Chapter 3 - Exploration

Good day, mate!

Well, it's been a while but I've been a little busier lately! The past couple weeks have been full of hiking, homework, birthdays, film festivals, SNOW, and meeting new people! Not to mention a great deal of thinking mixed with a little bit of culture shock.. it's been a wild ride.

I'll try to keep it short, compared to last time, but that might be hard because there's a lot more to write about than last time. After all, I haven't written in nearly two months. I'll let the pictures do the talking. That's probably what most of you are interested in, anyway! :)

So! Hiking. I've been able to see a little more of Dunedin and the surrounding area. I went on a really nice day hike with my friends Nathan and Jason on the Otago Peninsula and it was a really good time. We also found one of those zip line things on a playground, as you can see below. Overall, the New Zealand countryside is exactly what I imagined it looking like.

Me and Nathan also saw a hill we really felt like exploring and eventually ended up climbing up it - and quickly coming back down (see picture below), due to the "No Trepassing" sign. I wasn't too disappointed. All we saw were sheep.. sheep are creepy, anyway.

I also saw the Moerke (sp?) Boulders which were obscenely round! A bit difficult to climb onto, too! But we all had a good time there as well.

I also went to a rugby game! Rugby really is New Zealand's version of football. They eat, breathe, and live rugby from the time they're born to the time they die. Lately, because of the Rugby World Cup, there have been advertisements on everything.. Literally, everything. I saw an advertisement on a urinal (didn't have my camera, sorry).

One of my favorite places to eat is called the Flying Squid (affectionally known as "Squiddies"). This place offers a nice, warm piece of fish (though the type of fish is left to your imagination...) and some delectably salty shoestring fries in bags so big you feel guilty if you eat the whole thing - not to mention, a little bit proud that you survived it without going into cardiac arrest. Here's a photo of me standing outside of it doing who knows what.

Amidst all this craziness, I also attempted to be cultured and went to two movies at the International Film Festival! The first was called The Tree of Life, with Brad Pitt, which I really enjoyed, although it was a bit confusing and over-symbolic. I really liked it, though. It was an overview of human life, starting from birth, and progressively showed the loss of innocence as the movie continued. It also showed how both the personalities and values of the graceful mother and harsh father were carried on through the children and how, one child in specific, was constantly conflicted with how to discern right from wrong.

The other was called The Guardian which was about some unorthodox Irish cop solving a case about a big drug bust. The main character was a pretty hilarious figure but, overall, it was just another movie to me.

Anyways, I'll leave it at that for now. But stay tuned for my blog on Stewart Island and thanks again for reading!

Cheers,

- Jake