Auckland!
Here is my attempt at bringing you a taste of Auckland. I've read that 1 out of 3 New Zealanders live in Auckland! It's by far the biggest city in NZ, with the famous landmark; The Sky Tower, the tallest man-made structure in the southern hemisphere. An impressive place! Auckland is trendy, modern, and busy. It's also quite a bit different then the rest of NZ in my experience so far. Some people might love it more then the country as a whole, I for one think it's become too much of a city, where the essence of the common Kiwi isn't as strong as in the countryside. A good friend of mine told me that in order to see a country, you've got to get out of the cities! I agree wholeheartedly. But you can't neglect the cities, and Auckland certainly has a unique style.
This is an interesting architectural design, again showing the neat post-modernist style of some buildings here.
Here are a couple of pictures, showing you why it's been named "The city of sails". There are quite a few boats here!
A cruise ship! I'd sure love to be under one of those... or better yet, on top. Got a picture of it berthed at the docks, and then later, a couple of pictures of it leaving.
You can see a brief video of the Cruise ship at the docks.
Click for Cruise.aviThis city isn't without it's traffic jams however. In this one particular case, construction to widen a bridge and allow more traffic from the north harbor into downtown Auckland has led to some extreme delays. In one case I could see traffic right to the horizon! Here is a small portion.
Bungy jumping was invented by a Kiwi by the name of A.J. Hackett, who made it popular by jumping off the Eiffel Tower in Paris! So of course there many opportunities to bungee jump here in New Zealand. Including this one right downtown.
As I mentioned partly before, this is a huge city in the amount of land it covers. It just sprawls out! Surprising, because if you look at the map below, note the number of harbours, inlets, and marinas! Alot of water. You can never live far from water in this city.
During my walks and travels about Auckland, I noticed what seemed to be countless graphic design, multi-media, and advertising companies. Yikes! I imagine the competition is fierce in New Zealand. This is only a small chunk of the few I actually photographed. And they weren't limited to Auckland, I saw these sort of companies all around New Zealand.
Flight and Auckland
Let me start at the beginning and recount my experiences from January 17.
I first boarded an Air Canada turbo-prop plane from Edmonton to Calgary. A three hour car drive took less then 30 minutes! Here you can see the chilly, canadian, Calgarian terminal. Yes, that's real snow. No, there aren't any igloos in sight.
Then it was boredom for over 3 hours as I awaited my Calgary to Los Angelos flight. How about that car drive? In my boredom, I attempted a timed picture of myself. 10 seconds was not enough!
Here's me posing as the statue of liberty.
To Los Angeles, I then boarded a "Airbus" jet, once again, Air Canada. I doubt there was a single french speaking passenger on board, yet our steward insisted on speaking french after every english annnouncement. I must say he was pretty fluent. They advised us of the time change being as we were now in California.
Upon our arrival in Los Angeles, our transport was held up waiting on the tarmac. A Boeing 747 was in our terminal, experiencing technical difficulties. I would not want to have been in that plane! (Or dealing with the difficulties for that matter.) It was a good half-hour before another airline was kind enough to lend us their terminal. Our poor english speaking captain was periodically apologizing over the intercom. It's not your fault!
On the 3 hour flight down to Los Angeles, I got to know my seatmates somewhat, they were exceptional people! Terrific Christians on their way to Florida. They told me about their experience and future plans to run missions in Africa! They weren't pious in any way, just down to earth, born-again Christians. It was great meeting them. I won't be forgetting them anytime soon.
It was then a rush through the *huge* airport of LAX to try to find the Air Pacific check-in. I could hardly believe my watch, it looked like I was going to miss the flight! I arrived at the terminal at last, precisely an hour before departure. I had neglected to change the time on my watch when our French steward had advised us.
This was a crowded terminal! But we flew a 747 from there on to Fiji. I hope it was not the same 747 that experienced technical difficulties. Not likely. It was a crowded flight, and yet again I did not have a window seat. In fact I was in the center of the plane. Again! So far every flight I've been on have placed me farthest from the window.
On this flight in particular there was a large black woman between me and the aisle, who never moved, once during the entire flight. (probably at least 10 - 12 hours) So whenever I got up, I had to get to the other aisle via a young pregnant Australian. But she was great to get to know. She and her husband were currently residing in Seattle, and her husband worked for Microsoft! She was heading back to (either Melburne or Sydney?) to visit her family.
When I first stepped out of the plane in Fiji my first thought was- "Whoa! A greenhouse!" And that is exactly what it felt like. Warm, humid, and the sun hadn't even rose yet! The sky was bright though in advance. Inside the airport, there was a bit of confusion as what exactly to do, as we passing through passengers got special priority. I ended up being the very last person out of some 300 people to get through security. But it was ok, because I was still a good two hours early for boarding the Air Pacific flight to Auckland, New Zealand. At least we had some live entertainment though! A few black fellows playing guitars and singing. I was one of the few people who clapped when they finished.
So, we took off, this time in a jet rather like the airbus. It took about 3 hours to get to Auckland. For the first time, I got a window seat! Some other folks who were also traveling to Auckland had become familiar with my situation, and congratulated me on my window seat. Heh. Anyway, here's a quick view of the rugged Fiji hills from the runway.
Here's an aerial view of some fields and a bird's nightmare.
Fiji is renowned somewhat as being a bit of a paradise. Here you can see the smooth coast, the rugged interior, and some of what appears to be reef or a sandbar.
Not to much to see over the ocean except many clouds! It does look rather peaceful in a way. If man could figure out how to live and be self sufficient in the oceans it would sure open up the real estate! Did you know oceans cover over 2/3rds of the world? Sure you did.
On approach to New Zealand, we flew into some heavy clouds. And that pretty much describes my early experience in NZ, cloudy, overcast, and occasionally wet. This is my first glimpse.
This is the final airport! We touched down amidst clouds and heavy rains, but the airport itself was quite pleasant. Quite modern, lots of glass, and clean interior. There was even the odd Maori (Polynesians who've occupied the island long before the Europeans came.) sculpture. I'm not sure if the Maori language is an official second language, (like French in Canada) because although I've seen it on official government forms, and throughout the airport and other official places, it's not on the common food products, such as cereal. Anyway this is a view of the airport from the jet.
The Day After
I checked into "the Brown Kiwi", a travellers hostel, and hit the sack early. I hadn't got much sleep in the previous night travelling from LAX to Fiji, and there is a 4 hour time difference from home in Alberta, Canada. So if I'm eating a late lunch on Monday, it just happens to be suppertime at home on Sunday. Crazy eh!
The next day I did a bit of walking about and taking in the sights. Here is the sky tower, the tallest man-made structure in the entire southern hemisphere. And a proud source of revenue for the kiwi government.
The city is sprawled out around countless harbors and ocean inlets. That is one remarkable quality about Auckland, is the way it takes so much space. I've talked to a farmer who used to live outside of Auckland a ways, but it grew, and grew, until it overtook his area, so he moved away. Anyway, it's quite hilly in some areas, as you can see in this picture.
There are subtle differences in the kiwi form of English, whether it's mostly British or Austrailian, or native, I can't tell. However here's something that caught my interest. I take it these folks prefer square mail?
I've noticed a fair bit of post-modernism, minimalism, and all around innovative style here in this city. Here are a couple of examples.
The plant life here is cool! Kind of similar to Canada for the majority of trees, grasses, etc. But what sets New Zealand apart is the odd palm tree, and the vast number of ferns and other tropical plants thrown in for good measure. Another thing that sets Auckland apart is the sheer number of plants growing in this city. You can hardly glimpse the residential roof-tops sometimes, for the sheer size of trees dominating your vision.
Here's a sort of a palm tree. More ferns to come later on.
This is it for my first two days of traveling. (January 17 - 20 counting the day loss.)
