New Zealand Day 1 to 2 (Expanded)

My mum and sister were at the airport to send me off and i set off on a 13 day adventure to New Zealand.

Jingru and i in the 10 hour flight to Auckland

I watched Match Point again during the flight and caught bits of Big Momma's House, The Longest Yard, Nightwatch, etc. It was 10.45 pm by the time we reached Auckland International Airport and Junming and Junhui were there at the airport to fetch us back to her house. The both of them were already in Auckland 1 week before Jr and i arrived.


Auckland International Airport

We spent the rest of the night unpacking our stuff and flipping through brochures to check out the things we want to do and the places we want to visit.


Junming's house in Mission Bay Auckland

The next morning, we headed to Jm's friend house early in the morning to catch the soccer match between Arsenal and Barcelona but Jr got the date wrong and it should be scheduled for the next day. Anyway, we had some coffee and tea before leaving to tour the city.


Outside her friend's house

Breakfast was next...


In a cafe having breakfast

My breakfast costs $15. Expensive right? We headed to Mount Eden and the view was magnificent. There were quite a lot of tourists up here as well.


On top of Mount Eden

As you can see, most of the buildings are rather low lying other than the city centre. There is abundance of space in New Zealand and they do not need to maximise the usage of land.

Mount Eden is actually an extinct volcano and there is a crater on top. We walked down the crater just for the heck of it.

In a crater on top of Mount Eden


At the bottom of the crater


A group photo at the peak of Mount Eden

We drove to Auckland City Centre next and parked at Sky Tower carpark. 1 hour of parking costs $3 there and it was the supposed cheapest carpark in city centre. We headed up to the casino and Jm played jackpot machines, Jh played blackjack, Jr played Big Small while i watched them play. I so guai right? Haha... I'm just too conscious of being addicted to gambling.


Auckland's Sky Tower

Jm, Jr and i went Queens St to go to some souvenir shops while Jh continued to gamble for a little longer.


Along Queens St with Jm

Bought 2 t-shirts and checked out some souvenirs before heading back. We left the city centre and got a quick bite at Mac before heading back to the house. Fish fillet burger in singapore tastes better. We packed our luggage for 3 days as we were heading up north to Whangeri and Bay of Islands.

The sun had almost set by the time we reached Snells Beach Motel and it was only around 5.30 pm.



We unloaded our luggage and headed to the row of shops across the road to have fish and chips for dinner. Next was a mahjong session and i lost $7. It's been quite a long time since i played while the rest are mahjong fanatics.

End of Day 1 and 2