I think the best way to tell of the craziness that was the last three weeks is to separate events by country. Given that a year ago I had never left North America, this new organizational tactic is not one I can say I had ever dreamed of using before...
New Zealand:
Mom arrived with all the gleeful anticipation expressed in my second to last post. For those who were wondering, arriving at an airport 45 minutes earlier than the posted arrival time neither causes a plane to land earlier nor speeds up the customs process... I just thought I'd check though, you know, to save you all the trouble and to clear up and lingering questions regarding my ability to influence airline timetables and such. We crammed absolutely everything possible into our few days in Wellington. I dragged my slightly jet lagged and very tolerant mother up to the top of mount victoria for a view of the city, to the Friday night market for a snack and to a delicious Indian food restaurant for dinner, before allowing her to get some well deserved sleep.
It wouldn't be a true Hughes trip if the adventure included
too much sleep though, so we were up with the sun for Saturday morning swim practice the next day. I have not swam with my mom in years and it was fun to introduce her to the group I've been training with these last few months. After practice, we headed back to my flat to change for the morning/afternoon's hike. We planned to hike to the Wellington Wind Turbine and then down to Red Rocks Reserve and along the coast back into town. I've hiked the two locations before but never the stretch in between. A few wrong turns caused the hike to push well past 20km. Regardless, we had beautiful weather and a lot of fun. We had tapas for dinner and met up with a friend for dessert; overall, a successful day!
Sunday we explored town. The Sunday market, Wellington's famous Te Papa museum, a walk along the harbor, a carmel slice from my favorite cafe, a ride up the Wellington cable cars and tours of the botanical gardens and my university made up the majority of the day. We stopped for Turkish Kebabs for dinner and laughed hysterically at the massive quantity of food provide by the much less entertained (though slightly amused) shop owner. We grabbed some ice cream with my spring break travel buddies and headed back to my flat to pack for Australia and fight round 1with multiple airlines in varying countries (Subsequent rounds and an explanation to follow shortly).
Australia:
We arrived in Australia Monday night, tired, hungry and giddy to be there; a combination which causes indecision in the grocery store, inappropriate public giggling, and an extra box of cookies added to the cart at check out. We spent our first full day in Melbourne cramming three days of sight seeing into an afternoon. Cable cars, the Immigration museum, the Old City Gaol, national archives, Greek and Chinese precincts, the train station, and art district were the highlights of the afternoon. In a last second discovery/decision, we found tickets to to King Kong for the evening. The musical is headed to Broadway early next year and features an 18 foot tall Gorilla puppet controlled by five to eight performers. It was incredible! By the end of the play we had become rather fond of the Gorilla. We both felt that the level of emotional attachment we felt towards the animal was made further ridiculous upon remembering it was a giant puppet.
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| Street Art |
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| Melbourne! |
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| National Archives |
The end to the night consisted in rounds 2 through 4 of battle with airlines. My ticket to China had been cancelled and rescheduled without our knowledge and the new itinerary had me waiting in the Sydney airport on a 26 hour long layover. Our lack of landline or cell phone made fixing this problem quite the adventure; involving three hotels (none of which we were staying at), four attempts at operating a coin hungry pay phone, and a truly saint like couple whom owned a pizza shop across the street who loaned us their personal cell phone for an embarrassingly long period of time. Needless to say, we had pizza for dinner soon after. By four in the morning, my flights were figured out, and by six in the morning we were awake and headed out for out Great Ocean Road and Grampians National Park tour.
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| Wallaby! |
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| Emus! |
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| Kangaroos! |
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| Parrots! |
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| More Parrots! |
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| Koalas! |
The Great Ocean Road is a stretch of highway along the eastern/southern coast of Australia that is known to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world. After coming to the realization that (1) neither mom nor I have any practice driving on the left side of the road, (2) the road is supposed to be one of the windiest in the country, and (3) we wanted to actually see the sights rather than fear for our lives for an entire weekend, we chose to take part in a bus tour. We spent the next three days literally patting ourselves on the back for this wonderful decision. The road truly was beautiful and we loved the group of 15 other people we traveled with. The first day consisted of driving the actual road, stopping every half hour or so to see the sites. We were able to see plenty of wildlife (koalas, wild parrots, wallabies, Emus, Kangaroos, etc) along the side of the road and marveled at landmarks like the 12 apostles and London Bridge. We spent the night at a hostel on the coast and drove to Grampians National Park the next morning. Once there, we went for a hike to one of the Grampians peaks and were treated to a view taken directly from the Lion King's opening scene (think Simba being raised over Rafiki's head on Pride Rock). In the evening we had a bbq with the group and were astounded to discover the 10 or 15 kangaroos just hanging out in the back yard of the hostel. Apparently they're as common as deer or squirrels in the area we were staying and considered pests. Much like the penguins on Stewart Island, I completely fail to see how too many kangaroos could ever be a problem. Our final day consisted of a final hike, a walk around a few waterfalls, a tour of a local winery and the drive back to Melbourne. We finished our time in Melbourne with tours of the National Art Museums, the famous Victoria Market and the final bits of the city we had missed our first day.
China:
Mom headed back to the States and I headed to China to visit a friend from Wooster who is currently living in Beijing. I was greeted at the airport with a great big bear hug and the announcement that we would be dog sitting a three week old puppy during my stay. The trip was off to a great start! Because Caroline had work or volunteering most days, she taught me how to use the buses and subways and I was able to explore the city alone through a combination of hilarious hand gestures and pointing, plenty of silent prayers, and a good deal of online research. I made a list and managed to visit at least one site a day; the Hutongs, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, 789 Art District, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Great Wall, Ming Tombs, ancient Summer Palace ruins, Olympic Village, BeiHai Park, classes at Caroline's university and a Peking duck dinner). I can honestly say I think I saw the vast majority of the city, both ancient and modern. It was great to see Caroline and where she lived, the people she has met and the community she as established. I loved exploring the city but I especially loved playing bananagrams late into the night, and learning how to care for an infant puppy with my friend.
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| BeiHai park |
One of the highlights of my trip was hiking along the great wall. It was the tail end of fall and the foliage in the surrounding mountains was spectacular. Unfortunately the pollution was pretty bad that day so it was difficult to see too far; but, with the past four months of rainy winter hiking in New Zealand, I have become accustomed to a lack of views. In order to get to the wall it is well advised you take a cable car to the top. It is a bit over 1,000 stairs from the base of the mountain to the wall and another 800 or so up as you walk along it. On the trip down, I was seated with four other people whom found it absolutely hilarious to discover that they would be sharing a car with me. A round of musical chairs ensued as each of them posed for photos sitting next to me. This would have seemed strange had I not been riding public transportation for the last week. As an American in China, I quickly learned that it is not an uncommon experience to look up in a subway car to discover I can easily make eye contact with each and every individual crammed shoulder to shoulder around me. Apparently staring is not something to be ashamed of and not once during my time in China was I the person to break eye contact. Having photos taken of me as I boarded the subway or walked down the street also became commonplace.
One unexpected addition to my trip was a chance to swim in the 2008 Olympic Natatorium, the Water Cube. The olympic stadiums are not too far from where I was staying in Beijing so armed with a list of what I hoped to be buses that might take me within walking distance and a general idea of where the appropriate bus stop was located, I set out to find the arenas. The picture below provides a good idea of how bad the pollution is on an average day. With so many pollutants in the air, the area around the each structure takes on the color of the illuminated building. It was amazing to be able to swim in such an iconic, record breaking pool (even if it was just the warmup pool) and I was so glad to be able to see the water cube and bird's nest lit up after nightfall. I have quite a few pictures of myself at the water cube as I unsuspectingly agreed to take someone else's picture and she returned the favor by insisting she document my every second at the arena for me. My ability to communicate at this point went as far as saying "thank you" and reciting my Beijing address so I wandered around having my photo taken next to every full wall advertisement, statue and painting, all the while wondering how to say, "no more, thank you, that's enough". On the bright side, I will never look back on my China experience and think, "if only I had a photo of myself next to the twelve foot tall Air China poster at the Olympic stadium!"
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| Water Cube with the Bird's Nest in background |
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| Adorable puppy |
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| Summer Palace grounds |
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| Temple of Heaven |
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| Tianamen Square/Forbidden City |
From China I headed back to New Zealand for a final few adventures and to clean and pack up my flat. More on that will come in the soon to arrive final post.
We arrived in Australia Monday night, tired, hungry and giddy to be there; a combination which causes indecision in the grocery store, inappropriate public giggling, and an extra box of cookies added to the cart at check out. We spent our first full day in Melbourne cramming three days of sight seeing into an afternoon. Cable cars, the Immigration museum, the Old City Gaol, national archives, Greek and Chinese precincts, the train station, and art district were the highlights of the afternoon. In a last second discovery/decision, we found tickets to to King Kong for the evening. The musical is headed to Broadway early next year and features an 18 foot tall Gorilla puppet controlled by five to eight performers. It was incredible! By the end of the play we had become rather fond of the Gorilla. We both felt that the level of emotional attachment we felt towards the animal was made further ridiculous upon remembering it was a giant puppet.
The end to the night consisted in rounds 2 through 4 of battle with airlines. My ticket to China had been cancelled and rescheduled without our knowledge and the new itinerary had me waiting in the Sydney airport on a 26 hour long layover. Our lack of landline or cell phone made fixing this problem quite the adventure; involving three hotels (none of which we were staying at), four attempts at operating a coin hungry pay phone, and a truly saint like couple whom owned a pizza shop across the street who loaned us their personal cell phone for an embarrassingly long period of time. Needless to say, we had pizza for dinner soon after. By four in the morning, my flights were figured out, and by six in the morning we were awake and headed out for out Great Ocean Road and Grampians National Park tour.
Mom headed back to the States and I headed to China to visit a friend from Wooster who is currently living in Beijing. I was greeted at the airport with a great big bear hug and the announcement that we would be dog sitting a three week old puppy during my stay. The trip was off to a great start! Because Caroline had work or volunteering most days, she taught me how to use the buses and subways and I was able to explore the city alone through a combination of hilarious hand gestures and pointing, plenty of silent prayers, and a good deal of online research. I made a list and managed to visit at least one site a day; the Hutongs, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, 789 Art District, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Great Wall, Ming Tombs, ancient Summer Palace ruins, Olympic Village, BeiHai Park, classes at Caroline's university and a Peking duck dinner). I can honestly say I think I saw the vast majority of the city, both ancient and modern. It was great to see Caroline and where she lived, the people she has met and the community she as established. I loved exploring the city but I especially loved playing bananagrams late into the night, and learning how to care for an infant puppy with my friend.
One of the highlights of my trip was hiking along the great wall. It was the tail end of fall and the foliage in the surrounding mountains was spectacular. Unfortunately the pollution was pretty bad that day so it was difficult to see too far; but, with the past four months of rainy winter hiking in New Zealand, I have become accustomed to a lack of views. In order to get to the wall it is well advised you take a cable car to the top. It is a bit over 1,000 stairs from the base of the mountain to the wall and another 800 or so up as you walk along it. On the trip down, I was seated with four other people whom found it absolutely hilarious to discover that they would be sharing a car with me. A round of musical chairs ensued as each of them posed for photos sitting next to me. This would have seemed strange had I not been riding public transportation for the last week. As an American in China, I quickly learned that it is not an uncommon experience to look up in a subway car to discover I can easily make eye contact with each and every individual crammed shoulder to shoulder around me. Apparently staring is not something to be ashamed of and not once during my time in China was I the person to break eye contact. Having photos taken of me as I boarded the subway or walked down the street also became commonplace.
One unexpected addition to my trip was a chance to swim in the 2008 Olympic Natatorium, the Water Cube. The olympic stadiums are not too far from where I was staying in Beijing so armed with a list of what I hoped to be buses that might take me within walking distance and a general idea of where the appropriate bus stop was located, I set out to find the arenas. The picture below provides a good idea of how bad the pollution is on an average day. With so many pollutants in the air, the area around the each structure takes on the color of the illuminated building. It was amazing to be able to swim in such an iconic, record breaking pool (even if it was just the warmup pool) and I was so glad to be able to see the water cube and bird's nest lit up after nightfall. I have quite a few pictures of myself at the water cube as I unsuspectingly agreed to take someone else's picture and she returned the favor by insisting she document my every second at the arena for me. My ability to communicate at this point went as far as saying "thank you" and reciting my Beijing address so I wandered around having my photo taken next to every full wall advertisement, statue and painting, all the while wondering how to say, "no more, thank you, that's enough". On the bright side, I will never look back on my China experience and think, "if only I had a photo of myself next to the twelve foot tall Air China poster at the Olympic stadium!" 
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