NZ: Day 14
Got up and grabbed breakfast as Pandora, a muffin shop in Wellington that the girl at the hotel counter gushed over. It was pretty good; had a sun-dried tomato muffin. Then we headed out of Wellington and drove north up to the Rotorua area. Got in a spent an hour or so relaxing the Polynesian thermal spa there. I tried to schedule a massage, but they were all booked up alas. But lounging in the thermal water was fun. Then it was off to the hotel we were staying in, where they upgraded us to a spa suite, complete with a jacuzzi tub on its enclosed patio. Pretty swank. Didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy it because we headed off to the Maori village for a cultural experience and hangi meal. The cultural experience was pretty cool, a lot more in-depth about the culture than the Hawaiian luau was. It is obvious the Maori are making a concerted effort to preserve as much of their way-of-life while still incorporating some modern things. For example, they talked about how they had added the guitar to their musical repertoire because it was something that made the young Maori more interested in performing.
The dinner was pretty good and the alcoholic fruit punch was amazing. After dinner we had the bus ride back to the hotel. Now our bus drivers were all Maori and ours was a woman. On the bus ride back, she made ever nationality on the bus sing a native song. Me and my sister tried to decline, but were eventually coerced into singing “This Land is My Land.†Anyway so as we’re approaching town, she says there is one more song for us to sing and starts singing “She’ll be coming round the mountain.†As the entire bus starts singing along, she turns the bus into a traffic circle and drives at high speed around it three or four times while vigorously honking the horn. This all caused extreme consternation among the other cars that were attempting to enter the traffic circle. Best part of the evening by far.