via cameron
Archives for the month of: June, 2010
from Lost Moon Radio, episode 5.
kara: i had a dream i had an ipad and was a reading a magazine on it and it was awesome
kara: sadly, i hear magazines are so far not awesome on the ipad
eric: yeah
eric: people are still figuring it out
eric: guess it started off better than the web though
eric: early web pages were hilarious
kara: true
kara: i mean, i should be able to switch to ‘paperless’ subscriptions on my current magazines, just like i can opt out of paper statements for my credit card and other bills
eric: haha, the publishing industry is so far away from being able to figure that out
eric: the whole thing is like this incredibly brittle porcelain vase being propped up by lots of crossed fingers & old money
be sure to rollover ‘notes’ to see photo captions!
We ported in Lyttleton and took buses into Christchurch. Aunt Pat, Uncle Denny, Mom, Dad and I loaded into a little jetboat and had a hair-raising trip down the Waimakariri River, or the ‘Waimack’ as the locals call it. The boats only draft a few inches when they get going, so we skimmed along the shallow, rocky-bottomed river with no trouble, even though sometimes it _looked_ like we’d be in trouble! The pilot was really nice, and did a lot of 360°s for us. It. Was. Awesome! We also ran into some men scouting out the river for the annual race that starts in the Southern Alps and ends down the Waimakariri.
After jetboating we had tea and cookies up at the meeting house, then took a little bus tour of Christchurch.
was designed to erode down to its ideal shape in 30,000 years. engineering!
no embarrassing incidents!
be sure to rollover ‘notes’ to see photo captions!
Got up early – 6:30am! – for an exercise class, then Mom joined me for the stretching class afterwards. Went to the omelettes-to-order station and the buffet for breakfast with Mom, Dad and Uncle Denny.
Watched the fruit-carving demonstration in the atrium, hosted by our assistant cruise director, Mark (who is hilarious on the ship’s morning show), stayed for a bit of the martini-mixing show, then read on-deck until it started to rain. Hit the special Asian/sushi buffet for lunch then we went to the wine tasting. It was a pretty big affair, and the wines were delicious.
Hung out in our cabin until it was time to get dressed up for the first formal night of the cruise. Got great spots to watch the champagne waterfall, then had dinner at Pacific Moon and watched the couples dancing to Maurizio’s music in the atrium – including one man dancing extremely oddly.
be sure to rollover ‘notes’ to see photo captions!
We ordered breakfast in-room to save some time, since we had to be at our meeting point very early in the morning. Our first port was Tauranga, and our first shore excursion was to Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, a park where we explored some of the features of the volcanic area.
First we drove through Te Puke, the world center of kiwifruit. We made a comfort stop and I called Maria to wish her a happy birthday. At Wai-O-Tapu we saw the Lady Knox geyser erupt, then spent awhile walking around the park, looking at vast boiling crates of mud and steaming, sulfurous, color-encrusted pools.
We had lunch at the top of Mt. Ngongotaha, and enjoyed a Maori cultural show. We drove through the government botanic gardens and saw the old baths and bathhouse. We also saw a spring that was 1000° that feeds water to the Polynesian spa, which gets up to 40°C.
We drove on to Rainbow Springs Kiwi Wildlife Park. Trout are bred here, and there were endless ponds bursting with huge trout. We saw a lot of big fish up close, pretty birds, and redwoods that were over 80 years old. Apparently, for some reason redwoods grow twice as fast in NZ. We also saw a longfinned eel (called ‘tuna’ in Maori) that liked to hang out inside a pipe, upside down!
Back at ship, we left port and I read and had a mojito out on deck. We hit the buffet for dinner, then saw a musical stage show.