【老外说】新西兰人说新西兰旅游

Queenstown is probably the most beautiful place in  New Zealand. Personally, I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen so many pictures, and I need to go.

Do you know the movie  Lord of the Rings（指环王）? Are you a fan?

The entire country. But the Hobbit houses, the Hobbiton (霍比特人系列电影) was filmed in this place called Matamata(玛塔玛塔) which is about an hour and a half from Oakland(奥克兰). It’s really beautiful there, so if you like the Hobbit scenery, you should go. I would recommend it.

 电影《指环王》和《霍比特人》是由好莱坞的新西兰籍导演彼得.杰克逊执导拍摄的两部大片，其中《指环王》拍摄始于1999年，耗时7年完成。《霍比特人》拍摄自2011年至2012年。这两部电影在情节内容上有关联，虽然《霍比特人》后拍，但其故事情节发生在《指环王》之前。这两部影片虚构了一个磅礴如史诗的距今一千多年前的中土世界，其中也为我们展现了一个美丽至极的世外桃源，霍比特人的家园——夏尔的霍比屯

They actually built the houses for the film. So they filmed the Lord of the Rings there and then they filmed the Hobbit there. In the Lord of the Rings, they filmed it and then they destroyed it, and then they built it again for the Hobbit. Now it’s just a place specifically for tourists. 

I don’t know if you know much about New Zealand culture. In New Zealand, indigenous （本地的，土生土长的）people are called the Maoris（毛利人）. The special kind of food that they have is called the “Hangi”. It’s a method of cooking. They put food in the ground, because the ground is hot inside and then they cook it. It’s a special way of cooking. It doesn’t taste very good in my opinion. but it’s a good experience. 

什么是Hangi?

Hangi是一种新西兰毛利人发明的把食物埋在土里烘烤的烹饪方式（注意：它是一种烹饪方式，不是特指什么食物），而 这种烹饪方式最关键的是造一个有热度、有蒸汽的“地下烤箱”。

首先，先把大石头用木头加热到滚烫，之后转移到事先挖好的大坑里，再把装有各种肉的锡箔盒子或者铁篮子放在大石头上，根据肉的种类一层层叠放，最难熟的放最下面，之后再放一层蔬菜和甜点布丁，再盖上不透不漏的湿布，在盖上布之前，会倒一些水进去，这样可以保证食物的湿度和提供蒸汽，最后再埋上土，等上2-3小时或者3-4小时左右，烹饪时间取决于埋藏的食物量的多少，挖出来就可以吃了。

I think October is OK. 

If you can, I would recommend you to spend Christmas there. So December. That’s because you’re from the northern hemisphere (北半球), from China. When it’s Christmas time, it’s usually snowing, it’s usually really cold. But in New Zealand, it’s the complete opposite. So when we have Christmas, we usually go to the beach, and we have barbecues, so it’s a whole new experience.

Christmas holidays are usually very long. It’s about two or three weeks. 

Sort of. It’s similar. People, even office workers, they also have two or three weeks off sometimes, depending on your industry. 

New Zealand and Australia. Both countries usually have barbecues for Christmas. 

Santa is also the same. Unfortunately, people who dress as Santa will be sweating like crazy in the Santa costume. But we also have sexy Santa because it’s summer. Santa in beach shorts（沙滩短裤）, Santa in flip flops（人字拖） and he just wears the hat and the beard. 

Not in Oakland. I live in Oakland. There is no snow in Oakland at all even in the peak of winter. But in Queenstown, there’s a lot of snow. The further south you go, the more snow there is. 

We have winter, but we just don’t get snow. 

Sometimes it can get to minus five.  It gets cold, but not as cold as China.

It does get quite cold sometimes, but it just doesn’t get to the point that is unbearable. New Zealand is really nice. I think you should definitely go there for at least once in your life. 

【老外说】在英国多生孩子不用工作？