Saturday, October 28, 2006

finally.

as promised, i have uploaded a metric shit ton of photos for you to enjoy or ignore or enjoy ignoring. the following six posts are most of the halfway decent shots from our trip through the north island. at some point i hope upload the cream to my flickr site to give them a bit of nicer digital setting.

b and i fly down to christchurch on monday. we're going to gayly skip along the milford track starting on the 7th of november. it is my hope that our expedition south will include some penguin watching, cycling, kayaking, and lots and lots of hiking. blog entries and photos will be posted when technology and time are available. for now, enjoy the photos. or don't.

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as you may have noticed i've given the blog another makeover. i've switched over to blogger beta. not much to report about it other than there seem to be a few more options for templates. general layout and standard utilities are otherwise pretty much identical. uploading new posts is much faster now, though. i'll hopefully be tweaking the color scheme a bit, but we'll see if i get a chance.

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i'm nearly finished reading jonathan strange and mr. norell. i have to say, i don't know what people were so enthused about. granted, i've never been a much of a fantasy fan, but it's halfway through the book before there's any real conflict established. that's 500 pages in. it's not until about two thirds of the way through that what's billed to be the main conflict of the book, that between strange and norell, actually develops. and even once that's established, susanna clarke still can't keep the pace up. that said, i'm 850 pages in and i'm not giving up now.

wrap it up already

Sculpture at Te Papa in Wellington


Uh... yeah.


mt. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!


The following are shots of White Island, an active volcano off the east coast.






views of wellington

the beehive, new zealand's parliament building










food food food

green-lipped mussels paired with a monteith's radler from taste, wellington


pomodoro pizza's italian pizza oven


a margherita from pomodoro pizza, wellington


the lovely charing from a pomodoro slice


a margherita from archie's pizzeria, newmarket, auckland


the crisp crust from archie's (a little too crisp at the edges)


the dairy section of a wellington dairy


sacher torte from a fancy bakery (not as good as mom's). it had no jam.


lamb and a monteith's black from plateau, taupo


venison from plateau, taupo


tongariro national park















photo dump take two

wine country in hawkes bay


farm land near river valley


more farm land near river valley


more more farm land near river valley


blossoms near river valley



trees by huka falls, taupo



flowers by huka falls, taupo


huka falls


fowl


more fowl


napier


art deco in napier


tolaga bay wharf


tolaga bay wharf

tolaga bay wharf