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A little overuse of the 'qu' construct in English. I don't know what the attraction of this spelling is for these guys. But there you have it. These were pictures taken right outside the Criterion, very close to the 'Dome' building you saw in the previous day's pictures. This was about 100 metres from the ocean. We'll see ocean now... The waves at the ocean this day were quite large and loud. I tried to take pictures and movies that showed it. Not the best. As you can tell, I like to take pictures of the ocean waves breaking. They're great. I grew up in Kansas. No ocean there. Deal. This is the beach in Napier, the Art Deco city. I guess everything must be a bit art deco here. So there you have it. To be fair, the little wind sail thingies you see here I saw also in Taupo, so I guess they're not an art deco exclusive feature. Fenny takes a picture of us using the timer. A very stanky but interesting-looking barbeque grill on the same beach. I decided to take some pictures, because despite the bad smell, it still looked interesting. Fenny and I wandered around the beach doing things. Yes, you get to see many more pictures of the waves breaking at the beach in Napier. I told you already. Kansas. No ocean. Deal. There was a very steep hill near the beach. I took pictures because it looked interesting. You can decide for yourself if it looks interesting to you. Railroad tracks are almost always parallel lines that are very long and thus make interesting pictures. But in this case, there's not much of a story to tell. Hill face. Railroad tracks. You know the drill. Ahem. Greasy if wet??? Is this like powdered grease or something? Just add water for an instant grease slick? I really don't understand this sign. Maybe a trucker or someone can explain it to me. Fenny yawns at my perpetual picture-taking of the hill with the rocky face. But I think you can all just look at my pictures and be happy. If you are bored, then *YOU* get out there with a camera and take pictures. Napier is on the east coast of the north island of New Zealand. You can probably get a flight there from Auckland for pretty cheap during the winter months. During our stay in Napier, it was fairly cool and rainy, which is exactly the weather when I was there during the winter. Apparently this summer has been uncommonly cool and rainy. This was a waterfall near the beach that we found when we saw a botanical garden to explore. As some of you know (those who followed my journies to Yang Ming Shan in Taiwan), I love waterfalls! I love to take pictures of waterfalls. But most of all, I like to force pictures of waterfalls on my friends and family! I hope you like waterfalls. I like red flowers, too. Especially if they're all laid out in a strange curvy fashion next to the concrete curb. Back into the Napier shopping centre and to the public library where they promise they have internet that is 'fast' and 'cheap.' Turned out to be an okay experience. Fenny and I checked our email for about 20 minutes for NZ$1.5 which is a lot less than the commercial internet cafes will charge you. I even got to reply to an email or two. They used Microsoft for their internet stations, and had literally broken the middle and right mouse buttons on the mouse so you could not right-click or middle-click the mouse. Interesting. Unsure what the point of that was, but there you go. Other internet stations (namely, the ones that couldn't be watched at all times by a monkey that could reboot) ran Linux. You'll see some pictures of that in the Taupo pictures later. McDonald's in Napier. McArt Deco. It's a trundler park. If you're American, this probably is a strange phrase. In New Zealand, the word 'park' can mean a place to park things as well as the old American "a place to play and romp and have fun." So a car park is -- a place to park your car. When you're the passenger in a Kiwi's car, and they say: "Keep your eye out for a park," they mean a place to park. Right. And a trundler? Well, from the picture, you should guess that's a shopping cart. As an American, the sign "Trundler Park" is interesting, so I took a picture. Hopefully you can be mildly amused by this, too. Burger King. Popular the world 'round. We went there because they had 40-cent ice-cream cones. There was a bird at Burger King that had an overprotective mother that was still feeding it, despite the fact that it could fly just fine. Fenny just looked down on them in disgust. Here are many pictures of the birds sampling Burger King's 40-cent cone in the car park. I especially like the photos of the birds with their beaks all covered in vanilla ice cream. Outside the Criterion Art Deco backpackers, there was a New Zealand flag (not shown here) and a Japanese flag. Don't know how they settled on those two. They didn't seem particuarly more friendly to Japanese backpackers than those of any other nationality, other than this flag. I also took a movie of the flag flapping in the wind, since it was a bit interesting. Here are just the best of the pictures I took of the flag. The Dome building at night. Outside our room this time. The Napier folk hadn't gotten around to taking down the Christmas lights. This was late January. Here is the art deco fountain of Napier. The lights change colours so you get a cool effect at night. The woman in the lower right is a woman of Maori legend that turned into a reef. You'll see her closer up a little further on. Fenny in front of the fountain. Silhouette pictures and such. The fountain all by itself. Fenny and I held hands in front of the fountain and posed for some postcard-perfect pictures. Fenny gets all serious on us. The fountain with someone bathing their feet in it. Sometimes Fenny is alone. Sometimes I join her, and we kiss. These are enjoyable pictures for me to take. The Maori woman that turned into a reef. The fountain alone again. Fenny and I kissing in front of the fountain again. We just can't stop it, can we? Ghosts... The fountain alone again. A few more pictures of the Dome and restaurants in the area outside Criterion before we retire for the evening. One last picture of our room before we sleep. |
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