Adventures in New Zealand - Auckland, New Zealand

Kia Ora everyone!!!!!!!!!! Greetings from New Zealand, or better yet, Aotearoa, which is the Maori name for New Zealand and means Land of the long white cloud!! Hola! Hope all you Kiwis are ready for us!!  A new adventure begins and we're ready to take it all in!! 

After a long 13 hour flight, we finally made it to Auckland, the City of Sails, where our first stop would be here in NZ, at the other side of the world!!!

First impressions of NZ . . . very clean, orderly, and pricey!!!  We were blown away by how expensive everything was here compared to Latin America!! Quite a change indeed!!  Don't think we'll be finding $2 meals at the local market here!! :(  It's understandable though, we are in a 1st world country now!!!

Another interesting change, the folks here drive on the wrong side of the road!! haha! :) Arnaud and I will have to pay extra attention while crossing the streets now, otherwise we may end up getting run over!!

Despite the expensiveness of New Zealand, the folks here, aka Kiwis, are quite welcoming, polite and hospitable.  

We were lucky again to find a host here in Auckland.  Many thanks to Anthony for putting us up here!!

As for Auckland, it's a bustling city, with people rushing all over the place!! And actually quite the melting pot, to my surprise.  Don't know what I was expecting, but it was nice to see all the diversity around.

I, personally, had fun visiting the city and all its sights.  Downtown Auckland was cool. We checked out the Sky Tower, but only from the bottom, because going to the top was way too expensive for us! Besides that, did lots of walking . . . strolled around Parnell Village, Ponsonby, the Waterfront, Albert Park, and Auckland domain. Nice little tour of the city!

Auckland and Aucklanders, seem to be despised, however, by the rest of the country!!  Really don't know why because we didn't have any problems at all.   The people were very helpful and friendly to us.  Lucky, I guess.

Nice time here, but gotta keep going south!!! Now it's time to see how hitchhiking works here!!

Next up . . . Rotorua!!!

Apres 1 nuit a l aeroport de Santiago, 13h45 de vol, 30$ NZ, 3h d attente a l arret de bus, un coup de fil, nous voila enfin a Auckland, dans une banlieu pour etre exact. Je m attendais pas du tout a un pays comme ca. Je pensais voir des maoris dans tout les coins de rues en train de crier et danser le Haka. Mais non, le Haka est malheureusement reserve uniquement a l equipe national. J ai entendu dire que les Kiwis ( ce sont les gens de Nouvelle Zelande) vont pratiquer le Haka dans tous les autres sports, vous imaginez l equipe nationale de ping pong :)

Sinon Auckland est une grande ville remplie d asiatiques, je sais pas ce que va donner l Asie, mais j ai deja eu un apercu, j ai vraiment ete choque par le nombre de Japonais, Chinois ou Coreins, de toute facon pour moi, pour l instant ils sont tous pareils, il parait que les Japonais ont des plus grosses tetes!!! :)

Treves de plaisanteries avec ces petits Asiatiques, juste pour rester un petit plus dans le sujet, j ai mange pour la premiere fois de ma vie des "sushis", c etait plutot bon.

Auckland, New Zealand - The Albion Hotel

Je me reserve quand meme, car dans quelques mois je serais au pays du sushis!

La ville est tres agreable a visiter, on a eu de la chance au niveau du temps, on a pu en profiter.