RTW: Exchange in Chile

Kia Ora!

= Hello! in Maori language

New Zealand has been the least amazing place so far.. :/ Quite the opposite to Sydney, I just walked through all the major sights and places I wanted to see, including the Auckland Museum (!), in 10 hours. In the picture below you see me under a legendary sailboat (Auckland is "the city of sails" and Kiwis, A.K.A. New Zealanders, are quite proud of their sailing team) that will supposedly guarantee New Zealand victory in the future. Another big boat I saw in the museum was an old, 100-man Maori war canoe. Much cooler than the sail boat but did not get a very good picture of it, as it was almost as big and trapped indoors. Another big thing here, besides sailing, seems to be rugby. I have seen so much hype about it that I will need to catch a match on ESPN or something afterwards. I'm told the All Blacks are real badasses.

Bic Mac would have cost 4,45 local money (NZD) equalling roughly 2,5 euros with a combo (meal) of 6,65 NZD or 3,7 euros. There are surprisingly few MacDonalds' here, it is not in many major cities you get to really look for one. Auckland is a bit bigger than Helsinki, but I bet Helsinki has more McD's. Then again, here they have many other fast food joints. And the local food is almost as hard to define as in Finland it seems: I asked a few times and the answers vary.. however, I did get some excellent lamb cutlet a few hours ago and tomorrow I'll try fush 'n chups (local fish 'n chips). Beer has a wide range here, some are ok but I also tasted Swedish-like water-beer, which is, sadly enough, called Export gold. Well, they do export mostly Lapin Kulta from Finland so there must be a pattern here to see..

The locals keep more to themselves here and kind of remind me of Finns in that way. Again like Finns, they are very nice and considerate every time you deal with them. And the Maori culture is seen surprisingly much in the whole national scene and they have a totally different status than many other indigenous cultures. Many street and place names are Maori names and their culture is seen as an essential part of New Zealand, even in the signs in customs they have text in Maori (don't really know what the language is called, just making up stuff here). There are lots of Chinese people here as well, it must be a matter of time as Chinatown Helsinki starts to build up.. I myself live in a remote hostel that is in good neighbourhood (is there a bad one here?), cost about the same as in Sydney but they have everything from breakfast to free drinking water (and vodka, thanks to some Swedish girls), so it was a good pick.

This is also a country of rules and regluations. Can not do this, can not do that, must do this.. they put me into customs inspection just because I had been hiking in the wilderness in the past 30 days -all just so that I would not ruin their biological party here. Ok, I was a bit frustrated at that point but the nature surely is one of the greatest wonders here. That is why I just booked hugely expensive bus tickets to Rotorua, the big Maori culture & Geothermal area. A four hour bus ride here equals a 6 hour train travel in Finland -in price! Rotorua better be worth the trouble.. I am more and more convinced that the best way to experience this country is to rent a car (they are quite cheap, actually, some 16 euros per day!) and have some money and loads of time. This is not a place for sightseeing (ok, maybe the natural park is that as well) as much as it is a place for experiences. You get the full range of activities here from diving to skiing. Anyway, about the rules, below is a picture of a bit peculiar one.

Noted a couple other funny things, like their most used traffic lights. They have three alternatives: cars east-west, cars north-south and pedestrians. The lighs make a funny Gameboy-death-like sound and people start crossing everywhere come pedestrians' turn. I was a bit confused as people walked diagonally over the crossing and some Chinese dudes went to the very middle to take pictures of the street that was still in Chinese New Years decoration! One other funny thing is that New Zealand is overall a quite active volcan area. Auckland is built ON three old volcanoes, and there is nothing that says that there could not be another one erupting right next door. Even in the museum there is a simulation about one popping out in the popular beach next to Auckland -I asked some locals how they felt about it and they just went "No worries mate, that's why we have scientists"...

posted by Kassu @ 10:45 PM