We're Published!

As you know, on March 29, 2009, Jeremy and I set off on the adventure of a lifetime. We travelled for seven weeks through Japan, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, and Germany (with a few other small stops along the way). I kept a journal and Jeremy took thousands of photos. Over the past couple of months, we compiled all of this into a book which is finally finished! If you have some free time (it's almost 200 pages) follow this link to preview our book: Fifty Days of No Work, Simply Fun. Click on the image where it says "Preview Book" and enjoy! (I recommend viewing it in full screen mode so you can read the text.)

Tall Ships

After way too many days of rain or clouds and cold temperatures, summer may have finally arrived in Boston. (Fingers crossed!) We took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to visit the Tall Ships which are currently on display in Boston Harbor. Jeremy had won 4 "VIP" tickets to the ships last week so we invited Dennis and Dianne to join us. Well, VIP probably isn't the right term, as they decided to give out free tickets to probably everyone in Boston, so it was very crowded! In addition to people, there were so many boats in the harbor trying to get a look at the ships. We were able to board the Russian ship which was the largest in the port, and we were amazed at how young the crew looked.





It was a great afternoon in the sun! That evening Meg and Andy came over and were our first official dinner guests. Meg had to catch a flight at 8:20, so we had a speedy dinner of Jambalaya and home-made mint chocolate chip ice cream for desert. Yummy!

Freedom Trail

It was an absolutely beautiful day in Boston yesterday. The weather has been pretty bad for the past several weeks, so we took advantage of the great day. Jeremy had suggested earlier in the week that we walk the Freedom Trail, Boston's historical walk through significant sites related to events of the Revolutionary era. The route starts in Boston Common which is by the Public Gardens, where we had our wedding photos taken, so we stopped there to see some of the beautiful flowers first. The trail itself is 3 miles long and takes you through Boston Common to the Massachusetts State House.
Just down the road is the Park Street Church which was built in 1809. Just behind the church is the Granary Burying Ground, established in 1660. Some famous people are buried here are John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin's parents, John Adams, and Samuel Adams. Around the corner from the burying ground is King's Chapel and Burying Ground. This site was originally a tiny church used by the King's men who occupied Boston to enforce British law. After the congregation outgrew the church, a new church was built around the original wood structure, which was then taken apart and the scraps were thrown out the window of the new church. Outside in the burying ground is the town of Mary Chilton, the first woman to step off the Mayflower.

Behind the church is the original site for the Boston Latin School, America's oldest public school. Boston Latin is now located behind Fenway Park. Some famous people who attended the original school include Benjamin Franklin, who was actually a high school dropout!

Further down the road, we visited the Old South Meeting House which was the site for many events leading up to the American Revolution.

Down the street from the meeting house is the Old State House. This is where Massachusetts' first Governor, John Hancock's office was located. The Declaration of Independence was also read from the balcony of the building in 1776. Just outside the building is where the Boston Massacre occurred, resulting in the death of 5 men. The next stop on the tour was Faneuil Hall. It was here that Americans first protested the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act. It was also here that my brother Jake, was officially sworn in as a lawyer in Massachusetts.
After a short walk through Boston's North End, we arrived at Paul Revere's house. Paul lived here with his 16 children after he purchased the house for 53 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8 pence in 1770. It was also from here that he departed on his momentous ride to Lexington.

Also in the North End is Old North Church, Boston's oldest standing church which opened its doors on December 29, 1723. It is still and active Episcopal Church. It was here that two lanterns were hung to warn patriots that the British were coming across the Charles River. (One of by land, two if by sea.)
We stopped for lunch in Charlestown to rejuvenate ourselves for the last few stops on the tour.
The USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides for her strength during the War of 1812. She is berthed in the Charlestown Navy Yard and makes a few trips out to Boston Harbor during the year. The final stop on the trail is the Bunker Hill Monument. The Battle of Bunker Hill is known as the first major battle of the Revolutionary War. We climbed the 294 steps to the top of the tower, which was built in 1842.
We really enjoyed our tour of historical Boston. There were so many sites that we see every day, but never appreciated for the history they held.

Relocation Management Specialist

We've been back in Boston for almost six weeks now. I can honestly say we have been busy ever since our arrival into Logan Airport! Jeremy started back to work almost immediately (he had a day to rest!) and I've been looking for a job and what I like to call, employed as the Ciaccia's Relocation Manager, getting our life in Boston into order.

We spent our first week living with Jeremy's parents. They were so kind to let us stay with them, as they are renovating their house and don't even have their own bedroom to sleep in! That weekend we went off camping for Memorial Day. This year was the crew's 40th anniversary of camping together. Amazing! (Obviously some of us weren't alive back then.)

Here we are with our shirts from the event:

Here we are, taking Avery, JJ, and Will to the playground. They loved it there!

Our next two weeks were spent living in a hotel about a ten minute walk from our condo. The hotel, The Courtyard Marriott Copley, was great! The staff was very friendly and knew us by our first names almost immediately. They provided us with a fridge for groceries and there were always fresh chocolate chip cookies in the lobby at 4pm. Unfortunately for Jeremy, now that we are in our place, I haven't provided him with freshly baked goods.

We moved back into our condo the second week of June and it certainly is good to be home! We decided before moving in that we wanted hard wood floors throughout our condo, so we hired someone to rip up the bedroom carpet and fix up the rest of the floors. We are so happy with our decision as the place feels a bit new again! We also decided to repaint all of the walls and trim. If you've been to our place before, the colors are very similar, but a bit warmer and relaxing. The task took me almost two weeks but I had the help of Jeremy's dad and Jeremy when he was able to get home from work early. Some other minor upgrades: My mom helped us to pick out drapes for the bedroom and our friends Brian and Jaynie gave us a slip cover that they never used. So our gross white couch is now beige and not an eye sore!

The kitchen gadgets were the first thing I wanted to unpack and I've been busy refining my culinary skills in my free time. I've been looking for budget friendly recipes as money doesn't flow freely these days, but it been fun trying new things! One of our favorites so far was Spinach Pesto and Pasta.

Jeremy celebrated his 31st birthday yesterday. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEREMY!) I wanted to treat him to blueberry pancakes for breakfast. I was so excited that I even dreampt about pancakes. I got up and got working only to fail miserably! With tears running down my face, Jeremy ate pancake scraps that I was able to pull from the pan and eggs. He was a good sport! On Sunday he'll enjoy a belated birthday dinner of meatballs (his favorite!), so hopefully I will redeem myself in the kitchen!

Well, that's it for now. Time to prep the house for some last minute drinks for the birthday boy. Check back soon as we'll update regularly with our adventures - even though they might only be as exciting as making ice cream - no more bungee jumping or helicoptor rides over glaciers for us for a while. And yes, I am actively looking for a job as an internal recruiter - if you know anyone who is looking for a recruiter, please let me know!

Home at Last!

It was not our intention at all to skip blogging about the end of our travels. Sorry for the delay.

After a couple more days in the Stuttgart area, we headed out of town on our way to Munich, where Jochen, Susanne, Jeremy and I planned to meet up with some friends from our time in New Zealand - a little Kiwi reunion! We stopped at Lake Constance for the night to enjoy beers and dinner with Jochen's cousin. The lake touches Switzerland and is close to Austria, so we were able to add two more countries to our list of "Places We Have Been".

Susanne and I enjoyed wine schorles (wine and sparkling water) and the boys enjoyed beers while we ate our fair share of sausages, pretzels and other delicious food. We took a gondola to the highest point in Germany, Zugspitze which is 2962 meters high. It was cold up top, but the views were great for a few minutes, before the clouds rolled in. We also stopped to see Neuschwanstein, the castle that Cinderella's castle is modeled after. Once in Munich we met up with Mascha, Jeroen, Stuart, Sander, and Mirjam for more food and lots of visits to the famous beer gardens.

We flew back to Boston on Sunday the 17th, gathered our overstuffed bags and headed through customs. We saw Jeremy's mom waiting for us with a huge welcome home sign. What we didn't notice immediately was that we had 15 other friends and family members waiting for us cheering and waving flags. It was a great, unexpected welcome home! We were whisked off to a local bar for some more drinks to wrap up our amazing adventure.

It really is great to be home. We had an awesome time traveling and hope we get to explore some more of the world someday soon. For now though, it's back to the real world!

Bonjour

As I mentioned in the last update, Jochen and Susanne organised a great BBQ on Sunday. We went out to Jochen's parents 'Estate' as thez call it, which is a piece of land they own, where they have BBQ's, etc. The weather was nice and sunny and we ate Pork Belly, Hamburgers, Steak, Chicken, Sausage, and various kinds of salad. We played some soccer as well and it was a great time. They all spoke some English which was good, because our German it's poor.

Our friends Mascha and Jeroen who live in the Netherlands were vacationing in France this week and we decided that it would be fun to meet up for a day. Susanne had to work, but Jochen, Erin, and I drove to Colmar, France which is a little over 2 hours from here and had lunch and hung out with them. We also got to meet Sophie again who is almost turning 1 years old. Colmar was a very cute town. We then headed to another small town very close (can't remember the name right now), but they are one of the best regions in France for wine. We tasted a few wines from Hugel which was the same kind that was served to Michelle Obama at the NATO summit. It was very good and Jochen bought a few bottles as well as Jeroen. We also ate some Flammkuchen which is kind of like a pizza.

We considered staying the night in Freiburg, Germany, but decided to head back home and just drove through Freiburg as well as the Black Forest.

Stuttgart

We've arrived in Germany and have been having a great time the past couple of days. Our flight landed in Frankfurt and we had the day to explore the city before our train ride to Stuttgart to meet up with Jochen and Susanne. We stored our bags at the train station and then walked around the town. We had some gulausch and a beer for lunch which was very tasty. Then while walking through the streets there was a man with a portable sausage grill on his shoulders. It was very cool, so I got 1 euro 30 out of my pocket and then bought a very good sausage...Erin got a picture of me which was great.

The train ride to Stuttgart was 1 and 1\2 hours and when we arrived Jochen was waiting right there to greet us and it was great to see him (partly because my bags were heavey and he helped out...haha). That night we relaxed with him and Susanne at their place in Köugen which is a smaller town outside of Stuttgart. (If you don't remember Jochen he was on secondment in New Zealand but came back to Germany 1 year ago.)

Germany has been great so far and although our German language skills are extremely poor, most people speak English so we've been able to get around. Although most people speak English, very little is written in English which is very different from all the Asian country's we travelled to, where many things were written in English.

Yesterday, Jochen and his Dad were able to use some of the connections to get us football tickets. Tickets are always very hard to get over here, but especially right now as the season is coming to a close. VfB Stuttgart is currently in 4th place and were playing VfL Wolfsburg who were in 1st place. So after they pulled some strings, they got us all tickets for the game and they were great seats (and free). The game was very exciting with Stuttgart winning 4-1. We then headed into the city to walk around, have a few beers and eat some dinner. They took us to a place which specializes in Swabian food (Swabian is the region of Germany that they live in). The food was delicious!!

Today we are having a BBQ with their families and hopefully the weather will cooperate.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all the MOMs or MUMs out there.

Zàijiàn, Sayoonara, Chum riep leah, Xin chào, Joi gin, Adeus, Good-bye to Asia

We can't believe that our time here in Asia has come to a close. We've had an amazing time here and the almost 6 weeks has absolutely sped by. Including New Zealand we've been to 6 different countries and 2 Special Administration Regions and been exposed to many different languages.

The last couple of days we spent in Hong Kong and then last night we spent in Macau. Our final 1/2 day in Hong Kong we relaxed and spent some time at the pool on the roof deck, then packed up and boarded the 1 hour ferry to Macau. We had booked accommodation at the Rio which was a good price and included buffet breakfast so we were looking forward to it. The Rio wasn't too bad, but compared to the Sheraton, it wasn't up to what we were hoping for. The hotel was slightly dated, but only a few years, so not too bad. At night we decided to check out the SPA floor, upon arriving a man came up to us and told us that it was only for MEN (you can all figure out what that means). I then said that we should check out the club and maybe have a drink...upon getting off the elevator a lady came up to us and say that it was an escort club and pushed the up elevator button for us to go back to our room...hahaha

We walked around the city and visited the ruins of St. Paul Cathedral, the War Barracks, as well as Macau Museum. Our last formal dinner in Asia was great and we ate at a Portuguese restaurant which was GREAT!! (for those who don't know Macau it is Portuguese) It's very interesting because all the signs are in Portuguese, but most people speak Cantonese.

We also headed to visit a bunch of the casino's and went to the Wynn, MGM, and Grand Lisboa (we gambled a little, and Erin was successful, but I was not).

Today we took it easy in the morning and then went over to Taipa which is an island attached by a 3.5km bridge. The Venetian is on that island and is the largest casino in the world (3400 slot machines, and 800 gaming tables)...it was absolutely huge. We spent about 4 hours there and really loved it, it was great.

We're now at the Hong Kong airport in the Cathy Pacific lounge waiting for our flight to Germany. We are very excited to see Germany and in particular Jochen and Susanne.

GOODBYE ASIA!!!

Hong Kong

We arrived safe and sound here in Hong Kong. It was late at night around 11pm when we finally made it through immigration and got our bags. We managed to figure out how to get to the hotel using the train which was nice and fast. We are staying at the Sheraton Hong Kong Towers which is very nice. Although we loved our trips through Cambodia and Vietnam, the hotels we were staying at were generally 1 star ones and the showers were not very good. We were very pleased when arriving here.

Day 1: We hit the ground running early in the morning and jumped on the Star Ferry which took us 7 minutes across the water to Central Hong Kong. After a little bit of a struggle, we managed to find the correct bus which took us to Ocean Park. It's an amusment park which is on the south side of the island in a place called Aberdeen. The park was so much fun and not crowded at all. We of course did all the fun rides including a roller coaster that went upside down 3 times. We also saw Panda Bears!
We then went up to the Night market and walked around through the various street vendors looking for some nice goods (We've purchased so much already, that we didn't end up getting anything). We then headed back to the harbour to watch the light show. Every night there is a really cool light show that happens from 8pm to 8:15pm on all of the buildings. We then had dinner at a pub on the water.

Hong Kong is MUCH more expensive than Cambodia and Vietnam and even mainland China. It's much similar to Japan, so luckily we aren't staying here for too long.

Day 2:
We decided to head to one of the surrounding islands and went to Lamma Island. It's a very small island and there aren't any cars on it. We walked 4k's from 1 village to another over the mountains, it was a lot of fun and the sun was shinning brightly. We then had some seafood lunch before jumping on the ferry back to the main island.
One of the highlights of Hong Kong is the Peak Tram. We decided to do this today as it was very sunny and would provide us with great views of the city skyline. WOW! that's what I have to say, there are so many buildings and the view is amazing. We took some nice pictures and then headed back down the tram. We went to some more outside markets and then back to our hotel to have a few drinks up on the bar which overlooks the harbour. We were able to watch the light show one more time, while having some drinks.

It's off to Macau tomorrow, and we'll probably head over around mid-day.

If you haven't been to Hong Kong, it's an unreal place. People always talk about all the shopping that's here, but I didn't really understand until I walked around a little bit. There are so many different stores, it's almost silly. Overall, we've really like our time here in Hong Kong and are looking forward to spending 1/2 day here tomorrow before hitting Macau.

Vietnam Done

I can't believe how long it's been since we last did a blog update. Sorry to all our faithful readers, but we have been very busy. Not only that, but the hotels where we have been staying do have computers, but they are in the lobby without air conditioning and it's difficult to sit there for too long.

We have just finished our time here in Vietnam and have had a blast. We are currently sitting in the Vietnam Airlines Lounge, waiting for our flight to Hong Kong. We are looking forward to heading north to cooler climate that's for sure.

We spent 10 days on the Intrepid Northbound tour with our leader Tuyen. He was a local from Ha Long Bay originally, but currently resides in Hanoi. Erin gave you all a brief summary on the people in our group and we had a great time hanging out with them. I'll run down some of the highlights:
-Arrived in Hoi An for a couple hectic days of getting our feet and bodies measured to have shoes and clothes made for us. We went to a corner store for our shoes close to our hotel and for our clothes went to Yaly's which is a large place. I got 3 pairs of shoes and Erin got 3 as well. I got 6 work shirts and a suit, while Erin got 2 skirts, a shirt dress, winter jacket, and a dress which she plans to wear to Tim/Jackie's wedding this summer
-We loved Hoi An as it's a very cute town. Erin, Mary, and I took a cooking class and learned how to make some great food and practiced our Chop Chop Chop of vegetables
-While walking through the streets, we saw a 2 year old boy pull his pants down and try and pee off the sidewalk into a puddle. Unfortunatly his balance wasn't so great, and we watched him fall directly into the puddle. We tried to contain our laughter, but when his mom started laughing, we figured it was ok...
-Drove to Hue where we toured the Citadel as it was the old capital of Vietnam. We also did a motorbike ride through the country. It rained a little bit, but this was a great highlight of our trip. I also tried to make an stick of insense, but failed miserably
-We jumped on the overnight train to Hanoi. Erin and I have had experience with these types of trains as you remember from our trip between Beijing and Xi'an. Well this train was very different. It was dirty as ever!!! It was a rather gross train ride, but a great experience for sure. Our bunk room was on train 10, but us and some of our tour mates spent a number of hours on train 0 (the bar train)
-Arriving in Hanoi, our rooms weren't going to be ready until 12pm, but we arrived at 4am. We shared a room with Justin and Zel just to take showers before heading to breakfast.
-We walked around the city and at night we went to the Water Puppet Show which is very famous here in Hanoi. We were in the front row, which I loved as we were right up close for the performance.
-We then headed on a 4 hour bus trip to Ha Long Bay, where we boarded a Junk boat. (It's a bad name, because the boat isn't actually a piece of junk) We spent 2 days and 1 night out in the Bay which is absolutely amazing. The weather was perfect sun the whole time and we were able to jump in the water, relax, and of course drink beers. The cabins were very nice and it was just our group on the boat which was really cool. We ate some very nice seafood dishes both of those days.
-We stopped in the Amazing cave out in the Bay which is a massive cave in a mountain, it was pretty neat, but very crowded with pushy tourists. We had a fun time trying to block them from passing us as they wanted to push through the crowds to get ahead. As you can imagine, Erin and I were good as this and didn't let people pass. Even if someone did get by, we would give them a little nudge and say a few words to let them know we were not pleased with what they were doing.
-Back in Hanoi we had our final dinner with our group and then said our goodbyes. Today we saw Ho Chi Minh's body which is currently being perserved (His wishes were to be cremated, but they obviously didnt listen to that). The security around it was very intense and we waited in line for about 1 hour.

We've had a blast in Vietnam and have enjoyed all of our experiences all the way from our time down in the MeKong to Hanoi.

Hope all is well with everyone and stay healthy.

Group Tour Through Vietnam

It's been a busy few days for us and we are already into day #2 of our 10 day group tour through Vietnam. Where did we leave off?

Oh yes, we had just finished a two day tour of the Mekong Delta. Our tour was a whirlwind and included finishing in the mud wearing traditional Vietnamese costumes, lots of tropical fruit, and a homestay with a local family. The trip was very nice, but it was hot hot hot, especially as we tried to sleep. At 5am the local announcements came on over the village's PA system. Needless to say, we didn't get much shut-eye, if any. Our second day included more delicious food and tropical fruit, plus a ride on a sampan (boat) through the jungle.

We met up last night with our group here in Ho Chi Minh City. Our group is very nice and consists of 2 Kiwis, 4 Aussies, 1 girl from the UK, one from Germany, and one American, who by chance also works at PwC (although she's living in Sydney). We enjoyed a traditional Vietnamese dinner while our guide Tuyen, taught us how to say cheers - they essentially say 1, 2, 3, Cheers!

This morning we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is where the town and soldiers hid from American soldiers in the "Anti-American War" as they call it here. We got to crawl into tiny hiding spots and through a very claustrobic tunnel, but it was a neat experience!

Tomorrow we take a tour of Ho Chi Minh City on a cyclo before flying to Hoi An, where we hope to get some tailored clothes made. We're having loads of fun, but wouldn't mind if the temps dropped a bit :)

The Kingdom of Cambodia

We spent 4 days 18th to the 21st of April in Cambodia (Siem Reap) to be exact. We had signed up for a 4 day Independent tour trough Intrepid Travel. We had heard great things about Interpid while in New Zealand so we were hoping that it would be nice. We arrived at the Siem Reap airport (very small) and walked off the plane to a rush of humid hot sticky air. We knew we were in for some hot weather as it was only 9am in the morning. Our guide, Kheang, and our driver, So, met us and we headed to the car. We checked into the hotel and then it was off to visit some of the amazing temples that the Khmer people built many years ago. We visited temples which were built as early as the 9th century. One of the main temples that are visited is Angkor Wat which is the largest religous monument in the world and was built in the 12th century. There were many other temples as well including the one which was used in the Tomb Raider movie.

Cambodia uses the Reil as their currency, but in actual fact, most places accept USD and the prices are in USD. There is also a lot of English used which is good, because the Khmer language is very difficult and is written a form of sanskrit which makes it difficult to read as well.

A couple of our highlights were visiting the temples of course, cruising on Tonle Sap River and seeing the boating villages which live on the large lake, visiting a local village, spending time at the night market, riding in a Tuk Tuk around town, seeing pick-up trucks packed with 30-40 people driving on the highway, and the cheap price of food, a full meals costs around 2-4 dollars (draft beer was 50 to 75 cents).

Cambodia was absolutely amazing and it's hard to put into words how much we loved the Kingdom. We would love to go back and see more of the country at some point as everyone we met was super friendly. We imagine that there may be some unfriendly people as every country has them, but we didn't find any.

We're in Vietnam now, and have just completed a 2 day trip to the Mekong Delta. We start our 10 day tour Northbound tomorrow night and will post more later.

China is done

We are finishing up our time in China and are currently in the Shanghai airport. We had a very nice time in Shanghai and is probably the one city that we have visited in China that we could potentially see ourselves living (probably not though). Seeing the difference between the Chinese and Japanese cultures has been unreal. They are so different in so many ways.

Our time in Shanghai started with a visit to the Bund area which everyone speaks very highly of. We unfortunately didn't think that it was very nice as most of it was under construction and very dirty. The city is preparing for the World Business Fair which is next May here in Shanghai. The US is being a little difficult right now and saying that they are not going to participate in the fair as they don't want to spend the money to build their pavilion.

We also went up to the top of the Jin Mao tower, the Shanghai Museum, walked around the French Concession, and went to the old city area. We didn't have a guide or do any tours here, so we managed the city on our own, using the subway which was very easy to use.

Here in Shanghai, there are a lot of people walking around the street asking if we want to go into the back alley's and buy watches, bags, etc. Erin and I created a little game with these people and as we saw them coming up to us, we would walk in two different directions and confuse them. It was very fun. Unfortunately there were times when we couldn't avoid them and they just don't take no for an answer. In one incident, Erin was rather frustrated and swatted the lady.

It's now off to Vietnam for 1 night and then to Cambodia for 3...Hope all is well with everyone.

Xi'an and Guilin

It's been a while since we have posted last, but we have been very busy doing things in China. I will put down some of the things in bullets below, and then add in a few stories.
-Took the overnight train from Beijing to Xi'an and shared a room with 2 Chinese people
-Maria (our English speaking guide) met us at the airport and brought us to meet our driver (Mr. Bai) and then we were off
-Saw the remains of a 6000 year old tribe at an archaeological site (the tribe was called Banpo tribe)
-Saw the Terracotta Warriors which were constructed to protect the Emperors tomb (there are over 6000 of them and were discovered about 30 years ago by some farmers)...AMAZING
-Rode a double bike on the top of the old city wall
-Ate lots of dumplings
-Saw the bell and drum towers
-Flew to Guilin and took a taxi ride from a scary driver to the hotel
-Took a boat cruise on the Li River (saw amazing mountain peaks, very beautiful)
-Walked around the streets
-Went into some caves, saw Pagodas, got stared at

We have done a lot over the past few days. There are a lot of children over here who wear pants that have a hole in the crotch area. The reason for this is that diapers are expensive and a lot of people don't have money for them, so they keep it open and the kids just go to the bathroom when they have to (very weird). We saw the first kid with this in Beijing, but here in Guilin, we have seen so many more with them. In Xi'an when we were in a restaurant eating dumplings and enjoying ourselves, I looked over Erins shoulder and saw...yes that's right a kid peeing on the floor of the restaurant...I'm not joking.

Erin and I have done a lot of things over our lives where people have been watching us from performing shows, solo's, playing sports, giving speeches, to guest lecturing. All of these events have resulted in people looking at us, but NEVER in our lives have we had so many people staring at us. It's unreal, at first I thought I had something on my face, then I thought my fly was open. None of those were it, I think that many people in Xi'an and Guilin especially may be visiting from a farming village and just haven't seen people as good looking as us...hahah

The other day we took the Li River cruise here in Guilin, we booked it through the Sheraton (where we are staying) and our tour guide was David. He was very nice and as we approached the dock area, there were probably about 1000 people outside getting on various boats. He told us that it's very important to stick together just like "sticky rice". From then on, Erin and I called him Sticky David. It probably isn't funny to all of you reading this, but trust me, Erin and I are laughing right now thinking about it.

Ok, that's it from us here in Guilin, we're off to Shanghai tomorrow morning. Happy Easter!

Last night in Beijing

It's our last night in Beijing and we've heard that no trip is complete without having Peking Duck (Roast Duck). So we went to this restaurant which is known for it and it was great. The cook rolled out the full duck (with head) and carved it right in front of us, very neat.

Today we also saw the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven. We also spent some time at the Pearl Market which is where you can get very cheap stuff.

At the Pearl Market, we were successful in doing some bargaining with the vendors, but the place is absolutely unbelievable. The vendors are so pushy, but actually very friendly. They really want you to buy their stuff, some of them actually grab your hand or arm to pull you closer and keep you interested in their stuff.

The currency here is the Yuan (more formally known as the Renminbi), but it's nickname is the Kuai (buck). 1 USD equals 6.8 Yuan or 1 NZD equals 3.9 Yuan. So if you remember our blog entry from Japan, you'll remember us mentioning that most things in Japan are very expensive well, here in China it's the opposite. We have been finding some less expensive meals which has been very good for our bank account.
-Lunch today for Annie, Erin, and myself cost 62 Kuai which included strawberry juice for all of us and 40 dumplings (so yummy). This equals 16 NZD or 9 USD. Don't get me wrong, you can pay a lot of money for certain things around here, but if you know where to go and you don't always have to get the top stuff, then you can get around relatively cheap here.

Tonight we got in the elevator coming back from the pool. A well dressed guy was in it on 1 side and an well dressed asian girl on the other. (only 1 button was pushed). He got off at his floor and she followed behind, but not very close and nothing was spoken between the two of them. It was very amusing. I've heard that there are a lot of girls that wait around nice hotels in the various cities waiting for business men to come and 'give them money'.

Tomorrow is our last day in Beijing and then we're taking the Sleeper train to Xi'an which will take 12 hours. We're hopefully going to go to the Olympic village and see the Birdsnest and the Watercube among other things before we leave.

Beijing China

We've learned our blogging lesson and have decided that waiting a full week to provide an update is just too long and results in too much information being packed into 1 blog. Thinking about our experiences in Japan and then reading our blog, we also feel that we've left out so many great things. As a result of this:

1. We will now try and blog every few days (we're still looking for a picture uploading option, but are concerned that we will not be able to find one. If anyone has any suggestions, please let us know)\
2. We have updated a few brief bullets with some more observations from Japan as we don't want that part our our trip to miss out.

-The taxi doors automatically open and close (don't try and do it yourself or you will be yelled at)

-Art displays should not be touched or you will be yelled at (Jeremy tried to roll a ball which he thought was a toy, but was actually part of the art work...ooppss)

-The word hai (pronounced hi) is said over and over again when listening to someone else speak. It means "Yes". Dave was an expert at this.

-Correction to the last blog where I was discussing the baseball game and said that the girl vendors were carrying keys on their back as they are actually carrying KEGS!

-We worked on learning some Japaneses words during our time there and my favorite phrase that I wanted to use was i kura des ka which means "how much is that". I finally used it, but somehow forgot that they would respond in Japanese and realized that I don't know the numbers in the language past the number 2, so that failed and I just gave her a bunch of cash.

Ok, now it's time for our China excursion for which I will hand the keyboard over to Erin.

Yesterday morning we said goodbye to Dave and Nikki and headed off to catch our flight from Tokyo to Beijing. We were able to enjoy some time in the lounge before boarding, so Jeremy tried his hand at the famous beer tap that so many people told us about. It pours your beer and then spits out the perfect amount of foam. It was neat, but we weren't really eager for beer at that hour. Our flight arrived in China in the early afternoon. Our driver, Mr. Wang was eagerly waiting for us and holding up a huge JEREMY CIACCIA sign. He didn't speak any English but motioned for us to follow him, which we did. The airport is about 30 minutes from the city. The drive was fine but drivers are insane here. We've never seen anything like it. Mr. Wang passes car into oncoming traffic just to get moving. It's scary stuff!

When we arrived at the hotel, our English speaking guide, Annie was waiting for us. We quickly checked in before running off to Tianamen Square. She wanted to make sure we could do as much as possible. Tianamen Square was very big - we think it's the biggest square in the world, but could be wrong. After walking around and admiring the square, Annie took us to Qian Hai Lake which is a huge pond surrounded by bars, shops and other interesting things. We walked around the water and tried a few different treats. One was a baked dough ball covered in sesame seeds. The other was a stick of berries covered in hard sugar - very good! Our last stop of the day with Annie was the Donghuamen Night Market, a famous market that sells all kinds of random foods from fried star fish to lamb skewers. We tried a range starting safe with the dumplings and ending with fried scorpions! They were very crunchy and tasted a bit like chicken.

When we returned to the hotel, we were pretty exhausted. We enjoyed a cocktail in the bar before relaxing in our very nice hotel room.

Mr. Wang picked us up this morning at 9 am. We drove outside the city to pick up Annie on our way to The Great Wall. The part we were going to is about 1.5 hours from the city. It is supposed to be less touristy as buses don't go that far. Well, it was busy, but nothing like other places we have seen in Asia. There definitely are a lot of people over here! We decided to take a gondola ride up to the wall as the walk is a steep 40 minutes upwards. We walked from tower to tower exploring the amazing site. We were really lucky to have a great sunny day and were happy that we packed a big bottle of water! When we got to the end of the section we were exploring we had two options - walk down or luge down. I bet you can guess which we chose. LUGE time!! The ride was similar to those we have done in New Zealand but we agreed that it was much better. We whizzed down the mountain in our little carts and had a great time.

Annie took us to lunch at one of her favorite local restaurants. We enjoyed a mushroom and chicken dish as well as a beef dish. The food was delicious but we struggled a bit with the chop sticks. Annie told us not to worry though as table manners don't exist in China, thank goodness for us!

Our next stop was the Summer Palace which is where the royal families spent their time to escape the heat of the city. This place was very busy. I noticed a sign that said they had 30,000 visitors yesterday and were expecting 15,000 today. There were so many tour groups. We laughed as many of them wore matching hats. We joked that we should wear hats so Annie wouldn't lose us, but agreed that my bright yellow t-shirt would stand out in the crowd.

We have been relaxing this evening. We enjoyed a swim in the hot tub and dinner at an Indian restaurant nearby. We also took some photos of a tragic site near our hotel. A fire in February engulfed the Mandarin hotel that was being built: News Story

Our time in China has been great so far. It is definitely a struggle not speaking the language, but good fun and full of laughs as well!

Week One of the Big Trip

It's been only a week since we left our jobs in New Zealand and the place that we called home for 2 years to begin our travels through Asia. We've done so much over the past week that it'll be very difficult for us to get it all in this post, but we'll try and put in some of the details to keep all you faithful fans/readers of our blog updated.


Australia

We departed New Zealand on Sunday morning 29 March. Brian was nice enough to drive us to the airport and have a coffee with us prior to sending us through immigration to the Qantas lounge. We made it to Sydney without any problems and took the train for our first time to the Hilton Hotel. The train was extremely easy and we would suggest that anyone who goes to Sydney take the train from the airport as it's very simple and cheaper than a taxi. We relaxed in Darling Harbour, had lunch, and then went to the gym, sauna, jacuzzi, and steam room in the hotel. We then headed up to the lounge and nibbled on food and had drinks. It was an early night to bed for us.

On Monday, we headed to Royal Botanical Gardens and relaxed overlooking the harbour, Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Bridge. It was a very relaxing day, before heading to the airport for our flight to Tokyo that night. As you know, we've spent 5 days in Sydney about a year ago over Easter weekend and saw most of the key things that we wanted to, so this short trip was primarily about relaxing.

Japan

We arrived in Tokyo at Narita airport at 6am on Tuesday morning. Dave and Nikki had given us very detailed directions on how to get from the airport to their place and they were perfect. As a side note for those who don't know Dave and I grew up together and him and his fiance Nikki are living in Tokyo for a couple of years for work. They have been there for a little under a year so far.

We arrived at their place and it was great to see both of them. Dave was able to stay home to greet us before heading into work for the day. We were lucky enough to secure Nikki's time for the day to be our personal tour guide. She did great, showing us around Tokyo. We were able to meet Dave for lunch at a little Korean restaurant for some Bibimbap. (Dave and Nikki just got back from a long weekend in Korea and this was their favorite food, it was very yummy) We headed to the Imperial Palace, Hibiya Park, and then to Ginza.

At night we met up with Jamie who works for PwC and his girlfriend Reika and the 6 of us went to this great restaurant called Inayaka in Roppongi. This was a cool place where all the food was cooked in front of us and the food was very tasty.

Kyoto

(Before heading to Kyot we went to Tsukiji Fish Market with Dave. This is a massive fish market and we got there around 5am so we could watch the tuna auction. There were so many tuna's there, it was unreal and the auction was pretty neat to watch, although I had no clue what he was saying). Later that morning Erin and I left our hosts and headed down to Kyoto for a couple of days. We took the train down as we had purchased the Japanese Rail Pass for our time here. It's Cherry Blossom season here in Japan and this is one of the biggest times of year. There are so many Cherry trees throughout Japan and Kyoto has quite a few. Kyoto is also known for it's many temples and shrines. We spent time in the Gion District walking through all the cute little streets and found a neat restaurant on Pontocho Street where we were able to have a Japanese pot where we cooked the food ourselves right on our table.

We headed back to our hotel and were able to stay in a Japanese Style room which was really cool. We walked in and the only thing in there was a short table. No bed was in there, but luckily Erin was able to pull the bedding materials out of the closet and make a nice bed for us.

The 2nd day was filled with more and more temples and we also saw the very special Golden Temple. We went back up to the Gion district and were lucky enough to spot a couple of Geisha's. They are amazing looking and it was cool to see how popular they were as all the tourists were crowded around them taking pictures. That night we found a place where we were able to have a Kaiseki meal which is a traditional Japanese meal with 8-10 courses of small amounts of food. I personally think that the highlight of the day was our lunch meal. We went into this restaurant and order our meals and drinks from a vending machine. We then sat down and a lady took our tickets. Before we knew it our food was there and for the price just under 20,000 yen (100 yen is around 1 USD or .65 NZD). The food was great and there was a lot of it. It was a big hit in my book.


On Friday we headed to Himeji where the biggest thing to see is a Castle. This castle was amazing looking and there were Cherry Blossom Trees all around which made it even more beautiful. This was the most crowded any of the sites that we had seen were and there were hundred upon hundreds of people in the castle, so we weren't able to move too fast within it.

We caught the 3:30pm train from Himeji back up to Tokyo to get back with Dave/Nikki. On the train back, we were lucky enough to see Mt. Fuji.

Tokyo

Upon returning, they had a huge schedule mapped out for the weekend with us, it was great. We had a few drinks before leaving and they introduced us to Chu Hi's which is an alcoholic drink which comes in various fruit flavours already mixed in a can. That night we headed to Jackpot for a very good meal of Tapa type plates. We then stopped at Luxus for a quick drink and saw the massive fish tank with the sharks and turtles (We were pretty bummed when leaving because we were only there for 1 drink and no one told us that there was a 1050 yen per person table charge). We then went to Shibuya which is the busiest street crossing in the world and spent the next 2 hours singing Karaoke.

Now I'm sure most of you are thinking that we were in some big bar with 1 microphone singing a couple songs...NOPE. We had a private room which was the same place that was in the movie Lost in Translation. It was just the 4 of us and we belted out some good songs. Erin was good enough to grace us with her great rendition of Oklahoma!

Saturday was a jam packed day and we started with a western brunch at Fujimamas and then headed to a great place to get some souvenirs. The meal was good, but I had a bad experience and wanted to have an orange juice, but didn't realize that it cost over 700 yen...yikes! Dave and I were pretty hungry after that, so we got a Crepe and we were generous enough to share with the ladies. We then headed up to this place called Asakusa and saw the Senso-Ji Temple and then did a River Cruise down the Sumida River which was nice and relaxing.

That night we headed to Roppongi Hills again to have some conveyor belt sushi. Let me tell you, the sushi here in Japan is absolutely amazing. I would have loved to sit there all night and eat it, but I don't think my wallet could have taken anymore. We had dinner with two of their friends Drew and Rio who were so nice and enjoyed hanging out with them and also hung out with them on Sunday. We headed up Mori Tower to the 52 floor which gave us a great view of the city at night. It was then out on the town for some drinks and we headed to A971 and Feria, both very nice up scale bars. We made it back to Dave and Nikki's around 2am, but we were all very hungry, so Nikki-the-cook made us all pizza and then ice-cream sunday's (Nice work Nikki)!

This morning we met up with some of their friends and headed to Kawasakidaishi to see a Falace festival. It was amazing how many people were at this festival and there was a parade as well. A very interesting experience to say the least. We then headed to Yoyogi Park for Hanami. This is a big party that happens when the Cherry Blossom's are out. We brought beer and a ton of food and relaxed in the park. On our way we saw some Dancing Elvis,'s girls dressed liked Baby Dolls, People giving out free hugs (Dave and I both got one), and much more.
We couldn't stay there too long as we had to head to the Tokyo dome for a baseball game between the Yomiuri Giants and the Hiroshima Carp. The place was very cool and there are these beer girls who walk around selling beer and carry a mini-key on their back...very funny. A foul ball almost found it's way into Dave's hand, but unfortunately it just hit the top of his finger.

Our time in Japan is coming to a close and we are headed to Beijing tomorrow morning. We've had an absolute blast with Dave and Nikki and they have been so wonderful to host us, allow us to sleep in their place, and tour around with us...THANKS!

A few observations about Japan:
-There are so many vending machines
-Things are extremely clean
-All workers are extremely nice and love their jobs no matter what they do
-The toilets are electronic and very advanced (heated seats)
-Very expensive
-Food is great
-The train system is wonderful

We hope to be able to write more from China...(Sorry we weren't able to put up any pictures, but we just weren't able to load any of our pictures onto Dave/Nikki's computer. If they are able to up load some of the ones that they took, we will put a couple up to keep you interested as I realize just reading my text isn't the most entertaining and there are also probably spelling and gramatical errors).

See you soon...

Can you believe that 2 years ago, we were setting off on our big adventure or big OE (Overseas Experience) as they call it here? We have enjoyed our experiences over here tremendously and would like to thank all of our readers out there for following our blogging updates throughout the years. We have greatly enjoyed our ability to update everyone with our adventures through our blog site. We will be posting updates during our 7 week adventure, but it won't be on a daily basis like we have tried to do here at times. Please keep an eye on the blog for updates.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone back in the US in a little under 2 months.

But, it's with great sadness that we leave both PwC and Hudson as well as this wonderful place that they call Aotearoa (The Long White Cloud). Take care everyone and see you soon.

Our little plants have a new home

While we have been here, we have had the great pleasure of owning 4 plants. Unfortunately the first summer we were here, we had a tragic loss and one of the plants died from lack of water while we were travelling. Despite losing her, we have been able to keep three plants alive and well and have watched them grown a great deal while we've lived here.

Tonight a new chapter in their lives has started as they have moved to live with Stephen and Deon on the first floor of Viaduct Point (our building). We think they will be very happy with their new owners and we look forward to getting updates as they continue to grow.

Stephen and Deon also decided to take something else off of our shoulders and buy our BBQ. If you remember back to mid-May 2007 we searched long and hard for a BBQ and finally found one that we were very happy with.

Tomorrow will be our leaving drinks which we are having for both PwC and Hudson. They will be held at Cargo Bar in the Viaduct which is a new bar that has recently opened replacing the Loaded Hog.

Farewell Dinner with the Jameses

Today started off with a jolt as we slept through our alarms, waking up suddenly at 7:30. We were able to shower and change and be out the door within 30 minutes which was a good record for us.

Our evening was much more relaxing as Deon and Steve (who are in NZ on secondment from the PwC office in Hartford) wanted to take us to dinner to say goodbye. Steve is off to a work training so he'll miss our leaving drinks on Thursday night. They very generously treated us to a wonderful dinner at Mikano, a restaurant on the harbor. We stuffed ourselves with appetisers, main courses and desserts. Then Steve and Deon gave us a bag filled with NZ treats like Tim Tams, Pineapple Lumps and Crunchy bars that we will take home with us. We really enjoyed sharing our last 6 months in NZ with Steve and Deon and will miss them a lot! They will be here for another year and a half, so be sure to check out their blog: http://onlyinnewzealand.blogspot.com/

When we got home from the feast, Jeremy had a very nice message on his phone from another one of our friends, Nate. Nate is here from the Pittsburgh office (and mad that I've converted from a Steelers to a Patriots fan) for two years. He'll miss our farewell party as he's off to Samoa for work tomorrow morning. We have enjoyed spending the past 6 months with Nate and will miss him a lot too. Check out his blog for some more NZ adventures: http://2yearsinkiwiland.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow is our third to last day of work which is hard to believe. Tomorrow night is our "free" night but it is our chance to pack our bags for travelling, so we will definitely be busy!

Last Working Monday

Today marked the last Monday that we have to go to work for a couple of months. What a nice day. It was also our 6th to last day in Auckland, which was very sad. Our final set of visas arrived, so we are all good to enter into Vietnam. We were getting nervous as the departure is very soon, so I was happy to receive that mail at work today!

I also had my last personal training session at the gym tonight. I was very sad to say goodbye to Jaimee as she's been a great trainer for the past year. I will miss her in Boston and will be looking to hire a sarcastic Aussie trainer if anyone knows one! :) She made me finish off the session with my least favorite exercise, but I promised to do a set for her when her baby arrives in a few months. I told her I would do the number of repetitions equal to her baby's weight. I'm hoping for a 5 pound baby!

Jeremy finished his workday with drinks with one of the partners he works with. I met up for dinner with Michelle who is Jeremy's coworker and our friend from California. She won't be around on Thursday night for our work farewell drinks, so she invited me to dinner which was very nice. We indulged on huge pasta dishes and red wine. Jeremy met up with us towards the end of the meal as well.

Tomorrow is another busy day for us. I have my last Integrity Selling training session at work and then we are off to dinner with Steve and Deon tomorrow night. Our friends are definitely keeping us busy in our last few days. Wednesday will be our night for packing!

Send us back to the US

We can't believe that we've been living here for 2 years and the time has come for us to say goodbye. Although we are very excited, it's also very sad. We had a very busy weekend which started on Friday evening with a dinner at Jackie and Jerry's house. They live in Birkenhead which is north of the city. We picked up a bottle of wine and some beers and headed up to their place. (As we've sold our car, we are currently borrowing Brian and Di's VW Polo) We had a lot of fun with Jackie/Jerry and Jackie made a great Green Curry.

Saturday was filled with cleaning and some last minute shopping. We also spent a bit of time preparing for the evening festivities which included a party at our place with a US theme. There were many purposes for this party but one of the primary ones was to finish our alcohol. We asked everyone to come wearing red, white, and blue and the rule was if you didn't come with those colours on, that you would have to eat a Wheetbix (NZ cereal bar) without any liquid as fast as you can. These bars are very dry and the challenge is to see if you can do it in under 60 seconds. Needless to say, all 16 people at the party tried the challenge (although most everyone was wearing all three colours), but no one was able to do it in under 60 seconds.

There were 4 key drinks which we had ingredients for (Horny Bull, Dark 'n Stormy, Cape Codder, and Gin Chiller). We also had some Jack Daniels (straight shots) and Bailey's (mixed with vanilla ice-cream). Erin had done a great job decorating and preparing some very tasty snacks for all the guests. We stayed at our place until around midnight and then headed into the Viaduct to a couple of bars.

Sunday we did a little more shopping and more cleaning. At night we went to dinner at Brian and Di's house up in Forrest Hill. We brought Matthew an overdue Birthday present and ordered some takeaway food. A very fun night with a lot of very funny stories.

Our last full weekend in Auckland is coming to a close and we are about to begin our final week of work. Stay tuned for more updates throughout our last week in NZ.

La Clique

Tonight we joined Kevin Martin, our friend from BU's study abroad program for La Clique, which is part of the Auckland Festival that is going on right now. The is described as a fusion of cabaret, new burlesque, circus sideshow and contemporary vaudeville. It was amazing!

Kevin had invited us and 7 other people who are supporters of the BU program in New Zealand. Kevin coordinates the study abroad here and arranges internships for students while they are studying. Last year, Jeremy arranged for one of the students to work at PwC. I had also been in contact with Kevin when we first arrived and was looking for a job. He has become a good friend to us, so it was sad to say goodbye. He does make it to Boston every so often, so we hope to see him on one of his visits!

The show was a mix of magic, acrobatics, singing, dancing and many other things. We sat at a booth towards the back of the room - thankfully as they picked on people who were up close! We would recommend the show if it comes to your area anytime soon.

Snooker & St. Patrick's Day

Today is St. Patrick's Day over here in New Zealand and like St. Patty's day anywhere, it's celebrated pretty big. We didn't have the day off which was a bummer, but oh well. I was able to share a couple of beers quickly at a pub and was able to convince the bartender that she should give me a really cool Guinness t-shirt.

Later on it was off to Ponsonby Pool Hall for a little Snooker. Since arriving here in NZ I've learned about the game of Snooker which is similar to pool, but played on a table which is much larger and has much smaller balls. Since hearing about it, I've been speaking with Phil about playing and finally we were able to get a time booked on the calendar. Phil's wife Lyndsay and Paul from Scotland were there as well as Erin. I was able to figure out the rules and played alright, but the rules are more than I want to write about on here, so please click on the link above for a little summary of the game written by wikipedia of course.

We have a couple pictures which were taken on my camera and I will load them tomorrow so stay tuned.

Busy Bees

Our last few weeks in Boston were very busy as we prepared to move to NZ two years ago. Well, things are pretty much the same as we prepare to move home! On Tuesday of this week, we enjoyed a delicious dinner with friends at the top restaurant in Auckland, The French Cafe.

Wednesday night was a night of culture with our friends who are in the the "Culture Vultures" group we are part of. It was our last outing with the group, so they will be busy recruiting two replacements to try out some more fun things in Auckland. We enjoyed a dinner of Thai food followed by ice cream cones before taking in Circus Oz, an acrobatics show. The night was a good way to end our time with the other Culture Vultures.

On Thursday Jeremy had a work event and I hitched a ride with Deon and Steve to the super market. It's not a big deal walking there, but the weather hasn't been too great the last couple of days, so the ride was much appreciated!

Last night we celebrated a pre-St. Patrick's day at our Irish friends Paula and James' house. We BBQ'd tons of food and played PIG on the neighbor's mini basketball court. Again, another fun night!

Jeremy is off at a beer festival today and I've been sorting through our goods to prepare for when the packers arrive in two weeks. It's amazing how much stuff you accumulate in just a couple of years. I'm happy I started this weekend too, as I only made it through the kitchen today. Hopefully I'll be more productive tomorrow!

Car-less

The big news for this blog is the fact that our car has been sold!!! It was an exciting Friday as there were a couple inquiries regarding our car that came through on Thursday evening. After speaking with one of them, he had an interest in viewing the car on Friday, so I came home and met him. A little under 2 hours ago, I was back in the office without a car. It was exciting to sell it and the fact that we sold it for only a little under we advertised it for, but it was also sad to realise that we no longer had a means for transportation. We celebrated our sale with a bottle of bubbles!

Saturday was not a very busy day, but we did make it to the gym and went to a number of stores throughout the city looking for some final Kiwiana things to purchase. We also went to the fish market and bought some snapper. Erin was able to cook up a nice meal for the evening as well.

Today was a relaxing day and included a trip to the gym as well as the grocery store. Although it was a little more difficult as we had to walk and carry our food home. In the afternoon we hitched a ride with Jennifer from PwC down to Drury where we went to an engagement party. Emma from PwC is currently working in Vancouver and got engaged to her boyfriend Tim while in Canada. They have come home for a visit and had a little party at her parents house. It was good to see them and a fun afternoon.

Ouch - shots!

To prepare for our move and trip to Asia, we have many things to do. This morning we had a doctor's appointment to determine which vaccinations we need for our travels. We were given a DPT vaccination and also a blood test. The blood test will be used to see what other things we are/are not immune to. The results will come out on Friday - hopefully we don't have to get any more shots, our arms are sore! We also received a prescription for malaria pills. We will take the pills two days before entering Cambodia (our first "malaria risk" stop) and then for a month following that. As much work as it is to prepare, we are happy to do anything to avoid getting sick.

We were also very pleased to receive our Chinese visitors visas today! After they arrived, we tackled the paperwork for Cambodia and shipped those documents off. With our short time frame, we are hoping everything works out! To celebrate that we received our first of three required visas for our trip, we went out to dinner. Even though the visa is for China, we ended up at a Japanese restaurant. The food was delicious and we enjoyed a nice view of Auckland's harbour while we ate. We tried some new things including snapper sashimi and ostrich carpaccio. We are really looking to tasting even more delicious things in the coming weeks!

We also posted our car for sale! We will be sad to say goodbye to our reliable friend, but will be happy to pass it on to someone else who is as eager to tour New Zealand as we were (or someone who is willing to pay what we are asking for that matter!) Here is the ad for our car on TradeMe, which is New Zealand's equivalent to eBay: Holden Vectra for Sale. If you know anyone in New Zealand who is looking to buy a car, please send this along to them!

Stumps, Overs, Bails, Wickets, Bowling

What do all those terms mean? They all refer to the 16th century sport called Cricket.

Tonight I played in my first Cricket match and it was a lot of fun. I play on a PwC team who plays against other business teams in Auckland. We've had 2 games so far in the season, but I have been busy on the other days so wasn't able to attend. It was a great night and we WON!

We scored 162 runs and they only scored 100.

OK I'll give you a few details about the game...if you're interested.

• There's various kinds of games (20/20 cricket, 1 day test, 5 day test matches, etc.)
• 6 balls (pitches) per over (20/20 means that there are 20 overs)
• The wickets (stumps) are the 3 sticks at each end of the pitch (bowling lane)
• The Bails sit on top of the wickets
• If you hit the ball and it rolls over the outer circle you get 4 runs
• If you hit the ball and it goes over the outer circle in the air you get 6 runs
• When you hit the ball, you get as many runs as times you can run back and forth

Our PwC games have some similar rules, but it is co-ed and you have to have at least 2 females on the field for each game. There are 8 ball per over and only 14 overs per game.

Not sure if you guys got any of that, but please let me know what kind of questions you have and I can answer.

Derby Day

We had high hopes for this weekend being a busy one, but heavy rain and wind on Saturday caused all of the events we planned to attend to be cancelled. Fortunately, The Auckland Cup was only postponed a day, so we were able to enjoy a sun filled afternoon today cheering on our favorite horses. We had a fun day at Derby Day (or Darby Day as it is pronounced here.) We bet on four races and won three times! It was a lucky day for us. They also had a fashion show with some of the ladies’ showing off their own Derby Day designs.

The rest of our weekend was filled with housekeeping tasks. Because we only have four weeks remaining in New Zealand, we are busy preparing for our return home. We washed a took photos of our car so that we can put it up for sale, planned more of our trip to Asia and Germany, and spent some time taking in some views in the city from a little hideaway we found across the harbor from our house.

As we drove back home tonight a song came on the radio: Massachusetts by, the Bee Gees. We found the lyrics rather fitting but the timing of the song…a coincidence??

Feel I'm going back to Massachusetts
Something's telling me I must go home
And the lights all went out in Massachusetts
The day I left her standing on her own

Another one bites the dust / Sailing

Tonight we had dinner with Gareth and Claire before they depart New Zealand to head back to Manchester. They are spending about 8 weeks travelling the US before arriving back in the UK. We've enjoyed hanging out with them and they'll be missed. But we enjoyed a final meal in NZ with them at Kermedec.

In addition, I went out on one of the partners sail boats today. He has a 40 foot Beneteau which is actually the same kind of boat that Erin and I got our beginner sailing certifications one. It was a beautiful day on the harbour and we stopped at Motuihe Island which is in the harbour and me and another guy (Cameron) went for a quick swim. Check out some of the pictures below:

Stephen, Cameron, Valerie

The City

Rangitoto

Hanging over the edge

Rotorua

We have a few final things to see on our New Zealand list. This weekend our task was to go to Rotorua, a city south of here, to see live kiwi birds. The kiwis are in captivity, but we heard from our friends we would be able to see them in an open air enclosure, which is the closest we would ever get. Rotorua is also one of the Pacific's most active thermal regions and is surrounded by mud pools, geysers, and hot springs.

Our first stop when we got to Rotorua on Saturday was to visit Rainbow Springs Nature Park which is where the kiwi birds are. A ticket to the park is good for 24 hours, so we spent some time walking around the park looking at trout, native birds and other random farm animals. We went into the nocturnal house and finally saw a live kiwi! It was behind a glass wall, but we couldn't believe our eyes - it was so much bigger than expected. We had been looking for something the size of a softball but this was the size of a rugby ball. We still wanted to see a kiwi up close, so we kept our tickets for the evening show, when other kiwis would be running around their open air enclosure. (Sadly no photos of the kiwis, as it was dark when we saw them and we weren't allowed to use a flash!)

Small Wallaby

Erin and a friendly donkey

The next stop on our trip was to the gondola and luge in Rotorua. This is very similar to the one that we have visited in Queenstown, but the luge ride is MUCH longer. We had purchased three rides each, but the rain started to fall and we were a bit tired with luging after the first ride so we decided to give our remaining tickets to some strangers.

We hit the road for our hotel, which was 15 minutes outside of town. After checking into our hotel, we grabbed our bathing suits and towels headed off to the Polynesian Spa where we had booked a private hot pool. The hot pool was very nice and we had secluded views of the surrounding bubbling mud pools. It was very hot, so when our allotted 30 minutes was up, we were ready to go.

A large chess set at our hotel

Our private hot pool

Next stop was dinner in town. The rain had stopped so we sat outside at a cafe where there was live entertainment. We enjoyed dinner until sun-down when it was time to head back to Rainbow Springs to see more kiwis. The park was lit up with blue, green and red lights which made it feel very exotic. When we entered the kiwi enclosure, we didn't expect to see much, but were lucky enough to see three more kiwis scampering about. They are nocturnal animals so they were out looking for food and other exciting things. They certainly did move fast!

After a long and exciting day we were ready for bed. It was back to the hotel for us as we had to get up early on Sunday for more thermal explorations.

Sunday's adventure was a visit to Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland. At the park, we walked through bubbling and hissing pools, steam vents, craters, and other exciting things. We felt like we were on another planet. At 10:15 we joined the other visitors at Lady Know Geyser as she erupted and hit a height of almost 20 meters in the air.

Jeremy checking out the sites

Devil's Bath

Champagne Pool

Mud Pools

Exploding geyser

Our weekend was a busy one and we are finishing it off by doing more research for our trip to Asia in just a few weeks. We hope that everyone else had a nice weekend!

Touch Rugby Career is over

In November of 2008 I began my touch rugby career. I played with a number of people from work and we got off to a good start with a couple wins in the first few weeks. We then lost a game and I was pretty upset as losing is never good. Overall my first season was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it.

This year I played again, but unfortunately our team was very bad and not winning a game became all too common. My last rugby game of my career was this past Friday night and I was playing on another team which we won with a final try with no time left in the game. It was a great win and a good way to end my career.

Unfortunately I injured my finger in one of my last games and it still hasn't gotten better. I went to the doctors and he's told me that I have to see a physical therapist (physio as it's called here). It sure does sound strange, but yes, I have to see a physio for my hurt finger. I have an appointment for Monday, so hopefully they can help make me a speedy recovery.

Everyone over here has told me to take Rugby back to the US and to start up a touch league in Boston. As much as that sounds like fun to me, I'm pretty sure it'll be difficult to start up a touch league, so I'm guessing my career in Touch is over (at least for now).

Squid

On Saturday we were hoping to watch the final races of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series on the boat of two partners that Jeremy works with at PwC. Unfortunately the weather didn’t pan out the way we had hoped and there was lots of rain, so our trip was cancelled. We spent the day at home avoiding the rain but our afternoon was interrupted with lots of boat horns blasting in the harbor. We ran outside to see what the commotion was (the rain had finally cleared) and found out that New Zealand had won the race! There was a celebration right around the corner from our house where the race boats were being stored, so we joined in the cheering for a little while.

That evening we got dressed in our Valentine’s red and pink for a farewell party for our friends Gareth and Claire. They are leaving Auckland this week to return home to the UK. Their trip home will take them through the US for several weeks of travelling. We started at their house before heading to a couple of bars in the city. It was a late but very fun night for us.

We topped off our weekend with a delicious lunch today at Squid Row, a seafood restaurant that we’ve been talking about going to. We both filled our bellies with the salt and pepper squid, which was fantastic. We really will miss all of the good restaurants around Auckland!