Grand Adventures and Household Chores
Reflections on our family’s adventures as we live, work, and play around the world
The current weather in Auckland reminds me of our month in Ireland – rain, sun, rain, sun, repeat. As I overheard in Ireland, “it’s a beautiful day between the clouds.”
I had promised Theo that if it wasn’t raining, I would take him to the beach after preschool, so I packed a picnic lunch and some impromptu beach toys (mostly random plastic containers.)
I have to admit that I judge a city in part by how well it supports its libraries. The Devonport library is a sunny, relaxing space with views of trees and water. (Oh, and it has books too.)
The weather is suddenly quite lovely in Auckland. I celebrated with an afternoon in Hauraki Gulf with Auckland Whale and Dolphin Safari.
We’re about to head out of Auckland and into the New Zealand countryside for a week-long holiday. I’ve been told several times that the countryside is the real New Zealand. (I was also told this about the cities vs. countryside of Ireland, Sweden, Iceland, Costa Rica, and Argentina.)
Considering how much of the population they hold, I feel like cities are probably pretty “real” too, even though the ways in which they hold the flavor of a region might be subtler.
Anyway.
Continue reading “Auckland: Perhaps Not The Real New Zealand, But Still Pretty Great”
We spent the weekend at a farmstay in Ruawai, New Zealand where our awesome hosts did their best to integrate us into their lives for a couple of days, from making cheese to riding horses to milking cows. Theo has been sick off and on since Friday, making it a little bit of a rocky start to our holiday, but we still visited animals (and large trees) between trying to rest and recuperate.
When we mentioned Rotorua to New Zealanders, we were told it was very set up for tourists. They didn’t seem to mean this in the way that someone who isn’t a fan of the Las Vegas strip (say, me) might declare it “touristy.” Instead, people seemed genuinely happy that we were going to this place with attractions that are so easy for tourists to access.
… and, we thought Rotorua was great!
Continue reading “NZ Holiday Part 2: Being Tourists in Rotorua”
Our one year travel anniversary passed in August fairly uneventfully. While we’ve had a few hard moments, our day-to-day life while traveling has not felt significantly more challenging than our day-to-day life at home. (Though, admittedly, we haven’t yet found a way to A/B test our lives.)
Even the lattes have flowers on them in Bali. (Photos of actual flowers will be added in future posts.)
Walking down the street and sidewalk, we dodge canang sari, which are small palm-leaf baskets baskets of offerings like food, flowers, and incense. These baskets are everywhere – on the sidewalk, by the side of the street, and in front of statues. I noticed at the grocery store the other night that each register had a canang sari.
As part of our Saturday exploration, we visited Monkey Forest in Ubud, a giant open space where monkeys wander freely and cajole tourists into buying them official monkey forest bananas.
When we first arrived, we read a long sign warning us to avoid doing things like looking into the monkeys’ eyes (it’s a sign of aggression) and trying to hide food from the monkeys (they will find it!) Plastic was also forbidden, so before entering the park, I made my way towards a trash can to dispose of Theo’s half consumed, half sealed plastic cup of water. However, the freely wandering monkey don’t actually seem to be constrained by the entrance/exit lanes (apparently, it’s only the people who need tickets) and there were several hovering in the vicinity, eying the plastic cup.