealand culture to me was the relationship between the government and the native population, the Maori. The Maori only came to New Zealand relatively recently (800 years ago or so) so the language across the islands has remained very similar across both islands historically. Additionally, trade relations and treaties between the Crown and the Maori have been taken very seriously, and relations continue to improve as New Zealand has given back some of the land taken by settlers and made big strides to respect and honor native culture.

As a result, it is relatively common to see commercials with Maori who have facial tattoos, and there are Maori souvenirs and artifacts all over both islands. Museum and informational signs were often in both Maori and English, with Maori listed first just as often as English. The names of most places we visited were Maori as well, which was very interesting. I can't imagine what it would be like if most of the city and landmark names in the US were their First Nation designations.

We spent a lot of time watching Maori TV as well. Every place we stayed had access to at least one Maori TV station, though most had two or more. We saw several cultural shows, which consisted of Maori song and dance, as well as some weapons and sparring displays. News reports were in Maori, or Maori with English interviews thrown in. It was very cool to watch news stories where everyone was expected to be bilingual, and there were no subtitles. It was also cool to have access to aboriginal television in all locations. We didn't spend as much time listening to Maori radio (we listened to NZ National, their version of NPR), but I noticed a couple Maori radio stations as well. I find the language really interesting and beautiful, and I may have just added another to my long list! I'm glad we were able to learn and experience so much of Maori culture.

TV, hotels, and reception desks.

Television

One of the things Katie and I noticed pretty early is that there are fewer TV channels than one would expect in hotels and B&B's here. Our first hotel in Auckland, the Hotel DeBrett, is rated the #1 hotel in the city. Also, they had somewhere around 7 channels on TV. That is not an exaggeration. The channels went something like: TV2, TV3, sports, sports, Maori TV, news, sports. In several other hotels, the selections were similar. We even remember several places where we had 12-15 channels, and three were repeat channels but an hour behind (Aussie time). On the one hand, you don't really go on vacation to watch TV in your hotel (or at least, one probably shouldn't?). On the other, everyone likes to unwind at the end of the night, especially on vacation! It made us really appreciate our television selection in the US. I can't wait to get back to Vanderpump Rules.

The other thing about TV in New Zealand: everyone was into The Bachelor New Zealand, including us. The vast majority of TV there seemed to be sports, followed by overseas programming (BBC, US channels, etc.). But TV3 was an internal national network, and they are all about The Bachelor NZ. I'm sad that we don't get it here!

Reception desks and accommodation check-in

I have never visited a place where hotel check-in was not 24 hours. Ever. Or, if I did, I didn't know it. But from the small B&B's to the nice hotels, almost every place we stayed had a last-call check-in time. On more than one occasion we had to forego side quests so we could make it to check-in before, say, 7:30 or 8 in the evening. Our very first hotel actually advertised that they have 24-hour check-in, which I found very confusing. As the trip went on, I appreciated it much more.

It's so hard to say goodbye.

Today was our last day in New Zealand. We started the morning by catching The Bachelor NZ online (finally!) and writing the final postcards. Then we packed up, left our bags with the concierge, and walked to the East Day Spa. There was some sort of big event at the convention center where the spa lives, so we had to walk around to the rear entrance, which turned out to actually be the front entrance of the spa itself.

We were ushered into their “chill room” where we signed registration forms and were given a host of different massage and oil options. I chose the deep tissue and lime/ginger scent; Katie opted for the light massage with jasmine oil. My masseuse was awesome. She was not skimpy on the pressure, at one point standing over me on the massage table and leaning down hard on my back. It was awesome. After the powerful massage, we also got 1 hour facial treatments. This was my first one, and it was really interesting. Katie asked me afterwards if I'd been snoring, and I had to admit that I dozed off a couple times, I was so relaxed. It was great. After the facials, we were treated to a Cleopatra-style milk bath for 30 minutes before we had to leave the spa. I was very sad to be leaving, but felt completely refreshed. I've decided I need to add spa treatments to my regularly scheduled program.

This was in the bathroom at the spa.

 After the spa, we dropped off our final postcards at a post office, then grabbed a quick snack before picking up our bags at the hotel. We took a cab to the ferry building, and caught the airporter bus to Auckland International. We checked our bags, made it through security, and did some souvenir shopping before getting dinner. I got a burger much larger than anticipated, and almost couldn't finish it! Imagine that.

Greeted by dwarfs in and out!

Now we're through second security and awaiting our boarding process. It has really been a great honeymoon and trip to New Zealand, and I wish it were longer. However, I'm much more interested in truly beginning our marriage, which is something worth looking forward to. As far as New Zealand goes, I still have a few supplemental posts coming along. I look forward to getting those up!

Kiwis in Auckland! (Actual kiwis!)

This morning, we dropped off the car at the airport and flew to Auckland. We were expecting a demanding budget airline experience, and were pleasantly surprised! The staff were very kind, and we didn't need to move any items from bag to bag. Katie's bag was just on the cusp at 19.9 kg! Perfection.

We enjoyed the free WiFi at the airport (sweet, sweet internet) before our short jaunt to Auckland. Once we landed, we picked up the airport-city bus, buying return tickets for our journey back tomorrow. The bus was actually pretty efficient, and dropped us off very close to our new hotel. We were able to check in right when we arrived, even though we were a couple hours early! We dropped off our bags, and then left to find Soul Bar & Bistro for some lunch. Soul was a fantastic decision. Katie had a great ham and truffle mac and cheese, and I had a tasty pan-fried hapuku. I also had two Spicy Mexican cocktails, since my driving duties are officially over on this trip. Woo!

The flowers were in the drinks when they arrived. I ate the purple one.

After lunch, we caught a cab across town to the zoo. We saw a fire ferret red panda named Pabu, hung out with the seals and penguins, and actually saw some kiwis! The nocturnal room was a quiet zone, but there was a child making a lot of noise when we arrived, so the kiwis were hiding. Fortunately, he and his mother left shortly after we got there, and not 30 seconds after they left, the kiwis came out. They're so much bigger than I thought they'd be! They were so cute, and we were incredibly excited to finally see them. It made my day.

Pabu!

The larger-than-anticipated kiwi!

We saw various other birds, as well as a serval, lions, hippos, and cheetahs, before we left the zoo. We caught a bus back to the ferry building, and walked around trying to find the major fan sports area near the water. Because of the triathlon happening downtown, we couldn't get across several major streets, so we decided to head back towards the hotel and post up in a bar along the way. We grabbed a couple pints at a cowboy-themed bar and caught about 75 of New Zealand's runs in the CWC final match. Finding a good point to leave, we came back to our hotel, and tried to book a spa treatment for the morning. Our hotel spa was full, so we called the East Day Spa at Sky City (which happens to be rated #1 on Tripadvisor in the city). They put us down for 11:45 tomorrow morning! That's very exciting - after all this vacationing, I could use some relaxing.

Katie and I ordered room service, and ate while watching Australia put a hurtin' on the Black Caps. Even though we were rooting for NZ, it was still a fun match to watch. Katie took a bath while I watched more of the match and did some make-up entries. I think she really enjoyed it, because she was in there a long time! I'm glad our hotel has such a nice tub for her. For my part, I'm glad to be caught up on the trip! I'm sad that tomorrow's the last day, but I know it will be fun. I'm looking forward to the spa and tying up some loose ends. New Zealand has been a great place to visit, and we're already talking about coming back. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.

The little cottage that couldn't quite.

Yesterday was our final day of long driving. Since I had sprained my ankle the night before trying to prove a flexibility point (which I clearly did not prove) I was glad for the clutch to keep my ankle moving. We had the continental breakfast at the hotel, packed the car, and headed to the post office to send our postcards before driving out of the city. We stopped at a gas station to fill up, and the attendant refused to let me pump the gas myself, though he seemed to leave everyone else alone. I wonder if Americans have trouble figuring out their pumps. (I do keep forgetting that you start by pumping here, and then go inside to pay afterwards. I'm surprised more people don't just steal gas.) With a long drive ahead of us, we were eager to get out of the city.

A few hours later, we stopped at a famous restaurant/market (the name of which, of course, I can't remember). The owners live in a castle on the grounds, and there are several shops along with the market. We really enjoyed the meal and the break from the road. I had a ginger ale called Gingerella which came in a beautiful bottle. Kiwis are very serious about their ginger ale and ginger beer. I've probably had more here than over the last year at home.

We explored a couple of the shops before getting back on the road. As we neared Christchurch, Katie and I realized that 1) our cottage did not have internet (how did I miss that at booking?) and 2) it was further than we thought. It was about 50 km past Christchurch, so we decided to get in and quickly get settled before heading back out for dinner. As we passed the city and neared our accommodations, we hit various pockets of traffic and construction, which significantly delayed our arrival to our cottage. I was speeding to make up time, which led to us fishtailing on a gravel road in Loburn. Fun!

Finally, we got to the cottage. We figured out how to open the gate, and drove between high trees into a clearing pretty far from the street where we met our hosts. They showed us to the cottage and greeted us with a bottle of wine (yay honeymoon!) before quickly squashing any hopes of us making it back to Christchurch for dinner. When I asked if there was a better way to drive back to Christchurch instead of taking the construction zone-ridden way we came, they just said we shouldn't go to Christchurch. However, they suggested a popular restaurant 10 minutes away in Rangiora called Capone's. Once we were settled, we drove out to Capone's, stopping outside the library to grab some time on their WiFi before going to dinner. Satisfied that things in California were getting along just fine without us, we walked over to Capone's, a high-end Italian restaurant. In the end, we were very grateful for our hosts' recommendation. The service was good, the food was great, and the setting was intimate. Their garlic bread had cream cheese stuffed inside. INSIDE.

After dinner we decided to rearrange the items in our bags in preparation for our Jetstar flight today, since we were expecting something akin to Ryanair in terms of service and weight limits. We started closing the window shades, when we realized that the windows over the kitchen sink - the ones that look directly over the bed - had no shades! We then started to notice other little things that were missing, like a drying rack for our dishes or a floor towel for outside the shower. I imagine the cottage is a converted shed or something of that nature, and they've never actually slept in it so they don't know what it feels like or what it's missing. Between the distance from the city, the random things lacking in the cottage, and the kindness yet semi-unhelpfulness of our hosts, I dubbed yesterday's stay "the little cottage that couldn't quite". We actually really enjoyed staying there, but we did laugh at the little bits.

We finished the night watching Angels & Demons, staring at the cows outside our window (oh yeah, they had cows and horses and we're pretty sure they're tree farmers), and sipping some wine. If there's one thing about New Zealand that we've loved, it's the wine. That and seeing all the sheep around.

In which The Protagonists drive to the not-so-Scottish Scottish town.

After our Queenstown adventures, Katie and I hit the road for our second-to-last big driving day. We packed some snacks for breakfast and headed back through the mountains towards Dunedin, the "Scottish" city on the southeastern coast of the South Island. The drive was actually quite fun, and didn't involve too many winding roads, despite the warning we received from the receptionist as we were checking out of our still-fruit-fly-infested room at the Queens Park Hotel. (To be fair, they did try to spray the room down, supposedly.)

We arrived at The Brothers boutique hotel after a slight detour (read: we got lost) in the city center. We checked in, were shown around, and then got the key to our room: The Chapel. The Chapel is a large corner room, which was a chapel and converted monk's quarters before it became a hotel room. The stained glass windows and the beams overhead were lovely, and I found the room awe-inspiring. We also had a great view over the city from our far window, AND the room came with wine! Although at this point in the trip, we're trying to get rid of wine, not collect any more. There are so many good wineries here!

We dropped off our stuff, and headed back into the city center to find the SINGLE Scottish shop in the city, which had a less-than-exciting selection of kilt pins, sporrans, and other Scottish memorabilia. I don't know why I convinced myself that there would be a plethora of items from which to choose, but I did. We left shortly after we arrived, and headed out to the Royal Albatross Centre, "the world's only mainland colony of Royal Albatross" (if you believe that New Zealand counts as a "mainland"). We took the low road, which turns out to be faster and safer than the high road according to our tour guide. She briefed us on the history of their conservatory, after which we watched an informational video. Post video, we took a small hike up the hill, where we could see an albatross soaring around for a landing. Once inside the observatory, we saw several chicks sitting in their nests, juveniles having a "party", and some juveniles and adults flying around. We even saw one albatross mother feeding her chick! It's less gross than I imagined.

The juveniles were jerks, showing off and messing with the babies.

Coming in for the landing!

Beautiful thistles.

After we left the observatory, we walked down to a set of observation decks closer to the beach before driving back to town. On the way back to the chapel, we picked up some Chinese food to eat in the room. We ate while watching a rerun of Graham Norton, and then wrote some postcards while watching Supernatural. It was around this time when I read in the book on the hotel that they request we don't eat in the rooms, so I ran all around the hotel trying to find some place to throw away our takeout boxes. There was only one problem: there were no trash cans outside of our room. Not even in the parking lot! These boutique hotels in New Zealand are something else.

We finished our postcards and decided to finally do the Tim Tam Slam. It was, possibly, the best decision we made in Dunedin. (Again, search Hank Green Tim Tam Slam in YouTube.) I highly suggest everyone try it, if you can get your hands on some tim tams.

Stuart Landborough's Puzzling World!

This morning Katie and I walked down to Fergbaker (the bakery next to Fergburger) to snag some breakfast to-go so we could hit the road to the puzzling world at Wanaka. We took the scenic route over the mountain pass, which was both quicker and afforded us some beautiful views. This time, the signs were actually decent. I suppose they don't want people lost in the mountains slash plummeting to their deaths.

We stopped on the mountain on the way to the puzzling world for this view.

When we rounded the corner to the puzzling world, I got visibly excited. I love puzzles and illusions, and had been looking forward to this part of the trip the most! From the beginning, we were set up for a fun time. The park has a few optical illusions on the front lawn, with a huge maze set behind an unassuming building. Katie and I took a few photos out front, and then entered the main hall. The room was full of tables at which sat different types of mind-bending puzzles of varying difficulty. We purchased our entry tickets, played with a couple puzzles, and then entered the halls of illusion. There were different sections and types of illusions in various rooms, each designed to trick the mind in different ways. The first room had several 3D holographic prints hanging on the walls, which were interesting to look at. Following that, there was the tilted hall, a room where the water flowed upwards and a chair rolled up the wall! Because of the tilt of the room and the lack of windows, everything seemed to move against gravity's pull. It was pretty neat, if a bit headache-inducing.

The roman toilets!

THE WATER FLOWED UPWARD.

The MJ lean!

Past the tilted hall, we went into the world's only hall of following faces. There were several concave faces carved into the walls and backlit. Walking around the room, the faces appeared to be convex, and followed you around the room! It was really weird because it wasn't just the eyes that appeared to move, but the whole face! Pretty cool.

No escape.

After that, we went into a room that played with your perception of size. We got a couple to take our picture in exchange for taking theirs, and the results were pretty cool. One side of the room makes you look huge, and the other side makes you look pretty dang small, using forced perspective as the medium. After the FP room, we check out some optical illusion prints before heading to a room full of more optical illusions. It was very fun to see all the different types of structures and to try and wrap our heads around all the puzzles!

How does this happen?! 

Magic room is magic.

Have you ever seen infinity?

Even the bathrooms aren't safe!

Once we finished in the final optical illusion room, we headed out to the giant labyrinth. At the four extreme corners there were four towers of different colors, and the challenge was to either 1) find all four towers and the exit, or 2) find all four towers in a specific order and the exit. We decided to take on the hard challenge, feeling excited and confident in our abilities. Unfortunately, while we found the first tower pretty quickly, it was the wrong color. We also found the next two towers pretty fast, which were in the correct order, but we still had to find the first tower - the yellow tower. We searched and searched, and FINALLY made it to the yellow tower! We then made a deal with each other to go back to the first tower we found - green - and call it a day, figuring that if we did yellow-green we knew we could find the others and finish.

However.

Half an hour later, after walking in circles, we decided it was best to find the exit. I'm pretty sure that we'd have to run the whole thing backwards to get to green again, and neither of us wanted to put in that kind of time. I mean, come on! That's pretty sneaky, to make people run the whole maze to find the first tower, then run it backwards to run it forwards again for the difficult challenge. Well played, Stuart Landborough. Well played.

We each grabbed souvenirs from the puzzling world: I picked up a Hanayama puzzle (my first one!) and Katie got a set of stacking wooden carved kiwi figurines and a tea steeper. After the puzzling world, we decided to lunch in Wanaka at an Italian restaurant called Francesca's. We decided to sit inside, but were accosted a few times by an eager bee and moved tables. The food turned out to be very good, but throughout our meal we kept being bothered by several bees, which really challenged me to enjoy the experience. We ended up leaving slightly disappointed that we couldn't eat in peace. Oh well. Like I said, I enjoyed the food. My venison pizza was great, at any rate.

Following lunch, we drove back across the mountains, listening to more of Neverwhere. We decided to do some wine tasting, since Central Otago (the region we're in now) is known for their wineries. The first place we visited, Peregrine, was closed for a private event, so we continued on to Gibbston Valley Wines, a winery that also had a cheese factory by the same company next door. We did a quick tasting, then headed to try some cheese, which I thought was pretty good. They also had several types of honey, and a few not-very-hot hot sauces. After Gibbston, we went to the Gibbston Tavern, which is described as “exceedingly rustic” or something of that nature. It was a single-room saloon-like pub with one bartender and a limited liquor but decent beer selection. I tried their moonshine white, and Katie had one of their moonshine red wines. They actually weren't too bad!

Post-tavern, we visited Amisfield as our final winery for the day. When we pulled into the winery parking lot, we noticed something familiar: one of the statues from the Weta Cave Workshop was outside along with a counterpart! Our tour guide had mentioned that their statues stood outside a Central Otago winery, but didn't mention which one. We were so excited to find them! We took pictures before heading inside for some decent wines, but decided to pass on a purchase.

We stopped in the hotel momentarily for a complementary glass of wine before heading to the famed Fergburger for dinner. Instead of bringing the burgers back, we ate there, fortunately finding a place to sit despite the 20-person-deep line which was constantly refilling. I can understand why the place has so much hype; the burgers are big, and they're pretty tasty. I wouldn't say they're my favorite by any means, but if we lived here, I would definitely visit regularly.

Anyway, after dinner we grabbed our swimsuits and hopped in the car to head to our onsen appointment. The onsen was just a few kilometers outside of town, so it wasn't hard to find. We walked down a few flights of stairs in a hillside to get to the main office. Checking in, our host prepared champagne and other items for our 1.5 hour soak session, and we were ushered into a room with 40 “lit” electronic candles. We had several buttons to control the jets and lights, as well as to open the garage door between us and the outside. We opened the door, and stared at the stars for a while, eating ice cream and drinking bubbles while soaking in a delightful onsen. It was breathtaking. Everyone should do that at least once in their life.

After the onsen, we returned to the hotel room to try and catch the end of the cricket match between Australia and India, only to find that they were nowhere near finishing. Tuckered out after a big day, Katie turned in shortly thereafter. I'm not too far behind myself.

Tomorrow we're off to Dunedin to do some antique shopping and to find me some accessories for my kilt! I'm pretty excited about that. Also, we're staying in a converted chapel, which is most exciting. I look forward to enjoying the Scottish city of the South Island!