Russians everywhere

My grand plans for Saturday (either drive around the country or go kayaking in the bay) never really materialized, so i just wanted to take it easy, have dinner at some cafe, read my lonely planet and plan for the drive to Rotorua on Sunday. Another side plan was to go to the sun office and drop off some interoffice mail.

The evening turned out to be a lot more entertaining, as usual. All the cafes mentioned in "lonely planet" were closed, so i made my way to the Viaduct (where the office was) thinking I'll get dinner there, since Viaduct is also party central and places there are open late.

As i was walking into a restaurant, I heard people talking Russian at one of the tables by the entrance. so naturally, i turned around and met the two girls sitting at the table. Interestingly, when you travel alone your level of shyness goes down - eating dinner by yourself is not fun, so one tries to meet people.

I invited myself to join them, and we talked for a while. Being from San Francisco goes a long way in meeting people - even if they don't like America, everybody loves SF.
The funniest thing in talking with Russians (and they are real Russian, as in not "Jew from Soviet Union Russian") is waiting for the "jew" question. Since I obviously look Jewish, at some point the "real Russians" have to ask me (in a very polite and humble tone) if I'm Jewish. That always cracks me up. My stock answer to that is "hell's yeah I'm Jewish. and don't be ashamed to ask if i am - the whole reason i left Russia was not to be ashamed of being a Jew". This happens every time - and i love it. Feels like the ultimate f-u to the "collective Russian antisemitism" to proudly declare that I'm Jewish.

Anway, side observations aside, it was a jolly good time. They immediately invited themselves over to come check out SF, i politely offered my "tour guide" services but implied that they have to buy their own plan tickets. The other funny (and mostly true) stereotype about Russian girls is that they are gold-diggers (динамистки) - so i acquired the "rich American uncle" status fast. I'm quite aware of this favourite national pastime (getting others to buy stuff for them), so i quickly assumed the "cheap Jew" character. Anyway, i obviously did buy them a few drinks ($20 won't break me, and it beats sitting around alone).
Ironically, the other stereotype that Russians can drink a lot didn't hold true with one of the girls. After two glasses of wine she was out - it was quite hilarious to watch her on the dance floor, she kept dancing with an imaginary pole and trying to take off her dress. (Side note - it is summer, so a lot of women wear skirts or dresses. I've actually forgotten that women do that, since nowhere enough girls in SF ever wear dresses. Turns out that looks quite nice. and pretty. I'm becoming a big skirt fan).

Long story short - one of the other girls was at the bar and somehow managed to pick a fight with some random girl that was totally wasted. So the bouncers kicked both of them out of the bar, and we had to leave as well. Bouncers here are actually quite polite, unlike the usual power-tripping jackasses in NY. There has only been one instance of a bouncer being rude to someone when i was going into a bar here.

so that was it. the Russian girls (there were 3 now, another friend of theirs showed up) had to take the "drunk"one back to her place. they invited me to "take a cab over there and back to party more" with them, but i politely refused. Perhaps I'm cheap, but ferrying some drunk girls around and paying for cab fare while listening to them talk about their ex-husbands or boyfriends is not my idea of fun. Hugs and promises of visits to SF all around, and we parted.

And now the funniest thing - I still wanted to drop off my mail at the Sun office, so I went there. The office is at the Viaduct (same party central), and all my way to the office i kept hearing party music. Sounded like there was a huge party at the office!!!
Turns out the office building is across the street from some giant club, and here i thought Sun people in NZ knew how to party. Ironically, my ID didn't seem to work so no sending interoffice mail for me.

Clever marketing

So at home i drive an integra. "Acura" integra. Except for really, i it's only an Acura in the US. and i've always joked that i drive a Honda (since acura is just an upscale division), but it only sunk in here.

Since NZ is right-hand drive, there are a ton of "authentic" Japanese cars out here. For example, there are a ton of Nissan Skylines (which you can't get in US), it's a sporty Integra equivalent; and all the Lexus IS300s here go under the Altezza brand.

Anyway, there are a ton of integra's here, but since they don't have to be retrofitted to be left-hand drive and can be shipped directly from Japan, here they are just Hondas. Turns out "Acura" is just a clever marketing gimmick to sell cars in US. I've seen quite a few RSX/TSXs here, they all have a nice Honda sticker on them. Same with a Honda Legend. Rustan would be very very disappointed.
Nice to know that US is such a big consumer society that companies create separate brands just for us.

Shochi

went to dinner with coworkers after work to a japanese yakitori place. Turns out yakitori is "meat on a stick" - what a novel and convenient concept. Tasty, easy to eat. sort of a miniauturized kebab. What a lovely concept!

Anyway, after dinner we were going to get dessert so J. ordered "shochi". we all nodded, figuring it'd be some sort of ice cream or similar. he stressed "shochi with ice". we nodded. in a few minutes the waitress shows up, bringing 6 glasses of water with ice. We look around thinking "hmm, who ordered water? shouldn't you have brought water at the beginning?".
I grab a glass, take a sip and bam! learn a new japanese word. Turns out "shochi" is just a clever way of saying "vodka with ice". nothing more.

After the yakitori place we popped into another bar called "viper room" around the corner, where we were supposed to meet a few people i had met at Globe the night before.
Viper room was a nicely decorated bar, totally empty (maybe it gets going at 2am?) with very tasty cocktails. I have a drink, remark at the design, and J. says "have you been to the bathroom yet"? Intrigued, i check out the bathroom, realize there's nothing fancy there, but on the way back notice a row of small room with couches off to the side of the corridor on the way to the bathroom. with little "viper room #n" signs. hmmmmmmm.
think about it.
think some more....

So really, I don't know what the club was all about, but we got a little confused and left. maybe there was nothing sketchy about the "private" rooms, but we didn't want to stay and find out. so we left, effectively emptying out the entire bar - there was noone else there but us.
so i guess i had my introduction to K. road, the "underbelly" of Auckland.

Globe bar

I finally realized that I haven't hung out with other fellow travellers yet. Figuring that i should get used to the "hostel" mindset, i went to the "biggest" hostel bar in Auckland called Globe bar. It's attached to some large backpacker hostel.
So thursday night i went there after dinner. I brought a few postcards figuring that i'd sit there quietly, have a drink, write some postcards (those of you that got beer-smelling postcards now know why) and go home.

Ha! Turns out Globe on thursday is the location for the "gay chicken" contest. While watching dudes pretend to kiss each other is not particularly exciting, watching the girls go at it for a $100 bartab prize was rather entertaining. I met some girls from scotland while writing postcards, and one of them "made it" to the "finals". So much for the stereotype of British girls being "prudes".
Oh, and I met two jamaican girls, one of them turned out to be a nurse. Seems like i'm destined to meet nurses wherever I go.

Skype

I've been using Skype to talk to my parents and coworkers and friends while i'm in NZ.
At work, there are us from Sun and another team from Openwave working on the same project. We are all sitting in the same large room at the client site. And there's nothing funnier than watching a bunch of people in headphones talk into their laptops like some crazies. Me included.
it is pretty sweet though to be able to call up Jesse when i have a work problem and talk it through. For free. From another part of the world. from 21 hours into the future.

Tongariro Crossing

For the rest of the weekend, i decided to go to hike the Tongariro Crossing. It's billed as the "finest one-day hike" in the world (or at least New Zealand).

This presented a few logistical challenges - i'm in Auckland, and Tongariro is 5 hours south in the center of North Island. And i'm a little afraid of driving, plus i didn't feel like driving back after just having hiked a challenging mountain for 9 hours.

So of course i took the bus. This is a true testament to my love of resource optimization. Here's the rough plan:
1. take 8pm bus on Saturday to Taupo (near Tongariro), arrives at 1am
2. wake up at 6:30am to catch a shuttle to trailhead
3. hike 7-8 miles
4. hang out in Taupo, waiting for the bus back
5. take the 2am bus back to Auckland
6. arrive in Auckland at 7am Monday
7. shave/shower and go to work.

A little crazy, but that's how I like it.

Anyway, the bus ride was fairly ordinary. Not particularly comfortable, i was really afraid it'd sleep through my stop but thankfully i didn't. Took me a while to find the hostel i booked (it turned out to be a shithole, but i only had 5 hours to stay there so i didn't care).

I was initially a little intimidated by the hike - it was supposed to be reasonably "hard", and i wanted to do a side trip to the summit of a Mt. Ngauruhoe and it didn't look like i'd have enough time since we didn't get to the trailhead till 8:30am and the shuttle was supposed to pick us up at 4:30

The scenery really was out-of-this-world. I'm not going to try and rehash the excellent description found here, so i'll just add my observations.



I was actually a little disappointed by the whole hike. Maybe it's b/c it was the first solitary hiking experience and i'm not used to that. I really wanted to hike up to one of the side mountain summits, but when i got to the trailhead for mt. ngauruhoe it was 11am and the marker said it's a 3-hour round trip. I looked at the map's suggested hiking times, did the math and figured that I wouldn't make it in time for the bus back. So i chickened out and kept walking on the main trail.
The trail is in a few sections - some climbs into the old craters, walk through the craters, climb some more. Turned out not to be too challenging after all, except for this little section of hell:

This little vertical climb up was a pain-in-the-ass. literally.

So here's the sad part - turns out i'm a lot faster than the average hiker, so as soon as i finished that climb section i realized that i was half-way done and it wasn't even noon yet. which meant i could have done the side trip. I briefly thought of going back to do it, but then figured that i wasn't up to climbing 2000m on rocks again.

The trail was packed with people - mostly german tourists. But I managed to find quite a few former Eastern block "comrades" from Czech Republic who are working in NZ as seasonal workers on a farm and paying for travel that way. We had a jolly good time trading war stories about growing up in a communist state.

Btw, the hike itself really was scenic, magnificent and the usual superlatives. Apparently, that's where Mordor was filmed for LOTR. The coolest part was the Red Crater:

You can insert your own clever freudian comment. Meanwhile, check the usual gallery for the rest of pictures.

I met some really nice french people on the bus ride back, and some Israelis.
I got back to Taupo around 6. Turns out there's a big lake in Taupo (similar to Tahoe). Since i dind't have a hostel reservation anymore, i "showered" in Lake Taupo (pretty chilly) after the hike, got a big fat dinner at a restaurant near the lake and watched the sunset. And tehn spent the next 5 hours killing time waiting for the bus ride back - taking the 2am bus back turned out to be a silly idea.

Sailing on America's cup yacht

John Stanford and I went sailing on the former America's cup yacht in the bay.


Beautiful day, great weather. The trip is about 2 hours, you get to man the winches (toughest part is hoisting the sail up) and skipper for a little bit.
A good description of this trip is here

We sailed around the bay, then under the harbour bridge. That part was trippy, the boat is about 2 meters shorter than bridge so it felt like we'd get caught. In addition, the bridge is home to a bungy-jumping station, so the whole time we were sailing someone kept falling off the bridge.

There were about 30+ people on the boat so it was a bit crowded. We didn't do any particularly hard maneuvers, so i didn't get the full "racing" experience, but it was defintely nice enough to just be on the bay and haull ass. That boat can really move!

The mechanices of the boat controls are pretty awesome too. There are 2 sets of cranks, with 2 people manning each one. They are tied to a set of winches, and there is a complex gearing system so that you can go from a 1-1 to 32-1 rotation ratio. Apparently, the "real crew" can hoist a guy up to the top of the mast using a winch just in a few seconds.

Then agian, these things are at least $7mil to just build, with about $60mil you have to pour into research.

Update on driving

My friend Marina (in montreal) introduced me to her friend Amanda who lives south of Auckland.
She was kind enough to meet up, so we had a fun dinner and went to a local bar called Lenin.
Their gimmick is a bit of Communist imagery (some "переходящее кразное знамя" gratuituos red flags), and their logo is a red flag with a martini glass and an olive instead of a hammer and cicle. In addition, it's right next to the "Minus 5" bar, which is an "ice bar" - you pay $20 to get in for 20 mins, the bar is made interely of ice and you drink from ice glasses. Great idea, but since Lenin has the windows into the ice bar, there really was no need to pay $20 for a drink to try it out.

Anyway, Amanda was a lot of fun, and after a few of my "must be hard to drive on the wrong side" jokes offered me to try and drive her car.
Well, turns out it was standard (ie stick-shift) transmission. So not only did i have to deal with driving on "wrong" side of the road, I had to remember to shift with my left hand. Let's not forget that i'm not so good with driving stick to begin with!
The funniest part is that noone ever tells you that blinkers and windshield wiper controls are also switched - so all the time instead of turning on the signal i'd turn on the wipers! Needless to say, Amanda almost had a heart attack!

so there it is - i've driven on the wrong side of the road (for about 10 minutes). it was fun, but i'm pretty sure i'll be getting an automatic transmission when i rent a car for when Rama and I travel in south island.

Work routine

So, it seems that i've settled into a nice work routine.
The customer site is about 15 minutes walk from the hotel. Turns out Auckland is rather hilly (and hot), so for the past couple days my coworker and I have been trying to optimize the walk to work for "shortness and flatness". This involves walking through a park, jaywalking and cutting through a few sketchy alleys. But it's worth it.

A few side notes on Auckland and New Zealand:

1. Cars are right-hand-drive. That means crossing a street is a challenge, since instinctively you always look left instead of right. Makes for a lot of funny moments.
   
2. It's hot here. And the ozone hole is right above you. As a result, you burn. I need to learn how to use sunscreen.
   
3. Customer is not king. I'm staying at a fancy Hyatt. However, either people here are too laid-back, or not so keen on service and IT. It took them 4 days to get my broken Internet connection fixed (ie get a new modem. instead, they offered me a new cable, a power transformer, and some chocolates). Then it took them about 5 days to fix my toilet (it was 2-time use. after 2 flushes you had to call housekeeping to get it fixed again). I'm still waiting for my "you have new message" voicemail indicator to be reset (i'm pretty certain there are no voicemails)
4. Food and drinks are expensive. When you translate it to $US, you get SF-like prices. For example, cocktails at a reasonable bar are about $10-15NZ each (that's $7-12US)
   
5. Nobody jaywalks. very inefficient

Anyway, these are potentially biased - i'm staying in a fancy hotel, i'm hanging out with older out-of-town coworkers. Perhaps once i discover non-fancy local places things will be different.

So my daily routine:

1. go to work
2. come back, jog around town (sun sets really late, around 9pm). Auckland has a ton of parks, and the big one (Auckland Domain) is very close to the hotel
3. Have dinner with coworkers
4. Drink with same coworkers

So far, it's been fun.

Waiheke Island

Waiheke island feels very much like Marin Headlands. Warm, sunny, with a great veiw of the city.
On the ferry I met a few other fellow travelers, so we explored the island together. The initial agenda was to "find a closest pub and hang out", but after taking a few shortcuts we ended up doing about a 5-7 mile hike around the island.

All the pics from the hike are here.

Since i am in new zealand to work on sheep deployment software, i figured i'll get an early jump on work by interviewing the end customers. Here's a pastoral scene from a customer interview.


At some point i tried kayaking, but it was low tide and we didn't get too far:


Instead, we participated in the national pastime with a few locals:



And then we rode the ferry into the sunset:

First day in Auckland

You can see all the pics from Auckland


Landed and found all the bags!

We landed around 6am, so my new friend Jen and I decided to explore Auckland together.
After dropping the bags off at my hotel (turned out her hostel was right next door) we walked down to the harbour. Auckland is called the "city of sails" - so yes, it's surrounded by water.
First impression - Auckland was a ghosttown. Noone was up. It really was only 8am, so I guess Aucklanders to love their sleep.

My hotel (hyatt) is right next to Albert park (there are tons of parks in Auckland). Right next to it is this statue:



At some point I found the Sun office. It's right next to the harbour, and i'm sure the views there are spectaculuar. However, i won't be working there - i'll be at the clientside which is a bit more uptown.


In the end, we just got on a ferry and went to Waiheke Island. It's 45 minutes away and very picturesque. Here's a view of the city from the bay:

Takeoff

So i am finally flying to New Zealand. It started out as a joke at work - "if you work really hard and won't quit, we'll send you to New Zealand"; but suprisingly materialized. I now love my job again.

The flight itself proves to be fairly enjoyable - I have a direct flight from LAX to Auckland on Qantas. Big-a@@ plane, i get an isle seat, and meal is very acceptable. Score!
You get an option of watching about 5 movies (anchorman, huckabees, vanit fair, etc) but instead i spend the whole time reading the lonely planet book preparing for the trip.

Oh, and on the flight I met Jen - who's also traveling in NZ for a few weeks before starting grad school in Brisbane Australia. Since both of us have a free day in Auckland we decide to hang out together.