Maybe I should move to Auckland?

I mean, you have a thriving cosmopolitan centre just minutes away from beautiful beaches and bush trails...great granola communities AND a bourgeoning film industry. You can meditate alone in the forest in the morning, spend the day surfing, and be downtown in 20 minutes, grabbing a Caramel Hot Chocolate at Starbucks on your way to meeting the girls for sushi.

This might be my dream city.

So, yes, I'm having a great trip so far. Even though I may have brought some malaria with me and very nearly passed out in Chapati Indian Restaurant last night. But, yeah, I'm...dealing with that.

While I was lying on my back on the floor of the 'differently-abled' toilet, watching the room spin while being blinded by the overhead fluorescent light, growing progressively more debilitated by alternating waves of delirium and nausea, I managed to find a momentary, quiet comfort in the realization, "At least I have lived."

The adventure continues.

I'll be flying down to the newest Sivananda centre in the world in about two hours (in New Plymouth).

Here.

In Vila.

Again...because...

I'm going to New Zealand next week! Yay!

So, like I don't know how in-depth your googling goes, but in case the coconut reaches any of you and you're curious, yes, Cyclone Funa hit Vanuatu last week. No, no one was hurt and there was no major damage. And no, it didn't hit my island, though it was supposed to...at 200 km/hr apparently, but then it felt like turning east a bit...which was, you know, lucky for us and stuff. It was a little windy on my island and bit of rain for a couple days, but that was pretty much it.

It was pretty damn close, though, which was pretty exciting, and almost fortunate that I got to go through the whole process as like a "trial run"...right down to the "Standfast [as in DON'T MOVE]" orders sent from my office to my sketchy sat phone...and I was strangely calm and serene about the whole thing, more than I imagined I would be but also because I think I was in denial. Juli was visiting, which I'm sure made the whole thing a lot less scarier, and we just kind of quickly and quietly filled up buckets of drinking water, arranged cans of baked beans and put new batteries in the flashlights. Then there was nothing left to do but hole up and wait for destruction to come, which was a weird, eerie feeling...so we sang every Ani song we knew and many that we didn't and then, you know, the storm just skipped us.

So yeah, pictures and stories and stuff to come in the next week...I'm not out to Auckland (and then to New Plymouth) until next Wednesday.

Happy New Year to all!