Tirau

After traveling down from Northland by bus (this is back in February, sorry I'm so behind!), I arrived in Auckland. Shani and her niece were there to pick me up. We stayed at Amber's place for the night (a very sweet girl with a young daughter and partner)and left for Hastings the next morning.

As we traveled through the middle of the North Island, we passed by Tirau, a small town known for its corrugated-iron creations. Shani was kind enough to stop the car so I could take a few pictures. There are more creations throughout the town but it was not on our path so I'll just tease you with what I saw. Perhaps one day someone else will post pictures of other creations they will have seen.

This is the information site, how cute is that!

Waitomo Caves: Rap, Raft 'n' Rock

It feels like so long ago now, but on one of the days when I was still in Rotorua, I decided to go to the Waitomo Caves. These are caves located about 1 1/2 hours from Rotorua and they are a large series of underground caves that you can do various things in. I found a company that would give me the opportunity to abseil(rappel) down into the grotto (it was about 27 meters down), then we did a series of walking through the freezing cold water, saw glowworms that only exist in New Zealand and Australia, do some inner tubing down this underground river (they call this blackwater rafting) as well as climb up and down the inner rocks and through them at times too! Lastly, we climbed back up the grotto. It was really fun and a new experience for me.

Our ill-fitting uniforms for the experience!

We were a group of six: here we're practicing the impending rappel
I opted to be the first to rappel down the grotto; it was thrilling!
I was a bit worried here, but when I sat in the harness, it felt pretty secure
Pretty cool, huh?
The mouth of the cave

It had rained really hard over the previous week and this was the first day that the cave was opened since the rains. The current was super strong so we had to gingerly navigate ourselves along the sides of the caves carrying our "rafts".

We also had to cross wires at some points because we had to get from one side of the cave to the other.

Some of the bugs and animals that can be found in the cave...
Possums were brought over from England, I think, and are considered real pests here. People can shoot them...and do...quite regularly.

Glowworms are called such because their asses literally glow. Above are what they use to catch their prey. When I saw it for the first time, I thought they looked like crystal curtains. Basically glowworms have no asshole so when they eat, they cannot get rid of the waste and it accumulates in their tails and with the mixture of elements, they end up glowing. Glowworms live in the worm stage for about 9 months. Afterwards they hatch and then become flies and live for only about 2 days, enough time for them to mate and then they die.
Looks like a starry night? Nope! These are the glowworms. We turned off our headlights and our guide fired off a type of gun and they all started to light up. How cool is that?! They light up when there is noise because they interpret it as food and they want to attract their prey by lighting up.

After the glowworms our guide instructed us to get on our inner tubes and raft down the river. The catch was, that for the first several meters (which lasted about 5 minutes or so) we had to turn off our lights and so we were traveling along a very quick river in utter darkness. We had to keep our butts high, our feet up and our elbows in, in order to avoid getting hurt if we were to hurtle straight into the rock sides. It was scary but very cool. The picture above was after we turned our lights back on. Here, I fell off my inner tube and was holding on for dear life!
Some of the natural formations in the cave...
Eels live in these caves too, though I didn't see or feel any. I don't think I would have anyway, the water was so cold that I couldn't feel a thing! Eel is a Maori favorite. I'd love to try it some day.

Here I am looking like an idiot as I let the current take me. The guide did catch me before I went past the point of no return.

We also squeezed through some holes in the rock. Sometimes it was quite a tight squeeze!
More local residents!

Finally, after about 4 hours of treking in the dark, we climbed back up the grotto and back into the real world! It was super fun. I truly recommend it.

'til next time!

Arrivals and Other Things

On September 3rd, I arrived in the largest city in New Zealand: Auckland, which still only has 1.2 million people living there (a far cry from the 12+ million I dealt with daily in Seoul). It is a quaint place, very reminiscent of Sydney, actually, in terms of architecture and the way the city has been planned.

After securing a room for myself at City Lodge (it's a subdivision of YMCA) which is very clean and offers good service ($65/night), I walked into town. City Lodge was a good choice because it was far away enough to not have to deal with any real noise, but only 5 minutes from the center, where there are tons of shops and restaurants.

Auckland Tower

After living in Seoul for two years, I've been pretty spoiled with the restaurant scene. Many places are open 24hours so you are never at a lack for food. I was expecting restaurants and little sandwich shops to be open around 8pm here, but most of them closed around 5 or 6, their day-over (very quaint- reminds me of France).

I found everything so incredibly expensive, but after having converted some prices, hotels and restaurants were pretty average when compared to Montreal prices.

Some astronomical prices that I must warn about are the cigarettes and the taxis. Cigarettes cost $10.80 a pack. Insane! I've never seen such a thing. I think Montreal is still way below that price.

I had to take a taxi from City Lodge to Star City Bus Station. It is literally less than 5 minutes from the hotel but because my bags were really heavy and it was uphill, I opted for a cab. It cost me about $8! Can you imagine! That would have cost me less than $3 dollars in Seoul. Ah, I will miss the cheap transportation, that's for sure.

Anyway, soon after arriving in Auckland, I headed out to accomplish my most pressing goal: shaving my head. I've been thinking about doing it for the past year, but didn't want to do it in Korea because it is still quite the conservative place. So I waited until I got here and Neil Seck, my hairdresser, in a state of shock and horror, hesitantly agreed to cut it for me.

Below, a video of the process. Thanks for the digital camera Seung Ah, Jong In and John. Because of you, I get to show you this.





The final look #2 cut. I love it! Now it was time to start afresh.

Me and Neil