What a rad weekend. That’s all I can really say. What a rad
weekend. It started off with an inner battle to go through with bungee jumping,
ferry rides, Pacifika festivals and sail boat races!
Friday
Bungy Jumping
Deciding to bungy jump really was a huge inner
battle within. I knew I would be so mad at myself for not doing something that
originated in New Zealand. How many people (that don’t live in New Zealand or
near it) can say that they have been bungy jumping in New Zealand, off of the
Auckland Bridge, into the ocean? Not many people and I am one of them now!
Once I got up to the top my nerves steadied and I was totally fine. That was
until the guide strapped my ankles in and Margo told me it was scary. That was
something I did not need to hear when I was about to jump off a bridge. It was
my turn and he had to switch out the bungy for the next weight group. (They
did it in two groups and did the lightest group last.) He asked me if I minded
if I got a little wet. I was actually really excited about this. If I was going
to bungy I needed to make it good. As I walked, well more like waddled since
my ankles were strapped together, down the plank to the edge where I was about
to jump for I had quite the grip on the guides shoulder. He counted to three
and I began my free fall ever so gracefully. The guide was right! I was going
to hit the water. I thought he meant just my head was going to get wet because
the lightest people generally don’t even get wet, but I went in a little passed
my hips. I hit the water and couldn’t do anything but laugh. It was so much
fun! Who knew that facing your greatest fears could be fun…and make you want to
do it again?
To get the full affect...watch this video!
Then we took a ferry out to the island of Waihike, One of
the girls said it sounds like “why have a hicky”, and it kind of does. This was
a really cute fun place to go. The streets were filled with small town shops
and of course a gorgeous beach.
I jumped off of that!!!
Because it was so hot Kirsten, Austyn and I were in dyer
need of some ice cream to cool us down. We went to this fruits and vegetables
shop and bought ourselves a tub of OOB organic ice cream. Phyllis brother is
actually the man that started this ice cream and it is supposed to be a healthy
version of ice cream. Because it was so good I’m just not sure how healthy it
really is. Oh well. We walked down to the beach and ate our tub of ice cream.
It was a really tender moment to share together.
Today was the day of the Pasifika Festival. The Pasifika Festival transforms Western Springs
Park tinto10 villages offering music, food, arts and dance from 10 cultures.
The purpose of the Pasifika Festival is for Pacific to communities come
together to celebrate their unity and, at the same time, their diversity. The
cultures represented were: Tokelau, Tahiti, Tonga, Cook Islands, Aotearoa (New
Zealand), Niue, Kiribati, Samoa, Tuvalu, and Fiji.
This was
definitely a cultural experience. It was a lot of fun to walk around and see
the different things from every culture around this area.
Here are some of
the highlights:
We finally tried
the legendary umu food. An
umu is the traditional method used by Samoan's for cooking food. A fire is
built and stones placed on it. When the fire is down to the embers green
bananas, breadfruit, taro, fish, and lu'au are placed on the stones. When
everything to be cooked has been placed on the umu, it is covered with banana
fronds and left to cook. For us the meal was slightly different. It had taro,
rice and steak chop suey, mayonnaise potato salad (I swear everything has
mayonnaise in it here in New Zealand), and either chicken or pork.
The most
interesting part of it all was the banana poke. Poke is a traditional Cook Islands recipe
for a classic dessert of cooked bananas mixed with milk, thickened with
arrowroot, and sweetened with sugar that's baked and served in coconut milk.
We are all familiar with Zumba (Latin style dance workout), but here
since there are very little Latinos they have the same concept but in the form
of Hula Fitness. This was quite the site. There were so many different people
doing it. There was even a fairly old woman doing it. It was great.
There were also heaps of performances going on in each of the different
cultures. Here are some of my favorites.
Volvo World Ocean Race
After we finished we got back on a bus to downtown Auckland once again,
but for a very unique experience. We went down for the Volvo World Ocean Race!
This is where 6 teams of sailors come together and race around the world. Amongst the 11 crewmembers on board each of
the six Volvo Open 70s are the world’s best sailors including Olympic gold
medallists, world champions and America’s Cup winners.
The sailors
represent 15 nations -- New Zealand, Australia, France, Spain, United States,
Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, Germany,
Norway, Brazil, China and Belgium.
The 11th edition
of the race brings many firsts, including the first sole Chinese entry, Team Sanya,
and the first United Arab Emirates entrant, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing.
The teams started in Spain and will end in a final stretch from France
to Ireland. They do this race in legs. They start in one area and then go to
the next and wait a couple days to fix anything that needs to be fixed on their
boats and then start again. It is quite intense.
Last night, was when they were supposed to be coming into the harbor so
we wanted to be there when they did. But alas, there must have been a storm and
their time was thrown off by 4 hours. Instead of coming in at 8:00pm they would
be getting in a midnight.
Even though we didn’t get to see them come in it was still fun to be
down on the pier because this world race was a lot bigger than we expected.
There was so much to see and do while we were there. There were concerts,
street performers, a 3D movie and so much more so it was worth it anyways.
