South Island Part II.

AKA Liz and the Mermaid prevail the wrath of Leah, part dos.

4/16 - drove to Milford Sound.  Went on scenic nature cruise.  Cloudy and rainy.  Spent night in Invergarcill at sketchy backpackers (Tuatara...not a fan.)

seals!

4/17 - ate fish on the beach.  Drove to Dunedin.  Speight's brewery tour.  Spent night.

4/18 - Cadbury chocolate tour, scenic drive around Otago peninsula, visited Larnach castle, ordered a pandemonium pizza (chicken & cranberry sauce) from Hell's Pizza....t'was delicious.

4/19 - drove to Christchurch.  Checked out the red zone.  Spent night.

4/20 - drove to Picton.  When we returned the car I asked them what will happen if they end up charging for anything.  Like will they send an email with an explanation, or are they just going to bill the credit card?  And then the lady got all suspicious of me, "Why do you want to know?  Did something happen to the car??" and I'm like, "No, the car is fine!  Don't kill me!  I was just curious because it's my mom's credit card!"  Then we played cards in the ferry terminal for 4 hours.  Finally arrived in Wellington around 9:30pm.

Put 2,690 km on the car.

4/21 - attended Armageddon, an anime/cosplay/comicbook/pulp/etc conference.  Not really my scene, but Liz needed photos of the attendees' elaborate costumes for her photo journalism project.  Not gonna lie, the costumes people came up with were pretty epic.  One guy went all out and was a Navi from Avatar.  And when I say "went all out" I mean not only did he paint his entire body blue, but he even made himself a butt-flap-thong-thing (must have been chilly if ya ask me).  I also got to listen to Ron Marz, a comic book writer, and he gave some good tips about making comics as well as what it's like to work for DC/Marvel compared to freelancing.  Very insightful...we should bring him to Stout!!  (Liz told him Stout has a comics/sequential art major and he was impressed.)  We also bought lots of souvenirs from "Wellington's Weekly Designer Market" that happens every Saturday.  Later spent the evening at Starbucks, playing cards, and watching 21 Jump Street. (good movie!)

Blues bros.

The Joker and what's-her-face.

Iron Man.

Avatar dude.

4/22 - back at Armageddon for more photo-ops.  Shopped at the mall.  New favorite stores = Typo, Iko Iko, Kikki.k....the list goes on.  Kind of like Urban Outfitters with less clothes, more quirky stuff, more design-y, and lots of stationary.  Finally carpooled back to Wanganui with Michelle & Jackie.  There had been some kind of accident so traffic was backed up for an hour or so...but we made it back alright.  Feels good to be "home".