Boxing day

Christmas was mayhem ...

With our niece and nephew visiting, we had three children under 4 in the house. It's like Toys 'R' Us exploded in our living room.

But now we get to celebrate Boxing Day, aka December 26th. In Christchurch, the place to be on Boxing Day is, evidently, Hagley Park. We headed there along with the rest of the city, their coolers and their picnic blankets.

Christchurch has a picnic

The park was full of families playing and picnicking. It was really a beautiful sight. There certainly are some benefits to having christmas in the summertime.

Hagley Park has a paddling pool which was just chocka full of screaming toddlers. Our niece and nephew joined in. Quinn had a wee paddle, but is still a bit too small for this particular kind of fun.

But then the water fun ended abruptly when this man came out and set up his sign:

We watched as he put on his hip-high waders and walked the length of the paddle pool with his net, looking for poos.

Happy christmas!

Tomato forest

Remember our little seedlings?

Well, they've grown a bit... into a freaking tomato forest.

These tomato plants are nearly 5 feet tall. They would probably take over the yard if we left them unattended over a long weekend. When Gareth approaches to water them in the morning, he hears a faint cry of "FEED US!!"

We haven't actually harvested anything yet, but we are rubbing our hands together with great anticipation. Roll on the tomato soup, the tomato sauce, the salsa ...

The tomatillo plants have completely gone gangbusters. We're going to have enough tomatillos to start our own salsa verde business on the side.

It's no wonder they call this place the Garden City.

Incongruity

Saturday was a great day. The weather was fantastic - we went for a walk on the beach and had fish 'n' chips outside for lunch. I got a little sunburnt.

Then we came home and ... put up the christmas tree.

The birds start singing at 4 a.m. these days (you know these things when a certain baby has you up at all hours) and it doesn't get dark outside until almost 10. The days are looooong.

So we've put up this beautiful fake christmas tree, but barely have enough darkness to enjoy its twinkling lights. Although, in this case, that's probably a good thing because our cheap-ass Warehouse christmas lights barely twinkle at all and half of one of the strings doesn't even light up. That's what you get for shopping at the Warehouse (New Zealand's Wal-Mart, without the poor employment practices).

Also on Saturday I did yard work - sitting on the grass in the sun, pulling weeds and dead-heading the rose bushes. OMG we have so many roses. One of our rose bushes has almost certainly reached critical mass. Peach roses, white roses, light pink roses, hot pink roses. So many roses. And heaps of other flowers (or weeds? who can tell) all blooming and glorious. I filled our entire green organics bin trying to tidy it all up. And then for dinner, we barbequed. Salmon and shrimp: om nom nom.

Then on Sunday we went to our friends' house for more bbq'ing. Burgers, sausages, my awesome potato salad (well, Gareth thinks it's awesome).

We used a lot of sun cream this weekend. And we did some christmas shopping and wrapping.

And there is our christmas tree- reminding us that it's christmas time, but it's summer, but it's christmas time...

This photo was taken at 8:30 at night...

Quack

The other night we were eating dinner when we noticed two ducks watching us from the patio.

It was a little odd and unnerving. What did they want? Were they begging for food? Did they want to come inside and hang out with us?

It was about this time last year when I blogged about ducks hanging out on rooftops and chimneys. I guess this is the time of year when Christchurch ducks get a little strange.

Maybe they just wanted to meet Quinn.

Why is that duck looking at me?

Franz Josef

So then we went to the Franz Josef glacier, about half an hour south of the Okarito turn-off.

Incidentally, in America they say "glay-sher". In England, they say "glass-ier". Poor Gareth, a man who has perhaps moved countries one too many times, could not remember which was the "right" way to say glacier. It sometimes came out "glash-ier" - a pronunciation that no one uses. But maybe it'll catch on.

Here are some photos...

We were interested to learn that this glacier is bucking the global warming trend and actually advancing. This sign explained,

Despite small advances about every 20 years, the glacier has generally retreated for most of the last century. However, over the last 25 years the glacier has been in a state of advancement. Will the climate here become so warm that the glacier will disappear completely? Or will there be another Ice Age with the glacier reaching over Sentinel Rock once again?

Someone told me that the west coast glaciers are advancing and the east coast glaciers are retreating. I have not fact-checked this.

You can't actually walk up and touch the glacier unless you are with a guided group. In other words, you can't go on the glacier unless you pay. We were happy to have a look from a safe, free distance.

Quinn was pretty tuckered out by the end of the long walk...

Okarito

This weekend we ventured West to Okarito, a teeny tiny town on the west coast of the South Island, pop. 30. It's about 1 1/2 hours south of Hokitika. There are no stores or restaurants in Okarito, not even a dairy. When we booked our cottage, the hosts said to make sure we bring everything we need, because there are no services in Okarito. Nothing. Nada. The closest town with gas or milk is Franz Josef, about 30 minutes further south.

the road to Okarito

So we booked this cottage (called "Kiwi Cottage") for the weekend. The host said that when we arrived, the key would be in the door and we could let ourselves in. This gave us some indication as to the laid-back nature of Okarito. We were loving it before we even arrived.

Okarito did not disappoint. It's a lovely little village with a few historical buildings, a huge lagoon, a beautiful beach, and nice walks in the bush.

Albert's Hut - Albert either lives here or just keeps his toilet here; we're not sure.

our cottage

historic hostel

We feel pretty far away from the world living in New Zealand, but staying in Okarito brought us that "far away" sensation on a whole new level. We had no tv, no radio stations, no cell phone reception. There was nothing to do but walk, kayak, and read. We walked, we read, but we did not kayak because Quinn is still a bit too little for that kind of adventure.

We walked up to the "Okarito Trig" - a triangulation point put in place by early settlers. It's on top of a hill. One thing we have learned from our walking in New Zealand is that kiwis will just not be bothered with switchbacks. Why waste time zig-zagging back and forth up a hill when you can just walk straight up? Just when I was starting to think I'd rather go back down then keep going up, we reached the top. It was a beautiful view of the Tasman Sea, the Okarito Lagoon, and in the other direction, mountains. (But we had to use our imagination to see the mountains; they were covered in low clouds.)

walking up the trig track

view from the top of Trig track

walking on the beach

the wharf

a wild friday night in our Okarito cottage

As we were told there would be no services, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the place renting kayaks was also open for coffee. It really says a lot about New Zealand's obsession with coffee: even the tiniest town on the map has its own espresso machine.

Unfortunately, it was not all fun and games in Okarito. First, there was a mosquito in our bedroom - both nights - who would not die. Worse, this mosquito waited until we were just about to drop off to sleep and then started buzzing around our nose and eyeballs. I jumped out of bed the 2nd night and flipped the lights on (much to Gareth's irritation) and smacked the sucker dead, I thought. But then just as I was dropping off to sleep again, the bzzzzzzz was right there in my eyeballs once again. I suppose where there's a lagoon, there are mosquitoes.

More seriously, there was a fatal accident along the Okarito-Forks road on the Saturday night. I put Quinn in the car to go for a short drive (a sure-fire way to get a sleepy baby refusing to sleep to fall asleep). Just a few hundred metres past the lagoon, there was a campervan on its side and a white sheet on the ground with feet sticking out of it. A sobering sight, as you can imagine. The accident made the news, as we thought it would, since tourists don't die here too often.

We also visited Franz Josef glacier on this trip, but I'll post pictures of that separately.

We were welcomed home tonight by a cheeky little 4.9 magnitude aftershock. Ahhh, it's good to be home...

Earthquake wine

The long weekend is here! Tomorrow is Canterbury Anniversary Day, a regional holiday. So it's as good a time as any to crack open the earthquake wine...

The Day the Ground Moved Like Jelly, a Marlborough sauvignon blanc, was produced to raise money for Canterbury earthquake recovery:

At 4.35am, September 4, 2010, the province of Canterbury was rocked by a 7.1M earthquake causing massive and widespread damage to property and the landscape. The rest of the country rallied around to offer support and much needed financial aid. This wine is part of that fundraising effort.

Thank you Mud House Wines, we're enjoying this refreshing glass of white very much.

Happy Canterbury Day :-)

Now panic

Shortly after the earthquake, someone painted a reassuring message on a fence near where we live:

Keep Calm and Carry On

As Wikipedia explains, this was "a poster produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of World War II, intended to raise the morale of the British public under the threat of impending invasion." Evidently, the saying experienced a resurgence in the last decade. There's a store here in Christchurch selling all kinds of things -- mugs, aprons, ashtrays -- with the slogan on it.

So it was nice to see it alongside St Martins Road after the earthquake as a reminder that we should just, well, keep calm. And carry on.

But now someone has vandalised the vandalism.

Not sure if this new slogan will catch on.

Band Together

Would you believe we are still getting aftershocks? It's been almost 2 months since the Big One on the 4th of September. We are up to something like 2,200 aftershocks since then. There was a big one (5.0) just this week. I was at work -- on the 8th floor -- when everything started shaking. Thankfully, no more real damage was done, unless you count the damage to our nerves.

The people in charge of things realise that these constant earthquakes are driving the citizenry batty. They want to make us happy and help us relax. So last month they gave away free tickets to a Canterbury rugby game.

Anyone who wanted to go could just show up and get in for free. We already had season tickets, and were planning to go anyway, so this wasn't really a windfall to us. But it was really fun to go to a game with a packed-out stadium. The Canterbury team doesn't usually bring 'em in by the thousands but it did that day. And it was Quinn's first rugby game. As you can see, he was stoked.

That was last month. Aftershocks are still happening. People need more help to relax and unwind. So yesterday the city put on "Band Together", a free concert for Canterbury. It was held in Hagley Park. It was HUGE. Really, really huge. They said there were 120,000 people there - that's about a third of the whole city. Lots and lots of people.

It was a gorgeous day to sit in the park and listen to music, so we packed up the baby and headed out there to join the crowds.

Quinn was very excited for his first bus ride.

... ok, not that excited. But he perked up when we got to the park. So much to see! There were people as far as we could see. We found a little patch of grass and made ourselves comfortable.



All of New Zealand's biggest musical acts were there, and some smaller ones too. We had heard of the Exponents - their song Why does love do this to me was the theme for All Blacks rugby last season and is quite catchy. We heard Anika Moa, a singer/songwriter and Christchurch native. We also heard something called the Swarm Dance Crew, who might have been American because they kept saying, "helloooo Canter-bare-eee!" (rather than "Canter-bree").

There was a band from Nelson (top of the south island) called Minuit who were pretty good and reminded Gareth of Catatonia, one of his faves. So that was good too.

Then the Feelers came on, apparently a popular act as many people seemed to be singing along. We were not familiar though and did not know the words.

I don't think we can be true Kiwis until we learn the local music. We really need to learn the music. Going to this concert was a good start. We should get online and find us some MP3's to download...

Stuff

As our most loyal reader (my mom) pointed out today, the blog has been quiet... there's no particular reason for this.

We had our first visitor from America recently, my little sister. Her visit was much too short, but that's what you get when your visitors come from a country where employers can legally give their staff only 2 weeks holiday per year ... . We introduced my sister to the afternoon coffee break, the flat white, and the savoury muffin. She was quick to assimilate.

In other news, we have found our running feet again! A couple years ago in the States, Gareth and I were both regular runners. Gareth completed a bunch of ultramarathons, I completed one regular marathon and a bunch of 5Ks. Gareth ran pretty fast, but I just kind of trotted along and tried not to get beaten by the speed walkers. We both liked to run.

The wheels kind of fell off when we went on our Farewell Tour last April. Actually, my left wheel had fallen off earlier than that, as I got plantar fasciitis. That sucked. It still bugs me from time to time.

But anyway, then I got pregnant and couldn't run. (Nevermind that Paula Radcliffe ran a 45-minute 10K when she was 7 months pregnant...) Gareth did some running but was not really in his prime.

And then Quinn was born, and we couldn't run then, because we were pretty insanely tired.

But now Quinn is 4 1/2 months old and things are getting back to normal. We're very excited to be back into running again.

For Gareth, motivation came from an advertisement for New Zealand's first 100-mile race, the Northburn Station 100 miler. He was stoked. He asked me if he could pretty please sign up for it, and of course I said that would be fine. And then he told me the entry fee is $300... ouch.

This could be something to put in the "It Was Better In America" column. America had more ultramarathons (and other running races), the entry fees were way more affordable, and you got more stuff for your money. Gareth did some races for half the price of the Northburn race and got great schwag like tech t-shirts, duffel bags, fleece jackets, running sleeves, and gaiters. Not to mention heaps of food and drink along the course. As far as we can tell, your entry fee here gets you... entered.

On the other hand, the scenery here probably cannot be beaten. Check out our earlier post with Gareth's photos from the Avalanche Peak race... gorgeous. The Northburn race looks like it's going to be similarly stunning.

Not to be outdone, I've entered a race too! It's not quite as exciting as a brutal ultra-distance mountain race, but I'm sure the Corporate Challenge 5K around Hagley Park next month will be off the chain in its own way.

Foiled by Customs

When we lived in America, we were members of the R.E.I. co-op. It was one of our favourite places to shop. We miss R.E.I. We have not found New Zealand's version of R.E.I., Kathmandu, to be a satisfactory substitute.

So as members of R.E.I., we get dividends. Our dividend last year was over $200. We were very excited to spend our free money on R.E.I. goodies. We ordered heaps of stuff online, exceeding our dividend budget a tiny bit...

Of course, R.E.I. does not ship to New Zealand. (No one ships to New Zealand.) Lucky for us, my little sister has a part-time job at R.E.I. in Chicago. So we had our stuff shipped to her store, and arranged for her to ship the goodies to us. She shipped it about 5 weeks ago. We waited anxiously for our box to arrive.

We waited. We waited.

Then last week we got this letter in the post from New Zealand Customs Service:

"On 01 September 2010 we wrote to you concerning a parcel or packet sent to you from overseas that has been processed by New Zealand Customs Service. The item is still being held by New Zealand Post pending Customs release."

What?! We had not received any letter.

I called the phone number on the letter. I said who I was and that I had this letter. Oddly enough, the man who answered the phone said, "Wow, you got that letter already? I just sent that to you yesterday..." Only in New Zealand can you call a government office and be recognised by the person on the other end of the phone. Seriously, when does that ever happen?

Anyway, the nice Customs Official explained that the 1st September letter was accidentally sent to the wrong address. So he sent us the second letter. It turned out, we owed money.

$114.35! That's an import duty, GST on the import duty, an import transaction fee, GST on the import transaction fee, a biosecurity levy, and (you guessed it) GST on the biosecurity levy. $114.35!!! How can this be??

Here's how it can be: When shipping our R.E.I. goodies, my sister ticked the "merchandise" box instead of the "gift" box on the customs form. Apparently, you pay import duties on merchandise, but not on gifts. Kind of a pisser, really. Adding insult to injury, we were charged duty fees not only on the value of the goods shipped (declared as US$200), but also on the cost to ship those goods (US$57.60). Something about that just doesn't seem right. But we were not about to fight The Man, even a nice one who remembered sending us a letter.

Rapaki track

The Rapaki Track is a gravel path that runs from the bottom of the port hills on the south side of the city up to Summit Rd. From home to the top of the track and back is about 10K. Gareth has run this route heaps of times. I've done it twice: once while 6 months pregnant, and this morning. I think this track would be much easier when not 6 months pregnant or pushing a baby buggy...

Gareth ran to the track and I drove there with Q. I was still sorting out the buggy and other baby accessories when Gareth caught up with us.

And then we were off! Gareth ran, I walked with the buggy.

The trail goes UP. It's not a terribly steep incline, but when you're pushing a buggy, you notice it. And the gravel just created more drag, making it even harder. I had hoped to make it to the top, but soon decided it wasn't going to happen. I told myself, Just reach that green bench and then you can turn around.


If you click on this picture to embiggen, you can probably see it's engraved, "rest and be thankful". I thought that was nice. The view looking back down was rather nice too.

And then a lady passed us coming the other direction, looked at me struggling to push the buggy uphill and said, "Wow, you must be very dedicated to exercise! Good job!" Well, I had to keep going after that.

You may have heard there are sheep in New Zealand.

We saw some sheep.

This is the part where it gets really tough. You can see the end now, and it's all up from here. But the end is so close. Must keep going!

Because when you make it to the top, here's your reward:

This is the view from Summit Rd, looking over to the other side of the port hills toward Lyttelton and Diamond Harbour. I love this view.

As Q and I were about to turn around to head back down, we saw Gareth running toward us. He had been covering other trails in the hills (he's a madman, you know).