NEW ZEALAND AKA "KIWI TOWN"

Happy 2012 everyone, Corsiworld is back!!!

This Christmas vacation we were fortunate enough to head to New Zealand to experience a summer Christmas with our great friends Lisa & John. For those of you who do not know them, they are friends that we met, hung out with, and even lived with during the last few years here in Singapore. These guys ended their Singapore adventure to begin a new one in Lisa's home country of New Zealand and the Spore has not been the same since. So getting to see a new country with good friends who are also locals was all the encouragement we needed.

It was hard to not be with our families and puppies in Vancouver but Lisa & John and their NZ families took us in and made for a terrific time. After our 12 hour flight we arrived to hugs and tears and within 10 minutes we were at Weta Cave to get Gio his Dr Grordbort's Ray Gun and then off for a quick G&T at the vintage theater Weta uses for their events and finally we were wooshed off to the new house for a little freshening up and then directly taken out on the town. We started at a very cool bar, with lisas family, The General Practitioner, an old bordello turned surgery turned bar. The décor is tastefully remembering the buildings previous uses with dark furniture and framed pieces of vintage surgery tools. After some tastings of local brews we needed to eat and headed down to the waterfront for more local brews and some pizza. During the evening we discussed an interesting local brew – gunpowder rum. Rum made with gunpowder! That was then our next destination, the one and only place to get this in Wellington, The Hawthorne, an old school dark and velvety bar with a hint of salon. Gio tried the straight up original gunpowder rum while Michelle had the cherry gunpowder rum. Both were awesome with just that hit of metal punch and smooth yummy sweet rum. By this time it was time for bed and we headed home for the night all happy and boozy warm.

Christmas eve morning brought one of the best meals of the trip. We went to Manuri Surf Club in Island Bay for the best avocado mash with thick grainy homemade toast and fresh tomatoes, awesome coffee and a pretty fantastic view of the ocean. This is a locals hang out where you wish you were one of the locals and could come in everyday after morning surfing or walking on the beach. The ladies afterwards went to Te Papa Museum for the Bridal Dress show presented by the London and the boys were off to find goodies for the grill. Christmas Eve and Day were spent BBQ-ing, baking and roasting as well as drinking game playing and lots of eating!

With Christmas done the touring began. We mixed hiking adventures with wine tasting and sight seeing. On the North Island we headed to Martinburough and Greytown for a day of wine tasting and homemade chocolate.

Then it was off to the South Island. We flew to Queenstown, the self proclaimed adventure capital of the world for some touring and New Years Celebrations. For the Lord of the Rings fans in us we did aim at seeing the different locations that were used for filming. But really these were all over the south island and all of it was amazingly beautiful. The Pinnicles, the Remarkables, Glenorchy, the glow worm caves, Lake Hawea, Franz Josef Glacier and while we did make it to some of the bays where the penguins migrate to we missed their arrival by a few days. Our final night was in a town called Terras at a little BnB in the middle of farmland. The owners were amazing hosts and went into their garden and collected fresh veggies, new potatoes, and rasberries for our dinner. Our salad dressing was made from their own olive oil and plums. Fantastic last night of the adventure.

We made it back to Wellington to have our last couple nights with our friends at their place. We explored Wellington and one more trip to Weta and that was it, our vacation was over. Overall impression of NZ? AMAZING! Thank you to John and Lisa for being such fabulous hosts and we cant wait to do it again as we will definitely be back but please, let the PICS speak for themselves!!!