Mahjong and a visit to Clevedon

Mahjong, also spelled majiang, mah jongg, and numerous other variants, is a game that originated in China. It is commonly played by four players (with some three-player variations found in Korea and Japan). The game and its regional variants are widely played throughout Eastern and South Eastern Asia and have a small following in Western countries. Similar to the Western card game [gin] rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy, and calculation and involves a degree of chance.

3rd row from bottom right to left, 1,2,3, ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong

Spent about 3 hours with friends discovering the vagaries of Mahjong. It was entertaining and daunting to learn that a few points could be worth 'big buck' in gambling. I remember my mother-in-law saying that her landlord lost her rental home over a game in Manila of the 30s. Even though we didn't play for money, the challenge of mental acuity was intense. So how do you learn to count to ten with Chinese characters? One, two and three are obvious, the rest is just hanzi or kanji to me. 'Greek to me' is illustrative of my experience. I have since been told that 'real players' can finger the tile without looking and know what they are casting onto the table. Our friends left the board and tiles for us to practice. Right!?!

"Lest we forget"

Clevedon is a pretty little wayside town just 20 minutes from our Howick Village. We drove there to get a glimpse of green countryside, sheep, cows and farm houses. It was a lovely drive through verdant forests consisting of palms, evergreens and tall ferns all tightly clustered together. Truly a jungle feeling, with a strong scent of Eucalyptus. Fully expecting to have a monkey or hobbit jump onto the hood of the car, although there are none here.

Clevedon family of cows.

The main street of Clevedon had lovely parks, small shops with expensive items, a 'lest we forget', and old homes. One old home was fronted by a small pasture with a dozen cows enjoying the balmy day in town on Main St. NZ is not strong on zoning and this makes for visual surprises.

The local news paper in the co-op store screamed from the front page, “We're #1!, We're #1!” This was the first we saw of the ranking of countries around the world. NZ has been a very comfortable place to live so far.

Well off to enjoy another day in #1.

J

Clevedon historic home.