Stop Clowning Around!!

Here's the thing, right. When you're travelling, you often have to do things that you normally wouldn't do to keep yourself busy, and generally the cheaper those things are then better. So when Geoff and I were staying at the old hostel Kiwihouse, he picked up a set off juggling balls from the free table and we learned to juggle. I thought it was really fun and practised quite often.

A couple days ago I went searching for my very own juggling balls, and picked up a pretty good little set of juggling cubes and a juggling book from a company called Klutz. At first I was a little sceptical about the cubes, but after a few days of practise I'm actually improving at a faster rate than by using the round ones that Geoff had. Yesterday whilst working at Tank I learned to juggle two cubes in one hand, which for me was quite an achievement.

Thankfully this time around I didn't throw any of the cubes out of the shop at any passers by! Thanks, Geoff, for introducing me to this cheap, thrilling form of entertainment!

Cough, Cough, Hack, Hack!

Well, I'm nearly there. I'm nearly 100%. As previously stated, I somehow contracted a head and chest cold over the weekend, which has kept me holed up for the past couple days. It's not nice having to sit around the house all day trying to heal up, so today I'm going outside. I pretty much spent the entire day on the internet yesterday, speaking with friends on MSN Messenger, writing emails, looking at pornography... Just kidding.

So anyway, today I'm going to walk into town and get some fresh air. I think it'll do a world of good. I'm pretty much over my little cold, and I woke up today with a clear nasal passage. I didn't even have to blow my nose first thing like I've been having to do the past few days. I did, however, have a bit of a headache, but I think I can put that down to having a glass of chocolate milk and three peanut chocolate fudge cookies about seven minutes before my head hit the pillow last night.

Last night was a super fun night. I really enjoyed it. Tam had to work, so Mel came up with this super idea to build a fort in the lounge. I hadn't built a fort in ages, so I was all up for it. I have to say, as well, that any six year old child would have been proud of what Mel and I came up with. We had an entrance, an exit, it was hooked up with a television, playstation, and VCR, and it had two seperate levels. At first glance there were no faults. After a while we discovered that the roof wasn't entirely secure, and this came about when one of the cats decided to scamper over the top of it and cave it in. Silly LB.

Anyway, Mel and I had good chats whilst in the fort, and when Tam got back we too had good chats. Thanks guys, it was heaps of fun.

But right now the sun is shining outside, and I'm a bit peckish. Time for breakfast ("What?! Breakfast at twenty past eleven in the morning!?"), a shower, and to get my skinny arse out the door. I hope I don't infect the rest of Christchurch with my sickness...

Happy trails to you, until we meet again!

Well, the honeymoon is definitely over. We have put the paperwork in, it has been accepted, and the divorce is over. Final. Fin. My brother has left my side, and is now travelling around the north island of New Zealand. Somewhere.

We left on Sunday morning, early, to take the LONG road to get up to Picton, where he was to catch the ferry to Wellington. We drove all the way to the west coast, via Arthurs Pass (where we stopped to get a bite to eat at a local shop and a wild Kea bird flew up to us, the curious thing that it was!) to Greymouth. Our first major stop was in Punakaiki, where the strange rock formations of the Pancake Rocks are found. We walked around here for an hour or so, then balked at the price of two real pancakes for lunch and hit the road. We kept going on up to Westport, where we refueled and started the long trip through Lewis Pass. Eventually we ended up at Motueka, where we bunked for the night. This was the longest day of driving of the three days we were gone, and we were all bushed as bears from it. No one more than me, I think, as I had managed to pick up a nose and throat cold from somewhere along the way.

The next day we were heading up to Farewell Spit, the northern most point of the south island. Basically it's this sandy bit of land that sticks up from the sea and just sits there, with loads and loads of migrating birds using it as a nesting site. Unluckily for us the migrating birds were migrating elsewhere, so we didn't see much wildlife. The drive up to the Spit was an exciting one, with the car rarely getting over 60km/h as the road was windy as all hell. We stopped on the way to walk through a beautiful beech tree forest to the largest cave in the southern hemisphere, Harwood's Hole. Let me tell you, this thing is massive... And very scary when you stand on the edge of it looking down! Hopefully photos will follow shortly. The day ended back at the same hostel as the night before, which we all were very happy to stay at again, especially since it was pouring down with rain and we were all pretty beat from another long day.

Day three was definitely the least enjoyable, since it was the day that Geoff was leaving us all. We drove to Picton in near silence, if you can imagine. Basically it was two and a half hours of looking out the window remembering all the cool stuff that he and I had been doing for the past seven or eight months. I think everyone in the car was thinking the same thing, that it will be sad to see him go. We dropped him off at the ferry terminal, checked him in, and said our goodbyes. It was pretty sad, and I'm not afraid to admit that I had a lump in my throat (I held it together though... wouldn't want to show too much emotion in front of my two lady friends, would I?). So off the two ladies and I went, but again it was a pretty somber affair, the drive back. We got through it though, and when we got back to Christchurch we unpacked the car and sat down for a rest. Tam got her ears candled, we all had a bite to eat, and that was it.

It was a good mini-road trip, for the most part, but there's still something missing back here in Christchurch. It'll never be the same again...

Look at all the CRAP that came out of there!

I did something yesterday that I have never in my entire life. It's something that I'm entirely proud of. You see, it goes something like this:

I was having a really good day yesterday. Work at the juice bar went by fairly quick, the afternoon was enjoyable, and I knew the evening was going to be just as good. The night before Patsy, one of the girls who lives in the house I'm staying at, brought home some ear candles. You know, the ones that new-agers stick in their ears to draw all the wax out so they can hear properly? Those ones. Anyway, she said that she was going to bring back some more last night, and I was the first one to jump at the chance.

Patsy was a bit scared at what was going to come out of my head and didn't want to be the one that held the candle in place, so Mel kindly volunteered. Good thing too, because there was no way I would have been able to do it. So she lit the candle and stuck it in my ear. I was eventually able to hear this wierd cracking sound, and then my ear started getting all warm. I put the crazy crackling sound down to the fire, but my ear getting warm was a mystery... Until, that is, she cut open the ear candle to reveal five years of build-up. There is only one word for what came out: FILTH. And I still had the OTHER EAR!!!

By the end of it I had a bowl of water with my ear gunk floating on top, and two ears that were amazingly hollow. I stuck a cotton bud up there and it went in SO much further than I had been able to get it before. Seriously, I think everyone should try sticking a candle in their ears and seeing what comes out. It's quite liberating... Huge thanks to Mel for putting up with all of that crap.

Oh, and if you follow the link on the right to My Photos Page, I've finally been able to upload a whole bunch of photos from my recent trip around the south island of New Zealand. There's also a few photos of my 134 metre bungy jump. Shame I can't share the DVD with all of you too...!

Come with me, to my island in the sun...

I had a rather good day yesterday, thanks for asking.

Probably two the best things that happened to me were thus: 1) As soon as I finished my prep work at Tank Juice I was able to move straight onto the computer and talk to my friend Vanessa back home in Canada. This instant messenger thing is amazing. I had been into it before, when I was still at school and had a computer at my disposal, but got out of it when I started travelling because it was too hard and I didn't get to use a computer that often. Now that I'm in Christchurch with a job that has constant internet access, and staying in a house that's connected, I can talk to people all over the place instantly. It's amazing what you can do in today's day and age of science and technology, eh?

The second best thing that happened to me yesterday was going to see a preview of "The Island", starring a badly-accented Ewan McGregor and a stunning Scarlet Johannson. I had seen the trailers beforehand and had already come to the conclusion that it was going to be good, and I wasn't at all disappointed. It's set in the future, and I thoroughly believed every minute of it. That may sound odd, but it was very enjoyable to watch. The car chase scene was awesome! Plus it had Scarlet Johannson in it, who's always a pleasure to watch... Go see it, it's worth the price of admission.

I hope today goes as well as yesterday did...

Thank you to the Good, Good People...

Well, I can sleep a little easier now. When Geoff and I had our little accident where we found ourselves upside down in a ditch in our van, I had a little trouble getting my newly purchased discman working again. After drying it out for a few days, it somehow found the energy to turn itself back on again. Recently, however, the battery didn't seem to hold a charge. I put this down to the flooding it recieved during the accident. I had hoped that since I still had the reciept I could take it back and just explain my position, hoping that they would exchange it for a new one. Fortunately I didn't have to add the part of the accident and the waterlogging it got. The salesman looked at the reciept and walked into the back storeroom, emerging a few minutes later with a brand new player. So I say this:

Thank you to the good, good people at Dick Smith's Electronics, you made my day.

P.s. Hi Ma.

Cashing In, Cashing Out.

So back to this idea of money for a moment... Yesterday a couple friends (Tam and Mel), my brother and I all went on a day trip up to the seaside town of Kaikoura. I came up with the brilliant idea of all getting scratch lottery cards, you know, for a bit of fun. Maybe we would hit the big one and be able to have a nice dinner or something, I don't know. Anyway, we bought our tickets just as the shop was closing (at three o'clock in the afternoon!!!) and sat down to scratch them. We all had the same $2, but I was the only one to win anything -- a whopping $3!!! I cashed it in for a $3 card, where I proceeded to win a further $5!! It's wierd, because I had a feeling that I was in for a bit of financial luck. It's just a pity it didn't come in the form of $50,000...

The day as a whole was very enjoyable indeed. We saw sea lions and fur seals, which was very exciting. I got close enough to one for it to bark at me and show me it's knashers, but I was too slow to be able to take a picture of it with it's mouth open. It would have been cool, though. We then went into town and got the lottery tickets, then some lunch down the local chippie. Kumara chips are awesome, and I can thoroughly recommend trying them.

The drive back to Christchurch was pretty quiet, as we were all rather tired from the excitement of the day. Tam had to get Geoff (my brother) to drive for a bit, but as he got out of the back seat he dropped his mobile phone in the grass at the side of the road. Only he didn't realise until about four minutes down the road, at which point he turned around and swore and cursed all the way back until we found it again. Way to go, Tam!

All in all a very enjoyable day. I'm at one of my part time jobs at the moment, Tank Juice ("Where fresh is our motto!"), and the morning in dragging... If I can pick myself up off the floor I might just help this customer standing beside me...

Money, money, money, MONEY!

On my way back to the house today I passed one of those bus shelter ads that was advertising Lotto tickets. The maximum amount you could win was $50,000. Then when I got back and changed into my sweat pants, I started to watch Deal Or No Deal, which has a maximum dollar amount of $200,000. So it got me thinking...

What would you do if you won a large sum of money?

Would it change the way you lived? Would you go and splurge on a whole bunch of "stuff", like a new computer and new furniture and new clothes and other "stuff"? All I could think of was paying off my friends' student loans and throwing a big party, then taking the rest of it and just keep doing what I have been doing for years. I would probably buy myself some new camera equipment and a nice Apple Powermac laptop, but for the most part I would probably just keep doing what I love. Oh, maybe I would put some aside for when I go back to Canada and want to head back to school, but I don't really think I would change that much.

Then I got to thinking about why everything costs so much, and why inflation happens. If anyone can explain to me why I have to pay $1.30 for a chocolate bar, where I could have got one for $.50 when I was a kid, please help me out. Is it "the Man??" Who is this "Man"? And can I have some of his money??

200 for 30...

Hello and good morning to all. My second post here, and it might be hard for you all to share in the joy of it.

Let me give you a little background first. Here in Christchurch I have a part time job at a Workingmens' Club. Basically this is a bar where people can become members in order to get cheap alcohol. The people that tend to join are generally older men and women, retirees, or blue collar workers that work hard and drink four jugs of beer on their way home to their wives after a hard day of work. That's the main business. There are also several different halls that can be rented out for birthdays and other celebratory events.

Last night I had to work at one of these events. In theory it was a thirtieth birthday, but in practise it was something a little different. Word on the street had it that there were some 200 invites sent out, but after an hour and a half only fifteen had showed. How gutted would you be that you had sent out 200 invitations, and not even 20 people showed? I was standing there waiting for something to happen, and decided that they were probably all IT nerds that don't drink or dance or know how to do anything fun (no offence to the majority of IT workers that work hard and play harder, of course). In actual fact, I was only partially correct.

Backtracking a bit here.... On Thursday nights there is a new-age dance evening called Ceroc. This is basically people that have no rhythm or desire to get rhythm trying to put together tango, salsa, hip-hop, and all other sorts of dancing into one great big cacauphony of a dance.

Back to the "birthday party". While half the guests were probably the IT nerds I mentioned, the other half belonged to the Ceroc dance troupe that invade the club every Thursday. Try to imagine a man, dressed in a black leather jacket, white jeans, black pointed shoes, grey tshirt tucked into said white jeans (which in turn accentuated his rather jelly belly) shaking his thang to early nineties house music, and this is what I had to deal with for three hours last night. Oh, and none of them were drinking. SO THEY WERE DOING THIS SOBER!!! What reason, in all of the world, would someone put themselves through this sort of thing without being pissed to the gills? I have yet to figure this one out...

Please, answers on a sheet of A4.

Welcome to my world...

Welcome, one and all, to my brand new weblog. I have another weblog at a different, rival site, but after looking at a friend's weblog (who, incidently, I introduced to the wonderful world of weblogging via the rival site) on Blogger.com I decided to switch teams. Not entirely, mind you, but his looked really slick, and it had his NAME in the main body of the address! How exciting!!!

At any rate, a little bit about me. I'm a Canadian, currently in New Zealand, who's two main passions in life are travelling and photography. I am in year six of my travels, and have seen many beautiful and wonderful things. My dream destination to work and travel is Japan, which I have not visited yet, but my dream photographic destination would definitely have to be Antarctica.

At the moment I'm in Christchurch, on the South Island of New Zealand. I had planned on travelling around all of the country on a massive two month trip in a Ford Econovan, but two and a half weeks into the trip it blew a head gasket, leaving me and my brother stranded back in Christchurch. I'm hoping to get some quick money via a drug trial, so that I can continue travelling the country the way I want to. In the meantime I'm just relaxing and working part-time at a couple jobs, trying to decide what to do next...

Any suggestions are more than welcome!