MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Here is the link to an album of pics from Laos!!
We hope everyone at home had a very Merry Christmas!!! We missed being with friends and family and are so thankful for all of our loved ones far away.

heather

Christmas time in Laos!

Vang Vieng. A must see for backpackers in Laos, famous for its tubing down the Nam Song river, restaurants that continually play Friends episodes, and its beautiful limestone mountains surrounding the river. We had met so many people that were heading to Vang Vieng for Christmas, to simply relax and spend the holiday floating down the river. We did not arrive until late afternoon on Sunday, and with Talita (Holland), we found a cheap and cheerful guesthouse and then got sucked into watching Friends while eating pizza and the amazing fruit shakes!

Monday morning, we headed out in a Tuktuk to 4 of the nearby limestone caves. The caves were cool, not as impressive as some that we saw in Central America, but interesting none the less.
These caves were used as hide outs for the locals during the Secret War in Laos. In the 60s and 70s, unknowingly to most, the US bombed Laos (which was also being taken over by a communist regime) and caused loads of damage to the land and people. The caves each had in them Buddhas for the people to perform their prayers during the bombings.

We thought the safety was bad in Central America, but we soon discovered that it can still be worse! At least we got helmets in Belize and Nicaragua! I greatly appreciated those helmets after slipping in the mud in one cave and hitting my head on a stalactite! It hurt (I am totally fine!) and I bled all over my face in front of lots of people! Super embarrassing!

After caving, we arrived back 1 1/2 later than planned (typical Laos style!), so we decided to save tubing for the next day! We watched some more Friends, met some real friends at dinner, and generally enjoyed the Laos backpackers scene for the evening! This city is certainly not where you encounter the most authentic Laotian culture, but it is fun to be around lots of travelers so near to Christmas! We have been debating since we arrived where to spend Christmas, in Vang Vieng or north in Luang Probang.


Tuesday we had breakfast with Talita, Bailey (UK) and Andy (Australia) at a great organic restaurant! I had a the most amazing mulberry pancakes with lime and honey! After breakfast, we hired some tubes, caught a tuktuk and headed to the start of the tubing! After having a fresh Mojitio at another organic farm near the start, we hit the river! We knew the tubing wasn't far, but we realized it was actually a really short distance, but with lots of places to stop along the river! The river banks are lined with wood platforms full of people hanging out. Each 'stop' has its own form of fairly unsafe entertainment, like huge Tarzan swings, slides, mud pits, bon fires. So, although the tubing part was fairly lame, but the view was great and the swings/slides were really fun!

Because we had done what we came here to do, tubing and caving, and because there is not a lot to do in the evenings except watch Friends :), we decided to hit the road and head north. We found only 1 company in town that offered an overnight bus to Luang Probang, which we though was really strange, but we decided to try it out. It turns out our instincts were right, and we had gotten totally scammed. We walked onto a bus full of people that looked as if they had been on the bus, every seat was filled and the isles were filled with people sitting on stools, huge boxes, and tires. We were totally in shock and before we knew it the bus was already rolling. They eventually found us seats, however, I shared 2 seats with a woman and her 6 year old son, a tire next to me, and boxes at my feet. Toriann sat with a Lao woman who very much thought Toriann didnt mind sharing her seat with her, and also woke up at 6am to put on makeup and listen to music on her cellphone REALLY loud. Ahh, good old night buses! But, on the positive, we made it safe and sound to Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang is an old French colonial town, now an UNESCO World Heritage site. It is filled with loads of Wats (temples). It is very quaint and the most 'Christmasy' place we had been in all of Asia yet! The overnight bus dropped us off around 5am, so we wandered the streets for a while waiting for town to open. While we were waiting, we got to see the monks procession down the main street of LP. Every morning at sunrise all of the monks in the city walk down the street and people come to the streets to give them breakfast. It was a very peaceful sight and a great way to pass the morning while we waited to find a guesthouse.

We were happy with our decision to move to LP for Christmas and spent Christmas eve in the beautiful night market Christmas shopping. The market is brilliant, filled with silk blankets, scarves, silver jewelry, and other handicrafts. It is the best market we have been to around the world for sure. On Christmas day, we decided to take a day trip to a nearby waterfall. We met Sam (Colorado) the night before, so we met him for breakfast and then set off to find a tuktuk. On the way, we met 2 other guys from the US and shared a tuktuk to Kuang Si waterfall outside of town. The waterfall park included a bear rescue facility, random, but the bears were super cute! We hiked to the top of the waterfall, enjoyed the view, then hiked back down where Toriann and Talita dared to swim in the frigid water while I stayed out and guarded our stuff.
After the swim, we headed back to town to hit the Internet cafe and make some calls home. We were so blessed to get to call friends and family and get to hear (and see!) loved ones! It was definitely the highlight of Christmas day in Asia. It was so different to be celebrating Christmas in a non Christmas celebrating country. For Christmas dinner, Toriann, Talita, myself, and another friend we had met on a bus in southern Laos, Lisa (Holland) had Asian food at a packed restaurant full of foreigners. It turned out to be good food and good company, so although not a normal Christmas, it was not so bad!

So, Christmas being technically over, it was time to hit to road to head to Thailand to meet my family. We spent one last day in Luang Prabang, seeing some more of sights including, the Royal Palace, the banks of the Mekong river and other famous Wats. Unfortunately it rained all afternoon, but that made it easy to hop on overnight bus #3 for Laos and head south to Viene Tiene.

We arrived in Viene Tiene early, by this time we were experts at arriving into town before the sunrise, and we headed to the street of a guesthouse that we knew we could buy train tickets to Bangkok. We found a cafe nearby that was open, had breakfast, and then went back to the guesthouse and purchased train tickets. The guesthouse was super nice and let us shower and store our stuff for the day! It is definitely people like that you come to very much appreciate when you are traveling! That left us with the afternoon to kill, and we headed to a Buddha sculpture park. It was both Buddhist and Hindu sculptures collected by a man that donated it to the park. On the way there we had a small tuktuk verses truck accident, but luckily, no one was hurt and only the tuktuk had a small scratch!

After our park adventure, we boarded a bus, crossed the border to Thailand, and found our seats on the overnight train. The train was deluxe, at least compared the buses we had been taking, with our own beds and everything! It was really fun because we ran into a lot of people that we had met in Vang Vieng, so we got to hang out and play card until we were told to 'go to bed now!' by the train man. After a few hours sleep, the train man came around again, 'time to wake up, get down now!'
So, that was the rest of our time in Laos, we have now arrived in Bangkok to meet up with the Buchans!

The never ending travel day...

32 hours later and we finally arrived here in Vang Vieng. Yesterday morning we left Don Dhet island at 5:30 am on a little canoe motor boat where I proceeded to slip and rammed my leg into the boat as I tried to get in. With my bruised shin we boated over to the main land, where we hoped on a local min bus (a truck with benches in the back-all natural air con!) and drove to Ban Lak 30 where they dropped us off. Expecting to find lots of tuk tuks to take us to Ban Muang, where we told to catch the ferry boat to Champasak, we only found a truck which drove us down to the water. From here we got aboard a SE Asian style ferry boat (two canoes with wooden boards lade on top) and cruised over to Champasak. There is not much to do here, but visit the famous Wat Phu ruins which are spoken very highly of. The Wat Phu ruins are about 8km outside of Champasak so we were in desperate need of finding a tuk tuk that would drive us out there and watch our stuff while we visited the ruins. Within a few minutes we found a tuk tuk and arrived at Vat Phou. Vat Phou literally means mountain temple. It's divided into two parts with a steep stone stairway connecting the lower part to the upper part. As we climbed up the steep staircase we saw the beautiful view of the Mekong Valley. The upper section is the temple sanctuary itself which was originally built by Hindus in the 6th century but was later converted into a Buddhist temple during the Angkor period of the 9th and 13 century. Just outside the temple, we saw the elephant stone and the crocodile stone- both very cool to see. After our visit we decided to make the steep climb down the stairs and of course I slipped and fell down the last four or five steps (fall #2 for the day!). Laughing and bent over from falling, all the locals came over with there concerned words and looks and helped me up. With just a minor scratch on my foot we thought it was time to head back and figure out how to get to Pakse. Upon boarding the ferry boat which was much bigger then the first one, we found a local bus that was heading to Pakse. We asked the driver if we could join...he pointed in the direction of Pakse laughed and said yes. So we threw our bags on top and climbed in the back... realizing shortly after that we may have imposed ourselves onto an eighth grade class excursion (since everyone was about 13 years old except for two male teachers and ourselves). With several giggles and stares, an hour and half later we were kicked off the bus and handed over to a tuk tuk that drove us the rest of the way into Pakse and dropped us off at a VIP bus station. Pumped to finally take the "famous" overnight bed bus that we had heard about we booked our tickets to Vientiane. With a few hours to kill before the bus left we headed into town and had lunch/dinner, visited a small Catholic church, tried Laos coffee, and walked through Wat Luang. Our few hours flew by and before we knew it we were settling into our VERY small narrow beds for the night. The bus is stacked with bunk beds and two people sleep parallel to each other on top as well as on the bottom...there is no room for personal space. Both Heather and I were feeling thankful we had each other because we would not want to be sleeping on this bus next to a stranger. After a rough night sleep we arrived in Vientiane homeless, tired and hungry. We, along with a few other travels whom we had met, roamed the streets in search of a hostel, but no where were there vacancies. Frustrated and impatient both Heather and I decided to just keep going and catch a bus to Vang Vieng. After we booked our ticket we settled ourselves down for a relaxing breakfast and just waited for the bus to pick us up. Roughly three hours later we made it to Vang Vieng and that completed our 32 hour travel day (days).

4K Islands..Welcome to Laos!

After heading up north through Cambodia with an overnight stop in quiet Stung Treng, we crossed the border into Laos. We went through the border, got a stamp, got dropped off and then picked up in another van. That van proceded to fill up with people heading back to Cambodia, but we were reassured that we were on the right bus. So, we drove back to the border, dropped the crowd of people off going south, turned around again, and were on our way again into Laos. Our first stop in Laos was 4 Thousand Islands, on the island of Don Dhet. Don Dhet has 2 main streets, Sunrise and Sunset. We settled into a (very) small bungalow on Sunset blvd, complete with hammocks and an amazing view . Don Dhet is connected to the island just south, Don Khon, where you can catch a boat to view the rare river dolphins. We rented bikes and biked the dusty, bumpy road down to the other island, hired a boat, and floated out to somewhere on the water between Laos and Cambodia. Our driver spoke no English, but he was able to point out quite a few of the dolphins. Unfortantely they were fairly far away, and when we asked to go closer, he said, 'no, Cambodia!'. We stayed on the water till just before sunset, then came back and rushed to a nearby beach to watch the beautiful sunset. Riding back it got a little dark, but we made it back, had some dinner with Cav (from Denver, yah!) and Susie (Germany).
The next day we rented bikes again and continued exploring the islands. We rode to a small waterfall, lots of beautiful scenery, and a fabulous bakery!! We made sure to be back at our bungalow to watch the sunset from our hammocks which was amazing! Laos is definitely beautiful and I cant wait to see more!
PS We should have pictures up soon for Cambodia and Laos!!

Angkor Wat

After taking a month or two off from the Latin American ruins, we felt it was time to go back and explore some ruins here in Cambodia. The Temples of Angkor is the heart and soul of the Cambodian people. They look to these temples for inspiration and national pride as they struggle to rebuild their lives after the Pol Pot's regime. Some people spend a week visiting all the temples and others like ourselves just spend a day seeing and absorbing a small portion of what could take several days. The temples of Angkor are the perfect blend of artistic carvings and structure as well as spiritual devotion. Of the hundreds of temples here, the Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Angkor Wat are the three most magnificent temples due to their size, scale and symmetry. The temples were built between 9th and 13th century.
Since we only had day to visit Angkor, we decided to get up at 4:30 am and go watch the sunrise. The Tuk Tuk picked us up at our hostel and drove us out to Angkor Wat where we sat and watched the sunrise over the temple. It was beautiful- SO much better then the sunrise we watched in Tikal (Guatemala). It was beautiful, although Heather only got to see the beginning before she feel asleep on the ruins! When she woke up, we walked through Angkor Wat, the mother temple due to its unbelievable structure and size. Angkor Wat is the largest religious building in the world. After we walked through, we headed to the ancient city of Angkor Thom to see Bayon and Baphuon. The City of Angkor Thom was built by Angkor's greatest king, Jayavarman VII and who built Bayon around 1200. Although Angkor Wat is the mother temple, Bayon is Angkor's most stunning temple do to its eerie faces that stare down at you while you walk around. Apparently there are 216 faces of Avalokiteshvara watching over the tourist as they explore this memorable temple. From here we traveled by tuk tuk and stopped at the Terrace of Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King, Phnom Bakheng, Ta Keo until we arrived at Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is famous for two reasons, one being that Tomb Raider and Two Brothers were filmed here. The other reason is that it has started to be taken over by jungle vegetation. As we walked through the narrow corridors, we saw the roots of several huge trees hug the stonework of this temple. It was quite a sight to be able to see a small vision of what the archeologist's saw when they re-discovered these temples. Our day visit here was incredible and definitely a different sight then what we had been used to from L.A. The Mayan and Inka ruins were big stone buildings focused around the astronomical calender, where these temples display exquisite artistic stone carvings. Both similar in the sense of being big stone buildings, yet the feelings you get from walking around from both is so different. We both loved it and wish we had another day or two to explore the other temples, but our time is too short in SE Asia!! (but whats new!)

Phnom Phen

We have managed to travel to three countries in three days-Indonesia, Malaysia, and now Cambodia! It has been a little overwhelming and a bit exhausting, but we are glad to have finally made it here in Phnom Phen, Cambodia. Upon our arrival, we were approached by a tuk tuk driver and a taxi driver who offered to take us to our hotel...we decided to go with the tuk tuk. The drive was fun and definitely different then the typical taxi drives. Especially because the driver payed more attention to us then the road... a little concerning, yet funny all at the same time. For our first day here we headed down to the river front to visit the National Museum and the Royal Palace. We tried to go into the palace, but we were not dressed appropriately (we needed to have covered shoulders and knees)so we had to go back the next day. After we were turned down, we headed back to the hotel and ended up resting for the late afternoon, and then slept through the night. Since we were finally more rested, we got up this morning energized and pumped to return to the Royal Palace. Wow, is pretty much all i can say... the detail that went into the building are amazing. The RP, as well as temples and building, here are just amazing, nothing like we have seen yet on our trip. The colors of the building are so fresh and warm with gold, white, yellow, blue and a little bit of burnt orange... what a sight. After our visit we stopped for a late breakfast and then found a tuk tuk that took us to the Killing Fields. Boy, we not prepared for the emotions we felt this afternoon. So here is a quick run down of Cambodia's history... on April 17, 1975 Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot's leadership. This then implemented one of the most bloody revolutions the world has ever seen, which is now seen as geniced. During Pol Pot's regime, which was between 1975-1979 roughly 2 million Cambodians died. Today we visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek where roughly 17,000 men, women, and children were executed. Upon walking in we saw the white stupa (religious monument) which holds 9000 human skulls which were found during excavations. Seeing the skulls and reading the sign posts which told briefly about what went on here, we were taken back at the idea of one human being taking the lives of their own people. Emotionally struck, yet eager to learn and understand more of what went on, we headed to Tuol Slend Museum- which was once Pol pot's Security Prison 21. Before it was a prison, it was once Tuol Sway Prey High School. During the regime the prisoners were morally violated, electrocuted, beaten, slashed, and water bourted for "miss behavior." Those who died during torture were buried in the prison grounds and most everyone else was sent to the killing field. Today these former class rooms which were then turned into cells hold pictures of prisoners who were torched on rusty metal beds. The rooms also shared stories of Cambodians who survived, as well as mug shots of most of the prisoners who were held there. The mug shot pictures of the children as well as some of the others who conveyed strong fear in their eyes were the worst to look at. After a while we just had to say it was enough our hearts and stomachs could not take any more. It is a great thing that Cambodia wants to preserve these places but it can only be consumed in small dosages. By preserving these ugly and tragic years we can only hope that something as horrible as this will never happen again. Our heart goes out to all the Cambodians who suffered through this and may those who died rest in peace.

Bali Bliss...and a day in Malaysia!

After being back in the English speaking world in NZ and Sydney, we eased our way into Asia by spending a week in beautiful Bali. We flew in on a Friday night, arrived, hopped in a taxi, and headed to Kuta. After accomplishing the necessities-lodging, food, drink, we headed to the beach for a quick look. It looked amazing!...however, since it was dark, we couldn't see how filthy it actually was, eh. The next morning, after setting up diving and plans to get out of Kuta, we went back to Kuta to see it in daylight. Although the shore was literally covered in dead fish and trash. That didn't stop us though, we rented surf boards and paddled out to the surf. Unfortunately the water did not get any cleaner, it actually was difficult to avoid being covered in garbage if and when we got up on the surf board! Yuck.
The next morning, we drove 2 1/2 hours up the island to do a wreck dive called Tulamben. The ship was an old US Cargo ship that was sunk by the Japanese in WWII. Our dive team was Toriann, Luke, 2 Austrians and myself, plus 2 dive masters. The water was warm, the fish were plentiful and AMAZING, and it was really cool to explore the sunken ship. Highlights of the dive were the great barracuda (apparently a friendly one), lots of Nemos, a sting ray, weird ribbon looking slugs, and the multitude of coral. After the dive, we headed back to Kuta and made plans to get out to a nicer, less touristy beach the next day. There are so many places that sounded amazing, but we decided due to our time restraints we would go to Nusa Lembongan, a small island about 1 hour away.
We took a small boat to Lembongan and when we arrived, we were picked up on the back of motor bikes to our guest house. We decided we liked the motor bikes so much, we rented them for the next 2 days to explore the island. We hopped on, Toriann and Luke taking the lead and me on the back, and rode to Sunset and Dream beach. Both beaches were absolutely stunning, definitely on the top 10 most beautiful beaches ever list!!! It was a good call to leave Kuta to discover these seemingly untouched beaches.
The rest of our time on NL was great and we had to leave much too soon. Toriann did another great dive, while I just enjoyed scooting around and exploring the beaches. She took a boat out to Manta Point and Crystal Bay where she saw several Manta rays swim by and one in particular circled around them for several minutes during their dive. She also saw a small shark, colorful coral, a trigger fish which seemed to attack them as well as a variety of other colorful fish we normally only see at the aquarium. After her dive we spent our last afternoon body surfing on the killer waves that were rolling in do to the rain storm. We met a man doing the same that lived on the island, and he informed us the waves would be even better tomorrow...I think he probably meant that there was going to be a small monsoon because when we made the short walk to catch our ferry boat back to Bali, it was POURING and us and everything we owned got drenched. Our ferry ended up being canceled, but we caught the 'speed' boat over to the mainland, and it was probably one of the only times in my life that I actually would have loved to be wearing a life jacket. Unfortunately, there was not a life jacket in sight...eh! But we made it, safe and sound, and spent the rest of our afternoon in Kuta before running to the airport to fly out to Malaysia!
We caught the 9:30 flight to Kaula Lumpur...which meant we arrived at 1:30 am!! It always seems like a good idea to book these crazy flights, but then when you are doing it, its like what were we thinking!! However, we found some comfy benches and actually got some good sleep. When we woke up, we took the very nice subway into the city, found a hostel near Chinatown, and headed out to see the sights! We certainly made the most of our day in KL, and we ate in Chinatown, visited the Central Market, went into (not up) the Petronas Twin Towers, and the National Mosque. When the afternoon rains came, we headed back to the hostel and met a guy from the US named Cameron, who had plans to meet some locals that evening. He invited us along and we met up with 2 guys from KL who were kind enough to take us out for tea and hookah. We had a great time and felt like our 1 day in KL was complete. After a short nights sleep, we headed back to the airport to fly to our 3rd country in 3 days-Cambodia!

Sydney in a week...

Its summer time in Sydney (yah!) and the weather was amazing most of the week we were there. Our week in Sydney flew by, but whats new, every week just seems to go by so fast. Upon our day of arrival we took a stroll through Darling Harbor and sat on the harbor steps and enjoyed a delicious gelato ice cream to cool us down. That evening we meet up with Isobel and Ken, friends of Bonnie (Heathers sister) and attended church at Hillsong- one of the biggest mega churches in the world. The service was interesting...it is definetly different then the traditional church, with its fancy technology, stadium seating and suround sound, but nevertheless we had a good time and the people were nice.
As for the rest of the week, Heather and I got into a bit of a routine which consisted of getting up in the morning, having a cup of coffee at several different little coffee shops, heading to the groceriy store to pick up food for lunch, and finally doing our excursion for the day. Our first excusrion was down in Circle Quay where we took pictures of the Opera House and the Sydney Bridge. Excited to be here we looked into different shows at the Opera House and decided on attedning The Pig Iron People, a theatrecal drama. The play was amazingly well done. It tells a humurous story about the differences between generations when the governement changed from conservative to liberal. Although it had a lot of Australian humor, we managed to understand most everything and really gained a better insight into the bluecollar Australian lifestyle.
As I mentioned before its summer here, so we just had to spend a day laying on the beach. We took a bus out to Bondi Beach and just relaxed and read for most of the day. The weather was perfect and it really rejuvinated us... sometimes you just need a day like this one. Anxious to see Kangaroos and Koalas, we took a visit out to Taronga Zoo. In order to get to the zoo we had to catch a ferry boat which dropped us off on the other side of the harbor, right by the zoo. The zoo was great we saw tones of different animals- from Kangaroos and Koalas to penguins and seals. Our favorite part was the Koala exhibit were we got to see them be feed eucalyptis leaves. Aparently Koalas sleep some 20 hours a day becuase their body spends most of its energy digesting the eucalyptis leaves. Hum...sound familar...they reminded me a lot of sloths and are equally as cute. Heather and I took one and put it in our bag with the other animals we have picked up along the way. JK :)
That evening we meet up with Isobel and her friend Anka for drinks and dinner. Our evenign out with the girls was tons of fun. We meet them in a Newtown, a neighborhood outside of Sydney. Isobel, the Australian she is, insisted we try vegemite(a very strange yeast extract spread), so she went in to store and bought bread and vegemite. Un sure whether we would like it, we each braved it and ate a slice of bread with vegemite. Not so bad... definitely not my favorite nor do i think i will ever have a craving for it but edible. Excited by our reaction she gave us the jar of vegemite as a souvener.
As for our last day and a half, we spent some of our hours in the STA office working out flights for the next part of our trip and doing some planning. The guys working in the office suggested we try kangaroo pizza at the Australian Hotel. Un sure how we felt about eating kangaroo(it just seems so wrong!), but we thought, hey, we are in Australia so we should do as the Australins do. That evening we meet them for dinner and tried kangaroo as well as crocodile pizza. After a bite, I said it wasnt for me, but Heather didnt seem to mind the kangaroo. Im not sure whether either of us would eat kangaroo or crocodile again, but hey, at least we tried it! This concludes our speedy week of Sydney... it was enjoyable, food adventurous and historically insightfull.

NZ # 3: WOOFing on Blueberry Bliss

Before i begin to tell you about our time on the farm... first i will explain what woofing is...woofing is really an organization which can be found all over the world and it means Willing to Work On Organic Farms. Heather and I volunteered four hours a day on Wendy and Don's Blueberry Bliss farm in exchange for a place to stay and meals. In essence, we spent our last week working on a blueberry farm- getting it ready for picking season, which starts Jan 1st. Our week on the farm went surprisingly fast... we spent several hours weeding the rows of blueberries, shoveling dirt to lay over the netting that we sowed up to keep the rabbits out, as well as mending the bird net (to keep the birds out). At times our days were long, but it was good physical exercise, which we enjoyed since we've lacked it since leaving. Heather and I put in a few extra hours our first couple of days so we could take a day off at the end of the week. We took friday off to meet up with our friend Luke who had just arrived from visiting Queenstown. The three of us spent Friday relaxing and enjoying Christchurch. We visited the Art Museum, the Botanical Gardens, stopped and smelled the roses and then went to see the new James Bond movie. The movie was good and very action filled so if you were wondering if you should see it i suggest yes. As for our last day on the farm as well as in New Zealand, Heather and I put in our last hours of work and then headed in to the city. Anxious to see the beach, we decided to rent a car for the day and drive along the coast. Luke, being from England, would be the most practical person to drive but since he didn't have his license that left Heather and I in charge of the wheel. Our drive went surprisingly well and by the end we were moderately confident left hand drivers. We started our day visiting Littleton and then driving along Summit Road, which took us along the coastal hillside towards Akaroa. The views along the drive are amazing with the blue/green water in front of us and the hills along the side. We stopped in the small town of Akaroa, had a picnic lunch along the beach, and took a walk around town. Before heading back to Christchurch we stopped at another beautiful beach and went for a cold but nice swim. Our three weeks here in NZ have gone by fast...we feel confident that we saw and did everything we wanted to. However, the highlight of NZ was definitely meeting up with old friends (Sarah and Craig) and meeting great new ones!
We are now in Sydney, Australia for a quick visit so check back soon to read more about our time here in Sydney... so far so good :)