Thursday, September 19, 2013

First days in New Zealand: Jet-lagging in Auckland

So, I managed to catch my flight from Hong-Kong, however I wasn't in the best conditions for the flights ;) I did not sleep a minute during these two 4 and 9 hour flights (+ 4 hour stop-over in Singapore), so you can imagine how tired I was when I came to Auckland. I arrived on Sunday at around 10AM local time and the check-in time for the hostel I booked was from 1PM. My begging and desperate look didn't help, so I had to spend 3 more hours outside. So I found a nearby park and fell asleep on the first bench I spotted (it was around 15 degrees and I was in shorts). At 1PM I just changed my location to hostel room and continued in sleeping for the whole day and night... Btw. I'm staying in 8bed dorm and I almost forgot how annoying this kind of accommodation can get (particularly if you are looking for some rest and sleep).

During the next days I slowly started with exploring Auckland + sorting out some stuff for my stay. I managed to see the whole city centre and I made a one-day trip to Waiheke island (more on that in the next post). 

From the very beginning, Auckland appealed very well on me. First of all, I would never tell that this city has 1.6 million inhabitants. The city centre is really small and not really crowded. Everything seems to be treated with care, well-organized and clean. I also liked a lot that there are many parks (in very good shape) directly in the city centre. So my first impressions from NZ are great (although I was bit worried about the first place to stay being Auckland).

My current status: after 3 days out my body is probably trying to tell me that it is still not fully ready, because I got cold and fever and these kind of stuff ;) so I decided to stay in hostel for Thursday and Friday and not to go anywhere. Anyway I need this for planning my next steps and finding a car - I'm going to check one tomorrow and there are several car fairs during the weekend in Auckland. So I expect to stay here until the end of this week and then hit the roads...

Few pictures from Auckland:
Skytower - Auckland's most famous building and the highest building in New Zealand (after Hong-Kong, I'm really satisfied with this being the highest building)

City centre, shot from Mt Eden (one of many volcanoes in Auckland)

They say the crater was "fragile and sacred area"...


By seeing this at the bottom of the crater I thought: WTF?! I even tried to google if Swastika has something to do with Maori culture, and also found some connection.. but a local lady on Mt. Eden claimed that it was just some idiots placing the stones like that.. So, who knows. Anyway it was really weird seeing this on one of the most visited places in Auckland.

Town hall clock


I even visited an art gallery. The current exhibition was "California design 1930 - 1960", but they also had a permanent exhibition of NZ and Maori culture. I was not really impressed though. The only thing that impressed me was the building of the gallery as such. Nicely renovated old building located at the entrance of Albert park.

Albert park (the one I used for sleeping after I came to Auckland)

City centre, shot from the harbor

NZ national team yacht. NZ sport is all about yachting and rugby.

Yachting and RUGBY. Field in the Auckland domain park.

Auckland museum (I didn't go inside as I didn't like it from outside. Makes sense, right? ;))

Skytower shot from the Auckland museum

As you can see from the picture, the weather is still not really warm here. Especially during the night it can get really cold, and as there are no heaters inside the rooms, it is better to dress well for the night. Shame that I only found out after I got cold...


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