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Published: February 23rd 2009
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Auckland city tower
Might brave a jump off it on way back...don't know yet though...no promises! 6/2/09 = A chilled day in Auckland
Had a great lay in today and finally made myself get up at 9. The magic of sleeping in a normal, single bed …😊 Got showered, dressed and had breakfast. Nipped out to get a phonecard from local shop and really mad to find that $10 card only got a 12min phonecall home = rubbish. In Oz, $10 = 1hr1/2…how can $12 be right. That was the best card they had for calling England, so had to buy it anyway. Rang Mum, but as soon as card told me I only had 12mins, but it down in sheer anger again…just can’t be right. Got ready and got out for day instead. Expecting a fairly chilled out day compared to yesterday. All we had to do was book tour up to Northland. 1hr of organising max!
Had expected it to be quiet because today = Waitangi Bank Holiday, but never expected how quiet it actually was. No cars on road, no shops open and hardly any people walking around, and it was 10:30. V.strange. Headed to the ‘Magic’ tour company and there was a really lovely girl on the desk. She ended up
helping us sort loads out and we booked the tour to the Bay of Islands to last for 3 days at $245, starting tomorrow. Didn’t ask for a discount or anything, because were just so happy to have something sorted out! After an hour in shop and a much lighter purse, went to supermarket to get some bits for lunch. Determined to find a supermarket today and NOT an ‘inconveniance store’, so asked around and followed long directions to it. Was a long walk, but was worth it to even see a supermarket. Was a giant ‘New World’. Got fruit and sandwiches, then headed off to waterfront. Was a nice walk down and when we got there, there were loads of people milling around for some kind of boat competition. Meandered along, then crossed bridge and had a steady walk back to city. Was a lovely, sunny day.
Back in city, caught the end of another busker show and sat down to have a snack on a bench. Had planned to go to museum today, which supposed to be really good, but was already 1am and wanted to go to Chinese Lantern Festival at 5, use internet before that
Awesome display
All lanterns and displays made out of paper too...pretty impressive. + was just too nice a day to spend it inside. Headed for Albert Park instead = also place where festival was being held. Park already looked really cool when got there. Had lots of displays and stage areas being set up - started to get excited for evening. Found a spot that wasn’t being altered and laid down. Nice to just be able to lay down 😊 Within 10mins, was boiling…like uncomfortably hot! Sun was really intense when came out from clouds and felt hotter than I ever did in Oz. Within 30mins, sweat had come through clothes because was so hot…urgh! At 2:30, could truly stand no more, so took my sweaty little self back to hostel to get things I needed for internet.
Got on internet at 3:15 and lived there for next few hours. Camera didn’t work again = disaster, but asked man for help and he managed to find my photos = disaster averted. He did, however, tell me that probably have a virus on camera/memory card = really not good! Ploughed away anyway, got as much blogging done as could possibly face, then went off happily to festival at 5:30. Found out when
got there that it was 10th Anniversary of Chinese Lantern Festival, hence all lanterns we saw in trees…started to make sense. Was already full when we got there at 5:45, but enough space to walk round without being squashed. Headed for the main stage first and saw a show of really cute little kids doing traditional Chinese dancing…totally cute! After that, we went to martial arts quarter and watched demonstrations of different arts there. One was definitely being led by Mr Miyagi from Karate Kid (ha!) and all were really good to watch. Made it even better when walked out and saw main character from Big Trouble in Little China = Lo Pan…love that film! (It wasn’t really Lo Pan…was some kind of God…but definitely looked like Lopan).
By time had finished watching different performances, was time to eat = best part of it all. There was a separate street outside park all lined with foodstalls - mainly Asian - and got v.excited when saw them all. Not suprising that this part of festival was busiest and required a lot of wriggling to get to stalls. Didn’t want to be too rash with decision, so walked (well, shoved) all
way to end first. When had done as much ducking and diving as we could both face and we were near end, settled for the next good one we saw. Got noodles, chicken and beef for $6. Definitely not the best meal I’ve eaten so far, but I’m sure it can’t be the worse either. Polished it off, then got ready to go back to festival again, when saw a lady walk past with a pancake and chocolate. Wanted…no…needed one. Zig-zagged back through all push and shove of crowd again, only to get to end and never find pancake stall. Will never know where that was…but maybe was God telling me to stop being greedy? Walked back into festival a little disappointed and had a proper look round at everything we hadn’t seen yet. Were some really good lanterns and all display sections set out were awesome. Thought face lanterns were really cool.
Had planned to stay until finish time = 10pm to watch fireworks, but when checked programme, saw that fireworks were only on last day of festival. Since had already seen everything and had already eaten (main thing), went back to hostel at 8:30. Had to walk
Martial Arts display
Miyagi having a rest on floor. yet more hills to get there (NZ needs to invest in some kind of leveller…especially for cities!) and went straight up to TV room to watch a film. Didn’t really have much choice, but all worked out well, because The Break Up was on TV. Had never seen it before, but thought it was brilliant. That took us right up to bed time then and off we trotted back to our room at 11pm. Read book for a while (well, until 12:30), then turned light off and went to sleep. Not excited for 6am get up😞, but am excited for Bay of Islands trip 😊.
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