Queenstown

Food Find: I was at the grocery store today, looking at the muffins. They had two different sizes, so to differentiate between them, the larger were called Texas. As in Texas apricot blueberry muffin, etc. I was really confused (trying to figure out what ingredient makes something Texas...) and then really excited.
Food Find Two: They deep fry a lot of stuff here, including some cool/interesting things. Of note: a curry roll, which is basically an egg roll, but filled with curry, peas, meat, etc; lasagna, which was like a two inch square segment of pasta, sauce, and cheese, battered and fried.

I went to Queenstown this past weekend on an international student trip. The city is basically (from my gathering) the adventure tourism capital of the South Island. The aim of the trip was to pack in everything one would want to do in Queenstown, so we could have other weekends free to go other places. The activities:
-Stop in Roxburgh to eat Jimmy's Pies, apparently a New Zealand institution. It reminded me a lot of the little hole-in-the-wall bakeries in Texas that we would eat at for assorted famous dishes. Jimmy's had all the standard pies (mutton, mince, potato top) and some cool weird ones (chicken and mango, chicken and apricot). I got egg and (Canadian) bacon, which was good for 10 am.
-Stop at Quartz Reef winery for a tour and tasting. I guess this place is famous for their pinots, and we had a pinot noir and pinto gris. They were really good, although I know nothing about wine.
-AJ Hackett bungee at the Kawarau Bridge. This is the site of the first commercial bungee jump, and still one of the most popular. It's a 43 meter jump off a bridge into this clear, blue water. They ask you how wet you want to get, because they can adjust it so you miss the river all the way to a full dunk. I wasn't nearly as scared as I expected to be, and everyone in the group successfully completed the jump. I don't really remember much, since it's so short (about a 3 second freefall, and then 15 or so seconds of swinging and dangling while they raft over to unhook you) and there's so much adrenaline rushing through you. Still a pretty crazy experience to say you jumped off a bridge (well they'll push you if you don't jump after a five count).
-Dinner at the Cardrona Hotel, this fancy little hotel/restaurant out in the middle of nowhere. It's an old brick building with a big lawn out in the back, very rustic cottage-y. Food was decent.
-Shotover jet boat ride. Another Queenstown institution. You get taken out on the Shotover river, which is another clear, blue river in a souped up jet boat (two engines, 900 horsepower) to zoom around on the water, do 360 turns, get splashed, etc. for around thirty minutes. I think this was the highlight of the weekend for most of us, as this was pretty unlike anything anyone had done before. It's sort of a hybird between a roller coaster and a fast boat ride.
-Tramp in the New Zealand wilderness. Outside of Queenstown is where a lot of Lord of the Rings was filmed, so the whole group went on a hike. We ended up picking the wrong trail, so the views weren't the most memorable, but I did slip and impale myself on a rock, where I had to get four stitches.
-Queenstown Hospital. Spent about two hours on Saturday night getting looked at and stitched up (mostly just waiting though) at the hospital. Thanks to New Zealand's universal health care though, it was all free (even though I'm foreign...). Hopefully when the stitches come out, I'll have a good scar. They're about two or so inches below my left knee.
-Skyline Gondola. Gondola in the sense of a cable car, and not an Italian boat. The gondolas take you up the side of this huge hill/mountain thing overlooking Queenstown. At the top is a swanky restaurant, another bungee jump, and a luge track.
-Skyline Luge. Essentially the poor man's go karts, with gravity serving in place of a motor. The luge track snakes around, with lots of dips and sharp corners, and then a ski lift at the bottom to take you back up to do it again!
-Cromwell. The South Island's stone fruit capital. Stopped at a fruit stand to get some interesting produce (it is summer here after all). I ended up just getting weird things: some pluots (apricot plum hybrids), peacherines (peach nectarine hybrids), yellow plums, and kiwi berries (a little larger than a grape, with grape-like skin, but tasting just like a kiwi on the inside).
Got a little short near the end becaus I realize I have to go to class now. Whoops.