Enjoy!

“The single most physically demanding day of my life.”
The bus left at 5:30am and we were on the road for about an hour and a half till we hit the Tongario Crossing. I brought 3.5 liters of water, a Toblerone, a packet of beef jerky, plenty of sunscreen, a Sherpa fleece, a beanie and a rain coat. There were later showers in the forecast. We hoped to finish the 8.5 hour trek before the rain rolled in.
The normal trek was rated at 6-8 hours. This would skip Mount Doom, but we opted into the extra 1-1.5 hour hike of Mount Doom, an 8000 foot volcano that truly earns its name every time someone attempts it. Just before the Mount Doom portion there was a challenging portion called the devils stair case on the regular hike, trek, whatever. This portion stole all of my energy, but my two friends were barely winded. As we started climbing Mount Doom, my friends, Patch (20 year old Irish guy) and Vasco (20 something year old German guy) slowly pulled away from me, just as they had during the normal hike. As we hit the 20 minute mark they were nearly out of sight and by 25 minutes into the hike I was all alone.
We were the first to get onto Mount Doom, so we had no idea of the right way to climb it, but there was a local that was at the bottom of it that told us to stay to the left and stay on the volcanic rocks as often as possible. The mountain consisted of high pitched volcanic rocks and volcanic sand. When the rocks jostled around, they sounded like glass bottles. They were, of course, sharp.
I got to the point in the mountain that I was taking 3 steps followed by a 10 second break. This pace was manageable and there was no reason to try and race it, since I had so many thousands of feet to go. There was no point in losing my balance and tumbling to my death. I wasn’t going to make it to the top all that much faster if I raced my heart. There was a 9:30 am deadline to start Mount Doom, after that, park rangers would turn people away, for it would be impossible to finish the whole 8 hour trek and make it back to the last bus. We arrived at the mountain at 8am so I knew that I had plenty of extra time to get up the mountain. As it got later in the morning, others began to get on mountain and pass me. I was the hair that was losing the race. I had gone way too fast to get to mountain. Now I had transformed into the ultra turtle. It was literally two steps followed by a ten second rest.
This must have looked dramatic from any vantage point. As I grew more tired, my balance began to give and I resorted to all fours. This wasn’t particularly ergonomic when I had 3.5 liters of water on my back. And the hardest bit was yet to come.
The local had told us to stay away from the sand, that part was for getting down and sometimes it was unavoidable. I hit a 300 foot patch of the stuff and for every 2 steps I took forward, I would lose 1.8 steps. This was as nasty as anything could get. Imagine climbing vertical quick sand only instead of being swallowed underground, you were just pushed back where you came from.
After I reached a break in the sand, I found a vain of rock that was actually climbable. I finally could constructively use my hands and upper body for balance and leverage. I mentioned before that I was on the left half of the mountain and in picking my line to the top, I eventually crossed over the blast point. I was soaked in sweat until this point. It was where the south wind was running up the mountain. As I crossed over, I was blasted with 20-30 mph wind that instantly dried the sweat from my entire body. It was a dry wind and much welcomed. It pushed me against the mountain so it was actually a helping hand. I decided it was time for a break.
I sat down 3/4ths the way up the mountain and took in the view. Amazing, like being on another planet. I sipped my water and pulled out my Toblerone. I sat there and caught my breath, wishing I could spend the day in that exact spot. The candy sent a sugar rush that boosted my moral when I realized that the clock was ticking and that I had unfinished business. Later I learned from the video that my mouth was so dry that the chocolate stuck to my teeth. I began to take 5 steps per every 10 second break and just when I was making some serious progress, Patch the Irishmen yelled out my name. I looked up and rejoiced that they had not yet left without me, a true sign of a friend.
We walked around the top of the rim of the volcano and saw the mounds of ash in the center. We even saw the point that hobbits threw the ring into. It was actually filmed up here. I wondered how they got all the camera and crew up there because there really wasn’t a ton of space to fit crews at the top.
Coming down was a breeze as the sand was our friend. It was, as I said in the movie a controlled avalanche. I dug my heels in and lifted my feet in a sort of artificial zero gravity, similar to the vomit commit. What took me 2 hours to get up only took me 15 minutes to get down. My running shoes were jammed with sand and volcanic pebbles. My feet were uncomfortably packed like sardines and the occasional baseball sized rock would bump into my ankles. My shoes were torn up by the time I made it to the bottom. The rocks had sliced them to bits.
After emptying them, I had 6 more hours of trekking ahead of me. It was rubbish. I had already done the fun part/important part. Now give my by bus, my taxi, my fucking chopper, but no, we had a full day ahead of us. To think that I climbed half way to the same height that I jumped out of a plane just a few days before was amazing.
For the rest of the trek and the rest day, I was a fun wrecker, a nay sayer, a negatorian ( I make words up sometimes). My blood sugar had been permanently lowered for the day. Snapping and whining, I took the next day off.

Taupo is the sky diving capitol of the world. This place might have even invented the stuff, but probably not. The Americans probably invented it along with everything else. Can you sense the pride? Don’t mistake it with homesickness J

I just have to start with the sense that I was not afraid until my shoes were dangling out of the plane. 15000 feet is legally as high as one can jump out of a plane and it translates to a bone chilling 60 seconds of free fall, followed by 4 to 5 minutes of parachuting.

The weather could not have been more perfect. Not a cloud in the sky and about 80 degrees on the ground. The jump was the equivalent to $150 USD so the price was right. I would be jumping tandem with a German man named Albert and as always in New Zealand, the whole operation was top notch.

When I strapped into the harness I felt comfortable, not too tight and not too loose. When we lined up for the plane ride the guide loosened my harness to the point where I could slip out of it. At this point I had my first worry, but I went on justifying that this must be standard procedure. My guide had a bit of a language barrier. He knew all of the essential English to do the job but when I tried to make small talk he didn’t really answer.

I pulled on my harness and said “Is this normal?” and he just said “It’s ok”. Ok? I jumping out of a freaking plane, ok is not ok! Later in the plane ride, Albert began to tighten the harness to the point that I felt like his second skin. I was so tightly secured to the guide, that we had o breath in unison. It was painfully secure, but I didn’t have a worry in the world.

I kept on checking my pulse and seeing that it was essentially normal. Well, not normal for someone about to jump out of a plane. Then the door slid open and my guide slid me forward and dropped my feet off of the open plane. I had to look behind me to take a picture before I exited the plane and I suspect this was to prevent the new divers from looking over the side for too long and freaking out. It was a brilliant tactic and before I could get scared, I was accelerating to 200 kilometers an hour.

More than scary, more than exhilarating, and more than adrenalin pumping, it was beautiful. It felt like I was not even moving, but at the same time living life in as fast forward as it got. It felt like I was in the heavens and just hanging out sliding across the sky. I never felt the sensation of falling once I reached terminal velocity. I was almost immediately unsatisfied with the tandem setup. I wanted to fly alone. I wanted to flip and spin at will. I knew that this was not my last dive, but only a taste of a bigger calling. Before I die, I will be a sky diver, and a good one at that.

That is, if I can get past the wrenching motion/altitude sickness that I experienced once the parachute was out.

It was much slower, but in a way a lot better. I could see the world from 7000 feet up in relaxation and not in a rush. I could see the lake, the town, and the mountain that I would be climbing tomorrow. The guide loosened the harness to make it more comfortable and let me take my goggles off. As beautiful as any view, but without any wind shields, of cramped seats, this was amazing. My guide was doing tight spins that were pulling what felt like 2 to 3 Gs. I probably shouldn’t have taunted him to do flips with me when I was back on the ground.

And before I knew it, I was done. I actually kept the queasy feeling for the rest of the afternoon but I still have the ambition to sky dive alone.

Tomorrow I leave for an 8 hour trek at 5:30 am. It’s called the Tongariro Alpine Crossing and I will be hiking the same mountain that the lord of the rings “mount doom” was based and filmed on. It is said to be the single best one day trek in New Zealand. We are supposed to get rain in the afternoon, so we are leaving as early as humanly possible. The next day I am going to go on a river rafting trip that has rapids that are rated 5 (out of 5). It has the world’s largest river rafting waterfall at 7 meters tall, but don’t worry because I have spoken to a lot of people who did it yesterday and said it was amazing.

I’ve been packing in quite a bit of once in a lifetime adventures, day after day, and I’m not even in the south island (said to be the better one).

If you don’t do this before you die, you haven’t fully lived. This is the mantra of a truly great experience. The Waitomo Caves are a wonder of the world. I know that I am only a few days into my trip, but this is one of those times that I am going to say “which ever your dream is, drop it, and get your butt down to New Zealand for the Lost World Adventure in Waitomo”. Do it now, don’t procrastinate, and don’t put it behind the new car or the trip to boring old tropical somewhere. Just do it.

Maybe we should start with what IT is. Picture yourself driving through rolling farm land that looks like the shire on Lord of the rings, only to stumble upon a 100 meter deep cave that spans a mile across underground, all with a flowing river, glow worms, and some of the most dramatic rock formations I have ever seen. The lost world adventure is not cheap at all. Coming in at $245 NZD it was half that price with American dollars. Even if I had to pay $500 USD, I would easily pay for it. Let’s start with the safety.

Since we were repelling down 300 feet, we had to have 3 levels of attachment. Two short ropes with a carabineer and then one major carbineer. The repel would take 10 minutes and in that time, your genitals would go through a pain that made me question of the whole trip. But the pain is bearable when you are fixated on the gigantic cave, mist, and pouring in morning light. They make you sit on a round railing and lean off of the platform, 300 feet above the base of the cave. The mist flows up and out of the cave like a volcano. All the way down the cave are lush green plants and jagged rock formations. It looks like a scene from king kong. Or even a scene from Jurassic park.

Luckily there was only 4 people total in the trip including the guide, a friend, a retired British environmentalist, and myself. The size of the group alone made the trip worth it. It was intimate. One could easily be fooled that there were no other souls within a thousand miles. You could even imagine being an explorer, discovering this for the first time. There were no crowds, no wining tourists, or flashing cameras. It was downright spiritual. Speaking of spiritual, the tour guide was a late 20s, wiry philosopher type; a real treat. He was a man of little words but meticulous safety. He was a measured man, all of his steps and words showed that. He knew when to just shut up and let us sit in silence. He didn’t announce these bits of silence; just let them smack us in the face. This was his calling, a route that paid homage to his tone and demeanor.

When we were dropping into the cave, we thought we were almost to the bottom but we had only just begun. At the bottom there was a flowing river and watermelon sized scoops out of the rocks. This place was so beautifully treacherous that we had to clip into a guide line for about 90% of the trip. Those two short line carabineers were because one was to remain attached while we moved the other to the next section of rope. This way, there wasn’t a single second that we were not attached. We made our way along sheer underground cliffs and soaking wet boulders in the soft light from out helmets. Then our guide took us deeper in the jaws of the cave and in its belly was a true treat. As if in a prehistoric bedroom, the worms on the ceiling glowed like stars. The river raged on at the top of its lungs and we sat in human silence. I couldn’t help but shed a few tears in the darkness. This place was so dramatic that it invoked all sorts of emotions, not always euphoric. Almost like a Native American vision quest. My walls were temporarily torn down by the shattering ambiance. Everyone was gone in the night and I was left with the green glowing stars, the river, and the mist.

We had to get back up to the surface of the cave so we climbed up a rod iron latter that was a 100 foot vertical climb, in pitch darkness. Of course, we were strapped into a safety line, but the bars were wet and slick with mud from the climber before. Each rung of this narrow ladder was one foot apart and towards the top of the climb, the latter would swing violently with every step. I thought the ladder would be easy because the handles were so blatant, but what I underestimated was the strength needed to keep myself on the latter when it is vertical. A house hold ladder is slanted, thus almost all of the weight can be distributed to your legs. If done right, it is like walking up stairs. This ladder was completely vertical, and even with my climbing experience and knowledge of using my legs to do all the work, I found my biceps burning from just keeping by body balanced on the ladder. The slippery nature of the bars didn’t help either. Once again I thought to myself, “wow, someone could really get hurt here. Disabled for life, even with the backup safety lines.”

After that there was another walk way too steep to naturally get over. This time an identical rod iron ladder was laid on the steep floor. The guide calmly told us to walk, not crawl up this one (in the dark, wet, muddy misty conditions). I laughed and said to myself “I am even prideful of my balance, and this act would be me showing off, but I would never do this in these conditions.” Either way we did, and I was surprised to see that even the retired environmentalist was balancing very well. At the top of the walking ladder I had realized that the whole thing was also twisted to the left about 2o degrees.

4 hours after our start, we made it back to the surface. Back to the shire. We opened and closed unassuming sheep fences made with number 8 wire as we made our way back to the car. I asked the guide if his company let him come back to this place alone on his own time and he looked at me with the severity of sincerity and said in a stoic tone, “any time I like”. This man had found his calling and it was an experience in its own to see him in that cave.

When driving through the farm land of the North Island in New Zealand, It’s easy to forget where you are. It’s easy to be fooled into thinking you are in Middle America as far as land features are concerned. That is, of course, the land features that you can see.

Waitomo is a small small town that looks like it could be in Napa Valley. It is, in fact, home of some very impressive caves and underground river ways. The best part is that there is a fair amount of farmers and cows in the area and every so often, a cow becomes a cave dweller. Today we arrived in town at about noon and opted into a “black water experience” where we would go on inner tubes and helmet lights through an underwater river way. In that we would see the infamous glow worms that are not truly describable by words or images. It’s just one of those things that you have to be here for.

Tomorrow we are going to go repelling 100 meters (more than 300 feet) into a dramatic (and deep cave) which is said to be an unbelievable experience. But today I will talk about my experience in the river as well as some of the cultural observations that came along with it.

The black water experience would not be possible in America. Consisting of flowing rivers, jagged rocks, stalactites, and having to jump backwards in the dark into shallow pools of water (to get past underground waterfalls), the black water experience would be a litigious playground had it been in America. But this is New Zealand, that logical country that I have been writing about for the past week or so. Even though any sure footed, 20 something, person shouldn’t ever really roll an ankle on this trip, it could happen. And that is assuming you are a sure footed 20 something. Sure we had helmets, but this place was dark, really dark, and there were plenty of parts where even I chuckled and wondered how they didn’t have a stretcher mounted in the cave every 50 feet or so, for the eminent ankle roll.

All in all, it was a blast. But I wanted to mention some subtle cultural differences. We were wearing heavy wetsuits that were even more heavily modified with reinforced and elongated elbow and knee pads for crawling along jagged rocks, but what was another piece of standard gear were shorts that went on top of the wetsuits. When someone asked the guide why we wore the shorts, he said “because it makes you look cooler” he didn’t say “It prevents the rocks from scraping the wetsuits when you sit down” which would have been both a logical and acceptable. I suspect that they deem it indecent to have guys walking around with their bulges and they give them to the women too for consistency. Now the next cultural observation might be a stretch for people who don’t surf or scuba dive.

They didn’t make a big deal about not peeing in the wetsuits, they made a huge deal out of it, but any person who has owned a wetsuit knows that peeing in it is not a big deal. Urine, first of all, is sterile. Secondly, when you get wet, it does flush out of your suit, at least enough that you don’t get the feeling that you are bathing in your own waste. But what do I know anyway, I’ve only been using wetsuits for 12 years.

So there was a great dichotomy between the decent and the dangerous. The hostel we are staying at tonight is like a huge log cabin, and though I haven’t been to too many hostels around the world, I get the feeling that the best ones are in New Zealand. Clean and full of character. These places don’t even all have lockers or places to store your valuables. I even spoke with a guy who has been working in a hostel for the past 5 months and he said that they haven’t had a single incident of stolen items yet. Which brings me to the next great discovery; most people working in hostels are simply saving up money to finish off their trip. Most of these people are not from New Zealand at all, they are from various other countries, and they often travel on the same busses that I do. It’s a lot like when all of your friends first join the work force, everything in life becomes negotiable. “I’ll let you in free to the movies, if you give me your employee discount at the clothing store that you work in” and so the grey market was born, and so the world of backpacking is also born.

There was a couple from New Zealand that was staying at the same hostel as I was so I took the chance to address their cultural logic. I asked them why everything seemed to be built or set up so logically. They said that “we were a number 8 wire country, at least that’s how we started” they were referring to the gauge of wire that makes the fences on the side of the road and that that used to be the only material they could get their hands on before the days for 747s and super freighters. This meant that the people had to be creative with their problem solving, they were isolated and with limited resources.

I didn’t bring up the decency theory, but I’ll be sure to when the time is right.

Tomorrow, we will repel 300 feet into a cave that is sure to cause a memory.

It was my first stop outside of the Auckland. A trip up to the bay of islands and the northern most tip of New Zealand. I had just realized that I have cut myself short for the immovable February 26^th flight to Sydney. Not because it was impossible to get around the country in this amount of time, but because it was impossible to see 1/5th of the things that there were to see. This coupled with a bus that didn’t have service every day often left me with the choice of moving onward the next morning or staying a full three nights. I only had a few extra nights over the minimum time that it would take me to complete my circuit so if I spent my three night option early, there would most certainly be a nonstop rush to follow.

I decided early in the morning that this was far too early in the trip to spend my three nights. I hadn’t seen hardly anything, how was I supposed to blow my load so early? I marked on a sheet that I would be leaving the next morning to the next town.

This was also my first bus ride and therefore my first chance to really get connected to people who were largely in the same situation as me. Naturally, after traveling so far, I was dehydrated and when waiting for the bus to pick me up, I downed a 1.5 liter bottle of water. Bad Idea. As all of you are aware, not peeing for extended periods of time is not exactly my strong suit.

Only about 15 minutes into my bus ride, I was about to burst with an abnormally hefty payload. The driver had just announced that the first stop was in 40 minutes and I freaked out. I walked up to him and asked him to if there was a set of bushes that he could pull over next to for only a minute. I told him about my huge bottle of water and he scolded me saying “did you think that was a good idea?”. I promptly apologized and pointed out that I appreciated the irony of the situation. He said we were only 20 minutes outside of the next stop and asked if I could hold it. I replied with a yes and knew he was lying since only 2 minutes before he had announced on the PA that the next stop was in 40 minutes. Bull shit! I’m almost 25 years old. I pay this fucker’s salary. I don’t need to take this shit. I learned this lesson in grade school. This asshole is going to pull this bitch over for 2 minutes if he knows it or not.

Well, that’s at least what I was screaming inside. But I knew that there was still time to use honey instead of the standard bear trap. I held out for 10 minutes and decided that the remaining 30 were not an option. Just as I was about to pee on this poor man’s leg to teach him a lesson he stopped the bus, announcing that we had hit our first rest stop. Was I delirious from the piss poison? Who knows and who cares? I relieved myself and had a bite to eat in the local bakery. I ate a meat pie that was $3NZ which is $1.5 USD. That same meat pie (if you could find it) would have been $6 in the US. I felt like a rich man. This country was on sale. 50% off everything, everything must go.

We got into town at 12:30pm and I jumped on a speed boat that was actually quite disappointing. Soon after I went back to the hostel and proceeded to have one of my favorite days in history. Our bus driver had remarked when driving into town that there were muscles on the rocks at the beach and that people were free to pick them off and cook them up. So I made my way down to the beach by way of invitation from a new friend from England. We waded through the 75 degree water and easily filled a bucket with nature’s treasures.

Before I go on, I must paint the picture of what this particular hostel looked like. The rooms we very clean and had wonderful new comforters and new padded mattresses. There were two long barracks like dorms and a running down the center was a spine of park bench tables. There was also a huge kitchen that was fully stocked with cooking utensils, a swimming pool, and an above ground spa. As I first walked by the kitchen, I thought, “Who the hell wants to cook what they already have eaten for years? One of the biggest reasons I travel is to eat foreign foods prepared properly in their native lands.” But here’s the catch; everyone is from somewhere else. All the boring everyday foods that people were preparing were actually exotic by my daily routine.

The hostel was more like a utopian compound where everyone was mingling and sharing. By the end of the night I found myself at a long table eating garlic white wine cream sauce pasta, with of course the muscles we had picked earlier that day. I was amazing. I was sitting with 10 people from different countries, all on solo trips like my own. German, English, Dutch, Irish, Canadian, Australian, Belgian and the list goes on. Everyone was bonding together under the intoxication of, surprisingly light, white wine garlic cream sauce. There were a few English nay Sayers at the table that predicted out eminent food poisoning, but they were just non-loaners. Not open to meet new people and try new things. He explained how they had once had muscles before in England and how they became sick as dogs. They were insinuating at every corner that were doing something wrong when preparing the precious morsels. I told them that just because they tried something once doesn’t make them the expert. None the less, the ten of us guzzled the meal with no repercussions.

We were having a blast. All screaming “muscles “when taking pictures instead of “cheese”, It was brilliant. I would definitely stay the full three nights. After the dinner we walked to the beach that was a few blocks away and stopped by the local liquor store for some half off refreshments. We sat on the beach in board shorts and t-shirts in perfect health and comfort, under the star soaked midnight skyline. The notorious sand fleas kept our hopes and dreams at bay, delivering swift pinches. These creatures were largely misunderstood after all. They served a purpose, to validate that this was not a dream, just a day I’d never forget.

I woke up long before the lazy New Zealand sun did because I was 3 hours ahead of it.  Though my body clock gained 3 hours, my calendar lost a day.  The fact is that I will never get that day back unless I pass through the International Date Line from left to right.  In this year, I will not.  It is a sort of sacrifice for getting to have such a great year.  Think of it as a 0.27% tax for traveling around the world counter clockwise.  Probably the cheapest surcharge I will incur on this trip.  It gives me incentive to travel around the world again.  Reclaim what is mine.
Auckland is easy.  How so?  Well there isn’t much of a culture shock past the cars driving on the other side of the road and the metric system.  Past that it is very close to America in a lot of ways.  But to help you visualize Auckland I would like to share the recipe with you.  Take two parts San Diego or Los Angeles sky scraper, mix in one part San Francisco boutique shop and one part Tokyo Crosswalk.  Add one Seattle space needle, and a dash of New York Time Square.  Bring it all to a simmer and reduce the age to 20-30 and you’ve got Auckland.  It’s amazing, they even have 4 bums and one political radical driving around in a van packed with speakers screaming about 40 million wasted in tax payer money on some program that I don’t care about.   This city is new; too new to be dirty, like a new car, the dirt won’t stick to it just yet.
There are all sorts of shops from Quick Silver and Billabong Surf shops in the middle of their summer sale, to shops that are bizzaro: Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap, and forever 21.  They have their share of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Subway, and Starbucks, but they are in no way the center of attention.
I walked down Queens Street (the main drag) and felt safe.  Too safe.  No hidden money belt safe.  No need to keep an eye on my pockets safe.  Walk around at night all alone safe.  Like I’m not alone safe.  As if I didn’t travel 8000 miles safe.  Stepford Wives safe.  Not getting a sense of the real New Zealand safe?  I had to get of this perfect sidewalk and see the slums.  It was time to turn left.  Get off the beaten path and get into some trouble.
I made my left turn and walked through a charming residential area.  No knife fights or cults to be found, so I pressed on.  I saw a park like patch of land a headed for it.  Maybe I could find a hobbit, I thought.  The park turned out to be an island of greenery on a hill in the middle of a bunch of steep streets and high rises.  I made my way up a steep flight of stairs and 30 foot monument (a miniature of the Washington Monument) in the middle of two octopus-like trees.  The tree’s long and low lying arms were being supported by metal beams like crutches.  They covered a 100 foot radius and provided a quenching shade.  The monument read something about this great nation’s founder and his undying search for decency and morality.  He was a religious man, but I’m not sure at which level.  As I read the monument, I realized that not a soul besides me was enjoying this.  Everyone was on Queens Street, trying on clothes that they had already purchased back home and seeing movies they could see back home.  Just as this thought passed through my mind, a Japanese 20 something walked by and paused for only a second before continuing on to the ever popular center of the city.  So I did the same.  This time I was headed for the Space Needle.
The Space Needle was a perfect point of reference.  Pretty much everywhere you go in the city, you can see the Space Needle.  It’s even better than the Pacific for a Californian.   As I made my way to it I saw that it was no average highest point of a city.  It was being used to sky dive off of.  It was the perfect thing to do with a tall object in a young city, why not?  People would take an elevator up to the top and attach themselves to a harness that was connected to two parallel cables that streamed down the side of the building.  This made for a brilliant base jump with no need for a parachute.
I saw a mall and decided to go inside a take a look.  This mall looked like a cross between a fun house at a carnival and a scene from iRobot.  The maze-like stairs and escalators lead to many levels of loudly colored shops and walk ways.  All of this was open.  The mall was a converted sky scraper.  Everything was vertical and everything was nauseatingly open.  One could easily drop a coke off the 10th floor shop onto the food court that was 100 feet below.  The movie theater was stacked on top of itself with 4 levels including an arcade.  Each level had a dramatic bridge complemented with a web of escalators.  This place made my head spin, and I don’t even have a fear of heights.  I even found a door that opens to a 10 foot drop in a stair well.  Kind of something like a trick door.  Was this really a mall or was it actually some architect’s sick idea of an unannounced fun house?  Either way, I was fucking out of there.  (that’s right, I just cussed and you would too if you were here!)
I ate at a kabob shop on Queen Street.  It was an empty hole in the wall; clean and new looking with a Muslim symbol in the sign.  The Middle Eastern looking man who took my order gave me a smile as if a nod of approval.  He was pleased to see that this tourist wasn’t just looking for a burger.  I sat out on the street and ate my kabob that looked just like a gyro.  The only difference was that this one had a bit of chili spices and a bunch of the greens that are usually used for garnish.  I appreciated this convergence of garnish and ingredient.  The cook was telling me, “instead of just looking at this little pinch of green stuff; I want you to eat it, a lot of it.”  A bunch of people walked by as I ate there, almost all of the people looked at me.  A few of the people slowed down and looked inside and a few less than that even stood in the doorway, but not a single soul dared to try it.  It was even 12:30pm New Zealand time and for that matter, most of the people were just walking around.  I didn’t notice a particular rush of people at any of the restaurants that I walked by.  What do these people eat, clothes?
I made my way back to the hostel and booked my first bus trip north to a smaller town where there is said to be a bunch of culture waiting for me.
This first day in the city was easy.  I wandered without a care in the world.  I didn’t even worry about getting lost because there were mall-like maps with a big “you are here” star at every major street corner.  This was the perfect major city to get my feet wet; now I can’t wait to take off the training wheels.
Photos will follow when I am at an internet source that doesn’t charge by the Mega byte.