Flying and floating
Well, we finally got around to doing our first tourist activities last week. Parasailing and hot salt water pools - both excellent fun.
Early on friday afternoon we found ourselves being whisked out to sea by two Hawaiians on a boat with some ropes and a large parachute. We were informed as we stepped into our harnesses to make sure that the lower part stayed beneath our thighs, apparently the result of such a schoolboy error is the "wedgie ride", which apparently makes the whole experience memorable for all the wrong reasons. Armed with this information, and little else, we were winched off of the back of the boat on a very flimsy-looking piece of string attached to a 12 metre parachute with me and Dave harnessed side by side underneath it. There were three options for the length of rope you could be let out on - 400ft, 800ft and 1200ft. Dangerous Dave opted for the longest one, and so being a tandem ride I decided that it would spoil his fun to wimp out now... I'm glad I did it, but I have to admit to being torn between excitement at the amazing views and severe panic when they did the "free fall".. where they stop the boat and let you drift down until you're scarily close to the water (believe me, it's a lot scarier than it sounds!), then they speed off again lifting you up just as you hold your breath ready to drop into the icy water. They did another mini free-fall as they pulled us back in but this time actually let us touch the water with our feet. Surprisingly neither of us factored in the speed element so when we went to casually dip our toes in the water both of us ended up getting slightly more spray than we bargained for... wet shorts all round. Still, as the Hawaiins said as we paid up at the end of our trip... "Awsome, dude!" (the accent doesn't quite come across on this, but if you think of thr turtles riding the EAC in Finding Nemo you're almost there).
Photos from this adventure will be online shortly...
Following this, we needed a comedown from the adrenalin rush so we headed for the hot saltwater pools at the foot of Mount Maunganui - which, as it turned out was exactly what I needed. Here we floated around lazily for a good two hours before re-emerging all pink and prune-like and barely able to stay awake. I'd highly recommend it if you ever have the good fortune to be passing through the area.

More news and entertainment once we've got the car fixed, but if you don't hear from us before, Merry Christmas to all!!!

Ohauiti, Tauranga:
Well, we made it here, after another exhausting flight, but it was so worth it. Had a lovely welcoming committee at the airport, and within about 10 minutes had an ice cold beer in our hands. What a way to start our holiday!
We're staying with Dave's Mum Linda, and her partner Brian, who have both made us feel very welcome and at home, and have been very kindly running us around everywhere to show us the area, sort out driving lessons/licenses, bank accounts, and of course all the essentials like buying shoes (I knew I wouldn't last long without buying something!!) and getting my hair cut for Dave's cousin's wedding on saturday.
The area is lovely, with great beaches and some amazing views. Unfortunately no photos as yet, because our batteries on our cameras ran out but we'll rectify that and post some on the flickr site soon (I shall also have to take a photo of my lovely new bargainous shoes, as I'm still very excited about those!).
Sorry for the short post - am still tired and full of a cold that I managed to pick up somewhere along the way. As an aside, this began in Hong Kong and seemed to be a brilliant way to clear a space around myself - one sneeze and people start edging away fairly sharpish (I know it shouldn't be funny but...)
Take care all

Back in Hong Kong... we arrived back here yesterday afternoon and spent the afternoon recovering from seasickness in our hotel room. The smooth ride over to Macau wasn't so smooth on the return journey and as we went hurtling over waves the girl behind us hurtled her lunch into a First Ferry sickbag, which didn't do very much for our own poor tums! So arriving back on terra firma an hour later we staggered into our hotel and collapsed for a few hours. Later on we felt well enough to try out the cantonese cuisine (finally!) and went for a meal. I made the schoolboy error of ordering the slipperiest dish on the menu, which meant there was much mirth from the waiting staff as they watched me struggling to pick up mushrooms, bamboo pith (like eating watery loofahs), and some other unidentifiable vegetable matter with the shiniest chopsticks ever. Still, we tried it, and for the most part, enjoyed it - although the chicken wanton soup was a bit too chickeny for me. The wan ton was lovely though. So much so that I persuaded Dave to go for dim sum today, figuring that dumpling-type items were the way forward. I wasn't wrong. Getting more adventurous with the food we ate some tiny but whole deep fried fish (beady eyes and all!) dipped in hot chilli sauce, and hairy crab* dumplings, along with the less challenging, but very tasty pea shoots, watercress dumplings, mushrooms in bread dumplings and roast pork. The pork was for Dave, not me - I'm not that brave.

Anyway, after this we headed through the park, bypassing the Herbarium (which had some very random rules attached to their code of conduct whilst inside, including 'no balloons') and through an aviary (bird flu? pah!), which had some of the most interesting pigeons I've ever seen. No really - I'm not being sarcastic here. Then up on the Peak Tram to ... well to the Peak. Where else did you think it would go? The tram was certainly an experience, as at times the angle was so steep we were practically lying on our backs - to be more exact it was a funicular railway, but they probably hadn't invented the word funicular back in the early 1900s when it was built. Reassuringly it's never had an accident so despite the hair-raising steepness it was actually quite a relaxing ride to the top. The view from the top was amazing though, you could literally see for miles - although the poor air quality makes things a bit fuzzy. But through the smog we managed to pick out our hotel, looking extremely tiny on the other side of the harbour, and even the monstrous Hong Kong cultural centre looked titchy.

We've run out of time to do everything we wanted so will definitely return to HK on our way back from NZ, to see the New Territories and the pink dolphins, and of course, some shopping!

Next stop Auckland (and Tauranga) :)


*had a hilarious moment whilst typing hairy crab as I accidentally replaced the b with a p - not sure my new found adventurous food streak would go this far though...