Observations

· After we discovered the Canadian Totem pole and took some pictures, a tour bus of Germans and a group of Japanese swarmed around taking pictures and posing with the Totem pole – probably thinking it was a New Zealand artifact. They didn’t even bother to read the plaque that explained it was a gift from Canada! Some tourists shouldn’t be allowed off the bus!

· We had a choice of two tour guides at the Maori Village tour – either a young woman or an older grandmotherly woman. We chose the older grandmotherly woman - and I mean grandmotherly! She didn’t tell us anything about what we were seeing – like the bubbling mud, geysers and the village itself. She talked about her grandchildren, who is related to who in the village, how when she was young she had to wear a school uniform and learn to march, and how she can predict earthquakes and tsunamis by reading the changes in the hot pools. Oops, wrong choice. We ended up taking the self-directed tour ourselves afterwards to take in what we missed.