Auckland, Day 1: getting acclimated.

After a rousing airline safety talk featuring Richard Simmons (yes, THAT Richard Simmons), the 14 hour flight in wasn't so bad. The food was decent, the wine was free and there were some excellent movies to choose from (on this leg, I opted for "Life in a Day" and "Drive"). We arrived at the Auckland airport and picked up the car.

(I should note that after just two days, I already anticipate a lot of "yes, THAT..." disclaimers on this trip.)

Other than a few mishaps confusing the windshield wipers and turn signal, and me as a very confused passenger on the left side, Kim's first experience driving opposite was successful and we made it to the Waldorf Stadium Apartments around 10am to meet up with Jill. Determined not to nap, we headed downtown to see what Auckland was all about.

Our first priority was food - the Occidental Belgian Beer Cafe showed us how Auckland does breakfast:

"Bacon" is actually more like ham,
and "bloody mary" is actually really
tomato juice with tobasco and vodka

Then we headed over to the Sky Tower's Sky Deck, 220 metres/722 feet high, for a panoramic view of Auckland. Fun facts: Sky Tower is the tallest man-made structure in New Zealand, is as tall as 37 buses laid end to end, and weighs the same as 6,000 elephants. (There, now I can ditch this brochure.) It wasn't the clearest day but we got some good views:

One Tree Hill in the background

If one so chooses, one can bungee jump off the tower or take a walk around the perimeter. We did not so choose but others did:

Truth in advertising

From the Sky Tower we'd noticed a colorful park, which turned out to be Albert Park, so we headed in that direction. (And by "headed," I mean we wandered around for half an hour attempting to find the park.) The colors were from the Auckland Lantern Festival in honor of the Year of Dragon. This 13 year tradition hosted over 200,000 visitors last year. Our visit was not that populated but the lanterns were neat:

Not pictured: butterfly and rose lanterns,
gorgeous garden flowers

And the views of the Sky Tower were amusing.

I squish your Sky Tower!

Next we headed over to the Auckland Museum to see their amazing gallery of Maori artifacts and history. By this point I was fading a bit and having trouble absorbing facts and culture, but the canoes and intricate sculptures were really interesting and I look forward to learning more about the Maori throughout the trip.

Finally, we headed over to The Eagle to enjoy a celebratory drink and then to Satya for a very good Indian dinner. We managed to stay up until at least 9pm - something to celebrate for sure!

Cheers!