Detox Day Three

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Not in a biblical, I'm about to die sense, but in an "I can finally see the end of this journey" sense. Yes. After just one more day, I can put solid food into my body again. But, will I want to?

Day Three:
8:15 AM- Juice one, the good ol' "Detox Greens." I drank this and have to admit, I was getting pretty sick of the sweet green juice. 

12:00 PM- I got caught up in shopping endeavors and forgot about my hunger but boy, did it remind me like a child pestering his or her mother for an ice cream cone on a hot day. Gotta love how all of my analogies are related to food now... Wonder why... On that note, it was really challenging to be in a grocery store while cleansing. I have noticed that my sense of smell is heightened while cleansing. I can all of a sudden smell food more than I ever could before. 

2:15 PM- Another green juice. Whoopee.

4:00 PM- I was a bit sad to polish off my last Spicy Lemonade! Love that stuff!

6:08 PM- A wonderful dinner of my LAST green juice.

748 PM- I fell into a bit of a depressed state when I sipped the last bit of my final Coconut Fusion.

Final Reflections:
Well, come the end of day three, all I could think about was the mental clarity I was experiencing and the strong urge to continue my cleanse. During the cleanse, I experienced some caffeine withdrawal in the form of headaches, but those subsided. The thing I was most shocked about was my extreme thirst throughout the three days. It is a bit counter-intuitive to crave water when all I am doing is downing liquid, so I'm not sure why that was the case. Therefore, I recommend sticking close to a bathroom while cleansing.

Detox Day Two

I awoke with a rather pressing dilemma. I couldn't decide whether to drink my first juice before yoga, in spite of the fact that I wasn't famished by any stretch of the imagination. However, doing yoga on a completely empty stomach brought on the hunger beast pretty quickly, so in retrospect, before may have been better.

Day Two:
9:25- Juice one "Sweet Greens" was tasty as usual, I have to admit it is only day two and I already feel a bit sick of the green juices. However, in past cleanses, I have had far worse green juices that tasted what I imagine algae tastes like, so this really is a piece of cake (yum, cake sounds amazing).

Nice n' sweaty after yoga!

11:50 AM- I waited a bit long for juice number two as I got a bit distracted with the events of the day. Honestly, if any of my readers out there are considering a juice cleanse, I recommend doing one on a day when you are busy with work or other tasks- when you are, you have no time to obsess over food.

1:50 PM- Something I observed around the time of juice 3, "Sweet Greens," was how insanely parched the cleanse was making me. It's a bit counter-intuitive, really. You would think that drinking nothing but juice all day would mean I wouldn't want to drink anything additional, but not the case. I felt like a weary traveler in the dessert desperate for water all day, and probably downed a good four liters of water.

2:48 PM- I did not wait nearly long enough for the "Spicy Lemonade," but honestly, it's hard to resist such a tasty treat. Also my stomach was growling, begging for it, and who am I to deny it what it wants? Someone who is doing a juice cleanse, that's who...

Hangin with my juice at the beach...

After drinking the lemonade, I ran some errands, which included a stop at Target. I had to walk past a Starbucks, which made me realize that smelling coffee while on a juice cleanse is basically torture. I also experienced a bit of a headache around that time, but it only lasted a bit.

5:45 PM- Drank the fifth juice, "Sweet Greens," and felt satiated. Not much to report there.

7:36 PM- Delicious, coconut delight! I chugged it a bit too fast!

Reflection:
I'm tired. Exhausted. As if I could sleep Rip-Van-Winkle style. I hope that is an accurate reference. I am too tired to care. But, it is a good tired. I feel content and happy! Two days down, one day to go!

Detox Day One

Well, it's everybody's favorite time of the year again. The birds are singing, the weather is changing, and Marisa has embarked on her semi-annual juice cleanse. Yes, your excitement is palpable, as is mine. Okay fine- perhaps reading about my three-day juice drinking stints are not on the top of your list of things over which to obsess, but I feel the need to share my experience with you nonetheless.

I have tried juice cleanses from a number of different companies, from Jus by Julie to BluePrintCleanse. Both are companies I highly recommend. I recently came across a new brand called Juice in the Raw and decided to give it a whirl.

Day One:
8:20 AM- I held out as long as I could before giving in to the gnawing hunger that lead me to the fridge and my first juice titled "Detox Greens." This slightly sweet green juice contains apple, cucumber, celery, wheatgrass, dandelion, watercress, wild arugula, lemon and ginger.

11:30 AM- Well, perhaps I waited a little too long for this one- I was a bit of a growling hunger beast by the time I reached for "Detox Greens" number two.

1:30 PM- I was super excited for juice number three, the spicy lemonade! This juice is always my favorite part of a cleanse, I love the spicy element that cayenne adds to the lemony sour-sweetness of the lemonade. It is truly the perfect concoction of flavors.

3:25 PM- At this point in the day, I was experiencing some pretty intense headaches from the lack of caffeine. Honestly, the hardest part of doing a cleanse like this, for me anyways, is just giving up the coffee. I adore coffee, and drinking it is such a ritualistic thing for me, so it is a challenge. The third juice, "Sweet Greens," was similar to the "Detox Greens" but had kale, romaine and Swiss chard in place of the watercress, wheatgrass and arugula.

6:07 PM- I was swimming and actually got so caught up in it that I forgot my hunger, meaning it wasn't that strong. I sipped the fourth juice, "Sweet Greens," for a while.

8:35 PM- The last juice was a flavor sensation! Aptly named "Coconut Fusion," it was a scrumptious savory experience that reminded me of sticking a straw in a Thai coconut. Mmmm!

Reflection, Day 1: 

 

There were moments of struggle. Most notably, when I was surrounded by the intoxicating aroma of coffee and I had to resist the urge.  I also had a pretty throbbing headache at one point, but by the end of the day I felt mental clarity and relaxed, and not even one iota of hunger! Bring on tomorrow!

An Eggplant by Any Other Name

Aubergene. Courgette. Capsicum. Sultana.

No, I’m not speaking in foreign tongue, unless you consider New Zealand’s spin on English to be one. The aforementioned words are simply other names for foods, which led to substantial confusion during grocery trips especially during my time in New Zealand. 

Let me translate for those of you still scratching your heads (if you are still scratching them after my explanation, you may need to invest in some Head & Shoulders). Aubergene is another word for eggplant, courgette is the same as zucchini, capsicum is a pepper, and a sultana is a raisin (technically, a raisin that started as a sultana grape, because apparently you need to differentiate between raisin varieties). 

Capsicum? Pepper? WHO ARE YOU?

It took me awhile to adjust to this. When I went to Subway in New Zealand (yes, I went to a Subway in New Zealand, don't judge), I had to adjust to saying "capsicum" when they asked me "what salads I would like" (in this instance, "salads" means veggies). I also had to adjust to saying "beetroot" instead of just "beet," because New Zealanders have decided that they don't want to abbreviate the name of the vegetable. 

The one that frustrated me the most made a trip to the grocery store feel more like a wild goose chase, as the saying goes. I needed cilantro for a Mexican cooking endeavor planned for that evening. Simple, right? I began to scour the shelves in the produce section, but it was all for naught. So, I decided after my fruitless searching and a mere shrug from a grocery store employee that I'd settle, though not without some complaining, for dried cilantro. Once again, no luck. I would not be defeated! I refused to leave the store cilantro-less. 

Therefore, I headed back to the produce aisle. I stared at every ounce of the fresh herb section, and I noticed that the "fresh coriander" looked surprisingly similar to cilantro. I squinted and read the tiny description beneath the name, where it informed me that "coriander is also known as cilantro." 

Maybe that is common knowledge, and I just made myself look like an idiot, or maybe it isn't obvious to anyone not from New Zealand, and I just taught you all something. 

Anyways, the trip was successful and I had some delicious cilantro (I mean, coriander) for my fish tacos.

The Pelorus Bridge, Part Two

Yes, I've been going out of chronological order as far as what's happened during my time in New Zealand. So sue me. Actually don't, because doing so would be an extreme overreaction to the order of blog posts.

So, remember how I mentioned that there would be a sequel to the post about the Pelorus Bridge? Well, here is the aforementioned sequel, finally.

En route to Blenheim back from the Pelorus Bridge, we decided to stop at a wee bar (there I go, injecting New Zealand jargon into my own). It was the kind of lone establishment frequented by the few locals of the area. The locals I mention were somewhat rough characters; likely making their living by sheep farming or other similar trades of the region. As we walked into the place, a smell slammed into my olfactory glands so forcefully that it almost knocked me over.

The body odor emanating from the glands of one of the men inside the bar was jarring to say the least. It was a scent that I had not smelled in many months due to the general lack of perspiring of the Japanese, around whom I’d spent all my time. Perhaps this was why the odor was so extremely shocking to me at the time. The smell wafted around us like low-lying, dense fog, the kind that early cartoon characters could cut through with a saw. The offensive odor made breathing through the nose a daunting task, but breathing through the mouth led to the feeling that you could actually taste the man’s bodily excretions.

During our time in proximity to the Body Odor Man, a Seinfeld episode chronicling a similar situation came to mind. In the episode, Jerry gets his car back from a restaurant valet only to realize that the valet’s body odor has completely taken over the car. Despite his best efforts to rid the vehicle of the horrendous smell, nothing works. To add insult to injury, anyone who sits inside of Jerry’s car exits the vehicle with the smell implanted in his or her hair. It’s a hilarious episode, I recommend it to any Seinfeld fan.

 

Freaky Friday the 13th In Reefton

The second I arrived in Reefton, New Zealand, my superstitious senses were tingling madly. Perhaps it was because it was Friday the 13th, or perhaps it was because of the countless creepy things that occurred during our stay in the old mining town. Reefton is famous in New Zealand as it was the first town in the Southern Hemisphere to introduce electricity. It certainly is a neat, quaint little town, and if I weren't so afraid of it, I would definitely want to go back.

The entire time I was in Reefton, I felt as if I were on the set of the historical film The Crucible, a Winona Ryder movie about the Salem witch trials.

One of the first things I noticed upon arriving in Reefton was the cross standing out amongst the mountainside. It wouldn't have seemed so terrifying had it been beside a church or other ediface; however, this was not the case. The white cross, appearing to be made of wood, stood completely alone on the mountainside, and appeared to be floating when night fell upon the town. The floating effect was emphasized by the light shining on the cross from an unknown source. Seriously creepy.

So, this is really just the tip of the freaky iceberg. When we ventured back from the saloon to the hotel in the darkness of night, a pitch-black cat scampered across the road directly in front of us. Great, seven years of bad luck. Actually, I can't remember the specific curse associated with a black cat crossing one's path, but whatever it is, it befell upon us all that evening. The real icing on the cake of that incident was that the cat crossed our path on a street called "Sinnamon," literally spelled SIN. Wow.

The next morning, I was parched and entered the kitchen to fill a glass of water. As I took a sip, my brows furrowed in concern. The water tasted strange, and I couldn't quite place what it reminded me of. Then, all of a sudden, it hit me: the water tasted exactly like blood. At first I assumed it was because I had been reading Twilight that morning and that the vampire theme was messing with my mind. My eyes widened in terror, and I felt that there must be an issue with my sense of taste until I asked someone else what the water tasted like and he agreed. Then, we got the heck out of Reefton, the haunted little town in New Zealand, by driving through the creepy morning mist.

Barreling Down the Hobbit River

How many people can say they went swimming where the dwarves and Bilbo took their wild barrel ride in The Hobbit film? Well, actually, a lot of people if they live in or visit New Zealand. I imagine, however, that many of them do not know that they have been swimming where Peter Jackson chose to film the famous scene.

One of the most bizarre things I encountered upon arriving in New Zealand was that Kiwis (the people, not the birds) do not go absolutely mental for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit like we Americans do. It has gotten ridiculous to points, like the struggle it took to figure out how to get to the Weta Cave, where many of the miniatures and costumes were made for the movies. I mean... the Weta Cave is MORE famous on a completely different continent than on its own! That's not normal.

So I had gotten used to this aspect of a lack of interest in Lord of the Rings and Hobbit stuff when I arrived at the Pelorus Bridge. I wasn't surprised at all that there wasn't even a wee blurb informing visitors that the famous barrel scene from The Hobbit was filmed there. However, we asked the attendant at the camp ground about it, saying "which part of the river is the bit from Lord of the Rings?" A look of disappoval overcame her face. "Um, NONE of the Lord of the Rings films were filmed here" (long, dramatic pause) "The Hobbit was." I wasn't about to let her Negative Nancy attitude get to me. We hiked down to the bridge and took some photos, and later even went swimming in the gloriously clear and refreshing water. It turns out that the Pelorus Bridge features lovely rocks perfect for jumping off of into the river for a swim.

Yes. Pelorus is a lovely place for a swim and a jump, and you feel cool swimming in the same water down which a bunch of famous (and not-so-famous) actors barreled. There couldn't possibly be anything wrong with such a glorious place, right?

Wrong. Cue story about sandflies, New Zealand's best kept secret. For a reason.
I would almost argue that these nasty little insects and the bites they cause are worse than mosquitoes. They are these teeny little black flying bugs that land on you and bite you ALL over, mercilessly. Then the bites leas to itchy bumps, much like those of mosquitoes. The "interesting" thing was that they seemed to stay away from the New Zealanders and only attacked us foreigners. I guess they have a palate for foreign food.

More about the Pelorus adventure later! I'm off to go scratch my sandfly bites.

THE ENEMY!