Welcome to New Zealand

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Auckland 3/19/11

After losing a day because of the date line, we finally arrived in Auckland.  Having only one day to visit the most populated city in New Zealand, we enlisted the help of an explorer bus (felt asian the whole time).  First stop on our list was Mt Eden, a crater shaped volcano hollowed out from sulfur mining.  After seeing the volcano and the beautiful lookouts over Auckland, we headed to the Auckland Museum, which housed a room dedicated to seismic activity (earthquake simulator).  After being tossed around by the volcanic eruptions and the earthquake immediately following, we checkout the exhibits, which ranged from volcanoes and maori culture to the holocaust (apparently NZ was involved...).  We continued our day trip with a visit to the aquarium, where penguins, sharks and giant (and I mean giant, about 450kg) stingrays.  The day came to a conclusion with drinks at the Sky Tower (like the space needle).

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