You never know what you will see...............

Just some more only in China moments!!!

Since I am in China:)

The first two shots of the pile of dirt in the road......This would be called illegal dumping in the US.

Our best guess on this is that a truck hauling the dirt broke down and the tow truck couldn't haul the entire load along with the truck so they just left it in the middle of the bicycle lane....Mike is willing to bet $20.00 it will still be there in six months when we move.  This is a main road around the corner from our compound, you can see the Cathay View compound on the left.  The bus is one of the small ones from Olivia's school.

Only in China!

Is this what they mean by fluorescent green?  One might call this a light-bulb bush, if light-bulbs grew on bushes!  I spied this last Sunday a few blocks from where we go to church and on a street where many Embassies are.  It is in front of the Alstom building.....a French company.  They must have had a bulb changing day.

Only in China!

It is strawberry season here.  People sell them everywhere.  On the street outside our compound there are several of them today, as there have been for the past few weeks.  The people just pull up their cars, vans or trucks and set out the berries.  There has even been one guy for the last two weeks selling celery....really!

Only in China

In case you are wondering it is a grey day here today.....but that is smog you are seeing down the road and across this field.  The AQI right now is 225, very unhealthy.  You can see the AQI as you read this....it is the colorful badge on the side of the posts.

Only in China!

Love, fondly, sincerely,

Xin Nian Kuai Le

(Click on the link)

Zaijian,

Ramona

Whakapapa

A day for hiking:

On the way to Whakapapa there was a waterfall...Huka Falls on the Waikato River.  A sedate river squeezing through a 15 meter gap and dropping 9 meters.  Quite a roar and lots of water.

Very pretty!!

Here is where we stayed at the base of Mount Ruapehu, didn't take my own picture so found this.

Go to Tongariro National Park to see more, learn more about the pictures below.

Too many to stick on one post so will do more later....tomorrow......There is no logical order to these.  There is also no logic to the Great Fire Wall of China....I have had  the VPN on for over two hours now and it seems to be still OK....

Flax.

We took a couple short walks in Tongariro then Mike and Olivia went up a chair lift and hiked higher....they actually got to walk on snow:)

The quilter in me liked the tiles on the floor....nice quilt border:)

View from the top!

More in another post!

Love , fondly, sincerely,

Zaijian,

Ramona

Swimming with the Dolphins

These are out of date order....who cares just fun to look at:)

Olivia got to swim with the dolphins on Christmas Eve day.  This trip was our Christmas present.  

Nothing under the tree for us.

Even though it was a cloudy day you have to apply sunscreen...there is no Ozone in NZ and it is very easy to burn......Mike and Olivia are very fair.....I, on the other hand, tan.  Got that from my dad.  But I still use sunscreen....

It was a windy day, with choppy seas.  So happy for Bonine.  Rainy and cold, so much for summer:)

They did not actually use the snorkel and mask provided in the traditional way....you used them to clack together and or blow into the tube to create sounds to attract the dolphins.

Mike and I were watchers on this trip.  Olivia looks cute in a wet suit...I on the other hand don't go there.  My sister has already kindly made snide comments about that image on facebook.....

The dolphins are swimming right towards Olivia, that is her with her back to the camera.  You can see two dorsal fins and a third dolphin heading left towards the other girls just beneath the surface.

The dolphins from on the boat.  Almost better than in the water.  Look at the color of the water, so pretty.

See....Mike is on the trip!!  That is rain and salt spray on the windshield of the boat.

See...she is cute in a wet suit.

They had hot chocolate and cookies for the ride back to the dock.

These are Hector's Dolphins you can read about them HERE or HERE and this is the company that offers the excursions BLACK CAT.

The other boat that went at the same time didn't see any dolphins so they got most of their money back.  We were on the lucky boat that day.

Love, fondly, sincerely,

Zaijian,

Ramona

Rotorua

Rotorua Thermal Area and

A Maori Cultural experience........

Just lots of pictures if they don't take forever to post.

Tree Ferns, flora, Maori Tribal Welcoming Ceremony, tribal game, bubbling mud, Lady Knox Geyser.

I absolutely love the tree ferns!!!

We stood there a long time just watching it burbble....so much fun!

I fought the VPN and the VPN won......enough posting for today, so much more to show you all.

Love, fondly, sincerely,

Zaijian,

Ramona