1986
This was our last year in America. In the summer hols we went for a long trip... lots of travelling, being in a plane was normal for me and def no fear of flying thats for sure. Our holiday was back to our homeland in NZ. However we didn't go to Wellington but visited rellies in Auckland. It was great to see the cuzzies again. We were there for several week.... plenty of time to enjoy Aucklands very changable winter weather (NY weather was much more stable... it was either raining all day or sunny all day, in akl anything could happen lol). Great to be back in NZ though, so different from America... way more relaxed, but akl was definately busier than Wellington though.
But our trip didn't end there... Dad left for Hong Kong a week before we did. He met us at the Airport but first we had to get there. We stopped at Sydney en route to HK but ran into difficulty cos of a little transformer toy that i had. it could either be a robot or a toy gun and i accidently left it in the gun mode which of course allerted security. They confiscated the toy and we were allmost late for a our flight. Back then thery had just started using those entry chutes for planes but we had to walk up the stairs lol.
It took allmost forever to traverse OZ's east coast... OZ is HUGE, we flew accross the outback to get to SE Asia and you could see just barren nothingness, no clouds, no towns. Once in Hong Kong that all changed of course.... Hot, humid, tropicial and ppl EVERYWHERE. What a place! Never seen anything like it. Wow culture overload, the heat, the ppl and the smells and the rubbish. Quite a filthy place but certain;y not third world. Never been to a third world country. Hong Kong is one of the richest places in the world per head of population... and all those ppl (several million) were prob living in a space the size of wellington city, real packed. Our hotel was on the hills. Swimming pool at the top, walked up to it everyday, saw some big cockroaches but stocked to swim in some hot weather... last time i couldn't swim when in Arizona. Definately hot,,, instead of 50 degress and 5% humidity it was 33 degrees and 95% humidity so you didn't get grilled you got steamed lol. Whilst there we witnessed a huge electricial storm that came in over the hills on the over side of the valley. one of the biggest lightning discharges ever seen occured right infront of our apartment and i was watching gods big show of course :).
After Hong Kong we went to Japan as we had friends of the family there. Still quite hot in Tokyo but things were way different to Hong Kong. Hong Kong was very dirty and everything was cheap.... well Japan was the opposite. Not a bit of rubbish to be seen and things were very expensive. Wow Japan was amazing.... the perfect example of how you blend old skool traditions with western technology... is it any wonder that the Japanese outlive everyone else? We stayed there for a bout a week before flying back to America... in first class lol.
Back in America two aspects of my life in the 90s were starting to spawn. Wrestling and Heavy Metal. Back in the 80s heavy metal was huge and Iron Maiden was perhaps the biggest band of them all. My brother saw some of their videos on TV. Also saw professional wrestling on TV as well... of course i thought it was real. However it wouldn't be until 2 years later when i would start properly getting into both of those forms of entertainment. My music taste was still into 80s pop at a time when rap was being born. also emerging at this time was the dreaded AIDS disease and of course mum was scaring us with stories of this uncurable disease... back then we didn't realise it was an STD... we thought you could get it like rabies.. which was also around lol. Whilst we didn't go to any pro wrestling matches we did see several sports games like baseball, NFL etc. omg classic american styles.... pretzels, beer, hotdogs whilst you watch the Mets, Jets, Yankees or Giants. Didn't even know what rugby was.... never heard of it in America, but soccer was huge as was their "big 4"... NFL, Basketball, Baseball and Ice hockey. Another thing i got into whilst over in America was Radio controlled cars. We initially got a fuel powered car but that was too hard for a 9 year old to use so we got an electric one which i was allways using... absolutely loved it. 3 aspects of my teenage life (wrestling, metal and RC cars) were spawned in America and officially started back in NZ in 1987...
and that was America.... we left late 1986 for a month long trip around Europe which was amazing. Like England this was history overload. Lots of fog too... it was late Autumn so quite cold... not as cold as NY in the winter though... more like NZ.... more to come.....
But our trip didn't end there... Dad left for Hong Kong a week before we did. He met us at the Airport but first we had to get there. We stopped at Sydney en route to HK but ran into difficulty cos of a little transformer toy that i had. it could either be a robot or a toy gun and i accidently left it in the gun mode which of course allerted security. They confiscated the toy and we were allmost late for a our flight. Back then thery had just started using those entry chutes for planes but we had to walk up the stairs lol.
It took allmost forever to traverse OZ's east coast... OZ is HUGE, we flew accross the outback to get to SE Asia and you could see just barren nothingness, no clouds, no towns. Once in Hong Kong that all changed of course.... Hot, humid, tropicial and ppl EVERYWHERE. What a place! Never seen anything like it. Wow culture overload, the heat, the ppl and the smells and the rubbish. Quite a filthy place but certain;y not third world. Never been to a third world country. Hong Kong is one of the richest places in the world per head of population... and all those ppl (several million) were prob living in a space the size of wellington city, real packed. Our hotel was on the hills. Swimming pool at the top, walked up to it everyday, saw some big cockroaches but stocked to swim in some hot weather... last time i couldn't swim when in Arizona. Definately hot,,, instead of 50 degress and 5% humidity it was 33 degrees and 95% humidity so you didn't get grilled you got steamed lol. Whilst there we witnessed a huge electricial storm that came in over the hills on the over side of the valley. one of the biggest lightning discharges ever seen occured right infront of our apartment and i was watching gods big show of course :).
After Hong Kong we went to Japan as we had friends of the family there. Still quite hot in Tokyo but things were way different to Hong Kong. Hong Kong was very dirty and everything was cheap.... well Japan was the opposite. Not a bit of rubbish to be seen and things were very expensive. Wow Japan was amazing.... the perfect example of how you blend old skool traditions with western technology... is it any wonder that the Japanese outlive everyone else? We stayed there for a bout a week before flying back to America... in first class lol.
Back in America two aspects of my life in the 90s were starting to spawn. Wrestling and Heavy Metal. Back in the 80s heavy metal was huge and Iron Maiden was perhaps the biggest band of them all. My brother saw some of their videos on TV. Also saw professional wrestling on TV as well... of course i thought it was real. However it wouldn't be until 2 years later when i would start properly getting into both of those forms of entertainment. My music taste was still into 80s pop at a time when rap was being born. also emerging at this time was the dreaded AIDS disease and of course mum was scaring us with stories of this uncurable disease... back then we didn't realise it was an STD... we thought you could get it like rabies.. which was also around lol. Whilst we didn't go to any pro wrestling matches we did see several sports games like baseball, NFL etc. omg classic american styles.... pretzels, beer, hotdogs whilst you watch the Mets, Jets, Yankees or Giants. Didn't even know what rugby was.... never heard of it in America, but soccer was huge as was their "big 4"... NFL, Basketball, Baseball and Ice hockey. Another thing i got into whilst over in America was Radio controlled cars. We initially got a fuel powered car but that was too hard for a 9 year old to use so we got an electric one which i was allways using... absolutely loved it. 3 aspects of my teenage life (wrestling, metal and RC cars) were spawned in America and officially started back in NZ in 1987...
and that was America.... we left late 1986 for a month long trip around Europe which was amazing. Like England this was history overload. Lots of fog too... it was late Autumn so quite cold... not as cold as NY in the winter though... more like NZ.... more to come.....
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