Best Weekend Yet...

Howdy everyone. I'm going out on a bit of a limb to make the statement that I've made in the title, but I do believe this has been the best consecutive few days since I've been down here in the deep, deep south. LOTS of pics in this post (you've been warned) so let me just get right into it.

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Hanging out with the Chuns

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First off, I went to Queenstown to visit Noelle and her family after classes finished on Thursday afternoon. It was a bit of a drive but well worth it. After getting there and finding their (extremely nice 4 star) suite, we set out for dinner at "The Cow." This restaurant was pretty difficult to find (good eye Noelle) but we found it eventually and sat down for some good eats.

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Both Noelle's parents and I have had this restaurant recommended so there were a fair set of expectations. We felt affirmed when a random Kiwi leaving the restaurant told us that the pizzas were awesome. The above is our fresh garlic bread.

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After a short wait (first for the table, then for the main course), our pizzas arrived. The above is the "Her Majesty's Pleasure" (mushrooms, ham, pepperoni, onions, tomato & herbs). Quite tasty with a relatively thin, light crust.

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Mr. Chun & Noelle's brother Dylan both ordered spaghetti bolognese and Mrs. Chun & Noelle's other brother Quinn worked on the "Vegetarian Anne" pizza pictured above (every available vegetable topping).

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Afterwards, we did a bit of shopping (Mr. Chun learned the joys of merino wool) before heading back to the suite to watch "Timeline" (why didn't Paul Walker earn an oscar nom for his brilliant performance? - I'm kidding of course). The next morning, we had breakfast before driving out to Arrowtown. Above is the Main Street of Arrowtown, a little gold mining town made famous partially because of all the Chinese Miners that set up camp there.

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Here I am having a sit and thinking deep thoughts on an old Chinese latrine.

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Here's Ah Lum's General store. Not much there, but it was quite amazing that this Chinese fella had his own little shop where he was able to hook up all his homey's from the motherland. Not sure if that's what actually happened, but it was quite unusual for a Chinese guy to own a store of his own back at that time. Good that Ah Lum was successful in a difficult time for my brethren.

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We ate lunch here at the Arrowtown Bakery where they have some pretty darn good meat/gourmet pies.

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I enjoyed a Chicken Apricot pie that was quite delicious with a nice contrast of sweet & savory tastes.

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And, after a delightful lunch, I had to bid farewell to the Chun Family so that I could make it back to Dunedin in time for my class in the afternoon (I was only a few minutes late). I'd like to thank Mr. & Mrs. Chun, Dylan, Quinn and Noelle for allowing me to spend time with them. I had a great time and I think they did too. It was extremely nice to see some familiar faces down in NZ (apparently the Ng family was in town too, just not anywhere near me...would've been fun seeing them too...gee Darren, thanks for the head's up - or lack thereof) and to spend some time with familiar people. This should encourage more of you guys to visit me here because, if you're near enough, I will make a serious effort to accomodate you in my busy schedule!!!

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Mesopotamia: In the Middle of Nowhere

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When I finally made the drive out toward Mesopotamia, it was well dark, a little wet and just an overall scary time to be driving. This was particularly true about the last 50 km or so which was not only in the rain and in the dark (despite both high beams & fog lights being on), but over gravel roads. The road just kept going on and on and I seriously considered stopping several times because all I could see, basically, was the above. Just imagine two little circles where my headlights would be pointing. Hardly comforting. Anyways, I made it and that's the important part because it was an incredibly fun time. For starters, we all put our watches & cellphones in a bag to symbolically shut ourselves away from the outside world. To be honest, it really wouldn't have been necessary to drive home the point that we were isolated because there was, quite literally, nothing else for miles. No radio or cellphone reception or tv or anything like that. It was amazing though because you just lose yourself.

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Here's a pic of the sign so that I can sorta prove that this was the actual name of the place.

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This is the lodge that we stayed in. It's called the "Hunter's Cottage" for reasons that I will explain shortly.

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You can hunt here at Mesopotamia but we didn't opt for that option. This place, however, has probably housed many hunters in its time and you can see by the deer head above that they would've been quite succesful hunters. There were many other animal heads hanging in the living room area but I just took a pic of the biggest one.

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I contributed a little bit to Saturday morning's breakfast by making crepes. No nutella meant that I couldn't have my usual nutella & banana crepes but I settled for this honey & banana crepe.

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This is what the back of my motor vehicle looked like after driving through the night. I'm sure the bottom even has some scrathes from the flying gravel. I even forded a small stream! Good ole car survived!!!

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On Saturday, we took the cars up the road towards the mountain as close as we could before hiking up a fair bit to have a look at our surroundings and to play with the snow. The following few pics will illustrate just how empty and incredibly beautiful this part of New Zealand is:




In this last pic, you can see the two cars we took. The white one is Marissa's car and the grey speck that you can't see between the row of green trees is my car.

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Here I am just sitting and resting from the short hike up to the snowy part. One of the lovely peaks is situated right behind me.

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Here are a few of the others who took the less direct, much gentler route up the mountain (I just ran up a slope with the rest of the group).

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Here's my footprint in the snow to give you an idea about how deep the snow is. Also keep in mind that it's early afternoon sometime and the snow would've been exposed to direct sunlight for a while.

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Here's dinner. We had fresh carrots, potato salad, broccoli, vege & meat lasagna and fresh baked bread. It's awesome when people get together and team cook. Everyone wins!

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Sunday morning, after a wonderful breakfast with sausages, ham, eggs, spaghetti & toast, we walked up to the owner's house and, after paying for our stay, fed their horses carrots & apples. The horses were very well behaved and quite hungry. They seemed to enjoy our company and it was all lots of fun!

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Attracted by the food & feeding, this cow strolled on over and was rewarded with a couple of carrots.

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After checking out the horses, we walked down past the owner's house and visited the other lodge that they have on the premises. This place is called the "Cookhouse" and can accommodate up to 26 people!!!

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Here's the group of us that went out exploring. We are posing inside one of the large empty rooms of the Cookhouse. This room would be quite perfect for a little dance party. Just need a few strobes and speakers. I don't imagine too many neighbors would complain about noise because, frankly, there aren't many people nearby!

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We walked down from the Cookhouse back to the main road and then worked our way back up to the Cottage. Here's a pic of the road through this nice little wooded area. Nothing particularly special about the pic but it does seem quite visually appealing.

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Walking back up to the lodge, we past the old Mesopotamia School. It had a beautiful little playground and we couldn't help but relive our childhood. Rebecca & Marissa bolted straight for the swings.

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Here's a look at the full playground set that they have. They just don't make playgrounds nowadays like they used to. All the worry about safety and liability. Sheesh. I say bring back the dangerous equipment! I seemed to turn out fine...right?

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Marissa then climbed up this little tree next to the equipment.

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Many of the others went to the concrete area and jumped rope. It may be difficult to see in the pic, but there are netball hoops set up there as well. After jumping rope, we decided to play a game of netball (it's difficult to explain but I would say it's similar to a mix between ultimate frisbee & basketball - Google netball if you're really curious) with a rugby ball that we found in the classroom (couldn't find anything round). We split the teams up into those wearing black and those who weren't and we had a very physical game (it isn't supposed to be very contact oriented...but we bent the rules a little bit).

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When we finally returned to the lodge and got ready to leave, we took a group picture with everyone who went and it turned out a little something like this. We tried to emulate a family style picture and we went for as much symmetry as possible. I think it worked out quite well.

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And with that, it was time to return to civilization and drive back down to Dunedin. It was a wonderful weekend and I had a great time with everyone who went. I'm glad I decided to go because it was well worth the trouble (and the travel).

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To close out this post, I'd like to put up this pic that my mom got. She meets a lot of celebrities working for United and all but this particular signature is quite cool. I leave you all with this cool little souvenir and, in case you don't know who George Takei is, it has been signed by the guy who played Lt. Sulu in the original Star Trek TV show and subsequent movies.