{"id":59,"date":"2008-02-25T13:12:38","date_gmt":"2008-02-25T02:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/25\/franz-josef\/"},"modified":"2008-02-28T13:18:52","modified_gmt":"2008-02-28T02:18:52","slug":"franz-josef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/25\/franz-josef\/","title":{"rendered":"Franz Josef"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Work up early, checked my email &#8211; and tried to arrange some things with my aunt and uncle with regards to China.  Found out everyone was at my grandmother&#8217;s, so I figured I&#8217;d use the phone card a Swiss woman had given me in Christchurch and give them a call.  Only 5 minutes left on the phonecard, and 4 people to talk to, but it was nice to hear some familiar Canadian voices.<\/p>\n<p>Headed to the Franz Josef Glacier Guides building, and got suited up for a walk on the glacier &#8211; socks, boots, gloves, toque, raincoat, waterproof pants.  It was pouring rain, which didn&#8217;t bode well for a day I&#8217;d be spending out in the open.  As we hopped on the bus to head to the glacier, the weather cleared up a little, and we were able to stow away our raincoats.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3083\/2296903516_c3670e4fa2.jpg\" class=\"flickrimg\" alt=\"IMG_3108\" \/><br \/>\nThe glacier is huge, and moves very fast (at about a metre per day).  I&#8217;d be interested in coming back in a twenty years and seeing it then.  Met some more Canadians, Amanda and Britney; an older American, Ted; and a few others.  Our guide, A.J was from New Zealand, and did a good job of guiding us, but didn&#8217;t really shower us with information on the glacier itself.<\/p>\n<p>Hiked up onto the glacier, and around it &#8211; took lots of pictures, and got very wet &#8211; as the rain revisted us several times through the day.  Thankfully the provided gear was of a good quality.  It was a little cool, which should help prepare me for Beijing next week.<\/p>\n<p>Got back to the hostel at 4pm, and headed over to see Sebastian and Marion &#8211; but they were&#8217;t around.  Grabbed my bags from the hostel and headed to Greymouth, further up the west coast.<\/p>\n<p>Just outside of Franz Josef I picked up Eduard, a Brazilian.  He&#8217;d been waiting in the rain for 4 hours, which is fairly unheard of as far as I can tell.  He was just in search of a bed, so he was keen to go anywhere that might have one &#8211; so I offered to take him to Greymouth with me.  Along the way I regaled him with my Portuguese speaking knowledge &#8211; but one can only say &#8220;It&#8217;s cold outside&#8221; so often before it starts to get repetitive.  Even if it is true.<\/p>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3236\/2296892388_a9fd5fc8dc.jpg\" class=\"flickrimg\" alt=\"IMG_3080\" \/>\n<p>We looked for a few hostels in Greymouth for Eduard, but in the end he ended up staying at the same one I was at.  Nice hostel, which may or may not have been an old church.  One of the dorm rooms was a chapel.<\/p>\n<p>Eduard is flying out of Christchurch on the same day as me, so he may head with me to Arthur&#8217;s Pass in the morning.<\/p>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3126\/2296083899_f00ef71416.jpg\" class=\"flickrimg\" alt=\"IMG_3060\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Work up early, checked my email &#8211; and tried to arrange some things with my aunt and uncle with regards to China. Found out everyone was at my grandmother&#8217;s, so I figured I&#8217;d use the phone card a Swiss woman had given me in Christchurch and give them a call. Only 5 minutes left on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}