TravelStream™ news feed for member aymi_neil on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/aymi_neil en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:17:33 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1186973340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1186973340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1186973340/tpod.html Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:17:33 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Georgetown, Malaysia

We loved Georgetown, it was absolutely beautiful. It's on an island
called Pinang and we almost didn't go there because of the rubbish
things the lonely plantet said about it. Apparently it's impossible to
walk around due to the sheer amount of traffic and open drains. We
didn't find it that bad at all and they didn't say that about Bangkok which was horrendous!

Anyway, the amount of gorgeous old buildings with lovely peeling paint more
than make up for a few open drains. We could've walked round there for
weeks just taking photis!



One of my highlights of the trip so far was eating curry off a leaf in
little india. It was such an experience, I haven't got it down to a T
though and was completely covered in the stuff! You order a set meal
and they bring you a big leaf and put a few spoonfulls of things like
green beans and lady's fingers out of buckets onto your leaf. Then you
get rice and poppadums, then they brought us curry sauce and chicken
and then they brought a garlic naan and tandoori chicken. So much food!
Also the best food I've ever tasted ever. It does feel very strange to
eat with your fingers, especially when it's things like curry sauce and
rice. Apparently there is a method of scooping with your fingers and
then pushing the food into your mouth with your thumb but we didn't
learn of this until a long time later!

We stayed in a sweet
guesthouse with the sweetest man on reception. He could speak numerous
languages and insisted on chatting and chatting away at us. During our
stay we were
entertained by an old bloke (we think he'd been staying
there for a very long time) with stringy hair and a guitar. He was
writing music (supposedly) but the 3 chords he kept repeating seemed
very bob dylanish to us... He sat outside the toilet and serenaded us
day and
night, but when did he sleep you ask me, I just don't know.

Exciting events in Georgetown:

Taking lots of photis
Went to the cinema (to see Jason Statham with a combover, it was rubbish)
Taking more photis
I had a haircut
Taking lots more photis
Neil witnessed a fight break out after a group of people on one
motorbike had knocked another group of people off another motorbike. One
bloke was bleeding on the floor and got trodden on as the fight
progressed. The bloody rags stayed outside our hostel for a few days. nice.
Wandering round massive shopping centres, oh how we've missed shopping.
Eating cakes and pastry (they seem to like that here)


I
think that was about it, oh, except for the chocolate shop. Mmmmmm As
we approached, numerous people greeted us loudly and gave us a sticker
and ushered us inside. We were assigned a guide and she took us around
the shop, talking us through every single chocolate in there. The good
bit was we got to sample most things and it was the best chocolate
we've had in ages. I think they put something in the choc in hot
countries to stop it melting and it's just nowhere near as good as our
chocolate back home.



Oh, I also forgot about the suitcase buying experience. Boooorrring! I
hear you cry but it was actually very amusing. We glanced at a suitcase
and immediately, the saleswoman was stuck to us like glue, she stood so
close that we couldn't even see the stock and she just wouldn't budge.
As we tried to wander round and check out the different suitcases we
got seperated. I set off and before neil could follow me the woman had
stepped in between us. We tried to reach each other but it was
impossible, neil had to go round the other way. We decided one of us
should make a break for it so when she was behind neil and I was in
front, neil just stopped mid-aisle. She panicked, dodging this way and
that but neil stood his ground. Then she must have sent out a silent
signal as before I had a chance to leg it, her collegue was upon me. It
was terrifying! And we were pissing ourselves. Eventually, after she'd
tapped her foot a lot and looked at her watch a hundred times we picked
a case (for all the extra stuff we'd bought) and ran away.

There's
a big indian community here so we had delicious tandoori chicken again,
they definitely know what they're doing when it comes to tandoori
chicken and we got stuck into more of
the sweet milky tea they all
drink, yummy. Neil is excited about getting home and stocking our
cupboards with condensed milk so we can have iced coffeee and milky tea
fests. We're gonna be so podgy.

Some of the interesting things we photographed:

Really intricate Chinese Temples
Trees growing out of walls
Shrines
Shops full of paper money which people here burn as offerings
Peeling paint, decaying things, rusty stuff

Sorry about all the lists, my brain's not working in sentences today!



Right, i reckon that's about it. goodbye.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1189498320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1189498320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1189498320/tpod.html Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:15:50 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Pulau Langkawi, Thailand

We thought it would be more enjoyable to catch a ferry over the border into Malaysia from Thailand than sit on a coach and it was, until we arrived on the Malaysian island Pulau Langkawi. It's a terrifying place, renowned for tax free shopping and lots of concrete. There are nice beaches somewhere apparently but we didn't want to spend money on an expensive taxi when we were only staying one night. We thought we'd check out the shops instead. It was quite difficult to get into many of them due to the sheer quantity of muslims in full black dress with just their eyes peeping out. I liked the ones with glasses best. It turned out to be holiday time in Saudi Arabia and the whole population had landed where we were to buy suitcases to carry the cheap suitcases home they'd just purchased. (We actually bought one too cos we're gradually losing restraint and we keep buying shoes)

We found a cool food market that evening and bought a pankake with sweetcorn. We originally thought it was savoury but changed our minds when we saw the massive amount of sugar in it. We decided we should get something savoury before we were allowed to eat our pudding so we went for the easy option, a burger. little did we know it would turn out to be the most disgustingly bad for you burger we've ever munched on but it was amazing. IT WAS DEEP FRIED. EVEN THE BAP!!! crazy crazy crazy. We could feel our arteries clogging up as we ate, a bit like when I made us an elvis style peanut butter and banana sandwich fried in about 2 packs of butter. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Oh I forgot to mention that our hotel was an expensive smelly, smokey hell hole. The cleaner had 'cleaned' the bathroom by just spraying the shower all around it so we got moist bottoms when perching on the toilet. We slept on the cleaner of the 2 beds and were deliriously happy when an english episode of 'my name is earl' came on. We were quite bored of watching the spanish soap opera, such tedious storylines and absolutely no depth to the characters. Disappointing.

Anyway, we planned to get up the next day and take photis of the huge interesting buildings around the area and then get the ferry but it tipped it down with rain. We asked the receptionist when there was a ferry and rushed off to the jetty. Well, after the taxi driver tried to drop us of in the centre of the 'town' because he doesn't understand us despite us both using the same word for jetty, we obviously haven't got the accent down yet.

So, we arrived to find the receptionist had lied to us and the boat wasn't for another 4 hours. We sat in kenny rogers, eating chicken, playing yahtzee and listening to the same 4 kenny rogers covers on repeat, FOR FOUR HOURS! Perfect end to a perfect day. The soda floats were good though!

And then it was off to Georgetown...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190807640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190807640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190807640/tpod.html Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:56:40 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Wanaka, New Zealand

We did it! We finally did it!!

We jumped out of a plane, we went up to 15000 feet and jumped out of a plane!

The start of our videos showed us being relatively nervous, it doesn't help that my instructor Henk, has the strangest accent ever, and didn't tell me that he was going to do a fake introduction on camera (I'd already met him and had a chat, then he comes at me armed with a camera and pretends to meet me for the 1st time... which confused me quite obviously). And Aymi's bloke didn't tell her she was being filmed... we both said hello and sorry to our mums, then I pretended to run away and Henk looked at the camera and said in the best voice ever (now a catchphrase for us) 'He wants to run!'

Oh the hilarity

The flight up was ace, the door of the plane was clear and afforded us some spectacliar views... then it was time to jump, well, fall.

Oh my goshk

60 seconds of freefall is the most ridiculous feeling in the world, go do it!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1222083360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1222083360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1222083360/tpod.html Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:54:27 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Wanaka, New Zealand

The drive from Queenstown to Wanaka was not very far, unless you took the Crown Range Road, then it's not much further but it takes a lot longer with better scenery, and there's a fence with bras on it, for some reason.

So we went that way... the scenery was flippin ace, but the bra fence failed to materialise - which we were both mildly disappointed about.

Wanaka campsite was straight out of the 50's with nowt but wonky places to park (who builds campsites that aren't level eh?) and some frightening toilets complete with the world's scariest sink plugs... oh yes. Here's a link to the photo I took. But we didn't care cos it was a damn site (sight?) cheaper than Q'town and we were only here for one reason... jumping out of a plane!

It was too windy.

So we went to Puzzling World where we had hours of fun being bigger and smaller than each other, leaning over in a leaning over room, being followed by famous people's faces, marvelling at the holograms and generally having a bit of a lark, even in the toilets! Then we did the maze, you had to go upstairs and over bridges and everymathing, and we didn't cheat at all, not one bit.

In a fit of madness, we did the only other thing there was to do in Wanaka, we visited the best cinema in the whole world, Cinema Paradiso - it's got chairs, sofas and even a Morris Minor to sit in, we watched Starter for Ten with Vic the physio and had an awesome white chocolate ice cream during the intermission.

The next day, I phoned the skydiving place... too windy.

We'd exhausted the options by doing both things yesterday so we went in search of entertainment in the town, we ended up on the internet and buying stationery... shortly after buying a kebab we heard someone casually call Aymi... figured it couldn't be anyone we knew as we were in New Zealand, but it actually turned out to be the lovely Pete who Aymi used to work with on the Nottingham Princess. What an ace surprise! So we went and had a beer and a chat with him and his friend Joey.

The next day (24th) too windy, let's go back to Queenstown!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1203683040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1203683040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1203683040/tpod.html Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:54:06 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown!!!!

No bungy jumping for us, that was something we decided upon a very long time ago... so what else was there for us to do in Queenstown?? We decided to go on a wander after booking ourselves into the expensive campground.

After not a lot of pondering and a minute or so of watching a DVD of other people doing it, we decided that a jet-boat and canyon swing package was just up our street and we were to do it all tomorrow.

To celebrate we ate a pie on a wall and then played on the interweb for about 3 hours (it was warm in the interweb place).

...and so it began.

Jetboating was amazing, like a giant jetski (shouldn't really have been a surprise given the similarity of the names... ho hum) the driver flew past the canyon walls buzzing them by what seemed a matter of centimetres and spinning the boat through 360° the man sat behind us who announced the spin shortly after the driver did his 'I'm going to spin the boat' hand signal was a little annoying but the ride was soooo much fun that we decided to buy a photo of us on it.

Then, the swing.

In anticipation I had to have a wee in the Hoff based portaloo. We then joined the rest of them, I decided on 'the chair' as my 1st drop, like when you lean back on a chair in class or at home and get told off cos you're going to break the chair/your head when you overbalance... only with a 60 metre drop behind you. Chuffin marvellous! Aymi did a 'pin drop' and then we decided to do more... 2 more each! I did a pin drop, took a while cos it was a bit scary and I had no idea when I was allowed to jump, the the lady took it to new heights by being suspended backwards for the 'Elvis Cutaway' I took it to new depths by being persuaded that having a bin over my head was a good way to throw yourself off the cliff (the 'Osama' it even had his face drawn on the front) but then Aymi surpassed all expectations and did the 'Gimp Boy Goes to Hollywood' which entailed her having a gimp mask on and being released upside down and backwards... with a small gimp ted attached... it was ace, til she got back up and a new set of people had turned up to do their drops, heh.

Keeping the others waiting turned from a pastime to a way of life at this point, not only had we taken up all the time they had so they couldn't do more drops, we made them wait while we chose photos and DVDs and tshirts (never been able to literally say 'been there, done that, got the tshirt') they probably hated us...

Our smiles were frozen to our faces and we had DVDs to watch to re-live the experience as well, what an ace day!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190720640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190720640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190720640/tpod.html Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:46:16 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Queenstown, New Zealand

After wandering a while and marvelling at the Segway tourists, we bumped into Pete and Joey again, which was even weirder than bumping into them the 1st time. They were at a loose end and had just handed their car back in to the hire place, they were going to hitch back to Wanaka so we offered them a lift, as long as they came on the luge with us, and the crazy golf... they folded quite quickly to our masterplan.

The luge was chuffin marvellous, much much much better, longer and less congested than the one in Sentosa, we still looked like idiots in our helmets but what an ace thing to do. Joey lost, quite a lot.

The boys weren't going to crazy golf with us, but Joey decided he should simply because he wanted to win at something. Caddyshack City is _the_ best crazy golf ever ever ever. 18 holes of madness, including a shuttle, sawmill, ski slope (including a little chair lift that the ball goes up in) and the best bit - a boat called the Princess! You get a half time drink included in the price, and then when your ball goes down the last hole, you get a lolly!

Joey didn't win, Aymi did.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190286900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190286900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190286900/tpod.html Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:19:57 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Te Anau, New Zealand

Te Anau... our base for the Milford Sound bus trip we booked in Dunedin (we decided that we'd have a break from driving for the day and it meant that we'd definitely catch a boat rather than turning up too late after stopping too many times to get photos). There's not a lot to say about the town (we only had a short wander but there was only the one street) other than the lake is gorgeous and it was home to a very creepy mannequin advertising 'Hot Chips'. We arrived at the meeting point, met the driver, a man called Bryce who all day reminded me of Steve Irwin but without the confidence. When we set off he told us that we should all stand up and introduce ourselves to each other... we thought he was joking but it turned out he wasn't and the folks that had already been on the bus since Queenstown were less than impressed at having to do it all again, it was terrifying for some reason. It reminded me of those many many sales courses I've been on where I'd have to stand up and tell everyone who I worked for and what my job entailed, only this time I had to tell everyone that I was on an 8 month holiday... Anyhoo, we arrived at the 1st stop, a bird sanctuary which was all of a minute down the road, this is where we got a real taste of what Bryce was like, he knew lots but had no idea how to communicate it with us, either that or he was having a personal bet with himself to tell us the things he's told everyone else he's ever driven but without using any of the same words. My personal favourite fact of that particular part of the day is 'this wood pigeon weighs about as much as a rock the same size' he told us about how the Maori ate loads of birds to extinction but at the same time was telling us just how much meat you'd find on the birds he was showing us... weird.

As the trip progressed, it appeared that grammar had gone out of the window as well, his golden chunks of information included 'Rocks and snow are some of the items that is a problem' he was lovely, and hilarious.

There were a few stops along the way and we chatted to some people including Vic, the physiotherapist who we were to bump into again in Wanaka. The Chasm was my favourite stop, rocks from the mountain were washed down the river and had worn away the rock bed at this point, forming some really really cool smooth holes and patterns. Just before we got to the Homer Tunnel (where Bryce wanted us to take part in an impromptu naked fun run, there is one every year, but we'd missed it). He told us that he'd got us some muffins and cookies and would put em out on the table on the boat, but they were for us, and only us - when we met her again Vic told us the story of Bryce chasing 2 French kids to take their muffins back off them ...

Milford Sound is Byooooooootiful, the sun was shining and the rainbows were forming off the waterfalls, the seals and the penguins were around and there were hardly any other boats out. The sheer size of the place is breathtaking. Photos don't do it justice even though they themselves are beautiful, the whole area is just, well, majestic I guess, and serene. Our boat was quite tiny so it could take us in under the falls, only one of which caught me by surprise (the waterfalls are amazing and apparently it's best to go after or during a rain storm, then they are mental) the water in the sound looked black, which it wasn't but the effect was really unusual. After an hour or so of jawdropping scenery it was time to get back into the Bryce bus, he drove us to Monkey Creek where we all filled our bottles with the tastiest water ever, and then home to Te Anau, we got talked to by an old man who abandoned his wife to come and find out our life history, which was nice.

We declined the offer of an over priced meal with the others and went back to Jucy to eat something from a tin... we were off to Queenstown next!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190236740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190236740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190236740/tpod.html Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:37:42 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Te Anau, New Zealand

following the southern scenic route to the end, we set off fairly early from Invercargill - stopping briefly to say g'bye to the lambs and then into town just to see if it was quite as bad as we thought... it was. but we booked skydiving on the interweb in the library!!!

the road was once again absolutely breathtaking at every turn, literally. new views open up in front of you and you gasp, steer the car into the handy space and get out to take photos. about every 4 minutes. we stopped at the top of the hill to take a photo down the valley, then at the valley bottom to take photos back up, at the plateau, at the lake to look at the lake, at the power station, the next hill, the next valley, the next lake and then we arrived in Te Anau. after quite a long day of driving we were looking forward to the cup of tea and relaxytime in the van... until i asked for 'the diva' - now i'm not sure i've mentioned 'the diva' before. it's a magnetic wide-angle attachment for our compact cameras that we bought in Singapore, and for some reason best known to Aymi, is now known as 'the diva' - anyway, she was missing, we searched the whole van... nope.

i searched the parking spot in front of the caravan park... nope.

so off we set, doing the route in reverse and stopping at every point along the way, again. we worked out that we'd last seen it at the top of the hill but after that it could've been any point that it fell out. it was quite exciting going on a ridiculous mission at full pelt in the Jucy. the lake...nope, the valley... nope, the hill... nope, the power station... nope, the lake... nope, and then... the plateau. i stopped at the plateau, Aymi had forgotten that we'd stopped there on the way and set off taking photos of whatever she could. i however had my beady eye trained on the tiiiiiiiny little black thing i could see in the distance on the other side of the road, i couldn't control it any longer, i had to know so i ran for quite a long way until i was certain that i had seen the tiiiiiny black leatherette pouch that the diva lives in. i think i jumped for joy and ran back to A shouting 'i found the diva!!! i found the diva!!' or something that would have sounded equally weird to anyone listening in (no one, there's nobody about very much in the middle of nowhere in NZ). buoyed and jubilant we headed back, remarking on how on the way we'd managed to get the best light at everywhere we stopped, and talking animatedly about the fact that we'd found the diva... it was brilliant.

and so was the cuppa when we finally got 'home' again.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190121480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190121480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1190121480/tpod.html Sat, 17 Nov 2007 06:59:51 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Invercargill, New Zealand

setting off from Dunedin was a bit of a wrench, in that we loved it there and my recurring neck injury/weird thing had, well, recurred. therefore Miss New Socks had to do the driving to begin with (and it turned out, the whole day's journey). but as soon as we got onto the Southern Scenic Route it all became very worth it. the route is - as expected - spectacularly scenic.

before we properly got into it we spotted a cement works to stop at and photograph but then we got onto the real scenery and boy oh boy (not a phrase i believe i've ever typed before and i feel a little foolish about it now) was it scenic. every single point along the way was marked clearly on the several maps we had, and the lonely planet and then by the side of the road were not only car parks placed handily for the attraction (generally waterfalls, lakes, bays and weird rock formations), but also maps and an indication that was legible from a moving vehicle as to how long the return walk was from the car park, brilliant, just brilliant. we stopped a few times, most notably at Curio Bay which is the largest petrified jurassic forest in the world bloomin ace it was - it also was home to orcas, dolphins and other wildlife... and the biggest silliest seaweed that we've ever seen. i'm afraid to say that i too am now a little scared of seaweed, i didn't used to be but i've been hanging out with this weird 23 year old girl for far too long and she's passed it on. we stopped for lunch at Nugget Point and didn't quite catch it at the right time so it looked like a heap of rocks... ah well. the whole of the journey was splendid and littered with stops to go 'oooooh' and 'wow' at the various splendours that this amazing country has to offer.

one stop was in a near ghost-town to make a phone call to the place we wanted to stay at that night. then as i was coming out of the public loos i noticed an ill bumble bee crawling across the floor so i picked it up and transported it to the nearest flowering bush. this got a shouted question of 'what you doin?' from Aymi and then an echo from possibly the scariest man i've ever seen outside of horror film set in the interior of America, he then proceeded to rant on about how you shouldn't save them but 'smash em' and started to cross the road towards us... we got back in Jucy and sped off.

when we arrived in Invecargill we realised that we weren't going to stay here for very long, as far as introductions to a town go, and endless strip of fast food shops and massive bakeries is not the most inspiring, we stopped at Woolworths to buy food (not just pik n mix, but food like what you get in supermarkets... weird). luckily our little campsite was a bit out of town and included a working sheep farm, and therefore LITTLE BABY LAMBLETS!! all of whom took the word gambol to new limits, bouncing sideways as if posessed, twas marvellous. the best bit was the very very very very very very very very cute little orphaned lambs and goat who suckled on our fingers and just looked so pathetically beautiful that we really couldn't tear ourselves away.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1189967640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1189967640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/aymi_neil/world/1189967640/tpod.html Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:00:34 -0500 The Abulic Ape and Miss A of DooM's magical adventure round the madness of SE Asia

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Otago peninsular, New Zealand

we spent the morning clambering up the world's steepest street and
laughing at the attempts of a mazda full of students trying to do it,
it really is very steep. we left Jucy at the bottom and set off on foot
_after_ picking up our certificate (very trusting of them i think).

but then we travelled from Dunedin for an afternoon out on the Otago Peninsular, it was another one of those journeys in NZ, it's such a beautiful country that everywhere has nice places to pull in at the side of the road to take photos of the amazing views. so it took us at least twice as long to get anywhere as it should have done...

...arriving quite late in the day at the albatross sanctuary, we realised that we had a) not enough money and b) not enough time to see the albatrii _and_ the yellow eyed penguins. in a battle of cuteness; the little flightless birdies that have had countless movies made about em waddling about, sometimes falling over versus the giant seagull with massive long wings and a very very windy homestead (we were scared that Jucy was going to fall off the cliff), it was no real contest.

penguins are ace.

we loved it, we had to wear very stupid looking rubber macs and follow a lady around who at points seemed not to know what she was talking about but we saw some, no, not some... loads of yellow eyed penguins (the rarest penguins in the world, as they only live around NZ) and some blue penguins too!! they live in the habitat the lovely folks there try and keep predator free for them, we saw them coming out of the sea, waddling across the beach (at one point, one of them fell over, much to our delight) and up the very very steep hill to their lovely little houses, they didn't seem to be too bothered by us, even when the stupid swedish woman started asking questions by shouting at the lady... gah! we got left behind cos we were taking photos of the cute little couple that were just outside the hide (at some point we will get round to uploading the photos on here, but for now there are a few on Aymi's flickr www.flickr.com/photos/a_of_doom) and spent a few moments panicking that we were going to be left in the remote hills as everyone else was shipped back to the centre, but we found em (using the location device of the stupid swedish woman's voice).

we rushed back to catch the start of the capoera festival that was happening on the university campus, and after a shaky start where it appeared that folks really had no idea what they were supposed to do, it got good and the 2 brazillian blokes were absolutely amazing, doing stuff we'd only ever seen in animation. we stayed until you could hear our bellies rumbling over the music but then we had to go...

feeling good about ourselves for getting out and about to see wildlife _and_ some localness, we congratulated each other with a bag of fish and chips (known locally as fush and chups cos they mangle vowels) - the one bad thing about NZ is that they don't have vinegar to put on chips... so we got some white vinegar, similar, but not quite right, and in a giant bottle. then we went in search of the glow-worms.
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