sibylle.co.nz

September 2004

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +1200

The City Bye-Bye the Bay

The adventure really began on September 30, 2004. We had spent three intense months of preparing, planning, saying our goodbyes...now, as we left San Francisco, the journey would begin for real. We were so busy during those final days that there was no time to think about, analyse, or question anything, which was probably for the better. It's difficult to put into words the roller coaster that was our final day in San Francisco, so the beginning of this story will be told in pictures.

My life in 8 bags

Fridge decoration

Undeck the halls

Office Space

Caution!

Whiteware

The last SF picture

Truckload o' stuff

Bye Carillon Tower!

One last time: Downtown SF from the freeway

Heading east

On the Bay Bridge

2:35 pm: We have left San Francisco

Oakland (not yet Auckland)

Spaghetti junction

Sweden

October 2004

Sun, 31 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +1300

Waiting

After all the high-energy and last-minute stress and excitement in September, October threw us into a radically different environment and pace: Mostly, we waited. Our original leave date, October 3, had already been changed to the 8th, and that was by no means final either. This was mostly due to delays at the Long Beach port and its ongoing labour disputes between management and the dock workers, who weren't exactly on strike, but not far from it either. How that played out, we should find out first-hand later on.

Turkeys aren't from Turkey

For now, we spent time with Brian's family out in the Sierra foothills, in the beautiful fall country where San Francisco was just another place on television. No sirens woke us up at night, and no lights obfuscated the myriads of stars on the night sky. Jackrabbits showed up on the lawn, there was a flock of wild turkeys who'd stop by the little forest across the pond every afternoon, and the hummingbirds flew noisily back and forth between their feeders on the deck. It was peaceful and in many ways the ideal place to unwind before embarking on the big journey.

But then, there was the waiting. Not knowing how much longer it would be. Getting more and more anxious to start on the long-planned and so longingly anticipated journey. Having said good-bye to our city, our friends, our work, we were ready get moving. Finally, we heard that the ship was supposed to arrive on Saturday, October 9, and could depart as early as the 12th. We decided to head down to LA on Monday, October 11.

L.A. Story

People with baggage

We arrived at our hotel in San Pedro, right next to the Long Beach Port, on Monday afternoon. The first thing we did was call up our travel agent to see if there were any updates: There weren't, in fact, the ship was supposed to leave the next day, Tuesday, October 12. What great timing! We immediately proceeded to the hotel bar to celebrate our imminent departure. Also, after two weeks of painfully slow dial-up, we enjoyed the hotel's high-speed internet access for final emails and downloads. Mostly, however, we were too excited to think straight, and later on, we probably also were too drunk.

The next morning, the hotel shuttle took us over to security gate of the dock. The shuttle was a minivan and we pretty much filled the thing with our 16 bags. In fact, the driver grumpily commented, "How much can you possibly bring—everything?" Uhm, yeah.

Celebratory drink

At the gate we had to show our passports and they were matched with the passenger list of the Direct Condor. That, by the way, was the only security procedure we had to go through—no metal detectors, no questioning, and we got to keep our shoes on, too. Once we had lugged our bags inside the gate, a dock worker came with a pickup and drove us out to the berth where the Direct Condor lay at anchor.

Das Boot

Our last picture in the US of A

We had been on board for a couple of hours or so when we heard the news: Estimated departure date: Saturday, October 16. The earliest, that was. Saturday???

Apparently, the shipping company had given our travel agent bad information. Yes, the ship was obviously there, but it had yet to be unloaded and re-loaded, and with the workers being sort-of almost on strike, it didn't look as if that would happen until the weekend.

I always wanted to be a teamster. So lazy and surly.

After the first shock, we decided to make the best of it. Staying on the ship meant a nice, big cabin, three meals a day, the opportunity to get learn the ropes of being on a ship early, and to watch the operations of a large port first-hand. I've always been fascinated with container ships and giant cranes, and here they were, right outside my porthole.

Containers everywhere

In the first few days, we mostly saw other ships being loaded and unloaded. Ours pretty much just sat there. Apparently the labour conflicts had been going on in Long Beach for a while and, according to our captain, were likely to continue for years. The port wants to hire more workers, but temporary, non-union workers, and of course the unionised workers there don't like that, so they call in sick frequently and work slowly, that kind of thing. Additional complications for our ship arose from the fact that one large shipping company owns the infrastructure of the Long Beach port, and so their own ships are getting preferred treatment while smaller, outside shipping companies have to wait even longer. All this is really aggravating and causes the shipping company to lose a lot of money. We also heard that the port infrastructure isn't exactly the most modern, because the containers are delivered and picked up by trucks, while more modern ports load them on tracks, which is more precise, faster, and requires less manpower. (Apparently in Long Beach one crane can process about 20 containers per hour, while 40 is more typical, and some places even can load and unload 60-70 containers in the same time. Amazing.)

Where are the workers?

The real work began late on Wednesday and continued on and off for the next days. Mostly it was off, it seemed, with only one of the two cranes in use, and even though we were told that it usually takes a couple of days to process a ship once the work has begun, they were still only just unloading on Friday. When they were working at all. The departure date was changed to Sunday.

Loading!

And then, everything changed. After a week of sporadic effort, Saturday came around and all of a sudden we had two cranes in action and multiple trucks lined up to pick up the containers. This sudden change in enthusiasm couldn't have possibly been related to the fact that weekends pay better, could it? Not that I want to bash unions, after all, I'm an old social democrat at heart, but still...ach! But once underway, the loading process was fascinating to watch (see the movies below—they are taken with my digicam's lame, but better-than-nothing 35-second video mode). The speed and precision with which these 20' and 40' containers were moved back and forth was amazing. At some point we watched two motor homes being loaded on the boat, probably belonging to people who emigrated and were now shipping their stuff. The vehicles were temporarily put in a metal frame the size of a double (40') container and then dropped off into a space just like any other container.

Container Loading

Movie 1
Movie 2
Movie 3

(Quicktime required)

However, the frame then was removed and we wondered how they would put anything on top, since the vehicles ended up a couple of levels below deck. The answer came a minute later when two giant steel plates were placed on top of the highest layer, each the width of 5 containers. The loading process made the ship shake quite a bit—every time a container was dropped into its space, it felt like a medium earthquake. But of course, knowing the source of the motion, it wasn't scary, on the contrary, it meant things were finally happening and we would be leaving soon.

Hoo-ray and up she rises, early in the morning

Night shift

And then it really happened. The final departure date was given as Monday morning, 4 am, but they were still unloading some containers when we returned from Sunday night's dinner. How in the world would they finish in time? And why didn't anyone show up to replace the shift that left at 10 pm? When we went to bed, we pretty much assumed we'd learn about yet another delay at breakfast.

At 1 am I woke up from loud, banging noises. The boat was shaking. The night shift! Too excited to sleep, I got up and watched what turned out to be the final hour of loading, which took place at a speed that made it clear that if they had worked this fast all along, the work could indeed have been completed in a couple of days. At 2 am, I watched the last container being dropped into its spot. Then the cranes' arms were pulled in, the operator climbed down and literally, as the last one left, turned the lights off.

Willy, free

Although the US Coast Guard, who accompanied us on the way out of the port, wasn't too happy about it, the captain let us get up on the bridge and witness the departure from there. At 5:05 am on Monday, October 18, we left the port of Long Beach and sailed out onto the Pacific Ocean. It was still dark when we pulled from the berth, and we made our way slowly out of the dock, backwards at first, then turning. Even at that early hour, there were several other large ships arriving and departing, and we had to wait for clearance to leave the port. As the sun started to come up, we headed out into the Pacific Ocean, finally on our way. A little farther out, dolphins appeared, seemingly escorting us on our journey. (We learned that they simply have fun swimming and jumping in the waves that are generated by the ship.) 7,004 miles later, we would be in Melbourne, Australia.

People in motion

Queaz-Away the tummy-tamer

The first day at sea was very strange. We had been on the ship for almost a week, and from the look inside, nothing had changed. Whenever you passed a porthole, however, there was only water now instead of cranes and trucks. It was the strangest sensation, combined with the fact that now that we were on the water, there was constant movement. It can get a bit choppy, especially up on the F Deck, where our cabin is. Down on the main deck, the motion is just as intense, but smoother, more rolling, while up on the higher levels, you are being jerked around more, and everything is vibrating. Having been prone to motion sickness all my life, I came prepared with everything from ginger to acupuncture bands to dramamine. Thankfully, no drugs have been necessary so far. We've had a few smaller storms but overall, the sea has been calm and aside from feeling a bit loopy the first day, neither of us has had any trouble adjusting to being at sea. If I owe this to Queaz-Away^TMthe tummy-tamer, or if the latter just functions as a placebo, I don't know, but whatever it is, it works. One of the weirdest things about the ship's motion, by the way, is how it affects you when playing ping-pong, something we've started doing every morning after breakfast. You can't easily control the movements of your legs, and so it pretty much feels like being drunk, but without the nausea, just the fun part of it.

Man spricht deutsch, sort of

Not in Kansas any more: Retiring the American flag.

Being on a ship is like being in a small, enclosed, self-contained city. Operations and processes are well-defined and smooth, at the same time, the atmosphere is casual and friendly. The only Americans are the passengers, while the crew is from New Zealand, Russia, the Phillippines, and the Pacific islands of Kiribati and Tuvalu. The ship is sailing under Liberian flag like most of them, but owned by a German company, which shows mainly in two areas: The power plugs are German style and for 220V, and the food is traditional German cuisine (more on that later). Every so often you'll come across bilingual signs or instructions or familiar equipment, such as Miele washers and dryers. However, the ship itself wasn't built in Germany, but in China, and so the furniture, appliances, blankets and pretty much everything else is Chinese-made. Sadly, apparently this has often resulted in inferior quality of materials and labour. Our captain pointed out several examples, and indeed, the ship, barely five years old, looks more like one that's been in use for a couple of decades. Globalisation everywhere. (One very cool result of this being a German ship is that someone set up to receive a daily newsletter with headlines from Der Spiegel, a magazine I've been reading for many years, first in print, and since I've been in the US, on the internet. When the captain found out that I was German, he started printing this newsletter for me, and now every morning, I find a printout with the latest daily headlines in front of my cabin door. How cool is that.)

Schnitzel with noodles

Carrying coals to Newcastle

And while I'm on the subject of German, there is, of course, the food. All meals here are very traditional German cuisine: beef rouladen, schnitzel, pork chops, hearty soups, cabbage...every meal is a flashback to my childhood in the 70s and early 80s (when I was a terrible eater and disliked pretty much all of these things). Everything is good and authentic and in a somewhat unimaginative, old-fashioned style, the kind of food my grandma would cook. The cook (addressed by everyone as "Cookie") is Filipino—lucky for us, it seems, because Filipinos have a reputation as good cooks, unlike Pacific islanders. The steward comes from Kiribati. He knows that I'm German so now he has started announcing the dishes in German rather than in English, and funnily, I understand his German accent a lot better than his English. He'll then look expectantly at both of us to confirm that we'd like a plate, and so I have to translate back into English for Brian. Of course, most of the time we just say "sounds good" to whatever he presents, and the only thing so far I've passed up was oxtail. I'm sure that was authentic too, but for someone who was a vegetarian just a year ago, that went a bit too far.

Cabin fever

As I mentioned before, our cabin—one of three that are made available to paying passengers, thanks to the reduction in crew and the desire to make some extra money—is large and comfortable. Not Disney-Cruise comfortable, I'd guess, although I wouldn't really know. We're on the F Deck, right below the bridge, which is pretty high up, about 100' above the water level. This means six flights of steep stairs between the cabin and the mess hall (a welcome exercise, actually), as well as great views through the three portholes facing the bow, stern, and left side of the ship, whose correct term I can't remember. One of the few difficult adjustments: Life without Google.

Our cabin has a separate bedroom (single beds, one of our few complaints, if you can call it that since we know about this all along), a sitting room with couches, coffee table, and desk, and a private, small, but functional bathroom. We have our own small fridge and an electric water cooker, a TV/VCR (no reception at sea, of course), a boombox that, together with the iPod and tape adapter gives us access to all of our music, and there's lots of storage space, allowing us to put most of our baggage out of sight. Once a day the steward stops by, makes the bed and cleans the bathroom, and once a week also changes the sheets and towels.

What makes this most different from being in a normal hotel though is that everything is tied or glued down or otherwise set up for conditions where "things may shift and be heavy and awkward". All doors have extra metal hinges to keep them in place when open, items like the boombox, lamp, or even the fake plant on the coffee table are glued down and can't be moved, and most surfaces are covered with a somewhat sticky rubber mat to hold things such as glasses in place. There are hooks with safety helmets next to the door and life vests underneath the sofas. And then there is the long life rope that hangs in front of a window doubling as an emergency exit, and whose shape is eerily reminiscent of a noose. That one, I admit, took getting used to.

As expected, safety is a big issue on a ship. There are two types of alarm, general and "abandon ship", and once a week, fire drills are being held to make sure everyone knows what to do in case of an emergency. For us, this means grabbing our life vests and helmets and meeting at our assigned muster station, the bridge, to await further instructions from the captain. The crew have their own muster station, and each crew member is assigned a particular role, such as fire fighting, or getting the life boat ready. The life boat provides a way out should it become necessary to abandon ship, and it can be released quickly from the stern of the ship into the water. It's only 22' long, but amazingly can accommodate 30 people. (Maybe accommodate isn't exactly the right word here—but then, anyone who's ever flown economy class on an American airplane won't find it much different, except maybe that you don't get single-serving packs of pretzels.)

Thar she blows

Deep blue something

How can you describe being on the ocean? Here I'm writing this in the middle of the Pacific, at about 12° north, in the tropics, therefore, and a couple of days away from the equator, and a bit further still, the International Date Line. Words seem very inadequate to express what it's like to be in this environment. I've read a book from an author who had just moved from the US to New Zealand and found himself unable to put his excitement and awe for the nature he encountered in his new country into words:

Views from the ship

On the bridge
At the bow

(Quicktime required)

He ended up saying things like, "the water isn't just blue—it's blue blue." Sounds silly, but being here, I feel the same way. Never have I seen water so blue, such saturated, intense colours, as if the whole surface of the water was a precious gem. Gone are the green-greyish canals and smog-filled skies of Los Angeles. Instead, we are moving through a wondrous gradient of all the blues that can possibly exist on this earth. During the first week, we are not passing any islands, and so there is nothing at all to break up this awesome scenery, all 360 degrees of it.

The upper decks

Since we have entered the tropics, the temperature has gone up quite a bit. The water is in the high 70s/low 80s already and will go up to 86 F; the air temperature is at 86 already and will hit 95. Even I am not cold any more! Another new discovery since we've come into tropical waters are the flying fish. To be honest, until a few days ago, I wasn't even sure if flying fish really existed, or if they were an legend of the pirate stories I liked to much as a kid. Or maybe, I thought, flying fish just jump more than other fish and that's how they got their name. Not so—flying fish have wings! Stare at the water for a while, preferably on the side of the ship near the bow, and suddenly you'll see one or more small fish emerging from the water and flying straight away from the ship, at about 8" above the water, completely parallel to the surface and for many meters, before they disappear back into the sea. The wings move fast, like those of hummingbirds, so they are not gliding but rather dashing at a high speed. Why they do that, I don't know, but it's utterly fascinating to watch. Sometimes there'll be a whole school of flying fish, emerging like a cloud, darting forward and dispersing before submerging again, a sight so surreal that it leaves you wondering if you just saw a mirage.

Time after time

View from the bow

One thing I had been wondering about before we left for this journey was how we'd be able to tell the time while on a ship. After all, we'd be crossing a bunch of time zones—how would we know in which one we were at any given time? Well, first of all, unlike on international flights, you're not crossing that many time zones. There are four from Pacific Time to New Zealand Time and another two to Melbourne. I'm leaving off the offsets for Daylight Saving Time which, since it's late October, is about to change in some of these time zones, and in different directions based on the hemisphere—thankfully, my computer is much smarter than I am at figuring out these details. For the purpose of the people on the ship and keeping meal times straight and such, it's assumed that time zones change over night, so it's an adjustment from one day to the next, just like when switching to and from Daylight Saving Time twice a year. In the evening before a night in which a time zone is crossed, there'll be an announcement on the intercom. There'll also be a notice on the bulletin board on the poop deck on the morning after a time change, so you really can't miss it. I haven't had a watch in years and usually refer to the cell phone for time, or of course the computer clock, and on the Mac, that's an easy change. (Side note for Mac users: In addition to the system clock, I found an excellent OS X shareware program called World Clock Deluxe, which lets you set up multiple clocks, perform date and time conversions and a bunch of other neat things based on location, such as getting weather reports.)

BBQ and coconuts

Early holidays?

Sometime around the 20th of October, a somewhat mysterious message appeared on the board next to the galley: XMAS IS SUNDAY. On October 24th, two months early? What it meant, of course, was that after almost a week at sea, we were about to see the first land: Christmas Island.

First, however, there was a barbecue on Saturday night, out on the main deck where you are just a few feet above sea level. The night was balmy, if a bit windy, and the location was certainly the most exciting of any bbq I've ever attended. There had been some rain earlier but just when we started, the sun came back out, so we got treated to a large rainbow and later a rather dramatic sunset, followed by a dark, star-filled night. (If you saw this kind of scenery in a movie, you'd think it'd be a bit too much kitsch.) A big grill stood right by the stern of the ship, protected from the wind, and there was fresh fish and various meats, and of course, beer and wine. One of the strangest things about being on a ship is that you don't really feel the effects of alcohol in your system while you are drinking—this has probably something to do with the constant motion of the boat. Well, you do feel it the next morning if you had too much, but while you are at it your body doesn't register it at all and that's a bit scary.

And then there was the one thing that made me wince, although it shouldn't have come as a surprise: All garbage except plastic is thrown overboard into the ocean. It's legal (as soon as you are 25 nautical miles offshore), and everyone does it, and even if I had put my empty beer bottles into the bin marked "Glass", someone would have emptied that one out into the ocean just the same. I guess for food leftovers it doesn't really matter. For glass and things like aluminium foil—I don't know. To me, it felt wrong nevertheless. Being out here on the ocean, literally surrounded by its beauty, you become more aware of its magnitude, but also its vulnerability.

Christmas Island

Sunday afternoon around 3 we suddenly saw an unusual shape on the horizon which had been uninterrupted for so long: Christmas Island. Only 1° 55’ north of the equator, Christmas Island is the world-wide largest island entirely made of coral formation. It got its name because Captain Cook discovered it on Christmas Eve in 1777. Geographically, it belongs to the Line Islands, politically, it is a republic of Kiribati, economically, it is mainly a coconut plantation. During the Cold War, the island was used as a nuclear test base by both the UK and the US. Thankfully, those days are over and today Christmas Island is a wildlife sanctuary, or at least that's what I've read.

Northern sun, no shadows

The ship's GPS, about three hours after crossing the equator

We missed the actual crossing of the equator, simply because it happened in the middle of the night (at about 1:45 am on October 25). But we did get up early, just before 5 am, and went onto the bridge to take a look at the GPS: We were still within a degree of the equator, at 44 minutes south, as the picture on the left shows. By the way, 19.5 knots is equivalent to 22.4 miles/hour, which is more or less the top speed of this ship.

So now were are in the Southern Hemisphere; for the two of us, it's for the first time ever. Many people have been mentioning that water will flow down a drain in the opposite direction than in the Northern Hemisphere, but we had also heard that this is an urban legend and that the direction of the water is defined by how the pipes are shaped. Now the captain says the difference is true after all (is he pulling our legs?). I tried just now, while we are still more or less on the equator, in the bathroom sink, and damn if the water didn't go down completely straight, no swirl at all. Can anyone clear up this mystery for me? Where is the internet when you need it?

Sunrise over the South Pacific

And there are more equator-related phenomena, less mysterious even to my unscientific mind, but still fascinating. The sun now, of course is in the north rather than the south. Also, around midday, it's directly above the earth at an 90° angle, and you have almost no shadow at all during that time. Another interesting occurrence are the extremely short sunrises and sunsets—daylight and darkness change so quickly here, almost as if someone were flipping a switch on an off. And of course, daylight and night-time on the equator means 12 hours each: Currently, it's dark between 6:15 pm and 6:15 am and light the other half of the day. Dawn and dusk only last a very short time.

Ahead of our times

No Wednesday this week

As of Tuesday, October 26, we have already crossed 4 time zones. Tonight, there'll be another change, and that one will be the mother of all time changes: The International Date Line. As we learned from the whiteboard earlier, there won't be a Wednesday this week, instead, we'll go right from Tuesday to Thursday, switching to New Zealand Daylight Time. Now if I could figure out how to package this day-skipping function and sell it to office workers back in America, I'd be rich...

Since we've crossed the equator, the ocean currents have been quite intense. Even though the sea looks fairly calm, our 28,000-ton ship hits those currents in a way that makes it sway heavily and sometimes makes it feel like turbulence on an airplane. Overall, the sea is likely to be a bit rougher until we reach Melbourne on November 3rd.

Pyrotechnics

Smoke on the water

Our most recent safety drill was the most interesting to date: After the regular assembly, the crew went out on the deck to test various pyrotechnics that are used in the case of emergency. They included glowing rockets that were shot up in the sky, dense, grey smoke, bright-burning torches, and cans that are opened and thrown out on the water, where they emit clouds of orange smoke that have amazing visibility. Of course, those kinds visual signals are only useful once help is already on the way, to show them your exact location. Our exercise was performed so far away from civilisation, it wasn't even necessary to notify anyone that we'd be performing a drill—there was nobody to notice our signals and take them for a real emergency.

Same? Difference!

Nairai (Fiji)

Before we left for our trip, almost everyone we talked to asked us what in the world we'd do for three and half week on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Wouldn't we get bored? Miss city life, TV, the internet? Get tired of the looking out at the same water day after day after day? Our assurances that we weren't concerned about any of these things were met with doubt. Now that more than half of our voyage is already behind us, I can answer these questions hopefully with a bit more credibility.

As for being bored, nothing could be further from the truth. Between various projects we both brought with us, catching up on reading, exploring the ship, taking pictures, playing ping-pong, and simply hanging out, talking and being on vacation, time, if anything, seems to go too fast. (And that even takes into account that to date, five of our days at sea had not 24, but 25 hours.) As far remoteness from civilisation goes, I already mentioned that, yes, I do miss the ability to quickly google something or look up a word in the dictionary. But that's it. Really. I do not miss the news, the election campaign, to-do lists, sirens, traffic... Sure, things are simpler on a ship, but that's exactly what makes this type of trip attractive: Things are simpler.

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection

The third part of the question relates to something about which I knew least before we departed, and which turned out to be the most surprising part of this journey. Being on the ocean for an extended period of time is the most varied, exciting experience you can imagine. I could never get tired at staring at the water and the big, endless horizon. The light, sky and clouds are changing constantly, so is the sea. Some nights there's nothing but stars and galaxies in a darkness more complete than you ever experience on land. At other times, the most striking feature is the full moon so bright, it's shining beams through fast moving clouds. The water colour changes depending on the weather, and the sea can be calm and clear like the metaphorical mill pond or produce currents that make our ship rock back and forth between the whitecaps of a million waves. Fish and birds are sometimes ubiquitous, at other times, no life is visible. Sunrise and sunset are spectacular and different every day. Being out here, surrounded by all this beauty, is wondrous and humbling.

And just like that, the longest month of my life comes to an end. After two weeks at sea, everything seems very far away—San Francisco, work, politics, "normal" life... These things are far away, of course, but the feeling of detachment feels larger than the actual geographical distance. And when I read the daily headlines—Iraq, election, voter fraud, Middle East, job losses, oil price, scandal, terrorism, bla bla bla, the same stuff every day, it seems as if it's the rest of the world who is stuck in endless repetition a la "Groundhog Day", rather than us here on the ocean.

November 2004

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 00:00:00 +1300

Riders on the storm

Storm south of Melbourne

On November 1, we were just a bit over a day's worth of travel away from Melbourne, and as expected, the sea became rougher. The water surface looked quite menacing: large waves and white foam crests everywhere, and at the bow of the ship, the spray created little rainbows in the sunlight. All this motion made the ship rock sideways quite a bit, but overall this storm was very different from the one we went through a few days earlier. As I had written in late October, then, even though the sea had looked rather calm, there were strong ocean currents against which the ship would come up hard, almost like crashing against a wall, sending ripples through the ship, making it rock length-wise and literally jerking us around in our cabin. This time, despite the rather dramatic look of the ocean, the ride was pretty smooth, because the waves and whitecaps were largely caused by wind and only affected the surface, and while the ship still rocked, the motion was only sideways, which is a lot easier to deal with.

Bumpy Ride

Of course, it's all relative: Our Chief Engineer told us about a voyage on the Atlantic, where for two full weeks their ship swayed hard, tilting to each side at 30° angles—minimum! Sometimes the ship would slant as much as 45°, two full weeks of rocking back and forth, back and forth without a break, without being able to do anything with two hands because you always needed one hand to hold on to something to prevent falling. What we were experiencing now really was nothing.

Down under

Melbourne

And here we are now, in Melbourne, Australia. Civilisation is outside our windows, where there used to be nothing but water for so long. Weird.

The third of November began at three a.m., when a heavy storm (wind force 10, or ~ 60 knots/70mph) woke us up unceremoniously and, till midday, made us feel as if there was a major earthquake every few minutes. It finally calmed down a bit, and in the afternoon we entered Port Phillip Bay, passing through the treacherous narrow opening with its infamous current known as "The Rip". After the storm we had just been through, this supposedly dangerous sea passage seemed about as scary as a bathtub. The bay of Melbourne is huge, and it took us almost four hours from entering it to arriving at the dock near downtown. The trip however is quiet and beautiful, with views of both wealthy suburbs and industrial areas, along with a lot of birds, seals, and sailboats. Around eight o'clock, just in time for the sunset, we docked, and 15 minutes later the workers already started unloading the containers.

Another city by the bay

If we had thought that November 3 had gotten off to a bad start, November 4 certainly topped it when, just before breakfast, the results of the US election came through. I don't want to get started on this subject here, only mention that it certainly helped to be far, far away from America at that moment.

Oy vey

Thankfully, the day ahead promised distraction: Our ship was scheduled to be at the dock until Friday, giving us the opportunity go ashore and visit the city of Melbourne. To get from the ship to downtown, we had to be taken to the gate by a port shuttle, and from there, we could catch another shuttle from the Seamen's Mission, which dropped us off at their Melbourne centre at the edge of the central district. You'll find these missions in many ports; in addition to transportation, they offer a whole array of services to seafarers and any person who's been on a a ship in the past month, such as money exchange, phone and internet, TV and newspapers, local information, and simply a place to hang out and meet others. Very cool.

Melbourne itself is an interesting city. Very urban—with 3.5 million people, the metro area has almost as high a population as the entire country of New Zealand—and with a strange mix of modern and revivalist architectural styles. Gothic revival seemed to have been particularly popular at some point, but we also saw some interesting Art Deco buildings, 19th century shopping arcades with mosaic tiled floors and marble columns, as well as very modern architecture. Because everything is so flat, Melbourne isn't pretty in a San Francisco kind of way, but it's diverse, vibrant and bustling, and the many parks and the Yarra river make even the downtown area feel very liveable. We simply wandered around all day, exploring the city and its coffee houses, shops, parks, and pubs, enjoying that strange feeling of being on land again.

Even though the weather was first dull and grey, then miserable, the vibe of the city was just as friendly, relaxed and laid back as any Australian I've ever met. This was the big week of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival (horse racing is very important here, and the famous Melbourne Cup had taken place just the day before), so we saw a lot of dressed up people—men in suites and women in summer dresses and the obligatory fancy hats, their getups getting soaked from the rain and tossed about by the gusty wind. But everyone was in good spirits and just laughed it off and held on to their clothes. This unpretentious, happy mood was contagious, and I simply can't imagine not having a great time in Australia.

We Zea New Land

In the engine room

The last leg of the trip, from Melbourne to Tauranga, went by fast. Of course, a four-day trip, and one with land visible half of the time, has a different and definitely less dramatic vibe than a two-week journey with no ports of call at all.

One evening, the Chief Engineer gave us a tour of the engine room. I have to admit that most of the time, I didn't really know what I was looking at, but nevertheless, this hot, loud, greasy raw-power machine environment was quite amazing to see up close. You go below the main deck to the control room, and from there, you just keep descending down and down deep into the underbelly of the ship. The engine is huge: It goes through a ton of fuel every 24 minutes and produces a constant 13,000 kW. And that's just the engine for the ship's propeller, there's another separate one for the three generators that produce electricity and such for the ship. We also saw the various workshops—basically, the ship is being worked on, fixed, repainted, constantly; it's a never-ending battle against the wear and tear from being at sea.

Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud

Noticing the date this morning, I had to think back to that day 15 years ago when I walked into work and found out that the Berlin Wall was open. Now, on a ship on the other end of the globe, November 9 is again a big day, changing the world at least for us: Since midday we are basically in New Zealand.

At noon, we went up to the bridge to watch the Maersk Auckland, a sister ship of the Direct Condor, pass us on her way to Australia. Behind her, to the north, we could see Three Kings Islands. Just when we were about to go back downstairs, we looked south, and there it was: New Zealand. The first glimpse we got was of Cape Reinga, the northernmost tip of the subtropical Northland, 220 miles north of Auckland. Northland is old Maori country and sparsely populated, and according to our travel guide, it has plenty of sandy beaches, dunes and hidden coves, and a great reputation for diving, snorkelling, and dolphin watching. Since we went around the northern end, we have been sailing south-west along the New Zealand coast and its gorgeous scenery of hills, bays, and islands. We have (almost) arrived!

The journey ends

Entering the port of Tauranga

We anchored a few miles outside Tauranga in the morning of November 10. The port only has three berths, and another ship had come in before us, so we had to wait a few hours out there in the beautifully named Bay of Plenty. The entrance to the port of Tauranga goes right by Mount Maunganui, an extinct volcano. The canal for ships gets very narrow and the tides can be treacherous, but the views of the mount and the sandy beaches are simply magnificent.

Once we had entered the harbour, it was time for us to meet with customs (the customs officials met us on the ship). New Zealand has very strict customs regulations—being a comparatively unspoilt island, they are quite concerned about having non-native plants or other organisms introduced into the country. The forms you have to fill out are therefore very detailed, of course, that's a good thing. We had read up about these requirements before we left and spent a good amount of time cleaning shoes, camping gear, and anything else that might become questionable. One thing we hadn't thought about was the Go game we brought, whose board was made out of wood (must be declared) and containers for stones were wicker baskets (must be declared also). So we listed those on the form, and the quarantine people took a look at them, but in the end it was no problem. In fact, we must have looked trustworthy enough, because they didn't even bother looking at any of our luggage.

Not a container, but our luggage

Speaking of luggage: Of course, we still had 16 bags between the two of us. How the heck do you get those from an upper deck off the ship? Why, by crane, of course. While we were getting ready to leave, someone came with a truck to deliver new food supplies for the ship, and, thanks to the captain's kind inquiry, he graciously agreed to give us a lift to our hotel. Once all the food stuffs had been loaded on the ship, the crew took one of the empty crates and lifted it up by crane to the F Deck, where they filled it with our luggage (and it just about fit). The crane operator then delivered the crate right next to the truck's loading platform. I think they'll talk about us for years to come as the crazy Americans with way too much luggage...

And that was the end of our container ship trip. I almost felt sad leaving the ship, but even more excited about finally having arrived in New Zealand. Now the adventure would really begin.

View the Container Ship Trip Photo Album.

First impressions

Where do I begin? Getting off a boat in a new country after many weeks on the ocean, and with the intent of making that new country your home, made things seem overwhelming, but strangely normal at the same time.

Our first impression of New Zealand confirmed something we had read about a lot, but still were amazed to find so true: Everybody is incredibly nice. It started with the ship's provider who, without question, took us and our mountain of luggage to town, and continued with the hotel manager, who saw how much we had brought and immediately upgraded us to a larger room, at no extra charge. Every single person we have come in touch with—at restaurants, in shops, strangers on the street— has been kind and smiling and simply nice. Related to this, we have noticed that the pace is a different one: Everything is a bit slower, more chill, less hectic. It's already rubbing off: Even though we have been quite busy in those last few days, we took things slowly and one at a time, and—surprise, surprise—got everything done anyway.

Tauranga itself isn't a very big city (population ~ 100,000), but it's up and coming as one of New Zealand's growth regions. Part of the recent developments is noticeable in the many cool bars and restaurants in the city centre, where you can get a good variety of delicious foods usually only found in much larger places. And that's not all: Despite its relatively small size, Tauranga has a wide range of shops and services, and it's hard to imagine anything that you couldn't get here (in our case, we found a couple of Global chef's knives and a Belkin iPod transmitter for the car.) We were also able to quickly take care of a new bank account and get cell phone service (Vodafone—good quality service, but super expensive here like everything communications-related.)

Boat of car

And speaking of expensive: Things seem to be either outrageously pricey here or ridiculously cheap. For example, music CDs are on average $32 for any recent release; one litre of gin or vodka around $45, and new hardcover books between $40 and $50 (that's all in New Zealand dollars.) On the other hand, DVD players are rarely over $80, and cars are a complete bargain. This is because of the strict environmental regulations in Japan where people typically replace their cars after just a couple of years. Those vehicles are then shipped to New Zealand, where they can be brought into the country without import tax. New Zealand has a reputation as one of the best (i.e., cheapest) countries on the planet to buy a car, and since we wanted one eventually anyway, and moreover, needed to get ourselves and our luggage down to Wellington, we decided to buy one right here in Tauranga. We selected a 1995 Mitsubishi RVR, which stands for something like "recreational vehicle runner", and which is somewhat of a mix between a wagon and a small SUV, with a huge trunk (here, that's called "boot") and sliding back door. We christened it "Boat of Car" (a tribute to both our container ship trip and an old They Might Be Giants song.) I have to admit that I'm still heavily confused by driving on the left side of the street. The car itself is easy to drive and handles very well, but damn if I don't start the windshield wipers every time I want to signal (everything is reversed). Thankfully Brian is very good about telling me where to go, and I'll probably get used to this backwardsupsidedownreversed thing at some point. What's not going to help is the car's manual, which is entirely in Japanese, but contains uplifting pictures of happy cars with smiling faces and schematic drawings of such important parts as the gas pedal.

All in all, we were simply amazed how easy it is to become mobile here. Because I'm still a member of the AAA, I could join New Zealand's equivalent, AA, without no more paperwork than showing my American membership info, and because the two organisations have reciprocal services, the first 6 months even were free. They gave us a bunch of helpful maps and showed us the best route to Wellington, and we were also able to get our car insurance there. Again, the paperwork was minimal and took little time, and full coverage cost us less than a 5th of what I paid in San Francisco, and that had been after being a long-time member with good driver discount.

So today we are on our way to Wellington—a 350 mile drive through a large portion of the North Island. While we have gotten a hint of the beauty of this country while sailing along its coast, and from seeing colourful parakeets and strange trees in the park here in Tauranga, we both can't wait to really get out and see more of New Zealand's natural beauty. There are no dangerous animals in this country, no bears, no snakes, no scorpions (we happily sold our backpacking bear canisters in San Francisco) which makes New Zealand such a hiking (here called "tramping") paradise. The most important thing—and that applies always, even when just walking around the city— is to put on strong sunscreen. I've already noticed that the rays are much more intense here, and it's easy to get a sunburn if you are not careful. Even though it has been overcast most of the time here in Tauranga, I've already got more tan from just being out running errands than pretty much ever in San Francisco.

Brian and I have this running joke between us when we see something beautiful in nature, like waves on the ocean, or the fractals of clouds, or a field of grass with ripples of wind going through: We'll say, wow, they did a great job rendering this. Look at that gradient, and how they managed to get the texture to look so realistic. Just like in Photoshop! Last night when we were having drinks at a bar, we came up with a new geeky comparison: What we are doing, starting a new life pretty much from scratch, with multiple options that can play out in many ways, is a lot like "The Sims". Our lives, a game, for real.

Windy Wellington

Wellington waterfront

They weren't kidding when they nicknamed New Zealand's capitol city. From today's weather forecast: "Showers with a few thundery falls, northerly winds strengthening with gales gusting around 70 mph." Yep, sometimes meteorologists are right. But as the scouts say, there is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing... (We found out later that today's storm was considered "medium" at most, and that it starts to be really windy when people have to hold on to something to not fall over. Kinda like on the boat.)

But I need to back up a bit. Our drive from Tauranga to Wellington took us about 8 hours, just as expected. That may sound like a lot for 350 miles, until you realise what kinds of streets you are dealing with. There is no such thing as a freeway—even the major motorways are regular 2-lane streets except around large cities, going right through towns with stop lights or the much-beloved traffic circles. Once in a while there will be a passing lane for a mile or two (in one direction only), and the streets are in quite good shape, which helps a lot. There's a speed limit of 60 mph; most Kiwis go a bit faster than that, but generally driving is a lot less stressful than in California, not to mention Germany. After this long drive, I think I'm pretty much used to driving on the left—as long as there is other traffic, you just go with the flow anyway. Only when there is no other vehicle in sight for a while it still somehow feels wrong to drive on the left, and the occasional "crap, am I in the correct lane?" panic thought will pop into my mind.

Brezelmania

The first thing we came across in Wellington was a German bakery. Just like whiney New Yorkers, always complaining that you can't find a decent bagel in San Francisco, I had spent the past 8 years as a whiney Swabian in search of a decent, authentic pretzel in the Bay Area, to no avail. Here, we just stumbled out of the hotel to get some air after the long drive, and there it was, Brezelmania. Score!

On Monday morning, we set out to cross the next big thing off our to-do list: Find an apartment. We had done some research on the internet before we came here so we had a pretty good idea about where and what we were looking for, and from the hotel in Tauranga, we had contacted a real estate agent (they deal with rentals here too, not just property for sale). He showed us three different places and we immediately fell in love with one of them; just a few hours later, we found out that we got it, and that we could move in the next day. Similar to our old place on Cathedral Hill, our new apartment is right in the centre of town, just minutes away from everything. It's in a mixed-use building, on the 6th floor (for Americans, that would be the 7th :-), with windows all around in three directions—east, north, west—meaning lots of light and sun all day. We can see downtown and the beautiful green hills surrounding the city and even a bit of the bay. Very beautiful.

Our new apartment—still mostly empty

Of course, since we sold most of our belongings before our departure, the place is still quite empty. The first thing we bought was a bed and some basic household and kitchen items; work desks, sofa, and dining table will follow in the next few days. The number of stores and the selection for anything you could possibly want, within walking distance of our place, is astonishing. There are the speciality shops downtown, but also various large discount department stores a la Target, as well as large furniture, electronics and grocery stores literally right around the corner, so there is no need to drive out to any suburban shopping malls (if those even exist—who knows?) The only annoying experience so far has been trying to get phone service; like probably anywhere in the world, dealing with the telecom company is slow and complicated, and therefore we don't have a landline nor internet access during our first week. The good news about internet however is that by early December we will get a zippy fiber-based broadband connection, which, so Brian tells me, is more advanced than anything we could get even in Silicon Valley.

View from Kelburn. X marks where we live!

So far, we love it here. Because we are not here as tourists—in fact, we haven't really have time yet to do anything in the way of sightseeing—we are plunging right into the real Wellington, and our first impression is that it's a lot like San Francisco, but less stressful, a bit slower, a lot friendlier. As it happens, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an travel feature on Wellington the same day we arrived here, in which the writer describes New Zealand's capital as a "place [that] exudes the optimism and enchantment of the moment, that giddy sense of a young, healthy, good-looking nation coming into its own." Heh. Sure enough, the Chron article made it onto the front page of the Dominion Post, Wellington's main newspaper, where they were mostly amused, but also flattered and a bit surprised, at the excitement and praise they received from across the Pacific. The headline here read "Capital through rose-tinted glasses", and, in typical Kiwi modesty, they commented that the Wellington described is "one its inhabitants may have trouble recognising". Sure, as a tourist you tend to focus on the positive sides of a place only, but I have to admit that many of the things pointed out in the original feature are quite similar to our first impressions: the politeness of the people, the fact that you can walk down the street without being hit up for spare change...anyone who has spent a lot of time in San Francisco lately would have to find that amazing.

Eexcellent

Did I mention that everybody we have met in New Zealand has been extremely nice and friendly? To say that our experience so far has been a positive one would be a gross understatement. I know it's a generalisation, but if you had to describe the Kiwi character in one word or phrase, it would have to be "lack of pretentiousness". This is so true that indeed people see it as their duty to "cut down tall poppies", i.e., bring overachievers back to earth. Another aspect of this lack of pressure to be perfect is that everyone is a lot more patient. The other day we witnessed a car in the middle of an intersection downtown; the driver, although he had a green light, was obviously confused about where to go, so he just stood there, forcing a number of cars behind him to stop as well. In San Francisco, that guy would have been showered with honking horns and yelled obscenities. Here, people just waited until he had made up his mind. Similarly, when you fumble for the correct change, trying to identify the still unknown coins, people behind you in line will not get impatient, nor will the person behind the counter. In fact, they will probably smile at you and ask how you, the obvious non-native, like Wellington. Simply amazing.

Another interesting difference to America is the language. As a member of the Commonwealth, New Zealand uses British English, which is noticeable in spelling (colour, centre, organise, programme etc.) and vocabulary (for example, trucks are lorries and napkins are serviettes—good to know in restaurants, where you would otherwise ask for a diaper). The pronunciation is something different altogether, especially as far as vowels are concerned. Most strange to us is that short "e" sounds turn into long "ee"s: Our apartment is a two beedrom. I'm sitting at a deesk. The eegs I had for brekkie were eexcellent. Oh yeah, the -ie ending is another Kiwi speciality. Our ISP addresses us as custies. It's a christmas, no, chrissie tradition to have barbie (bbq) at the beach, maybe with the rellies (relatives). For wine, it's ok to bring a cheapie. The postie delivered a letter on his walkie. Etc. etc. It's already sounding more familiar every day. No worries (easily accomplished)! She'll be right (everything will turn out fine).

And so,

The obligatory month-end rainbow (view from our living room)

December is just around the corner. We missed Thanksgiving ("Well, I wouldn't exactly say I've been missing it, Bob."), and, still busy rebuilding our household, we went shopping on Buy Nothing Day. The other day, we took care of something that's always one of the first things for me when moving to a new city: We became members of the public library. Wellington's library must be one of the biggest ones I've ever seen, and the selection for books, music, movies, magazines, etc. is mind-blowing. This is possible because they charge small fees for high-demand items such as CDs, DVDs, and best-sellers, as well as for special services such as reserving an item. Sure, free is nice, but what's that worth if there is barely anything interesting to choose from (like, sadly, in San Francisco)? Also, based on everything I know about New Zealand, public funding is probably better than in most other places, too.

The biggest lesson in all of these things we've noticed as "different" or "interesting" so far, is to me, that it is possible to find a balance between opposing goals, not just as an individual, but also as a country. For example, being well organised and efficient without being anal about it. Providing high-quality products and services while respecting workers and employees as human beings with lives. Growing the economy but also protecting the environment. Being responsible adults, but not being to busy/important to have fun. Etc. And yes, New Zealand is a small and still relatively isolated country, which makes it easier to deal with conflicts. And also yes, it's not paradise and far from perfect—but the scale on which "bad stuff" happens is so much smaller than elsewhere, at least compared to the US and Germany, the other countries I know first-hand. I'm curious to see how these issues will seem to us after we'll have been here for a longer time.

For now, there's still the daily astonishment. One small example happened yesterday at a store selling high-end audio equipment. We had to pick up up something and, because it was Saturday, we called ahead to find out how long they would be open. The answer was, "well, around 3 pm you'll probably see us leaving here today." The official store hours, we found out later, were till 4 pm, but then, it's usually quiet on Saturday afternoons, so why stick around to just pass the time? Mind you, this was a store selling very expensive, specialised products, where everyone was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their work. This wasn't slacking, on the contrary, but finding that balance between doing something right, caring about it, but not slavishly sticking to rules just for the sake of rules, even when they don't really apply. That is the magic formula.

You have to do and be

Last week, while walking along the waterfront, we came across a sculpture. More precisely, it was a poem about Wellington, chiselled on a piece of concrete, leaning against the side of a footbridge across one of the busiest city streets. Sitting there in the midst of the city, it seemed as if it was written just for us, as instructions for how to live in this city, and a reminder why we are here:

It's true you can't live here by chance,
You have to do and be, not simply watch
Or even describe. This is the city of action,
The world headquarters of the verb -

December 2004

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +1300

Taxing issues

Because I haven't done any tax-related photography lately, here is a picture of the beach at Oriental Bay instead

As we are getting settled, and things are becoming more familiar, we have started to notice more aspects about life in New Zealand, and some are quite surprising, including, believe it or not, the tax system.

In the mid 80s, major economic restructuring (dubbed "Rogernomics" after the Finance Minister at that time) transformed New Zealand from from a highly regulated and protectionist into a free-trade economy. Interestingly, however, the country continued to have a comparatively strong social system with government supported services such as cheap (and partially free) healthcare, free basic education, social security and accident coverage. Very different from what we are used to! Because of this social net, we expected things to be highly taxed and generally more expensive. Turns out that's not really the case, at least not categorically. For one, the tax code is a lot simpler than in the US: For income tax, there are several brackets based on how much you earn per annum. Interestingly though, each portion of your income will be taxed at its corresponding level. In other words, if you for example earn $65k/year, then $0-$38k are taxed at 19.5% (the lowest bracket), $38-$60k are taxed at 33% (the middle bracket), and only the earnings above $60k are taxed in the highest bracket, which is 39%. So, even if you are in the highest bracket, only the top portion of your income will be taxed at the top rate. Because there are no state taxes or other large deductions like Social Security, you may end up taking home more than with a comparable gross salary in the US. Go figure.

GST is 12.5% and, unlike in the US, it's already built into the prices of goods and services. This means that the amount you see displayed is what you pay; there's no need to add a percentage in your head. That makes so much more sense and helps with budgeting—I never understood why it's not like that in America. Lastly, tipping isn't customary. Certainly not in bars or for cab rides, but not even in restaurants, unless in really nice ones, where you tip 5-10% at most—if you were happy with the service, that is. So if prices on a menu seem high at first glance, it's good to remember that those will indeed be the final prices.

Another New Zealand speciality its accident compensation scheme (ACC). Personal injury lawsuits do not exist here—what a concept! Instead, ACC provides coverage in the case of an accident not only for New Zealanders, but even for temporary visitors. The money for this comes from various sources, for example, payments for motoring/traffic accidents are funded through a tax on gas and a portion of the vehicle licensing fee. In other words, if you get hurt, you get help, but you won't be able to exploit it and get rich from it. Sounds so obvious, doesn't it? Yes, here, too, are certain aspects of the "nanny state" cropping up, but as always, it's a matter of degree. And when these issues do come up, you'll usually see lively commentary and letters to the editor in the paper the next day, passionately defending common sense and self-reliance.

No smoking

Smoking ban starts Dec 10

Speaking of nanny state: There's one current issue where that accusation is heard a lot these days, and that's the upcoming smoking ban. Starting Dec 10, smoking will be prohibited in all indoors workplaces, including bars and restaurants. For Californians, this will sound very familiar, and indeed, the reasoning is pretty much the same: protection of employees and promoting health in general.

As a non-smoker, I'll say the same as I have before: Smoke-free offices: Absolutely. Restaurants? I enjoy being able to eat without anyone smoking nearby, but I'm happy with restaurants that have smoking and non-smoking sections. As far as bars go, well, you already go there to engage in unhealthy behaviour, so it seems a bit silly to completely prohibit smoking there. Again, sections would be fine. Moreover, there's probably an audience for smoke-free bars, so why not leave it up to the owner? We'll see how quickly and strictly these new rules will be enforced. (By the way, the picture on the right was taken at a bar that offers 100 different beers from around the world, including a Schneider Aventinus Weisse Doppelbock, Franziskaner Hefeweisse, and the French Kronenbourg—and it's just a ~~dangerous~~ delicious 10-minute walk from our new home. Cheers!)

Civil unions

Wellington Civic Square with its cool metal palm trees

This is indeed a big week for New Zealand as far as groundbreaking changes to its society go. While the smoking ban will go into effect tonight at midnight, an even more important decision was made by parliament a few hours earlier, when the Civil Union Bill received the majority vote in its final session. After long and controversial discussions, the new law will come into effect in April of 2005.

Unlike the gay marriage initiatives in the US, this new law doesn't affect or change the Marriage Act, which continues to apply only to heterosexual couples—although many of the conservative opponents tried to present (and by that, hoped to discredit) Civil Unions as the "end of marriage". Instead, the Civil Union Bill will recognise and officially legalise all de-facto relationships regardless of the gender of the couple, giving them the same rights as married couples. So, this applies to us, too! For the purpose of immigration, our relationship is already treated the same as a marriage. In other areas, however, there are still discriminations in place against couples who are in committed relationships, but don't want to (or, in the case or gays, are not allowed to) get married, and this new law is supposed to put an end to those inequalities.

As expected, there was strong and vocal resistance from various conservative/christian groups who claimed that this bill would destroy the sanctity of marriage (the fact that some of the loudest opponents were divorced because they had affairs during their own marriages didn't seem to be relevant or related to these people), that it would destroy New Zealand (because gays can't have kids and the population will become extinct), that it's proven by the bible that homosexuality is a sin—and from there it became completely absurd— and that, encouraged by the new law, men would want to to do such things as marry their horses (what kind of person would come up with examples like that? Creepy). Thankfully those fear- and hatemongers remain in the minority. New Zealand, who was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote and to give pensions to workers, is yet again setting an example to the world in the area of equal rights for all.

Giant apes

King Kong is in town

But enough with all this political stuff! The other big news in Wellington last week was that Peter Jackson is in town for the upcoming King Kong movie. While they are still working on rebuilding downtown New York in Lower Hutt just outside town, scenes were filmed this week at the Opera House downtown. There were people in 1930s costumes and at a party I even met a woman who was one of the extras, but of course she wasn't allowed to tell me anything. Wellington being the small town that it is, we are already only a couple degrees away from the action just by living in our building, with the neighbour next door working on the movie set as a carpenter, and the couple upstairs, curators and heavily involved in the Wellington arts scene, being on on a first name basis with "Peter". That's Wellywood.

Giant leaps

Good news for job seekers

We've only been here in Wellington for four weeks, and something very important has just happened: Brian got a job! This is huge for so many reasons: Working and being involved in the New Zealand tech industry was one of the main reasons for coming here. Needless to say it will be nice to have some money coming in after our amok shopping run of the past weeks. But most importantly, this job offer kicks off the entire immigration process for us. As advised by our immigration consultant, we came here initially on a tourist visa, with the plan to use the allotted time to look for work. The reason for doing it this way is simple: landing a job is a lot easier to do when you are in the country rather than overseas. Now that an offer has been extended, the consultant is filing the necessary paperwork with the government to get us our work- and residence visas. And because we applying together (the term for us—unromantic, but practical—is "de facto partners"), this one offer will be enough to set visas for both of us in motion. This process is now happening—an immense step towards getting settled here.

The above also means that I, too, can now start looking for work in earnest. Why not sooner? Because my university degree is not from an English-speaking country, but from Germany, it would be quite difficult, not to mention costly, to get it "qualified", i.e. officially acknowledged and evaluated, by the New Zealand Qualification Authority. But now that the visa is in process with Brian as the primary applicant, my degree doesn't matter any more (and anyway, it's never been much related to what I do for work to begin with). Problem solved!

But first, there'll be some time off. Like much of Europe, New Zealand will pretty much shut down for the holidays—in fact, maybe even more so, because these are the big summer holidays. Schools are already closed as far as I know, and according to everyone, the rest of the country will follow soon. Especially between Christmas and New Year's, it will be all play and no work for most Kiwis. It's weird enough for us to hear xmas music blaring from loudspeakers while sitting outside enjoying a cool beer in the summer sun, and to see office party-goers running around wearing tank tops and fake antlers. On Friday we are going to a christmas party with BBQ, and people are gearing up for trips and outdoors activities. Including us: Starting on December 18, we are headed north for a week of vacation, hopefully beating the crowds to it who should arrive right after the holiday. We'll be canoeing on the for a few days, then head to Tongariro National Park for some hiking, or as they call it here, tramping. I'll write all about it when we return. Till then, very happy holidays to everyone!

Going bush

Talking about the weather

In New Zealand, "going bush" doesn't mean discovering your inner Republican, but rather, going outdoors, spending time in nature. Which is what we tried to do in the week before Christmas.

It didn't quite work out that way, although it took us a while to realise it. The weather had been miserable for most of December, but it was bound to get better, right? After all, December = June in the northern hemisphere. And Wellington has a bit of a reputation for crappy weather, surely it would be better elsewhere. So we packed our bags and headed north despite the pouring rain.

The rain didn't let up. If anything, it got stronger, while the temperature dropped to dangerously close to the freezing point as we climbed into Tongariro National Park. When we saw the Whanganui River, it didn't look like water, but rather like milky coffee—it was so muddy that its colour had turned into a solid brown. The hikes we had planned had been closed by the Department of Conservation due to high winds and generally unsafe weather conditions. Ugh.

One of 40 million

When we finally reached our destination, it was pretty clear that in these conditions, our vacation wouldn't be a lot of fun. We spent the night at the canoe tour operators' place, sitting next to the heater in our thermal clothing while drinking the wine we had brought for the nights out camping, and decided to reschedule. Luckily, this turned out to be no problem, and we set up a new date for our trip in late January. In the meantime, we regarded our attempt at a vacation as a little road trip, with lots of gorgeous scenery, green hills and sheep (although it remained very cold, the rain let up the next day), and an opportunity for me to practice driving on the left some more. Which isn't really an issue at all any more, except sometimes for gauging the amount of space I have on the left, now that there isn't just the door between me and the car/pedestrian/shoulder to my left, but more than half the car's width...

Chrissie pressie

All-new work permit

Being in town the week before xmas turned out to be a very good thing: We had time to gather all the documents and complete the paperwork for our work permit application. As I had mentioned before, a work permit not only allows us to stay here longer and work legally, but is also the first step towards permanent residency, so getting it is a huge deal! With the help of our immigration consultant, we had the whole package together by the morning of the 24th, and as he suggested, we went to the New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) office to drop it off in person, so it would get there before the holiday break.

It got even better from here: The woman at the reception took a quick look at our documents and suggested we talk someone right away—the typical waiting period for work permits is 6 weeks right now, but if we had time, did we want to wait to see someone and maybe take care of it right away? Of course we did! We took a seat, and 20 minutes later, we were speaking to an immigration officer. She went through our documents, asked some questions, determined that our application was straightforward (mostly thanks to Brian's job being on the "Priority Occupation List" and thus in high demand), and within half an hour, we both had 12-month work permits in our passports. Amazing! What a Christmas present.

And good timing, too, because the NZIS, like everything else, was about to shut down for the holidays. On Christmas Day, the one day of the year when truly everything is closed, even 24-hour supermarkets, Wellington was a ghost town. Didn't matter to us—we had planned our holiday with a home-cooked meal: leg of lamb with a mint-coriander-yogurt marinade and oven-roasted vegetables (spring carrots, butternut squash, red onions, garlic). It was quite spectacular; of course, lamb here is of high quality and affordable. We ordered ours from an online butcher, who delivered it right to our door, de-boned and butterflied and all. Ordering meat on the Internet—cool!

We'll tak a right guid-willie waught for auld lang syne

Downtown Wellington, seen from Mt. Victoria

This lesser known line from the world's favourite New Year's song, if you believe The Internet, means "we'll drink to old times". Which is what we'll do at the end of this most eventful, exciting year. To old times and to the future, but most of all, to the here and now. Cheers!

<sermon>If 2004 has taught me anything, it's that if you can do anything if you really want it. You probably have to take risks, be a lot bolder than you feel you are; you will make mistakes and have doubts, but all this is worth it if the goal is worth it, and if you believe in yourself, you'll succeed. Fear will only hold you back, and there's never the ideal moment for anything. The right moment is when you are ready. It's that simple, and it's that hard. But it's all you'll ever get. It's all you ever need.</sermon>

Happy 2005!

January 2005

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +1300

All-new year

2005 somehow just snuck up on us. We went to a New Year's Eve party at a friend of a friend's here in Wellington, at a very cool house just minutes from downtown, or as they say here, the CBD, as in Central Business District. It was tucked away from the street and surrounded by trees, had a large open interior with hardwood floors and an all-hardwood bathroom (you see these quite a bit here and they are COOL), and good "indoor-outdoor-flow"—a big selling point for houses here. I wouldn't have minded moving in right away myself. Well, maybe not until they cleaned up after the party.

Kiwis love costume parties. I assume this is a British heritage thing—thanks to Prince Harry, we all learned this month that a "fancy dress party" can be a rather, uhm, informal event. No scandals occurred at our party, which had a New Orleans theme. We had been wondering what the heck you would wear for that theme aside from Marlon Brando's wifebeater undershirt from A Streetcar Named Desire (someone did just that), but people showed up in all kinds of extravagant outfits. Several people told us that in New Zealand, costume shops are a good business to be in year-round.

There are no fireworks in New Zealand to greet the new year, and people don't count down at midnight. We just happened to check the time at some point and realised that it was past midnight and two-oh-oh-five.

Still bad: the weather

Wishful thinking? Conjuration?

Meanwhile, summer remained elusive as ever. Early in January, it was announced that the previous month had been the coldest December since 1945, and the 5th coldest on record. Not only that, it was also less sunny than normal, and wetter. And the bad weather didn't end in December either: On January 6, a storm hit Wellington that brought more rain in 24 hours than what's typical for the entire month of January. After that, we weren't all that surprised any more when we read that large icebergs had been spotted off the New Zealand coast, and when penguins showed up at our doorstep, we just shrugged and went about our business. (Ok, that last part didn't happen. Not yet, anyway.) Quite a few Kiwis have apologised to us for the weather. Of course, tourism and agriculture are the two big sources for foreign capital coming into New Zealand, and both have been hurt by the non-existing summer. For many people and businesses the cold summer was much more than just an annoyance.

Working it out

As I mentioned, everything shuts down over the holidays in New Zealand. This year, Christmas Day and Boxing Day (Dec 26) fell on a weekend, as did New Year's Day and the Day after New Year's Day. Because all four are official holidays, they were observed on the Monday/Tuesday following their respective weekends, so for most businesses, the holiday period extended at least through January 4th; many didn't start again until the 10th. Of course, supermarkets and bigger stores opened again right after Christmas, often however with reduced hours. Some restaurants closed during the holidays, and those that were open often added a 15% holiday surcharge. Employees are entitled to extra pay on those days so many restaurants pass that cost on to the guests. A good week for home cooking.

Right before Christmas, I had had a couple of job interviews with a web shop/marketing agency here in Wellington who was looking for a web project manager. They went very well, but because everything happened so shortly before the break, it was clear that nothing would be finalised until after the holidays. As time went on, I found myself anxiously awaiting January 10th, the day when I was supposed to have another interview and follow-up. I did, and I got the job! My start date is February 1st.

My new employer is a small but fast growing company, located centrally just minutes from our apartment. The position is very similar to my previous job in San Francisco and entails managing web projects for clients—everything from requirements gathering and specifications to managing the design and build process as well as the client relationship, to ongoing maintenance. As a project manager, I'll be the "hub" for my projects and work with people across all functions: internally with sales, development, design, and the the business side, as well as externally with clients.

I had a total of four interviews, three of them with two people each, to ensure there's a good fit—very important in a small company. Interviews are less formal here than in the US and you get more immediate feedback, so you don't go home afterwards and wonder how it went. Another difference is that new employees are typically going through a 3-month "probation" period before their contract changes to an unlimited one. This is because employees can't be laid off quite as easily as in the US. The flipside of this is that they are expected to give at least four weeks notice if they intend to leave a job. Employers do not typically provide health insurance (see below) nor pension plans. Kiwis and 10 year+ residents aged 65 and over get "state superannuation", a weekly pension of $265/week for singles or $437/week for couples. Many New Zealanders choose to save retirement money through private pension plans, and some employers now offer contribution plans as well.

The best difference to the US, of course, is the vacation policy: Three weeks are required by law; starting April, the mandatory minimum time will be extended to four weeks/year. Many employers, including Brian's and mine, already give their employees four weeks anyway. There are also 11 days of public holidays. The work week is 40 hours, but unlike in the US, it really is 40 hours and no more. Several people made this clear to us during our interviews. Kiwis take their work seriously, but they take their non-work life equally seriously. During our interviews, everyone asked what we do for fun, and "About the team" pages on corporate websites usually include hobbies and interests along with work history.

Doctor, doctor

Earlier this month I needed to see a doctor for a check-up and learned a bit more about healthcare in our new country. New Zealand has a public healthcare system funded mainly through taxes. This means that medical treatment for citizens and residents is subsidised and in some cases even free, for example, immunisation and medicine for children and hospital treatment. Of course, like any publicly funded system, it does come with drawbacks such as long wait times for certain procedures, so that many people choose to get private health insurance in addition. The latter is quite affordable here, moreover, even people with private insurance are entitled to the free services, so it's not an either-or choice. Unlike in the US, health insurance is entirely up to the individual and isn't tied to a job or employer. This makes for a lot less paperwork when starting a new job!

Since I currently don't have private insurance and I'm not a resident yet, I had to pay full price for my check-up, but at $60 including lab work, it was very reasonable. (From previous years' claims, I remember that similar visits in the US cost close to $400, not including the co-payment. Also, the insurance would never cover the full cost and I'd end up getting a bill for another $50-60. All that, of course, on top of the monthly insurance fees.) I also can't complain about the wait times; I got an appointment within a week of my call for my non-urgent visit.

Onward to residency

Selected!

Right after the holiday break, we took the next steps towards becoming New Zealand residents. Getting residency under the "Skilled Migrant" scheme, which is what we are doing, is a multi-step process. First, you have to file an "Expression of Interest" (EOI), providing details about yourself, your education and qualification, your family, your health, etc. For certain things, such as work experience, you can claim points. All EOIs go into a pool, and every two weeks, the applicants with the highest points are selected from the pool. Those not immediately selected remain in the pool for three months; after that, the EOI expires. In reality, most, if not all EOIs are selected right now, because the New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) has lowered the minimum points threshold considerably over the past six months. Why? Because the country has certain yearly goals for immigration, and they didn't make their numbers, so they made it easier for prospective migrants.

We submitted our EOI earlier this month and, as expected, were selected in the following drawing. Now NZIS will look at the EOIs and conduct some initial verification to ensure that applicants can back up the points they are claiming. At the EOI stage, you don't have to provide any documents yet, but you may get a call for an initial interview. We hope that our verification will be easy since we already provided all kinds of documentation to NZIS when we applied for the work permits. Also, because we have jobs, we didn't even claim some points we could have claimed, because we didn't need them to be well over the threshold. The more points you claim, the more verification work will need to be done, and the longer you have to wait to hear back.

Once NZIS is satisfied that your application is legitimate, applicants receive an "Invitation to Apply" (ITA). This is the stage where some people are rejected because they aren't as qualified as they claimed to be. Those who are invited now fill out the paperwork for the residency application, and submit their supporting documents which range from work references to official grades from tertiary education to police clearances and health certificates. You also have to submit your passport at this point, because residency is documented in the passport and not a separate ID like the Green Card in the US. The more complete and neat the application, the better your chances of having it processed quickly. Right now, all we can do is wait for the ITA.

NZIS, by the way, has a very good website with comprehensive information and access to all forms and guides migrants need for their applications. EOIs are submitted online, and you can log in to your account and check your status at any time. Pretty cool.

It's our fault

On January 18, were were rudely reminded of another similarity between San Francisco and Wellington: Earthquakes! It wasn't just one quake that hit New Zealand's North Island that day, but (count 'em) seven. I should be used to it, but this was the first time I felt the earth move in our new country and I had forgotten how unnerving it is. I didn't even feel the first five, which occurred from early afternoon to evening. The one at 9:36 pm however made us jump up from our dinner table, where we had just finished eating and sat around drinking and talking. The house was swaying back and forth a couple times but everything stayed in place. Just 50 minutes later, when my heart had returned to its normal rate, everything repeated. The largest quake measured 5.3 and emanated from off the North Island's coast, about 60 miles east of Wellington.

And because it's so much fun, there was yet another quake just a few days later. This one was a 5.5 with an epicentre just 18 miles from here, and unlike the previous rolling ones, this one came as a nasty jolt. I had just stepped out of the shower dripping wet and not really awake yet, and I was in no way prepared for any evacuation, so I muttered a couple of swearwords instead. Thankfully, it seems that the worst that happened were some items in shops being knocked off their shelves. Yep, New Zealand rocks.

Holiday, take two

Tongariro Crossing

Then it was time to try for that holiday again. The second time around, the premises for our trip looked a lot better than back in December. In the week leading up to our departure, the weather had been warm and sunny even in Wellington, and according to the forecast, it was supposed to be even warmer where we were headed. Still, when we drove up to Tongariro National Park, it almost felt strange to drive this now familiar road without rain.

We spent the first three days at the Discovery Lodge near Whakapapa Village, a place I'd highly recommend. They offer everything from motel rooms to tent sites, as well as a guest lounge and various services, such as shuttle transport and packed lunches. We had a private chalet with a small kitchen, and there was also a bar and restaurant and a large deck to sit, drink, and look at the volcanoes. We made good use of all of the above.

"The sun peeks its head over the hills...

...birds are chirping, fields glisten with morning dew...another perfect day in paradise." This is a quote from the back of our muesli box, and usually, I find kitschy marketing prose like that rather annoying. During this trip, however, it simply described reality. The natural beauty of Tongariro National Park is hard to put into words. Since it's all volcanic, the landscape can appear harsh and barren, and it becomes obvious very quickly why this area was chosen as the filming location for the dark lord Sauron's domain of Mordor in Lord of the Rings. It's not all rocky moonscape, though: There are emerald green lakes, sulphur springs, active vents and crater lakes, and even lush green forests in the lower areas of the park.

Top of the world

One of the best ways to experience all this is the Tongariro Crossing, a one-day, 11-mile day hike through some of the most spectacular volcanic landscape. Apparently, during summer, 800 people are doing this hike per day. It didn't seem crowded, however. One reason was probably that we got an early start: Our shuttle for the trailhead left at 6 am and dropped us off just 15 minutes later; at least an hour before than all the other shuttle services, so we got a good head start. And even though there were some areas where larger numbers of people tended to gather, such as hard, steep climbs, or a couple of lunch spots, there were many times where we seemed alone in the park. In other words, it was "Kiwi-crowded": lots of people for New Zealand standards, but still plenty lonely compared to popular destinations in the US or Europe.

There are tons of detailed descriptions of this hike out there so I don't think the world needs yet another one. Pretty much all of them are raving about it, and they are right. It's a fantastic experience. The trail can get a bit tricky in parts (lots of rock and sand, sometimes hard to get good footing), and the long downhill stretch in the second half of the trip can be hard on the knees, but it's well worth the effort, and the stunning views will stay with you long after the soreness has vanished.

Because of the strenuous hike we had just completed, we wanted something a bit more relaxing the next day, so we drove to the Whakapapa Ski Area and took a couple of chairlifts up Mt. Ruapehu to the Knoll Ridge Chalet at 6,630 feet. Although the weather had been quite nice, the top of the mountain was covered in clouds all day, which made for a rather eery atmosphere. We had read that there is a "little walk" that you can take from the chalet, and we decided to do that. The little walk turned out to be a steep uphill climb, partially through old snow, partially through rocks, up to Skyline Ridge at 7,545 feet. At several points we were literally in the clouds, and often the trail was only identifiable through the poles that were placed intermittently. The view from the ridge was great, even though it was still cloudy, but the funnest part was the return trip: Sliding down on the snow or through the sand, we picked up quite a bit of speed and were back down in about a quarter of the time that it took us to climb up. Who-hoo!

Panta rei

And then we were off to the Whanganui River. We had booked a three-day river journey with Blazing Paddles (Kiwis looove their puns). They provided all equipment—canoes and paddles, life vests, plastic barrels, maps, etc.—, transport to and from the river, and also gave us a briefing on how to read the river, how to best get through rapids, etc. They were super-friendly and professional, and again, I'd very much recommend them.

Achtung, Kiwis

Our trip started at Whakahoro, about an hour's drive from Blazing Paddle's location. A large portion of the drive was on gravel road, so we had to go rather slowly. Because for once I didn't have to drive myself, I got to lean back and enjoy the landscape. It was New Zealand overload; almost too much. We drove through rolling green hills, dotted with sheep and lined with wooden fences, under a brilliant blue sky with only the occasional cotton-ball cloud. Once in a while we went through small forests or over little wooden bridges, and once we had to stop because a flock of sheep was blocking the entire width of the street. We also saw goats, rabbits, magpies, geese, and even a pheasant. Even commercials for breakfast cereal don't use that many props...

We had already loaded all our gear into the waterproof plastic barrels and dry bags, so when we got to our destination, we simply had to load the barrels into the canoe and tie them securely in case we'd tip over. How quickly the latter can happen became clear after just a few minutes on the water. "There's always a few simple rapids at the start to get your confidence up", the brochure had said under the headline "What if I have no canoeing experience?", and that was true. "This doesn't mean that you won't capsize if you don't know what the heck you are doing", it didn't say, but we learned that quickly. There are only a few graded rapids during the journey, and you don't hit them until the last day. But even smaller rapids need to be approached correctly to avoid being swept sideways or worse.

Whanganui River Journey

Thankfully, there are only a few basic rules you need to know: If you see a \/-shape on the river, it means there's an obstacle in the water, usually a rock or tree trunk, and you need to steer clear of it. The inverted /\ on the other hand indicates the deepest channel and the safest place to be. As far as rapids are concerned, it's best to go right into them and go with the flow. You look for the /\ and start paddling, trying to be just a bit faster than the rapid itself as it carries you along. Many rapids will be curved and seem to head right for a cliff, but it's important to trust this rule and go with the rapid rather than try to bypass it. Lastly, you'll encounter a few commercial jet boats on the river, and when you hear them approach, it's best to move near the riverbank and turn the canoe sideways. A passing jet boat generates a lot of waves in its wake, and those often last forever as they just bounce back and forth between the cliffs on each side of the river. The best thing to do is to surf those waves, which are perpendicular to the normal current, until they calm down. Once we had internalised these rules, we had a blast going through the rapids, and although we did get soaked a couple of times, we never tipped over.

The entire three-day journey from Whakahoro to Pipiriki is about 55 miles, which meant an average of 7 hours of paddling per day; a bit more at the beginning and a bit less on the last day. The river was very low and even shallow in some places, and there was almost no current, so we had to work quite a bit to move forward. Again, the park was Kiwi-crowded, in other words, most of the time we were by ourselves. The peace and quiet of floating down the river was indescribable. Most of the time the river was bordered by high cliffs, lush green with fern trees, moss, and rivulets and waterfalls everywhere. Sometimes you'll pass a cave, or a side stream; other than that, the only landmarks are the campgrounds every few hours. Never have I seen such saturated green, and this was even more enhanced by the reflections of the river banks in the very clear water. Most of the time, the only sounds we could hear, aside from our own paddles hitting the water, were bird song and the occasional bleating of a wild goat (and at night, the cry of the kiwi). After a while, my imagination started seeing strange faces in the rocks and taking driftwood for skulls, and the abundant jungle scenery created an atmosphere of equal parts Indiana Jones, Apocalypse Now, and Pippi Longstocking. All in all we had a wonderful time—it was the perfect mix of tranquility in nature and exhilarating fun.

Decision successful

When we returned from our trip, I went online to check on our immigration status, more out of habit than because I really expected anything new; after all, it had only been a week since we had submitted our Expression of Interest and been selected from the pool. Based on stories from others, we knew that the typical wait time between being Selected and actually getting an Invitation to Apply is 3-4 months. Imagine our surprise when we logged in and our status had changed to Decision Successful, which means we can now submit the actual residency application. The next day, we got an email from our consultant (who had been on vacation himself), asking if we had had a chance to submit the EOI before we left. So we're all, duuude, we're, like, so totally ahead of you... or something to that effect. The physical paperwork should arrive within days, and then it's on to filling out the final application and collecting all the documentation. It shouldn't take very long to get all that together—we're definitely in the finishing line now. Pretty cool way to end the month.

February 2005

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +1300

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

Bucket Fountain

The first four months after we left San Francisco, October to January, were so packed with events, newness and excitement, they seemed to last forever. February, on the other hand, feels as if it just started a couple of days ago, and yet, here's my calendar, insisting that tomorrow will be the first of March. What happened?

In two words, normal life. Both Brian and I started our new jobs on the first of the month, and within literally a day, we were back in the work rhythm that we had barely remembered. We've both been fortunate with our new employers, and our first month has been going very well: smart people, interesting projects, and a work environment that fosters high quality and excellence, but is laid back at the same time.

Having a really short commute also helped immensely with getting used to a more regular schedule again. I currently have a 3-minute walk to my office (although we'll be moving later this year, and then it will—gasp!—double), Brian's is 4 minutes.

Cuba Street Entrance

My office is right on Cuba Street, which, to put it in San Francisco terms, is a bit of a mix of Haight, Polk, and Market streets: It's home to countless bars, shops, galleries, theatres, cafes, and restaurants. A portion of it is a pedestrian mall and always crowded with street performers, tourists looking for the "alternative" Wellington, office workers on a coffee break, sports fans having a drink before, during, and after games, and lots of kids trying hard to look tough and/or bored. Within twenty steps outside my building, I can get the perfect latte, a pint of stout, or freshly-squeezed organic juice; I can get my hair cut or go grocery shopping at one of the Kwikimarts, go for a game of video poker in the casino across the street, have sushi, Indian, Thai, Malaysian, fish and chips, or chicken foccacia sandwiches for lunch, buy funky t-shirts, shoes, or stock up on Chinese medicine or German toiletries. Or just sit in the sun on one of the benches and soak up all the craziness, and that without being hit up for spare change every other minute.

A difficult holiday

New Zealand Coat of Arms

February 6 was Waitangi Day, New Zealand's national holiday, which celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Europeans had begun to settle in New Zealand around 1800, bringing with them new technologies, products, and culture. At the same time, the country saw numerous conflicts between various Maori tribes. No matter where you stand on the complex, messy issue of New Zealand race relations, it was doubtless a time of major change for the country in general and the Maori world in particular.

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and Maori tribal leaders, with the intent to bring intertribal conflicts to an end, and to provide a constitutional basis for the establishment of British law and government in New Zealand. For Maoris, it meant exchanging sovereignty for a guarantee of authority of the chiefs and protection of Maori land and resource rights, as well as getting the same rights and privileges as British citizens. To this date, New Zealand doesn't have a single, written constitution; instead, government, law, and society are based on a collection of laws and practices, with the Treaty of Waitangi being the central document.

The treaty and its significance as the founding document of the nation has been a source for heavy controversy and tensions for many decades. These originate not the least from the fact that are two versions of the treaty—English and Maori—and the terms used in the two texts don't quite mean the same thing. This resulted in widely varying interpretations, especially with regards to sovereignty (the English version describes a complete transference of power to the Crown while the Maori version implies a sharing of power) and chieftainship and culture (the English version gives Maori control over their lands, forests, fisheries, and other properties, while the Maori version also implies possession and protection of things such as language and culture.)

In the past years, Waitangi Day celebrations have been overshadowed by protest and violence, and the question if and how politicians, especially the Prime Minister, participate, dominate the very emotional debates. Just a few days ago, the debate was in the news yet again, this time over the question if knowledge of and commitment to the principles of the treaty should be a job requirement for public servants. And in a recent poll that asked New Zealanders about the most important issues facing the country today, 28% thought that race relations and the Treaty of Waitangi were the most concerning issue— the next highest issue, health, was only named by 11%.

Back to nature

Karori Wildlife Sanctuary

One of the cool things about Wellington is how many green spaces there are within the city, and how close it is to nature even from the most urban parts of town, our own ~~neighbourhood~~ suburb included. Within a few minutes' walk, we're in the woods of Mount Victoria, surround by trees and birdsong, or at the beach at Oriental Bay, and that's just our immediate vicinity. A little bit farther away (2 km), but still within the city limits, is the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. This 252 ha valley, right along a fault line, is a conservation project with the goal of restoring the natural bio-diversity of New Zealand and returning the area to its pre-human state (over a time period of 500 years...talk about big-picture vision). A fence runs along the circumference of the sanctuary to keep out predators, and species of endangered wildlife have been re-introduced, including the rare little spotted kiwi and many rare birds.

Still in the middle of Wellington

There are trails of various difficulty (i.e., steepness) all through the sanctuary, leading through native bush and and wetlands. We went on a 2-hour roundtrip on a recent summer Sunday afternoon, and it was very relaxing. A few times, we sat down on a bench and and were very still. Within a minute or so, we'd be surrounded by a concert of birdsong—6 or 7 different ones right where we sat. We also explored an abandoned goldmine now populated by thousands of Wetas; thankfully they are asleep during the day. You can also go on guided night tours, where you will see glow worms, and maybe even a kiwi. Nice to have access to nature so close to home.

In the finish line

Cuba Street Carnival

At the end of last month, we had just received our invitation to apply for residency. Because we had already gone through the work visa process, we had most of our paperwork already together, and the only remaining thing was to get our medicals to prove that we meet the health standards for immigrants. This meant seeing not one, but three doctor visits: With our GP, who had to go through a long list of check-ups, a radiologist to ensure our lungs were TB-free, and a lab nurse for a blood test. The paperwork it quite comprehensive, but we got it all done eventually, and now our application is at the immigration service, along with our passports, waiting for the final approval. It won't be much longer now.

And that's all, folks! When we weren't at work or have someone poke us with needles, we spent time improving our cooking skills (it's still summer here and a lot of vegetables are in season), sampling Wellington's bars and restaurants, or watching DVDs from the library on the laptop. I joined a gym again and found a great class that mixes elements of yoga, tai chi, and pilates. I've also started to take more pictures again, and was interviewed by a fellow photoblogger. Things have slowed down, and it was about time. We're living life. It's good.

March 2005

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +1200

Turn, turn, turn

Flowers in the Botanic Garden

Ah, March! The first month of spring, of new life and blossoms and light after a long winter... unless you are in the southern hemisphere. As far as seasons go, March down under is the equivalent of September in the northern hemisphere. Luckily, after summer's miserable beginnings, the weather has been warm and sunny since mid-January, and while it's not very hot any more, we've had mostly nice, warm days, and it's hard to believe that this is indeed autumn and not spring. Last weekend, we turned back the clock to (shudder) winter time and already it's getting dark quite early. Somehow I think that dealing with winter in July and August will be one of our biggest challenges yet. But for now, it's still pleasant, and we're enjoying it, too: As I'm writing this, we're on a mini-break—unlike in the US, New Zealand has two days of public holidays for Easter, giving us a 4-day weekend.

Never a dull day

Neighbourhood Fire

Earlier this month we had some unexpected free entertainment: One Sunday night, an empty building across the street caught fire and burned to the ground. The fire department brought out 14 engines, and it took hours to extinguish, not the least because there were strong, gusty winds that night that blew sparks dangerously close towards nearby buildings. Of course, the neighbourhood immediately filled with spectators, and it almost felt like a street party. We had the best view though from the roof of our building and were able to get some cool action shots.

Just a week later, we had yet another rude awakening: On March 14, at 4:08 in the morning, a 6.4 earthquake rattled both the lower North Island and the upper South Island. Thankfully, the epicentre was off the coast and not anywhere near a city, so little damage was done. It certainly was the strongest one I ever felt, even though it was 100m away from Wellington. Well, at least we didn't have any tornadoes like those poor folks up in the Bay of Plenty.

This old house

Some houses on really steep hillsides have their own private elevators

Now that we are pretty much settled here in Wellington with jobs, residency (soo close) and even a social circle, there is one big thing left to do: We have started to look into buying a house. The housing market is hot right now: The average price for a home in Wellington is currently at $392,251 (NZD), up 8.2% from last year. Prices for the greater region, while lower on average, rose even faster, by 10.7% compared to last year. And despite recently raised interest rates, the market isn't expected to slow down, so the sooner we get into a house, the better.

Of course, compared to the San Francisco Bay Area, things still seem friendlier: There, the median price for existing homes just hit an all-time-high: In February, it was at $569,000 (USD), up 19.5% compared to a year ago. Not to mention San Francisco itself, where the median price is now at $701,000. Typical mortgage payments also increased by almost 22% in the last year. Just thinking about this makes me dizzy.

Buying a house in New Zealand is much simpler and faster than in the US. There are no escrow or title companies; instead, the sale is directly negotiated between the seller and the buyer, or as it may be, their solicitors (that's lawyers for you Americans). There's no requirement to employ a solicitor, but many choose to do so nevertheless to help negotiate the purchase price, check the contract, advise on tax issues, etc. It's easy for foreigners to buy property in New Zealand, unless the property is located on the water, in which case additional rules apply. If you are not a resident, you typically have to put a higher percentage down (the down payment is called "deposit" here) if you are financing your home, but otherwise, there are no restrictions.

Open homes are typically on Sundays, and they are listed in the newspaper and of course on the web. There are several comprehensive real estate websites that provide tons of info about properties for sale, so it's possible to do a lot of the legwork at home on the computer. Of course, this can't replace looking at the houses with your own eyes, but the web research still comes in very handy for making a first selection. Open home times are typically very short (30-45 minutes), so you only get a small window for viewing a house, and it takes quite a bit of planning to fit multiple houses in various suburbs into one day. Unlike in the US, where you can just can ask "your" real estate agent to show you any house you'd like to see, real estate agents in New Zealand only sell houses listed with their own company, and often cover only a fairly small territory.

The bay on a windy afternoon

Once you find the house you want, you make a formal (i.e., written) offer. The offer specifies which "chattels" (appliances, light fittings, etc.) are included, and typically also contains conditions, such as satisfactory title search and building inspection, or approval of financing. Naturally, sellers like offers with as few conditions as possible. When an agreement on the price is reached, you pay your deposit, and once everything is in order, the contract is settled, meaning money and keys are exchanged. Mortgage payments typically start a month after the settlement date. One significant difference to the US is that mortgage interest is unfortunately not tax deductible.

One of the difficulties for buyers is that many houses in New Zealand are sold at auction or tender. Both require potential buyers to place confidential bids on the property which may or may not be accepted (in the case of an auction, the offer needs to meet or exceed the reserve price). For a buyer, this means that you don't really know what a property will be going for. You can ask the agent for a range and also look at comparable sales in the neighbourhood. But in the end, there's a lot of guessing and gut feeling involved, and it does make the process even more nerve-wrecking, especially when you are new to the area and bid on a house that you really like.

We spent quite a bit of time this month researching and looking at various properties and already learned a lot about the market here in Wellington. It's exciting and scary, but then, so is life... We'd like to stay in central Wellington, within walking distance to the CDB (Central Business District) where we both work. We'd also like to have a yard/garden and a bigger kitchen, ideally with a gas stove. We would love such things as parking, wood floors, a fire place, view,...—knowing that we probably won't be able to get all these features in one place. And we know that most houses simply come without heating here, so we don't have any expectations in that regard.

If you're happy and you know it...

Port of Wellington, seen from Tinakori Hill above Thorndon

... you might be living in Wellington! A recent Quality of Life study shows great results for the city:

88% of Wellingtonians rate their quality of life as good or very good.
84% say they are proud of how the city looks and feels.
89% rate their health good or better.
81% are satisfied or very satisfied with their free time.
88% describe themselves as happy or very happy.
84% are satisfied with life in general.
70% are satisfied or very satisfied with their balance between work and life in general—the highest of all NZ cities surveyed.
47% use public transport at least once a week; 75% believe that public transport is affordable and 87% agree that it is is safe.
94% feel safe or very safe in their own home after dark—the highest in the country. 78% feel safe or very safe in their neighbourhood after dark and 55% feel safe or very safe in the city centre after dark.
77% usually or almost always trust people, which makes Wellingtonians the most trusting people in the country.
88% agree that the city has a culturally rich and diverse arts scene.

These findings certainly match our experience in Wellington so far: People seem genuinely proud of their city and happy to live here, and a sense of pride and feeling at home is noticeable even in relatively new immigrants—including us! No wonder the housing market in such a place is a bit tight...

Road rage

One big topic for heated discussions here in Wellington is the Inner City Bypass, an effort to re-route the main thoroughfare through the city. Similar to 101 in San Francisco, the multi-lane motorway (or, in American terms, freeway) ends shortly after entering Wellington, and traffic is routed through the Te Aro neighbourhood on narrow city streets with various turns and traffic lights. To improve the flow of traffic, Wellington is planning to re-route it, using existing streets and building just under half a mile of new road (the "bypass" itself). The plans for this go as far back as the 1960s, when, in line with the automobile-centric attitude of the times, the route was to be a full motorway all the way, instead of the regular two-lane city streets with walkways, bike lanes, and pedestrian crossings that are planned now. Still, the bypass is a highly controversial subject, and work started in December 2004 amidst much protest.

Protest in Te Aro

City planners and proponents of the bypass argue that it will ease traffic congestion, shorten commute times and reduce delays, and by extension also provide relief for bus routes. It is also supposed to increase traffic safety for motorists as well as cyclists and pedestrians, and improve the air quality of the area. All this won't come cheap: The cost of building the bypass is currently estimated at just under $40 million, and it will take two years to complete.

For that amount of money, opponents of the bypass point out, a lot could be done to provide more public transportation rather than building new roads, which typically just attract even more automobile traffic. The time savings for through-traffic will be minimal (estimated at about a minute and a half), the bottlenecks of the tunnels on each end will remain, the environmental impact could very well worsen pollution rather than improve air quality. Worst, it comes at the cost of loss of heritage buildings and a once thriving community.

And the latter is really the crux of the issue, which is about much more than traffic patterns and CO2 levels: It's about heritage and preservation, community, gentrification, and what makes a city liveable.

Te Aro is one of the oldest parts of Wellington, dating back to Maori settlements even before the Europeans arrived in the mid 1800's. The area is home to many historic buildings, and most of the streets and alleyways are still the same ones they were 150 years ago. Originally a working class neighbourhood, Te Aro has since become known as a funky area with a lively community of artists, students and alternative-minded people. Sadly, the area also is in bad disrepair. With the proposed bypass on the table for 40 years, many houses and their future have been in limbo for decades, deteriorating slowly. Now that the bypass is coming, many of them will be restored and if necessary, moved to new locations. If this will truly help preserve a slice of Wellington history or simply create a "heritage Disneyland", as many fear, remains to be seen. Personally, I think it's one of the few good things about the bypass that these buildings are being preserved—given the state they are in, they don't look as if they could last much longer without intervention.

One of the houses that have to make way for the new road

It's important to understand that the whole concept of heritage is quite new to New Zealand to begin with: As a relatively new country, it has just recently really started to realise how physical heritage and history contribute to and shape the awareness of being a nation. And of course, with the wish to recognise the past comes the dilemma of preservation vs. progress—a question that can only be answered on a case-by-case basis, and whose specific problems and complexities become very evident in the bypass discussion.

All things considered, I think that the bypass is a very costly undertaking that will solve few of the problems it set out to solve while introducing much antagonism in the community. The estimated time savings for commuters are so low, it's silly to even talk about them, and given that overall only a very small stretch between two tunnels is affected, the experience of driving around Wellington won't really change much, and I certainly don't expect it to improve.

On the other hand, the issue is not quite as simple as "people are being driven out of their neighbourhood by capitalists to make way for a road". Te Aro does need revitalising: The signs of decay and neglect are everywhere, and I feel a sense of desolation whenever I walk in the area. Sure, much of it is the fault of the authorities who left the neighbourhood in a state of uncertainty for so long, discouraging investment, but if that changes now as a side effect of the bypass, then that's not a bad thing per se. I understand that people don't want the city to tell them how their neighbourhood should be revitalised, and of course there is the danger of gentrification with any such project, but in my mind, Te Aro is a great neighbourhood and it's sad to see it in such a state of disrepair. Getting it out of limbo can be a first step.

In an ideal world, routing automobile traffic through the city efficiently would be part of a bigger transit plan that puts less emphasis on how to put more cars faster through a congested area, and more on public transportation and making the streets more pedestrian and cycle-friendly. Wellington is ok in that respect but far from great. In a city where a whopping 13.5% walk to work and large majorities embrace and use public transportation (see above), the conditions for an intelligent traffic plan are better than in most other places, and you can just hope that there'll be some money left for those things after all this.

April 2005

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +1200

Residency

Date of Expiry: Indefinite

The past month started with a bang: On April 1st (I will spare you the joke about how this isn't an April Fool's joke...), we officially became permanent residents of New Zealand. 3 1/2 months after entering the country, the Immigration Service (NZIS) returned our passports with big stickers proclaiming "Residence Permit. Date of Expiry: Indefinite." Hooray!

We also got a second sticker, which is our Returning Resident's Permit. This permit allows us to get a Returning Resident's Visa for trips overseas, and to re-enter New Zealand as residents upon return. Initially, the Returning Resident's Permit is limited to two years; after that you have to re-apply, and at that point, you'll get an unlimited version, "provided you have shown commitment to New Zealand". With this, new Zealand wants to ensure that people who go through the immigration process really want to live here and not just try to gain a "good" second passport, or use New Zealand as a springboard for Australia (as a Kiwi, it's easy to migrate to Australia), without the intention of ever living here or contributing to the country.

Ensuring committment to New Zealand was also one of the reasons for the changes to the Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Law which passed in mid-April. Under the new rules, children born in New Zealand to non-residents won't automatically get citizenship any more; passports now need to be renewed every 5 years instead of 10, and most relevant for us, the wait time required before a new resident can apply for citizenship was increased from 3 years to 5. We got lucky, however: Because the bill took so long to get passed, we are covered by the provisions for people who are already in the country, which means we will be eligible for citizenship in April of 2008.

New residence

Ours!

I'm going to try and not end every sentence with an exclamation mark—but it's not going to be easy. Getting residency was a huge step, but it wasn't really the big news of the month...because we bought a house! After much research, viewing open homes, investigating neighbourhoods, juggling numbers and creating spreadsheets, searching and dreaming and making a lot of big decisions, we took the plunge and put down an offer on a place that we loved from the moment we walked inside.

Funnily, with all the internet research we did to plan and co-ordinate as many viewings as possible, the house we eventually bought was the one we stumbled upon by chance. We were on our way to view another house when we walked by, saw the "Open Home" flag and thought, why not stop by and take a look while we're here. As Woody Allen says, "Eighty percent of success is showing up". That really proved to be true this time.

View from the future living room

Our new house is up on a hill on a lot with bush and trees. It'll be quite a change from living in urban centers for so long to moving to a private, quiet location—but it's a welcome one. Moreover, urban-ness is only a few steps away: A 10-minute walk (maybe a few more on the way back because it's uphill) will take us to the center of Cuba Street, the CBD, Courtenay Place and thus to bars, restaurants, shops, services, entertainment, as well as our workplaces. It has been a long time for both of us since we lived in a place with a garden, and we're already looking forward to summer and "barbie" on the patio.

For now, the fireplace in the living room will probably be more important. I will describe the house better after we've moved in; for now, I just want to say that it has almost everything we had been looking for, and we can't wait to move in. Our settlement date is the 16th of May, two weeks from now. I described the process of buying a house last month, so there's no need to repeat it. All in all, everything went smoothly, even though there are a lot of things to remember and take care of. Everyone has been very helpful and forthcoming— be it our bank account manager, the real estate agent, the solicitor, the building inspector etc. While buying a house is always a stressful, intense, and highly emotional process, thanks to the way things work here and the friendliness of the people, it has been a positive experience for us. Hey, we feel like grown-ups all of a sudden!

6 months

WOF label

Back to the more mundane: Mid-May will also mark the time at which we will have been here in New Zealand for 6 months. This means that we have had our car for 6 months as well, so its license (equivalent to registration in the US) was due for renewal. Unlike in the US, there is no such thing as a DMV (how is that for a reason to move?!). Instead, you can renew your car license at any LTSA (Land Transportation Safety Authority) agent, such as the AA (the Automobile Association), any post office, certain vehicle inspection and testing stations and a variety of other licensed outlets. You also can do it online. Once you pay the licensing fee, the license label with the new expiration date gets printed on the spot, and you simply take that label and display it in the windshield of your car.

In order to renew the license, you also need to have a current Warrant of Fitness (WOF). WOF is a periodic safety inspection for most privately-owned vehicles, to make sure they are fit to be on the road. And it's pretty strict, too: Cars older than 6 years must have WOF inspections every 6 months! (For newer cars, it's once a year). While this is a bit of a hassle, it does make me feel safer to both know that our (now 10 year-old) car is in good shape, and so are the ones that I encounter in traffic. And there are tons of places all over the city where you can drop of your car for the inspection and pick it up an hour later. If all passes, the cost is only $40, which is not too bad for peace of mind. And the guy who did our WOF even cleaned our tyres and adjust the pressure. Sweet as.

ANZAC Day

Finally, another rainbow picture

April 25 brought another public holiday: ANZAC Day. This holiday, which is celebrated in Australia, New Zealand, as well as several Pacific islands, commemorates the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC); it's comparable to Memorial Day in the United States. ANZAC Day has its origins in World War I, when in 1915 ANZAC troups landed at Gallipoli in Turkey to support the campaign of the Allied Forces to capture Constantinople. The battle went on for eight months and ended up in a stalemate, with large numbers of casualties on both sides.

ANZAC Day is celebrated with services and parades. This year, it got special attention since it marked the 90-year anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. The big story was that John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, didn't attend the New Zealand service, but went to a barbecue instead. The indignation felt by many Kiwis at being "snubbed" shows how important a symbol this holiday is to New Zealand's self-conception as a nation. And while more people these days think that ANZAC Day shouldn't focus on glorifying war heroism, service and duty, but rather be a reminder of the horrors of war and an occasion to commit to peace and ensuring that something like Gallipoli never happens again, it's a difficult subject and one that easily stirs emotions. With New Zealand troups currently supporting the US-lead effort in Afghanistan and until recently, Iraq, the issue is even more controversial.

Moreover, Australia and New Zealand, who not only share this holiday, but history and experiences due to their joint ANZAC past, seem to draw different conclusions and moving into different directions with regards to their role in the world. A recent editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald took a closer look at the speeches given by Australian and New Zealand leaders at Gallipoli this year, and came to the conclusion that

New Zealand dreams of itself as a pacifist country that rejects the US alliance, runs down its war-fighting capability and deploys forces only for peacekeeping and humanitarian purposes.

Australia sees itself as an active participant in global power politics, a staunch ally of the US, with a combat capability ready to defend the interests of the country and its ally.

Very different self conceptions indeed. It's good to be in New Zealand.

Winter preview

Feels like 3°C.

The last weekend of April gave us a cruel preview of the winter to come: Literally overnight, the temparature dropped from a pleasant 8-17° C (46-64° F) to 2-8° C (35-46° F). And not only that—this weather came with southerly winds, and "southerly" here means, straight from Antarctica. At 3am Sunday morning, a hail- and thunderstorm pounded the city, with lightning so intense it woke me up even though the curtains were pulled. All through the next couple of days, wind gusts reached 120 km/h (75 mph), and it rained and rained and rained. Elsewhere, snow lead to road closures and the storm disrooted trees and snapped chimneys.

Yeah, right...

All of this, of course, wouldn't be so bad if you could just make yourself cozy at home and watch the craziness from a warm room. Unfortunately, Kiwis don't believe in heating. We knew that, but we found out what it felt like that weekend. As I am writing this less than a week later, as it's a nice and sunny 18°C again, it's hard to imagine just how cold it got. Our apartment is quite exposed to the wind, and we have single pane, un-insulated windows on all but one side, so the temparature just dropped like a rock. Even the space heater, which we bought in a hurry, didn't do much to warm the air other than in its immediate vicinity. We wore hats and gloves around the house (even at night), made a lot of tea and soups, and thankfully it all only lasted for a few days. I'm very glad though that we won't have to spend winter in this place, when the weather can be like that for weeks. Our new house doesn't have central heating either, but it's a lot more protected from the wind, has smaller windows, some insulation, and a fireplace, so it should be a lot better.

I found a loophole.

And while Kiwis simply don't care much about warm homes, they do know how to dress for cold weather. Not surprisingly, you have a fantastic choice here of high-quality outdoors/active clothing, thermal layers, and functional, good-looking gear to keep you warm. My favourite feature is the "thumb loop"—a hidden hole in the sleeve through which you stick your thumb. This keeps the sleeve in place and even covers most of your hand—ideal for activities like typing and writing. I've always been a big fan of layering, but Kiwis have perfected the concept.

And that was April! In addition to all the excitement around the house and the residency, we also managed to visit the museum, throw a house-cooling party at our apartment, watch a bunch of movies, and be quite busy with projects at work. What a month.

May-June 2005

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +1200

We're still here, really

Wintergreen

Saturday, 2 July 2005: I'm sitting in our lounge at our new dining table, looking out at Wellington's bay. Today is a clear and sunny, but cold winter day, and I don't have an endless to-do list for a change. The ideal time therefore to make a pot of tea and finally update my now 2-month overdue New Zealand Journal.

The past several months have gone by at lightning speed, but it was more than that: They now almost seem like a blur, a vague memory only, as if at least a year had passed since my last entry. And now I even need to consult my calendar to remind myself of all that has happened.

...Another man's treasure

The location of many future BBQs

May began with preparations for the move. Even though we had arrived only six months prior with nothing but 16 bags, we already had managed to accumulate a whole lot of stuff. How does that always happen so quickly? And because our new house has a built-in study, we already had some items for sale: our two desks, which we had just bought in November.

The best way to sell used items in New Zealand (or to buy them, for that matter), is through TradeMe, an online auction site with a bit of Craigslist thrown in. Even though there also is an EBay New Zealand, nobody uses it. TradeMe is right here in Wellington, having started 6 years ago as a simple website for classifieds. Now it has over 1 million registered members (that is, every 4th New Zealander) and 1.9 million unique visits/month. Every 2 seconds, something is sold or won, and the now 29-old founder, Sam Morgan, is New Zealand's poster child for entrepreneurial spirit and success.

And rightly so: It simply works. One of TradeMe's advantages is that New Zealand is a small country, so the local aspect plays a bigger role. You can view listings by location and for example only look at items in Wellington—and then meet in person for exchanging goods and money. That's what we did, after all, who wants to deal with shipping fully assembled tables with glass tops? Within five days, we had a buyer who was overjoyed at the bargain she got, and we had a couple fewer things that needed to be moved.

New digs

At the office: Happy employee

Since I moved out of my parent's house in 1989, I have lived at 14 different addresses in three continents (numerous short-term stays with family, friends and hotels between apartments not included). Still—or maybe because of that—my desire to simply stay somewhere has grown stronger in the last few years. For this reason alone, buying a house was a huge step.

The move itself (here called "shifting house") went fine. We both took off the entire week from work—and here, this doesn't mean you already used up half your annual vacation time! We had hoped for good weather, but unfortunately it was cold and miserable almost the entire time. At least it didn't rain during the move itself, which was most important. On Monday, 16 May, all the paperwork was finalised, and then our real estate agent stopped by with the keys. The movers came the next morning, and while they weren't the most , uhm, gentle, they were fast and inexpensive, and in the end everything got to the new place fine aside from some dirt they managed to get on the sofa.

Our fern tree

And I have to admit that it's not exactly easy to get to our house: As I mentioned before, we are up on a hill, in one of Wellington's older residential neighbourhoods. Once you have climbed uphill (long and steep enough that I have since happily given up the stairmaster), you turn into a side street which ends in a cul-de-sac. From there, steps lead back downhill. After going down awhile, you turn into a footpath which leads to our gate. The path continues for another while, still downhill, towards the house. This may sound adventurous—and it is in a way, because as soon as you leave the street, it feels like a jungle, all green and overgrown and permanently rainforest-like wet. The view of the city from the hill is fantastic, and even now in winter, there's always something in bloom. And there are advantages to not living right on a street: It's so quiet and private. The car is parked at the and of the cul-de-sac, and although we don't have a designated parking spot, we haven't had any trouble so far finding one. And $90/year for residential parking isn't too bad either.

By now we've already lived in our new house for seven weeks, and we haven't regretted our decision for one second. Everything is so green—native New Zealand trees are evergreen, and even though there is a mix of foreign and native plants now, it's decidedly less bare than in the German winters I grew up with. In the morning we wake up to birdsong, and although the city is just a short walk away, it seems like we are in a different world. We have already met our neighbours, too—families with small kids, and like most Kiwis incredibly friendly.

Ice age

Looks nice, but doesn't really heat

As new home owners we obviously now have a new place of pilgrimage: the hardware store. There are a few small ones right here in the city, but if you really want a selection, you have to drive to the suburbs. A megastore in New Zealand isn't quite the monstrosity that we are used to from the US, but still quite large for Kiwi proportions. In addition to a number of smaller home improvement projects on the side, we have decided to tackle the (lack of) heat problem. I have already mentioned that most houses here are neither insulated, nor do they have central heating. In winter, it's often not much warmer inside the house than outside. Not exactly cosy.

Space heaters can only do so much, not to mention the obscene amount of electricity they require. And while our fireplace (or "open fire", as it's called here) looks nice, it doesn't really do much to heat the room (the energy efficiency of fireplaces is 15%, which means 85% of the energy is simply lost). Of course, you can have central heating built in, or heat pumps, which are types of climate control units which pump hot or cold air into the house, depending on the season. But those projects are very expensive.

Kronos will rescue us from the cold

Our solution will be woodburner—a kind of steel oven with a glass door, which burns wood or coal. Woodburners are relatively inexpensive and can heat the whole house if placed in the right spot. They also need less wood than an open fire, and don't require constant attention. The company who will be installing ours will take care of everything: the hearth, the flue (which will need to go through the roof), the installation of the woodburner itself, as well as all the paperwork. You can't just install a woodburner in your house, but you need a consent from the city. Emission standards are quite strict and will be even stricter starting September, and if you want to burn wood, you have to get permission first. That's a good thing, of course. Right now we are waiting for the city council to approve the consent, and in 1-2 weeks we should finally have a warm house.

Because now we are really in the middle of winter. 21 June was winter solstice—the shortest day of the year, which means that now the days are getting longer again, even though it's not very noticeable yet. Overall the weather is mixed—often quite nice during the day, but cold as soon as the sun goes down, and downright miserable when it rains and storms. Not that Kiwis are much bothered by that: You can still see people walking around in shorts and t-shirts, sometimes even barefoot—even when it's 40 degrees and drizzling. In fact, they just laugh when we mention this as something weird.

It is death, it is life

Support our boys at the (rugby) front!

For several weeks now, New Zealand has been in a state of emergency: Rugby season is upon us. This year—a once every 12 years occurrence—the British national team, the Lions, is touring New Zealand to play against the local All Blacks. Apparently there are currently 20,000 English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh rugby fans in New Zealand to support their team—including Prince William who alledgedly is breaking the heart of many a local lady.

This weekend, it's Wellington's turn, and wherever you go there are there red-clad masses of the "Barmy Army", as the Lions fans call themselves, who are not just supporting their rugby team, but with their strong British pounds also the local bars. Streets have been closed, police and ambulances have called in reinforcements from elsewhere, and there is nowhere to park because because most fans travel and sleep in camper vans. Tonight we are probably the only people in the country who are not watching the game.

Campaign time

Talking politics

At least for the coming days, rugby will overshadow the other big topic which moves the nation: elections. New Zealand will be voting for a new parliament soon, and even though the date hasn't been set yet, the campaign is already in full swing. Elections are held every three years, and there is only one chamber, the House of Representatives, whose 120 members are determined through a mixed member proportional system similar to the German one, where some MPs are elected directly and others indirectly through party lists. In addition, there are several seats that are reserved for Maori.

Right now, the government is formed by a left coalition of Labour and Progressive parties under Prime Minister Helen Clark. According to the latest polls, however, the conservative opposition, especially the National Party, has been gaining ground, and it looks like a race too close to call at the moment. Currently, eight parties are represented in parliament.

The issues are the same as everywhere else: The opposition promises tax cuts, and the populists (especially the somewhat creepy Winston Peters from "New Zealand First") base their campaign on fear of immigrants. Not immigrants like us, of course—educated, relatively well off, and most importantly, white—, but those with dark skin and broken English. Same as everywhere, sadly. And we can't even participate: Although unlike in the US, permanent residents in New Zealand do have the right to vote, but only after being in the country for at least 12 months, and since the elections will be held no later than September, it's a bit too early for us this time.

Miscellany

Housewarming Party

My new profile.
This film which finally made it to New Zealand—highly recommended.
Will we soon be shopping at German discounter Aldi?
On 28 June it was exactly a year that we made the decision to move to New Zealand. There's nothing to add to that.

July 2005

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +1200

Winterwonderland

View from above

Yeah, I know. It's been ages since I have updated this journal. In fact, it's been so ridiculously long since my last post (I'm back-dating this post to July for the archive, but as I'm writing, it's actually late October...) that I'm having some difficulties getting started again. Whatever happened in July?

Not too much, it turns out, at least according to my notes (yep, at least I *do* take notes). I remember that things were extremely busy at work during that time; tons of new projects and launches. I even went on a trip to Auckland for the very first time, although only for a day, during which I didn't see much except for the airport, the motorway and the office.

It was all good though—and the effort has paid off in various ways, not the least in the fact that our company has made it into the list of the 50 fastest growing companies in New Zealand for the second year in a row, as number 23 no less. Very cool, that.

Fire walk with me

In my last entry, I've been gabbing on and on about how cold the houses get here in winter due to lack of insulation and heating. Now that we've survived our first New Zealand winter, I can confirm that this isn't just some tale that new immigrants, especially those from Europe and the US, spread around The Internets to discourage the masses from descending on New Zealand's shores— it's true.

Hotornot? Definitely hot.

And we didn't even have a "real" winter this year: It turns out that New Zealand had its third-warmest July since the beginning of record-keeping in the 1860s. "Phew, what a scorcher", said the local newspaper, and indeed, the winter was a lot drier and less chilly than we had anticipated. Nevertheless, we were excited about the arrival of our woodburner, which was finally installed in late July. No matter how nice it may have been during the day—and we had quite a few sunny afternoons where you could sit outside comfortably—winter nights do get cold. Not only did the woodburner make the house warm and cosy, it also allowed us to use the entire house again instead of just one room (the one with the space heater) at a time.

What's in a flag?

New Zealand's flag

One issue that Kiwis have been debating this winter was the country's flag. The current flag is blue, with the Union Jack in the upper left and the stars of the Southern Cross in the right half. This design obviously expresses strong ties to Great Britain (some even see it as a colonial flag), rather than emphasising the values of an independent, modern, multi-cultural New Zealand. Not to mention that it can easily be confused with the Australian flag!

An increasing number of people believe that it's time for a new flag that better represents New Zealand's identity and culture. But while attempts to change the New Zealand flag go back as far as the late 1960s, none of the efforts have been successful or even much noticed so far.

Some of the proposed redesigns

A recent campaign is now supposed to change that: A trust has been established to create awareness and combat the apathy around this issue, promote the debate about the country's identity, and by extension, its flag. The campaign is endorsed by a growing number of prominent Kiwis, and its ultimate goal is to collect signatures to encourage the government to put out a referendum on the question "Should New Zealand change its flag?"

In the end, the referendum didn't become part of this year's general election, but I doubt that the debate is over yet. Suggestions for new designs are shown and debated on the campaign's website. A good contender for any new design is the silver fern, which is one of the most recognised symbols of New Zealand and which is incorporated in many of the new suggestions. Other frequently used elements are the Southern Cross, which would also provide some continuation from the current flag, and the Koru, the Maori name for the new, unfurling fern frond and a symbol for growth, new life, strength and hope.

August 2005

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +1200

Weekend getaway

Our holiday house in Martinborough

In early August, we had a great reason for a little break from work: our 5-year anniversary. To celebrate the 5 most wonderful and amazing years, we decided to take a trip to the Wairarapa, an area about an hour's drive east of Wellington and one of New Zealand's wine regions.

We thought that this is how the Napa Valley must have been in the 1960s: Rural, laid back, simple, and simply beautiful. Sure, there are some very nice restaurants now that cater to a crowd of Wellington foodies who drive up for the weekend, and there are events such as Toast Martinborough which attract visitors from near and far. But on this sunny winter weekend, we had the wineries and the town almost to ourselves, which gave us a chance to talk to the winemakers and take things slowly.

Vineyard Sheep

The wine region around Martinborough is especially known for its Pinot Noir. The soil and climate with its hot summers, long, dry autumns, and comparatively little rain, is ideal for early-ripening varietals. In addition to Pinot Noir, the region also produces excellent Sauvignon Blanc (or "savvie" in Kiwi slang) and others such as Pinot Gris, Cabernet ("cabsav") and Riesling.

We had a wonderful time in Martinborough. The weather was spring-like: sunny and blue skies every day. We had rented a self-contained house about 5 minutes from the Square. It was new and bit funky, and had a big yard where we could sit in the sun, and even a pool table. Very nice and highly recommended.

The Wairarapa

The nice thing about Martinborough is that, unlike in the Napa Valley, the vineyards are close to each other, and most of them can be reached on foot from the town. Wine tasting is a lot more enjoyable when you don't have to worry about driving and traffic! We visited quite a few wineries and even an olive grove, where we snapped up some fantastic oils (porcini-infused olive oil, anyone?) and were guided on a personal tour of the grove by the owner herself. A great trip.

Wellington is like San Francisco

...and Auckland is like LA, we read and were told numerous time before and after we moved to New Zealand. Auckland is indeed very different from the rest of the country in many regards. There is, of course, its size: 1.5 million out of our population of 4 million live in Auckland—more than every third New Zealander. While Wellington continues to feel amazingly like a much bigger city than it is with regards to creative talent, cultural scene, food and restaurants etc., Auckland really is a big city.

And with that come a lot of big-city problems: traffic congestion, high cost of living and especially housing, crime and gangs, and so forth. No wonder the rest of the country looks with some suspicion at the Jafas (Just Another Fucking Aucklander), who are seen as a yuppies sipping latte, while driving to a fancy gym in an SUV. Now Aucklanders have started to use the term Jafa themselves ironically, but it can still mean a real insult when used by non-Aucklanders.

Auckland, seen from Devonport

I had mentioned in my previous post that I took a brief one-day trip to our Auckland office in July. Now, in August, I had to go again, and this time we decided to make a weekend out of it. I flew up there first thing Friday morning for my meeting (the flight only lasts one hour), and Brian joined me after work that night. We spent the weekend exploring the city—walked around town and visited the excellent museum, took the ferry to Devonport, had a couple fantastic dinners, and saw the prime minister walk by in a Veteran's Day parade. We even got a chance to catch up with a friend of Brian's from California who happened to be on a business trip in Auckland that weekend.

And the verdict? A great place for a visit. But we are glad that we live in Wellington. Auckland is beautifully situated at an isthmus, and I certainly wouldn't mind its much milder climate. But the traffic would drive me nuts—this is not a city for pedestrians, and while we stayed centrally and therefore didn't need a car, having to commute to work or get around town for errands looked like it would be a nightmare. And there is a certain vibe in Wellington—more personal, direct, more, I don't know, quirky, but always interesting, which I started missing after a few days in Auckland. We made the right choice.

Kiwi come back

As I had mentioned in a previous post, New Zealand had a general election coming up in September, so winter was also the time of campaigning. One of the hot issues continues to be the shortage of skilled workers for a booming New Zealand economy. One of the efforts had of course been the introduction of the Skilled Migrant category for immigrants a few years ago, which has allowed us to come here and gain residency with relative ease. However, it's not only new immigrants who are targeted: There are also over 450,000 Kiwis currently living overseas.

Wellington Morning

With a total population of 4 million, that is a huge percentage. The most commonly named reason for this exodus is the high cost of tertiary education and the comparatively low wages, which drive many people to countries where they can earn more and thus pay off their student loans quicker. However, places where you earn more are typically also places with a higher cost of living, so money cannot be the only reason. Many people also quote the desire to live in a warmer climate—thus the large numbers of Kiwis living "across the ditch" in Australia.

But I think it also has a lot to do with simply wanting to see the world. New Zealand is a small country, and it's very remote. While these factors are attractive for people like us who have lived in various parts of the world and now desire a simpler, quieter life, I can understand how living so far away from it all can feel isolated, limiting, maybe even claustrophobic, especially for young people. It is typical for young New Zealanders to have their OE, which is short for "overseas experience"; an extended period of travel/working holiday, often in Europe or North America. It is not surprising that many of them start feeling home elsewhere end up staying.

The government has now launched a major initiative to bring some of these expats back home. The goal is to make it easier for Kiwis overseas to connect with their home country, especially employers and services such as real estate agents, and promote the lifestyle and opportunities in a country that has become a lot more modern in the past decade or so. It will be an interesting topic to follow.

End of winter

Woodn't it be good?

It's great living away from the street, far from cars and noise, just surrounded by bush and birdsong. On all days of the year except wood delivery day! After buying overpriced, low-quality wood at gas stations and supermarkets for a month or so, we finally decided to quit mucking around and have some real wood delivered.

A common measurement for wood is a "cord". A cord equals 3.62 cubic metres (oh, the things you learn...) and as such not a metric quantity, so it's not supposed to be used any more (however the term tends sticks around). Firewood can be measured and bought either stacked, i.e. based on volume without gaps between the pieces, or thrown, i.e. based on volumne with gaps, which of course is a less exact measure but simpler to deal with.

Good riddance

We had ordered 4m³ thrown, and throw they did quite literally. One Sunday afternoon, a guy with a truck came and dumped the whole load on the sidewalk, where it ended up in a pile almost as high as myself. Getting this down to the house and neatly stacked was no small feat and we were both in major muscle pain for about a week (note to self: next time, bribe others with beer to help out ...). But we did it, and now have an impressive stack of firewood by the house which will last us well beyond this winter.

Because spring is in the air! Seeing the signs for winter clearout show up at stores around town in late August was the first sign. Hearing birds in the morning all chirpy and cheerful was another one. Getting up in daylight a third. We have started noticing new flowers cropping up in our yard (sadly, weeds as well—c'est la vie) and new vegetables showing up in the grocery store shelves. A new season is just around the corner now.

September 2005

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +1200

Movin' on up

View from new office

September started with yet another move, this time for work. My company had outgrown its office space on Cuba Street in several ways: while the old place had been in a great location and quite funky, it didn't provide enough space, especially for meeting rooms, and it was on two levels, so that interaction between those on the first and those on the second floor wasn't always ideal. Plus, with a bunch of new people, it was getting rather cramped.

On the first weekend of September, we finally could move into our new and newly renovated digs on Wakefield Street, about five minutes away from the old office, right by the Civic Center and the waterfront. The new place is a lot bigger and brighter, with awesome views from the conference rooms (we're higher up than before). Having everybody on the same floor has been great for communication and collaboration—which has also been helped by the fantastic kitchen with a large bar in the centre that's ideal for hanging out and meeting in a more casual environment than a board room. And having neighbours such as TradeMe seems like a good omen for success as well.

Kissed by a rose on the grey

Red Rocks Coastal Walk

And by that, I mean we went to see the seals! One Sunday afternoon, we went on the Red Rocks Coastal Walk, a 4 km track that leads along the southern coastline of Wellington. Starting from an old quarry just west of Island Bay, the track takes you along the water, offering interesting geology and wildlife on the way. On a clear day you can see the South Island—we did, although it was a bit overcast, so it helped that we knew what we were looking for.

The walk is named after actual red rocks that you pass along the way— lava formations formed about 200 million years ago from underwater volcanic eruptions. The lava contained finely dispersed iron oxide, which is why these rocks are coloured in a deep red. Maori legend has is that the rocks were stained by blood from Maui's nose, which he had used as bait. Another version attributes the colour to blood dripping from Kupe's hand when he cut his hand on a paua shell; a third one tells how Kupe's daughters cut themselves in mourning, having given up their father for dead.

Bachelor Party

Beyond the red rocks the walk takes you to Sinclair Head, which from May to November is visited by a colony of fur seals. These animals bachelors who have left the females on the West Coast of the South Island. They stay at the so-called haul out area at Sinclair Head to gain strength for the coming breeding season. The seals blend in quite well with the rocks, both being of grey-brownish colour. At first we noticed only a few, but as we kept staring, they were everywhere, just like in those puzzles where you have to find things hidden in other shapes.

I want to watch TV in a different time zone

So we have finally caved in: After 4 years of abstinence, we went and bought a television. Back in the States, we got rid of it when we switched to a home theatre setup with a projector and 100" screen. That was great fun, but the hardware wouldn't have worked in New Zealand, so we sold it all before we left. Since we got here, we have watched movies with the laptop literally balanced on the lap, which got really old after a while. Or maybe it's us getting old and in need for a more comfortable viewing experience. Either way, projectors are quite expensive here so we agreed that we would give TV another shot.

Beach at Lyall Bay

The other problem with using the laptop was that the DVD player software has to be set to a particular region. We brought our DVD collection from the US (Region 1), but any DVDs we are renting or buying here are typically Region 4. Sure, there are ways to get around this, but why should I have to hack the firmware of my machine and risk damage just to watch movies I have legally purchased to begin with? I shouldn't, and I don't have to, because DVD players in New Zealand are multi-zone. Most of them are sold this way, and those that aren't come with instructions on how to change zones. The reason for this is that importing DVDs from other countries is more common for this small marketplace, and regions are seen as undue restrictions for the consumer.

Everybody says New Zealand television is crap. I can't really comment on this, since we haven't watched much aside from election night coverage. The main broadcaster is Television New Zealand (TVNZ), which is funded by advertising but also receives some public funding. TVNZ is a state-owned enterprise with the primary purpose of operating commercially and generating revenue for the Crown. But it is also bound by a charter, which requires TVNZ to provide a public service by holding up high standards of quality and editorial integrity, providing a wide range of informative, educational and entertaining programmes and thus contributing to a sense of citizenship and national identity. It's obvious that these rather lofty goals are at odds with the commercial aspect of generating revenue, and it's not hard to guess which part of the dual remit dominates.

Of course, digital satellite is also available: Sky TV. They have been around since the 90s and broadcast international channels such as CNN and BBC, as well as movie, sports, and other speciality programmes. We have a dish that the previous owner left on our house, but no plans to hook it up (maybe temporarily next year for the soccer world cup?) Instead, we've been catching up on movies and are currently about two thirds through a Twin Peaks marathon. Wicked.

Choices

On 17 September, New Zealand voted for a new parliament in its 48th general election. As I had mentioned before, we weren't allowed to vote yet since you have to have been in the country for at least a year. Nevertheless, we followed the election with great interest.

New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government, similar to Great Britain. The people elect a parliament, which then votes for a prime minister, who, along with the cabinet, forms the government. Official head of state is the Queen of England, who is represented by a Governor-General.

The previous government was formed by Labour and Progressives, with support from United Future, and now Prime Minister Helen Clark was fighting to win a third term. During the past months, however, the opposition, namely the conservative National Party under Don Brash, had seen increasing poll numbers, and a very close race had been predicted. The following parties were contenders in the 2005 Election (not including those that typically fall under "Others"):

Labour: centre-left, socially progressive
National: centre-right, socially conservative (e.g., pro tax cuts)
New Zealand First: centrist, nationalist/populist (e.g., supports reducing immigration, higher sentences for criminals)
Green Party: left, environmentalist, socially progressive
United Future: centrist/centre-right, promotes Christian family values
ACT: centre-right, advocates free-market economy, small government, low tax
Progressive: left, promotes job creation and regional development
Maori Party: promotes the interest of the Maori population

Turnout was high—almost 81%. And as expected, the result was so tight that it wasn't clear on election night who would lead the new government. Initial projections showed National as the winner, however, as the night progressed and more of the bigger cities were counted, Labour caught up, and at the end of the night Labour had 50 seats and National 49—both far from an absolute majority, which for 120 seats would be 61. Thousands of special votes (i.e., absentee ballots) remained to be counted, so that the official result wouldn't be known until early October. More on this subject next month!

Queen of the road

Official Road Code graphic:
Always with sheep

It's been almost a year that we have come to New Zealand. Not only does this mean frequent anniversaries (a year since we left San Francisco...since we got on the boat....since we left the US...etc.) but also that things which were good for a year when we first arrived here are now starting to expire. One of these things was my drivers license.

If you have a current license from a number of countries, including the US and EU, you can drive with your drivers licence in New Zealand for a year. After that, you have to get a New Zealand licence. Because of my California license, I didn't have to "sit" the practical test, just the written one. And while I had been driving without a problem for 10 months now, I thought it would be a good idea indeed to finally really understand the strange give way rules in this country.

New Licence

In Germany, if you come to an uncontrolled intersection (i.e., no signs of traffic lights), the rule is "priority to right". i.e., you must give way to the traffic on your right. At a similar intersection in California, the rule is "first come, first serve", i.e. you must give way to all traffic that had arrived at the intersection before you did. In New Zealand, the third country in which I now have acquired a drivers license, you drive on the left-hand side, but still give priority to the right. That's confusing rule number one.

However, it gets more complicated from here: Not only does is matter where other traffic is at the moment of determining who has the right of way. It also matters where that traffic is going—both you and others. The Road Code happily specifies:

If you are going straight ahead, give way to all vehicles coming straight through from your right. If you are turning, give way to all vehicles not turning. If you are turning left, give way to vehicles coming towards you that are turning right. If you are turning right, give way to vehicles on your right that are turning right.

Try to figure this out on the spot while approaching a busy intersection!

But, I did nail the test and now I'm the proud owner of a New Zealand license, which will also come in handy in liquor stores when spotty teenagers ask if I'm over 18 and don't take "kid, I could be your mom" for an answer. Choice.

October 2005

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +1300

Who won?

Press conference with the Prime Minister

As I mentioned in my last post, the results of this year's general election were so narrow that nobody wasn't quite sure who had won on the evening of the election. Not until two weeks later, on 1 October, when all the special votes had been counted, did we find out the final results. In the end, Labour had 50 seats, National 48, and the remaining 23 were split between no fewer than six other parties (see graphic below). Now what?

To better understand the difficulties that this result presented to anyone trying to form a government, I should probably take a step back and talk about New Zealand's electoral system. It's familiar to me, since it's basically a copy of the German Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system. The MMP system was recommended by a Royal Commission in 1986, which had deemed it the best system in the world, and implemented in the early 1990s, replacing a "winner-takes-all" system. Elections are typically held every three years, always on a Saturday. Voters cast two votes—one for a candidate, one for a party. The prime minister is then elected by a majority in parliament.

2005 Election Results

Voting districts are called electorates. Their boundaries are periodically reviewed and potentially altered, to ensure that all of them have approximately the same number of people in them. Seven of the electorates are reserved for Maori who choose to place themselves on a separate electoral roll (an option, not a requirement).

The MMP system means that some representatives are elected directly by their constituencies (the candidate with the most votes wins), whereas others are placed on party lists and gain their seats under proportional representation based on the party's percentage of the vote. In other words, with the first vote you vote for an individual, with the second one, for a party. This allows voters to vote strategically, for example, by splitting their two votes between parties. The number of seats that each party gets in parliament is determined by the percentage of the party vote that it receives.

Of course, it can get a bit more complex: It's possible that a party gains fewer seats through the proportional party vote than it wins in direct constituency seats. Because directly elected candidates are always guaranteed their seats, so-called overhang seats occur. For example, in this year's election, the Maori Party won 2.1% of the party vote, which entitled them to three seats. But they won four direct electorates, which means they gained one overhang seat. This increased the number of total seats in parliament from 120 to 121. It's easy to see that the MMP system benefits smaller parties, which in a winner-takes-all system like in the US never stand a real chance of parliamentary representation. However, to keep the number of parties represented in parliament manageable and avoid too many splinter groups, there is a threshold: A party must win either 5% of the vote or at least 1 constituency seat in order to be eligible for list seats. No fewer than four small parties benefited from winning at least one direct seat this year.

So, who did win? When considering numbers only, multiple combinations were possible. In reality, however, most of these scenarios were highly unlikely. It was quite clear that Labour had the support of the Progressives (albeit, only a single seat) and the Greens, and that ACT would support National. That left the Maori Party, United Future and New Zealand First, and while at least the latter two had said that they would talk to the party with the most votes first, they seemed to be flirting in both directions for a while. Further complicating the matter was the refusal of United and NZ First to join a government that included the Greens in a coalition. And National, despite failing to win the highest number of seats, kept pretending that they still could end up with a majority somehow.

What finally emerged in late October was essentially a minority government of Labour and Progressives, supported by NZ First and United (providing so-called supply and confidence votes and gaining ministererial posts, but not entering a formal coalition). How stable this setup will be remains to be seen. Already, Winston Peters, head of NZ First and designated Foreign Minister, has irritated just about everybody by demanding to sit on the opposition side of the debating chamber rather than with the government of which is a significant part. Not to mention that both Kiwis and the rest of the world aren't exactly chuffed at the idea of having Mr. Peters, who has repeatedly spoken out against immigration and Muslims, in the role of Foreign Minister. I'm curious to see how this all plays out.

True Pioneers

Part of the Eight Hour Day Committee with Parnell in the centre

On 24 October we had the first public holiday since the Queen's Birthday in early June: Labour Day. As the name suggests, this day commemorates the establishment of the eight-hour workday in New Zealand, at a time when 12 to 14-hour days still were common in Europe and elsewhere. The initiative for this came from a Wellington carpenter named Samuel Duncan Parnell, who came to New Zealand from London in 1839. Asked by a fellow passenger upon their arrival to set up a store for him, Parnell agreed, but only on the condition that working time should not exceed eight hours a day. This request was seen as preposterous, but Parnell didn't give in, and because there were so few skilled tradesmen available in the newly-founded Wellington colony, he got the job anyway. "And so, the first strike for eight hours a-day the world has ever seen, was settled on the spot" Parnell wrote later.

Not satisfied with having his own hours settled, Parnell started organising other workmen, and the 8-hour day was established in Wellington by 1840, long before unions became influential. By 1890, it had become a standard for labourers and tradesmen, others followed later, and the first Labour Day was celebrated on 18 October of that year. It officially became a public holiday in 1900. And while Labour Day in the US marks the end of summer, here it is a sure sign that summer is just around the corner.

Sentimental Journey

It's been nearly a year since we came to New Zealand. The anniversary of our departure from the US has already passed. Other "lasts" and "firsts" are come to mind almost daily now. How does it feel?

Ompah

Well, as if we've been here forever, in some ways. The things we've done, places we've seen, risks we've taken and major life changes we've made seem mind-boggling at times, especially considering that all this has happened in just 12 months. It's a bit of a blur when I think about it that way, but on a day-to-day basis it doesn't feel like that at all. It's just life. And good.

Surprisingly, I don't miss California. I thought I would, but while I have many fond memories of my time there, I really don't feel any kind of homesickness for it. Certain aspects maybe, but those have more to do with sometimes wishing we were a bit less far away from everything. On the other hand, remoteness was one of the attractions of New Zealand, and the urge for the big world is nothing that can't be treated with the occasional trip overseas. Funnily enough, the only time that I do get a wee bit sentimental is at really cheesy moments. Like earlier today when I walked down the street and passed a store where the stereo was blasting "California Dreaming". Or the other day when my Air New Zealand Specials newsletter advertised trips to San Francisco, and the picture of a cable car of all things put a temporary lump in my throat.

But that doesn't happen very often. (I do miss Germany, just like before, but in a different way. And that's a whole separate story.) And it is quickly overcome by remembering where we are now: A country with less corruption than pretty much anywhere else, and where freedom of expression is one of the highest in the world. A country that has welcomed us and where we've found amazing opportunities. Sounds perfect? It's not. But close enough as far as I'm concerned.

November 2005

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +1300

Life-long dream come true

This doesn't suck

Things had been crazy at work for both of us for quite some time, and when we both were about to finish big projects at the end of October, we knew we had to get a break. Time for a holiday! (Don't call it vacation here unless you want to be immediately identified as an American.)

First we thought we'd go tramping somewhere, maybe on the South Island? But the weather can still be dodgy at this time of the year, plus, we wanted to relax, so we opted for something completely different: The South Pacific, specifically, the Cook Islands, even more specifically, the small island of Aitutaki.

Ever since I saw Pippi in the South Seas in ca. 1978, it had been a dream of mine to visit a tropical island. Just a year ago, we had travelled through Polynesia on board the container ship, catching glimpses of blue lagoons, white beaches and green hills, and saying to each other that one day we'd have to come visit. No better time to make good on that promise than on the anniversary of the biggest trip of our lives.

Kia Orana

Island colours

The Cook Islands consist of 15 islands, with a combined land area of only 240 km² (93 m²), or about one third the size of New York City. These islands are scattered over two million km² (772,000 m²) of ocean, extending from 9° south of the equator to just north of the Tropic of Capricorn. If you can even speak of "neighbours" in such a scenario, then those would be Tahiti and Samoa. The largest island is Rarotonga where half of the 18,000 Cook Islanders live. Approximately 2000 people live on Aitutaki.

Politically, the Cook Islands have been an independent parliamentary democracy since the mid-1960s (after almost a century as a British protectorate), however, there is a free and close association of the country with New Zealand. In fact, the Cook Islands had been annexed by New Zealand in 1900 and were de facto its colony for the next 65 years. This connection is still evident today in the fact that New Zealand retains responsibilities for external affairs, especially defence, and that the currency of the Cook Islands is the New Zealand dollar. Also, New Zealand provides a considerable amount of foreign aid to the Cook Islands, whose economy is based on agriculture and tourism. Today, almost three times as many Cook Islanders (over 50,000) live in New Zealand as on the Cook Islands themselves.

Are Tamanu

But back to our holiday: We decided to stay on Aitutaki rather than on the main island, Rarotonga, because we had read that most people typically visit Aitutaki for a day and then wish they had spent more time. We were going to skip that and go straight to the best part.

Aitutaki is an atoll, with a reef roughly in the shape of an equilateral triangle, with a beautiful blue lagoon lined with little uninhabited volcanic and coral islands (motus). If you close your eyes and try to conjure all the images you ever had about what the South Pacific is like—the beaches, palm trees, sand and turquoise water, the magical quality of the light—you are envisioning Aitutaki.

Aside from the breathtaking natural beauty, the first thing we noticed on the Cook Islands was the friendliness of the people. We stepped off the plane into the sunshine, and the stress and tension from the past months simply seemed to evaporate: We were on island time now. At the airport, there's a guy singing sentimental welcome songs (and even more sentimental good-bye songs when a plane is boarding), they put a fresh flower ei (similar to a Hawaiian lei) around your neck, and everything is just chill and laid back.

Lagoon cruise

What you don't see in the travel brochures is that the Cook Islands are also a quite poor country. Outside the resorts, you see a lot of unfinished or run-down houses and shacks; you'll see heaps of rubbish burning by the roadside, and there are the ubiquitous animal—pigs, chicken, goats roaming freely everywhere. In terms of infrastructure, there is the air strip which was built by the Americans in World War II, and a main road, partially paved, partially dirt track that goes around the island, and that's pretty much it. One thing we noticed was that even the poorest dwellings had family graves in their front yards, and not just simple ones, but often elaborate tombs with marble, lovingly decorated with flowers and candles. It's very obvious that family plays the central role in the life of Cook Islanders.

Beats doing stuff

Honeymoon Island

We stayed at a small resort on the western side of the Island called Are Tamanu. We ended up there a bit by chance, because the place we had originally chosen was already booked, but once we had seen both accommodations, we were glad it worked out that way. Are Tamanu only has 12 bungalows, so it's small and quiet, but because it is also associated with another hotel a few hundred meters down the road, it has some good facilities, such as a restaurant and free mountain bikes. And of course there was the pool, and the bar, and a wonderful beach with mature palm trees, hammocks, and great water for snorkelling just steps away.

Our goal for the week had been to not do much of anything, but simply relax and enjoy being on a tropical island, and we managed that quite well. We did take a bike ride around the island once (most people use scooters, but we wanted to take our time) and had a great time except for the stretch where the mosquitos almost sucked us dry (next time, bring the spray kind of insect repellant!). We celebrated Brian's birthday. And one day we went out on a lagoon cruise on a small boat. That was simply a fantastic experience—we were dropped off at various spots that are particularly good for snorkelling; we got to feed tropical fish, saw giant clams and deep-blue starfish, and had a great tropical BBQ lunch on one of the motus, One Foot Island. Damn. I wish I was back there right now.

Saving the best for last

Bliss :-)

As if all of this wasn't already perfect and wonderful, the best thing of our trip happened on our last day on Aitutaki: We got engaged! This came as a very very happy surprise. We have already set a date—we will get married in February of next year. Wow. I couldn't be happier. Not sure what else to say here; I've started this paragraph several times over and everything seems inadequate for describing how exciting this is and how fortunate and happy I feel.

Back home,

One of many construction zones on Cuba Street

normal life took a hold of us quickly, and the usual busy-ness made our tropical holiday soon seem like a distant memory. Supposedly we're headed for summer, and while the gorgeous selection of fruit and veggies at the Sunday morning farmers market is proof of that fact, the weather isn't all that great yet—we still had to get the fire going several times this month to fight off the antarctic southerlies. So much for November in the southern hemisphere = May in the northern hemisphere.

Later in the month, we had the chance to attend two great events within a single week. This was the first time that we bought tickets to something other than a movie, and the reason for not doing this sooner was, as so often here, the price. Concert tickets that would cost around $30 in San Francisco, i.e. those for anything but the major shows, start at around $85 in New Zealand, and it goes way up from there. In addition, it's hard to get tickets since there's a lot of demand, as the venues are typically rather small compared to international standards, and big shows are generally rare compared to the US, since international artists often skip New Zealand altogether when touring. Attending an event therefore is a rather special occasion.

Public Art on Courtenay

The first show we saw was "John Cleese: His Life, Times, and Current Medical Problems", which was billed as a "one-man show with several people in it". I have to say that even though I really wanted to go, I was a bit apprehensive at the same time because John Cleese is one of my heroes (and my second favourite Python right after Eric Idle), and I was wondering if he still had it in him? Well, some of the jokes did seem a bit laboured indeed, and it was a bit slow to start. But then there was the Kiwi-version of the Dead Parrot Sketch ("This sheep is no more. It has ceased to bleat. It's gone to meet its mint sauce.") and the hilarious stories about Graham Chapman, and of course the man himself who was just a pleasure to see in person.

A few days later we went for something completely different: We saw the Foo Fighters. If I didn't think regrets are stupid I would regret never having seen Nirvana live, but at least now I have seen the Foos, and what a great show it was: the lasers, the new songs, and not the least, a band and audience who obviously had a great time.

December 2005

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +1300

'Tis December. Arrr.

Xmas Pirate

Like everywhere else—at least in the westernised world—December is the time of mad preparations for the upcoming holidays. Here in New Zealand, it's also the time for getting reading for the big summer break, bringing back the BBQ, and of course Christmas parties.

Thankfully, not everyone celebrates quite as rowdy-like as the folks from Santarchy, a group of mostly drunk guys dressed as Santa Claus, who went on a rampage through Auckland, robbing stores, overthrowing garbage containers, and generally causing mayhem. Why? Apparently to protest the commercialisation of Christmas.

Our work Christmas party didn't involve chaos and looting, but it was still rather different from the solemn, reflective gatherings with candles and Christmas cookies that I typically associate with this kind of event. Instead, it was more like a kids' birthday party, but with booze. Like any good Kiwi party, we even had a theme: Pirates.

So there we were; about 40 adults in pirate costumes, complete with swords, eye patches and fake bruises, ready for a break from what had been a very busy year. We started with a champagne breakfast at the office, then were carted to a local movie theatre where we watched The Princess Bride. After that, we had rented a place at the beach, where we continued with games, Secret Santa, and barbecue on what turned out to be a perfect summer day. Great fun.

The eighth wonder of the world

Street Closed for King Kong

Also in mid-December, Wellington saw another premiere of a movie made by the city's most famous son: Peter Jackson's King Kong. The real (world) premiere had taken place a few days earlier in New York, but this was the event that really mattered—after all, the movie was almost entirely shot and produced in and around Wellington and therefore a matter of local pride.

Streets were closed for screening, before which most of the stars and of course the director walked down a red carpet in front of 20,000 spectators. The Embassy Theatre (of Lord of the Rings fame) was dressed up to look like The Alhambra in NY, where King Kong is displayed in the movie, and replicas of biplanes and 1930 police cars set the scene.

Embassy Theatre with Red Carpet

We missed the red carpet screening but went to see King Kong a couple weeks later—and liked it: great visuals and effect, and excellent acting. I especially liked how Naomi Watts portrayed the heroine as a brave and kind woman and not the clichéd blonde "victim of the beast".

At over 3 hours the film was longer than what I usually can sit still for, but we decided to splurge and see it at the "Cinelounge" instead of the regular theatre. The Cinelounge is a fancy balcony section where you not only get free popcorn and soda, but most importantly get to, well, lounge on La-Z-Boys rather than the regular seats, which is incredibly comfortable. Apetastic.

Oh Tannenbaum

Our Pohutukawa, also known as New Zealand Christmas Tree

When opening the Christmas package sent by the family, you don't really expect to first find a letter with the headline "NOTICE OF DETAINMENT". Confused, I looked at the package and noticed that it had been opened and re-sealed, and my eyes fell on the words "prohibited items". What had they sent?

Upon further inspection, it turned out that the offending item was "1 fresh sprig of conifer". What had been innocently added to the package as a festive decoration was in fact an intruder according to the Biosecurity Act of 1993. We guess its presence must have been detected by X-ray or dogs, which led to its being quarantined by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF).

Wellington Waterfront

We have come across MAF's strict guidelines before, in fact, this is why we spent half a day scrubbing our camping gear back in California, so that we'd be allowed to import it. It's quite understandable that a small island nation like New Zealand must control what comes into the country, and the role of biosecurity touches on a variety of issues— first and foremost economic and environmental, but also social and cultural. Currently, less than 10% of the world's pests and diseases occur in New Zealand, and the goal is to keep it that way. The introduction of new organisms could have potentially devastating consequences for the country's environment, which is why the penalties for importing restricted or prohibited goods are high.

And my fresh sprig of conifer? They gave me a choice:
1. Return to sender at a cost of $66.25, OR
2. Destruction (that one's for free).
If I don't respond in writing within 28 days, "the goods may be destroyed against your wishes". Bye bye little sprig. It's the thought that counts, after all.

Tool time

Like most offices around the country, my company is closed between Christmas and New Year's. When public holidays fall on a weekend, as they did this year, they are observed on the following Monday. Both Boxing Day (26 December) and the Day after New Year's day are also public holidays here, and their observance subsequently got moved out as well. In the end, it worked out such that I had 11 days off work with only 3 days of leave (and those I got as time in lieu to make up for the crazy overtime in the preceding months). Nice.

No more ugly greenish!

Brian and I decided to use the time off to finally get some work around the house done. We pulled up the disgusting old carpet in our bedrooms and exposed the wooden floor underneath. Even though at some point it will need proper sanding and treatment, after a good cleaning it already looks heaps better than the ugly greenish cheapo stuff that was there before. I also got crafty and decided to make new curtains. In the bedroom, the old (also ugly, also greenish) ones were replaced with floor-length burgundy coloured drapes, and in the kitchen, our windows are now covered with happy summer yellow instead of scary 1970s camouflage design.

And what do you do with 100 kg of old carpet? General household rubbish and recycling is collected from the curb once a week. Recycling is free; rubbish has to be placed in special Council bags. You have to purchase those bags, so the less rubbish you produce, the lower your cost will be. For major refuse, you don't really have a choice but to drive it to the dump yourself.

Wellington has two landfills, one of them is a relatively short drive away. You load up your car and drive up to the entrance, where it is weighed and a ticket is issued. You then proceed to a drop-off area, where you can dump your waste (from there, it's sorted as needed and then taken to the landfill itself.) Once you are done, you drive back to the exit, where your car is weighed again to calculate the weight of the rubbish that was disposed and charge you accordingly. It's a pretty smooth system and we found it really easy to deal with. You can also drop off green waste, special waste, such as old appliances or toxic substances, and they even have a shop where you can buy donated items which people wanted to get rid of, but are still usable. This is how it should be.

Another year over

View from East Harbour Regional Park

A few days ago we took a little trip so that our holiday wouldn't be entirely spent Swabian-style, meaning, being busy around the house. We took the East by West Ferry from the Wellington harbour over to Days Bay/Eastbourne, which is on the eastern side of the bay. From there we started on a "bush walk" into the hills.

Anything less than a strenuous overnight tramp seems to be called a "walk" here—and when the description says "steep" or "difficult", boy, do they mean it. We therefore opted for the moderate version, a track that first took us on switchbacks up a ridge, then down into a valley (Butterfly Creek Valley) through a lovely forest of beeches and fern trees. Even though it was close to the city, it felt very remote, and we saw only very few other people.

Organic Pun

And that's that for 2005. As I'm writing this, California New Year's Eve parties are about to get started, while here New Year's Day is already mostly over. To all of you who read this, I wish you all the best for 2006. Be happy, healthy, and have fun. And remember what the Beatles said:

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.
There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time
It’s easy.

Happy 2006!

January 2006

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +1300

Summer break

January felt like a very long month. Maybe that's because it took so long for things to get back into gear after the holiday. I have mentioned before that everything shuts down here between Christmas and New Year's, but that's not all. Schools are closed till after Waitangi Day (early February), so many people take time off to be with their families. Shops and business often completely closed for several weeks.

Full moon over the bay

Last year, we hadn't started working yet, so we didn't really notice how much is simply on hold until mid-January. This year, having been on holiday just a few months earlier, I didn't take any extra time off. This way I got to enjoy a couple slower-than-normal work weeks, which was a nice change from the stressful months leading up to Christmas. It allowed me to catch up on things and prepare for the coming crunch time (which has started since), and to get home early enough to spend time on wedding preparations.

They do it over there but we don’t do it here

Now that we have been here for a while it is time to talk about the darker side of New Zealand: fashion. Now, I'm not someone who buys a lot of clothes, and my interest in the topic is, uhm underdeveloped. Combine this with the attempt to live a bit more frugally than normal while building up a new life, and you have a good idea why I've been able to mostly ignore the issue. Until now, that is. Then, I started looking for a dress to wear at the wedding, and suddenly I was confronted with the full horror that is women's clothing in this country.

Kiwi teens in their typical outfit

Maybe that's a bit harsh. It is, after all, a small country, and much has to be imported. There are only 4 million people, so naturally the selection will be a lot smaller than in California or Germany. But that's not even the problem. After all, I've been talking a lot about how having fewer choices can be liberating and help focus, especially after the unbridled consumerism of California.

No, the problem lies elsewhere. In a nutshell, looking at most women's clothes here, you feel transported back to the 1980s, with hints of a Renaissance fair thrown in for good measure. I'm not really sure if this is supposed to be "retro", in the same way that the 1970s made a comeback two decades later, or if it's just the style here. Kiwis love everything lacey, sheer, frilly and flowing; styles which seem to be synonymous with feminine. Popular fabrics are chiffon lace, crepe, and —gasp!—polyester, while teal, lemon yellow, fuchsia and purple dominate the colour schemes. Pleated skirts, flounces, ruffles, and blouse sleeves with gathered shoulders and ruching compete with those skinny pants with tapered legs that I had foolishly presumed to be as passé as Michael Jackson and Maggie Thatcher.

Think different

Her name is Rio

This prevalence of rather hideous apparel is surprising, especially when considering that New Zealand's fashion industry has a great reputation for innovation and originality, and has experienced strong growth over the recent years. There are numerous local designers and labels, a growing number even internationally acclaimed, as well as major events such as New Zealand Fashion Week. There are even cool cross-overs between fashion and art, such as the World of Wearable Arts show which takes place annually right here in Wellington. What's noticeable too is the high number of small, independent shops and boutiques, which are distinct and specialised, carrying only one or a few labels.

So the answer to my quest was, as so often, stay away from the mainstream. After several fruitless attempts up and down the main shopping drag, Lambton Quay, I realised that I needed to look elsewhere to find something that would not only fit, but make me look like the bride rather than the wedding cake. I ended up finding a gorgeous dress in a small shop on Cuba Street. As with many things here that seem impossible to get at first, you eventually realise that they do exist, however, you have to try harder to find them. And while I may not have made peace with Kiwi fashion, I feel we've achieved a truce.

Here comes the sun

Summer this year, again, turns out to be a mixed bag. While it's definitely better than last year's late and miserable one, it rarely stays really warm for more than a few days in a row. Instead, our summer days typically get interrupted about once a week with rain and gusty winds, where the temperature immediately drops to no more than the high 50s. But as they say here, if you don't like the weather, just wait an hour. And that's true, the conditions can change rapidly and drastically, especially here in Wellington.

Cook Strait and Island Bay, seen from Tawatawa ridge

And when the sun does come out, it's brighter and fiercer than most elsewhere. New Zealand is sunnier than central and northern Europe, though less sunny than the Mediterranean or many parts of the US. Wellington receives an average of 2,050 hours of sunshine a year—and that sun can be dangerous. Thanks to the hole in the ozone layer, as well as the fact that the earth's orbit in southern summers is closer to the sun than in the northern hemisphere, the sun here is much stronger than in the US or Europe. What makes it even worse is the fact that there is little pollution in our clean air to block the UV rays. New Zealand UV levels in summer typically exceed ten on the UV Index, which means extreme risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure.

UV Index Forecast

People generally seem to be aware of these dangers, as you rarely see badly burnt people. The UV level forecast is usually announced along with the weather forecast, and kids are now taught early on to "slip, slop, slap and wrap" (i.e., slip on a shirt, slop on sun cream, slap on a hat, and wrap around sunglasses). Despite these efforts, New Zealand still has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world, and just this month, a study found out that New Zealanders are being exposed to 40% more cancer-causing sun rays than North Americans living at similar latitudes. Hey, now I feel better having spent the afternoon at the computer writing this, instead of being outside.

February 2006

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +1300

Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone

After Waitangi Day (6 February), school started up again, and this event seems to have triggered a flood of education-related topics in the news.

Ferris Wheel on the Wellington Waterfront

It started with the headline Waggers beware as parents spy online. A large college (which here means secondary school, i.e. for 13-17 year olds, and is basically synonymous with "high school") in Auckland is launching a new section on their website called "The Family Connection", which will allow parents to log on and review school-related information about their children, such as performance, attendance, and behaviour. This information, which normally would be shared with parents only during twice-yearly reporting, will now be available and current at any time. As expected, the usual cries of "Big Brother" followed shortly, however, it's hard to see why parents, who typically pay considerable fees even for "free" schools shouldn't be able to see how their kids are doing.

Wellington High School, on the other hand, is trying the carrot rather than the stick approach when it comes to motivating kids to show up for class: It pays them $50 at the end of a school year if they didn't miss any classes. If $1/week is really that compelling for today's kids is questionable, but since only 13 out of about 1000 made the cut anyway, again, the outrage from parents, this time about the "bribe", seems a bit overexcited.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Social Development faces allegations about his time as a teacher a couple of decades ago—he is accused of having used cruel punishments on his pupils. The Minister's reaction at first: The police has investigated and decided to take no action. Now, as the accusations are turning uglier, he is avoiding explicit denials—but it sure looks as if the whole affair is going to blow up real soon. Ugh.

Typical New Zealand School Uniforms

And this latest story, however true it may be, relates to a rather dark subject, and a surprising one for new immigrants like us, who usually experience mostly the positive sides of our chosen country.

I have mentioned before that New Zealand is in many ways incredibly child-friendly. Every store, bank or public building has a play area for kids so they are entertained while their parents are taking care of things. Parks and playgrounds are aplenty, and you see families with children well integrated in everyday life.

On the other hand, New Zealand constantly fares extremly poorly when it comes to reports on child abuse. In a recent report from UNICEF, New Zealand was third out of 27 OECD countries with regards to child homicide, only surpassed by Mexico and the US. Domestic violence is a big problem. In the last 3 years, notifications of child abuse have increased by 90% (and yes, I realise that a rise in awareness doesn't necessarily equal a rise in abuse itself).

A passionately discussed issue is the call for the so called "smacking ban". According to Section 59 of the 1961 Crimes Act, it is legal in New Zealand for parents to use "reasonable force" to discipline their children. There is an effort to repeal this section, but it is unclear if it will succeed or if it will only end with some sort of definition of what reasonable force means.

Meanwhile, in a survey conducted in the context of a conference on child abuse here in Wellington, 82% of parents said it was ok to smack children, and 60% did not support repealing section 59. Other surveys show similar results. A similar poll in the UK a couple of years ago, found 71% percent in support of a smacking ban. Here though, the as progressive as New Zealand may be in other areas, the idea that children have equal protection as adults, as it has become law in many European countries, including Germany, is certainly still a foreign concept within society. There is no support for a change. One argument is that children are not independent, which is why they cannot drive, drink, vote, etc., and therefore they also cannot have the same status as adults when it comes to the use of force. Another one claims that to repeal section 59 means to undermine parental authority, in other words, banning smacking is anti-family. I guess I'll remain a foreigner on that topic.

A penny not saved

Soon to be outdated

Later this year, we'll get new coins: At the end of July, the Reserve Bank will introduce new 50 cent, 20 cent and 10 cent coins. At the same time it will also phase out the 5 cent coin, which will not be replaced and cease to be legal tender starting November. The new coins will be smaller and lighter—thank you!— and mark the biggest change to New Zealand currency since decimalisation in 1967.

I think this is great, since the current coins are rather big and unwieldy, and I especially like that we won't have to deal with the useless 5c coins any more. 1c and 2c coins were already taken out of circulation back in 1990. If someone pays cash for an item that's say $9.99, the price will get rounded up to $10. If the total comes to something like $9.72, it would be rounded down to $9.70.

Typically, that is. Apparently we are using something called the "Swedish rounding system", even though when you google the term, the results all seem to come from New Zealand rather than from Sweden. Apparently it means that prices ending in 1 and 2 are rounded to 0, 3-7 are rounded to 5, and 8 and 9 are rounded to 10. However, retailers don't have to use this system and can pretty much round however they want as long as their system is consistent. How the rounding will play out once the 5 cent coin is gone I'm not sure, but it really shouldn't matter too much anyway since most transactions don't involve cash, but rather EFTPOS, i.e., a debit card for your checking account. Easy-peasy.

Let me count the ways

2006 census forms

One Sunday evening there was a knock at the door. Our visitor turned out to be a collector for the New Zealand 2006 Census. As new Kiwis, we are required to participate—in fact, on census day, March 7, every person in New Zealand, including visitors, will need to complete a form. For the first time, it was also possible to fill out the forms online; I'm curious to see how well that option will be adopted.

Individual questions were about one's personal situation (ethnicity, education, jobs & income, living situation, etc.); there was also a second "Dwelling Form" for each household which asked how many people lived in the house, ownership etc. Interestingly they didn't ask about the size of the house, or its construction. However they did asked about the forms of heat that are used—and the first choice much to our amusement was "don't ever use any form of heating in this dwelling". I wonder if there will be a correlation between native Kiwis and high response to this choice...

But in the grand scheme of things,

The big day

None of the above things are really important or newsworthy compared to what happened on the last day of the month: Brian and I got married. We had a lovely, private ceremony in a vineyard in Martinborough. We had written our own vows, in fact, the entire ceremony, and there were as few people as you can possibly have for a wedding - beside us, just the celebrant, a photographer, who doubled as a witness, and a second witness. While we were in wine country, we had some great dinners, did a few wine tastings, and enjoyed late summer in the countryside. It was a wonderful day, and that's really all that needs to be said about it. Just perfect.

March-April 2006

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +1200

Time after time

Wedding Cake (at our reception)

After a rather mediocre summer—weather-wise, that is—we're now well into autumn. The non-native trees are turning; my sandals have made way for boots, and we've turned back the clock at the end of our 24-week daylight saving time—a period which is 5 weeks less than for example that of the EU. This prompted the City Council of Nelson, a town on the South Island, to call for a petition to extend daylight saving time by three weeks to counter "the general feeling of doom and gloom when it ends". The councillor who is proposing this change believes that the nation would be happier with a longer summer. Yes—count me in, and make it six weeks longer while you're at it!

Not just apples and oranges

Feijoa (picture from Wikipedia)

Autumn is also the season for one of New Zealand's favourite fruits, and no, I'm not talking about kiwifruit. (Don't call it "kiwi"—that's a bird. Or a person.) I'm referring to the feijoa, in other countries also known as pineapple guava. The Feijoa tree is a subtropical plant, and a staple of every Kiwi backyard. However, the feijoa is not native to New Zealand, but originally from South America, and it was brought to the country via Australia only about a 100 years ago.

The fruit is about the size of a plum, and it's hard to describe what it tastes like: sweet-tart, perfumed, not unlike a mixture of strawberry and pineapple, but with a texture more like that of a pear. Weird, but good. Feijoas ripen in autumn, their season is from March to May. As I mentioned above, the plants are ubiquitous and by many considered the New Zealand fruit. Even we have them in our yard—I think they may be falling from a neighbour's tree but hey, what can you do? Despite the fact that feijoas can be had for free almost everywhere, they seem to have become somewhat trendy recently, and you can see them now in city supermarkets for $7.50 a bag.

Feijoas from our own back yard

New Zealand is also the biggest exporter of feijoas world wide, with the US being its most important market. Exporting them isn't a trivial task, since feijoas have a very short shelf life. So what do you do with these little "green grenades"? Right now, while they are in season, the best is to simply cut them in half and scoop them out with a spoon, mix them into smoothies, or eat the pulpy flesh with yogurt. But because they don't last long, feijoas are typically preserved, for examples, as feijoa jelly or chutney. And if that's not your thing, 42 Below, who just won an award for the fastest growing company in NZ, makes an excellent feijoa vodka.

More stats

In the past few months there seemed to be a number of national and international studies that got New Zealand mentioned in the news.

One of them was Mercer Human Resource Consulting's world-wide quality of living survey. This study evaluated 350 cities world-wide on 39 different criteria, including political, social, economic and environmental factors, personal safety, health, education, transport and public services. The focus was on expatriates, with the goal to provide governments and multinational companies who send their people on international assignments with benchmark data for appropriate compensation.

Disartster—the "transplasticized" Bucket Fountain in Cuba Mall.

Cities in Europe, Australasia and Canada dominated the top rankings. Zurich ranked as the world's top city for quality of living, followed by Geneva, Vancouver, Vienna, Auckland, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. Our little Wellington came in as number 12! Quite amazing, given its size and location, not to mention the competing cities. Incidentally, San Francisco was 28th—the second best rated city in the US right after Honolulu.

A different study, this one by the Commonwealth Fund, rated the health systems in six countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the UK and the US. The results were based on cross-national surveys of patients' views and experiences of their health care systems across a number of dimensions, such as patient safety, effectiveness, or patient-centredness, among others. New Zealand came in second best, right after Germany, despite the fact that the spending per capita was lowest in the group surveyed. The US was last, even though they spend almost 3 times as much per capita as New Zealand.

Happy immigrants walking up Mount Victoria

I have to admit that I was rather surprised by the result. I haven't had much to do with health care since I got here, but the couple times that I have visited a doctor my impression was certainly of a system much less modern than what I was used to in Germany. It also seems to me that New Zealand could do more with regards to prevention. There's a lot of emphasis on some area, such as promoting a smoke-free environment, advice on preparing for flu pandemics, or certain communicable diseases such as meningitis or hepatitis. But other, to me rather basic areas, such as OB/GYN or basic dental care (remember the Big Book of British Smiles?) seem to be more an afterthought than something to pay attention to. But despite these flaws, it is good to see though that the general idea of health care as a public service, rather than a consumer good, is still strong in New Zealand.

The third interesting survey I read about in the past couple of months was a local one: The Department of Labour looked at new immigrants' impressions of New Zealand after their first year in the country. The results are not surprising and match pretty well our own impressions:

New immigrants liked...

85% climate, natural beauty, clean environment
79% friendly people, relaxed way of life
65% recreation and leisure activities
59% safety from crime and violence
58% ability to achieve desired lifestyle

...and disliked

40% distance from home or family
35% cost of health care
35% bad driving (so true) or lack of road safety
31% poor or lack of public transport
22% poor quality housing (SO TRUE!) or cost of living

By the way, by far the largest number of immigrants still comes from the UK: 56%. Immigrants from the US make up 3%, from Germany 2%.

Energy woes

Sitting on the dock of the bay

Just like everywhere else, the conflict about Iran's nuclear capabilities, militant attacks on oil industry in Nigeria, high demand from China and whatever else is contributing to the overall increase in the oil price has also led to a sharp increase in the cost of petrol here in New Zealand. In the past month alone, prices have risen by 14 cents/litre; since the beginning of the year, the cost of filling up has increased by over 25% to an all-time high. A litre of 91 Octane petrol currently (at the end of April 06) costs around $1.71; a litre of 96 Octane $1.76. Already, you read stories about more frequent fuel thefts—people filling up their cars and driving off without paying. Thankfully, we don't need our car much: Most of the time, it's only used for the weekly trip to the grocery store, and at that rate, a tank of petrol lasts us about 4-5 months.

Compared to elsewhere, we are paying more than Americans (our current price translates to $6.50/gallon), but still less than most Europeans. And overall, New Zealand is in better shape to deal with an energy crisis than many other countries: Between 2/3 and 3/4 of our electricity is generated from renewable sources—mostly hydro power, but also wind, biothermal and biomass. There's no nuclear energy, and New Zealand's antinuclear stance has been a source of strained relations with the US for the past 20 years—but that's a different topic for another time.

Brooklyn Wind Turbine

The high use of renewable energy makes the country less reliant on foreign oil, however, it is not without problems. Demand is increasing, and the water levels of our hydro lakes have been dropping. At the beginning of summer they were so low that power shortages and rolling blackouts were considered possible. The situation has improved, but we are still not at the level at which we should be when going into winter.

Meanwhile, alternatives are explored. Meridian Energy, the largest state owned electricity generator in the country, recently got approval for building a new wind farm west of Wellington. This wind farm will use the latest technology, and its 70 turbines will produce power for up to 110,000 homes— enough for Wellington City, Lower Hutt and Porirua. Makes a lot of sense to me here in Windy Wellington.

May-July 2006

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +1200

Sibylle returns

Back with three months in one!

So, where was I? Quite a few people have written, telling me they have been missing my updates and asking if I'm going to continue with this journal. Thanks all, and yes, absolutely. It's very cool to get this kind of feedback and I'll do my darndest to get back to more frequent posting. There have been several reasons for the delay—for one, general ongoing, but somewhat eventless busyness, travel (more about that later), but also a bit of frustration with the platform on which this blog is hosted, which makes it quite cumbersome to maintain, not to mention that it gets inundated with trackback spam. But while that's definitely something to get sorted, it's no excuse for holding off updates any longer.

She'll be right

So let's start with a story that I think perfectly illustrates New Zealanders' approach to and outlook on life, and why we are sometimes still simply amazed at being here.

Our house doesn't come with parking. Usually that's not a problem, as there is always street parking nearby. But when I came back from a trip in June, I found two of our tyres slashed. Apparently we weren't the only ones affected; neighbours told us that several other cars were vandalised as well. Now this stuff happens when you live in a city (even in Wellington) but it's nevertheless frustrating to be affected by such senseless destruction. Moreover, we didn't have time to deal with the problem until the following weekend, so we had to make do without a car during one of the coldest and wettest weeks of winter. Not exactly fun.

At an event at City Hall

The following Saturday, we arranged for a tow truck to come and take the car to a shop in town to have the tyres replaced. While we were waiting for the car to be pulled onto the truck, I chatted with one of the towing guys. He clearly was the embodiment of a true Kiwi if there ever was one: He was so genuinely happy and positive, it was impossible not to be affected by it. I told him how the tyres had been randomly destroyed, and he commiserated for a moment about our bad fortune. But then, he reminded me, at least they didn't get all four tyres, but only two! Two isn't so bad, at least not as bad as all four of them, and anyway, this stuff happens, but it's also a really nice day (it was finally sunny again, albeit still cold), not bad at all for a little walk to the tyre shop. And so on. Afterwards, Brian called him "almost impossibly cheerful".

When I had gotten up that morning, I was rather frustrated at having to spend my Saturday getting the car fixed and spending money that I hadn't planned for on a repair that shouldn't have been necessary. But by the time my tow truck man said goodbye and drove off, not only did a I have a smile on my face, but I also felt like the luckiest person in the world for getting two all-new, shiny tyres, on such a beautiful day.

That, my friends, is New Zealand in a nutshell.

Around the world in 16 days

Germany in June 2006: Festivals...

Since I've left Germany almost ten years ago, I've been trying to go back for a visit every two years. I hadn't been back since we moved to New Zealand, so this year in June, I did the really big trip to the other end of the globe for the first time. Wellington - Auckland - Hong Kong - Frankfurt meant three flights each way, 25 hours in the air, and around 40 hours from door to door. Sounds daunting, but to my surprise, it wasn't half as bad as I had expected.

Sure, the journey does drag on, but because it's so very long, you completely lose all sense of time and place, and that's a good thing. After trips between California and Germany, my body always used to feel that it should be a certain time of the day, and therefore the first several days after each flight were spent trying to get over jetlag. Not this time—I simply started over when I arrived in Frankfurt.

...beer gardens...

Of course it wasn't very hard to adjust to where I was going to. The trip had been carefully timed: It would be summer, I would have a chance to visit my hometown's annual local festival for the first time in a decade, and of course, the Football World Cup would be taking place in Germany during that time. Once I got off the plane, it took me about the time it takes to drink a bottle of Coke (caffeine!) to get drawn into the big summer party that was Germany in June 2006.

...and of course, football...

Much has been written about Germany's new-found lightness of being, its welcoming and laid back patriotism (also dubbed "party-otism"), short, nothing less but the country's complete reinvention of itself in the course of four incredible weeks. If that sounds exaggerated—well, it's not. I've never experienced anything like it. Hard to tell how much of this new attitude will survive the summer but I sure hope it does. As an expat, the relationship with the country you have left behind is never an easy one, even less so when that country is Germany. In this trip, I certainly have found new appreciation for my home country.

The cult of cold

...which for a few happy weeks dominates headlines everywhere (Chinese newspaper seen at Hong Kong airport)

While I was enjoying summer on the other side of the globe, New Zealand was experiencing its coldest June since 1972, with multiple storms (bringing much snow in the south and the mountains, and rain elsewhere), power outages, flooding, landslides, and simply miserable conditions. Sure, the national average temperature of 7.3° C (that's 45° Fahrenheit) doesn't sound so bad, but when it's accompanied by southerly winds straight from Antarctica, it truly chills your bones.

And then there is that other issue: New Zealand housing construction. I've written before about the cold houses without heating or insulation before so there's no need to repeat that, although this problem did make a bigger impact this year, compared to last year's comparatively warm winter. There were articles in the paper about how the cold affects people's health, especially the very young and the old. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends an indoor temperature of 18-20° C (64-68° F) for good health. New Zealand houses average only 16 (60)°, and in winter, many of them go below 10 (50)°! It's normal to only heat one room at a time, and especially less mobile people simply stay in bed "with a hottie" (which is not what you think :-) but refers to a hot water bottle). Worse, the rising cost of electricity forces poorer people to turn off their space heaters altogether, so that often the temperature inside isn't much different from outside, making houses not only cold but also damp, and causing serious health problems. Studies show that the mortality goes up in winter too—an average of 1600 people more die during winter compared to summer.

Mayday

"Why are New Zealand houses so cold and why do New Zealanders put up with it?" asked the local paper in early July under the headline "Cult of Cold". Unlike in other countries, the article said, there is no relationship here between how much money people earn and how warm their houses are. Even people who can easily afford it often see warm houses as something extravagant—it's not common to invest in your comfort like that. Some people believe that attitude goes back to colonial times, when toughness and some amount of suffering was considered good for you. According to Victorian morality, cold equates virtue, and while Britain has moved on since then, somehow this attitude has stayed well an dalive in its former colony. And why spend money on expensive renovations to your house if you can simply put on another sweater?

June weather (picture from the NZ Herald)

We've been wondering what might change the situation. Probably nothing in the short term, but there are some influences that might make a difference. Efforts out of government come from both the health angle (the Ministry of Health is supporting studies in this area) and the energy consumption area (the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Agency is running programs to help insulate low income housing and also does a lot of public education on the subject). And maybe the influx of immigrants who are used to different standards and are trying to recreate them here will contribute to healthier and more efficient housing.

Trivial purse-uit

It's not as if people are not willing to spend money, they just have different priorities. Like rugby. Here is an idea: Get the All Blacks to promote warm houses. Sell insulation with Tana Umaga's autograph on it. Show that real men are all about the footie, beer, and double-glazing. That should get the word out like nothing else.

The rugby handbag auction

Said Tana was involved in the now famous and much-spoofed "handbag incident" which distracted Kiwis from the early outbreak of winter. Back in May, Wellington's local team, the Hurricanes, lost against the Crusaders in Christchurch. When the players went to drown their sorrows at a pub, Hurricane Chris Masoe tripped over some other patron's feet in the early morning hours, and instead of apologising, decided to punch him instead. To stop a fight from breaking out, Tana Umaga, so the story goes, grabbed a woman's handbag that was sitting on the bar and hit his team mate over the head with it. A cell phone that had been inside the bag got broken, the so harshly admonished rugby star started crying, chaos ensued. The incident became the talk of the nation, and caricaturists and of course our neighbours and rivals across the ditch had a field day with it.

And who says violence doesn't pay? The young woman who owned the handbag remained alert enough during the commotion at the bar to grab her belongings back. A couple days later, the handbag appeared on an auction on Trade Me, complete with broken cell phone. It fetched $22,750.

August-September 2006

Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +1200

Another shift...

Sunday morning Wellington rooftops

It's been two months since I updated this blog, and this time I have a better excuse for not posting: We've been busy selling our house.

Yep, we'd only been there for a bit over a year, and we definitely didn't come to this decision easily. We simply realised over the past 12 months that we didn't really want to own a house, even less so, an old house. Our idea of what to do with our spare time was not weeding the yard, keeping the drains clean from leaves, or worrying about when the roof would have to be replaced. Living in the middle of the city was on our minds, and we were looking for a way to make it work.

Housing troubles

As it happens, the topic of home ownership has been in the news a lot lately. In August, the local newspaper Dominion Post ran a weekend feature about how it's becoming increasingly difficult for young people to enter the property market. While in the early 1990s three quarters of New Zealanders owned their house, now it's less than two thirds. Meanwhile, the number of rentals is growing faster than the population.

Local rivalries via SMS

What's happening? For one, the Kiwi dollar is pretty cheap and New Zealand is a desirable country for multiple reasons, so there has been a lot of investment in the New Zealand property market from overseas. This causes housing prices to go up, in fact they are rising faster than incomes. The national median house price is now $310,000, in Auckland even $445,000. The median in Wellington is $328,000, and it takes 5.3 years of full average salary to pay off a house—that's comparable to cities such as London or Las Vegas. Like in most western countries, personal debt is higher than ever, so many people can't save up for the necessary deposit (or in US terms, downpayment). Is New Zealand becoming a "holiday home for billionaires", as the Green Party has gloomily predicted?

Probably not, but a lot of Kiwis with average income are indeed being priced out of the market. The government has tried to offer programs to help, with little success so far. The so-called "Welcome Home" loan scheme underwrites private lenders so that people who could make monthly mortgage payments but not come up with the initial deposit can get loans. However the limit for lending is only $200,000 (raised in August from $150,000) which doesn't get you very far in Wellington or Auckland. It's no big surprise therefore that less than 2000 people have taken up the offer so far.

How much for a dream?

The big event

In the private sector, banks are trying to counteract the trend of decreasing number of home buyers by offering longer-term mortgages: 40, even 50 years are now possible. Of course, if you borrow $400,000 at say 7.25% over 50 years, you end up paying 1.29 million! Another trend that we remember from the US are interest-only mortgages, but how those can lead to ownership I don't see, unless you really are increasing your income enough by the time you start paying principal—not too likely for most people. Add to that the scary figure that 94%(!) of New Zealanders' net worth is made up by housing assets, compared to 67% in Germany and only 46% in the US. Maybe it's not such a bad thing if more people invest their money in other ways than the overheated property market?

Of course, it's not all just about money. There's a bigger picture of how homeownership relates to the overall welfare of a society, the general notion of "the kiwi dream of owning a home" and the idea that "inside every Kiwi there is a DIY expert waiting to come out". Maybe so, but if there is such a person inside me, she definitely managed to stay in the closet...

...which brings us back to us

The cause of much excitement

Selling a house in New Zealand is just as easy as buying house. That is to say, the process is straightforward and can be completed within a few weeks—a few very busy weeks! We worked with a real estate agent who turned out to be fabulous and did all the right things to market the place in the most effective way. There were two hour-long open homes on Sunday mornings which attracted about 150 people.

In the end we had five offers and four weeks later (we had pushed out the settlement by a month so we would have time to find a new apartment) everything was done and dusted.

A monkeywrench of sorts

For a while however it didn't look so good, thanks to the horrible weather we'd had since May. Just days after the house went on the market, a piece of land from our property started slipping. The problem was located on a slope at the border of our property (thankfully quite far away from the house itself) and a rather large amount of soil slid down into our neighbour's yard, exposing our water main and destabilising part of the hill.

We're not alone

Landslips make headlines

A landslip of several meters isn't exactly helpful when you are trying to sell a house but it wasn't an unusual problem this winter in Wellington. Landslides happened all over the region, some of them bad enough that people had to be evacuated from their homes and in at least one case, a house had to be completely destroyed because so much land was lost that it couldn't be saved. Even on posh Oriental Parade, where few apartments under a million dollars can be found, 18 people had to temporarily move out of their flats when 500 cubic meters of hillside collapsed onto a house. Civil Defence issued a nation-wide slip warning to homeowners in early August, and the Earthquake Commission, which insures property owners against natural disasters, could barely keep up with the demand and had to fly in engineers from all over the country to assess the situation in Wellington.

Postscript: Our own landslip was in the middle of this assessment process when we moved out. Thankfully the new owner agreed to take it from there, but it definitely made for a few nerve-wrecking weeks.

Car(e)-free living

House in the Hutt after a massive landslide (pic from NZ Herald)

Now that we live right in the heart of the city, we decided to sell our car. I'll miss the independence of being able to drive anywhere without planning, but then, in the past six months I haven't used it except for trips to the grocery store. Rentals are cheap, and it's been getting just a bit more difficult every time to get our old "Mitsi" through the semi-yearly Warrant of Fitness inspection. When you tell people here in Wellington that you are selling your car the typical reaction is "good on ya mate", so it's not something all that unusual. As I've written before, the city is compact and very walkable.

And people do indeed walk everywhere...and anywhere! When we first moved here I couldn't believe how everyone just walked into the streets regardless of traffic lights of right of way, even when they have kids with them. As a driver I'm terrified at the thought that some pedestrian will just jump in front of me—I've seen it happen to others plenty of time. And while Kiwis are generally the friendliest and most relaxed people you can imagine, you will get looks of irritation if you choose to wait at a red light even if the next car is 50 (or 20...or 10) meters away.

Why did the Kiwi cross the road?

As if all the slips weren't enough: The CBD is dotted with holes after a water leak broke into the gas lines, cutting of over 1000 customers, some of them more than a week.

In the past months there have been several accidents in central Wellington that got two pedestrians killed. In both cases, tragic as they were, they had stepped out into the street in front of moving cars. Now the City Council is planning yet another safety campaign with the central message "stop and look before crossing the road". Shouldn't that be pretty clear by the time someone starts Kindergarten? There are also propositions to put up a chain barrier along Lambton Quay, the main shopping drag, to stop people from walking in front of buses. "You do have to legislate sometimes to save people from themselves", says the mayor. Do you? The biggest group of pedestrians injured in Wellington is between 25 and 29—adults, and I doubt that a chain barrier is going to stop them from jaywalking if they want to. What a strange problem though...

Completely changing the subject: Kingitanga

Dame Te Ata (pic from stuff.co.nz)

In mid-August, the Maori Queen of 40 years, Dame Te Atairangikaahu, passed away. I have to admit that until then, I had been completely ignorant of the fact that there even was such a thing as Maori monarchy. Turns out the Kingitanga, or Maori King Movement, was established in the 1850s as a reaction to continued land losses to the British colonists. The assumption was that if there was a a person of similar status to that of the Queen of England, Maori would have a stronger position when dealing with the British government. The role doesn't have a constitutional function or any direct political influence, however the monarch is an important figurehead for Maori issues.

Dame Te Ata was the first female monarch, well-liked and highly respected. She was a cultural ambassador for indigenous people, and one of her achievements was increasing the profile of Te Reo Maori (the Maori language), which after declining rapidly for decades underwent a revival in the 1980s and is now one of the official languages of New Zealand.

A tangihanga (short, tangi), the Maori funeral rites, typically lasts for several days and is a very emotional event. The tupapaku (the body) lies in in an open casket so that mourners can see, touch and talk to the person who has died—unlike typical western funerals, where people talk about the deceased. The body is never left alone during the entire tangi. People come from near and far to show their respect and to support the family.

Dame Te Ata's tangi lasted for six days and was shown live on TV. 100.000 people, including the prime minister, attended the ceremonies. She is is buried atop Taupiri Mountain in an unmarked grave (to show equality with her people), amongst her ancestors. The Maori king or queen is appointed by the leaders of the iwi (tribes) who are part of the Kingitanga movement, and while the title isn't officially hereditary, all monarchs so far were descended from the family of the first Maori king. Same this time: The queen was succeeded by her eldest son.

Finally, winter is over

Spring morning light

New Zealanders consider the beginning of spring not to be spring equinox, but the start of the meteorological spring on the first of September. And sure enough, after an utterly miserable winter that was just awful from May through August, we now finally seem to have left the worst behind us. The last few weeks have been pleasant and sunny, and I can finally exist without having a hot water bottle permanently attached to my body. Of course Kiwis are already running around in jandals and shorts again but I'm just proud I now leave the house without scarf and gloves.

Now the windy season is upon us. And by that I don't mean the normal winds that blast the city more or less permanently, but the so-called "equinoctial gales" or spring winds, which happen around the equinox and are caused by the difference in temperature between extreme cold in Antarctica and warming weather in the tropics. The result are the type of severe gales that make you hold on to lamp posts while waiting to cross the street so you don't get blown out into traffic. Or, as Katherine Mansfield is quoted in one of the sculptures of the Wellington Writers Walk, "the wind is so strong that they have to fight their way through it, rocking like two old drunkards". I'll leave you with that image, till next time.

October-December 2006

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +1300

Back in pink

Cape Farewell

Pink is the new orange, and I'm finally back not only with new content, but with yet another blogging platform that makes it easier for me to organise things on the backend and hopefully easier for you to comment and subscribe to feeds and such. It's far from finished, but as I've spent way too much time in front of the computer over the past months it'll have to do for now. And did I mention it's pink?

Heading north to the South Island

View from our cottage

In mid-November we finally made it over to the South Island for the first time to spend a long weekend in Golden Bay in the Nelson/Abel Tasman region. Located at the north end of the South Island, Golden Bay is in fact situated north of Wellington. It's also on the east coast and surrounded by mountains, so it's protected from the nasty southerly winds and extreme climate that is hitting Wellington so frequently. Moreover, the region gets the most sunshine hours in the country, not to mention it's stunningly beautiful, so it's not surprising that property prices in the region have been going through the roof in recent years. Luckily for us, it's only a quick half-hour flight from Wellington to Nelson, and a couple hours' drive takes you from there across Takaka Hill into Golden Bay.

Pupu Springs walk

Golden Bay plays an important part in New Zealand's history. Maori haved lived on this coast for 500 years and in 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman landed there—the first European to reach, and later map, New Zealand. After a violent encounter with local Maori where several men were killed he named the area Murderers Bay. When gold was found near Collingwood in the mid-19th century, it became known under the friendlier name of Golden Bay. Today it's part of the thriving Nelson region which is known not only for traditional industries such as seafood, fishing, horticulture and of course tourism, but also for its artists, good food and wine, and laid-back lifestyle.

Stalactites at Rawhiti Cave

We stayed at a gorgeous cottage right by the beach. Unfortunately the horrible Wellington weather followed us initially, but the great accommodation (fully equipped kitchen with gas stove...bathroom with underfloor heating and jacuzzi...wooden floors and high ceilings...etc.) saved the day. On the second day we braved the rain to visit Te Waikoropupu (or short, Pupu) Springs, the largest freshwater springs in the Southern Hemisphere: 14,000 liters of water—the equivalent of 40 bathtubs—are discharged every second. There is a short path through native bush that lets you explore the springs and their exceptionally clear water. When we got there we were lucky enough to catch a break in the rain and instead found the sun glistening through the trees to turn it into a mystic rainforest. Beautiful.

After that we visited Rawhiti Cave. What sounded from the description in the guide like a short walk from the car park turned into a rather challenging hike including a river crossing and a steep uphill walk which was rewarded with one of the most spectacular cave entrances I've ever seen:a massive gaping opening with thousands of stalactites.

Heaped up sand

Farewell Spit as seen by Google Earth

The next day we joined a safari to Farewell Spit, or Onetahua in Maori—this means "heaped up sand" and pretty much says it all. Farewell Spit is a 30 km long (and growing) sandbar at the northernmost tip of the South Island made out of golden sand originating from the Southern Alps and created from strong currents in the Cook Strait. As it's also a nature reserve and bird sanctuary, you can only get out there with guided tours, typically with 4-wheel drive vehicles that take you on the hard sand along the water during low tide up to the old lighthouse. There are over 90 species of bird on Farewell Spit, some of which fly up to 20,000 km every year to spend the Northern Hemisphere winter in the warmer south.

Sandstorm

Our guide told us how deforestation and industrialisation (such as reclaiming tidal flats ) in countries like China and Korea make it more and more difficult for these birds to rest and refuel during their long flights, and we are already seeing the sad effects of this with fewer birds coming back every year.

Dunes near the lighthouse

We went out onto the spit on a very windy day with gusts of 80 km/h and more, so most of the birds had sought shelter, but we saw quite a few on the way there, as well as seal pups. It was one of the strangest experiences, riding through the hard wind and stinging sand, the sparkling sea on one side and sand dunes up to 30 m high on the other, and not a soul to be seen. My favourite part though was climbing up and sliding down one of those sand dunes!

Up on Old Man Range

Another highlight of our trip was horseback riding along Old Man Range. The trek went through farmland and then uphill to the range (named after a rock that sort of looks like the face of an old man) at 166 meters, from where you have a amazing view of Golden Bay, Farewell Spit and the entire northern part of the South Island. We were lucky enough to were the only ones on this particular trip so our excellent guide tailored the speed etc. specifically to us horseriding-newbies. I think we did quite well, especially since it was still very windy and part of the trek was quite steep and rugged, but all the more interesting for that. All in all a wonderful trip that I can only recommend highly to all visitors to New Zealand.

In the Southern Alps

Flying into Queenstown

As it were, only a week later I was back on the South Island, this time for a business trip to work with a client located in Arrowtown. Arrowtown is a small gold mining town near Queenstown (the latter of bungee jumping, jet boating and other extreme sports fame). Flying into Queenstown is quite an adventure because there is only a narrow corridor through the mountains of the Southern Alp towards Lake Wakatipu, and I've been told that only the best pilots in the country get to fly this route. On a clear day it's absolutely stunning, but on my way back heavy rain and wind made it the bumpiest ride I've ever been on and that's all the adventure sports I need, thanks very much.

Arrowtown shops

Not that I would have had time for that anyway, being there for work, but I did get a chance to walk around town and by the river where gold was found in the 1860s and where you can still see some of the dark, tiny huts erected by Chinese immigrants (how they managed to survive the cold Otago winters like this is hard to imagine). Today's town reminded me a lot of similar frontier towns in California. While the population (well under 2,000) is nowhere near the size at the height of the gold rush (over 7,000), it's clearly well off and catering to well-to-do locals and visitors with a number of very good restaurants, high-end shops and well-preserved historic buildings without being obnoxiously quaint. As always when I'm travelling I look at the cost of real estate and not surprisingly it's very expensive here, with lots of property being bought by foreign investors. You can see new developments going up everywhere around Queenstown and the area is definitely a very commerce-oriented destination for adventure-seeking tourists. But even the commercial nature and the "madding crowds" of "Vegas by the Lake" can't diminish the breathtaking natural beauty of this area.

It's party time again

Bowling ca 1880

Aside from these trips, I've more or less spent the last 3 months working non-stop. The overall busyness was only interrupted by the obligatory christmas parties which dot the month of December and which, as I wrote last year, are a very big deal in Kiwi worklife.

Bowling 2006

This year's theme seemed to be bowling: In my company's case, lawn bowling (costume, again, required) at the Wellington Bowling Club, a time-honoured institution but in danger becoming extinct due to lack of new members. With Brian's company we went to a brand-new bowling alley in the centre of town which complete with self-proclaimed "urban cool bar", restaurant and ubiquitous television screens didn't seem to have the problem of attracting the crowds. My bowling skills are poor be it on the lawn or at the alley, but in the end of course christmas parties are all about hanging out with mates and have a drink or five and I can do that.

January-March 2007

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +1200

And you can hear it in my accent when I talk

Concert in the Botanical Garden

January 2007 not only marked the beginning of a new year, but was also the start of my second decade as an expat. I left Germany on January 7, 1997 to go to San Francisco, stayed there for just under 8 years, and now we are well into our third year in New Zealand. A cause for celebration as well as reflection.

When you follow discussion forums of immigrants and would-be immigrants to New Zealand, it often appears that the majority of people who decide to move to New Zealand are frustrated with their home country—their prime motivation for coming here is to get away from a place where they are unhappy (with their jobs, the political situation, the weather, with "where the country is headed", etc.). This is not, and was not, the case for me.

On the TranzAlpine train

When I moved to San Francisco, I didn't really think about Germany as much as I simply wanted to live in California, see the world, do something different. And yes, the late-1990s Germany was characterised by high unemployment, racist attacks, discontent with the realities of the reunification, and the seemingly never-ending reign of Helmut Kohl. America, on the other hand, was on the height of the dot-com-booming, pre-Lewinksy Clinton-era where anything was possible and everyone, at least in Silicon Valley, had come from somewhere else and moved there to make their luck.

Crossing the Southern Alps

I hadn't been looking for this kind of stimulation as much as it found me. Thanks to the opportunities I found in San Francisco I truly could realise an American Dream of which I only had a vague vision when I first moved there. And while I had not left Germany in frustration, I never entertained the thought of going back there either. It simply wasn't on my mind, not the least because it was clear that the kind of self-made career I was pursuing in San Francisco would not have been possible back home during that same time.

Remnants of Greymouth's coal mining past

The America we left 8 years later of course was a very different country, and while we very much wanted to be here in New Zealand, the motivation to leave the States was strong, unlike in my first move. In parallel, my relationship to Germany has been changing over the last years, as the country itself appears to have finally shaken off stagnation and gloom of the Kohl (and admittedly, Schröder) era. The longer I live abroad, the more I'm becoming aware of where I'm from, and how that has shaped who I am now. The distance has made me appreciate the good things about my home country a lot more, and see the bad things in perspective. Or maybe I'm just getting older, wiser, and milder. :-)

Street in Hokitika

The biggest lesson I've learned as an expat though is that wherever you are, you make your own luck. The reverse is true as well—you can't run away from yourself and you always take your problems, but also your strengths, ambitions, and dreams with you. A friendly, welcoming environment such as New Zealand can make it easier to reinvent yourself, but in the end you still have to do the hard work, regardless of where you are. Sounds trivial but is often forgotten in new migrants' "grass is greener" enthusiasm, which too often is quickly followed by disillusionment. If you can shed those expectations, you're free to be who you want to be, where you want to be.

That's nice. But what have you been up to?

One of the many one-way bridges

What haven't we been up to? Another new and crazy thing happened in January. I had pretty much given up. And then, summer came. Really. All that whinging and moaning finally paid off. While I would still run the heater in the first few weeks of the year (mind you, the equivalent of early July in the northern hemisphere), all of a sudden everything changed. We have had three months of fantastic weather and so far, no end in sight, just in time for lots of events around town and our long-awaited holiday. It's difficult to put in words how much I have missed and longed for warmth and sunshine. I've never appreciated them more than after the misery that was 2006. Pure bliss.

Holiday

West Coast road

In mid-February we went on a long-overdue trip to the South Island. Originally planned as a two-week trip around the entire island, we decided to scale back, do less (especially less driving) and stay in nicer places instead of hostels. That turned out to be a great plan, even though at the end I wouldn't have minded spending another week simply staring at Lake Wanaka. Who would?

We first flew into Christchurch. Aside from changing planes at the airport, this was the first time in Christchurch for both of us, so we went to explore the city. This took us to the excellent Art Centre, where the former buildings of the University of Canterbury (all very British gothic revival-style buildings which seem to have been quite popular in the former colonies) now house artist studios, galleries, cafes, shops and other cultural venues. There was also an outdoor crafts market and several live music performances, all making it a good place to explore for a couple of hours.

Franz Joseph Glacier

Next was the Canterbury Museum for "New Zealand Natural and Human Heritage". This was a bit of a jumble of dioramas, artefacts of life in New Zealand 150 years ago, and various topics ranging from Maori culture to rocks and stones to the history of Antarctica explorations. The museum's concept was very much old school—lots of rooms full of stuff—but the exhibits were interesting and obviously well cared for and I found it very enjoyable. After that we took a walk through the Botanic Garden, a huge park in the center of the city with beautiful gardens and the Avon River meandering through.

Hiking the glacier

Aside from those things, however, we found Christchurch rather underwhelming. It doesn't stand up to small, compact Wellington with its beautiful harbour and hills that define the city and shape its character. On the other hand, it lacks the big-city vibe of Auckland (if you are into that kind of thing). The fact that we were there on a grey and drizzly day probably didn't help, but again we were glad we chose Wellington, and happily moved on the next morning.

Chattanooga Choo Choo

Morning mist

The next leg of our trip was to be on the TranzAlpine train from Christchurch across the Southern Alps to Greymouth on the West Coast. Regarded as "one of the world's great scenic railway journeys", the four-hour trip first goes through the flat farmland of the Canterbury Plains and then climbs into the mountains, crossing at Arthur's Pass (920 m elevation) and then descends back to sea level through the rain forests of the wild West Coast. The scenery is truly beautiful, especially as you get into the mountains, over viaducts and emerge from one of the many tunnels. There are gorges and river valleys, mountain lakes and snow capped peaks, and I imagine in winter the journey is even more spectacular.

West Coast beach

The train itself, unfortunately, is a different story: The seats were cramped and uncomfortable, and the interior screamed 1970s at best. The open air viewing carriage was really just that - a single, completely bare small carriage without seats or windows, constantly crowded (see some of Brian's photos) and more reminiscent of a cattle waggon than the great place to take in the stunning scenery that it was advertised as. The check-in and baggage procedures were slow and over-complicated and service non-existent. It's a bit surprising and sad, really. The journey itself is great, but could be so much more enjoyable. Imagine the potential if there was more lounge-like seating, multiple and well designed open carriages and a decent bar/cafe service. Still, it was a stress-free way to get to the West Coast and a good introduction to the stunning natural beauty of the South Island.

West Coast road trip

Near Haast Pass

Greymouth (population 13,500) is the biggest town on the West Coast, which tells you a lot about the West Coast right there. The whole region is very sparsely populated with only 31,000 people—I would assume that this number doubles or even triples when you count the tourists, at least during summer. The 600 km road along the coast simply ends at some point both in the North and the South, meaning the only connection with the rest of the country is a few passes across the mountains. This isolation along with the stark nature have shaped the culture of the West Coast, which can be summed up by self-reliance and Kiwi "can do" spirit, hospitality and friendliness. As you travel you will find several museums that tell the stories of the early settlers, and it's simply amazing to see the spirit of these pioneers who braved the trek across the alps and made a living on the coast against all odds.

There's a rich Maori heritage on the West Coast, long before the European settlers started coming in the the mid 1800s. The regions' industrial history is characterised by gold mining, coal mining, and arts and crafts, especially pounamu (greenstone, or New Zealand Jade) carving. Today, it's doubtless tourism that sustains the region economically, attracting both outdoor and adventure travellers and coach tourists with its high mountains, lush rain forests, clear lakes, wild beaches and turquoise rivers.

Suspension bridge to the Blue Pools

Greymouth itself is a nice enough little town, with a couple good places to eat, a walk along the flood wall, and the original Monteith's Brewery, where we took a tour and heard some amazing stories about local ingenuity where employees built some of the bottling and packing machines from scrap metal. However there is little to make you linger— Greymouth is more a starting point for a trip down the coast rather than a destination in and by itself, and after a night there in a friendly Bed and Breakfast we headed south in our rental car. First stop was Hokitika, a town of only 4000 with a rich history. It was settled in the 1860s as a thriving gold rush town and shipping port, with bars lining every street. Today it's best known for greenstone jewellery, a number of excellent restaurants, and the annual Wild Foods Festival. I loved Hokitika with its dramatic backdrop of the Southern Alps and its windswept beach and wouldn't mind going back and spending more time there. This time we continued our road trip south along the winding road, across the many one-way bridges (some of them even shared with rail tracks!) and through fantastic scenery towards the glaciers.

Ice Ice Baby

Lake Wanaka

About 140 glaciers flow from the mountains of the Southern Alps, but two of them, Franz Josef (named by an Austrian geologist, who first explored the glacier in 1865, after his emperor) and Fox, are the most spectacular because they descend from 2700m almost down to sea level to the lower rain forests of the West Coast. Just a few kilometres from the terminal face of the glacier is a small town, also named Franz Josef, and mostly existing to cater to glacier tourists. The best way to explore the glacier is with a guided tour, where you are taken onto the ice by experienced guides.

The tours are very well organised and professional. You are in groups of about a dozen per guide and are outfitted with boots and "talonz" (crampons), rain jackets, hats and gloves. The trip starts with a walk through the regenerating rain forest of the glacier valley floor. As we approached the terminal face of the glacier we saw an increasing number of warning signs—Franz Josef is one of the world's steepest and fastest moving glaciers, especially in summer, and it can be very dangerous to go near without experienced guides. The signs and safety barriers didn't stop a couple of tourists from going into an unstable ice cave only days after our own glacier trip and almost got themselves killed by falling ice.

Cessna

All glacier guides carry an axe which they use to cut steps and walking tracks into the ice. The initial ascent is used by all groups and follows a relatively well-established path, although the guides will continuously fix and improve the steps. Once you are up on the ice every trip is different, and it's up to the guides to find—and create— an interesting path. We went on a 3/4 day trip which lasted about 6 hours and took us through narrow crevasses of blue ice, up and down steep walls of ice (sometimes with the help of a rope) and through amazing ice formations. Our guide, normally used to guiding more advanced tours, went above and beyond to literally carve out a new path for us which probably was more adventurous than it was supposed to be, but all the more exciting for us. It was a unique and fun experience that I highly recommend to anyone.

Wanaka and Siberia Experience

Siberia Valley

From Franz Josef, we continued south to Haast, where we left the West Coast for Wanaka via Haast Pass. Again the drive again was nothing short of spectacular and varied as we moved from the rugged coast into the mountains with their gargling rivers, waterfalls and blue pools. Imagine any coffee table book about New Zealand, or remember the Lord of the Rings movies, and you get an idea of what I'm talking about. The only thing that can spoil the West Coast experience are the ubiquitous sand flies, tiny blood sucking insects whose stings are extremely itchy. We learned the hard way that it's necessary to always put on insect repellant, or better, wear long pants and sleeves, especially near water and when sitting (once you are walking they are easy to shake off as they are very slow). Thankfully, sand flies are the worst pest you'll find in New Zealand, which otherwise blissfully lacks snakes, spiders or other poisonous and dangerous animals.

We approached Wanaka from the north, travelling along Lake Wanaka and then Lake Hawea, two massive glacial lakes, deep blue, crystal clear, mirror-like calm and surrounded by brown foothills and the Southern Alps a bit further out. The most amazing thing is how empty they are—no boats, no big hotels or even any houses on the shores, just nature. It's hard to describe how awe-inspiring this barren landscape is and pictures don't do it justice.

Obligatory sheep picture

We spent three days in Wanaka at the excellent Te Wanaka Lodge. Mostly we just hung out by the lake and enjoyed the relaxing summer atmosphere, only interrupted by one more adventure, the "Siberia Experience": It started with a half-hour scenic flight in a tiny (6-seat) Cessna into the Southern Alps. Climbing out from the valley we got quite close to glaciers and snow-capped peaks— breathtaking, not just because of the view, but also because the ride was a bit bumpy at times! Eventually we landed in a hanging valley, named "Siberia" to keep the punters out, on a grassy air strip amongst the wild flowers. From there we set off on foot, along the river and up across a ridge through forest into another valley, finally descending to the deep blue Wilkin River. There we were picked up by a jet boat for a half-hour ride back to where we started. This was heaps of fun as the guide approached rocks, fallen trees and other obstacles, including a cow standing in the water, at high speed, only to veer off at the last second, and getting us all wet with his 360 degree turns, which was very welcome on this hot day. All in all we had a perfect holiday that made me keen to return to the South Island as soon as possible.

More and bigger pictures in my South Island photo album.

Summer in the city

Evening light over Lake Wanaka

It's been great to be in Wellington these past three months. The only problem really was that there was so much on, it was absolutely impossible to take advantage of everything. I missed the outdoor cinema and the XAir games that brought some of the world's best skate and BMX athletes to Wellington's waterfront. However I did make it one of the free outdoor concerts in the Botanical Gardens, where I went to see the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra. In additional to hosting a number of local bands every night for a month, they gardens were also illuminated with various light installations, creating magical summer nights.

Rippon Vineyard

The annual Fringe Festival is another one of those events where there's never nearly enough time to take it all in. This year's festival had almost 100 different production in dance, music, outdoor events, theatre and visual arts, and we were lucky enough to see a show that subsequently won several "best of" awards: a small theatre production called Hotel. This play took place in an actual hotel room—you are one of only 12 audience members per show. As you walk in, there's a woman relaxing in the bath tub. A couple is sleeping in the bed. Who are they? Quietly, to not disturb them, you take your place on the bench along one of the walls and observe the various occupants of the hotel room—quite literally, being a fly on the wall. Several parallel stories unfold as you watch, fading in and out. Some are funny, others heart-breaking. The same play could have been on a more traditional stage and still worked, but the fact that it was in a real hotel room, as close-up as it gets, provided an atmosphere of intensity and and intimacy that went straight to the heart and at the end, as you walked out along the hallway, made you wonder what was going on in all the other rooms right now. Brilliant.

Carnival Ferris Wheel

Late February also saw the return of the bi-annual Cuba Street Carnival. This year's carnival attracted about 150,000 people and had 50 different bands playing on multiple stages in the Cuba and Courtenay quarters (I read in the paper earlier that 260 bands had applied to be part of this). Multiple streets were closed, and restaurants and retailers had special menus and decorations to go with the Cuba theme. Cuba Street, by the way, is named after one of the first ships that came to Wellington back in the day. Today it's synonymous for quirky/eclectic/urban cool, or if you believe market researchers, "looking weird and liking looking weird". Cuba Street Carnival at any rate was a mad affair. The crowds made getting from our house to the corner dairy, normally a matter of a couple minutes, a 20 minute round-trip. Not that that mattered, the atmosphere was fantastic and we had a blast hanging out in the sun, listening to music, and soaking in the crazy energy of it all.

Country roads

Carnival crowds

For a bit of contrast to all this city life, we spent a weekend in the Wairarapa for some country air and of course wine tasting. We hadn't been back since our wedding a year ago, and the timing was perfect to celebrate our one-year anniversary.

One winery we always go to is Schubert. We discovered them on our first visit, fell in love with their wines, and have been returning faithfully ever since to stock up again. As the name suggests, the winery is owned by a German (and not only that...Swabian!) couple, and they are best known for their Pinot Noirs. Recently they made the news with a great story about smuggling one of their pinots into a wine tasting event in Berlin. Breaking every rule of the international blind pinot noir tasting at the luxurious Hotel Adlon Kempinski, they made the tasters think they were drinking a high-end burgundy,and the Schubert wine was ranked alongside a 1999 "Musigny Grand Cru" of Comte de Vogue, Chambolle-Musign, which retails at 457 Euro a bottle (double this figure to get NZ dollar). Although the Schubert pinot didn't officially qualify for the competition for several reasons, including its very limited availability, the "pirate wine" was allowed to keep its ranking because the tasters were so impressed with it. And what makes this story even better is that we got to taste this very hard to find wine and even bought a bottle (for the equivalent of 25 Euro) for a special occasion that will surely come.

Waiting for the night parade

On Sunday we left Martinborough early for a little road trip. Less than an hour's drive south-west through the countryside takes you to the rugged coast. We continued on the road towards Cape Palliser, which got increasingly narrower and more treacherous and for the last few kilometers turned into a gravel road which finally ended at the lighthouse; the southernmost spot of the North Island. The day was beautiful and sunny and we could clearly see the South Island in the distance, and the Rimutaka and Tararua ranges made a dramatic backdrop for the bucolic landscape.

Wairarapa countryside

On the way back we stopped at the famous Lake Ferry Hotel. Lake Ferry is called that because there used to be a ferry service between Wellington and the Wairarapa along the coast before the road across the Rimutakas was built. Today Lake Ferry is best known for the hotel's excellent seafood and laid-back country pub environment. We had an amazing lunch there before heading back via small and winding back country roads.

View my Wairarapa photo album.

In the news

With all this travelling and being busy getting entertained, who has time to follow the news? Recently for me it hasn't really gone beyond scanning the headlines. However there are quite a few hotly debated issues in New Zealand at the moment, such as

Cape Palliser lighthouse

The housing market is again, or still, a big topic, with an increasing number of foreign investors snapping up property while more and more average kiwis are priced out of the market. Average mortgage payments now cost 75% of the average take-home page, in some regions, they even exceed that figure.
The Corrections Department has come under fire on several fronts. In one case a convicted murderer was let out of prison on parole, only to go on a rampage in the hills near Wellington, killing one man and hurting several others. A separate story exposed corruption in the prison system, with several corrections officers having been suspended for taking bribes.
A top policemen and two former officers and already convicted rapists are cleared for the second time of sex attacks on two teenage girls in the 1980s, leading to angry protests in Wellington and elsewhere.
The anti-smacking about which I wrote a year ago, is being debated in parliament and across the nation and still has emotions running high on both sides of the fence.
Daylight saving time, which is still shorter in New Zealand than in most other industrial countries, finally has a realistic chance to be extended by another three weeks. A petition for the extension has received 35,000 signatures (including mine!) and verbal support from the Prime Minister so there is a good chance that change will be implemented for next year.
The United Future party calls for Waitangi Day to be changed to New Zealand Day as a de-politicised national holiday to celebrate the country, separate from commemorating the Treaty of Waitangi. For now however the bill has failed to gain the necessary support.
The new government of Fiji, which took control in a coup in December 2006, protests the New Zealand government's sanctions imposed on its country and bans the Prime Minister from travelling to Fiji because of her opposition to the coup.
Mount Ruapehu's crater lake overflows, breaks a dam and sends a tons of bubbling water and volcanic mud down the mountain in a massive lahar, amazingly causing no major damage.

Close up with the Prime Minister

Not exactly a barrel of laughs, those issues. But I don't mean end this post on a low point—it's been a great three months. And in what other country can you attend a store opening on some Tuesday night and personally meet the prime minister who only days before returned from a visit with the president of the United States? Yay New Zealand.

April-June 2007

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +1200

Revenge for 2006

Haast Pass, 22 June 2007

"We have great deal of disagreeable weather and a small proportion of bad weather, but in no other part of the world does nature so thoroughly understand how to make a fine day as in new Zealand." (seen on the wall of a cafe in the CBD)

Are you all tired of me talking about the weather? I'll make it short, but it's noteworthy. Just like last year, autumn surprised us, but this time, in a good way. No snow storms in early May, no cute little lambs dying from the cold, no single-digit temperatures inside our house and waking up seeing my breath in front of my face. Nope, this year we had a fantastic autumn with mild temperatures, sunny days and stunning clear blue skies.

Wellington, 23 June 2007

May, it turns out, was the warmest and driest ever since they've started recording the weather, and it was unusually sunny too. When last year I started hiding beneath scarves and gloves in early March, this year I didn't even bring out my winter coat until June. Sure, there was the occasional extreme event, such as the huge storm that hit Northland (as the name says, the northernmost and therefore warmest region of New Zealand) in late March and led to massive floods, sweeping away buildings and causing the expected damage to infrastructure. But emergency preparedness and response worked well ( which must have been a disappointment to those politicians who seem to enjoy nothing more than wading around in gumboots "helping the rescuers" and collecting lots of folksy footage for their next election campaign).

As I'm writing this in late June, Winter has gripped the South Island—Queenstown is more or less cut off at the moment due to heavy snow; they've even closed the ski fields because the access roads are too treacherous. Not here though, where it may be chilly, but mostly sunny and calm and sometimes even spring-like, hooray.

Living on the edge

Art # 1: Sculpture on Lambton Quay

When you read or watch world news, stories related to the US and Europe seem to dominate the headlines. Asia stories usually have a business angle, and Africa doesn't seem to feature unless it's about something catastrophic. (I'm generalising, of course.) Living in New Zealand puts a different spin on one's perspective on the world. From here, one pays a lot more attention to Australia, as well as to the Pacific Islands. We may be at the "end of the world", but for us, it's our centre.

I first became aware of how relative anyone's view of our planet is when I contemplated a map of the world that hangs on a wall in our office. The world maps that I grew up with show Europe in the centre, with America on the left and Asia on the right. When I lived in the US, maps would display America in the centre, and sure enough, now, in New Zealand, Australasia is the centre. My initial reaction to American and Kiwi maps was always that they were off, or wrong, but of course they are just a different perspective on the same thing.

A lot has been written in the last years about the concept of "edge" as the fringe place where the known and tried is challenged, and change and innovation happen. This is not a new idea: Think of the United States, where so much is driven from the East and West Coasts, or Berlin during the Cold War—isolated and cut off and not despite, but because of that, a place where things happened first before they spread to the rest of the country. Now there's a movement here in New Zealand to embrace our remote location and isolation and turn it into an advantage.

Art # 2: Sheep in woolen sweaters

Kevin Roberts, the CEO of advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, is one of the driving forces behind this movement. He recently gave an inspiring speech to Wellington business people about Wellington as "The Heart of the Edge of the World", and how Wellington can help make the world a better place by exporting the love and respect that Wellingtonians are feeling towards their city as an inspiration to others. "To be a pulsing global magnet, you need to be a raging creative hothouse, with a dynamic attitude and a big heart."

Good stuff. A lot of this relates to identity, and how New Zealanders are seeing themselves and their country. On a related note, the local newspaper just completed their "New Zealand by the numbers" series which presented findings from the 2006 census. One of the questions was about ethnicity, and people could select from choices such as "European", "Maori", "Asian", etc. What interesting is that 11% of respondents identified themselves as "New Zealander" or "Kiwi", an ethnicity which had been previously counted under the "New Zealand European" category. I have written about the topic of national identity with regards to the flag, or national holidays, before, and this is yet another indication that New Zealand is maturing into a country of its own, which doesn't define itself merely by its history or heritage, but is developing a national self-image that is something new and unique altogether.

Powerless

I said above that New Zealand doesn't often feature prominently in international news. One New Zealand story that did make it into the headlines all over the planet is a grim one: A family in South Auckland who owes about $170 on their power bill is told that their power will be cut off because they didn't pay their bills. The family pleads with the power company to keep them connected, because the 44-year old mother, Folole Muliaga, has just returned from hospital and is using an electrically operated oxygen machine to help her breathe. The company turns off power anyway, and the woman dies just hours later.

So far so messy. Making the whole story politically loaded is the fact that the family are immigrants from Samoa who live in a poor neighbourhood, and that the power provider, Mercury Energy, is not just any energy provider but the retail arm of a government-owned power company. And then there are the weird and vague details, for example, that a woman who is so sick would be sent home with that kind of vital equipment, and there, left to her own devices. Or that her family sang to her when her health declined, but didn't call an ambulance for several hours after the power was cut—apparently at her request, which they observed as you do in their culture. Their phone, it turned out later, had been disconnected as well. How much did the illness affect the family's finances and their ability to pay their utility bills? Was it, as the husband said later, "a combination of the phone disconnection, Samoan custom and the shyness of their two sons" that lead to the late call for help? Or, as the media were quick to cry out, who is at fault? Is anybody?

The story caused a big stir here, from people protesting in the streets to the prime minister visiting the family. It sparked discussion not just about what happened, but about who we want to be as a society, about personal, corporate and societal responsibility, the welfare state, and if New Zealand "is turning into America". Big questions. Personally, I don't think that's the case despite all the understandable but ultimately misguided excitement. What I do think New Zealand is turning into is simply a 21st century society with a blend of many cultures and values, which are bound to clash, and whose issues and questions aren't just binary. The story of Folole Muliaga, as tragic as it is, is in many ways only a manifestation of this complexity.

Buddhist business

In mid-June we got to see the Dalai Lama, who was visiting New Zealand to give a number of talks about about compassion and kindness, the four noble truths, and a human approach to world peace. As if these topics didn't already make it obvious, His Holiness was here as the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists. I always thought, probably naively, that he was a universally respected person that anyone would be proud to welcome in their country. Unless, I guess, you are trying to negotiate a free trade agreement with China. The Chinese government, whose military occupation of Tibet has cost tens of thousands of Tibetans their lives, does not take kindly to other governments hosting the Dalai Lama. Not that he is pushing for anything radical (such as Tibet's full independence from China), far from it: He is simply calling for a certain degree of internal autonomy, respect for Tibetan culture, and observance of basic (!) human rights by the Chinese government.

The crowd at the Dalai Lama's speech in Wellington

The Chinese, however, view him as a separatist and have put pressure on New Zealand's politicians by not so subtly reminding them that it could affect bilateral relations if they met with the exiled leader. In Australia, where the Dalai Lama visited a week earlier, the Chinese government also expressed "strong objections" to any meetings with politicians, going as far as saying the visit was an intervention in China's internal affairs.

So how do you get out of this conundrum if you know you should treat a visitor of this calibre with respect but also really want that free trade deal? Helen Clark, the Prime Minister, ran into the Dalai Lama "by chance" (as they say in a local beer ad campaign: yeah, right) at the Brisbane airport and had an informal chat with him there "about non-political issues". Because of that, magically, there was no "no need" for an official visit. A lame and disappointing way of dealing with the situation which justly prompted much criticism.

The Dalai Lama's speech itself was inspiring, if nothing surprising: He talked about the power of peace of mind, the strength of compassion and tolerance (where he happily admitted that his own "pretty good" level of compassion is limited when it comes to mosquitos), and how a continuous effort to educate people on the value of non-violence and compassion is the one way to make a difference for bringing up the next generation in a human and peaceful way. The funniest part was when he showed us his "holy travel bag", unpacking in front of the audience not only his toothpaste (does the Dalai Lama have to put his liquids in a clear 1-l ziplock bag too these days, like the rest of us?) but also the extra bread he always packs because "they never give you enough food on long distance flights". He's certainly a strong presence, even far off on a stage in front of 4000 people, and it was hilarious and catching to see how he kept cracking himself up over his own (sometimes rather cryptic) jokes. And he's clearly not taking himself too seriously, for example, he replied to a question about a very specific meditation practice, "Oh, that's Buddhist business - if you find it too difficult, just forget it. It's not that important", and then laughed as if that was the funniest thing he ever heard. And regarding the commotion around his visit? He just smiled and said he "appreciated the opportunity to create a bit of inconvenience to some people - not my fault, of course!" :-)

The day the music died

Sydney waterfront

So being on the edge and all that is pretty awesome most of the time except when you're after popular stuff, which typically happens where the crowds are. Such as big concerts, which are few and far between in this country. For one, there are barely any venues big enough to host major bands, and the cost to come all the way here to 'lil old New Zealand is often just not worth the effort. Sometimes when we're lucky, a band will swing by on their way from Australia to Japan or vice versa (we managed to see Gomez a few months ago at a local club), but more often than not New Zealand never appears in a world tour schedule. Coming from San Francisco where you're spoilt for choice, that can be particularly tough. So when we saw that Nine Inch Nails were coming to Australia, we decided to hop across the ditch and catch a show that would certainly never make here.

Luna Park, Sydney

"Across the ditch" in reality is a 3.5 hour flight or 1400 miles/2200 kilometres from Wellington to Sydney (so, no, there is no bridge). It always astonishes me just how big Australia is. When I was flying from Auckland to Hong Kong last year, I think it took 5 hours before we finally left the continent behind us. And when we passed the Sydney railway station, our shuttle driver pointed out that it takes three days non stop to go by train to Perth on the West coast.

Sydney is Australia's largest city with a population of 4.2 million people—more than the entire country of New Zealand. Everything is big in Sydney, too. The airport is massive. The skyscrapers really scrape the sky. Even the portions in restaurants are massive; I swear that over the entire duration of the trip I wasn't able to finish a meal even once. And I have to admit: I miss big cities. As much as I love how Wellington is compact and I can walk everywhere, there is something about the buzz and energy of truly large, cosmopolitan cities that I find exciting and stimulating. Maybe it's because they are truly multi-cultural to a point where there is no dominant culture any more, just larger and smaller minorities, as it was in San Francisco. Sydney reminded me a bit of that.

Mosaic at Bondi Beach

The geography of Sydney is rather stunning. As it's located around a harbour, it's all about the water. There are the famous beaches, of course, and we spent a great morning walking from Bondi south along the coast, watching the surfers. The waterfront in the city is equally stunning, be it the revived Darling Harbour area or the main Sydney Harbour with the famous bridge and the opera house. As we do when we visit cities, we mostly walked around to take it all in. I particularly liked the Royal Botanic Gardens with their colony of flying foxes (bats!) and stunning views of the city, and the varied architecture, mixing traditional Victorian buildings such as the Queen Victoria Building with modern highrises. We also went to the Hyde Park Barracks Museum which used to house British convicts shipped to Australia in the mid 19th century, and which was restored impressively to tell this dark chapter of history.

Australia in a nutshell

Oh, and the concert? Don't ask. It's so painful. The show on the day before ours (the second out of three total) had been cancelled on short notice; no one really knew why but the rumours were about either a sore throat or unhappiness about the sound quality of the venue on Trent's part. When we picked up our tickets at the ticket office they told us to call them before heading out that evening "just in case", and sure enough, our show was cancelled as well. A bit of a challenge to retain peace of mind and compassion in that situation where a bit of righteous rage seemed to be called for instead. But then, anger just isn't my thing (which is why I like listening to bands such as Nine Inch Nails, which allow me to channel those feelings just perfectly) and it's hard to be mad when you are on holiday in a great city on a beautiful autumn weekend.

Short 'n sweet

Money money money

The Phantom of the Opera

~~Suckers~~ People from non-English speaking countries like me have to prove they have a good grasp of the language if they want to immigrate to New Zealand. It that's just too much hassle, you can now buy your way out of this requirement, although it ain't cheep: If you are able to bring at least $20 million (NZ) into the country, you can now become a Kiwi before you can say "yis please". The purpose of this change is to attract more investors into the country—so far this year, only 18 people total have moved here on an investor visa.

Must be funny

The MetService now provides instructions on how to dress...awesome

Interest rates have been going up here for a while, and in early June they were raised yet again to 8%—the highest in 22 years and apparently the highest in the industrial world. Yikes. The purpose behind this move was to cool the economy, and this may not have been the end of it either. Meanwhile, more and more Kiwis are shut out of the housing market through rising mortgage rates. Housing market still hot was the headline just a few days days later, reporting that the overall cost of a house rose in May by 11.1% compared to a year ago, and in Wellington, by 13.3%. This revived discussions about a potential capital gains tax on property—currently profits from real estate are tax free. I'm sure there's lots more to come on this front over the next months.

In a rich man's world

The interest rate was not the only area where the reserve bank tried to steer the economy. In late June, they intervened twice by selling currency to keep the value of the Kiwi dollar in check against other currencies, especially against the US $. The New Zealand currency was trading at an all-time high and rebounded quickly after the interventions. Good for travelling overseas, of course, but a problem for businesses trying to compete internationally. Right now one NZ dollar buys 76 US cents and 56 Euro cents (compared to less than 50 a year ago).

No more loving smacks

Popular especially with immigrants: Mid-Winter Xmas in June

The so called "anti smacking bill" was finally passed in mid May after much pissing about (excuse my local slang) for what seemed forever. I for one am just glad that i won't have to read about creepy pro-smackers any more who have their little kids accompany them to demonstrations where they hold up signs calling for daddy's right to continue to discipline them. The stupid award however goes to one of the most vocal opponents of the bill, Gordon Copeland, who called the new legislation "a mockery of the democratic system" and went as far as leaving his party over this issue. Only he was so busy talking to the media about his opposition to the bill and his resignation that he ended up missing the actual vote. Oops! (He managed to have it registered retrospectively later, but, please...).

Cruel summer

I wrote last time about tensions between the New Zealand Government and Fiji's military leaders. As Australia and New Zealand continue to push for a return to a constitutional government, a journalist who regularly reports from the Pacific Islands was detained at the airport earlier this month because he was "blacklisted". The situation is starting to seriously affects tourism—Fiji is a popular holiday spot and a large percentage of its visitors are from Australia and New Zealand. Holidays are cheap a the moment, but the government has urged Kiwis to hold off visits while the situation is so uncertain. Meanwhile the "interim" government of Fiji under Commodore Bainimarama (with a name like that, did he time-travel straight from the 1980s?) has expelled New Zealand's High Commissioner to Fiji and pulled its own representatives out of New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. Supposedly, Mr. Bananarama became angry when the High Commissioner was offered a VIP seat at a recent rugby game and he was not. Bananas!

kthxbai

July-August 2007

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +1200

I'm trying this new thing: Write shorter blog entries, but more frequently. Time really does fly, and with every month without posting, the task of finding, remembering, researching and writing (not to mention translating) interesting things to talk about becomes more and more daunting. So here I am, after only two months, with updates from all over the planet.

Vienna calling

Imperial Vienna

Literally from all over the planet, because, like last year, I decided to flee our southern winter and visit my family in Germany. This time, I went for two weeks in July, and like last year, the summer had been pretty mediocre in the weeks leading up to my visit. Also like last year, as soon as I got there, a heat wave hit central Europe, and I got to enjoy hot temperatures for pretty much all of my visit.

A good part of this year's holiday wasn't spent in Germany, but on a family trip to Vienna. I'd been there before, but the last time had been a long time ago, sometime in the 90s, and the city is always worth a visit. It's a large, very cosmopolitan place, very European (history at every step), and quite Eastern-European at that. And their coffee is the only one that can seriously compete with Wellington's.

Vienna 2007 photo album

Aside from this trip, it was mostly a relaxing visit that, as usual, passed too quickly. However I almost didn't make it out of the country! In true Simpsons-fashion ("Due to our policy of overbooking, this flight is now overbooked"), Lufthansa told me when I got to the airport in Frankfurt that I was on a "waiting list". This came after very mediocre service and, even for economy class, a cramped and uncomfortable trip there. I won't bore you with all the details, suffice to say that I spent several quite nervous hours waiting in the crowded hallway (no boarding pass = no gate access) before they finally let me only the plane after all, 4 minutes before the official take-off time. Very lame to do this to people with several connecting flights. However, when I sent them a politely disgruntled email when I was back home, all I got was a lot of waffle along the lines of "Lufthansa prides itself in being a top quality airline and is constantly striving to achieve service levels that are consistent with this image...please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience". Bla.

A fine city

Buddhist temples everywhere

The reason why I didn't want to miss my flight was because I had planned to spend some time in Singapore before continuing on to New Zealand. Last year, during my stopovers in Hong Kong, I really wished I had taken the time to spend a day or two to see the city, so this time I booked a night in a hotel and picked my flights so that I had a full day to explore Singapore.

Where to start? I had a very interesting time; a full-on day if there ever was one. It was also one of those strange experiences that linger and stay in your mind long after you've moved on. I've been thinking quite a bit about my trip since my return, remembering this, appreciating that. And yet, strange, because while I was there, it also was a somewhat stressful experience. Overwhelming, intense, fascinating—sure, all of these things, and at the same time, maybe a bit much. Of course, trying to pack a lot of things into a single day will do that. But then I'm a sucker for intensity and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Putting the fun back into Sar Hor Fun

One of the things that interested me most about Singapore—not hard to guess for those who know me—was the food. Singapore is a bit like a mini-version of Asia (with Chinese, Malay, Indian as the largest ethnicities) packed into only 700 square km. Anthony Bourdain, mad and wonderful chef-turned-food writer, has two chapters about Singapore in his latest book, The Nasty Bits, and as usual is spot on when he says "Singapore is probably the most food-crazed, lunatic-eater's paradise on the planet. We're not talking about 'gourmets' here. [...] Singaporeans are not gastronomes. They simply eat."

It's true. Food is everywhere. I wish I could have simply eaten my way through the city for 24 hours. I especially loved the ubiquitous Hawker Centres—open air food markets that house large numbers of stalls where you can get an unimaginable variety of inexpensive meals. The stalls are along long rows, with tables and seats in the middle. You select your meal and then sit down wherever you like; sharing tables is common. Or you simply walk along and stare in amazement at the sights and smells. The Hawker Centres were my favourite Singapore experience.

Aside from last year's stopover in Hong Kong Airport, this was my first-ever visit to Asia. I don't really have anything to compare, but Singapore is how I imagine Beijing in 10 years. It feels very Chinese, and you definitely stick out as a Westerner (for one, it doesn't happen a lot that I'm among the tall people). One impression I got during my short visit was that everybody was very helpful (when I was too ~~dense~~ exhausted to figure out how to scan my subway ticket, it took all of a few seconds for a local to walk up and help me), although not so much in a warm and friendly way, like in New Zealand, but always politely reserved.

Hindu temples everywhere

I spent my day following a number of walking tours suggested by my travel guide. They led me through Chinatown and Little India with their temples and markets, to Kampong Glam, the Muslim heart of Singapore, to the glitzy shopping district along Orchard Road, and finally through the colonial Singapore around the Singapore River. I hope my photo album gives a bit of insight into the variety of sights and impressions, despite the overcast sky. My favourite part was Little India with the insanity of Tekka Mall, its little shops, and the alleys and back ways that didn't quite fit the image of neat, clean, well organised Singapore but seemed very organic, and, well, human.

So what's the deal with the stuff that people typically associate with Singapore? The heat? The chewing gum ban? The excessive fines for everything and the authoritarian rule dubbed "Disneyland with Death Penalty" in Wired Magazine's famous 1993 article? Well, as with most prejudices, they are pretty well founded in reality.

First, the heat. I may have mentioned once or 500 times that I love heat. I'm someone who even shivers in the sauna during first 5 minutes, so in my mind, the hotter, the better. Especially now that I live in a place where it's basically never hot. Everyone complains about Singapore's heat, and admittedly it's very humid so I can see that it can get quite exhaustive. I had no problem with it even though it does hit you hard like a hot wet blanket. What got to me was the ubiquitous air condition that chills your wet, sweaty bones every time you step inside a building. I hate air condition almost as much as I love heat, so unlike the other several million of people in the city, I spent as much time outside as I could.

Shopping temples everywhere

Chewing gum itself is not illegal any more thanks to lobbying by Wrigley's (no joke) and the Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Singapore that came into effect a few years ago. However spitting out your chewing gum on the street is still an offence and incurs a $1000 fine. I have to say that I felt ambiguous about Singapore in that respect. On the one hand, it's very pleasant to visit a city where everything is clean and safe and where I felt that I could walk around alone day and night without any worries. But when you remember that this safety and neatness is achieved by serious restrictions of personal freedom and draconian punishments for even petty misdemeanours (in our Western eyes at least), it seems a damn high price to pay.

What really gave me the creeps was this video they showed in an endless loop (and in multiple languages) on the subway. It was titled "Terrorism is Real", and it started with this shifty looking guy on a train, who put a bag under his seat and then got up to leave. You see him walk out of station, take out his mobile phone and punch in a few numbers, and the picture returns to the train which explodes into a ball of fire. The gory details of the explosion obviously not being strong enough, they then switched to images of the Madrid and London bombings, along with the message to "be vigilant and report everything to the authorities", before starting over. Macabre.

Singapore 2007 photo album

Pretty as a picture

It must be so hard doing satire today. Imagine you write for The Onion, and your job is to invent absurd, over-the top headlines and stories, only to read the day's news and finding them even more comical and ludicrous than anything you just came up with. The lines are getting blurrier, and no one should be surprised that the satirical Daily Show, the "most trusted name in fake news", as they advertise themselves, has indeed simply become the most trusted name in news, full stop.

Fake tornado over New Plymouth

And the media aren't exactly trying hard to convince us to believe them. For example, in early July, several tornadoes hit the town of New Plymouth (about 350 km north of Wellington, on the West Coast), doing a fair amount of damage, uprooting trees and blowing the roofs of several building and the like (although when you look at the construction of most buildings here, it's kinda surprising that it would take a tornado to make them fall apart...but not that topic again). Anyway, a local woman had some fun with Photoshop and overlaid a picture of the town with that of a twister, and sent it to a few people as a joke. Sure enough, the fake image quickly spread around the whole country via email, including the media. And so not one, but two major TV stations ended up using it for their coverage of the story. Nope, they didn't even try to find out if it was genuine. Said the surprised photoshopper: "It took two minutes to make and was so fudged it wasn't funny.

We are not amused

Verboten: Our MPs, hard at work

"Not funny" was also the attitude of politicians who don't appreciate seeing unflattering pictures of themselves in newspapers. Lucky for them, they are the ones making the rules, and so, in late June, Parliament voted in rare unanimousness (115 to 6) for a new provision that prohibits newspapers from printing "journalistic satire or coverage that ridicules or denigrates" them. Photographers can no longer take still images during sessions (although TV cameras may record), and if media that use footage in a satirical way they could be charged with contempt of Parliament. "New Zealand bans satire", the rest of the world, or at least those who paid attention, cried out, laughing hard. Of course, the ban immediately prompted the photographers of the local newspaper to snap a number of soon-to-be-illegal photos, and within less than an hour they had shot a funny, or from a taxpayer's standpoint, depressing series of MPs TXTing, reading (and not just the newspaper either but stuff like fashion magazines), yawning, making rude gestures and generally doing anything but pay attention to the actual session.

Somehow this reminds of when back in the day, the then chief comedian of the Bush administration Donald "Old Europe" Rumsfeld tried to convince the world that the problem with torture and abuse in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison was not the horrifying actions themselves, but the digital cameras that allowed the pictures to get out and be seen around the world. The solution: ban digital camera, of course. Now of course, the offences of New Zealand's sleepy, unruly Members of Parliament are negligible compared to that, and still, it's rather a blow for those of us who don't believe that censorship has a place in a free society (and who are not allowed to sleep or read the glossies during *our* jobs). But then, it's kinda funny too—a joke that writes itself. (The Daily Show's take is here.)

Rollercoaster

Winter vineyard, only tangentially related to the world of finance

Like the rest of the world, New Zealand has been affected by the global finance crisis or whatever you want to call the breakdown of the US sub-prime market and its resulting domino effect on the world economy. The financial markets have been a major topic for a while though: Over the past five months, the Reserve Bank has increased interest rates four times in a row, with the official cash rate going up to 8.25% which is the highest in the industrialised world. Yikes! They did this in an attempt to stop people from borrowing and to slow down the economy and the steady increase of the Kiwi Dollar, which kept climbing steadily towards, and eventually crossing, the US80c mark.

A scary development for anyone with a mortgage or trying to enter the property market. (If I had a penny for every time I thought housing can't possible become more unaffordable than this...well, it wouldn't do me any good. I still couldn't afford the average down payment aka deposit.) On the other hand, it was a good time for those long overdue orders from Amazon.com, and for travelling overseas and supporting the German economy with my loads of Euros instead. Now, at the end of August, thanks to all those banks collapsing in the States, the dollar has tumbled back to where it was, the stock market's limping (although not as badly as those in the big financial centres) and instead of the exporters, now the importers are complaining. Almost business as usual.

When I'm 64

All those interest rate hikes have showed limited success at best in getting people to buy less on credit and save more. And I don't quite get why the target is the housing market anyway, because what's happening is that normal and even relatively well-to-do people can't afford to buy houses to live in any more. If you really wanted to put breaks on the market, why not tax property investors who buy up heaps of housing and sections for investment purposes (often with foreign money, so for them, still a good deal) and then sell after a relatively short time with large, tax-free profit? But as usual no one has asked me, and this is not what I was going to write about anyway.

Wellington Waterfront detail, also unrelated to finance

Instead I was going to write about Kiwisaver, which is a new government scheme that encourages people to save for their retirement. It was introduced with the 2007 Budget and its first phase went into effect in July. Kiwisaver contains a number of components: contributions from the employee's salary (4% or 8%), contributions from the employer, a tax credit and a $1000 kick-start gift, as well as possible help with a first home deposit. A number of financial institutions offer schemes, i.e. investment funds, and you get to choose which one to join. There's a lot of effort from the government to spread the word and get people to join.

It remains to be seen how well Kiwisaver gets adopted—there hasn't been much awareness about it at my workplace for sure, but if I understand it right, anyone starting a new job will be automatically enrolled (although they can opt out), and I guess that numbers will also go up next year when employers start to contribute. Of course next year is also an election year, and there is some speculation as to what might happen if the National Party wins —they've made some noises about changes although said that they would generally keep it; not the most confidence-instilling thing to say.

Overall, I think Kiwisaver is a good thing. It's certainly a good idea to address retirement planning in a country where most people's savings for retirement consist only of their house, which in the current market (see above) is neither guaranteed to grow in value, nor is something that can easily be converted into cash if we're talking about your own home. So while the details may or may not be sorted yet, in my opinion it's a step in the right direction.

Forbidden fruit

Do not want!

What comes to your mind when you read the headline, "Apple battle escalates"?—"What's Steve Jobs up to now?", right? I've been noticing this and similar headlines for a while now and finally read enough about it to realise that it's not about the latest news from Cupertino at all, but the fruit-kind of apple. Turns out that we're having a row with our neighbours because they won't let us export New Zealand apples into Australia. Since 1921! This has been going on for 86 years! So sometime between the First and the Second World War, fire blight, an apple disease, was discovered in New Zealand's orchards. Ever since, the Aussies have refused to let our fruit enter their country, even though we have had a Free Trade Agreement with them for for nearly three decades (quite substantial too: both ways combined, trade amounts to ~ NZ$16 billion), we've said pretty please again and again, and anyway, most people believe it's highly unlikely that the disease can spread through commercially grown, ripe fruit.

So: No more Mr. Nice Guy. Now we have taken them to court, more precisely, to the World Trade Organisation, to settle the dispute this way. And while we were at it, we also told them to shut up and stop interfering in New Zealand domestic affairs. (The Australian Government had commented on recent revelations of the fact that Air New Zealand was used to fly Australian troops to Kuwait on their way to Iraq—a war which New Zealand openly opposed. Oops.) Feisty. But then, they don't like our apples so I guess they deserve it.

Lunar eclipse on August 28 (picture totally stolen, my crap camera could never do this)

"We will vigourously defend our position and fight the case to the bitter end, arrrr", the Australian Government already responded with regards to the WTO case. We'll find out, although it's probably going to be at least another 5 years. Till then: No more koalas!

(Well. My plan to do shorter blog posts didn't quite work out. I better skip the details about the as usual fantastic Film Festival, another recent trip to wine country, this week's lunar eclipse, and a bunch of other stuff we've been up to. Has it really only been two months?)

September-October 2007

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +1300

Wake me up when September ends

Cloudy spring morning

Kiwis would put it this way: "It's been full on." Seriously, just thinking about the last couple of months makes me feel slightly exhausted. A lot has happened, and some of it already seems rather far away. I'll try to start at the beginning.

And that means September, and therefore, my annual "we have moved" post. No joke. It's a habit I can't seem to beat. A couple more years, and it will be 20 years and as many moves for me. It is so time to stop.

Waterfront evening light

And maybe this time we really did it. Last year at this time we sold our house. Since then, we've enjoyed apartment living in the inner city a lot. Paying rent, on the other, we didn't like so much, and so we kept our eyes open. Back in May we found an apartment that met most of our criteria (we had a spreadsheet, as you do) and decided to take the plunge again and buy it. Our rental agreement however didn't expire until September so we had a very long settlement, which made the whole thing seem rather unreal for a long time. The good side of this was that it gave us plenty of time to plan the move, sell the extra furniture, investigate which energy provider to use (I finally wanted one with a better environmental record) and so forth. And they lived happily ever after.

Dominion Day

September 26 marked the 100th Dominion Day. If you have never heard of Dominion Day, you are not alone. Neither had I, so I did a bit of research. Dominion Day marks the day on which New Zealand, along with other parts of the British Empire including Canada, South Africa, and Australia, formally ceased to be a colony and was granted "dominion" status within the British Empire. A dominion, so I learned, was originally a generic name for a British overseas possession, but was given to the self-governing colonies in 1907 as a new title. That's all it was—a name change. There were no practical implications of this change; New Zealand was no more and no less independent from Britain than it had been before, even though the new term gave the perception of something better than the "lesser" colonies.

Advance New Zealand: Celebrating the Dominion status with new-fangled electric lights decorating Parliament Buildings (pic from Te Ara)

The 1931 Statute of Westminster, which removed Britain's right to legislate for the dominions and really made them autonomous, wasn't ratified by New Zealand until 1947, making it the last dominion to do so. At that point, New Zealand also joined the United Nations and was now referred to as "Realm of NZ", yet another term that ties the country to the British monarchy. I was surprised to learn that the dominion status has never been officially revoked, and that technically, New Zealand remains a "self-governing colony of Great Britain" to this day. At least it stopped being economically dependent on Britain in the 1970s.

There is some debate in New Zealand if the country should finally reject monarchy and become a republic. The nation is split on the issue, with a slight majority in favour of retaining the status quo, but it’s not an issue that people care about strongly one way or the other. Kiwis are too practical for this kind of debate and are simply not very interested in abstract concepts such as constitutional status. An interesting entry on Wikipedia about the independence of New Zealand states that "the concept of a national 'Independence Day' is foreign to the New Zealand psyche". Amongst those who do participate in the debate, the consensus is that the withdrawal from monarchy will happen (possibly the end of the Queen's reign, whenever that occurs, will be a new trigger for the debate) but that there is no reason to rush into it.

Meanwhile, new citizens continue to swear the following oath: "I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of New Zealand, Her heirs and successors according to law, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of New Zealand and fulfil my duties as a New Zealand citizen. So help me God." These days, God is optional. The Queen, on the other hand, is still mandatory.

Pick me, pick me!

Advertising the election

In 2007 we got to vote in our first election as New Zealand residents: Local council elections took place in mid-October. In Wellington we elected a mayor along with city and regional councillors and health-board members. In New Zealand, local elections are held every three years, and they happen on the same day for all communities across the country.

I happen to believe that local and regional government is extremely important, and that many of the decisions and policies that affect people most in their day-to-day lives are made on that level. This means there's a huge opportunity here, and also huge responsibility. Now that I'm a ratepayer again, the importance of local politics has increased even more. Sadly, it's not easy to follow what's really going on. The local newspaper is not much more than a tabloid, and most of the more in-depth information seems to come from the council itself, which is great, but not exactly unbiased.

There were 11 candidates for mayor alone, and I found it a lot easier to decide for whom I did not want to vote than to find candidates that I wanted to support beyond picking a lesser evil. It was really hard to figure out what people stood for, and almost impossible to find out not just what they promised, but what they have been doing in the past to back up their claims. Sadly but not surprising, the majority of people can't be bothered to do a lot of research to make an informed decision, and therefore most opt to not vote at all.

Also part of the difficulty I think is that a lot of what you see of local government is about very specific, often small issues, not about bigger direction. But those small, specific issues are the day-to-day frustrations that will drive a vote when information is scarce.

This could be you! Dubious pedestrian safety campaign

I for one definitely associate local government with the things that affect me directly: council rates, tagging and rubbish, traffic, services, etc. It bothers me that because of "rising costs" I now have to pay $5 to borrow a bestseller book from the public library for just 7 days (every extra day adds a dollar!) At the same time, the council happily donates an "undisclosed amount" of money (the mayor refused to name numbers) to the $2 million effort to get the LA Galaxy soccer team and David Beckham to play a single game in Wellington. And how come the city continues to spend money on its dramatic but worthless pedestrian safety campaign "Stop Look Live" but doesn’t find any budget for making the city actually safer for pedestrians? (I contacted them once about getting a zebra crossing for a notoriously bad, unregulated 4-way intersection and was told that the council had determined it was "safe enough" as it was. I guess painting outlines of traffic victims is more fun than painting stripes).

Polling box at City Hall

As expected, voter turnout was abysmal: only 40% in Wellington, 41% overall. Three years ago, it was 46%. One newspaper polled people on the street beforehand and was given a number of reasons for not voting, among them "apathy, laziness, dislike of the running candidates, lack of knowledge in the issues and not being enrolled". Sheesh. I read that Local Government New Zealand is researching the possibility of online voting. Great—the more convenient the better. However, I doubt this would make a difference for participation, as it's not going to address the general apathy, nor the lack of understanding of the issues and the candidates' positions.

Even just finding out the results was hard. A story about New Zealand women being the most promiscuous in the world seemed to get a lot more attention in the media that weekend than the election results. In Wellington, the old mayor was re-elected with a comfortable majority (more than twice as many votes as the next candidate. Thanks to the rather strange Single Transferable Voting (STV) system, a hybrid of proportional voting for individual candidates, it took till almost midnight for a preliminary result. It wasn't worth staying up late for.

Let there be light

Wellington is where umbrellas go to die, especially during extra-windy spring

A while ago I wrote that there was an initiative to extend our daylight saving time, which was shorter in New Zealand than in most nations on the planet. I even signed a petition at some point, and believe it or not, it actually happened! This meant that in 2007 we started turning the clock forward early, at the end of September, and we'll turn it back a couple weeks later than before as well. This is great, and I'm enjoying the longer daylight.

Or I will, once we've all recovered from the chaos of the switch. The change was communicated poorly, at least that's my guess, because so many companies and organisations didn't manage to properly update their computer systems. Some manufacturers released patches, others didn't; some of the patches work, others, not so much. The result was that in the first week of October, computer clocks around the country were badly out of sync. In my case, all my work appointments in my calendar turned out to be late by one hour, causing me among other things to miss a meeting with a major client, which would have been embarrassing if their system hadn't been equally confused, causing them similar problems. In the words of a Microsoft spokesman: "It's like a little mini Y2K". Right. Except back then, if I remember correctly, things went more smoothly.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Maybe I'm a bit harsh here, but right now, I don't have a lot of love to spare for any computer company. After only 3 years, during which it had been declining steadily, my PowerBook has completely given up the ghost. Specifically, the hard drive is irrecoverably damaged. Kaputt. Thank god I was able to coerce a final backup of my user files from the dying drive before it fully disintegrated.

As if the broken hard disk wasn't enough, I'm also missing the Page Down key. Maybe it really is time for an upgrade?

So now I'm now running off my external backup drive, using the laptop's processor and display but bypassing the hard disk completely. That works pretty ok although it sometimes gets wedged when rebooting, so I try not to do that any more. Obviously this isn't exactly a long-term solution, but I'm just not ready to buy a new machine, given that MacBooks are in mid-cycle and The Internets are rife with speculation about a new model possibly before Christmas. So for now my Frankenputer will have to do (I'm backing up the backup to yet another external drive) until either the new models are out or it's driving me absolutely nuts.

This doesn't really have anything to do with New Zealand, except that we are still paying a premium price for computers in the country. As of late October, a mid-range MacBook currently costs NZ$2,199, or the equivalent of roughly US$1,680. In the United States, the same machine is US$1,299.

What's in a name?

Sometimes you make a spur-of-the moment decision based on what seems best right at the time, with no bigger plan in mind. But somehow, it sticks and before you know it you've established a precedent of how things are done, and good luck changing that. This is what happened with the pronunciation of my name.

The new me! A lot like the old me, really.

When I first came to America, people had trouble with its foreign sound, and anyway it seemed the typical immigrant thing to do to americanise your name. (As an aside, for a fascinating tour of the history of American language and culture, I recommend a book I'm currently reading, Bill Bryson's Made in America). While I never changed the spelling of Sibylle, I would introduce myself as "sib-uhl" to everybody. As I said above, I didn’t really think much about it, it simply seemed to be the path of least resistance at a time where I had much bigger things on my mind, and it stayed that way. It never felt quite right, or "me" and all the oh-so-funny jokes about "multiple personalities" (took me a while to get them—turns out there was a film) were annoying, but how do you go about changing something fundamental like that without sounding like "from now on, I want you all to call me Loretta"?

Enter New Zealand. As I have written many times before, Kiwis are nothing if not pragmatic and down to earth. Repeatedly I've been asked how I really pronounce my name, and when I tell people, they start using that pronunciation. It simply doesn't make sense to them to do otherwise, and this is what finally convinced me to make the switch myself and start introducing myself with my real name. Thankfully, telling people who already knew me wasn't the big deal I had anticipated. One morning, I simply sent around an email at work, as that was the biggest single audience, people said, "good on ya", and that was it. Pretty awesome, and I feel as if I have reclaimed a little bit of myself.

Oh, and it's "see-bill-eh".

Pride and Passion

Saatchi & Saatchi renames itself Pride & Passion for the duration of the World Cup

Let's face it—there was only one topic that really interested Kiwis in the past couple of months: the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. Rugby is more than a sport or a pastime to New Zealanders, it's a key part of the national identity, and the performance of the national team, the All Blacks, can be directly tied to the well-being of the nation.

The All Blacks were considered a top contender for the cup, despite the fact that they haven't won it for 20 years. Their effort was supported by a massive marketing campaign from Tourism New Zealand. The most visible part of this campaign was a giant (12m high and 25m long) rugby ball-shaped pavilion in front of the Eiffel Tower to "promote New Zealand tourism, businesses, culture, lifestyle, food and wine, and technology", opened by the Prime Minister herself. Incidentally, New Zealand will host the next Rugby World Cup in 2011, which is supposed to bring significant numbers of visitors into the country.

New Zealand's rugby ball-shaped pavilion in Paris

It's hard to describe how traumatised Kiwis were when the All Blacks were eliminated from the tournament—much earlier than expected, in the quarterfinals, and by France, no less. Because of the time difference, the game took place very early on Sunday morning New Zealand time, and while usually the city is bustling with life on weekends, that day it was eerily quiet and gloomy, matching the grey, stormy spring weather. I can't claim that I care about rugby (shh, don't tell anyone!), but as a long-suffering supporter of the German national soccer team, I can empathise.

Un-conference

Before this turns into War and Peace again, just one more thing that was one of the highlights of the past couple months: I attended my first-ever BarCamp. A BarCamp has nothing to do with drinking (although it may very well be followed by socialising) nor with going bush, but is a term that has emerged for open, user-led, workshop-like events about technology and web-related topics. There is no distinction between speakers and audience, instead, all content is contributed by the participants, which is why these events are also often referred to as "un-conferences". BarCamps were first held in Silicon Valley a couple years ago and have been spreading fast across the globe. Spring 2007 saw the first BarCamps in New Zealand.

The topic for the Wellington BarCamp was e-government, a subject that I find very interesting because it touches on my field of study as well as my profession. E-government, in a nutshell, is about government agencies using technology to provide better services and information. It is about how agencies work together, as well as how they deliver to the public, and about establishing common standards for doing this effectively. A core aspect of e-government is obviously technology, be it online services or guidelines for building websites. Government is a major employer here in Wellington, and at work I always work at least on a couple of government web projects at any time.

BarCamp had about 100 attendees from both government and the private sector. Topics ranged from big-picture discussions about policy and the role of government to specific sessions about XML and microformats, and lots in between. It was very inspiring to discuss these issues with so many passionate people, many of whom I knew of and respected because of their blogs or their work and reputation in the community, but hadn't met in person before. It never ceases to amaze me that a town as small as Wellington has such a vibrant creative/web/technology community, and I feel very fortunate to be part of it.

November-December 2007

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +1300

Make it real

This month's big life-changing event: No, not another move. Really, we like our apartment. Instead, it was time for a career change.

I had been with the same company, a web agency, since we started out in New Zealand. And while I had great clients, mostly interesting projects and a really good group of people to work with, I felt that it was becoming stale and not really going anywhere. So when I had the opportunity to join a small startup, I decided to take the plunge.

Making stuff with a laser cutter

Working for a startup is very different from working at a more established company. It had been a while for me since the Silicon Valley bubble days, and the first thing I remembered about it was that anything is possible. The next thing was the intensity. In a startup, everything is focused on doing those things that help the business most at the moment, and quickly. Startup teams are small and everyone is excellent. People shape what they are doing by doing it, a new challenge every day. This creates an amazing buzz and hopefully, the basis for a great product. The challenge of course with this is that you can't sustain growth from intensity and brilliance alone, and to run a business you need to at some point establish some structures that define how that's done to make sure you retain focus beyond the next all-nighter. Part of the reason why I'm there is to help with that (and no, there won't be any cover sheets for the TPS reports anytime soon.)

It's only been two weeks, but so far so good. It's great to work on a product again, as opposed to multiple projects in parallel, and what we are doing is innovative and unique: Our platform allows people to design things, turn them into real products, and sell them to the world. It's a whole new way of looking at design, manufacturing and distribution, and it's exciting to be part of it. I'm sure there's lots more to come on this front in the coming months. And in what other job do you have a laser cutter in your office?

What would Beckham do?

Would Beckham like Stollen?

Elsewhere, December may be the month where Santa Claus is coming to town, but here in Wellington, everyone was anxiously anticipating the visit of a different guy. As I mentioned before, David Beckham and the LA Galaxy had been invited to play the Wellington Phoenix, and this caused our city to collectively lose its mind and swoon at the arrival of the tattooed soccer veteran like teenage girls over the latest boy band. The local media established a whole new "BeckhamWatch" section, and emails of people knowing people who spotted HIM around town clogged the tubes this first December weekend.

For $80 a ticket, the decision not to join the madness was an easy one, even though I wouldn't mind going to see a soccer game once in a while, and it's nice to see that with the Phoenix there is now a local team, even though they play in the Australian League due to lack of competition here in New Zealand. The Beckham game attracted nearly 32,000 fans—the biggest crowd for a soccer game in New Zealand history. It's a start.

Kiwi humour goes global

For the longest time, the rest of the world associated New Zealand mostly with sheep. Then came Peter Jackson, and the country became also known as Middle Earth. But now there's something else that people connect with New Zealand, and if you are reading this in the US, chances are you know what I'm talking about: Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie's Flight of the Conchords. It's a bit tricky to describe what exactly they are, so I'll quote wikipedia which calls them a "folk, pop, and comedy duo" which "uses a combination of witty banter, characterisation and acoustic guitars to work the audience". Actually, that sounds rather dorky, but they really are hilarious, and there are hundreds of videos on YouTube to prove it.

Wellington billboard for the "funniest show in America"

Earlier this year, they started a self-titled sitcom on HBO about their (fictionalised) life as struggling Kiwi musicians in New York. It has received a lot of praise both from critics and viewers, which is amazing and a bit surprising given its quirky and definitely not mainstream style of humour, and its many self-deprecating jokes about New Zealand (such as the frustration of being confused with Australia—repeatedly) that you wouldn't necessarily get unless you have lived here for a while. All the more credit to the two for pulling it off.

In November they were named Wellingtonians of the Year and a few weeks later they were nominated for a "Best Comedy Album" Grammy. Meanwhile the guys are back in Wellington for a while, working on a second season, and I've spotted them a couple of times around Courtenay Place, usually, very much unlike their characters in the sitcom, surrounded by girls wanting to take their picture.

Terrorism...here?

This story already started in October but I didn't have the time to research it for my last entry. It's been coming up since so I thought I'll talk about it now even though I'm still not sure what to make of it. It started with reports about police targeting Maori activists and members of the New Zealand environmental and peace movement in a series of "anti-terror" raids. As the story emerged, there was talk about paramilitary groups operating terror training camps in the Urewera mountains of the Bay of Plenty and planning serious crimes and "war on New Zealand" to establish an independent state on Tuhoe (a Maori tribe) land.

Sounds scary. It also doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense. For one, if you take the allegations at face value for a moment, what connects members of the peace movement with potentially violent Maori separatists? If people were breaking the law by possessing firearms, why did the raids come under the guise of anti-terrorism and not regular law enforcement? (Could it have to do with the "Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill" that is currently before Parliament?) And what does this do to a country and its underlying racial tensions which for now are still kept in check—but how firmly?

No terrroists, just oncoming traffic in the Wairarapa

The aftermath of the raids saw the local newspaper publish THE TERRORISM FILES—yep, that's all caps for "secret evidence" along with pictures of police in riot gear. Are you scared yet? Of course this was done in the interest of educating the public and not at all because sensationalist stories sell more papers. I'm still not sure what to think. On the one hand, I have no doubt that there are a lot of nutters out in the world, including here in New Zealand, and the thought of them running around in the bush with guns and camouflage gear is not a pleasant one. On the other hand, making the whole affair a terrorism case and extending it to all kinds of activists (including one who had just published a book about how political dissent and freedom of expression in New Zealand are becoming more perilous with the overall "war on terror") makes the whole thing seem more like a trial balloon for what might be doable in the future than what it was said to be.

No Independence Day

Ever heard of Tokelau? No reason you would have. It's the name of three tiny islands, or more precisely, coral atolls in the South Pacific, roughly between New Zealand and Hawaii. Less than 1500 people live on Tokelau's 10 km², and its economy is the smallest of any country in the world. (Selling .tk domains, oftentimes for dodgy purposes, has added 10% to the country's GDP in recent years.) There is only one licensed bar in the entire country, and it's only allowed to sell beer on Thursdays. One gets a idea just how small and remote Tokelau is upon learning that not even its civil servants work from there, but 500 km away in Samoa. It's not surprising then to learn that Tokelau is not only completely dependent on economic subsidies, but that in fact it is not independent but at "territory" of and administered by New Zealand.

For the past three years, Tokelau and New Zealand have been working on a treaty to turn Tokelau into a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand, similar to Niue and the Cook Islands. A referendum in February 2006 didn't reach the required two-thirds majority. Now the referendum was repeated in October 2007, as before supervised by the UN, but missed it again, this time by only 16 votes. Many believe that the Tokelauans don't want to lose access to New Zealand—curently they automatically have New Zealand citizenship, and about 8000 of them already live here. They might try another referendum in five years.

Fahrvergnügen

And speaking of Samoa: Just before Christmas I read that the island recently saw one of the largest rallies in its history, with 7000 angry people marching to parliament in Apia, the capital. The reason: The government wants to make cars drive on the left side of the road.

Oriental Bay beach in Wellington

Currently, people drive on the right in Samoa, thanks to colonisation by the Germans. New Zealand seized control over Samoa from the Germans in 1914, but left-hand drive cars and right-hand driving stuck. Now the government claims they want to harmonise the laws with New Zealand and Australia, where a lot of Samoans live, and allow for cheaper right-hand drive cars to be imported from those countries. If that's not convincing enough, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, the Prime Minister of Samoa, further argued that "we refer to the right hand as the smart hand, and the left as the stupid one. Currently Samoans are changing gears with the smart hand, the right, and driving with their stupid hand, the left. Things would finally be put right if we switch to using the right hand, or the correct one." Glad he cleared that up. (Someone should tell the Germans.)

Not stirred

On Thursday, December 20th, we were at our favourite pizza place, celebrating the upcoming holidays. We had just ordered and were talking while waiting for food when the table started shaking. It kept shaking, too, for quite a long time, and I looked at Brian to see if he felt it too. He did—but no one else in the restaurant seemed to. The probably had been partying and feeling unsteady for hours already.

Earthquake in wine country means lots of broken bottles...

I forgot all about it until the next morning when I read in the paper (well, on the internet) that there had been a 6.8 earthquake the previous night. 6.8 is quite serious—6.0 to 6.9 on the Richter Scale are considered 'strong'; for comparison, the 1994 Northridge quake which did so much damage and cost many lives in LA was a 6.7. The epicentre of this quake was 50 km off the east coast of the North Island, near the town Gisborne, about 500 km from Wellington. It was in Gisborne's central business district where most of the damage was done, with three buildings collapsing and many more damaged, but thankfully only few injuries to people.

Anyone with a house or contents insurance in New Zealand is automatically covered for insurance against natural disaster with the Earthquake Commission (EQC). This means that people who have sustained damage from an earthquake can lodge a claim with the EQC. The insurance cover applies to other natural disasters too—this is why we could lodge a claim last year when we had a landslip at our house. No doubt any natural disaster is very stressful, but we found that the EQC did a good job and helped us solve what could have been a very expensive problem. During the first week after the Gisborne quake, they received about 1100 related claims and are expecting more. The damage is estimated to cost at least $30 million.

Last minute holiday

Kayaking in the sounds

In mid-December we spontaneously decided to take a short trip over Christmas. Me. Spontaneous. I know! In a very non-German and not at all typical fashion, we didn't plan anything until five or six days beforehand even though now is the high tourism season in this country. Nevertheless, we were in luck and managed to organise everything on short notice.

As destination we picked the Marlborough Sounds at the eastern top of the South Island. The most common way to get there from Wellington is via ferry across the Cook Strait. The Cook Strait is the channel of water that separates the North and South Island. It's only 20 km at its narrowest point but thanks to its position across the "Roaring Forties", the latitudes between the 40 and 50 degrees south, it acts like a funnel and is notorious for its strong currents and extreme winds.

Over troubled water

Ferry ride across the Cook Strait

There are a lot of horror stories about rough Cook Strait crossings, such as the on in March last year, where the Interislander ferry Aratere heeled over to 45 degrees several times as the ship's master tried to steer it away from the rocky shore, causing injuries to passengers and several dozen damaged vehicles, including some rail wagons that fell over. A normal trip from Wellington to Picton takes about 3 hours—that one took 7 1/2, and it's just one of many examples. The inquiry that followed concluded that the ship was "not close to sinking", but I'd rather not put that to the test and would definitely avoid crossing in bad weather (here's an example of just how bad it can get).

Of course, if you don't like being on a boat, you could always swim the distance. Earlier this year a 13 year old girl did so in 10 1/2 hours, as you do. Crikey.

Sunken valleys

View from the Queen Charlotte Track

Anyway, our ferry crossing was thankfully unexciting, the bay calm as the proverbial mill pond as we left Wellington. The last part of the journey, after crossing the strait, takes you into the sounds themselves and along one of the main channels, the Queen Charlotte Sound, to the small town of Picton. Although they don't cover that much ground, the Marlborough Sounds have 1500 km of coastline, thanks to the fractal nature of its endless number of bays, islands, inlets and peninsulas.

Geologically, the sounds are drowned river valleys, so even though they resemble fjords, they are not the same because the latter are not formed by rivers as a result of change of sea level, but by glaciers (Fiordland on the southern West Coast of the South Island, on the other hand, has real fjords). Thanks to Wikipedia, I learned that other examples of drowned river valleys aka "ria" are the San Francisco Bay and the Sydney Harbour. I had no idea!

Swing at the Lochmara Lodge

But I keep digressing. The Marlborough Sounds consist of lush green hills separated by turquoise waters and sandy beaches. There are only few roads, and most of the houses (many of them holiday homes or tourist accommodation) are only accessible from the water. It's remote and rugged and very picturesque, and the perfect spot for a quick getaway from the city. When we first came to New Zealand we smiled when people told us they couldn't live in Wellington because of its "madding crowds" (just under 180,000 people live in our city). Now, three years later and no longer used to big cities, we know what they mean, and it felt great to leave the insanity of a sold-out Kaitaki with its 1600 pre-Christmas frazzled passengers and their 600 cars, and to get onto a tiny water taxi to take us to the Lochmara Lodge.

Relaxation regimen

On the water taxi, leaving Picton

I cannot recommend our accommodation enough. It's located on 11 acres which spread from a small beach through farmland, dark forests and hilltops with breathtaking views, all connected through a maze of small paths, sort of like a big adventure playground. There are hammocks all over the place, some tucked away in the the shade, others directly beneath the sky for viewing the stars at nights. There's a glowworm gully that is dotted with hundreds of little lights at night. The lodge have their own orchard and farm animals, and the food in their restaurant was one of the best I've ever had (and I've been having a LOT of excellent food lately).

In addition to providing a place to stay in an amazing location, the lodge also doubles as a wildlife recovery centre for protecting and rehabilitating native species such as kakariki (small green parrots) or geckos and educating people about local flora and fauna. There is also an art centre with galleries and sculptures everywhere and a place for artists to create and showcase their work. My favourite were the punga people, carved directly into the trees throughout the grounds, with eyes from shiny paua shells and full of mystery.

Mysterious Punga People

It would have been easy to spend a week just at the lodge, doing nothing more than simply hang out. We filled our three days with a rigourous relaxation regimen: sea kayaking, spa, massage, lots of reading... On the last day we hiked a part of the Queen Charlotte Track, which is a 71 km multi-day hike along Queen Charlotte Sound. The track can be either biked or walked, and you can have your luggage transported to your next accommodation, which makes it a really enjoyable experience. We did the last 20 km or so from the lodge to the track's end at Anakiwa. Most of the track was along a ridge through the forest, with the occasional opening and stunning views of the sounds. At the end, we were picked up by a boat which brought us back to Picton. A perfect little holiday.

Marlborough Sounds 2007 photo album

Happy 2008!

January 2008

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +1300

We are Everest

January 2008 was all about Hillary, and I'm not talking about the American presidential elections. On January 11, Sir Edmund Hillary, beekeeper, mountaineer and adventurer, the first man to climb Mt Everest, and arguably the most famous New Zealander, passed away in Auckland at the age of 88.

Newspaper special edition in honour of Sir Ed

The story of his life has been told many times. Hillary's public fame started on May 29, 1953, when the then 33-year old Hillary, together with his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, was the first man to reach the 8848 m (29,028 feet) summit of Mt Everest. Shortly thereafter, he was knighted by the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II.

A self-proclaimed restless person ("Next! I wanted to shout", he says was his reaction upon reaching the summit, and if his publisher had let him, he would have titled his first book "Battle against Boredom"), he went on to climb numerous other peaks in the Himalayas, visited both the South Pole (with an Antarctica expedition in 1958) and the North Pole (in 1985, together with Neil Armstrong) and led a jetboat expedition along the Ganges River in 1977, among other things. He continued to travel until the end of his life, visiting both Scott Base and Kathmandu last year at the age of 88.

It's not just his adventures, however, that made Hillary both famous and beloved in New Zealand and beyond, but who he was as a person. The obituaries and reminiscences after his death were filled with words like "legend", "hero", "colossus", "New Zealand's favourite son", and the like. Hillary himself was always puzzled by this.

In an interview I read from a few years ago, he says "There is such a gulf between who I know myself to be and way others think of me. [...] They think I am a hero, a great man. And I know I am nothing of the kind. I am quite an ordinary man, just a normal person." He went on to say how others who climbed Everest later were much better mountaineers than him, and only after the interviewer kept pointing out that he was the first one to do what he did, Hillary admitted that he did have determination and confidence, but quickly went on to give credit to his sherpa.

His humble, honest and down-to-earth nature was universally recognised—how much becomes clear when considering that he has been featured on the $5 banknote since 1992. Aside from monarchs, living persons are pretty much never shown on currency, for fear they might fall from grace or become embarrassing later on. With Hillary, no one was worried about that.

New Zealand five dollar bill

After he returned from Everest, Sir Ed went back to beekeeping, seeing himself just as another Kiwi who had climbed a mountain, and what was the big deal about that? He eventually came to terms with fame and public interest by using his celebrity to do good, setting up schools and hospitals in Nepal and helping the Sherpa people there through his Himalayan Trust.

His death, while not unexpected for a man his age, caused an onslaught of media coverage. Sadly, it quickly moved beyond a reflection of the man's life and onto topics such as should we create a public holiday? Rename a mountain in his honour? And why oh why did none of the British royals come to the funeral? I can't help but think that the man would have been embarrassed and a bit irritated at all the fuzz.

R.I.P., Sir Ed.

Speaking of adventurers

They call it "the ditch", but the Tasman Sea that separates us from our closest neighbours is 2200 km wide. Every year, tens of thousands of New Zealanders cross it to start a shiny new life in Australia where the weather is always good and taxes are low. In 2007, over 27,000 Kiwis moved to Oz, the highest number in 19 years.

Finally on the other side

There are a lot fewer stories about trips going in the other direction, but this one made the news: In mid-January, two young Australians came from Sydney to New Zealand—in a kayak. It took them 62 days, 20 more than planned. Due to strong head winds and currents, they ended up paddling 3300 km before they reached land near New Plymouth, where they were welcomed by tens of thousands of spectators.

Since this is the 21st century, they had a blog with photos, podcasts and videos from their trip, and people could track their progress via the internet in real time. It's quite dramatic to see the Google map of their journey, especially the part in the middle where they kept going in circles in bad weather. An amazing effort and a great story.

And sadly, nothing is safe from exploitation for political purposes: Said a spokesman of the National Party, the major opposition to the current government: "The trouble is that New Zealanders are leaving the country in planeloads, and Australians are coming here in kayaks."

Big in Japan

I always thought that whaling is something that disappeared with the 1980s, along with big hair and tapered jeans. Sadly, not only have the latter made an unfortunate comeback, but despite an international moratorium on whaling since 1986, a number of countries continue to commercially hunt for whales to this day.

Much less gory than whaling: Magical lights at the Botanical Gardens

Japan is one of them, but since they are bound by the moratorium, they claim to hunt whales for "scientific " purposes. The fact that the whale meat ends up as a delicacy in Japanese restaurants, they say, is merely a side effect of complying with regulations, which "require that whale meat be fully utilised" once the research has been completed. During last year's season, they hunted and killed over 500 whales, half of them pregnant females. Just how much research into "the dietary habits of whales" can one do?

New Zealand, along with Australia, the US and the UK, is one of the strongest and most vocal opponents of Japanese whaling; not surprising as it's happening in our front yard, so to speak. At this moment, the Japanese whaling fleet is in Australian waters in Antarctica. However, the Australian Federal Court just declared the fleet's activities illegal, and now it looks as if they are headed towards the Ross Sea, which is New Zealand territory.

If they do, there is not much that the New Zealand government can do about this other than express its strong opposition. Already, emotions were running high when several Australian environmental activists and anti-whaling protesters who had been following the fleet were captured and held by the Japanese for several days until their government intervened. Greenpeace managed to disrupt the refuelling of one the whaling ships for a while, narrowing time window of opportunity for the hunters. Sadly, it's unlikely that anything will really stop the hunt until the season is over.

Meanwhile, back in Wellington...

Summer in the city

...summer is here and I love it. You can't beat Wellington on ~~the~~ a good day, but to be fair, there have been plenty of awesome days this month. My Christmas break was a long one for a change, almost two weeks, and even though I had a really bad cold for most of that time, it was lovely to just hang out, read lots of books and watch movies. It's probably what I would have done anyway.

Once recovered, we've been enjoying the season by going on a lot of walks, cooking with fresh veggies, taking advantage of some of the many free cultural events around town, catching up with friends—and have I mentioned it's warm? Bliss, I say.

February-March 2008

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +1300

Youth really is wasted on the young

Fresh off the boat!

Sometimes when I think I'm getting old (which I'm not) it's good to hear stories that remind me that it's never too late do make big changes in life. One of those stories is that of Briton Eric King-Turner, who, at the age of 102, recently moved to New Zealand with his 88-year old Kiwi wife. This makes him the oldest immigrant in the history of this country.

Despite their age, the couple had to go through the normal immigration paperwork, proving that they were not in a "marriage of convenience" just so that he could become eligible for residency, but in a stable relationship. Once that was accomplished, they travelled to their new home on a ship (not a container ship though.) During the long voyage, Mr King-Turner learned how to use email. They arrived in Wellington on Valentine's Day.

The best part of the story though is Mr King-Turner's motivation for moving to his wife's home country:

"It's a wonderful new adventure and I would say to anyone that if you want to do something you should do it straight away while you can."

"What's important is that when I'm 105, I don't want to be thinking, 'I wish I had moved to the other side of the world when I was 102'."

What an inspiration!

Ur doing it wrong

A nice February evening out on the bay

We are now well into year four down under, yet the reversal of seasons in the southern hemisphere continues to feel very wrong. It's blatantly obvious that the calendar and cultural schedule of western societies was created in the northern hemisphere and simply applied to the southern half of the globe without considering the implications.

This is not about Christmas in summer—the yearly "Santa at the beach in Australia" article in northern media has become a very tired "oddity" indeed. Plus, unless the notion of a traditional (white? where?) Christmas is what you are after, who cares! It's summer, and warm, and for me that's always a cause for celebration. It's the other 11 and 1/2 months that are the trouble.

"Solace in the Wind", a new statue on the waterfront

It's difficult at best to be at peace with the fact that sweet, hopeful May is in fact one of the gloomiest months of the year (the equivalent of November). Unlike the northern winter, which is interrupted by Christmas, New Years and other holidays, the New Zealand winter stretches from June to September at best, more often, spanning six dark and cold months without as much as a public holiday or any other event to interrupt and lighten the mood. And while I don't celebrate Easter, it sure doesn't belong into autumn instead of spring.

One thing we can count on every year on Easter is the discussion about New Zealand's trading law. This law forbids shops to open on three and a half days per year; these are: Good Friday, Easter Sunday, the morning of ANZAC Day and Christmas Day. Affected are all shops, including grocery stores. Dairies (small corner stores that sell a little bit of everything, albeit at a horrendous markup) are exempt can only sell items that are essential and can't be put off till the next day, whatever that means. Garden centres area allowed to open on Easter Sunday but not on Good Friday. Stores in tourist towns Taupo and Queenstown may open; stores in tourist towns Wanaka or Rotorua may not. If you think this is confusing, don't even look at the liquor laws for the Easter weekend.

Tibet? Financial markets crash? This newspaper leads with a cute kitten!

Every year there are calls for letting councils regulate whether shops can open or not on those days, or for scrapping the ban altogether. Also every year, relevant bills are defeated and nothing changes which is blamed on "lack of public consensus", meaning that none of the various opposing lobby groups has been convincing enough. According to our ever-witty local tabloid, the change has been "put in the 'too-hard basket'". Wait for a repeat in 2009.

Territorial pissings

And speaking of the New Zealand mainstream media: If that's where you get your news, you would think that the biggest problem facing this nation is neither the slowing economy, the housing crisis or long wait times in the public health system. No, it's kids with spray paint.

Graffiti alley, Wellington

In Auckland, a 50 year old businessman stabbed and killed a 15 year old teenager whom he caught tagging a fence on his property. The mayor of South Auckland shortly thereafter called tagging "a starting point for a lot of youngsters getting on to the criminal treadmill", and the government introduced new legislation that would ban the sale of spray paint to minors, increase fines up to $2000 (currently the maximum is $200), and allocate money to local groups and councils for anti-tagging initiatives.

Now. I'm very much a believer in the broken windows theory. I strongly dislike tagging, and it bothers me a great deal when I find tags on our building or street. There is no excuse for vandalism, and by all means should offenders have to clean up their mess and be fined. But declaring a "war against graffiti" (which, by the way, is not the same as tagging) is awfully fearmongerish and encourages the kind of creepy vigilante justice expressed in so many comments that sympathised with the stabber and thought the kid "had it coming" or even "deserved it". So it's ok to kill someone because they tag your property? What if they litter? Spit in your front yard? Maybe that one only justifies a good beating? The whole debate is eerily reminiscent of the annoying smacking controversy I've written about before, where violence seems to be the preferred method by which kids learn to respect authority and other people's property.

German tourist on ice. Sigh.

On a side note, the issue isn't limited to cities, nor to Kiwi teenagers. In February, a 28 year old German backpacker was caught tagging both rock walls and glacier ice at Franz Joseph Glacier on the South Island. English tourists took pictures and reported him to the police, who arrested him the next day. He was ordered to clean up his handiwork in order to escape charges. It took him almost two days, during which he was "seriously dressed down" by tourists and guides alike. Surely this would have been an effective deterrent?

At least we don't have to worry about the Israeli army

It's still summer, sort of, but the occasional southerly reminds us that our nine months of discomfort are not that far away. Lest we forget what's in store, here comes a study on the health effects of leaky buildings from Massey University. The verdict: Mould was found in 75 per cent of the 1310 households surveyed. "This is comparable to a study of Palestinian refugee camps, where the rate was 78 per cent."

Some of the most expensive houses in Wellington

Our cold, damp and mouldy houses lead to respiratory problems such as wheezing, coughing and asthma, and "conservative estimates put the direct health costs of leaky buildings in New Zealand at $61 million a year."

What's being done about this? Nothing. While this article circulated heavily amongst my immigrant friends, it didn't register on any great scale. And while it's great that these studies point out the dangers, I don't understand why we need more studies. It's damn obvious that the current state of housing is simply subpar. Just look at any other civilised country and their building standards and raise them here accordingly. Anything above Palestinian refugee camp shacks would be an improvement. Thank you.

Round peach in a square lunchbox

Square eggs!

One of my favourite stories of all times is Carl Barks' Lost in the Andes (1949). In this story, Donald Duck discovers square eggs in the Duckburg museum and has to travel to South America with his nephews to find the mythical chicken who lay these square eggs. As one might expect they encounter all kinds of peril. My favourite scene is when the nephews are ordered to produce square bubble gum bubbles in Plain Awful, the city where all round things are forbidden.

I was therefore excited to hear that a fruit grower in Otago on the South Island has introduced square peaches. Unlike their round cousins, these square peaches, called "Flatto", wouldn't roll around and fit easily into lunch boxes. Could this be true?

In one word, no. Life, unfortunately, is nothing like a comic strip. The Flatto is not really square at all, but resembles a flat donut. This wouldn't fly at all in Plain Awful. (Apparently they are quite tasty though.)

Dolphins 1, humans 0

Neither dolphin nor whale but at least a somewhat marine-related picture

It's not easy being a whale these days. Even if you manage to escape the fate of becoming a delicacy in a Japanese restaurant (for research purposes, of course!) there's the whole beaching problem. According to The Internets, it's not entirely clear why whales beach themselves—the most common theory says that they lose orientation due to sickness or injury.

When humans find beached whales, they try to get them back into the water. Unfortunately, because the whales are a lot bigger than the humans (although as a species, we seem to be making some progress in that direction), this doesn't always work. When two pygmy sperm whales became stranded in Mahia Beach in Hawkes Bay (500 km north-east of Wellington), a group of people tried to get them back out into the water, but the whales kept getting stranded on a sandbar and the would-be rescuers finally decided to give up.

This is when Moko, a dolphin well known to the locals, approached the whales and guided them to safety to a channel that led away from the sand bars and out to sea. (more plus video)

Dragon boat race, Wellington harbour

A conservation worker who had unsuccessfully tried to help earlier said that "there was obviously something that went on because the two whales changed their attitude from being quite distressed to following the dolphin quite willingly and directly along the beach and straight out to sea." And a marine mammals expert from the Te Papa museum here in Wellington added that "it's the first time I've heard of an inter-species refloating technique. I think that's wonderful."

A busy summer

But enough of flora and fauna. It's been an eventful couple of months for my species as well. Everything gets crammed into the summer months here, and my calendar was accordingly full.

Us at the Webstock dinner (found on Flickr, sorry I can't remember where)

One of the most anticipated events for me was Webstock, a Wellington-based web conference with a fantastic lineup of speakers on all things web, and an excellent opportunity to meet and connect with people in our industry. This year's conference had 500 people attending and consisted of three days of workshops and two days of conference.

My impressions of the workshops and presentations were a bit mixed, ranking from truly outstanding and inspiring to somewhat disappointing (more of the same things you've already heard a thousand times.) What really impressed me though was how well the conference was organised—from the bags to the program to the badges, from the food to supporting event program such as a craft market, cocktail hour and dinner, everything was created with care and creativity and made a huge difference to the overall experience. Not to mention that it was heaps of fun and great to met so many people who are passionate about the web.

"Gravity and other Myths" at the Arts Festival

For a bit of a contrast, I let my self be talked into participating with a team from work in Round the Bays, a 7km run along the bay, starting near Civic Square and ending in Kilbirnie, a suburb near the airport. Round the Bays is a "fun run", a nice little Sunday morning activity for everyone because unless it's at least double digit distance, uphill and preferably against strong headwind, Kiwis don't consider it serious sports.

On the South Island, they have an annual race called Coast to Coast where you literally cross the Southern Alps from the West Coast to the East coast, spanning 243 km on foot, bike and in kayaks. The champions manage this in a mere 10.5 hours. There's also something called the "24 hour mountain bike challenge", where, you guessed it, your ride your mountain bike for a whole day.

So, admittedly, a 7 km run on flat surface isn't exactly serious. I was still proud I managed the whole thing in 41 minutes and 9 seconds which isn't bad given that my faster team mates were all male and on average a decade younger.

Gary Trudeau at the Readers and Writers Week

Finally, we've also had a plethora of cultural events and festivals in the city. I'm not sure why the International Arts Festival and the Fringe Festival, two major annual events in Wellington, are all happening at the same time instead of spreading things out a bit. But whatever the reasoning, we managed to see a number of good shows, including a black comedy at Downstage theatre, a jazz trio from the US (The Bad Plus), acrobatics in Civic Square, and a couple of sessions at the Readers and Writers week: Doonesbury cartonist Gary Trudau, and a very interesting discussion about war between British novelist Ian McEwan, German author Uwe Timm, and NZ writer and poet C.K. Stead. Maybe I am glad that there are fewer things on from now on. At least it'll give me some time to catch my breath, and of course, blog.

April-June 2008

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +1200

The Wahine disaster

Now in a museum: Remnants from the Wahine. If you look closely, you can see deep bite marks on the whistle attached to the life jacket.

In April, Wellington commemorated the 40-year anniversary of the darkest chapter in its brief history: The Wahine disaster. The Wahine ("woman" in Maori and Hawaiian, and pronounced with emphasis on the first syllable) was an electric steamer ferry built in Scotland in the early 1960s. At the time, the Wahine was one of the largest ferries in the world, with modern cabins and amenities and room for 928 passengers. She came to Wellington in mid-1966 and sailed between Lyttleton (Christchurch) and Wellington. (See an advertisement from the time.)

On the evening April 9, 1968, the Wahine left Lyttleton en route to Wellington. When they set sail, no one expected a difficult crossing. But the weather conditions changed drastically over night. A warm tropical cyclone that was rapidly moving south collided with a cold southerly front (do we ever know about those!) heading north from Antarctica. The two systems couldn't have met in a worse place: They joined directly over Wellington, creating freak storm with violent turbulence. In the early morning hours of April 10, winds up to 125 knots hit Cook Strait. The city was slammed with winds up to 275 km/h - the strongest ever recorded in New Zealand. Remember me talking about wind force back in the days of the container ship? The maximum on the Beaufort scale for wind force 12, or winds of 120 km/h. Old Sir Francis sure didn't take Wellington into account when he came up with this scale. As I'm writing this, they are forecasting gales up to 140km/h from later on today. Is not so great akshully.

Diorama of the capsized ship at the Museum of Wellington City and Sea

But back to the story. Around 6 am, when the Wahine approached the entrance to the Wellington harbour heads, they had practically no visibility thanks to the storm and turbulent seas. Worse, the ship's radar had failed too. When the captain was unable to get the ship back on course, he decided to turn around and head back out to sea, but instead the vessel was driven into a reef at the entrance to the harbour. Then they lost the starboard propeller, and the port engine failed, leaving the ship without any propellant power. At this point it was obvious that ship was in big trouble. The passengers were asked to put on their life jackets and report to the muster stations.

Dragging her anchor, the Wahine was pushed north by the storm and drifted into the harbour, near the western shore. The weather was so bad that help from the shore was not possible. Hours later, around 11 am, they finally managed to get the anchors to hold near the beach at the suburb of Seatoun. Several attempts to bring help with tug boats failed due to the ongoing storm.

The capsized Wahine in Wellington Harbour

It is hard to imagine the horror the passengers and crew must have felt that day, being trapped in such violent weather conditions for hours without rescue in sight. And those people watching from the shore or following in front of their televisions and radios were equally powerless and unable to do anything about the events unfolding in front of their eyes. It was about to become worse.

In the early afternoon, the ship was swung around by storm and tide and was increasingly leaning to starboard. At 1:15 pm, the captain gave order to abandon ship. Because of the heavy list, only four of the eight lifeboats could be launched, and most of the inflatable life rafts simply flipped in the storm. However, the ship was surrounded by rescue boats by then and many passengers were able to reach them and get to the shore. Not everyone was so fortunate though: Over 200 people ended up in the water and were pushed across the harbour to the rocky eastern side of the bay. This part of the bay is uninhabited, and the only small road was blocked by landslides and had become impassable. Tragically, some people actually reached the shore, only to die of exhaustion or exposure once there.

The Wahine eventually capsized completely at 2:30 pm. Of the 734 passengers and crew, 51 died that day; 2 more later from injuries sustained in the wreck. The Museum of Wellington City & Sea has a permanent exhibit dedicated to the Wahine, along with heartbreaking video footage from the day.

Onlookers watching helplessly from the shore

The Wahine disaster is not only the most traumatising event in Wellington's history, it also marks the coming of age for television news broadcasting in New Zealand. The event was captured live and and reported on television and radio as it happened, and footage was screened around the world; unusual for New Zealand at the time. (See a news clip on Te Ara.)

To this day, questions remain how such a disaster could have happened to a state-of-the-art ship, within sight of New Zealand's capital city. While the horrible weather certainly caused the accident, it is unclear if different decisions both by the ship's captain and ashore could have avoided the large loss of lives.

The storm did massive damage on land as well. Roofs and power lines were ripped off, people were hit by flying debris, and several houses were completely destroyed. Roads were flooded, cars and ambulances blown over—all of which made it more difficult to get help to the injured. An eye witness who was a young worker at the time, trying to make a delivery in Wellington, tells about his experience:

The fore-mast of the Wahine is now a memorial in Frank Kitts Park on the waterfront

"As I looked through the windscreen I thought the weather looked a bit rough, but as a born and bred Wellingtonian, I was used to a bit of a breeze.[...]

I got out of the car with a bit of a struggle into the wind, but soon became aware of an unbelievably strong wind. [...] before I could find any shelter, the wind blew me out into the middle of the street, into the path of oncoming traffic [...] Some people were clinging to lamp posts [...] the shop's huge plate glass window was completely blown out by the wind."

The 40th anniversary of this dark day in Wellington's history also served as a powerful reminder of the forces of nature. This is just as true today, in 2008, despite all the technology available to us. Only days after Wahine day, a group of teenagers from Auckland on a school trip got into bad weather while canyoning in a river gorge. When trying to cross a rapidly swelling river to get to safety, they got trapped in the flash flood, and six students and a teacher were swept away and lost their lives. Extreme weather is never far away in New Zealand.

Arr, squiddy, I got nothin' against ya

No one can claim that this blog isn't educational. Today we hear about the adventures of a group of teuthologists, which of course means scientists who specialise in the study of cephalopods, in other words, squid scholars.

Gotcha!

In February 2007, New Zealand fishermen in the Ross Sea in Antarctica caught a rare Colossal Squid. At 10 meters long and weighing 495 kg, it was the largest squid ever caught, and that was by pure luck: The squid had been eating one of the Patagonian toothfish that the fishermen had hooked on a line, and was pulled up along with its snack. Well, maybe the luck wasn't so much on the squid's side.

Colossal Squid are shorter, but much heavier than their more common distant relatives, the Giant Squid. Squid enthusiasts argue which one of them really is the world's largest invertebrate—I guess it depends on how you define "large". Regardless, they are both impressive. To put the size of this beast in perspective, one of the scientists famously stated that "if calamari were made from the squid the rings would be the size of tractor tyres."

The squid was brought to Wellington's Te Papa museum for scientific study. And this is where in April of this year a group of scientists got together to dissect it, along with a couple other specimens.

The team of scientists in the squid tank

It wouldn't be 2008 if the squid didn't have a blog; in fact, the whole event was live-blogged and video-cast via SquidCam and attracted thousands of followers across the world. People could watch as the scientists carefully thawed the frozen squid (a multi-day process utilising a purpose-built 10,000 litre tank) and follow their progress in real time.

This way we could not just watch the team have a little taste (for scientific reasons only, of course. The verdict: edible but somewhat tough and bitter), but also learn about such fascinating squid facts such as

Tentacles: Giant Squid have suckers, Colossal Squid have hooks!
Eyes: The eye of the Colossal Squid is the largest eye of any animal, with a lens the size of an orange which lets in lots of light that allows the creature to hunt in total darkness in depths of 1000 meters.
And my favourite, the brain: A squid's brain surrounds its small oesophagus, therefore everything it eats needs to be reduced to a really small size, because it needs to pass through the middle of the brain. Seriously. Wow.

Since the examination finished in early May, the squid has been sitting in a storage tank and is being prepared for being put on display at Te Papa. I'll so be there. More pictures in Te Papa's photo gallery.

Don't know much about history

The other day I had some Australian wine. On the bottle, the label proudly announced that the winery had "well over 40 years of history". The dimensions on this side of the planet are definitely a bit different than those in Old Europe.

Sunday afternoon on the waterfront

This shall suffice as a somewhat far-fetched intro for a story about a study which made it into New Zealand news in early July, and which challenges the presumed ancient history of this country. It is commonly believed that the first humans arrived in New Zealand from Polynesia more than 2000 years ago. However, the study came to the conclusion that this migration didn't happen until much later, in the late 13th century.

The researchers took radiocarbon dating from bones of the Pacific Rat, or Kiore, and from rat-gnawed seeds. They found that nothing dated back further than 1280 AD. The kiore cannot swim very far, therefore, so the scientists, it must have arrived aboard ships along with the human settlers. Other evidence from archeological sites, changes in fauna, and Maori oral history support these findings.

The question of first human settlement in New Zealand has been debated for years. As one might expect, the new findings are controversial, not the least because while it confirms that Maori were indeed the first settlers of New Zealand, it also means that the first European settlers, starting with Abel Tasman in 1642, arrived not 1500, but a mere 350 years later.

To which I would like to add that I have yet to find an Australian wine which I really enjoy.

Hong Kong

I have a new favourite city, and it's Hong Kong. I was lucky enough to spend a couple days there last month on the way back from another trip to Germany.

Central Hong Kong from Tsim Sha Tsui

As an aside, it's quite shocking to visualise the impact of such a trip. Flying halfway around the world and back covers about 40,000 km. For every passenger and kilometre, a large plane emits 110g carbon dioxide, which adds up to a shocking 4.5 tons of green house gases per person (I had a source for this but can't find it. Go google it.) This is the equivalent of driving 25,000 km with a mid-sized car.

Thankfully, I don't have a car, mid- or other sized. 95% of my life takes place within a circle of about 1 km radius. Home, work, gym, shops, bars, restaurants, cultural venues, waterfront and so on are all within this area, and I rarely ever even use a bus or taxi. However, while this lifestyle is not just carbon friendly but super convenient most of the time, it can a bit get claustrophobic, so once in a while I have to even things out by going on a big trip (and leaving one giant footprint, I guess.)

As I said, I went to Germany for a few weeks in May, and I had a fantastic time, despite being a bit too early for real summer and the European Football Championship. As a dedicated expat, I did of course, after I got back to Wellington, get up at 6 in the morning and braved cold and darkness to watch the semifinal and final—the only games shown live at the local sports bar. Sadly, the German team didn't show quite the same dedication in return and lost the final 0:1 to Spain (and to be honest, the way they played, they should have lost semifinal against Turkey too...)

Hong Kong, Take Two

High density housing right next to the financial district

Now that I have managed to write four entire paragraphs under the headline "Hong Kong" without actually talking about Hong Kong, it may be best to start over. Although I'm still not really sure how to write about Hong Kong. It was such an intense experience, such an onslaught of impressions on all senses in an amazing place like nothing I have ever seen before.

One way to approach understanding the intensity of Hong Kong is to look at its population density. With 6,407 people/km², Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated country in the world, after neighbour Macau, Monaco and Singapore. For comparison, Germany has 232 people/km². The United States have 31 (of course this varies greatly by state), and New Zealand has 14.9. It doesn't stop here though: Mong Kok, a neighbourhood on Kowloon Peninsula, houses 130,000 people/km². Not only is this 8,844 times more than in New Zealand, it also apparently is the highest population density in the world. Mong Kok means "flourishing/busy corner". I have found this to be true. Mong Kok is where I stayed.

Night scene

I was expecting that dealing with crowds on this scale would be difficult, maybe stressful, especially since it was my first time there. Surprisingly, this wasn't the case. In fact, it was extremely fascinating to see how this city itself seem to work as its own organism, and how easy it was to become part of it. Maybe it's precisely because there are so many people in such a small area that they had no choice but to figure out how to live together well. I like to experience new cities by simply walking their streets, and even though I didn't always exactly know where I was going, and I had a rather big and bulky camera bag, I could wander around for two days amongst the crowds without anyone bumping into me or those little awkward dances which ensue when walking along Lambton Quay in Wellington's shopping district and no one can decide how to give way to oncoming pedestrians. Wherever I went in Hong Kong, the atmosphere seemed busy and high energy, but calm at the same time, if that makes sense.

In the two days, I managed to see a good deal of central Hong Kong, including

Central Hong Kong

Temple Street Night Market with its colourful stalls, fortune tellers and great street food
The above mentioned Mong Kok neighbourhood, where most streets have high concentration of a single type of shop (e.g., only aquariums, only sports shoes, only kitchen supplies, and so forth), and where Chinese culture clearly dominates
The promenade in Tsim Sha Tsui with its tribute to Hong Kong film and amazing views across the harbour
Taking the ferry across the harbour like the locals do
Staring in amazement at the crazy bamboo scaffolding everywhere (see the photo album for a few examples)
The excellent Hong Kong Museum of History, which didn't just give me a place to wait out a heavy mid-day thunderstorm, but provided an interesting and immersive view of Hong Kong's history
Riding the super steep tram up to Victoria Peak (although the view was obscured by really low hanging clouds)
Wandering through the financial district with its maze of walkways and malls
Looking up at the unbelievably large apartment towers everywhere
The beautiful Hong Kong Park with its aviary, right in the middle of the skyscrapers
Simply going with the flow of this beautiful, madly intense city

Lots more pictures: Hong Kong Photo Album

July-December 2008

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +1300

Do they know it's Christmas?

Christmas Eve weather: still practicing summer

It's been six months since my last blog post, and as we approach the end of December, I'm having one of those "crap, I really have to update my blog again" moments. There's no guilt like end-of-year-guilt.

So: Last time I posted I had just returned from a trip to Hong Kong. Since then, I have not left central Wellington even once. If things hadn't been so busy, I might feel just a wee bit claustrophobic. Wellington confuses me like that: While it's unbelievably convenient to have everything so close, it means at the same time that everything is always close. Many others, both born-and-bread Wellingtonians and recent arrivals, have told me of similar mixed feelings about our town. It's a bit like its weather: simply awful on a bad day, and just glorious on a good one. People who don't like extremes should not move here.

We can has crisis

The economy must really be in trouble when even the local strip club goes under

Global issues have dominated the news here in New Zealand just like everywhere else. The steep rise in the price of oil for much of the second half of 2008 has made pretty much everything more expensive, and while the equally steep fall of the Kiwi dollar against the US Dollar (and the Euro) has made things a bit easier for exporters, it added to the pressure for consumers, not to mention that it has made international travel scary expensive.

One of the hardest-hit areas has been the housing market. While we are thankfully still far away from a situation like in the US, house prices stopped rising mid-year and immediately began dropping fast. For a lot of people who bought during the height of the boom with little or no deposit (i.e., downpayment), this means that the amount they owe on their mortgage is more than the value of their property. 1 in 5 homeowners are said to be in this situation at the moment. And while the Reserve Bank towards the end of the year finally lowered the Official Cash Rate, and thereby, the interest rates, the majority of mortgage holders have signed up for fixed rates, meaning they won't benefit from those lower rates for months or even years.

Wellington seen from the hills above Brooklyn

Housing wasn't the only cause for anxiety though: Food prices have also soared, with August seeing the highest monthly cost increase in 19 years. It's especially bad for the staples: Compared to a year ago, salad costs 145% more, butter 88%, cheese 44%, bread 17%, and milk 13%. The higher prices were mostly blamed on the increased cost for transport, however, now that petrol has returned to much lower levels, the cost of food still remains high. Unlike many Kiwis, we fortunately can absorb this kind of increase, but for many it's a real struggle.

It certainly didn't help that New Zealand's largest company (based on turnover), the dairy firm Fonterra, was involved in the Chinese milk scandal. China is one of the biggest export markets for New Zealand dairy, and the Chinese firm Sanlu, in which Fonterra owns a 43% stake, was in the centre or the scandal. Apparently Sanlu had received complains about its melamine-contaminated baby formula as early as December 2007, but lied about it for 8 months before the issue became public. Fonterra says they didn't know about this until August 2008, but regardless whether that's true or not (I really don't know what to believe), it has damaged the company's reputation in a time where the economy is already fragile.

Change we can't really believe in

Turn right to vote

In November 2008 New Zealand held a general election. New Zealand elections take place every three years—not enough time in my opinion to get anything accomplished. This year's campaign was very much overshadowed by the US Presidential Elections which took place just 4 days prior, and which generated a lot more interest and excitement amongst Kiwis than our own.

The polls had been suggesting for a long time that the leading (left-ish) Labour Party with Prime Minister Helen Clark would lose, and that the new government would be led by the (right/conservative) National Party under newcomer John Key. Both party leaders took their cues from the US election, citing "people voting for progressive politics" and "people voting for a change in government" respectively as a sign in their favour. In the end, it came as predicted/hoped/feared (based on your political persuasion), with National winning a comfortable majority and going on to form a government with a broad coalition with some of the smaller parties. Full results here.

Kayaks at Wellington Harbour

Unlike last time, where we had been in the country for less than a year, we got to vote, but I have to admit that I was very uninspired by what was on offer. A lot of the issues that were debated seemed petty and irrelevant, given the global problems that affect the country. Worse, the tone of the campaigns was all about blame and accusation rather than trying to find ways to deal with the issues. We watched a couple of the debates on TV which left me mostly appalled, seeing how these "leaders" shouted at each other and seemed to be more interested in being the loudest than in a genuine debate on the issues. So far, the new government has pushed through eight new laws within two weeks "under urgency", in other words, without the public input through Select Committees. While I don't necessarily disagree with the laws themselves, I'm not impressed with this approach of shortcutting the democratic process for the sake of making a point. Maybe the three-year term isn't so bad after all and I can just wait it out.

At least I don't have to worry about bribery: New Zealand, along with Denmark and Sweden, was recently named the least corrupt nation in the world. The Corruption Perceptions Index 2008 by Transparency International looked at 180 countries and scored them on a scale of zero to ten, where zero is the highest level of corruption and ten the lowest. New Zealand scored 9.3. Germany, along with Norway, was at #14 (7.9); the United States at #18 (7.3).

He loves only gold

Poolburn Viaduct in Central Otago

Just before the new year, I got to leave Wellington for a little bit after all. We went on a short holiday down south, to Central Otago.

Central Otago is in the lower South Island, roughly between Dunedin and Queenstown. It's best known for its mountainous, barren, rugged, stark landscape; high country with river gorges, wide plains and deep blue lakes, big skies and clear light. The area is very sparsely populated: only 17,000 people in a region of 10,000 km². Similar to the California foothills, Central Otago is gold country with a rich history that's still present everywhere, although today's key industries are wine, sheep, and tourism.

Gold was discovered first in 1863 in St Bathans, and like in California a good decade earlier, thousands flocked to the region to make their luck. Towns cropped up everywhere and quickly grew to populations of thousands, along with the inevitable infrastructure, namely banks, bars and brothels. From the 1860s, miners from all over the world panned gold from the streams and rivers and created elaborate techniques to extract the gold with hydraulics and other machinery. To this day you can see buildings, mining equipment, tunnels and sluiced cliffs all over the region, and there are a number of small but interesting museums about local history. It's hard to imagine how hard it must have been for these miners to get through the harsh Otago winters, with little to burn for fires and often only mud huts, or worse, canvas tents for shelter. Around the turn of the century gold mining operations were mostly abandoned, not so much because gold was running out, but because of the harsh conditions and the drop in the price of gold.

If anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving

Bald Hills vineyard in Bannockburn

Today's gold is ruby, earthy and with a hint of cherry fruit: At a latitude of 45 degrees south—halfway between the Equator and the South Pole—Central Otago is the southernmost commercial wine region in the world. At 300 m above sea level it's also New Zealand's highest. Hot dry summers and cold winters provide a climate similar to other great wine regions in the world such as Burgundy or Alsace. The grapes ripen slowly, which gives the wines an intense flavour, and the soil is rich in minerals. This makes Central Otago great for Pinot Gris, Riesling, and most famously, Pinot Noir, my favourite wine.

Wine growing in the region started in the 19th century by the gold miners but didn't take off commercially until the early 1980s. Even today the majority of wineries is small and produces mostly for the local market, meaning you can't even get them here in Wellington. Only a few big wineries, such as Mt Difficulty and Felton Road, have a wider and even international reach. In conjunction with the growing wine business, we also noticed that there is a growing interest in food in the region, especially using locally sourced produce.

Road trip

Big sky country

I cannot recommend Central Otago enough to anyone visiting New Zealand. The landscape and the light are simply stunning. The unhurried pace is a welcome change from the city (yep, even Wellington—it's all relative!) and the hospitality makes you feel welcome wherever you go. There is lots to do, from visiting the historic sites to activities such as biking, hiking or photography, and the food and wine...oh, the food and wine....We stayed at a lovely Bed and Breakfast in the former goldrush town of Naseby and explored the region from there, including a day by bike on the excellent Central Otago Rail Trail, where the track of the former railway has been converted into a biking and walking track with no access for cars—to the best of my knowledge, this is unique in New Zealand.

More about our trip

View a detailed map of our trip on Google Maps with routes, place markers, links and annotations.
View my Central Otago photo album.

And finally,

A video of a beached whale which has turned from an obscure internet phenomenon into a widely known pop culture icon, and which sums up Kiwi humour perfectly. Enjoy (or shake your head in disbelief), and happy new year!

January-June 2009

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

2009.5

Decorations for Cuba St Carnival

As I get older, and possibly wiser, I'm beginning to understand what it means that "the days are long but the years are short." The first six months of 2009 have been nothing if not a string of long and very busy days, but surely the year can't be half over already? The wisdom, I guess, comes from enjoying the process, and I have been for the most part, although I'm afraid being busy at work doesn't lend itself to much bloggable news.

Much like the rest of the world, New Zealand has had its share of the global doom'n'gloom^TM. There's been swine flu hysteria and job losses, rising prices and tigher budgets, and our election-promised tax cuts are not going to happen either. (Since I never believed in them in the first place, this is slightly disappointing, but hardly surprising.)

The joys of globalism: Kiwifruit imported from Italy

On a global scale, New Zealand mostly made headlines because a Kiwi couple who accidentally had $10 million deposited into their bank account promptly fled the country and managed to withdraw close to $4m before the bank caught on to them. Given the overall feeling towards banks in the world right now, this story was followed with no small amount of glee and not so secret admiration for the millionaires-turned-thiefs.

A walk in the park

The Northern Walkway near Wellington

That my life in the first half of 2009 wasn't completely devoid of any social activities I have to thank my mum and brother who came to visit us on their holiday in March. After a stay with us here in Wellington, we had the chance to travel with them to the South Island for a bit.

On a rather grey morning we boarded the ferry to Picton. The trip across the Cook Strait went well but when we went to pick up our car, we had a bit of a Seinfeld moment when we found out that the rental company had managed to take, but failed to hold our reservation for a car with automatic transimission. The last time I had driven a manual was about two decades earlier and I wasn't going to refresh my memory with a car full of people in the pouring rain across a winding South Island road. Thankfully the very helpful clerk kept trying and in the end we ended up with an upgrade. Score!

Our first destination was Marahau, at the south entrance of Abel Tasman National Park. Marahau is a tiny settlement where the street ends and the park begins. Despite its remoteness, it has an excellent restaurant and a number of good facilities for those keen to explore the park.

View of Wellington from Mt Kaukau

We booked a ride on a water taxi that took us up to Tonga Bay, stopping along the way a couple times to tell us about the local history and nature. Once we arrived we set out to walk back south along the Abel Tasman Coastal Track. The park is breathtakingly beautiful, with white, sandy beaches, green hills and water so blue it seems artificial. Because of this, and the relative ease and accessibility of the track, it's also very popular, especially, it seemed, with my fellow countrymen and -women: I believe we heard more German along the way than you would walking through Berlin or Munich!

Tonga Bay, Abel Tasman National Park

From Abel Tasman, we headed back to Picton and into the Marlborough Sounds to the lovely Lochmara Lodge. It was just as excellent as I remembered from our first visit, and the meals we had confirmed for me that the restaurant at Lochmara Lodge is the best in the entire country.

Ocean and mountains

The Pacific in Kaikoura

From Picton we drove further south, through the Marlborough wine region around Blenheim, one of the oldest in New Zealand, and along the coast to Kaikoura. This part of the South Island with its stark hills was new to me, and I continue to be fascinated by how quickly the landscape changes here.

Kaikoura, of course, is all about whale watching. The town, although geographically stunning with its mountains almost meeting the Pacific Ocean, is not much to write home about, just a long, stretched-out string of motels and other facilities catering to tourists. Thanks to the specific geological makeup of the area, where the Pacific and the Australian Plate collide and form deep underwater canyons, the ocean around Kaikoura attracts a lot of marine life, including whales and dolphins as well as other marine mammals, fish and invertebrates. And these, in turn, attract a lot of visitors.

Hanmer Springs

We probably could not have picked a worse day to go on a Whale Watch® tour. It was very stormy and the sea looked rough. "Extreme Seasickness Warning", the signs said when we got there. "Whatever," I thought, "I've been through real storms. I can handle this. No problem." Pride goeth before destruction.

I'm told the tour was exceptionally lucky because we spotted a lot more whales than on average, plus dusky dolphins, seals and a whole lot of seabirds. I wouldn't know. I spent the first half of the trip worried that I might die, and the second half, ready, and fearing that I wouldn't. Maybe this experience will finally teach me to stay away from small boats if the wind force exceeds 2.

In the hills above Wellington

Back on solid ground, I was ready for more relaxing activities. We continued our journey into the mountains, to Hanmer Springs. Hanmer is an alpine village, most famous for its big spa and thermal pools, surrounded by mountains. With its giant Redwood trees lining the main street it reminded me a lot of Northern California. The huge complex of thermal pools with its landscaped gardens is laid back, and there are lots of walks in the area, some with stunning views. It was the perfect end of the trip, at least for me, as I had to go back to Wellington and work, and I'm keen to return one day.

Some pictures of our trip can be found in my South Island Holiday Photo Album and much better ones in my brother's Reisebilderbuch Neuseeland.

One more thing

Finally!

We made it, and just in time, too: After our failed attempt to see Nine Inch Nails in Sydney a couple years ago we were excited to hear they would come to Auckland in February. This was one of a number of shows between the big Lights in the Sky tour 2008 and the NIN|JA tour 2009, without an elaborate stage show but a great set of older and newer stuff. The day of the concert turned out to be the same on which Trent Reznor announced that he would stop touring (for a while? forever? it's anyone's guess). Thankfully I didn't read the news until the next day and therefore could enjoy the concert in blissful ignorance.

I also got to see David Byrne (again - we had been to a show in San Francisco some years ago) in a very different kind of concert - this one was in Wellington and featured a group of white-clad choreographed dancers and, at one point, David Byrne himself in a tutu. Awesome.

Last but not least, 2009 saw me pick up a hobby that had lain dormant for the last couple decades: I started to play the guitar again. Although initally covinced that my fingers must have shrunk and become a lot stubbier since the 1980s, the Internet tells me that it's all about practice, so I'm hopeful. Meanwhile, it's a fun creative outlet.

July-December 2009

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +1300

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The first step is admitting you have a problem.

I have a problem.

The new decade is already more than two weeks old as I write this, and there is simply no way I'm going to catch up on six months' worth of writing.

Things happened, and stories are waiting to be told, but they won't be told by me, not this time.

The only way to kickstart this blog again is by making a fresh start.

I'm asking for a bailout.

I'm declaring blog bankruptcy.

Let's try this again in 2010.

Allright, there's a little bit of new content: My Vietnam Photo Album. Enjoy!

January 2010

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +1300

Keep calm and carry on

Look, I never said I was stopping this blog. All I needed was a fresh start in the new year.

And here it is. Let's go on an adventure. We already paddled down a river and hiked a glacier, so this time, let's walk on a volcano.

Born to love volcanoes

It's fun to stay at the YMCA

Continuing our now well-established tradition of going somewhere new between Christmas and New Year's, we decided to return to the Bay of Plenty, an area we haven't revisited since our container ship anchored in Tauranga on that November day five years ago. We stayed in Rotorua (at the surprisingly stylish Regent of Rotorua), but the real destination of our trip was White Island.

White Island is a young (~150,000 years) and small (2 km in diameter) active marine volcano, situated 48 km off the coast. Its peak is 321 m high but that's deceptive, as 70% of the volcano is actually under the sea. White Island belongs to the Taupo Volcanic Zone (map), a 250 km-long area of "intense volcanic activity" on the boundary of the Australian and Pacific plates, reaching from Mt Ruapehu across all the way into the Pacific Ocean. And when I say "active volcano" I mean it: The most recent eruption was just a decade ago, between March and September 2000.

Crater lake

Because of its relative accessibility and strong activity, scientists love White Island. They started monitoring it in the 1940s through regular visits to the island, and in the 1970s installed round-the-clock surveillance equipment. Today, two volcano cams and a seismograph are located on the island. The webcam became internet-famous in 2004 when someone glued a figurine of the pink pet dinosaur (view screenshot) from the Flintstones in front of it. There must have been a lull in LOLs back then because this prank proved so popular around the world that the admins of the Geonet website had to reduce the size of the webcam images to deal with the high traffic to the site. And dino is not yet extinct: When the camera had to be relocated five years later, they moved him along with it to its new spot.

White Island was named by the same person who seemingly named everything else in the South Pacific, Captain Cook. His Endeavour passed the island in 1769 and he thought it looked white - not his most imaginative work, really. Originally in Maori hands, White Island was sold in the 1830s to a Danish sea captain for two barrels of rum, and it kept changing hands several times until it became a private scenic reserve in 1953.

Venting

The interestingness of White Island comes from its barren moonscape, hydrothermal activity and the massive steam vents, as well as occasional eruptions. Often, gas and ash can rise high enough for people on the coast to see on a clear day. There are craters and fumaroles which hiss and bubble and emit hundreds if not thousands of tons of gas every day (steam, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, chlorine, fluorine, and such and such.) It's quite a spectacle, and yes, it smells.

It's not surprising that there is virtually no vegetation on the inside of the crater walls. In fact I find it rather fascintating that anything grows there at all, but on the outer side grow shrubs and even a pohutukawa forest. There is also quite rich bird life, including a gannet colony.

More venting

More fascinating yet is the fact that people used to live on the island. Even for hearty Kiwis, that's quite a feat. In 1885, the then-owners established a sulphur mine on White Island to produce fertiliser and sulphur ore. Their venture was rudely interrupted just a year later by an eruption of the volcano, but undeterred, they picked it up again in 1898. Work stopped again when in 1914 part of the crater wall collapsed and caused a landslide which killed 12 miners and destroyed the mine. Still convinced that mining here was a good idea, they picked it up once more in 1923. This time, it wasn't nature who brought on the end, but a man-made disaster, namely, the Great Depression, leading to the factory's bankruptcy. Mining was finally abandoned for good in 1933. Today, the ruins of the old factory make some interesting photo props.

Would you, could you, on a boat?

As I've mentioned above, White Island is owned privately, and the only way to get there is with one of the few accredited tour operators. Despite this limitation, over 10,000 people visit the island every year via boat or helicopter.

We decided to take a boat tour, and given my recent near-death experiences on small boats in rough seas I thought that was a rather brave move on my part. Unlike last time, however, I was well-medicated on antihistamines and enjoyed the experience. We got very close up to pods of dolphins several times during the trip and I have a whole series of very blurry pictures to prove it.

Sulphur crystals

On the island itself, there's always a possibility of an eruption or the collapse of a crater wall due to an earthquake. In New Zealand, volcanic activity is quantified by by an alert level scale from 0 to 5. White Island is currently on Alert Level 1 ("signs of volcano unrest"), although our guide assured us cheerfully that it should really be at least on Level 2 or even 3. They do give you a hard hat that you need to wear while on the island, and a gas mask which is thankfully optional. Not sure how much those hard hats would really do in case of an eruption. In the meantime, their bright yellow and orange adds happy colour splashes to photos.

Being on the island is an attack on your senses: the hissing and puffing of the steam vents, the amazing technicolour yellows of the sulphur crystals and the poison-green hue of the crater lake, the strong smell of rotten eggs which can get biting at times, and the other-worldly experience of being in such a barren, stark environment which is not only strangly beautiful but could also kill you at any moment. In other words, it's a lot of fun and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Midsummer night's nightmare

View from our window, January 16

Because I just can't shut up about the weather.

To all of you reading this in the northern hemisphere: At least it's supposed to be winter there.

3 Jan 2010
Strong gales continued to hammer the capital and parts of the lower North Island this evening, and rain was forecast to be added to the mix overnight.

16 Jan 2010
Unusually wintry weather has hit Wellington today, with wild wind gusts causing problems around the city. A MetService spokesman says gusts of up to 60 kilometres per hour have been recorded and there has been rain throughout the day. The misery continued yesterday as southerlies buffeted the south coast, temperatures plunged to 14 degrees, and rain squalls whipped the capital.

18 Jan 2010
Bad weather almost stymied Prince William's plans to fly into Wellington from Auckland, the Air Force jet almost diverted to Ohakea.

24 Jan 2010
Wellington has a cold southerly and rain and that southerly is gale force on the hills. Yesterday the weather saw Wellington airport stop all flights as fog set in. As of 10:30 Saturday morning it was just 14 degrees in the Capital.

(If we were to baptise our big storms as they do in Germany, we would have run out of names by now.)