Adventures in Jingmen

Hey everyone…
Well here goes. Many of you have been asking for a post by me, and I finally gathered the initiative to sit down and write one. I haven’t had the chance to read all of the former posts because the internet here won’t let us view our own blog. Isn’t that fascist? But I’m sure that Jack has done an exceptional job at recounting the craziness of our exploits here in the People’s Republic. The reason I wanted to write this post is because I just came back from a little side adventure to the town of Jingmen, a quaint little village of only 2.5 million (after Wuhan and Shanghai, ‘quaint’ has now become an especially relative modifier). I undertook this venture with the company of one of our Chinese grad student hosts, Amy, and 3 other undergraduates in the school of public health. Our mission: to visit as many community health centers and their corresponding “street health stations” as possible, and interview the patients directors, doctors, and surrounding community members about health education. Of course, all I could do, since my Chinese is hurting, was sit there like an ignorant American and watch, pretending to take notes.

Jingmen, about 3 hours by train from Wuhan, is slightly more rural than Wuhan (again, I am being candid here about relativity), but the differences were still noticeable. For one, almost every city or town in China has its own dialect. Wuhan has Wuhanese; Jingmen has Jingmenese, and so on, and they are all so different, that they cannot understand eachother. All Chinese students urban or privileged enough to have the opportunity to go to a decent school learn Mandarin, so it is easy for the Chinese to travel around their own country and still be understood. But can we stop and consider this for a moment? Something I’ve been really attempting to reflect on here is the concept of being part of a culture that is the oldest continuous civilization on Earth. The Chinese have never been overrun by immigrants, or colonized by a foreign power. So it is somewhat similar, I can only imagine, to how the Americas would look had the English, Spanish, and Portuguese never colonized it. Maybe they would have a national language, like the Chinese have Mandarin, but each area would still also have its regional dialect, like Hopi, or Sioux, or Washoe. Isn’t that wild to think about?? I love imagining these alternate realities, but sorry if I am boring you.

I mean, talk about a cultural immersion. Or submersion might be a more appropriate term, since I was kind of floating beneath the surface of whatever was going on the entire duration of my cultural escapade. Amy and one of the undergraduates, who has chosen ‘Snow White’ as her English moniker, both speak very broken English, and that was my contact with communication for the entire three days of the trip. This led to several inevitable mishaps, most of which involved food. We ate two preposterously extravagant dinners with a few WU School of public health alumni and friends, who couldn’t have been more pleased to have an American foreigner at the table (the Chinese really love Americans…possibly one of the few countries left on Earth in which our good name has upheld its sterling reputation). Although they spoke no English, the meal was punctuated by frequent shouts of “Kambei!” (Bottoms up!) and subsequent beer-chugging and profuse welcoming praises in my honor. The first sign of trouble came when the first dish was laid on the table and everyone donned plastic gloves. Whole crayfish, eyeballs and all, was the first dish. One of our hosts came over and showed me how to break off the tail and bite into the claws to get out the meat. No big deal.

I think Jack may have mentioned in a previous post that I abandoned my vegetarian ways early in the trip. I did this for several reasons. It is commonly cited by vegetarians that they will eat meat while travelling in order to fully experience the local cuisine. I can’t say this was my primary motive, but it certainly works as a justification. Secondly, we have been invited to several dinners, by various hosts, and since all the food in China is served family style, not eating the meat at the table would not only be bad manners, but also pretty much unavoidable. My final and most compelling justification for eating meat is simply that I don’t know Chinese well enough to order dishes without meat most of the time, and there is a little bit of meat in almost everything. So there you have it.

Anyway, back to dinner. The crayfish was the most benign of my worries that night. Immediately following that dish, another of the alumni insisted on dropping what I swear was a large vertebrae into my bowl, surrounded by fat. I nibbled a little of the fat, and attempting to cover up my gag reflex, gave a stiff smile and a nod of approval. This was followed by a 4-inch long sardine-like fish that you are supposed to eat head, bones, and all. I obligingly took a bite. It tasted like rotting fish at low tide. “Mmmm. Delicious.” I said, adding it to the discreet pile of food waste that I was accumulating inside of my napkin. The final offense that night was the most comical, because a picture of it had come through my inbox before I even left for China. Remember the bird flu duck head, Dan? I’ll leave it at that.
The next night was even worse. One of the dishes served was introduced to me by Snow White, who dropped an unidentifiable piece of meat into my bowl and simply said, “tail of pig.” It came out of a pot of stew that also contained some kind of dark squares of meat. I avoided it like the plague. When I saw Snow White munching one of those squares, she looked at me and said, “Blood. Do you know this word?” Great, congealed blood. Probably from the same poor pig whose tail was still sitting in the bottom of my bowl, strategically covered with noodles. “Do you want to try?” Umm. No thanks, I’m getting really full. The final blow came at the very end of the meal, when one of our hosts (I think her name was Hu) was trying to divvy up the remaining food. All the fish in China is served whole, and you have to eat around the bones. The dish in question had two fish on the plate, which actually tasted pretty good. I lifted my bowl, and she placed the entire head inside. Sitting down, I eyed the fish head suspiciously and began to attempt to pick out the bones. Amy said, “This fish, the head is the most delicious part.” How thoughtful. It must have been obvious that I was having trouble, because Hu motioned toward Snow White and with a gesture that seemed say, “Help this girl.” Snow White had the other head, and she said, “Do like me,” and proceeded to suck the entire face, including the eyeball off of the fish head. Everyone was watching, so I picked up the head, and put my lips on it….
Ugh. I couldn’t do it. I managed to fake it ok, at least I think. And no one bothered me about it after that. I actually think that the Chinese get a kick out of watching foreigners reel at the thought of eating their food, because Amy kept asking me, “Do you think Chinese food is strange?” I told her honestly, yes. Although strange would be a euphemism for any honest adjective that I would use in that context.
Whew. Sorry this is so long. Anyway, my adventures in Jingmen extended beyond food, but I’ll spare you all of the boring details of our research. Hopefully, if you’re still reading, you found this interesting. Well, till next time…

Wuhan Clan

We met our new friends Amy, Tracy and XiaoXiao (Shao-shao) at the train station. Mercifully, they took us straight to the Wuhan University campus and to our hotel for showers and a great meal. Their English was great, making it easy to communicate, and they helped us with Chinese words for common foods and getting around. We got settled in our hotel on the medical school campus and took a quick tour of the School of Public Health, in a building only a 100 yards from our hotel. In between was the Chinese equivalent of a corner store, and a couple of student cafeterias. This would be our personal microcosm for the coming month. In the School of public health, a display case on the 1^st floor was dedicated to the University of Hawaii – Wuhan University collaboration, which was made “official” during our trip, which represented the first exchange program of the collaboration. A few days later, the Vice Chancellor of Univ. of Hawaii, Gary Ostrander, and Hawaii public health faculty would sign a collaboration agreement in Wuhan with their administration and faculty.

That night we were to have dinner with Dean Mao and Professor Bi. Dean Mao is in charge of the public health program at Wuhan University, and he is also a ranking member in the communist party. Professor Bi is the equivalent of the departmental chair. Our new Chinese student friends kindly escorted us to the restaurant and we soon found ourselves in a private dining room with the professors and other faculty and staff. We had been prepared (warned) by our Hawaii faculty that these occasions were marked by a lot of boozing. The Chinese custom is that if anyone raises a glass for a cheers, then everyone has to stand and drink. This happened roughly every 5 minutes for the next hour and half. What was even crazier was the food!

They ordered enough food to feed a small army – all kinds of different dishes. The Chinese way of eating is family style – with all the dishes in the center of the table. They give you small plates (the size of a saucer), chopsticks, a small glass (for beer), a small cup (for tea) and then everyone digs in with their chopsticks. It was really fun. Nearly everything had meat in it, but dishes were primarily comprised of vegetables. One of my favorite moments was when the Dean encouraged Daniela to try the beef ribs. I never thought I’d see my vegetarian wife knawing on a 12” beef rib but it happened. Too bad I didn’t bring a camera.

A few days later the students threw us a party at a local hotel. The party concept in China is much different. Nearly every event we’ve been too features a strong element of Karaoke. You learn pretty quick to throw your embarrassment about singing in front of a group of strangers out the door. The songs available are a mix of Chinese traditional songs, newer hip-hop and rock-infused Chinese songs, and a weird assortment of American rock and pop classics, mostly from the 1970s and 80s. When Kris and I told our hosts we played guitar they brought us a guitar from a classmate. We learned 4 songs in 2 days and played them (with amplification) at the party. Personally I think we did a pretty good 3-harmony rendition of “country roads” (Prof. Alan Katz joined in for this one), but we slaughtered “Hotel California”. A favorite thing to do was to pick a song and then when it came up hand the microphone to your friends to sing it. This can also come back to you. As it happened, Kris and I had to do a duet of “billie jean” by Michael Jackson. I’ll be fine if I don’t ever have to sing that one again.

Daniela danced hula and was instantly elevated to celebrity status. Everyone over here is enthralled with hula. Later on she danced hula at the graduate party for the public health program – in front of at least 80 people. People were getting her autograph and taking pictures with her – it was awesome. Students gave her gifts and flowers.

We settled in pretty quickly. We’re actually here to do collaborative research, and within the first two days we were introduced to the faculty we’d been paired with. Daniela began working with a Chinese student on health education and the changes in the Chinese health care system. Kris and I got paired with a professor working on toxicology of the Yangtze river. We ended up starting a collaboration with the Institute of Hydroecology & Chinese Academy of Sciences to work with them on their monitoring data of reservoirs. Part of our research may be to synthesize some of the information on the linkages between ecosystem changes and human health that have resulted from the Three Gorges Dam (the largest dam in the world). This research is what we’ve been working on the past few weeks. More to come on our fun adventures around Wuhan!

Shanghai to Wuhan: Travelling and trains…

Okay so it’s been a while since we updated you all on our trip over here in China. This is partly because we are actually over here for work (research), so it hasn’t been all touring and activities. We’ve got some pictures up and I’ll get to those stories too, but I thought I’d pick up where we left off – in Shanghai:

Shanghai is Mega-Huge, which is why it’s no surprise that the train station is a behemoth mini-city that’s the size of the astro-dome. So of course this presented some problems for our friend Kris, who was arriving in Shanghai the day we had to board a train for Wuhan, and whom we told to “meet us at the train station.” Once we got to the train station we realized instantly that we were going to have a helluva time finding Kris. Our first circumnavigation of the oval-shaped train station took us about a half hour. As we neared the departure time for our train, we went through endless “logic scenarios” in our heads, trying to figure out where he would go upon arrival. It was a bit like trying to figure out which way a mouse would go in a maze.

Jack: “Obviously Kris would go to entryway 7, where the train is supposed depart.”

Daniela: “But entryway 7 has no access to the boarding platform, where all the snacks and shops are. Kris would be hungry – he would go to platform 6 or 8 in order to get access to the platform.”

Jack: “If we’re using the ‘Kris is hungry’ logic, then I say he’d go to platform 12 where the Italian food is – Kris would want Italian food after a 12 hour flight.”

And on and on and on...

By way of a minor miracle we found Kris about an hour before the train departed, on one of our circuitous routes through the train station (he was not at the Italian food place). We were all carrying huge bags for our 1–month stay and subsequent travels, and we eventually made our way down to the escalators to enter the train boarding area. We were to board car 8 and our room was #18. As we stood in line to enter the train car, I noticed that we were the only ones carrying luggage. Red Flag #1.

Upon entering the train car I immediately realized why. A long, thin corridor stretched out before me. About 75 feet separated me and my luggage from “room 18,” and that corridor was packed with people sitting on little seats next to the windows or standing in the hallway. To the utter horror of my fellow passengers, I hoisted by 60 lb bag over my right shoulder and began navigating my way through the human maelstrom towards my room. Tiny Chinese women began praying, people darted quickly to the safety of their sleeping cars - small children were summarily snatched up and removed from my path. The corridor was arranged such that I had to walk with my legs on the left side, in between the tiny fold-down seats and the wall, and carry my bag over my right shoulder and the heads of people sitting on the seats. People looked at me as if I were certifiably insane. Somehow I got to “room 18” without dropping my bag on some poor soul’s head.

In my mind, we were going to be kicking back in a luxurious train car, resplendent with felt-covered seats, continual tea service and a flatscreen TV entertaining us with the latest Bollywood special. Unfortunately “Room 18” didn’t quite fit that picture. Our room was about the size of a pantry - or a perhaps a small walk-in closet, with 6 bunkbeds (3 per side), separated by a 2 foot crawlspace in the middle. What was immediately obvious was that there was absolutely no luggage storage space. For a moment we stood, contemplating the luggage conundrum, and then eventually just dropped our luggage on the beds, where most of it remained. Later on we found a “convenient” luggage storage space at the top of the sleeping room, requiring us to hoist our luggage up past the last bunk-bed at the top of the train car. Having no other option, we went almost immediately went to sleep.

I woke around 5 am and went into the hallway to watch the countryside through which we were passing. For hours we would our way through an agricultural landscape dotted with small townships. Some farmers were plowing small plots with their oxen – most were using hand implements; others were grazing their few livestock on overgrown paddies. I saw little, if any, forest. It was calm outside, overcast and wet. Occasionally the train stopped at little town and a few people got off, but mostly we just made our way through the rural countryside toward Wuhan.

Though the train would continue on towards Sichuan province to the west, the site of the massive earthquake, our stop was Wuhan – a city of around 7-9 million people and the capital of Hubei province. We “de-trained” around 7:30 am and found ourselves smack in the middle of another hugely populous city. We were tired, having slept restlessly and travelled continuously for days. It was oppressively hot outside and our trek through the train depot left us sweating. It all faded away when, at the exit of the train station, we saw a small group of Chinese girls, holding a small sign that simply read “Jack, Daniela & Kris – Welcome.” Our adventures in Wuhan were about to begin…

Shanghai Flava Flav

I couldn't resist posting this picture taken in Shanghai. We dubbed this guy the Shanghai version of "Flava Flav." This might the most hilarious (or interesting, depending on how you look at it) interpretation of American culture we've seen yet. Can somebody forward this to Jay-Z?

Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai

Apparently these gardens were built around the 1550s by a man who wanted to create a tranquil and beautiful place for his elderly parents. The scenery was spectacular, and it's offset by the wierd realization that this garden is smack in the middle of this massive city. As such, it comes off feeling like a place of refuge, which makes sense considering the intent of the original builder. The gardens were swarmed with tourist crowds, which made it a little difficult to appreciate the place the way it was probably meant to be enjoyed. We were able to find pockets of solitude, and snapped over a hundred photos of the gardens and structures.

Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai

On our second day in Shanghai, Daniela and I decided to check out Yuyuan Gardens, part shopping district and part botanical gardens. It was an unbelievably busy day - we were surrounded by an incredible assortment of street vendors and shops. We were constantly buffeted with solicitations to visit art galleries and stores. The architecture in Yuyuan is unbelievably beautiful. It's the kind of buildings you expect to see in China, but are actually pretty rare. Many were destroyed in the Chinese cultural revolution, and many of the surviving structures were rebuilt after fires.

Shanghai Madness

Aloha Family & Friends, and thanks for visiting our blog on our current trip to China!
We arrived on separate flights to Shanghai on May 21st - Dani flew in from Honolulu and Jack on a marathon flight direct from Chicago (14 hours of fun). After that much flying you fail to care about jet-lag - you just want off the plane. We met in the baggage claim and jumped in a van for a ride to our hotel. Or so we thought...
Shanghai traffic is insane. The whole concept of a "lane" just disappears. The Chinese road system is dominated by 1st-generation drivers. So there's no wonder the Chinese boast 20% of the world's car accidents with only 3% of it's drivers. Everyone drives as if they're carrying a pregnant woman going into labor. What's even more insane is that pedestrians also seem to have a total lack of regard for cars. It's common to see someone cross the street and stand in between lanes while cars whiz by at 50 mph. Needless to say, we've been pretty terrified at crosswalks. We sat in traffic for an hour before reaching the swanky hotel our professors were staying at in the tony section of Shanghai. We then hopped a cab for another 1 hour cab ride to our hotel near the south Shanghai train station. A 1 hour cab ride costs about $10 US - we quickly discovered that China is very cheap. Our hotel room was $25/night, breakfast the following morning was $1.80 (for the two of us).

The next morning we took off for "downtown", where the really huge skyscrapers are. To get anywhere in China, you need to have a hand-written description of your destination (in Chinese), and your return address. Because no one speaks english, and our feeble attempts at Chinese were typically met with an uninterpretable verbal barrage, you really learn quick that you need a set of handwritten directions. That way you can at least be assured you can get somewhere (and back!) without having to rely on communication. We got downtown and were dropped off at the highest skyscraper in Asia, the Jin Mei building. One thing we realized about mid-day is that China is crowded. This or course is not surprising, but the sheer volume of people is pretty staggering. So when we ran into what the Chinese considered a "crowd", it was a pretty awesome sight to behold. We had unknowingly stumbled into the area through which the Olympic torch runner was passing. Thousands had gathered to witness the event. After 30 minutes, we were all rewarded. Preceded by a caravan of vehicles and floats that "hyped up" the crowd, the Olympic torch carrier finally came into view. The crowd erupted - a million cameras and handheld olympic flags went into the air and the crowd began cheering and chanting.

You realize pretty quick that the Chinese are really excited about the Olympics - kind of in the same way that the U.S. might get excited about the Super Bowl.. only bigger. This is their moment in the international spotlight. Forget, for a moment, about their human rights record, the protests about Tibet - forget about it all for a minute and see the Olympics the way the Chinese see it - a time for celebration and pure joy.

We were inevitably drawn into the shopping district. We picked up a few things and made our way up into the TV "needle" - a huge projection into the sky that is part tourist attraction and the prominent feature in the Shanghai skyline. I don't know how tall it is, but it's really up there. What's incredible is how little you can see from the top. We'd heard stories about the air pollution in China, but this was really unbelievable. We were probably 70 stories or more up and you couldn't see more than a few miles. The sun was almost blacked out - the horizon disappeared behind a haze of smog. We've been in China for a week, and we have yet to see the sky. Our throats have remained scratchy since we arrived, no doubt the product of near-continuous inhalation of noxious fumes and degraded air. We know we've been spoiled, as Hawaii has the best rated air quality in the entire U.S., but our frequent trips to large U.S. cities leave no doubt that the pollution here is more severe than any place we've ever visited.

Apparently air quality in Los Angeles was comparable to Shanghai and Beijing in the 1970s, before the enactment of the Clean Air Act. China's mantra has been to develop now, and deal with the environment later. While not laudable, it's certainly understandable - most Chinese are unbelievably poor, and the acceleration of the economy in the past two decades has opened economic doors of opportunity never before witnessed in Chinese society. But the Chinese will eventually have to reckon with environmental quality - hopefully they will consider serious environmental reforms before health care costs and irreversible damage to their natural resources escalate beyond the point of no return.

Final Thoughts on New Zealand

We had an absolute blast in New Zealand. We ate great food, we saw some unbelievable landscape and we did some hair-raising, adrenalin-pumping activities along the way. We owe a great debt of gratitude to my parents, Joe & Sandra Kittinger, who paid for the entire honeymoon, thus allowing the monetary gifts of our friends and family towards the honeymoon to be used for incidental expenses on the trip. Their generosity enabled us to have the trip of a lifetime and it really means a lot to us to have these memories of our first trip as a married couple. We returned with over 1500 digital photos, and 2.5 hours of videotape, and we will make a smaller subset available to all of you for viewing. From north to south we really feel as if we toured the entire country and saw the best parts of what New Zealand has to offer. It's an unbelievable place, and we highly recommend it to any of you whose interest may have been piqued by our blog. We encourage you all to keep in touch and we send our love,
Jack & Daniela

Fiordland: Kayaking, Sand Flies & Storms

Aloha Y'all,
We made it to Te Anau, a small lakeside hamlet in southland, which is a kind of crossroads in southern NZ. It's a launching point for some of the famous hiking tracks in Fiordland and also the area that many visit to access Doubtful Sound, our destination. Fiordland is exactly what it is described as, a land of fiords (fyords, fjords, depending on your locale). Cut by glaciers, these submerged valleys offer fantastically steep canyon walls, with equally deep marine canyons below. Over 3 million acres of fiordland are protected as a national park and also as a UNESCO world heritage site (NZ has two of these). So the area is largely untouched. It's remote, wild, and prone to inclement weather, which we had the luxury of experiencing. To get to Doubtful Sound, you have to drive 30 minutes from Te Anau to Manapouri, cross Lake Manapouri (2nd largest in NZ), drive over the Wilmot Pass, and then you finally arrive and are instantly greeted by the welcoming committee: a swarm of millions of sand flies. A word on sandflies in fiordland: Sand flies, which are small as gnats, no-see-ums, midges, or other tiny winged predators of human blood, are inescapable. They are everywhere, and you can dip your entire body in DEET and they will still land on you and bite you. Even after soaking ourselves in insect reppellant, you could see a swarm of sandflies hovering around the heads of those around you, and see your own swarm intermittently, when they dart into your eyesight. You can't feel them until after they bite you, and the bites don't show up for a couple of days, after which they itch like hell. Even when you think you've gotten away they are still there. In a strong breeze they simply retreat to the leeward side of you appendages and hover there, fighting the swirling air currents until they can get sufficient purchase on your exposed skin for a bite. Okay, so there's lots of sandflies. We jumped in kayaks the first day and were surprised to find that we were kayaking with what must have been the olympic team from the european union. We're in pretty good shape, but the group we were with must have trained on kayaks prior to the trip. It was going great until the wind started up. The steep valleys channel the wind down the fiords, quickly whipping up 3 foot waves and it is virtually impossible to make any forward headway against anything over 15 knots. So we sailed home, rafting the kayaks together and holding aloft a 10 x 10' nylon sail, which sent us speedily racing back to the harbor. The next day the wind intensified, so we jumped on a day cruise out to the mouth of the fiord where we could check out the Tasman sea. Fiordland's waters have a layer of freshwater, loaded with brown tannins from the forest. As a result, barely any sunlight penetrates to the marine waters below. This tricks normally deep-sea corals into growing very close to the surface. We didn't get to dive, but we did see some videos and pictures of black corals and a range of other anemones, coral species, and sea fans that grow on the canyon walls in just 10 or 15 meters of water. A must do for any fiordland visitors: dive and check out these organisms, which are only this accessible in fiordland. We made it back to Queenstown the following day and checked out a rugby tournament before flying home to Honolulu!

Mountain Biking in Queenstown

Queenstown is known as the "adventure capital of the world," and it very well may be. It also could be called "backpacker capital of the world" or, perhaps more aptly, "thrill-seekers capital of the world." This is mostly because you can bungee jump, jet-boat, river surf, canyon swing or choose any other activity amongst a myriad of adrenalin surging options all within arms reach from Queenstown. Q-town is the first town we've been to in quite a while. Having stayed in villages, the residents of which typically number less than a thousand, Queenstown was a return to population. Only 14,000 or so permanent residents call Q-town their home, but over a hundred thousand typically visit during the xmas/new year's summer break, and during ski/snowboard season. We rolled in late, after hanging at the famous Cardrona pub on the infamous road over the perilous Cook Mtn range road (perhaps too many adjectives here?), and barely made it to the mtn biking shop. We drove up to Skipper's Canyon, a previous gold-mining area right outside of town, where our guide promptly handed us dual suspension mtn bikes, gave a 2-minute tutorial on how not to die, and sent us barrelling down this single track beset with streams, jumps, boulders and other hazards. We somehow navigated all this mess successfully and ended up breathless at the bottom of the canyon where the Shotover River cut an aquamarine ribbon through a deep valley. Then they threw the bikes on a trailer, us in a van and up we went to do it all over again. The road they drove up apparently took years to cut back during the gold rush days. And it looked it. There were multiple points in the gravel road where a late turn or faulty traction would have sent us rolling down steep cliffs to oblivion below. The second run on the bikes was better - we got a little more confidence and could open it up a bit. We had a blast and rewarded ourselves with a night out with some of our mtn biking buddies, and got ready for the drive to Fiordland, one of the most remote and wild areas in NZ.

Canyoning = Awesome: Laka Wanaka, NZ

We booked all these trips and it occurred to us that a paragraph description doesn't really prepare you for what you're getting into. So we naturally weren't too apprehensive about our "canyoning" trip in Wanaka. You know that feeling when you're kind of laid-back about an activity and then all of a sudden you realize you're way over your head? That describes perfectly what happened to us two days ago. Canyoning, it turns out, is equal parts rock climbing, rappelling (abseiling), and waterfall jumping.. all inside a canyon with 300 foot walls on each side. Our guide, Dave, who owns the business picked us up at 9 and proceeded to outfit us in wetsuits, helmets, body harnesses and water hikers, which has now become a common occurrence. It occurred to me later that when the owner of the company is your guide, you're probably signed up for a pretty intense experience. So we hiked up the 40% incline next to a roaring waterfall. I say "hiked" in the liberal sense - we were mostly scrambling up a crumbling rock face, clipped into safety lines that prevent you from falling off the cliffs on insanity to your instant death. Fear of heights is not really an accurate term when you're suspended 100 meters above a canyon floor and dangling by a rope attached to a 6" bolt. We get to the top and Dave gives us what is now our 3rd lesson in abseiling (rappelling) and down we go, into the canyon. Full wetsuits and everything, approx 60 degree water. So after we signal we're ready, Dave immediately turns and flies off a 30 foot ledge into the river below. Whoa.... So we take the cue and fly off this boulder into the green oblivion below and Dave's description of "committed" comes fully to light. There is now no way to get out of this canyon except down. And down means straight down, on safety lines, rock climbing on soaking wet canyon walls, and reppelling through (not around, over, or under - THROUGH) raging waterfalls. That anyone would invent canyoning as a sport is legitimate proof that adrenalin junkies really are some of the coolest people in the world. So off we went, jumping off of waterfalls, rock climbing along ledges and rappelling through these raging rapids for 6 hours. And it was intense!!! Our rapelling lines were rigged so that once we got into a waterfall, we could zip down them and fall, twist or cannonball into the pools below. Sometimes we short-rigged the lines so we would rappel down and off the line, and plunge into the waterfall pool. It was a pretty insane thing to be perched above a 50 foot waterfall and see your repelling line dangling into a massive waterfall, knowing all the time that you were going exactly where that line disappeared - into a raging cascade of whitewater. And when you hit that waterfall (or, rather, when it hit YOU), it was like a thousand pounds of force hammering your helmet and down you went! Sometimes we had our feet on the wall, sometimes we were free-suspended over a ledge. There were also smooth, slow flowing passages, where we simply floated downstream, buoyed by our wetsuits, looking up into the canyon where 300 foot verdant green walls framed a sliver of sky and trees above. Little drops of water trickled off the cliffs and fell, highlighted by the sun, past fern gardens growing out of the canyon walls. The water was crystal clear. Then, just as you were settling into this moment of zen, Dave would yank you out of the water, clip your harness into a climbing line and show you some insane cliff he wanted you to jump off, or climb down. This was an adrenalin-soaked adventure. The last three rappels were the most intense. We were about 500 feet above the canyon floor, where a series of waterfalls streamed down a sheer rock wall. We were dangling off that wall the entire time, clipped into safetey lines and abseling ropes. We ended the adventure with a 15 meter jump (~46 feet) jump into the bottom pools, where we both kissed the ground, thanked Dave for the insanity we just experienced and promptly vowed to never fear death again!

Alpine Adventures on Fox Glacier

We arrived two days ago in the small town of Fox Glacier, where there is, in fact, a glacier. This part of our trip was something I had really been looking forward to. We were to take a helicopter ride up and over the glacier and then do some ice-climbing. What we actually did, which was far better, was take a helicopter ride up to an isolated alpine hut, where we camped for the night. The heli ride up was insanely cool. If there is anything more fun that riding in a helicopter, I'd love to know what it is, because this was fantastic. We took off and sped just over the tree tops, then swung into the valley where the glacier instantly leaped into view. The scale of it is hard to communicate in words. It was a massive frozen river, gauging it's way through a steep-walled green canyon. And high above the glacier, the helicopter settled onto a 10 x 10' pad next to a tiny wooden shack. This shack was actually the chancellor hut, where we would stay for the night. The hut sits atop a ridge overlooking the glacier on the north side of the canyon. With our guide, we ducked out of the helicopter and stowed our excess gear in the hut. We then suited up for our assault on Chancellor Dome, a peak on the northern ridge of the canyon, which would allow us a view of the entire snowfield, the glacier, and the two highest peaks in New Zealand, Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. We strapped on body harnesses, donned our helmets and got our cramp-ons and foul-weather gear packed up - and then we began our climb. We started at the hut, at 1300 meters (approx. 4000 feet) and climbed another 700 meters to the summit. Our ascent included rock climbing up a nearly 30 % grade and finished up with a snow track to the summit. We were blessed with an absolutely perfect weather day - and we got clear views at the top of the entire scenery. We had lunch on the summit and then started our descent as storm clouds began to creep up the valley. On the way down we used our ropes and climbing gear as the grade was quite steep. We were also visited by a noisy flocks of Keas, which are alpine parrots. Only in New Zealand can you be climbing a rock face, pick-axe in hand, and come face-to-face with an alpine parrot. These parrots were incredibly fiesty and obviously have no fear of humans because they come right up to you. They followed us down the mountain and were our pets for the remaining time on the mountain. Back in the hut we found a small research notebook for an ongoing study on these birds, and it turns out they may have the most developed sense of play of any birds - anywhere. After a huge plate of pasta and a bottle of red wine, we sat up on the ridge where we could hear the glacier moving down the mountain. At our particular point, the glacier was moving at 4 meters per day, and you could hear it! Huge towering ice pinnacles, forced upward by the downward pressure of gravity on the huge mass of ice periodically tumbled over. These pinnacles, called ceracs, were as big as 60 meters, so there was a lot of ice moving around down there. The glacier was so huge it was difficult to understand the massive forces at play, but you could get a sense from the noise. The stillness was occasionally broken by a loud cracking noise, like a far-off gunshot, followed by a low rumbling like thunder, as the glacier continued it's slow downhill movement. Later on we crashed on bunkbeds in the hut and woke up early for our descent down the ridge - and on to the glacier, where we were going to be lifted out by helicopter back to the village. The descent was incredible. The alpine slopes were in full bloom, with flowers budding off of virtually every plant. We bushwacked down the ridge and reppelled down a 100 foot rock face. And then we donned our cramp-ons and ice-axes for our march across the glacier. It turns out that glaciers are pretty dangerous phenomena. Besides the constant motion, the glacier is marked by frequent caves, gullies and crevasses, some of which seem endless. The topography is also sculpted by moulins - which are meltwater rivers that run over the glacier and down through the ice, where the water lubricates the underside of the ice as it moves across the valley floor. We made our initial ascent onto the ice with full ropes and gear, crossing innumerable gullies and valleys where the safety line insured against a misstep into a blue void. The ice was incredibly different than what we had walked on for our ascent up Chancellor Dome. Glacier ice is really dense, and gives off a deep blue color. Most of the air has been forced out of the ice through massive pressure and years of compression. We had to stomp our cramp-ons into the ice to ensure good footing. We made it across the frozen landscape and played around in some blue ice caves and then got ready for the helicopter ride out. Helicopters are really loud, and when it touches down 30 feet from you, you know it. Ice scree rocketed across the terrain and we shielded our faces and ran heads down to the door. Once in, you're really taken by how small it is inside. it's like a fishbowl with a huge whirling fan. And the take-off is the best part - you lift up and then tilt downward, and then begin racing at ever-increasing speeds across the terrain. Our pilot took us up the glacier, over towering ceracs and made a huge hairpin turn over a ridge face. We then followed the northern canyon wall home to the village for a well-earned shower and of course a scotch - poured over the "glacial rocks" (ice we chipped off the glacier!).

Diving Riwaka Resurgence

The next day we dove into 40 degree water - and yes we actually paid to do this. After being picked up by our dive guide, we drove up to Riwaka, a small town below Abel Tasman Nat'l Park, where the Riwaka river emerges from the mountainside. After donning humongoid wetsuits, we hiked the 1/4 mile up to the stream's "resurgence" (where it emerges from the limestone) and were greated by..... a crowd of naked hippies. Yessiree it seems that this stream has become the favorite hangout of the free and unencumbered hippie gangs of Nelson, NZ. You can imagine it may take some fortitude to willingly jump into 40 degree water. It also takes some additional mental focus to do this in the presence of naked, frolicking hippies. but we did it nonetheless. We took multiple lights and were outfitted in wetsuits, hoods, gloves, booties - you name it. We descended through the sump (where the water comes out of the mountain) into the an 8 meter cavern and then swam into the darkness. After a 50 foot swim, we re-emerged in a spectacular limestone cavern. The ceiling was adorned with crystalline stalagtites and limestone "drip curtains" that sparkled white. The visibility was incredible - you could see clearly as far as your light beam could shine. We spent a half hour floating around in the cavern admiring the formations, and even killed the lights, which was an eerie feeling. We finally emerged, to the collective delight of our own group and our nude on-lookers. Happy to be out of the freezing water, Daniela celebrated by jumping off a small rock pile into the "crystal pool," promptly declaring that the water was much more tolerable with a 7 mm wetsuit on.

Abel Tasman National Park - the most beautiful place you've never heard of

Let me just start this by saying that Abel Tasman Nat'l Park is the most beautiful place you've never heard of. No really - it is. More on this later. First we have to fill you in on the wierdest place we've stayed since we've been here. It's called the Pujis Well-ness Retreat in Nelson, NZ, and as far as we can tell, it's just two people who have a large house and charge a boatload of money for you to stay in one of their closet sized rooms. Now it is nice, and it fronts an absolutely lovely little creek. And there is a hot tub, and a sauna. There is also continual burning of incense, a colon-crunching diet of nuts, berries and other foods likely procured from the neighboring forest. The home is well-furnished, with a nice yard and a lot of picturesque views of the creek and the Maitai valley, where it resides. I guess we had a little something different in mind when we were thinking "wellness retreat." Like I previously stated, it's pretty much someone's house, where you can stay for an exorbitant fee, while retaining the option to shell out additional hundreds of dollars for a hip-hop yoga class or pay (yes, pay) to starve yourself on a diet of nuts, berries and various fruit juices.

Now back to the good stuff about the area. Nelson is a great town. Right on the water, lots of character, and like all the other New Zealand towns, it's chock full of great little cafes, stores, and restaurants. As for Abel Tasman, it's nestled along the northern coast of the south island, where the 18 foot tides create massive tidal flats, wetlands and beautiful coves and bays throughout. The park is home to the nesting grounds of seals, but it is also a great reserve for coastal areas and native forest. We took a boat to the western end of the park and hiked the scenic Tasman coastal track, hugging the coast for 4 hours back to the Torrent Bay Village. The village is a cluster of homes accessible only by water that pre-date the national park. It reminded me a lot of Dog Island, albeit with markedly different landscape. I can't describe how beautiful the hike was - there where so many "whoa! look at that!" moments, and you'll just have to see our pictures when we post them to believe it.

New Year's in Wine Country (Marlborough, NZ)

Blenheim, NZ might not be on the "hot 100" list of places to ring in the new year - but it oughta be. We rolled into town after a loooong drive from Waitomo (on the North Island). To make our 10:00 ferry ride between islands we calculated that we needed to get up at 4:45 am. Let me tell you, 4:45 am is an early start to what is traditionally a pretty late night. So on New Year's eve we trucked it south, winding our way through fantastic countryside to the port city of Wellington, which is famously cold and wet, which it was, of course. We made the ferry with 15 minutes to spare and turned in our trusty Nissan rental car. The ferry ride was pretty crazy. Not only was the passage pretty rough, but it was rough in a 350 foot cruise ship, and waves were coming across the bow and washing over windows that were 4 floors above the deck. Whoa. Daniela is like my mom: utterly impervious to motion sickness unless she's suspended upside down, reading a book in the windowless cab of a truck on the world's curviest rose. Me, on the other hand, am not the most seaworthy of people, and I spent most of the ferry ride on the upper deck, outside in the freezing rain, sucking on ginger beer and praying for the storm to let-up so I could fixate on the horizon. Once the south island came into sight the swells calmed down and we wound our way through unbelievable inland waterways to Picton. Most of the coastal homes we saw were accessible only via boat, and these waterfront hamlets were packed with vacationers out for the holidays. We procured our next rental - a diesel Kia, and rolled into Blenheim 20 minutes later. We managed to squeeze in a booking at a local restaurant, and ended up in the town square for a new year's countdown and fireworks. A band rang it in with a lively rendition of that song always gets played on New Year's (which I have never learned the words to).

Blenheim is in the heart of the Marlborough valley, which is internationally renowned for it's Sauvignon Blanc. It also boasts great Pinot Gris (Pinot Grigio in the N. Hemi) and really tasty Pinot Noirs. We now because we went wine tasting on New Year's Day! We got picked up the next morning by a very eccentric and crazy wine tour lady, who took a group of us around to a host of great vineyards. We tasted a bunch and even procured a few bottles, which we hope will actually make it back to the states. On to Nelson for Abel Tasman National Park....