Rotorua

!@)(#*!)@($&!(~!#$&!*#%~!  <time machine to February 5...

So I'm in Rotorua. The first thing you notice about this lovely place is the smell. It literally whacks you in the face as soon as you get off the bus. And then you think you get used to it, but it occasionally just sneaks up on you again and....BAM. What's that smell you're asking? Sulfur. Rotorua is a "hotspot for geothermal activity" so you get the lovely smell that comes along with it. It does make some cool hot springs, boiling mud pits, and steam thingys though.

I had a day and a half in Rotorua and it kind of ended up jam packed. I wandered (my standard whenever I arrived somewhere new....I found it was the best way for me to have any idea where I was, as maps are only semi-helpful)), then went to church, then tea (dinner). The full day I had was Waitangi Day. A national holiday similar to July 4th in the States. It celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, which guaranteed rights and land to the Maori people. (If you would like further info go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waitangi_Day) Ya, I am basically like educational and entertaining....tell all your friends. kidding:) But anyways....so the town kind of shut down, but I went to a picnic with some contacts I had there. They proceeded to take me on a 6km walk that almost killed me. Soooo steep but it provided pretty spectacular views of the lake so 4 weeks later, now that I have recovered from the soreness and can breathe normally again, I can say it was worth it:)

View from my hostel...

Some schweet random graffiti, that they probably don't appreciate, but  I do.

And people wonder why I'm scared of birds....

A hot spring. They have like parks in the middle of town just full of them. And more on the lake. And more if you drive. And basically they're EVERYWHERE.

Walking along the lake. It literally was hard to breathe while taking this pic. It smelled.so.bad.

Me. not breathing.

You can see the steam? maybe?

And more....

Whaa?? no TOMs?? weird I know.

Steam across the lake.

Trying to get rid of that awful smell.

Please tell me we have one of these back home??

Their fabulous looking museum.

View of the lake after my 6km walk!!!

gorgeous.

Some friends in Rotorua.

After that, there still was heaps to do in Rotorua. As this was the home of my much-awaited ZORB ride. I had driven past it on the bus ride into town and honestly it doesn't look like much. Giant plastic bubbles rolling down a hill. Yep. But I felt a weird compulsion to do it since I had already told everyone I would and its like one of the only places in the world to do it (according to their PR department....) They drive you up the hill. I hopped in my giant bubble (well more like flopped....it's hard to do so gracefully, or maybe just hard for me). I chose the dry option...mostly because I had forgotten my swim suit. So they strap you in and just tip you down the hill. After about 1/2 a roll you can't tell which way is up or down. Super disorientating and thankfully I don't get motion sickness or I might have ended up doing a wet ride anyways... 3 minutes later your hopping out at the bottom! It actually was a lot of fun and I'm super glad I did it.

yep.

so clever:)

Me and my bubble:)

This is someone else....but mine looked exactly the same.

But wait there is more....next I decided to BUNGY!!!! I had been planning to bungy in Queenstown, but they had a place to do it here and it was like half the price. Since it was for 2 minutes of my life, and I wasn't sure I wouldn't barf/hate it/have a panic attack I thought it was probably okay that this one was slightly less awesome. With this one they have like almost a crane with a platform attached to the end. So they lower it, you hop on, take you up, then you jump (or if your me ....kind of fall) off. The guy was trying to keep me chatting as I'm sure he is used to people thinking too much about it and freaking. But everything I said, he  just said was "choice" their equivalent of awesome. (I dare someone to start it in the states. ready.go.) And I was doing fine until we got to the very top and I had to start walking to the edge. At that point I was like what the heck am I doing. But I walked to the edge and basically didn't stop. I looked at the view for maybe 2 seconds then just leaned forward annnnndddd down I went. I screamed solid until the bungy caught me, but after that it's just amazing!!!!! I absolutely LOVED it and would for sure go again!

The bungy tower from far away...the crane looking arm on the far right is it. 43m up:)

Me and the "choice" dude....I think he looks like a hun from Mulan in this pic....

Freaking out at the top!

I was going to just put up a few, but how could I possible choose?? so you get them all. I'll spare you from the video though.

Here goes...

best.face.ever.

Still screaming my head off at this point.

Yes it caught me, and yes I'm sooo glad it didn't break.

I think this is the point at which I start actually enjoying it.

Just bouncing. you know. normal stuff:)

Hello.adrenaline high.

 Thank goodness Mavis (see cute lady below) was awesome and took me to some mud pits and a hot spring, which they cool a bit and then run into pools. It was a lovely way to end my crazy adrenaline filled day.

Boiling mud....no we didn't get in this one.

So cool.

Mavis...my Rotorua grandma:)

Sorry for the picture overload and the out of order/time machine jazz. Just think only 6 cities left in NZ!!! and then just try and imagine me doing all of that in 2 weeks. Ya. dumb idea:)

I.LOVE.SYDNEY.

Wanna know why???
1. The weather today was gorgeous. Warm but not too hot. Practically perfect.
2. I live in Eastwood, which is basically Chinatown/Koreatown/Asiantown.....still not exactly sure.
3. Andrea introduced me to Chatime. Delicious iced tea on a hot day. If your in L.A. hit it up.
4. We kinda sorta got lost and probably ended up in a cooler or equally as cool place as we had intended.
5. We found thee.most.fabulous.mall.ever. Imagine the perfect mix of quirky, classic, and ridiculously high-end shops that you only look through the window of. Then imagine 10x better.
6. The mall had uber cute cafes on like every floor....and there were 6 floors.
7. This magical mall contains a chic high-end food court. Where we ordered things and due to strong-unknown accents had almost no clue what we were getting.
8. We got to sit in Sydney harbor and stare at the awesomeness of the harbor bridge and opera house.
9. We watched a play in the opera house. With amazingly talented actors. And it was funny. And deep. And straight up awesome. And we were in the opera house.
10. We ate dessert at Max Brennar's. A chocolate restaurant. So. much. goodness.
11. We found a convenience store with dr. pepper!!!!!
12. We rocked the train AND managed to catch a bus to get home.
13. Sydney manages to pack this much spectacularness into ONE day.

Here are some pics from my love affair with Sydney.

The play we went to see.....uh.may.zing.

just chilling in front of the opera house...

chocolate overload in a brownie sundae form.

even her cappacino was covered in chocolate.

Yep, I'm gonna end this list on lucky number 13...get over it. I could give you a at least twice as long about all the people/things I miss from back home, but I'll try and keep this positive. So the lesson you should take from this post is: COME SEE ME! Seriously put Sydney on your list of places to come.

The end.

P.s. sorry/your welcome for like 15 posts in one day.

Waitomo

I'm sure your thinking "Why-what-o???"....but hold on too your computer chairs....
(@!*$&~^$@*&#)!@$*!@(#&~*^!@~(*!@&#)@$   <that's right it's the time machine again!!!!
So now we are wayyy back to February 4!
And I have just arrived from Auckland to Waitomo (pronounced why-toe-moe...in case you want to speak Maori). Waitomo is a little tourist/farm town famous for it's glow caves. There are over 300 caves in the area and I think most of them have these things they call glow worms.

But backing up to before my glow worm experience. I got to my super cozy hostel and this was one where I had booked a tent for the night. I was pretty psyched and thinking I'm pretty hard core. When the lady is like, "okay, go ahead and set your tent up anywhere." And I'm like "whaaaa???" because I never remmeber reading that it was B.Y.O.T. (bring your own tent) and tent hostels do exist!!! So it's not like I'm completely dumb. Anyways....needless to stay I did NOT have my own tent, but thankfully it wasn't full and she was able to squeeze me into a dorm. So after settling in and walking around town a bit. (literally it was soo small. one main road.) I went on my caving adventure!

This was one of my highlights from New Zealand. SO. AWESOME. So I booked an extreme caving adventure. It started with rappelling 30+ meters. (Which I had never done before! It was a little scary just dangling over a whole in the ground, knowing that the guy at the other end was waaaaayyy down there. So in probably the most ungraceful way ever I rappelled/slid down the wall of the cave until I pretty much landed on my bum in the bottom). Then walking through the cave a bit (always love stalagmites and stalactites....even though I can never remember which one is which). Then a flying fox a.k.a. zip line into more of the cave (Except they hooked us up and then made us turn out our head lamps...so we were flying into the pitch black cave not knowing when we were going to stop!! And the first guy that went hit the pile of tubes waiting at the bottom with his feet, so all we heard was a giant WHACK....super comforting). Then "black water rafting" or tubing down the river to enjoy the glow worms.

They are beautiful in the caves and kind of look like stars in a night sky...except better:) When we are in the pitch black at the bottom they go ahead and ruin the moment by telling us they are not actually worms, but fly larvae....or maggots. and that the part that glows is the poop. So we are all sitting there enjoying shiny poop. But thankfully camp has made me able to appreciate that:)

Then after relaxing we stumble our way through the water for a while to some waterfalls we had to free climb up to get out. Needless to say I felt pretty extreme after all this:) But I have never been so thankful for a wet suit in my life. The air temp was like 13 Celsius and the water was even colder. So I very much appreciated my warm shower/hostel after.  Met some awesome peeps in the hostel that night and the first Americans I had seen traveling there as well. A girl on my cave tour was originally from Gilbert even!!! crazy.

You couldn't take pics in the cave but here are a few from my day in Waitomo...

Beautiful. It's hard to get tired of soo much green.

My neighbors. Literally right across the road from my hostel.

Waitomo....not the biggest town ever:)

Proof that I was there:)

Apparently they have heaps or rabbits.

The ONE main street.

Went for a walk to a look out and this little buddy was my companion.

From the look out.

Because I can:)

Yours truly decked out in all my gear on the far right. It was such an attractive outfit....

Yes it really is "Cans"

According to my mother's travel agent, Cairns was actually pronounced "Cans". And silly me thought "surely not!" Because why would they put the "ir" there if only to completely ignore it. But no....they really do say Cans. Anyways, that was your Australian English lesson for the day.

But Cains was absolutely amazing!!! We woke up super early Friday morning to get to the airport on time, which is never too much fun. But worth it. Cairns is a much smaller town than Sydney so not too difficult to find our way around. It is a super tropical city. When we were there it was hot and humid, felt similar to Hawaii almost. They get really short, random rainstorms so it is really green, and lovely:) Right in Cairns, they don't actually swim in the ocean. You can take a lovely walk down the esplanade right next to the beach. And enjoy the swimming pool and park right next to the beach. Even stay in lovely hotels with gorgeous views of the beach but you can't get in. We were mostly confused by this. As two girls from beachless-Arizona, we would use a beach if it was RIGHT THERE. But we heard multiple reasons from locals as to why they don't you can pick your favorite or do some research and figure out which one is actually correct:)
1. it is dirty
2. there are too many jellyfish
3. it is mud and not actually sand
4. the government is trying to cover up Atlantis, which actually exists right off shore
(p.s. above is a fun game of 3 real reasons and a lie...guess which one yours truly made up because it sounds awesome??)

Moving on to the real reason we went to Cairns in the first place. THE GREAT BARRIER REEF. So Saturday we went out on a boat. The spots we went too were two hours out from Cairns. And of course it was raining when we left the dock, but thankfully cleared up after we got 15 minutes out. The first spot we went to we snorkeled a bit and then did an introductory dive! It was AMAZING! So for our dive, since neither of us are certified we went down with an instructor who kept track of all the obnoxious gear that keeps you alive and we just got to be chilling looking at all the fabulous fishies and coral! We never went deeper than probably 20-30 feet. But it was sooo awesome. We didn't take underwater pictures, because lets be honest they always turn out crappy and never do it justice anyways....so you'll just have to come see for yourself:) But this 30 minute introductory dive convinced us both that we want to go back for a week on the reef to get certified (anyone want to join us??). Andrea thought about the underwater submarine ride at Disneyland to keep from freaking out while diving and I couldn't help but think of Finding Nemo the entire time...so clearly Disney has changed.our.lives.

After this spot we hopped back on the boat and went to a teeny tiny island with more birds than I've ever seen in my whole life. Literally it was like my worst nightmare in an island form. Needless to say we did not visit this island, however we did some fantastical snorkeling around the island. And then a boat ride back! Honestly one of the best days ever....and we only got slightly roasted!!! SUCCESS!! (and it was jellyfish season apparently. So pretty much everyone paid to wear these truly horrid stinger suits that covered you from head to toe. and we opted out...because well ew. and didn't get stung!!! so ya, we like to think we live on the edge and face death on a regular basis!)

So picture taking mostly failed in Cairns. We were just enjoying ourselves too much to take pictures. Sorry:) But here are a few to entice you to come...

So in downtown Cains they do like exercise classes....so all these people are doing ZUMBA!!!! It was awesome! and apparently a few weeks ago they set a record for the most people all doing something ( zumba maybe?) in one place. legit.

Dive equipment....sooo heavy. walking the two feet from where we put it on to the water was so not fun.

On a boat....one of the best places ever.

Ya we're pretty happy about it...

Our tour was like Passions of Paradise or something...pretty awesome, highly recommend it. Although honestly if you get this far I'm pretty sure any of the tours would be good...

Because taking a feet picture everywhere I go has become an obsession. And no I don't have a feet fetish.

I like to call it the island of 10,000 birds...who knows what it's actual name was. (All that black stuff...birds.)

black things = birds.

So ya, lame pictures. But it was a fabulous weekend and we loved it! School starts today...but I don't have class:)  We are catching up on some laundry and all that jazz and then off to explore Darling Harbor...because doesn't it just sound darling?? (bahahaha.I'm soo funny. now I know why your all still reading:) And then tonight we are going to the opera house to see a play!!!! WOOHOO! more on all that later!