I want to start making some comments about my trip DOWN UNDER. I wish I could have made them while I was there. But I just didn't have convenient Internet Access. And I don't consider a hotel that charges 55 cents per minute for internet access to be convenient.

That said, let me talk about New Zealand first. Kala (my wife) and I both agreed that we'd probably love to live in New Zealand. It's absolutely gorgeous and I only got to visit the Northern part in the six days I was there. First, it's a fairly large country (about the size of the UK) but it only has six million inhabitants. There are two results of that. First, the top soil is probably quite rich and still full on minerals...perhaps equivalent to the U.S. about 150-200 years ago. Today we only have a few inches of good top soil and its been depleted of most of the great minerals.

The second thing that I also noticed about New Zealand is the animals. Unlike the U.S. where most of the animals raised for meat consumption are basically kept where they can hardly move so they can get big and fat quickly. What they are fed is not necessarily healthy (like growth hormones) and it certainly isn't rich in nutrition. However, in New Zealand the animals are running free over the countryside eating the rich natural plants (i.e., grass) that grows in their rich soil. I even saw fields filled with turkeys.

Now how does that show up in an obvious way? It shows up in the food. It's wonderful. The best Mexican food I've ever eaten was in Auckland. The best Thai food I've ever eaten was in Auckland. Why? I'm sure its because they use New Zealand meat and agricultural products.

However, there is a sad contrast. The U.S has managed to export lots of fast food restaurants there. McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC are appearing all over the place. I went into a McDonalds to check on the price of a Big Mac, just to see how it checks out in terms of price (see below). And McDonald's was the only place where I saw locals who looked really fat and I thought that was quite sad.

Okay, the New Zealand dollar was worth about 64c or so when I was there. However, a big Mac meal could easily run $15 New Zealand dollars. Thus, its not very favorable compared with the U.S. And housing is definitely not cheap. Most housing was in the million dollar range (New Zealand dollars, of course). But the average New Zealand house is very, very small compared with the average U.S. house. Thus, housing in New Zealand is also very expensive.

Next up.... a few more thoughts on New Zealand.