what is the flavor of hokey pokey and other observations

Back to school shopping and hokey pokey ice cream

As it is summer here, the atmosphere is of that vacation/gearing up for school/activity mode which is such a mind bender from where we came from- mid school year /winter/ just got past Christmas mode.  Ads abound for back to school sales on clothes and supplies, and I am easily swayed to join in.  Yesterday we went to the mall-something we never do at home!-for lunch (dumplings at Paul’s fave place auntie dai’s) and some things needed for the house and poor Kogen who still has no suitcase.   Just like at home, there were the teens, families and general shoppers to people watch as we ate.  Watching a gang of teen boys about Alex’s age we wondered about the high school atmosphere he would encounter (purple skinny pants for boys?) and you could see that the same social strata existed here. 

Earlier in the day Paul drove us to the hills to the south of us for perspective on the area.  First of all it is a surreal feeling for me to get into passenger seat where the driver formerly sat in our previous life.  It reminded me of the feeling I always have when snorkeling- that is against my better judgement to breathe underwater; hence I should not be on the left side of the road while driving.  At one point I tried putting on the brake under my foot to stop us, but I was operating with invisible steering wheel and pedals on my side.  The hills were gorgeous and rose up steadily above the city, resembling at first the mountains of Acadia in Maine, then curvy roads in San Francisco, then the guardrail-less inclines of Colorado at my sister’s house.  Hiking, or tramping, trails sprung off from every corner and at the top we got out of the car to look around and followed a path to get closer to our first NZ sheep who calmly gazed back at us.  Looking down we could see the city of Christchurch and the ocean beyond with craggy mountains behind us.   While we walked around we practiced another one of the new aspects of getting around here: “Look right” is my new mantra for walking along the streets since traffic travels so different here.

We get a little free paper at our house and there was an article in it about the favorite flavors of ice cream of New Zealanders-boysenberry topped the list this year right above vanilla, but right after those was hokey pokey flavor.  What the heck is that?  Today we are food-centered in our activity: Mia wants fish and chips and I am going to get to the bottom of this mystery!   Stay tuned…