auckland

ok the first thing. it’s daylight savings time down here. which makes sense if you think about it, but if you’re not thinking about it, you can’t figure out why your watch doesn’t quite match up.

and to get it out of the way, no noticeable coriolis effect. the toilets in the hotel seems to flush straight down, if anything. if it’s any consolation, all the public urinals seem to be a nice pleasing oval shape.

auckland is not dissimilar to seattle or vancouver or other costal/island group towns. sort of small town feel, and lots of ferries and nautical type activities. one one hand you pine for more of a city, to have more stuff going on like obvious nightlife and culture, and on the other hand, you’re incredibly glad to have all this untouched green land and wonderful nature, and you realize that for the most part, you have to give up one to get the other.

we went to kelly tarleton’s antarctic encounter and underwater world. which is half dedicated to those brave explorers who tried to make it to the south pole, but i think mostly an excuse to keep a large number of penguins around for our viewing pleasure. however, you do have to admit: penguin babies are pretty cute.

the underwater world part is the aquarium, which i suppose we are obligated to visit in every city. while it’s not large (exempting the large manta ray world which is still under construction, edc december 2004), it is cool in that you view it from underneath, travelling through the aquarium in little human habitrails as the fishes and manta rays and various sharks swim obliviously around you.

the anticipated shark vs. manta ray battle to the death did not happen.

Posted at November 22, 2004 10:13 PM