Long time no blog! so...I'm in Japan now. When I came to Wanaka, I thought I'd stay and work there for quite some time. After a couple of days working for the jobagency, we found out that that would be it for the work until june. By that time we already had th apartment and everything, and were settled in a bit. We watched movies on Em's laptop, hung around the apartment, played with the cat, went into town and for strolls around the lake, and looked for jobs. And were very bored at times, but we still had fun. some [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone!!! So, I'm in Wanaka now. After Taupo, I went to Waitomo Caves with Tove and Damien, just for a few days. It was pretty cool, we did a walk there, climbed into a cave, which was maybe even scarier than skydiving. It was so much fun hanging out with Tove and Damien, and it was kinda sad when we went back to Taupo, and said goodbye to Damien. tove and me then went on to Wellington, and my plan was to work and live there for a while. We spent two days in Wellington before we ran into Emily [View Full Entry]

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YESSS...I went skydiving today. It was frikkin awesome!!! I thought it would be much scarier, but it was only the actual jumping out of the plane that was scary. The plane ride up was amazing, we went above the clouds, and we could see all over Lake Taupo. Damien jumped first, and he chose to get a DVD, so there was a cameraman jumping with him, as well as the "jumpingmaster", the person who is actually strapped to you. When they opened the door, I felt how cold the air was, luckily I wasn't barefoot like Tove. The airplane smelled like [View Full Entry]

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It's surprising how much can happen in a few weeks. I'm still picking blueberries, and actually enjoying it....sometimes. I've met wonderful people, and I'm having so much fun. Me and Tove are going to Taupo on Thursday, meeting up with Natalie and Louise there, and we're going SKYDIVING! yay! Jumping out of a plane!! I'm very excited, not only because it means not working for a couple of days. After Taupo we're going to walk the Tongariro Crossing again, hopefully with better weather now. After that Tove is going to Welly, and I might go back to Hastings (again!!!) and work [View Full Entry]

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I have found a job!!! Okay...so it's blueberrypicking, and back in Hastings, but at least it's something. It turns out that I'm really good at spending money, which probably isn't that good in Japan. I start work tomorrow, sunday, at 7 o'clock! So..I'm leaving for Hastings in a half an hour, and I have some pineapple and Jane Eyre to get me through the 8 hour busride. I do look forward to actually getting out of Auckland, and doing something besides chitchatting all day (even though that is a lot of fun, but not that good for my backaccount). At least [View Full Entry]

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Okay, so the minute I'm back on my own again, everything seems to go wrong. Apparently the Chemical Brothers are playing in auckland tonight, so every hostels is FULL> yes, yet again a crash-on-the-couch night. Ugh. But anyway, I'm flying solo again, and while I was feeling very homesick a few hours ago, it's slowly getting better. so the last days travelling around with my dad were pretty cool, if a little boring. We decided to head for a place with good beaches and all, so we went to the Tutukaka coast, but the weather wasn't that great and we ended [View Full Entry]

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Well...haven't written for a long time...lot of cathing up to do. So when we came to Motueka, we met some nice people who were waiting for the picking to start. Everyone was talking about it...now I can proudly say I know much more about apple-picking than I will ever need. While we were in Motueka we checked out the region, inculding Abel Tasman NP, Kaiteriteri, Farewell Spit, Nelson Lakes NP, and we finally found Woodstock (turned out to be just a sign on the side of the road..no wonder we passed it a million times without seeing it). We left Motueka [View Full Entry]

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When we left Chirstchurch, we decided to first go to the Akaroa (in the Banks Peninsula), about 80 minutes drive from CHch. We took a sailtrip there, out of the Peninsula to the Pacific, and then back, took about 3 hours in total. It was so nice, the weather was perfect for sailing, there weren't that many people on the boat (6 others!) and we saw pretty much all of the wildlife in the Peninsula. The peninsula is most famous for the Hector's dolphins (the smallest and rarest dolphin in the world) and the blue and white penguins. We saw a [View Full Entry]

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Yes, back in Christchurch for tonight. After Queenstown we headed back to Te Anau. There we got up way early, and drove to Milford Sound to take a cruise. We drove through the gorgeous Fiordland Ntional Park. After heavy rain (which usually isn't that great, but here it defenitely was!) there were waterfalls everywhere, looking like white veins on the dark mountains. The rain stopped when we got on the boat (seriously, we are so lucky) and the tour was magnificent. We were on a boat with only 9 other people, so we had lots of space to move around [View Full Entry]

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After spedning a day walking around christchurch we met up with Quint and Barbra. We spent 1.5 days with them, it was so much fun, and we were sad to say goodbye. We didn't really do much, except for talking....a lot. We ate a very nice (four courses!) Japanese meal, but the waiters didn't quite seem to know how restaurants work: we were still eating while they were bringing in our next course. When we asked them to wait a couple of minutes, they put the food on the table next to us, and walked away...a bit strange. Anyway, the next [View Full Entry]

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