Second day in Auckland, NZ ...
Today was mainly a shopping day, but also included a short walk through the pier area of Auckland harbor. We had generated a wishlist of items and had also been traveling enough to need restocking of some items. Amazing how long it takes to find all the different types of things, compare prices, and purchase them. Auckland was actually a nice, clean city to do it in.
After purchasing most of our items, we ran into Thomas near the dock area and took some time to sight see along the piers of the harbor. I spotted a small penguin swimming near the pier and fortunately John and Thomas saw it as well. Otherwise I don't think either of them would have believed me. The penguin was chasing and catching small fish. He was quite fun to watch. A photo of the penguin should be up on the web site shortly.
Auckland harbor is filled with beautiful sailboats, some awesome pleasure boats and sleek tour vessels. I was trying to convince John he should take the offer we saw for free 7-10 day passage to Australia if he volunteered to crew on the historic sail boat making the crossing, but he just wasn't gonna go for it!
We made good use of the excellent Internet access and answered email, reviewed and emailed photos to my cousin for posting on the web site and took care of financial matters though our PC banking accounts. The Internet is our "home away from home". The PCs here are very fast, have card readers for 4-different types of camera memory cards, a CD burner, accessible USB ports, headphones for audio, and they all have small PC type video cameras! What more could you ask for? (Maybe if they were free to use?) Actually the rate here isn't too bad, about $3/hr NZ or about $2 U.S. The same card you use for the Internet also works as a international phone card. Pretty slick! (Please excuse my moment of geekness!)
We also did laundry. Mundane, but definetly necessary when you're travelling with three T-shirts and two pairs of pants and all of them are dirty!
We went out for a few drinks with a new friend we met who works at ACB, since he wasn't going to be around this weekend. I discovered "Lion Red" beer (on tap), which was refreshing good, especially after the "Fiji Bitter" that was the mainstay of Fiji.
By the way. John's sick of me bitching about Fiji. We have some fundamental differences about our experience there. I thought it was way too expensive for what it was. I can't help but compare it to Thailand, which I've always found to be exotic, cheap and friendly. New Zealand is definetly more expensive than Fiji. But it's appropriate for the service and quality you get. Whatever, I'm sure it's not the first time we will have differing opionions.
Today was mainly a shopping day, but also included a short walk through the pier area of Auckland harbor. We had generated a wishlist of items and had also been traveling enough to need restocking of some items. Amazing how long it takes to find all the different types of things, compare prices, and purchase them. Auckland was actually a nice, clean city to do it in.
After purchasing most of our items, we ran into Thomas near the dock area and took some time to sight see along the piers of the harbor. I spotted a small penguin swimming near the pier and fortunately John and Thomas saw it as well. Otherwise I don't think either of them would have believed me. The penguin was chasing and catching small fish. He was quite fun to watch. A photo of the penguin should be up on the web site shortly.
Auckland harbor is filled with beautiful sailboats, some awesome pleasure boats and sleek tour vessels. I was trying to convince John he should take the offer we saw for free 7-10 day passage to Australia if he volunteered to crew on the historic sail boat making the crossing, but he just wasn't gonna go for it!
We made good use of the excellent Internet access and answered email, reviewed and emailed photos to my cousin for posting on the web site and took care of financial matters though our PC banking accounts. The Internet is our "home away from home". The PCs here are very fast, have card readers for 4-different types of camera memory cards, a CD burner, accessible USB ports, headphones for audio, and they all have small PC type video cameras! What more could you ask for? (Maybe if they were free to use?) Actually the rate here isn't too bad, about $3/hr NZ or about $2 U.S. The same card you use for the Internet also works as a international phone card. Pretty slick! (Please excuse my moment of geekness!)
We also did laundry. Mundane, but definetly necessary when you're travelling with three T-shirts and two pairs of pants and all of them are dirty!
We went out for a few drinks with a new friend we met who works at ACB, since he wasn't going to be around this weekend. I discovered "Lion Red" beer (on tap), which was refreshing good, especially after the "Fiji Bitter" that was the mainstay of Fiji.
By the way. John's sick of me bitching about Fiji. We have some fundamental differences about our experience there. I thought it was way too expensive for what it was. I can't help but compare it to Thailand, which I've always found to be exotic, cheap and friendly. New Zealand is definetly more expensive than Fiji. But it's appropriate for the service and quality you get. Whatever, I'm sure it's not the first time we will have differing opionions.
posted by Chris at 11:00 PM
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