It has been SO LONG since I’ve updated! But now you guys get a treat: a double post! When you’re done reading this one, keep on going, the fun don’t stop.
Well I’m off the monastery now. 6 months flew by super fast, and now I’m out in the cold, on my own. Actually, it’s not that bad. But I am out on my own, and couldn’t be happier. My time at the monastery was great and I really appreciate everything I saw and learned, but now I’m ready to get out and see New Zealand, open myself up to whatever experiences come my way, and plain rough it every once in a while.
The last few days at the monastery were busy (surprise, surprise). We were lucky enough to have Luang Por Piak, a meditation master from Thailand, come to visit the monastery for 10 days, during which time we had a 4 day retreat. Luang Por is very well respected in Thailand, so the other monastery residents and I were very fortunate to be able to spend lots of time up close and personal with him. I haven’t really refined the ability to ‘see’ a meditator’s attainments, but there was definitely an air about Luang Por that reflected a vast wisdom. I mean, I couldn’t actually understand what he was saying because he was speaking Thai the whole time, but between the translation and his body language I was able to pick up a few tips on meditation, lifestyle, and the art of cool.
From the monastery I got a ride to the city, spent a night in the area, then started hitching north. I had made plans for WWOOFing (an acronym for “willing workers on organic farms,” basically a work-exchange program for food and a place to stay) at an ecovillage in Kaiwaka, about an hour’s drive from the city. I really didn’t know where exactly this place was, or if it would be easy to get to or not, but I did know I had one real heavy bag, one pretty heavy bag, each containing a few expensive items, and a didgeridoo. A friend at the monastery had made me the didge just before I left and I was learning to play it, so it was my new travel companion. Since the area was only about an hour away, I thought I’d have a pretty easy time of moving…but it was a bit complicated. I think I caught 4 different rides just to get to the area. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, and I fully appreciate the rides, but I was beginning to get a bit warn out, usually spending more time loading and unloading than actually riding. If you're considering hitch hiking anytime soon, here's my tip: tie everything together at all times. You might end up accidentally dragging something important on the ground, but better to drag it than leave it on the side of a random country road, like you would have.
Eventually I made it to Kaiwaka, but it was looking like rain and I still had to find the house, which was about 7 km outside of town. So I started hustling down the road as efficiently as possible, using what energy I had left to hope for a car to drive down this long country road. All that hoping paid of quickly though, because I not only got picked up, but the driver was driving to the same ecovillage! So I loaded and unloaded my stuff one more time and settled into my new home: an eco-friendly, sustainable 2 bedroom with an earth floor (yep, dried mud with a sealant) on 2 acres of land with a nice garden and beach access, all within a 70 hectares ecovillage with 15 other houses. As a bonus I had access to two kayaks, so I could work on my double kayak tricks. The work was always really simple: a few days of weed pulling, a day of bridge building, a day of tree planting, a day of shelf building, and a day of apple picking…suspiciously similar to my jobs on the monastery. Another perk of staying at the ecovillage was that my host, Don, is a mediator, so I was able to meditate with him daily and we could talk about the kind of things meditators talk about, like lolcats and arbitrary experiences. The other village residents were all very cool too and all very unique, as you may expect to find at any alternative-lifestyle venue. One other house had another WWOOFer from the UK, so I even had a buddy to kayak with, share travel experiences, deliberate on the pronunciation of vowels and the letter R, and try to arrange further travels. The most important part of my stay, however, was my utter lack of responsibility. I can’t really say I was ever stressed out at the monastery, but I was partially in charge of many aspects of how the property ran and looked, and man was I happy to not have to worry about any of that. I’ll tell you, I read two books, completed several drawings, wrote heaps in my journal, and thoroughly enjoyed extended tea times. There wasn’t even a TV to distract me, so I had all the time I wanted to complete whatever secondary task came to mind. So yes, it was a very slow stay, but that was exactly what I was hoping for.
After 10 days of relaxing in the country, I felt I was ready to return to the city, or the Big Smoke, as they call it (don’t ask my why…?). Remember those punks I met when I first got here? Those kids I met on the internet. Well, I’ve been consistently hanging out with them since our first encounter, and when they heard I was coming to the city and was looking for a place to stay and a good time, they opened up their doors. How cool is that? Great dudes. So for 10 days, I played Wii bowling, listened to lots of ska music, ate free weet-bix, slept in ‘til whenever I pleased, and participated in a party called Deep Fry-day. As the name may suggest, one Friday evening my buddy Joe brought over his deep fryer and we began testing our stomachs’ junk-food-processing abilities. We.deep.fried.every.thing. It all started with some chips, which are not chips at all, but rather fries, and quickly moved to doughnuts. We agreed the doughnuts were put into play a little too early in the game, so we reared back to onion rings, and followed those up with a Milkyway bar. Now, don’t ask me who decided doughnuts were too much while Milkyways were good to go, but it was clearly time for a break. I ate a carrot to balance myself out, then we went back in for some tater-tots and a couple samosas (little curried vegetable pastry things). If you ever want to have a deep fry-day I would definitely suggest you incorporate Wii bowling, because it’s not so active as to make you sick to your stomach, yet just active enough to prevent you from going into a fry coma… this is a delicate, yet important balance, as your body will be simultaneously overwhelmed with the urges to sprint to the toilet to ralph it all AND curl up in a ball on the couch to die happily. You see, the Wii bowling tricks you into thinking there is a low-impact, ever-competitive meaning to life: pure brilliance. The fryer stayed hot and the oil flowed like wine, but I had to cash out while I was ahead and went for a PB & J while I watched the rest of the fools fry themselves into oblivion. A good time was had by all, but the fry champ was this skinny girl with bangs and proper speech patterns who ate everything that came her way and was asking for more…who would have thunk it.
A week passed where I didn’t do a whole lot of interesting things, and then V48 came. V48 is a 48 hour movie making competition put on by V, a New Zealand energy drink (problem? :D). So the dudes (they’re not all dudes, but that’s my affectionate name for them) and I gathered all of our movie making supplies and went to the orientation to collect information. Our mission: create a 7 minute or less movie about a super hero; one character’s name must be Bobby; there must be an image of a bent wire; and the line “What have you got” must be included. V also gave us an entire case of V for free. It took less than two hours to come up with our story and write the entire script, so you can probably guess the [very high] quality of our efforts. Let me just give you a line of the theme song that explains the entire scenario in less than one minute: “Magnetman, he attracts and repels things at random, man.” You may say something silly like, “That doesn’t sound like a magnet at all, magnets are consistent with the items they attract and repel,” but you’d be mistaken, that theory is simply untrue when it comes to Magnetman. He attracts and repels (randomly) everything from empty V cans to paper towels, paint brushes to girls, empty beer boxes to push brooms, cell phones to medieval swords. Catch my drift? And his arch enemy, Louis, is pretty much just jealous. And I don’t want to give anything away, but the ending has a twist…which may or may not be a character who appears for the final 2 seconds who has never been seen or mentioned before. New Zealand has put out a lot of great film makers and film producers, but I’m telling you, the dudes are going straight to the top with this one. I mostly played an extra because of my obscure American accent, but it was a great experience, and we somehow managed to pull all the shots together, edited them on a program that only crashed at the least opportune moments, and turned in the final product with 10 minutes to spare. Then it was back to Wii bowling. We showed the parents of some of my friends, but they all failed to recognize both the humor and the drama and just looked at us inquisitively. Some people just don’t understand art.
After 48 hours of movie making, energy drinking madness, we were all ready to crash. I stayed for two more days and felt it was time to move on. I truly enjoyed the time spent, but all my friends had finals and junk going on, and I’m just not into that these days. So I packed my things and hit the road again, heading south with my sights set on what’s known as the Southern Alps. As predicted, the city was very difficult to get through, but once I made it out to the country I had better luck. The day was getting late though, and I was hoping to make it to Wellington, still 6 hours south of where I was. I began looking for inconspicuous areas to set up my tent, when I got picked up by a family who was not headed at all in my direction. They were, however, headed out to the Coromandel, an area I hadn’t seen yet, and if there’s any perks to hitch hiking, it’s the random opportunities that get thrown your way. “You’re never going to make it down to Wellington… you’ll be lucky to make it to the next town before it gets dark. You’ll come back and stay at our house and we’ll bring you to a good hitching spot tomorrow.” I accepted graciously, assuring them, “I’ll help out with cooking, and do all your dishes!,” but they had a crockpot on and a dishwasher under the sink, so that made my life easy. The did, however, have 200 cows to be milked at 5:30 AM and happily accepted my offer to help out with that. If you think Morgan Hill, CA smells like cow shit everywhere, you should try standing at utter-level of a couple hundred cows for a few hours. At first I was naturally a little nervous around the beasts, but Terry, one of the daughters, showed me the ropes and I slowly started learning the tricks of the trade. After a hot shower and a beef lunch made out of dearly departed cow #156, Dane (the dad) drove me out to a main road and wished me luck. A few hours and a few rides later, I found myself in Taupo, a resort town, and decided to spend the night to see what came my way. When I checked into the hostel, the guy at the desk said, “OH man! You just missed out on a car of 4 girls going to Wellington…they just left a few hours ago.” Yeah, likely story guy. Anyway, I had a pleasant night and wound up meeting two guys from Belfast who were driving to Wellington the next day, so I offered to pitch some gas money. I was glad I found those guys, because the road between Taupo and Welly was long and desolate. We all booked into the same hostel that night in the city and went out for a bite. Since that night, I’ve been in or around the city, seeing the sights and spending all of my money. Wellington is actually a really cool place with lots of really cool people, although it is soo windy and is becoming increasingly cold at night. That tells me that the winter is coming and that I should get to the mountains before all the jobs are taken. The plan is to jump over to the South Island tomorrow and work at an organic winery for a few weeks, then get to Wanaka near Queenstown to find a job and an abode for the snow season…we’ll see how it actually plays out. So until next time, miss you all (somebody should come visit for snowboarding season), hope you’re all good, and remember: Magnetman will always do a half-assed job of protecting you (if it's not too much of an inconvenience), man!
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