New Zealand Blog Day 1: Melbourne -> Auckland

Monday April 12th, 2010
Melbourne -> Auckland

I spent the wee hours of Monday morning trying to stay up surfing the net and reading The Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Eventually, the fatigue of yesterday set in and I decided to take a 40 min nap on the couch. I didn’t sleep in my bed for fear that I would sleep through my 7am departure flight. Now that I think about it, if I wanted to do, I could’ve stayed up all night at a 24 hrs McDonalds and just waited for the bus to the airport (did something similar with Dan the Man in NYC). However, since Apo isn’t Dan nor is she a Man, I thought that it might be more comfortable for us to stay at a hostel. Also on the plus side, we didn’t have to walk around the whole city with our luggage (like Dan and I did last day of our NYC trip).

Alarm! I woke up at 4:30am and then spent almost 30 minutes trying to wake up Apo. We caught the bus and were able to make it to the airport in time to check in. The flight (3 ½ hours) was smooth and the meal was pretty good (lamb w/ vegetables and mashed potatoes). Watched Men Who Stare at Goats (starring Ewan McGregor and George Clooney), a hilarious account of a journalist’s (McGregor) encounter with a former “New Earth Army” sergeant (Clooney). The film starts with the statement “More of this is true than you would believe” and there is some wacky shit that happens in the film. A must see.

Flying into New Zealand was quite breathtaking. There were these clouds of darkness in the blue/green water that I assume is coral (reminded me of Dark Water, an old US animated series). At first I thought that they might’ve been reflections of the clouds, but the dark shapes in the water stayed stationary. There’s a certain jaggedness to the hills and mountains that I noticed and it reminded me of some of the mountain ranges in Taiwan. We landed in Auckland around one in the afternoon.

My very first experience on New Zealand soil: I’m getting off the plane and this Custom’s guy (who looks like Brett from Flight of the Conchords) asks me for my passport and immigration sheet. I watch as other passengers pass me by and wonder, why me? To be an asshole, maybe I should’ve waved my US Passport in front of my face in order to avoid any confusion.
After we spent some time at the airport looking up info and booking our hostel, we took a shuttle to the YHA in the city centre and checked in. We took a look around Queen St. which is right next to our hostel and I was totally surprised by how many Korean restaurants there were. I got a 4.90 NZD chicken curry for dinner which was good and the price made it even taste better.

Needless to say we were exhausted by that point and decided to crash early. I spent the last hour of this day watching Gunbuster (an old GAINAX anime directed by Hideaki Anno of Evangelion fame). I’m surprised by how much work they put in to make it scientifically accurate (the theory of relativity is illustrated quite accurately in the series). Sleep.

NOTE: Money from now on will be in New Zealand Dollars (NZD) [1 NZD = .77 AUD = .72 USD]. I will be keeping a running tab on my spending in New Zealand.

Day Total (DT): Food 11.4 + airport round trip ticket 23 + Hostel 26 = 60.4 NZD
Total Spent (TS): 60.4 NZD
Daily Average (DA): 60.4 NZD

Pictures