I wrote this item as a guest post for Janet’s blog, the taste space, where it was posted this morning. Since I wrote it, I feel justified cross-posting it on my own blog, too!
A couple of weeks ago, I visited one of the health food shops in Kensington Market. I had a craving for tempeh. I hadn’t had it in a while. None of the shops in my neighbourhood (Yonge and Eglinton) seem to carry it. As such, I picked up a couple packages and brought them home.
I have randomly tried to prepare tempeh while traveling. I didn’t really know what I was doing and usually just fried it to enjoy its simple flavour: denser and meatier than tofu; maybe a little nuttier. I know I could do better once I was armed with my own kitchen. What was I to do? I asked Janet for recommendations. She confessed that she’s never tried tempeh before. Oh my! She’s a clever one, though, and was still able to make some suggestions for me. This recipe for Maple Grilled Tempeh looked very intriguing to me. Since I don’t have any maple syrup (what kind of weak Canadian am I, anyways?) or rice vinegar, or a proper grill to cook these on, I decided to adapt the recipe and created the marinade listed below.
Oh wow! These were tasty! They were bursting with flavour!
The first time I had these, I had some parathas and steamed broccoli on the side, which is very typical for me. I didn’t choose the broccoli for its complementary qualities to my tempeh; but simply since I usually have some in the fridge and it’s my favourite vegetable anyways. Parathas are just delicious… period. I might have chosen rice as my starchy side, but I my rice cooker is currently out on loan.
These marinated and fried tempeh pieces were great when they were fresh. As leftovers, however, there was much to be desired. They had dried out and weren’t nearly so flavourful. Eat these fresh, or don’t eat them at all!
The following weekend, I planned on going to Olympic Island with Janet and her friend, Marina, to see Arcade Fire play a show. The concert was really great! This blog isn’t a music blog, though. It’s a food blog. You’re certainly not interested in any concerts.
I’ve read somewhere that tempeh is great as a meat substitute in sandwiches. Now that was my master plan!
We preceded the show with a picnic. The picnic was really great, too! I decided to take on the task of bringing sandwiches by combining the same marinated tempeh with alfalfa sprouts and cucumber on ciabatta bread. In my head, it sounded like a match made in heaven. It worked out just fine! This recipe is not one that I found anywhere. I just thought it would work…. it looks like it did!
Oh. What does “CAT” stand for? Cucumber, Alfalfa, and Tempeh, of course! What did you think it could be?
Ingredients
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp honey
2 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed, and chopped finely
1 pinch of chili flakes (Aleppo chilies recommended)
1 package tempeh (240 g)
1/2 cucumber, peeled and washed
Alfalfa sprouts
1 load ciabatta bread – or similar
Instructions
1. Mix the soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, honey, garlic, and chili together in a bowl in order to create the marinade.
2. Cut the tempeh lengthwise into two halves. Cut each half into four triangles.
3. Marinate the pieces of tempeh in the marinade for at least half an hour.
4. Fry the tempeh in a non-stick pan on medium to high heat. Spoon the remaining marinade onto the tempeh pieces.
5. Assemble sandwiches with the tempeh, cucumber, and alfalfa sprouts on the bread.
The photos above show the sandwiches with unpeeled cucumber. I later remade one with peeled cucumber pieces and it was much better. That’s why I’ve written this recipe with the peeled cucumber.
Makes four big sandwiches – enough to feed four to eight people.
March 13, 2009 – AGAIN
Today was quite an active day! I’ve lots to write about!
I didn’t have to leave the Ariana Bungalows until 10 AM and the crowing roosters woke me up around 7 AM, so I had plenty of time for breakfast, instant coffee, reading, writing, and enjoyment of my sweet solitude. For breakfast, I had this bright and beautiful papaya.
Papaya
I really did have solitude here. It seemed like there was only one other guest at the bungalows and he seemed busy working as a plumber, so it really felt that I had the whole place to myself. Indeed, it was the low season in the Cooks. No wonder I was able to get such a cheap flight on Air New Zealand to get here. High season was during the winter “Down Under”, which in this context includes both New Zealand and Australia.
I got my ride to the airport’s domestic terminal and checked in for my flight to Atiu, almost 200 km northeast of Rarotonga. The airport was fairly small, mostly open to the outdoors, and had chickens and roosters running around. I was originally scheduled to fly tomorrow, but for whatever reason, Air Rarotonga decided to move my flight forward by one day. Also, for whatever reason, Air Rarotonga decided that my flight should stop at the nearby island of Mitiaro (25 km north of Atiu) before getting to Atiu. My island hopping tour was going to include a free extra island!
There was only one other tourist in the airport waiting area (I’d be hesitant to call it a “waiting room” since it was partly outside) and we soon started talking. Her name was Verena and she was a German now living in New Zealand. By coincidence, she was staying for five days at the same place as me on Atiu and for three days at the same place as me on Aitutaki. That’s pretty random!
The flight was beautiful. Blue skies. Blue seas. Towering fluffy white clouds. A tiny airplane. Along the way to the island of Mitiaro, we flew past the island of Atiu. The island was tiny and I was able to capture it all in one photograph.
The Island of Atiu
My flight in the tiny Embraer Bandeirante airplane was less than an hour. We touched down on the patchy and bumpy asphalt runway on Mitiaro. The airport buildings simply consisted of one shack. We were only on the ground for about ten minutes. I jumped out of the plane and ran to the bathroom — which was consisted of only a dirty concrete outhouse. I marvelled at the fresh sea breezes and tropical flowers. This group of local people were waiting to meet the airplane.
Mitiaro People
Mitiaro seemed quite nice — even smaller and quieter than the already small and quiet Atiu. I might have to return someday!
Somehow, everyone on the plane was greeted by these people and received necklaces and wreathes made from fresh flowers called ‘eis. A few people disembarked the flight at Mitiaro, and the rest of us piled back into the plane for the remaining ten minute hop to Atiu. The plane was filled with the perfume of fresh flowers. Some people were carrying potted plants to give as gifts to people on Atiu and I had to keep one of them on my lap as we were flying this final hop.
Finally, we landed on the bumpy runway of Atiu. The airport here was, too, little more than a shack.
Atiu Airport
Flying has lost much of its lustre and adventure for me. I’ve flown on far too many flights! Today’s flights, however, were more of a genuine adventure, so I’ve devoted more writing to them. I hope you enjoyed hearing about them. It was really an exciting time for me.
Juergen, the owner of my chosen guesthouse, the Are Manuiri, greeted Verena and I at the airport. Finally I received my own ‘ei. We drove out in his van, past the harbour — nothing more than a tiny artificial square lagoon enclosed in crumbling concrete walls. There weren’t any ships in it. Juergen told us that this was the best swimming spot on the island. I found that hard to believe, at first. The walls were shear, and the water inside was rough. The waves crashed at the the harbour entrance and sloshed around inside. I’d never want to jump into that (I’m not a good swimmer anyways)! Other local people later confirmed that, indeed, they did swim here. Crazy.
Juergen, a German man who now lives on Atiu, told us that we’d have to boil our own drinking water. I was somewhat annoyed since I assumed we’d be able to drink the rainwater directly. Apparently the plumbing in the house was a bit old and Juergen no longer trusted it. The guesthouse was a quiet place since we were the only two people staying there.
We wanted to go to a shop to check out the wares for sale, but we discovered that they were always closed in the middle of the afternoon. Instead we chilled for a few hours and absorbed the brochures and folders full of information about stuff to do on the island. I found an entertaining book on the bookshelf: “I Nicked Brehznev’s Brick” by Rob Shannon — a Kiwi’s tale of his four years of backpacking trips over Asia, North America, North Africa, and Australia from 1971-1974. He roughed it way more than I did: lots of hitchhiking sleeping on beaches, working, and getting a crazy intestinal parasite in India that almost killed him. My other book, “Idoru”, was put on hold until I finished this one.
Finally, we went to the tiny shop to discover how very little there was for sale. The supply ship was overdue. The whole island was out of flour. There was no produce since everyone grew their own and fruit trees were ubiquitous. Unlike the islands of Rarotonga or Aitutaki, no one owned the fruit trees and any fresh fruit on them or fallen by the roadside was free for the taking. The shopkeeper, Auntie Momo, encouraged us to roam and graze freely, but also promised to stop by the guesthouse in the morning to bring us some fruit.
I’m so happy that I loaded up on food at the supermarket in Rarotonga! I love tropical fruit, but I don’t think I’d be able to live off of it for five straight days. There was only one restaurant on the island, and it was only open for dinner, so that wasn’t a sustainable option.
We did go for a short walk in the afternoon. I saw a cloud that looked like Canada and we saw lots of fruit trees. We discovered the location of some guava and starfruit trees and some bushes with passionfruit in our very own front yard.
Later that evening, Verena and I pooled our groceries together to try and produce dinner. It was very classy: tomato sauce, green beans, and carrots on soba noodles. Partway through the cooking we discovered that that propane bottle fueling the stove ran out and we had to call Juergen to come and bring us more.
Even later, we discovered that we were living in a bit of a zoo. We had to open the windows somewhat to air the place out after the gas bottle replenishment. There were screens on the windows, but they had some holes that opens up when the windows were open so lots of mozzies flew in. We also found a bunch of fat cockroaches (once which I splattered across the kitchen linoleum floor with a book), and a 20 cm long centipede which we crushed and split in twain with a frying pan (definitely a group effort).
Verena was completely freaked out and became very very paranoid. I was annoyed by both the bugs and her wussiness, but I had stayed in dodgier places before, so I wasn’t seriously fazed. We both had some vodka to calm down and chatted and laughed until 2 AM before I shrugged off and went to bed. I think Verena wanted me to stay up as long as I could to keep her mind off of the infestation, but I ran out of steam and had to go to bed.
I had my own room and used the fan to keep the air moving, but it was still pretty warm. Apparently Verena slept with the lights on in her room. The next day she told me that she found some more roaches in the middle of the night, screamed loudly, and bludgeoned them with the frying pan, but I didn’t hear anything… I was sleeping!
–
Rob Szumlakowski
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
March 13, 2009 – The First One
Bah! My alarm woke me up with a start in the middle of a dream. It was way too flippin’ early: 5:50 AM. I skipped the shower. I didn’t put on hair gel. Just deodorant and clean clothes and I was out the door. I must have been some sight. It wasn’t even light out yet! I didn’t even eat! *shock*
My bus to the airport left the city centre of Christchurch at 6:30 AM. This bus was no airport express: simply a local bus. It took half and hour to get there and cost NZ$7.
I checked into my flight. I had a one hour and twenty minute flight to Auckland, starting at 8 AM, followed by a short layover, then a four hour flight to Rarotonga from there. The ticket agent advised me that there probably wouldn’t be a meal on my first flight. That made me sad so I grabbed a coffee, muffin, and sandwich at the airport cafeteria. I felt like I was in such a rush that I didn’t even have time to drink my hot coffee and got them to dilute it with some cold water. How sad. I then went through security, got to the waiting room with a few minutes to spare. Perfect timing…..
Or not! Apparently I didn’t actually look very closely at my ticket since it very clearly said my flight was supposed to leave at 8:40 AM. Idiot! I could have had more sleep… and a shower… and a better breakfast. Alas. Anyways, I picked up a free copy of The Press, Christchurch’s daily newspaper. As always, the coverage of the world news in the NZ media was somewhat poor.
The flight was short and fine. I sat in a window seat. Kristina, a German girl who was staying in the same room as me at Hogwartz, was in the aisle seat of the same row. Some Kiwi guy sat in between us. The three of us talked quite a bit, which is very unusual for me. I’m rarely talkative on flights.
We landed at the Auckland domestic terminal. I exited the terminal and walked 900 metres to the international terminal. Air New Zealand interlined my bag for me, so I didn’t have to carry it. I already had my boarding pass. That’s nice. All I had to do was go straight to security. I visited the duty free shop to buy a 1 litre bottle of 42 Below kiwifruit flavoured vodka for only NZ$48 (CA$33). That’s a great price since 0.5 litre bottles are usually NZ$36 to NZ$44 in regular bottle shops. I also purchased some new moss-top flip flops. Thank goodness… I couldn’t go to any tropical islands without flip flops!
My flight was annoying. The people I was sitting beside were very annoying. I was on an airplane filled with tourists. Oh god. At least the shiny new Boeing 777 plane was kitted out with seatback TVs to entertain me. I watched “Burn Before Reading” (okay), an episode of “The Big Bang Theory”, the Flight of the Conchords HBO special and the episode from season 2 of Flight of the Conchords where Brett and Jemaine become prostitutes.
Part way through this flight, the airplane passed over the International Date Line. Since we were moving eastwards, that meant that the day changed to…
March 12, 2009 – AGAIN
We landed in Rarotonga in the afternoon. The timezone was now six hours BEHIND Toronto instead of eighteen hours AHEAD.
The Cook Islands are the thirtieth country I’ve been to (assuming that Macau and Hong Kong are part of the same country, China, even though I had to use my passport to go between them). I didn’t really count countries very closely before. Thirty is probably more than most people will ever go to. I’m sure I can get many more! Which country will be my fortieth? How long will it take for me to get there? Not any time soon, however. My rate of traveling will surely be reduced in the next few years.
The Cook Islands are a rather obscure place. Perhaps you’ve never even heard of them? The country consists of fifteen small specks of land in the South Pacific Ocean — located approximately between Tahiti and New Zealand. The Cooks are in the same time zone as Hawaii, about the same distance south of the Equator as the Hawaiian Islands are north of the Equator. This tiny country uses the same currency as New Zealand: the New Zealand Dollar.
I like clicking the zoom out button on the map. It takes many many clicks before you can tell where the Cooks are. It shows how far from the rest of the world they really are.
My plan here: do some island hopping. Rarotonga is the main island — that’s the starting place. Air Rarotonga is the Cook Island’s domestic airline. It flies to many of the individual islands from Rarotonga. It does, however, run one other flight between a pair of islands: Atiu to Aitutaki. So, taking advantage of that flight, I could fly in a triangle and visit three islands.
I had booked a night’s accommodation at the Ariana Bungalows. I had originally booked two nights, but Air Rarotonga decided to change my flight to Atiu to the day before. My initial time on Rarotonga would be very short — less than twenty-four hours. The owner of the bungalows met me at the airport to pick me up. She advised me that since I’m going to the outer islands where there are often shortages I should stock up on food while I’m still on the mainland. It’s funny how the term “mainland” is always relative. In the Cook Islands, the tiny island of Rarotonga (only 12 km long) is called the mainland. All of the other islands in the country are the Outer Islands.
So, we stopped at a supermarket in Avarua (the main settlement on Rarotonga) to stock up on portable, but boring, food. We also stopped at the Telecom office to inquire about purchasing a SIM card for my mobile phone. I decided to not get one since there’s no coverage on the island of Atiu. No +682 phone number for me.
If Rarotonga was a clock, the airport would be at 10 o’clock. Avarua would be at 12. The Ariana Bungalows would be at 1. My airport pickup and dropoff the next morning would cost me NZ$30. It seems a bit dear considering it’s only a twelve minute drive, one-way. I think, though, that the fact that the owner of the bungalows stopped at the supermarket and waited for me to do some grocery shopping was nice. We also stopped on the way at a road-side stand to pick up some papaya.
I actually booked myself my own private bungalow that night. It was expensive, NZ$80 (CA$55), but it was pretty nice. My own kitchen! My own bathroom! My own bedroom! My own patio! Mine! No sharing! The ocean wasn’t nearby, but there was a swimming pool right in front of my bungalow. I went for a bit of a swim and let the jets massage my nethers (tee hee).
The owner showed me a brand new fruit that was in season and was grown all over the Cooks: starfruit! It was called “raparapa” in the local Cook Island Māori language. It was nice, juicy, and had a decent flavour. She said you could eat the whole thing, but the centre had these stringy bits that I didn’t like as much. It’s a decent fruit, but not as good as mango. It was too bad that mango was out of season. Before coming to Rarotonga I was dreaming of the bounty of mangoes that I would eat. Alas, it was not to happen.
Before bed I enjoyed some of my kiwifruit vodka, worked on my journal, played some Nintendo DS and read William Gibson’s “Idoru” for a while. I wasn’t feeling as asocial as I was a couple of weeks ago, but it sure was nice to revel in my own solitude for once, even if I had to pay for it. There were many other people staying at the bungalows, anyways.
–
Rob Sz
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
March 11, 2009
Today was my last day in Dunedin. I was taking a coach to Christchurch in the afternoon, so I had many hours to kill. After waking up I finished packing so that I could check out of my room. My pack was so light now!! It weighed only 13 kg. Finally, I was back on track for travelling light.
Today was the coldest, rainiest and windiest day that I experienced in New Zealand. It was merely 5ºC, and only -2ºC with the wind chill. Later, I learned that it was actually snowing in the hills outside Dunedin. YUCK. Summer was really finished on the South Island. I think it was a sign that it was time for me to go.
During a break in the rain, I rushed over to Modak’s Café for more good coffee. They played pretty excellent music last time I was there. They were playing some kind of reggae music today, which I didn’t abhor as much as I used to. I think going to Fiji and riding on the Whitesnake bus cured me of that. Some of it was pretty listenable, too. It always reminds me of the Rastas in Neuromancer, which I was craving to read again. I was out of the book trading business now, though. I picked up Idoru (also by William Gibson) from the bookshelf in Hogwartz. With the other three books I picked up at the used book store, I had four books to read over the last few weeks of my trip. All these books would go back to Canada and sit on my own bookshelf.
After the café I talked to my mother and father on the phone for a while before walking over to a Japanese restaurant with the intent of getting more okonomiyaki. As I walked into the place and was scanning the menu, the waitress came over and touched my arm. It was the cute Japanese girl who was making cupcakes in the hostel kitchen the day before. I chatted with her for a while. Her name was Yuko and she was from Osaka. She didn’t like Osaka because it was too busy and there were too many people there. She said that she like New Zealand a lot and would try to stay there. Good luck Yuko!
It seems that lots of people had come to Dunedin to try and find work. Aurelie, my French roommate in the hostel, was supposed to go to interviews at some recruiter today.
For lunch, I had Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki for the first time. It seemed to use less batter and more cabbage than the Kansai-style okonomiyaki that I was used to. There was also a fried egg on top! Yummy! I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture of it.
After lunch I returned to the hostel and picked up my pack. I caught the bus in front of the train station. For the first part of the six hour bus trip I chatted with the driver and the old lady in the front of the bus with me. Later, I got bored with that and just listened to my iPod. The bus a couple short breaks in both Oamaru and Timaru. Oamaru is famous for its penguins, which I could see when I gazed across the harbour. They were far away and small. I did not get a good picture of them.
Also in Oamaru, I had my last meat pie in New Zealand. I guess I had a lot of them, but my favourites were the big farmer’s pie I had in Waitomo and the venison one I had in Te Anau. NEW ZEALAND, I MISS YOUR PIES.
I got into Christchurch a few minutes ahead of schedule and walked quickly to my hostel, Foley’s Towers (the place I stayed at the first time I was in Christchurch). I wanted to get there before the office closed at 9 PM. I helped a sick guy carry his heavy bag to his room and the office lady gave me my bed linens for free, saving me NZ$5. Sweet!
I quickly walked over to Dux de Lux pub to attend Stefan van Georg’s birthday extravaganza (whom I had originally met in Fiji, but ran across a couple more times in New Zealand). I had the Blue Duck beer (it was quacktastic) and the tasty nachos that Inna Friend enjoyed so much the last time we were here. Stefan was working at some software development job that he wasn’t enjoying. Some of his coworkers were there, too. There were two Canadians. One of them, Barbara, was born in Woodstock (just like me!) but grew up in Tillsonburg before moving to Toronto. She says she didn’t like Toronto — it was too busy and there were too many people. She didn’t like the hipsters, either. I guess that’s why she was in New Zealand now!
There was an Israeli girl there who was shocked that I could pick out her nationality. By this point in my trip, I had seen so many Israelis that I could identify them with ease. When she asked me if I could speak any other languages I said “Polish”. Very stunned, she asked me, “Why?” That stunned me! It’s my belief that it’s always helpful to know more languages. Apparently, her father was Polish, but moved to Israel and only spoke Hebrew now. Their viewpoint was that your former language was useless once you moved to Israel. That’s quite an arrogant attitude, I think.
It ended up being a fun night since, even though I was hanging out with tourists, we didn’t discuss much touristy garbage. Why didn’t I go out drinking and partying with people more often? I had been such a loner lately. Hopefully I would find fun people in the Cook Islands. I didn’t really know what to expect when I got there. I always had different experiences on all the islands I visited.
We visited another pub (the Vespa Bar) after Dux de Lux, but I didn’t stay there long before I got bored and returned to my hostel. Thankfully, I didn’t have to sleep on any bunk beds, but I did discover that I had a snorer in my room. I didn’t sleep very well that night. It didn’t help that I had to keep getting up to pee. Stupid beer!
March 12, 2009 – The First Time
Today was my last full day in New Zealand. I was flying to the Cook Islands tomorrow. Since I was crossing the International Date Line, I was going to experience both March 12 and March 13 two times. Today was the first instance of March 12, 2009.
Since today was going to be my last day in a city for the next two weeks, today was mostly a “taking care of business” day. I did a whole lots of things:
By the time I got back to my room at 6 PM, it was party over for me. My American old man roommate (how come there were so many old men in this backpacker’s hostel? Weird) was listening to Feist’s “The Reminder’ on a wee stereo. That made me happy. He was talking to some woman from Montreal. We discovered that we had been to the same Arcade Fire concert in Montreal on May 12, 2007. They went out for dinner and I stayed behind, listening to Feist. I packed up my stuff and set my alarm for 5:50 AM so I could make it to the airport. I went to bed at 10 PM.
–
Rob Szumlakowski
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
March 8, 2009
Ben made a great breakfast today: french toast with real Canadian maple syrup! He used a bit of vanilla extract in the french toast, which was a nice touch. We also had “American Streaky Bacon”, which is just regular bacon. The Kiwis had a funny name for it. I was amused. Streaky!
Ben needed to go to Dunedin to pick up some polyporps (thermal underwear) for his upcoming school trip to the Catlins. I needed to go there anyways so he offered to give me a ride. We drove on the Southern Scenic Route to get there, which was rather pretty. We ended up at St. Clair Beach for lunch. The weather was cool and windy so no one was using the beach for swimming. There were numerous people windsurfing up and down the shore, though. After some lasagna at the Esplanade Restaurant, Ben dropped me off at my backpackers hostel, Hogwartz.
This hostel was in a grand old mansion overlooking the city centre and Catholic cathedral. It was quite an excellent place! I had a four-share room with no bunks. This place was the third in a row that I’ve had the luxury of sleeping in an unstacked bed. It was cheap, too, only NZ$23/night (CA$16). The only problem was the draught. The room was quite chilly. Thankfully, I had thick blankets to sleep under.
I moseyed on down to the Countdown supermarket to get food. The weather continued to be cool, drippy, and blustery, so I didn’t stay out very long. For dinner, I had some kind of vegetable soup.
The place had a good collection of DVDs and I discussed with Erica, from New Jersey, about which movies to watch. We ended up picking Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which I’ve officially renamed to “The Harry Potter Babies”. We also picked Amélie, but I was too tired after Harry Potter, so I went to bed.
March 9, 2009
I had some mild ambitions to go sightseeing today, so I walked around the charming city centre a bit and took photos. The weather wasn’t very cooperative. It would alternate from raining and no rain, and traverse the entire continuum in between. Sometimes the sky would be sunny, an sometimes it was overcast. Somewhat illogically, though, these periods did not coincide neatly. Sometimes it was raining heaps, but with a sunny sky. This pattern held true for most of my three days in Dunedin. It did result in the occasional rainbow, though.
Cathedral in Dunedin
Plaza in the Octagon
I spent several hours that day at Modak’s Café. It seems that visiting the arty café in each city was my newest hobby. I enjoyed a chocolate ristretto (something like an espresso and some super-sweet chocolate syrup) and a blueberry yogurt muffin. Putting yogurt on top of muffins before baking them seemed to be a common practice in New Zealand. I’d enjoy trying a muffin like that again! The café had some very cool paintings for sale. I was very tempted to buy them. I was even pressured my Meps over SMS to get them. She’s certainly a bad influence. I was strong, though, and resisted the temptation to spend money on the big expensive things.
After the café I went over to the famous Cadbury’s factory. Their chocolate was very good (much better than any Cadbury’s in Canada) and I wanted to buy chocolate at the giftshop. There was also a tour of the factory. I heard it wasn’t very good and didn’t want to pay NZ$14 for the privilege of seeing some machines. The gift shop was only open for people who took the tour. Bah! I crossed the road to the Countdown Supermarket and purchased my chocolate there, instead.
Even though I didn’t get the painting at the café, I was definitely in a rare souvenir buying mode. Not only did I pick up large amounts of chocolate, I bought a Vintage Rock T-Shirts picture book at a comic book store, some posters at a record shop, and some more books at a used book store. I also went to an actual souvenir shop to buy some paua shells to give as gifts and a small stuffed lamb to give to baby Colin Lee.
I did continue my sightseeing expedition that day to the beautiful old train station. The building was gorgeous and harkened back to the age of steam when trains ran from here north to Christchurch and beyond. Trains did still run from this station, but they were only tourist trains that ran into the nearby hills.
Dunedin Train Station
For dinner, I was finally able to satisfy my cravings for Japanese food. There were many Japanese restaurants in Dunedin! I assume it was to cater to large numbers of tourists. The place I went to was a proper looking izakaya where I had some yakisoba and Kansai-style okonomiyaki.
On the way back to the hostel, I walked through The Octagon (the centre of Dunedin) where I ran into Erica again. We chatted for a bit on a park bench. She was waiting for her friend Paul to come by so they could watch “Slumdog Millionaire”. They let me tag along. What a great movie! Although… for a movie with that many Indians, there certainly wasn’t a lot of dancing.
I’m happy to say that it seems like most of my travel depression was resolved. I wasn’t hiding from everyone anymore. I was happy to talk to other backpackers again. My quiet time on Stewart Island and visiting my old friend Ben in Balclutha seemed to do the trick. Being able to sleep in non-bunk beds definitely helped, too.
March 10, 2009
I did so much stuff the day before! It felt like a great accomplishment! I still had the ability to do proper sightseeing! There was still hope for me, after all. Today, however, wasn’t a very eventful day. I needed to rest!
At noon, I joined the English couple, Alex and Louise, from the hostel for a tour at nearby Speight’s Brewery. As far as brewery tours go (and I’ve been on quite a few), this one was quite decent. The brewery still used many old-timey copper brewing vessels that were very handsome.
Speight's Brewery
I was disappointed to learn that sugar is added to the beer during the brewing process. That makes the beer seem less authentic to me, somehow. They showed us some videos of some TV commercials that were produced several years ago and featured the iconic New Zealand “Southern Man” — the closest thing in New Zealand to a cowboy. These commercials portrayed the Southern Man as a hardened outdoorsman who preferred beer, the rugged wilderness, and sheep to cities and even the company of women (though they still would have acknowledged that Southern Women are the best). Many of these ads have made it to YouTube and can be seen there.
After the tour, many samples were proffered, of course. I enjoyed the Harvest Ale — a limited summer apricot and wheat brew. It was filtered to remove the cloudiness typical of most wheat beers. My favourite Speight’s was the Distinction Ale. It was just flippin’ tasty! Just before we were released from the tour, I got to try my hand at pouring a couple of draughts myself!
The Bartender
I went to a nearby pub with Alex, Louise, and a random English couple who were on a cruise and stopped in the city. I indulged myself by having a great meat pie for lunch. The ones in New Zealand are certainly the best that I’ve had.
After all the beer-tourism was complete, I returned to the hostel to write in my journal and prepare a big pile of stuff to be mailed home. In addition to the stuff I bought in Dunedin, I also sent home some t-shirts, some sweaters, and my huge hiking boots. It added up to 10 kg worth of stuff! It cost NZ$160 (CA$110) to mail it back to Canada! Ouch! It would be very nice, though, to finally lighten my load.
That night, before bed, I chatted with my two roommates: Sam (a girl from Ireland) and Aurelie (a tall and cute French girl!). Aurelie had a Daft Punk t-shirt which she wore to bed and proudly showed off. I was impressed and countered with my Garbage t-shirt. We discussed matters of Daft Punk for a while (truly a legendary band) and traveling in Asia. I confessed that one of my few regrets on my trip was that I spent too much time in Australia and not enough time in Asia. Of course, by the end of my time in Asia, I was all to eager to get out of there.
–
Rob Szumlakowski
Toronto, Ontario, Canada