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| Other things I did in New Zealand | |||
| 06:29pm 19/07/2009 | |||
 Photos on Flickr: New Zealand. |
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| Read 3 - Post | |||
| Rotorua | |||
| 10:52pm 14/07/2009 | |||
 The steam rising from every street corner in Rotorua, rising from gardens, rising from parks, worried me at first, after having been in Melbourne when the Black Saturday bushfires were raging across Victoria. I kept thinking that something was on fire. Of course, it wasn't, it was just the geothermal activity that causes the steam to rise. The smell of sulphur was strong. It felt magical to walk through a park with many different bubbling pools and steam everywhere, so that the trees would disappear in the steam sometimes, and then reappear. I felt like it was a whole different world we had found, there in Rotorua. In the park, I saw basket fungi, but did not at first believe it was fungi, because of the pentagons. I went to Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland and saw pools of many different colours - red, green, yellow, multi-coloured craters, and the champagne pool; sipped blueberry wines and gooseberry liqueurs at the Mamaku Blue Blueberry Experience; saw lots of squelchy bubbling mud, with bubbles that would burst and spit mud into the air. |
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| Post | |||
| Waiuku and Waitomo | |||
| 08:49pm 10/07/2009 | |||
 Craters of the Moon It continued to rain as we walked up to the lighthouse, where apparently there are usually good views, but I could just see a blankness, a whiteness, where the fog had settled in. I remember being able to see phormium, as we walked up the steps. We visited my aunt and uncle's house, but they were in England at the time, and it felt somehow weird being in their house while they weren't there. That night, we stayed in Waitomo and visited a local pub, and tried out the local cider and the feijoa Archers. I had only tried the fruit, feijoa, a few weeks before, for the first time, in Melbourne. -- I floated through a cave on a boat, loooking up at the glow-worms above, mesmerised by the glowing. After that, I walked through the spiral entrance down to Ruakuri Cave, and was intrigued by stalactites, weird shapes forming. It seems so magical that such things exist underneath the ground and I wonder what else is below. We headed onwards from Waitomo to Taupo. Steam arose from the Craters of the Moon, and I stared at the mud bubbling and the steam, so much steam, and at the pretty colours of the rocks. I hadn't imagined the moon would have so much vegetation. |
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| Read 4 - Post | |||
| Auckland and Muriwai | |||
| 12:45am 08/07/2009 | |||
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The first night I was in Auckland, I watched a man fall in love with a blow-up doll in Lars and the Real Girl. I kept thinking of Melbourne as if it was my home, as if I was going back there soon. I remember walking along the beach and then following my cousin and my aunt's dog into a concrete fort, and into military tunnels that were so dark I couldn't see anything until I'd reached the end and could stare out at the sea. The sky was blue that day, unlike Melbourne, which had hailstones the day I left, when I changed trams from one to the other, to get to the coach station. We wandered along Muriwai Beach, but the gannets were gone. No jellyfish were to be seen either, but I did see starfish clinging to rocks, bigger and more colourful than the starfish in Melbourne. We visited hot pools and whooshed down hydroslides, and as I laid in the hot water, staring up at the sky, I wondered if it was really winter. |
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| Read 3 - Post | |||
| Straight from the Heart | |||
| 10:16pm 05/07/2009 | |||
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Questions from the Jason Donovan game: Poll #1425475 Jason Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All What is Jason's favourite Beach? Does Jason believe in Nuclear disarmament? Describe where you would take Jason on your 1st date. Does Jason like Michael Jackson's music? |
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| Read 11 - Post | |||
| Mostly Jetlag | |||
| 07:36am 05/07/2009 | |||
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The trains looked like caterpillars, from above. The river was brown, but occasionally other things would sparkle. And then there was the London Eye, and then the Dome, the little cluster of skyscrapers, and the Gherkin, and there was Kew, and a canoe. I flew over them all, seeing England for the first time in 9 or 10 months. I had prepared myself for this by watching an episode of Being Human and an episode of No Heroics on the plane, and had become convinced England was full of vampires, ghosts, werewolves and superheroes. -- Last night, I woke up many times during the night, confused at where I was. Odd that where I lived for 18 years could seem so unfamiliar in between dreams. I looked at the cards on the floor and they were from the Jason Donovan game. "Name a pop-star you fantasize about" they suggested. Somehow I wasn't wearing my watch, so went downstairs to look for a clock to find out the time. It was 5AM. I tried to sleep again. |
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| Read 6 - Post | |||
| UK | |||
| 09:11am 04/07/2009 | |||
| I have arrived in England. Quick! What have I missed in the last 9 or 10 months? I feel spacey and sleep deprived, confused by time zones and purple fields, and am laughing hysterically at tales told by my family that probably aren't really that funny. | |||
| Read 16 - Post | |||
| Tree | |||
| 02:37am 04/07/2009 | |||
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| Read 1 - Post | |||
| Skies and Shoes | |||
| 07:08pm 02/07/2009 | |||
| I've spent a lot of time today staring at the Golden Gate Bridge, waiting for the fog to clear, and wandering along the coast. Tomorrow, I head back into the sky. And then, and then, I will end up back in Eynsford. Perhaps the real adventures are just about to begin: the searching for a job of some kind, deciding upon a city I want to explore, wondering, wondering if I will find someone whose eyes I want to stare into again, and attempting to reconnect with my old friends, and perhaps even buying a new shoe to replace the one I somehow lost last week. | |||
| Read 2 - Post | |||
| Bodie | |||
| 06:04am 02/07/2009 | |||
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| Read 3 - Post | |||
| Ghosts and Tufa | |||
| 04:46pm 23/06/2009 | |||
| Currently at Mono Lake, sitting outside the library in Lee Vining, and earlier visited the ghost town of Bodie. Expect lots of photos at some point. | |||
| Read 4 - Post | |||
| Giant Squid and Literary Landmarks | |||
| 05:05pm 20/06/2009 | |||
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826 Valencia did not appear to have any mermaid repellent/bait in stock, but they did have sand to bury treasure under, scurvy begone, rope dust, and drawers full of enlightenment, lack, and oh, many other wondrous things. I ended up buying the giant squid repellent, which I shall daub on myself liberally as it seems there must be a great risk of being attacked by them here in San Francisco. I also visited the City Lights bookstore, Jack Kerouac Alley, and am now writing this in Caffe Trieste. I also visited Get Lost, a travel bookshop, as it was selling a copy of Mundane Journeys - Field guide to color by Kate Pocrass, which suggests things to do in San Francisco. Visiting all these literary landmarks is having the desired effect - it's making me want to write. |
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| Read 4 - Post | |||
| 404 Mermaids | |||
| 10:20am 20/06/2009 | |||
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I'm staying in Room 404. Maybe this means that if you looked for me, you wouldn't find me. Today I'm thinking of buying some mermaid bait or repellent. |
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| Read 22 - Post | |||
| SF | |||
| 02:24pm 19/06/2009 | |||
| I have succeeded at time travel and arrived in San Francisco approximately 7 hours before I left Auckland. I am experiencing Friday all over again. | |||
| Read 13 - Post | |||
| NZ | |||
| 09:34am 11/06/2009 | |||
| I am now in Auckland. | |||
| Read 6 - Post | |||
| Idioms | |||
| 04:53pm 01/06/2009 | |||
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Are you winking at the darkness, gathering sweet potatoes or less than seven, more than eight? kulang sa pito labis sa walo - very crazy or idiotic. (Literally, less than seven, more than eight.) kumindat sa dilim - to be disappointed (Literally, wink at darkness.) mangamote - to gather sweet potatoes, or to reveal one's stupidity. |
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| Read 6 - Post | |||
| Cabaret Nocturne | |||
| 11:47pm 31/05/2009 | |||
| Girls compared toy guns, tiny plastic guns, they drew from their handbags, and as I tried to untangle my hair, after dancing, a girl told me I was beautiful, and looked like a pixie. I was supposed to be a gangster really, that's why I wore a hat. A boy also wearing a hat sat next to me and showed me his tattoo, which was also wearing a hat, but a different kind of hat, and when I told him I was leaving the country soon, he asked if I wanted a boyfriend for 10 days. The police stood by the dance floor, and I didn't realise they were real police until afterwards. I thought maybe they were gangsters too. | |||
| Read 8 - Post | |||
| Adverbs and Friday | |||
| 10:56pm 25/05/2009 | |||
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I've recently been turning adjectives into adverbs, and trying not to make up too many words. In Tagalog, the same word can be used as an adjective or adverb, but mostly, that isn't the case in English, so I needed to figure out what adverb each adjective could be transformed into. I found William Clark's An English Grammar Systematically Arranged, and parts of it seem almost like a poem to me: A list of adverbs not ending in ly. Spending time staring at adverbs, led me to start reading Daniel Handler's novel, Adverbs, and here is a random quote from that: "Maybe she needs both," the woman said, "an apocalyptic boy who draws." I do, I do. -- It was Friday and I had wandered through the fog to get to the tram-stop, and it was thick enough that it felt like even Brunswick was only half there that morning. The sun eventually appeared and through the glass, and through the knights on horses, created rainbows on my keyboard. I sat by the sea and ate lunch, and a person passed by on a unicycle, and I noticed the rock said, "woo", and the sea made me feel dizzy when I looked at it, and there were black stars in the sea, maybe starfish, maybe crabs, maybe fish, I'm not sure, but black and mysterious. I always end up with sand in my shoes. Some train stations I passed on the way back to the city: Hampton, Brighton Beach, Balaclava, Windsor, Richmond.. (I don't pass Eltham, but the name still amuses me ("Elf-am"!)) Later that evening, in the Edinburgh Castle, a friend asked me what the weirdest thing I'd ever done was, and I couldn't think of anything, and maybe I've never done anything weird. Maybe that's the way it has always been. |
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| Read 4 - Post | |||
| Food | |||
| 12:02am 13/05/2009 | |||
 I wanted to try white chocolate wasabi ice-cream or perhaps even hot cross bun flavour, but alas, the strangest flavours that Fritz Gelato had when I visited were caramelised fig and roasted almond, and cinnamon doughnut. The Buddha's Day and Multicultural festival happening this weekend at Fed Square is apparently well known for its strange food - vegan deep fried oysters! vegan pork floss! radish cake! I also noticed that one of the vegan blogs that has photos of deep fried oysters also describes a vegan kangaroo BBQ. Definitely weird Australian food. |
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| Read 16 - Post | |||
| Point Nepean | |||
| 10:26pm 11/05/2009 | |||
 ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} wintrmute and I walked around Point Nepean. I trembled slightly. For over 100 years, the park was closed to the public and used by the military. The first shots in both World War I and World War II were fired from Fort Nepean, and there are remains of gun emplacements, crumbling concrete and rusting metal structures. It felt more like a bunker than a fort, with dark underground tunnels and eerie whistling piped through them. Cheviot beach is also located at Point Nepean and is where Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared in 1967. The scenery at Point Nepean is beautiful, with cliffs, beaches, and many trees, and the history is fascinating, but it also feels a bit creepy. A snake slithered across the path in front of us, reminding us that unexploded bombs are not the only threat to our lives. |
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| Read 2 - Post | |||
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squirmelia |
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