city of sails

well i arrived safe in aukland after my longest flight ever yesterday. it wasnt too bad i watched 4 movies that passed the time quite well. heather picked me up from the airport which was great and i had a relaxing afternoon hanging out in their beautiful new house. i had a long hot shower and took a walk round the block a few times. its amazing how much like england it looks and there is a strange mix of white people and maori with obviously different languages aswell, which is completely different to anything ive seen before. its not as cold as i thought it was going to be and so far ive survived quite well, it was great feeling the cold breeze on my face yesterday as i walked arround some of avondales parks. the city centre is, funnily enough, remarkably city like. ive never been a big city person ive always preferred the country but ive enjoyed walking round the harbour and checking out some of the massive americas cup yachts, i know now why they call aukland the city of sails. there are some very scary familiarities with Cambodia...believe it or not. for example today i went into the ANZ bank which PP has loads of and also the caltex gas stations are common in both places. most frightening of all, as i was walking round the local naighbourhood down a very normal looking suburban middle class street out of nowhere this buddhist monk appeared behind me in his long orange robes and gave me a big asian smile as if he knew me from somewhere. i did a double take just to make sure the jet lag wasnt making me see things and recieved that same patented smile that only people from asia can give you. for a moment i thought perhaps steve was playing a very expensive joke on me by sending a monk to follow me to try to convince me to come back to cambodia or something but then figured that would be a little too much out of the budget!

so once again im getting used to a new climate, culture and currency. this time, gratefully, its only for two weeks and not 9 months. praise god.

off to see a man about a dog.
laters.