It's Warming Up

Sunday, September 23

Another week and it's been great with the warm, sunny weather. The trees at the house are blooming and so are the cherry blossom trees throughout Palmerston North. I turned in my UCOL resignation on September 19 and my last day will be October 19 (the day before my birthday).

Since I had the day off on Friday, September 21, Josh and I had a picnic lunch in the backyard. We drove up to Massey to submit a form for some holiday pay I earned working one of my temp jobs a few months ago. It's probably going to be $8 total of holiday pay but something is better than nothing. As we left Massey, we drove back through the Victoria Esplanade where you can drive through a street lined by cherry blossoms.

After returning from Massey, we drove out to Himitangi Beach in the afternoon. We stopped for some Tip Top ice cream (caramel fudge and chocolate) at the Himitangi Beach Store before driving down to the beach. While I read some guidebooks for our upcoming trip to Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, and China in November), Josh was writing my name in driftwood on the beach.

I was so surprised that Josh had written my name on the beach (and given me a flower too). It was very sweet! We watched the sunset and saw something unique to New Zealand...a vehicle was pulling a guy on a surfboard in the shallow end of the ocean. I think the pictue I took looks like it belongs on the cover of a New Zealand guidebook. What do you think?

On Saturday morning, we met up with Kim and Fleetwood (Fleetwood's another American RAScholar) at 10:45 to check out the Sakura Festival. The Sakura Festival is held at International Pacific College in celebration of the cherry blossom trees. Although IPC is primarily a Japanese school, the Sakura Festival was a celebration of all cultures: Japanese, Indian, Irish, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Thai, etc.

We started the morning by watching different dancing performances. Then, we were off to find some food (stopping along the way to look at stalls selling items). We found some food stalls and I decided on the pad thai noodles and white rice for $5. Josh got curry and rice for $5. We ate our picnic lunch underneath some trees while sitting on the grass. It was such a nice day for a picnic but we'd all forgotten to wear sunsceen since the morning had started off cloudy.

After lunch, we walked around the remaining displays and then returned to the performance stage to watch more dancing. The performances concluded with a dance/parade that went down a street through campus. Our group got split up at this point but thanks to Josh's hieght and the fact he was wearing his "Wild Kiwi" green hat we all found each other once the parade was over.

We left the Sakura festival around 2:00 and drove back to Kim and Fleetwood's house to pick up our car. On the drive back, Kim and Fleetwood mentioned that there was a hangi (traditional Maori way of cooking) that night for Massey's international students and the event only cost $5 per person. We thought that sounded like a good deal so we made plans to meet up at 5:00 that evening.

When Josh and I got home, I was ready for a nap. I hadn't got a lot of sleep the night before and the sun had really zapped me. A couple of hours later we were heading back to Kim and Fleetwood's for the hangi. We literally walked over the river and through the woods to make it from Kim and Fleetwood's flat to the international student building.

It was funny to be the one who was considered international instead of hosting an event for my own international students at UCOL. The food was being prepared when we arrived. Traditionally, a hangi is prepared in the ground, however, we were being served food cooked in a modern hangi machine. The chicken and veggies came out steaming hot.

We played some ice breaker games before dinner was served. The game involved Maori numbers and mock shooting the person standing next to you. The photo is of the final two players involved in an old west style shoot out. I figured if I yelled BANG in Maori (pucko or something like that) loud enough, I would win...and I did!What, no prize though?!? :(

Dinner was served and it was yummy (it reminded us all of Thanksgiving). Of course, by that point we were really hungry though. Even the punch was tasty. We were happy with the $10 dollars total we'd spent for dinner that night. As 7:30 approached, Josh and I headed back to the car without Kim and Fleetwood because one of the only shows we watch regularly was coming on tv. On our way out, we were able to grab two extra meals since they had leftovers. What a great deal: 4 dinners for $10!

Today, the big event was that I jogged/walked enough laps to cover the distance of the Tongariro Crossing!!! AWESOME! I did my 14 laps or 17.5 kms in 2 hours and 2 minutes. I'm not worried about the time at this point, just getting my body used to covering the distance without shutting down! I was really happy to reach the goal that we need to reach for the Tongariro and we still have a month left before we plan to do the crossing. We'll throw more stair climbs into the mix too. We're up to 10 reps in the Tower Building when we go there.

Other than that, it's trip planning for Asia (a very budget trip...as in $25 hotel rooms, budget) and getting ready to move back to Arkansas. We depart New Zealand for the states on November 30. We'll split a week and a half at my mom's and Branson before visiting Mexico from December 11-19. We're returning to our favorite resort for the third time: Excellence Riviera Cancun and we're so excited about 8 days of eating, drinking, and relaxing before getting back into the working world. We'll spend Christmas and New Year's with Josh's family in Cabot and then head back to Fayetteville to figure out where we're going to live! Never a dull moment!