West Coast - Easter weekend

Some photos of our trip to the West Coast at Easter. Despite everyone telling us it rains all the time there, the sun shone and we had a fantastic weekend. In reverse order because I am too lazy to reverse them...

Watch out for that rock Brian (Castle Hill - Arthur's Pass)

Cool rocks at Castle Hill

Maybe Frodo and Samwise are somewhere around here!

View from our room in Punakaki

Lovely room at Punakaki

West Coast - a bit like Ireland, eh?

Our 3 hour trek involved my first NZ river crossing

thank god the river was low otherwise this would have been our bed for the night

on the trek

We kayaked this river Easter Sunday morning and then walked above it, gorgeous scenery

Pancake Rocks

Hokitika Gorge and Brian on the bridge, I wanted to get a photo of just him on the bridge and loads of people arrived just as I had the camera ready and the sandflies had their starter, main and dessert on me while I waited for them to leave, and they didn't!

Maximum load 1 person - Brian and Greg braved it and survived

Waterfall near Lake Kaniere, maybe Dorothy Falls

Lake Kaniere and Mt Cook hiding behind that cloud in the distance

Otira Gorge Bridge (designed by Brian's firm Beca) scary looking construction site

Road to the West Coast, somewhere around Arthur's Pass

Abel Tasman National Park - Feb 09

On Waitangi bank holiday weekend, we headed to the north of the south island to Abel Tasman National Park with our friend Maria from Waterford. After the 6 hour drive, a good nights sleep we got the water taxi out the coast to start on our 4 day trek back to the village camping on the way, which involved carrying our tents, food, cooking utensils, suncream on our backs. Luckily for me Brian carried our tent. The walk was beautiful, along beaches and through bushlands with some hills which were a little tougher due to the hot weather and loads on our backs. The campsites were basic some with just a toilet and a water source and others had basic kitchen facilities and picnic tables. They were great homes for the 3 nights we camped and it was fantastic swimming every couple of hours or picnicing on the beaches.
Highly recommend it!

Christmas Road Trip of South Island

So we headed off on a road trip for our 10 day summer and Christmas holidays combined into one. Our corolla did about 2,000 km's on a loop around the south island dropping in on Dunedin, the Otago Peninsula, The Catlins, Invercargil (bbrrrrrrrrrrr!), Milford sound, Queenstown, Wanaka and Mount Cook. It was a fantastic 10 days and great not to have to carry big backpacks. We camped most nights. Boy did we get a lesson in camping off the Kiwi's. They come to the campsite with every luxury - BBQ's, TV's, microwaves, fridges.......... !

A few highlights of the trip had to be seeing the penguins on Sandfly beach on the Otago Peninsula, kayaking the Milford Sound and meeting the cousins and friends along the way.


at beautiful lake Tekapo


Hooker and Tasman glaciers at Mount Cook National Park

We did a 4 hour tramp up the Hooker glacier valley, shown here.

There was some beautiful landscapes along the way and lots of long straight roads!!!

Meeting my cousin Pip in Wanaka (third cousin once removed!!!!) and Gabby (honory cousin!!)

wanted at Arrowtown goldrush village, near Queenstown!!

Old steamer leaving Queenstown!

Jeanette meeting up with her friend Mari and Kathryn
the road to Glenorchy!

We spent a day kayaking on the beautiful Milford sound.

Jeanette's stitches!!! a fight with a tin of tomatos. I can add removing stitches now to my CV!

sunset on at the lake, Te Anau

The Catlins

Cathedral Caves, The Catlins

Kiwis going on holidays!! Every other car had a kayak and bike sitting ontop of the car! (in this case a boat.

St. Clair's beach, Dunedin (yes the sun does shine in Dunedin, sometimes......)

on a penny farthing at Settlers museum, Dunedin. Needed to work off the calories after the visit to the Cadbury's factory.

Taking a break from penguin watching at Sandfly beach, Otago peninsula.

more photos of Sandfly beach

our car overlooking Otago Peninsula

more Otago peninsula

our tent and car in Dunedin!

Jeanette at the Moreaki boulders (just after her phone went for a swim in the Pacific)

Australia

We arrived in Oz in mid August, what a cultural shock after being in Asia for 8 months!! It was great benig able to talk to everyone without a phrase book :)
First place we headed to was Byron Bay to meet up with Danny and Megan and to celebrate Megan's birthday. We had some great days in Brisbane with them too.



We spent two and a half weeks of our month in Australia doing a help exchange, where we got our accomodation and food basics in exchange for 4 hours work. We lucked out and stayed in a fantastic location Coorabella near Byron Bay with our great hosts Racheal and Gio and shared the work with Wakaba from Tokyo. The location was amazing, we stayed in a gorgeous cabin at the edge of the rainforest without a care in the world. Some photos of this great spot are below.



Whose turn is it to do the cooking!

or collect fire wood....

Rachael hosted a masquerade ball for her birthday and we joined in the celebrations

We headed up to Fraser Island for a few days too, which was definitely a highlight. Some pictures of Fraser below...

At an Aussie Rules game at the Gabba, Brisbane Lions v Carlton, no sign of the tall, dark and O'hailpins though!

Rest of Japan

Hi from New Zealand, my new year's resolution is to update the blog for the last few months. We are settled now in Christchurch and I can update you all on what we have been up to since we were at the Sumo in Japan, will do a few posts over the next few weeks so hopefully will be up-to-date shortly. Jeanette :)

Japan Continued....

After we went to see the sumo in Japan, we headed off to climb Mt. Fuji with Lena and her mates, it was a long slog up to our hut where we slept in the biggest bunkbed ever! about 30 people in the bottom bunk and 30 in the top, we got maybe 3 hours sleep and then up to climb the rest of the way for the sunrise. It was some traffic jam getting to the top!

Sunrise on Mt Fuji

The climbing gang

Me and Brian at the summit

traffic jam on the trek uphill

Brian travelling in style on the bullet train

Antoin my brother arrived out to Japan while we were there and we had a great time seeing all the sites around Shimane province where Lena was living. Lena was playing in a taiko drumming group and we got to see them in action at a few gigs! Some photos and a video of her drumming are posted.

Lena & Trixie in their Taiko uniforms

Lena drumming

Check out the size of the main drum!

One of Lena's fans

Somehow I didn't record the sound!!

Fireworks - this was a pretty spectular display for an hour

A little bit of Ireland in Matsue - where some Irish Olympians had their training base so plenty of Irish flags around the place.

Brian and Antoin belting out some songs at the karaoke

Tokyo

We visited the Shibuya Crossing, the busiest pedestrian junction in the world, it is pretty impressive!



Alcatras Bar in Tokyo - Brian gets locked in!
The gang at Alcatras Bar - our medicinal drinks!
The capsule beds at the hostel in Tokyo

Men in Nappies!

So we decided to head to see some Sumo.



In Japan they hold only 6 big tournaments each year where the professionals strut their stuff so we counted ourselves very fortunate to get a ticket to the tournament held in Nagoya. Sumo is the one traditional Japanese sports that still makes it onto primetime TV and draws in the crowds consistently.


We queued up very early in the morning for a ticket and watched sumo from 8:30am to 6 in the evening. It was a long day, but it was great to see these guys all over 25 stone plough into each other. These guys are absolutely massive. The photos do not do their size credit. Jeanette called it the MOOB convention - Man Boob, and you couldn't argue with that assessment.



Each sumo tournament lasts 10 days. Each wrestler has one bout per day which can last a matter of seconds.


So the amateurs start off at 8:30 in the morning and then the standard slowly gets better right through to the main action around 5pm. Its like going to watch a junior c hurling match at the local field in the morning and then finding yourself in the Cusack Stand at the All-Ireland Senior hurling final come 6pm.


We spotted the amateur (junior c) sumos coming on the subway to the venue with us, whereas the pro's arrived in their chauffeur driven mercedes.

There is a whole lot of ceremony and tradion still prevalent today in the sumo bouts. In fact sometimes the ceremony lasts longer than the bout itself. The sumos begin by facing up to each other with a bit of posturing. They lift each leg up alternately off the ground and the crowd really loves it when they lift it really high - one guy had his legs almost at 180 degrees at one stage - see the photo.



Try this at home. I'm telling you its really difficult!

The the sumos go to the corner of the ring to pick up some salt which they duly throw into the ring - apparently to purify the sumo ring. Then they proceed to slap their big bellies a number of times. I loved this bit! After some more posturing the bout begins. And sometimes its over in a few seconds if one of these mammoths slips, or sometimes the battle can go on a matter of minutes which the crowd really appreciates. These guys can be real entertainers.

Its amazing how many non-Japanese sumos their are. On the programme we spotted Russian's, Bulgarian's, Mongolians' Hawaians etc. all they all seemed to win their bouts.

Another thing we learnt about sumo was that the referee carries a small dagger with him as he officiates. Apparently in the olden days the referee was expected to commit suicide if it was determined that he had made a wrong decision during a bout. Hence, the dagger was kept by his side. Sumo is serious stuff. Today, the referees only carry the dagger to continue the tradition but thankfully not the act itself.

By the way, the front row is a dangerous place to be seated. We saw a few groups getting clobbered when a sumo was pushed from the ring.

All in all it was a great day.



Sumo out shopping!

Lena's last day at school!

So first stop in Japan was to meet Lena (Jeanette's sister) and stay with her for a few days. Lena has been teaching english on the JET programme in Japan for the past 3 years and is finishing up this year. So Lena took us to school one day, which happened to be her last day at Yakami high school.

It was great to go to one of Lena's school and see what her life has been like in Japan for the past 3 years. Its clear that the kids love her.

Lena gave a speech to all the staff and students in the morning. The school brass band even played "Danny Boy" for her, which they had learned in only one day! See the video below.

We had a great time at school and were absolutely exhausted when we came home.

See Lena in action below.......