NOT my favorite place on earth...

I’m really not a big city girl. Yeah  - I can fool myself (and others) at times, but when you really push for it I don’t enjoy the city life that much. This has become extremely clear to me now, after a few days in Hong Kong. This city, as wonderful as it is, drives me nuts. I just can’t stand the amount of people everywhere. I get headaches from all the noise. AND I lose my temper all the time, since I find that people in Hong Kong really don’t understand how to walk the street + they don’t know basic politeness. Some examples:

·         They walk 2-4 people next to each other, preferably holding hands, which makes it very difficult to pass them. (I’m physically unable to walk as slow as they are.)

·         They don’t walk a straight line, so if you try to pass one or several people you end up running zigzag down the street.

·         They stop in doorways, at the end of escalators or any other place where lots of people are supposed to pass without any clue that they are stopping everyone else from passing.

·         If you hold the door for someone – no one says thanks and no one else takes the door, so you end up staying in the doorway forever – just holding it for everyone else…..

·         They don’t understand the concept of standing in line. I thought I stood in line for the tram, but when it finally came - around 20 people turned up in front of me, putting themselves on the tram long before I could even take a step.

These things should NOT bother me. I should not lose my temper for it. But they do!!!! I blame it on the fact that I can’t stand too many people around me at the same time. I should be on my most happy place after nearly 2,5 months of vacation, but I lost my happy self when I came to Hong Kong. It seems that Happy Lena was left in New Zeeland. I so prefer the tranquility there. Yes – I missed having access to internet and descent coffee in NZ, but I can skip that any day, just to have some piece and quite around me.

I guess the above comments are just a proof that I have become old and b*****. So be it! At least I know that I’m more happy hiking in the mountains than spending money in a shopping mall. Even if I do like the shopping part of it. Don’t get me wrong – Hong Kong is a great city for people that love high end shopping and nightlife. It is just not MY favorite place on earth. I miss New Zealand! That suits my personality A LOT better.

But I managed to do some sightseeing. I have checked out the following:

·         The Art Museum

·         The Space Museum

·         The Avenue of Stars

·         The Tsim Sha Tsui Clock tower

·         Star Ferry

·         Hong Kong Double Decker Tram System

·         The Hong Kong Peak, including the tram.

·         The Symphony of lights show

·         Harbour City Shopping

Nice things, all of them, but not my favorite places. I’m sure that many of you disagree with me. But just let us agree to disagree….. J

Sympony of lights

The double decker trams of Hong Kong.

Just an ordinary Sunday in Hong Kong

I just can't take pictures of myself.

Monica, Raimo and Linus - there is a Bubba Gump in Hong Kong also! :-) (for all your others - we visisted one in Monterey, California)

The tram is arriving to the peak.

The crowded and noisy Hong Kong

I’m at my final stop on this trip around the world: Hong Kong. It feels strange that almost 2,5 months already have passed.

On my way here to Hong Kong I experienced something unusual: personal escort from one plane to the other. I have absolutely no idea why they gave me that. It all took place in Tokyo, where I arrived with the flight from Auckland around 10-15 minutes late. I had nearly 50 min before boarding my next flight, so I was pretty calm when I stepped out of the flight. I got very surprised when there was a young Japanese woman standing there waiting for me (she had a big sign with my name, so it was hard to miss her). She hardly spoke any English and just told me that she would follow me to the next flight. I didn’t know if I should be offended or not. I mean – I know how to change planes (I have done it several hundred times before) and I wasn’t even in a hurry. Anyhow  - I got to the next flight with more than 30 min to spare and a big question mark on my face.

When I booked my around the world trip I had a theme for every stop. For Hong Kong it was shopping, but also it was the stop where I shouldn’t have any plans and no activities pre booked. I wanted Hong Kong to be my summary spot and the place where I calmed down from all the previous experiences. Due to this I wanted to stay on a nice hotel, with a gym, SPA and a pool, so I could enjoy my time at the hotel and not feel forced out, as you can feel on bad hotels. But to afford this I had to stay on a hotel outside the city center – in Shatin.

The hotel turned out to be great and has all the things I needed, including a BIG shopping mall just next to it. I’m trying to make a use of it all. I have already taken one 3 hours massage (with body massage, foot massage and a facial) and another one hour Chinese massage. I have also been to the gym every morning at 7. (It hasn’t been difficult to motivate me to go there, since I feel quite fit after the hike so it is fun to exercise.) I have used the pool only once, but I’m planning to do it more. I still haven’t spent any time by the pool sun tanning, but maybe I will find the time to do that later. I have also taken 3 shopping rounds in the mall close by.

The hotel has a free shuttle service downtown so I have been down there as well. One day for shopping and one day for sightseeing and I’m planning to do a couple more trips there.

The only “problem” is the weather. It is quite hot to walk around (more than 35 degrees C), and at the same time the sky is not very clear (so all pictures turn out to be fairly grey). Another thing that is bothering me – I find Hong Kong to be very noisy and crowded. After the tranquility in New Zealand I get tired after only a few hours downtown or in the shopping center. There are just too many people everywhere.

Today I feel a bit sick (have a cold), so I’m not sure if I should force myself out tonight or to stay in and hope to get better tomorrow. Anyhow, I’m starting to feel ready with my vacation…..:-) I can’t take in any more new impressions. Funny – I didn’t think it would get that far.

We have similar SEMCON bear in Berling, so I thought it was funny to meet his "cousine" in Hong Kong.

Summary of New Zealand

I like to make a summary of New Zealand. Even if I hadn’t finished my trip around the world (I still have Hong kong) I know it was the highlight of my trip and here are the reasons:

·         It is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever visited.

·         The people are so kind and friendly. They also seemed to be very relaxed about everything.

·         I had my best hiking trip EVER!!!! The reason for this is that it was a combo of a lot of great things: the nature, the weather, the group and last but not least the tour leaders. I couldn’t ask for anything more. I enjoyed every minute – even when we were stuck in the snow.

·         There is nothing in the world I enjoy doing more than hiking. That is the one thing that makes me the most happy and New Zealand is filled with hiking trails. (The call it tramping, not hiking, in New Zealand  - I find that cute). I just have to love such a place.

But I have also some observations about New Zealand:

·         They are a bit “behind” when it comes to internet. It is slow and you still have to pay for amount of data. And they think that 20 MB is a lot??!!! Come on – that takes me 15 minutes to use that. ;-)

·         All the public bathrooms are freezing cold. They really don’t want you to hover too long in the bathroom.

·         It is common to have one hot and one cold water tap to the zink in the bathroom. Hey – we hadn’t had that in Sweden for like 30 years??!!! It just annoying when you can’t water in the right temperature.

·         They don’t use salt on their roads. I get that is not good for the cars, but now they have to close the roads as soon as there is snow or ice. That affects the business everywhere.  I think someone should look at the business case for that.

Anyhow – I’m extremely happy with my New Zealand stop and I hope that I can keep in touch with my friends from this trip and have the possibility to come back one day.

The final days in New Zealand

After our multi-activity day in Okarito, we continued to Punakaki. Once again we had the most amazing drive along the west coast. I do have to say that the west coast of New Zealand has become one of my favorite places in the world. So beautiful and secluded –and maybe just the place I’ve been looking for - the place which I will move to someday.

The activity of the day was a hike on the beach and in the beach caves. It was totally AMAZING!!!(I feel like I’m running out of superlatives to describe my trip ;-) ) Ken and Jac took us on a path through some caves where we got out on some other beaches. The views were just breathtaking. See below. Not too many people know about this place so we were lucky that we got to see it. I struggled a bit with my fear of heights when we had to climb the cliffs, but with some help from my friends in the group I managed just fine.

In the evening we had our final dinner. It was really nice and funny. There was a lot of dancing and singing plus plenty of (bad?!) jokes. (Many “blond” ones.) We managed to keep awake to nearly 1 o’clock, which is very late on a hiking trip (you are usually so tired at 10 pm so you fall off the chair). But in the middle of all the laughter I felt a bit sad, since I knew it would be good bye the next day.

Our final day we started off with the walk to check out the pancake rocks (See below) and then we started our way back to Christchurch. We drove through Arthurs pass and on the way we stopped for another short walk to some limestone cliffs. What can I say – it was another drive through a beautiful surrounding.

In the early afternoon we reached Christchurch and started to say good bye to each other. It is funny how quickly you can start to really like people. I have said “Good Bye” to quite many new friends on this trip and it always makes me a bit sad, since it isn’t often you have the possibility to meet these friends again. Thank God for Facebook, that at least makes it easier to keep in touch.

The beautiful west coast of New Zealand

After our great Copland hike we continued to drive north on the incredibly beautiful New Zealand west coast. I have to say that it is a place for me. J  I have always had a hard time to decide if I love the sea or the mountains more, but on the west coast of New Zealand I have it all. Including lots and lots of beautiful national parks filled with hiking trails. Can you just imagine??? There can’t be a better place for me!

Our first stop after Copland was Okarito - a nice little village just by the sea. On our agenda was:

·         Kayaking in the lagoon

·         3 hour hike up the hill and on the beach

·         Cave/tunnel walk

All these activities took place on the same day, so it was a full day! J

We started the day with the kayaking. Again I was teamed up with Phil. I was very happy for that, since we have a calm way of handling everything (yeah - I know guys, I’m usually NOT that calm, but I can actually be that in between and I prefer the calmer me). We just paddled on the beautiful lagoon, enjoying the sunshine, looking at birds and laughing at our fellow travellers. Let’s just say that we exchanged the least amount of words in our kayak – there were quite a lot of discussions on the other ones. The other kayaks were also competing of who would be the first, so they were really pushing themselves. They even tried to paddle over a log, see below. ;-) We just paddled softly through the water enjoying the scenery and the nice weather.

You need to know one thing about our group – on all the hikes we have had a tendency to get lost. Mostly someone in the front got occupied in some kind of discussion and forgot to look for signs and the rest of the group just followed. We told our kayaking guide, Gemma, about this behavior, so she was just laughing when we after only 15 min of kayaking already were going in the wrong direction. In the end of our kayak trip Phil and I were behind the others (as we had been for most of the time) and we saw how the other kayaks went the wrong way. But for once we were not just following. Instead we went the right way and laughed when we saw our friends pulling the kayaks out of the shallow waters where they  were not supposed to be. Needless to say – we were first back to the harbor, which was a bit funny since we were the ones not competing.

After the kayaking we went on a hike up the hill. Ken, our tour leader, told us we would do a small detour. ;-) The detour was 3,6 km! Uphill!!! Well – at least half of it was uphill. But the reward was a couple of minutes without any breath and breath taking views. J The final part of the hike we walked on the beach. Talk about workout. When you think about it – we had a full body workout that day; with the kayaks in the morning and the beach walk in the afternoon. We were also lucky enough to see some seals. One of the seals jumped out just in front of me and scared me to death, but it was so nice to see it heading for the water.

After the hill and beach hike we had one more activity for the day: the cave/tunnel walk. When we arrived at the trail head Ken told us that we would have 45 min walk uphill. Hmmm… I wasn’t in a mood for another uphill hike, but I didn’t want to complain, so I just started to walk. Luckily we were a fast group and made the hike in only 23 minutes. In fact we did ALL our hikes faster than what was stated from the beginning. When we arrived at the tunnel Ken told us to put on the head torch and walk through the one km long tunnel. I wasn’t totally comfortable with the walk. It was very dark and we walked through water that reached up to my ankles. When we reach the other side of the tunnel Ken told us to turn around and do the walk in the tunnel without our head torch on!!! “Really!!! Come on!! I thought it was difficult enough to do it with the head torch on.” But the goal was to see glow worms and you don’t see them with the torch one. So I did like the rest and headed down the tunnel again with no torch. And to my surprise I saw a lot of glow worms and it wasn’t as bad as I expected. But it is safe to say that I wasn’t too comfortable.

We ended our multi activity day with another nice dinner prepared by Jac and once again I ate far more than I should. I especially liked her pine apple pie. J What can I say – Life is good!

The Copland hike

There has been a week since I last wrote a blog, but I have to split this week into several different ones. There were too many activities to fit them into one blog.

When we left off the last time we were stuck in Manapouri because of the heavy snowfall in New Zealand. I was quite worried at the time that we wouldn’t be able to do some of the activities that we were planning to do. I was especially worried that we wouldn’t be able to do our multiday hike in Copland. 

To keep us busy, while we were stuck, our tour leaders decided to take us sledging. J Even if I didn’t participate, I just took pictures of the others, I laughed so much so my stomach hurt. It was so funny to see them all crash into the snow piles around. See below.

The second day of snow our main tour leader Ken decided that we should take a chance and just drive towards Queenstown even if the roads were closed. He had snow chains to our bus, so he figured that they might let us through. We had, however, to leave our trailer with all the mountain bikes, since with the trailer they wouldn’t for sure allow us to drive. But since someone else from ACTIVE (the company I was travelling with) could pick it up later that was not a problem. Luckily we got through all the way to Queenstown and even the whole way to the west coast where our Copland hike took place. It was a long day of driving, since the snow and ice forced us to drive slowly. (They don’t use salt on the roads in NZ, which of course makes the roads a lot more slippery), but we arrived to the west coast safe and sound.

The Copland hike was supposed to take 3 days, but since we were stuck in the snow for a day, we had to shorten it to 2 days. This meant that we were hiking 6-7 hours per day, two days in a row. That is normally not a big problem but this was a hike with a lot of obstacles: streams, hanging bridges which only one at a time could walk on (I was scared to death, since I’m afraid of heights), rocks, roots, minor climbing over cliffs, lots of up and downhill – you name it. We had it all. So it was not an easy hike, even if it wasn’t one of the tougher ones that I have done. Luckily we had good weather so we didn’t have to worry about rain or slippery rocks. It was the most AMAZING hike and once again we were sooo lucky with the weather – clear blue sky and lots of sunshine. We walked through cold rain forest which makes it so very special. I mean – it is so strange to see all the leafs with frost on. (These things don’t normally exist in Sweden.  You have either leafs or frost.) On top of that we had the views of the beautiful mountains, streams and waterfalls. I was enjoying every minute.

When we hiked we hiked in our own pace and not the whole group together. But in an earlier hike Phil and I found a pace that seemed to fit us both, so I did the whole Copland hike together with him. It was nice to have someone around to talk to, but we also enjoyed just walking in silence. Hiking does that to me – I get quiet (I know – it is unusual ;-) ) It was also nice to have someone around if something would happen. I knew that our tour leaders, Ken and Jac, were never far away, but still it was nice not to be totally alone on the trail.

At the hut at the end of our hike there was a hot spring. It was SOOOOO nice to sink down into a hot spring when you have hiked the whole day in temperatures around zero degrees Celsius. It felt absolutely GREAT!!!!! We were sitting there for the longest time drinking beer (I didn’t carry it myself – Phil gave me one. I know – he is such a nice guy) - just enjoying life. Some of the guys went back to the hot spring in middle of the night. I didn’t which I regret. It must have been beautiful to sit there under the stars.

As usual we had a wonderful meal in the hut prepared by Jac. I tell you – that girl can cook. If I have gained weight in New Zealand I owe it all to her. She even made me eat deserts. I just couldn’t resist the food she was making.

So as a summary our Copland hike was one of my highlights of the trip. I could honestly not ask for anything more from a hike.

Stuck in the snow

It is snowstorm in New Zeeland. It is funny – we have had unusually good weather every day we spent here so far and yesterday it just turned. Luckily is hasn’t really affected our activities yet but it looks like it might change.

A couple of days ago we had a beautiful mountain bike tour around the lake in Queenstown. It was one of those perfect winter days with clear blue sky and sunshine. Of course it was a little cold – but as we say in Sweden “there is no bad weather, only bad clothes”. The bike tour was nearly 3 hours and in the end of it we had a great lunch just by the lake. It was real “life is good” moment.

After the bike tour we started our drive to Manapouri - a cute little village just by a lake. This is where we stayed the night before our trip to Milford Sound – in the Fiordland National Parks (what a beautiful place!!!!). We didn’t want to stay in Milford Sound since it is easy to get caught there in the winter. (And we still nearly did.) We went to Milford Sound in the early morning for our sea kayaking trip and already on the way there we were warned about the weather. You see – you have to drive through a pass to get there and the pass might close if there is a lot of snow (high risk of avalanches). And we knew that there was a lot of snow coming in. Anyhow – we arrived to Milford Sound with great weather and decided to take the kayaks out, but stay close to the starting point/harbor. We didn’t want to get caught by the weather far out, since it might be very hard to get back or to find another place to get out of the kayaks. We had a local guide, Paul, and since I’m new to kayaking I got to go with him. What a great guy! He kept me laughing the whole time and showed how to play around with the kayak. This is my kind of sport! I might start doing it back home in Sweden. I mean – there are great opportunities to do it in Stockholm. It was a lovely kayak tour even if we had to cut it short, only 2,5 hour instead of 4-5 hours. After the tour we had a quick lunch and then we headed back to Manapouri so we would not get caught by the snow.

We came back without any problems and spent a nice relaxing afternoon and evening in the motel, watching a movie, playing some game and sorting out pictures. Then we woke up this morning and found out that the road back to Queenstown is closed. And we were supposed to go there on our way to the highlight of the tour – the Copland hike!?! So here we are, stuck in Manapouri, waiting for the clearance to drive to Queensland. Our tour leaders are a lot of fun though – they decided that we should go for a 2 hour hike in the snow.  It was actually a quite nice hike, but I didn’t have the proper clothes for it (wasn’t prepared for a hike today), so now I’m sitting here in a coffee place slightly wet, sipping on a cup of nice jasmine tea and blogging. But I can definitely think of quite many worse ways to spend my day. My only worry is that the snow might stop us from doing the Copland hike. But in any case – I’m still in beautiful New Zeeland and if we can’t do that hike we can for sure do a lot of other nice things.

It is official: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE NEW ZEELAND!!!!

As I already told you in my previous blog so many things have already impressed me about this country; especially the friendly people. The tour leaders for our tour, Jacqueline and Ken, are no exception. They take so good care of us. I have been on so many tours around the world and I’m used to be set on kitchen duties, cleaning duties or whatever duties, but these guys don’t let us do anything.  They always say “sit down and relax”. Everything is done in a nice pace, no rush or stress, and we still are able to do a lot.

The group is great, but what can you expect? Only people that really love hiking would chose a winter hiking tour. J All of us are in good shape and know what to expect from a tour like this. I’m actually one of the slower hikers, which is a first. J I’m used to be one of the faster ones in the hiking group.

The group consists of:

·         Matthew and Martin, father (47) and son (13) from Czech Republic

·         Phil (37) from USA

·         Dan (34) from USA

·         Jennie (38) from USA

It is a nice small group where the common interest is being outdoors. :-)

We have had some amazing hikes so far, incl. clear blue sky with very little wind. Of course this also means very cold mornings, evenings and nights (-3 to -8 C), but it also means that everything will look so much more pretty.  As Jacqueline said yesterday “I’m so happy so I don’t know what to do with myself”. And that was how I felt also. It was such a beautiful morning and I had the possibility to hike in a fantastic surrounding. How can I not be happy??

So far we have done 4 hikes:

·         Day 1, short hike to the top of Mt John. It took us about 45 minutes up and 30 minutes down, but what a beautiful view we got. It was a nice little hike to stretch our legs the first day.

·         Day 2, we did a 5 hour hike in Mt Cook National Park. We were so extremely lucky with the weather: sunshine and no wind. Jacqueline had never experienced so good weather there before – not even in the summertime. The only difficulty was that we were walking on snow. In the morning it was hard/icy, but it got mushy during the day and added some to the workout.

·         Day 3 we hiked up to Aspiring hut. It took us only 2,5 hours. We spent the night in this beautiful little hut with no electricity and running water - we had water in a tank outside. But the water tank froze during the night, so the next morning we didn’t have water at all. But we had prepared for that and taken in enough water for breakfast. Personal hygiene was a different story: I used wet napkins to clean myself. It is a fact that your normal personal hygiene standard is lowered quite a lot on hiking trips like this. Suddenly things you wouldn’t allow back home is totally fine.

·         Day 4 we hiked back to our bus. It was one of the most amazing hikes I have ever done. The grass was frosty and it looked like we were walking on diamonds and the mountains on each side of us glowed in the morning sun. Yeah – it made us all happy. J

·         Day 5 is our day off. I might go horseback riding later, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.

So New Zeeland has now shown me the AMAZING nature, a lot of stars, the good weather and all the beautiful hikes that are available around. How can I NOT love it? This is the country for me.