November Update + Cultural Items

Hi everyone.

Not too much new to report; Gay and I are in full-on trip planning mode and we’re realizing that even though we’re going on a round the world trip it’s going to be impossible to see the whole world, not matter how hard we try. It’s also becoming blatantly obvious that by the time we’re done we’ll have no money left and I’m going to be a pin cushion by the time I’ve gotten all my immunizations. Oh well.

Here is the working draft of our itinerary so far:
NZ->Australia->Bali->Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam->Tokyo->Beijing->
Nepal->India->Dubai->Jordan->Israel->Greece->through Europe to Scandinavia->London->Ireland->Costa Rica->US
Maybe try to fit Iceland in there and some of South America if we can.

Yeah, it’s going to be f-ing great.

Halloween in New Zealand
So Halloween happened here with little fan-fare but an interesting phenomenon is happening and I'd thought I'd share my observations. This particularly strange holiday is just starting to catch on here, mostly driven by companies like The Warehouse, a local Kmart equivalent with a more wholesale twist. Halloween is too good to be true for these companies because not only do they promote the sale of their candy but the costumes and decorations as well; and hey why not buy that set of all weather tires which happen to be on sale. Regardless, I can’t really have too much angst over this obvious corporate-driven promotion because Halloween is just so damn fun. As a kid you got free candy and dressed up in cool costumes (except when your parents dress you up as a girl for some odd reason--thanks mom) and as an adult, I’ve been to some great Halloween parties. So most of my work mates are very curious about what it’s really all about in the States, and since I don’t mind contributing to the perpetuation of American culture I begin to explain and I very quickly get cutoff by a visiting client-
“Here’s what happens, you dress your kid up and teach them to do a trick and then they get candy. I dressed my kid up as Batman and I taught him to jump up and down on one foot 6 times. Which is pretty good for a 3 year old.”
I had to laugh and then I got frightened as I heard from a work mate that “I thought you say trick or treat because you either give me a candy or I play a trick on your house like break a window or something.”
Later, after thinking about it, I realized I was witnessing some kind of cultural version of the telephone game. I’m sure this kind of thing happens all the time but you never really see it in its early stages. I can see in a couple years as Halloween gains more and more popularity, as it no doubt will since it’s so damn fun, the holiday will morph and eventually take a form that’s uniquely New Zealand. My only hope is that it doesn’t become some dystopian version where hoodlums run around threatening families with the destruction of property if they don’t get their bite-sized Whatchamacallits.

Since we’re on a cultural topic it’s also interesting to note that the noun crack just doesn’t have the same comic impact in New Zealand as it does in the States. Consider the following summarized conversation I had with a work mate:
work mate: “So Jane thought X was Y.”
Jon: “Well. Jane is probably on crack again.”
work mate: “ “
Jon: “Oh shit. Was Jane really on crack?”

Pictures:
Another random grouping of pictures here, some of which are from a trip on a glider I took as Gay’s belated birthday present to me. The glider trip was pretty exhilarating as the pilot let me fly for a lot of the trip. There are also a couple pictures of a bbq we had with some of the great people that are currently living with us.
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