There is more to life than increasing its speed -Mohandas Ghandi (spotted on a rusty old car towards the end of our trip)

I’m always singing the national anthem when I step back into the US. Every new turn of my head brings on another real life USA propaganda ad. Towering buildings, huge rolling fields, Mad Max trucks and supermarket that could house jets. We’re all crazy and I love being home.

Four months ago, in the beginning of April, Chika and I both celebrated our birthdays. I decided to do something that would change my life to celebrate. About a three hour drive from Christchurch where we had been living, a mountain pass rockets you up and over the Alps which separate New Zealand’s East and West. It is named the Lewis pass and is a favorite for those who like to indulge in extravagant scenery and inaccessible natural beauty. Surrounded by no towns, no lights and no homes for 30 kilometers in every direction, and seeming to pop right out of nowhere is a small hot spring resort named Maruia. Until very recently, it has been under Japanese owners who created a very authentic Japanese hot spring experience, right in the heart of Kiwi land. The drive there was very fun as Chika had no inclination as to where we were headed. At every little town or sign she would let out a gasp and laugh saying she knew it all along as we whizzed past and kept on driving. I was actually a bit surprised as we pulled in and saw the stunning scenery. Most outdoor hot springs in Japan have some sort of covering over the pools or some fence surrounding three sides to not allow any unwanted stares, but as this was NZ and we kept our bath suits on (or were suppose to), we were left with unobstructed views of a beautiful raging river and evergreen covered mountains stretching into the distance. Under a perfectly clear, star filled sky, warm in hot springs and full from dinner I pulled out my little gold string ring and asked Chika to marry me. She of course said “What?”. “Really?”, but after a few times of repeating my polished and pretty Japanese phrase I had been studying, it sunk in and she said yes and slapped me for being so sneaky and so sweet.

Over the next two months the biggest change for us was moving into a different home where we stayed with two very nice German young women. This home also belonged to the café owner and while fairly sparsely furnished, had everything we needed for our survival. It began getting quite cold during this time and every night we would gather around the fire place to stay warm and enjoy our distraction free downtime. All of us were interested in languages and we took advantage of the opportunity to have native speakers around to study at night. I studied German, Chika studied English, and the Teresa studied Japanese. Sometimes we would go out for a movie or some event in the city but for the most part we Aug.17th 2016 studied languages every night around that fire and it was wonderful. The owner also had a spectacular outdoor shower hooked up to the hot water heater of the house so that every night, rain or moon shine, I was outside under a wisteria vine scrubbing away the days vegan grease and stress. I loved those moments under that shower.

Little things changed at the café but mostly stayed the same. A new dessert chef joined us and started to make raw vegan desserts which I had never tried before. They mostly consisted of different nuts ground up for a base and then a mousse-like filling made from fruit juice and psyllium husk, which soak up water and make a sort of gelatin. We were also introduced to chia seeds and the many uses of coconut oils. I continued to do some of the cooking and we were left for the most part in charge of the general day to day business. We hosted some successful movie nights and got a yoga class up and running. We continued to work until the end of May. Although we had no real farewell party, we were invited to play along at an event with a few of our favorite characters of the neighborhood, Mary and Kerry who are pirate children’s entertainers. They had organized a local salsa artist to give a concert and dance in the neighborhood and invited us to play along with their band who would be the opening act after having joined them for an impromptu practice session, banging the beat upon pots and pans in the kitchen. I was upgraded to a high hat and Chika to a shaker and we donned pirate costumes and danced the night away as a sort of farewell to the neighborhood. Chika even sang a song in Japanese with Kerry who is a huge fan of Japanese music.

In the months before our departure I had rebuilt our van’s interior to allow both my parents luggage and two extra seats while still allowing us to convert it into a bed if need be. Luckily with just one little extra cut of the wood on departure day, we were able to fit all of the needed gear in and took off early in the afternoon to tackle another mountain pass and get us halfway up the south island. We needed to eventually get to Auckland where my parents were flying into, which is in the north island. The entire journey theoretically you could do by driving five hours north, taking a three hour ferry across to the north island and then another seven or so hour from the southern port of Wellington to Auckland for a grand total of 15 hours of actual driving time. We decided to stretch that to a week. After the first beautiful day of driving up into the snow covered mountain pass, our favorite city was Wellington which is the nation’s capital. Wellington’s weather can be unpredictable and at times uncomfortably windy but we had perfect sunny weather and fell in love with the city. The city is bursting at its seams with coffee shops, libraries, old movie theaters and markets. Luckily we would be able to go back again with my parents in the coming weeks and enjoy the city again.

We picked up my parents at the airport in the afternoon and whisked them off to our first Airbnb host. After searching for many option on how to house us during our trip, Airbnb proved to be the cheapest and most interesting way to travel. We had a good mix of sometimes being able to interact with the hosts and sometimes being able to have these wonderful little bungalows all to ourselves. Our first hosts were gracious enough to suggest a few uncommon sightseeing spots in the area. The first was a little hike at night to a forest teeming with glowworms. They are spectacular little creatures that naturally glow in the dark and make forests look like galaxies. They also recommended a really interesting beach where you can dig a hole in the sand at low tide and find hot spring water. We were joined by perhaps 20 other locals, one of which was smart enough to bring a shovel, and we sat with our feet nice and toasty on the edge of the vast sea.

Another nice memory was a few days later at our next Airbnb which had two old cast iron bath tubs outside which you filled with water and slowly heated up by building fires beneath. The process takes entirely too long, fills your lungs with smoke, and kind of burns your butt if you aren’t careful but was wholly worth the effort. Something about heating up water and bathing outside seems like a very natural and worthy endeavor. From there we went further south and back to Wellington where we enjoyed the city by going to jazz concerts, night markets and possibly the windiest beach I have ever been on. Later we wound our way farther north until the highest mountain in the north island and a very grand old hotel that pops up out of nowhere. The hotel could have inspired “The Grand Buddapest Hotel” for all its out of place grandeur and as soon as I saw a picture of it in an old books while researching the trip, I knew we had to stay there. What was especially great was that it allowed us to do some fantastic hiking and perhaps somewhat dangerous climbing while looking out at the enormous Tongariro active volcano to our right with our feet striding up towering Ruapehu. At night we would sit around the colossal old fire place in the handsome old hotel. We said good bye to the mountain and continued north until Rotorua which is known for its geothermal activity. We were lucky enough to have heard about a little visited site called Kerosene creek which proved to be better than any of us expected. Unmarked and located along a little used lumbering road is a path to an entire river of perfectly heated water. The path finally spit us out to a vast natural pool whose temperature is forever replenished by a gushing waterfall of hot spring water. We had the serene forest hot spring pool to ourselves for an hour before others joined and we headed back to our car. I still have a hard time understanding all of the amazing things that exist on our planet.

My mother and I enjoyed a horse-back ride the next day which snaked us through a farm overlooking the green farmland and many lakes in the region. I very uncomfortably learned the equestrian terms trot and cantor upon my stocky steed. The next days brought us to the other coast of the north island where we made our way farther and farther down a dirt road until Coop Station where we would be staying and living a real farm life for the next few days. We were treated to a mustering demonstration with his extraordinarily obedient sheep dogs, morning visits from the farm pigs looking for scraps and to top it all off a broken transmission in our van. Naturally the all too magical broken transmission comes at an additional fee. People of course magically turned up to help exactly at the right moments and we were able to get our van towed to a garage and started on its week long journey to recovery.

After our last cribbage games and final fancy coffee we dropped my mom and dad off at the airport and headed back to our unplanned week stop-over in Wairoa while we waited for our van’s transmission to be replaced. Luckily for us, the same women that had happened to be out in the middle of nowhere when our van initially broke down, drove passed while we sat dejected outside of the garage after hearing we would have buy a whole new transmission. She offered for us to stay at her home for as long as needed and we ended up having such a wonderful time there, especially while entertaining her adorable dog, Moco. In the end we also stayed with our first Couchsurfing host who lived at the edge of town on a deer velvet farm. They had around 200 bucks and every year as they begin to grow their antlers, once they reached a certain length, these farmers would cut them off and sell them to Asian markets who eventually use them for medicinal uses. He was also a professional hunter and paid by the government to help control their wild goat population and had lots of interesting stories to tell. The town only had four thousand residents and by the end of the week we knew a lot of people in the town as our days always consisted of the same walking routine. It ended up being a really pleasant week and we made the best of our time there.

We finally made our way back down to the south island and our last host stay in a very nice part of Christchurch called Cashmere. Our hosts were an early 60s couple who were some of the best hosts I have ever stayed with. Their house was perched on a hill overlooking the city and they had a wonderful fireplace where we would spend most of our nights drinking tea and chatting. Also, their cat Steve became a huge source of joy for us both. During our work outside he would tag along and was the most mature animal you could ask for. He would give a little meow if he needed to get outside to use the bathroom and he would come when his name was called. At night he would lay by the fire and just be part of the group. My main job for the month we ended up staying with our hosts was helping to do small demolition jobs. I dug a ditch, cut down some trees, dug out a stump and hauled many rocks. It was a good feeling to do physical work and I felt very useful during my time there. On Thursdays our host’s three year old grandson would come to visit and we would help out playing with him. For some reason little boys love saying Chika’s name, as we have now seen with my nephew Jonah as well. Ernie was very quick to remember both of our names but for some reason Chika seems to be instinctually much easier to for little children to say than James. We would play fake rocket ship with him and go and feed the ducks and test out our animal sounds and it was a very enjoyable time.

After showing our van around to a few different people, we finally were able to sell it for not much of a loss which was so very relieving. Our last week we said our goodbyes, ate our last meals and were being driven to the airport at 3:30 in the morning by our very gracious host Willie. A hop skip and a jump over the Pacific and we were back in Kenosha playing with Jonah as if nothing ever happened. And now we are back here in Oconto, bags half unpacked and planning our new start in Japan. We have a better idea of wedding plans and we have decided to go to Edmonton in Canada starting next September where I will get my masters in teaching English. We mostly have our next years planned out, which is a really nice feeling. Chika will be able to join me there and work and that will be our first real stop as a married couple. The degree is two years long which gives us enough time to really settle in there. In the meantime we will try to save up some money back in Japan, finding whatever work we can. I am very glad we had to opportunity to go to New Zealand together and I feel like we are a much stronger couple because of it. We were able to meet so many people from all over the world and experience living lots of different lives at all the houses we stayed at. As is expected it all hasn’t really sunk in yet but we have lots of slow days of riding bikes and watching moon rises here in Oconto for that to happen. Thanks everyone for your always support.

-James