I’m down in Wellington for work again and this time I get to stay a night. So straight after work I went walking around the waterfront. While walking I observed all these cool people dressed up and possibly involved in some sort of treasure hunt. There were groups of rugby players, fairies, clowns, office workers and other strange but fascinating people.

They were having loads of fun, really into the whole dress up thing not at all worried how they looked. That made me think of all the different sorts of people I saw heading home from their various offices on my way to the waterfront.

The people in Wellington are different from Aucklanders… but in a good way – they’re all groovy.

The photo is of a cool art thing near the hotel I’m staying in.

This morning I went on one of the Auckland Heritage Festival walks in Epsom / Mt Eden.  The walk started at the Auckland Boys Grammar School (photo above) and ended up in the garden of an amazing home in a very private street.  From the very first minute we learnt fascinating facts about the buildings and homes in the area.

And we were lucky with the weather too – the rain kindly stayed away till just after the walk ended.

Yesterday I went to the Theatre to enjoy a Cole Porter musical called “Anything Goes”.

The show was held in the fabulous Civic Theatre (photo above) which is always a great experience in itself.  Amusingly as I looked around the theatre while we waited to go in and take our seats I felt like the youngest person there.  I guess this has something to do with the fact that it was a Matinee performance – but still, I wonder why there were no young people there.

The show was fantastic – I loved it.  The set was stunning, costumes great, acting wonderful and singing marvellous.  I was very surprised how many of the songs I actually knew.  Not sure why I didn’t realise the song Anything Goes is of course from this musical.  But the thing that blew me away the most were the very clever and fantastically choreographed tap dance routines they were very impressive and definitely the highlight for me.

Straight after work today I checked out on a map how far away “Hamilton Gardens” were from my hotel. I’ve wanted to go there for years but I’ve thought they would be closed by the time I got there and I’m only ever in Hamilton for work during the week. So today I figured I could at least walk there and see what I could see, surely I would be able to look over a fence or something and it would be a nice walk there and back.

Google Maps told me it was about 30 minutes walk away – absolutely perfect. Once there I discovered it didn’t have a fence… I could walk through the gardens for as long as I wanted to, so I did. It was beautiful and they have an area called Fantasy Gardens with themed areas from various countries such as Italy, China, India and JAPAN!!! As I turned a corner and stepped into the Japanese Garden it was just like being back in Japan – it was fantastic, I loved it. I spent quite a while there before heading back to the hotel hoping it wouldn’t get dark before I got back.

I did manage to get back just as it turned dark thank goodness but I was really pushing it towards the end. I decided to return via the enticingly named “Riverside Walk to the city”. Very near the end of the riverside walk it did start getting a bit dark and with all the trees around and park like surroundings I was suddenly aware that this would be the perfect place to get mugged and my legs were so tired from all the walking I’ve done over the last two days I just didn’t think I’d be able to run very fast to escape a would-be attacker. Luckily I only encountered friendly people walking dogs and a couple of lady joggers.

Turns out (according to my iPhone) I walked 7.59 kilometres and the whole walk took 1 hour and 38 minutes. I walked an average speed of 13:02 minutes per kilometre and burnt off 519 calories – excellent. You can check it out here: “RunKeeper”

Today I headed into the main street of Hamilton to look for somewhere simple to have lunch – something like a sandwich or a salad etc. But this was much harder than I imagined. I walked into about four different places all with really flash food and nothing basic or simple. Finally I gave up as I couldn’t be late back to work so in desperation I went into the next one determined to get whatever was available. The really lovely waitress said in a welcoming voice please take a seat and I’ll be over in a second to take your order.

So I sat down, checked out the menu found something simple (a bacon bagel) and ordered a Mocachino as well. Shortly my coffee arrived BUT in a glass – this is NOT good. I have a really low pain threshold, much lower than the average human being and just can’t pick up a hot glass of coffee no matter how badly I want to. Why does coffee have to be served in a glass anyway???

I tried drinking it by not holding it and felt silly knowing people were watching but I didn’t care I was trying to make a point. When the waitress returned with my lunch order I asked if I could please have my coffee in a cup, as it was a bit hot for me to hold. She was very lovely about this and said no problem, would it be alright if I just tip this one into a cup for you – I said sure (thinking about getting back to work soon).

In less than a minute she returned with exactly what I asked for – my coffee in a cup. BUT it was a TEA CUP!!! A cup with a handle soooooo tiny I couldn’t even get my little finger to fit through the hole (see photo above). The teacup was so small all of my coffee did not fit and spilled over into the saucer, she apologised for the mess and said she’d have to remember the size issue for next time!

Actually the whole lunch time thing was so random I had to laugh.
But my point is… surely; if they are going to serve coffee in a glass shouldn’t they ask if you would prefer it in a glass or a cup – this is New Zealand after all. I really don’t want to start placing an order for coffee like this: “Could I please have a coffee in a cup… thank you!”

I’m down in Hamilton for a week of work and the weather is perfect. This means I can go for big walks straight after work and now that Daylight Savings has started it’s not dark till much later allowing for really big walks.

So I set off in some random direction I’d never been before away from the familiar river with the intention of just walking wherever for 30 minutes and then turning around and heading back – giving me a decent one hour walk. After about 10 minutes I wondered where I was and remembered I could check out Google maps on my phone and hopefully it would tell me exactly where I was and what (if anything) would be nearby.

On the map I noticed a big blob of blue to my left (the river however was on my right) so that got me curious and I walked up a hill which I wouldn’t normally have walked up to discover much to my delight a huge lake!!! I had no idea there was such a pretty lake in Hamilton and wondered if it was called Lake Hamilton. According to Google Maps it wasn’t Lake Hamilton – it was Lake Rotorua. A tad confusing considering I was nowhere near Rotorua, so I stopped walking long enough to squint for a better look at the map and saw it was actually Lake Rotoroa – with an O not a U. Oh… ok cool.

On the way back I got to walk right past a large water tower that I have thought for many years I’d love to get a closer look at and the whole walk was much longer than an hour. Anyway it was a great walk and one I wouldn’t have managed to do if I didn’t bother to check out Google Maps on my phone – so thank you iPhone.

Today at lunch time Senior Fluffy and I had a quick look at the Weta Cave store in Sky City.  For the next three months, Sky City is hosting a special Weta Cave retail store.  It’s a little bit like the one in Wellington with full scale displays of Avatar and Lord of the Rings characters plus you can buy official merchandise from some of the movies such as The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, District 9 and The Adventures of Tintin.

Cup Fever has well and truly begun.  Senior Fluffy and I went down to Queen St at lunch time to check out the official Rugby World Cup store.  It’s quite cool, you can buy rugby jerseys for all the teams, scarves, caps, hats, tee shirts, socks, $90 neck ties, calendars, diaries, towels, flags, post cards, leather wallets, shot glasses, whiskey glasses, golf balls, pens and even dog leashes.

We were in there a couple of weeks ago and we were the only ones at that time, but today the store was quite busy with customers all spending up large keeping all the staff very busy (I counted about 10 staff, which is a lot for a store that size).  But the World Cup doesn’t start for a couple more weeks, so imagine what it will be like once it has started – best get your merchandise now I guess.

I was very tempted to buy something, but then I thought… why!!!  I don’t even like rugby and won’t be watching any of the games, so that really would be a waste of money.  BUT if I did buy something it certainly wouldn’t have an Adidas logo anywhere on it.

Today I played tourist with one of my best friends and a friend of his who is from Argentina. We had lunch in Mt Eden then headed for the north shore so I could get changed, coz before lunch the weather was great but by the end of lunch it was a bit cold and I was dressed for summer – which it is not!

From there we headed over to the Chelsea Sugar Refinery which has a great view of the city and sits next to a lake in some lovely gardens. It would be a nice place for a picnic.

Then we went to a couple of the fantastic lookout points near the harbour bridge including the one that you get to by going through a tunnel the Bridge Toll collectors used to access their toll booths.

Next we walked around the rocks between Takapuna beach and Milford beach, something I hadn’t done since the early 80s I’m sure and certainly not without a beer or a wine in my hand.

Finally after dinner we went to see the Museum all lit up. It was spectacular and well worth making an effort to see. The lights change colours randomly making the whole thing even more fabulous. I believe the lights have been installed to celebrate the Museum turning 80.

I love playing tourist in my own city, it makes you appreciate it in a whole new way. Plus add to this the extra special things Auckland is doing for the World Cup, it makes Auckland a great place to be right now. Something to be very proud of.

For the first time ever… I saw snow falling in Auckland City.  The office I work in is on the 7th floor so we’re relatively high up meaning we got a really good look at the snow falling.  Leading up to this time we could see a couple of “flakes” falling every now and then and sort of kidded ourselves into believing it was snow – but then at about half past two it really did snow.  It was awesome and felt like history in the making.

It didn’t last long and certainly didn’t settle on the ground but for a brief moment in time it was beautiful and exciting.  I’m so glad I wasn’t in the training room at that time, coz I would have missed it – there are no windows in there.

A couple of minutes later I checked the weather app on my iPhone to see if it actually said snow & I was so happy to see the snow on the display I had to take a screen shot as proof – it really did snow in Auckland.