maori version of a totem pole (poupou)

we waited until most had eaten breakfast before we ventured out to join in. as we were eating our oatmeal with trail mix and a pear ($1.50 at most for both of us), suddenly we were the focus of the conversation. one of them asked about veganism. you tell 1 person you're vegan and the next day everyone knows. i guess we know what the topic of conversation was over breakfast. i suppose it's a pretty hard concept to swallow for meat-centered folks so the curiosity was natural. we haven't been vegan for very long, (1 year this month! woohoo!), but the others admitted that while they admired our choice, they could never do the same. then we packed our stuff and was out of there.

i have written on my itinerary that we passed through opotiki, but again it's just something i don't remember. probably just another small town in a succession of small towns. i do remember stopping for lunch in whakatane. from there, we could get a decent view of white island, despite the weather. white island is an active marine volcano, also known as whakaori.

we had lunch in whakatane. the bus stopped right next to a mexican restaurant/bar. we decided to get a burrito or something. ended up that we couldn't eat there. why? because fucking new zealanders put cream in everything! they make their refried beans with butter and cream. we walked around all the cafes and couldn't really eat at them so we decided to head over to subway to have one of their vegetarian sandwiches.

me in whakatane with white island in the background

the visitor information center was pretty cool because it had a touch screen display that could be accessed 24 hours. very handy for a sleepy country where everything seems to be closed far too often. another cool thing about whakatane was the benches. yes, the public benches. they looked like wakas, maori canoes. some had other ornamental features.

touch screen info for toursists

the decorated public benches of whakatane

we had to drive through rotorua to get back to taupo. our driver stopped at wai-o-tapu so that we could get a look at the mud pool that is free. wai-o-tapu is known for the lady knox geyser, which you have to pay to see. it goes off quite punctually due to man's intervention: they put soap which causes the geyser to erupt. it was raining again so we didn't spend too much time looking at the mud pool and it is just a mud pool.

mud pool at wai-o-tapu

arriving back in taupo marked the end of the 'east as' trip. i'd like to propose that the trip be renamed to 'boring as'. seriously, don't do it. when we got to taupo, everyone wanted to go out for a drink because it's st. patrick's day. honestly i think everyone would have used any excuse to go out and have an all night bender. i was hoping though that we could go for 1 drink or about 1 hour and then we'd be free to go and have dinner. yeah right, not when you go drinking with british! before we went out though, i just had to try to connect to the internet in the hostel. the lady at the desk said that you cannot connect a laptop to their internet because of the settings. i thought perhaps it was again like the chalet surf lodge in gisborne and it wouldn't work. i had to try though. i plugged in the ethernet cable from an internet station into my laptop and it worked without any fuss or muss. i was downloading my email and started de-spamming the blog. i was probably on there too long, about a little under 10 minutes, when the front desk lady came by and told me to disconnect. BUSTED! i told her i'd pay and that i was expecting some really important email about a job, which is all true, but she was not happy at all so i had to disconnect immediately.

this one's for my irish heritage

before we went out, i was going to take our items that need refrigeration to the kitchen fridge. they reeked of fish. i couldn't stand the smell so i threw them away. only a pack of tofu, some zucchini, and the last remains of a bottle of salad dressing. we left around 6:30pm and the first place we went to (notice i said first) was mulligan's. i had an irish beer because i thought i should try one to give beer a chance (i can't stand it) and to do something for st. patrick's day since i never do. i probably should do something since i am 1/8th irish so this was it. i had a murphy's irish stout. twiddle thumbs had an export gold which was colored green for the occasion. neither of us liked our drinks but we forced ourselves to have every last drop. alright, i think i'm good for another 10-20 years!

if it's not scottish, it's crap

the strangest thing was when a couple guys came in scottish kilts and then one of them started playing bagpipes. earlier, when we were being dropped off at our respective hostels, we saw a whole parade of bagpipes and drummers walk into another irish pub. i think more than one person on the bus yelled, "hey, that's not irish!" i felt really sorry for the bagpiper because a lot of people kept trying to get a glimpse under his kilt to see if he was a real scot.

by 10:30pm i wasn't happy and really wanting to leave. twiddle thumbs wanted to stay longer to check out the other pubs the kids wanted to go to. ok, 1 more. we managed to sneak away a little and have dinner around midnight. the night went on and is technically part of tomorrow so it can't be part of this entry but let me just say we parted ways at 1:30am and i have no idea what time the kids left the pub.