Enough of the tour open those taps up!
Damn Anita! Drinking like a champ!
Reminds me of Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory!
Old Cadbury Cars
Every Chocolate Imaginable yuck!
The highlight of the Dunedin was probably Baldwin street which is (sorry to say it San Franciscans) the steepest street on the planet according to the Guinness Book of World Records. I was the first to the top and man it was tall. I even used it as an experiment to Bill and Krista to show that Little Jake likes to take the same pictures as I do (Sound familiar Grandma Betty Lou). On the walk down the street I took a picture of a rock in the road nothing special or award winning about this photo. But rest assured Jake was two steps behind me to take the same photo. Jake I would say keep that for your personal album.
Im not making this stuff up, here is the evidence
Damn that's Steep!
I made it!
Straggelers!
My best impression of Neo in the Matrix
All is all Dunedin wasnt my favorite so I was happy to move on to Lake Ohau which definitely was a highlight.
We head for Lake Ohau and along the way we drive by many beautiful vistas, mountains, and a lake views. We also drive across a damn which will forever be famous on our tour because of me. The bus stops to let us off to take pictures of the damn. I grab my camera and head out to the edge to take some shots of the water and surrounding mountains. As head onto the bridge a gust of wind manages to blow my favorite hat off of me, over the bridge, and into the water. Damn it!
I look up and everyone is boarding the bus and we are getting ready to leave. I need this hat which is now laying in the water about 20 feet below the bridge. I see a life saving ring and some rope so I toss that into the water hoping the hat will get caught in the ring and I can pull it up. A dumb idea that goes nowhere fast. The ring ends water logging the hat which sinks a little further in the water. Next, our tour manager Bridget springs into action. Maybe if I tie my flip flop to this piece of string that Pumba has from the bus you can lower that down and catch your hat. We try that and it fails. The flip flop is too light and there is nothing to catch the hat on it with. I look over at the bus people are getting impatient. "We have to use the bathroom" Come on guys this is the hat my mom gave me (complete bullshit but I needed something to stall the herd). We then tie a screw driver to the flip flop hoping the screw driver will get caught in the mesh and hook the hat. I lower that down with little luck. I reach the hat but the screw driver is not weighted enough to snag the hat. Damn it! Last resort we tie a rock to one end of the screw driver and lower it down. This weight will keep the screwdrive pointing up and maybe just maybe I can snag it like a fish hook. The natives are getting restless on the bus, I'm sweating like a pig, and Bridget's got this piece of string tied to my waste no thicker then kite string which she thinks is going to prevent me from falling in. A complete comedy hour but anyways I lower it down and snag it. I GOT IT! Major cheers from the original jeers! We got the hat let's get out here.
Don't believe me check these pictures out:
So close yet so far
Am I seriously trying to fish this out with a flip flop tied to a string?
Almost got it. Got to love the shoestring safety harness tied to my waste.
The winning tool!
We arrive at Lake Ohau and it is AMAZING. It is this beautiful Lake in the middle of nowhere with giant mountain peaks coming out of it and they are so tall that they are snowcapped. The Lodge we are staying at is the only one on the Lake and we are at waters edge. This lodge has a family feel to it. Couches everywhere, a big fireplace, game room etc. This place is a giant man cave and I love it. It has beer, pool, ping pong, Jacuzzi, fire, etc. Man we are going to have a good time here.
Bill and Jake immediately head for ping pong. I walk around snapping pictures of everything. Then watch Jake and Bill battle it out. Jake has game with his slams and the Asian method of holding the paddle. Bill wins the series then I play Jake. He kicks my butt but I come back at him hard and win a game.
Tonight we will be having a Toga party and the hotel has provided everyone with an extra sheet to make a toga out of. For those that don't know what a toga party is think Animal house and greek mythology. You use a white sheet and wrap it around you to represent a greek warrior. You wear nothing else under your sheet. I was also able to recruit one of the girls to weave me a crown out of some green grass picked from the field.
Hail Ceasar!
Little Jake is panicking back in the room. "Aaron how to wear toga?" Jake I'll show you. I spin Jake around in circles as I drap the sheet in different patterns to see what he is comfortable with. "I like that, and we must Facebook". Translation we are good to go with his Toga. Now for the trickly part which is tying the sheet so the thing does not fall off. I must of tied it 15 times and Little Jake would keep tapping me on the shoulder, "Aaron too loose, we must Facebook!" Damn it Jake! Do I look like a freaking seamstress. I'm doing my best here man! Work with me! It was then that I realized perhaps Jake is a perfectionist.
I realized this when I failed to mention a few nights earlier I had come back to the room and found Little Jake in his bed with an electric razor grooming any possible hair imaginable on his body. Arm pits, chest, legs, etc. the man left no hair follicle untouched. What was more puzzling is he chose to do this routine while lying in bed. I would think one would want to groom themselves in the bathroom in case any unsuspecting hair fell to the ground. But what the hell do I know, but it does make me wonder if in Chinese culture it's bad to have a lot of body hair. I don't pry and just keep to myself.
Back to the Toga Party, everyone is now congregrating at the bar and the sun is going down over Lake Ohau. Looking out I get this idea wouldn't it be cool to do some Greek mythology scene where everyone poses and does not look at the camera. I volunteer to stage everyone and start placing characters in the scene. I give everyone poses and instruct no one to look at the camera. The picture taking begins
Me and the Swedes
The Girls
I thought everyone heard my instructions but after reviewing the photos it was clear that one person did not hear me or chose to go rogue. That person was Angela a sweet girl from Australia who loved to take a million photos. And I'm not exagerating, I dont think there was one sign or placard that Angela missed from any of the sites we visited. If there was a photo to be taken I could count on Angela to hit it from every direction. She was diligent and as you can see in the photo below she also wanted the picture to have her looking at the camera (Can you spot Angela?). My apologies Angela if my instructions were not clear. In anycase it was all good fun.
Where's Angela
One more time
Got to love our bus driver's purple toga!
The drinking began after our photo session and Bill decided to introduce our foreign friends to a great American Tradition known as beer pong. Essentially you have glasses full of beer on either side of a table in a triangle formation. The objective is to get your ping pong ball into the opposing team's glass. The team who knocks out all the glasses wins. You would think this would be easy but we were terrible at it. I would try and throw and then Anita (tour mate from Melbourne) would pose to distract my aim. It definitely worked thanks Anita!
The party continued into the night and wrapped up at the hot tub underneath a billion stars. It was a great night and more importantly Little Jake stepped up his game. Sidney having left him a couple days earlier in Queenstown, turned Jake into a dancing sex machine. Little Jake in his Toga was bouncing all around the dance floor. He even found a Sidney replacement and that was Therese (a beautiful girl from Ireland traveling with her fellow optomistrist friend Laura). Jake was smitten for Therese and insisted on taking many photos with her. But that's not the funiest part. The funiest part is that a split second before the photo was snapped Little Jake would turn his head and kiss Therese on the cheek. He then would jump around all excited. At one point Jake even picked up Therese to her shock and spun her around. We were dying laughing. Little Jake this shy guy from China had grown up in a matter of 7 days and was now the life of the party. I've seen this play itself out in many movies such as 16 Candles, Can't Hardly Wait, Can't buy me love. I was envious, way to go Jake!
The pictures speak for themselves. Little Jake has graduated to Jake
Jake kissing Therese. The evidence is in!
20 minutes away form Christchurch and Bridget and Pumba give their final speeches. Everyone feels some emotion and Bridget and Pumba will not be forgotten. You often wonder with tour managers since they give so many tours will they remember your group? They say they will but you get competitive and hope that your tour group was the best group. I hope we were Bridget and Pumba because we were the best! We are the Wild Ones cue the music!
A smaller group of us head to dinner at a Mexican place where we drink, reminisce, and say goodbye. Dinner wraps a few hugs later and everyone is off. Pumba drives me to my hostel and we chat more about American culture. I get to the hostel, thank Pumba, and begin the next leg of my journey.
Hostel living ain't no night at the Ritz Carlton. Man this has been my biggest adjustment yet. When I arrived at the hostel I was put into a 4 bed room with this guy from Israel. The dude would just stare at me then ask, "I see you like to work out!" Look I'm no hulk hogan here but all he kept talking about were my arms. Made me totally uncomfortable and the next two days in Christchurch were lousy ones. I missed my tour mates and the people at this hostel were clicky (meaning they had formed their groups so I was an outsider). All I had was myself and this crazy Israeli! I was happy to get the hell out of Christchurch and onto Australia!
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