blog.olya

(see all the photographs for this entry here and here.)

after having been forced to watch women’s figure skating short program the night before, tim had decided that he needed to do something manly, thus we went to manly bay.

the view off the ferry was AWESOMETASTIC as you can see in these photographs (courtesy d70).

upon arrival to the bay we walked around, and fussed with their 24 hour tourist center. in the photograph you can see the pad for operating on the screen on the left, and the screen is on the right, and in the middle is tim trying to make it tell us where we can find japanese food.

after more walking and stumbling around, we found an acceptable japanese place where we had an excellent all-around japanese meal (sashimi, sushi, tempoura prawns, teriyaki chicken, rice, edamame, miso soup, ice cream, all for 2 plus a bottle of nice wine at 26/person! like, wow.)

the ferry back was equally pretty, and the bus from the quay to unsw was eventful as it was *full* of crazy drunken frosh students who were singing out loud the entire time. it was like a school bus, not a city bus.

note: for some reason anything from www.olya.org isn’t loading now. i dunno why. it was working earlier and ftp is okay. i guess it will work later again?

i know that i’m skipping over a lot of things, but i will fill in later.

yesterday tim and i went downtown and did some walking, and some snapshot taking. look at them here!

so, i’m in sydney.

before ya’ll go all crazy on me, tim is going to be here in 6 hours, and i’ve just postd 10 new posts!. that still leaves me like 10, if not 12 days behind, but i don’t think i’ll keep up this intense daily bloggin here (unless someone can present me with an argument like “well i actually read all of this”).

anyway. its 12:30am here, and i’m tired, and i’ve formatted 10 entries with photographs! thus, i present the next 10 days after where we left off:

10 - jan 28: kaikoura to geraldine - long drives and changing cars
11 - jan 29: geraldine to twizel, the day hike that killed us
12 - jan 30: sunrise over mountains (twizel to all day bay)
13 - jan 31: all day bay to dunedin, penguinds and internet
14 - feb 1: dunedin to fjordland
15 - feb 2: milford sound sea kayaking
16 - feb 3: full of doubtful sounds
17 - feb 4: fjords to queenstown
18 - feb 5: queenstown to wanaka
19 - feb 6: whole day in wanaka

aand, photographs are here, although not all of them have been blogged yet.

and that’s the map!

what’s coming:
days 20-25 in new zealand
days 01-06 in sydney (that’s today)
more photographs (way more. i’m slow at processing and its already a lot, i think).

leave me commmeeeentttsss nooooobs. otherwise i feel like i’m writing into the V O I D.

yours,

- attention needing child.

oleg has made the brave decision of leaving me alone for an entire day, and booked himself a rock climbing trip for this day. this left me in an enviable position of being able to sleep in until after 12 (or whenever i wanted, really) for the first time on this entire “vacation”. (i’m not sure who could call such a torture as having to be moved out of any bed you’re at with all your stuff AND having eaten breakfast by 10 am a vacation, but, hey, i’m not the one defining english words here). of course this meant that the bed on which i slept was complete JUNK - sagging mattress that squeaked the entire night each time i dared to move a limb. thus meant that each time i turned i actually fully woke up, and the short bursts of sleep that i did get, were of terrible quality. (for the record i’m pretty sure that i turn about 10 times per night. just counting from amount of waking up that i have done.)

upon waking up for real at 11:15, i decided not to let the terrible bed of deterring me from the goal of sleeping in, and continued the fight for slumber on the luxury (haha, hostel and luxury rarely go together - the exception being the hostel near wellington, the 96% rated one) double spring mattress that oleg slept on. around 12:30 i decided that this counts as having slept in :) and got up for a slow breakfast of reading and cereal.

around 1:30 i decided to go and enjoy the local beach, which was all of 5 minutes walking away. beautiful! while the beach was not pearly white sand, but mere gravel, the blue skies, shining sun, mountains around the lake, and the flurry of extreme sport activity that kept happening around and on it definitely made for an enjoyable ~3-4 hours of laying down and listening to music. and doing nothing else. at all. aaaah!

the extreme sports however made for a pleasurable watching. some kids (probably 20 years old, those youngsters) were hanging out a bit beside me, and brought with them two kayaks (and an adorable beagle puppy). of course after a few beers, a girl and a guy decided to swim out into the lake on a kayak made for 1 (the girl just sat at the back), which ended with a beautiful overturn. one of their friends went to “rescue” them by taking the puppy, and swimming a bit out, and tossing the puppy overboard (it was actually more funny than cruel, although i would not have done that to my dog) - it of course swam (far better than the girl, in my opinion).

anyway, extreme sports (outside of puppy tossing). apparently about 40 meters from where i decided to lay, a paragliding launchpad was located. i’m not sure if its called paragliding, but the premise is as follows - the guide and you sit under this huge chute which is connected by a rope to a boat that speeds away quickly. at some point (which i couldn’t see due to the trees) you take off the land, and start rising into the air as the boat pulls you behind it kite-style. there’s a balance between the pulling and raising as the chute goes *really* high up, and after seperating from the boat (couldn’t see how, too high and far away) floats back to the ground regular parachute style. each time someone would launch it would be preceeded by a loud noise from the boat and a flurry of seagulls flying away from the area, and followed by everyone staring at another lucky soul.

the evening was spent examining my burnt back, legs, and tummy, and whining about a killer headache (until i took 2 advil). to top this off, i tried this terrible sauce on the chicken that i ended up not being able to eat entirely (oleg had no objections to it, and finished his plate), so i wasn’t even rewarded with a pleasant dinner.

thus a day that should have been nicer, ended up being not that awesome after all. however, it was relaxing. and hopefully after this burn goes away i’ll have some tan left over. (yeah i know it won’t happen, just let me dream :) )

for the sheer fact that it is now february 19th, and i still haven’t written about this experience fully, i apologize for any shortcuts in this entry. i think it is impossible for me to write about everything in total depth - and i’m pretty sure you’re overwhelemed at this point anyway. thus, i will probably be brief, despite the awesomeness of what happened today!

basically, in acordance to my “crazy stuff” category and my general craving for all kinds of crazy, i decided to do a kinda bungee jump. instead of a proper one where you get a terrible jerk into your knees, i went for a canyon swing. it is a combination of a bungy jump and a swing, allowing for as much andrenaline, and less stress on the body in terms of physical part. of course its still unnerving as hell :)

let me quote the guide: 60 meters of freefall off a 109 meter high booth, above a canyon, resulting in a 200 meter arc of swing. if you look through their jump styles, i went for (first) a backwards jump - where you softly fall away from the platform and freak out completely not feeling anything for a whole half of your life (anyway that’s how it feels), and secondly for a “gimp boy/girl does hollywood“. i have a video of the 2nd one filmed by another guy there, and i have nice photos i ended up buying of both of them from the actual people, but this was definitely one of the most awesome experiences in new zealand.

the andrenaline rush is particularly high because of the skill of the operators, who know exactly how to build you up so that you end up completly freaking out.

after my craziness, oleg and i went onwards and forwards through the highest paved road in new zealand to wanaka, a town similar to queenstown, only nicer. in the evening, nothing happened, as we basically enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere.