Mouth of the Fish

Kei Ora,

The Maori imagine that the two islands of New Zealand resemble a boat and a fish: The South Island is the boat, and the North Island is the fish. Wellington is the fish's mouth, and Wellingtonians say Auckland is the fish's butt hole. Aucklanders argue that Auckland is the tail of the fish, but Wellingtonians counter that the strip of land that heads toward Cape Reinga is really the tail, that Auckland is located just beneath that extention of land, and thus Auckland is where the poop exits the fish.

Saw an impressive Chinese movie last night at the Embassy Theatre, the theater where the "Lord of the Rings" films premiered here in New Zealand. As most of you already know, much of the films were filmed around Wellington and on the South Island. Before the premier of the first movie, Wellington spent $5M to rennovate the Embassy Theatre to return it to it's 1920's art deco glory. It's one of those old fashioned single screen theaters with a stage and a wide screen. The preferred seating area has comfortable leather seats. The theatre is beautiful: wood paneling, stained glass, lush tiles, a grand staircase. Even the restroom was gorgeous!

The movie is "The Curse of the Yellow Flower", by Zhang Yimou. The story is simple, but the cinematography is magnificent. The battle scene was unbelieveable. (The last great movie battle scene I recall seeing was the one in Kurosawa's film "Ran". Yellow Flower's battle scene was much more spectacular.) The most remarkable aspect for me was the quantity of extras used to make this movie. I suppose only in China could you actually hire and pay the quantity of extra people used to make this movie. Zhang Yimou triumphs again.

Wellington is so cool! Located at the bottom of the North Island, the city is surrounded by water on three sides, and so there is a combination of gentle sandy beaches and rough rocky shoreline. There are hills throughout the city, and houses are stuffed along these hills. Due to lack of space, earthquakes and wise urban planning, there are not many tall buildings. Most houses are one and two story, wooden colonial style houses. Colors tend to be muted. Many of the houses located at the top of these hills have their own private cable cars to move people and purchases from the lower street level to the house. There are lots of trees.

Art is very important important and is evident throughout the city. Art is on display in public spaces, and there are lots of art galleries. There are many cultural activities here as well. Lots of inexpensive theater as well as broadway style productions. Between the gardens and trees and art and natural beauty of the coast line, Wellington is an attractive city.

And there is at least one coffee shop in every block. There are more cafes per capita in Wellington than in any other city in the world. And like in Seattle, you have to work really hard to find lousey coffee.

Today I spent the day at Te Papa: the New Zealand Museum of Art and Culture. It's a huge museum that does an excellent job of displaying different aspects of New Zealand history, culture and art in an easy to understand and fun way. It's really kid friendly, too.

Actually, New Zealand is family friendly. If you can afford to fly your family here, there are ways to travel inexpensively throughout the country: renting a car or campervan, camping on many of the public camping grounds, staying at hotels and motels with cooking facilities or renting a flat for a week at at time. There's lots of nature and outdoorsy stuff to do that kids would love. Traveling between the middle of March and the end of May provides decent weather and prices (Fall) weather, as does late-September to late November (Spring). I'm sure you can get even better deals between June and mid-September, but it might be too cold to do some of the outdoor activities.

Tomorrow I catch the ferry to the South Island. EVERYONE tells me how beautiful the South Island is. I can hardly wait.

cheers,
Stacey