waitangi day

I was going to write this a few hours earlier, but I suddenly lost all internet contact with New Zealand… again.

Today is Waitangi Day, the anniversary of the signing between Britain and most Maori iwi and hapu of the Treaty of Waitangi, making New Zealand a British colony. The Treaty is traditionally seen as New Zealand’s founding document. We don’t have an independence day, we have a dependence day.

And next weekend my wife and I will be boarding a jet plane and flying to New Zealand. It’ll be her first trip ever outside China and my first time back to New Zealand in seven years. I’m kinda curious to see how both of us will react. I have to admit to both being a bit nervous and looking forward to it. Although I’m certainly not looking forward to being stuck in a tin can breathing recycled air all the way from Beijing to Auckland…. Sure, direct flights have their advantages, but there are distances over which it is nice to take a break. But ticket prices made a stop in Hong Kong on the way there uneconomical. Oh well, we get a stop in Hong Kong on the way back.

I’m not going to even attempt to explain the prolonged silence on this blog, except that I’ve felt the need to withdraw a bit. Two posts have been started but not finished, and therefore not posted, over the last few weeks. I won’t promise to update in the next week, and I can all but guarantee a lack of updates during the two weeks we’re in New Zealand. I do hope to get back to business as usual in March.