Welcome to New Zealand pods
This entry was posted on 12/5/2006 3:08 AM and is filed under New Zealand.
Here's the first shot from the plane... and it is SO
different than Hong Kong. Obviously, New Zealand is all about
GREEN. It looks like one giant golf course, at least from this
elevation...
and ...
but
we knew we were in the right place, because as soon as we got our
rental car, we stopped to get some snacks at a gas station store and
saw this delicacy, and knew everything was going to be OK...
.
We
drove up to Waitekere Estates - about an hour drive - and it is SO
WEIRD to drive on the opposite side of the road. It's also
equally weird to be a passenger on the left side of the car. It
was beautiful up there. Here's the view from our room, and the
night view looking down towards Auckland was equally grand.
...but
in a weird way, after our great time in NYC last month, and having just
come from Hong Kong - we just weren't ready for all that GREEN! So
after a night up there we came back to Auckland for a bit more city
adventuring. Here's the view from our hotel here - a bit of
harbor (to the left), a bit of city. Phew!
And another view of the city...
We've eaten two nights in a row at a great Nepalese restaurant up the
street called Himalaya. Here's EJ and Thapa, the restaurant owner
from Nepal. After dinner on the second night, he blew us away by
bringing the bill to us with everything written out with a big fat zero
next to each item. He treated us for the entire dinner. We felt
as though we were guests at his home. And the food was fantastic
and very unusual.
We also went to a neat museum and arboretum - but we'll put that in the next blog entry as one piece all together.
Tomorrow we're heading up to the Bay of Islands and will have stories from there...
