The last port call on this cruise is a city named Tauranga. The ship docks on a small peninsula that has a mountain at the end of it.

It reminds me of the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming from the movie ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’.

“Maybe a little bit.”

“It reminds me of the buffet.”

“Some people pile the food on so high they make little mountains of food! They never eat it all. Do they really think they will? A short fat girl put six cinnamon rolls on a plate and covered them with maple syrup! She almost died coughing up chunks of syrupy rolls. She was coughing and gasping for air for 5 minutes!”

I noticed nobody was rushing to her aid.

“Not you! You just watched. I’m surprised you didn’t try to get it on video. What’s the buffet equivalent of a pool lifeguard? That’s what she needed. Everyone just ignored her.”

I tell you ugly people are the most discriminated group on the planet. If she was attractive a dozen people would have rushed in to save her.

One side of the peninsula was the harbor and the other side faced the ocean. There were lots of people surfing. I noticed a whole group of children taking lessons. It was a weekday so I wondered if it was summer or some kind of school class or what? 

“Those kids are pretty lucky to do that. I wonder if they have any idea how fortunate they are.”

How could they? They have no experience of what other people’s lives are like. Most kids never see the ocean, or play in it, or any of the things these kids do because of where they live. Just living here is really something special. The price of a home in this neighborhood is several million dollars. You probably have to go pretty far outside of this place to be normal.  This is like living on the beach in San Diego. Not many are getting this. But to these kids, it’s just another day. 

“Right! It isn’t sacred Māori land anymore.”

Religion and culture don’t mean much when there are beachfront skyscrapers to be developed!

Those are facts.

“Who says you can’t do both? Pray for awesome waves dude!”

Surfs up! You can pray for whatever you like, to whatever god you want, whenever you want. I’ll support your right to do that, just don’t expect me to believe what you believe or pray the way you pray because I’m not requiring that from you!

“With wisdom like that, you could be Chief!”

Hmmm Chief Wessir…

“So, these kids are little hot dogs? Little wieners?”

I guess they are!

“What about these camper spots. Do the regular people get to enjoy this place just like the multi-million-dollar condos and home owners do? That’s pretty cool.”

I’m going to guess these are probably reserved far in advance, if you could even get one. Maybe some kind of lottery like they are doing in California and other places now. There can’t be enough places for everyone. Not these types of places. There are still remote areas you can go, but this isn’t one of them. 

“Probably so. There are hot springs here too. This is a very nice place. Ancient Māori sacred grounds!”

Haha! I already forgot about that. These people don’t care either, they are too busy eating outside with the birds.

“Eating on the street is for the birds. Marketing wins again!”

There are still signs of the Māori. Their culture is somewhat integrated in New Zealand. An Uber driver talked to us about it but he did laugh when I brought up the fact they were conquered and all the land was stolen from them. 

“Ya, that was pretty funny to him as an Aussie who moved to New Zealand so he could give rides to tourists in his Tesla. He also told us about the randomness of it all. How the kids pick some small aspect of the Māori culture and run with it.”

Not just Māori culture, every culture. They have no shame of cultural appropriation. They may have never heard anyone complaining about it either! All the Michael Jordan t-shirts the kids wear is weird because they never saw him play. They are also into other classic sports. I watched a guy on the airplane watching old NFL clips – for 3 hours! That was a channel on the New Zealand Airlines flight.

“Same for the tattoos. Sure, lots of Māori tribal tattoos, but not just on Māori! It seemed like everyone had them. So bizarre. In the United States you won’t see that. One skinny white girl had a whole arm covered in Māori tattoos. If you did that with Native American tattoos, you’d be a racist, or treated like you had no respect.”

That is strange. Even stranger than the Aussies who are big on tattoos as well, but theirs are completely random. They don’t mean anything! I looked at quite a few and its total nonsense. Just like them picking up on some pop culture thing and going all out with it.

“Disney tattoos are pretty odd. What would Walt do?”

I’ve never seen white kids with corn rolls before. If you did that in the United States the black people would freak out! I didn’t take any pictures even though they might have been proud of what they were doing. it just seemed so weird I was afraid to ask. 

“They seemed ok about it. One of the comedians made jokes about them and got laughs. I was a little nervous when he started making fun of them. Americans have lost some of their sense of humor thanks to the snowflakes acting perpetually persecuted. The Oppression Olympics are pretty bad.”

That still happens. We got another chapter about that. They like to band together until one group claims they are more oppressed than the other, then they fall apart. Those kids really needed to get beat up more often, not less. We raised a nation of sissies and whiners. We can only fight with video games now except for a few who still like to get physical like the MMA and the other ‘Blokes’.

I guess you can join any tribe you want to in this place. And that’s ok with me.

“Well, that’s enough surfing. Back to the ship Chief!”

Right! Nothing strange going on there.

Let me introduce your bread. Onda by Scarpetti.

“WTF is Scrappetti?”

A breadmaker I guess. It was really good! I’ll go back just for that. Maybe I’ll try the pizza next time.

“That’s a nice sign, lit up like that on the white marble. We should do our mailbox like that!”

Maybe the shower.

The waiter came to my table after the hostess had seated me and after the water boy brought the water. It’s a team effort at these places. You are going to get service from half a dozen people including the manager who wears a ships officer uniform. Maybe he or she is an officer? It can be hard to tell sometimes. I haven’t made any sense of the stripes and patterns they wear on their shoulders. I don’t know if it matters because everyone is responsible for your happiness on the ship. I even had an assistant waiter whose name was ‘Happiness’. It said so on the table card and her name tag read ‘Happy’.

The waiter comes with the bread. That’s after he came the first time to introduce himself as my waiter. He says ‘allow me to introduce your bread this evening.’

“Hello bread. Nice to meet you.”

He describes each bread item on the tray and the three dipping trays. He says the red one, I can’t remember what he named it, is delicious.

He wasn’t lying about that! It was so good! I’m going back for that. The next day I tried to convince Ling to come with me to try it but she had other plans.

I sat next to a couple that were a little older than me, but not by much. The man said he just turned 70 and had sold his business earlier and was now enjoying life the same as me. He was from Arizona. I told him my thoughts on how a regular save and invest strategy doesn’t work. He agreed. He said he started out early working for a shipping company and decided he was better off to start his own shipping company. Years later he sold it for 240 million, he said.

I never got his name so I’ll call him the 240 million dollar man.

That’s about what a 6 million man would cost now. If you had saved and invested to get 6 million you couldn’t afford a bionic man. That’s the point I made. The Bionic man would cost more by inflation of course, but I am saying it would be so much better than the old bionic man it would have a much higher price.

For 6 million today, you could probably hire the old bionic man for a party, but that’s about it.

Besides the 239 million plus difference between me and him I want to know if we are all that different.

“And the years. You aren’t 70.”

I will test him. I’m checking to see if he is like me. Will he offer pizza to taste or throw it in the trash? That’s how I opened the conversation so I definitely would ask if he wanted to try the pizza if the situation were reversed. If it was going in the trash, I’m sure I would have offered it to him to try. I’ve finished my meal so there’s nothing in front of me but water.

They were 18 inches away. They definitely say what I ate. I started the conversation when they were between courses. They had just finished eating pizza when I asked if they liked it.

Princess pizza is still the best, by far. I’m going back just for that. Now I compare all pizza to Princess Pizza, I said.

“I just said they do.”

We chatted while the pizza sat on their table. They had eaten all they were going to. There were two pieces left. I could have asked to try and I’m sure they would have given me both pieces. I’m sure of that. They were friendly and liked that I spoke to them and showed interest in their lives on the ship and off. I didn’t ask for the pizza, I was testing them. I wanted to know if they had the same sensibility that I have.

He was still friendly and recognized me again with a big smile and hearty handshake when I saw them in the hall the next day. And again, when I saw just him passing by, he lit up and gave me a friendly greeting. I asked if she was having luck in the casino. At dinner, I asked most of the questions but offered something about my life in Vegas. Because she was a gambler and he was talking about how Caesars is an investor in NCL, that’s why they got the cruise offer. Interesting because they got free rooms and free offers to upgrade because she was a gambler. A loser, I’m sure, but that doesn’t matter. I alluded to the fact 99.995% lose. I have a good story to show that fact as I had access to win-loss statements that are used for tax purposes. Those are legal documents. I know what’s real.

Despite him saying she was a winner and he wondered why they kept offering her free stuff to come back, she said nothing. I know she loses more than she wins. People say they win even if they don’t. Or don’t mention losses and only talk about wins. Pretty standard that people only talk of good things and don’t mention the bad.

“Like IG yacht girls.”

Idk if they were married or just dating. I didn’t ask and they didn’t say.

I had finished with my lobster linguini. That’s all I had because I paid ala carte for this meal. If it’s all included you get starters, appetizers, main course, then dessert. That’s a $200 meal at least if you pay for each item, not counting any wine you might have with dinner. I just wanted the lobster dish so I spent my 2 included meals at the steak joint called Cagney’s.

Onda was a ‘I wanna try this’ moment. I spent $20 on just one item. It was really good and the experience was good too. I’ll do that again. I might ask for a larger portion. They might just give it to me! Doesn’t hurt to ask because they really want you to be happy.

When their main course arrived, the pizza was taken away to the trash. I told them I would let them enjoy their main course and wished them a pleasant evening.

They aren’t like me. But they aren’t so different either.

“So, you believe he has 240 million?”

Hard to tell. Many rich people are thrifty so I can’t be sure. You don’t get rich throwing money around and if you earned it, you don’t give it away. I really don’t know. But I don’t care either. I enjoyed talking with them.

She mentioned the Casino was closed so she wasn’t playing until it opens later.

“Why would a casino close? That’s not like Vegas, they never close.”

It wasn’t enough. Good thing the buffet is always there for a snack.

“Or another dinner. A late dinner. That’s what we call the second dinner.”

I don’t know what the lobsters are doing. Maybe there’s one more show or one more night at the bar.

I’ll take every sunset I can get because they are still special to me.