Ben and Joanna Are Somewhere Right Now

Gosh, it's The End

2007-05-07T03:36:00.000-04:00

Joanna writes:

Another hurried one, as we're almost out the door to catch our plane to America. Fifteen hours. We hope there are movies. Thailand has managed to provide a last week that's making us particularly glad to be going home, but now that the time draws near, it's easy to forget the rain and the mosquitoes, and think fondly of the wonderful food and beautiful places.

From Bangkok, we headed off down the coast to the east, stopping first at the town of Chantaburi, a mecca for gem trading. I think something like 60 percent of the world's gems pass through here, and our guide book told us the gem market would be awesome. We pictured a stereotypical, Disney-esque Arabic market with baskets overflowing with precious stones and people yelling out prices and guarding rubies with swords or something. Of course, that was not the case. It turned out to be just a series of very sterile shops with little white porcelain dishes of gem stones. I could not tell you exactly why they are considered more pretty than colored glass. We had also ended up at a pretty dismal hotel where no one spoke English and the name was only written in Thai, so we didn't exactly know where we were. We had no map of the town, and spent the first morning wandering blindly around until we stumbled on a posted map, and then almost didn't find our hotel again before dark. One of the stupider things we've done on this trip. However, we managed to redeem the whole excursion with a trip to a small national park with a phenomenally beautiful multi-tiered waterfall. We played in the pools and swam amidst swarms of lovely butterflies and dragonflies and fish that nibbled our toes.

We've long been planning to end our trip with a romantic few days on a Paradise Island to celebrate our anniversary (prize to the person who figures out which one-- your prize is to shock everyone who didn't know), so we embarked for the small island of Koh Samet. Koh Samet is technically part of a national park, but the only justification for that inclusion is the huge entrance fee levied on foreigners and the signs, largely disredarded, asking people not to litter. (Luckily, due to either the laws of physics or the diligence of resort staff, most of the washed-up trash is found only on the rocky areas between the sandy beaches.) The beaches are overflowing with resorts and restaurants. We managed to find an even more dismal accommodation than the last, a dilapidated shack that will probably fall over before it sees too many more occupants. It was the only cheap accommodation on the whole island as far as we could tell, though, and we figured, hey, we're not here to sit in a hotel room, we're here to sit on a beach! Unfortunately, we only ever saw the sun for about ten minutes on our last afternoon while we were eating lunch, and it turned out the roof of our shack was well perforated. We ended up pretty wet.

All that said, though, we actually did enjoy a lot of our time there. The ocean was wonderfully warm, and the waves were just big enough to be fun and exciting without inspiring mortal terror. (Ben contends that Hawaii was better, but I am far less happy to get completely destroyed by waves.) The weather cleared for a couple hours each evening, and we got to walk along moonlit beaches while watching distant thunderstorms play on the horizon.

Now we're preparing to leave Bangkok, where we've had a busy couple of days doing lots of shopping. We're staying at my aunt's friend Maren's apartment again, though she and her husband Jerry are gone for the weekend. We cannot begin to thank them for their generosity in letting us stay here--it's beautiful and convenient, and they've given us loads of invaluable advice about the city.

So, I guess that's just about it. We've been meaning to write some entries about all the stuff we've learned through our experiences, but perhaps we should just say that if you'd like to hear more about the importance of local and organic food and why you should be nice to elephants, we'd be happy to talk to you at length when we see you in person. I'll end on a very sappy note, but also the most important one, I think. What we've realized more than anything else, is just how awesome our friends and families and lives at home are. We miss you all, and are really looking forward to seeing you again.

Elephants

2007-04-28T04:56:00.000-04:00

Ben writes:
Hi. This is a quick one, as we are running out the door. Don't feel bad, our journals are equally neglected.

We spent a week at the Elephant Nature Park outside of Chiangmai. It's a place for elephants who are abused in the tourism or illegal logging industries. Unfortunately, that is all elephants in those industries. There is a lot to get into, but the short version is that to train elephants, it is believed that they have to be tortured, in a three day ritual called the pujong (phonetic spelling), to break their spirit first. After that, they are continually abused, basically using negative instead of positive reinforcement. A lot of the abuse stems from ignorance rather than deliberate cruelty, but that doesn't make the situation better for the elephants.

At the park, every elephant has a personal handler, a mahout. This is true of all elephants, but the ones at the park don't use sharp sticks and hitting, just tugs on the ear and yelling, when needed, which is often, as elephants are large and somewhat willful. One of the goals here is to show that elephants can be trained with positive reinforcement: three of the baby elephants who have not been through the pujong are on a positive reinforcement regime, with good but gradual results.

The park does not aim to have people boycott elephant tourism entirely, but to educate people, and change the industry. If you should go on an elephant trek, please ask to walk with the elephant, rather than ride it, as those baskets basically break their backs. One mahout on the neck or head suits their anatomy just fine, though. Go to www.elephantnaturefoundation.org for more information.

Our role in all of this was to be helpers and vacationers. There were about 15 other volunteers that week, some for the week, some having been there for a month already. Every day when the food truck came, we unloaded huge amounts of corn, pumpkins, watermelon, pineapples, cucumbers and such, cleaned it, chopped it, and put it in baskets for the elephants. Then we, and the day visitors, would feed the elephants a few bits at a time. You can see Jo feeding a baby above. The elephants are perfectly capable of feeding themselves, but they let us do it for fun, which it is. We also go in the river with them, and scrub them off every day, under the careful guidance of the mahouts. And twice a week, we removed the gooky layer of mud from their new mud pit, and then refill it with water, so it's only a little muddy -- elephants are apparently picky creatures. We get very muddy doing it, and then hop in the river, where we dodge floatin elephant poo.

Spending so much time up close with elephants was amazing -- they look much weirder than you think, and they definitely have personalities. On the last day, we saw two young boy elephants play with a soccer ball, and then stomp it, kick it once, and walk away. The young ones also sometimes like to charge at inexperienced volunteers for a laugh, though not while we were there. Oh, I also fed the really old elephant with no teeth, which involved putting the food right into her gummy mouth. Please take a minute to really imagine that.

We were also lucky in that we had a great group of co-volunteers. Canadians, Americans and Brits, as it happened. And there are about 35 dogs at the park, always ready to be patted and played with, or follow you if you go somewhere, or come back, or do anything. The dogs really made every minute even better than it should have been.

Since then, we took a long train ride down to Ayutthaya, where we saw some ruins, and then to Khao Yai National Park, where we hiked in the rain forest, got attacked by tiny leeches, and saw gibbons, hornbills, and porcupines in the wild. Now we are in the wonderful Bangkok apartment of Joanna's aunt's friend. We're taking a week for more national parks and island beaching, and then back here, and then... home. Well, California. And then home.

Wow, We Were in Laos! And Thailand Now.

2007-04-14T08:06:00.000-04:00

Ben writes:

OK, dudes, we have been in an entire other country since we lasted posted an interweb weblog update post. We have actually three countries to mention here. So.

CHINA
Well, we did fly down to Xishuangbanna (enjoy pronouncing that), and spent a few days in the region. We went from being incredibly cold in Zhongdian to incredibly hot and humid in the city of Jinghong. Also, we thought we had seen polluted air in the bigger cities up north, but this was incredible. You could see it in the air around you. And it was the dry season, so there was a layer of dust on everything -- all the plants were coated in brown and grey. We don't know if it's always that way, or just in March. We may never know.

The city was nice enough, though, and we managed to get out and see a Chinese action film called Twins Mission, probably a sequel, in which the twin sister spies / circus acrobats are joined by like 3 sets of good twins to fight 3 sets of bad twins over some stolen artifact while the evil capitalist somehow blackmails the mother of a cancer kid named Happy (no translation, they call her "Happy") into giving up the artifact, which she apparently owns. The girls fight FIVE fake-looking CG snakes, the cancer child is dropped from a crane, there is a weird racist interlude (this kind of humor persists because there are very few black people around in China, which results in pretty basic ignorance -- for instance, there is a toothpaste called Darlie that used to be Darkie. Its logo is a black man in a top hat with shiny white teeth ), and it ends on a cliff-hanger. Awesome.

Also, we rented bikes for two days and took a 27k trip on the road along the Mekong River down to Ganlanba, a "village" that was actaully just a town. We kind of wandered around the night market as it concluded and then watched Chinese TV. The next day, we went back to the market, where there were baby chicks and puppies for sale!

Then we took our bikes on the very short ferry ride to an "actual" village across the river. It became quickly apparent, however, that we were basically treating a town as a tourist attraction. There was really nothing to see there but people with less money than us. In fact, Ganlanba has a "minority village" where you can pay to do exactly that. Speaking of racism again, China is generally not very respectful of its ethnic minorities.
So, that was really awkward and unpleasant, but a learning experience I guess. We got down to the river and swam in its freezing cold waters for a minute on the way back to Jinghong.
And then we spent two very long days riding buses to

LAOS
After crossing the border, which was easy enough, we just barely made all the necessary buses to get to the city of Luang Prabang on time for our 5-day hiking / kayaking excursion. This is where we finally met up with Ian again. In addition to Ian, our little group included Melzie and V, sisters and British, and Simon, the crazy Swedish guy whom we like a lot. Our two Laotian guides were Wontong and La (phonetic spellings there), who proved to be very fun guys.
Basically, each day we would eat breakfast, hike (or later, kayak) for a while, stop for lunch in a village in the woods or near the road, hike / kayak more, then have dinner and fun at the village where we'd sleep.

It is burning season in Laos, which we had no idea about. This meant that though much of the jungle was lush, green and beautiful, a lot of it was on fire or burned to make room for agriculture. Also, the air was filled with smoke, so we could not see too far. Nonetheless, it was great to be in the outdoors. Our first day the guides were guided by a young woman and a fleet-footed little boy from the village to a nearby cave, which we all explored together. Which is to say, they'd never seen it either, but helped us through by holding our hands and saying "be careful" a lot. This is why Laos is more fun than America. Similarly, on the third day, we got to climb in a waterfall, made possible by some rough plant life growing in it.

Staying at the villages was less awkward than our experience in China, as we were paying guests, but still strange. Walking around taking pictures the first day did not necessarily feel like the best choice. Kicking around an awesome woven wooden ball with some kids/young people did, though. It makes the hackey sack look very dumb in comparison. Yeah, I said it.

In the evenings, after we ate, the correct thing to do was to buy the local beer (Beerlao), and/or lao-lao, the local moonshine, or lao whiskey, which you drink out of long bamboo straws from a ceramic container, and is much sweeter than whiskey. This felt too indulgent at first, but there was not much else to do at night, and it generated income for the village. In some villages, no one was impressed about us, but in the ones farther from the roads, we would get an audience of people just kind of looking at us talking and drinking.

After the trek, we spent a few days in Luang Prabang, a relatively sleepy but pleasant town. We did less than we might have, as I spent one day basically vomiting the entire time. What got in there, we'll never know, but I got it out. I feel pretty recovered by now.
From LP, we took a speedboat for about 7 hours on the river, and then a bus, and then another bus, to get to

THAILAND
We are in the city of Chiang Mai, Thailand's second biggest, but only a little more metropolitan feeling than Luang Prabang. The old city/downtown is contained within a square moat (now easily crossed), and marked by some remaining/restored sections of wall. We are in the midst of Songkran, the Buddhist New Year, celebrated here, in Laos, and elsewhere. A once very benign custom of sprinkling water on others to wash away the last year's sins has escalated into a daytime hours full-on street party of people riding in pick-up trucks throwing buckets of water out of a giants barrel onto the people on the sidewalk, who are doing basically the same thing. Some people are drunk. Around the moat, it is especially crazy.
Finding fun things to do at night has been frustrating/depressing (lame backpackers' bars, lascivious white men playing pool with Thai women, etc), but daytime is great. Yesterday we biked to the zoo, shooting our feeble water guns at everyone who watered the heck out of us. If you plan to go anywhere or do anything during Songkran, you plan to do it wet.

Today we emphatically joined the insanity, standing on the road across from the moat, drinking beer and dancing to (for example) Madonna remixes with all the friendly Thai people. Tomorrow we're off to a week of volunteering at the Elephant Nature Park, which is what is sounds like.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

2007-03-27T09:53:00.000-04:00

Joanna writes:

Well, we've temporarily lost our friend and guide Ian to the lack of reliable anti-malarial drugs in this part of China (he's currently in Thailand sorting that out), but we did get to spend a few days together in and around Kunming. We stayed with his friend Lexi in her Kunming apartment while we explored the city and discovered the wonder of Y20 (about $2.50) hour-long massages, and haircuts where they spend almost half an hour massaging and shampooing your scalp before they even reach for the scissors. (I just got the shampoo, but Ben and Ian came out looking quite sharp.) We also took an overnight trip down to the Stone Forest, a geological anomaly two hours south of the city that's been encompassed in a lovely park.

Though sad to lose Ian, it did give us the chance to travel up to the northern part of the Yunnan Province and hike Tiger Leaping Gorge, a stretch of the Yangzi River that's one of the deepest gorges in the world. It was one of the most wonderful things we've ever done. The gorge is just indescribably beautiful, and we got to spend three whole days hiking the high trail along one side of the mountains, stopping to sleep and eat at the lovely guest houses along the way. We also descended the steep path down to the river, where a spry little old lady led us out over a rickety bridge to the rock where a mythical tiger supposedly leapt the gorge.

Not only is the natural scenery of the gorge spectacular, but the human endeavors there are also quite amazing. Tiny farming villages dot the steep hillsides, and the terraces of crops are both impressive and beautiful. Even the infrastructural elements like telephone wires and water pipes that would normally seem to be a blight are such feats of engineering that they're more of a sight than an eyesore. Though the camera is a vastly inadequate tool for capturing the grandeur of the scenery, we did take a bazillion pictures and, sadly, unless you plan to visit China in the next couple years, that may be the most you'll ever see of the gorge. Despite international protest, China seems to be moving ahead with plans to dam the Yangzi, and that may spell the doom of this place. However, there's a flurry of new construction going on in the gorge, and tourism is booming, so we'll see if perhaps it will be saved in the end.

Right now we're in Zhongdian, a city very close to the Tibetan border. It's really cold, and really beautiful. Today we will visit a large Tibetan Buddhist monastery, and tomorrow we fly south to the lowland tropical city of Jinghong in the region of Xishuangbanna to reacquaint ourselves with heat and humidity. Then the current plan is to cross the border into Laos to meet up with Ian again before we scoot over to Thailand to chatch their new year's festival. Not sure when we'll next be able to update, so be well, everyone!

Beijing is the size of Belgium

2007-03-19T09:26:00.000-04:00

Really, no kidding. We're pretty sure that this gigantic figure includes a lot of surrounding countryside, but the point is, it's a huge city.

Joanna writes:

March is not Beijing's most becoming month, but we had relatively good luck with the weather, and managed to enjoy ourselves despite the chill. Our first three days there were sunny, or as sunny as it gets when the wind isn't blowing in the right direction. The pollution there is really quite extreme, and makes the sky seem permanently grey and heavy. It also makes for some neat sunsets.

Our hostel was in one of Beijing's old neighborhoods, called hutongs. They have narrow streets and old, often rundown buildings, and are becoming more rare as they are demolished to make way for modern apartment buildings. It was a cool area to be in, and we spent a lot of time just wandering around. It was also pretty convenient to the central sights, like Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, where we visted our first day. Unfortunately, Mao's mausoleum is closed for some time (a lot of things are being renovated for the 2008 Olympics), so we didn't get to gawk at the waxy remains of the Chairman. We did get to see the huge portrait of him that hangs on the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the entrance to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is a pretty cool place to visit, with lots of beautiful architecture and a huge lovely garden, though it probably would've been cooler when it was still forbidden.

We also took a trip to the Great Wall. It was Great! No, seriously, that thing is amazing, and we also learned some important lessons about tours in China in a relatively painless way. We were initially surprised and delighted by how cheap the tour was, as it included transportation to a faraway part of the wall, a guide for the four-hour hike along the wall to another access point, and lunch. What they didn't tell us was that there were three additional charges for entrance to different parts of the wall. The whole thing was still inexpensive, but it seemed pretty sketchy when they pulled over at a gas station a couple hours out of town and demanded 40Y from each of us for our entrance tickets. So, we now know to always ask if there are additional fees! Our other lesson was that we need to tell people that we're not going to buy anything from them before they waste their time being nice to us. At the beginning of the hike, our little group was joined by about as many Chinese "guides" (we naively thought) as there were of us. Soon a tiny old woman was holding my hand and keeping me from slipping as we climbed up the steep and still icy slope to the wall. I thought, "oh, how nice.“ Well, kind of. Then she got really mad an hour later when I didn't want to buy a book. Anyway,the hike was wonderful, and so was the lunch, so it was a lovely day all told.

Another good experience we had in Beijing was renting bikes for a day. The traffic in Beijing (and Shanghai and Kunming) is pretty crazy and the rules are loose; it's pretty much a might-makes-right situation, with a general hierarchy of buses, then cars, then bikes, then pedestrians, though a sufficiently large herd of the latter two can sometimes overwhelm even the buses. Tons of people still bike in China, and we've seen people carrying all manner of ridiculously huge loads. Most of the bikes are really old, too--it's strange to see immaculately dressed women with high-heeled boots pedalling along on bikes that look like they were built for a nine-year-old boy twenty years ago. There are usually large bike lanes on the main streets, but they're often full of pedestrians, carts, scooters, and sometimes even cars, so you need to keep your wits about you all the time. Luckily everyone goes pretty slowly. So, off we went on our rented bikes into the fray. About five minutes after we set off, my back tire exploded. Ben says it looked pretty cool. Luckily my replacement bike survived the journey, and we had a fun ride.

I think one more sight that deserves note is the Taoist Temple we visited. I think the general impression Americans have of Taoism is that it's basically about chilling out and finding the Way. We do not understand exactly how this idea relates to what we saw, but there is definitely a lot more to Taoism. The temple courtyard was lined with about 50 small rooms, sort of like stalls, that were all labelled as different "departments." Each contained about ten nearly life-sized painted figures illustrating the purpose of the particular department and a judge figure at the back. Some notable deparments were "The Department for Implementing 15 kinds of Violent Death," "The Deparment for Mammal Births," "The Department for River Gods," "The Deparment of Jaundice," "The Department of Petty Officials," and "The Department for the Accumulation of Justifiable Wealth." We don't really get it, but it was a rather surreal experience.

On Saturday night we decided to try to find the local rock scene, and set off for the What? Bar, a destination gleaned from a google search. It was awesome. A tiny little hole in the wall (quite literally, as its door opened into the wall surrounding the Forbidden City）where we saw two Beijing bands rock the house and ran into an acquaintance of Ben's from school (Azalea, for those of you who might know her). We inhaled a lifetime's worth of smoke and partook of the birthday cake served to one of the band members, and had a generally fun time seeing that rock and roll is alive and well here.

So now, after our brief flirtation with our native climate, we've flown down south to Kunming in the Yunnan Province, where it is sunny and 70 degrees and the trees are covered with leaves and flowers are blooming everywhere. It's wonderful！ Tomorrow we meet up with Ben's friend Ian, who speaks Mandarin and is awesome. Hooray!

PS After days of intensive study, we have determined, without a doubt, that the babies here are So F-ing Cute. Especially up north, where they are bundled into 15 layers of adorable clothes and go tottering around with only their faces and bums sticking out (Chinese baby clothes have open bums so they don't have to remove all those layers when the kid needs to wee.) Here in Kunming they have sun hats instead, so the cuteness factor (CF) remains almost as high.

Shanghai: City of Contrasts

2007-03-15T09:32:00.000-04:00

Ben writes:
Though today we sit in the Red Lantern House Hostel in Beijing, we are here to tell you about our 72 hours in Shanghai. Seriously, city of contrasts. There is less to do there in the Great Wall / Mao's Tomb kind of way, but instead you get to witness an incredibly burgeoning city. Being in Shanghai lends great credence to the notion that China will, at least economically, be the next world superpower. There is neither time nor space for every astounding detail, but here are some telling moments, at least.
Getting from the airport to the shuttle bus to the subway to our hostel told us less about China than about the fact that we don't speak Chinese. Fortunately, there is a good amount of English on all the important signs in town. But despite this, we spent a lot of time gesturing and repeating simple English phrases while generous kind people did their best to point us on the way. If you stand still and look lost, someone will either say "taxi, hotel, taxi" at you, or actually come over and help. We've gotten a lot of both.
If you do not look lost, you still often get "watch, shoes, ladybag," but we also had the pleasant experience of getting into conversations with Chinese students, one group of whom brought us to a traditional tea ceremony. We barely got to ask them anything, as they were so full of questions about the US, and about us. The tea was great, and we learned a little about tea traditions, too. Good one.
Ok, some burgeoning city stuff. As we rode the shuttle bus in from the sticks, we first went though what one guy we met describes as "rural industrial" Shanghai, which is what it sounds like, and occupies a fair amount of the land outside the urban center. Next came the very tall apartment buildings, in clusters of 3-8 identical buildings. These continue all the way in, but other city things fill in around them.
If you walk on the Bund, the touristy waterfront on the river, you will see on the west coast colonial era office buildings, all stone columns and such. On the east coast are incredible huge postmodern office buildings, bizarrely shaped and lit with neon and gigantic tv screens. None of that was there 15 years ago, we are told.
The urban planning museum has a very impressive scale model of the city, probably 20 meters across. It also has extensive displays on all the development the city is planning. There are many claims of being eco-friendly, and designed with human needs in mind, a contrast to the concrete towers of the Communist era (how Communist is China now? I really don't know. Maybe we'll figure it out). I have never seen a city with such vast ambitions for itself.
We spent one day walking from the French Concession, a pleasant neighborhood with nice trees on the streets and a lot of music stores, to Old Town. Old Town is a decaying mess of streets and alleys packed with fruit vendors, food sellers, restaurants, some book stores, clothes, I don't know what else. There is a lot of demolition, some construction, meat cooling in water buckets on the sidewalk, motorcycles and bikes zipping between people, cars honking through tight passages. It is a lot dirtier than most of Shanghai. It is apparently disappearing to new development, and while part of me wants to say no! it is so special and unique, one should also recognize that it is kind of squalid, and most of it would not be up to code in the US. I'll be interested to see where it goes.
Minutes away from Old Town are vast wide streets with huge pedestrian overpasses, and trendy expensive designers stores around. We got free Bailey's and cheese served by Chinese women at an Ireland tourism promotion thing.
That same day, we passed though several fantastic parks. Shanghai has the best quality+quantity of parks of probably any city I've seen, as evidenced by the fact that people use them! There are brightly colored public exercise machines that everyone is on, people playing cards and what appears to be backgammon, doing movement exercises, sitting and talking. Really good public space.
The public transport is really good, too. In conclusion, Shanghai is a city of contrasts.

Today in Beijing, we split the day between the Forbidden City, and the twisting alley-streets, called hutongs. Tomorrow we're going to the Great Wall!

Australia, Mates

2007-03-05T03:11:00.000-05:00

Ben writes:
We got to Australia two weeks ago, and tomorrow we're going to China. How about that.

Our adventures began in the city of Melbourne, a sprawling town of some 4 million (approximately the whole of NZ) in the middle of the southern coast. Our friend Petra's uncle John met us at the airport, holding tiny liscense plates with our names on them. John is a great guy, and a generous host. We spent four days touring around Melbourne and environs with him and his partner Sue.

Inside the city we saw a variety of new and old neighborhoods, ranging from the young and upscale but not too upscale St. Kilda beach, to the terrifying Docklands, where they paved the old wharf and put up gigantic apartment towers. Melbourne is developing at an insane pace, due largely to a boom in the resources economy, as Australia digs up everything that China will buy to fuel its own insane growth. How about that. (Speaking of China, read the weblog of our friend Ian, whom we'll be seeing soon: www.ian-in-shanghai.com).

Outside of town, we took a trip to Montsalvat, an artists' colony established around the turn of the last century by a Swiss architect. The materials were salvaged from various constructions and demolitions in and around Oz (yes, short for Australia) at the time, and the feel of it is right between a medieval village and a medieval castle. My personal favorite was the make-your-own guitar workshop, where classes were in progress. Seeing the room full of raw timber that would become acoustic guitars was pretty amazing.

We also got a driving tour of the bay, including a ferry ride across the channel, and a view of the water from Arthur's Seat, a large hill/small mountain on the east side of the bay. We can not thank John and Sue enough for their wonderful hospitality!

Then Jo and I took off for even more driving, renting a car and checking out the Great Ocean Road, which stretches a few hundred kilometers west of the city. Great, Ocean, and Road pretty well describe it. We stopped at the 12 Apostles, the main tourist attraction on the Road: they are large pieces of rocky land that erosion has separated from the nearby land, standing by the shore. There are only 8 left, as erosion has overdone things a little. However, the really nice stops were the unexpected and less common ones, including a beach with beautiful rock formations that looked like sand drip castles, or petrified roots; clay cliffs with a rainbow of earthtones just below us, and a view of the sea; canoeing in the first Aborignal-owned nature preserve in Victoria, where we saw pelicans, ibises (ibes?), egrets, herons, shags, and more.

Back in Melbourne, we stayed with a guy named Steve, who we found through Hospitality Club (dot org). Our respective schedules meant that we barely got to see Steve, but he lived on a tram line convenient to the Chinese embassy, where we blew a fair amount of time getting our visas, and to the East Brunswick Club, where we got to take in a concert by Love Is All, one of our favorite Swedish bands (definitely see them if you haven't -- so rad!), and Cut Off Your Hands, a pretty solid group from Auckland, NZ (the live show is better than the cd, should you get to hear it). That was a long sentence. Sorry. From what little we did see of Steve, we can confidently report that he is a really nice, cool guy, and we wish we'd seen more of him. Thanks, Steve.

While staying at Steve's, we did some basic city wandering, museums, the botanic garden, the war shrine. It went by pretty quickly, and we got up wicked early (again) for a flight to Alice Springs, a town of 27,000 located right in the middle of the desert. Here we are staying with Ian and Trish, the couple who hosted Joanna in Atherton (in northeastern AU) while she was studying abroad here in college. They moved to Alice a year ago, and so here we are, where it is always over 90 deg F, and often over 100. But it's a dry heat.

We spent the first few days driving over unsealed roads through the desert in their 4x4, stopping at beautiful gorges and waterholes, as well as the former Lutheran Mission of Hermannsburg, now home to an excellent Aboriginal art collection. The proprietor gave us a great talk on what it all meant. You should really look into this stuff.
Then, as in Melbourne, we rented a car for a long trip. This time the destintations were Uluru (Ayer's Rock), Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), and Watarrka (King's Canyon), three of the best things the desert has to offer. Uluru is an astoungingly huge red rock sitting all by itself in the middle of nowhere. It has a lot of significance in Aborignal culture -- disrespectful tourists climb it; respectful tourists walk around it, which we did as the sun was setting. We also got up quite early to come see the sun rise, which was a lovely event, though saturated with other tourists.

Kata Tjuta is a series of smaller rocks domes that we hiked in between (also no climbing!), and Watarrka is a great (smallish) canyon where we did the rim hike. The great surprise there, besides the gorgeousness of it, was the side hike to the Garden of Eden, a swimming hole where we hopped in, and then dried on a sunny rock. The whole area is like but unlike the US South-West.

One noteworthy stop on the way was Stuart's Well, a "town" consisting just of camping and tourism stuff, where we caught a free performance of Dinky the Dingo. Dinky is a wonderful dog that, when someone plays the piano, hops up on the keyboard and "sings" and "plays". Though not exactly "musical" the performance, with Jo on the piano, was "awesome" and "hilarious". Dinky has raised over $11,000 for the Royal Flying Doctors. We took a video.

Now back in Alice, we are relaxing, organizing, and packing for the trip to China. We can not thank Ian and Trish enough for their wonderful hospitality, too! Tonight we're going to see some Aussie rules football in town, and that will be that.

The Parents Were Here, Too!

2007-02-19T16:35:00.000-05:00

Ben writes:
Here we are standing with Joanna's parents... on a glacier!! Yes, a GLACIER! Taking a helicopter ride onto a glacier was just one of the incredibly awesome things we did during the 10-day period when we were generously included in Jon and Polly's vacation. Now we are back in Christchurch, city of selling a car in, and in 36 hours we'll be on a plane to Australia. We did so much that a full recap might be too much, but here are some highlights at least:

-Sea kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park. We had a great morning of kayaking with a tour guide in Abel Tasman, a park near Golden Bay, where you will find the golden sands for which the area is named. We managed to get quite close to a bunch of seal colonies, and our tour guide, Banksey, was a pretty cool dude. At the end, we bundled our kayaks together and used a tarp as a sail. Pretty rad.

-Helicopter ride onto Fox Glacier. Fox is one of the two easily accessed glaciers in NZ (yes, there are glaciers here!). We took an awesome zoomy helicopter ride to the top, and then a young goofy tour guide slowly took us around, using a pick axe to cut steps into the ice, and showing us little ice caves and formations. We got to crawl through some small caves, and walk amongst tiny blue ice pools. This glacier is incredibly fast, moving between one and five meters a day, which means that it looks very different from week to week, and that our tramping around up there does not really have any ill effects. This was one of the coolest things we will ever possibly do. I would be remiss not to thank my Mom and Dad, as this particular adventure was a birthday present from them. Thank you, Mom and Dad.

-We had some non-nature adventure driving time. We visited Stuart Landsborough's Puzzing World (Ben and Jo's second time), a great tourist trap with optical illusion rooms, and a giant two story outdoor maze. We did not reattempt the maze, which had to be abandoned last time due to time constraints, but the tilted room, the giant faces of celebrities that follow you around the room, the giant/midget effect used in the Lord of the Rings... it was all grand, and then we all sat there getting frustrated with little puzzles in the lobby.
In Queenstown, we took a gondola up one of the big hills for a great view of the region, and rode little go-karts down the top part of the hill. We also watched bungee jumpers, including this one late-middle-aged dude, probably Spanish maybe, who was SO excited by the whole thing. We talked to him afterwards, and he was just elated.

-Big day at Milford Sound. First, a longish bus ride from the edge of Fiordland National Park into Milford Sound, on a specially designed bus with overhead windows, which allowed us to better appreciate the towering peaks through which we wove. The "sound" is actually a fiord, which means that it was carved by glaciers and thus has very steep walls. So, we got to take a nature cruise through this sound, to the Tasman Sea, where the waves became noticeably stronger before we turned back in. On the way out, we took in the towering hills and sheer rock walls, covered in growth, and watched sea planes fly over us. The best part, however, was when the pod of dolphins came and played alongside the boat for a while. This is as awesome as it sounds.

-After a beautiful day on the water, we had a quiet dinner, and then got on another boat (!) on Te Anau lake, just as the sun was going down, and went to a glow worm cave. The cave is very young, only twelve thousand years, and carved by a river. The inside, with its metal walkway and well-placed lights, is so perfect as to almost look artificial. We got a tour through the cave, and then onto a boat where the river was deeper. Here, our guide killed the lights, and took us further by pulling along some chains or ropes on the ceiling (I never saw them). On the walls and ceilings, sometimes quiet close, were thousands of blue glowing points, looking very much like the stars on a clear night with no light pollution. The only thing more incredible than how beautiful this is, is the life cycle of the glow worm.
Briefly: they live in caves, where they create a "hammock" out of materials much like a spider web. From this hammock, they hang little "fishing lines" which are punctuated by dewy balls -- these show us each time the worm threw up another section of the fishing line material. The glowing dot is basically excrement, but it fools the young insects whose eggs were laid in the river and flowed into the cave into thinking that they are flying up to the sky, their first instinct as they are born. Instead, they get eaten and die young. Harsh. Speaking of harsh, the glow worm is actually a larva of a fly that spends 6-9 months as larva, 2 weeks in a cocoon, and 2-3 as as a fly trying to mate. Then it dies. Of old age. Unless it is eaten by other larva.

-On the way to Dunedin, we happened upon an antique car and plane show. There were rides in open-top, 2 passenger planes, old tractors that looked like locomotives, and a bunch of motor pump things just sitting there running. A small child could easily run up to and and stick a hand in, because in NZ, they are not such babies about safety.

-The city of Dunedin is nice, and we caught some fireworks for Chinese New Year. Happy Year of the Pig, everyone. On the Otago Peninsula, we had another great day of nature tourism, beginning with a cruise of the bay in which we saw some birds, including little blue penguins, who swim like ducks (kind of), shags (ha ha), and spoon bills. Back on land, we went to the only mainland albatross colony in the world (the rest are on remote islands of difficult climate), and watched the mighty birds tend to their young and soar about. We saw one spread its wings and take off into the wind. They actually don't have very strong flapping muscles, as they mostly glide. Finally, we went to Penguin Place, a private reserve where they have constructed a bunch of covered trenches so that the guides can hilariously radio to each other about the current location of the birds as they leave or come home, and then rush us from one bunker to another. The opportunity to see yellow-eyed penguins so close up, however, was not hilarious. Well, it kind of was because penguins are as ridiculous as you'd hope, but seeing them so close was an incredible thing.

-On Jon and Polly's last night, we took in a Maori cultural show which was much better than the one we'd seen in Rotorua, and then toured one more nature preserve where we saw, among others, the kiwi itself, sticking its pointy nose into the ground of the nocturnal house in its never-ending search for worms.

-Also, we were fed very well the whole time, and got to enjoy the company of two people who we already know and like a lot, a rare thing on this trip.

So that was fun.
Thank you so much, Jon and Polly.
Everyone else: we miss you more and more.
Next: Australia.

Christchurch is not just a church

2007-02-09T03:06:00.000-05:00

Joanna writes:

Well, it's been a bit of a while, hasn't it? And it's a bit late here right now, so this will have to be an abridged version of the past 2.5 weeks. I believe when we last left you, we were staying waaaay down south in Riverton at Granma's Growers, the small but productive farm of semi-retired couple Lindsay and Debbie. It was an interesting week we spent with them. They are not the type of people you'd expect to have an organic farm, and in fact only began farming organically after Lindsay had a cancer scare and his doctor told him he needed to stop working in agriculture. At the same time that it was really encouraging to see a different sort of folks getting into organics, it was not so fun to have the television on every waking moment of the day and eat devastatingly lifeless, limp, soggy, boiled (but organic!) vegetables every single night for supper. We did learn a good bit from them about the cancer-related reasons to go organic, though, and it was cool to be on a farm that was producing a regular harvest.
During our time there, we took some lovely walks along the southern coast (including part of the Hump Ridge--yes, snicker--track in Fiordland National Park). Ben also turned a whopping 25 years old (wow!), and we went to a local open mic for his birthday. This open mic was not your standard Cambridge event of 50 folk singers with their accoustic guitars and deep original feelings, but rather a whole rock band set-up that various folks took turns with and played almost exclusively covers of blues and alternative rock. Ben's prowess with the accordion, the guitar, the rock and roll, and the song writing (and even, briefly, the drums--watch out Abester!) was much appreciated, and it was a fun night overall.

After Riverton, we headed east along the south coast into an area called the Catlins. We visted the southernmost point of the South Island, saw a gorgeous waterfall, and did various other little hikes, before we finally finally finally saw PENGUINS! YES, REAL LIVE PENGUINS! IN THE WILD! COMING HOME TO FEED THEIR REAL LIVE BABIES! Well, we didn't see the babies, but watching the adults come surfing onto the beach and waddle-hop up a path to their nests was really fantastic, a dream come true for me. And, despite the fact that I've just spent the last year teaching children that penguins do not only live where there's ice and snow all year round, it was still very surreal to see them on a sandy beach. (For all of you bionerds, these were yellow-eyed penguins, a very rare and endangered species.)

After the Catlins, it was back inland and a long way north to see Mt. Cook, NZ's tallest mountain, as well as the other mountains of the Southern Alps. Wow. These were the most platonic mountains we have ever seen. Gorgeous. We also saw real live glaciers, which, according to some American geologists we met at the campground, are the only glaciers in the world that are actually growing. Try that on for size.

Now we've just completed our ten-day holy-cow-we-must-sell-the-car stay in Christchurch, which is NZ's second-largest city and second-best place to sell your car. And, yes, the car is sold! We weren't sure it was going to happen, but at the last practical moment, someone bit. Whew!

Christchurch itself is okay. We thought that we'd have tons of time here to catch up on our reading, journals, and, of course, this weblog, but in fact we've been incredily busy. We've been staying at a gigantic hostel on a work-for-accommodation scheme, so we work every morning from 9:30-1:00 in exchange for a bed in a dorm room (WWOOFing is a much better deal!). We have made so many beds and cleaned so many things and probably inhaled enough chemical cleansers to destroy all the good we did ourselves on the farms. We have also met some cool people, though unfortunately our roommates are the types to stay in the room all the time watching television. Like all the time. It's amazing. In the city, we've walked around a lot, seen the lovely botanic gardens and a cheesy but entertaining free play in them, gone to a fun karaoke bar, and visited the COCA--Center of Contemporary Art. It turns out that modern art actually does make us want to rock out, so we did! Ben, in his ever-diligent quest to play music as much as possible, managed to get us not one, but two gigs at a nice little venue called Al's Bar. Last night we opened for a cool little band from New Mexico and an awesome local group of youngsters. Righteous.

Tomorrow we get up wicked early, hop a train and then a bus, and meet my parents in Nelson for another circuit of the South Island. Woo-Hoo! Happy Birthday, Dad!

PS--photos coming soon, hopefully!

A Week in the Clouds

2007-01-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

Joanna writes:

In case you are still harboring fantasies of colorful bears that shoot rainbows out of their tummies living on bouncy cotton clouds, we are sorry to report that these bears certainly do not reside in New Zealand. The clouds here are decidedly not cottony or bouncy. They are, in fact, rather cold and wet, but also visually appealing in their way.

Our intimate acquaintance with the clouds here began in Nelson Lakes National Park, where we finally did the very NZ backpacker thing of hiking up a mountain to a back-country hut and staying there overnight before hiking back the next day. We set off withh our very heavy packs (we had to bring our car-camping stove and pot) on an overcast morning, with the assurance that the weather was supposed to clear in the afternoon, but it never did. We entered a cloud about an hour before we reached the hut, and emerged from it sometime the next day. The hike was still a wonderful and beautiful experience, and I think our legs are much stronger now, too. This was Ben's first hike with a big pack, and the farthest either of us had ever hiked in two days (20 km in, 12 km out, much of it very steep!).

The hike turned out to be great preparation for our next WWOOFing situation, which was also on top of a mountain. We stayed with a wonderful family just outside the town of Kaikoura--Achim and Nicole and their children Felix (6) and Anna (3). We had our own private hilltop complete with cozy caravan, outdoor kitchen, "long drop" and goat. The goat, Ma, was nice company, and we just had to move her hut around so she could reach the nicest grass, and feed her our food scraps. See picture above.

The views from the hilltop were fantastic, but we spent the first 3 or 4 days completely inside of the clouds. One morning we woke up and discovered, to our surprise, that the clouds had cleared and there were huge, craggy, snow-capped mountains behind us. We could also see out to the ocean and the town and a lovely river wound its way past our mountain into the sea. Wow. I spent most of my working time weeding, though Ben got the chance to work with the young autistic son of a friend of the family.

Kaikoura is a small touristy town on the east coast of the South Island, famous for its whales and fur seals. We spent one afternoon poking around the coastline, found a fur seal sleeping on the rocks about 5 meters away from us, and saw orcas swimming remarckably close to us. They didn't jump or anything, but we saw their dorsal fins and the air from their blowholes. We also had one fantastically beautiful sunny day, and took a hike part way up Mt. Fyffe, one of those snow-capped craggy mountains. We also took a swim in a gorgeous little swimming hole in the river below our mountain--most of the water here is an amazing blue color due to the sediment in it, known as rock flour.

After Kaikoura, we spent a couple of days in Arthur's Pass National Park in the middle of the South Island, where we did a number of lovely hikes with incredible views. This picture shows us on top of Avalanche Peak (oooh). We then travelled quickly south via Queenstown, a backpacker party town where we attended a "beach party" (wooo!) at a local bar that included a very awkward wet t-shirt contest (I did not participate). Now we are all the way south in Riverton, WWOOFing at "Granma's Growers."

We have been in Golden Bay

2007-01-05T03:43:00.000-05:00

Ben writes:
When last we updated the web log, we were in Picton, just about to drive to Golden Bay. Well, we did, and we stayed there for two weeks, and now we're even somewhere else. But one thing at a time:

We found ourselves on Christmas Eve in the beautiful home of Ali (Alex, dad), Ludo (son, 5) and Francis (son, 2.5). Annie (mom) lives down the road, and was in for the first day or two, but went to spend the holiday week with a friend, and we saw less of her after that. Their home is in Golden Bay, north of Takaka, the nearest town to speak of. It is, by some accounts, in the middle of nowhere, but it also happens to be a reasonable walk (30 mins) from the Mussel Inn, the bar in the middle of nowhere, which is where we spent several evenings, including New Year's Eve.

Golden Bay, like much of NZ, is really beautiful, and every place you can go there is beautiful in a different way. For the first few days, we did not get too far away -- we walked down the road, and along a few nearby beaches. Later, we explored Farewell Spit, which is pretty much the northernmost point on the South Island. The Spit itself is a huge arm of sand (like 40 km) reaching east into the water at the top of the bay. The beach was so simple -- wide open, with gray-yellow sand, and pretty dunes behind it -- but just perfect. We also hiked through sheep+cow fields which were those gorgeous rolling hills you see everywhere, and at the same time, overlooking massive cliffs down to the beach and ocean below. We saw sea lions on a beachy area down a ravine, and later came even closer to them on the beach -- two of them were bumping chests and playing, and only a reasonable respect for/fear of sea mammals kept us from joining them.

We also had some lovely forest hiking in Abel Tasman Park, which also lead us to a beach. The sands there truly are golden, and earn the place its name. And what else? A cave! Rawhiti Cave (or Manson Cave, depending on how you feel about colonial history and issues of biculturalism in NZ). It is just a huge gaping mouth of a cave, up a large hillside not too far from town. The stalactites are like big teeth, and once inside you notice that they also resemble serpents and monsters. There were no tunnels, just a big great opening that one could climb down a little way. But we could never get around the corner, where more mysterious darkness lay.

Ok, a few words about the farm and the house.
The farm is really just a large garden and a bunch of paddocks for the sheep, goats, and cows. Many WWOOF hosts in NZ have this arrangement, as opposed to being a proper farm.

Our work varied between a few projects:
-Weeding garden beds.
-Filling old tires with dirt and transplanting pumpkins into them.
-Making pickled plums (when it was rainy).
-Building fences for the goats and cows.

The last was our most recent, and fun in a satisfying to be completing something kind of way. We dug these great holes 60 cm into the ground, and then had to tamp down the soil around the wooden pole to which the gates will be attach. We also had practice bending and attaching wire, and pounding metal stakes into the ground. And we used math: in fact, we used the "fence-post problem" principal to solve a problem involving the fence-posts! Yes!

The boys. Ludo and Francis (we called him Franzi) are hilarious little guys. They are super full of energy. Ludo would often ask "who wants to play my game?" and then explain what kind of animal or character you were, and how you were related to Ludo (usually) and what you should be doing. We watched the boys all day on Jan 1 while Ali was out doing ambulance duty, and there was never a shortage of ideas for games. Franzi is really funny. He is sometimes hard to understand, as he is young, and he loves being chased and picked up, and will often say, Get Me to one of us, and then Help Me! to the other the second he is picked up. We like these boys a lot, and we miss them. Ali is a great dad, and a fun person to live with. He is soft-spoken, but has a great sense of humor, and he made us really nice food, including lots of fresh bread and scones.

As usual, I have written too much. Please know that Jo and I did a two day hike in Nelson Lakes National Park, and that we are currently living in a trailer on top of a mountain in Kaikoura. Details to follow.
Bye!

We were Up North. We were at Rock Camp. Now we're Down South.

2006-12-23T16:32:00.000-05:00

Ben writes:

Hi Everyone,
This is a long one. But it's in Sections.

SECTION I

As you may have inferred from recent posts, Joanna and I have been back in the same place for almost two weeks now. I flew up from Wellington to Hamilton on Dec 11, where she met me with the car, and we took off on a week-long camping trip. Here's how it went(approximately):

-Rotorua. This town is known for its amazingly geothermal activity. We actually stayed two nights here in a very pleasant hostel. I kind of crashed, and spent part of one day sleeping, so we got out less than we might have. We are pretty sure that this town got really big by building up a spa industry around the naturally occuring mineral-rich hot springs. However, spa day was neither in our budget nor our itinerary. We went to a Maori cultural village / hot spring area. The hot springs themselves were not very impressive if you have been to Yellowstone -- a few bubbling mud pits, and a nice enough geyser. The Maori village is a curious place: it was built around the hot springs in 1884, and has been a tourist destination since 1885 (those years are probably right). The guide showed us how they cook and clean with the hot springs, and we were treated to a cultural show, including an explanation of the lengthy process of making a type of grass skirt that is only used for tourist shows. Think on that for a while.

-Tongariro National Park. In an incredible turn of events, we spent three nights camping, and had really nice weather for all of them. This has never happened before. However, let it be noted that it got so cold overnight that when we woke early one morning for our full day hike, there was frost on the car. Cred!
Yes, a full-day hike, known as the Tongariro crossing. This hike is a section of one of NZ's "Great Walks" which are basically what they sound like.
The hike was somewhat strenuous, and certain of our leg muscles were sore for days after, but it included incredible views of an active (not erupting) volcano, around whose midsection we walked, the Emerald Lakes, which are three small incredibly light blue lakes in the middle of the mountains, and hills and chasms and peaks of all colors. The pictures will be up today, if the computer here can deal with it.

-Ohakune. A charming little town, with some very pleasant hikes around it. We took it pretty easy here for the first day, doing a couple little hikes, and enjoying a nice camping area (incredibly cheap DOC campsites in NZ, by the way). On the second day, we drove to Pipiriki (ha ha!) and had a wonderful canoe trip. We were going to do the shorter trip, and get dropped half way up the Whanganui river ("wh" = "f" in Maori), but the man in charge was in a good mood, and took us farther up the river, all the way to the Bridge to Nowhere, which is actually a bridge to a very long (40k) trail to another town. The river cut through some wonderfully green steep cliffs on either side of us, 15-20 meters tall (we guess), and we had to get over some rapids, which was a terrifying concept in a canoe, but not actually too bad to do.

SECTION II

From there, we drove and slept and drove, and got to Rock Camp . At Rock Camp, kids from the School of Rock, and new students, come together for a week of music instruction in the art of Rock and Roll (actually, mostly alternative rock and metal). Unlike a guitar camp, rock camp is primarily focused on group performance, and the kids are put into campus bands, and matched with a mentor who helps them learn new material for a concert at the end of the week. The band are hilariously big -- 5 guitarists, two bassists, three drummers, two singers, a keyboard player, that sort of thing -- but kids also come with their bands from home, and they get to perform as well.

I was not a mentor, but a guitar instructor, giving theory lessons and doing some warm-ups for the kids who were not with their campus bands in the mornings, and giving one-off private lessons in the afternoons. Joanna joined forces with the parent volunteers to keep things running smoothly. Jo was a little frustrated at times due to a lack of clear duties, but managed to have a decent week. I had a fantastic time teaching, despite the usual classroom management related frustrations, and I wish I could come back next year. We made friends with a couple of the young players, and got along well with the other staff. We even snuck in a trip to a local bird sanctuary when we both had a free morning. All our pictures are terrible, but there will eventually be some on the School of Rock website.

SECTION III
Then we drove to Wellington, and I gave Jo the 4 hours whirlwind tour, including a cup of tea with Jim, whose house I sat, before we got on the ferry for the South Island last night. Now we are in the town of Picton, about to take a 4 hour drive to Takaka (ha ha!), where a WWOOFing family will be taking us in on Christmas Eve! They have two boys, aged 2.5 and 5, for whom we are going to buy a few small presents before we leave.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Happy New Year.
Enjoyable Holidays all around.

Joanna was all over the place

2006-12-12T04:33:00.000-05:00

I've had an exciting few weeks doing a lot of different things in the Northland and Coromandel regions. This photo is of Cape Reinga.

After leaving Ngunguru, I headed up the coast to Oakura Bay, a lovely tiny village where my next WWOOFing hosts own the general store. I joined a couple of other WWOOFers, Mark from England and Sebastian from Germany, helping to get the store ready for the influx of merchandise at the holiday season, and then we all drove farther up the coast to a property they're developing into an ecolodge accommodation thing. The place is totally beautiful, but very very isolated; there aren't even any trails through the bush for tramping. There was a beautiful beach just a few minutes away, but it was still too cold for pleasant swimming, and the work schedule was such that there wasn't much time off for exploring. Anyway, I realized that I didn't really want to stay there, so I spent most of my non-working and eating time trying to find somewhere else to go, which was rather difficult--it seems that the island is overrun with WWOOFers!

I did finally find a host in the town of Coromandel, on the Coromandel Peninsula, but first I took a couple of days to be a tourist up in the Bay of Islands near the top of the Northland. It was really fun to stay at a hostel and see lovely things and just be totally independent for a few days. I took an excellent tour up to the very northernmost point on the island, Cape Reinga, via a beautiful grove of kauri trees (basically NZ's sequoias), Ninety Mile Beach (it's actually only about 60 miles long, and we drove on the beach itself--it is an official road) and dune boarding (fun but frightening) and a few other things. The next day, "on the way" to Coromandel (turns out I vastly underestimated the distances and was quite late getting in), I stopped to see a neat little glowworm cave and the west coast kauri forests.

My WWOOFing experience in Coromandel was a little strange. I stayed in a caravan at one woman's place, an herbal dispensery with gardens and a beautiful but nosey horse, and worked for her in the mornings. She was a bit stressful to work for. Then, for food, I worked for another guy, Dave, in the afternoon. This arrangement meant that I had very little time to do things, but luckily Dave was quite accommodating and let me work double a few times and take a couple afternoons off to do some exploring and hiking. The region is justifiably known for its beautiful hikes. I was also lucky that I came just as Dave was helping his mother, Mary, get her house ready to be let out for tourist accommodations (she was getting too old to stay there, but wanted to keep the property), so I spent most of my afternoons gardening in her absolutely gorgeous place. The house was built in the 1860's by the man who discovered gold in the region, and is one of the nicest buildings I've ever been in. I also got to hang out with Mary, which was great--she has lived in the house for 42 years, and knows everything about everyone in the town, and is also a musician and artist, and served tea in little china cups. Lovely.

I took the last day in Coromandel to do the famous Coastal Walk up at the top of the peninsula, a beautiful 5-hour hike, and stayed at a very cozy and fun hostel in town. Then it was off to Hamilton to pick Ben up from the airport. It's been great to see each other again, but it was really wonderful to travel on my own, too. I got to see lots of really cool stuff, and met scads of folks from all over the English- and German-speaking world.

We're now in Rotorua, the geothermal center of the North Island. It's a little disappointing, but the lack of things to see has given us a chance to get some things planned and taken care of. Now we're off to Tongariro National Park to camp and hike for a couple days. Hooray!

Ben is in Wellington Right Now

2006-12-02T19:04:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone. I have actually been in Wellington for almost three weeks. I am house-sitting for Jim, a friend who I have never met personally: we know each other through a mix tape club that we participated in via mail and internet about a year ago. It also included my friend Leah, Jim's friend Victor. It was great, and now I am living in his house, and listening to the cd's where all the music came from.
What you see is thew view out of his back window in the southern suburb of Island Bay. This is what I look at when I eat breakfast. It's pretty great.
In addition to his house, Jim is lending me a bicycle, which I use to get around town a lot. I have a pretty laid-back life right now, though I have found some employment, which I will describe presently. Wellington is a very windy place, which makes seemingly simple bike rides surprisingly difficult, but as a city, it's quite small, so during the day I use my bicycle. Sometimes I'll just go around with my trusty city center bus map in my pocket, and find places to explore. I am learning that any place with the word "park" in its name is on a gigantic hill. One day, early on, I was sitting around the city center, and decided to go over to a park -- I ended up climbing up Mt. Victoria. Don't be too impressed, it's not huge, but the view was beautiful. From there one can see most of the city, the main part of which is in a valley between two sets of hills (there are suburbs on the other sides of the hills), which runs north-south. The bay comes up and wraps around the whole thing, and you can see all the waters from Mt. Vic.
Speaking of geography, I don't think I have ever seen a city that is such a textbook representation of the city/suburb model. Almost all of the "urban" activity -- night life, museums, government, etc -- takes place in the relatively small city center, and there are a series of smallish neighborhoods growing out from that in every direction. The southern ones seems to be more part ofthe city, but maybe I just think that because I live in one.
I have made a few friends here -- it's not too hard to meet people. I'm at my friend Steph's house right now. I met her and her friends last weekend when they were out celebrating the completion of teacher's college. They were busking on Cuba St, one of the main drags downtown, and after I stopped to sing with them, they took me dancing.

Ok, two more things, and I'll wrap it up:
1. Work. I have two jobs. One is for a guy named Michael, who makes fridge magnets out of his garage. Some days I take laminated sheet of magnet pattern and attach magnetic sheets with sticky stuff on them. Other days, when those same sheets have returned from the cutter, I separate them adn put them in packages. It's not bad, everyone is friendly, and I get paid in cash. Someone has to make the fridge magnets, right?
I also work for a catering company. I've only done two jobs, and will only do two or three more. Basically I put on the black pants, white shits, black shoes, black clip-on tie, and black apron with company logo and either carry around food at cocktail parties, or wait tables at fancy dinners. I was offered a wedding, but I'll be leaving town right around then. This is a fun job to have for two weeks, and the pay is pretty good. As with the magnet job, I can take it or leave it as I like.
2. I played a show! Yes, I took my trusty accordion, and went to Happy, a bar that I've actually managed to be in every Friday since I've been here (this next weekend might break the streak), and I played to a small but growing crowd who were coming in for some actual band. The booker's girlfriend also plays accordion, so she played first, and we even did a sloppy duet of Istanbul (Not Constantinople). There was a piano and a pump organ at Happy, and I got to play those, too. A guy who saw me says he's going to book me for another bar next week, but we'll see if he calls.

So there it is. Life in Wellington. Pictures will follow, though you should note that all our photos are now in categories, though not all labeled, making them a good deal more comprehensible.
Goodbye!

Joanna is in Ngunguru

2006-11-23T18:05:00.001-05:00

Well, my solitary adventure has been pretty great so far. After dropping Ben at the airport, I drove up north to the little village of Ngunguru to WWOOF with an absolutely wonderful family. Ben and Zoe have a landscaping business and a beautiful property with a lake and a small orchard, about 25 km from Whangarei (pronounced "Fangaray"), which is the largest town in the Northland. They also have three children: Winnie, 13; Dylan, 10; and Gracie, 3. Gracie just had her last round of chemotherapy, and is recovering very well--most of the time she's just as cute, fun and energetic as a 3-yr-old could possibly be. Winnie and Dylan are amazingly good siblings to her, in addition to being great in their own right. (I've now had the good fortune to stay with two awesome 8th-grade girls, something I didn't know existed. I am filled with hope for humanity.) There is also Poppy, the exuberant puppy, and Basil, one of the best cats I've ever met. I've been helping around the house, mostly, doing weeding and window-washing and painting.

The countryside here is so gorgeous. I've been snapping pictures left and right, but they do not do it justice. Ngunguru is right on the coastline, so I can walk to the beach, and there are even more beautiful beaches a short drive to the north. It seems like every time you go around another bend in the road, there's another perfect white crescent of beach. Yesterday I took a boat trip out to the Poor Knights Islands, a marine reserve with some of the best diving in the world. I was just snorkelling, but it was still really cool, and very different from tropical reef snorkelling (especially because the water was freezing and we all had to wear full wet suits). I saw gigantic snappers (fish that have irridescent blue markings) and a scorpion fish, and tons of urchins and comb jellies. I think the most beautiful thing was watching the kelp and other seaweed swaying in the water. I also lucked out with the weather--it had been pretty cold and cloudy, but yesterday was absolutely perfect.

Tonight we're having a Thanksgiving supper (Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!), and tomorrow I'm off to a new WWOOFing host. Sad to go, but hoping the next will also be exciting. I am trying to upload a bunch of photos now, and I think they'll tell the story better, so check out the "Our Photos" link. There are also a whole ton from Hawaii, still unlabelled--we'll try to get to that soon.

We Are Leaving Auckland - We Bought a Car - Please Send Mix Tapes

2006-11-13T18:40:00.000-05:00

Two days ago, we landed in Auckland, New Zealand. We have spent just over 48 hours enjoying the city.

We bought a car.

Ben is about to get on a plane to house-sit in Wellington (bottom of the North Island), while Joanna drives off to adventure in the upper parts of the North Island. They will meet up in about one month. We would be delighted if any of our creative and tasteful friends wanted to send us a mix tape that we could listen to while driving around NZ in our new used car (which used to live in Japan!) We mean real magnetic tape inside a plastic cassette, OK? Ben will have a stable address for a month, and if you e-mail him, he'll give it to you. Thank you, kind people, in advance.

We'll tell you all about Auckland later, but just now, Ben's got a plane to catch!

Aloha Also Means "Goodbye"

2006-11-09T19:41:00.000-05:00

Ben writes:
For two people living on a farm 6 miles from the nearest actual town, we've been updating the web log a lot lately, but we thought it fitting to put up one more post anyway, because tomorrow evening, we leave Hawaii. The day that we call Saturday will not exist for us, and we'll arrive in New Zealand on Sunday morning. Thank you, the International Date Line, for making Saturday disappear.
The boy in the photograph is named Nathan. He is 4, and is one of two children of a woman named Sylvie. His brother, Daniel, is 8, and the three of them were often on the Pohoiki farm during out nine days there. The kids were quite smart and fun -- Nathan often walked around singing songs about racecars smashing into things, and Daniel knows how to do a lot of practical things, like purify salt water, and make jewelry. They were a handful at times, but on balance we were glad to have them there. We got to like the other people our age there pretty well, but we are all kinds of ready to head off to New Zealand.
The goat in the picture is the coolest looking goat we have ever seen. If you have seen a cooler goat, please mail it to us c/o The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington DC. Thank you.

Oh, presently we are in Hilo, a small city on the east coast of the big island, home to a very pleasant hostel, and a $1 movie theatre, where we will head tonight.
We sent some extra things home to lighten our loads, and Ben has written about 2/3 of a song on the accordion -- his first! You will not hear it for half a year, though.
As usual, the pictures tell it better. We bought a big old flickr account, and now it's just a matter of finding a place with good bandwidth (not the library, it turns out).
We'll let you know about life in New Zealand soon, ok? OK!
Aloha, Hawaii!

Hippies are OK sometimes. Volcanoes rule!

2006-11-06T19:34:00.000-05:00

Joanna writes:

Well, we had a couple of fairly unhappy days here in Pahoa when everything on the "farm" (we've found that there are, in fact, a few crops, but I wouldn't really call it a farm) seemed to be decaying (vehicles, structures, plants, fruit, children), and a rain storm kept us from even going down to the beach, and stoned hippies were lecturing us about life and being generally unpleasant, but we stuck it out, and things are much better now. Yesterday we somewhat apprehensively followed the advice of the others on the farm and went to a weekly drum circle on a black sands beach about 6 miles away. It was gorgeous. Even just the road to the beach was spectacular, and the beach itself was lovely, too, very crowded with people in various stages of undress (this is a clothing optional beach) and children and dogs running around. The drumming was pleasant, and mostly people were just hanging out and swimming. The water was a bit hard to get into and out of, due to a large number of rocks, but it was totally worth it, as I got to swim with dolphins! Awesome.

Before coming to Pahoa, we rented a car and went to Volcano National Park, where we stayed at a beautiful free campground. The current lava flow is a 3.5 mile hike over the 2003 flow that took out a road and a town. It was actually really beautiful and fun to hike over the interesting lava formations, and we got to see the lava flowing into the sea a couple hundred yards away. Not as close as you can get sometimes, but quite spectacular nonetheless.

We are in Pahoa Right Now

2006-11-01T20:43:00.000-05:00

Ben writes:
Pahoa is also in Hawaii, but on the east coast of the Big Island. We got to this strange hippie farm yesterday, and we'll be here until we leave for NZ on the 10th. There is not much to report yet. The pictures will tell it better, and those (along with many) will most likely get posted when Ben gets to the house he is house-sitting in Wellington, NZ (yes, a new twist! all in good time...).
Our accomondation is our tent set up on a platform under a tin roof. It's a bit cramped. We have not yet identified any real crops, but there are animals around, mostly the goats, who are incredible-looking. Again, be patient. Pictures are coming.
The deal here is that for the first 3 days, we pay a few bucks, but do no work, so we are wandering around. Last night, we arrived to a pirate party for Halloween, and Ben got to take out his accordion for a bit, and we drank grog with the other pirates. Today, we walked to the ocean, and a guy from the party showed us a natural hot pool (warm, actually) just a few feet from the beach.
There is a lovely old dog who sleeps near our place. She is literally mangey, but we've been told not to worry about it. The other folks at the farm seem friendly, but we don't have a good sense of them yet. We'll tell you more soon.

They are only playing

2006-10-23T21:43:00.000-04:00

Ben writes: Joanna mentioned, I believe, that I was at a soccer game recently. Of course, due to my ankle (which is feeling much better but not yet well, to those concerned) I just sat and watched. These fantastic dogs befriended me, and I got great pictures of them playing with each other. I also met some nice humans, one of whom gave me a ride down in his VW bus, complete with cabinets, a guitar, and pictures of Hawaii on the celing.
Things are just moving along nicely here. It's our last week on this farm, and we will miss everyone quite a bit, but we're already getting excited for the farm in Pahoa, and to get to New Zealand.
We had a great snorkeling trip this weekend, our best yet, and it was at the same bay where I had a terrible time our first weekend. Clear afternoons are much better for snorkeling that cloudy evenings. Don't forget that. The reefs were full of fish, and we saw dolphins playing in the water, though every time I went out to greet them, they were elsewhere.
I updated some picture titles on our flikr account (see the pictures like at the right), and we'll try to do a big upload at Phyl's house before we leave.
In the farm, we are working continually to get the beds into shape, and it really is amazing what a difference our work has made. Maybe Jo mentioned that, too, I have not actually read her last posting.
We miss everyone, and we think about home a lot.
Aloha!

Earthquake and a Cow Break

2006-10-18T22:20:00.000-04:00

Joanna writes:

Well, according to the news, we've had quite a week here in Hawaii. Yes, folks, Ben and I have now bravely and valiantly Survived an Earthquake. Well, perhaps 'groggily' would have been a better adverb there. As it happens, the earthquake had only a minimal effect on us. It did wake us up early on Sunday morning and break a couple of the glasses in our house and keep us out of the ocean for a little while, but that's about it. That and the fact that the cows got a bit spooked and wandered off into the neighboring property, and Ben and Tom and Phyl had to go fetch them. (Ben could probably give a better account of that, but he's off trying to hitch a ride to a pick-up soccer game he learned about from a couple girls he met in town.) Amazingly, we didn't even lose our water, which we're getting quite used to due to the frequency with which Phyl runs over water pipes with the tractor.

After things had settled here on the farm, we walked down to a nearby cafe to scope out the scene and get Esther a muffin, as it was her last morning here, and apparently they don't have proper muffins in Germany. We had to wait a while for the power to come back on (we had gotten ours more quickly because we're right next to the hospital), but it ended up being a lovely morning with the entire farm family coming down to join us. Now Esther is gone, which is very sad, but at least we have a great excuse to visit Germany.

The only thing that has really changed since the earthquake (and may be totally unrelated to it) is the weather. It used to be pleasantly cool in the late mornings and afternoons, but now it's hot and sunny all day, and the air is much clearer, too--we got our first view of the mountain, which is usually shrouded in clouds. It's a nice change after the torrential downpours we had last week, but I've had enough, especially after getting my first sunburn today. We've been working a lot in the garden, hauling compost, preparing beds, planting, watering, mulching, and fighting the weeds. It's hard work, but rewarding.

We also got our first real experience with the biodynamic aspect of the farm. Well, the whole thing is biodynamic, but now we've actually helped to make the biodynamic compound, which is the lifeblood of the operation. We add it to all the water for new plantings. To make BC, Phyl put a pile of cow manure on a slab, and we all took turns turning it with shovels, four at a time, walking around it in a circle, for an HOUR. Luckily we had a high school class here to help with it. Then Phyl put the manure in a buried wooden box, added some special treatments (like calendula flowers that had been buried underground in a stag's bladder for a year), and covered it up. It will be ready in about three months. We're still not totally sure what we think of all the biodynamic principles, but they certainly seem to work. Luckily, Phyl and Catherine are both quite down to earth, and make it seem very normal and reasonable. I think a pretty representative quote for Phyl was when he was looking at some of the seedling flats, and exclaimed, "Woo-hoo! Look at those cabbages! In a couple moon cycles we're going to be kicking ass!"

In other news, the male baby goat is being castrated. With a rubber band. Apparently this is really how it's done. He doesn't actually seem that upset. Both of the babies will have their horns removed Friday, and then we'll probably begin to separate them from their moms at night so we can start milking again. Poor kids. I still love feeding them and playing with them, and am growing fonder of the donkey, too.

Well, hope all's well on the mainland or wherever you may be! There are a few more pictures on flickr--promise we'll really get that rolling as soon as we get some more time on a computer.

We were in Hilo for the weekend

2006-10-07T17:42:00.000-04:00

Joanna writes:

Hi everyone. As Ben mentioned, we went to Hilo (the biggest city on the island, pretty much directly across from where we are) last weekend. It was a darn good time, even if it didn't include very much sleeping.

Catherine is taking classes in Hilo to become a Waldorf teacher, so she offered to give us a ride over (us including Esther and Killion). We drove across the northern part of the island, took us through many interesting landscapes. After Kona, the road enters a vast black moonscape of old lava flow where hundreds of people have left graffiti in pieces of bleached white coral. There are occasional stands of palm trees that look very out of place, but apparently the beaches are great, so lots of rich people live there. Then the road goes through Waimea in the northern part of the island, where the weather is absolutely ridiculous. One moment it will be beautiful and sunny, and the next there will be horizontal rain. The landscape changes to bright green honey pot hills where cattle graze, and the trees grow bent over from the wind. Then the vegetation gets much lusher and rainforesty towards Hilo, which often gets the distinction of being the rainiest place in the U.S.

We had decided to camp at a hostel just outside of Hilo, but when we got there it was, of course, raining, and the prospect seemed pretty dreary. Luckily, though, Killion had some friends attending UHilo who were having a party, and offered to let us stay on their floor. It was very strange to be at a college party again. I guess I'll just leave it at that. The next night we camped at the hostel, and were very lucky to avoid much rain.

During the day on Saturday we rented bikes and went to a large and wonderful farmers' market in town, and then to a little beach with decent swimming. In the evening there was a free shuttle to the big music festival, which turned out pretty much the whole city, I think. Some of the music was pretty good (I think we liked the buskers in the food tent better than any of the big acts, though). Afterwards we went to the $1 (!) movie theater.

Catherine had gone back on Saturday, and we were very unsure of how we were going to get back to Kealakekua. However, as Esther says, everything just works out in Hawaii. We met a couple (Rick and Isabel) at the hostel who were going to Kona anyway, and took us along in exchange for sleeping on our couch. We even got to see some of the sights around Hilo with them that we never would have gotten to, like a couple of waterfalls and a lava tube, not to mention Volcano National Park. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any lava, as the flow had moved too far away from the viewing area. We'll try to get back there before we leave.

I'm afraid I've run out of time, and haven't even gotten to mention anything about the farm! Things are good, though--lots of planting this week. Last night we went to a party at a lettuce farm down the road (and I do mean DOWN like at least 500 feet)that also has WWOOFers. A very nice place with a big bonfire, and a beautiful night, but a little too much hippy for us in the long term. Well, I've been kicked off. More soon!

We are still in Kealakekua, and have been other places, too

2006-10-03T22:26:00.000-04:00

Ben writes:

Hi there. We don't have any neat pictures for you today, but we have a lot of things to tell you about. Last time we promised that we would fill you in on our time in Honolulu Chinatown. Well, the pictures (which will eventually be on flickr, promise) tell the story better, but here's a little: we took the bus from the airport, and got off when some other people did. We ended up not near the beach as we had intended, but near this port area, with some old naval ships, and when we looked down over the side, there were amazing colorful fish, and crabs magically climbing up the walls. We were like "We are in Hawaii! There magical creatures in the very first place we looked!" Then we walked to Chinatown, which has lots of neat food, and strange advertisements (be patient, they're coming), and a beautiful smallish park in which we would have eaten lunch, but every single area was commanded by a person with a shopping cart, and we were obviously tourists. We sat near, but did not go into, a botanical garden, and Ben took a crack at beautiful accordion music.
Then we got the bus, and the plane, and Catherine picked us up, and left us at a Starbucks (because of reasons) where Killion and Esther got us in a stick-shift pick-up, which Joanna then had to drive (because of reasons). Despite what she might say when asked, Joanna did a fantastic job driving on the dang highway, and then up the crazy rocky dirt road to the farm, after traveling for like 16 hours. Good work.

This truck is very old (93,000 miles), and Joanna drove it a bunch our first weekend out, when Phyl was gone, and Esther kept persuading us to go to beaches (good idea, Esther). We drive it all up and down the farm road. Maybe a picture is really what we need here. This truck is important, but words are not doing it justice.

We promised updates in other areas, too. So:
There is also a dog. She was an early fifth birthday present for Mikey, and she is named Happy Fairy. Guess who named the dog. We call her Happy, for short. She is extremely rambunctious, much like Mikey, and she always jumps on people, which Mikey does not do nearly as often. She is fun to have around, though Phyl is sometimes exasperated by her.

In the evenings, we mostly stay on the farm, or may make it as far as this here library. The librarian is horribly stereotypical, in that every little request or abberation is a Very Big Deal, but the facilities are nice, and they have a good collection of Hawaiian music here. We often stay around the house reading or writing in our journals. Ben tries to get up to the gardening shed to practice accordion. We spent much of the second week (this is #3) playing spades with Killion and Esther.

Of course, things have changed now, with the arrival of FOUR more WWOOFers. Perhaps it is too soon to tell you much about them, but Tom is an older fellow who is recently divorced, and taking a step back from things. We were a little nervous about the age difference, but he is also easy to get along with, and good at things like mechanics, which Phyl appreciates. The other 3 are some young ladies from New York state, by the names of Ann, Katie, and Kanya. They are maybe a year younger than us, and very friendly, and enthusiastic cooks. The house is now quite crowded, but so far we are making do.

We have not even gotten to the other neat places we went. We spent the weekend in Hilo, on the other side of the weekend, for a music festival. This may also have to wait, as this entry is gettin quite long. We will have wonderful pictures for you next time, dear friends.
Aloha!

Now we are in Kealakekua

2006-09-23T17:43:00.000-04:00

Here in Kealakekua, we are living and working on Farmer Phyl's Kona Biodynamic Farm. Just down the hill from the farm is the Kona Pacific Waldorf School, where Phyl's two children, Mikey (5) and Kelly (13) go to school. Of course, there is also Catherine, who is married to Phyl. She does a fair amount of farm work, and does a book-keeping job, too. Everyone is very busy.

There is a lot to tell about the place, and it is hard to know where to begin. The entire farm is on a slope, which means that we can see all the way to the ocean 1500 feet below and several miles away (it is often hard to tell where the horizon line is, and when you can tell, it is disconcertingly high up. We don't know what this means). The slope also means a lot of walking up and down hills, which we are getting used to. We live in an oddly constructed house in the middle of the hill, below the crops but above a lot of grazing land. Right now we live with two other WWOOFers, Killion and Esther (please don't laugh if that link does not work). Killion is 22, from Missouri originally, and now a resident of Hawaii. His family followed him here recently, and we got to go to the beach and hang out with them last night. He is also a great cook, which is good for us. Esther is 26, from Germany, and a prospective Waldorf teacher. Coming to Hawaii began as a joke, but then there were some reasons, and she did it. They are both easy to get along with, and we are glad to live with them. Soon there will be 3 or 4 more of us, and things will get crowded. We'll see how that goes.

Every morning, Joanna and Esther cut some wheatgrass from the wheatgrass rack on the back porch, and grind out some juice to bring to the teachers down the hill. Ben and Killion are meanwhile sending out the 4 cows for the day, changing their water, and (if the cows actually move) mucking their stalls; and then feeding and watering the chickens up the hill. Jo and Esther are the milkmaids -- but for goats!! Both of them gave birth to some adorable kids a week and a day ago (the goats did, not the humans). Milking them is a slow and arduous task. We end up covered in milk with only a bit in the bucket; if we're lucky, the goats don't step in it and we can strain it and drink it.

Ben and Killion spent the week weed-whacking an amazingly overgrown chicken pen, which we will refence next week, and give the poor things some more room to run around in. We also refenced some cows pastures. It is amazing how quickly the grasses come up here. There are entire vehicles that, having been left alone for a few months, are basically gone now. Seriously.

We have so much to tell, but our library time is running short, and we want to get a few pictures up. Coming attractions: the truck, our evenings, the beach, more about the animals and humans, and the fact that we spent an afternoon in Honolulu Chinatown.

Well, we got one picture up, and you have seen it by now. Joanna is milking a goat.
We'll try to do a big upload to our flickr account if we can find a place with a faster connection.

Until then: aloha!

California has yielded an accordion

2006-09-15T23:13:00.000-04:00

Ben bought an accordion! In Oakland! Check out the link to the right that says Our Photos to look at our photos, now and forever. Right now you can see some pictures of the accordion store and of us with Tom in San Jose.

We've been having a rad old time in San Francisco and Oakland with our friends Nick and Rick and Lydia. More to come.

We are in San Jose right now

2006-09-14T02:23:00.000-04:00

Here you see us at the airport in Boston.

Now we have finally made it off the East Coast and have begun our Journey. San Jose is warm and sunny and has a nice thrift store with nice ladies. It also has Tom and Ginger, Morse family friends, who have been lovely hosts, though we didn't see them enough. And, wow, talk about raging night life. We just got back from the sceniest karaoke place ever. A lot of pretty old people did a mostly really good job singing pretty old music, and everyone had a good time dancing, too. Then Ben and Jo (us) sang songs -- old songs! -- and they pretty much just sat there until we stopped. Nonetheless, it was a nice time, and then we walked back to Tom and Ginger's.
Tomorrow, we will be in San Francisco, and we will see our friends.
Pictures will come soon.

We Are in Concord Right Now

2006-09-07T21:48:00.000-04:00

We have not yet begun to travel. We are making all these lists, and then doing things to them.
We are Readying the iPod.
We are Making a Blog.
This is the Blog.
It is called "Ben and Joanna Are Somewhere Right Now."
Right now we are in Concord, Massachusetts.
In a week, we'll be in California. And then Hawaii.
There will be an update about looking at pictures.
Until then, we'll do things with lists, and say goodbye to our friends and loved ones.
The iPod is almost Ready.
This should be pretty rad.
Ben and Joanna