Two more of my articles for New Media Journalism are online
Read about the bad news for File-Sharers here
Read a review I did of the new Say Anything album -- In Defense of The Genre
I think I might have been able to write a bit better of a review, but I had to keep it kind of short.
This weekend I'm headed south to visit my friend Rebecca's family and try my hand at some surfing. It should be a fun time, as long as I don't get eaten by a shark.
Cheers.
Shawn
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Retarded in Love
One of my classes I am taking is New Media Journalism.
For the first half of the class we had to work on an internet magazine. My site was aimed at talking about fishing in the Auckland area.
You can check it out here
The site is more about the design and less about the content.
Additionally for the second part of the class we have to submit articles to be published online at City Beat, which is a student online news format here in Auckland.
The first article I wrote is about the debate over Carbon Neutral.
The second one is a movie review of the movie The Bourne Ultimatum (which came out here later than it did in the US)
The third is about the All-Black's losing to France in the Rugby World Cup. It's interesting because I wrote it from the perspective of the French Students living in WSA.
I have to do 3 more stories, so once I get those in I'll post the links.
Also I really thought that this article written by my american friend Matt was really interesting.
I feel like I could've written the same article myself. We are the only two Americans in that class. He talks about how everyone loves to hate Americans. Now in particular I have not run into very much anti-Americanism here so far. The few times I have, it was mostly from people who were also foreign, and not so much from the kiwis. But it's still very interesting.
Also if you feel up to it, this other article he wrote is pretty interesting also. It's about how many kiwis take the South Island for granted.
Cheers,
Shawn
For the first half of the class we had to work on an internet magazine. My site was aimed at talking about fishing in the Auckland area.
You can check it out here
The site is more about the design and less about the content.
Additionally for the second part of the class we have to submit articles to be published online at City Beat, which is a student online news format here in Auckland.
The first article I wrote is about the debate over Carbon Neutral.
The second one is a movie review of the movie The Bourne Ultimatum (which came out here later than it did in the US)
The third is about the All-Black's losing to France in the Rugby World Cup. It's interesting because I wrote it from the perspective of the French Students living in WSA.
I have to do 3 more stories, so once I get those in I'll post the links.
Also I really thought that this article written by my american friend Matt was really interesting.
I feel like I could've written the same article myself. We are the only two Americans in that class. He talks about how everyone loves to hate Americans. Now in particular I have not run into very much anti-Americanism here so far. The few times I have, it was mostly from people who were also foreign, and not so much from the kiwis. But it's still very interesting.
Also if you feel up to it, this other article he wrote is pretty interesting also. It's about how many kiwis take the South Island for granted.
Cheers,
Shawn
Sunday, October 14, 2007
My Trip To The South Island - Part 2
I have been meaning to get this post up forever! I apologize that it took so long, but I hope you enjoy!
When we last left off, me and my German friends had just completed the Abel Tasman Coastal Track. Here is where we continued on our incredible trip to the South Island.
Day 12
We headed south to a small town called St Arnold which is located in the Nelson Lake's region. The German girls we met on the Abel Tasman had told us about how they had stopped there, and that it was really nice, so we fiqured we should check it out. The specific lake we stopped at was called Rotoitti. The town of St Arnold itself was very small, and not too impressive, however the lake was amazing. It was surrounded by some incredible mountains, some of which had snow capped peaks. The location also had signs up that said there were kiwi birds in the area, and that there was a kiwi bird recovery project underway in the area. We paid extra attention, but we didn't have any luck actually seeing any.
Day 13
We spent most of the day on the road heading towards the west coast. We arrived at Westport around 5 or 6, and we made a short stop there at an internet cafe. Then we headed north to the town Karamea. Although this day wasn't particularly interesting, it did have a few highlights. While we were on the road the sun was starting to set, and it always rises in the east and sets in the west. Although I'd seen some amazing sunsets while on campus at Oswego (where the sun sets behind Lake Ontario), I'd never quite seen a sunset as beautiful as that one. Sunsets at the ocean are amazing. When we arrived at Karamea it was late and dark, so we found what we thought was a good place to park, made some dinner and went to bed.
Day 14
We were awoken early in the morning by a large group of cattle walking by. Since it was dark the night before, we hadn't known it at the time, but we had parked on the side of a path next to a farm. So we were quite surprised when all those cows walked by. After we got some breakfast, we made way towards the Oparara cave system which was about a 20 minute drive. The road to the caves was actually so bad that we decided to park the campervan on the side of the road and walk the rest of the way. We probably walked about 9 kilometers till we actually got to the cave area. The Oparara cave system features many limestone formations and arches. One of the arches we saw was the Oparara Arch and it was 141 feet high and 719 feet long.... it was quite impressive. The end of the day was particularly interesting, because we had parked so far away, and by that point we all did not want to walk back. We had the good luck though that a DOC (department of conservation) truck was going by, and we waved it down, and they actually let us ride in the back of their truck to our campervan. We rode for about 25 minutes in the truck, so I can't even imagine how long it would have taken for us to walk. We then drove on to our next location in the town of Punakaiki.
Day 15
Before I left America, I met with a friend of mine in my town who had lived in Australia for 6 years, and in New Zealand for 6 months. Mrs. Hughes had showed me many pictures and told me many tales about her journeys to australia and New Zealand. One of those places she had told me about that stuck in my mind in particular was the Pancake Rocks located in Punakaiki. So I was pretty excited to be able to actually see what she had told me about.
The pancake rocks are basically these huge rock formations that are out at sea. They are pilled in layers on top of each other, and so in a way they kind of resemble pancakes. It was pretty cool to watch the ocean smash up against them. One of the formations has a big hole in it, and when the high tide is coming in, if the waves hit it right water shots out of the hole and makes a "geyser". We did not actually get to see that too well, because it wasn't high tide. It was still very interesting though. I also happened to see a couple of dolphins swimming around, and this was the first time I had seen dolphins since I had arrived in New Zealand.
Off in the distance we could see the snowed capped peaks of the mighty Southern Alps of New Zealand. This would be our next destination.
As we left the pancake rocks it was around 12 o'clock, and so we had plenty of time to travel. Along the way we passed into the town of Greymouth and made a stop. Now this might have beent he highlight of the entire trip. We had stopped in Greymouth to pick up some additional food, and also to find out when the next game in the Rugby World Cup was going to be on. As we got back in the van to head on our way my friend Christof had to make a pee break. So he left... and then we he came back he was raving on about how wonderful the toilet was.... being a curious fellow, I made my way to this toilet even though I did not have to really have to go. I have to say I was quite amazed. But why was it so amazing? I don't want to ruin the surprise, so keep reading on and you will find out. (as a side note, the whole time this little situation was going on, I can't help but think of my mom, and how she loves that one particular rest-stop on the way to Oswego).
So after our wonderful toilet experience we drove on. It was still quite early in the afternoon, and we passed through the town of Hokitika. Hokitika is famous because they used to have a lot of gold-mining and jade mining in the area. There were lots of shops for different jade jewelery and stuff like that. Earlier on journey we had heard of this fish that they had in the Southern part of the South Island that you could only get at certain times of the year, and it was only available in that part of New Zealand. We had been looking everywhere for this fish, but we could not find it anywhere... until we arrived in Hokitika. The fish is called Whitebait, and to be honest I did not think it was anything too special, but at least I can say I've tried it now
We got back on the road and continued driving. The plan was to get as close to the Frans Josef glacier as we could before the sun went down. We hadn't planned on arriving that night, but to our amazement we were able to reach our destination at around 6pm. After our long (and successful day) we rested.
Day 16
Of all the days I was looking forward to this one the most. I had never seen a glacier before, and so I was really excited to see them. Before we even got to the glacier I was impressed. They had a sign posted that said that back in the 1970s the glacier had gone as far as that point, and it was a few kilometers away from the glacier itself. The valley it had carved out was massive, and I felt like a pebble standing in the bottom. The glacier itself was very massive also.
After we spent some time at Frans Joseph we got in the car and drove a short ways to Lake Matheson which features one of New Zealand's most famous views. The lake has this one spot where you can see Mount Cook as well as Mt. Tasman reflected in the lake. Mount Cook is New Zealand's tallest mountain at approx. 12,283 feet high. It's an impressive sight.
We made our way back to the car and this time drove a short distance to the Fox Glacier. I really enjoyed this one a lot more than the Frans Joseph because you could get a lot closer to it, and it was even more impressive up close. You can really appreciate what you hear about global warming when you see a glacier in person. The difference between where it was and where it is now is dramatic.
We returned to the car, and made way to the north back to the outskirts of Hokitika. We had perfect timing finding a beach to park by. We made a fire on the beach and cooked beans and toast in the fire (like we had done on the Able Tasman), as the sun was setting.... and in my opinion it had been a damn near perfect day.
Day 17
The destination for the day was a place called Arthur's Pass, which the only road that goes through the Southern Alps. The road was actually pretty cool. It was called the Otira Viaduct, and it had these parts where there were like shields built above so that rocks would fall off into the mountain and not on your car. At one point there was even one of these shields, and a river came off the top of it. As we stopped at a viewing point to look at the road we encountered our first Kea bird. I had been hoping into one of them. It's a type of parrot, that are known to be particularly pesky. They will rip rubber parts of your car off and break your stuff, so we chased it off, but it was cool to see one.
We made a stop at the town of Arthur's Pass which is located on the top of the pass at approx. 3,030 feet high. While there we took a couple short hikes to some nearby waterfalls. One of them was called the Devil's Punchbowl waterfall, and it was the biggest one I'd seen so far in New Zealand. It's total height was 434 feet.
Day 18
The last few days of our trip were to spent in and around the Christchurch area. The night before we had driven most of the way back to the town, but there was still one stop we wanted to make before we returned to the city. A city near by to Christchurch is called Lyttelton.The town was located on the side of this huge mountain, and I've seen a city with so many streets that went up hill. The whole town seemed sideways. We took a hike up to the top of the mountain, and walked around the top. You could see Christchurch from the top. We also noticed that the very mountain we were standing on was connected to the same one that featured the Taylor's Mistake hike we had done on the first day. There were even some guns at the top of the mountain designed to fight off the Russians.
Back in the town they were having a farmers market, so we stopped into that. I picked up a particularly interesting piece of fruit I had never seen before, called a Custard Apple. Christof told me it was the most delicious fruit he had ever had, and highly recommended it. I can't quite describe how it looked but the Custard Apple was extremely delicious. It's hard to describe
the flavor also, but it's not really like an apple, more like a pineapple, mixed with a mango, or maybe even more like a cotton candy flavor. either way it was delicious. (here's a wikipedia link with a picture and some information about them, I highly recommend this fruit)
We had to return the campervan in the afternoon. The rest of the trip we would be staying at the backpackers we had stayed at the first night.
Day 19
Christchurch has a lot of stuff to see. The most famous is probably the Christ Church Cathedral which is located in the Cathedral Square. Unfortunately for us they were doing construction on the outside of the church (but it still looked pretty good from the outside). We were able to go inside though, and it was very nice. They had just gotten out of a church service (it was sunday morning) and we just happened to run into the head Deacon of the Church. He was a real nice guy and he chatted with us for a while about the church, and just stuff in general about Christchurch.
We also went to the Canterbury Museum, which had an interesting display about the ancient Giant Moa birds that used to live in New Zealand but were hunted to extinction.
A few other places we checked out included the Floral Clock (a clock made of flowers), the Art Museum and the Bride of Remembrance which was put up in honor of New Zealand soldiers.
Day 20
We actually had seen most of what there was to see in Christchurch, so we spent the day checking out various shops. We also had seen a Giant Chess set in the Cathedral Square, and anyone could go play. Although we had intended to play a few games, the Chess set was continually in use most of all day, so we never got a chance too. We called it an early night and went to bed early... but before bed we set our alarm clocks to 3am in the morning. Why would we set it so early you ask? We had to wake up to watch the All Blacks. vs. Scotland in the Rugby World Cup.
Earlier in the day we had come across a sports bar that was the best sports bar I have seen to date. It was called the Holy Grail. It had 3 GIANT (wall sized) TVs, and amazing seats, and it was just our luck that the World Cup Rugby game happened to be on the same day that we were in Christchurch. I never though I would ever wake up at the 3 in the morning to watch rugby... but it was definitely worth it to watch at that bar. The All Blacks won.
The final portion of the trip involved going to the Air Port where me and max (Sebastian had had an earlier flight, and Christof was leaving the next day), where we had to wait for our airplane... which ended up being about 3 hours late, but we still made it back to Auckland in one piece.
And since I believe that pictures can often speak louder than words, here are heaps of pictures from the trip:
At the arch
The arch from a distance
Entering a small cave
Dinner in the campervan
Breakfast near the Frans Joseph Glacier
Closer up picture of the Mountains
The valley cut out by the Glacier
The road through Arthur's Pass
On top of the mountain near Lyttleton
Lyttleton from the top
The Christ Church Cathedral
Christchurch
Christchurch
At the Holy Grail at 3am in the morning
Jumping for Joy
(the first day with our campervan)
When we last left off, me and my German friends had just completed the Abel Tasman Coastal Track. Here is where we continued on our incredible trip to the South Island.
Day 12
We headed south to a small town called St Arnold which is located in the Nelson Lake's region. The German girls we met on the Abel Tasman had told us about how they had stopped there, and that it was really nice, so we fiqured we should check it out. The specific lake we stopped at was called Rotoitti. The town of St Arnold itself was very small, and not too impressive, however the lake was amazing. It was surrounded by some incredible mountains, some of which had snow capped peaks. The location also had signs up that said there were kiwi birds in the area, and that there was a kiwi bird recovery project underway in the area. We paid extra attention, but we didn't have any luck actually seeing any.
Day 13
We spent most of the day on the road heading towards the west coast. We arrived at Westport around 5 or 6, and we made a short stop there at an internet cafe. Then we headed north to the town Karamea. Although this day wasn't particularly interesting, it did have a few highlights. While we were on the road the sun was starting to set, and it always rises in the east and sets in the west. Although I'd seen some amazing sunsets while on campus at Oswego (where the sun sets behind Lake Ontario), I'd never quite seen a sunset as beautiful as that one. Sunsets at the ocean are amazing. When we arrived at Karamea it was late and dark, so we found what we thought was a good place to park, made some dinner and went to bed.
Day 14
We were awoken early in the morning by a large group of cattle walking by. Since it was dark the night before, we hadn't known it at the time, but we had parked on the side of a path next to a farm. So we were quite surprised when all those cows walked by. After we got some breakfast, we made way towards the Oparara cave system which was about a 20 minute drive. The road to the caves was actually so bad that we decided to park the campervan on the side of the road and walk the rest of the way. We probably walked about 9 kilometers till we actually got to the cave area. The Oparara cave system features many limestone formations and arches. One of the arches we saw was the Oparara Arch and it was 141 feet high and 719 feet long.... it was quite impressive. The end of the day was particularly interesting, because we had parked so far away, and by that point we all did not want to walk back. We had the good luck though that a DOC (department of conservation) truck was going by, and we waved it down, and they actually let us ride in the back of their truck to our campervan. We rode for about 25 minutes in the truck, so I can't even imagine how long it would have taken for us to walk. We then drove on to our next location in the town of Punakaiki.
Day 15
Before I left America, I met with a friend of mine in my town who had lived in Australia for 6 years, and in New Zealand for 6 months. Mrs. Hughes had showed me many pictures and told me many tales about her journeys to australia and New Zealand. One of those places she had told me about that stuck in my mind in particular was the Pancake Rocks located in Punakaiki. So I was pretty excited to be able to actually see what she had told me about.
The pancake rocks are basically these huge rock formations that are out at sea. They are pilled in layers on top of each other, and so in a way they kind of resemble pancakes. It was pretty cool to watch the ocean smash up against them. One of the formations has a big hole in it, and when the high tide is coming in, if the waves hit it right water shots out of the hole and makes a "geyser". We did not actually get to see that too well, because it wasn't high tide. It was still very interesting though. I also happened to see a couple of dolphins swimming around, and this was the first time I had seen dolphins since I had arrived in New Zealand.
Off in the distance we could see the snowed capped peaks of the mighty Southern Alps of New Zealand. This would be our next destination.
As we left the pancake rocks it was around 12 o'clock, and so we had plenty of time to travel. Along the way we passed into the town of Greymouth and made a stop. Now this might have beent he highlight of the entire trip. We had stopped in Greymouth to pick up some additional food, and also to find out when the next game in the Rugby World Cup was going to be on. As we got back in the van to head on our way my friend Christof had to make a pee break. So he left... and then we he came back he was raving on about how wonderful the toilet was.... being a curious fellow, I made my way to this toilet even though I did not have to really have to go. I have to say I was quite amazed. But why was it so amazing? I don't want to ruin the surprise, so keep reading on and you will find out. (as a side note, the whole time this little situation was going on, I can't help but think of my mom, and how she loves that one particular rest-stop on the way to Oswego).
So after our wonderful toilet experience we drove on. It was still quite early in the afternoon, and we passed through the town of Hokitika. Hokitika is famous because they used to have a lot of gold-mining and jade mining in the area. There were lots of shops for different jade jewelery and stuff like that. Earlier on journey we had heard of this fish that they had in the Southern part of the South Island that you could only get at certain times of the year, and it was only available in that part of New Zealand. We had been looking everywhere for this fish, but we could not find it anywhere... until we arrived in Hokitika. The fish is called Whitebait, and to be honest I did not think it was anything too special, but at least I can say I've tried it now
We got back on the road and continued driving. The plan was to get as close to the Frans Josef glacier as we could before the sun went down. We hadn't planned on arriving that night, but to our amazement we were able to reach our destination at around 6pm. After our long (and successful day) we rested.
Day 16
Of all the days I was looking forward to this one the most. I had never seen a glacier before, and so I was really excited to see them. Before we even got to the glacier I was impressed. They had a sign posted that said that back in the 1970s the glacier had gone as far as that point, and it was a few kilometers away from the glacier itself. The valley it had carved out was massive, and I felt like a pebble standing in the bottom. The glacier itself was very massive also.
After we spent some time at Frans Joseph we got in the car and drove a short ways to Lake Matheson which features one of New Zealand's most famous views. The lake has this one spot where you can see Mount Cook as well as Mt. Tasman reflected in the lake. Mount Cook is New Zealand's tallest mountain at approx. 12,283 feet high. It's an impressive sight.
We made our way back to the car and this time drove a short distance to the Fox Glacier. I really enjoyed this one a lot more than the Frans Joseph because you could get a lot closer to it, and it was even more impressive up close. You can really appreciate what you hear about global warming when you see a glacier in person. The difference between where it was and where it is now is dramatic.
We returned to the car, and made way to the north back to the outskirts of Hokitika. We had perfect timing finding a beach to park by. We made a fire on the beach and cooked beans and toast in the fire (like we had done on the Able Tasman), as the sun was setting.... and in my opinion it had been a damn near perfect day.
Day 17
The destination for the day was a place called Arthur's Pass, which the only road that goes through the Southern Alps. The road was actually pretty cool. It was called the Otira Viaduct, and it had these parts where there were like shields built above so that rocks would fall off into the mountain and not on your car. At one point there was even one of these shields, and a river came off the top of it. As we stopped at a viewing point to look at the road we encountered our first Kea bird. I had been hoping into one of them. It's a type of parrot, that are known to be particularly pesky. They will rip rubber parts of your car off and break your stuff, so we chased it off, but it was cool to see one.
We made a stop at the town of Arthur's Pass which is located on the top of the pass at approx. 3,030 feet high. While there we took a couple short hikes to some nearby waterfalls. One of them was called the Devil's Punchbowl waterfall, and it was the biggest one I'd seen so far in New Zealand. It's total height was 434 feet.
Day 18
The last few days of our trip were to spent in and around the Christchurch area. The night before we had driven most of the way back to the town, but there was still one stop we wanted to make before we returned to the city. A city near by to Christchurch is called Lyttelton.The town was located on the side of this huge mountain, and I've seen a city with so many streets that went up hill. The whole town seemed sideways. We took a hike up to the top of the mountain, and walked around the top. You could see Christchurch from the top. We also noticed that the very mountain we were standing on was connected to the same one that featured the Taylor's Mistake hike we had done on the first day. There were even some guns at the top of the mountain designed to fight off the Russians.
Back in the town they were having a farmers market, so we stopped into that. I picked up a particularly interesting piece of fruit I had never seen before, called a Custard Apple. Christof told me it was the most delicious fruit he had ever had, and highly recommended it. I can't quite describe how it looked but the Custard Apple was extremely delicious. It's hard to describe
the flavor also, but it's not really like an apple, more like a pineapple, mixed with a mango, or maybe even more like a cotton candy flavor. either way it was delicious. (here's a wikipedia link with a picture and some information about them, I highly recommend this fruit)
We had to return the campervan in the afternoon. The rest of the trip we would be staying at the backpackers we had stayed at the first night.
Day 19
Christchurch has a lot of stuff to see. The most famous is probably the Christ Church Cathedral which is located in the Cathedral Square. Unfortunately for us they were doing construction on the outside of the church (but it still looked pretty good from the outside). We were able to go inside though, and it was very nice. They had just gotten out of a church service (it was sunday morning) and we just happened to run into the head Deacon of the Church. He was a real nice guy and he chatted with us for a while about the church, and just stuff in general about Christchurch.
We also went to the Canterbury Museum, which had an interesting display about the ancient Giant Moa birds that used to live in New Zealand but were hunted to extinction.
A few other places we checked out included the Floral Clock (a clock made of flowers), the Art Museum and the Bride of Remembrance which was put up in honor of New Zealand soldiers.
Day 20
We actually had seen most of what there was to see in Christchurch, so we spent the day checking out various shops. We also had seen a Giant Chess set in the Cathedral Square, and anyone could go play. Although we had intended to play a few games, the Chess set was continually in use most of all day, so we never got a chance too. We called it an early night and went to bed early... but before bed we set our alarm clocks to 3am in the morning. Why would we set it so early you ask? We had to wake up to watch the All Blacks. vs. Scotland in the Rugby World Cup.
Earlier in the day we had come across a sports bar that was the best sports bar I have seen to date. It was called the Holy Grail. It had 3 GIANT (wall sized) TVs, and amazing seats, and it was just our luck that the World Cup Rugby game happened to be on the same day that we were in Christchurch. I never though I would ever wake up at the 3 in the morning to watch rugby... but it was definitely worth it to watch at that bar. The All Blacks won.
The final portion of the trip involved going to the Air Port where me and max (Sebastian had had an earlier flight, and Christof was leaving the next day), where we had to wait for our airplane... which ended up being about 3 hours late, but we still made it back to Auckland in one piece.
And since I believe that pictures can often speak louder than words, here are heaps of pictures from the trip:
Lake Rotoitti
Another picture at Lake Rotoitti
Sunset on the West Coast
By the Beach as the Sun Sets
Another picture of a sunset
The Pancake rocks
The rocks up close
Another shot of the rocks
Sunset on the West CoastBy the Beach as the Sun Sets
Another picture of a sunsetThe Pancake rocksThe rocks up closeAnother shot of the rocks
The king.
At the archThe arch from a distanceEntering a small caveDinner in the campervanBreakfast near the Frans Joseph GlacierThe Frans Joseph Glacier
Mount Cook and Mount Tasman
Closer up picture of the MountainsGroup picture at the Fox Glacier
Ice from the Glacier
The valley cut out by the GlacierThe glacier from a distance
Our fire on the beach
The road through Arthur's PassOn top of the mountain near LyttletonLyttleton from the topThe Christ Church Cathedral
Christchurch
Christchurch
At the Holy Grail at 3am in the morning
Jumping for Joy
(the first day with our campervan)
I'm an incredibly lucky man to have been able to go on this trip. It was so amazing. I have actually decided to stay in New Zealand for a month longer than I had planned, and once school is out I will head back down to the South to see a few places I missed the first time. It will be another epic adventure for sure.
I will have an update tomorrow with some things that I've been doing since the trip.
For now enjoy these videos:
I will have an update tomorrow with some things that I've been doing since the trip.
For now enjoy these videos:
On the Road
(also the title of one of my favorite books)
(also the title of one of my favorite books)
The Haka (recorded at the Holy Grail bar)
The Toilet at Greymouth (narrated by Christof)
Cheers,
Shawn
Shawn
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