One-day Auckland Adventure

I made my monthly visit to Auckland this week, to refresh my library stash and meet with my graduate advisor. We spent an hour discussing the ins and outs of deciphering the lives and opinions and thoughts of nineteenth century males....Hmmmm... still much work to be done there :) But since my library visit did not take too long I ended up with a bit of time to kill so I opted to stroll through part of downtown Auckland to take in the sights. Despite numerous trips there now, and living there for awhile, there is plenty that has not yet been explored.

The self-inflicted busy-ness of this year has meant my schedule is a bit scant on adventures, so the time to wander felt like a bit of a get-away. The bus ride to and from the airport was on a different route from what I normally take, so I was treated to seeing new areas, which included passing by restaurants with such appetizing names as 'Love-A-Duck Chinese BBQ,' and 'Love Exposure Chinese.' An intriguing take on fusion was the food-truck advertising 'Authentic Chinese-Maori Hangi,' which I hope to be able to try sometime. (Hangi is a traditional Maori meal of meat and vegetables steamed underground. Think YUM. However, unsure how this fuses with Chinese...).

A particularly nice find was an Asian bakery, tucked in between some restaurants. They had an incredible selection of goodies, everything beautifully created and presented (and affordable!). Some favorites were the cake that had dogs on top, seemingly constructed out of icing, and the melon bread that looked like slices of watermelon. I bought some Japanese cheesecake for Troway to try since cheesecake ranks high on his list of favorite desserts.
I also found a little shop called No. 1 Pancake, where you can get pancakes stuff with yummy options such as chocolate and cream, or ham and cheese, or various other sweet or savory options. It is officially on the list of places to try when I have time :)

Campus building

University Clocktower

Autumn in the city

SkyTower from Albert Park

Yum?

Relaxation to the max...

Mt. Ruapehu on the flight home

Tidbits from daily life

I discovered some time ago that I was not particularly fond of the flavor of New Zealand marshmallows. Fortunately I can occasionally find American ones, which makes s'mores much tastier. Troway had always found it amusing that I only wanted marshmallows that "taste like home" but over the weekend he finally understood why. One of our American guests that came for the wedding left a bag of gummy candies here and we cracked them open when we put a movie on. They tasted American! Which meant they did not taste Kiwi-ish, and therefore after stating they were not going to be his new favorite, made the connection that I feel the same about NZ marshmallows :)

Troway is playing rugby this year, which has been a fun addition to the weekly routine. At least while the weather is good, I enjoy going to watch him play (if there are any really cold and rainy days I will probably chicken out...). I was pleased to realize I have figured out enough about the game to mostly  keep track of what is going on. And he reckons my opinion on how well they played is indicative of whether they really need to get themselves together, since my lack of experience makes it pretty clear if they were not working as a team!

We had a lovely sunny fall weekend just gone so a friend and I took to the back trails of Pukekura Park in town. We stumbled on some we had not walked before, and a nice bonus were some lovely fall colors. We finished the walk off with a stroll the fernery, which has beautiful flowers year round.

My self-prescribed current lifestyle of balancing work and graduate study is busy that it does not allow for a lot of recreational time. But an Escape Room recently opened up in town so a group of us from work went to check it out. We were terribly sure of ourselves at first but quickly found it to be quite a challenge. We did manage to get out though, whew! The musician in me appreciated that an old piano had to be used to unlock something, and we were quite impressed with the set-up.

Happy belated Easter and have a good week!