Heading South!

The last few days have involved a WHOLE lot of coach travel! From Wellington - Christchurch we got the ferry to picton and then a coach on to Christchurch. On the way the bus driver stopped to let us take pictures of these massive colonies of seals, very cute! They looked just like otters! On the way I listened to an audiobook of Pride and Prejudice, Niiiiiiice!
In Christchurch we only had the evening so after realising the beauty of cookig food and saving money we headed off to a supermarket! Chicken Fajiiiitas!
The next day were headed to Queenstown and after the horror of missing the plane we arrived an hour early for the 8.30am coach! Once we were on the coach the bus driver talked and talked and talked about everything we saw, including: the population of the towns we drove through; about the nature we could see; the agriculture and a detailed history of New Zealand. It was very hard not to fall asleep even though everything he said interesting! Here are a few highlights. New Zealand's Canterbury plains were named so by the forefathers who made the first christian settlement, and named Christchurch after the Oxford college they attended. Moreover, the canterbury plains are full of agriculture, cattle farming and vinyards! As we drove through Mackenzie district we learnt the story of the shepherd mackenzie which is too long to go into now, google it! :) Finally, we stopped by these really pale blue coloured lakes called Lake Tekapo and Lake Pikaku! They were that way because something or other in the glaciers that melted was ground down and is held in suspension in the water. There was an amazing view of Mount Cook over lake Pikaku.

On arriving in Queenstown I was completely won over! Its like a British seaside town except its by a lake and its warm! Today we got breakfast from a little church fete opposite the hostel. Thennnn we headed up to a bird wildlife park and saw some actual kiwis, funniest bird ever! For the rest of the day we lazed around on the village green which has a stream running through it, there was even ducks! The strangest thing about this place is the amount of british people here, there is ALOT who seem to be living and working here. I can see why, its lovely!

Going to Millford Sound tommorow!
Apologies for the terrible grammar grown-ups!

xxxxx

One final thing, for a more detailed and more grammatically correct commentary, see www.emmahubball.blogspot.com!

xxx

Bought more time :)

So the next day we got a bus from Rotorua - Wellington, the bus drivers are so nice here! There tell you what you might see out the window, what to do at the next station if your changing and they and generally very churpy! Not at all like National Express drivers! lol.

As we drove South through the North Island the landscape changed massively, it went from hobbity and farmy to massive mountains, some even snow-capped and there was even a desert area! Lovely lovely country.

When we got to the Wellington the bus driver asked where we were going and took us pretty much all the way to our hostel after letting everyone off at the terminus, he then told us the way to our hostel and about the area, amazing guy! :)

We got settled into our room, a 4bed dorm for 3 of us, niiiiice! We then went out for dinner, Quesdillas with spinach and feta with curly fries to share! yummers. Today we went up in a cable car and walked around the botanical gardens which were cool, lots of exotic plants you would never see in botanical gardens at home, as well as a very colourful rose garden and an lovely smelling fragrance garden! Then we got on a bus and went to the WETA workshop where they made alllll the props and scenery minatures for Lord of The Rings! They can't let you see much because of confidentiality but there was loads of the famous swords from it like Frodo's one, sting that glows blue when orcs are near (we were ok, it wasn't blue! lol) and arwen's swoards as well as the broken one that is kept at Rivendell in the film! They also had on display the model of gimli that the guy that did the doubling for him wore, the little model of frodo that arwen carried while she was riding with him on her horse AND Saurons metal crazy glove thing! They had so many cool models you could buy and loads of jewellery like: Arwen's necklace, THE ring and the broochy things the hobbits use to do up their cloaks! Finally, they had a cloak thing like the ones they wore you could buy! Basically, it was AMAZING! We all ended up buying these keyrings made of the actual chainmaile they used in the film, and while we were paying for it the guy told us that Elijah Wood had been there yesterday! I was so shocked, if only we'd been there a day earliar! LOL

We then headed back into town, in awe and jealous of anyone involved in the making of LOTR, and walked along the waterfront. The jealousy was assuaged with some tasty gelato and by watching loads of people doing rowing! All in all a very pleasant afternoon! On the way back to the hostel we bought food in order to do our first bit of cooking!

Mmmmm Pasta, 0lives and salad!

xxxxx

Rotorua - Wellington

Soooo, the Maori night, when we arrived this guy volunteered to be our tribe leader guy and he had to accept this leaf of peace after this maori warrior had done a terrifying dance with a stick where he stuck his tongue out and made his eyes all bulgy! lol. After that we all went into this room and watched them do this really cool dancing and singing and they got the men on stage to do a Haka, that dance the All Blacks do (although I definitely shouldn't be referring to it as a dance, I think thats offensive! lol.) After that we had a meal of maori food, there was stuffed chicked and other meats like they ate as well as roasted vegetables that tasted smoky! Apart from that there was LOADS of seafood which was tasty and different kinds of salads. More importantly, there was some awesome desert and the equipment to make a GOOD cup of English Breakfast tea! :)
For the meal we'd been sat by this australian family who had come to NZ as an engagement present to their daughter and her fiance, after the meal we all walked down to watch a geyser! It is the only geyser left untouched in NZ as the others have been taken by the government and used as alternative energy sources. We got sprayed with sulphury water, which was gross, and saw these rocks which glowed green with the sulphur in them! As we got on the bus to take us back to town the driver who had driven us there asked us where we were from, and recognised Emma, his best friend lived in Redditch and he had seen her walking to work! It was unbelieveable!
I have got upto date, but my internet time is running out!
xxx

Heyyyyy!

We're now in Rotorua after a pretty harrowing journey from Tokyo!

It all started when we came to check in for our flight to Auckland, the supervisor insisted on asking us for proof of our flight out of New Zealand, our Australian Visas and our accommodation in Fiji (of which we haven't got any planned yet!). Eventually they decided we were allowed to get on and so we went to the gate on a shuttle train thing because the airport is SO big! We saw this tiny toddler with his mum at the check in desk who was the most intelligent child I have ever seen! He was SO aware of his surroundings and pulled his own pink hello kitty case and he stood JUST like a man impatiently waiting with his hands on his hips! lollllers.

Once we got on the plane it was a dream, I can see why Air New Zealand is airline of the year! We got seats at the front of a section so had loads of legroom as well as individual tvs and I had the window seat! Watched films: Bright Star; Where the Wild Things Are and Snow White! Niiiice! Also managed to sleep for basically a whole nights sleep! :)

When we got off at Christchurch where the plane made a stop was where we ran into trouble, the plane stopped for an hour and then was delayed taking off. This meant we missed a bus we were booked onto and had paid for, and after not being able to phone because we left the number on the plane while we waited, we were annoyyyed to loose out on the money.

Anyway, when we landed in Auckland we made our way to an information desk and booked ourselves onto the same coach just 5 hours later, for about 20 gbp! We made it into Rotorua about half ten last night and had to go to a bar to check in and then had a nice nights sleep! :)

This morning we've been to these geothermal baths which are 42 degrees, hard to get into at first when its already pretty warm here, but very very nice! I'm now sat back at the hostel waiting to go at 5.30 for this evening learning about maori culture, should be educational and interesting! lol

On to Wellington Tommorow.
Love to you all! :)
xxxx

Hopefully the worst thing that will happen to us along the way...

SO, on the day of our departure we had a few hours before we needed to get to the airport, we went around Shibuya, a shopping district of Tokyo and saw some super cool stuff! Then we made our way back to Asakusa, where our hostel was, packed our bags and got on a tube to the airport, we were supposed to change at a station called Aoto and so we did! We crossed the platform, marked as the platform for the airport. Then we did a number of stupid things: we got on the next one that came, not checking it's terminus against a map, we stopped checking the station blissfully innocent that we were heading into the suburbs of Tokyo and we didn't realise until the train was almost at the end of the line. As soon as we realised where we were headed we leapt of the train and swapped sides, made it back to the Keisei Line for the airport and managed to run with our 16-17kg rucksacks onto an express train for the airport! We RAN to the Air New Zealand check-in desk to find no one there, and spoke to the business class attendents who phoned through to see whether we could get on (we'd made it there 30 minutes before the plane took off!) and they couldn't do it. We then asked the assistant what we could do, she half-heartedly said:"phone your travel agents?"

So, we then lugged our bags and our heavy heavy hearts to the payphones and poured out all our coins and started trying to make phonecalls to STA, it was afterall, 9.30 am in Britain! lol. The Payphones refused to work for us and the Air New Zealand Office in Tokyo airport weren't picking up the phone (they didn't have a desk, grrrr!) We eventually got through to Ben at Birmingham STA and had two options, get on a plane today (the following day) or wait until wednesday and only have to pay 35 GBP. However, we have so much accommodation and travel booked in New Zealand we would lose out alot as well having to spend so much staying in Japan, our most expensive destination! So, we've gone with the expensive option of getting to NZ only a day late! We for a minute thought this 'missed departure' would be covered on our insurance since we are supposed to be covered for such things for upto 5oo GBP (oh yea, I can't see a pound sign on this keyboard! lol.) Anyway, when we rang the insurance company we found out we were only covered for our departure from Great Britain, that WAS a low low moment!

In total we have spent about 10,000 yen (70 GBP) on phonecalls from pay phones.

And finally, the Airport closed at 11pm so we had no chance of just sleeping on sofas in the airport, instead we had to shell out for a one star stupidly expensive airport hotel.

So, now we're all sat at an internet station (they're playing michael buble! lol) at the airport, waiting to check in for our flight today. I hope to post something much more cheerful about the sunny weather of NZ and things going much more to plan! :)

Love Rachel xxxx

ps. Emma has just informed me that Stacey killed Archie and Bradley is dead, as if things couldn't get any worse! lol :)

Its our last night in Japan and its been super cool! When we　arrived after a pretty horrible 10 hour flight we went through the most efficient arrival I have ever experienced! They did passport control before baggage claim so all of our bags were there as soon as we got through! Then we had a pretty ardous time navigating our way from the airport to our hostel, in the rain! I definately did not come prepared for such weather, its been just as cold as home if not worse! Once we were settled into the hostel we went in search of the main shopping district, naively thinking it would be by Tokyo station. We ended up having dinner in a little train station cafe, and then watched all the Japanese business people walking by from a coffee shop, they all looked so neat and elegant!

The next morning we got the bullet train (shinkansen) to Kyoto and made our way to our pre-booked fancy hostel! In Kyoto we saw quite a few different shrines! lol One we stumbled upon in the evening was like a sea of lanterns, it was pretty! We also went on a guided tour round Kyoto Imperial Palace because thats thats the only way they let you in and it was free! There were loads of ceremonial gates f0r various different visitors and this amazing Japanese garden where the Emperor held poetry parties where courtiers sat on rocks and had to write a 33 syllable poem before they could grab the sake that floated by in a little boat! lol. Even though we only got back to the hotel at 1.40 we ended up sleeping for about 5 hours! Got up and went for food, but I'd been pretty ill so didnt gave anything. Pretty much got an early night even though we had all all slept a bit in the day and this morning we wandered through this fish and vegetable market with some cerrrazzzzy things about.

We then had a really bouncy bus journey back to the station where we got the Shinkansen back and walked around Tokyo, we made it went to the Sony shop, which I have been excited to see! There was a showroom where they had a 3-D tv and these really cool coloured sony vaio laptops, I bought some funky headphones, the type that go right in your ear so it sounds like the music is just inside your head! I hope they're good for the twelve hour flight south to New Zealand tommorow night! Also looking forward to some warm weather after alot of bitter cold!

Lovee Rachel
xxx