29th Birthday!

Ah, 29th birthday. It's like being 19 and waiting to turn 20, except this time it is waiting to turn 30. Well I gotta say it was a pretty awesome birthday.

Gin and I had planned the entire day in advance and we knew exactly what we were going to do. Just didn't know if it'd be fun, but it was. In the morning, we went to Wai-o-Tapu geothermal pools. It was pretty awesome. I had never seen geothermal pools before and I had no idea what beautiful colors you can see. Aparently, the water temperature in these geothermal pools range anywhere from 100 degrees celcius to 300 degrees celcius. Pretty hot to stick your finger in and see if it's hot. No guarantees if you'd get your finger back intact. Luckily, there were signed posted all over the place to stay on track and not to stick your finger in places it shouldn't be :)

In the afternoon Gin and I had a couple of hours to rest before heading out for dinner at the village of Mitai. The tour was suppose to be an insight into how Maori (natives to the land) people lived before the British people arrived. In Maori language New Zealand was called the land of the long white cloud which to me sounds more poetic than New Zealand. A Dutch sailor arrived from Zealand and called it the New Zealand named after the town he came from. Maori people came from Hawaiki (Hawaii) and settled in the south pacific. What is amazing about the Maori people in New Zealand is that throughout New Zealand, all the tribes spoke one language (Maori) unlike other places where different languages evolved with different tribes.

In the evening the tour bus came to pick us up at our campsite and brought us to the village of Mitai. We had a chance to look at a reenactment of how the warriors would arrive in Waka (war canoe) lead by their tribe chief. We also had an opportunity to see their traditional dance of Haka which was interesting. Gin and I personally loved the tribe chief because he did a tremendous job explaining how Maori people used to live their day-to-day life. Dancing, singing, exercising, weapons, etc was demonstrated to give the tribe of 18 nations (our tour group which consisted of 18 different nationalities) a better understanding of the Maori culture. Hongi was also demonstrated where two people greet each other by touching each other's nose gently, kinda like a handshake. After the cultural part of the evening, there was a big feast awaiting. They called it Hangi. The food is prepared by cooking it underground for several hours. It was pretty good. After the dinner, people were taken in different groups to see the glowworms in the forest and a little tour about different types of trees in their village. It was pitch dark, but thanks to little handheld torches, we were able to guide ourselves through the forest without tripping over something.

All in all, I thought this was a pretty awesome birthday. I was reminiscening my 22nd birthday which I spent in Rome, Italy checking our the beautiful old city and enjoying an evening of awesome Italian food and wine. I was also thinking of my 27th birthday which I spent in Koh Tao, Thailand getting my scuba diving license. This birthday would certainly rank high up there among those memorable birthdays.