Kicker's 'ON'! - Roof top Action @ Le ferme
JULY 2005
I thought I'd share some my thoughts since arriving back into beautiful Aotearoa after 3 months in China working as a climbing guide for Chinaclimb (www.chinaclimb.com), and a snowboarding adventure therapy stint in the beauty French alps. In between times catching up with the whanau (family) in Ireland.Touchdown into Christchurch airport, tears came down my face. I'm not sure if it was of happiness, relief, sadness or what it was... i guess just a feeling of relief that I was safe and I no longer had to go into the unknown. As I came down the esculator at the domestic arrivals, familiar faces greeted me with hugs and kisses. I felt as if I were dreaming. I no longer had to worry about my heavy luggage and the logistics of it, or the anticpation of where i was going to sleep, how i was going to communicate to other people about the next question I had and what was going to be so new waiting for me around the corner...it all felt so comfortable and so 'normal' i guess. There was such a familiarity as we drove away from christchurch airport of going down streets I'd gone down hundreds of times before, hearing the kiwi accent again, listening to NZ tunes and seeing simple things like the same big tree.
For the first time though even though it was the same, I felt so different. I knew I wasn't the same person I was when I left six months ago. The last six months that have felt like a few years has been a huge learning adventure for me. There has been so many eye opening and mind blowing experiences that I will never forget. As that 'Seasonland' article writes you forget about being broke, ripped off or losing your money, bottle, or rag but you remember the individual characteristics of the different cultures and people you were living amongst. It is just so true. I remember so many times being just so low and stressed from the time and situation that I was in and just wishing I was home...and now as I share my stories I look back and laugh at those times, and see them totally in a new light.
Hangin' with my homies in Chamonix, 2005- Lachie, Brookestars, Andi's and me
I will never forget that crazy month snowboarding in the French alps looking after and chasing Bob around France. Here's just some of the many memories....when he fed both the Frosties cat on the cereal box and the mountain elves...drinking lotsa red wine, eating mass feeds of fondues and racletts, waking up to the bombsite kitchen after Bob had been up in the night after he had found the ladar keys, munched the food and stolen the car and ski-doo keys.... picking him up from the french police and explaining to them we were his carers - (untrained 'snowboarding bum' nurses!), that UNREAL powder day and discovering when we had returned home that he had done the bolt with our all our cameras and cellphones packed in his bag... hitting into that rail and thinking I had broken my pelvic bone and the stress of not having insurance or a ski pass and knowing a huge bill of 1000 euro would await me..... making a massif ski jump on Brooke's birthday over the barn roof (unbelievable carnage and cart-wheeling on my behalf but you guys stomping it!)... Bob's stories of meeting a Romanian girl and planning his trip to Lanzarote and Egypt... recieving phone calls far and wide of where we should pick him up next or pay to what restaurant his next fifty euro food bill... and that morning when he arrived home at 7am with one sock on and shorts...Chamonix roadie...blue bird days...Aguille Du Midi... Annecy....leaving the chalet the next day with none of us having any plans of where to go next....hitching to annecy not knowing whether I was going to make my plane... what a 6 weeks it was. I will never forget it. How many jobs in the world would you ever find like that one?!! All I can say is big cheers Jon, Andy, Brooke, Lachie and Kristin for an unbelievable time in the French alps. Big thanks to Bob and V for making it possible. 
*Lovin' the Champagne pow in zee' french alps*
Next mish- CHINA! Landing In Hong Kong, again thinking am I dreaming?! How the hell did i get myself here?!! Huge skyscrapers over towering me... People everywhere.. New smells. Chaos... Traffic... Noise... Streets filled with people.... waking up to a mouse nibbling at my toe... cRazY bus drivers... constant noises of spitting.. my first experience of a squatter toilet..the smell...the dirt...being in a sea of different coloured faces and languages...so many new surroundings and thoughts...where's a foreigner?...trying pigs tongue, chickens intestines, chickens stomach lining, froggies legs, snakes blood and watching my bro eating chicken testicles!! waking up in the middle of night to full on sweats, dizziness and diorehea and feeling so alone.... going to the Chinese doctor and trying to understand what's wrong with me..and what medication he's prescribed me with ...18 tablets a day for a week... going to see Doctor Lily a Chinese herbalist doctor and having 'hot cups' on me... mountain biking through paddy fields and wee villages...the experience of coming across Chinese who had never seen lawoi's ( foreigners) before.. feeling ready to leave and move on as I'm down...
Walking to work, down the alley to Chinaclimb
But then -- standing under a huge waterfall we unexpectantly came across when all my cares and worries of life disappear and being so happy and content of where I was - 'living in the moment' ...bamboo rafting down the river drinking beer and eating parcilloo... tandem biking out to the crags, Yahooo-ing causing a scene through Yangshuo... being utterly blown away by the generosity of the Chinese when they have so little but are so content and love life so much...taking Tai Chi with Master Won...learning about the 'Yin and 'Yang' of staying in balance...bargaining with the locals....absorbing the culture... teaching 'yankee doodle dandy' to children who thrived to learn English... daily conversations with Chinese approaching you with rehearsed speeches.... "halooooo, how do you do? where do you come from? ohhh new zealand...ohhh so very very beeeautiful!!"...climbing to the top of the peak and seeing a 360 view of unreal scenery, feeling the rain and it being so mystical with the lingering cloud...feeling so happy to be alive and living one of my dreams... feeling the wind again for the first time in months....coming across the Yao tribe in the Longshen rice terraces...days climbing at Thumbpeak, Babyfrog, Wine bottle and Twin gates... the weekly thunder and lightening storms... it feeling so exotic...coming across the wee girl who was so happy and content with her x- mas pink tinsel that she wrapped around her wrists... walking past some of the poverty... collapsing at the Hong Kong / China border and feeling so alone and far from anyone I knew....new thoughts and perspectives on life... trying to learn how they see the 'western world' and how they see me....
I love Yangshuo, China!
Again the 'Seasonland' article comes back to me and my thoughts of feeling so lucky and how much I take for granted living in NZ and in a society that allows us to do pretty much as we please....where we have the ability to earn money and have the opportunity to travel and to see new things..where we can have free education and access to good health care , equality between genders, freedom to speak our mind....but then new thoughts come to mind...the beautiful Chinese people are so happy and content with their lives, they have food, shelter, their family, and live in such a non-materialistic society where things and money aren't important... western society can have so many rules, systems and ways of life where materialistic things like cars, fashion, image are amongst us, ..my thoughts are maybe I have too many and my life is too complex...it seems in China they have the ability to have the freedom to do more as there aren't firm regulations like in the west. They live life so simply. 
Climbing in Yangshuo. Incredible Sunsets, 2005Reality, one week later has sunk in now that I'm home. I miss already the vibrancy and cultures of other people. I remember when I was last in NZ I used to see a sea of Asians in Christchurch. I now see so many white people and see Asians in a completely new light. How they come to NZ and study for three years or immigrate here for life ...and how they cope settling into our ever-so-bizzare way of life.
It is good to be back in NZ catching up with everyone again, and being amongst the sea and mountains. One thing that stands out from the last 6 months is for me to be enjoying and happy where I am...'living in the moment'...not wishing i was somewhere else with someone else doing something different. To enjoy where I am and just BE. The world will always be there to travel, and there will always be new experiences and new people to meet here both here in NZ and overseas.
To live. To love. And to enjoy life and learn from it's experiences.
Climbing with Kalle and Jon (http://www.beet-route.com/) Thumb peak, Yangshuo
Li River, Yangshuo, China. How's the serenity?! And the rad climbing in the background!
Early morning Raging' yoga / warm-up to Metallica before skiing!
