New Zealand...getting started!

We flew off from Sydney to New Zealand on Monday the 22nd of March. After a really great and (too) short stay in Sydney with Kuin and Simon they sent us to the airport on early Monday morning. It was a sad good-bye of the best friends Mishell & Kuin. They made as much use of their time together by talking away every evening until late at night (2-3ish in the morning) long after their hubbies went to sleep. Not surprisingly they both were quite knackered by Monday...

At the airport we had to find out, that Sydney airport is totally not customer friendly. First of all, they make you pay for a trolley! And it is not just like one dollar but FOUR DOLLARS (=CHF 4) and you do not get anything back upon returning the trolley! RIDICULOUS! Second - after check in there is hardly any food options around. And that leads us to the third point - the food places after check-in just RIP you OFF!! That means we paid 10 AUD for an ordinary ham&cheese croissant!!

We have seen quite a few airport on our travels so far...and we would definitely vote Sydney Airport to be the worst for those reasons! It is totally unexpected for such a world-open city as Sydney.

After arriving in Auckland (just a three hours flight) we first went to the information centre at the airport (since for New Zealand we did not get a Lonely Planet) to find out more about the do's. Of course we already had an idea after some internet research, but we wanted to get a better idea of where to go to.

And luckily the lady there was very helpful and flooded us with brochures about the different parts of the north island, about what to see where and what to do etc. On top of the brochures - we got additional help from fellow friends - Jerry & Wai Loon - thanks for all the tips, guys!

She also helped us book a hotel in Auckland for the first two nights. And then we went to the AVIS counter to collect the car (unfortunately not a spacecship this time). Once all the paperwork and things were done we headed towards town... :)

The pile of information brochures we collected from the airport information center / Der Stapel Informationen den wir von dem Touristen-Info erhalten haben


Our new 'Spaceship' a Toyota Corola...quite advanced with 6 gears / Unser neues 'Spaceship' ein Toyota Corola....zimlich fortgeschritten mit 6-Gang Getriebe

It turned out that there are far more 'Spaceships' in New Zealand or is it because the country is much smaller??! :) / Es hat sich herausgestellt, dass es mehr 'Spaceships' in Neuseeland gibt, oder ist es weil Neuseeland kleiner ist??! :)

First we went to check in into our hotel before going for a walk and dinner. We walked to the harbour site and around to look for a place for dinner. We ended up having dinner at Monsoon Poon which is a Asian restaurant (Malaysian & Indian cuisine) of which a shareholder once was in Zurich eating at Tiffins and talking to Mishell about his restaurants in New Zealand. After a more or less satisfying dinner we went back to our Hotel.

Our Hotel was in the heart of Auckland...and it provided a wonderful bed! / Unser Hotel war mitten in der Stadt....und es hatte ein wunderbares Bett!

Some nice old building at the harbour-side / Ein schönes altes Gebäude beim Hafen

The Skytower in Auckland...we didn't make it up there! / Der Skytower in Auckland...wir habe es nicht hinauf geschafft!

Asian cuisine @ the Monsoon Poon.... food was not outstanding though / Asiatische Küche @ Monsoon Poon....das Essen war jedoch nicht überragend

And...whoooooops.....the next day we only woke up at 1pm!!! We both definitely needed some quality sleep in a proper bed :)

Re-energized we went to discover more of Auckland...o.k. first of all we went to eat breakfast/brunch at one of the many Japanese Restaurants in town (to give us a flavour what we can expect in Japan).

After a good walk around in town (around the shopping area) we spontaneously decided to go to the cinema (because we both miss the cinema) where we watched 'Shutter Island' with Leonardo Di Caprio (you can guess who picked the movie???!). Verdict: Interesting but surreal...

hmmmm..we found this signboard by the national bank very interesting :) / Wir haben diese Anzeige von der Bank sehr interessant gefunden :)

Some sidestreet in Auckland with bars & coffee places / Eine Seitenstrasse in Auckland mit Bars & Kaffees

Hungry again after sitting in the cinema and our walk across town we treated ourselves to Burger King (Pasci) and duck (Mishell) take-away in our Hotel room...hehe.....sooo romantic!

Our healthy dinner / Unser gesundes Abendessen

Pasci can't wait to get started with his Burger / Pasci kann nicht warten in seinen Burger zu beissen

And that was already it from our first 2 days in Auckland...and to be honest with you guys...we were not totally impressed. Especially with the bad smells that was constantly bugging our nose when walking around. To give you an idea...think men's toilet! *YARKS*

We were definitely surprised by the amount of Asians walking around here..Especially Japanese and Koreans. It was a little bit surreal/strange...as we felt like being in Asia.

We were as well not impressed with the weather going from rainy, to windy, to sunny and to rainy again. :-/ We'll come back at the end of our trip to discover some more of Auckland and hopefully it will change our opinion of the city :) see ya....!

Next Stop: Bay of islands