So, as Jen mentions below, last night I tried to make minestrone. We headed to the local food stores (went to a separate store for veggies, which was had a good selection of locally grown produce for very low prices) where I ran into a bit of a surprise. Nowhere could I find, in the entire grocery store, either stock or broth or bullion or consume of any flavor. None. Nadda. Zip. Zero. Zilch.
This makes my minestrone recipe, which has as primary ingredients a couple of the above options. The closest I could find was a prepackaged "beef broth soup" envelope, which was a sad substitute. I soldiered on valiantly, however, and decided that the needed flavour could be obtained with the addition of a beer (Monteith's Black Beer, if you were curious).
It was only partially successful.
Locally grown produce: A+
Improvised beer-based broth: C
Total Grade: B
Showing posts with label beer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beer. Show all posts
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Beer and the Places That Sell It
As promised, here is a quick round up of the beer situation in Auckland, as experienced by us in the last week (egads! We've been here a week already? How did that happen?).
For the record, this post is fueled by a Hite (a Korean beer we had with dinner) and a Monteith's Black.
Where to start ... how about with the beer itself:
We had most of the beers that we have found when we were here in 2007, but we have now expanded our horizons with a couple rounds of Tuis (a Tui is a native bird here in NZ and a local brewery). It was surprisingly dark, but had very light flavor. Not "bad beer" flavor, just not much of any kind.
Also, Jen and I went to a Korean place for dinner tonight and had a Korean beer (Hite). The label on the bottle said "Clean, Crisp, and Refreshing". It was all of the above, but one would be hard pressed to describe the flavor as "beer-like" in any way. Again, it did not have a bad flavor, just not much of one at all.
We have managed to find several stores that sell a good selection of Monteith's, so we are quite content on that front.
On to the "Places That Sell It" portion of the post:
We have been to three pubs and one dance club (ironically, the night we went to the dance club was U of A's International Student Pub Night). Most have had a decent selection of local and import brews, though very few, if any, American beers.
U of A is pretty cool, in that it has a student bar in the commons called Shadows. It is a fairly large place, with a small stage where local bands occasionally play, a pool table, and lots of oddly shaped tables for students to hang out and carouse. They have a somewhat unique approach to serving beer at Shadows: the personal pitcher. It is a small pitcher, by pitcher standards, but holds a little more than 2 pints, so it will set you up quite nicely for an evening. Also, the personal pitchers are dirt cheap at $7.50 kiwi. They feature a lot of Mac's beer (a kiwi brewery), which are pretty good, but all rather heavy on the hops. Except the Sassy Red, which was very smooth.
Right down the road from campus is a little place called Ford's Bar and Museum. We're not sure what the "Museum" part was about, but it was a very cozy little place that looked more like a local watering hole than a student hang out. They had a rather limited beer selection, but looked like more of a wine place. Amusingly, they had a poker table where a spontaneous game of poker (for real money) broke out while we were there (neither of us participated, though).
Closer to the Queen Street strip is a unique place called Fiddler's Irish Pub. It is unique because of their interpretation of "pub". It is a tiny place, just room for a couple of tables, but they had several big screen plasma TVs showing bicycle racing (which was on the local sports channel) and were blaring modern hip-hop. When someone says "Irish Pub", many things come to mind. Plasma TVs and hip-hop music are not high on that list. However, we did meet a genuine Irishman there and had an amusing time hanging out with him and his kiwi friends.
Also just off of Queen is Globe, the location of U of A's official International Student Pub Night. The Globe made no pretenses at being a pub: they had a very limited food menu (frozen meat pies for $6!), a sizable dance floor, and a sound system turned up to 11. We still had fun, and learned quite a bit about pub etiquette from our new English and Welsh friends. We both felt quite old the next day, though, as we turned in early and were quite sore from the moderate amount of dancing in which we participated.
Thus ends the "Beer Post". We will be sure to update you all if we manage to find any new and/or interesting beers.
Cheers!
For the record, this post is fueled by a Hite (a Korean beer we had with dinner) and a Monteith's Black.
Where to start ... how about with the beer itself:
We had most of the beers that we have found when we were here in 2007, but we have now expanded our horizons with a couple rounds of Tuis (a Tui is a native bird here in NZ and a local brewery). It was surprisingly dark, but had very light flavor. Not "bad beer" flavor, just not much of any kind.
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Also, Jen and I went to a Korean place for dinner tonight and had a Korean beer (Hite). The label on the bottle said "Clean, Crisp, and Refreshing". It was all of the above, but one would be hard pressed to describe the flavor as "beer-like" in any way. Again, it did not have a bad flavor, just not much of one at all.
We have managed to find several stores that sell a good selection of Monteith's, so we are quite content on that front.
On to the "Places That Sell It" portion of the post:
We have been to three pubs and one dance club (ironically, the night we went to the dance club was U of A's International Student Pub Night). Most have had a decent selection of local and import brews, though very few, if any, American beers.
U of A is pretty cool, in that it has a student bar in the commons called Shadows. It is a fairly large place, with a small stage where local bands occasionally play, a pool table, and lots of oddly shaped tables for students to hang out and carouse. They have a somewhat unique approach to serving beer at Shadows: the personal pitcher. It is a small pitcher, by pitcher standards, but holds a little more than 2 pints, so it will set you up quite nicely for an evening. Also, the personal pitchers are dirt cheap at $7.50 kiwi. They feature a lot of Mac's beer (a kiwi brewery), which are pretty good, but all rather heavy on the hops. Except the Sassy Red, which was very smooth.
Right down the road from campus is a little place called Ford's Bar and Museum. We're not sure what the "Museum" part was about, but it was a very cozy little place that looked more like a local watering hole than a student hang out. They had a rather limited beer selection, but looked like more of a wine place. Amusingly, they had a poker table where a spontaneous game of poker (for real money) broke out while we were there (neither of us participated, though).
Closer to the Queen Street strip is a unique place called Fiddler's Irish Pub. It is unique because of their interpretation of "pub". It is a tiny place, just room for a couple of tables, but they had several big screen plasma TVs showing bicycle racing (which was on the local sports channel) and were blaring modern hip-hop. When someone says "Irish Pub", many things come to mind. Plasma TVs and hip-hop music are not high on that list. However, we did meet a genuine Irishman there and had an amusing time hanging out with him and his kiwi friends.
Also just off of Queen is Globe, the location of U of A's official International Student Pub Night. The Globe made no pretenses at being a pub: they had a very limited food menu (frozen meat pies for $6!), a sizable dance floor, and a sound system turned up to 11. We still had fun, and learned quite a bit about pub etiquette from our new English and Welsh friends. We both felt quite old the next day, though, as we turned in early and were quite sore from the moderate amount of dancing in which we participated.
Thus ends the "Beer Post". We will be sure to update you all if we manage to find any new and/or interesting beers.
Cheers!
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Fox Glacier
Yesterday we headed out of Queenstown for Fox Glacier, where we were scheduled to go on a half-day hike up onto the glacier (the Kiwis pronounce glacier "glace-ier" rather than "glaysher").
On our way out of Queenstown, we spotted a hitchhiker holding a sign for Wanaka, which was the first major stop on our projected five hours of driving for the day. On a spur of the moment, we decided to pull over and give her a lift. After shifting the debris in the back seat a bit, we made room for her and were off to Wanaka.
Jane, as she is called, is a sound engineer from London that has been spending the last couple of months travelling around NZ as she felt the whim. We had a fascinating discussion with her during the hour long trip to Wanaka and dropped her off before we looked for parking and lunch.
Just outside of Wanaka, as we entered the city, was an establishment that we could not help but visit: Puzzling World. Inside there were several rooms devoted to really impressive optical illusions and a room of cool holographic photos. Outside was a rather impressive two floor maze (the second floor consisted of a series of bridges connecting distant parts of the maze).
The maze had four color coded towers and the challenge for the maze was to find all four towers (in any order for the easy challenge or in a specific order for the hard challenge) and then find the way out. We chose to do the easy challenge, as we still had four hours of driving to go, which was listed as taking 30 to 60 minutes. After some frustration with the dastardly green tower, we made it out in a quite respectible 45 minutes.
The next four hours were pretty much straight driving, with Jen and I trading off driving duties. We stopped briefly to walk up to the Thunder Falls and again to catch the sun setting over the Tasman Sea. There was a near miss with a Pukeko and an incident with an opposum and our right front wheel (that one was for the kiwis and other endangered flightless birds of NZ) after night fell. Our current accommidation is the Misty Mountains Lodge, a lovely little B&B just on the edge of the Fox Glacier township. We have not seen any hobbits or dwarves yet, but I am still optimistic.
On the recommendation of the proprietress, we went to a little restaurant called The Platau. The food was great: I had chorzo sausage, feta cheese, and mushrooms on penne and Jen had NZ green lipped muscles in a chili-ginger-lime sauce. We both tried a new (for us) brand of beer: Moa. Jen had the Moa Blanc (a spicey wheat beer) and I had the Moa Noir (a very chocolately dark ale). Both were excellent, bottle-fermented brews.
We were up early this morning for breakfast (standard fare: fried eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes - the Kiwis know how to do breakfast) and then were off to the guide station to begin our hike.
Our tour gide was a former Mt. Everest sherpa from Nepal named Passang who was quite entertaining and hopped about the steep, narrow, rocky, wet, slippery trails like some sort of spry mountain alpaca. Or possibly a sherpa. The glacier itself was spectacular; we got to hike out onto it with crampons strapped onto our boots and specially made walking sticks (they had a metal bit at the end to stab into the ice) to assist us.
The trail (parts of it barely qualify for the word, but I'm feeling generous today) was quite difficult in places and the company that ran the tours had people out rebuilding parts of the trail that had recently been destroyed by landslides or flash floods. Jen and I will both be quite sore tomorrow. Fortunately, we only have a relaxing three and a half hour drive to Greymouth and then an alpine train back to Christchurch scheduled for tomorrow.
We'll post some pictures of the glacier when we get internet access from the laptop, we're using the computer in the B&B front room right now.
On our way out of Queenstown, we spotted a hitchhiker holding a sign for Wanaka, which was the first major stop on our projected five hours of driving for the day. On a spur of the moment, we decided to pull over and give her a lift. After shifting the debris in the back seat a bit, we made room for her and were off to Wanaka.
Jane, as she is called, is a sound engineer from London that has been spending the last couple of months travelling around NZ as she felt the whim. We had a fascinating discussion with her during the hour long trip to Wanaka and dropped her off before we looked for parking and lunch.
Just outside of Wanaka, as we entered the city, was an establishment that we could not help but visit: Puzzling World. Inside there were several rooms devoted to really impressive optical illusions and a room of cool holographic photos. Outside was a rather impressive two floor maze (the second floor consisted of a series of bridges connecting distant parts of the maze).
The maze had four color coded towers and the challenge for the maze was to find all four towers (in any order for the easy challenge or in a specific order for the hard challenge) and then find the way out. We chose to do the easy challenge, as we still had four hours of driving to go, which was listed as taking 30 to 60 minutes. After some frustration with the dastardly green tower, we made it out in a quite respectible 45 minutes.
The next four hours were pretty much straight driving, with Jen and I trading off driving duties. We stopped briefly to walk up to the Thunder Falls and again to catch the sun setting over the Tasman Sea. There was a near miss with a Pukeko and an incident with an opposum and our right front wheel (that one was for the kiwis and other endangered flightless birds of NZ) after night fell. Our current accommidation is the Misty Mountains Lodge, a lovely little B&B just on the edge of the Fox Glacier township. We have not seen any hobbits or dwarves yet, but I am still optimistic.
On the recommendation of the proprietress, we went to a little restaurant called The Platau. The food was great: I had chorzo sausage, feta cheese, and mushrooms on penne and Jen had NZ green lipped muscles in a chili-ginger-lime sauce. We both tried a new (for us) brand of beer: Moa. Jen had the Moa Blanc (a spicey wheat beer) and I had the Moa Noir (a very chocolately dark ale). Both were excellent, bottle-fermented brews.
We were up early this morning for breakfast (standard fare: fried eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes - the Kiwis know how to do breakfast) and then were off to the guide station to begin our hike.
Our tour gide was a former Mt. Everest sherpa from Nepal named Passang who was quite entertaining and hopped about the steep, narrow, rocky, wet, slippery trails like some sort of spry mountain alpaca. Or possibly a sherpa. The glacier itself was spectacular; we got to hike out onto it with crampons strapped onto our boots and specially made walking sticks (they had a metal bit at the end to stab into the ice) to assist us.
The trail (parts of it barely qualify for the word, but I'm feeling generous today) was quite difficult in places and the company that ran the tours had people out rebuilding parts of the trail that had recently been destroyed by landslides or flash floods. Jen and I will both be quite sore tomorrow. Fortunately, we only have a relaxing three and a half hour drive to Greymouth and then an alpine train back to Christchurch scheduled for tomorrow.
We'll post some pictures of the glacier when we get internet access from the laptop, we're using the computer in the B&B front room right now.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
On to Queenstown!
Yesterday morning we decided to do one last short walk before getting on the road and heading for Queenstown. A quick look in the guide book indicated that there should be a 30 minute walk along Frasers Beach that should give us some nice views. So we loaded up the car and drove 20 minutes to what we thought was the start of the walk.
This, however, was no nice, wide, sandy beach like we found at Cannibal Bay. Oh no. This beach was all loose rocks ranging from golf ball sized on up to mid sized boulders. This may or may not seem like a big deal, unless you have ever tried to walk on loose stones. About an hour of hard hiking across loose stones, over fields of Technicolor algae seeping out of the rock, through packs of vicious dire opossums, and much ankle peril, we finally made it to our final destination: Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor was a bit of a disappointment, what with the complete lack of pearls and the overabundance of tour groups departing from the harbor on various cruises. There was, however, one thing of interest to us: the actual trail that we were supposed to take.
You see, the trail between Frasers Beach and Pearl Harbor did not start right where you first got off of the highway by the sign that says "Frasers Beach". The trail starts about a kilometer down the road next to another sign that says "Frasers Beach". Needless to say, the walk back was much less perilous.
Once back to the car, Jen declared that she wanted to try driving. Being the sporting chap that I am, I agreed that this would be a smashing place for her to try left side driving as we were in a fairly deserted, low traffic area (my own experience of trying to figure things out as I went when driving in a city indicated that this would be a much easier way to learn).
Twenty moderately terrifying minutes later we pulled into the Moose Bar and Restaurant in Te Anau, where we had decided to have lunch. It was not that Jen's driving was terrifying (in fact, she did much better than I did at staying in the lane at first), it was the sitting in the passenger seat while someone else figured out how to drive on the wrong side of the road. I told her that I was quite impressed that she hadn't screamed more when I was driving in Christchurch.
After a quick lunch in The Moose we were off to Queenstown. The drive was uneventful but pretty. I started to get fatigued, so Jen took another spell driving about half way through and remained at the helm until we got near the city, where I took over again.
We found our accommodation here in Queenstown without much drama. We are staying at a lodge about 50 meters from the start of the down town strip. Let me fill you in a bit about Queenstown: it is the "Adventure Capital" of NZ*. Just about every adventury thing you would want to do can be done in this town: bungy jumping, hang gliding, white water rafting, paragliding, jet boating, etc. It is also central to several ski areas in the mountains in this area.
Needless to say the city attracts a demographic that is a bit younger and more exuberant than, say, the Fiordland National Park. There are lots of hip little bars and cafes and about a third of the commercial establishments here deal with adventure sporting in one way or another. Some book trips, others sell supplies, others sell hipster clothing proclaiming the extreme sports adventuring life style. It is a very interesting city, very different from Te Anau. All that being said, our accommodation here seem a bit more like a dorm room than a hotel. Very small, somewhat ugly decorations, and thin walls make us feel like we are on spring break somewhere that you can't drink the water.
Since last night was our 1 week anniversary, we decided to head someplace nice for dinner. After consulting the tour guides, we decided on a place called The Bath House, which is apparently an old bath house that has been converted into a swanky restaurant. Unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays, which we only found out by walking there and seeing the dark building.
Strike One.
We then stood around the entrance to the Bath House and advertised our status as "Dumb American Tourists" by whipping out the tour book and trying to find a backup. The next fanciest place looked to be a place called The Bunker, which was somewhat ambiguously located on the map. After a couple of minutes walking around a back ally, we finally found the door and entered. It was a quaint little place with lots of character and only a couple of tables. All of which were full and would not be free for over an hour.
Strike Two.
Understandably flummoxed by the uselessness of the tour book, we decided to fall back on the old reliable "Pick a Place at Random and Eat There" method of restaurant location. A couple of doors down the ally from The Bunker was the back door to a little joint called Surreal. In we went and managed to snag a table for two, whose romantic atmosphere was slightly marred because the candle on the table had previously been extinguished by the wind coming in from the open door. We still don't know why they had the doors propped open, as it was quite chilly (about 10 C).
Fortunately we were bundled against the weather and simple left a couple of layers on. Jen had pork roasted in milk and honey on a bed of kumara and potatoes. I had a Mediterranean stir fry which was pine-nut free on the second try. I have never had feta cheese in a stir fry before, but it worked quite well and I will have to try it once I get back to the States. Ordering drinks was amusing: I had to explain how to make an Amaretto Sour, which Jen ordered, to the bar tender. He also had an interesting interpretation of a Manhattan; I think he added Grenadine. The martini, however, was excellent and straight out of a Bond movie (although I think 007 gets his with a twist, whereas I prefer an olive).
After dinner, our plans for heading to one of the trendy bars were dashed by the reality of our exhaustion from our earlier ordeal on Frasers Beach, so we headed back to the lodge and turned in. Since the place at which we are staying is not a B&B, we were somewhat relieved to find ourselves on our own for breakfast - that meant that we could sleep in a bit, which we did. We had brunch at a small cafe and then headed back to the room to get ready for our adventure of the day: kayaking on the lake.
Neither of us have done any kayaking before, so we didn't really know what to wear. The answer, of course, was to go with a bunch of layers. We were picked up by Glenn, who was our guide for the afternoon and is quite a character. He has been a guide of one sort or another in Queenstown for the last 20 years and just started the kayaking business with some other people in October.
Those of you who are used to Michigan would be astounded to hear that the lake here is almost completely unused by boaters. It is this huge, gorgeous lake surrounded on all sides by towering mountains, and there were a total of four boats on the lake today, two of which were our kayaks (Jen and I were in a two-person kayak, Glenn was in his own).
Glenn entertained us along the way with tidbits of the history of NZ and the Queenstown area. Some of the tidbits were a moderately embellished, such as when he told us that, back before the Maori hunted them to extinction, the moas (an ostrich sized flightless bird) towered above the trees. Also, there was something about a kind of eagle that hunted people which the Maori counter-hunted to extinction by baiting the eagle with a live person.
The highlight of the afternoon, though, was when we pulled off to the side and had tea in the rain while sitting in our kayaks. That may be something of a quintessential Kiwi experience, but you may need to work sheep in there somehow for it to really sum up the country.
Once back in town, both Jen and I were feeling the lack of anything substantial to eat throughout the day, so we changed out of our wet clothes and headed out to find a place to eat. We stumbled upon a bar called the Red Rock which looked to have a bit of character and headed inside. Jen had a salad of some kind and I had beef nachos, which were not in any way spicy, but were instead served with a sweet fruit chutney on top. Not quite authentic TexMex, but quite good. When we were ordering our drinks, I, in my never ending quest to find good beer wherever I go, asked the bartender what the Tiu beer that they had on tap was like. Her response was essentially "If you are asking how a beer is, you won't like Tiu, but here's a taste anyway". She was right, of course, it was a Bud/Miller/Coors style beer.
Both Jen and I went with Monteith's again (she the Redler and I the Ale). Apparently I got quite lucky when I picked Monteith's at random from the beer list on that first night in Christchurch, as we have yet to find another beer as good (though the Pitch Black Stout that Jen had at Milford was right up there).
After dinner we decided on the extreme sport adventure thing that we are going to don while here: we booked a bungy jump for tomorrow at 11:45. Once that was booked, we did a bit of souvenir shopping, and then returned to the lodge to do some laundry, which I am checking on periodically while I write here.
And on that note, we're pretty much caught up on what has been happening here.
* - I wanted to find a local tavern, sit down, order an ale, and wait for some stranger in dire need of assistance to give us a map and promise great treasure and fame if we would help them, but Jen pointed out that I didn't really need another level in Geek, so the phat XP would be wasted.
This, however, was no nice, wide, sandy beach like we found at Cannibal Bay. Oh no. This beach was all loose rocks ranging from golf ball sized on up to mid sized boulders. This may or may not seem like a big deal, unless you have ever tried to walk on loose stones. About an hour of hard hiking across loose stones, over fields of Technicolor algae seeping out of the rock, through packs of vicious dire opossums, and much ankle peril, we finally made it to our final destination: Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor was a bit of a disappointment, what with the complete lack of pearls and the overabundance of tour groups departing from the harbor on various cruises. There was, however, one thing of interest to us: the actual trail that we were supposed to take.
You see, the trail between Frasers Beach and Pearl Harbor did not start right where you first got off of the highway by the sign that says "Frasers Beach". The trail starts about a kilometer down the road next to another sign that says "Frasers Beach". Needless to say, the walk back was much less perilous.
Once back to the car, Jen declared that she wanted to try driving. Being the sporting chap that I am, I agreed that this would be a smashing place for her to try left side driving as we were in a fairly deserted, low traffic area (my own experience of trying to figure things out as I went when driving in a city indicated that this would be a much easier way to learn).
Twenty moderately terrifying minutes later we pulled into the Moose Bar and Restaurant in Te Anau, where we had decided to have lunch. It was not that Jen's driving was terrifying (in fact, she did much better than I did at staying in the lane at first), it was the sitting in the passenger seat while someone else figured out how to drive on the wrong side of the road. I told her that I was quite impressed that she hadn't screamed more when I was driving in Christchurch.
After a quick lunch in The Moose we were off to Queenstown. The drive was uneventful but pretty. I started to get fatigued, so Jen took another spell driving about half way through and remained at the helm until we got near the city, where I took over again.
We found our accommodation here in Queenstown without much drama. We are staying at a lodge about 50 meters from the start of the down town strip. Let me fill you in a bit about Queenstown: it is the "Adventure Capital" of NZ*. Just about every adventury thing you would want to do can be done in this town: bungy jumping, hang gliding, white water rafting, paragliding, jet boating, etc. It is also central to several ski areas in the mountains in this area.
Needless to say the city attracts a demographic that is a bit younger and more exuberant than, say, the Fiordland National Park. There are lots of hip little bars and cafes and about a third of the commercial establishments here deal with adventure sporting in one way or another. Some book trips, others sell supplies, others sell hipster clothing proclaiming the extreme sports adventuring life style. It is a very interesting city, very different from Te Anau. All that being said, our accommodation here seem a bit more like a dorm room than a hotel. Very small, somewhat ugly decorations, and thin walls make us feel like we are on spring break somewhere that you can't drink the water.
Since last night was our 1 week anniversary, we decided to head someplace nice for dinner. After consulting the tour guides, we decided on a place called The Bath House, which is apparently an old bath house that has been converted into a swanky restaurant. Unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays, which we only found out by walking there and seeing the dark building.
Strike One.
We then stood around the entrance to the Bath House and advertised our status as "Dumb American Tourists" by whipping out the tour book and trying to find a backup. The next fanciest place looked to be a place called The Bunker, which was somewhat ambiguously located on the map. After a couple of minutes walking around a back ally, we finally found the door and entered. It was a quaint little place with lots of character and only a couple of tables. All of which were full and would not be free for over an hour.
Strike Two.
Understandably flummoxed by the uselessness of the tour book, we decided to fall back on the old reliable "Pick a Place at Random and Eat There" method of restaurant location. A couple of doors down the ally from The Bunker was the back door to a little joint called Surreal. In we went and managed to snag a table for two, whose romantic atmosphere was slightly marred because the candle on the table had previously been extinguished by the wind coming in from the open door. We still don't know why they had the doors propped open, as it was quite chilly (about 10 C).
Fortunately we were bundled against the weather and simple left a couple of layers on. Jen had pork roasted in milk and honey on a bed of kumara and potatoes. I had a Mediterranean stir fry which was pine-nut free on the second try. I have never had feta cheese in a stir fry before, but it worked quite well and I will have to try it once I get back to the States. Ordering drinks was amusing: I had to explain how to make an Amaretto Sour, which Jen ordered, to the bar tender. He also had an interesting interpretation of a Manhattan; I think he added Grenadine. The martini, however, was excellent and straight out of a Bond movie (although I think 007 gets his with a twist, whereas I prefer an olive).
After dinner, our plans for heading to one of the trendy bars were dashed by the reality of our exhaustion from our earlier ordeal on Frasers Beach, so we headed back to the lodge and turned in. Since the place at which we are staying is not a B&B, we were somewhat relieved to find ourselves on our own for breakfast - that meant that we could sleep in a bit, which we did. We had brunch at a small cafe and then headed back to the room to get ready for our adventure of the day: kayaking on the lake.
Neither of us have done any kayaking before, so we didn't really know what to wear. The answer, of course, was to go with a bunch of layers. We were picked up by Glenn, who was our guide for the afternoon and is quite a character. He has been a guide of one sort or another in Queenstown for the last 20 years and just started the kayaking business with some other people in October.
Those of you who are used to Michigan would be astounded to hear that the lake here is almost completely unused by boaters. It is this huge, gorgeous lake surrounded on all sides by towering mountains, and there were a total of four boats on the lake today, two of which were our kayaks (Jen and I were in a two-person kayak, Glenn was in his own).
Glenn entertained us along the way with tidbits of the history of NZ and the Queenstown area. Some of the tidbits were a moderately embellished, such as when he told us that, back before the Maori hunted them to extinction, the moas (an ostrich sized flightless bird) towered above the trees. Also, there was something about a kind of eagle that hunted people which the Maori counter-hunted to extinction by baiting the eagle with a live person.
The highlight of the afternoon, though, was when we pulled off to the side and had tea in the rain while sitting in our kayaks. That may be something of a quintessential Kiwi experience, but you may need to work sheep in there somehow for it to really sum up the country.
Once back in town, both Jen and I were feeling the lack of anything substantial to eat throughout the day, so we changed out of our wet clothes and headed out to find a place to eat. We stumbled upon a bar called the Red Rock which looked to have a bit of character and headed inside. Jen had a salad of some kind and I had beef nachos, which were not in any way spicy, but were instead served with a sweet fruit chutney on top. Not quite authentic TexMex, but quite good. When we were ordering our drinks, I, in my never ending quest to find good beer wherever I go, asked the bartender what the Tiu beer that they had on tap was like. Her response was essentially "If you are asking how a beer is, you won't like Tiu, but here's a taste anyway". She was right, of course, it was a Bud/Miller/Coors style beer.
Both Jen and I went with Monteith's again (she the Redler and I the Ale). Apparently I got quite lucky when I picked Monteith's at random from the beer list on that first night in Christchurch, as we have yet to find another beer as good (though the Pitch Black Stout that Jen had at Milford was right up there).
After dinner we decided on the extreme sport adventure thing that we are going to don while here: we booked a bungy jump for tomorrow at 11:45. Once that was booked, we did a bit of souvenir shopping, and then returned to the lodge to do some laundry, which I am checking on periodically while I write here.
And on that note, we're pretty much caught up on what has been happening here.
* - I wanted to find a local tavern, sit down, order an ale, and wait for some stranger in dire need of assistance to give us a map and promise great treasure and fame if we would help them, but Jen pointed out that I didn't really need another level in Geek, so the phat XP would be wasted.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Post Nuptials
Hey, everyone, it is me, Jen, so expect future entries to be less witty. They will also be shorter and less frequent since tomorrow a.m. we leave the conveniences of the city and may not have regular internet access. Plus, we are doing a lot of scheduled activities which may leave us a bit short on "blog-time".
Since we last posted, we spent most of Tuesday sleeping and recovering, but also went to the International Antarctic Center where we saw handicapped Little Blue Penguins and got to ride around in a Haggland (an all-terrain, amphibian Antarctic vehicle) driven by a crazy man named Shaun. We had dinner at a neat place called the Tap Room where Scott had green-lipped mussels and really good Monteith's beer, and I had kangaroo and a Kiwi daiquiri. We walked around a lot after that looking for the Christchurch casino which sadly had no poker on Tuesdays. I still walked away $5.00NZ richer though from some boring slots.
Wednesday: We went on an all day tour to where they filmed Edoras, Rohan for the Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers. Now, I know that most of you are now scratching your heads a bit because I told you all that that was where we were getting married. I lied. Or rather, I was under some false presumptions. Anyway, it matters not at all. Point is, we went there.
As I said, we leave tomorrow for Dunedin, which is south of Christchurch along the east coast of NZ. On the way, we will stop at Omauru to see some normal Little Blue Penguins on a behind the scenes tour.
Here are some more wedding pictures and some pictures from the last 2 days.
At Edoras:
At the International Antarctic Center:
In Christchurch:
More wedding photos:
Since we last posted, we spent most of Tuesday sleeping and recovering, but also went to the International Antarctic Center where we saw handicapped Little Blue Penguins and got to ride around in a Haggland (an all-terrain, amphibian Antarctic vehicle) driven by a crazy man named Shaun. We had dinner at a neat place called the Tap Room where Scott had green-lipped mussels and really good Monteith's beer, and I had kangaroo and a Kiwi daiquiri. We walked around a lot after that looking for the Christchurch casino which sadly had no poker on Tuesdays. I still walked away $5.00NZ richer though from some boring slots.
Wednesday: We went on an all day tour to where they filmed Edoras, Rohan for the Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers. Now, I know that most of you are now scratching your heads a bit because I told you all that that was where we were getting married. I lied. Or rather, I was under some false presumptions. Anyway, it matters not at all. Point is, we went there.
As I said, we leave tomorrow for Dunedin, which is south of Christchurch along the east coast of NZ. On the way, we will stop at Omauru to see some normal Little Blue Penguins on a behind the scenes tour.
Here are some more wedding pictures and some pictures from the last 2 days.
At Edoras:
At the International Antarctic Center:
In Christchurch:
More wedding photos:
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Christchurch
We are all checked in and settled into our hotel here in Christchurch. We are staying at the Warners Historic Hotel, which is some sort of historic hotel with internet access, but no central heat (each room has a wall-mounted heater unit). The rooms have old-school metal keys (as opposed to a key card) that are attached to a big chunk of wood (3" x 2"). While that does make it rather hard to loose the key, it is a little awkward to have in one's pocket. As honeymooners, the hotel upgraded our room on the house, which we thought was very kind of them.
We took a walk earlier in the day, looking for a place to have lunch. It turns out, however, that almost all of the restaurants in Christchurch are closed for lunch on Sunday. Bah. We ended up eating in the hotel restaurant. Jen had a lamb salad, I had bruschetta.
The walk was fruitful, however, in that we got to experience a kiwi cuckoo clock chiming the hour. It was an enormous egg-shaped clock with a kiwi sitting on top. When it was time to do its thing, the side of the egg opened up and there were several scenes played out about different phases of New Zealand history. Without a narrator, it was more or less nonsensical. There was a bit with a sheep getting shorn and sporting a poodle show cut, something about rugby, a random bungee jumper, and it closed with an alien riding a hover bike. We really don't know what the last part was supposed to be, but I'll see if I can trade in the Toyota Carola that we are renting for one of those hover bikes.
We had dinner at the Tandori Palace, an Indian restaurant next door to the hotel. Jen had a basket of nan (the way tasty Indian flat bread) as big as her head (I am, for once, not exaggerating when I use that idiom) and I had a chicken curry. All the food was excellent. Jen had a glass of the ginger beer, which was very good, and I had a local beer: the Monteiths Dark. I'm not quite sure where it falls in the beer taxonomy, perhaps a dark lager? Regardless, it gets two thumbs up: Smooth, complex flavor with a hint of spice and almost no aftertaste. The evening was made, however, by the Crazy Mongolian (complete with fur-lined hat) who peered into the window next to our table and started talking. We are not sure if he was trying to talk to us or was content to converse with the voices in his head.
Tomorrow is the big day. Jen is getting up at 5 to start prepping ... I will be getting up significantly later, as I am a guy and thus relatively low maintenance.
We took a walk earlier in the day, looking for a place to have lunch. It turns out, however, that almost all of the restaurants in Christchurch are closed for lunch on Sunday. Bah. We ended up eating in the hotel restaurant. Jen had a lamb salad, I had bruschetta.
The walk was fruitful, however, in that we got to experience a kiwi cuckoo clock chiming the hour. It was an enormous egg-shaped clock with a kiwi sitting on top. When it was time to do its thing, the side of the egg opened up and there were several scenes played out about different phases of New Zealand history. Without a narrator, it was more or less nonsensical. There was a bit with a sheep getting shorn and sporting a poodle show cut, something about rugby, a random bungee jumper, and it closed with an alien riding a hover bike. We really don't know what the last part was supposed to be, but I'll see if I can trade in the Toyota Carola that we are renting for one of those hover bikes.
We had dinner at the Tandori Palace, an Indian restaurant next door to the hotel. Jen had a basket of nan (the way tasty Indian flat bread) as big as her head (I am, for once, not exaggerating when I use that idiom) and I had a chicken curry. All the food was excellent. Jen had a glass of the ginger beer, which was very good, and I had a local beer: the Monteiths Dark. I'm not quite sure where it falls in the beer taxonomy, perhaps a dark lager? Regardless, it gets two thumbs up: Smooth, complex flavor with a hint of spice and almost no aftertaste. The evening was made, however, by the Crazy Mongolian (complete with fur-lined hat) who peered into the window next to our table and started talking. We are not sure if he was trying to talk to us or was content to converse with the voices in his head.
Tomorrow is the big day. Jen is getting up at 5 to start prepping ... I will be getting up significantly later, as I am a guy and thus relatively low maintenance.
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