Anthropologists! anthropologists!

Gary Larson's cartoons are hilarious and after years of enjoying them, I only found out who drew the comic strip. I've read his collection book when I was 15 and there are more hilarious ones than those shown here. I just couldn't find it on the net (It's copyrighted anyway). His comics are called "the far side".

End of thermal adventure

After our epic tour of White Island, we quickly sped off to Taupo and spent the night there. The next morning we head off to Wellington and on the way we stopped by at Wanganui for lunch. We took a route that was luckily just reopened after a recent landslide (the photo below is from one of the lookout stops on this route. Would have been unfortunate to miss out on such a view). Nothing much happens during our journey back. So after 12 days, 4000km and almost $1000 spent, the travel finish. What did I get from this adventure? I have no idea really. The thing that really matters - making yourself closer to your Creator - is not something that I had achieved during this trip. Despite this, I'm an avid traveler and has so long to travel and finally got someone to travel with me. The trip didn't dissapoint a bit (apart from Huka Prawn Park) and I thouroughly enjoyed it.

Whakatane & White Island

I don't really remember how far exactly is Whakatane from Rotorua but it was close to 2-hour drive north. Read more about Whakatane here if you want. The top photo is some panoramic view of (1) Whakatane and (2) Whakatane beach. We only went there so that we could go to White Island, one of the 3 active volcanoes in NZ. Last year, Lonely Planet rated White Island as a must-see attraction for those in NZ, so we decided to have a peek. There were couple of tours going there. The cheapest is the White Island Tours at NZD160. It involve a boat ride to White Island, which is 46km offshore from Whakatane, and a guided tour of the White Island itself. Morning tea and lunch are provided (they were halal as they were vegetarian meals). Alternatives were tours involving helicopter ride but the cheapest were around NZD300. I recommend the boat ride as while I was on the boat ride I got to see whales doing their breathing thing! Anyway, I imagined the crater of White Island filled with molten lava but instead it is filled with hot steaming coloured water (bottom photo). I was a bit dissapointed, only a bit, as the island is still intriguing. I forgot why it was called White Island but it certainly isn;t white. It mostly consisted of grey rocks that are sometime interrupted by coloured rocks, mud pools, and fumaroles. The coloured rocks are from residual minerals that flow out of the belly of the volcano. Amazingly there were lots of seagulls there (and lots of bridshit too - perhaps that is why some has called it white! :D) The island has a fascinating history itself. In the past, people has thought that it had abundant of top quality sulphur and so some has mined it. It turn out that the sulphur there were of poor grade and the living condition were too harsh. Factory equipments rusted too quickly and frequent earthquakes and landslides has taken many lives. Eventually the mining companies become liquidated and the lawyer who processed the liquidation brought the island off the company and his family remain the owner of the island to this day. Today, White Island is used as a tourist attraction and scientific studies.

Rotorua Part 3

Rotorua is only 1.5 hrs drive up north from Taupo and is part of the volcanic band that ran across North Island from Taupo to Whakatane. 2 things I noticed once I arrived there: (1) the air had the stench of rotten eggs and (2) there were considerable presence of Maori culture compared to other towns I’ve been before. (1) is because there were plenty of sulphur at Rotorua and (2) Rotorua is a cultural tourist centre of NZ. If one would like to see Maori culture but have limited time, this is the place to go. One can see and experience kapahaka (Maori dance), powhiri (greeting ritual) and tangi (feast) at the Maori village located just on the outskirt of Rotorua. I didn’t go there because I had enough of Maori culture after 4 years here in NZ. :D Anyway, we stayed at the Funky Voyager backpacker, a Rotorua backpacker accommodation which had the highest BBP rating. The facilities were good and the managers were really friendly too. We went to:
(1) Rainbow Springs & Kiwi Encounters: a nature park displaying what NZ jungle has to offer. Also, this is where we got to see the Kiwi bird, an almost extinct bird that NZ has adopted as one of it national icon.
(2) Wai-O-Tapu: Has hot water pool, geyser (we missed this as we arrive 1 hour late from its usual time of eruption – 10am), terraces (silica rocks in a river-like formation – this can form rice paddy-like formation and creates ladder water pools), mineral pool (coloured water pool), fumaroles and mud pools. (second bottom photo)
(3) Waimangu Volcanic Valley: Arrived beyond 6 pm so was not allowed to enter but from the outside looked really lovely. This is the site of a volcanic eruption that destroyed surrounding villages during the 1800s. (top photo: top-left is one of the farm surrounding the valley)
(4) Burried Village: A preserved excavation site of one of the village that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption during the 1800s (top photo: bottom-left)
(5) Blue Lake, Green Lake and Lake Tarawera: top photo: top-right
(6) Redwoods: A park where Californian Redwoods were planted. These were massive tree (height up to 30 meters and diameter of main trunk up to 1.6m). In NZ, these trees grew much faster than those in their native land. (top photo: bottom-right is the fern bush located on the outskirt of this park) (first bottom photo: me standing underneath an average size Redwood).
Next stop is Whakatane.

Hauora Maori

Taking a break from my ramblings on my North Island Trip to write something about the 3 day course on Maori Health I just participated a few days ago. It’s like killing two birds with one stone as one might put it, as I could do revision as well as sharing this knowledge with the few readers of my blog here. The photo above is the marae (local hall for Maori) where I stayed for the course.

The course on Maori Health is part of my medical training. It aimed to train physicians that could practise in a culturally safe and competent manner. Such course was developed mainly due to (1) the health disparity that exist between Maori and non-Maori (ie NZ European) and (2) the NZ government obligation to honour the Treaty of Waitangi. The health disparity is such that Maori life expectancy is 10 year less of that of non-Maori. Some have associated this to lower socioeconomic status but statistics showed that when adjusting for socioeconomic status, the disparity remains. Others have associated it with the “warrior” gene or “diabetic/heart attack/etc” genes to explain the disparity. For them, Maori are just inherently vulnerable to diseases that plagued modern society. However, such thinking is non-constructive and only serves to push the disparity further. Another explanation is that the health system itself is constructed in a way that “institutional racism” was practised. This is not to say that the practitioners are bunch of racists, far from that, but the system itself is formed to cater for one particular ethnic group and thus leaving another deprived. Even if the practitioners were compassionate indiscriminately but the system they are working in does not favour the patient, it will remain a stumbling block for the patient to accept such practise and thus refuse to use it. Hence, Maori has the tendency to use less of health services compared to non-Maori. This often leads to late presentation and higher mortality. With this fault in mind, the whole health system needed a revamp and thus a few steps were taken. For instance, Maori health workers were introduced and their role was to advise practitioners on how to effectively deal with Maori patients. Maoris were also appointed to as members of District Health Board, the regional governing body of the health services in NZ, in order to ensure practices do not leave out Maoris. Furthermore, practitioners were also trained to be culturally safe and culturally competent in order to effectively engage with patients. Thus a course on Maori Health or “Hauora Maori” (Hauora = health in Te Reo, the Maori language) was developed. One aspect of the teaching is the introduction of the Maori Health model known as Te Whare Tapa Wha = the four cornerstone (Whare = building, wha = four). It basically means that Maori health is not only focused on the tinana (physical) aspect but also on hinengaro (mental), spiritual (wairua) and whanau (family) aspects. In order to engage Maori patient effectively, these four aspects must be taken into consideration in diagnosis process as well as the management. In addition, the approach to a Maori patient is different to non-Maori. One can develop better rapport if one engages in whakawhanaungatanga (building connection). This involves sharing your origin to the patient before proceeding to kaupapa (reason/cause of consultation, literally = reason). A practitioner should also be aware of Maori beliefs, values and experiences (MBVE) and how to handle these. One example of MBVE is the use of Te Reo and research has shown that acknowledging Maori patients use of Te Reo result in a more satisfactory consultation. One of the classes in that course that I just did thought us some Te Reo. Here are what I learnt:

Vowels:

E pronounced as better
I pronounced as feet
A pronounced as apple
O pronounced as whore (my tutor used this example)
U pronounced as food
AU pronounced as no

Consonants: H, K, M, N, P, R, T, W, NG, WH (pronounced as fart)

The syllables end when a vowel meets a consonant. Here is some Te Reo:
Tena Koe = hello to one person
Tena korua = hello to two people
Tena kotou = hello to more than two people
Kia ora = hello, be well.

Rotorua part 2

I'm back from Akaroa and am tired. However, I still managed to complete more panoramic photo of my North Island trip and the top one is from Waimangu Volcanic Valley and the bottom one is Lake Tarawera, both of which is several kilometers away from Rotorua. I'm pretty novice at producing panoramic photo and there were several failed ones. I'm not sure if this is true, but it seemed that large body of water, ie lake, is not suitable for such photography technique. Another problem I came across is that item up close can interfere with item up far if the item up close is too close. Then there is the problem of one of the photo component going off at an angle. I think I could overcome this last problem by using a tripod. Before anyone takes advice from this entry, I would like to reiterate that I'm a complete idiot when coming to taking panoramic photo.

Rotorua Part 1

In an hour time, I'm off to Akaroa for a 3 day course on Maori Health. So in the meantime, I present to you a panoramic photo of Lake Rotorua. I misjudged one of the photos and the angle went off horribly and my attempt to get 360 degree panoramic photo of Lake Rotorua failed. The quality of photo was considerably reduced to reduce the size to less than 200kb.

Taupo part 3

The final edition of this entry and I just want to summarise what I did at Taupo in chronological order as not to confuse anyone:

Night 1: Visited the Tokaanu Thermal Park and walked the hot pool trail that was behind it. Tokaanu is a few kilometers off Turangi, which is a few kilometers south of Taupo on State Highway 1. Later, we drove around Taupo, stopping at several lookout points there (photo of Lake Taupo during dusk at bottom of entry). We stayed both night at Rainbow Lodge Backpackers. I highly recommend that place, it deserved the highest BPP (an organization that organize discounts for backpacking accomodation) ratings they had.

Day 2: Went to Tongariro National Park (photo top-left), Whakapapa, Mt Ruapehu Ski field (photo right-bottom and top), a Maori redoubt (photo bottom-left), and Lake Rotaia. Finished the day with a hot pool bath at Tokaanu Thermal Park

Day 3: Went to Huka falls (photo in previous post), Huka Prawn Park (not worth visiting unless you only plan to dine), Huka falls jet boat ride (good fun), and Craters of the Moon thermal park (photo in previous post). The rest of the day spent traveling to Rotorua.

End of holiday review

Yes, sadly my holiday has ended eventhough it was an uneventful one apart from the epic 12 day adventure i had early on. It was meant to be uneventful as I only planned the following for my holiday:
1. NZ north Island trip - checked. See my ongoing chronicle of thermal adventurer
2. Meet family - checked. I realised I wasn't that close to my extended family, at least not what my parents had expected. I blame the generation gap, my 4 years at UK and away from them during my formative years, and my inept social skill for that.
3. Meet old friends - not really checked. Did meet some old friends but could have put more effort in it. Most of them are working now, some even got hitched, which made me think it wasn't appropriate for me to ask them to hang out a lot. That did get in the way but I could have at least visited them. Again my inept social skill comes to haunt me. Anyway, I would like to thanks those who managed to squeeze some time to hang out - Haarith for the soccer match, Mus & Syakir for the Sg Tua swim, Moezz for the BBQ. There were more but I only met them in weddings, lots of weddings, in fact almost every weekend I attended one. My peers are getting hitched one by one which meant one thing - everyone going to ask "when is yours?"
4. Shopping - checked.
5. Invest - not checked.
6. Self rehabilitation/improvement -broad category but I can safely say not checked. Some of the things I wanted to improve:
i) normal body clock - wake up early, sleep early: Hardly achieved, looked like my body is a night-type.
ii) stop video gaming: Played games when bored during the holiday. There were lots of boring days. I did however uninstall all games in my laptop and so once I arrived in NZ, this would come to realisation. I need it to be.
iii) rejoin usrah/da'wah: Didn't do it. Was too lazy.
iv) relearn swimming: Didn't do it. Day was spent sleeping (see i)
v) gym workout: Didn't do it. as iv
vi) read more: ii and i prevented me from this
vii) learn Arabic: as vi
7. Dental - checked. I went to the government clinic and it cost me rm2 for a checkup and a scaling. There was a one month waiting period though between the checkup and scaling.
8. Kinabalu/travel Malaysia - not cheked. Didn't really plan this at all and was just something that came up while I was getting bored at Malaysia. Due to lack of planning, it never matearilised even though I initially rallied up some people for it.

Taupo part 2

The chronicle blabla title is a bit too long so in keeping with my lazy attitude, I'm sticking with the simpler version from now on. We spent 2 nights here at Taupo though originally planned for one, but there was much to see and do here. For starters, Taupo lake is stunningly beautiful. This blue lake was once a huge volcanic crater belonging to a volcano that is thought erupted 25,000 years ago and gave birth to North Island itself. I think, I might be talking crap here (about giving birth part, the rest I'm sure is true) and couldn't be bothered checking my facts about it. Unfortunately I don't have any personal photo of the lake (there's plenty of that on the net) but here are some photo (top 2) I have taken on the Taupo bungy, which is located at the river flowing from the lake:

So, no, I didn't do the bungy. Reason: I already did it 2 years ago on a more spectacular paltform. My take on bungy: do it. If anyone come and live in NZ and never does it, they are missing out. Taupo Bungy is one of the cheapest in NZ but bungy is not that cheap. At Taupo it'll cost you NZD 140 for the first jump. Subsequent jump for that day is NZD 40. The one I did, the Nevis at Queenstown - a mere 143m drop and 8 second freefall, compared to this one, just less than 50m - cost me nzd 200. The night prior to the jump, I thought "wtf was I thinking? If it goes wrong, its suicide." and "200 dollars for an 8 second jump that may kill you, are you serious?". I don't know, or bother to go looking for, about the casualty rate of bungy jumping but it should be pretty low because it remains a commercial activity and so what the heck, I did it but not without fear. I looked back at my jump, which was caught and immortalised on DVD, and the look on my face had fear in every inches of it. I rationalise by thinking how safe it would be, but my, when you fall, the speed of your fall is tremendous as the grounds seemed closer and closer in mere seconds, and you don't feel any pull of the rubber that prevents you from going splat. Lucky I didn't wet my pants - the other thing I was afraid of but just to get the facts straight, I never ever did in my life -and the jump went well - hey, I'm still here. Before the jump, the operator told us that the rubber was from Malaysia, he even said "this better be good". It was good, as one would say Malaysia Boleh. Anyway, I was there at Taupo Bungy because my traveling companion did the jump. When asked what he felt, his answer was "confused" due to "mismatching between perception of movement and sense of movement". Weird.

Back to the photo, the bottom-left is from The Craters Of The Moon, a thermal park where there is a self-tour walk through a park filled with numerous fumaroles, craters and some mud pools. The bottom-right is from Huka Falls. Thats taken from one of the lookout point there. One can also go on a speedboat ride in which the boat does 360 spins or just go on a slow cruise. I opted the speedboat ride and it was plenty of fun. That was nzd 99. Now I'm off to Asr.

How many 5 years old Could You Take In A Fight?

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