One year ago...

Yes, that's right. Exactly one year ago we started our travels outside the US of A. To celebrate the occasion, we packed up everything in the van today and started traveling. This time though, our destination was only a few hours away. We have arrived safely to the New Jersey Shore which shall be our home for the time it takes us to plan our next adventure in life. Anyone want to come visit? Let us know, we'd love to fill up our social calendar!

Also, as you might have noticed, we've been a bit absent on uploading our travel photos. We were having a bit of technical difficulty and at the same time had reached our storage quotient on the Globalclarkes photo gallery page. Now you can find an additional link right here on our blog homepage to our photo gallery take two, where we are catching up with our final NZ photos and stuff we have since we've been home. Check them out.

~J

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig

We're home, if you define "home" as back in the country of your tax paying residency. Actually, we got home, to Baltimore, at 11:30 on May 21st. Would you believe that we had 4 back to back flights, none of which were delayed, and our luggage made it? We even got in a couple minutes early because the flight from Philadelphia to Baltimore was 22 minutes. Why would an airline fly that route? In the past, when we've flown into Newark with a connecting "flight" to Allentown, the flight has actually been a bus. After 25 hours of travel, I'm quite glad that we DID fly to Baltimore.

So we're home now, what's next? My sister and good friend are getting married next week. After that we're going to try to figure out where we want to live next and what we want to do for a source of income.

This blog has not come to an end though. Stay tuned as we decompress from our year of "cultural exchange." I'm sure as we readjust to life here in the US, we'll have plenty of thoughts about what makes the world go around, the people in it, and other random stuff that never occurred to us before.

Cheers,
S

Add one more to the Resume

And with that, we finish out another job here in New Zealand. Friday, May 9th we said our good byes to those great folks at Nobilo who turned us from total greenies when it came to working with wine to rough and tumble veterans of a wine vintage. Note to self: Maybe it takes a few more vintages to be able to party like a wine vintage veteran - holy crap these people party hard!

It'll take us a few weeks to fully recover from vintage, for the calluses and cuts to heal on our hands, for us to wake up at a normal hour of the day, for the nightmares of overflowing a tippy tank or running the RDV dry to stop and for the pallet to return to normal and not think that every Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc tastes like the sludge at the bottom of the tank.

Today and tomorrow we'll spend packing up, trying to get everything to fit back in our bags and then we'll head off to see the South Island before flying out, back to the US on the 21st of May.

Before we head off, I'm going to try to post some more pictures and set up a new quiz to keep you all busy while we travel. Be sure to check it all out.

Still here, just exhausted

Well folks, the 12 hour shifts have come to an end, yet the winery is still operating on 24 hour shifts. We're (un)lucky enough to have scored the 11pm to 7am shift, so we're currently readjusting to night shift (we'd begun to work days a few weeks ago) and beginning to decompress from the madness that was vintage 2008.

The good news is that the end is in sight - May 9th (or 10th or 11th???) will be our last day of work. May 12-21st we'll be traveling around the South Island saying goodbye to the country that's been our home since mid-December. May 21st we fly home and after 24 hours of travel we'll hopefully be back in the USA.

Thanks for all the emails and comments from all of you over the past months. As the work hours come back to are a more manageable level in the next few weeks, hopefully we'll get a chance to write more.

Cheers,
Steve

The 84 hour work week

How do you make half a month disappear? Why you work 12 hour shifts for 3 weeks straight, that's how. Finally, after 3 weeks, we have a bit of some time off. It's not really a "whole" day off, but more like we're switching from night shift to day shift (note to self: bring sunscreen).

So here we are, it's mid-April, and we're well into vintage. I believe we've processed slightly more than half of the grapes that we'll receive this vintage but there's still much work to do. The end of the perfect growing season has been a bit of a wild ride, weather wise, with colder temperatures (frost=bad), rain and birds affecting the grapes that are still on the vine. Some grapes you see coming in are in good condition, and others are suffering from botrytis or slip rot. Luckily, each block of grapes is kept separate from the others so the good ones aren't affected by the bad.

So what have we been doing from 7pm to 7am each day? A mix of things really. First of all, the thing that takes the most time out of our work day is finding all the necessary equipment to complete your assigned task. When it's busy, you're hard pressed to find the pumps, hoses, fittings or other assorted stuff you need to complete the task. That coupled with people who don't put away their equipment after completing their project is really frustrating. Equipment is in such a short supply at times, that I've actually had my project poached by others while I'm still gathering up things to get started. Let's just say this made me REALLY mad.

Much of Jesse's day is spent at the receival dock where the trucks dump their grapes into a bin. The grapes are then sent through a destemmer/crusher and pumped directly into a press or into a tippy tank where they wait until there is a press available. Careful attention must be paid to how much goes into the press or into a tippy tank. A lapse in judgment can cause quite a spectacular explosion of grapes.

There are so many additions of chemicals and solutions to the juice to turn it into wine that frequently we find ourselves schlepping 5 gallon buckets full of Bentonite, Potassium Metabisulphate, Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) up a 30 foot flight of stairs. Who says wine isn't healthy?

Also, we spend a good deal of time racking and transferring grape juice from tank to tank. As part of the wine making process, grape juice is put into a tank and allowed to settle. The clean juice is then "racked" off the stuff that has settled out, or lees. The lees then are filtered and sometimes readded to the clean juice.

Cheers,
~S

First Real Night Shift - Rain

So I believe someone above is laughing at us. To add insult to injury of going to work at 7pm and ending at 7:30am, the powers that be decided to bring on torrential downpours for 90% of our evening shift, including the bike to work. Now, normally, this would/could be expected, except this is Blenheim. It hasn't rained one drop since we got here a month ago. The sun has been out all but two cloudy days. Needless to day the rain made work very damp and cold, especially for those who had to work prolonged stints outside.

Now that the rain has stopped, it's cold and windy. I guess fall has finally arrived.

Funny thing about adjusting to night shift. Usually when you stay out all night or don't sleep on a normal schedule, it's because there's alcohol involved and waking up the next morning involves a hangover of some sorts. However, waking up at 2:30 pm today feels slightly less miserable. I opened one eye, saw it was light out and braced myself for the standard feeling of dry mouth, headache, nausea associated with being over served. Delightfully surprised that none of those symptoms became apparent, I was caught off guard when the dead weight of being up all night hit me like a sack of potatoes. I certainly hope it's like skiing, where if you can pull through the third day, you can rally on the fourth.

~S

Let the Savalanche Begin!

The onslaught (Savalanche) of grapes has begun. This week we've worked one 12 hr shift already and are gradually moving towards "the night shift." Tomorrow we work from 12 noon to midnight. I have 3 filtering jobs lined up (more diatomaceous earth) for tomorrow and Jesse's scheduled to receive 350 tonnes of grapes.

If you're curious, we've picked mainly Sauvignon Blanc and a little Chardonnay. The Pinots (Gris and Noir) are still hanging out on the vines, increasing in Brix.

Oh, so we learned that next Monday, they're going to feed us "lunch" once a day, for free. This probably works out for our 1 am meal, but I'm always pumped over free food!

Cheers,
~S

White Wine Survey Results

Winning the previous survey was Sauvignon Blanc with 41% of the votes. Readers are possibly attracted to the dryer more herbaceous flavor with hints citrus and flint.

Next off was Pinot Grigio with 25% of the votes. Obviously readers haven't had an experience of being overserved Pinot Grigio like I have. Since having too much of one of those LARGE bottle of Luna de Luna, I haven't touched the stuff.

Chardonnay took home 16% of the votes. Personally, I think oak and wine should be limited to red wines, however, I can see how the creamy smooth Chardonnay flavors can be attractive.

The last two wines, Riesling and Boone's Farm took home 8% of the vote each. Throughout our trip, I have had a few Rieslings that were pretty decent. Both were better than a bottle of Boone's Farm, but I think it's safe to say that our readers prefer non-sweet white wines better than the sweeter varietals.

Thanks for voting, next week please vote for your favorite red!

Cheers,
~S

Two weeks down, still no grapes

This week consisted of more learning, cleaning tanks, and getting the winery ready to receive grapes. Yet we still haven't seen any grapes yet. Rumor has it that next Tuesday (after the Easter holiday) we'll get our first 150 tons of grapes.

To reinforce the sheer volume of grapes that we'll be receiving, Nobilo loaded us on a tour bus and took us to see the different vineyards around the area. Around the Marlborough region almost every available square meter (we roll in the metric system here) is covered in Sauvignon Blanc. See the pictures on our website to get an idea of the hectares and hectares of grapes planted around here. I'd say that probably 95% of what's planted around here is Sauvignon Blanc, with the remaining 5% consisting of Chardonnay, Pinot Gris (Pinot Grigio for ya'll who are familiar with this Italian varietal), Pinot Noir, Semillion and Riesling.

One week down, no grapes yet.

We made it one week at Nobilo winery as cellar hands. This week we experienced all the "haphazardness" of any first week of work. No one knows what to do, everyone's giving 100% to try to not let anyone else down, and mistakes/accidents are plentiful. Both Jesse and I have avoided any major disasters, however some other coworkers haven't been so lucky. We've had a fellow coworker fall down a set of stairs and burn his foot with some caustic soda. Yikes!

At the end of the week, we celebrated a successful completion by sitting around drinking beers. Yes, I said beers. It's kind of ironic that a bunch of cellar hands and wine makers sit around drinking beers, isn't it? But I kind of understand this, after being around wine 24/7 (smelling, tasting, moving, spilling), the last thing you want to drink is wine when you're "relaxing".

So anyways, what did we learn this week?

First off, we learned how to make hoses. On and off this week, both Jesse and I cut large 3" diameter hoses to different lengths and put ends onto them. All in all, I think we made 10 hoses. When you put the ends onto the hose, you must use two hose clamps to secure the end. The tools required to do this job are both antiquated and terribly hard to handle, making the task much harder than it should be.

Next we learned how to pump out and clean a tank. Using a centrifugal pump which is difficult to prime, you can pump the wine from one tank (anywhere from 50,000L to 250,000L) to another. After removing the wine from a tank, it must be cleaned, expecially if the wine's been sitting in there for some time. To do this, you must rinse the tank with caustic soda, water, citric acid (to neutralize the caustic) and then water again. That's at least 4 rinses per tank. If the tank is extra dirty, the small mixing fans in the tank must also be cleaned. That's 4 more rinses per tank. All in all quite time consuming.

Since my specialty this vintage will be filtering wine, I did some work with different types of filters. Two of the filters use something called Diotomatious Earth (DE) which coats metal plates. Wine is drawn through these plates and the particulates in it stick to the DE. Dirty wine goes in, clean wine goes out. My favorite part of filtering is something called "tasting off". When you finish filtering a batch of wine, you have to then flush the machine with water. However, due to the length of hoses and pipes, you have quite a bit of wine left in the system. To loose this wine would be quite unprofitable, so you try to pump as much as possible into the tank, before it gets too watery. To do this, you must taste the wine that's going into the tank (with the help of a T-valve) and "determine" when it's too watery. When it gets too watery, you open the T-valve (closing off the receival tank) and let the water work it's way throughout the filter and hoses. Then you being to clean out the filter using the 4 step rinses described above. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, each filter machine has between 5 and 50,000 knobs, gauges and dials that must be turned in a specific order to ensure proper filtration. Turn the wrong one and you're liable to spray wine on your foot or worse.

One of the other filter that I have to run uses a centrifuge to spin wine at 6000 rpm. When the wine is spun up it gets dizzy and the particulates fall out (not quite). But particulates are trapped in a mesh and the wine goes through. When the particulate trap is full, the machine "ejects" the particulates with such a loud bang, it sounds like a howitzer is going off. The machine is actually reinforced in the area where the particulates are ejected from the centrifuge because of the force with which the particulates are ejected. I've taken to yelling "fire in the hole" to warn passer by's of the impending boom.

Next week, we'll get another 12 new employees with 6 coming to night shift with us. Rumor has it that the grapes are coming late next week, but again, that's just a rumor. Until then, we'll enjoy our 8 hour days and weekends off. Next weekend is Easter, so we'll have 4 days off (maybe).

Cheers,
~S

First Day of Work - Reporting In

So the first day as a cellar hand was slightly less awkward (only slightly) than working at Snowgum. At least there were no "customers" to have to convince you weren't completely stupid.

We biked to work this morning, arriving at 8am. After introducing ourselves about 100 times, we filled out some paperwork and met the permanent staff that we'd be working with. The team at Nobilo seems to be glad that the extra help as arrived, yet things are still quiet.

After this, we learned some of the jobs we'd be doing such as: making new hoses, cleaning tanks, moving stuff around... yeah, so that's pretty much all we did. A lot of first day awkwardness and standing around. That's universal to any first day; you want to be helpful and good at any job they give you, yet you're nervous and look like a complete monkey with anything you do.

We also learned we'd be working the night shift, 7pm to 7am. Other than the obvious downside - having to sleep while the sun is up - Jesse and I see some potential positives to the night shift.
1) When we bike to work, it's guaranteed to be light out. Our boss promised some spectacular sunrises as well. The headwinds are supposed to be the least at this point.
2) No sunburn. My forehead and bald spot thanks me immensely for this.
3) If we have errands to take care of in town, we'll be off during normal business hours.
4) The personalities of those who supervise the night shift seem to be of the "relaxed" nature. Should be interesting.

Cheers,
~S

So Fresh and So Green!

It hit me this morning on my way to work that we might qualify as a green household.

The 3 of us biked to work today. No vehicles were used.
We walked to the grocery store.
We're eating veggies that were grown in the garden.

I have to watch out that the cloud of smug doesn't get too big over this house.

Off to smell my own farts...

~S

A ton of new pictures posted.

Although we weren't the most diligent with our blog in the past couple weeks, never fear, faithful readers. We had our trusty camera by our side. Check out our photo site here and view our new photos.

Cheers,
GC

Ok Folks, We're Back In Business

Hi readers -

Yes, we're still alive, and doing quite well actually. Since we last updated you, we're now living in Blenheim, New Zealand. That's a small city at the northern tip of the south island and home to some of the world's best Sauvignon Blanc.

For those of you interested, you can view our new address on Google Maps by clicking here. Our new place is a FURNISHED house (ooh, pots, pans, and a mattress with springs) owned by a school teacher in Blenheim. We're renting a room from him.

On Monday, we'll be starting work at Nobilo's Drylands Winery as cellar hands. So sorry, but we can't provide any more details just yet because we have no clue at to what cellar hands do. All we do know is this:
-We're to report to the winery at 8am sharp.
-We're to wear clothing and shoes that can get wet and dirty.
-We need our paperwork to show that we can legally work and get paid in New Zealand.
-We'll be sized for protective clothing and boots.


The weather here in Blenheim is absolutely gorgeous, with cool breezes and hot sun almost every day. The city is located between two mountain ranges that help channel warm sea breezes off the South Pacific across the plains. It's conducive to growing absolutely everything - apples, cherries, citrus, olives, and of course grapes.

More reports on work to follow.

Cheers,
Steebe

The slow death of my PJs

I vaguely remember the day I was standing in JCrew weighing the want vs. need columns for a pair of lightweight cotton, bright green, PJ pants. The want column won and must have been almost been a tie to the need because since then I've practically worn the pants everyday for the past four years.

They even survived a Clorox attack where they lost half of their brightness and assumed another color identity. This incident also probably weakened the fabric. Then came the fateful day that they made the cut to join the small list of clothing items brought on our around the world trip. Due to their comfy-ness and packability it was an easy choice even though they were 1 of the 2 items I brought that were 100% cotton. Day in and day out they've hung in there providing great comfort after a long day of sightseeing. Each hand washing cycle they would emerge fresh and crisp, drying in record time right along with all of the technical fabric. By the time we arrived back in a developed country, they were no match for that wonderful invention, the automatic laundry washer.

Now they are hanging in there by a thread, no pun intended. First, a hole emerged along the tip of the back pocket (don't even know why there was a pocket there to begin with) and then another one popped through on the back seem. It's almost an insult to me since it alludes to the fact that maybe I've gained too much weight during our time wandering the world without exercising. Anyhow, at this point I'm too attached to the PJs to give up on them and I'm pulling for them to make it through the whole trip with us. I may have to resort to patching but I'm hoping for a policy of "nothing left behind" when we leave New Zealand. We've done really well with our belongings we brought with us. We lost my travel journal on an Emirates flight from Dubai, one Nalgene bottle in Egypt, and a necklace in Thailand. That's pretty darn good if you ask me so my RIP blog for my PJs may have to wait until we are back on US soil.

I really don't have a moral to the story of my clothing tragedy other than the fact that wearing a small selection of clothes over and over again wears them out dramatically quicker than spreading out the use over a variety of outfits. So the next time you think about adding an item to your wardrobe maybe you should go for it therefore extending the life or your most favorite items.

As for other updates in the life of Jesse, there's not much more than the daily routine of working again. I love the daily commute back and forth to work on my bike. It's wonderful in the morning to feel the wind on your face and in the evening there's nothing better than cruising past the long lines of people stuck in traffic. The burbs of Auckland suit me. The views are fantastic due to the dramatic steepness of the hills allowing you to catch glimpses of the beautiful blue bay water. Not to bring up the dull topic of weather but even that has been quite pleasant since we've been here. And on that topic, we've been stationary for two months now and I'm starting to get the itch of travel again. We'll be moving on soon enough though since work ends here in two weeks and we'll begin the migration South to our vineyard positions. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the North Island and hopefully volunteering for the 2008 New Zealand Ironman around Lake Taupo, March 1st.

Until next time....
~J

The mosquito problem

So a vast majority voted in the last poll that we should purchase a quite expensive mosquito net to keep the mosquitoes from feasting on us while we slept. Nature had it's own ideas as to how to beat the mossies...

Because there's no central air or heating here, we leave the windows open quite a bit, which lets in a fair amount of mosquitoes. However it also let's in a fair amount of spiders. By letting the spiders do their thing in the corners between the ceiling and the walls or behind the toilet and sink, they've been catching the mosquitoes for us. As I'm cleaning today, I'm selectively leaving the spider webs up so that they continue to trap and kill the bloodthirsty bugs. Thanks nature!

Keep up the voting! We really enjoy it.

Cheers,
~S

According to the Voters: Democratic Candidate

According to faithful (or outspoken) blog readers, Barack Obama will win the democratic nomination with 81% of the party's nomination.

Now a few random election thoughts...
1) What's with all these states having primaries with no delegates at stake, or not having any candidates on the ballet?

2) And why does Hillary keep declaring herself triumphant in these states?

3) Should we be worried that the Supreme court will be deciding the next party nominations and subsequently the fate of the nation's next president?

4) I guess this all boils down to beg the question: Is America ready for (or less scared of) an African American President or a woman President?

Let's hear what you think.

Cheers!
~S

Back on the wagon...

One of the hardest things that we're dealing with here in NZ is the fact that we're not in the shape we were before we left the States. For 6 months, we did nothing regarding training. We traveled, ate, drank, got food poisoning and other fun bacterial infections, but, aside from a few random days in Europe, did nothing that one would deem a workout.

Not that there's anything wrong with that - I'd do it again in a heart beat to experience what we did, but what we're left with now, as we start getting into running and biking again, is a mere shell of our former selves. Our base of fitness, usually in the above average to high range, is gone. For me, there's not been a chunk of time more than a month or so that I've been inactive.

Fortunately, and unfortunately, the part that's stuck with us is the mindset that helped push us to workout quite frequently. Jesse and I make a great workout team, constantly pushing ourselves and each other to new heights of fitness. However, this mindset is a huge stumbling block for us right now, as we frequently forget our current shape and try to workout "like we used to." This habit leads to overtraining and frustration. We know what we're ultimately capable of, and the fact that we can't achieve it right now is maddening.

Funny, but this lesson has strong parallels to a common theme that's been present for the last year: becoming ok with where we are currently, or being "present." I believe that this is a strong theme that we've picked up on in Buddhism. If one lives in the present, and appreciates it for what it is, they can't dwell in the past about the way things "used to be" or worry about the future, about what might happen. I believe that this lesson will continue to be important as we come back to the US and reintegrate back into society.

Cheers,
~S

What's all this traffic about?

Oh, it's Sir Edmund Hillary!

Parnell, the town where we live, made history in the past couple days by hosting the funeral of Sir Edmund Hillary. The first man to successfully summit Mt. Everest, Hillary died on January 11th of a heart attack at the ripe old age of 88. While most Kiwi's don't get their 15 minutes of fame on the world stage, a large state funeral was held for SEH that was well attended by world dignitaries, sherpas, friends and family of the Hillary's. Also in attendance was half of Auckland, who turned out to try to catch a glimpse of the goings on at St. Mary's Cathedral, hopelessly snarling up traffic at the intersection of Parnell Rd and St. Stephen's Road. Apparently not in attendance were any members of England's Royal family, which was viewed by many Kiwi's as a direct snub at SEH's accomplishments.

As if being the first to summit Everest wasn't enough, SEH also lead the first expedition to the south pole by vehicle. Because of his influence in both Nepal and Antarctica, live telecasts were beamed to these nations and were viewed by the 3% of Nepalis with TVs and thousands of penguins, polar bears and a rapidly melting glacier or two.

After 3 days of irregularities in our daily commutes, we finally put two and two together to realize what was going on. This morning, we went running and missed seeing the funeral procession by about 15 minutes. Had we done our research in advance, we could have witnessed this historic event.

The dumbest thing I've heard in a long while

So I took the ferry to work yesterday. It's the only way to cross to the north shore of Auckland and bring your bike. For some strange reason, you can bike everywhere else in this city, just not to the north shore. I've decided that taking the ferry to work is THE coolest way to commute, hands down. Since I've decided this, there will be no poll on it.

Anyhow, on my way back, I was standing on the pier waiting for the ferry to pick me up, when this guy saunters out onto the pier. He looks at me, my bike, my helmet, my biking gloves, looks at the pier and asks...get ready for it...

"How's the fishing?"

Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, "HOW'S THE FISHING?"

All I was able to muster up at that point was something just as intelligent sounding... "Uhhh, I have no clue." About 5 seconds after this dumbfounding question, was when my brain started working again, and came up with all sorts of snappy responses like "Well, I've been unsuccessful so far..." or "I've thrown my bike over a couple of times, but those m*therf***ers just aren't biting" or "Well, if my bike was equipped with Shimano DuraAce, I'd probably be having better luck."

He then continues to add, "Well, I think this would be a great fishing spot." Ok, thank you, Captain Obvious for your expert analysis. Since, you've proved that you have metal reasoning powers well above mine, I'll run off and get my fishing gear... or maybe just hang myself from the pier as shark bait just to end having to hear his incessant stupidity.

Other than that, things are peachy. Life is good.

~S

First survey results are in!

Thank you all for your responses about quantities of beer that we should buy for our upstairs neighbors. Due to your responses, we'll be buying a case of beer when we go grocery shopping tomorrow and putting it on their doorstep with a thank you note. Maybe we'll even be invited up to share it with them.

Be sure to check out this week's new question of the week.

Cheers!

Steebe does Retail...

One day of retail work down, many more to go...

After working one day in retail, I truly believe that retail experience is a crucial part of anyone's social development, one that I missed. This invaluable experience teaches you how to interact with people (often making conversations over nothing), make decisions on the fly, lie convincingly, use persuasive reasoning, develop a phone persona and multi-task effectively. One should definitely not go 28 years without some sort of this experience.

That said, I have to say I had a good first day, slowly learning my way around the register. It's one of those interfaces that use "function keys" to navigate through different screens. What happened to the interface that uses the mouse to move between fields?

I sold quite a bit of merchandise as well - 2 backpacks, half a dozen sleeping bags, a rain jacket, other assorted items and I almost sold a $500 tent (quite the up-sell). Unfortunately, the customer left saying he'd return "tomorrow" after sleeping on it. I'm not working today to complete the sale if he does come back. Oh well, it doesn't really matter, as we're not paid on a commission basis.

Tomorrow, I return to work and learn how to open and close the store, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some function keys stand in the way of me figuring out the inventory/ordering system.

~S

Global Traffic Report- Part 2

Good evening folks, this is Steve in Chopper 8 (twice as good as Chopper 4 and four times as good as Chopper 2, which was subsequently dismantled and sold as scrap for gas money in Nepal) bringing you world traffic conditions.

India - Why anyone is driving in this country this evening is beyond me. While cows and funeral processions are plugging up traffic in Varanassi, someone's made a parking lot in the middle of the road in Delhi. I'm not sure that anyone can really see where they're going because of all the pollution spewed from cars, trucks, scooters and tuktuks. I highly suggest taking the new, clean mass transit train. Just make sure to have correct change ready when you get up to the window. Moving further south and west to Mumbai, the roads get slightly better allowing speeds of up to 50kph, but religious festivals have the public out in droves, bringing things to a grinding halt. It sure looks like the people on foot are having a much better time of it than those in vehicles. Inland, in Bangalore, things aren't any better because the road construction due to the installation of a "subway" has caused MG Road to go down to 2 lanes. This hasn't stopped many of the scooters or motorcycles carrying at least 3 people each. Who knows when this will end because the political party that had started this project was just thrown out of the government. Whoever starts this project up again will have to go through the process of bribing key people again. This is all compounded by the sewer that just burst.

Thailand - Other than the traffic caused by the 8 minute long red lights, traffic seems to be moving pretty well in Bangkok, except on the road north to Kao Yai National Park. It seems that many of those who are traveling north this weekend to their "privilege homes" or to visit Thailand's wine region have things gridlocked pretty well. You may come across a large tourist bus or two carrying camera wielding tourists, but they're pretty easy to pass, because apparently, in Thailand, driving fast is cool. Overall, the roads around Bangkok are paved well, and with plenty of public transportation and boats across the river, you should have no trouble this evening getting home. Hungry drivers are also well cared for, with a plethora of street side food choices, from any imaginable pork product to smoked guinea pig and fish to custard apples and fresh fruit. Be sure to pick some up on your way home tonight. Pedestrians, please take care when crossing the street. The tuktuks here launch harder from stoplights than my friend's '89 Mustang with drag radials. They sound pretty bad as well.

Hong Kong - Most of the drivers you see on the roads tonight are there because they can afford to drive to work. I've never seen such an upscale traffic jam (ok, maybe portions of the Woodward Dream Cruise) with high end Rolls-Royces, BMW's, Ferraris and Mercedes. There are a lot of cars on the island's roads, but it seems they continue to move, albeit slowly. Other commuters have chosen to avoid the traffic and have taken one of the many other options, Double Decker Trolly, subway, or train. After New Year's sales have brought the public out in droves this evening to shop at some of the most upscale malls in the world. Consider taking public trans to the mall, as the parking lots are full.

Japan - If you're considering heading to or from Narita Airport, this evening be sure to give yourself a good half day. Even though I'm staring at one of the most orderly and courteous traffic jams in the world, no one's going anywhere. Over in Rappongi Hills, someone's caused a back up by running their Left Hand Drive S600 into a pole. Could it have been because he was driving on the WRONG SIDE OF THE CAR? Seems like a large price to pay for "status". Pedestrians tonight in Shibuya should be prepared to cross the street with 3000 others at the same time. Don't consider driving here. Additionally, around the Royal Palace, traffic's gone bazerk because there's a marathon running through the streets. However, everyone's dressed in single but brightly colored jogging suits and wearing boxes on their head. If the street hasn't been closed off, throngs of other Asian tourists are photographing the event and blocking traffic. Best bet to get around tonight, do what millions of other Japanese do and take the subway. Just make sure to buy the right type of ticket. The JNR lines and the Toei lines take DIFFERENT TICKETS.

Australia - Around the major cities tonight you'll find it gridlocked due to the plethora of cars and roads that make no logical sense, like a hub and spoke gone bad. It's probably influence of the hills and bodies of water surrounding Sydney and Melbourne. If you're looking for parking there, be prepared to give your first born in exchange. It looks like the cyclists are moving the best. If you're driving, please watch out for them and their high end road bikes. Oh, a note for all you tourist drivers out there, there are certain roads that look ok to take, but require an EZPass type device. You'll want to research which roads these are BEFORE traveling on them, as it's a $100 fine to be caught without one of these devices. Things are moving well along the roads down the coast between Sydney and Melbourne, as the towns here give a new meaning to "small town". Be sure to get your groceries and fresh fish before 3pm, as many of the stores will close. Moving to South Australia, please be careful of Kangaroos, as they'll bend up quite a bit of sheet metal. However, if you see any Cane Toads, please, please swerve to hit them. In the Barossa, things are snarled up because Elton John's in town and police have set up DUI checkpoints every 500m on roads leaving the concert. I'd suggest that you bike, but it's rumored that the police will not hesitate to cite you with a "drink driving" charge even if on a bicycle. Oh, by the way, the legal limit is .05.

Happy driving and have a good weekend! This is Chopper 8 signing out.

Want to see where we're living and working?

As part of our more permanent stay here in Auckland, NZ, we've found an apartment for two months. Click the link here to see where we're staying. We know it's not much, but, after all, we're simple people (riiiight) and living out of anything more than a backpack is downright luxurious.

Because we aim to serve our customers, we're also posting the location of where we work as well. Click here to view the Queen St. Snowgum store, click here to view the New Market Store, and here to view the location of the Fox Outlet Store.

Cheers!

New Feature - Question of the Week

Be sure to check out the new feature for 2008 - The Question of the week. Each week we'll ask a question relevant to life here in New Zealand. We'd love to hear what you, our faithful readers, think. Also, please feel free to email us if you have any suggestions for future questions.

Thanks,
The Management

Happy New Year!

Hello Everyone, Happy 2008!

We're back and for lack of better New Year's Resolutions, do vow to update the blog more often. It'll definitely be different types of content, now that we're settled in one place for a while, however, we should still have lots to talk about.

As a New Year's gift, we were hired by an outdoor store called Snowgum. This is my first retail position, ever and I have to say that I'm quite nervous about starting work next week. Snowgum sells the type of gear that people will find useful when they travel and partake in outdoor activities. There's some camping stuff, some travel stuff, and many thoughtful things that one would need to take a trip. They even sell a drain plug for the bathroom sink so you can do wash while traveling. Funny how you'd never think to take your own drain plug while traveling, but it would have proved very useful in a number of places. We found that in lieu of this handy item, a plastic grocery bag shoved down the drain does the trick. Anyhow, we'll be working at Snowgum until the end of February.

Then we head down to Blenheim to work for Nobilo Wine Group as cellar hands for their 2008 harvest. I'm pretty excited about this, because, first of all, it's a foot in the door to the wine industry, one which we've enjoyed hanging around since we started our trip and secondly because it'll let me know whether or not I like wine enough to pursue a career in it when I get back to the States. Speaking of the States, we'll be returning after the harvest in May. We're not really sure what a "cellar hand" does, but I seem to remember seeing an episode of "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery Channel, where Mike Rowe visits a winery and performs many of the dirtier tasks. What we do know, though is our employer supplies us with overalls and boots. Fun!

It's kind of funny to look back on 2007 and realize that January 1, 2007 is the day that Jesse and I vowed that by the end of the year we'd be doing something "drastically different" that probably involved quite a bit of travel. But at that point, we had no idea of what it would take or how much we'd learn selling/renting/packing up everything we own and taking off to travel the world. I'm not sure that what we do in 2008 could top this, but there's a good possibility that coming back to "civilization" and finding a place to live, finding employment, buying a car again, may be just as challenging.

For 2008, we've promised each other that at the end of this year, we're going to have at least defined the criteria for our work/life balance, attempting to find the location and employment that suits us both.

I'm definitely looking forward to the coming year and the events contained within, especially the marriage of my sister, Lindsay, to my arch training rival and good friend, Chris Wells. You can see their wedding website here. I'm hoping that preparing for marriage (a big deal) will distract CW from his strict training regiment and actually allow me to beat him. Yeah, he usually beats me, but SHHHHH, don't tell him I ever admitted to that.

Cheers!
~S