Art By Tali Landsman

It is another glorious day in the Hokianga. The sun is shining, the harbor is so calm and everything feels so peaceful and beautiful with the world. In a very short while, we will fly back to Colorado for two months of fun and skiing. Even though my life in Colorado is also calm and beautiful, I find that I do not want to leave my quiet retreat in New Zealand. My wonderful neighbors in Colorado, wrote me an email telling me to prepare for the cold.... Temperatures are very low... I do not wish to say goodbye to this beautiful summer in NZ, to this peaceful house and to the vast garden... To the quails, the pheasants, the herons...the harbor.... Our retreat in the hills of the Hokianga, offers me long stretches of solitude with much time to reflect on life, to examine myself and to devote much uninterrupted time to inner growth. Solitude is so sweet and so enriching... Many writers and poets wrote great poems about their solitude time, viewing it with almost religious sacre...

I do not mean to brag by sharing this article about our house in NZ. But... since I use this blog partially to keep a record of my adventures, thoughts and affairs, I decided to post it here. Besides... It is nice to see that other people also recognize how wonderful our treetop paradise retreat really is... VIEWS FROM THE TOP OF THE WORLD- KOHUKOHU JAPANESE HOUSE (Written by Leigh Bramwell, published in the monthly Savvy Magazine supplement of the Northern Advocate Newspaper, Northland NZ, January 2013) One day out walking in the tiny Far North town of Kohukohu, Jules and Tali Landsman looked through the mist that often envelopes the Hokianga and caught a glimpse of the graceful, curved roof of a nearby house. When they later heard the Japanese-inspired home might be for sale, they went to look. "In retrospect, we should have run," laughs Jules. But the adventurous twosome did no such thing, buying the house and embarking on a two and a half year, top to ...

The morning sun is filtering through my bedroom window, bathing my bed with a warm golden light. It is summer here in New Zealand, and the birds are singing a symphony of whistles and calls. My heart is overflowing with pleasure and joy. Oh, how I love to be here, slowly waking to the sounds of nature, looking out my window at the calm vast harbor... Our garden looks amazing. It is green and lush and filled with flowers. For the past two months since our return from Bhutan and Sikkim, we have worked diligently on maintaining and improving our property. While I was focusing on staining our vast decks and the exterior walls of our wooden Japanese-designed house, Jules was working daily in the garden, trimming fruit trees and overgrown plants, weeding and landscaping the large garden. Both of us have been focused on our tasks, working six to eight hours per day. We had a great time working at it. At the end of each day we could see the improvements and felt productive, stro...

Before we embarked on our journey to North Sikkim, we bought a few warm pieces of clothing for Jules in the city of Gangtok. I had already brought with me from home everything I needed for the cold weather. Our guide Sudesh, bought a ski hat, a scarf, gloves and a heavy jacket. For Jules we bought a new warm fleece jacket, a warm vest and warm sweatpants to sleep with in the room when the electric power fails, which we heard happens a few times per day. We knew that after the power is cut off, we would have no heater, and it might get very cold. We spoke to a British couple who had just returned from North Sikkim, and they described the Nature as stunningly beautiful, but that the hotels we will be staying in were freezing cold and that they had to sit in their beds wearing all of their clothes, and that they were still shaking, with their teeth chattering. To enter North Sikkim, we needed to fill out more permits and paperwork, and to hire a local car that was registered ...