Christmas, Visitors, Road Trips, and Savages

So what’s new? Oh man a lot of stuff. Let’s see what I can remember.

First of all, I’m living in a tipi! That’s right, a real Native American tipi, built out of sticks and canvas. I’ve never even seen a tipi in real life in the States, but I come to New Zealand, to live on a Buddhist monastery, and I hop right into a tipi…makes sense, right? It’s very comfortable and at 5 meters diameter, much too spacious for my needs, but I have plenty of room to spread out and swing my arms about if I want too. The caravan where I was previously staying was about 5’10” wide, so my 6’ person could never quite lay flat at night, so the massive tipi is a blessing. I also had my yearly mohawk when I first set up the tipi, so I really felt the whole vibe. I nearly striped down to a loincloth and war paint, but Ajahn saw my awful farmer’s tan and put a stop to the madness…probably best for everybody. A westerner practicing Buddhism is enough of a culture shock, there was no need to throw in some Native American spirit too (although whose to comment on relativity in spirituality?).

Lots of people have been coming and going here at the monastery, especially during the Christmas season. It’s been really great to have more hands around to help out, not to mention just having more people around to get to know and share experiences with. The monastery is a very comfortable and honest environment, and although incessant chatter is not encouraged, everybody becomes very close very quickly and some very personal things come out. I won’t launch into details, but I have really come to discover that, while my life and American culture in general has its ups and down, all of it pales in comparison to what people around the world have to deal with. And yet, those people are all here to tell me their story! I’ve gotten to know some of these people’s names and faces, but then I learn they are a refugee from an unimaginable situation in their home country, or that they’ve been moved from orphanages to boarding schools all over the world, or their parents were completely abusive and that was the complete norm. It really blows my mind to hear about such experiences from a person right in front of me, practicing meditation next to me. It’s easy for a person living in a first world country to create problems for themselves, engineer some suffering out of some discomfort, and that’s suffering nonetheless, but MAN some people really know what suffering is. More importantly, some people really know what endurance is. Some people really know what practice is all about. I don’t need to have such horrid experiences to find sanctuary in my practice, but to know a bit about the lives of others has given me a serious sense of respect, compassion, and taste of reality outside of what I see as pleasure and pain.

In lighter news, my parents were two of the many visitors during the Christmas season! It was so great to see them! They came out on a snap decision and we had no plans whatsoever, but we really made the best of it. They arrived on the 22^nd, to a sunny and hot day…not the Christmas weather we Americans are used to. It’s summer out here because the seasons are opposite, but funny enough, the shop owners still paint fake frost and snow all over their windows. Clearly, a white Christmas is just the only way Christ intended it to be. So for the first few days, my parents and I hung out at the monastery and I gave them a taste of life out here, complete with early mornings, a single meal daily, and some good old physical labor. They held up pretty well. My dad and I worked on a foot bridge, which is something neither of us have worked on before, so it was a bit of a stab in the dark. As a bonus challenge, it was a curved bridge and we planned to use a natural log as a handrail. It took a few stabs, but in the end the curve was gentile yet well defined and symmetrical, the supports were level, and the bolts held it all together. We didn’t finish the whole thing, because we had more important things to attend to, but we finished the base structure and I was just left with a few aesthetic touches.

Our more important duty was a road trip! On Christmas day, we jumped in the car and headed north of Auckland (aka Northland) to Bay of Islands. Apparently this bay has like 145 islands in it or something, but I only saw about 12… but our sense of vision is all just matter of perception anyway. We were staying in Paihia, a little beach town with no internet access and a quaint little strip of hostels, which we deemed “frat row”. It was a real LOL sort of town. Pretty much everything was shut down because it was Christmas and Boxing Day (btw, what is Boxing Day? Nobody seemed to know, but it was an official holiday), so we had a pretty relaxing time. We did take the ferry out to Russel, which was once known by sailors as “The Hellhole of the Pacific” because of its frequent Maori/British disputes and full-time sailor debauchery. Even Charles Darwin momentarily lost faith in his theory of evolution when he stopped by Russel and saw the devolution of human society right before his eyes. I think if you imagine Vegas at 4:30 AM with less of the appealing glitz, pirate B-O rather than cheap cologne, and more scurvy and/or cabin fever, it might be comparable to what Russel was like all the time. Unfortunately the township has really cleaned up its act, so all that’s left is a line of ritzy gourmet restaurants and a few vacation homes. We took a hike out to Long Beach (who knew you could get to LA from NZ?), and then up to a flag pole which was chopped down 4 separate times (hahahahaha!) by Maori chiefs as a sign of resistance to British rule. To be clear, the Maori and British did sign a peace treaty before the choppings occurred, but it took a while to work out all of the details. To learn about all those pesky details, we took the ferry back from Russel and headed to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where the treaty was actually signed and the first official British citizen came to reside, rep the crown, and lay down the law. Not an easy job, considering that as a peace keeper, the poor guy had no guns to back him up on a plot of land directly across from the ol’ Hellhole of the Pacific. He was a well-respected man, however, both by the Maori and the civil British, so in the end he was apparently fairly successful.

After a very full day of Paihia history, we had a night’s rest and decided it was time to hit the road again. Before venturing on, however, we took a half day kayak tour, which turned out to be my favorite part of Paihia. Our guide took our group up a little inlet (similar to Monterey’s Elkhorn Slough for you Bay folk) where we saw a forest of mangrove trees, many bird species up close and personal, and for the grand finale, a waterfall! I’ve seen a handful of waterfalls since I’ve been out here, but it was pretty cool being able to paddle up to one and sit at the foot of the crashing water. As a bonus, on the way back out, the tide had come in so we were able to actually paddle through the mangrove forest. That was even cooler than the waterfall. It was similar to a Louisiana swamp with quiet mysteries behind every branch, but without the fear of a gater attack. Very peaceful yet ever intriguing, and a real navigational challenge in 10’ kayaks!

Following our kayak adventure, we drove in search of the giant Kauri, the largest known Kauri tree. It took all of 3 hours to drive clear across from the east coast to the west coast, which is still a funny concept in my mind. Within those three hours, however, the scenery was comparable to a drive through Northern CA, with steep mountains and thick forests, central CA, with flat plains and wide gorges, and Montana, with mountainsides of thin (non-native, timber farm) pines and cow pastures… but imagine all of that with fern trees growing like weeds. It’s a real pretty place to drive through. And the speed limit everywhere seems to be 100km/hr, so I had a good time of accelerating our little Toyota rental through every turn like a racecar driver. When we finally arrived at Waipoua Forest, we rented ourselves a little cabin to sleep in, then headed out to the forest. When we got there, we saw some big Kauris! Not to sound like a pompous Californian (or maybe for that reason exactly), but I’ve seen redwoods that are larger… but ya know, the Kauris were cool too. They’re really stout trees, so you feel a real sense of power and a dominating presence, plus the big ones are 2000+ years old, which is a trip to think about. They’ve been there longer than there have been humans on the island. They’ve seen it all.

After a God awful night of mosquito-infested half sleep, we got back in the car and headed south. 7 hours of racecar driving later, we arrived at Waitomo, a little farm town with no sit down restaurants and the world famous Waitomo glow worm caves. We took a short hike through a farm park with lots of sheep and a wide collection of conifers, including a few redwoods, and then relaxed the rest of the night away. The next day, we dove into the glowworm caves, with the “world famous” Waitomo Blackwater Rafting Co. My dad and I were expecting a bit of a chincy experience, how crazy could this tourist activity really be? Well, lucky for us, in NZ you’re not allowed to sue anybody, so if you get hurt it’s your own fault… which means they get crazy with their tourist activities! They suited us up with knee-padded wetsuits, gumboots for our feet, and helmets for our noggins, then handed us each an inner tube. The first activity was jumping off a dock with our inner tubes because, “It gets a little loud in the cave, so we have to make sure you know what you’re doing before we get to the waterfalls.” YES!! Waterfalls, jumping, inner tubes, knee pads, helmets… could it all be true? This could really be dangerous, THIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT!

So our group of 10 spelunks (that's the real verb for what we were doing... look it up) down to the entrance of the cave and everybody is getting excited. Unfortunately, dad’s headlamp was missing a battery so one of our guides sacrificed his, leaving one of our two guides in the dark. As we moved deeper into the abyss, we reached a stream and were instructed to initiate the tubing. I still couldn’t believe what I was doing, but it got real when the roof of the cave was just a foot off the top of the water and we all had to suck in our gut to get through. It opened up eventually, and we alternated floating with simply stumbling through endless lines of volcanic veins. It was a real trip. Then we reached the glowworms, and it went from sweet, to sweet as, bro (that’s some Kiwi slang for you). These worms, which are actually maggots, apparently burn their excrement to attract bugs into their sticky goop which hangs down from the ceiling. After chillin’, eatin’ bugs n crap for a few weeks, the maggots turn into flies, then reproduce for 48 hours straight, then die. So when you put it like that, the glowworms seem kinda strange and gross, but if you ignore reality and imagine nature simply intended to beautify the dark cave for tourists, it’s awe inspiring. Everybody turned off their lights as we floated down the stream and it totally felt like we were just lying back in the middle of the night, looking up at the starry sky. This was all very relaxing, yada yada yada, but I was ready for some waterfalls! Finally we reached one and were reminded of our training: “jump as far back as you can, try not to flip over, don’t freak out.” It was unclear what would have happened if we broke any of those training tips, but I don’t think anybody wanted to test it. Also, another girl’s light went out, so the other guide sacrificed his light; two guides in the dark, 10 tourist shining lights in each others’ eyes. Dad was first to jump. From his description, it was just blackness below… I find this hilarious! A real leap of faith. So down he went and………splash, and a victory “woop.” So I stepped up to the plate and had myself a splash, then one by one, everybody else plopped down. It wasn’t too insane of a jump, probably about 4-5 feet, but it was pretty exciting nonetheless. A few more relaxing sections, a few fast sections, another waterfall, and we found daylight. It was a good tour, I think about 3 hours, but we were all pretty sad it was ending. Very exciting though, like nothing I’d ever dreamed of doing.

The next stop was Rotorua, known as the center of Maori culture. Something like 70% of the population is Maori, so there’s a lot of pride, which is cool. And the hotel had free internet… those fools!! Haha, lucky for you guys, I sucked up that bandwidth to upload some pics from my Hillary Trail hike (last post). It was a slow connection, so all I could get up were my hiking pics, but I delivered as promised. Anyway, Rotorua has a lot going on, including a good deal of thermal activity, so the whole place smelled like rotten eggs. It brought back memories of our family road trip to Yellowstone, where I collected memories of bison, Old Faithful, bubbling mud pots, but mostly that God awful smell all the time. Since we had in fact seen way sweeter thermal activity in America (where everything is the best), we opted to steer clear of the mud pots, and instead do the luge! This isn’t a luge like in the Olympics/ X-Games, but a slightly safer cart-like contraption with steering and braking. After a warm up on the “scenic route” I was ready for the full experience, and subsequently skidded, went up on two wheels, and nearly flew off the edge several times on the intermediate and advanced routes. My favorite part was really gunning it on the advanced route where it said “SLOW DOWN NOW!” in order to catch some wicked air, bro, down a dangerously steep decline. Again, I can’t believe they let tourists do this kind of stuff… but hey, when you can’t sue anybody, you can really have a ball.

After we got our extreme sports fix, we went to a Maori cultural show. This show sounded similar to one of those hokey luaus you see in Hawaii, complete with the massive barbecue and silly dancing. To my surprise, however, it was really great! Aside from the grandpa singing corny old karaoke songs, it was quite an experience. First we went on a nature walk to a sacred spring, which was cool, but I got the feeling I was being watch… in fact, I was. I looked into the surrounding forest and saw loin-clothed, spear-wielding savages sneaking up on us. If you’ve never had the experience of being hunted in a forest, I’d recommend it. Very exhilarating. Later, a group of Maoris in full facepaint/face tattoos cruised by in a waka (war canoe) and yelled threatening noises at us, with the big eyes and tongue sticking out and everything. If you don’t know, the Maoris used to regularly practice cannibalism; they don’t anymore because it’s not really PC these days, but there was this one guy that had a look in his bulging eyes like he was definitely down to eat me. We continued on to a recreated village, where the tribe did a haka (war dance/ chant) and showed off some of their weapons handling. The guys were definitely intimidating with their screams and threatening movements, but then the girls came up and did a haka and I was downright scared. The guys could clearly tear me limb from limb, but I’m pretty sure the women could eat my soul from 30 feet away. You know, at the luaus I’ve been to, the men come up and swing around a spear, maybe do some fire eating and all that, and the women come up and shake their hips in a bikini and grass skirt… all very exciting. These Maori women had no use for grass skirts: their lips were tattooed black and their eyes were big, and their concern was not to dance but to inspire pure fear. Worked pretty good. After we all had the bejesus scared out of us, it was dinner time, and MC grandpa got back on the mic with his wiqa-wiqa-wiqidy wack karaoke… but it was all good fun anyway. When dinner was over, we took another nature walk into a bird sanctuary where we saw many native birds, some gigantic rainbow trout (imported from CA), and some gigantic redwoods (also imported from CA… it’s like home away from home). The best part, though, was of course seeing KIWI BIRDS! They were in a pen, so it wasn’t really their natural environment, but it was still really great. They are funny little creatures. Much bigger than I thought they would be too, about as big as a chicken. They were just cruising around in their pens eating bugs and stuff, which is I guess what they do, but I could really see why the kiwi is the national bird… they’re so captivating!

The next day was New Year’s Eve, and the day to drive back to the monastery. It was really great seeing my parents, I was so happy to have them out, both to see the monastery and to see some of NZ. Since its summer, it really doesn’t feel like Christmas time, and Christmas day slid right by us, but it was a perfect little vacation and a lot more relaxed than Christmas usually is. So all-in-all it was a great trip and I was happy to get out and explore the country a bit more. I got dropped off at the monastery, and my parents continued on to the airport to fly back to the States. I brought in the New Year that night at the city temple, chanting in a language that I do not understand, and meditating on metta (loving-kindness) for all of my friends and family in the new year. After the clock struck 12, we all got up and feasted on more dessert than I have ever seen in my life… luckily my resolution this year had nothing to do with avoiding junk food, so I dug right in. Hopefully everybody had a great Christmas and New Year, and is enjoying their winter break/start of a new semester. Sorry this post didn't include my usual pictorial and wikipedia supplemental links, my connection is limited right now and I didn't want to bother finding links... but hopefully you all looked up some funny pictures and informative definitions as you read. I wish you all luck in the new year, and I’ll post again soon (for real this time)!