After Hobbiton, it was back to the car and on the road to Rotorua. where we checked into the Regent of Rotorua. We had what they call a two-bedroom family suite. One can tell that the hotel has been there for a while, but the whole thing (not that large actually) was very nicely done, including a new pool area that had only recently been updated, and it's own mineral pool room. Lisa and I did manage to have a nice 30 minutes or so in the mineral pool our first night there.
Our first excursion the next day (actually, my first excursion as Lisa wasn't feeling too well that morning) was the Te R Guided Experience, a visit to Te Puia. This includes a tour with (at least in my case) a Maori guide of the natural landscape of geysers, mud pools, and hot springs ...
and then a visit to the Mari Arts and Crafts Institute, an on-premises set of schools of stone carving, wood carving, and weaving
One interesting thing about the school - we saw mostly male students working in both the stone carving and wood carving areas. One of our group asked about this. It turns out that both women and men can apply to the stone carving and weaving programs, but no women are accepted in the wood carving program. When we asked why, the answer was that traditionally, the two most important things in the Maori culture are family and land. It was thought that in order to protect the women of the village, they should not put themselves at risk by having to be out in the wild landscapes for the longer periods of time involved in the wood-carving crafts.
and finally the Art Gallery.
Later in the day, both of us left for our Te Pa Tu Cultural Experience, an evening of exploring Maori culture, traditions, and cuisine. This was a lot of fun. We started with a traditional welcome ceremony between village chief and our own chief.
After that we entered and then moved around from area to area where we heard about some aspect of traditional Maori life and sampled a traditional type of appetizer in each location.
We then attended a show featuring traditional singing and dancing
Finally, we moved on our hāngī dinner. In traditional hāngī cooking, food such as fish and kūmara (sweet potato), were cooked in a pit dug in the ground. Today, pork, lamb, potato, pumpkin and cabbage are also included. During dinner, some of the staff/cast entertained. The main person asked where people from each dinner table were from, and then she and a few other folks just started singing something from that country in its native language. Not very traditional Maori perhaps, but definitely some pretty amazing talent!
Tomorrow we head to the airport to turn in this rental car and to fly down to Wellington.
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