Kiwi Ex

It's been an awesome few days riding around on the Kiwi Experience bus, also known as the big green fuck bus, the vagina liner, ect. I guess it's pretty crazy in the summer time. I've met some pretty cool people so far. Since Hot Water Beach we stopped at Waitomo where some people went black water rafting, basically tubing through caves, I did a walking cave tour with a couple people from the bus. We had our first pub night at the hostel and got everyone out, I was the first one out in the pool tourney. We left and hit up Rotorua a resort town surrounded by natural hot springs. The park even had some but they are almost 100 degrees celsius, most of us went to the Maori village in the evening. It was basically a Hawaiian Luau but with better food and some demonstrations on Maori culture. I particularly liked the tattooing, they used to carve the design in their skin with a rock or bone basically like scarification. Then they used a dye made of mud, dog shit, and bark and rub it into the skin and then cauterize the wound. Pretty painful, especially considering both men and women would get them on their faces. People even died during the process. Next stop was Taupo again surrounded by hot springs but most of these were fine to sit in. The locals would fill up the park with some beers and just sit in the hot pools, I love the liberal drinking policies here. We had two nights in Taupo so with the chance to sleep in everybody went out to the Base Hostel. It was a pretty great night, again having everyone together was good. I promised two girls in my room to take them out for brunch in the morning it seems to be a common theme on my trip. I go out drinking and tell some girl I'll go out to eat with her or accompany her on her first tattoo and we're always too hungover to follow through or I don't recall my alcohol induced plans.

I only get one night in Wellington which really sucks, it looks like such an awesome city. Many people spoke very highly of it, more bars, restaurants, and cafes per person than New York City. Everyone else is staying for three days to keep the group together. I have to continue on though, we went out for my birthday and I dont remember coming home but I do remember being in a Chinese place at 4am. I was up by 6 to catch the ferry to the south island. So feeling like shit and with a new group of people I was pretty homesick. We stopped again for the night and started drinking again, the best hangover cure. Josh the bus driver and I stayed up late drinking whiskey and talking about the Maoris. I explained how poorly Canadians have treated our natives in the past and the differences I've seen between native Americans and the Maoris. Only a week left on the bus then back to Auckland for a tattoo and the All Blacks game.