Auckland 2008

It's the first time I am in New Zealand so I was pretty excited about it. It's also a good time for me to visit my branch there since they are acquired by my company about a year back.

The Melbourne airport enforced a strict 20kg baggage rule on every passenger and I was really scared I would hit the limit as I had 2 bottles of wine, my laptop and my boots etc inside. The weight was 20.6kg....phew...the counter staff was pretty lenient. It took about 3.5 hours to fly from Melbourne to Auckland and the flight was pretty ok on Air New Zealand. The sandwich served was hot and comfortable for a cool day.

Taxi ride in NZ is very expensive...it costs me NZD72 to get to my hotel in the city (a 30 mins ride). There are many taxi operators in NZ because the market is open for anyone to come in.

The hotel which I stayed in is pretty good. Near to the SkyCity and behind my hotel is the shopping and food atrium. You can get all sorts of food at the foodcourt.The room is pretty big too . Above is a pic I took from the Sky Tower.

The following 2 days were spent at the Auckland office as well. It's a good visit as it's my first time meeting the people there and letting know more about how we function.

As I am leaving on a midnight flight, I spent the saturday morning visiting the Sky Tower...the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere. And in the afternoon, I signed up for a wine tour as well. Wine region in NZ is not as grand as Australia. I visited this gannet colony near the Tasman sea. Very big and beautiful sea birds.

I also find that Auckland is a melting pot of different culture and races. I can find a lot of Asians there. Every corner, you can hear people speaking in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese and Hindi/Tamil.

After returning from the wine tour, I went back to the hotel for dinner and then asked to take a shower in the gym and stayed there till time to leave for the airport. Bought quite a lot of sourvenirs and food from the airport back home for family and co-workers.And guess what? My checked in luggage weigh 22kg and I have a hand luggage of 6kg but I didn't do any shopping in NZ. Can't explain the increase in my baggage.