Café Culture in New Zealand – Wellington

Ratnavyuha and I went to Olive café on Cuba Street, Wellington. Posh. Antiques. High ceilings. Classy. Ratnavyuha got into conversation with a lady, who, it turns out, knows the people at Wellington Buddhist Centre, including Suryagita, who teaches singing, and who I know from her days in Brighton, singing. The peach tart was fantastic, and the coffee very classy. Outside, the rain came and went. Midwinter rain in a rainy place. We had been to Te Papa (‘Our Place’) museum, and I’d learned about the changes wrought to New Zealand’s ecology by both Maori and European settlers. A European blackbird is sitting outside the window where I write. But there are tuis singing sometimes too. Now off to lead a retreat – on how everything arises on conditions.

Café Culture in New Zealand

My brother has given me £150 to spend on coffee while I am in New Zealand. So after I arrived yesterday, Ratnavyuha and I went to One-2-One Café in Ponsonby, Auckland, and drank coffee and ate cake. The cafe reminded me of the Boston Tea Party in Bristol, with its garden seating. But it’s winter here in NZ, and slightly too cool to sit outside. It was a quiet Wednesday afternoon. In the park where we had been walking there were many Pakeka – the Maori name for what in Europe we call the Purple Gallinule – garish great rails, with red beaks, purple bibs and silly big feet. And in the lake were slithering eels in meshed tangles. Like the feel of my thoughts at certain moments, like on solitary retreats, and after a very long flight.