February 4 (Entry #6)

Posted by Howard Simpson at 2/4/2008 10:04 PM
Categories: uncategorized

(Blog note: This was drafted the night of Monday, February 4th, but I was holding off on posting until I uploaded all the pictures and video.  Unfortunately, I have not had the bandwith to do that and so I decided just to post to keep the blog going.  I hope to get the rest up soon)

For as poorly as things went in Fiji, everything went equally as well in Auckland.  Some quick examples are:

  • I booked the room at the hostel online while in Fiji, but they didn't have a room available all the nights I wanted, so I had to book an 8 person dorm 2 nights and then a 6 person dorm the other 2 nights.  Upon getting to the hostel I smiled, batted an eyelash, and asked the girl behind the counter if there was anything I could do to not have to switch rooms...she said she would see what she could do.  When I got to my room I found that I had my own room with a window!  In hostel-world, this is gold.  This room was easily 4 times the cost of what I actually paid.  I was pretty happy!
  •  I couldn't make an appointment before leaving LA to get my immunizations for Asia, but there was a travel medcenter right next to the hostel.  An hour after getting my single room, I also had all my shots and drugs.
  •  I left my iPod at an internet cafe.  When I realized this the next morning I was pissed and disappointed in myself for being so careless.  Then I got a text about the Lakers trade, followed by many texts, and suddenly everything seemed good again.
  • Oh, and then I spent a good few hours looking for the iPod.  I finally gave up and was on my way to an electronic store to get a new one when passed the internet cafe again and thought I'd check one last time...and there it was!  Someone actually turned it in!  I was shocked and ecstatic.

 Besides these moments, I spent much of my first 2 days in Auckland just walking around getting a feel for the city.  I also climbed up to Mt. Eden, the tallest of 48 extinct volcanoes in Auckland to get a great view of the city.  

   On Sunday I signed up to go canyoning (yes, apparently "canyon" is a verb).  It was an all day trip hiking through a canyon and river, including many jumps and repelling opportunities.  I was in a group with three British med students who were working in a hospital in Auckland for a few weeks (by far I have met more British travelers than any other nationality).  The water was pretty cold so we had wetsuits, which made it a very pleasant day of hiking.
 For my last day in Auckland, I was looking for a day packed of excitement.  I booked a 9am bungy jump from the Auckland Harbor Bridge.  This jump was only 40m, compared to the 49m I did in Thailand last year, but I wanted to do it in preparation for the huge jump I'm looking forward to doing in Queenstown later in the month.  The view from the jump site was great, especially in the rising sun.  Since I had jumped before, they let me run and jump this time as opposed to just falling off the edge like I did last time.  I ran, jumped and was calmly moving horizontally when suddenly I just stopped moving out and began falling straight down.  I felt like the Coyote in the looney tunes cartoons.    

 After the bungy jump it was time to prepare for the Superbowl.  Because of the 21 hour time difference the game was at noon on Monday.  I've watched the Superbowl in the middle of the night before from Israel and that made sense to me, but to watch the game during the day on
  Monday was kinda trippy.  The bar didn't completely fill up until around halftime.  Most of the people there were actually Canadians.  There was also a fair share of ex-patriots who now work in Auckland...but they were coming only in shifts during their lunch hour as they had a normal work day to deal with.  A news crew also came into the bar to film people watching the game.  I tried to get them to interview me, but I guess they weren't interested in interviewing an American.  They wanted to interview Kiwis who were watching the game.

Now I am off to explore the rest of New Zealand on Stray Travel, a jump on-jump off bus system.  I'm sure the next few weeks will be full of many blog worthy materials.

I hope to add video of my bungy jump and pictures soon!

 

 

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