Trapped in the Office

Trapped in the Office
Originally uploaded by jrherron

Some days even a crappy mind numbing day at the office can lead to this view out our building's windows. Did mention how nice it is to live here?
Yeah.... I thought I did.

Yikes, a whole month!

My My.Yahoo page always shows me how long it's been since my last post, and I was a little alarmed this week to see that it had been a whole month since I'd stopped in to post. Trust me, you don't want to read about how I spent 12 hours in my cube being a spreadsheet jockey, that enriches neither your life or mine. So, what have I been up to lately? Well,I got myself nice and dressed up for Halloween, going as scrooge,trailed closely by 3 co-workers who were dressed as ghosts of products past, present and future. It was well received around the office, and landed my team and I the best group prize in our little competition. That got us all lunch at the San Francisco Soup Company, the place where most of my company's executives eat. Despite how busy we'd been at the office I still found time to get out and vote on November 4th, and for the most part I was pretty pleased with the results. In some movie I saw long ago, there was a fellow lightly complected brother who said that "one day light skinned brotha's would be back in style". (This was in those days where dark skinned bald headed guys with goatees were all the rage) It would appear at least for now, that the long promised day has arrived. I say I was pretty pleased because somehow a gay marriage ban made it through all the way on to the California state constitution. The fact is that a vote for yes means that you not only disagree with gay marriage, but that you think it's the state's responsibility to make sure that two people who love each other can't make a formal statement of that. I think those ought to be separate issues. I'm pretty sure we haven't heard the last one though. It's likely to be tied up in court forever, and even more likely to re-appear on a ballot at a later date. Oddly enough the gay Marriage ban passed, but parental notification for abortions did not. So it's quite possible that people got out and voted for one and not the other? Very strange indeed. I somehow managed to get older last week too, celebrating in style with friends at a restaurant I'm suddenly very passionate about: Betelnut in San Francisco. I'd heard good things about it, and it completely lived up to the hype. I don't know that I've ever had better fish than the Oven smoked seabass with ginger-cucumber namasu (order two, they're small, and you'll want more). We also had the Szeshuan style green beans that are even better than the famously delicious green beans that we had at the little restaurant across the street from the Lido Hilton Beijing. On Friday, we had a chance to check out a place on our side of the bay, Bellanico. Wine list: Great, Food: Awesome, Seating: a little tight, and kind of noisy, but really a cool neighborhood place. Desserts: Amazing. Over the weekend I watched another disappointing Saturday for my beloved Auburn Tigers.

Shrimp on a reef
Originally uploaded by jrherron

It's been a long season an has the potential to get much better or much worse with Alabama on the schedule in a week and a half. Today's awesome news, I might actually have a picture published in an online travel guide called Schmap. Needless to say I'm stoked. I'm "on the short list" so it's not final yet, but it's one of the few times someone who doesn't know me has actually thought my photography was worth while. It almost makes me a professional travel photographer (excluding the getting paid part...minor detail).

Day 12, Australia Again

On our first trip to Sydney two years ago, we were there just before the opening of the Sydney Wildlife World. This trip, that was our first priority. After a good nights sleep, we wandered our way over there, and sat down at the attached Lizard Lounge and had some breakfast. When we were buying our tickets we let them talk us into the Wildlife World and Sydney Aquarium combo pass, since we like a good aquarium anyway. We really enjoyed our trip to wildlife world, getting nice and close to koalas, hanging out with the butterflies, and getting uncomfortably close to creepy crawly bugs. Then we wandered over and played at the aquarium, mostly breezing through the exhibits since we'd been there before, and spent most of our time hanging out with the seals and at the big tank with the sharks in it. But we did find a really cool looking fish that I've renamed an Auburn Tigerfish. Next we took the subway to Bondi junction and grabbed a bus out to the beach. We tried to remember where we'd eaten before, but ended up finding ourselves an outside table at Papa Giovanni Pizzeria and Seafood. We had some tasty Calamari, and a four cheese pizza, along with a few beers. With a little lunch to keep us going, we then walked down to the beach to test the water, and decided we'd have to be crazy to get in it that cold. So we walked from Bondi down to Bronte beach, and caught the bus from there back to Bondi Junction. There we caught a bus to take us to Randwick for dinner at Bombay Bloomers. W met the owner a few years ago at work, and we've made a point to visit every time we're in town. So far it's still the best Indian food I've eaten in the world. We grabbed a bus back down to Circular Quay from there and then went out to explore The Rocks a little. We found the Observer Hotel and decided to sit down and have a pint, and listen to the live music there. W managed even to win our bar tab on the slots. We explored The Rocks a bit more then headed back to the room, worn out from a full day on the go in much hotter weather than we'd experienced just 48 hours before. The next morning we grabbed a little brekkie at City Extra, Which is seriously good food at an awesome location. You have to order something that gets you the fresh bread while you're there. It has what might be the best views in town, and it was fun to watch Sydneysiders shuffle on and off the ferries. Then it was time to get on our way, a quick cab ride to the airport, and on our way back home. A couple of first class seats and one of the nicest domestic based crews I've ever flown with were waiting for us at the airport, and we even managed to pick up a few bottles of a delicious aussie wine we'd had on the flight in from Queenstown. It was a great end to a trip, and a quick transition to being back at the office. To catch up with the entirety of the photographic experience be sure to see:

New Zealand 1 (Auckland to Huka Falls)

nz part 2 (Huka Falls to Queenstown)

NZ Part 3 (Doubtful sound to Sydney)

Day 11, Crossing the Tasman

Finally the time had arrived to bid farewell to New Zealand, we packed up all of our stuff got in the car once again and made our way downtown. We had a very delicious final lunch at Fergberger (site works poorly in some browsers) . I had the little lamby and wished I had discovered it earlier in the trip, I might have eaten one every day. Yes, that does mean I held a baby lamb one day and had a lamb burger the next, but... circle of life. Then we reluctantly went to the airport, and bid adieu to our faithful rental car companion. Be warned that rental car dropoff is a long hike from the terminal across an unpaved lot, not easy to manage with lots of overstuffed luggage. We were disheartened to hear about a canceled Qantas flight as soon as we got on the terminal, but fortunately it was an Auckland flight. When we checked in they asked us to wait nearby, a familiar tactic if they're not sure you're going to get on. The weather was lousy, and they frequently weight restrict the flight, so it was a little touch and go. Eventually they did give us 2 exit row seats, so we were glad, and hustled through the terminal out to the plane. The flight from Queenstown to Sydney is only 3 hours, but we still got surved a hot lunch (we both went with the lamb casserole) and got a little bottle of wine that we really enjoyed. (there was no charge for the wine either). The dessert was the best part, because just when I thought we weren't getting a dessert, out comes a flight attendant with a Streets Magnum Chocolate Ice Cream bar for everyone. Best. coach. class. dessert. Ever. We arrived in Sydney after watching Get Smart, and needed to figure out some way to get to our hotel. We also had to bypass the very tempting tax/duty free store that you are forced to walk through. We found a shuttle service to hotels for only $13AU per person, which seemed much easier than navigating the train and then walking with our bags, or overpaying for a cab. We set ourselves up at the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay. Our room was awesome, and we got a view of the harbour and opera house without having to spend an arm and a leg. After our somewhat stressful day at the airport, and 2 weeks of hustling we were ready to spoil ourselves a little bit so we stayed in to eat at the hotel. The Seafood buffet on the weekends is incredible. We splurged on the buffet our last trip to Sydney when we stayed at the Hyde Park Marriott, so we knew it would be good, but this was above and beyond even that. There was tons of fresh sashimi, balmain bugs as far as the eye could see, crab legs, and lots of lots and other choices. There was even someone preparing noodle dishes to order. The range of Desserts available was like nothing I have ever seen. But those are not even the most important features. The real maker of this deal was the wine buffet. $24AU for pour your own from a selection of 4 local reds 4 local whites and a sparkling. Between wine and sashimi, we more than got our money's worth. Stuffed, we rolled ourselves back to our room and crashed.

Day 10, Down on the farm

The tenth day was our final full day in New Zealand, so we had to make it count. We started the day with a bit of laundry, and then we were ready to find some breakfast. We found a little mall food court and sat down to eat at the Sagun Cafe and Indian Cuisine our waitress for the morning was a very nice lady who we correctly gussed was from Brazil, she chatted with us for a while about what to visit in Brazil, and where she'd been in Florida, and how it was perhaps time to start using her masters degree. We wandered around a bit downtown, and then it was time for our Water Peak Farm & Barbeque Excursion. We had spent the previous 8 days seeing sheep at every turn, so it was finally time to get up close and personal. We spent about 45 minutes cruising across lake wakitipu, landed on the farm and dug right in to a delicious lunch of grilled meats (including lamb) and they had a nice selection of cheeses for dessert. Then we went over to watch a sheepdog and shearing demonstration, where we finally got W her opportunity to hold on to a little lamb. The sheepdog demonstration was cool, they have two types of dogs, some that bark, and some that just use eye contact to move the sheep. In this case we saw the "eye" dog. After that they had a spinning demonstration, and not long after that it was time to head back on the boat. We sailed over on the TSS Earnslaw a fully functional coal steamship, where you can look down into the engine, and see a guy down there with a shovel and a big pile of coal. We had a short turn around back in Queenstown for a charter fishing trip. We fished with Stu Dever, and I caught one trout, the 2 other people on the boat caught a couple of nice salmon, and poor W didn't catch anything. I forgot to warn her that going on a guided fishing trip with me is a bad idea I frequently end up just throwing away money while other people catch fish. The captain definitely knew what he was doing and was a nice guy about it, he just wasn't quite good enough to overcome my fishing jinx, but we can't blame him for that. Plus he promised us half off next time, so we'll definitely have to come back and take him up on it. We worked up a big appetite reeling in all those fish.... oh wait that's not what happened. We were hungry, so we found ourselves some dinner at Avanti. I had the frutti del mare pasta, and W had some prawn skewers that we both enjoyed. Then it was time to go back and pack for our trip to Sydney the next day, and we had two weeks worth of accumulated information pamphlets to sort through. and a 1 carry on bag limit to try to deal with.

Day 9, Losing My Doubts

On day nine, our morning started with a 6:45 a.m. pick up at our hotel for the Real Journeys Doubtful Sound Nature cruise. We had a few anxious moments when the cab didn't show up early like we'd been told to expect, but eventually it did and dropped us off at the Real Journeys office downtown. There we jumped on a nice moderately comfy bus (the seats are a little close together and aren't necessary wide enough for two full sized people, but the glass roof is really cool). That bus was headed for Te Anau, with another Japanese tour group headed for Milford, but was stopping to drop us off so we could head south. W and I both grabbed a nap when the road got pretty steep and curvy and woke up just in time for our drop off. We climbed on board a smaller less comfortable bus, and it took us and 8 others to the dock at Manapouri. Once there we gathered up our picnic lunch from the cafe, had a cup of coffee for good measure, and then climbed abourd our first boat for the day. Lake Manapouri is beautiful, and the hour and a half it takes to get to the other side is time well spent. I spent most of the time climbing up on the upper deck to take pictures until I was too cold, then back downstairs to thaw out or until something looked picture worthy. Once across the lake you stop at a small visitors center that tells you about how the hydroelectric power station works, and then you climb on board a third bus that takes you across Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove, the entrance to Doubtful Sound. The Doubtful sound cruise is non-stop beautiful, and is worth every penny you spend on the trip, and every second you have to spend on the road to get there. Occasionally they'll stop the boat to get a close look at something, especially if there are seals or penguins about. The water was always calm because of how deep in the valley you are, and our picnic lunch was actually quite good. After exploring a few arms of the sound, and traveling all the way out just far enough to see the rolling Tasman Sea, you head back towards deep cove, and once again on to your bus. The bus then takes you deep inside the Hydroelectric plant where you get a short tour, but it's mostly cool because of how far underground you get. Plus the bus driver has to turn the bus around at the bottom of the tunnel, which was a pretty impressive move. After the plant, it's back over to lake Manapouri for a run back across it, and only one big bus on the way back to Queenstown. You get back about 7:00, and are ready for some dinner. We grabbed a little internet time, and then went over to Brazz to find some dinner. Brazz has a cool mix of really huge dinner plates, thin crust pizzas, and tapas, so we went with two of the tapas and a pizza. We started with lamb backstraps with feta, and fried camembert nuggets with a cranberry dip that were out of this world. Our pizza was delicious too, and turned out to be just the right amount of food. From there we got ourselves into the Minus 5, where I strongly recommend the polar blair drink which I'm trying desperately to remember what it contained. Tired from a full day, back to the hotel we went, and promptly crashed.

Day 8, Onward towards Queenstown

Day 8 began with the usual routine of getting ready to leave yet another hotel. I got up a little early, so I went to check out the other restaurants in Lake Tekapo village, to pick out a likely candidate for breakfast. The longest line was outside Doughboy's Bakery and Cafe. For such a small place, the assortment of pies and quiche's and assorted baked goods was mind-boggling. We settled on a few items, some coffee for me and a tea for W, and grabbed some sandwiches for the road. We took a stroll around the lake, but the weather was still not being cooperative enough to get our postcard style reflection picture (I know... next time). Then we climbed back in the car and got on the way to Queenstown. We just had to get out of the car for a few minutes a couple of times to stop and check out the scenery. This was one of the many times where I felt like stopping to snap pictures every 10 minutes, but we did get out for a stop at Lake Pukaki. We also made a brief stop in Omarama at the Wrinkly Rams. Alas, no wine at the wine bar for me while driving, but we did get a tasty cup of coffee and some cookies. We thought about staying for a sheep show, but there was this huge group of Japanese tourists there, and they were keeping the owners of the place so busy we couldn't get any real information. After 3 hours of driving we found ourselves in Queenstown, and made another i-site stop. They found us a room, but threw us a curve ball when the nice young lady at the counter recommended going to Doubtful sound rather than the Milford. We rushed much of the earlier part of the trip with the thought that Milford sound was the one thing we absolutely had to do, so with a little skepticism I said yes, but had trouble turning off the worrying part of my brain. So, we got ourselves booked in a hotel, on the doubtful sound trip, and on a barbeque cruise on the TSS Earnslaw. We took off for another Gondola/Luge trip, where we got a great look at Queenstown and lake wakatipu. We even spent some time coordinating ourselves the best luging picture ever. After burning up all our luge rides it was time to find our hotel, and while we didn't end up with a perfect lake view, it really wasn't too bad for what we paid, and it was too cold to sit out on our porch anyway. Once we got ourselves settled in, it was time to find some dinner. Our hotel, the Scenic Circle Arum Resort gave us a great book that had menu's for all the restaurants in town, which only seemed to make choosing one that much harder. We had a couple in mind as we walked downhill towards downtown. We settled on Guilty Bar after reviewing the full menu outside. We made a bet with ourselves that our waitress sounded Californian, and sure enough she was from not very far away from the bay area. Our meal was going great I had a really great ribeye, done perfectly with a tasty sauce and fries, and W had Clam chowder so good I forgot where we were for a moment and we had a tasty calamari starter. It took us an un-naturally long time to get our check, but other than that our meal was awesome. We went back to the hotel for another one of those nights with an early alarm clock call.

Day 7, Christchurch and Lake Tekapo

On the sixth day it was time to get up in the morning and do a little laundry, we packed what seemed like a lot considering how many places we had moved in and out of in 5 days, but when we got right down to it, some clean clothes were going to make the rest of the trip a lot better. So I jumped out of bed in the morning and used the free washer, and it was only $2NZ to use the dryer, and then we made our way to the Christchurch Gondola. The GPS got us a little lost on the way, but eventually we made it. Of course they had a cafe up there, so we started with some breakfast and took in the views. The beach just seems to go on forever.

Next we went to downtown and paid a visit to the i-site, where we arranged our stay for the night. Then we jumped on the Tram that takes a guided tour of the downtown area. We regretted not having more time to jump on and off the tram (add it to the list for next time). We checked out the cathedral (which of course has a cafe) How much more would I go to church if there were an attached espresso bar? And then we found some food vendors in the square, One guy was selling delicious fully loaded baked potatoes, and someone else was selling the tastiest spicy bratwurst. After that stop for a snack, and a can of Lift and we were on our way to the next stop on our journey, Lake Tekapo. We did make one little stop on our way, when quite by accident we bumped into the Trocadero Bakery. I badly regret not ordering a second éclair, the cream in the one I ordered was smoother than anything you've ever put in your mouth.
Lake Tekapo is the most beautiful color blue you've ever seen, because glacial ice grinds down the rocks into the tiniest pieces that stay suspended in the lake water. On calm clear days it perfectly reflects the surrounding mountains, but as you can see we were not there on a calm clear day. A thunderstorm eventually chased us away to our hotel, the Godley Resort where we had a mostly unobstructed view of the lake and the mountains and a patio facing the lake. Too bad it was frigid. We took a look at the food that was available and settled on the hotel restaurant staffed by one energetic girl who was hostess bartender server and bus person. I had a wonderful piece of salmon raised nearby in a glacial lake and W enjoyed the most tender roasted lamb you can imagine. By this time in the trip I'd learned to order coffee with dinner, especially If I'd had a drink, if I wanted to stay awake for longer than ten minutes after we got back to the room, I think my flat white wasn't strong enough on this day and I crashed hard.

Day 6 , On to the south island

The hard thing about doing really important stuff when you're on vacation is that you wake up way too often wondering if you've accidentally overslept. So began day six, where it was absolutely vital that we make the 9:00 a.m. inter-islander ferry to the south island. We knew it was a short trip from the hotel, but got up early so there would be nothing left to chance. I think we were the 3rd car in line. The Ferry ride is an extremely scenic 3 hour trip around the tip of the south island, across the cook straight through Picton Harbour an in to Picton. It was really cool to watch all of the freight and trucks get loaded on to the ferry. (before the cars) and then we cautiously drove on to the boat ourselves. I'd read stern warnings about taking a Dramamine before you get on, because it could be interesting, but our passage was quite smooth.
We grabbed some breakfast on board, and even had a beer to help make the trip a little easier. The views from the upper deck were worth the price of admission, bu there's a movie theater, a business class style deck (we decided it wasn't worth the upcharge this time) multiple places to eat or drink and even some live music. The good news about being early to the ferry is you're first off too, so we were quickly on our way to the Picton i-site. We needed a place to stay in christchurch, an a nice lady there found us a place recommended a place to eat along the way, and told us about Ohau bay seal colony. I wish I'd gotten her name, because she was absolutely money on recommendations. We took the scenic coastal road carefully eyeballing every sign, and wishing longingly that we had time to stop at the hundreds of wineries we passed (next time...) Just when we were giving up hope of seeing seals in the wild, along comes a sign that was a good candidate, and then another. Our two stops were the seal colony, and a scenic waterfall walk. We went too far to catch the scenic walk, so we decided we'd go back to it after dropping in on the seal colony. They were mostly lazily sunning themselves on the rocks and occasionally moving around, having little seal fights, and making some noise. Having what we thought was our fill of seals we went back to the must see scenic walk, and it was 10 minutes as advertised. We got to the waterfall at the end, and found a young seal swimming in the pool below it. I got down on a rock, and he didn't take to kindly to that and promptly chase me off of it. Then three more of his friends came waddling up the creek to play too. Eventually we made our way to kaikoura to the third place our i-site lady recommended the Kaikoura Food Company. You absolutely must make this stop if you're on the road. Make sure you try the rum raisin fudge too. We then made our way to Christchurch and checked ourselves into the Lattimer Hotel. We were excited that it had laundry facilities, and the concierge recommended a restaurant for us. We never made it to the recommendation, after driving in too many circles on the one way road we finally just parked someplace and walked until we found a menu that looked good. It was a little late, and apparently the staff at Viaduct decided to spend all their time on their closing duties rather than help us. I'd totally bash the place, but the food was actually really really great. I had some farm raised venison that was awesome. We had a beer at the hotel bar, and chatted for a while with the Irish bar tender, he wanted to talk US politics and immigration policy too. We then settled into our spacious room for the night with plenty to do the next day.

New Zeland Day 5, To the Capital

On the fifth day we packed up all our stuff, and then went for our morning walk along the beach. Unfortunately the weather chose once again not to cooperate, so the pictures are kind of grey and sad looking. We then stopped to check out of the hotel. We chatted up the guy at the desk for a while, turns out he was a retired barrister living out a dream of hotel ownership and meeting interesting people who passed through. It sounded great, except for the toilet cleaning part of the deal. We even found what seemed like a great lookout spot (following another unassuming brown sign again) but you couldn't actually see anything once you got to the top through all of the pea soup fog. So we continued south eventually stopping for some breakfast at the Lilly Pond in the town of Waipukurau. The food here was incredible, including the best fresh scones I have ever eaten. We stocked up on some snacks for the road, and then continued on to Wellington. Our first order of business was to find a place to say, so one more time to the i-site we went. They found a bargain for us, right down town. I won't tell you about how lost we got on our way in, but we managed eventually to get un-lost and find parking. Next we were off to the Museum of New Zealand AKA Te Papa Tongarewa. Admission was free, so we got our money's worth the minute we stepped inside and breathed the air. We arrived hungry so we went to the museums really fabulous cafe. You could get coffee or beer (we chose beer) and the food was really great too. Refreshed and ready to rock through the museum, we walked through lots and lots of exhibits, learning about early life in New Zealand, Maori culture, Natural history, and all kinds of fun interactive stuff. We even met a museum curator who had an accent that I knew wasn't local, but I couldn't get my brain around. He was from Louisiana, had come to study 9 years ago and never left. We thanked him for dropping some extra knowledge on us and then we went on our way.

I didn't take many pictures, mostly because of the hands on nature of many of the exhibits, and it was pretty dark in all the rooms. Every once in a while it's nice to enjoy things rather than document them anyway. We shut the museum down, and then walked around the harbour and found the Mac's Brewery Restaurant. Now that I've seen the website I greatly regret not having a tasting paddle, the beers we ordered were fantastic, and we ordered an appetizer sampler that looked a lot more like dinner than the snack we intended. With full tummy's we went to check in at the Abel Tasman Hotel. By the time we got there we weren't hungry anymore but we were tired, and we knew we had an early morning, so we crashed early and prepared for a whole lot of traveling the next day too.

New Zealand Day 4 From Volcanoes to the Beach

We had to rise and shine on day four to be sure to enjoy our breakfast at the Distinction, it had a wide range of foods ranging from traditional English to Chinese porridge. Then it was off to Wai o Tapu thermal wonderland, for a date with the Lady Knox Geyser. The geyser would likely erupt every day at some point, but to take the mystery out, they put some soap powder in it every day at 10:15 a.m. to keep the tourists coming. We really enjoyed walking around the rest of the park too, and were suddenly faced with our first difficult choice.

We had to decide whether to keep enjoying thermal wonder land at a normal human being pace or rush off so that we could make it in time to get to the national aquarium in Napier. We decided to move the aquarium to the "next time" list, and kept strolling around looking at all the cool colors and natural wonder.

We wandered around a bit there snapped up the requisite photos, and then kept it moving towards our final destination. After an hour and a half, we pulled up in Lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest lake. We dropped in at the i-site there, where they set us up with a room for the night in Napier. We stopped at a really great Kebab shop/Cafe, (that I'll find the card for eventually) where the Manager chatted us up about a whole bunch of things, including US politics. It turns out the rest of the world is pretty interested in what we're doing here the first Tuesday of November, so vote with care! We pulled up at the Fairley Motor lodge, and met the really nice gentleman in charge of the place. He was kind enough to recommend a restaurant for dinner, and sent us off to our nice little room. We walked over to the Westshore Fish Cafe and were really charmed by this cozy little restaurant. The owners are Dutch, and make a Dutch apple pie that makes the expression "as American as apple pie" obsolete. The seafood basket appetizer is worth making the trip for alone. We walked back to our room past the beach, and decided we'd start the next morning with a walk out on the beach. I almost forgot, it was this day that we learned the value of looking for signs directing us off the main road to interesting stuff. A very unassuming scenic overlook sign led us to this waterfall someplace between Taupo and Napier. You're on vacation, stop and smell the roses every once in while.

New Zealand Day 3, The Journey Begins

Day three started with the alarm clock going off before seven, it was going to be a long but enjoyable day. After checking out we dropped back by the foodtown to get some breakfast and some lunch, and a few other road trip necessities. Then it was off on the road, discovering the wonder of New Zealand's windy 2 lane roads, two hours later we found ourselves at the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves. The cave tour was enjoyable, and our tour guide was this cute little lady that said Peeeople in a rising tone whenever she wanted your attention to point out one of the caves features. You wander around the cave for about half an hour and then they sit you down in a boat that must fit 20-30 and was remarkably stable, and then the guide pulls you around the glow worm chamber using an overhead rope system. The glow worms were cool, but you only spend about 10 minutes on the boat and then you're on your way back out of the cave. They do ask everyone to be nice and quiet, so it was an eerily otherworldly experience. There was a 10 minute scenic walk outside that we took, and then we sat down and had our delicious lunch, then we were back on the road to Rotorua. You know when you're getting to Rotorua, because you can smell it, it's got a thick smell of sulfur hanging everywhere that you never quite get used to.

In Rotorua we went directly to the gondola to ride up and experience the luge, we opted for the gondola plus 5 luge rides, and for our last two rides, it was only W and I on the track. It was also getting very chilly especially on the chairlift that you took back up each time after your luge ride. I got a little carried away on one of our trips and tipped myself almost completely out of my luge, and still have the scars to prove it. Back down on the ground we checked into our hotel, the Distinction Rotorua and then went around town to find a place to eat. We didn't find anything we were super sold on, so we went back to the hotel to check out the Yakitori restaurant. We absolutely Fell in love with the restaurant, Mr Yakitori and instantly felt like we'd made the right decision. Yes I know, 2nd Japanese restaurant of the trip? Yes. 2nd helping of green tea ice cream? Yes. So, based on our trip down town, and how nice this hotel was, Rotorua is first on the list of places we'd spend more time if the trip were longer. The lady at the Auckland i-site looked at us funny when we said we thought our hotel there was nice, but that's because the distinction was her standard of measurement. It was really a great hotel.

New Zealand Day 2

On our second day in NZ we were awake reasonably early, and hungry, so we strolled down to the muffin break for a little breakfast. It was just as tasty as the muffins I'd gotten the day before, and we enjoyed a leisurely morning watching everyday Aucklanders shuffle off to work. After breakfast it was off to the Auckland Zoo. We got there not long after opening but oddly enough still had to work around a crazy amount of stroller traffic and kids on field trips. We gave ourselves a full two hours, but felt pressured because we knew we had to be back downtown for our scenic harbour cruise. We had scoped out an international food court on the first day in our wanderings and decided to run by there for a quick bite to eat. We settled on two delicious dishes for take away, and rushed off to the dock to buy tickets. As soon as we walked away from the ticket stand, the skies opened up to rain on us. We managed to take some shelter near the ticket booth and cram down some really great Indian food including our first lamb dish of the trip.

We had high hopes for the Fullers Harbour Cruise, and it stopped raining but the day was kind of gray and the winds were whipping across the upper viewing deck. After our cruise we checked out a grocery store that we'd seen on the bus ride to Kelly Tarlton's, and grabbed a few provisions for our road trip. Once we realized it was open 24 hours we decided to make that the next day's first stop. We walked back to the hotel, dropped off our goodies, and then went to the i-site at the sky tower to book a room for the next night. We got what seemed like a good rate for a place that looked nice, but we'd just have to see when we got there. We found a great pub that somehow didn't make it in the journal, and made ourselves a booking at Midnight Express. We'd scoped the menu the night before and saw the huge lamb special sign outside that called to us like a siren song. We were not disappointed by the lamb dish, or the Mezze dish that I ordered (check out the menu, it's saliva inducing) or the tasty semi-local wine (a Stoneleigh Marlborough 2007 Pinot Noir). The meal got even better when I had my first flat white of the trip, with some Turkish Delight. Stuffed, it was back to the hotel to rest, we had a busy day three to look forward to, but I made a little time to snap some pictures of the sky tower.

Kia Ora New Zealand!

Sometimes at the convergence of perfect timing and good luck, a trip comes together even better than you'd planned, So begins the story of our trip to New Zealand. I hadn't had much time to blog lately mostly because every spare moment trying to fit as much of the country into a 10 short day itinerary as was humanly possible. I read through the better part of four guide books, and spent lots of time reading internet guides too, and finally settled on a wildly busy itinerary that would carry us all the way from the Bay of Islands to Milford sound. The trip started with a difficult decision, Should we A. Spend a little extra money flying directly to Auckland and possibly have to fly coach on Air New Zealand, or B. Fly to Sydney on W's employer, and then fly to Auckland giving up the better part of a whole day of the trip in transit, but most likely sitting in First class for the longest part of the trip. We chose option A, and through a little bit of magic ended up in ANZ's Business Class. First let me just say even if we'd paid full fare for a B-class seat it would have been worth it. W didn't know what wine to order with dinner, so the flight attendant sets down 4 glasses of wine on a napkin with the type of wine written below each glass.

The flight is manned by a concierge, who pulled location guides out of thin air and recommended sights to see and places to stay. A full wine guide comes with your menu, and they served the most delicious panna-cotta for dessert, with an absolutely amazing NZ dessert wine. The trip was getting off to a great start We decided at that point to skip the trip north to Bay of Islands, we'll just have to make it the first item on the itinerary next time. We made our first visit to a NZ i-site, where the guy there found us a room and was pretty helpful despite what seemed like a case of tourette's. Next we picked up our car at Apex where we got a great deal on a car that included insurance, roadside assistance, and a GPS. Our car served many purposes, camera stand, locker, picnic table,heater, refrigerator, and the list goes on and on. It was badly underpowered, didn't like going uphill very much and had the worst wiper blades I've ever seen, but got us everywhere we needed to go safely. We spent some time driving around in circles, because the GPS wasn't always perfect with street addresses, and the hotel was in a weird alley. We got W a little nap while I went out and wandered around the hotel to discover what was nearby and scout possible dinner locations. I found a little side street with some pubs and restaurants, and walked a few blocks down to the harbour. I came back and discovered my new favorite cafe for the trip, muffin break.

They have above average coffee, and really tasty muffins and sandwiches, and a guy working the counter who knew almost everyone by name. I gathered up a somewhat refreshed W, and we walked up to the sky tower (with a short stop at a kebab shop) to catch the bus to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. Most of the attraction here revolves around taking the snow cat around to see the penguins, which was actually really cool, but for us, we were lucky enough to show up on a Thursday to see shark, fish and sting ray feeding. We were finally ready for some food, so we paid a visit to the Queensferry Hotel. We ordered some potato wedges with cheese and sour cream and bacon that came with a delicious chili sauce. I learned to love a beer called montieth's radler. Then we went off to check out the Auckland Sky tower. You can pay an extra three $NZ for access to the upper upper deck, and it's totally worth it, at eight o'clock at night we had the whole thing to ourselves. The views from the tower are incredible, if not a little dizzying and then we took a few minutes to play the slots to see if we could win ourselves a nicer vacation. Needless to say we did not, but that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy ourselves. We grabbed some dinner at the Sushi Factory that we found quite delicious but gave us our first bit of restaurant sticker shock, although their green tea ice cream was very tasty. Then we settled back in at the our hotel, the City Life Auckland. It was a touch pricey, but was neither the best or worst value for the trip.