Free Sausage Fridays

We had a lovely look at Fiji through the airplane and airport windows. Looks like a beautiful place…maybe next trip.

Beautiful Fiji Airport

The rain seemed to follow us from LA to New Zealand. Unlike LA, the sun is out more than the rain clouds but by the locals standards we have had two unfortunate weather days. Ha, 76 degrees and partly cloudy. Perfect for a January day.

We have spent a lot of time exploring and walking around the city of
Auckland. We couldnt really relax in our room because there was always someone sleeping in the six person dorm at ACB Base Backpackers...no matter what time of the day! During our first day, we visited the habor and walked around aimlessly trying to find food under $10 NZD. After a long search, some more rain, and Courtney's cranky outbursts we made our first major mistake walking into a bar and having to order chicken wings and hummus because its all we could afford. Not only was that not what our systems needed after a day and 1/2 of travel but they gave us enough hummus for about two pita chips! Those of you that have seen the hummus eating ability of the two of us knows we were more than disappointed and needless to say still hungry (no mom...dont send money yet...things got better!)

Later in the evening we went to the hostel bar with two Brits we were sharing our room with, Louisa and Amy. Lousia is just rounding out her 7 month tour with three weeks to go. SHe had a lot of encouraging words and advice for us, which we struggled to hear over the throwback 90's pop music videos they were playing around the dark, basement bar. The bar was raising money for the red cross to assist the people of Haiti, raising over $3,000 NZD.

We booked our bus transportation for two trips we plan to do during our stay. The first is a guided tour to the Bay of Islands which minimum of 3 day tour north of Auckland where will visit beaches and do some free snorkeling. The second bus trip is like the grey hound system in the states and we will be traveling through the north island into the south. We weren't sure if we could handle the guided tour the whole time, so we decided to do the tour with a little more freedom.

Its been less than two days and we've discovered out budgeting is a little off...oops. That .65 cent dorm in Bangkok is starting to look a little more appealing.

After an early start, day two of Auckland exploration continued because we had another misstep by not confirming the bus we were hoping to catch out of town. We made the most of it and decided to check out the museum. Walking down the street to catch the Green Link bus in town, we found FREE SAUSAGES they were giving out at a bank as a promotion (see Lee enjoying said sausage on the right). Almost everyone in line were backpackers...pretty hard sell for the bank employees to get people to open an account.

After our free lunch, we finally made it to the museum. Auckland has very nice and cheap public transportation. The museum was amazing, has a little bit of everything. As you probably saw from the pictures, we stole admission stickers from the trash can outside to avoid paying the $10 admission donation. We would recommend this step to any backpackers on a tight budget. Oh, and please place the stickers back when you are finished so others can enjoy. For those of you not on a tight budget, the museum is well with the donation and we count on you to keep the museum what it is today.

Where you pick up your admission sticker

We decided to have a walk back to our hostel down Parnell Street which is full of little shops and fancy restaurants. Lee said it reminded him of main street in manayunk (for all you philly people) but also commented that it put manayunk to shame.

Basement noodles, yum!

On the way home, we found our best find of the whole city. This basement noodle bar on Durham Street off of Queen in downtown Auckland. We were the only tourists (non-Asians) in there, so you know its good. We had the Spicy Chicken and BBQ Pork...we recommend both dishes. They also blast American Rap music...so you will feel right at home.