Wednesday, June 3, 2009

A little bit about my trip to Auckland New Zealand.

Meal on board the flight served at the height of 35,000ft above sea level and at a cruising speed of 800km/per hr. Will it be that fast enough to be digested.
Arrival form to be completed before disembarkation. It looks complicated but later on found it is easy to write than said.

Filling in the health form..Bla..bla...bla..ok signed. No H1N1.




These are two apples that I bought for NZ$2.00(Eqv. Rgt4.00) and it took me about 1/2hr to finish them.Sweet and Juicy

The other Ferry operator.


While strolling at the harbour we found a group of New Zealand' s students playing the Scotish pipe-accordians and asking for donation to support their Scotland pipe band to travel to Scotland.





Harbour cruise, just for NZ$25.00. Good offer .Jom let's go for it.

This is Auckland Harbour viewed from Stanley Bay.

My victory sign means happiness and freemind.The day was Sunny means good time to take pictures. To my photo buddies at home..you missed it guys.

Master Debbie, she was the Master of the ferry we board. She is very friendly.Not just a Master she was also our responsible guide, giving us the information of the surrounding views during the cruise.
I could not resist to pose with her for a photograph.It's a New Zealand's connection!!




As we cruised along the Stanley Bay, we saw many nicely designed boats passing by.



Imagine that you take a ride on one of this Sail boat in Auckland . City of Sails.









The Empire Apartment stood at 19 storeys.

Our guestroom.

We stayed at the Empire Apartment about 1/2hr walk from the city centre, as you can easily see the Skytower from our apartment 18th Floor. Our apartment was very spacious and could easily accomodate 6 people at any one time.The facilities includes a kitchen, 2bathrooms, dinning room and 2bedrooms and TV set.
We later found out that the occupants are mostly Malaysian students .




This is BritoMart transport centre likened to that of KL central where we will find buses and trains to get connection to all parts of Auckland.You can also find alot of information regarding how to get around North Island of New Zealand. The day we were there, there wasn't much crowd.


Fresh smoked Salmon Fish. Taste great!!!
New Zealand known to be famous as Salmon Fish producer.
Four sticks of salmon fishmeat (above) cost at NZ$10.00(eqv RGT20.00).Well it's worth buying.(Trying)

Inside the Bitromart Transport Centre waiting area.

Simple menu , quick enough to get our attention.

Buildings nearby the harbour
Auckland is also famous for it's establishment as education centre, we found at least 2 main universities thereby, namely Auckland university and Otago university.This is where we find alot of students especially from Asia.





Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Lovely Maori teenage girls.They have good command of English language. Speaking to them is no problem.
I learnt a bit on Maori language:Ka nui te hari o toku ngakau.which means I am very happy.
Kahore ahau e mohio ( I don't understand Moari.)

Young and old doesn't make any difference when making friends.

The Maoris teenagers at Papakura, about 45mins ride by train from Auckland's Bitromart transport centre.They are very curious to see us but friendly.

Light aircrafts flew above us most of the time when we were at papkura.


A railway line at papakura station.
Very quiet and very cold, if you look at the background there are nice contour of land probably sheeps and horses farms.

On Sunday morning we decided to travel far from Auckland , so we took a train ride to Papakura (Flat-red earth) , hoping that we can see much of Auckland's outskirt. The journey time of 45mins with several station stops finally made our destination( in the southern area of Auckland.).
Its was actually a small town and a very quiet one.Perhaps it was Sunday so most shop were closed and less business activities.





Above was the Skytower which stand at the height of 573meter, located in the centre of Auckland City.Vistors could try bungy jumping here.At the ground level one can find shopping malls and restaurants.
The day (Sunday was wet throughout the evening.(See my friends getting the touch of rainwater in Auckland just to find out if it's any different from our Malaysian rainwater.)
The streetwalkers with there umbrellas to avoid getting wet.

One thing I'm most worried here was that I have to protect my two DSLR cameras from getting wet but not just that ,it's cold temperature(10degree celcious ) can knock off the power.






That Monday morning as we strolled along Queenstreet, we stumbled upon Moaris marchers chanting and war cries all of them.And we are very scared as we thought something undesirable is going to happen.
Then later we found out that the purpose was a gathering to indicate to the local government that they reject the so called formation of Supercity for Auckland which will have negative impact to the Moaris(Minority in population).It was indeed a peaceful march.






Showing support to the Moari


Do I look like provoking the policemen?Actually they are all friendly policemen performing their duties ensuring public safety.
I talked to one of the marcher to get first info on what's happening and she was delighted to explain from A to Z. Probably she thought that I am a foreign journalist.(hee hee).
This was our Monday morning, the weather was very cloudy and drizzling all day and we have to cancel our countryside visit. Instead we joined the march , well it was fun and we feel like Moaris .








Posing with Jack the policeman.We were actually suprised when a policeman came to approach us and asked 'Kamu Melayu?'.Later he introduced himself, who was at one time a New Zealand soldier serving in Sarawak in 1963. He mentioned of Simanggang(now Sri Aman town) where he was stationed.We were delighted and felt more comfortable.






After 4nights in Auckland, we were ready to leave homebound.Everyone was weary but sad as there's so much more to see in Auckland.Perhap we will be making another trip in the future.I managed to pose as remembrance.

Adios Auckland , as our airplance wings stalled.