The Promotion

Just thought I'd let you know that I am now a supervisor at the theater. Last week we had about half our staff leave because they are all going back to Uni (University). But I figure I got the promotion because I'm such a great worker. :) I learned how to do the banking and am now allowed to get money from the safe. And the best part, I get a raise. Wahoo!

A New Cinema Experience

Tuesday night is usually movie night. Instead of our traditional Bay City Cinema movie experience, we journeyed 5 minutes north to the Rialto Cinema to see "Into the Wild". This was not your ordinary theater, but it wasn't different in a beanbag seating sense. Cinemas here are quite unusal as it is with their selling of ice cream cones and ticket sales at the same bench (counter) as the lollies (candies).

The Rialto is a more upscale and classy environment. It's not your typical two story tall building with movie banners and posters plastered on every available square inch of the latest mainstream wannabe blockbuster hit. You enter into a very quaint and cozy setting. Plush lounge chairs are available for patrons who want to relax before or after their movie. The concession stand contains small fridges with an assortment of beer or wine and brand name ice cream. No candy. No popcorn. After purchasing a ticket you walk up a couple stairs to enter one of their three cinemas with no one at the door to tear your ticket or make sure you even bought a ticket.

I found that last part to be quite interesting, maybe a little wrong, but everything else was great. Because this was a cinema that played more of the indie/adult films (not the bad adult films) it attracted an older crowd. You didn't have to worry about teenagers coming to the movie with their cellphones and talking to each other. Also, without the popcorn or candy you didn't hear the opening, crinkling, or dropping of wrappers and candy. All in all, it was really fun and a cinema I shall be visiting again.

As for "Into the Wild," I had mixed feelings about this movie. I loved the fact that it wasn't just about his adventures in Alaska, but about his journey there and the people he met. The variety of people he met and made meaningful friendships with evoked the whole range of emotions. It had a great theme about self discovery, happiness and the search for it. The acting was real and from the heart, with total commitment to the character being portrayed. Kudos to Emile Hirsch for the weight loss needed at the end of the movie.

I have two criticisms about the movie. First, it tried too hard to be an artistic film. There were too many different styles of directing, editing, and even acting. At one point in the movie, the main character looks directly at the camera and smiles. You can't randomly place that in a movie that's being narrated by his sister. The camera work would shift from his point of view, to steady cam, to shaky handheld shots, to everything inbetween. The transition of the title from a yellow hand printed font to a green, bold arial font was completely unnecessary. Second, I found this movie to be a glorification of stupidity. The main character abandons his family for a selfish dream without any type of plan. He burns his money, leaves his car, discards his forms of identification, and tries to survive in Alaska with hardly any supplies. It's great he wanted to be independent and be in the wild, but he could at least been smart about it. No map. Hardly a lasting supply of food. No real knowledge of the area. A crappy gun. The list goes on. But see it for yourself and decide.

Tongariro Crossing

This past Wednesday & Thursday, Dave and I went to the Tongariro National Park for an overnight camping trip. We started in Whakapapa (Wh sounds like an F) near the summit of Mt. Ruapehu and the Grand Chateau. We arrived around 1:00 and figured out our sleeping situation first. Around the Tongariro Park are lots of different hiking trails with huts along the paths for sleeping in. We had planned on parking up this on side road and staying at a hut around there, but the lady at the vistors center highly suggested we stay in the lodge/camping area where our car could be looked after. We walked over to the camping office to find a place to stay. But first, Dave had bought batteries for our camera to get some sweet pics, but they were complete duds. The camera wouldn't take any pictures, so we had to buy batteries at the office which cost $15 for 4 AA batteries. I took a picture to make sure the batteries actually worked.

Once we were good to go with the camera, we purchased a tent site for that night. Since we don't have a tent down here, we figured we'd take heaps of blankets and sleep on the ground. We were going to try and rough it.

Our first hike on Wednesday would take us to the Lower and Upper Tama Lakes. I first wanted to get a few pictures of the Chateau since I didn't do that last time (Dave added the ring for a nice Lord of the Rings effect).

We were told to stop at the Taranaki Falls and experience the "Taranaki Effect." You stand at a certain vantage point and pick one spot past the falling water to stare at. After 30 seconds, look at the rocks beside the waterfall. It was so crazy. It looked like the rocks were moving/shifting/shrinking. It was very trippy.

It took about an hour to hike to the Taranaki Falls. We continued to the Lower Tama Lake. On our way we passed time by playing a few games. First off, name a famous person (i.e. Johnny Depp) then the next person has to name another famous person starting with the first letter of previous person's last name (i.e. Denzel Washington). Pretty much it's the longest round of Scattergories imaginable.

We reach the Upper Tama Lake and had a little snack consisting of Cheerios, Carrots, Apples, Bananas and Peanut M&M's. And of course water.

Does anyone else see the upside down rubber ducky?

Dave showing off his amazing hiking socks from my mom. He absolutely loved them.

Chillin' by Upper Tama Lake.

Tama Lakes was our main destination for Wednesday. We headed back to our campsite for the night. There were a couple cafes around the lodge, so we ate dinner at one. Yeah, we were really roughing it. It was a little after 9:00pm when we walked back to our tent site. Before we start our hike, we had moved a picnic table onto our area and draped a blanket over it to claim the land. But with these tent sites, it doesn't matter if you've claimed the alloted area, other people can pitch up their tent too if there is room. We had a larger area and there is was, another tent pitched right where we wanted to sleep. We had parked our car right in front of the area so it would hide us when we slept on the ground with just our blankets. I wasn't too keen on sleeping right next to another tent with our pathetic camping gear, so we went back to the office and asked if there were any other available sites. He said they always save #15 for emergencies like this, but a big camper van had already taken that too. We decided to head into the lodge and find an empty room. Room #17 was available, so we grabbed our blankets and headed inside. So much for sleeping outside.

On Thursday we drove over to the Tongariro Crossing, but first stopped at the Tawhai Falls. These are said to be the inspiration for Henneth Annun from Lord of the Rings. (I know, I'm such a dork.)

Here's a picture what it looked like in the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. This is where Gollum swims in the pool and catches a fish in the "Forbidden Pool."

Any minute Orcs will be popping over those cliffs to attack us.

Mt. Ngauruhoe and all it's rubble.

This is what part of the Tongariro crossing consisted of, which was really nice. You could walk without having your eyes glued to the ground so you wouldn't trip on the rocks. That only lasted for maybe 10 minutes. The nice, easy trail then leads you to the rightfully named Devil's Staircase, because oh man! was that a doosie or what!

Climbing up the forever ascending staircase.

After making it to the top of Devil's Staircase you can either take a right to one of the side trails of the Tongariro Crossing and keep climbing up to the summit of Mt. Ngauruhoe or turn left and continue on to the Emerald Lakes, which would lead you to the end of the crossing.

We went left to see the Lakes first. It was a nice little climb down at first which brought us to the South Crater, a long flat piece of lang that gave us a much needed break from climbing up,up,up. But then you reach another huge incline, but at the top you get to see this:

And the Red Crater with a weird gorge-type thing, maybe from lava flow.

Just a little further and you see the Emerald Lakes and the incredibly steep pathway down to them. You can also see the path continuing to the Blue Lake at another higher part of the mountain.

Taking a breather before our climb or should I say slide down.

We took a seat by one of the lakes and whipped out our lunch, PB&J's, celery, Cheerios, and apples. We were getting really low on water and had to save as much as we could.

Blue Lake.

Nice sunglassess Dave.

Although the Tongariro Crossing continued North, we had to turn back to get to our car. We stopped at a couple steaming vents by the Emerald Lakes on our climb back up the slide.

We notcied that someones car keys were placed on the top of this sign. Hopefully they found them. We thought about climbing up Mt. Ngauruhoe, but we had about two gulps worth of water left and were quite weary from the hiking already. Forget that.

The hike back wasn't so bad. Climbing down Devil's Staircase took some carefully footing. We were pretty much out of water at that point and had at least another hour to go. Dave had read about Soda Springs at the bottom of Devil's Staircase, so we ventured a looksie to see if there was any fresh water for us. You bet there was. We filled up on ice-cold water and were on our way feeling very refreshed.

We hiked a total of 8 hours that day, bring our grand total to 14 hours in two days. It was very extreme and not suitable for the lazy couch potato.

Surf's Up

Yesterday Dave and I went surfing for the first time in NZ. We rented a board from "Ministry of Surf," $15 for 2 hours. Dave took the board out first. Our camera died so I was only able to get one picture of Dave surfing and none of me. Dave had a hard time getting up on the board. He did stand up a couple times but then fell down right away. I was able to stand up and ride a few waves for a while. I think I had an advantage over him because of my skateboarding days. It was really fun and we'll definately be trying that again. Hopefully we can get some videos next time.

6 Month Celebration

This weekend Dave and I went up to Auckland to celebrate our 6 month wedding anniversary. We left home around 10:30. Our first stop was the Auckland Botanical Gardens. We had visited before, but it was during winter and not many flowers were in bloom. It was a lot prettier this time around. They also had random sculptures placed through the garden as a special exhibit. Taking our time, we walked around and took in the scenery.

After the gardens we continued to my next planned even which was the Extreme Indoor Karts. It was a go-kart race track that was indoor and had two levels. You would start at the bottom, drive up a ramp, and also go under an overpass as well. We paid for a 15 minute run and were off. I wasn't quite comfortable with using both feet for pedals which is probably why Dave lapped me once. He had the fastest lap time of 25 seconds. Mine was 27.

After the go-karts we stopped at the Sylvia Park where we were going to see a movie on Saturday morning. Dave's friend had told him about a theater where you sit in bean bags. The cinema was in a shopping center, so we walked around for a little bit in the shops. I saw lots of fun stores that I would some day like to get back to and do some shopping (maybe when my mom comes out). We then headed into the city center to check into our hotel and then head out for the night.

Here is a picture of another shirt I made by hand. It took about 3 days. This one didn't take as long since I didn't have all those strips to sew together for the straps. But the bubble hem was a little complicated since I had to use elastic and have a liner in the shirt. This time I sewed in the invisible zipper correctly, so that was a good thing. All in all I think it turned out pretty well.

Online I purchased the "Big Night Out" package. The package included: 2 drink vouchers, dinner at the Fortuna Buffet Restaurant or a Chinese restaurant called Ming Court, a voucher to go up the Sky Tower, and a $15 gaming voucher at the casino. I purchase one for each of us. That night I had made reservations at the Fortuna Buffet Restaurant. Pretty much the first all-you-can-eat restaurant I've heard of in New Zealand. It was incredibly yummy. It had such a variety of foods. Pasta, meat, seafood, salads, a really tasty seafood/vegetable soup, hot chocolate, coffee, tea, and desserts. I think we each went up about 3 three times and also had dessert. The berry cheesecake was the best. After eating we went up the Sky Tower.

Looking through the glass floor at the top of the Sky Tower.

Dave leaning against the glass. We were allowed to.

We each used one of our drink vouchers at the Sky Tower Lounge. When we got to the lounge and showed the worker our vouchers, he pointed out that they were only good for drinks worth up to $6.50 which was explained in some tiny writing on the bottom. I was hoping for a mixed drink and asked for something on their cocktail list. I think it cost around $12, but the man was nice and gave it to me for free with my voucher. It was really yummy.

We headed to the casino and converted our $15 gaming vouchers for cash. First we played the 2cent slots and then headed to the bar. We used our second drink vouchers at the bar in the casino and sat down to watch a game of tennis for a while. The Australian cup is going on right now. Federer and Djokovic were playing. We took seats by the 1cent slots by the tv and played those for a while. We only used about $20 total on the slots and then walked back to the hotel.

The beanbag theater was really cool. There were 16 beanbags total. A beanbag can hold the combination of either: 2 Adults, 3 Kids, 1 Adult +2 Kids. One beanbag costs $30. The whole theater was really cool. It was huge. It had 10 regular screens, plus the Director's Lounge, Cinemaxx, and La Premiere theaters. The Director's Lounge had big leather chairs that everyone sits in. Cinemaxx is the largest 35mm cinema with a screen size of 30.6 meters wide and 13 meters high. The La Premiere has a few rows of private booths in the back where couples can sit in a double leather recliner and order drinks and a meal. It's pretty much the coolest movie theater I've ever been to.

Once the movie was finished, we drove across to Coromandel. We had been there before and climbed around. This time we were hoping to go snorkeling in Gemstone Bay, but the water was too rough.

We hiked to Cathedral Cove to see how the water was there, but the waves were huge. We decided to just swim in the water.

If any of you have seen the trailer for the new Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian movie, this picture should look familiar. They filmed right here at Cathedral Cove.