ANZ Day 11: Akoroa, NZ (12/31/2012)

This is what we opened our curtains to this morning:

Breathtaking!

We didn't dock today, we had to use the lifeboats as "tenders" to get us to shore. It was a pretty neat experience!

Visiting Akoroa was a little like visiting Leland, or another cute town on Lake Michigan. It's a fairly small town about an hour and a half from Christchurch. Because of the 2 earthquakes that hit Christchurch in 2010 and 2011, we were unable to dock there. Lots of people took excursions to Christchurch today. We opted to walk around town.

Along the beach road

We started out along the beach road and took a path up to a park that we hoped would have a playground for the kids. It wound up being a playground for sheep! It was a pretty steep climb and we had to walk through lots of "sheep poo" to get to the top of the hill, but we were rewarded with stunning views all around! We even got to see some of the sheep and hear them calling out to M while we were there.

It was like this pretty much the whole climb.  C kept asking if we could go back.

We came back down through an adorable neighborhood with beautiful gardens. I don't know what it is about New Zealand, but the colors here are so vibrant! It's like being In a fantasy land! No wonder they chose this place to film "The Lord of the Rings!" It's also important to note that the air is so fresh and clean. I found myself taking huge gulps all day.

This girl has a photographic eye - she asked me to stop and take this picture! 

Once we made it back down near the water we ended up finding a playground. The kids were so happy to get to play, even if it was just for 20 minutes. It was nice to see them able to work out some of the excess energy they've had.

The view from the park wasn't bad either!

You can see our ship far out in the center of the photo.

We had fish & chips again for lunch. It's hard to turn that down! We marveled at the beautiful scenery a little more, picked up some souvenirs, and headed back to the ship for a swim before dinner.

Tonight was a formal night in the dining room, and we had planned to hit the buffet, but Joel convinced us that what we had brought would be fine to wear, so we came in khakis and button down shirts for the boys, and dresses for the girls. It was worth it! When we got to our table, there were Happy New Year hats and noisemakers for all of us! Our menu choices included blue cheese soufflé (good, but strong!), wild berry soup (the kids LOVED this), Beef Wellington and lobster tail. Whew! What a dinner! The kids were happy to toot their horns and make noise with their spinners every few minutes. We saw the last few minutes of the show (a tenor), then went outside for more noise making. M suggested we check out the hot glass show (yay!), which was a great choice as the audience was small so we had great seats! We aren't planning to stay up until Midnight tonight. The kids are already asleep. It's tempting to take advantage of being among the first on earth to welcome the new year, but we have to meet in the theater for our excursion at 8:15 tomorrow morning, and we're going to be gone all day.

Happy New Year to all of you! We're having such a great time on this trip!

Post Script: A bird pooped on me today.  Yes.  It was more than unfortunate.  The last time this happened to me was also on a vacation - what gives?!?!?

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.