BLACKFOOT IS A SCURVY RAT!

If, perchance anyone had the chance to visit Mr. Mephisto's blog, you would have a chance to see wat sort of rotten scoundrels pirates really are! The photos of me are libelous and clearly doctored. There is ABSOLUTELY no evidence of me partaking in any sort of bubble baths, especialy a pink one at an alleged "Love Hotel." Moreover, the photos of me apparently "sleeping" with my mouth gaping open is a boldfaced lie. I would NEVER in a million years fall asleep on a bus while Jane was sitting next to and talking to me. I was clearly singing Day-o by Harry Bellafonte in that picture and Blackfoot took advantage of the occasion to discredit me. This sort of behavior only proves that pirates are not men (or women) who can be trusted!

Anyway, please allow me to humbly seperate fact from fiction here.

FACT: I took the Chuuo express to Narita airport giving me MORE than ample time to catch the flight. Meanwhile, the Narita Express which was transporting Blackfoot to the rendez-vous point was delayed. No doubt they knew that they had such a rotten scoundrel as a stow away and stopped to search the train. I told Blackfoot a million times, if she wants to live a life of sin and decadence, she should at least have the foresight to avoid mass transit.

Anyway, this was precisely the scene as I waited for her to arrive and I watched our plane to take off.

When the Salty Scourge of the Seven Seas did finally arrive, we were forced to go to Chiba to purchase new tickets. As the day of running around had us smelling pretty nasty, we sought refuge in the Peacock Love Hotel in order to take showers and a quick nap.

FACT: We did find HP in order to revive our weary selves. I traded in a crappy shield that I had found while Blackfoot (who hordes gold on every level, and won't pass a coin without picking it up) purchased some.

Blackfoot is indeed correct about one thing, if it was not for the HP, we would have never survived the night in the hostle (and f'n FREEZING) Narita airport.

Now, before I allow for Blackfoot to continue her rampage of lies, I will provide a truthful account of our arrival in auckland and our first cave dive.

Once we arrived in Auckland (via a 2 hour layover in Hong Kong), it became clear that our trials in Narita were the end of our bad luck. I still attribute all of our travel woes to the god that I apparently vexed when I left an offering most dishonorable at Fushimi Inari back in November when Julie came to visit. In any case, by the time we made it to Auckland, it was thankfully clear that the gods were through toying with me and allowed to things to go perfectly. We made it thorugh customs and straight into the city mere moments before the one and only bus leaving for Waitomo departed on its 3 hour trip.

When we arrived in Waitomo, we checked into the hostle and went to the information center to plan out our trek to South Island where we hit a brief snag. Apparently it would take over a day to travel to the South Island for our hike, and many of the busses we wanted to take were not running the days we needed them to. We only had one choice, and that was to make our cave dive that day.

Now pause for a second and re-read the past few paragrahs if you need to. Thats right, no mention of a hotel or a good night's sleep anywhere. It is still the day we arrived in NZ, and during the previous 48 hours we were in Japan (with a less than comfortable night in Narita) Hong Kong, and a total of 14 hours in a plane not to mention the bus ride to Wellington. Now the crazy lady at the information center wanted for us to spelunk on the SAME DAY? She wanted us to absail 70 meters into a hole, jump into icy black water with naught more than inner tubes to keep us afloat, crawl through tiny crevaces AND climb out alive? Was she insane? Did she think we we were idioTs???

I mean... do we LOOK like idioTs?

Well, of course we did it... the day we arrived we jumped into a cave...

Here are pictures from the first cave dive:









The hole. and Jane lowering herself into it...








A view from in the cave.








deeper = wetter











So obviously when people met Jane and I there was the initial misconception that we were dating, this misconception is usually remedied within an hour by certain behavioe. On the left is evidence of such behavior. After turning a corner and being surprised by a waterfall, I COULD have warned Jane of the impending deluge. Even after she was soaked, I COULD have laughed while offering her a hand of assistance. Of course, I did neither. Instead, I set up my camera to record the occasion. I wish I recorded a video because not only was the event funny, but the reaction of the people around us was great. I tried to explain to everyone that she would have preferred the photo anyway. I know I did.

5 hours later, we victoriously re emerged. We noshed down a quick dinner and PASSED OUT in the comfy beds of our hostel.

I'll leave it at that for now, the adventures will continue in the next post. Let's see what kind of lies that trecherous Blackfoot will come up with first.




TO BE CONTINUED...