USA: Davis, San Francisco

I am now in the United States of America, and have been for 2 months and 1 day. Life is pretty sweet, sweeter probably as I am eating way more quality American peanut butter (its so much better/sweeter than all others!). The adventure began way back in February when I arrived in San Francisco and has continued out here in Davis where we are living at the moment. Davis is a small college town in the middle of.... lots of farms. About 1.5hrs from San Francisco.

We live on C St, near 1st St.

Its a nice town with everything you need. A good number of pubs, parks with basketball courts and pick up games, an In-n-Out Burger, an excellent bike path network, easy to navigate, lots of young people, and a shisha shop. What more do you need? Oh, and excellent (albeit expensive) public transport connections to near by cities.

Our apartment.

From Davis we have been on some adventures. More on the big ones in the next post. But we did get one day in in San Francisco. From what I saw walking around and sampling tasty treats its a pretty cool city, and one which has a very good reputation for being awesome. There are some massive bridges and steep streets with houses that Danny Tanner would be proud to live in.

China Town, looking towards the Bay Bridge. 30c Pork Buns!

We did some exploring around the city, over to Oakland and also down south in Silicon Valley. I could very easily seeing myself living here, I am a big fan of big cities, and in my field this is the place to be (outside of Bangalore).

View of SF from above Oakland. Golden Gate Bridge on the right.

So that is me. I am in Davis and loving it. Next post: Road trips around California!

New Zealand: Home

So I am now at home... and have been here about a month. Home is indeed as sweet as they say it is and I am loving being out here on the farm with my family. Mums cooking is still the best ever and Cookie Time's are still super tasty.

So from India we popped into Singapore and saw Rowan for a few days, sneaked up to Malaysia for a little peak and spent a small amount of time with Dave in Melbourne exploring the Great Ocean Road. Then to Auckland for a couple of fantastic nights with the extended family and talking with the US Consulate.

View of Whiterock (left) and Mt Thomas (right) from Mt Karetu (grass at the bottom)

Back in White Rock I have just been climbing the local hills (Mt Karetu, Mt Thomas), swimming in the best swimming hole ever at Foxes Creek. Just been chillin' out really, getting all my stuff in order, trying to avoid exerting myself too much.

Foxes Creek, best swimming hole in the world, 3m deep some places!

The last six days was spent down south doing a bit of tramping. Started off with an over night to Welcome Flats on the Copeland Track, near Fox Glacier. After that we spent a night in a pub in Haast... classic kiwi stuff.

Some rainforest on the Welcome Flats track.

Then we embarked on the Motatapu walk, which is on Shania Twains property. It was a really good walk. A little hard on my poor IT feet and we didn't have nearly enough food but the challenge was well worth it. I then hitch hiked back to the beginning from Arrowtown to near Wanaka very successfully.. hitchin in NZ isn't so bad. More pics here.

View from the Motatapu Track

My plan now is to hang out and absorb as much New Zealand as I can before I head off to the United States of America in early Feburary.

Sunrise from Mt Karetu summit

Now I am just going to sip on this Monteiths and try and avoid the hot sun... you needn't worry about me though, I have already had one swim today. Life is sweet.

India: Final Leg

So after Allepey we headed up into the mountains to Munnar. It was a nice little town surrounded by thousands of hectares of TATA Tea Plantations. We spent a few nights here walking around, watching people pick tea, drinking tea, smelling tea leaves and generally enjoying the cooler tea atmosphere.

 

Tea Pickers and lots of Tea

From Munnar we took a long bus all the way to Ooty. We stopped off in Coimbatore... had my wallet stolen and couldn't find anything cheap... so we were happy to get out of there and on to Ooty, which was another nice mountain station. Established by the British, so there was a surprising amount of Pine and Gum trees. 

Pine trees and fresh mountain air... just like home, aside from the Monkeys!

From Ooty we went to Mysore for a few days, mostly just eating coconuts and eating our last meals. Mysore is a easy town to navigate and has a big pretty palace in the middle... our last taste of India really. From there to Bangalore airport and 47 layers of security. Apparently a direct threat was made against a major airport in India for the time we were flying, lucky we got to the airport 6 hours early.

Our last taste of Rickshaws and general Indian-ness in Mysore.

So, contrary to what others say, we have now got India done.... done in the sense that I understand that its a massive country with many, many different cultures, languages, tastes and  types of monkeys. It took two months to see what we saw, and we barely scratched the surface. 

Now we are relaxing in Singapore. Tonight we go to Melbourne, then Auckland to spend some time with the extended family... then home to WHITE ROCK to be with the family for Christmas. I am looking forward to getting back to New Zealand...