Martoons

New Zealand travel diary #2 … in Oamaru, South Island.

Cast of Characters:

mARToons’ Martin West

Dez, owner of the air b’n’b (called “book-a-bach” in NZ)

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My early morning routine undergoes further refinements … and that’s thanks to a book on Feng Shui that I found in Dez’s bookcase (when he wasn’t home) and snuck it into my room – and keep hidden under my pillow.

Feng Shui is the philosophy that our thoughts and general mental health are affected by the objects, images, shapes, surfaces, noises, colours and all other things around us.

Furthermore, that we can rearrange those objects to make ourselves happier and our lives better.

Appealing philosophy.

So I put it to use.

Back to the early morning routine: Dez had told me definitively that 6 to 7 in the morning was his bathroom time.

Thus, images and sounds of me in there brushing my teeth (etc.) would negatively affect Dez’s Feng Shui (and him scolding me would affect mine!).

So I set the clock back an hour and got up at 5 . . . and was long gone out of the bathroom well before 6.

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I always find one of the biggest challenges to successful travel is getting control of your food.

It’s a work in progress and it’s a mistake to toss out your at-home diet for local cuisine.

Scout around for food as close to what you eat at home.

A main reason is to prevent going broke.

New Zealand has backward eating habits (white bread and white food products, salt in everything, sugar in everything).

But! It is a cornucopia of fruit and veggies as the Kiwis grow everything on this island.

So lunch time on day 2 was a Feng Shui experience.

After a swim at the local pool, I now faced the daunting task of finding a decent, cheap eatery.

I decided to make an effort to find one as I’ve too many times thrown away $20 on mediocre to lousy restaurant dishes.

I recalled an excellent eatery I’d patronized on a previous NZ visit (five years earlier).

So I scouted it out.

I should have paid more attention to the Feng Shui foreshadowing …

First, as I neared the joint, a vicious barking dog in a nearby back yard growled zealously.

Then two ruffians exchanging ribald diatribe entered the eatery just ahead of me.

Yet I perservered, pursuing my culinary fantasy.

It was not to be.

The “take away” apparently had long ago been bought out by ethnic owners.

Nevertheless, I ordered an affordable and ostensibly edible item from the menu, plopped down $5 and was quickly served.

Fleeing with my item, it was Feng Shui time again.

I was determined to find a decent outdoors location to dine.

However, finding any place to sit down outside in Oamaru, New Zealand is – surprisingly – almost impossible.

Lots of green space but almost non-existent picnic tables.

I walked about ten blocks to find one near the hospital grounds.

Now to the main event: To eat the mushroom burger.

The oral orgy was short lived.

Besides being understandably cold, the mushrooms were barely cooked; and way-y-y too much mayo.

To rescue the experience from culinary oblivion, I marched the ten blocks back to the ethnically-owned take away to rearrange some Feng Shui.

A quick refund was given and I retreated to the predictable confines of the grocery store for a yummy, crisp, luminously red NZ apple.

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Tomorrow: Why visit New Zealand?