Rugby World Cup 2011

---

Lie Wei and I had to go down to Auckland to pick up a secondhand car we were going to purchase from Eva's co-worker. Since it was the weekend of the Rugby World Cup opening ceremony, we decide to try to attend it. We found out our housemate, Allen was going to go back to Auckland (his hometown) for the weekend as well so we decide to hitch a ride with him.

The unfortunate thing was that he wanted to leave at 5.15pm and on that day itself, it had to be the longest pack day we have ever encountered since we started working. In the end, we completed work at 5.10pm and from then on it was a mad rush to get back and in time to meet Allen.

Eventually we managed to make it back, albeit a bit late and only started our journey at 5.24pm. However, we managed to make it to Auckland by 7.10pm, in time for the opening fireworks at 8pm.

The entire waterfront (Queen Street Wharf, Princess Wharf, Viaduct) was cordoned off to become either the party zone and fan zone. There were already tons of crazy people walking in the middle of the roads amidsts traffic or lying themselves right in the middle of a crosswalk with oncoming foot traffic. The fan zone was a huge mass of people. However, we were fortunate enough to situated ourselves in pretty good sight of the big screen that was put up to show the opening ceremony going on at Eden Park.

After the opening ceremony, there was a 10-minute firework display which was quite good to see. It wasn't the best because I have seen as good a display even in Malaysia. Once, the fireworks were done we tried to go towards the Princess Wharf to watch Tonga versus New Zealand on the big screen but after awhile we got tired of being shove, pushed and stepped on that we left after awhile to continue the match in comfort at my cousin's place.

It was a good experience to watch one of New Zealand's largest events.

---

Photos

Rugby World Cup 2011
Lie Wei and I at the Aucklamd waterfront for Rugby World Cup opening celebrations