Winding down - our weekend - a visit to Hirangi Marae

We have just over 6 weeks before we head home. Of course we all have mixed emotions about this. Our time here has been amazing - and at this point I do feel like we've done and experienced everything I wanted to do. The impatience I had when we first arrived - to explore at every opportunity - has all but disappeared. It's been replaced by some mundane tasks and time spent just enjoying living a life that is simpler and less cluttered. I am not sure what effect this has had on me in the immediate sense, but I am fairly sure that once we hit the US, all remnants of this simpler life will be crushed by the familiar quick pace of life at home. Certainly no mixed emotions surrounding this fact. Anyway, we are still exploring, in a way.

We began our weekend with a quick change in plans. I was reading the local paper over breakfast on Saturday and learned that the local marae in Turangi, the town where I work, was holding an open house as part of their Matariki celebration. A marae is a Maori meeting place with a courtyard and a meeting house. We have blogged about them before, I am sure. We have never been invited to a marae and I thought it would be amazing to go to see the marae where lots of my patients belong. Our plans for the day involved only a yoga class that I didn't need to attend and a playdate for Jasper in the early afternoon, which I was certain we could still make it back in time for. I remembered that it would be a long time before we could decide in the morning on a Saturday what sort of adventure we would have the rest of the day. So I remembered to feel grateful as we piled into the car.

We arrived at the marae right on time, and were formally invited to visit inside with singing and speeches and were cleansed of tapu by eating and drinking before we could enter the whare. Before this is done, visitors are seen as strangers and unwelcome. Afterwards, they are considered as family. We have read about this lots (and seen it in movies) but it was so special to visit this particular place and have my patients around me, telling stories about their past and their families and the Maori legends as well as stories about the mountains and lake. The Hirangi Marae is almost one hundred years old and they are preparing for a special celebration in a few years. They held a fundraising dinner last night at the marae for this purpose and it sounds like it was very well attended.

It was amazing and we could have lingered for much of the day, but -- we had a playdate back in Taupo for which we were already quite late! Jasper's friend was very understanding, and we got to meet his parents, who were super friendly. We had to drop Aidan at a marathon birthday party also - seven ten year olds in one house for almost 24 hours! I was happy to hear that Aidan did not participate in the Halo(?) x box game playing and that playing ball tag and tag with flashlights in the paddock were his favorite parts of the party. So that Jasper wouldn't feel he was missing out on parties, we took him to a party at our German neighbors' house across the street that evening. By coincidence, the psychiatrist who visits Turangi once a fortnight lives across the street from me. He is the only psychiatrist my patients have access to. We get along well and I have loved watching their infant daughter grow - she is now about 4 months old and super adorable.  Lots of his friends work in mental health also and are my colleagues as well - so it was fun hanging out. We will be sad to say goodbye to them a bit early -- they are leaving for Germany a few weeks before we leave - and we will be gone when they return :(

Today we had a visit from friends who brought us a gift of a beautiful painting of a tomtit, one of the first native birds that we made friends with, walking along tree trunk gorge trail together in the national park not long after we'd arrived in New Zealand. The tiny tomtit followed us for a bit while we walked and I was so surprised that it was so curious and friendly.

Yes, I realize that this does not sound like a simple and uncluttered weekend. Did I mention that Tom conducted a concert on Friday? It was very fun - a midwinter Christmas concert (because, of course, Christmas and midwinter never coincide for Kiwis - sad fact.) We followed the concert with our first visit to our local pub, called the Mole and Chicken, with a few band members. Perhaps the simplicity is more a state of mind than a state of affairs.

p.s. no photos - sorry - none were allowed at the marae, also, we thought for a while that our camera was broken -- turns out we had just purchased cheap batteries! promise we will post photos next time

Birthday on Fiji time

 We took our last big trip recently - and arrived in Fiji just about a week before my birthday. It is getting cold in New Zealand so a trip to the South Pacific was a perfect idea in June. Our first day at the resort was warm, humid, and grey. It rained on and off. We took advantage of the day to explore our surroundings a bit - the resort is located on its own island - and we took a few photos. In general, we were too busy swimming and having fun to take too many photos!

Here is one of the pools- it's the baby pool. We didn't spend any time here actually swimming.

Here is the larger pool where we did spend quite a bit of time. This is the pool where Jasper met his little girlfriend, Mackenzie.

We walked to the tip of the island, where there were a few private bures, or cottages, where guests can stay. Here Aidan is posing next to some generic Polynesian decor. Some parts of the resort felt a little like Disneyworld. I wouldn't have been surprised if this statue started to sing.

Here we are, walking around. The resort was generally well maintained and felt very safe to have the kids running around everywhere. The days got increasingly sunny.

The island had a lagoon side, which was sheltered and less windy, but more crowded. There was also an ocean side, less sheltered but often nobody there but us. Here's a photo of the ocean side.

Jasper and some volcanic rock on the ocean side

Another view of the ocean - this is where we snorkeled.

My three favorites

We'd never been to a resort before, in a third world country, no less. We did leave the resort twice -- and we are very happy that we did. We went to a fruit and vegetable market in Sigatoka, the nearest city. The area nearby - of the valley created by the Sigatoka river - is known as the salad bowl of Fiji. The women who sell at this market live in the surrounding area and sell so many types of fruits and vegetables - it's amazing. I picked up 8 papaya for about 1 dollar. The pineapples are smaller - and very sweet. That ginormous banana is something like a sweet-ish plantain. The oranges were very sweet, although green skinned. We kept a keen eye on the boys - with good reason -- as on more than one occasion, an enthusiastic merchant would drag a boy over to another side of the market to view his or her wares.

Ready to explore the ocean!

These were my favorite: blue sea stars! 

Jasper's favorite: the hermit crabs. At one point, we had a collection of three.

It my have been a bit windy, but I loved having this stretch of beach to ourselves to explore!

So that's the end of beach-y photos. Like I said, we really spent most of our time seeing the amazing fish, playing in the sand, hunting for hermit crabs, etc. Aidan asked if we had an underwater camera -- which of course, we don't. So we don't have photos - but we did see lots of fish. About half the coral on the reef was alive. There have been a few storms in the past few years that have damaged the reef, but the reef is very shallow and the boys could walk out very far, which made snorkeling pretty easy for everyone. Some of my favorite moments were walking along with a snorkeling boy, and hearing him exclaim with surprise or excitement through his snorkel when he came across a cool fish.

The rest of our photos came from our second and last excursion outside of the resort. We took a jet boat river cruise to a village up the river. Both Tom and I were cautious about this type of tour, as we worry about commercialism and damage to the villages, and the phenomenon Tom calls the human zoo. In the end, both of us were glad that we'd done it. I think the experience was pretty amazing. And here are some photos.

This is just some of the scenery we passed on our way to the boat. 

We did take a bunch of photos from the river, which was beautiful. We passed lots of kids wading in the river, women doing laundry and/or fishing. Surprisingly, lots of people with horses in the river.

I love how still and clear with water was.

Yes, Jasper is driving the jet boat. We have a video as well. Crazy jet boat driver!

Another one of my favorites from the boat

So we arrived at the village and I snapped two photos from the large room where we were received. They performed a kava ceremony, which involves everyone drinking this ceremonial drink made from a root that looks like Kahlua and tastes like dishwater with a local anesthetic. Luckily for us, we did not have to partake (Jasper and I had both tried kava at the resort.) I was surprised to see Tom volunteer to have some kava in this village. He did not get sick :)

Based on the ceremony, Tom and I think the man wearing green seated in the middle was the chief of the village. We understood not a word of all the ceremony that took place. We were told that the villagers didn't speak any English, yet we introduced ourselves in English and they politely looked like they were paying attention. This is what made us feel better about the human zoo aspect of things: We might have been the animals on exhibit at this particular human zoo.

Here is a second photo from the ceremony. I should have taken one directly forward facing. The room was filled with Fijians, mostly men, seated on the floor in rows and rows facing us. There must have been sixty of them.

Back to the resort: We celebrated my birthday on our last day. It was wonderful. We played badminton, snorkeled some more, and had a very nice dinner. I didn't know that Tom had ordered a birthday cake, which was super sweet. We waited a while after dinner for this cake to arrive. When I heard the waitresses singing "happy birthday," I couldn't understand all the words and I thought that "happy birthday" in Fijian sounded something like "di-uh-nik-ki." Then they put the cake down:

Seriously almost an hour later, and with apologies, the cake returned, this time looking like this:

I liked particularly the candy flowers they used to cover the holes from the previous candles -- and the obvious scrapings where "Diah and Nikki" had been

Tom was angry, but it was very funny - for us and the other folks in the dining room of the restaurant, who thought it was hysterical.

Here's a last one of me and Diah and Nikki's cake.Wherever Diah and Nikki were, and whenever their actual birthday is, I am certain they could not have had a better birthday holiday than I had.

ANZAC Day and Cape Kidnappers

Hi, it's Evelyn -- finishing a very old post -- ANZAC Day is April 25th, which is over a month ago!  We may have mentioned that Tom plays in several bands in the area. One of them performs at the ANZAC Day services in town. ANZAC stands for Australian and NZ Army Corps and was first used  to refer to the soldiers sent from these nations to battle in Gallipoli induring WWI. Today, the day is a day of remembrance for all veterans of all wars. Here are some photos from that event. I found the whole thing pretty moving and meaningful. I guess I'd like to have a day or two each year where we all as a community agree to remember that war is so awful and creates so many casualties of so many different types that we should always be striving to prevent it. We do have Veteran's Day in the US, but everyone goes to work on that day. Here in NZ on ANZAC Day, most stores did shut down. Most people don't work. Maybe it was just that the friend I happened to speak to about it had a father and grandfather who were in the army and all of Tom's friends are in the bands, but I felt that so many Kiwis were invested in the day's activities and services. Also, the man standing next to me during the service broke down when he spoke to me about his father, who had served in WWII. There are two ceremonies - one at daybreak and one a bit later. Tom is playing the later ceremony.

Tom's band leader was actually in the service as well. Tom is playing the drums, not the coffee cup.

Various student and civic organizations place wreaths at the base of the memorial. We stopped to look at them after the service.

Quick shifting of gears: Not too long afterwards, we took a trip to North Havelock to visit Te Mata and Cape Kidnappers. The scenery is pretty amazing. Aidan particularly loved wandering among all the hills and rock formations.

We got to watch a hang glider take off -- really cool!

...and away he goes!

Yes Aidan, pretty awesome. No Aidan, you cannot hang glide, too.

So many fun hills...

..and this is what we were looking down on.

My photogenic boys

Really rolling hills!

The boys and Tom spent some time looking for shells in the limestone - here I think you can see some seashells.

Te Mata is a pretty dramatic peak

--which, naturally, Kiwis use for extreme sport

The following day we took a walk out to Cape Kidnappers to see the gannet colony. We were not going during peak tourist season, which was great for us as it wasn't so crowded. It also was at the end of the breeding season, so there were fewer gannets around than there were even a few weeks prior. The walk was really beautiful -- but had to be completed before the tide came in, so we couldn't dawdle and take as many photos as we would have liked.

See? Amazing!

--with all these nooks and crannies you can imagine how we would have liked to dawdle.

Yes, really, look at that sky -- and yet I didn't feel the camera did it justice...

The rocks were so varied in color and texture - it was so amazing.

This photo is from A&J's next album cover

A view out towards the ocean

It was cool to look back and see the cliffs we had just walked along.

OK, ok, we *did* take a lot of photos - but we couldn't help ourselves!!

All this --- and we hadn't even seen the birds yet. And then we did. And we heard them - a skipping, keening call. These were beautiful, huge birds.

The colony sits on a series of little rocky islands just off the coast

lunch with the gannets!

None of our photos really captured the pretty orange color of their heads very well, but here's another shot.

We snapped a couple more on our way back -- we barely made it before the tide came in -- we were walking through water by the end, but it was awesome!!