Kaohshiung, Taiwan

Breakfast at our hotel was a set tray with an interesting mix of western and local dishes. There was a small bowl of milk and cereal, eggs with grilled chicken and tomato, a mushroom soup and a separate potato broth. They were all very tasty but I couldn’t get past the soup for breakfast part. They did have excellent pastries though.

The things to see that we had mapped out last night were unfortunately spread out across the city. Kaohshiung, a bit like Toronto, is under-serviced by subways. It’s great if what you want is on the subway line but most things aren’t.

So we started by taking a taxi out to Lotus Pond, about a half hour north of the centre. It’s surrounded by numerous temples and is a big tourist draw. Unfortunately for us there was a cruise ship in town (we had noticed it docked last night from our hotel) and so the temples were busier than usual with large group excursions.

The most popular site at Lotus Pond are the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. They’re under restorations and covered with scaffolding. So we checked out the other pagodas. These were covered with pigeon poop. So not very attractive or picturesque.

We tried to hail a taxi to the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts and at first jumped into someone else’s Uber. The Centre for the Arts is a Zaha Hadid Architecture (ZHA) designed building. It looked the part, with not many straight lines. It wasn’t quite as interesting as the ZHA building in Baku, where we first became interested in her work.

Close by was WeiWu Mi Mi Village, where murals cover the outside of most of the 3-5 storey buildings in the block. Some of them were cool but we found it a bit over the top.

We were able to take a subway to near our next stop, Hei Bonn Gōrudohausu. It’s a high-end Japanese grocery store on the 1st floor (wagyu beef, sushi etc) and on the 2nd floor is a cafeteria-like setting where you can cook and eat. The store had someone who spoke English help us buy the right ingredients for a hotpot (sliced wagyu beef and an assorted vegetable platter). Upstairs, they then provided a miso broth and we were cooking!

We’ve really enjoyed the street food scene on this trip, but we have found it to be a lot of deep fried stuff. I like deep fried food, but maybe in moderation :). Anyways our lunch hit the spot.

Next door was another ZHA building, the Kaohsiung Port Cruise Terminal. The cruise ship was still in port, and the security staff thought we were returning passengers. The cruise ship also got in the way of pics of the building :( but I guess it is the cruise terminal.

We debated checking out the Museum of Labour that we had stumbled across yesterday, but decided to return to the hotel to rest up.

We had dinner at the grill restaurant in the hotel. Their grilled steaks were excellent, the appetizers were so-so.

After dinner we took a taxi to Sanfong Temple. It’s better visited after sunset cause of the strings of red laterns. There were only a couple other visitors there too. There were worshippers near the back of the temple that were chanting and playing instruments. It was pretty cool to see the temple and hear the ceremonial music.

We were still full from dinner so decided to walk the 45 minutes home. It was a very pleasant walk back. There’s a nice vibe to Kaohshiung, with lots of people out and about enjoying the evening. (It was also perfect weather). We came across a busy Christmas event in a park with performers and a jolly Santa. It was a nice end to the day.

Kaohshiung, Taiwan

It took a bit longer to get from Lukang to Kaohshiung than getting into Lukang. A taxi, local train and subway ride and four hours later we were at our hotel in Kaohshiung. We were able to get early check in again!

Our hotel recommended a restaurant for lunch. The folks there provided us a picture menu and helped us order. It was pretty good.

After we walked over to the Pier2 Art Centre and browsed the artsy stores. Kaohshiung is more of a cultural hub than other cities in Taiwan, with two (!) Zaha Hadid Architecture buildings to see. It's a nice variety from all the temples we've been seeing so far.

We were close to Formosa Blvd subway station so checked out the Dome of Light, an art installation inside the station. On the way there we walked past the Museum of Labour which looked interesting, but for another day as we had lost our steam.

Took the subway back to the hotel and made plans for the next day. There’s a few things on the list so we’ll have a full day.

Lukang, Taiwan

We took the HSR (high-speed rail) from Taipei to Taichung, and then a taxi to Lukang. It was a three step process to get tickets - I bought a voucher online for the route, and then used the voucher to reserve seats on the day we wanted. Then in Taiwan we had to show our passports at a train station to pick up the tickets. I made the reservation as soon as the window opened up two weeks out - good thing too, as it looked fully booked.

It’s only 45 minutes by HSR to Taichung, about half way south down Taiwan. The taxi ride to Lukang was just as long :) we could have taken another local train but we only had the afternoon to see Lukang.

Luckily our room was available for early check in at noon, so we could freshen up and change to warmer weather clothes. It was beautiful in Lukang, about 22C with a warm breeze. It’s the first nice day weather-wise we’ve had!

Lukang is a quaint little town with really well preserved older buildings. It’s a working town (not just for tourists) and has a nice charm. We loosely followed the Lonely Planet walking tour to get to Lukang Mazu Temple.

First we stopped for food. There’s a number of local delicacies and the restaurants around the temple are some of the best to try them. So we ordered oyster fritters, deep-fried mud shrimp, oyster omelette and some other stuff. It was interesting to try, but it wasn’t to our liking. The restaurant was packed with locals enjoying it though so I’m sure it was very good.

Then we visited Mazu Temple. It’s my favourite temple I’ve seen so far. It dates back to the 17th century. There weren’t many worshippers and hardly any tourists when we visited.

We wandered back to the hotel through little streets and alleys.

After sunset we returned back to Mazu Temple to see it at night. It was even more amazing and magical at night. There were only a couple other people there.

Walked back to the hotel, the back alleys near the hotel were also nicely lit at night. The hotel recommended a place for dinner; they were closing when we arrived but they suggested another place around the corner, which was okay.

We were glad we stayed overnight in Lukang (it’s more common as a day trip) just so we could see it at night. If you’re in Taiwan and have the chance to visit I’d highly recommend it.

Taipei, Taiwan

Merry Christmas! Dec 25 is not a public holiday in Taiwan so things were generally open, unlike our last trip in NZ where they shut down almost everything for weeks! We had more of a challenge with today being a Monday (most museums and the like are closed Mondays).

Today on our list was Chiang Kai-shek (CKS) Memorial Hall and Bangka Longshan Temple. We took the subway to CKS station, where the exit to the Memorial Hall was very clearly signed in Taiwanese and English. We’ve been really impressed with the subway in Taipei.

CKS Memorial Hall is really amazing to see. The size and scale is enormous. The main building has a 6.3m tall statue of CKS on the top, with 89 steps leading up (he lived to 89). In front are beautiful gardens, and at the other end a concert hall and a theatre.

We were lucky to arrive just on the hour and catch the changing of the guards.

There’s a museum on the ground floor under the massive bronze statue, which describes the evolution of democracy and freedom of speech in Taiwan.

The power cut out for a few minutes while we were visiting the museum which helped clear out the tour groups :)

The memorial hall and the grounds took us about 2.5 hours to see.

The Lonely Planet recommended a dumpling place just around the corner, so we checked it out for lunch. Ordered pork and leek steamed dumplings and siu mai. Both were amazing, some of the best we’ve had.

We then walked over to Longshan Temple. On the way passed by Bopiliao Historic Block, a row of restored old shophouses. Unfortunately it’s closed on Mondays :(

Longshan Temple was just down the street from Bopiliao. It’s the oldest temple in Tainan, founded in 1938. It was pretty busy with worshippers, with the smell of incense in the air and the clatter of moon stones. Worshippers will ask the gods a yes/no question and then throw the stones on the ground. The answer depends on how they land. There’s a bowl with moon stones in the temple - worshippers carefully select their stones (based on what I’m not sure) and then return them later.

Took the subway back home and rested up.

Later we checked out Tonghua St Night Market. We got there around 6:30pm and it was just getting busy. Tried any stall with a line up, except for the stinky tofu. We were full at that point, plus it is really stinky. Maybe on our way back through Taipei we’ll try it. The last thing we tried were pineapple buns. These were amazing. They look just like a dinner roll but have so much flavour. It was served warm with sliced cold butter, mmm good.

Taipei, Taiwan

It’s Christmas Eve, in Taipei. The concierge said to us to Have a nice day, to paraphrase Shane MacGowan.

We had another hearty breakfast and headed out touristing. We checked out the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, which was pretty interesting. It’s not high on lists of things to see in Taipei but we enjoy visiting the contemporary arts museums wherever we go.

Next we wandered down Dihua Street, a pedestrian street with a mix of trendy cafes, street food, and older shops, and lots of character. We tried a few bites - pork meatballs in a pepper sauce, steamed buns (our favourite of the day) and deep fried tofu.

Walked in the direction of our hotel and came across Huashan 1914 Creative Park, a cultural hub in an old sake winery (similar to the Distillery District in Toronto). It was very lively.

Tried out a dumpling place near our hotel for dinner. It was hard to find - it’s in the bottom level of a mall. The pork steamed dumplings were pretty good.

It was a quiet day otherwise. The rains held off but it was cloudy and dreary. We haven’t seen the sun yet in Taiwan :(

Taipei, Taiwan

Luckily Heather had read through the various hotel instructions last night, cause we had to book a seating for breakfast (7am/8am/9am). We were up before our alarms, still a bit jetlagged, although at least we’re getting sleep at night.

Breakfast was excellent, I think that’s why we chose our hotel. After breakfast, we planned out our day. We have three full days now, and then two days at the end of our Taiwan leg. We had to plan around a Monday when not many museums are open. Figured we’d start with the National Palace Museum, one of the must-sees in Taipei.

We took a taxi to the museum as it’s a bit out of the centre. The weather held off so far - the forecast was for rain all day.

Bought our tickets and entered. The museum signage includes English so it’s easy to get around and understand what you’re looking at.

We started in the jade section. One of the museum highlights is the Jadeite Cabbage, but it’s on loan to the Tainan Art Museum for the next month. Fortunately we’ll actually be in Tainan next week :)

We also toured through the bronze, calligraphy and porcelain sections. I had to google to figure out the difference between porcelain and ceramic (porcelain is a type of ceramic).

The museum is very popular with tour groups. Heather was flash mobbed a number of times looking at something and had to swim her way out.

It took us about three hours to get through the museum. It’s very impressive. Most of the pieces were moved from the Forbidden City in Beijing during the Great Retreat in 1949.

Grabbed a taxi back to the centre, to Dalongdong Bao’an Temple. Google maps makes it very easy if you don’t speak the local language - it displays the destination in the local script and can sound it out too. So we had no problems communicating our destination with the taxi driver. (Maybe this is commonly known but first time we’ve used it).

We decided to have lunch first and then see the temple. Picked a random spot based on seeing the dumplings they were cooking in the front. Used Google translate to figure out the menu and order. It was excellent.

Walked back over to Bao’an Temple. It’s a Taiwanese folk religion temple, with mostly worshippers and just a couple other tourists. It’s very photogenic - I took a lot of pics.

I’ve been trying to use mostly my iPhone for pics this trip. It has a 15x optical zoom which should be good enough for city pics. It’s definitely lighter and easier to carry. Also it’s waterproof so I don’t have to worry about rain. So far the results are mixed - anything beyond a 3x zoom (when the iPhone switches over to a different lens) it looks really dithered. Anyways I’ll keep on experimenting this trip.

Next door to the Bao’an Temple is the Taipei Confucius Temple. It was similarly impressive with only a handful of people, mostly tourists here. Took a bunch more pics.

We thought about walking all the way back to the hotel, about an hour. After about ten minutes we reached a small outdoor market near Yuanshan station. Tried some snacks and then decided just to catch the subway home. Figured out how to buy a single fare. It’s zone based, cost us about $1 each to get back. You get a token which is scanned to enter, and then you drop it back when you exit at your station. Pretty easy.

Got back around 3:30pm, in time for afternoon tea at the hotel. Had a double breakfast espresso and some cookies.

Later on had a drink at happy hour and caught up in my blog. The hotel made a reservation at a restaurant about a two minute walk away. It was miserable outside, rainy and misty, so just wanted something close.

The restaurant turned out to be Michelin rated, although in Taiwan, Michelin restaurants seem to be as common as a green Pass sign in Toronto. I had the beef noodles, the recommended meal and a Taiwanese specialty. It was excellent, although from my perspective, no more so than any of the other food I’ve had here. Obviously my palette is not sophisticated enough :)

Taipei, Taiwan

Our flight to Taiwan wasn’t until 3:30pm so we had a relaxing morning. We checked out, left our bags at the hotel and then headed out in search of the Makishi Public Market. ‘Search’ as in followed Google maps walking directions through the covered arcade.

The market covers two floors. The 1st floor is a wet market with mostly fish mongers; upstairs are restaurants. The fish was super fresh - there was absolutely no smell at all! Heather was suitably impressed. We browsed around, I took a bunch of pics. We weren’t hungry when we arrived but after seeing all the food we figured we’d have lunch and then head to the airport.

Chose a sushi place and ordered tuna, Okinawan soba and oolong tea, trying to stay within our remaining yen. There was a mix up with our tuna order and we got a full sashimi boat. We did some quick math and figured we’d still be okay, although we had to skip the Okinawan donuts. The soba and sashimi were excellent (the tuna in Payao was still the best though).

I took a few more pics of the fishies on our way out. Heather was checking out the large clams when suddenly one started spouting water with an arc like a drinking fountain, landing right on Heather’s shoe. Hopefully she won’t have smelly sneakers tomorrow :)

Got back to the hotel, cleaned up and took a taxi to the airport. Getting through immigration was easy, just a passport scan. Had some Blue Seal ice cream in departures (the last Okinawan food on our list), bought a tshirt too.

We flew on Starlux, a Taiwanese airline, on a brand new plane. It’s only 80 minutes from Okinawa to Taipei. They served a sandwich but we were still full from our lunch.

It took us 90 minutes to get through immigration in Taipei, longer than our flight. Our luggage looked lonely drifting around the carousel. I guess most of the other passengers on our flight were Taiwanese (their immigration line was much shorter).

Another 90 minutes later through rush hour traffic we finally reached our hotel, in the Da’an District in central Taipei. They were just finishing their happy hour, so we had a drink to celebrate my 100th country :)

For those who don’t know the backstory, in 1997 Gerry and I took the route of the Transmongolian. On the Irkutsk-Ulaanbaatar leg we met a Brit named James. His goal was to get to 100 countries in his lifetime (this was before the internet when getting to 100 was a big deal). Anyways Gerry and I adopted the goal and then spent many a night debating what counted as a country, and what counted as visiting. Twenty six years later, I finally made it :)

We were somehow tired after a day of just sitting around in airports, airplanes and taxis, so just called it a night after the drinks.

Naha, Japan

In the late 17th century, pottery making was centralized in Tsuboya, now part of Naha. Over the centuries a distinct Ryukyuan style evolved. Also, pottery!

We started at the Tsuboya Pottery Museum, which was a pretty decent museum. Most of the signage was in Japanese however they did have a good self-guided audio tour in English. The museum was built over a historical climbing kiln (built into the side of the hill) which was part of the exhibit.

Now knowledgeable of the differences in firing between Jo-yachi (glazed) and Ara-yachi (unglazed) pottery, we checked out the studios and stores that line Tsuboya Yachimun St.

The pottery district includes some side streets so we wandered down those as well. Stumbled across Nuchigafu, a restaurant with local specialties. It was exactly what we were looking for for lunch and we weren’t even really searching!

We both ordered a combo meal so we could try out Goya Champuru (bitter melon), Rafute (braised pork belly), Mozuku (brown seaweed), Jimami Tofu, Okinawa soba and Okinawan salt-cookies-flavoured ice cream. It was all really good, and a great way to sample Okinawan food. It was a more formal restaurant where removed our shoes to enter the dining area and sat at lower tables.

Literally across the street from the pottery district was an entrance to the extensive covered arcade market. There were three souvenirs I was looking to get for our key shelf: a Shisa (mythical Okinawan creature), Maneki neko (lucky cat) and a Daruma doll. We had bought a ceramic Shisa from a pottery place so just had two items to find.

You can find everything in this market from souvenirs to bars and cool hole-in-the-wall restaurants to everyday household goods. Everything, that is, except for a Daruma doll. We asked around, and it seemed that we could find it a place called Don Kee, with some hand gestured directions from other friendly store owners.

Finally a store worker showed us a department store on a map. We went to check it out, it’s actually a popular department store chain, Don Quixote, which is nicknamed Don Qui here. The store itself is several floors selling everything with no order or organization. A store worker told us we could find them on the 4th floor. And there they were! It’s not a tourist thing so it was a harder item to find.

That was it for our day. The full day was a good amount of time to spend in Naha. Tomorrow we leave for Taiwan!

Naha, Japan

If we had done some research we would have been aware that our breakfast at the ryokan was going to be a traditional Japanese-style breakfast with multiple dishes. But alas we did not.

At least we wore our yukata (traditional robe and pants). We just wore our own socks though, the ryokan-provided ones were very uncomfortable.

The presentation of the food was again amazing, with everything just so. We’re rather provincial in our breakfast preferences, but it was cool to try. We actually made quite a dent in the food. The salad and in particular the cherry tomatoes were amazing.

The forecast was rainy and windy all day. So we decided to skip on a couple other castles and just drive back to Naha.

A couple of random things I forgot to mention previously. The safety video for Korean Air featured BTS and a couple other K-pop artists. It’s our 2nd favourite after the Lego-themed video for Turkish Airlines.

Also realized that AirTags don’t work in Korea, for security reasons. I had to google to figure out why my phone thought our luggage was still in Canada. The tags are working again now that we’re in Japan.

So we drove back to Naha in the rain. The Avis folks had warned us to use the GPS when returning the car, or we'd end up at Avis Total Landscaping. We followed Google Maps for most of the 90 minute drive back, switching over to the GPS about 20 minutes out from Naha. It promptly took us on a toll highway. The toll instructions were only in Japanese so we guessed at what to do. After about 15 minutes we reached another toll booth where we handed our ticket and 1000 yen (about 10 CAD) and hoped for the best. Got back about 700 yen and a receipt, so we guessed well :)

We returned the car, got the shuttle to the terminal and grabbed a taxi to our hotel. We debated taking the monorail but didn’t want to pull our suitcases through the rain and puddles.

We arrived at the hotel at 1pm. Our room would only be ready at 3pm, so we left our luggage and headed out for lunch. We walked through some charming side streets with little restaurants all along. We had a classic Naha lunch of pork and rice. Okinawa Agu Pork is locally famous - there’s pork dishes everywhere here.

After lunch we stopped in at a 7-Eleven yet again, this time for a type A USB-C adaptor to charge our phones. (Type A is the standard in North America.) I had packed chargers & adaptors for everything except what we used at home.

We really liked our brief walk around Naha. It has a nice vibe to it.

On the way back to the hotel stopped in at a cute little coffee shop for a double espresso and a slice of cheesecake, mmm good.

That took us to exactly 3pm. We checked in, and then relaxed the rest of the day. We had been on the go pretty much since we left Toronto so it was good to do nothing for a few hours.

It was still raining sideways around dinner time so just had some snacks in the lounge and called it a day.

Onna, Japan

Our flight from Seoul to Naha was at 8:05am so we set our alarms for 4:15am. Got to the airport just before 6am with plans to have breakfast while we waited. Unfortunately nothing was open except for a juice place :( luckily they also had coffee and bagels.

The flight to Naha was full, a lot of US military related folks probably returning to base (the US has a large military presence in Okinawa). It’s just under two hours south from Seoul. We were served a decent hot meal which was good cause we were still a bit hungry.

Immigration was straightforward (Canadians don’t need a visa for Japan). Got a little sticker in our passports, country number 99 for me!

Korean Air had sent me a text in Seoul that my luggage had been loaded on the flight (technically, probably just into the ULD container) plus our AirTags showed our luggage had made it so it was stress-free waiting by the carousel.

There were more people wearing masks here than in Seoul. In Seoul it was about 15% and here in Naha about 50%.

Next up was picking up our rental car from Avis. The shuttle was waiting for us at the terminal, a good sign that they had our car waiting :) The paperwork took forever though.

Finally around noon we started our little road trip in a Toyota Yaris. UNESCO castles, here we come!

Naha’s population is over a million and it’s all urban sprawl. So our road trip wasn’t making any lists :) The car had built in navigation but the search function only had a kanji keyboard, so we used Google maps which worked well.

First up was Nakagusuku Castle. My research had said all the sites were free to enter, but there’s now admission (at least at the two castles we saw today). It was cash-only so we had to drive out to a 7-Eleven (which are ubiquitous here), get cash, buy some water to break the large bill, and then drive back.

The heat and humidity were a bit of a shock. It was 24C here, a swing of over 40C from Seoul if you factor in the feels-like. Our luggage was strewn all over the trunk in our search for our summer gear.

Finally we were set to enter. After we paid for our ticket, a golf cart whisked us up to the top of the hill. The marked path then wound through the castle ruins back down to the entrance.

The castle has been preserved in its ruined state. It was very peaceful to wander through, with only a handful of other tourists.

We then drove to the nearby Payao Fish Market. I had read somewhere that it was a great place to eat. It seemed a bit dubious as google maps guided us down to the wharf through an industrial area. We parked and entered. There was a kitchen in the back, with faded pictures of food options. Somebody else was just picking up their order which looked good, so we just ordered two of those.

Turned out to be one of the best lunches we’ve had! I googled it later, we had their specialty, the Ise-ebi lobster, with a side of sashimi, pickled radish, and miso soup. The sashimi tuna was the best tuna we’ve had. The lobster is baked with uni sauce. The miso was also excellent.

I took some pics of the fishies in the market area and then we were back on the road.

Next up were the Katsuren Castle Ruins. It was a bit awkward to figure out parking cause they’re in the midst of constructing a huge visitor centre. Anyways it was the same drill - a golf cart drove us up to the top and then we toured heading back down. It was pretty impressive, with great views of the ocean and surrounding countryside. You could imagine how impressive it would have been back in the 13th century day.

The atmosphere around the castles reminded me of other UNESCO historical sites that are off the beaten path, like the painted churches in Cyprus or the Roman ruins in Butrint, Albania. It’s really peaceful with good tourist infrastructure, and hardly any other tourists.

Our last stop was our hotel for the night, a ryokan-style hotel on the west coast. The staff had limited English and our Japanese was just welcome and thanks, but we managed to check in and get to our room.

We had booked their Kaiseki dinner, an elaborate multi-course traditional meal. We were somewhat rushed to clean up as they wanted us to start at 6pm, an hour earlier than I had requested. Oh well.

It’s traditional to wear yukata (robe and pants), which were provided in our room. They fit okay. We should have skipped on their socks which were small and uncomfortable.

We enjoyed some of the courses which were quite excellent, others are probably more an acquired taste. We were in it for the experience so it was all good. I particularly enjoyed the beef course. Everything was impeccably presented.

It was a long day, and a transit day at that! We fell asleep quickly, around 8pm.

Seoul, South Korea

We actually got a decent sleep our first night considering the time change. So after breakfast we bundled up in our max winter gear and set out to sightsee!

There’s so much to see in Seoul. We started with the classic tourist stuff today, Gyeongbokgung Palace and Bukchon Hanoi Village. Our hotel is pretty central so we walked over, about 25 minutes. It’s a pedestrian-friendly core plus the city is all decked out for the holidays.

Got the combination pass for five royal palaces, only 10 CAD! About half the visitors were wearing hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing. Admission is free if you’re wearing hanbok. It adds to the atmosphere of the palace.

Gyeongbokgung Palace is like a huge open-air museum. It was first established in 1395 and then destroyed and rebuilt a couple times over the centuries. It took us about 90 minutes to see everything, at which point we couldn’t do palace anymore.

We stopped for lunch at Oreno Ramen, a highly-rated restaurant on Naver. It was on a small winding street full of cafes and cool little restaurants.

Turned out to be a Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant! We had to wait about 15 minutes in line. The restaurant staff brought out hand warmer packets (equivalent of HotShots) for folks in line, although we were seated before they warmed up.

The ramen was excellent, a good start to eating on this trip!

After lunch we wandered up to Bukchon Hanok Village. It’s a residential area that’s become touristed because of the traditional style of houses. There’s a couple popular spots for pics which capture the houses and the Seoul Tower in the background.

That was it for our day. Got back to our hotel around 3pm. We have an early flight out to Okinawa tomorrow.

Seoul, South Korea

We arrived in Seoul on Sunday evening on a direct flight from Toronto. We had stayed up most of Friday night trying to get a head start on adjusting to the time change, and slept most of the 15.5h flight. Our internal clocks are now completely messed up. Door-to-door it was just over 20 hours, however with the lost day crossing the dateline it took all weekend.

Incheon International is about an hour outside the downtown core. We had debated trying to take the subway, but Seoul is in a cold snap right now (-12C when we landed) so took a taxi instead. (We brought winter clothing for Seoul but it was all packed up).

Outside of rush hour, a taxi is not too bad an option, about the same cost as two fares on the express bus. We used Naver to show the taxi driver which hotel we were staying at, as soon as he saw the directions he knew exactly where it was. (Naver is the app of choice here cause Google maps has limited functionality in South Korea).

Maybe because we were jetlagged we hardly remembered any of the Korean we had learnt on Duolingo. We even had to look up thank-you again (감사합니다). I sort of remember the alphabet.

Anyways we were quickly checked into our hotel. We were out of steam so just had a snack in the hotel lounge and then called it a night.

Toronto, Canada

We're heading back to Asia for the first time in almost ten years! Taiwan's been high on our list for a while, and the main part of this trip. The closest direct flight from Toronto was to Seoul, also on our list. About half way between Seoul and Taiwan is Okinawa, which has some cool UNESCO castles, and unique Ryūkyūan culture. It's also part of Japan which means I'll get to 100 countries on this trip :)

The weather in Seoul over Christmas is similar to December weather in Toronto.  We're packing for anything from -10C to 20C.  The rest of the trip should be comfortable, highs around 22C and lows around 15C. I signed up for typhoon alerts, although typhoon season typically ends in November. We already receive earthquake and tsunami alerts from our last trip to NZ and Fiji.

We're renting a car in Okinawa. Canadians need an International Driver's License for Japan (this is common where your license is in a different script) so I had a little trip to the CAA. I had to look it up, over the years we've had a car rental in 9 countries, and 7 of those were left-hand drive (there's 64 countries in the world that drive on the left, mostly former British colonies). Japan will make it 8 of 10. (Next Christmas we'll be in Namibia making it 9 of 11!). At least Google Maps makes it pretty easy to navigate, especially with offline maps.

In Seoul, Google Maps is limited for security reasons, so I've downloaded Naver. You can't offline or get walking directions in Seoul on Google Maps.

On the technical side, you can now subscribe to this travel blog! I also added cookie consent cause that's now required for Quebec, and this website is nothing if not over-engineered. You can also check out our Google Photos album optimized for the Nest Hub, which you can add as your Nest screensaver.

We fly out on in two weeks (Sat Dec 16), so likely won't post again until then.

Toronto, Canada

We've been back home now for a few days, trying to de-jetlag. Overall it was a really fun trip.

We finally got back to Toronto after a four-day transit back home. The arrival through customs at Pearson has improved since our last time through (pre-covid), although it's still behind all the other international arrivals we had on this trip. It also took almost an hour for the luggage to get from the plane to the carousel. I suppose we should be happy that our luggage arrived at all.

The highlights (in chronological order):

• Snorkeling with manta rays in the Astrolabe Reef 
• Flying over the reefs in little prop planes during local flights in Fiji
• Standing on the 180th meridian (the only accessible place in the world where you can do so)
• Snorkeling with all the colourful fishes and coral at Rainbow Reef
• Village walks on Taveuni
• Walking around Hobart
• Road trip to the Outback in South Australia
• Making it to Kati Thanda, our 4th of the Seven Low Points
• Driving along Highway 6 on the West Coast
• Excursions to Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound (Milford more impressive to see, Doubtful a more fun experience)
• Watching the sheep graze from our lodge in Tahakopa Bay in Southland
• Little Blue Penguins in Oamaru
• Seeing Wandering Albatross in Kaikoura (wingspan of 3.7m, the largest flying bird in the world)
• Glowworm caves in Waitomo and Te Anau (my favourite was Ruakuri Cave)
• Learning about wines from the many wine regions in NZ
• Orakei Korako Geothermal Park

We were lucky to not get sick over the whole trip. There was a lot of uncertainty with covid when we booked back in Feb 2022, but pretty much all the restrictions had been lifted by the time we started out trip. We wore masks on flights and other public transport, and in the occasional museum if it was busy.

It was our first trip where English was an official language in all the countries. Fiji has three (English, Fijian, Fiji Hindi) and NZ has three (English, Māori and NZ Sign Language). Legally, Australia has no offical language but English is considered the de facto national language. (There's a handful of other countries without an offical language, including UK, US and Japan).

Australia is the first country I've spent more than a couple days without having any currency from the country. (We had cash in NZ as a backup -- in a couple places they didn't take foreign credit cards, and some roadside fruit stands were cash-only)

We also traveled with a bluetooth speaker (in our case, an Echo Dot 5th Gen, which can be used offline as a bluetooth speaker). We used it quite a bit, especially in bnb's.

A couple last bits of trivia, the 38 days we spent in NZ is the longest I've spent consecutively in another country. At eleven weeks, this was our longest trip together. It's probably nearing the longest we'd like to be out traveling, after a while we do miss the routine of home.

Time to start thinking about our next trip!

San Francisco, USA

Day 3 (Fiji Standard Time) of our four-day transit back home, today from Nadi to San Francisco.

The flight didn't depart from Nadi until 10:15pm so we had all day to do much of nothing. We were able to get late check-out at 5pm for $100 FJD which was great. We spent most of the day in our air-conditioned room because we weren't adjusted to the 31C or humidity.

We had one last ferry ride from the Doubletree to the mainland and then a taxi to the airport. We forgot that we had been in the Fiji Airways lounge previously (we had upgraded at check-in for the flight from Nadi to Sydney). It was pretty crowded in the lounge, there were two large flights to LA and SF around 10pm, and I'm guessing most people had the same idea as us, to hang out at the lounge for most of the evening.

Our flight boarded and departed on time. We were able to get a few hours sleep 'overnight'.

Day 3 (Pacific Standard Time)

We arrived in SF around 12:45pm, after a pretty smooth 10+ hour flight. We also gained 18 hours by crossing the International Date Line so arrived nine hours before we took off. We had to clear US immigration and customs before rechecking our bags for the last leg home. Originally the NAN-SFO-YYZ flights had a nice connection, but before we started our trip, Air Canada changed the SFO-YYZ flight to leave an hour before we arrived. So we had 23 hours in transit in San Francisco. I had booked a hotel in Union Square rather than staying at the airport.

We had to wheel our luggage (in a $8 USD cart!) from T1 to T2, where the United / Air Canada desks were. We asked directions from a very helpful airline agent who guessed that we just came off a long flight and would prefer to walk to T2 rather than take the inter-terminal bus.

Unfortunately Air Canada couldn't take our checked bags until the following day. So we would have to lug six suitcases into town. Hopefully this wouldn't affect my Uber rating!

It was a beautiful day in San Francisco. We were lucky cause the previous week the entire coast of California had had torrential rains and flooding. Our hotel people gave us suggestions on where to eat and tourist for the afternoon. We had lunch at E&O Kitchen, just down the street from our hotel. By the time we were done it was almost 3pm, and we realized we were back in the northern hemisphere with early sunsets. So we went back to the hotel to grab warmer jackets for dusk.

We walked through Chinatown and then down Columbus Ave, where the restaurants changed to Italian. We continued down Columbus to Fort Mason for a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. Fort Mason is popular with joggers and almost everyone passing by stopped to take pics of the sunset. It was one of the better sunsets we'd seen on our trip!

We took a different route back to our hotel, down Polk St and then back across Sutter St. It was a pretty good whirlwind tour of San Francisco! It looks like a pretty cool place to visit with lots of character. We didn't have much steam left, but wanted to stay up a little longer to try to get back to our time zone, so we stopped in at the Irish Bank for a drink, and then called it a night.

Nadi, Fiji

Day 2 of our four-day transit back home, today from Auckland to Nadi.

Our flight was at 9:30am so we decided to get through all the airport lineups and then have breakfast in the terminal.

We had a little wrinkle cause we only had a one-way ticket to Nadi (our flight to Toronto was part our return ticket from Toronto to Nadi). So we we couldn’t checkin online, and instead had to go through a couple longer lineups to show proof of on-going voyage. It was pretty crowded so we wore our masks the whole time, including the flight.

The exit immigration process was fully automated. We’re dreading having to go through Pearson in a few days, which is the opposite of the experience here.

The flight was really pleasant on Air New Zealand. We got totally engrossed in our movies (Elvis for Heather, Tenet for me) and neither of us realized we had even taken off until we were about to land. Perfect movie lengths for a three hour flight!

Cause I booked our flights so many months ago I was able to book seats near the front of economy, and so we were first off the plane and first through immigration. Good thing cause there were only a couple agents and slow going.

Got a taxi to the DoubleTree. We’d taken the route a half dozen times during our Fiji leg of the trip and it was very familiar to us.

About half the staff at the DoubleTree recognized us, some of them even remembered our names which was really impressive, given the number of guests they encounter.

It was 1pm and our room wasn’t quite ready, so we had lunch while waiting. The downside was that we were still in our cooler weather clothes and it was 29C here. Oh well.

We were reunited with our left luggage and took a golf cart to our bure. The rest of the afternoon we spent rejigging our luggage yet again, this time with carryon for our overnight in San Francisco. We had our carryon suitcase now so had more room (on the flight here, our carryon was our weekend pack).

Had dinner yet again at the Doubletree. They had just changed menus so we had some new items to try. We both had fish dishes, both of which were walu, a common fish for eating here in Fiji. I also had a couple Fiji Bitters :)

Auckland, New Zealand

It was a beautiful morning in Waiheke. We didn’t have much time to enjoy the view from the bnb cause we wanted to catch the 11am ferry back to Auckland. This was our first of four transit days to get back home.

Things were going to plan until my Gmail app decided to upgrade itself while I was trying to look up the lockbox code to leave the car and house key (attached to the tow hook on the car). Heather was able to look it up and then we rushed over to the ferry line up. We made it on the 11am with minutes to spare.

Took an Uber to the Novotel at the airport, and then camped out for the rest of the day. We had lunch and dinner at the in-house restaurant which got only 2.6 on Google but wasn’t too bad. Had one last local Hazy Pale Ale :) I had read about the Nelson and Manteuka hops before we got to NZ, I really enjoyed them.

Our room had an excellent view of the runway and landing planes, as well as of Manukau Harbour and the surrounding mountains. It was really quite scenic. Heather also liked watching the little cars pulling the cart trains like little doozers.

We repacked our stuff to maximize our carryon in case our luggage didn't make it.

We took a little walk after dinner. We actually retraced our route from the international to domestic terminal just for fun. This was the path we had taken in miserable weather and in a big rush when we first arrived in NZ, unsuccessfully trying to catch our connection to Christchurch. It was much more pleasant today, a really nice sunset too.

Waiheke Island, New Zealand

Another day focused on eating (that’s one of the main reasons why folks come to Waiheke!) We were lucky that our time here was over a weekend - dinner is only available on Fri/Sat at most places.

We had lunch reservations at The Oyster Inn, in Oneroa. On the way in we stopped at the Ostend Market (it’s open Saturdays). It has a real community feel to it. We browsed through the stalls, some of the food stalls looked amazing if we didn’t already have lunch plans.

Anyways onto Oneroa. We were a few minutes early for our lunch reservation so checked out some of the art galleries along the main strip.

The Oyster Inn is in a prime location on the strip, with its 2nd-floor balcony overlooking the street and the bay beyond. We had the Te Matuku Bay oysters which were excellent, deep shelled like those from Bruny Island but meatier. We also had crudo with avocado, another popular dish in NZ, here served with wasabi peas. I tried a Pale Ale from Alibi Brewing Co, run by the same folks who own Tantalus, where we were having dinner tonight.

On the way back home, we drove up Trig Hill past our bnb to the lookout point, as suggested by our taxi driver yesterday. It had also been mentioned in Waiheke Local when I was surfing on what to do here. Anyways it’s a really cool lookout point, and relatively unknown. Great views of the island and its bays and inlets, as well as across to Auckland.

We had dinner at Tantalus Estate, which shows up on lists of top places to eat in Waiheke and also Auckland. (It’s not uncommon for folks from Auckland to just come to Waiheke for dinner).

On Saturday the only option is their tasting menu, paired with their wines. The food was really good, although we did find the courses a bit busy. The real star was their wines, which were all excellent. Unfortunately they don’t export to Canada.

Most other folk got up to walk around the vineyard in the middle of their dinners, a sort of 7th inning stretch as Heather called it. So we did that too, just before sunset. It’s actually not a bad idea for a longer meal.

It turned out our server was from Ajax, a suburb of Toronto. Five of the staff, as well as one of the owners were also Canadian, and over the dinner they all took turns coming over to chat. This was more Canadians than we had seen over the rest of our trip combined!

Our taxi ride home got a bit delayed (another customer was in a hurry and the owner asked if we minded getting bumped). The owner offered us another wine sampling, and then took us on a tour of the bar and private dining room in the cellar (and then also covered our taxi fare). It was quite cool to see the cellar.

Anyways it was a nice unofficial end to our long vacation. (The next few days are just getting home).

Waiheke Island, New Zealand

Our bnb host had recommended driving out to the east coast to Man O War winery, so I had made a reservation for lunch. Part of the attraction is the drive there.

I was getting more accustomed to the larger vehicle. We were also glad to have the SUV as most of the drive was over a rougher gravel road. The road curved its way through hilly farmland and the occasional vineyard. It was quite beautiful. Saw some sheep - I had been wondering if we had seen our last sheep back in Te Kuiti.

We arrived at the winery just before noon. It’s an iconic NZ coastal setting - there were families on the beach having picnics, other kids playing pétanque on the lawn in front of the winery.

Lucky we had reservations, as it’s a pretty small vineyard. Our table (half a wine barrel) had a little name tag, Reserved for Eric.

We hoped to try the Te Matuku Bay oysters but they were out; so instead had a charcuterie platter and some other nibbles.

A group of friends were gathering, looking like they were here for a wedding. Later, another person asked us excitedly if one of them was Dan Carter? We laughed and said we were the wrong people to ask. Then we asked them who Dan Carter was. (Apparently he’s a famous rugby player who played for the All Blacks).

Anyways we quite enjoyed sipping our drinks and enjoying the view of the bay.

We drove back along the southeast, passing by some more vineyards and a distillery. We hardly passed any cars at all - the main ferry access to Waiheke is on the west end of the island. It’s only about an hour to drive across, but most folks tend to stay on the west end around Oneroa where most of the restaurants and galleries are.

Later we went for dinner at Te Motu Vineyard. It was in a nice setting overlooking the vineyards. We had thought about walking there (it’s about 25 minutes) but ended up taking a taxi cause there’s no sidewalk. Dinner was good.

Waiheke Island, New Zealand

Another transit day, this time to our last stop on our trip before we begin the multiple steps to get home.

Auckland was originally our last stop in NZ, before we swapped out time in Suva with three days on Waiheke Island. This had to do with covid protocols at the time; spending less than 48 hours in Fiji on the way back meant we were considered in transit (and thus lesser protocols).

It did mess up other planning though. The car rental, booked much earlier at a really cheap rate, with changes not allowed, ended today. So we had to drive the car to the airport, and then Uber back to town so we could catch the ferry to Waiheke.

Some car rental stats:
South Island 2488km, 155km/day
North Island 1168km, 130km/day
Total 3656km, 146km/day

We also had to rejig our backpacks to fit into just a suitcase and our weekend backpack. It was an adjustment after having a car for six weeks which was an extension of our storage. The bnb hosts offered to take any items we no longer needed, like our cooler and freezer packs.

It was still drizzling as we made our way to the ferry line up. It drizzled pretty much the whole time we were in Auckland. Waiheke Island is a popular destination in the summer for folks in Auckland, and in the local media we’d read there had been some long lines for ferry. It wasn’t too bad though; we got on the next ferry (the 45 minute ferry runs hourly).

We reached Waiheke around noon. Our bnb here also included a car rental (a Hyundai Tucson). The car was available immediately, parked near the ferry; but we’d have to wait until 2:30pm before we could check in to the bnb.

We had lunch at Ahipao, which for a café servicing the ferry terminal crowds had really good food. I had eggs benedict, probably for the last time on this trip. It’s a popular menu item here in NZ.

The restaurant has some cool little milk dispensers for tea / coffee. They had the name of the ceramic place stamped on the bottom, from right here on the island (Waiheke Ceramics). So that’s where we headed after lunch!

Nearby was Obsidian Wines, and we were in need of a wine for dinner, so we headed there next. We got a bottle of their Montepulciano for our pizza take-out tonight.

That took us to 2:30pm, nicely timed to when we could checkin. Our bnb is in a cottage environment (most places here are), up a narrow road. To park you have to get the vehicle to hug the hill, so that there’s room to pass. It took me a few tries, I was still getting used to the larger vehicle. Anyways finally parked.

Lugged all our stuff up the stairs to our bnb. For the first time on this trip, we didn’t have potable water. So we had to head out to the nearby Four Square (a mini-market) for bottled water. And then park again. Although this time it took fewer attempts :)

For dinner we had take-out pizza from La Dolce Vita. (Nailed the parking this time!). The pizza was amazing, as were their salads. Went really well with our wine.

Auckland, New Zealand

For some reason I had planned three full days in Auckland. After spending the three days, I’d say Auckland’s a really nice place to live, with all sorts of different neighbourhoods and little local cafes and restaurants. There’s a reason why Auckland routinely shows up on best places to live. But as a tourist, it’s not terribly exciting. I’d say the same thing about Toronto. I hardly took any pics either.

We checked out the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland War Memorial Museum and the New Zealand Maritime Museum, and walked around the waterfront and downtown core. The downtown is undergoing some major infrastructure work and is mostly under construction (also similar to Toronto). We used Uber a few times to get in and out of the core; it was pretty reasonable.

We ate at some pretty decent Asian restaurants in Auckland. We also had dinner one night at Freida Margolis, which was a really cool neighbourhood bar. Only later we realized it’s also written up in the Lonely Planet.

Another observation is that Auckland is very car-centric. There is pedestrian infrastructure, but the car is always favoured. Even at what appears to be crosswalks, it’s the car that has the right-of-way.

And that was about it for Auckland.

Auckland, New Zealand

We had a checkout of 11am from our bnb in Te Kuiti and could only check in at 3pm in Auckland, so had a relaxed morning, and I was finally able to use a teapot to have a couple cups of tea :)

The weather was nicer today, and we could actually see the surrounding countryside on the drive. It was really beautiful, not the spectacular cliffs or switchbacks in the South Island but still really nice.

I was feeling a bit peckish so we stopped for a snack at a cafe in Whatawhata. Got a sausage roll which maybe wasn’t the best thing cause the pastry wrap was very flaky. So ate outside the car and then we carried on. It was very yummy.

The drive into Auckland was taking us right past Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill, which was on my list of things to see cause of the U2 song. It would also give us something to do until 3pm. Plus, according to the forecast today might be the only nice weather we’d have while in Auckland.

We were lucky to find a parking spot in the park. It was then about a 15 minute walk up the paved path to the top of the hill.

I had read that there’s no longer a tree so we weren’t surprised when we didn’t see any. The view was great from the top - Auckland sits at a narrowing in the North Island and we could see the water on both sides. We also had a view of the downtown and the Sky Tower, a 328m tower completed in 1997. (By comparison the CN Tower is 553m tall). Anyways it was a nice day to see the views from the peak.

We hadn’t had lunch so had a quick bite in a cafe, rushing to eat before they closed at 3pm. (We’re the world’s slowest eaters so rushing may have just been normal speed for others).

We then drove to our bnb. It was a bit different driving in a city again!

Our bnb was at the end of a dead-end street, in Grey Lynn, a residential area similar to Leslieville (where we live in Toronto). Unfortunately most restaurants were still closed for the holidays. For dinner we ended at Pocket Bar, a neighborhood wine bar. It was a nice atmosphere.

Te Kuiti, New Zealand

I was excited about breakfast cause our bnb had a teapot, but then we slept in a bit so only had time for one cup, as we had a couple more Waitomo Caves excursions this morning, the first (Waitomo Glowworm Cave) starting at 9:30am.

We had checked in yesterday and already had our tickets, so just made our way to the waiting area, in the main admin building.

The glowworm excursion was much more organized than yesterday’s Aranui Cave tour. There’s a tour with 16 people that starts every ten minutes and the guides showed up on the dot.

At 9:30:00 our guide welcomed all the 9:30 tour people, and scanned our tickets on entry. First thing was a bunch of green screen pics. Photography isn’t allowed in the glowworm cave so they photoshop you in pics you can buy later.

There’s a short walk through some stalagmites and stalactites, similar to yesterday’s Aranui cave. It also got progressively dimmer in the cave to make the glowworms more visible.

We all boarded a boat and then the guide pulled us through the caves in the dark using an overhead rope system.

We entered the first cave, with an impressive clustering of glowworms, about 15’ x 15’, about 20’ above us. It was larger than any cluster we’d seen in Te Anau Glowworm Caves, although those were much closer overhead.

We circled underneath the glowworms for about five minutes, before continuing on. That however was it for the tour. That’s when I noticed the tour is called ‘Waitomo Glowworm Cave’, with a singular cave. Te Anau had a series of caves with glowworms and I had figured this would be the same.

It only took 45 minutes for the whole tour so we had time to check out the gift shop before driving over to the Ruakuri Cave. Its entrance is close to the Aranui Cave.

This was also pretty structured. They had a limit of 16 people, and asked for our names to check in (so we didn’t need to show our ticket). There was a constant stream of walk-ins trying to buy tickets, only to be put on a waiting list. I think it’s just to make them feel better as there’s hardly any no-shows.

Our guide met us at exactly 11am and we walked about five minutes to the entrance. Our guide was good, the best of the three excursions we had here. We entered the long spiral walkway down 45m to cave proper. Once in we were completely in the dark, to help our eyes adjust.

At the bottom, we passed through a series of airlocks, like we were in a James Bond movie. Our guide explained the airlocks were to maintain the airflow as nature had designed. They had learned from other cave systems in the world, where entrances built for tourism caused subtle changes in cave life from airflow that were only noticed over years.

These caves were the same age geologically as Aranui, but much more extensive and a far better experience with the smaller group. It’s a 90 minute loop that returns back to the spiral walkway. As a bonus, you can also see glowworms! In fact we felt the glowworm experience was better here in Ruakuri than on the Glowworm Cave tour.

Overall if you only have the opportunity to do one of the Waitomo Cave experiences, I'd definitely recommend the Ruakuri Cave tour.

And that was it for our day. It was still drizzling (it’s been miserable since we got to Te Kuiti). Which I guess as we had been touristing in caves didn’t matter that much.

We spent the afternoon at our bnb, catching up on reading, laundry, and our travel blog posts. We checked out the green screen pics from earlier in the day, we looked photoshopped in. We had grilled lamb and a Greek salad for dinner which all turned out rather well.

Te Kuiti, New Zealand

We had breakfast on our way out from Tongariro, at the same place we had lunch yesterday (Creel Tackle House). The staff remembered us and gave us a warm welcome.

Our last little adventure on this trip was a series of caves in Waitomo. The caves are very popular and you need to book ahead, although probably not months in advance like us.

We had tickets to Aranui Cave at 3pm. Our bnb had said we could check in early, which worked out great for us. So we drove straight there, about 2.5 hours, arriving around 1pm. Our bnb was surrounded by farmland and rolling hills, about five minutes outside Te Kuiti. The drive in reminded us of the Azores, lined with purple and white flowers.

We quickly unloaded the car, checked out the kitchen facilities, and then went over to the supermarket (New World) for groceries, before heading over to the caves.

It’s a bit confusing to figure out how to get to the cave entrance, as every cafe and store is a ticket agent for the Waitomo caves, and they all have signs looking like they’re the official. It’s similar to buying tickets online for the Vatican Museums.

We followed the road signs and google maps in the general direction. We stopped at the i-Site, which had been the official agent in other tourist attractions. They were very helpful, showing us on a map where to stop to check in, and then where to drive to start the excursion.

So we continued down Hwy 37 to the check in location. It’s the main admin site for the various Waitomo Cave excursions. We showed our receipt from our months-old online purchase, and they gave us tickets for each of the three excursions (Aranui Cave, Waitomo Glowworm Cave, Ruakuri Cave) we’d signed up for.

The start of the Aranui Cave excursion was another 10 minutes down the road. We parked and then waited for the guide at the starting point, which was very helpfully signed as ‘You are in the right spot for the Aranui Cave tour. Please wait here, your guide will be along shortly’.

Our guide showed up as promised by the sign. The group was much larger than I had expected - there were over 30 of us. We didn’t have to show our tickets, which I found odd. The guide collected tickets from folks who volunteered them but that was it.

The excursion starts with a five minute walk to the cave entrance, including a few dozen steps up. Backpacks and food/drink aren’t allowed, just water and cameras.

Once inside the cave, it mostly follows a raised boardwalk, single file, with railings. With 30 people it was slow going, especially with everyone wanting pics. We were near the back and didn’t hear much about what our guide was saying.

The caves themselves are relatively young geologically. We found them less impressive compared to other caves we’ve seen, such as those in Mulu Park, or the Jeita Grotto in Lebanon.

It’s a 20 minute walk to the furthest accessible point in the cave, at which point we turned around and retraced our path back to the entrance. For the return walk the group was more spread out, and so more enjoyable. Overall though, if we had skipped the Aranui Cave we wouldn’t have missed much.

We drove back to our bnb and had a coffee. Later we had dinner, spaghetti with meatballs, for a change in menu. The kitchen had a great view of the rolling hills and sheep grazing, a very typical NZ scene. We also saw a double rainbow!

Tūrangi, New Zealand

We weren’t doing the Tongariro Alpine Crossing today but we still wanted to do some trekking. The Tongariro River Trail that looped near our lodge, a 15km trail along the river, seemed perfect for us.

It was drizzling a bit as we set out. Google Maps satellite view was very useful to help us find our way from the lodge grounds through back trails to the actual trail itself, which was then really well marked.

It took us 90 minutes to walk to the Red Hut bridge, our crossing point. The other side ran adjacent to the town (Tūrangi), and so there were a few more casual walkers. We saw only joggers and dog walkers on our first half. There were also numerous anglers in their waders in the middle of the river. We kept our voices down so as to not disturb the fishies.

Got back to the lodge after three hours, an enjoyable little walk.

We quickly freshened up and went out for lunch. At first we tried to get into Hare & Copper, but it was a little fancy for us having just finished hiking. So we went over to Creel Tackle House & Cafe, which even from its name sounded more our thing. The front half of the place caters to anglers, and the back half is a busy cozy cafe. We had excellent sandwiches and coffees.

Got back to the lodge, and later that evening went down for dinner. The main chef probably had the night off as the dinner was not as good as yesterday’s duck.

Tūrangi, New Zealand

Onto the next part of our New Zealand tour, through the geothermal area in the middle of the North Island.

There’s a few geothermal parks around Taupō and Rotorua. We had chosen to visit Orakei Korako, based on our research it’s one of the more underrated ones.

The forecast called for rain to start there around 2pm. It’s a 2.5 hour drive from Havelock North, so after breakfast we drove pretty much straight there. We did stop to fill up on gas just outside Napier, good thing we did cause there wasn’t another gas station until we reached Taupō.

Also just outside Napier we passed through Esk Valley. We’ve had wine from there a few times this trip. The last vineyard we passed had along Hwy 5 had a sign, “last vineyard tasting in Hawke’s Bay”, lol. We’ll be back in another wine region when we get to Waiheke Island.

Arrived at Orakei Korako Geothermal Park & Cave around 1pm, the lot was about half full, which boded well.

Bought our tickets online, they had QR codes plastered everywhere with the link to their website, instead of having to staff a ticket booth.

It’s a two-minute boat ride across the Waikato River (included in the ticket). The boat goes back and forth on demand so it’s never a long wait (I guess unless there’s crowds backlogged).

The path through the geothermal park starts immediately on the other bank. It was pretty cool to see, different from anything else we’ve seen on this trip (as frequent readers may know, we like to have a variety on our trips otherwise it gets monotonous for us).

The walkway takes about an hour to complete, passing by geysers, mud pools and hot springs. There’s no railing on the side of the walkway, so we had to be careful when taking pics, that we didn’t take a step back into the boiling water.

Anyways it was really well done. It seemed like we were the only tourists in most parts; partially that’s cause it’s well designed. For whatever reason, it is under-touristed. We really liked it.

We had lunch at the on-site cafe. It started raining just as we were leaving, so we timed this really well!

It was an hour drive to our next place, Tongariro Lodge near Tūrangi. The town and surrounding area is one of the top places in the world for trout fishing. We were staying here cause it’s also a convenient jump-off for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing Walk.

The 19.4 km / 8 hour trail is considered one of the top day walks in NZ. It’s mentioned in all the guidebooks as a must-do. We booked the accommodation to have the option; but as we did more research we decided not to. For one thing, it’s now very popular - over 3,000 people walk it every day. This causes bottlenecks at the start and finish - you need to arrange for bus transfers. It’s sort of like the pics you see at the top of Everest, although I might be exaggerating. But the point is that we enjoy the isolation of walks in nature. Walking with 3,000 other folk just doesn’t have the same attraction for us.

Another reason for staying here is the excellent restaurant. We had the daily special, seared duck breast, which was excellent.

Tuki Vineyards, New Zealand

One of the classic pics of Hawke’s Bay is from Te Mata Peak at sunrise. We had three nights within a 15 minute drive of the peak, but the weather didn’t cooperate, it was overcast and rainy every morning.

Later this morning the clouds parted a bit, so we drove over to Te Mata. You can drive all the way to the peak; many people instead park at the lot at the main gate and then hike up the rest of the way. We drove further in to a parking lot about 500m drive from the top, cause the remaining road was single car width and takes forever to drive.

So we parked and walked up to the peak. It wasn’t too busy, about 50 or so other tourists also at the top. The forecasted rain probably kept some folks away. We quickly took our pics, cause we could see the rain showers approaching us. We made it about half way back to the car when the rain reached us, we had our raincoats so we were fine.

We didn’t have much else on our itinerary today. We drove to Hastings, a twin town to Havelock North, and took more pics of art deco buildings. Almost all the stores were still closed for the holidays.

We got back to our place and got ready for some wine tastings. There’s a couple vineyards within walking distance, so I had called earlier in the morning to book the tastings.

First up was Black Barn Vineyards. It’s a popular stop on the tasting route, they’re set up to handle about 100 people. They did sell charcuterie pick-your-own boards which was great for us, as we hadn’t had lunch. So had some cured meats and cheeses and sampled some wines. Can't go wrong with that!

Te Mata Vineyards was a five minute walk back towards our place. They’re a smaller vineyard with a more intimate tasting room.

We then walked another five minutes to get to our cottage. It was cool that both vineyards were within walking distance , I hadn’t planned around that. Otherwise it’s not really feasible for me to do any tastings as the driver.

Later in the evening we had our dinner, grilled steak paired with a Cabernet blend from Te Mata. I haven't really liked any of the bbq's at the bnb's we stayed at, they don't get hot enough for a decent sear. Oh well, at least the wine was good!

Tuki Vineyards, New Zealand

The restaurant was closed at Porters, our hotel in Havelock North, so we checked out and went out for breakfast. There was a bit more open this morning, although a lot was still closed, some through till Jan 11!

We had an excellent breakfast at Bay Espresso. It was super busy but we still got our food and coffee fairly quickly. Their eggs benedict was pretty good (it’s a fairly common breakfast item in NZ).

Our next place was under ten minutes away, a cottage on Tuki Vineyards. Originally we wanted to do a chasm walk near Martinborough but it was closed on Jan 1; so instead just booted it up to Hawke’s Bay. Tuki was already booked so we ended up at Porters for one night.

We couldn’t check in until 2pm, so drove over to Napier. In 1931, there was a 7.4 earthquake in Napier which wiped out most of the Hawke’s Bay area. The buildings were rebuilt in the Art Deco style of the 30s and many of those buildings still stand today.

We walked around the central area of Napier taking dozens of pics. It started raining so we decided it was a good time to see their museum. The sun was poking out again when we exited so walked around a bit more.

On the way to Tuki we bought groceries for dinner for the next couple days.

Tuki is a small wine producer, and they have a single cottage on the vineyard. We wanted to stay at a vineyard for a night or two on this trip, and so here we were!

We had pasta with chicken and lemons, mostly cause the lemons are in season and looked amazing in the store. The pasta turned out pretty good.

Havelock North, New Zealand

The most interesting thing of today was getting the car out of the carpark in Wellington. There was no ticket or anything when I drove in three days ago, it’s all digital. I entered my license plate at the machine to pay, and it brought up a pic of me entering. It calculated how long I’d parked. I then paid, and then when I drove out it recognized the plate and opened the gate! Maybe this sounds boring if you’ve seen it but I found it quite cool compared to the archaic parking lots I’ve used in Toronto.

We drove four hours to Havelock North, stopping for lunch at Hell Pizza in Palmerston North, one of the few places we saw open along the drive. We walked around Te Marae o Hine (The Square) and then carried on with the drive.

Even in Havelock North there was hardly anything open (and the town is known for its multitude of cafes and restaurants). We stayed at Porter’s cause of their restaurant, but due to lack of staff, their restaurant was closed Sun/Mon. One of the few (only?) restaurants open in town was the Rose & Shamrock, the local pub. It was really lively, full with a nice mix of ages and families, locals and tourists. We managed to snag a decent table for two. Ordered some pub food and had some beers. It was a nice night out.

Wellington, New Zealand

We didn’t have much planned today, just a couple sites to see plus the City Gallery Wellington, a contemporary arts gallery.

Most stores were open today so we did some browsing. Heather got a bunch of merino wool tops (replacing the one she lost in Savu Savu when she handed in her laundry, which seems like ages ago).

The first site on the list was the Beehive, which is the local nickname for the beehive-shaped government buildings. It’s beside the parliament buildings; the whole area is nicely landscaped and worth the walk over.

Nearby is Old St Paul’s, a gothic revival cathedral built in 1860. It’s a beautiful church to see. It’s a little out of the CBD so doesn’t see as many tourists but if you’re in Wellington you should go see it.

Had lunch at a random Turkish place, it was okay. The owner was super-friendly though.

Last for today was City Gallery Wellington. It had some cool exhibitions, including a feature by Joanna Margaret Paul that we really liked. By coincidence we had seen an exhibit by her husband, Jeffrey Harris, in Christchurch. Both the exhibits had a segment reflecting on the death of their 2nd daughter, which is how we made the connection.

We were hoping to grab a coffee at gallery but their cafe was closed over the holidays.

We were close to the waterfront and could hear the sound checks for the NYE celebration.

We had dinner reservations at Highwater Eatery, one of the few places I found that was a) open b) took reservations and c) didn’t have a big NYE dinner / buffet. Cause it was NYE it felt more like summerlicious with the kitchen just constantly pushing out the same food. It was probably the best we could expect on NYE.

We got back to our apartment around 10pm and were asleep well before midnight. The new year would have to wait until we woke up.

Wellington, New Zealand

Wellington has a walking tour of outdoor sculptures so we figured we’d start with that, it’s a good way to orient ourselves in a new city.

We started mid-way through the suggested tour cause it was beside our bnb. The tour then wound its way to the waterfront, past Te Papa (the National Museum). The pics of the waterfront redevelopment reminded us of Toronto. They’ve done a great job here creating public spaces.

The sculpture tour continued along the waterfront to the train station, at which point the tour cut into the city core and back towards our starting point. Wellington has compact core, very lively and creative. We liked it.

We had lunch at Dragons, a Chinese restaurant a couple doors down from our bnb. Heather had noticed it yesterday, it looked busy enough. Turns out it was super packed and we were lucky to get seated without a reservation! We had dim sum for the first time since covid, it was excellent.

After lunch we relaxed for a bit at the bnb and then went to visit Te Papa. It’s free admission so we gave a donation (which you can do with tap here).

The lower floor was very busy so unlike Drake we started at the top. They had some really interesting exhibits by Māori artists. It took us a couple hours to get through the 5th and 4th floors; we quickly walked through the rest.

We didn’t have dinner reservations for this evening. I had booked something in October but they had since emailed to say they were closed over Christmas due to lack of staff. So we wandered down Cuba St which has a high density of restaurants. Ended up at Floriditas where we had a really nice bottle of Grüner Veltliner which the sommelier was happy that we tried. The food was okay.

Wellington, New Zealand

We said goodbye to the South Island today, taking the Interislander ferry across the Cook Strait to Wellington.

We had breakfast at Sime’s cafe on the way out of Kaikōura. We had just missed the end of breakfast yesterday and so I was able to have their eggs benedict today which was excellent. The food came out quickly and we were back on the road a little after 10am.

It’s about a two hour drive from Kaikōura to Picton. The drive is beautiful, as all drives here seem to be. We were back in wine region, this time Marlborough.

We arrived at the ferry around noon and checked in. I had bought our tickets as soon as their summer schedule was released back in May. In the local media there’s warnings about how busy the crossing is right now and to book ahead, so lucky we knew our itinerary so far in advance.

We waited in line until 1pm when they started boarding. We parked our car and grabbed some good seats for the 3.5 hour crossing.

There’s the option to book car rentals where you drop off the car in Picton and then get a different car on the Wellington side. But that meant dragging all our luggage across as carry on, and also chancing that there may not be a vehicle waiting on the other side. So we booked a single car for the full trip and paid for its ferry crossing.

The ferry departed right on schedule. The first part was interesting, through the Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui. It looked similar to sounds we saw in Fjiordland except the hills are much lower and flatter. But still very scenic.

The waves increased slightly when we left the protection of the sounds and entered Cook Strait. The swells were about 1m which is considered good. There’s websites that forecast the swells and so we knew in advance what to expect. We only really noticed it when we got up and walked around.

It took a while to disembark in Wellington. We docked around 5:30pm and we didn’t drive on to shore for another 45 minutes. It gave me time to memorize the route to our bnb in the centre of town.

We had got used to remote areas and parking anywhere to unload the car. It’s a whole other story in a busy city. We parked in a loading zone and hoped we wouldn’t get a ticket. There’s a few very popular restaurants on our street so all the meter parking was occupied.

I then drove the car to a carport about five minutes away, while Heather finished getting everything up the stairs and into our apartment.

We had reservations at 8pm so rushed to get ready. I then looked up a similarly sounding restaurant in Google Maps and we walked 8 minutes in the wrong direction. So I called the real restaurant and let them know we were running late so they’d hold the table.

We ate at Atlas, which was one of the better restaurants we’ve eaten at, probably only Restaurant Ö was better. Their website said they had a 3 or 4 course tasting; when we were seated it turned out it was actually a six course tasting. It was all excellent, with no misses. The wine pairings were good too. It hardly seemed like we started the day on the South Island.

Kaikōura, New Zealand

We didn’t sleep well at all, partly because we were worried about sleeping in through our 5am alarm. This morning was our big albatross tour!

We drove down to Encounter Kaikōura at 5:30am to check in for the tour. We were a few minutes early and looking for caffeine. The excursion folks suggested we try the Sudima hotel next door. It turned out their kitchen didn’t open till 6am, but the very nice person there made us a couple cappuccinos for takeaway, on the house.

Our guide / boat driver, Gary, met us at 5:45am. There were nine of us on the excursion (Encounter does small groups, one of the reasons I had booked with them). We drove five minutes to the jetty on the other side of the peninsula. We then got on the boat while it was dry docked, the first time I’ve had to do that. (I think the 2016 earthquake messed up the water depths at the jetty).

The water looked calm, but in a smaller boat even swells of 1m were making me and Heather feel a bit naseous. We went out about 3km to where the shelf drops off, which creates a natural feeding area for the albatross.

A few giant petrels followed us. They have a wingspan of 2m and looked pretty big. They are also a very mean bird, with a call that sounds prehistoric. Gary said you wouldn’t want to get in a fight with it. He probably didn’t need to give us the warning, lol, I wasn’t going anywhere near it.

We got to the shelf drop off and cut the engines. A few Royal Great Albatross landed about 100m in the distance; Gary said they are shy at first but would eventually paddle their way towards us. These were enormous, with wingspans over 3m! They made the giant petrels look small. We also saw two Wandering Albatrosses, with a wingspan of 3.7m, the largest flying bird in the world!

Over the next hour we saw 18 albatrosses, 16 petrels, 60+ shearwaters and a bunch of other birds. Gary kept track of the sightings for research purposes; and then gave us a copy back on shore.

Both of us were feeling seasick most of the time, we enjoyed seeing the birds but not as much as we might have. I also found looking through my camera lens threw me off. So didn’t get as many pics as I might have. Oh well.

We boated over to another location closer to shore, where we saw dolphins pods swimming about. And then we saw a random little blue penguin! It quickly disappeared in the waves.

The excursion was really well run, with respect for the wildlife. There was no chasing after birds or other sea life. Gary was also really knowledgeable.

We got back to shore and drove back to the Encounters facility. It was crowded with tourists getting ready for the later morning tours. The company also runs dolphin tours, including one where you can snorkel with them. That sounds way too cold for me, I much prefer Fiji waters.

We decided to have breakfast at their cafe. While waiting for our food, we overheard a lot of tourists come in to try to book same-day excursions, only to be turned away cause they were fully booked. Good thing we had booked ahead!

We decided to do the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway as soon as we got back to our bnb. We thought if we sat down we’d fall asleep and then lose momentum for the day. The weather had turned, it was now misty / cloudy and half drizzling. One thing I really like about smartphones is that they’re water resistant, whereas my camera stayed in my backpack to start.

There was a shortcut marked on the trail that allowed us to skip the in-town part of the walk. We had some difficulty picking out the trail markings for the shortcut at the corner of Cromer and Ward St but figured it out. It started with steps over a fence and through a sheep paddock. We had to watch our steps here! About halfway down to the shore we picked up another road, and it was a clearly marked trail the rest of the way.

We walked along Fyffe Quay to the parking lot at Point Kean. This is a popular tourist lookout for seals and was a bit crowded. The walkway went back up the cliffs to the Point Kean Lookout and then wound its way along the top of the cliff to a lookout over Whalers Bay. There were dozens of seals lounging about. They aren’t much for pics as a seal lounging about looks the same as a dead seal. The weather had cleared so I had my camera out again.

We continued along the walkway to the South Bay lookout, and then down to the jetty where we had launched for the albatross tour earlier this morning. It was about noon and starting to warm up. We had started the walk in 13C and drizzly and had slowly ditched layers throughout the morning.

Took another shortcut, this one more structured, called Tom’s Path, which brought us back to Scarborough St and back to our bnb. The full circuit took us just over three hours, although we did stop for a lot for pics.

Threw some water on our faces and then went out for lunch. We wanted to try Emporium Brewery along Hwy 1 but it was closed over the holidays. Instead tried out Sime’s Kitchen a few doors down. It was excellent! (Later I realized that our bnb host had recommended it too).

We crashed for a couple hours and when we woke up the weather had cleared and we had a beautiful view of the bay.

For dinner we had reservations at The Pier, one of the classic restaurants for crayfish. The region is known for crayfish, in fact Kaikōura means ‘eat crayfish’ in Māori. So we drove down and ordered crayfish :) it was pretty good, grilled in the half shell and served with garlic butter.

On the way back home we drove up to Kaikōura Lookout to watch the sunset. It’s a two minute walk from our place but it was super windy. You can see both sides of the peninsula from the lookout. Watched the sun go down and then drove home. It was a very full day.

Kaikōura, New Zealand

It was drizzling and miserable as we packed up the car to leave Christchurch for Kaikōura. The weather cleared up as we headed north. We were now into NZ holiday season and there was much more traffic, with locals heading out of town, ‘caravanning’ as they call it. Mostly we were just in trains of cars, it was quite the change from earlier in the trip when we’d be the only car on the road.

We drove the 2.5 hours straight to Kaikōura. The last 30 minutes was spectacular, with seals lounging on the rocky coast and tunnels through the mountains which dropped right into the ocean.

Kaikōura sits on a peninsula jutting into the Southern Ocean. Our bnb was atop a ridge overlooking the town and the bay. It was a bit strange to enter the bnb. The host was vacationing on the west coast, and had left instructions on how to find the key to enter. All our previous bnb’s had lockbox codes or keycode entry. We weren’t sure we had the right house until we found the key hidden in a box of soap as instructed.

We drove back into town (if there were stairs down the cliff it would have been a five minute walk, instead it was an eight minute drive). It was a bit of a shock to see how busy it was in the main street, March Break-like.

Luckily we found a parking spot on the street, and then walked up and down the street deciding on a cafe for lunch. Had a bagel with smoked salmon at Chiwis, which was highly rated on Google Maps but maybe was overwhelmed by the crowds today. At least their coffee was good.

We had dinner reservations at Zephyr at 7pm so decided to do the Peninsula Walkway track tomorrow, as it’s a three hour walk and we didn’t want to be rushed. We had hoped to instead see the museum this afternoon. When we walked around earlier the sign had said it was closed until January, but then we saw someone walk in! So not sure what the sign was about, but the museum was definitely open.

We paid for two adults and toured around the museum. It wasn’t too bad. They had an exhibit about the 2016 earthquake that devastated the area, knocking them off-grid and inaccessible by land for weeks.

Got back home and cleaned up for dinner. I had made reservations at Zephyr back in September, which seemed a bit silly at the time, but we were glad we had it now that we’re in peak tourist season.

Christchurch, New Zealand

We had time yesterday to read up on all the attractions in Christchurch and pick the ones we wanted to see given we just had one day to see them. Oddly, the Lonely Planet recommended the Art Gallery and not the Museum, and the Moon Guide was the opposite. Based on other sources, the Art Gallery was the top site to see, so that’s where we started.

The Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū has free admission, we left the suggested donation. It’s spread across six exhibits on two floors. We started with the upstairs. The gallery wasn’t busy at all, which surprised me.

We were really impressed with the exhibits. We spent over two hours just on the upstairs galleries. By then we were out-galleried and so left for lunch. It’s really a place that requires multiple visits.

We had lunch at Banh Mi EM, which was excellent, it really hit the spot. The part of town it’s in looked to be more where locals went out, as opposed to bars and restaurants on Oxford Terrace along the Avon River which looked more touristy.

Next on our itinerary was Christchurch Transitional Cathedral, commonly known as the Cardboard Cathedral. It’s the temporary cathedral while the original is being restored. There’s all sorts of rules about deconsecrating churches that had to be followed. The temporary cathedral was built in 11 months, partially out of cardboard tubes. It’s designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban (he also designed a temporary church in Kobe). Anyways it was interesting to see.

The final site we wanted to see was 185 White Chairs, a temporary exhibit commemorating the people who died in the 2011 earthquake. It was very well done.

Throughout the day we had crisscrossed the core a few times. There was much more open today, including most stores.

Before heading home we stopped in at Riverside Market, it’s filled with local food retailers, sort of like St Lawrence Market in Toronto. Had a 4-beer paddle at the Canterbury Brewers Collective kiosk, a great way to sample the local craft beers.

Walked back home and had dinner, wrapping up our tour of Christchurch.

Christchurch, New Zealand

Merry Christmas! We slept in and had a relaxing breakfast in our little Airbnb. It was a beautiful day, 22C and sunny, and low humidity.

We picked up our dinner from Pedro’s House of Lamb just before 11am (it was less than a 10 minute walk). It smelled amazing, I think it’s more usual here to have a big brunch / lunch, and so the lamb was ready to eat. We weren't planning to eat for a few hours, so we put in the fridge for later this evening. Pedro's provided handy reheating instructions with the takeout.

The only thing open in Christchurch today was the Botanic Gardens (I had to look up, both botanical and botanic are grammatically correct, botanic has fallen out of common usage). I think most of the tourists in town (and some locals too) also made a visit here today, some bringing food for a picnic. It’s a really nice park in the heart of the city. For some families it looked like a Christmas Day tradition to have a bbq picnic in the park.

Walked around a bit more, checking out the open hours of various places for tomorrow that we wanted to visit, like the Art Gallery and the Museum.

There wasn’t much open at all, just two food trucks and one coffee shop. But just walking around the city core was pretty good, one of the more interesting cities we’ve visited over Christmas.

Got back to our place and relaxed. Listened to Ludacrismas, somewhat of a Christmas tradition for us.

The reheating instructions from Pedro’s suggested it would take only 15 minutes to reheat the lamb and potatoes, but I think that’s if it was left on the counter. We were reheating from the fridge and it took over an hour.

And so we had our little Christmas dinner. The lamb was excellent, we had also splurged for a nicer bottle of Pinot noir. The sides were great too - coleslaw, sliced potatoes and fresh peas, which I steamed. Mmm good.

Christchurch, New Zealand

Christmas Eve! We had a pretty good breakfast at The Vicarage, our bnb in Oamaru. It was just down the street from Countdown (a supermarket), we walked down to get groceries for the next couple days, as we weren’t sure what would be open over Christmas and Boxing Day.

We’re in the heart of Otago, a major fruit growing region, and so stopped at roadside pick-your-own raspberry farm about 20 minutes outside Oamaru. They also sold pre-picked fruit which we got.

There was a constant stream of traffic heading out of Christchurch. Our bnb was off Montreal St, one of the major streets in Christchurch, so it was easy to drive to, the opposite of our Dunedin experience.

Our bnb in Christchurch is a full unit in a row of townhouses. It came with its own garage too! The area was residential but minutes away from the main pedestrian areas. No chimney though for Santa.

Later in the afternoon we walked into town. Over 80% of the buildings in the CBD were destroyed by the earthquakes in 2010 & 2011, including the main cathedral and other historical buildings. The restoration is planned over many years. Right now it reminds me of the waterfront development in Toronto - lots of urban planning in the design, just waiting for things to be completed so people can move in and bring life to everything.

There were a handful of restaurants open today on Christmas Eve, although we planned to cook at home. The weather was perfect, about 22C.

We also walked down to Pedro’s House of Lamb, a Christchurch institution. They have a Christmas Day special of slow-cooked lamb shoulder and sides. I had ordered back in October as they only take 80 orders and as you can imagine it sells out quickly. Today we just wanted to check out where it was. It was also conveniently located beside a Liquorland which had a ginormous selection of local wines and craft beer.

We got back to our place and cleaned up. We had salmon again for dinner, getting our fix of King Salmon while we’re in NZ, along with a local white.

Oamaru, New Zealand

We had one of the shorter drives of our trip today, just 90 minutes to Oamaru. Had another uninspiring breakfast at Fable Dunedin, finished packing up, got our car from the valet and then departed.

I got caught up in the turn-only lanes again, so looped around for one last view of the hotel before getting in the correct lane to get out of the city core.

About an hour north of Dunedin we reached Moeraki, home of the Instagram-famous Moeraki boulders. These are spherical boulders about 3’ in diameter that dot the shore. It’s a popular tourist stop off. We arrived around 11:30am, at low tide. During low tide the boulders are on the beach, more accessible and harder to get tourist-free pics. The tourists came in bunches and I did get my tourist-free pics after a few minutes though.

We then went into Moeraki Village for lunch. The classic, Fleurs Place, unfortunately closed permanently recently for non-covid reasons. Fleurs has been written up in international travel publications and even has its own Wikipedia entry. Our Airbnb hosts in Oamaru suggested we instead try The Fishwife, supposedly the best fish and chips in NZ.

We showed up at The Fishwife, but due to lack of staffing over Christmas just had crawfish on menu (no accoutrements like fries, just crawfish). So we went across the street to Moeraki Tavern, which I remembered reading was just as good as The Fishwife.

We both had fish and chips, it was excellent. I wonder how much better Fleurs or The Fishwife could have been, cause this was pretty darned good.

It was only another 30 minutes to Oamaru and our Airbnb. It’s in a historical building, a former vicarage.

We were a bit early to checkin so had emailed with the host, and dropped off the car and then explored Oamaru. One of the draws is the Steampunk HQ, a museum, but that wasn’t our thing. Instead we wandered around the neighbouring Victorian Precinct and the wharf. It was very photogenic.

Got back to the bnb and met our host, Jacqui. She was very enthusiastic, happy that we had been out touristing in her town. (On the way back we also stopped in at the local Countdown, a grocery store, to stock up pre-Christmas for Christchurch).

We relaxed for a bit and then headed back out for our Little Blue Penguin excursion! The penguins come ashore at dusk (after 9:30pm this time of year). There’s a viewing gallery set up on shore, I had bought tickets before we left Toronto. There’s also a convenient restaurant next door, where we had reservations for 7pm.

Dinner was average, but it was more about the location. Went over to the Penguin conservatory around 8:30pm. Seating is first-come-first-served, we were in the 2nd row, an excellent viewpoint.

At 9pm the Penguin folks started their little spiel on the penguins. At 9:30 the first raft of seven penguins came onshore. They were really cute, about 18” tall, waddling towards their nests for the night, passing by about 10’ in front of us.

It took another 30 minutes to see the next raft, and then they started coming in constantly. Over the course of the evening we saw about 150 penguins. It’s one of the highlights of the South Island in my opinion. You can watch a live webcam of the penguins coming ashore, just remember it's +13 UTC.

We were lucky with the weather, it was about 15C at 11pm when we left. We wore multiple layers to stay warm (it gets cold just sitting around). Our host also gave us blanket to wrap around our legs.

They don’t allow pics cause flashes scare the penguins from coming onshore. You don’t need to use a flash, but there’s always someone in the group who doesn’t realize their flash is on, so it’s easier just to have a blanket ban on pics. So unfortunately I don’t have any pics, but I did get to watch them the whole time and not get caught up in picture taking.

On the drive out we passed by a handful of penguins waddling along. We drove at 20km to make sure we didn’t hit any. (The penguin folks also asked that we check under the car before departing to make sure there weren’t any penguins underneath).

It made for a very full day, which in fact was a transit day.

Dunedin, New Zealand

Breakfast was disappointing at our hotel, Fable Dunedin. I think I had booked here cause it’s a historic building, and it does have lots of character. But breakfast is not its thing.

Anyways I had planned on the itinerary to take a day trip to Port Chalmers, for boutique stores and galleries and the like, but based on our whirlwind tour of Dunedin yesterday, figured we could do the same thing here in Dunedin without the hassle of driving.

There’s lots of street art in Dunedin so sketched out a rough path. Started at the train station, which is a beautiful building and one of the most photographed buildings in NZ. Unfortunately it’s undergoing restoration right now :( instead just checked out the art galleries upstairs at the station.

It was close to lunch so walked over to Beam Me Up Bagels, based on online recommendations. I had the cold smoked salmon bagel and Heather had the hot smoked version. Both were excellent.

Then we started the street art tour in earnest. The tourism board had a booklet on a Dunedin with a page for the street art. We followed their map to see most of the art, plus a few more not noted. It’s a great way to explore a city, we walked through areas we otherwise may have overlooked. (Penang in Malaysia was one of the trendsetters for this).

It took us a while to see most of the street art; the city is compact but it’s still very car-centric, so we spent a lot of time waiting at streetlights. At least here it’s acceptable to jaywalk, unlike Hobart.

We had a double espresso at Precinct Foods, their dessert was amazing.

Went back to the hotel to rest up for a few minutes before heading back out to see Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. I think it would be better marketed as a history museum, but what do I know. It was about 3pm (the place closed at 5pm) so we figured the main rush of people would have left already.

Anyways we really enjoyed the museum. There wasn’t anything specific that stood out; it was mostly a bunch of historical stuff that explained what / why we’d been seeing in NZ. Like that Abel Tasman was a Dutch explorer (we’ve seen many things named Abel Tasman) or the history behind various cultures arriving in NZ.

The last exhibit focused on communications and technology, and had a iPad (!) as one of the museum pieces.

Got back home with just enough time to shower and head back out for dinner. Tonight we ate at Plato, a restaurant all about fresh seafood. It made a nice contrast to the trendy place yesterday. It’s right on the wharf and the seafood was excellent. We split a bunch of dishes to sample almost all the types of seafood, including oysters, ceviche (more like kokoda), clams and mussels in a white wine broth, and one of the catches of the day, coconut with blue moki.

The sun was just setting as we left, (it’s the solstice today) and the lighting on the harbour was amazing.

Took a circuitous route home. We happened to pass by the Indigo Room, a little bar near one of the street art we’d see earlier, and recommended by a passerby. So we stopped in for a drink, it was a really cool place, even though we were probably two hours early and a couple decades late.