ANZAC Day and some fruitful adventures

Back in the land of the kiwis now, and have been doing some pretty interesting things. Having lived in Australia for 28 or so years and never attended an Anzac dawn service, I ignored my objections to the glorification of war and decided to go to the Rotorua dawn service this year. One of the main reasons I wanted to go was because of the Maori influence. In Rotorua, having one of the largest Maori communities in NZ and being home to the Maori battallion, the dawn service is held at a marae (meeting house) right on lake Rotorua. It was dark and freezing cold but a very interesting experience. During the service, the sun rose over the hills, shrouded in mist from the thermal pools and combined with the Maori singing, it was a lovely experience.

Me with flatmates Karen and Andrea

Fruit, fruit, fruit

People always think that Australia and New Zealand are pretty much the same, but the longer I stay here, the more different things I find. One good, tangible example (aside from the accents) is fruit. In the last month or so, I have encountered more new fruit than ever before. Feijoas were the first to come to my attention (by our neighbours who brought us big bags of them every couple of days for the entire month of May!!). They are little green things, a bit like a lemon in shape but with a soft centre and a sweet almost fermented taste. Also on the new list are golden kiwifruit, tamarillos and this really random fruit which looks like a green melon inside but tastes a bit like a mango and has a soft yellow and black skin.... If anyone knows what it is, please let me know. All very tasty anyway!

Clockwise from top left: golden kiwi, tamarillo, weird melon thing, feijoa. The thing in the middle is a persimmon -not new but interesting all the same!

This is the size bag of feijoas are neighbours were giving us every couple of days during feijoa season - lucky we liked them!

Andrea eating a feijoa....

The other day at the supermarket, I also came across this really random thing called a kiwi horned melon or kiwiano. I was really excited about it as it is quite bizzare looking. Alas, when I opened it up (after days of anticipation) it looked and tasted pretty much like a cucumber but with only seeds, no pith! Very sad.

My kiwi horned melon - blah!

Karen and I have also made some adventures into the world of new root vegetables - yams and black potatoes.....but we'll leave that story for another day!