Lantern Festival

This has been a great weekend around the city of Auckland. Friday, Laura and I went to the highest observation deck (the Sky Deck) in the Sky Tower. The Sky Tower is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere - it is over 1,000 feet high! I bungee jumped! I figured I had to do at least one wild-and-crazy thing while in NZ. Then, we watched the sun set (the sun sets are relatively undramatic here as there is no ozone, but the light on the water is beautiful) and the lights of Auckland come on.

Afterwards, we ate at the Occidental Belgian Beer Cafe. It was amazingly delicious: We had a pot of mussels stewed in bacon and onion and a platter of mussels topped with fresh parsley and NZ cheese (mussels being a NZ specialty). We were stuffed, and we definitely count this among one of the best meals we've EVER had! Also, the restaurant had a lot of charisma - we ate outside underneath an umbrella. The outside tables sat upon a cobblestone road (Vulcan St.) that was for pedestrian traffic only. Have I mentioned yet that New Zealanders must be the friendliest people in the world?

Today, we went to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. This is the coolest aquarium I've ever been to in my life! Kelly Tarlton was a diver who wanted people to be able to experience the diver's world. You walk through a tube so that you are inside the aquarium looking out at all of the marine life, rather than looking into large tanks. In addition to this underwater world, you ride a Snow Cat through a special area that is lighted and chilled to Antarctic conditions - there are two different kinds of penguins living there. It is so incredible to watch them swim - I was moved to tears and look forward to glimpsing them in the wild on the South Island. Also, we saw two baby penguins! There are also some really neat displays, namely a replica of Scott's 1911 Antarctic hut and footage of Scott's team and the Endeavor.

Finally, it's the Chinese New Year this weekend, and there is a huge festival going on in the park at Auckland University. We walked, ate (Thai, Taiwanese, Malaysian Halal, Vietnamese, etc.), and looked at all of the intricate lanterns at the festival. We tried a bunch of different food and drinks, including a sweet basil seed and strawberry drink that looked like frog eggs but tasted good (I'll post a picture) and gelatinous rice (green from some herb) wrapped around shredded pork and cabbage. We also drank from coconuts, ate egg rolls, bun, tofu and spicy cabbage...I'm still full. I took some night photos of the lanterns and I promise I will post pics soon. There were people from all over the world there. Auckland is a fabulously diverse city - sort of like New York only without all of the muggings :-)

Between lunch and dinner we took a bus to a great old theatre called the Lido. We saw a Norwegian film there called Kitchen Stories. It was good, but I like Elling even more. We were hoping to see a NZ film called In My Father's Den, but it's last day was Friday (it has been playing since December!)

I hope you all had as much fun as we did (without the blisters). By the way, I was totally kidding about bungee jumping - although you can do this from the Sky Tower (being afraid of heights though, I had not even considered this!)

Love from NZ