ANZ Day 10: Dunedin, NZ (12/30/2012)

We docked in a small town, Port Chalmers, outside of Dunedin today. When we woke up, C opened the curtains and said he saw a small boat right next to us with tires all over it. It was the tug! We were docking next to the shipping docks and got to see the cranes in action unloading a container ship. We've seen that on TV, so it was neat to see it in person.

We had our second shore excursion today. We visited Penguin Place, a wildlife sanctuary with seals, Yellow-Eyed penguins & Little Blue penguins. They had blinds set up throughout the sanctuary so we could get up close to the penguins on their level. We even got to see chicks! They were almost full grown, but it was still cool. Penguins only take about 3 months to reach full -grown. I had no idea!

Walking into one of the blinds.

Look carefully inside the little "house" and you'll see 2 brown Yellow-Eyed penguin chicks!

This little guy waited so patiently for us to leave the blind.  He was probably there for 5 to 10 minutes!  He was waiting to add that single feather to his already-built nest inside the blind.

Walking into another blind.

Seals!

A Little Blue penguin inside his little box house.

It was around 1pm when we left Penguin Place and we were getting hungry. I asked the driver what was next and through our conversation learned that there was no plan to stop for lunch until the tour ended at 4pm! As you can imagine, I was upset! New Zealand has fairly strict bio security, so we weren't allowed to bring food off the ship. I couldn't believe they would expect anyone to skip lunch, but they did. I knew it wasn't the drivers fault and told him as much. He must have felt sorry for us because he changed the itinerary up and drove us back into town to grab some lunch before continuing.

Some pictures of the scenery from the bus (lots of sheep!):

Our ship

The town of Dunedin

After a quick bite to eat (and a stop at a convenience store for some granola bars in case we get caught without lunch again), we stopped at the steepest street in the world. It was pretty wild - it went straight up the hill! No switchbacks! C thought it was really cool.

We stopped at a Botannic Garden next and were lucky enough to find a playground there!!

K took this gorgeous picture!

We then made our way over to an old train station with mosaic tiles all over the inside. It must have been a lot of work!

When we got back to the ship, we saw that there was a tent set up on the dock with free Internet! I was relieved to get to send out a few emails. We had planned to walk into Port Chalmers, but it was raining pretty hard, so we opted to get back on the ship. Dinner tonight included a delicious roast leg of lamb (sheep without any fur, according to M's explanation to the kids, K was very worried about the fur). We convinced C to have chicken instead of steak, but in the end we all wound up eating M's lamb! For dessert, K went back to creme brûlée. She also had cold pear & honey soup. It was seasoned, so she wasn't a fan.

The show was a piano player who played this wonderful movie song medley at the end that included songs from 42nd Street, Star Wars, Singing in the Rain, The Impossible dream, The Sound of Music, One, and the song that K identified (correctly) as being from "Sight Words 1" along with several others. It was really a great show! After the show, we would normally go straight to bed,but tonight there was a family dance party, so we went there for about 15 minutes before the kids were ready for bed.

Caution Germophobes

This may really gross you out.  It grosses me out.  Every time.  But I have to share it because it's part of the story.  (But seriously, this is really gross, and it just gets grosser - you have been warned.)

I was shopping at IKEA today and walked past a mirror display and couldn't believe my eyes:

Oh, you're not sure what that puddle on the floor in the middle of the IKEA showroom is?  How about a closer look?

Do you need me to put it into words?  Are you simply aghast that someone might do this IN A STORE????  It's hard for me to understand how one overcomes this kind of culture shock.  When this is no longer shocking to me, I think I'm in trouble!

Now, I don't want you to think this is my first encounter with something like this.  It happens all the time.  Taxis pull over on the side of the highway to use the wall.  I've seen a mom hold a bag for her son to use in a corner of a museum AND a mall!  Here is a picture of a common practice here:

I debated including this picture because of the content.  There are two adults, one is holding the child who needs to do her business.  I took this picture a long time ago and don't think I waited around to see what kind of business it was.  I've also seen this more times than I care to remember.

I showed these pictures to my dear neighbor, and she shared a story with me.  She's British, so make sure you think this in a British accent:

We were lined up in the queue at IKEA and it's taking a long time to check out.  The kids were hungry and they wanted hot dogs, so I had them line up for hot dogs while my husband was checking out.  So I'm standing between the checkout and the cafe place.  And about 10 meters away was a trash can.  So, if you can imagine the restaurant being about 10 meters away from me AND the trash can.  So my kids are standing there eating their hot dogs and this woman comes along with her child and hangs the child over the garbage can and the kid is POOPING!  INTO THE TRASH CAN!  Her back is to the checkout and she is facing the cafe (meaning so is the child's rear).  And the kid is pooping into the trash can.  And there's a security man standing between the woman and myself.  So I point at her to the security man and he turns the other way and pretends not to see me.  So I'm saying "Can you do something about that?  This is completely inappropriate!  There are people eating!  My children are eating!  Don't pretend like you can't see me!"  He won't do anything, so I walk over near the woman and point at the Toilet sign just over her head and say "This is NOT ok!" and I point to the toilet.  She keeps saying "Sorry, sorry."  So she finishes up with the kid (by this time, my kids are completely grossed out).  I'm like, "OK, I know I'm going completely over the top, but SERIOUSLY? And I know I've drawn a crowd, but SERIOUSLY?????"

Yes, seriously.

ANZ Day 9: Fiordland National Park, NZ (12/29/2012)

Today was absolutely breathtaking! I woke up early to try to catch the sunrise, but it was cloudy :(. Instead I worked on a new crossword puzzle and then brought breakfast to the room. C called it "mom-service." We sat on our balcony and ate breakfast while we cruised through Milford Sound.

Eating the "Mom-Service" Breakfast

It was stunning! We saw albatross flying low near the water, seals waving to us, plunging cliffs, waterfalls, and rainbows! What a great way to start our anniversary!

If you can see the white dots on the top left of the water, those are the albatross.  Their wingspan is 8-10 feet!  That certainly puts the land into perspective!

Rainbow!

I had to take a nap after Milford Sound - I wasn't really prepared for a 5:45am wake-up! We had lunch as we cruised through Doubtful Sound, then we went back to the room and built the 3-D cruises ship puzzle the kids gave M for Christmas.

Then it was back to the pool for more swimming!

By this time, we had made it into Dusky Sound and we got to see Dolphins! The on board naturalist said our wake would be like a floating amusement park for them, and sure enough, as soon as they got to the wake, they were all jumping and playing! What a treat for them and us!!

Gorgeous!

Can you see the snow-capped mountain the distant center?

We got to know a little more about Nikola, our assistant waiter, at dinner tonight. He is 22 and just finished going to school for electronics. He is from Serbia. He has wanted to see the world for some time and has thought that a job like this would be just the ticket, but in order to sign up for this job, he had to be 21. He is always so great with our kids, it was nice to learn a little more about him today.

Nikola with the kids

I haven't talked much about sea-sickness and I realize you may be wondering. We have had some rough seas, particularly on our way to Melbourne (when the hangers in the closet were swaying), then again on the way out. Tonight is no exception. I had heard that the Tasman Sea could be quite rough. We are doing fine though, for the most part. Sometimes we don't feel very good and we just have to change what we're doing - either our position, or the activity itself. Thankfully, none of us have actually gotten sick! I think we've all felt worse for eating too much than we have due to the movement of the ship!

Milk and Apple Juice

My daughter was sick today.  It wasn't just any old sick day.  M is out of town, so I was up late last night because I can't seem to control my night-owl self.  I also had to be up early this morning because I'm the room parent in K's class and needed to be at school this morning for a major project with some of the kids and their parents.  I'm sure this goes without saying, but please indulge me: I was frantically calling people this morning trying to reschedule our big project for another day.  All while trying to get my healthy child off to school.  Thankfully, Mr. Mao drove all the way to our house to take us to the bus stop since we were running so late.  Also thankfully, he has a young daughter and understands that kids can get sick overnight.  I don't think he minded to much that I let him go home after we got C on the bus.  Ugh!  What a morning!

What's that?  You're wondering what this has to do with milk and apple juice?

It turns out that I haven't been to the grocery store in a while.  In fact, I know this will shock you, I was planning to go today.  I even had a list!  Ah... life's little interruptions.  I had told the kids just yesterday that I would pick up some apple juice when I was at the store and we are almost out of skim milk.  We have about 5 liters of lowfat milk, but the sick child likes the skim.

The "givens" so far:

    - K is sick
    - M is out of town
    - I sent Mr. Mao home

The "find":

    - I need milk and apple juice

Enter Ayi.  Xiao Tao has her own scooter!  Xiao Tao can run to Carrefour for me and pick up these couple of things to tide us over until I can get to the store later this week!  Yes!  So I showed her the skim milk and said I wanted 4, then I said "apple" in chinese and motioned using the milk box that I wanted 8 smaller boxes.  Great!  What a relief!

At least that's what I felt until she got back.  She came into the kitchen and pulled out 2 bags of apples.  My tired mind thought, that's weird, it's not like Xiao Tao to get anything extra.  Then it hit me.  The juice part of the message never made it through.  Sigh.  I should have used the translator.  Then she pulls out 4 liters of lowfat milk.  Another sigh.

Some days I'm really ready to come home.

ANZ Day 8, At Sea (12/28/2012)

Today was a nice slow day for us. There were lots of fun activities planned for Fun Factory, including a pirate treasure hunt and a galley tour for C! We had a special treat for breakfast - low fat blueberry muffins like grandpas! While the kids were having so much "fun," M and I heard a destination talk about Akoroa, Wellington, and Tauranga. We picked up the kids for lunch. I was so happy to have a salad for lunch! All this heavy food is starting to get to me. When the kids went back to Fun Factory (at their request) after lunch, I went to another hot glass show and got a crossword puzzle & a sudoku from the card room while M took a nap. We caught the tail end of a show after dinner. It was a lazy day for us - it felt good!

There is a lot more going on around the ship than my posts would lead you to believe. We have found that a lot of the activities we are either not interested in, cost extra money, or aren't really appropriate for the kids. Here is a sample of today's activities:

Exercise classes (some cost extra)

iPod classes (extra fee)

Art lecture

Trivia

Dance lessons

Casino

Jewelry sale

Free spa consultations

Friends of Bill W. (AA)

After a slow day I took advantage of the fairly clear night sky to enjoy the stars.  The pictures hardly do it justice, but it's still amazing what you can see given that the moon is nearly full!