Monies

Everything in New Zealand is expensive! For example a snickers bar is $2, which I personally find quite depressing. More important things are also ridiculously expensive like seeing the Rotorua geysers for $50. I’ve decided that the things I want to spend my money on are the things that I haven’t done before and is something that I have only seen in New Zealand.

That decision lead to the two things I did today. Instead of paying $50 to see the geysers up close I went on a hike into the hills behind the geysers and sat up there and watched the big geyser go off. The trail was through the redwood forest again which was really nice and it was great to be able to see the whole city.

I’m never very political in my blog but I’m going to go on a little rant here for a second. New Zealand is really pretty it’s covered in ferns and trees outside of nearly every city. When I was up north I was really sad to see all of the forests that had been forested and I was frightened by all the logging trucks plowing around the narrow roads. I came across another logging area in the woods today and have included some pictures of this.

Using the money I saved on not seeing the geysers up close I was able to go white water sledging. Essentially it’s like white water rafting but on a floating plastic board instead of in a raft. I was the only person on my tour and had three guides all to myself. I should have known that it wasn’t going to be easy when there were three guides for only me, but I’m quite thick sometimes. I imagined that it would be like boogey boarding but in a river. It turned out to be a terrifying series of kicking as hard as I could, getting pulled under the water, getting beaten up by the currents and thinking that I’m probably going to drown. It ended up being a lot of fun once I got the hang of it but was probably the most terrified I have been in a really long time. The company I went out with were amazing and I would highly recommend them. I don’t have any pictures of this but here is a link to the companies website with some photos of other people doing it. (Note none of their pictures show anyone drowning) Sledging Website

During the day I came back to the hostel to see if the Snore-a-saurus was still in my room and if I would have to change beds, rooms or even hostels but luckily he had packed up all of this stuff and moved on somewhere else.

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Rotorua

Today I headed south to Rotorua. The fun thing about heading South in New Zealand means that every kilometer I drive further south is the furthest South I have ever been in the world in my life. Rotorua is known for smelling like rotten eggs and having a lot of adventure activities. The rotten egg smell comes from the sulphur that comes from all of the active geysers in the area.

When I arrived in Rotorua, it didn’t disappoint, the smell was very strong of rotten eggs. I quickly checked into my hostel and then headed out to check out the stinky town. Last week at trivia one of the questions asked how many people died in the 1886 eruption of Mt Tarawera, my team got the answer wrong but I decided to check out the remains myself so in case it ever comes up again I will know the answer. I went to a place called the Buried Village where the remains of the town destroyed by the volcano are located. It was basically a bunch of old buildings and artifacts from the time period around the eruption. The coolest part for me was at the back of the property was a trail that followed a river that had a really amazing waterfall. The official death toll was 153 people.

I also visited the Blue and Green lakes, named for the color they appear to be from the sky. There was a competition for boat rowing going on at the Blue lake between high school kids, it’s a good thing no one was with me to take bets because I wasn’t able to pick the winner a single time.

I also visited a redwood forest that was planted over 100 years ago from Redwoods from California. The smell of the trees reminded me of America. I’m looking forward to going to Yosemite on my trip to America in May.

It has been a while since I slept in a hostel and my first back night in one wasn’t pleasant. I got a top bunk right next to the door. The guy who was sleeping below me was snoring louder than I have ever heard anyone snore outside of a comedy movie. Every snore rattled the bed which made sleeping nearly impossible. There would be three progressively louder snores and then a slurping sound that would start the snores all over again. I kept laying there hoping that he would choke on his own tongue and die so that I could get some sleep. At one point in the night someone else in the room came over to our beds and shook them in an effort to get the snoring guy to stop snoring so that we could all get back to sleep.

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Hot Water Beach

I'm up in an area of New Zealand called Coromandel, it's in the North Central part of the country. Yesterday we went to a beach called Hot Water Beach. The premise of the beach is that if you go there within an hour of low tide you can dig a hole that will fill with hot water and have a natural hot water spa. When we got there everyone else had shovels (spades) with them or you could rent one from a local shop. I decided that we didn't need one and so we set off down the empty beach to where all of the people were gathered around. The day was overcast and the weather wasn't particullarly warm but there were plenty of people gathered in two clumps digging holes in the sand and sitting in them. I walked over to a hole that someone had already dug and climbed in and started digging but the water and the sand didn't feel particullarly hot. I tried this at a couple of other pre dug holes and none of them were hot. I started to think that this was a joke that Kiwi's pull on tourists and some people just have low self esteem so they pretend that their hole is hot and just sit in luke warm water that is warmed by the sun pretending that it is warm.
I kept trying different pre dug holes and then found one in the furthest corner up nearest the waves that was SCORCHING!

 I started to dig up around the area with my hands to make the hole bigger and deeper but it was tough because one part was so hot it burnt my hands. I must have looked pathetic pulling up one handful at a time while crying out "ouch, so hot!" enough that a woman who was walking by offered to lend me her shovel to dig out my hole. After it was dug Janelle and I sat in the hot water pool along with everyone else relaxing and enjoying ourselves.

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Hillary Trail

I decided to go for a hike today and went on the Hillary Trail. When I started the trail there was a place to scrub my boots and some disinfectant to spray on my shoes to clean them. The trail I went on had kauri trees, a national tree of New Zealand that they want to protect. As I started hiking (They call it tramping in NZ) the trail was easy at first but then quickly filled with LOTS of mud. I ended up covered in mud!

As I hiked I looked out for kauri trees but I couldn't see any. I felt annoyed that all I could see was mud and more mud. I found a dry patch to sit down on and have my lunch. When I stood up to continue on the trail I found that I had been sitting under a kauri tree eating my lunch!

The trail ended at the beach, which was really nice.

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The Rest of Seoul

-UPDATED LINK-

So I'm terrible at blogging now and have been crazy busy in NZ and haven't had the time or inclination to write anything so I have just decided to attach the rest of my Seoul pictures. Mostly what I remember about Seoul was that the food was interesting, the subway was cheerful and we were FREEZING!

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Seoul last 2 days