Monthly Archives: February 2012

Feb22

The Great North-Island Adventure: A New Zealand Road Trip – Day 1

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It’s finally time – to pack up my bag again and move on from New Zealand. What calls me onward is not a new country, but instead a return to a home that I haven’t seen in months. I would enjoy staying in New Zealand for another six months, but unfortunately a lack of good job options and my non-infinite bank accounts have conspired together, and the clearest course for me is to return home to rest and rebuild my finances before starting out again on another world trip.

For now, what that means is that I am taking my leave of Christchurch. While the city has been amazing to me, I haven’t had the time to see anything of the North Island as of yet, and so I’ve planned out a road trip in order to remedy this.

Day 1

They key to this road trip of mine was a car. I obviously don’t own one, and I can’t afford to rent one, so what could I do? Car relocation was the solution that I came up with; a service where I volenteer to drive a rental car from one airport to another in a specific time frame. I don’t pay for the rental, and in return I make sure to deliver the car by a certain date and time. Not a bad deal, when I just need a way to get from one city to another, but want to actually see the space in between instead of simply flying over it.

So Sunday morning found me dragging myself out of bed before 8:00 so that Mike and I could drive out to the Christchurch Airport to pick up this car. It took us a while to find the renal agency, since it wasn’t one that we had dealt with before, but once we found it everything about the pickup went smoothly… though not quickly I’m afraid. I waited for over an hour and a half before I was finally given the keys to the car, but since I wasn’t paying for the rental I couldn’t really find a reason to complain too loudly. And so, after a quick overview of the car and a damage-check to make sure I would be getting my security deposit back, I headed out with a fancy new Sirion Daihatsu.

Mike and I met up again to have a quick going-away breakfast at a small place I had found earlier called Drexel’s (Yes, I think this is actually related to the school my sister goes to, Drexel University, since from what I can tell their both named after the same guy) where we chatted for a short bit and ate ourselves an amazing Breakfast… I really don’t know what it is, specifically, that draws me to Pancakes to strongly. But whatever it is, there is honestly no breakfast better than a tall stack of pancakes with Bacon and Eggs on the side.

After saying my final (for now) goodbyes to Mike, I headed out again to do a final round of goodbyes to the other folks that I had promised I’d see before leaving – Oliva, Spanish, Storm, and Rachel. In all my visiting took a bit longer than I planned, but I’m quite happy that I did take the time; these people (and many others that I didn’t get to see that Sunday) had touched my lives in so many ways, and I was, and still am, very sorry that I had to take my leave of them. But, either fortunately or unfortunately, the world continues to turn and I had to continue one with my adventures on the open road.

And that open road was… boring. Right outside of Christchurch I got trapped in almost an hour and a half of traffic caused by some accident that required the services of not one, but three fire trucks. The only consolation for me was afterwards when I got to really stretch the cars legs on the coastal highway… I had honestly forgotten how much I love driving manual-transmission cars, and driving this one around was reminding me how amazingly better it is than driving a normal automatic transmission.

But no matter how quickly I drove, or how much fun I had shifting gears to tear around the corners, I couldn’t shake the knowledge that I was going to miss my ferry. You see, I was on the south island, and the only way across is via an inter-island ferry that goes from the town of Picton to the city of Wellington. And it was set to board at 5:05… significantly before I was going to make it there. Thankfully I was able to rebook the ferry passage without trouble when I did finally arrive (nearly two hours late, but thats neither here nor there), and so I went from being two hours late, to having nearly two hours to kill before the ferry started boarding.

I burned up this time by visiting a small pub called the “Toot n’ Whistle” for a quick bite to eat, and then sitting and taking a nap in the car, since I had a feeling I wouldn’t be getting much sleep on the ferry. Unfortunately I was right, and the ferry ride ran into more than a few waves on its three-hour tour to Wellington. Yes, seriously, a “three hour tour”… not a cursed time-frame at all, no one’s ever been shipwrecked for decades from one of those… Has anyone rescued Gilligan yet? I don’t know.

The ferry ride itself was slow and long, and found me starting to understand how ancient sailors could have believed in sea monsters so easily. It was pitch-black outside, even with the running lights of the ship lit on the decks, but every once in a while you’d notice something in the water, some small reflection of the light that would catch the eye and cause the brain to go into conniptions trying to figure out what it could possibly be. And the result was always “something big and scary that wants to eat you”. The fact that the ship would be creaking and moaning around me didn’t help any, let me tell you. Even with my headphones and movies playing on the laptop, I was unconvinced that we’d ever make landfall, and doubly convinced that some sort of sea-serpent was waiting for us just below the waterline.

Once the ferry did finally arrive, I quickly made my way back to the car, and onto the highway looking for a place to stay. At the rental place I had commandeered a whole book of accommodations, and so I had found a cheap place that I was planning on staying that night – just a small campground about 20min outside of the city. It took a bit of searching to finally find it, thanks to the horrendously early hour, but soon enough I was laying out my sleeping bag and pad on the grass, and dozing off to sleep under the stars.

Feb22

My last week in Christchurch: a series of short stories

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I debated writing this as a “in the format of The Canterbury Tales” story, since Christchurch is located in Canterbury, but then I realized that writing from the perspective of multiple people might make me seem a bit insane (even more so than normal) and do some damage to my tenuous grasp of reality. That, and I’d have to think up people who’s viewpoints to use, and while most of these events have other people in them, I don’t really feel like delving into their innermost thoughts. At least not publicly.

My last two Capoeira Classes

It’s a sad thing, leaving a group of friends. Its obvious, of course, but when it actually comes down to it its quite a sad situation, and thus everyone has a different way of dealing with friends departing. Pontual’s solution was simple and straightforward – give the person who’s leaving something to remember, and give everyone a chance to “say their goodbyes” the Capoeira way.

And so, I found myself in the Roda for 5min or so, playing against every single person in the class. Twice, since I went to both the Wednesday class and the Friday class. Most of the times, a single “game” of Capoeira will last 30s to maybe a minute, and afterwards the players will be pretty well winded… so when I say that I could barely breathe halfway through the game please let that sink in. 5 minutes… ten times as long as a normal game will last. And that, of course, is just playing against the students.

Pontual wanted to make sure that I got a good sendoff, and so he made sure to play against me last, so that I’d be a bit slowed down. And since I was a bit slower and more tired than normal (Ed Note: It’s strange, but while playing Ben wasn’t nearly as tired as one would expect – the power of Adrenaline in one’s system is an amazing thing, and Ben only really noticed the true depth of his exhaustion after the game was over, and he had stopped focusing on his opponents), it was easier for Pontual to bring out the big guns – pulling kicks inches from my poor chin, and sweeping my legs out from under me more times than I can count. The thing is though – I loved it. Not in a masochistic way, but in a “wow, I’m playing someone who’s not holding back, and starting to understand how amazing people’s reflexes must be”. It was fun, and honestly? The best going away present I could have been given by the group.

…

Well, the cool uniform that I got was pretty good too, I guess 😛

Watching Pokemon with Acacia, Lorna, and Johnny

I don’t watch cartoon’s often… but when I do, they are awesome. Recently I’ve been on an “Adventure Time with Finn & Jake” kick (Ed note: For those who don’t know, this is a cartoon that was originally a short flash animation on Youtube. Then Cartoon Network decided it was awesome, and hired the cartoonist full-time to make a TV show. Awesome!), but a friend of mine just fell deep into the evils of Pokemon, and invited me over to join her for some epic catching ’em all action.

Normally, I would pass on this offer, since… pokemon. Just… no. But, this was a unique situation: Acacia is freaking awesome (I’ve met drunk people at parties who wouldn’t let me leave until I agreed that she’s amazing), and she cooks up a mean pasta-bake – pasta-bake that she was offering to cook up as a going-away present. So, I had to bus myself on over and hang out for a day and a half, relaxing and drinking, eating pasta-bake and watching an annoying kid throw balls at small animals.

In the end? Strange, annoying, but totally worth it Although the stupid theme-song was stuck in my head for at least two days afterwards.

Harriet’s housewarming party

The danger of attending a party that you don’t really know much about is that it could be a theme party, and you can easily find yourself not dressed for the occasion. Now, this isn’t always too bad, since you can just play it off as being the “cool guy”, or making up some costume excuse (“seriously, I’m dressed as a software pirate! No, its just coincidence that its exactly what I wear normally!”). However, when you’re at a “period costume” party with friends who love costumes and dressing up, and happen to have a large closet full of costumes… life can get dangerous.

And this was how I found myself at a party, wearing a fancy Victorian-Era masquerade mask and a long flowing dress. Yes, you read that right – a full-length ballgown. Harriet, one of my Capoeira friends, had seen that I wasn’t wearing a costume, and hauled me upstairs to put one of her dresses on me. Thankfully I wasn’t the only guy going drag at the party, since our other Capoeira-buddy Nick had also forgotten a costume, and it did end up having some unique benefits…

A bit into the party, I was talking to a girl named Emma who loved my “costume”. She loved it so much in fact, that she wanted it. We agreed that she would look significantly better in it than me, since I didn’t fill it out at all, and so we ran into the bathroom to swap outfits. Again, yes you read that right – I was that person, the one who keeps swapping costumes throughout the night with other people.

Nearing the end of the night it was getting a bit colder, and so I did end up swapping back into my own shirt (I had kept the pants on all night, thank you very much)… but until that point Nick and I were the clear life of the party; eclipsing even the cheerleading squad who showed up a bit after I did.

After the party I got a ride home with a girl that I had met there, who had one of the best costumes that I had ever seen. It was a take on a plague-doctor – long beaked mask, but with about a dozen small eyes added around it and a wicked cool chaos staff that she had attached a ram’s skull onto. Amazing. But after she dropped me off I realized that I had to wait a bit for Sara to get home so that I could get into the flat – and so I spent nearly an hour relaxing outside stargazing from a small school playground across the street. An excellent ending to a most-interesting party.

Sampling with Mike

My buddy Mike is the reason I came to Christchurch in the first place. I’ve mentioned him before, but the depth of how much he helped me out cannot be overstated – it was his flat that I sublet, and his car that I used to go adventuring up Mount Hutt, to Paynes Ford, and Castle Hill. So when he asked me if I was up for helping him gather samples for his graduate thesis before I left, I jumped on the chance.

The sampling itself was a bit simpler than I expected, though it took a lot longer than I had envisioned, simply because every drop of water that he took needed to be run through a 4-micron filter, and then neutralized with a special acid, administered 1ml at a time.

Each sample took nearly 45min to gather, run, and sort, but it was a great excuse to hang out and shoot the breeze with Mike. I hadn’t really had much time just relaxing with him since he had gotten back from the USA, and so this was a really nice chance to catch up and chat about random stuff – from Politics to Science, and rock climbing to hiking. It was a good day – slow and relaxed, but really a nice chance to chill out.

I think thats the key to “guy time”… having some small mindless project to keep your hands busy while you chat. Fishing, painting, fixing a car, even smoking a cigar. As guys, we need something to keep our hands occupied, and something that we can use as a convenient conversation break when we need one.

Hanging out at Tika St

I had been staying at my friend Jen’s place (actually the place of many of my friends – Jen, Oliva, Sara, Michael, and Timmy) for the time between Motueka and when I picked up the relocation car. The flat was in one of the worst area’s of Christchurch, but they had made it quite homey and fun, and since we were right near a school, the immediate area itself wasn’t actually that bad. Overall we just relaxed and hung out a bit, but I did get to sample the upside of staying at a flat with someone working on their PHD – while Jen was definitely a stress-bunny while working on her thesis, she also liked distracting herself every so often. And since both her and Sara are quite excellent cooks / bakers, this meant that we had a nearly limitless-supply of cakes, brownies and pancakes at any given time. And as a man who enjoys himself some pancakes, this was pretty much the best thing ever for me.

Feb15

Aruandê Capoeira meet up in Motueka!

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Feb 9th 2012 through Feb 12th, 2012

 

After spending two days in Nelson after leaving Takaka and the Hangdog campground behind I took a bus up to Motueka, a town just about halfway up the side of the Abel Tasman national park. What brought me to this tiny town, with a population barely over 10,000? The semi-annual Aruandê Capoeira meet up, of course!

That morning had seen me take a bus from Nelson to Motueka, thanks to a failed coordination of rides. On the bus I had gotten a chance to talk to a mother/daughter group from Auckland, who gave me more than a few tips on places to travel in the North Island for my upcoming road trip. After the bus finally arrived, late thanks to a series of roadworks, I had made a bee-line to the cheapest backpackers in town – Motueka Backpackers. There I talked to the manager, who told me that all of their dorms were full. “Unless… do you mind sleeping in the camper van? It’s a bit cramped and cold, but you’d have it all to yourself” “Umm, it’s the same price, and I get a private room? Yeah! I’m ok with that!” And so, instead of sleeping in a dorm filled with sweat and people, I ended up setting up shop in a camper van with my sleeping bag, relaxing all by myself.

I didn’t have time to relax much though, since the meet up had officially started at 10:00 on Saturday morning, and the bus hadn’t arrived until 10:30. But when I finally walked into the hall at 11:15, I found out that they had started on “South American standard time”… AKA an hour late.

 

Day 1

Yet again, I find myself extremely happy about my innate sense of paranoia. I’m sitting in the Memorial Hall in Motueka as a friend of mine nicknamed “sushi” wraps a bandage around my knee. There are two quick stories here; one involving a knee, and another involving a kiwi guy being given a Japanese nickname. Lets… start with the knee, shall we?

One downside of long backpacking trips are the aches and pains. And in my case, these aches are located in my knees and lower back… the back pain was limited to a dull soreness, but the knees were a different and much more painful story. A while back I bashed my right knee out rock climbing – nothing bad enough to warrant a trip to the hospital, but something that left me with a nice limp for a few days. And ever since, its bugged me when I’ve done long sections of downhill while hiking, especially if I happen to have a heavy pack on my back. Well, the knee had flared up after the first day of the Abel Tasman, and I had started favoring it I guess, which lead to a complete blow-out of my left knee on the last day of the trail. I’d been resting it all through my time in Takaka and Nelson, but when I started practice with the Capoeira group, I quickly realized that it needed to be taped up.

The story of the Kiwi guy being given a Japanese nickname is a much quicker story – my friend Nick started Capoeira about a year ago, and had his Batisado, or Baptism of Fire, a few months after. Now its traditional to be given a new name during your batisado, to symbolize your rebirth into the culture; Nick had thought up a few, but almost immediately after the Mestre saw him, those ideas were thrown out the window. You see, Nick looks very Asian, and the Mestre noticed this, mentioned it, and decided that the nickname should fit the man. Thus, Sushi was born.

Anyways, Nick/Sushi was taping up my knee. The practice had been a good bit more grueling than I had expected, though I’ll admit that I didn’t really know what to expect when I first signed up for the meet up. I guess I was expecting seminars and talks, demonstrations and a big huge convention hall full of people. Instead, we got something that I actually enjoyed a significant amount more – a class. Simply what Pontual usually does… except with a number of new people who happen to be instructors.

And that’s the key right there – instructorS. Up until this point, Pontual was the best that I’d seen, aside from movies and videos on YouTube. And now, I was seeing the people who taught him, and people who had practiced along side him for years… and let me tell you, it was impressive.

We spent the entire day alternating between practicing sets of movements and random workouts, and getting together in the roda (pronounced “ho-dah”, thanks to the Portuguese “R”) to test the movements that we had learned against each other. It was honestly amazing, and was easily equivalent in awesomeness to a full day of rock climbing at my favorite crag. The energy that I felt there was excellent, and getting to see people training who could actually land kicks and takedowns on Pontual on a regular basis was eye opening – I think I’m going to enjoy training Capoeira for a long time to come.

After almost five hours of training we all got the instruments together and walked out of the hall to the center of town to do a live demonstration for the population of Motueka. I hadn’t known about this part of the plan, but in hindsight it was an amazing idea – the main point of this meet up was not only to train and get together as a group, but also to raise awareness for the Motueka chapter of the group… and raise awareness we did! I only got to play two or three rounds myself, but we kept playing for over an hour total, and for most of that time we had a very good showing of random people stopping by to watch the roda. It was really cool being the center of so much confused attention, and I think the better capoeiristas enjoyed the chance to really show off their skills to some easily impressed bystanders.

After the outside roda we all went back to our individual residences to take a quick shower before meeting back at the hall to drive down to Nelson again, for a classical Brazilian dinner that a friend of a friend had cooked up. After another few hijinks and misadventures we finally all met up and headed out onto the hour-long drive, where Spanish and I chatted long and hard about moves and counter-moves, pronunciation and technical terms, and even into roda etiquette.

The meal itself was amazing, but the party afterward was of a particular excellence that I haven’t seen in ages. For the meal we ate some amazing meat mix with rice, potatoes, and spare ribs on the side, washed down with a generous offering of some quite good New Zealand beers. And then… the music began. I learned firsthand that Cai Cai, an instructor from Australia who had flown over, was an extremely skilled break-dancer. I also learned that Spanish is a quite good dancer as well, and that I… am not. That fact had no bearing on my rocking out though, and I hate to admit it but I ended up pulling out all the stops and actually went 70s disco on the dance floor when I was called up to dance. From the funky chicken to the funky big rig, from the funky lawnmower to a funky shop trip, every horrible dance I knew was played out in front of the group. And then mirrored by at least one or two people, who pulled out some moves that even I could never have imagined trying. The night… was awesome.

I did have to leave a bit early though, in order to catch a ride back into Motueka so that I could get some sleep before practice the next day. Thankfully Vovo, the instructor from Motueka, was driving back and offered to give me a lift. We spent the drive talking about traveling around the world, and he took some time to explain the intricacy of the Capoeira culture and its history. By the time we got to the Backpackers my head was so full of new information, and my body so completely drained from the day of practice and the night of dancing, that I was asleep before I even got myself completely inside my sleeping bag back in the camper van.

Day 2

The daylight broke through the tattered curtains of the camper van, transforming my slightly unique accommodations into a bright little slice of heaven. Backpackers are amazing everywhere I’ve been for their cheapness, and the chance to meet lots of interesting travelers… but the downside to them is that its always hard to fall asleep there, thanks to people constantly moving around. Here in Motueka I had somehow found the perfect situation where I could sleep easily, and yet still meet lots of interesting people. Though I’ll admit, in this situation most of those “interesting people” had only walked up and talked to me because they thought I had weed. Dreads are awesome, but it seems that they come with a steep price.

Anyways, after waking up I didn’t have enough time for any breakfast more substantial than a quick fruit-snack bar and a can of chicken that I had leftover from backpacking, so I quickly gulped down what I could and then headed out towards Memorial Hall. I arrived a bit late, but thankfully “South American Standard” time was still in effect and I ended up getting there a bit before Perere and Vovo arrived to unlock the hall for the morning.

Our workout started out a bit slower than the day before, but it quickly moved into some rather complex acrobatic movements before slowing down again when we grouped up and started practicing the music side of campoeira – learning the instruments and melodies.

There are four main instruments to the Roda – the Berimbau (pronounced “Bid-eem-Bao”), the Pandeiro (pronounced “Paan-dare-oh”), the Atabaque (pronounced “tah-bah-k”), and the A-go-go (pronounced exactly as you would think). The Berimbau is really interesting to look at, since its a pole with a wire strung just like a bow with a gourde attached to the bottom of it… but it’s the lead instrument of the roda. The Pandeiro is a standard-issue tamborine, much like anything you’d see at a faire. The Atabaque is a huge drum that comes up to above my waist which gives the roda its bass beat, and helps to keep the time that the Berimbau sets. Lastly, and A-Go-Go is a set of metal bell, and its actually an instrument originally for samba, but has been added into the roda. For most of the time I played the pandeiro, and I actually had a pretty cool epiphany while playing.

When I was first trying to learn the guitar a friend of mine told me to keep trying because “you don’t slowly understand it, you just keep working through your confusion until suddenly, one second, everything snaps into place”… I didn’t snap and understand all of music, but I actually started to hear the melody differently, and to understand the beats and where each instrument could fit into the greater song. It was an amazing feeling, and when I moved over to the <drums> I was able to understand a way to freestyle the beat a bit, and to improvise some new sounds that I really enjoyed.

We ended up spending nearly all afternoon singing and playing the instruments, but after a while we did set up one last roda for the weekend – the roda to burn ourselves out on. It was really quite impressive, though I’ll admit that the energy seemed a bit lower than what we had the previous day while playing outside. Possibly it was the fact that we’d been practicing all weekend, or maybe it was the lack of spectators, but either way we made up for it by playing that much harder – and watching Pontual and Cai Cai have their last duel was a match up that I don’t think I’ll forget any time soon.

Everyone started packing up and cleaning out the hall after our final cheer, and we had Memorial Hall back into full cleanliness in record time… literally less than 8 minutes. I only remember the specific number because we only had the hall until 3:45, and we didn’t finish the roda until 3:37… not usually a worry, but I guess that another group was coming in to use the hall at 4:00, and we needed to vacate the premises right away.

After cleaning up and packing the gear into cars we started the long process of saying goodbye to everyone; chatting, exchanging contact information and trying to remember the last few moves that Perere had shown us. We actually convinced Pontual and Cai Cai to perform the main three sequences out in front of the hall so that it could be caught on video so the rest of us could practice later on. The whole process actually started taking a bit long, and so we finally packed everyone into the cars after some of the drivers started reminding us about the 6+ hour drive that we had ahead of us.

Thankfully the drive went quickly though, and after a quick stop in at Harriet’s friends house for showers we were on the road back to Christchurch. I spent the drive reading Lord of the Rings in the back seat of the car, curled up in the corner with either Sara or Carla, depending on who was stuck in the middle seat at the time… it was actually surprisingly comfortable (especially considering Harriet does not own an extremely large car), and so I found myself back in Christchurch again before I knew it.