On the road in New Zealand

We arrived in New Zealand and spent a few days getting our bearings in the capitol city of Auckland.

After strolling around downtown, we stumbled upon Satya, an unassuming Southern Indian restaurant. Our dinner there, just like their elephant logo, was outstanding. We spoke with a few locals and found out this place was fairly revered as being the best Indian spot in town. Not bad for a random pick!

Our friend Matt (a fellow DJ and an Auckland native, just returning to New Zealand after spending the last 12 years living in Vancouver BC) drove us around town and took us to a plot of land given (AKA "not stolen") to the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. It's a small peninsula in downtown Auckland. For some reason there's a memorial statue for John Michael Savage, a fighter for the labo(u)r party. You can read more about it here.

Time to hit the road! Here's Mali with Jimi, our campervan and home for one week of cruising around New Zealand.

Jimi has cabinets and a refrigerator in the back. Pretty handy.

Here's a look at the sink and the sleeping area. It wasn't the most comfortable bed, but that's why they call it roughing it.

The beach! Our first stop was the seaside town of Mokau. We walked along the black sand beach and enjoyed some meat pies while watching the sunset. Not bad.

Continuing south after our first night in the campervan. We found ourselves pulling over on the side of the road to take photos of the scenery almost every 15 minutes or so. Driving through New Zealand was like nothing we'd ever seen or done before.

Arrival at Mt. Egmont National Park. We hiked up to get a better look at Mt. Egmont (also known as Mt. Taranaki), regarded as the most symmetrical mountain in the world. Look it up - the bird's eye views on Google Maps are pretty astonishing.

Moving in for a better look. It was fairly cloudly that day, but we still got a really good look at this beast of a mountain.

#YOLO

Mali has officially entered THE DANGER ZONE.

We didn't even come close to reaching the peak, but it still looked great the whole way up.

We stopped in the nearby town of Stratford to see this cool clocktower, grab a bite to eat, enjoy some free WIFI, and chat with a few locals. Shout out to Casa Pequeña for making a pretty damn good burger!

Moving south to Wellington to drive Jimi onto this ferry!

All aboard! Next stop, Picton NZ on the South Island. The three-hour ferry ride was really nice. There were cafes, arcade games, and even a movie theater, but we just opted to take in the scenery.

Lighthouses!

Getting there is half the fun.

Back on the open road. To be continued...

Melbourne

Melbourne, Australia! Awesome city! While Sydney was cleaner and more metropolitan (whatever that means), we found Melbourne to be its funky younger sibling. Lots of art galleries, music venues, white people with dreadlocks, and tons of murals. Here's our favorite, located just down the alley from the home we were staying at. So well done.

My buddy Hugh took us around town one night to check out some local music (a solo performance from Nai Palm, the incredible lead singer of Hiatus Koyote and Ethiopian jazz masters The Black Jesus Experience) and dinner at a great Greek restaurant. He also walked us past this Keith Haring mural, one of about 30 standing in the world. The walls up around it are to preserve it during construction.

Yep. That's $12.20 USD for one pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Twelve dollars. And twenty cents. For one thing of ice cream.

After getting a good taste of the city's offerings, Hugh drove us down the Great Ocean Road to see some coastal scenery just outside of town. It was super windy that day, a welcome change from the intolerable heatwave we'd been enduring in the days prior.

Good advice.

We are on vacation!

Vacation!

Alien landscapes.

We were lucky to see a big ol' group of kangaroos relaxing on a golf course in the city of Lorne before driving back to Melbourne. They let us get up pretty close to take some photos. There was one kid getting WAY too close and we were just waiting for him to get pounced. It didn't happen.

My friend Yasmine and her boyfriend Justin have been living in Melbourne for the last two years. At the time of this blog being published, they have started their move back to the US. However, they took the time to meet up with us for some Lebanese food and good conversation.

They also took us to Huxtaburger, a Cosby Show-themed hamburger restaurant. Yes, you read that correctly. I was expecting 100% novelty, but the burgers were pretty damn good!

Sydney

After our time in Hawaii, we crossed the international date line and arrived in Sydney. We stayed with my friend Duncan (DJ Yoda), his wife Bianca (pictured here), and their daughter Lotta. Every winter, they travel from London to spend a month or two living in Sydney so Duncan can travel around Oceania doing DJ gigs. They were super generous to host us at their cool little rental home in the Bondi Junction neighborhood.

It's hard to be in a city with a Chinatown and not go... so we went. Had a nice time checking out some eateries and weird stores.

Yep.

Sightseeing!

You are the opera house of my eye.

Cool sculpture in the Royal Botanical Garden.

I took some time to practice for the Red Bull Thre3style DJ competition in Yoda's kitchen. I wish we had space in our kitchen back home to have a DJ setup. One day...

Duncan and Bianca took us to Victor Churchill, a Sydney institution and perhaps the nicest butcher shop Mali and I have ever seen. We picked up a few steaks and sausages to throw on the barbie for our last meal in town.

Kauai

Sorry it's been so long since we updated the blog! It's been hard to find time to sit down and organize photos and find the all-important FREE WIFI signs which have become such a hot commodity.

Anyways, backtracking to mid-February, we flew over to the island of Kauai and were blown away by all of the natural beauty there. It was such a nice change of pace from O'ahu.

We found a farmers market up the street from the house we were staying in. This dude was chopping up coconuts and Mali couldn't resist.

You can't get fresher than this.

After drinking all of the water, Mali had the coconut chopped open so she could eat all of the good stuff inside.

After having several friends recommend it to us, we took a hike on the Kalalau Trail along the Na Pali coast. Pali means "cliff" so it was no surprise that this hike was situated on a super steep cliff. This provided some incredible views.

So you're staying we shouldn't go in the water?

Lovely lookin' creek at our stopping point on the hike.

Mali on the rocks.

Awesome view of a taro farm spotted on our drive back home from the Kalalau hike.

The next day, we spoiled ourselves with a helicopter tour of the entire island. We got to fly all over Kauai seeing view after surreal view for just over one hour. The centerpiece of the tour was a stop at the 360 ft. high Manawaipuna Falls, featured in Jurassic Park.

Flying over Waimea Canyon, often referred to as the Grand Canyon of the South Pacific.

We bid farewell to Kauai and returned to O'ahu for one more day. Our French-Canadian friends Sebastien and Carol, AKA Scien and Klor from graffiti / graphic design crew 123Klan were in town to paint a mural as part of the Pow Wow Hawai'i festival. Awesome to catch up with these two and watch them do their thing!

Cheers from Sydney!

Sorry, no photos right at this moment, but Mali and I have arrived in lovely Sydney, Australia. We had a fantastic last few days in Hawaii and then a long day of travel across the Pacific Ocean. We're staying with a friend in Bondi Junction, a few km East of the main city center. Today we're gonna go look at that Opera House and explore the nearby Chinatown neighborhood. If anyone reading this has any must-do recommendations for Sydney, now's the time to let us know!

PS - this is my first time in the Southern hemisphere!

Last days on O'ahu

We only had two more days on the island of O'ahu and there was a lot to do! First things first - check out Shirokiya, a Japanese food court and department store in Honolulu's Ala Moana mall. The selection here is incredible. Every corner we turned revealed a new vendor, a new pile of seafood bento boxes, fried chicken, noodles, taro, sweet potato desserts, you name it.

Here, the crew at Takoyaki Yama Chan is making one of my favorite Japanese dishes, takoyaki. They're little grilled balls filled with a small slice of octopus and green onions, then topped off with a sweet sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, dried nori, and bonito flakes. Mali and I have had this dish at a few different spots, but these just might be the best.

Takoyaki nearing completion.

The finished product! Five pieces with all the fixins.

Grilled unagi (eel) bento box from Shirokiya.

After we filled up, we met up with sibling DJs Jami and Compose so I could squeeze in some practice for the next round of the Red Bull Thre3style DJ competition. Compose is a badass DJ and recently won the Thre3style Hawaii qualifier round and will be competing in the US West Coast regionals later this month. These guys were incredibly generous and hospitable - look 'em up next time you're here!

Time for more food! We brought Aerin and Emili to Sweet Home Café, a Taiwanese hot pot restaurant near Chinatown in Honolulu. Each party gets a big boiling bowl of broth and can toss in any ingredients they like. There are several refrigerators filled with plates of shrimp, noodles, mushrooms, octopus, pieces of fish, slices of beef and lamb, fried tofu, and much more. Beyond that, there are about 12 different sauces (peanut, Sambal chili, ginger, garlic butter, etc) you can add into your own bowl. BEYOND THAT, at the end of your meal, the staff brings out a HUGE bowl of Taiwanese shaved ice for your party to plow through. Photos of that coming soon!

For our last day on O'ahu, we drove up to the North Shore for some sightseeing. The mountains were fairly misty this morning.

They call this island Chinaman's Hat.

Looks good!

My little surfer girl.

Our final meal in Kailua - Emili and Aerin made us this incredible paella! Emili honed his skills he learned from his Mom in Catalonia and assembled this gorgeous and delicious dish of sumptuous sea creatures. We couldn't have asked for a better send-off.

We've just arrived on the island of Kaua'i and are staying in a small garden house in Kilauea. This will be my office for the next few days. Stay tuned!