Christmas

Before Christmas I headed up to Rotorua to meet my friends Mark & Lorna (who are now happily engaged!). It was lovely to get away from the pretty dreary weather ChCh has been experiencing over the last few weeks.

Nice views out over the Tongariro crossing. You can see Mt. Doom in that picture. At least I think that’s the one.

We spent a very pleasant day in Rotorua. It’s really McMaori… in that you get the dances and shows put on for the tourists. Quite well done though. We had a hangi for dinner. A Hangi is where they dig a hole in the ground – fill it with hot rocks & then the food. Seal it all up again and it basically becomes an oven. Quite a delicious taste to be honest.

I shall just put some pictures up now..

And a panorama.. though it didn’t merge quite as well as normal..

Then Mark & Lorna very kindly dropped me to my Aunts house at Palmerston North where I enjoyed a lovely Christmas day.

On the 26th I bussed up to Auckland and stayed the night in a pretty dismal hostel – before heading on the 10 day meditation course. The meditation course itself was actually a little too hard for me… In fact I had a slight brain meltdown afterwards though am feeling much better now. Looks like the pop survey was correct.. I did go madder :)