I’ve been lazy about updating my travel-blog. Not only because i was busy chilling in NZ, but also because i’ve had a lot more difficult time writing about my time in New Zealand. it was easy to write about my experiences in China and india, because my experiences there were so different and i felt like i was learning so much. But here in New Zealand, i don’t know how to put it but i’m not as challenged as i was in india and for the first few days i missed india, which is ironic as my last few days there i couldn’t wait to get out. But after a little time i got into the Kiwi groove and on my last day here, i am sad to leave behind this beautiful land that is such a large part of who i am today.
i frequently get asked where i am from when i am traveling, and although i say i’m from Korea for simplicity’s sake, i see myself as more of a product of New Zealand and Exeter (i don’t want to say i’m from the US because boarding school Exeter bubble is pretty much the only US i know), and i definitely learned more about what it means to be a Kiwi during my month here. My mom once told me how basically i sucked (i was shy and somewhat timid) in Korea and NZ made me lot more confident and adventurous. (i don’t know if this is true, but i do remember on my birthday party in Korea my mom invited my friends without telling me and i didn’t want them around for some reason so i locked myself up in a room and read while my friends played on MY birthday). My early memories of Korea consist of playing soccer and videogames with my friends (i don’t think i was that anti-social but not sureJ, but i was also somewhat or a nerd who loved to play Go (Badook- roughly Chinese/Korean chess) all day (i read big Go books and watched GO TV) and read.
it’s so interesting to try to think back to the first time i set foot on this Land of Long white clouds (Aotearoa= Maori name for NZ), which was roughly 9 years ago, and compare that little boy to who i am today. i didn’t speak much English then- i only started paying attention in my English class after three months of being a mute person in my friend’s British international School in Prague, and i was still pretty mute when i arrived in NZ as well. i think sports was one of the only ways to be somewhat cool and fit in with my friends then, and although i loved sports before going to NZ, the fact i was mute and that NZ is such a sporty outdoorsy country probably intensified my love of sports/ outdoors. i also suspect that i did a lot of math and was good at it as that required least English (or i thought i was good at it until i met US math Olympiad friends in my T3x Mr Feng class), and my love of jazz may also have stemmed from the fact i didn’t understand pop, rock or hip-hop lyrics and jazz is usually word-less. i think i also began to develop appreciation for nature in NZ and living in such beautiful unspoiled country definitely fostered eco-consciousness.
When i arrived on Feb 7 in Auckland after close to 48 hours of flying & airport time via Tokyo and Brisbane from Delhi, it had been more than 5 years since i had left the country, and i was looking forward to seeing how the country and my friends have changed. I hadn’t even given my Kiwi friends a proper farewell- i was supposed to come back here after my winter break in Korea for my high school that i had received merit scholarship from but had decided to go to a school in the US last minute. i had lost touch with them but thanks to the advent of Facebook, i had re-connected with many of my friends and i was looking forward to catching up with my old friends as well. Interestingly, though, i ended up spending more time with my new American Exeter friends as i spent about 1.5 weeks with Marc and 4 days with Nick (yeah Knight House). Most of my old Kiwi friends i just hung out like half-a-day and one overnight, and it’s interesting how as they start university, how much they look/ feel the same but our lives have diverged.
Many of my friends were also no longer in Christchurch, my old town- there were still some left in Christchurch but i met some in Dunedin, Wellington and Auckland, and even my teachers had moved as i had to catch up with some of them in Wellington and my other one had moved school twice after i left and i couldn’t track him down. My school (Medbury) had also changed quite a bit since I had left- most of the teachers were gone, the school got a little bigger with 300 boys, and they had built a new gym with an indoor climbing wall and updated the computers with the newest apple. But the spirit of the school seemed to be the same- still Episcopalian and devoted to educating good boys J I also reactivated my alumni account (they call alumni Old Boy btw.) and was excited to be able to hear from my alma mater later.
As i found out, my friends at Medbury turned out to be amazingly athletic bunch. Some of the guys I was playing cricket and rugby during lunch time with had become NZ cross country champion and ran in the World junior cross country championship in Italy (Nick - i was proud of myself for being a high school captain but not really now…), another was a javelin thrower for NZ in junior Olympics in Malaysia (Guy), one was the captain of varsity cricket team in Christ’s College (the oldest high school in New Zealand) and was thinking about maybe going pro (Crinky), and another the captain of the varsity rugby team there (Guy again.. J. In contrast, most of my Korean-kiwi friends had turned out to be extremely bright bunch- most were studying at University of Auckland, NZ’s premier university, and one had graduated university (he’s 19) and had started on his masters program in neuroscience (Steve).
Talking of sports, i certainly did my share of sports here in NZ. I went to the India vs. New Zealand Black Caps 20/20 cricket game in Christchurch, which was a great experience as i love cricket. I enjoy cricket so much more than baseball- which shows that for some things i’m more British than American. Cricket is the more strategic game I believe and it’s a little bit more meritocratic as if you’re good you get to bat forever. I wanted to watch the master Indian Batsman Sachin Tendulkar- who is 5’5 (smaller than me yeah!) but kicks ass averaging 40-50 runs per game. As I had just come from India, I felt like the Indian cricket team was stalking me (or maybe it’s vice versa) btw, cricket is huge in India- all the TVs were on cricket on game days when I was there and they’re creating an all star international cricket league after the European club soccer model. I also watched the Crusaders get crushed by the Hurricanes in Super 14 rugby game, and it was interesting to see the German girls i went with get excited although they didn’t’ have a clue how the game worked. It was also sort of sad that most of my friends have grown out of watching rugby games- they’d rather do something else or just watch it at a bar.
Outside of watching, i did a lot of mountain biking (in Nelson, Rotorua and Christchurch). I love mountain biking because it’s carbon-free and you have to sweat for your fun biking uphill- which sometimes sucks, a lot and I sometimes have to walk my bike up). I started mountain-biking when i was in NZ but was a real bad biker and now that i can get some descent air and have reasonable fitness to climb uphill, it was really fun coming down NZ’s great trails (except when you crash and fall on your balls). (I started this art project where I take photos with my bike at beautiful places I pass by) I also had stints surfing (the water was freezing even with wetsuit- i could stand for a little bit but the waves sucked (or maybe i’m just blaming the water for my poor skills), rock climbing outdoors (i had rock climbed indoors but first time outdoors and i absolutely loved it- I love climbing trees as well and did a lot of that in NZ), luge-ing (which felt like i was playing Mario cart- a great cheap thrill), zorb-ing (crazy Kiwi invention- you get in a big ball and roll down a hill- there’s water inside so it feels like coming down a crazy water slide that goes everywhere), and river-surfing (you come down rapids on a tiny surf board- also a crazy kiwi invention- mad fun but i drank a lot of water- the guide had to save me quite a few times as I always ended up in whirlpools). i also did more chill mini golf and Frisbee golf, as well as walking in the Abel Tasman National Park which was beautiful. And i can’t leave out sky-diving- i had bungied down the biggest bungy jump in the world in Macau last spring so didn’t feel a need to jump with a rope but wanted to jump off the plane. Like bungy-jumping, for the first few micro-seconds i was like F*** F*** F***, but then was in total bliss.
But I did have to pay for every drop of that adrenaline and i had overspent my mom’s pretty generous allotted budget. Perhaps i can argue that i’m helping the world overcome recession with my spending and i’m learning about NZ eco-adventure industry? But Korean currency is toilet paper right now so spending all that money is not cool but this year’s the last year i’m gonna be financially dependent for my entertainment so hopefully my parents would forgive me when i see them? (i really hope i’m not getting anybody mad traveling and bleeding money during this world-wide recession period).
But couchsurfing helped keep my costs down- i started couchsurfing here in NZ and i had wonderful experiences staying with four different hosts all across NZ.
with Tamsin in Nelson (she lived in a cool house that used to be a hostel and we had a nice house party- her house also had a cool tree house and big swing and i decided that i want a tree house and a swing in my house later on), and we danced and spa-ed late into the night.
with Ian in Christchurch (a 21-year old guy who lives with his flatmate Dave who was 19- i stayed with them over the weekend and it was fun to hang out with them, their Kiwi friends, and other couchsurfers who happened to be staying at ian’s house (i met a Chilean, an Ecuadorian, a Czech, two Germans, two israelites & one Ukraine (Nick Devonshire). Ian was like the most generous guy ever, as his house was always crowded with couchsurfers and he lived close to the city so it was convenient to visit the art gallery, botanical garden etc and get around. Dave was also cool and I went to the cricket game with him. He was a dual philosophy/ comp sci major who dropped out for now and was learning to be a DJ. He had a DJ equipment at home so I learned to play with it a little and as I ran into a Swedish guy who works as a DJ on the bus and he said it was a good job, perhaps I should learn to DJ as I love music (I doubt they dance to much jazz though…J )
I ended up overstaying at his house (i said 3 but ended up staying 5), and also unexpectedly brought along my Knight House friend Nick Devonshire who wrote on my facebook wall the morning he was coming up but he was cool with us staying. Nick was originally only planning on staying for two days in Christchurch, but he couldn’t get over how cool Christchurch is and ended up staying for like 4, during which time we did a wine tour (I got into wine in NZ- read an introductory book on it and like tea, it’s fascinating), biked around to a beach, went to the cathedral and the botanical garden, hung out, and drunk more beer & wine (we also went to an Irish bar and listened to some live Celtic music which was sweet as).
With Alison in Dunedin (she wrote on her couchsurfing profile that she lived with 5 international students, but they all turned out to be Americans…) but they were still cool and i had great time staying with them. We went to the botanical garden together, played some beer pong, and i ran to the steepest street in the world from there. Alison was also extremely kind with me as i got back to the house at 2:30am after hanging out (well sort of…) with my friend Guy. I went to go meet him at a bar at midnight (i was in Dunedin during Dunedin’s famous O (orientation) week, which is a week of serious drinking & partying before University of Otago starts. Dunedin is a huge college town and my friends told me stories of having to streak through a street (and they proudly did it) and having tomatoes, S***, vomit and everything else thrown at them as they streaked). Guy told me I could come sleep over at his place so i went back to my house to pick up my stuff. But by the time i got back to the bar, he was so wasted that he didn’t recognize me. So i tried to de-drunk him but it didn’t work out so i had to walk back to Alison’s place in pouring rain. Lucky Alison and her friends were still up so i could go back into the house ok but otherwise i would have had to sleep outside in rain. The same thing happened with a German girl Isi in Queenstown as we said we’d meet at a bar later but she sounded like she was a little too drunk and gave me wrong directions… (or maybe she doesn’t like me… J Having stayed at flats/ apartments in Christchurch and Dunedin i felt less uneasy about having to move out after my freshman/ sophomore year at Penn as off campus housing seemed more fun than i had thought.
With Lorraine & Jack in Rotorua and it was great staying at a farm house with an old couple. They had some cute sheep and horses on their property and i just chilled out watching the silly ‘Dance with the Stars’ on TV with them. Rotorua was a cool town in so many ways. They had thermal geysers that couldn’t stop spewing out hot water from the ground and one of the world’s top 10 spas, one of NZ’s best mountain biking trails, and awesome Maori culture. I walked to an old Maori gathering place on the tip of the Rotorua Lake facing an Anglican church on a misty, windy day and that was quite a mystical experience as there was a cemetery for WW I and II casualties. It was amazing to see how many Maoris had fought and died for the Europeans who in a way stole their land (Europeans (aka Pakehas in NZ), signed a treaty with Maoris but the problem was that the English and the Maori copies were different), and I felt like I could almost feel their spirits flying about in the wind. Hopefully the similar red and white pattern on both the Anglican church and the Maori meeting place symbolized coexistence, and I wanted to attend the Sunday worship service which was offered in both English and Maori, but unfortunately slept in…
During my trip, i ran into a lot of Europeans (esp. Germans and Brits) and most were either old people looking forward to retiring here or young people who wanted to check out this young sexy land. I never realized that NZ received this many tourists from Europe when i lived here, but now i realize that Europeans come here looking for a sort of pure Europe unscathed by the two world wars and long history of bloody fighting. NZ is a youthful society just over 150 years old and although they may not have long history, they’re certainly fun & innovative. Wellington, the capital’s Te Papa museum captures this Kiwi spirit pretty well, as despite the fact that NZ has one of the shortest recorded history (Maoris, who came to NZ around 1200 AD, had no written record and Europeans only settled here beginning mid nineteenth century), the museum was built really informative, fun and interactive. Few things I remember include the fact there were no mammals before human settlement which allowed bird life to flourish (such as moas and kiwis), how much of the original forest had been cut down since the arrival of the Maoris and the Europeans, how quickly the Maori land had been lost to the Europeans, some cool NZ art that incorporates Maori themes, and the fact that Maoris ate dogs just like Koreans and although they brought some dogs to NZ from their Pacific island to grow and eat, the dogs unfortunately didn’t adapt too well to NZ life and died.
Not only did the Kiwis invent bungy jumping, luge-ing, zorbing, and all the crazy air/ land and water crazy sports all across NZ and especially in Queenstown, the Kiwis made up their own Ebay website Trademe that is doing much better than Ebay in NZ. I also went to the WOW (World of Wearable arts) museum in Nelson that was simply quite amazing- anybody can enter and they have submissions from all over the world- and they have a huge concert in Wellington once a year where they have choreographed dance, and NZ also has world-class movie scene as well as cool arts/ music scene speareheaded by Peter Jackson and his Lord of the Rings movies (btw, Narnia was partly filmed in NZ as well in addition to the LoTR- NZ is such a fantasy land :). Marc & I visited the WETA museum in Wellington where all the tools and the computer graphics for these fantasy movies were done. I was also surprised that during the WW I and WW II, NZ sent 10-20% of their entire population to the war so although they may be peace-lovers, they definitely know that their peaceful NZ is not an isolated small bubble and contribute to the world. NZ’s other claim to fame may be the fact that this was the first country that gave women suffrage (voting rights), and Sir Rutherford split the atom that eventually led to nuclear bomb, while Sir Hillary was the first man to conquer the Everest (he also did a lot of good work in Nepal setting up schools etc.)
Overall, i’ll miss my dear NZ. The Kiwis, kiwi-Koreans, Kiwi-Americans, Medbury School, breathtaking landscape that i never got sick of taking photos of (i wish i had a chance to revisit Milford Sound and walk along the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers once gain but never got around to it this time), the clear blue sky, the mountain i biked on, the water i swam & surfed in, the city i ran in (Auckland was especially fun to run as i could explore anywhere with the sky tower as my landmark so not get lost), my Kiwi lingo (mate, bro, sweet as, … yeah? Fush & chops etc… . NZ will always be my home and asylum (I hope NZ thinks so as well), and i hope to come back home soon.
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