Strange days....

Well, I must admit we are finding it difficult to find our feet in this new world...
It is so clean!!! It is so western!!! It is so EXPENSIVE!!!!
We really thought we were going to be back to more luxury accommodation, cleaner toilets and generally back to a more 'normal' familiar environment when we got to New Zealand, but the difference in costs between here and Asia are really outstanding, so to combat the cash hemorrhage we have down graded our accommodation to the cheapest we can find - first a rusty old oil leaking mini van (an upgrade from our originally booked rusty old station-wagon estate car!) for the North Island, and then 'freedom camping' in a leaky borrowed tent (thankyou again and again and again, Jonathan and Sarah in Blenheim!) from the back of a rusty backfiring station-wagon. Bring back squat toilets and the more traditional four bamboo walls and a thatched roof, I say!!!
Never ones to be put off, we are now much more acquainted with the 'great outdoors', and despite sneezing a bit, having to shave in McDonalds toilets, and washing 'pits and bits' in public lavs, what a country to get closer to nature!!! It is SPECTACULAR! Mountains, glaciers, crystal clear lakes, huge pine forests, rivers and streams everywhere you look, waterfalls, not to mention the wildlife - eagles, possums, seals, WHALES, DOLPHINS!!!
Just incredible.

New Zealand's great natural and unspoiled beauty aside, I am beginning to get the impression that I am turning into my dad. No, I am not growing a beard as yet, nor am I a whiz at making clothes, cooking great meals or drinking hierbas, but do find myself from time to time grumbling at things that I am finding increasingly ridiculous - and coming back to a modern western culture, I have plenty of ammunition...
For example, MTV fashions - are they getting more and more ridiculous, or am I just getting old? Another prime example is the use of many words to describe something when only one more 'traditional' word could do - in a supermarket, next to the tills we noticed a bench with a large green sign above it with posh white lettering informing the passer-by that it was a 'customer resting station'. I just don't get it. Am I getting old..?