Jackie's World Tour 2009 – Let the mayhem begin!

Ok, so I am resigned to the fact that I am really bad at updating my blog! Yep, I have been consistent at letting at least a month go by in between blogs. Guess that is a good things since I am usually so busy that I don’t have time to update!

Well since I last left you, my trusty readers, I was off to Phuket, Thailand to get my butt kicked everyday by a bunch of tiny Thai dudes! There is only one word to describe my experience at Rawai Muay Thai….AMAZING!!! I absolutley loved every minute of it, well almost every minute of it. It was totally what my mind and body needed. I wish that I had more time to stay there longer. I really loved being physically abused on a daily basis. Training consisted of 2-5 rounds of shadow boxing, 5 rounds of padwork with a trainer, 5 rounds of bagwork (did mention that we also had to do 10-20 push-up’s in between rounds?) and then about an hour of technique. Depending on the day, we worked on different techniques ranging from kicks, blocks, punches, clinching (grappling), sparring and wai cru. It was alot of ass kicking smashed into 2-3 hours! And then after all of that we did 200 knees and 200 push kicks on the bag and 150 situps. We did this 2x a day. The morning session started at 7:30 and the afternoon session started at 4:00. It was really intense! So the days kind of looked like this: wake up, train, shower, eat breakfast, go back to room and sleep, wake up and train, shower, eat dinner, pass out in exhasution and wake up the next day and do it all over again. As the weeks progressed, I actually took shorter naps and this awesome guy Martin, started meeting me at 12 and I did weight training. I basically lived, ate and breathed Muay Thai for the month! I met so many amazing people at Rawai (that was the gym). It was so much better than I expected. Now I know that it sounds very boring but I did do other stuff besides just train. Training was Monday through Saturday so on Saturday night lots of people from the gym often went to Freedom Bar to get their drink on. It was always alot of fun. I did do a tiny bit of exploring around Phuket as well. Most of my exploring was done on the back of a scooter and I have come to love riding on the back of scooters. This was most people’s main mode of transportation so I often found myself on the back of someone’s scooter. Nothing like having the wind blow through your hair as you are zipping through Phuket. Of course there were this one day that me and 3 other guys decided to rent a car and go and visit the Big Buddah of Phuket. The Big Buddah is exactly what it sounds like, a huge Buddah on top of a mountain. The buddha is impressive and you can be blessed by a monk in the temple which was a very cool experience for me. But that is not why I am mentioning the jaunt to the temple. In true Jackie style, of course the day did not go smoothly! Being broke Muay Thai trainees we decided to rent the super cheap jeep down the road from the gym. Little did we know that this was going to be the equivilant of a Flinstone car. Actually, I think I may be insulting the Flinstone car by saying that. It was a fight to get the car to shift out of first gear. We started with Paul driving the car. Let me give you an explanation of exactly what Paul looks like so we can put this into perspective. Paul is an ex-professional mixed martial arts fighter, unbelievably huge with muscles coming out of everywhere and inked pretty much everywhere you can see. He is one intimidating looking dude who could probably rip the head off a cow with one hand. Now that I explained what Paul looks like I will say that Paul fought the jeep and the jeep won! It was like a Muay Thai work out on crack to get the car to  shift. I think Paul used every muscle in his body to get into 2nd. We should have realized at that point that this was a bad idea but no, we decided to forge on and make the best of it. Paul finally gets us onto the main road and we start cruising until we hit 55mph when we start shaking, violently. I thought the car was going to fall apart. Ok, no going over 55mph I guess. We now realize that this trip to the big buddah is going to be a long journey. So we settle in, cruising speed around 50mph (freakin mopeds are passing us for gods sake!) and we start to head up the windy roads to take us to the Big Buddah when we realize that we have no gas! Yes, people this is a comedy of errors! But we averted that disaster after a tense 15 minutes of hunting for a gas station. Whew! Finally we start to head up the very steep road to the temple and…. come on people, guess what happens next….whoever gets it right gets a free toaster…of course we stall on the middle of the mountain and then we can’t get the car started!  Can this trip get any better? Tons of Thai people stopped to help us and when they were getting ready to set up the jumper cables the car decides to make us look like complete jackasses and start up on the first turn of the key. I swear this car is the devil’s spawn and truly hates us. Eventually we make it up to the temple. I felt like making an offering at the temple as thanks for getting us there alive! Now going home was also an adventure cause the car decided to stall every time we shifted from 1st to 2nd. This made it really interesting when we had to cross the stupidly busy road filled with crazy Thai drivers. Turning across oncoming traffic in Thailand is a scary prospect. Turing across oncoming traffic with a car that stalls 7 times while trying to cross is just suicide. I just closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable crash. Thankfully we made it across but I think everyone in the car found god again for the 5 minutes it took to cross the road. We made it home ok but any thoughts of driving around Phuket were ruined and we just called it a day and decided to go back to our trusty scooters! LOL All, I can say is that it is never dull in my neck of the woods!

I also got to see a bunch of fights. Alot of the people training at the gym were fighting and I have to say we had alot of kick ass fighters. Suprisingly enough alot of the fighters were women and they seriously kicked some major butt. I could sit here and write a book about how amazing my experience was in Rawai but I will leave it off here cause I don’t want to bore you!

After my month in Phuket I headed off to do my GAP tour through Cambodia and Laos. I really enjoyed the tour. I met some really great people that helped to make the tour a great experience. There of course was a little bit of high school drama but I guess that is to be expected when you travel with a group larger than 3 people.

So I will start with Cambodia. In my opinion we did not spend nearly enough time in Cambodia. What a magical place. It seriously struck a chord with me and Cambodia will hold a special place in my heart. I can’t really figure out why I loved it so much. I think it is the fact that the Khemer people have been dealt such a shitty hand thoughout the years and yet they still have this prevading sense of hope and pride. I am not sure how many of you know about the Khemer Rouge and Pol Pot. I did not know anything about what occured in Cambodia in the 70’s but man did I get an education. Basically Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge took power from the existing government and instituted his version of chinese communism. It was brutual and relentless. All of the educated people and their families were killed, all of the cities were evacuated and the people were forced to work the fields. All money was abolished and many people died of starvation. Basically millions and millions of people were either executed or died of starvation or disease. It wiped out almost all of the adult population and  almost all of the educated populous. When the Pol Pot regime was defeated by the Vietnamese, Cambodia was left with a population of mostly uneducated people and a war torn country. One of the places we visited in Cambodia was one of the prisions where they carted people for questioning, torture and execution and then the Killing Fields. The Killing Fields os comprised of over 100 mass graves where thousands upon thousands of people were buried. Many of these graves were shallow. As you walk through the killing fields you can still see bits of bones and clothing in the ground. It is unbelievable. Our tour guide through the prison and Killing Fields was an actual survivor of the Khmer Rouge and his story of survivial was amazing. It was probably the most emotional day I have experienced on my whole trip. It is just unbelievable that so many people died over such a short period of time and it happened in the last 30 years! That is just crazy to me! Even now, Cambodia has a corrupt government and the people are pretty much in a shitty situation. Through it all though the people have such hope and this amazing outlook on life. It would be so easy to be bitter but they aren’t. They just keep smiling through it all and almost of the Cambodian people I met were wonderful, happy people. It was such a great place. The day that we went to the Killing Fields we also went to dinner at a resturant that was run by an orphanage. That was the highlight of my trip. After dinner we got to meet a bunch of the kids from the orphange. All of these kids were hand picked by the charity to come and live there and they were sent to school. They ranged in ages from 2 years old to 18 years old. All of them either lost both parents or 1 parent was dead and the other parent was not able to support their kids so they were brought to the orphange. These kids were just phenominal. I wish I had more time to spend with them. It was such a great way to end a really emotionally hard day. If anyone is interested, I have the website for the charity so you can check it out. They obviously can always use donations and I can tell you that it would be a great way to give back. The kids are totally amazing and deserving of any help they can get. Ok, enough preaching! All in all Cambodia was amazing. I obviously went to Siem Reap as well. We watched the sunrise there and we visited 4 different temples. Just unbelievable. The Jungle temple was my favorite. That is where they filmed parts of Tomb Raider. Very cool temple. I also did a cooking class which was very cool. Learned how to make  some tradtional Cambodian dishes and I got a cook book at the end so I can try to replicate them at home. Watch out people, I have a Cambodian cookbook and I plan to use you all as guinea pigs! LOL Hmmm…..what else, oh yeah I also got to try my first snake in Cambodia. That was interesting. Didn’t taste much like anything but if I had to give it a flavor I would say kind of like hard boiled eggs.

Now onto Laos. Laos was really, really laid back! I enjoyed Laos and again the people were very nice. We arrived in Laos and went to this island Dong Den. We stayed there for 2 days which was a nice little break. On the second day there my friend Caroline and I decided to rent bicycles and ride around the whole island. Four hours later we made it back to our hotel. It was a very fun journey and the kids we met on the way were so cute. They would run out of their houses to say hi and they loved to pose for pictures. It was so much fun except for the  aftermath. Let’s just say my body was angry with me….very angry with me. Well really it was more my ass that was angry with me. If it could have staged a revolt and physically removed itself from my body and walked away in protest I am sure it would have. It took a couple of days for my body to make nice, nice with me again. But besdies that it was great! We also got to go swimming in the Mekong. Actually all the girls decided to go on in our clothes. Kind of spur of the moment and lots of fun. A bunch of us tried to have a race against the current and it was kind of comical. We got maybe 10 feet before we were exhausted. The current was damn strong!

After Laos it was back to Bangkok and then onto Egypt! I am actually in Egypt at the moment on the nightbus to Cairo. I cannot say enough great things about Egypt so far. The people have been so friendly. I wasn’t expecting them to be so friendly and helpful. I have been pleasantly surprised! The other bonus is that Egyptian men like their women with junk in the trunk. I have been getting alot of “attentiton” since I have gotten here. No one has been innappropriate thank god but it has been nice hearing that I am beautiful on a daily basis! LOL Now only if the men back home could be so forthcoming with the compliments! The other really funny thing is that I have been asked if I was every nationalty but American. The most popular ones I have gotten has been Italian, Egyptian (I don’t get that one at all), English and Spanish. I mean they even hear me talk and still think I am anything but American. I guess my NY accent is pretty lame. I am doing a bad job of representin! LOL I have done a bunch of diving thus far and the Red Sea is amazing! There is so much life here and even snorkeling is out of this world! I am really excited to be in Egypt cause I have gotten to see Johanna, my friend that I met all the way in the beginning of my travels in New Zealand and who I also met up with again in Fiji. We just spent the last week together doing some diving and touring around Cairo. She left this morning. 🙁 But I get to hang out with Nathalie and Robert (my two kick ass friends that I spent 2-1/2 months with in Fiji- Robert was my dive instructor) for the next week or so! I can’t wait to get to spend time with them.

So the agenda is looking like Egypt, Jordan, Isreal, Turkey and Italy and then HOME SWEET HOME! I have to say that the closer I get to coming home the more and more I miss being home. I am so excited to get my butt back home so I can see all of my friends and family. If my job doesn’t work out I may not being staying home for very long but it will be so nice to get home at least for a little bit! Well, I love you guys and I miss you. I will try to update again in a more timely fashion. BIG EGYPTIAN HUGS!

Here I am sitting laying on the sleeper train going from Kota Bharu to Kuala Lumpur (in Malaysia if you are wondering) and I am a mix of emotions. Part of me is at peace and is very happy, the other part is lonely and missing lots of different people and things. I am especially missing my Poopers. Everytime I turn on my computer there is her adorable little face staring up at me. I miss her so much! I just want to scoop her up in my arms and give her lots of kisses. I am really afraid that she is not going to remember me when I finally get to see her. She will have not seen me in a year. God, I will be devastated if she doesn’t remember me. Is it possible for doggies to forget their Mommy? I hope not.

Wow, that was kind of a sucky way to start off my blog but I guess not everything can be peaches and roses, right? I have my down moments and I guess this is one of them. I am alone for the first time in awhile and I guess it is making me think about how much I miss home, my family and friends. You know you never really think to much about missing people when you plan a trip like this and for the most part I have been ok but it totally hits me at points. I just want you all to know that although I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything, I think about you guys often and I really do miss you all. I have a pretty kick ass life and friends  outside of my travels and I can’t wait to get back to you guys in another 6 months!

Ok, enough being mushy and stuff…onto BALI!!!!!! I absolutley LOVED Bali. Well I really should say that I loved Ubud. Ubud is the cultural town of Bali. It is where they have all the artist villages for woodworking, stone work, jewelry, painting and metalwork. It is also a very chill laid back town with lots of crystal hugger types. Lots of yoga freaks (sorry yoga peeps but there are some of you out there, not any of the people that I know,  that are just a little too weird and out there with it!) make their home in Ubud so there is this wacky spiritual thing going on there as well. I didn’t get involved with that but I loved everything else about it. There were great little eateries with all healthy and organic food and just a great vibe to the town. I swear I could have stayed there for months. Claire and I decided that we were going to treat ourselves a little bit and stayed at this awesome place, Ketut’s place. It was up a side street from the main drag and it was beautful. Our room was on it’s own floor with a little pond, veranda, balcony and places to sit. Across from our baclony was the jungle with a river running about 150 feet below us. It was so peaceful. We had breakfast every morning on our veranda and just listened to the flowing water. It was just amazing. It was nice, we were able to get into a little bit of a routine. We signed up for yoga classes and went to yoga classes everyday. Yoga was great. The classroom was on the second floor and had no walls. It was beautiful cause the studio overlooked these lush emerald green rice paddy fields. So serene and just a perfect setting for yoga. We rented bicycles to get around the town and did alot of exploring during the day. We also did lots of shopping. We went to an amazing jeweler and spent way too much money on some really outstanding jewelry. We also went to see traditional Cecak dancing which was mesmerizing. I took place in a temple and it there was no music. All of the music was done by a group of about  men sitting in a circle around the stage and making different noises with their mouths. Lots of chuck, chuck, chuck kind of stuff with varying tempo and volume. It was so cool. The dancers danced the same story as the one we had previously saw in Jogja so it was nice to actually know the story. It was great. The dancing was of course amazing. I love to watch Thai dancing and they make it look so eays. I took a class and thought I was going to die. It is really strenuous and way harder than it looks. It is beautiful and I wish I had more time to properly study the artform. Like I said, I could easily stay in Ubud for months. The other random thing I did in Ubud was visit this famous local healer. It was really interesting. We went to his house which was like all traditonal Balinese houses. It was a compound where his whole  extended family lives. These compounds are usually pretty large considering that huge families are living there. It is pretty cool. Anyway, he had me sit down with my back facing him and he then felt all around my head and face pinpointing areas that were not 100%. He would find a spot that hurt and he would tell me what it was associated with. He bascially said that I am still living in the past and I need to let go of whatever is holding my heart and be happy again. hmmmm…..interesting. He then had me lay down and he used this littel twig thing and pressed on certain pressure points on my foot. There was one spot on my foot where I almost leaped out of my skin it hurt so much. He said that area was for my heart. He did some prayer thing over my body and then went and pressed the twig into the same spot again and it didn’t hurt anymore. It was so weird. He said that he opened up the blockage I had from my heart to my liver. It was pretty cool. Can’t say I feel much different but I was blown away at the fact that the pressure point no longer hurt after her did that little prayer thing over me. 

We spent 8 awesome days in Ubud and then decided that we should probably experience some other areas of Bali. So we left to go to Kuta ( a huge beach party town) and then onto the Gili Islands. As much as I loved Ubud I am glad that we did this. I fell in love with the Gilis. It was so much fun! Kuta was ok, just a typical beach town with lots of resturants, shops and bars. I could have stayed there for a couple of days but probably would have gotten bored pretty quickly. Now the Gili Islands are a different story. Claire and I both LOVED it. It is such a cool island with such an amazing laid back attitude. We met a couple of people on the boat ride over to the island who we wound up hanging out with for the whole time we were on the island. Hugh wound up being my dive buddy for the week and we had a great time. Claire and I stayed at one of the diving hotels called the Big Bubble and it was a great experience. Claire did her Discover Scuba diving course which was a super huge accomplishment cause she is afraid of water. I did 4 dives while I was there and I enjoyed them all. The water was warm and I really liked the divemaster that took us on our dives. And Hugh is as much of a jackass underwater as I am! Whoo-hoo, good times! The dive sites were pretty nice but I think that I am a bit spoiled from Fiji. It is hard to compare to Fiji in my mind. All in all Gili’s was just what I needed. It was a nice balance of chill and party. The first night we were there our little crew went out had dinner and then made our way over to the shisha bar. It was all down hill after that. We all went to a bar after that and drank our faces off. So much fun! Oh yeah and guess what, my room was right by the mosque so I got to hear the wonderful singing at 4:30 in the morning again! I told you I couldn’t escape those damn call to prayers! LOL
Claire and I both agreed that we would have stayed in the Gilis for another week or so if our visas weren’t running out! After a week we had to leave cause our visas were expiring so we decided to head over to Malaysia and go to the Perhetian Islands.

Getting to Malaysia was pretty uneventful. Took our flight into Kuala Lumpur and then another flight over to Khota Baru. We then hopped on a ferry to the Perhentian Islands. There are 2 islands, Besar and Kecil. We stayed on Kecil cause it was much cheaper and more laid back. We managed to find a room right off the bat which was just a steak of good luck for us. You see they do not pre-book rooms on the island so you just have to show up and pray you find something. I have heard stories of people having to sleep on the beach cause they couldn’t find any rooms. Like I said, we were lucky. 🙂 The room was pretty basic but I liked the place. It had a certain kind of run-down charm. And the bonus plan was that it was not near a mosque! LOL! I did some diving which was ok. Nice dives but nothing to write home about. I think the snorkeling was better than the diving. We went snorkeling twice and the first time we went we saw a school (around 8) black tip sharks together swimming around. I have never seen that before. It was pretty amazing! I see lots of sharks but I have never seen 8 together at one time. Very, very cool! We also met up with our friend Nigel who we had met in Singapore. He was in Malaysia and I told him we were going to the Perhentians and he decided to come on over and hang with us. It was really nice to see him and we all had a great time.

Now of course this would not be a Jackie blog if something silly didn’t happen and of course the Perhentians delivered! The last night we were there I had decided to go to bed somewhat early. I woke up around 2 in the morning cause I had to go to the bathroom. Our room did not have a bathroom in it so I had to go around the back of the room to where the toilets and showers were located. I stumble out of my room half asleep and go to open the gate to the toilets only to discover that they are locked!!! The only place where half of the people staying could go to the bathroom had a huge padlock on the door. WTF?!?! So I go to the front desk and of course no one is there. I then see a bunch of guys who work there walking past. I tell them that the bathrooms are locked and I need to go to the bathroom. I was told that they had no water so they locked the bathrooms. I am sorry, you did what? Half the rooms here do not have attached bathrooms so basically we are shit out of luck if we have to pee? I didn’t say that to the guy although I really wanted to. Instead, I asked him what I was supposed to  do cause I had to go to the bathroom. So the guy tells me to come back in the morning! WHAT????? I have to pee NOW!!! That is the whole point of this conversation. All he could tell me was to come back in the morning. Of all the answers I would have expected, come back in the morning was not one of them. I was disgusted so I just left and wandered around to other places that had a toilet. Thank god I found one before I pissed myself. Unbelievable!!! I swear this shit only happens to me.

Besides my little toilet incident, the stay on the island was really good. It was a really nice way to finish off my time with Claire. After 3 days we hopped back on the ferry and went back to the airport. claire headed off to Kuala Lumpur to go back Singapore and then home. I headed to the train station and took an overnight train to Kuala Lumpur ( much cheaper than flying!) Obviously that is where this blog started. But now I am past the train and I have been to KL and other places so I will update you on that as well.

Got to Kuala Lumpur in the morning and took the really good public transportation to my hostel in Chow Kit. I have to say that I found it very easy to get around KL. Ther transport in not really linked together but it is really easy to understand. KL is another big city with tons of shopping! The first day I got there I headed to Petronas Towers and to the mall that occupies the ground floor. It was a huge mall and there were tons of stores. I spent the day doing nothing really and just cruised around the mall and surrounding areas. It was just what the doctor ordered after the overnight train! The next day I hooked up with Rich who I met at the hostel and we decided to go Batu Caves. Batu Caves were pretty cool. We took a darkness tour which basically takes you through a side cave and then we went and visited the shrines built inside the caves. It was really different and very cool. After that we went over to Chinatown and perused the markets and got some food. It was another good day. The rest of the days I spent in KL were kind oflow key just doing some browsing thru the mega malls and hanging out. Nothing to amazing but it was nice.

After KL I decided to head over to Semporna to try and dive Sipidan, which is a world class dive site. It was a somewhat expensive flight but I had high hopes for Semporna and Sipidan. You see the problem with Sipidan is that you need a permit to dive there. They only allow 120 snorklers and divers there a day. People book there permits months in advance. Lots of times there are cancellations so you can get a permit regardless of having booked in advance or not. So I get to Semporna and check in with the dive shop, Scuba Junkie. No cancellations for Sipidan for the next day but I am scheduled into 3 dives at Mabul, which is supposed to be great diving as well. Ok cool. I go check into the Scuba Junkie hostel where I had booked a dorm room. Oh my god, what a SHITHOLE!!! I tried to make the best of it but man it was pretty bad. I figured I was just tired and in the morning it would seem better. So I sleep the night in the shithole, get eaten alive by mosquitoes and get up stupid early to meet the boat for my dives. Ok, the dives were really good. I especially loved the first dive, which incidentally was my 100th dive! Whoo-hoo, go me! 🙂 NO wonder I am broke, I pick all the expensive hobbies! Anyway, I can’t say I really liked the staff at Scuba Junkie. It wasn’t anything specific but I left feeling like I didn’t really want to give them anymore of my money and I cancelled my next days dives. After coming back from the dives I came to realize that Semporna did not look any better than it did the night before and all I really wanted to do was get the hell out of there. So I checked out the next morning and left town with Andrea, another diver who was staying in the dorm and felt the same way I did. We took a taxi to Sepilok and checked into this really nice jungle resort by the oranghutan rehab center. Yes, I know, more oranguhtans! I can’t get away from them. This place was really nice and it was such a step up from Semporna! Really a ditch in the side of the road would have been better than Semporna but this place legitimally was nice. We were in heaven. I was a little hesitant about travelling with Andrea. I was not sure if our two personalities would mesh well together but I am really glad that we did decide to join ways. She is very candid and upfront and intelligent. We had a really great conversation over dinner talking about everyting from politics, perceptions of other parts of the world and just life in general. I spent the next couple of days with Andrea. We spent one day in Sepilok swimming in the pool and exploring. We then took a flight over to Kuala Lumpur. We got in about 11pm and wound up having to stay by the airport so Andrea could work some things out with Air Asia. Well the ONE hotel by the airport was fully booked so we were told that we could stay in the lobby as long as we did not sleep. So what ensued was about 6 hours of using the internet and drinking lots of caffenated drinks till the service desk opened at 5:30 in the morning. That was a fun evening! 🙂 But thankfully, Andrea was able to get everything worked out and we headed over to our hostel. The hostel was REALLY nice and we loved the fact that we had AC. Yes, AC is aluxury for someone backpacking on a budget. LOL Spent the next couple of days with Andrea doing some random shopping, getting massages and just hanging out. Nice and relaxing.

During this time I decided that I wanted to find a place to park my butt for a month before I went to on my tour of Cambodia and Laos. I looked into going to Kho Pangang in Southern Thailand and taking yoga classes for a month but then it dawned on me that I could take Muay Thai classes. So, I found a place in Phuket where I could train 2x a day, 6 days a week for a really reasonable price. So I decided to get my ass in shape and go do some hardcore training. I have been here for 6 days so far and I have trained 5 days so far. It is really hardcore and it is seriously kicking my ass. I love it though. I will definitley be in great shape after a month of this. I will be updating some more in a couple of weeks. I am exhausted and need to go to bed! As always, miss you all! 🙂 BUG HUGS!

Here I am sitting in the airport at Kuala Lumpor trying to kill 2+ hours before our next flight. Yep, I am no longer in Indonesia and I am now off to Malaysia. Not wanting to be in a big city, my travel buddy Claire and I decided to fly into KL and then right out again to head for a the Perinthian Islands off the coast of Northern Malaysia. I am very excited even though I am limping along from lack of sleep. I know it has been a long time since I posted so I am going to back up and tell you all about my adventures in Singapore and Indonesia.

Last I left you I promised I was going to talk about Singapore. What a weird country. I mean it is about the size of Manhattan and has no real defining qualities except that it is like 20 different countries in one. I stayed in a hostel that was right outside of Little India and let me say that when they say it is Little India, it really is. It seriously seems like you are stepping into India. And I have to say that everyone talks about how clean Singapore is, well I am calling Shenanigans. It found it to be somewhat dirty, especially in Little India. Everyone was on top of each other and it was always crowded. I went to the 24 hour mall at 12am and it was packed…on a weekday. I mean don’t people work? It was so weird. I really enjoyed Chinatown. That was pretty cool. It was just like a typical Chinese market area you would see in Thailand or NYC Chinatown. The food in Chinatown was kick ass and super cheap. I spent most of my time there. They also had a huge Buddhist temple that I visited in the heart of Chinatown. It was beautiful and they had a museum of all different kinds of buddahs. It was really interesting. Other than that it was like any other big city. Big malls, expensive shops, etc, etc. They also had the one resort area, Sentosa. I went there one day with some people I met at the hostel I was staying in. It was fun. We rode the 3D rides and went to the aquarium where I got to see some pink dolphins. I didn’t even know pink dolphins existed. Learn something new everyday. 🙂 The one really great thing about Singapore was that I got a travel buddy for Indonesia. Claire was in the same room as me in the hostel and due to some wonky work issues she was able to extend her trip and come to Indonesia with me. And let me tell you, thank god I had her to travel with cause I think I would have curled into a ball about cried about 1,000 different times throughout my jaunt through Indonesia.

I knew at some point I was going to hit a wall with this whole traveling thing. I suspected that it would be somewhere in SE Asia because that would be the start my trip where I would run into the whole language barrier. Well, I predicted correctly. Indonesia was rough going in the beginning. Thank god I had Claire with me cause I think I would have lost my mind. We decided to fly into Jakarta in Java and then go from there. We got in touch with this woman Clara who runs a B&B out of her house about 20 minutes outside of Jakarta and arranged accommodations with her for about 3 days. She had her driver pick us up from the airport and take us back to her place. Ok, first off, there is never a time in Jakarta where there is not traffic. It was insane. Not only is there so much traffic you could walk faster than the cars, everything is really spread out. It took us about an hour and a half to get to Clara’s place. On top of the fact that there is an amzing amount of traffic people drive like asshats all the time! It seriously puts NY to shame. You have buses, trucks, about a billion motorcycles, pedestrians, beggars and an occassional rooster thrown in for good measure that are traversing the roads all at the same time. Passing slower drivers by driving into oncoming traffic is a common practice all over Indonesia and I seriously thought I was going to die at some points during my journeys. Nothing was worse than the 9 hour drive to Mt Bromo when I was stuck in the front seat with a fellow American, Nathan. We both thought we were going to be eating windshield at least 10 different times during that trip…but I digress. We will get to that later. Back to Jakarta. I am not going to go into to much detail about Jakarta except to say that it is a dirty and overcrowded place. I was not really a fan at all. Clara’s home was the only exception. She and her family were wonderful hosts and the house was just magnificant. It was the highlight of Jakarta. The one down side to her place was that there was a mosque right around the block. Ok, let’s take a poll….how many people here have actually heard a call to prayer from a mosque? I am assuming that not many of you have. Consider yourself lucky! It happens about 6 times a day and I think they choose the person with the absolute worst voice on the face of the planet to sing over the loudspeaker. And it seems that they pick the man with the absolute worse voice to do the 4:30 in the morning call to prayer. The first night in Jakarta I was awoken by what I thought was a dying cat screaming into my ear. Nope, it was super bad singer over the VERY loud loudspeaker which sounded like it was mounted in my room next to my bed. Man, I thought I sang badly. These dudes take the cake! The call to prayer actually became the bane of my existence while in Indonesia. I could not get away from it. Everywhere we stayed I got stuck in the room where you could hear the singing. For some reason Claire always got the rooms where you couldn’t hear it but I was not so lucky. Sigh….that is what you get for visiting Muslim countries I guess.

Anyway, after a couple of days Claire and I headed out of Jakarta and took a 5 hour train ride to Yogjakarta (Jogja). This is supposedly the cultural area of Java. I liked Jogja much better than Java. We stayed in a really awesome losem (hostel). Again, Jogja, like Jakarta was very dirty and super crowded. There were so many cheap places to shop and I got a pair of nice sandals for $3. Yea! 🙂 We saw a traditonal ballet at the largest Hindu temple in Jogja. That was pretty damn cool. I really enjoyed it. We also went to Borobodur which is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. It was quite impressive. There are a couple of places I have been in my life where I sit back and I am so awed just thinking about the fact that the stone I was touching or where I was standing was where someone had stood thousands of years ago. It is just crazy to me. That feeling doesn’t hit me often but it certainly did at Borobodur. The sheer amount of work that it must have taken to carve each stone just blows me away. It is a beautiful place and I wish I could have spent more time there. We stayed up at the top amongst all the buddahs to wait for the sun to set but decided to head down early cause there was alot of cloud cover. Too bad cause I am sure it would have been magnificent.

After Borobodur we signed up to take a sunrise tour to Mt Bromo, the largest active volcano in Java. It was a nine hour drive  in a mini van to get to the town where the volcano was located. At irst I thought I was in good shap cause I had the front seat and I thought the vn was full. Well, I was wrong. We stopped in another town and picked up another person who had to squeeze in the front seat with me. Thank god the guy, Nathan, was cool cause I think I would have killed myself if I was cramped next to a moron for 9 long hours. it was pretty funny though cause Nathan had to be the tallest guy on the trip and he got stuck sitting in between me and the driver with the stick shift taking up half of his leg room. Poor guy but he handled it well! He was a cool guy and we chatted the whole 9 hours. Of course that was in between clutching to each other for dear life cause we thought we were going to die. There were many times we both thought that we were going to run headlong into a huge truck. Indonesians give new meaning the playing chicken. At swear at one point I looked up and we were driving on a sidewalk! It was actually kind of funny. Needless to say we got the Bromo in one piece and after about 3 hours of sleep we went to see the sunrise over Mt. Bromo. It was uneal. The colors were so vivid and half the time I thought I was looking at a watercolor. Just stunning. Totally worth freezing my ass off and dealing with the 9 hour drive.
 
After JOgja we headed off to Kalimatan, which is the Indonesian side of Borneo. We decided it was time to get our asses into the jungle and see the oranghutans. What a great trip. The planning of the trip was highly difficult considering that Borneo is not really set up for tourists but we finally were able to get it together with the help of Harry, our saviour in Borneo. He runs a oranghutan tour and he was one of the only people that spoke good english. He helped us with  everything from plane tickets to permits. So into Borneo we fly and we head off to Harry’s boat (called a Klotok) to start our 3 day river tour. The boat was our transport, where we ate, slept and hung out. It was awesome. It was very basic but both Claire and I loved it. There is nothing like cruising down a river in the middle of the jungle and watching monkeys play around in the trees. So cool! During the day we woudl got to different Oranghutan Rehabiliation feeding stations to see the orangs. They were amazing. They are just like hairy little people. I got pretty close to them and I got to hand feed them. Again, totally amazing.

I know you guys are probably getting bored with the adjectives I am using cause if I had a penny for everytime I have used the word awesome or amazing I would be rich. But honestly, I really don’t know how else to explain it. My life at the moment just astounds me. I can’t really believe that it is actually my life. I had this conversation at lunch the other day with Claire. She asked me if I lost the wow factor cause I have been travelling for so long now. I have to say that yes, I have lost the WOW factor a bit. It is like I see these amazing things and it registers but I don’t fully appreciate it until I really think about it or I look back at the pictures. Like sitting here writing my blog or when I post my pictures I actually get a chance to really THINK about what I have seen and experienced and it just blows me away. I mean I get to see the most beautiful things on a daily basis and do the coolest things. I can choose to do nothing but lay on a beach or I can pack my days with adventure. It is totally up to me which is really cool. I have never really had that. I guess I am someone who tends to put other people first and I tend to not be selfish enough. I like being selfish. It is a great feeling to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. It is not in my nature to be like this all the time but it is nice to be able to live just for me for a little while. So when I look back on the last 6 months (I can’t believe it has been 6 months already!) I sometimes need to pinch myself just to convince myself that this is reality. I am so lucky that I get to live this life and I thank the man upstairs everyday for giving me the courage to do this.

Ok need to catch my plane. Next update I will tell you all about Bali, where Indonesia really starts to kick ass! And the next update will be within a couple of days, I promise. Hugs to everyone!

Ok, so I seriously had someone ask me today if I have ever licked ant butt.  How many of you can say that you have licked ant butt or have even been seriously asked that question? Not many of you, huh??? Well, I am proud to say that I am officially on the list of people that has licked ant bootie. It was a green ant to be specific and it tasted like Vitamin C! In fact, 1 lick gives you more than daily amount of Vitamin C that you are supposed to have in the course of a day. Pretty good, huh? I swear only in the treetops of the Australian rainforest can you do such a thing. LOL The Australian rainforest was pretty cool and Ruth and I did a nice little trip up to Cape Tribulation right before we both left Australia. But more on that later….but now I bring you my review on the Australia Zoo!

What an amazing place. I totally love the Australia Zoo. In fact, I loved it so much I think that I probably could work there and be very, very happy. It is such a unique zoo. They have the handlers walking around the zoo with lots of the animals throughout the day. It was unbelievable. I got my picture taken with a koala bear which was so cool. Those little guys are so cute. Ok, I will say this, they are small and really cute but damn those little stinkers pack some weight. I was not expecting them to be so damn heavy! And they have a kung-fu grip! That little koala grabbed onto me so tight I thought he was going to leave bruises! So worth it though. They really are so damn cute! Oh, and I did I mention they were totally and utterly cute! hee-hee… They also have this area where they just have kangaroos and wallabies hanging around. You can go around and feed them and lay with them and stuff. It was really nice just layin next to a Roo and petting his ears. I loved that. I think the thing I liked the most about the zoo is that it was very interactive and you can tell that the handlers really loved the animals and took great care of them. The handlers were everywhere all the time and interacting with the animals all the time. It was such a difference from all the other zoo’s I have ever been to. My favorite part of my trip to the zoo was the lemur feeding. I had signed up for 2 different encounters, which means you go into the enclosures and actually interact with the animals. I did the wombat and the lemur encounters. The wombat encounter was ok. Very cute animals but the interaction with them was quite limited. We only really got to scratch their butts as they ate their lunch. We couldn’t scratch their heads or stand in front of them cause apparently when they decide it is time to move they haul ass and barrel over anything in front of them. They call them bulldozers and for good reason. One of the wombat’s we were feeding decided he had enough and just took off like a bullet out of a gun in a straight line without caring who or what was in front of him. Very cute animals but kind of boring as far as the encounter goes. Now the lemurs were a totally different story. I was the only person who had signed up for the encounter so it was me, the photographer, the handler and the 2 lemurs. The lemurs are actually not on display at the moment so I got taken to the back of the zoo to their private enclosures. It was so damn cool. I got about a half an hour of me feeding them all by myself. They were very inquisitive and it was just awesome. The photographer got some amazing shots of the little buggers on my shoulder and of the feed. I loved every minute of it. Apparently the back of the zoo is where they take the animals out of their enclosures and “walk” them around for some exercise. When I was going to the lemur cages the leopard was out on a “walk”. I didn’t get a chance to see him but how cool would that have been. I did however see Tila the camel being taken on her walk and I got to take some pics with her and feed her a carrot. It was pretty awesome! 🙂 All in all, I had an amazing day at the zoo. I love that place. It is amazing to see what Steve Irwin and his family have done with something that just used to be a crocodile rehabilitation area.

Anyway, after the zoo I left Mooloolaba and caught a flight to Townsville to meet my friend Ruth (who I met in Fiji) and do some diving. We decided to dive the Yongala which is a huge shipwreck and is one of the best dive wrecks in the world. We stayed at the Yongala dive lodge which was really quaint and nice and the next day we did our dives. Words cannot even describe how amazing that is! All the things that I had seen in Fiji on my 72 different dives I saw on one dive and everything was HUGE!!!! The bat fish were the size of my head and the potato cod were about half the size of my body! And I saw HUGE rays. I think there were 3 different kinds and they were so magical to watch as they glided through the water. Got to see a couple of turtles that were about half to size of my body as well. The wreck is totally covered in coral and marine life that one whole side of if doesn’t even look like a wreck, it just looks like an amazing reef. It was sooooo cool. Unfortunantely, the Yongala is a wreck where you cannot penetrate the vessel so we could only explore the outside. When the ship sunk no one knew what had happened to it so they could not find it. It was found years and years later and the passengers that were on the ship were never taken off. So they are still actually in the ship. It is considered sacred so that is why no one is allowed to go into the wreck. How weird it would be to dive inside a shipwreck and see skeletons. I don’t quite know how I would feel about that.

After the Yongola Ruth and I headed up to Cairns to go on our 5 day/4 night liveaboard to the Great Barrier Reef. The night before we headed out on the boat was my bday night so we went out for dinner and a drink. It was very low-key which suited me just fine. I have to say, I really like Cairns. I can’t quite put my finger on why I like the town but I do. I has a nice laid back but party atmosphere. It is a nice mix.

The day after my bday we headed to the port and got onto the Taka liveaboard. Ruth had contacted them a couple of days earlier so at dinner that night they came out with cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday to me. I was really surprised and I was really touched that Ruth had gone out of here way to make sure they did something for me. The trip was absolutely amazing. It was the first time I had ever spent any length of time on a boat and it was definitely an experience. The first night on the boat we were told that the sea was probably going to be a little rough cause we were heading all the way up to the northern fringes of the Great Barrier Reef and we would be sailing through the whole night. Ok, no problem, I popped 3 motion sickness pills and got ready for the worst. I also, upon advice from the crew, put my backpack under one side of my mattress (I had the double bed in the room) so I wouldn’t roll off the bed in the middle of the night. Now this would have been awesome advice if the postion of my bed was such that I was rolling from right to left with the movement of the boat. This was not the case. The way our beds were situated was that the movement of the boat was from head to foot. So Ruth and I spent the whole night like we were on the pirate ship ride at Great Adventure. There were times when I looked over at the wall next to my bed and I swear we were almost vertical! It was crazy. I felt like a bouncing ball the whole night, boing, boing, boing, boing…..Needless to say, I did not sleep at all that night. It was so bad that when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night (numerous time I might add…my bladder is rebeling against me in my old age!) I was thrown around the cabin like a rag doll. It was actually comical at some points. I mean I could literally take one step from my bed and be in the bathroom if I wasn’t being thrown around. This night I think I made about 5 zig zags up and down the cabin before I reached the door. You know it is bad when you are on the 2nd floor of the boat and the waves are crashing against your window. Let’s just say thank god we were one of the rooms that had a bathroom ensuite! Lack of sleep aside, I really loved being on the boat. The diving outside of the Barrier Reef was amazing. We had 9 dives at places that were outside the barrier reef and they were fabulous. The other dives on the Barrier were not that great. Alot of people have told me that the Great Barrier Reef is not the great and after my experience with them, I tend to agree. The dives sites north of the Barrier Reef are much, much nicer. One of the dives we did outside the reef was a shark feeding dive (take a deep breath Mom, I am ok!) That was amazing. It attracted mostly smaller sharks like white tips and grey reef sharks but an oceanic silver tip made an appereance at one point and that guy was quite big. It was amazing. Even the smaller sharks are impressive when they are swarming in big masses. Hell, smaller sharks are impressive when they are alone but in a huge group it is magical. They are such beautiful creatures. I am always astounded at just how sleek and graceful they are everytime I see them. After the feed they hung around for awhile so we got to see ALOT of sharks that dive. I have found that I particularly like dive sites that are pinnacles or bommies. That means that there is a huge formation that shoots up from the ocean floor and rises up near the surface. You just spiral around the pinnacle and look for lots of little things that live in the coral. We had a couple of pinnacle dives and I got to see a bunch of nudibrachs (my favorite thing in the world to see, they are sea slugs and very cute and just for you Mom, harmless). They are usually pretty small and they are the most colorful little buggers around. I heart nudiebrachs! 🙂 I also got to see alot of poisonous stonefish and various scorpionfish. These guys are really cool too since they meld into the coral and you really have to be looking to see them. The only problem with them is that they are highly toxic and if you touch one by accident you are up shit’s creek. My motto when diving is don’t touch anything…I find it keeps me covered in the not touching highly venemous creatures that can kill me in 2 seconds category! Anyway, all in all I did 13 dives in those 5 days and it was awesome. It was expesive but totally worth it!

After we got off the boat we met up with the crew and the rest of the passengers for drinks in Cairns. That was a fun night. There was lots of drinking and complete silliness. One of my favorite moments was when the chef of the boat (Rueben) switched shirts with me in the middle of the bar. It was quite humorous seeing him in my peach ruffly tank top. I was kind of jealous cause I think he may have looked better in it than I did. LOL
Then it was off to Cape Tribulation which is north of Cairns and is located in the world’s oldest rainforest. It was absolutely gorgeous here, nice and peaceful. We did a horseride through the rainforest and on the beach. I really enjoyed that. My ass hated me for a couple of days after that but I loved it. It is so much fun to gallop with a horse! After that we did a zip line in the canopy of the rainforest. That was pretty freakin awesome as well! And of course that is where I liked ant butt! Great way to top off a kick ass day!

All and all Australia has been alot of fun but for my wallet’s sake, I had to head out of there pretty quickly. It was really expensive there and I was quickly going broke. So I got a flight and now I am in Singapore. I will be writing about Singapore very shortly. I didn’t think I was going to really like it but I was very wrong. It is a country (is it even a country?) that has no home and no real identity. My thoughts on that later. Till then…..HUGS and KISSES!!! Miss you guys!

Australia Part 1 – Melbourne to Byron Bay

So here I am in good ol Australia. Huge, expensive Australia. Oh wait, huge, expensive and freakin cold Australia! Don’t get me wrong, I am really enjoying Australia but it is damn cold! I only brought 2 pairs of pants and 1 sweathshirt (which I bought in New Zealand) and I think that those three articles of clothing are going to walk off my body in protest cause they are the only things I have wore since I got to Australia. It is just too damn cold to wear anything else! sigh….that is what I get for spending 2 months in Fiji and heaqding over to Australia at the start of their winter season. Yes, I have been spoiled with NZ and Fiji weather. I think my body is going to revolt when I come home to NY in the wonderfully warm month of January!

Anyway, onto more exciting things like Australia. So far it has been really good but I have mostly been in the cities. Between the two cities of Melbourne and Syndey, I have to say that I like Melbourne a bit better. It is a much smaller city but it is beautiful and there is so much to do. Sydney is pretty cool as well but it reminds me more of a sprawling NYC. I liked the coziness of Melbourne a bit more.

Melbourne was actually the first place I flew into. Like I said. I liked it alot. Everything was in walking distance and I think I spent the first day walking around the whole city. The architecture is really special and on my 2nd day there was the Anzac Day (like our veteran’s Day) and there was a big parade throughout the city. It was a weird parade. Our parades have floats and people singing and dancing and bands and of course people walking representing whatever it is they are marching for. Anzac Day Parade was well people walking in groups behind whatever banners that applied to their units with a marching bands thrown in every 10-15 groups. It was a very tame parade as far as parades go. No real fanfare or anything, just people walking with some marching bands. Not very exciting. Nothing like crazy NY parades with people dancing in the streets wearing weird costumes, huge floats of Snoopy and SpongeBob SquarePants standing on floats entertaining the crowd. Well NY totally has Melbourne beat for throwing cool parades. Besides that, it was awesome. They had everything you can think of from gardens to museums to really nice city walks and great restuarants.

Oh before I continue there is something I need to get off my chest about the places I have been and ….wait for it….can you guess what I am going to talk about…think people, it is one of my favorite pasttimes…if you guessed eating than you are right! I would not be a Jackie blog if I did not talk about some form of food! Ok this blog it is going to be about sushi and the crappiness of it since I have started this trip! You all know I love sushi, especially my spicy tuna roll. My quest for a good spicy tuna roll has been utter failure since I started this trip. In New Zealand the spicy tuna was actual tunafish with wasabi wrapped in it! UCK, UCK, UCK! Ok so I tried some sushi in Fiji. Utter failure yet again, they didn’t even have spicy tuna. sigh…So now onto Australia. I tried to get a spicy tuna roll in Melbourne thinking I am in Australia, it has got to be decent, right? Well at least it wasn’t tunafish. There was sushi grade tuna but the spicy part was black pepper rolled on the outside of the roll! WTF?!?!?! Is the spicy tuna roll found in America an American concotion? I figured this side of the world would have good sushi since they are closer to that actual part of the world where sushi comes from but so far I have been dissapointed. So I will continue to search for a good spicy tuna roll and I will report when I
find one. I know you will be waiting with baited breath!And now back to our regular programming.

So I met these 2 guys, Matt and Ross, at the hostel I was staying at in Melbourne and we decided to rent a car and drive to Sydney. Well now here is the catch. My two little London boys don’t know how to drive so it was chaffuer Jackie the whole way. I actually didn’t mind. I miss driving and it was pretty cool to drive on the wrong side of the road. I did way better than I expected until we got to Sydney (more on that in a bit). My car mates were very cool and it was a nice drive. It took us 3 days and we took alot the coastal road so the views were gorgeous. We actually got a little bit off course and drove through one of the suburbs by the coast and we saw kangaroos and wild parrots on people’s front lawns. Very cool!!!! They were just hanging out there chillin. I would love to come home from work and see a whole family of Roo’s hanging out on my front lawn. We just get squirrels and pigeons on our front lawns. Point one for Australia. New York 1, Australia 1,it is a tie so far! Oh yeah we also saw pelicans! These birds are HUGE!!! No wonder they can fit whole fish in their mouths. I think they could fit a car in their mouths (notice I don’t say beaks, it feels like an insult to call their huge gaping maws beaks!). Very cool birds though and a bit awe-inspiring when they are flying cause they blot out the sun! So a nice drive with lots of nature. There was also this really cool hippie guy that we met at one of the hostels that we stayed in. He was a total crystal hugger who played digaredoo (sp?) for a living for kids. It was the first time on this trip that I actually had a philisophical conversation with people and it was interesting. By the end of the night he played the dig over our bodies while we laid on the floor. It was such a cool experience. Now you all know that I am not a very spiritual person but there was something about this. I could feel the vibrations of the dig going through my body. It was really interesting and I walked away feeling very relaxed. So cool.

Another thing that I found quite interesting during this drive is the amount of signs on the side of the road warning people not to fall asleep. I mean every 5-10 miles there was a sign saying something like take a pwernap, it could save your life and my favorite one was fatigue kills and a microsleep can kill. I guess they have a big problem with people falling asleep in Australia. It was almost comical. They could care less about drunk driving or driving the speed limit. It was all about not falling asleep.

Anyway, we got to Sydney and well Sydney is kind of just a regular city. It has really nice sites to see, like any typical city and I must admit the Sydney Opera house it quite beautiful. Again, I did lots of walking around the city. I walked everywhere! It was great. Oh yeah, the driving debacle. It is kind of funny actually. The car that we rented was a Toyata Camary so it was a nice size car. The hostel we stayed in had a parking garage so we figured we would park the car there and return it in the morning. After navigating my car down this little alleyway and manuevering it down the winding ramp I got my car into the garage, where there was 1 parking space left between a pole and a huge van. Now if the width of the garage was bigger than a tennis court I MAY have been able to pull in and park the car. But seeing that I don’t think I could manuever a golf cart into this space there was no way this was happening. So I pull down a little bit more thinking I would turn around in the handicapped and foremans parking spaces. Well those spaces had these big locked bars in the center of them so no one could park there and they stuck up into the middle of the space. So no turning around in those spaces, actually no turning around period. It would have been the 1,999 point turn to get the car the other way. So I go upstairs to reception to explain the prediciment and ask the guy if he could please unlock the handicapped spot so I could at least turn around. Well, I must say that I think the handicapped spot was put there as a big fuck you to all the people that want to park their car in the garage and can’t cause no one had the key to take the bar away! I mean, what if I was handicapped, I would have been SOL. It was really just there for show! About half an hour later the guy finds the foreman’s keys and takes off the bar so I can turn the car around and go park somewhere else. HA, you think the story is over but no it is not! I then proceed for the next half hour to try to turn this hunk of metal around without hitting the support beams and the other cars in the lot. I needed 2 people to help me maneuver and tell me when to stop. I was sweating bullets by the time I actually got the car turned around. I wanted to get out of the cart and hug everyone in sight and dance a victory jig when I finally got the car turned around! I kept it together though fearing that anyone I hugged would be turned off by the sweaty mess I had turned myself into. Thank god the guy found the key cause my only other option would have been to back the car up this 90 degree ramp with a wicked turn halfway up! That I can tell you would have ended badly! But thankfully me and my crew of 2 were able to get the car out of the lot. Lovely way to spend your evening after 6 hours of driving. LOL But besides that Sydney was really nice and I enjoyed it.

I think I spent 2-3 days iN Sydney, which I got to spend with one of my friends from Fiji cause she was passing through. That was very cool. But I decided to try to find warmer weather and head north up the coast. Ross, Matt and I booked the overnight Greyhound bus up to Byron Bay. No comment about the bus trip except to say that it was the most uncomfortable bus ride I have ever been on. I thought I would be able to sleep on the bus. HA, jokes on me cause Greyhound busses have the most uncomfortable seats known to man. Regardless, got to Byron Bay in the morning and I could tell my fortunes were looking up! I LOVE Byron Bay. What a cute little surfer town. It is kind of a hippie, tourist, surfer (along with all the resident hot surfers) town. It has lots of cool ecclectic shops, surf and dive shops and little eateries. Did I mention I really like it here? The hostel we are stayng at is real and down to earth. I could so see myself staying here for awhile if I had the time. And actually if I had the time I would be staying in Byron Bay. When I went to check out diving at the dive shop they actually offered me an internship as a divemaster. They said they could use the help with leading dives and helping with courses. I was blown away to say the least. I did not expect any type of offers in Australia at all. But I got one. It was free accommodation and 1 meal a day plus all the diving that I would be doing. Pretty sweet deal except that they wanted me to stay for 2 months. I really had to think about it long and hard cause I know I would have loved to stay in Byron Bay for 2 months but that would kill my time in SE Asia (which is WAY cheaper than Oz). And after I did the dive that made my mind up. It was a nice dive but nothing near as nice as Fiji. And it was REALLY cold! I was in a 5mil wetsuit, which is pretty thick and I was still cold by the emd of the dive. But man 2 months in Byron Bay would have been sweet. Hope I don’t wind up regretting not staying.

Well I have since left BYron Bay and have made my way to Mooloolaga which is about 2 hours north of Brisbane. I had one night in Brisbane so there isn’t much to comment on about that. Mooloolaga is pretty nice. I am liking it so far. Tomorrow I go to the Australia Zoo, home of Steve “Crickey” Irwin. I can’t wait. I have signed myself up for a wombat and monkey encounter. That means I get to go into the enclosures and actually interact with the animals. So damn cool! I totally cannot wait. (PS Went to the zoo and it was AMAZING!!! More in my next blog about that!)

Well, time to go to bed. Until next time….sweet dreams and big hugs.

Well hello strangers, do you all remember me? I know it has been forever since I have last posted on my blog. In case you don’t remember me I am that totally cool, gorgeous, amazing globetrotting girl that decided to pack herself up, quit her job and travel the world for a year. Ring any bells? Ok, I know, I am embellishing with the cool, gorgeous and amazing parts but all the rest is true. (And yes Mom I know, you think that I am cool, gorgeous and amazing – thanks. Nothing like a supportive Mom!). I am also a bit tired as well. I am getting over a nasty stomach thing which I will call Fiji doesn’t want Jackie to leave so we are going to screw with her insides so she has to change her flight again sickness. It worked but I think I have wormed my way out of it’s coils! Did I mention that I am shacked up right now in a beautiful Radisson hotel complete with hot water and shower ensuite and air conditioning. I know you are all saying huh? Isn’t that normal? Well in Fiji not so much. I spent the last 2 months in a dorm room with no AC just fans that ran from 5pm to 8am in the morning (they turned electricity off during the days) and showers that were basically a pipe coming out of the wall with cold water. Ahhhh…the luxury that is a backpacker on Mana Island. Aren’t you all jealous? LOL

Anyway, it truly has been an amazing 2 months. It has been filled with so many ups and downs and awesome experiences. I am going to try my best to put it all into words but for the sake of your eyes and my hands, it will be a synopsis. It will still probably be long but believe me, I will be leaving lots of stuff out, I am sure.

Fiji as a place is so beautiful it is hard to really put it into words. The natural beauty is astounding. It is a tropical rainforest complete with all that comes with that, good and bad. There are mountains, oceans, flowers, trees, rivers, wild horses, wild pigs, stray dogs (lots of stray dogs), bed bugs, cockroaches the size of my head and of course the wonderful and oh so cuddly mosquitoes! The mosquitoes are my personal favorites cause they added a whole new dynamic when I played connect the dots with my beauty marks. So much fun! Actually all of the annoying things were made bearable by the sheer beauty of the place. Just seeing one of the Fiji sunsets while standing on the beach made it all worth it. Or seeing the amazing turquoise blue of the ocean and the changes in the hues of blue when you were coming close to a reef. And the stars…there are just so many stars! These are the amazing and beautiful things I will remember about Fiji.

And now, I guess I owe you all an explanation as to why I stayed 2 months longer than I intended in Fiji (besides the beauty of it). I have totally fallen in love with scuba diving. Little ol me who pretty much hated the ocean, really didn’t like swimming in the sea and was afraid of almost everything that lived in the ocean is now actually a divemaster which means that I can work in the field of diving if I so wish. So basically I spent 2 months going from an open water diver up through Divemaster (it goes Open water, advanced open water, rescue diver and divemaster – in case anyone was interested). In the course of those 2 months I accumulated 76 dives and by the end I was actually leading my own dives. That means that I was taking other certified divers out to dive sites and leading them around. It has been an amazing experience. So how did this happen..well here it goes…

I knew when I arrived in Fiji that I wanted to get my Open Water certification so I could dive the Greay Barrier Reef in Australia. I figured it would be cheaper to do it in Fiji so the tour desk lady at Smuggler’s Cove (my first hostel on the mainland) suggested that I go to Ratu Kini’s on Mana Island cause they had a great special running and blah, blah, blah. So next morning I arrive at Ratu Kini’s and meet Robert, who will turn out to be my instructor from dive 1 to dive 76! Anyway, Robert is a hot, long haired, ex professional football player (soccer for us Americans) who is now a dive instructor. Not only is he hot but he has an amazing sense of humor. I think I have died and gone to heaven. Major crush going on here. I am thinking that I am going to actually like diving, not because of diving but because of how much time I get to spend with hot Robert. Well turns out on my first dive, I did like diving and not because of Robert (although he did hold my hand the whole dive!) but because it was just so damn cool. I saw so much cool shit that first dive including my very first shark. I was petrified of sharks and after I saw my first one my whole outlook changed. The shark was not even interested in us in the slightest (or any shark that I have seen since then and I have seen ALOT). The whole experience was just phenomenal. I feel in love with diving during that very first dive. So that is how I came to stay on Mana for 2 months. And my love for diving hasn’t even begun to wear off but I will say that my little crush on Rob wore off a long time ago and he is now one of my good friends and my diving mentor.

The other thing besides the diving that kept me in Fiji so long were the friends that I made. I became really good friends with everyone who worked in the dive shop (there were 5 instructors) and we were all like a dysfunctional little family. Nathalie is probably the one (besides Robert) that I spent the most time with and she is amazing. She has been diving since she was 14, knows about 5 different languages, has her boat Capitan’s license, is an unbelievably talented artist and just an nurturing, sweet, amazing woman (man do I wish I was a lesbian!) I also friended alot of the regular staff who were mostly Fijian. Again a very cool group of people. I also got the chance to meet some really amazing travellers that I am hoping to see again down the line. It is weird staying in one place for so long and seeing so many other people come and go. It kind of felt like I was doing something wrong for staying in one spot for so long.

Looking back on these past 2 months, I am glad that I stayed in one spot. I think I like that better than running around a country like a madwoman trying to see every little shit under the sun. I did get off Mana Island a couple of times with Nat and Robert and we did some diving off of some other island which was nice but I really liked planting my ass somewhere for awhile. It gave me a chance to really get to know the place and the locals that inhabit it.

I also discovered that I am no good at relaxing. I cannot be one of those people that sits on a beach all day and does nothing. I suck at it. I want to pull my hair out strand by strand with a tweezer. I NEED to be doing something. Even more so than that, I need to feel like I am a contributing part of society, I think I need to ….WORK! There I said it. I can’t believe that I am saying this but I actually miss work. Not a particular job per-say but I miss the teamwork and feeling of responsibility that comes along with a job. I think that is probably another reason why I took so many courses. I wanted to be doing something. Taking these course gave me something to be responsible for. I always knew that I was the type of person that couldn’t sit still but I never thought I would say I am one of those people who HAS to work cause I suck at relaxing. So next time I say I want to win the lotto and quit my job and do nothing you can all tell me I am full of shit! 😉

Well I am really tired so I a going to stop. I still have pics to upload and then I have to pack cause I leave for Australia tomorrow! Whoo-hoo. So I promise that my blog posts will be a bit more frequent now that I am returning to the land of non-dial up connections. I hope everyone is doing well and I miss you!!!!

So in my last installment I left off at Wanaka. Wow , that seems like ages ago! I think it was really only a week and a half ago but with this kind of travel and all the stuff I have been doing that is like a lifetime ago! Wanaka was a lot of fun and a much needed break for me. It was quite nice cause Caroline, Chloe, Joey and I were able to snag a 6 person dorm room with our own kitchen and bathroom that was completely empty and stayed that way until we left. It was like having our own little apartment. We did group meals every morning and night and were basically one big happy family. We even had guests (other people we met on the road) over for dinner and breakfast. We decided to do a big shrimp dinner one night (which I cooked) and a huge chocolate chip pancake and eggs breakfast another morning. I certainly can’t say that I haven’t been eating well this trip. Anyway, we did go to that awesome movie theatre. It was so cute. They had couches and armchairs for people to sit on instead of movie seating and they put an intermission in the movie so you could go out and buy freshly baked cookies. Yes, I had milk and cookies at intermission! So good. Other than that I pretty much relaxed. I did not go on the Rob Roy hike with everyone cause my knee was hurting and I didn’t want to aggravate it further. It was a good choice cause I seriously needed a break from everyone and everything for a couple of hours. After Wanaka it was off to Queenstown. First off the one thing that I think every person should know about Queenstown is that you CANNOT buy any underwear there! You can buy a stuffed kiwi disguised as a sheep, a myriad of shot glasses with all sorts of NZ crap on it (yes, Rob and Amy, I got your first shot glass!), shirts with all stupid sayings on it and basically any type of sporting goods stuff that you can think of but no underwear. I realized in Wanaka after I lost a pair of underwear (wish I had a good story for that one but I just think the laundry monster that normally eats socks decided to be adventurous and eat my underwear) that traveling with only 5 pairs was kind of stupid. So, I spent a whole afternoon wandering Queenstown looking for some undies. Yep, didn’t happen but I did get some tank tops (needed those too!) and some yummy fudge! But that is besides the point. So my first bit of advice for anyone visiting Queenstown is make sure you have enough underwear cause you can’t get any in that town! Ok 2nd piece of advice if you are visiting Queenstown, Go and get a Fergburger the minute you get into town. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, well if you don’t have money you may want to stop at the ATM and then go directly to get one of these burgers! They are huge and AWESOME. After that, go down the street and get some homemade ice-cream from Patagonia. Again, awesome! You won’t have to eat for a week cause the servings of the burgers and ice-cream are huge. Ok, enough about the food. Last piece of advice when in Queenstown…DO THE NEVIS BUNGY JUMP!!!! The Nevis bungee jump, it is the 4th highest bungy jump in the world and the highest bungy in New Zealand. So I swore I never would do a bungy jump and it never really appealed to me cause I never saw the sense in throwing yourself off a bridge or building with nothing but a strap around your legs. But I found myself locked into doing it cause I promised Chloe that if she threw herself out of a plane and skydived I would bungy jump. Of course she was cruel and made me do the highest one she could find. I still can’t believe I did it. I literally was having nightmares a couple of days before the jump. But all that fear allowed me to be really in the moment when I did the jump and it was totally amazing! I was so scared standing on the ledge getting ready to jump. I seriously thought I was going to die. You know logically that you will be fine (they have never had anyone get hurt in all the years they have been doing this) but as you are standing with nothing in front of you except open air and a super long drop into a ravine, logic goes out the window. You can see on the video that I am shaking like a leaf. I only had to have the guy count me down 2x before I jumped which I am quite proud of. I can’t even explain the feeling I had. I felt like I was flying. I had my hands out in front of me and at one point I swear I felt like Superman. It was so cool. The one sucky thing about Queenstown was that I wound up losing all the people I was traveling with. Chloe, Joey and Caroline did not purchase the south pass so they rented a car and did some random hikes and what not around the Queenstown area while I boarded the bus and headed to Curio Bay and the furthest south part of the South Island. Well what to say about the South Island, it is cold with a lot of raw beauty and very remote. I am glad that we stopped in Invercargall, which is a small city, before we headed down south cause I picked up a sweatshirt which I basically lived in while in Curio Bay. Curio Bay was a mixture of awesomeness and A LOT of downtime. I decided to hop off the bus at Curio Bay (not a normal overnight stop for Stray) because I heard there was good surfing and I wanted to take some more lessons. Curio Bay itself is very small and quite beautiful. There is NOTHING to do except walk on the beach and relax. So the first night was great cause I got to take my surf lesson. It was me and 2 other people taking the lesson so there was a lot of personalized attention. I did really well and loved every minute of it. I was actually catching the waves before they broke and I can’t wait to move onto a smaller board. Now when you catch unbroken waves you need to paddle yourself out a bit further than if you were catching the broken waves. This becomes important to my surfing experience because the other thing that I have not mentioned about Curio Bay is that it is home to about 20 Hector dolphins (very rare)and two types of penguins. The dolphins swim very close to the beach and you can see them all the time surfing the waves and playing around. So I paddled out to catch some waves and was sitting and waiting when about 4 dolphins came and swam around and under my board for about 3 minutes. It was amazing! They are so damn cute and it was amazing to just be sitting on my board with these dolphins swimming around me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to surf again because a storm came in and the waves were too big and unpredictable. So I was stuck walking around the rocks and watching the waves crash into the rock formations. It was really peaceful and gave me a lot of time to think. It was the first time this trip I actually felt lonely. But at the same time I gave me uninterrupted time to really sit and sort things out in my head. I guess I needed to do that cause I found myself sitting on the rocks for hours. When I wasn’t at the beach I was at the hostel reading. I blew through 2 books in 2 days at the hostel. Like I said, there was a lot of downtime. Quite a change from all the other places I have been considering the crazy pace and all the adventurous stuff I have been doing! After Curio Bay I traveled to Dunedin which is home to the New Zealand Cadbury Chocolate manufacturing plant. So of course I had to go for the chocolate tour. The tour was kind of lame but you got a lot of free chocolate which was really yummy. I am totally chocolated out BTW! I need to go through chocolate detox after all the crap I have been eating. I even gave away all of my chocolate when I got to Queenstown. Yeah, I know, I gave away chocolate. I know you all must think that I have lost it but really if I eat anymore chocolate I am going to turn into a Cadbury egg or something. Actually, come to think of it, I am starting to resemble the general shape of a Cadbury egg with the way I have been eating lately! LOL 😉 Dunedin is actually a pretty cool city. There is a lot of gothic architecture which is really quite beautiful. I didn’t get to see much of it because it was a bit spread out but I can tell you that the Stock Xchange bar is a lot fun!  Did some dancing on the bar, drinking and karaoke. It was a fun night. After that it was back to Queenstown! I was excited to be coming back to Queenstown cause Caroline was still there and I was able to stay in the same room with her again. We had 2 nights together which was awesome. The bonus plan was the 2 hot Swedish guys that were in our room. Not only were they hot but they were a lot of fun as well. Sweden is moving up the list for me. They bring us H&M, Ikea and hot men!  Of course they were only eye candy for me cause they were both 19! DAMN being 34 and hanging out with young hot people! I am going to start saying I am 25. LOL That is usually what people guess as my age (thanks Mom and Dad for my awesome genes, although Mom we need to talk about the big butt gene you gave me!) The last night in Queenstown was a lot of fun. About 15 of us from the hostel headed out and did a bar crawl. Yeah lots of drinking and dancing. Very fun night and a great way to end off my last night with Caroline. After Queenstown it was time to move along to Christchurch which was a somewhat larger city. I wasn’t a huge fan of Christchurch as it seemed that it was a bit seedy. Not much to report there except I bought a new pair of flip-flops. Whoo-hoo!!!! Yeah, the excitement level is winding down here a little bit. Oh wait, there was also the used condom that I found next to my bed in the hostel when I was looking for an outlet. Totally made my night! Gotta love used contraceptives laying around the room you are sleeping it. First time that has happened and I am hoping it is the last. Probably won’t be but whatever; it is not like I am paying a lot of money for these rooms. So moving on from Christchurch…. Next stop Kiakoura , which was much better that Christchurch. This girl Stephanie and I walked to the seal colony which was about an hour away from town. It was a nice walk and the seals were cool. We also stopped for some fresh fish on the walk back. You wouldn’t expect such good stuff from a little shack on the side of the road but it was pretty damn good. Right now I am back in Auckland. Got in yesterday after a 12 hour bus ride. UCK!! ! Now I am gearing up for Fiji! I leave tomorrow at the butt-crack of dawn. I can’t wait. Fiji is supposed to be amazing! I think I have figured out where I am going but I haven’t booked anything yet except for my first night accommodation. I will figure it out when I get there. So I think I will be without internet for the 2 weeks I am in Fiji so this will probably be my last post for awhile. Ok, gotta go meet my friend Mike for some dinner. I’ll be talking to all you guys in 2 weeks unless I find a way to get online in paradise..I mean Fiji. Big hugs and I miss ya! 

New Zealand has been so amazing. I am finally in the South Island and it is just as much fun as the North Island but way more picturesque. It is filled with many mountains, waterfalls, glaciers and gorgeous forests. I have done some great things while in the South Island but a little less extreme than the North Island. I am trying desperately to stop the neverending flow of money going out of my wallet but man it is hard! There are way too many cool things to do and way too much good beer to drink! I have found my new favorite beer, Tui. It is brewed in New Zealand and I am turning into a pretty big fan of the drink. The bonus is that it is always included in the happy hour specials! Whoo-hoo. Oh yeah, did I mention the Cadbury chocolate? You know, the people that make all the chocolate eggs and easter chocolate in the US? Well it is really big here and for some reason it tastes much better here than back home. Yeah, so that has been added to my arsenal of bad things I love to eat almost everyday. It goes hand in hand with the huge Cookie Time cookies. Gotta love a cookie named Cookie Time. I mean it is always cookie time, right?!?!? I thought you would all agree and if you don’t all you need to do it try to cookie time cookies and you will be a believer as well! J Ok, enough about my cookie, chocolate and beer habits for today. So I do have to say that I am bummed that I missed President Obama’s inauguration. What a historic moment that must have been. I am so proud to be an American at this point in time. I was part of the population that helped put our first black president in office. It is quite amazing really. I do have to say that it has totally raised non-American’s opinion of Americans. What I have been coming to find is that many people think that American’s are stupid. When talking politics in particular they really think we are stupid. I have gotten a lot of how could we have elected someone like Bush into office and then reelect him for a second term. I don’t really disagree with them. But that is besides the point. People are changing their opinions since we elected Obama. Non-american’s really, really like Obama. Let’s see if he can live up to the hype. Ok, back to the trip. I am sure no one really cares about my political views. And I really have no problem talking about how freakin beautiful New Zealand is. So when I last left you I had just completed my 3 days of crazy adventure. So after the caving, skydiving, rafting fun it was onto Tongoriro National Park and Mt. Doom! For those who are not into The Lord of The Rings, Mt. Doom is this huge mountain/volcano from the movie. I can’t remember the real name of the mountain ( I think it is Narahoe) but it is part of this really hard 6 hour hike called the Tongoriro Crossing. It is an amazing hike that goes in between 2 active volcanoes. One of those volcanoes is Mt. Doom. It is mostly an uphill climb that is really kind of hard but the views make it totally worth it. I didn’t climb Mt. Doom but I could have if I had the time. It was incredibly steep and I am sure that I would have reenacted the parts of the movie where Frodo is saying her can’t go on anymore cause it looked like an almost vertical climb. Anyway, after Mt. Doom the hike is still very strenuous but the landscape is breathtaking. There are 3 lakes called Emerald Lakes which come about half way through the hike as you start the first descent. They are these beautiful emerald/turquoise pools that just defy what you really think is possible from the color of water. So amazing. The hike then passed another huge lake and then went past some more steaming hot springs fed from the volcanoes into this lush forest with a river running through it. Yeah, breathtaking. That hike was really strenuous but it was so worth it. That is one thing I have to say about NZ, it has some of the prettiest forests I have ever seen. I have done a lot of hiking in my time and NZ blows all of it away with Maine and Arizona in a close second. NZ is so diverse which I love. Half the times it looks like you are walking through Jurassic Park. You’ll see what I am talking about when you look at the pics.After the crossing, Chloe and I decided to spend an extra day in Abel Tasmin which is New Zealand’s smallest but busiest National Park. It is home to the Golden Sand beaches which didn’t impress me too much cause the color of the sand is the same color as the sand back home. But the water is much nicer than back home. It is a gorgeous turquoise blue and you can pretty much see your feet on the ocean floor. We took a boat ride along the whole length of the Able Tasmin Park up to Golden Bay. Able Tasmin is known for it’s coastline which is littered with gold sand beaches and lots of different rock formations. It is a super popular place for sea kayaking and backpacking. I didn’t do either but the boat ride allowed me to see all the beauty of the coastline. We also saw George the dolphin. He was hanging out in one of the bay’s and he apparently is a loner dolphin. He followed the about 2 feet behind the motor. Apparently it is like a spa bath for the dolphins but if you ask me it is a death wish. One wrong move and George would lose his nose! Anyway, got in some nice relaxation and beach time which was much needed. Oh yeah, also got really close to some seals as well. They were pretty cute. The other thing I wanted to write about was ice climbing at the Franz Josef glacier. The Franz Josef glacier is beautiful. It was a pretty cool hike to even get to the glacier and then once you are there you need to strap on crampons to ascend the glacier. That was a lot fun but hard work. Walking up a glacier is as hard as it sounds. We went up about ¼ of the way and stopped to start the ice climbing. OH MY GOD!!! Ice climbing is one of the hardest physical things I have ever done in my life. It is so physically taxing. I found the hardest part was getting the axes to properly stay in the ice. The basic form for ice climbing is as follows: 1)Swing right hand axe into ice so your arm is fully extended 2) then swing your left hand axe into the ice so arm is fully extended 3) tug the shit out of the axes to make sure they are stuck into the ice 4) pray your axes don’t fall out of the ice as you kick you foot into the ice with your toes so your foot sticks into the ice. 5) Pray again as you move your next foot above the other about 8 inches apart 6) Go to take out your axe and repeat process often times falling completely off the vertical sheet of ice cause you only think you have secured your axes and feet into the ice but really haven’t. I think I need to have a better relationship with the man upstairs cause it seemed that all of my praying didn’t help that much and I fell off quite often and usually it was when I was pretty far up the wall. Sigh….it was still awesome even though I sucked at it. Might I stress again that it was so hard and strenuous. My arms and hands felt like they were going to fall off cause I had a death grip on the axes the whole time I was climbing. So my suggestion to anyone who is going to go ice climbing, eat your Wheaties before you leave the house, you are going to need it! JWell, now I am on the bus heading to Wanaka. Myself, Chloe, Caroline and our new convert, Joey are going to spend 2 nights there. There is supposed to be a really cool movie theatre that has couches for seats and an intermission in every movie where they come around and hand out home baked cookies. Should be fun. We are also going to do an amazing hike called the Rob Roy hike the day after. It should be fun. Then I lose Chloe, Caroline and Joey and head down to the deep south where I am hopefully going to spend a couple of days at Curio Bay surfing. Chloe and Caroline are talking about renting a car and meeting me in Curio Bay so we can all surf together. We’ll see if that happens. It would be way cool if it does. But if not, I guess I will just have to make new friends on the beach. Ok, that is enough for now. Thanks for reading about my adventures. I know a lot of people have written me emails and I promise I will write back. It is hard to spend a lot of time on the computer because it winds up getting expensive. A lot of places charge $2 for 15 minutes on the computer so I try to limit my time on the computer as much as possible. I WILL write back but please give me time. J Thanks and hugs to everyone.

So, I am going to start this post with the quote from that ended last post….

The best thing I have heard this week came from our tour guide on the free tour of Auckland. As quoted from Rewi “ Here in New Zealand you can’t sue people if you get injured so we are willing to throw anyone off of anything. “

So you are probably wondering why I am starting this post with that quote. Well simply put, it is totally true. In the past 3 days I have flung myself off a cliff (attached to ropes of course) to abesail down into a cave, I have rafted straight down a 7 meter waterfall and lastly I threw myself out of an airplane 12,000 feet above ground. It has been an insane 3 days since Raglan!

Anyway, Raglan was awesome and I was kind of sad to leave since it was so beautiful. I seriously loved the surfing and the hostel we stayed in was amazing. The last night there myself and 3 of my friends decided the do the flying fox (a seated zip line) and the ropes course as the sun was setting. I have to say it was mighty hysterical. We all pretty much sucked at the ropes course and we all were laughing our asses off at each other. It was pretty funny. I met a pretty cool German and Irish guy that came in on the Stray bus and I had a great time shootin the shit with them. Too bad they were staying an extra day in Raglan or we would have been on the same bus together. Oh just to explain the bus and how it works. It is a hop on and hop off tour. So you can get off wherever you want and stay as long as you want. There is a predetermined route you take and if you like a place you can stay for however long you want and then hop back on the next bus. It is a really cool system. Allows for a lot of flexibility if you have the time.

So onto the next day…woke up nice and early and grabbed the bus complete with a new bus driver. His name is Kerry and he is a crusty older dude who is hysterical. Drinks like there is no tomorrow, smokes like a chimney and curses just as much as me. We get along real well! 😉 Outta Raglan and into Waitomo which is known for its massive cave system. Today I went underwater caving. It was amazing. We abseiled down into the cave and then abseiled further in by going down a couple of waterfalls. It reminded me of why I love caving. It is seriously like being in a different world. What really makes these caves unique is that they have glowworms. Glowworms are tiny maggots that eat but have no place to drop their poop. Their poop stays inside their body and it glows. Eventually they go into a cocoon and emerge as a mouthless fly. They only live for about 3 days cause they can’t eat so all they do is go around and shag all the other flies and procreate. It is pretty interesting. But regardless of all that it is pretty damn cool to turn off the headlamps and see dozens of glowing orbs on the ceilings of the cave. My favorite part of the whole caving experience was of course crawling through the tiny holes but mostly the rock climbing back up out of the cave. I really love rock climbing. I think I am going to try to find some technical climbing to do somewhere else on this trip cause I really enjoy the challenge! That night we went to Uncle Boy’s place and watched a traditional Maori show. All the guys in the group did the Haka (a warrior dance) and all us ladies learned a really simple poi dance. It was pretty damn cool. We stayed over at Uncle Boy’s and then went to Rotorua for some whitewater rafting. This was pretty freakin amazing. It was myself, Chloe, Sofia and Li in a raft together and we had a great time being complete idiots. The rafting was Class 5 and it was really cool. We went down 3 waterfalls the last one being pretty large. Thankfully we all stayed in the raft and none of us went overboard. You go down the waterfall almost vertical and then get submerged under the water, raft and all! It is pretty exhilarating. At one point we got out of the raft and swam down another set of rapids. Again, very cool! J Oh yeah, one other note, all the guys that worked at the raft company were pretty hot. VERY nice bonus plan. Hee-hee

From there it was onto Taupo (which is where I am now) for a little skydiving action! I can’t believe that I actually did it. It was unbelievable. It was by far my favorite thing that I have done so far. It jumped from 12,000 feet. I had an awesome jump partner. His name was Laci (pronounced Latzi). He was from Holland and he was very cool. He totally put me at ease and after 5 minutes of talking we were both making each other laugh. He was the perfect partner for me since I am pretty much a wise-ass and he had a great sense of humor. When we went out of the plane we did a backflip and then did the freefall for 40 seconds. It felt like I was falling forever. What an amazing view of everything. Then when we pulled the parachute we did a whole bunch of these sharp turns which I loved. It was a totally amazing experience. Laci was laughing the whole way down cause I was screaming my head off cause I was so excited. Ok, so I may never come home now. I am going to run away to become a surf/skydiving/rafting/caving instructor! LOL

What can I say it has been an amazing three days. Tomorrow we leave to go to the national park to do the 6 hour Tongoriro crossing hike. It is supposed to be the best on day hike in New Zealand. I can’t wait!

One thing I will say before I close out this blog is that it is totally going to suck to say goodbye to people. Chloe and I had to say good bye to Li and Sofia today. We all became close when we stayed together at Raglan. They hopped off at Rotorua cause they are doing an east coast extension tour that chloe and I are not doing. We are all going to try to meet up in Australia to either do a surf camp together or rent a camper van and cause mayhem along Australia’s west coast. We shall see. I hope we are able to meet. I can already tell that I am going to suck at these goodbyes. Sigh….

Oh yeah, last thing, thanks so much for all of your comments on my blog. I totally appreciate it. Please keep them coming. I am trying to figure out how to comment back on the blog but I have yet to figure it out. I miss all you guys…Big Hugs!!!!! Mwah!

Best quote of the week as spoken by Kerry the Stray bus driver: “Zorbing is fun and all but is over in like 30 seconds…kind of like shagging an American guy.” I almost pissed myself when he said this!

First set of pics from New Zealand – Auckland to Raglan

http://www1.snapfish.co.nz/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=263483678/a=6620808_6620808