Earthquake!

Yesterday evening we sat on the couch watching TV. Suddenly we felt the couch moving sidewards for about 30 seconds. We looked at each other wondering if the other one also feels it or if it is just an imagination due to the beer.... It was just a slight movement but we both definitely felt it. That happened to be our first experience of an earthquake. The location of the earthquake was 50km south-east into the sea from Gisborne. Quite a distance from Christchurch... and still we could feel it. Quite amazing actually. Maybe less amazing for the people in Gisborne...some building collapsed, lots of broken glass etc. Instead of preparing for Christmas they have to clean up and some of them even have to relocate.

For more information check the following website:
http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html

NZ- week 6/7/8

Usually the combination of the two of us stuck in a small boat isn't the best idea. It probably ends up in shouting at each other and blaming the other one for bumping into something rather than steering smoothly. At least, that was our experience with canoeing and rowing.
Now we know what to do: use a kayak! Of course, the chance that you bump into something at the open sea is quite small comparing with the narrow canals in the Netherlands, but is really worked out well!
We kayaked for a day in the Abel Tasman National Park. Again, we had a guide all to ourselves (which is great), it was a Japanese guy who is living in NZ for more than 10 years. He reminded us a lot of our Japanese friend Pepeeto, and we practiced the few Japanese words we just learned a couple of weeks ago.
It turned out to be the hottest day of november, lots of sunshine all day long.
We saw a few seals and two blue penguins. The penguins are really small (about 45cm in height) and it looks like they are flying through the water. Amazing!
The hardest part was the last 2 km back to the starting point; strong headwind, completely soaked, salt all over us, great fun!
It is a great day, we enjoy it immensely, I guess the picture says enough!

There is a museum in Nelson (actually every town, no matter how small it is, has a own local museum) It has examples of early settler buildings such as a bakery or a dental surgery. (for the Dutch: similar to the Openluchtmuseum in Arnhem) There is also some unusual display: The chainsaw museum! The first one who spots the chainsaw in the picture wins a free stay at our place here in NZ! :-)

One thing we have to mention about food: The portions in a restaurant are huge. When you want to have a small lunch, the best option is to share one dish.
Just look at the size of my BLT sandwich! And look at the seagull who had an eye on it as well!! (Picture was taken without zooming in!!)

After 6 days in Nelson, we continue further south, stopping at Murchison, Hanmer Springs (where you have to stop and get soaked in thermal water... very relaxing!) and Kaikoura, seeing some very nice places on our way. It is beautiful weather and we take a stroll along the coast. Many seals are lying in sun, resting, doing nothing. They do smell really bad, which is actually good, it keeps you at a safe distance from them.
The next day we intended to do a whale-watching tour but it got cancelled due to bad weather. Yes, weather can change quite quick.
Well then, just one thing left to do: head down to Christchurch!

Here in Christchurch we start a new part of our journey: trying to settle down. First, we need a place to stay. After 2 months of packing in and unpacking our bags every day or two, we really look forward to have a temporary home again, even if it's just for a couple of months.
It was actually quite easy to find a nice, furnished, 1-bedroom apartment, located 5 minutes walking distance from the City. It is quiet and there is a parking area for our car. This is going to be our home-base for our job hunting adventure.
As it is almost Christmas and that means summer holiday over here, all we can do now is do some researching on the internet. Walk by all the recruiters in town and upload our resume(CV) on some job-sites. From the second week of January, businesses in New Zealand will start up again.

NZ- week 4/5

After Napier we went further south towards Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. The city only has about 200000 inhabitants and one can do anything on foot in the City centre. After walking around downtown and watching the Christmas parade (really weird with these temperatures) we took the cable car (for the Swiss: looks a bit like the Polybahn in Zuerich) uphill to relax in the botanical garden. From up here you have a beautiful view upon Wellington and the bay.
The camping site is actually situated outside Wellington in a nearby town called Lower Hutt. Walking across there we suddenly found ourselves in front of a Dutch shop. Yes, they do sell kruidnoten, speculaas, bitterballen, haring and drop.

Here in Wellington, we met up with Martin, a German guy who emigrated 3 years ago. He showed us around outside Wellington and took us for a ride along the coast line. He also gave us some useful information about finding a job and buying houses. When we saw his house with a view on the sea it certainly made us very jealous ;-)....but it also made us aware that it is possible to "have it all" over here.

At last; our first (unofficial) Dutch visitors: among them my former boss Duco. We met up and went for some coffee. As they wanted to see the Te Papa museum and we had to get to some stores, we decided to meet afterwards for dinner. We found them already sitting on a sunny terrace when we arrived, so we joined them to enjoy the rest of the afternoon with a bottle of nice rose. One bottle turned into three before we had dinner (with a fourth bottle). Funny to see each other on the other side of the world in such an informal surrounding.

We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton, a trip taking about 3 hours. The last hour you pass through a couple of the Sounds (sort of Fjords) where you have stunning views. During the trip, it feels like we were going from north towards south, but actually it is more east to west.

Continued to Blenheim where we (oh yes) did another wine tour! :-)
The Marlborough wine region is the biggest wine producing area in NZ. Here they almost only produce white wine and hardly any red. We discovered some really nice Rieslings. There are many olive trees from which they produce nice olive oil.

After 2 days in Blenheim we drive to Nelson. This little town is the geographical centre of New Zealand. It is also the region with the most sunny hours per year. Since two weeks it is sunny and warm, about 27 degrees. After traveling for 5 weeks in New Zealand is feels like we had already a better summer than in Europe this year...and read this: Summer in NZ hasn't started yet! Jealous???
We stay for about one week and taking it easy. In the town museum is an excellent exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci showing 3-dimensional replicas of his inventions and designs (like the famous helicopter). Another museum called WOW (World of wearable art) is quite weird but in a positive and refreshing way. It is a mixture of clothes (made from all sorts of material one can think of) and old-timer cars.

NZ- week 3/4

On the third day of owning our car, we already lost one of the wheel-caps! Look on the bright side, it still drives great and we are finally blending in with the locals! One step closer to becoming a Kiwi.

On the Coromandel Peninsula are some strange phenomena called hot water beach. You stand on the beach and dig into the sand. Just a few centimeters beneath the surface it gets really hot... too hot actually. So people start to jump up and down. The weird thing was that our feet were nice and warm while the rest of the body was getting soaked by the rain :-(

Just as last time we visited the Coromandel Peninsula, it didn't stop raining. So, just as last time we moved on . . . . towards Thames; the biggest city in the area. At the motor-camp were we stayed there was a local bush hike: "Rockie's gold-mine trail". It should only take 3 hours of walking, but we did it in 4. Not that our physical condition is so very bad, but it had rained the days before and, more importantly, we had to watch our step for at least half of the time descending next to the stream on very muddy ledges! It was still a nice "walk" though and we recommend it to anyone who consider themselves at least a "weekend-warrior" ;-)
Even more important, we finally were having the opportunity to visit Esther en Maarten v/d Heuvel - our local physical mailbox. Having no relatives or friends of our own living here we had to find somebody to be kind enough to share their address so we could register at some official businesses to get things organized. Maarten is actually a brother of one of Esthers' (now ex-) colleagues Jaap. They moved to New Zealand just over a year ago. It was quite interesting to hear how they experience the Kiwi way of life and how they look at NZ after one year.

We continue east and finally the weather is changing for the better - so is the mood of George... he just can't stand rain. The next thing on the schedule is a tour to the White Island. This is NZ's most active volcano and it is situated about 50 km offshore. Having been to Iceland we knew what to expect. Still it is fascinating, all the steam and bubbles and smell and colors... For safety reason we were given a gas mask and a helmet. If it is really necessary - I doubt it. When the volcano decides to blow, you are in the wrong place anyway. It certainly makes a good picture! Now we are really heading east.

Next stop is Gisborne. It took us about 4 hours of driving through mountains and forests....and nobody is on those roads! One thing about the road signs....sometimes they can be a bit depressing. There could be a sign: " windy for the next 23 km" and after that there's a straight bit for about 1-kilometer just to be followed by another sign saying: "windy for the next 45 km" :-) That is why everybody drives an automatic car with power-steering!

Napier on Hawke's Bay is famous for its Art Deco architecture. This town has been completely destroyed by an earthquake back in 1931. When they started to rebuild it they decided to use one style only - Art Deco. This area produces also good quality wine. Of course that means we had to join a wine tasting tour. This was a quite an experience. Starting at lunchtime, visiting 4 wineries, tasting at least 9 different wines at each winery, and that all within 3.5 hours... well, do the math!! We were getting more and more happy and chatty. I guess a real connoisseur spits out most of the wine after tasting, we thought it is a waste to spit it out :-)

The only sheep-leather tanning factory also happens to be in Napier. So being good tourists we decided we had to visit the (free!) tour of the factory. After only 20 minutes the tour was over. . . I was surprised how relatively small the factory was, but was explained that as the (sheep)farming industry is declining, the market for sheep-leather accessories is also shrinking. Most of the things they produce is for export by the way.....nice warm woolen clothes for those cold nights in the Sahara desert for example.

NZ- week 2

Arrived at the Kauri Coast - a part of Northland with the last remaining Kauri forests. We've been there last year, but did not see all the giants which survived the onslaught by mankind. One of the trees has a girth of 18 meters and stands for over a thousand years; very impressive! Just look how small we look comparing to that tree...
We decided to stay at a motor-camp where you can do a guided night walk. We also did that last year, but this time it wasn't a private tour.....there were nine other tourist besides us and the guide.....this time we only heard the kiwi instead of actually seeing it. The impressive night-sky made up for it though.

We continue our journey to the east coast again, Pakiri Beach. We are staying in a nice cabin which provides all you need: good bed, kitchen and bathroom. It' s a bit expensive, but very nice for a change. Weather is still great, so we are staying for 2 nights. Eating breakfast on the deck watching the birds and the rabbits, listening to the waves, enjoying the sun....not too bad!

Did you know that Goat island isn't an actual name but more a designated one? It is a type of small island where the sailors of old times dropped some goats on to, before sailing further up the coast. On the way back, they came to the island(s) to capture the goat(s) again to have same fresh meat to eat on the return-journey. We found that out while doing a glass-bottom boat tour at Leigh. Very touristic but interesting. During the trip we even saw a 2m long stingray; they can swim (fleeing from you) at around 30 km/h!

Back in North Shore City (Takapuna, a suburb of Auckland) it is time to get rid of the rental car and buy a car of our own. We both know nothing about cars except that they have to drive well and require low maintenance. After 2 days of looking for the damn car, it was time to make a decision: We bought a Nissan Pulsar, secondhand, from 1996 and only 46000 kilometers!! As almost all the cars in NZ, this one is also imported from Japan. Apparently Japanese people don't drive much in their cars and like to buy a new one every other year. It's amazing, in the Netherlands you would have driven 46000 km in about 2 years....

NZ- week 1

After being a week or so in New Zealand, it's about time to write something of our travels here.
We probably should try to write something every day even if we do not put it onto the blog right away.
After arriving in our hotel (next to Auckland's busiest street (Queen st)) and relaxing for a couple of hours, we decided to make a plan for the coming days: buying cellphones + laptop and renting a car. We ended up with a prepaid cellphone, a nice white and shiny Mac-book, high-speed portable internet and an old (but cheap) rental car.

First stop after we left the hotel was an acquaintance we met trough one of Esther's' working colleague. His name is Jan and he emigrated 9 years ago. We were invited by him and his family to come around for some assistance if we needed any. So we graciously accepted and stood on their doorstep and rang their bell. A couple of hours later after onbijtkoek (typical Dutch sort of cake), dinner, a glass of wine, some borrowed roadmaps and many welcome tips we left again.

The next day we head north. Slowly but steady we were getting used to driving on the left side of the road. Once you are out of Auckland there isn't much traffic and the roads are quite in good condition. We were reading in the Lonely Planet about NZ's most famous toilet. It is in a small place called Kawakawa and it is on our way anyway, so we went to see it. It was designed by an Austrian artist named Friedensreich Hundertwasser who lived his last 30 years in New Zealand. It is an impressive place, colored bottles plastered into the walls, reflecting the light. Quite bizarre how a public toilet can turn into a tourist attraction!

Of course we couldn't pass by Waitangi, where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed on the 6th of February 1840. On this piece of (now deteriorated paper) the British accepted New Zealand as a part of the Commonwealth and therefore protecting it from claims of other nations as their property/conquest and simultaneously recognizing the Maori as their inhabitants and their claims to the land.

Waitangi is next to Paihia from were you can take the ferry for about a 10 minute trip to Russell, one of the former capitals of NZ. All that now is remaining are some victorian houses which are either a cafe or a hotel. But it is a perfect way to spend an afternoon enjoying the sun and a nice cold beer with a view over the ocean.

Driving towards Ahipara for our next touchdown, we decided tot visit Gumdiggers park. These buried Kauri-forests contained dried up liquids better known as barn-stone, but the kiwi call it gum. We walked around the sites were, around the 1900's, a lot of people worked to excavate it. Sometimes in swamps in quite harsh conditions.

The next day we went on a tour which would take us over Ninety Mile Beach. At the advise of one of the motor-camp hosts, we decided to book on a smaller, local (Apihara) tour-operator. We were not disappointed: it turned out we were the only customers, so we got a private tour in a 4WD car. He showed us the silica-white dunes (which, unfortunately are not accessible any more), Cape Reinga; where the Maori believe the souls of the deceased leave for Hawaiki (origin of the Maori) and where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. Having eaten lunch in a remote, beautiful bay, we were driving towards big sand dunes. They look rather misplaced, shiny and white next to the green grassland and forest. We were given a toboggan and had to walk uphill...rather steep! When you finally go downhill, the trick is to lean back as far as possible, otherwise you will get a facial sand scrub! Great fun to do, but walking up that dune reminds us of our poor physical condition... we will work on that! Finally, we accessed the beach. We drove the whole Ninety Mile Beach (67km)!

Japan - pictures!!

Quality of the pictures should be much better... we are still trying to find out how to convert them properly... will improve soon!!

Japan!!

The first leg of our journey takes us to Japan: Land of the rising sun!
Esther met Pepeeto and Kayo (our Japanese friends) 14 years ago during language school in Exeter, UK. All those years we stayed in touch and finally it was time to visit their home country.
What can we say about Japan? Well . . . . it's different.
How different could a country be from the countries we've already visited? Very different!

Just the language, written and spoken, is for most westerners incomprehensible. We only use 26 letters and 1 alphabet, they start with 46 going up to and over 2500 and use 3 different kind of alphabet !!
So if it wasn' t for our friends helping us out as guides (domo arigato gozaimasu Pepeeto and Kayo), we would have been lost.
The people themselves are perhaps the most polite humans on this planet; they even apologize for starting to talk to you in an restaurant when they bring you the thing(s) that you ordered, in case you where having an conversation with the people you are dining with.
To us it seems they use the word 'arigato' (thank you) almost every few sentences.
After experiencing this, westerners seem very rude.

Food . . . . hmmmmm Their food is certainly different from ours (at least different from what Esther and I normally eat). Lots of rice (of course) and lots of fish. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, weren't it that we are not fish-eaters. But having an open mind, we thought: 'when in Rome . . . do as the romans do'. So we tried the fish. Guess what? We liked it a lot! I think because the fish is so very, very fresh and well prepared it almost doesn't even taste and smells like the fish as we know it.
Of course we had to visit a Sushibar. It is hilarious to see the food passing by on the moving belt. You just pick what you fancy and eat as long as you like. Pepeeto chose carefully for us, we began with some harmless stuff like rice and vegetables. Soon we moved on to tuna and salmon and other fish. At the end there were the salmon eggs, quite delicate we were told. Esther tried one egg (didn't really like the slimy feeling) and George ate the rest.
We even master to eat with chopsticks. The trick is to fixate one the sticks and only move the other one. Once you know how to do so it becomes quite easy. We didn't use a fork after mastering the chopsticks during our time in Japan!
Every Japanese restaurant is displaying the menu...but they do it in a most interesting way: there would be an artificial plastic model for every dish with hand-painted details. It looks so real that you hardly realize it is a fake.

When you are traveling in Scotland of course you will visit some Whiskey distelleries. In Japan that means you will have to try Sake. It is made from rice and only about 14-20%, so it is actually comparable to wine.

The big cities are (at least Sapporo) unbelievable clean. 1.8 Million people living together and not even a candy wrapper on the streets.
It just shows you, that with proper education and a little effort, a clean living environment is possible even with that many people living together.

The people, as mentioned before, are incredible polite. But also very hospitable; we've been invited by friends and family of our friends to a BBQ and even to spend the night at their houses. They opened their house for us, two strangers! They even gave us some gifts; a gesture we couldn't return at that moment (but we will).

Climbing the local active volcano with Pepeeto was harder than expected. For us anyway; Pepeeto actually seemed to do it with ease.
The view at the top was a bit foggy, and the smell of sulphur reminded us of Iceland, but we had a good time.

Visiting the 1972 Olympics ski-jump slope was a must-do being in Sapporo: seeing such an thing from the top impresses you; they never look this big/high on the television. The accompanying wintersports-museum was a treat. You could do/play/try/test some winter sports yourself on some simulators. The highlight was an actual ski-jump-simulator wherein you was strapped down and got some video-goggles in front of your eyes displaying the actual slope. You than had to time the moment to stretch your legs at the end of the virtual slope so it could calculate your flying distance. Very high tech!

Pepeeto also took us to a nearby Shinto-shrine. A impressive building (actually several ones) were we also happen to see a traditional Japanese wedding (both bride and groom in white kimono's). Our paper "oracles" we got gave us all good luck for the remainder of the year. 3 And 7 year young girls and 5 year young boys were also dressed up and in the temple-complex because it was their special day.

Another great experience was that even if you speak different languages you actually can have sort of a conversation. Yui (Pepeeto's 5-year old daughter) was eager to talk to us...in Japanese of course but she didn't mind if we did not quite understand. Signing and guessing can do a lot. We were pointing at things and would say the word in Japanese and English (grape - budo, green - midori, etc.). The result is that we do know now all the colors of the rainbow in Japanese.

After a week in Sapporo on the Island of Hokkaido we said our goodbye to Pepeeto and his family (Shuko, Yui and Rei) and flew from Hokkaido to Fukushima on Honshu to meet Kayo and her husband Patrick.

There is another typical Japanese thing: Karaoke! We had some doubts about doing it, but after some LC (liquid courage, thank you Patrick) in the form of beers, we just joined in and had a great evening. There was really big book with all the songs listed one can choose. At a certain time Esther even found a German song (Nena - 99 Luftballons) and this one had to be done. Surely this must have been the first time this song was chosen in that karaoke club!

Kayo drove us around quite a bit and we got a good impression of the countryside. We were astonished how much forest there is. The landscape is really hilly and the one in the backseat of the car would get an upset stomach caused by all the hairpin-curves. As it was the harvesting-season for rice, we saw al lot of rice-fields in all different colors because some were already emptied while others still contained the yellow rice-plants.
We were shown quite a hidden place with some Shinto temples. They are really remarkable. It is one the places you have to know about. If you are just a tourist you would never find it. So thanks to our guide Kayo to share that place with us!

We attended a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. You sit on the tatami (straw mats), drink really strong green tea and eat some sweets made of soy bean.

Did you know about the heated Japanese toilet seats? Well, we did not. So the first time you will sit on the toilet you are quite surprised. It is really great and nice and comfy and you do not want to get up again!!

We spend our last night in Japan in a traditional Japanese hotel. That will say, you sleep on the floor on a relatively thin futon. (They made my bed with 2) Luckily I found another 2 spare futons in the cupboard and piled them up, so it looked and felt more like a matras. I slept really comfortable.
This was also the first hotel where I had to take my shoes off at the entrance and was given slippers.

Going from Shirakawa-city to Tokyo we had three ways of traveling: by airplane, by normal train en by the 'Shikansen' (Japanese bullet train).
There was no contest really. . . we took the Japanese version of the french TGV! Fast, clean and on time we arrived in Tokyo main station.
After taking another local train to the airport, we collected our stored luggage and got ready to board the plane to New Zealand.

Overall, Japan (pleasantly) surprised us . . . getting to see a different way of living refreshed our mind in a way we never imagined.

Needless to say, we will certainly return to Japan.

Hotel New York

After all that moving we decided to spend a relaxed day at Hotel New York in Rotterdam (thanks to Henk U. from work).
We spent the night in one the tower rooms. It was the first hotel room for me with a spiral staircase to get to the room and another one in it. Upstairs is a little room where you can sit and relax. You would have a perfect view if the weather was nice.
Notice the container ship in the background of the tower, could be our belongings in there...
Hotel New York is the former headquarter from the Holland-Amerika Line. So we were in the spirit of all the thousands of people who stepped on the boat from this place....emigrating to a new world.

Moving out

You never realize how many things are stuffed in your house until you are going to move.
All that sorting out, throwing away, packing in boxes and cleaning and wrapping furniture takes at least twice as long as you think. George and I thought that 2 weeks should be more than enough...we just finished on time.
The truck arrived at 7.45 h, quite early indeed. But two hours later our house was already empty!!!
A big "THANKS" to the muscle guys André, Alan,Wubbo and Pim.

Finally!

Here it is: our own weblog!
Still quite empty, but it is a start :-)