Comicshop Capers on the K' Road

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Refreshed from a decent night's sleep, we decided to take a wander along the notoriuos K' Road today and explore a different side to Auckland. The reason I say notorious is that there is a selection of adult-only shops, seedy looking bars and video booths dotted around. But there was a lot more to the K'Road (short for Karangahape Road) than its reputation suggests. In fact, the main reason we were venturing out that way at all was the lure of a comic shop for Glynn.

There were all sorts of interesting shops and boutiques lining both sides of the road although we found our favourite shop on another street on the way there. Real Groovy is the kind of place every music/movie junkie could wish for. It sells new and second hand music in all formats, has a decent clothing section that transcended the usual music t-shirt range into the pop/punk streetwear sort of thing most people have to search long and hard to find. There were DVDs galore and Glynn was just as impressed with the games section that stocked well-known and more obscure titles for reasonable prices. The place was certainly appealing to our need for a music-driven hub and it even had a ticket counter for local and national gigs, which alas are far fewer than back home. One poster did catch our eye however, and if things work out for us, we may well have a chance to experience our first overseas gig together in the New Year. I don't want to jinx it by saying too much here - you know I'll keep you posted if it all pans out.

Back on the K Road, we spent a few easy hours just browsing through the many shops around until we reached our prime target: Heroes For Sale, the comic shop Glynn was looking for. Glynn excitedly leafed his way through the many titles lining countless shelves in th store and was impressed with the size of their catalogue. When the shop assistant, Steven, came over to chat to Glynn, it seemed that Auckland had pulled another ace out of its sleeve if it was trying to convince us this city was the place to be. The two of them geeked out big time, each trying to out-do the other with their knowledge of all things graphic novel related. I stood by on the sidelines and watched this entertaining match of wits unfold. When at the end of the conversation Steven mentioned that new stock comes in every Friday, I got the feeling that we would be back there sooner than we expected. By the time we left, we had spent over an hour and a half in the shop!

Hunger was starting to kick in by now as it was almost 5pm and neither of us had had any lunch. When we passed a small Indian restaurant offering veg curry and rice for NZ$5 and fish and chips (pronounced fush and chups over here!!) for less than NZ$4, our bellies guided us inside. The food was just what we needed and gave us the energy to make the trek back to the hostel, at which point we realised we had taken the long way round by mistake.

After relaxing for a couple of hours, we both felt a bit restless so I suggested we go out again and see if we could find the local Pak'n'Save, allegedly the cheapest supermarket in town. Our route took us along the K' Road again, which looked very different all lit up by neon and with bar furniture spilled out onto the pavement. The atmosphere felt very safe and not at all seedy as we had been led to expect. We walked up and down numerous hilly streets and eventually began to wonder just how far away the supermarket must be. When we checked the map again, we noticed the road leading to the supermarket continued over the page. We hadn't spotted this before and it soon dawned on us that it could be up to another couple of miles away. We decided to abandon plan A and instead went to plan B - head back to the city centre and on into Downtown to go to the Foodtown supermarket, which we at least knew the location of.

It was a very long walk indeed and even before we arrived, we regretted our decision to go there. It's a 24-hour store though and when we arrived at around 10.15pm, it was nice and quiet. We stocked up on fruit and veg plus a box of 12 beers that was only NZ$13 (about £4.80). We had a long walk back to the hostel with our heavy cargo and were absolutely worn out by the time we arrived at almost midnight. Thankfully, we had some beers with which to reward ourselves and we happily raised our bottles and toasted New Zealand for its cheap and tasty lager. It felt good to be off the wagon after a long alcoholic dry spell in Malaysia and Singapore. God bless beer .

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Comments

[tas-ma-tron]

neato
that sounded ace