Kia Ora..!

After 10.5 hours of flight, we were finally in the city of Sails - Auckland! Time - 9am here, 5 hours ahead of Malaysia time. The airport looks new and nice, and not much queue at immigration. After collecting our luggage, we were told to leave our bags on the floor so that the dogs can sniff for drugs, food.. etc. The dog seemed to like my mum's backpack alot so her backpack was opened. Much to the amusement of the custom lady, my mum had a whole bag of medicine (I mean a big bag), chips, bread and butter and jam (courtesy of Singapore Airlines..). But thankfully she signed the custom form and let us through after that.

First stop - Visitor Center. Took lots of brochures and opted for airport shuttle to our accommodation. It was NZ27 for both of us. The ride to town took about 40 minutes, and soon we can see the Sheraton. Ah yes, Sheraton, the luxurious 5 Star hotel. The airport shuttle took us right towards Sheraton, passed it and stopped next to it, at the Youth Hostel Association (YHA).. hehe caught you there didn't I? Serve you right for not reading my earlier blog, I mentioned it in one of them that I'm staying at YHA during my Auckland trip.

For NZ32 a night (if you are a YHA member, otherwise I think you pay NZ3 or NZ4 more per night), the place is rather nice. We opted for a twin room, bathrooms and toilets are common sharing, but they are well maintained. There are 2 YHAs in town, separated by 1 street. The one we stayed in is the older one, which has 7 floors, and houses about 10 rooms per floor. Kitchen is big and has all the utensils one need to cook. Pots, pans, plates, bowls, saucers, glasses, forks, spoons, knifes, free food (pepper, lea perrins..) are all provided for. Only rule is you clean and wipe after your meals. You can also opt for breakfast at the bistro for NZ5.50 for baked beans, omelette and toast. YHA Auckland City also has a laundry room, a TV lounge and a sun deck (pretty cool huh?). And because many travellers stay in YHA (it is a 4 Star bckpackers hostel), it also has a Travel Center with loads of brochures and bookings can be arranged should you need it. Plenty of facilities if you ask me. I like it, it reminds me of my uni days when I stayed at the uni accommodation.

Next stop, Sky Tower. It took us only 15 minutes to walk from YHA to Sky Tower. Rising 328m above Auckland with 360 degree views from three observation levels, it's the tallest structure in the Southerm Hemisphere. We took the normal tourist route, i.e. pay for the entrance fee and take the lift up to the main observation deck. The moment we reached the observation deck, we were told there'll be a jumper in 2 minutes (huh?) Apparently, you can opt to bungee jump from Sky Tower. Yup.. we waited and saw the brave jumper literally dropped down and hanging outside the glass panel before being lowered to the ground. Scary experience if you ask me. In theory, I would like to go for the experience, but if I am even afraid to walk on the glass floor panels.. The view from the deck is amazing, the 360 degree view allows you to see both the city center, the harbour front and some of the nearby islands..

A visit to Sky Tower is not complete without a visit to the Sky Casino. The casino staff actually stopped me and asked for my ID! I informed him that I am definitely above the age limit but he wanted to be sure anyhow. He thought I looked 20! I find it hard to swallow this "compliment".. I was however not impressed with the casino, no fancy architecture, no crowd and it's not big enough. I actually thought Genting casino is much better.

From Sky Tower, we moved on to Victoria Park Market. A flea market that houses about 85 stalls, selling a wide range of goods from Maduka honey to wool products to clothes. After our recent travelling experience, we have learnt our lesson of not buying souvenirs on Day 1. Made a short tour and went to New World, one of the big supermarkets in Auckland.

Seeing that we have the facilities to cook at YHA, we bought oil, eggs, ham, bacons, bread, orange juice and milk. (little did I know that I will be eating the same things for the next 7 days!) We also stocked up on snacks - potato chips, fruits and chocolates! Obviously we couldn't carry all our groceries and walk back to YHA, so we took the City Link bus. It is a bus service that runs a fixed route across town. At NZ1.30 per trip, you can sit all the way to the final destination and back if you so wished. Fortunately the bus stopped near to our hostel. After unpacking and labelling our food stuff in the kitchen, we took a nap. (hey, we have not had a proper sleep for the last 20 hours!) A rejuvenating 1 hour nap later, we booked a 2 day tour to Rotorua, departing the next morning. A friend in Auckland offered to take us out for dinner (cool!) So at 7pm, we went out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town (What? Chinese food... yes, I know I am in Auckland, but apparently this restaurant's food it pretty good).

We had salmon sashimi (fresh and yummy!), salmon in black pepper, sizzling lamb cutlet and asparagus with scallops, all washed down with Riesling sweet white wine.. simply delicious. Good food, great company, what more can I ask for?

My first day in Auckland was not over yet. We went to a 24 hour supermarket to buy chocolates and kapiti ice cream (a local famous producer of cheese and ice cream). I tried the fig and honey flavour.. it is superb...! I must say that this trip is doing my figure alot of "good" thus far.. yawwwnnnn... tired and time to head back to YHA for some sleep.

Day 2

Woke up at 6am (that's 1am Malaysia time, yawn... what am I doing up at this insane hour? Some of my friends are not even asleep yet and I am already awake). Ate our breakfast and the coach came to take us to Rotorua!

First stop, the Waitomo cave (wai means "water and tomo means "hole in Maori language) where we walked through some spectacular "decorations" of stalactites, stalagmites and sculptures developed over thousands of years and are a result of water dripping from the roof of the cave or flowing over the exposed limestone walls. But that was not my favourite part of this visit. Afterall, I've been to Halong Bay in Hanoi and the Kart Caves in Kunming and they offer better scenery if we are to compare the works of Mother Nature. The highlight of the tour was a boat trip through the spectacular Glowworm Grotto. A fairly normal dark damp cave becomes quite extraordinary when you look up and see thousands of lights from the glowworms clinging to the ceiling of the cave. If in Kuala Selangor fireflies look like blinking christmas lights, then in Waitomo it felt like a sky full of shining stars. It was just mesmerising. You have to see it to believe it and feel the serenity it brings when you look up. Simply amazing... sigh...

From there, we continued our journey to Rotorua. Our first destination in Rotorua was our hostel, Kiwipaka YHA. I like this YHA less as the rooms are smaller and it was a double decker so I have to climb up to my bed. And the showers and toilets are situated outside, with no covered area, i.e. you will have to walk in open air to shower or wash up. It does not help that weather in Rotorua was so so so so cold (I cannot emphasise this enough because I did not bring enough warm clothings for this trip.. thinking that it's summer in NZ. And even New Zealanders commented that it is unusual to be cold this time of the year). It is so cold that despite wearing 3 layers (thin ones), I was still shivering.

Anyway, we were leaving for a traditional Maori dinner, Hangi. During the bus ride, we were thought a few Maori phrases. I shall attempt to repeat and share them with you. Those with * means I'm not too sure of the actual pronunciation so be careful if you are to use it. Here we go:

Paki paki - Clap
Waka - Canoe or adapted to mean any mode of transportation in modern times
*Eewie - Tribe
*Rengatida - Leader
Kia Ora - Good health. It is now widely used to mean hello or good bye, I likened it to cheers (or cheers mate) by the British people.

Before we feast on Hangi (a traditional way of cooking) dinner, we were entertained by Maori dancers. We heard them sing and we saw them dance, lovely performance.. and dinner was served. Dinner was buffet style.. there were carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, coleslaw, chicken, fish, mussels (yum!) I forgot the rest.. and for dessert we had mixed fruits and chocolate pudding with cream custard..

It was time to bid farewell to the Maori village. As we head back to the hostel, our bus driver called upon the respective countrymen to sing a song in their national language. It was fun listening to people from different country singing their songs.. We heard it from the Koreans, US citizens, Canadian, German, Frenchmen and Australian.. What did we sing as Malaysians? Nothing... we kept very quiet in hope that no one will realise that we have not sung. What? I wanted to volunteer but I didn't know what song to sing. I didn't want to sing the national anthem, and I am ashame to admit that I do not know the full lyrics of any Malay songs.. Hmmm.. what would you have sung?

As we approach a roundabout, the driver made us wave our hands in the air and "yee haw" to a certain cue. And... he went round and round and round the roundabout, singing the tune "She'll be coming round the mountain when she come..." Must admit it was fun..

My Day 2 ended with a serious contemplation of whether to walk out in the bitter cold weather to the bathroom for my shower.. it was no easy task deciding.. but in the end I finally decided yes, I will shower.. bbrrrrrrrr..... cold...