Raglan Surf

Warm sunset, chilled air

Surf, black sand, speak of young dreams.  

Two roads diverging.

Thought I’d take a crack at a haiku.  Don’t judge.  It’s my first time.

First stop, Raglan.  We stayed in a great little surf lodge a bit off the beaten path outside of the city.  Raglan is known for being a great place to learn how to surf.   The waves here are gentle and consistent, a perfect place to learn.  Seeing them made me want to learn!  

Back at the hostel, it was the opening ceremony for the Olympics and I gotta admit, I loved being in another country in a hostel with people from all over the world, eating fish and chips while drinking some beers with everyone, watching all of our countries represented and together for this great sporting event.  It was really quite awesome. 

Loved this girl's outfit!

The view from hiking around the hostel

Will the real Auckland please stand up?

I went into culture shock and to be quite frank, I became a bit anti-social because of it.  I felt out of place in this city despite the last 14 years of my life spent in the city of Los Angeles.  But I forced myself to get out and see Auckland so I took a free half day tour that brought me to the Auckland Bridge, to some of the locations of old military compounds from WWII, to a few volcanoes, and places with great views of the city.  Along with that, I did some nice self-guided walking tours as well.  I always believe the best way to see a new place is to walk it.  I like Auckland, but don’t love it.  It has great restaurants and beer, as well as a decent night scene which I didn’t discover until my last night there.  A few guys from the hostel who had been going to school there in Auckland had taken me out to a soul/funk/hip-hop club with locals (no backpackers, yay!!!) and I ended up having a really great time.  That’s when I finally saw and connected with the real Auckland and could appreciate it after my lack of connection with it.

During my self-guided walking tour, I went onto Auckland University’s campus where I was drawn to some really cool music.  I followed the sound and came across the campus’ student center where I discovered it was Maori week and there were lots of festivities to celebrate the Maori culture.  Included in the festivities was this young lady playing acoustic guitar and singing about Maori culture and her music was so beautiful, I stayed to listen to her play for about 45 minutes...  I would have shared the video that I took, but it lacked awesomeness.  And it wouldn't load.  I'm a crappy blogger.

I managed to get out to Waiheke island for a day that is just outside of the city with a gal from the dorm.  And let me tell ya, that's a lovely island.  It would have been nice to stay a night or two there and explore for at least two full days.  This kick-back, lazy island is filled with several walking trails, little towns, gorgeous coastline, great views of Auckland, wineries (!!!), restaurants, and beaches.  Fun adventures tend to happen when I go somewhere unprepared (though I rarely prepare), like finding out that the "walking trails" are more like real trails - full of mud (it is winter after all!) and no signs posted.  What was supposed to take three hours, took four.  I wore my waterproof boots, they're great for water, not for mud.  I managed to slip a few times and once nearly do a complete splits walking down a hill.  There was no end to the laughing as I was having an out of body experience watching me pull myself up while slipping on the super muddy trails and holding on to trees, grass, twigs, and leaves to hold myself up.  No pictures or video of that... thankfully.  It was a struggle and it's embarassing.  No need to publicly tar and feather myself too.  But I had so much fun and we topped the exhausting day with a few glasses of red wine and garlic bread at a local restaurant.  Perfect way to end the day.

Now, a big part of New Zealand fabric are the Maori people… well, I now know the experience when certain cultures see someone like myself, or a very Western person (tall Asian with dark skin), or even a very tall person, when it’s something they’ve never seen before, and they can’t help but stare.  I’ll never forget the first time I saw a Maori person.  I was a bit fascinated yet intimidated.  There was something very exotic and fierce looking about this person.  I was sitting at Burger King (yes, I really wanted a familiar American cheeseburger after the last 5.5 months in Asia!  Stop judging.) and he approached me asking if I was cop… (uh, what???  Hm.  No.).  Anyway, I realized that he had an accent that I was unfamiliar with (I’m assuming a Maori accent) and I found that I was instantly fascinated about this man, his ethnicity, and I had to know more.  After that encounter I saw more Maori on the streets and could see how different they appeared, especially the ones with tattoos on their faces, amongst all these white and undecorated, maybe like how I appeared when I went walking around Dublin and all the long stares that I got (I swear, you'd think some of the Irish had never turned on a television and seen an Asian before!).  You know when someone has a tattoo on their face and you can’t help but look a little longer because you can’t believe they got a tattoo on their face (like Mike Tyson)?  Well, many of the more traditional Maori have tattoos on their faces – and they’re beautiful designs but still shocking nonetheless.  It’s such a big and bold, beautiful statement of artwork… on their face.  I am permanently fascinated!  

Auckland Art Gallery exterior

Sculpture outside of the Auckland Art Gallery

Hello Waiheke!  You look gorgeous today!

I love you too.

Sunset on Waiheke.  Apologies on the quality - this was taken from inside a moving bus.

The Philippines and more...

The first thing that caught me off guard in Manila was that the Spanish culture is still heavily embedded here.  I thought I was going to another Asian country where I wouldn’t recognize or understand anything.  But when the locals speak Tagalog, every few words are in Spanish, which I understood!  It was so refreshing to understand something in a foreign language after all of the Asian countries that I’ve been through where I couldn’t understand one word they were saying.  And from what I understand, the further south you go in the Philippines, the more Spanish they speak.  Everything from the styles of architecture, street names, and down to the food, Spain is still everywhere to be seen.  Ah, viva Espana! 

Catholicism runs high in this neck of the woods

Flying in over Manila

I assume some crops during monsoon season... but here it seemed like they were in the sea!

While I didn’t spend very long in the Philippines at all, I still had a great time.  I was the guest of my friend, Rodolfo and his family.  We celebrated his departed son’s birthday which I was honoreds to be a part of, we ate (a lot), we drank (a lot!), we went on boat rides to amazing places in Boracay, and just had a nice time with each other.  The Phillipines are stunning!  I need to go back and spend at least a month there!  There’s something about the Asian and Spanish culture mixed into one, with rainforests, islands, stunning beaches and ocean, great food, and a celebratory atmosphere where it’s quite common for the locals to eat and drink until the sun comes up.  So naturally, I tried to blend in with the locals.  I’m pretty sure in Boracay, I got about 3-4 hours of sleep every night. 

I don't know how water gets this blue... it's spectacular!

Rodolfo (on the right) and his family

At Ariel's Point

My "Survivor" friends...

Just after sunset along the beach...

 Upon arrival in Boracay, I had never seen waters so clear and turquoise .  Now, I’m not much of a water person despite all the beaches I’ve been to in the last 6 months, but Boracay definitely is at the top of the list.  I’m spoiled.  Permanently.  I just couldn’t stop looking at the water and being near it, despite being on an island.  Days were spent eating too much food, shopping (ok, window shopping) around, and nights were spent eating too much food, drinking, dancing, and of course winning fusbol tournaments.  Somehow, I always manage to find the fusbol tables… or is it that it always finds me?  Hard to say… But the win felt good, the other players were really good, and it was nice to win a bottle of Jaeger (which I shared with everyone),  a pitcher of shots (that I also shared with everyone) compliments of the chef that was also playing with us, and an awesome t-shirt. 

We had gone out to Ariel’s Cove for a little snorkel, hang out, eat, drink, jump off of diving boards, day and what a day!  I had a great time and met some really cool guys who were part of the camera crew for “Survivor” in the Philippines.  The food was good along with an open bar, a fun group of people and countless jumps from some very high diving boards as well.  I had more fun photographing them than I did going into the water.  Boracay is yet another adults gluttonous play ground… 

And the nightlife!  Oh the nightlife!  Fun.  That's the only word for it.  Fun for everyone.  A few of the outdoor beach bars had fire dancers and here are a few pix of them.  While at first I though they were all women who were in really good shape, I later learned that the majority of them aren't exactly women... which is fine, just makes me jealous that they have such toned bodies.  Enjoy!

Visit with Mom

How do I pass up a cute picture of a baby yawning?  I can't!

So while in Asia, I try to stop by my mom's place when I get a chance in that part of the world.  I'm still treated like a guest and like a Westerner.  I think she's not sure if I can take the real village life in Thailand quite yet so she makes sure that I have a regular (ok, by Asian standards) Western bed somewhere in her village along with a real bathroom (and by real bathroom I mean it has four walls and a tile floor along with lighting, a toilet, and without animals/insects in it... relatively).  But either way, I still get bucket showers, which I'm pleased to say, I'm quite use to and almost prefer now.  It's amazing how little water one really needs to clean themselves with when they're efficient with the water and soap time they have.

These pictures I took of my great-nieces while on the train into my mom's village and the pictures of my mom are on the way out of the village to take me to the bus station.   The cute little baby is my step-father's sister's daughter's daughter.  I can't even begin to think what that is in relation to me.. my step-great niece??  Anyway... whenever I've seen my mom in a mode of transportation that involves actually being outdoors and feeling the wind in her hair, she always seems to be in her element and at her happiest.  I know she chose a country life over city life and even chose to raise her great granddaughters there as well knowing they would have a better quality of life.  And on so many levels now, I couldn't agree with her more.

Battambang - The Town

At one of the temples in town...

OK, this isn't what the whole town looks like.  But give me industrial spaces and I'm gonna take several photos.  What I wasn't expecting when I went to these abandoned warehouse and train spaces were people living in them.  It is to be expected on some level, but it doesn't really hit home at first until I realized that they're not just squatters, they live there.  And the tuk-tuk outside of the building really made me realize that the very guy who drives us from point A to point B lives in a place like this.