Green Curry and Big News

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Originally uploaded by kai smart.

It's always fun, having a name like mine, which is more of an universal SOUND than a name, to go places and get funny looks from people to whom your name means "food" (here, in Maori) and "egg" (Thailand). No, we didn't go to Thailand. That's next year (I hope). BUT we have been eating Thai food like there's no tomorrow. Green Curry is like a drug. We both like it very spicy, and usually get beers with it, and then emerge into the sunny day with that angelic-spicy-food-sheen of ecstacy on our faces. I have been somewhat of a bottomless pit since I've been here, eating three meals a day, having dessert, etc....but my ravening hunger was somewhat put off by a bout of food poisoning the day before yesterday. Chalk another strange malady up to the Kai-Smart-Is-Notoriously-Accident-Prone Scorecard. I feel like an invalid sometimes (mainly this past week) and it is not a good feeling.
Luckily, during my illness we were staying at a juggling-themed backpackers, which felt more like staying in a big wind-scoured Germanic beach house (don't ask me how that could happen) than at the usual rambling funky hostel. We hung out with many Germans there (who are all soft-spoken and fresh faced. boy, do they like the outdoors. and they tan like nobody's business! is that fair??!!) and the spunky fire-spinning proprieter, Nikki, who is English, and some others (including a French older man, Gerard, who was SO VERY FRENCH. I sat next to him at the table and painted while he had this for dinner one night; 10 or so steamed mussels, 2 steaks, done bloody, with fresh garlic sliced on top of them, a whole mini-wheel of brie (eaten straight with a knife), and a bottle of red wine. I am totally serious. All he needed was a beret and a gauloise and it would've been perfect!!!!). It's pretty amazing how many actual juggling people show up to an un-advertised house in a tiny suburb in a remote town in the hills in New Zealand. Mykle, being the curmudgeon that he is, managed to get through the entire stay without letting on to any of the juggling Germans that he not only juggles, but also speaks German. It's somewhat infuriating to me, since I wish I could do both. It's also pretty funny.
Picton is the name of the town, and like a few other small places we've been to, smacks of tourist-beach-town-with-no-other-economy-except-yachts-and-"maritime history". A bit uncomfortably familiar to us native Santa Cruzans, who have a creepy feeling when we are put in the place of the people who we distained (no doubt unfairly) as little local children.
Anyhow, our three days was wonderfully spent, and there was fresh-bread baked every morning for the guests, and we got in many conversations about Burning Man, and people's opinions on it (not that anyone except us had ever been, but it's kind of a fire-spinning person's mecca or anti-mecca, so everyone has something to say). Thank goodness we were there, with a nice soft bed, instead of in the van at a campground with a composting toilet (these are very popular in New Zealand. SO are sinks and kitchens run on rainwater collected from the roof.)

Speaking of everyone having something to say, I feel I am now the US emmisary of girls-with-tattoos, I can't even count how many conversations I've had that are started with people telling me they: like my arm/never seen a girl with that much tattooing/ questioning if I am going to get it colored/ how much did it cost/wish they could get something like it...etc. It's pretty awesome. It's an immediate ice-breaker, and everyone is super nice about it, and I end up holding up lines at banks and in gas stations while the clerk shows me their dolphin ankle tattoo.

SO we are now in Christchurch, briefly (for some hours) while I pick up my backpack (YAY) and then we are heading to Dunedin, which is South and then over to the West to do the Kepler Track. I am determined to be jaunty and wholesome and not a vomiting leperous mess. Yay! We shall search Dunedin (a college town of sorts) for the elusive "Rock Show", which are few and far between. NZ seems to follow in the European fixation with House/Break-beats/Techno/Euro-Club/Dub Craze (how long will this insanity last???) and any music that isn't this seems to be Bob Marley. He's like the most popular musician on the face of planet earth.

I hope everyone is well, and would like to share the news that we are coming back earlier than expected. Mykle chose our arrival and departure dates at complete random, and we feel that we have had a very full and exciting vacation so far, and can definately afford to come back a bit early, save money, and get Mykle a burrito before he perishes. Hahaha. We are going to housesit for Mykle's parents for a while (which could be seen as saving money, except that we are still paying some rent on our apt. in SF) and have big happy kissy reunions of joy and spend a lot of time in taquerias.

Fun NZ facts: Schoolchildren wear uniforms that make them look like schoolmarms (tartan skirts that go down to the ankle), Tim Burton movie extras (oh god, the boy's Church of Christ school in Christchurch has the MOST amazing uniforms: black suitcoats with tiny white pin-stripes, black and white horizontal-striped ties, little grey shorts, and black kneesocks with a white stripe at the top. It's devastating. All they need are little skull masks.) or something more sinister... We drove past a schoolyard today with many children all in wide-brimmed red hats (there's no ozone here), which Mykle pointed out made them look like hordes of miniature Spanish Inquisitors.