Postcards from New Zealand: Day Eight

Today, we woke up at an absurd, dark hour (5:30 AM) to run to the park and practice qigong. The sky was a wide expanse of velvety darkness, punctured by the light of stars, smeared by a streak that Aldo told me was the milky way. We settled in front of the Maori meeting house, a low, long hall carved with the primitive faces—big of eye and tongue—we had seen on the Maori dancers at Polyfest this weekend. We found these demons, designed to intimidate, rather inviting, but when we later told our kiwi friend where we had been, he shuddered, and told us that we ought not have gone there.