a hot xmas

Christmas time is here! holy crap its hot as all get out....Thanksgiving came and went, no pumpkin pie because it turns out they dont have pumkin pie puree...So i substituted, apple pie. My 21st b day came and went...it was pretty cool..I hung out with some friends who made me a mean birthday dinner! also did a big dinner with people at work at this thai restaurant...one thing im real grateful for is that ive run into a bunch of really good people..the new zealand mentality is so laid back and giving, i dig!.....So summer is here and its getting hot as hell. I went to the beach the other day and got fried....I have three more days of work next week and then the fun begins...on the fifth i will be heading south with Jason D Bartle and co for a hunting trip, then imheading off solo from that southeast to the bay of plenty to look for some fruitpicking job for a couple weeks...on the 23rd of january i will be meeting up with some peeps in rotorua for Raggamuffin Reggae music festival http://www.raggamuffin.co.nz/2010/ which im real stoked about...Lauryn Hill, Shaggy, Julian Marley, Katchafire, Sean Kingson, and Wyclef Jean among others are all going to be there....cant wait! from there i will be roadtrippin with some friends down to the south island..things are good though, im stoked about gettting back on the road

So its a rainy sunday! the weekend has gone by way to quick....Went and saw the original wailers play last night...what a show! the band consists of two of the original band members from back when bob was around...both played guitar and sang backup for bob on numerous tours and albums...Al Anderson and Junior Marvin are the guys...they played all the hits i could want to hear, except "no woman no cry"...but what can u do....

So Ya nothing exciting is really happening these days...just been working...trying to save as much money as i can so I can see asia! yess asia!....the plan is to do new zealand in one massive roadtrip begining first of next year...then comes Austrailia for a sec...then hopefully southeast asia...Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Maylasia, etc...oh and Sri Lanka if i can find a cheap flight....

Cody, here is a brief description of my work...I work at a plastics manufacturer called Interworld plastics...I work in the warehouse section of the place...I box things up , ride around on a forklift, grind recycled plastic in a huge machine, put stickers on plastic things etc....


Thanksgiving is rolling around the corner...me and hana and clayton (my fellow uuh-murricans) are gonnd put toghether a good ole fashion thanksgiving dinner for everyone on saturday and show them how we roll! we threw around the idea to shoot our own turkey because clayton is a mean shot with a slingshot, but we decided we couldnt be bothered with de feathering it if we happend to kill one...

So the word "bro" has officially become a permanent part of my vocab...i cant help it..it littteraly is in every sentence somewhere....so has "sweet as", "cheers", and "true"....travis will know in what context those words are used...

so i only have internet access on the weekends if i come into the city because the area im in is lame..but yea....so thats about it...ill get some more pictures up one of these days....

so its been a little bit, alot has happened...I move closer to work!....I move to a town called Takanini which is considered south Auckland...Im about ten mins from work now...Im staying with a lady named susan...I work with her sister...its a real deal..im paying a hundred bucks a week for everything!...free...ahhh...im about to run out of internet time...overall im good..working two more months then hitting the road...ill get back on here soon and update more...

to you my followers!!!

i feel sick...got up at six...went to work..got back at ten...in bed...not going to work tomorow...dont know why im still up..i think ill sleep in late tomorrow..holy crap im tired, why am i still on the internet...how is my body functioning...

so my plans have changed..its looks like ill be working a couple more months..ill update my "followers" soon on the plans...the term followers is creepy as hell...its like u guys are stalking me or something..like lindsay lohan fans waiting for her after the parent trap premier or something like that...it insinuates that you guys are right behind me watching my every step..or that im leading you in someway....i preffer the term...interested readers...or bored friends and family.....

im not sure why u guys cant leave comments..travis was saying that it wouldnt let me...try smacking your computer or talkign to it maybe...technology is sensative and needs to be spoken to softly or chucked out the window... .any questions though send my secretary an email and she will pass it along...samueljgarmon.students.abtech.edu

cheers!

Jams

The weather was good today and my ipod was fully charged...I only worked from eight to five today, i say only because i need OT hours and there was not enough work for OT. So i was listening to the song, "Never Let Me Down" by Kanye West....the last part of the song there was a guy reciting some poetry...I instantly recognized the voice, Saul Williams http://www.saulwilliams.com/...
when I got home i checked up on the lyrics and saw that it wasn't Saul Williams, It was J. Ivy....
Im going to post links to a couple J Ivy's performances at Def Jam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Def_Poetry....

"Never let me Down" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le1kHp5lLmk
"Dear Father" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdta43fVmes

(Cape Reinga Lighhouse, northern tip of NZ)

Just thought Id post some links and post a few pictures

Bands:

1. Fat Freddy's Drop. http://www.fatfreddysdrop.com/
2.Tahuna Breaks. www.tahunabreaks.com/
3.Katchafire.http://www.katchafire.co.nz/

The Tea Room/KFM radio:Great Jazz/Reggae/Downbeat/Funk/Hip Hop station. Tattoo Parlour, Tea Shop and Art Gallery in the building. http://www.kfmradio.co.nz/

At the moment im living in a area about five mins from downtown Auckland called Mt. Eden Villiage...Here are a couple pictures of the actual Mountain and Mt. Eden villiage

Frasers Cafe is right on the corner in Mt Eden Villiage...best coffee around

This is Mt Eden! I live about ten min walking distance....

Auckland is a pretty dam cool looking place at night...

The Corromandel

Port Jackson.

Boring stuff

"I wanna Live I wanna Give, Ive been a Miner for a heart of gold"

Currently Listening: Neil Young, Harvest Album

Well I got off early the last to days of work, so its daylight when i get home, its really quite exciting...right now im sitting in my closet sized room trying to think of things to write here...ill start with this...I work with two Samoans ladies, Luisa and Tulipe...We get along tremendously minus one small detail...I cant flippin understand them half the time...the Samoan accent when speaking english tends to trail off halway thru the sentence...This is what ill hear..."Jordan! go get .....hmmmla.....cups...thhss....(fading to nothing).....So i asses the situation...I can do three things...I can ask them to repeat, I can ignore until repeated with clarity, or I can guess at what they said and face asked possible rejection...In the begining I asked them to repeat or guessed...our friendships blossomed....We are at the point where i purposely fade my sentences when talking to them....Now this is not to simply dog on the Samoans at all...im simply pointing out some cultural differences that happen to frustrate the living crap out of me. Its actually rather entertaining to worth with Luisa and Tulipe...they talk crap about me in samoan and i throw as many spanish words towards as i can muster....I didnt learn jack from Schlueder ( North henderson inside fact)..I think i will create a tv show about Interworld plastics...A complex drama that is suprisingly boring...

"Its gonna lift you up and let you down"

Currently Listening to: Jack Johnson, Hope

So Ive had this recent itch to see Asia! Im going to try to make it happen for a couple months next year...but for now im working...three more weeks and I should be back on the road heading south!....

jazz reads

"He was the best and the loudest and most loved jazzman of his time, but never professional in the brain. Unconcerned with the crack of the lip he threw out and held immense notes, could reach a force on the first note that attacked the ear. He was obsessed with the magic of the air, those smells that turned neuter as they revolved in his lung then spat out in the chosen key. The way the side of his mouth would drag a net of air in and dress it in noted and make it last and last, yearning to leave it up there in the sky like air transformed into cloud. He could see the air, could tell where it was freshest in a room by its colour"


Just started reading Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje today. I dig completely the imagery in this particular paragraph

Trains and Island folk

My alarm goes off at five forty five, I hit the snooze button and enjoy another five minutes of sleep...again...again...again...eventually I make it breakfastless to the train station...On my hour long train ride to work I contemplate how hungry I am and how severely I hate public transport. I'm sure I am not the first person to call it pubic transport because it makes sense, buut i find it clever and original none-the-less. every bad aspect of pubic hair can be applied to public transport. the only good thing about both is they keep u warm during winter...okay so who really cares right...I do...riding a train two hours a day sucks...from the kid who plays crap music from two years ago unhealthfully loud on his cell phone to the man that smells like mayonaise and rides next to me on wenesdays...im tired...ill do this later

random

Im back in Auckland! After I hit up Rotorua and saw bubbling that smelled like complete dog crap...need I say more...Headed back to Auckland in search of work....ill get back to the work...as far as sleeping...I stayed with Jason for a few days then headed to a hostel up the road...Hostel stay was good..lots of quality people. Its basically one person from everywhere in the world...some Irish, Scottish, the bloody English (thats for James), Americans, Germans, one Argentinian, one Columbian, A Canadian, and heaps more...good times...its pretty interesting looking back on my first impressions of everyone compared with how i see them now that i know people better...before I scored my job I was just bumming around alot...something i enjoy immensly...whether it is spending an entire day in a coffee shop getting buzzed out of mind on coffee and nearly finishing a three hundred page book, or going to the local music stores and jamming to some quality beats for hours thats what my pre days generally involved...ive given up on capitalizing my i's or putting together propper sentences....Ive found this really good tea shop...there are walls full of dried tea...pick your flavor and drink a pot for three bbucks...KFM is a local radio station in the Tea room that plays some of the best music...in my opinion...from old school hip-hop to dub to Jazz-to reggae...google KFM auckland and u can hear the station streaming live...so on fridays i get off work early on fridays and try to hit the tea shop up and do some quality relaxing....i started work at Interworld plastics last monday....its basically an assembly line thing...will jjust say i put stickers on plates for a good portion of the day..monday thru fri..i really dont need to write more about it...im hoping to work a month or two then begin exploring more...oh and i got the job thru ty gibson..thanks! I move into a flat last night with a friend of travis hermans...i broke the only shower head in the flat clean off this morning... glued and taped in back together tonight...works like a charm...i live in a closet..the futon takes up three quarters of the room...i like it...my eyelids feel like lead right noww...i neeed to sleeep...ive been asking every scottish person ive met if they listen to dougie maclean...i met gemma last week and we sang all we knew of Caledonia for two days straight..i think people are stupid alot of the times....i think there are too many fake gangsters around...whatever.im tired..i have free wi fi so ill write more about random stuff thats on my mind

So im currently in Raglan...Its a small little town known for its surfing..real laid back people...annoying kids.....Peter and I camped at a local place last night and are headed out today to see some local sites.....The last week we have spent exploring the Coromandel peninsula....We started off in a little town called Thames (which is pronounced tames...complte crap in my opinion...i get hell from peter about my pronunciation all the time) which is basically at the bottom of the pen....We did some grocery shopping at the pak n save then tried to find a camping site...we drove miles to this DOC campsite and found out they were closed...we ended up sleeping on the porch of the visitor center.....Slept decently.free!...woke up the next morning and drove some local hot springs...cant remember the name of them but they are the largest ones in the southern hemisphere....so we did that and moved on north..all the days are running together but I am pretty sure at this point we drove all the way to the tip of the peninsula to a place called port jackson....what a insane place...pretty much a cove on a beach with camping spots...super secluded...so we stayed there the night....good stuff....next we headed back south to the town of Coromandel....we ended up camping at this hostel there for a couple nights...we watched the rugby match between The All Black's and the Wallabies....In my opinion American Football is way more entertaining....Its been good being out in the country...every corner is something new....From the town of Coromandel we left and drove all day to Raglan.....There is a whole lot more to tell than I can write on here....Internet is a pain in the butt in this country....it looks like I have a job lined up in Auckland so im heading back the first of next month....havent seen much wildlife...lots of birds...tons of cows and sheep...pretty sweet in general...geeze i cant believe the steelers lost to the redskins....anyways....

Red Rocket!

So a good bit has happened in the last week or so...I left Opononi and began hitching...I was picked up not far from there by a older Maori man named Jason..He drove me around for an hour or so and showed me some sites....he trashed the europeans alot for destroying the native land and trying to change the Maori culture..interesting stuff for sure...I can see where he is coming from on alot of stuff but the sitution is complicated....I hitched two more rides and ultimately ended up in a town called Kerikeri...Its a fairly small town with alot of history. I got picked up by a guy named Mark. He took me back to his place, fed, and put me up for the night. Quality guy...He had alot of cool stories to tell...He has been all around the world as a skipper and commercial fisherman...His house sits right on the Kerikeri inlet, a stones throw from the water...I took a kayak out and kayaked around the bay for a couple hours....saw the first stone and wooden house built in NZ....overall good stuff....Left early friday moring and was dropped off in a little beach side town called Pahia in the Bay of Islands....ended up staying four nights at this hostel...Met some quality people...a bunch of Brits, Germans, and two Americans from San Fran (trevor and jared)....over a couple days we went to a nearby town called Russel and saw some old crap that wasnt worth seeing...besides that we just lounged around...I took a bus tour to Cape Reinga on sunday I believe (the days run together madly) which was cool...saw the lighthouse and stuff, it was a long day to say the least....I ran into a English chap at the hoster a couple nights in...turns out he had a car and was traveling solo...I offered to split the petrol price and so we are traveling around together for the moment in the 1988 toyota corolla aka "the red rocket"...Saw some insanely postcard picture perfect beaches couple days ago.....insane.....So peter and I arrived in Whangarei yesterday...stayed the night in an extremely homely hostile and are sitting in an internet cafe getting caught up on stuff.....the plan now is to travel around, see some local sites and begin to camp some....saving money is the greatest thing ever....I bought some fresh veges yesterday and made a killer salad....im ticked that im going to be missing the steelers whoop up on the redskins...oh well I guess we have many more years of dominace eh.....

Long days hitch

So I set out today to cape Reinga....I caught a bus out of the city to a small town called Hellensville which is about an hour and a half north by bus...It took me about ten mins to walk thru H'ville and I began holding my thumb up....about five or six miles in I got picked up by a couple guys in a pickup, I hopped in back and got about ten mins up the road with them....Finally I started seeing a bit of the country side....about an hour later I got picked up by LC and his gf Shiane (and there baby lucy)....Turns out they were on the way to see The Game in concert..Also turns out that LC is a NZ rapper....They asked me all about stuff in the US like ghettos, and the texas chainsaw massacre.....real cool people...I got there numbers and we said we would say hey later....at this point it was about two in the afternooon and I was planning on staying at teh next town which was Wellsford, that was untill I got picked up by Sharron Marsh....Sharron is one sibling of 13, a mother of two, and a grandmother of four... She picked me up and offered to ride with her all the way to her house in Opononi which is well over 200k's....So then the country side turned green....Rolling hills of green dotted with sheep, cows, and fences that never seem to end....Insane stuff....rolling hills just like i thought, and this is during winter!......Along the ride she gave me her complete history pretty much...She can trace her Maori roots all the way back...She was real handy when it came to driving corners insanely fast and rolling ciggaretes...She lives just outside of the Waipoua Kauri Forrest....The Kauri is a massive native NZ tree....She told me about the "toot" plant and how if you touched it and put your hands in your mouth or ate it you would go crazy in the head and die....nice to know right...its a roadside plant and its everywhere....On the drive I got my first look at NZ sheep and the Tasman Sea....I tried taking some pictures as we drove but they didnt do the place justice so i deleted them, Ill get some others eventually.....SHe lives in a small cottage by herself but surrounded by family...Its situated right in a valley and the winds off of the Tasman shake thru like crazy...The land her house is on has been in the family for a long time....She told me that her and her husband but a couple acres and a house that needed to be rebuilt in 95 for about 50,000 bucks!!! insane right....but it was from family....Sharron is making me steak and potato's as I write....Overall Im over halfway to Cape Reinga.....Im making insanely good time...tom I am going to head to a local backpackers and try to meet up with some local travelers....Things are good....Geez there is heeps more that I could write about ......But im tired as all...Sharron just handed me a book to read and foods about ready...oh and I have crap coverage here so no phone calls for a bit....Peace

the naked ride home

Currently sitting in an internet cafe listening to "the naked ride home" by Jackson Browne...good stuff...So ive been in NZ for a week now and am about to leave Auckland and begin hitching north....It takes about 8 hours or so to get to Cape Reinga by car so im thinking within a week or so I should be there (stopping places along the way)....It's pretty easy to hitch rides so I hear so im confident I wont be walking the whole time....Im going to hit up this local asian food store later and get massive amounts of noodles....Hopefully protein shakes, noodles, and granola bars wont give me indigestion too bad....I went to church with Jason on sunday, good stuff....the people at his church are quality people..they seem to be super motivated and driven to do what they feel are called to do, something I can't say ive seen in church back home in a while...they are brutally honest about what they beleive but are driven by complete love....they arent scared to offend and they don't seem to sugarcoat the issues....good stuff to say the least....overall to sum up my first week....the people are genuine and good...the city is big and new, and the roads are open for my chosing....

So the last couple of days I have litterally walked around the city and watched movies from ages ago....Im still staying with my new "mate" Jason Bartle...Hes a real good guy, super generous and funny as hell...We went for a run up the side of Mt. Eden yesterday, im flat out of shape....Mt Eden is a volcano thats been inactive for a bit...at the top there is a three sixty view of the entire city of auckland...super crazy...I bought a hamburger and fries yesterday for litterally ten dollars....or dollar is stronger so I felt good about it....The people here are super friendly....Im sitting in this little internet cafe on Queen st. right now, it cost three dollars an hour to plug in the laptop....Im thinking sometime next week ill head north to Cape Reinga....I dunno alots riding on how long I can bunk with Jason..His roomate is out and Im stealing his bed....Its there winter hear and everyone is bundled up...they stare at me like im crazy for wearing sandals (or Jandals as they call them) but the weather is like our fall...completely prime....also it is completely true that farts are the universal sign of friendship and humour....i mean if everyone just understood that all our farts smell the same then i think world peace might just work out....oh and there toilets are way better, there like tidal waves....Im never scared of clogging....its great....Id be lying if I said I was super homesick...do i miss home, sure...I miss my friends and family but the thought of seeing something completely new everyday is the greatest thought ever

Lost in Auckland and just saying yes

So I'm sitting in a little internet cafe on the super busy Queen St. in downtown auckland. I just finished up the worst white choclate mocha I have ever tasted in my life...I got in at 6:30 or so this morning after 18 hours in the air...Im super awake which is weird...Waiting in the airport in Charlotte I met Debbie and Shelby (mother daughter duo) and talked with them for a bit...they concluded that I am a bit crazy but wished me the best....On the plane I sat next to a recent dental school grad and we talked for a good hour about her family history and the complexity of her religion (Hinduism)..It was interesting...I eventually made it to LA where met up with my uncle jason for a bite to eat....On the plane from LA to Auckland I sat next to this lady from Pittsburgh who was coming to see her son and daughter-in law in Auckland...She cursed a ton about how long the flight was and kept complaining about how she couldnt pop her ears....it was entertaining to say the least....after going thru customs and getting my bags I met up with Jason B....yes the guy that my sister met on facebook...he turned out not to be a serial killer or anything haha...I got a ride back to his flat, he gave me the 411 on stuff and headed off to school....then i wondered around the streets near Mt Eden until the bank opened...once I got some cash in hand I hopped on a completely random bus and luckily landed in downtown Auckland....I drank a real bad coffee, tried not to die crossing the street, and now am sitting in this little cafe....oh and pay phones here are the more confusing than algebra.....overall im stoked about finally getting here

Three Weeks

I had another blog at one point but it was insanely hard to navigate so here we go...I'm heading to New Zealand on the first of August! I will be flying into Auckland to start out..My plans change daily so it is hard to pin down exactly what I will be doing or where I will be going first.....I'm wanting to hang around Auckland for a month or so then head north to Cape Reinga...Really I am just going to take things as they come, which is the approach that most interests me. So will see how things pan out...I'm gonna try to write as often as I can to keep interested people updated on the journey