Playing with Penguins

Another successful day in Auckland, with even the rain holding off for us (it was forecasted all day but only sprinkled very lightly for about a minute).  Wandered down to the waterfront area, which was pretty deserted on a chilly, gray winter morning, but you can tell is teeming with life and vibrancy during the summers and probably even now in the evenings.  Lots of delicious looking restaurants and fun bars, all with outdoor seating overlooking a harbor full of expensive yachts.  Auckland apparently has revitalized its waterfront areas in the last 10-15 years, and it's brought a lot of good energy back into the downtown area.  The area we're staying is also near the water but not near this trendy harbor area.  We're closer to the active working shipyards, which are also really interesting.  The Britomart area (as its known) is also in the midst of some revitalization though, with a new transportation center, mall area, and bars/restaurants/cafes.  We're going to explore a bit more tonight for dinner and drinks (and have already had a great breakfast at one of the cafes yesterday).

Walked a bunch today around town and up into the Ponsonby "suburb" (described as a suburb in the guidebooks but I'd call a neighborhood).  Cute houses (many of them well-maintained Victorian era homes), and a great main drag full of diverse restaurants, neat shops, and best of all - another Devonport Chocolate Shop.  Shawna was in absolute heaven getting her 2nd shot of hot chocolate after thoroughly enjoying her first yesterday (this hot chocolate is the most intense, thick chocolate you've ever drunk - it's really something special). 

Afterwards, fully fueled by hot chocolate, we boarded a shark bus to Kelly Tarlton's Undersea World, a ten minute drive along the coast.  Apparently this dude Kelly Tarlton was a diver, and decided he wanted to bring the diving experience to the masses.  So he built an aquarium in which the people go through it on a conveyer belt/moving sidewalk inside an acrylic tube while the fish/sharks/rays swim over and around them.  He thought it would be the closest people could get to diving without getting wet.  It was pretty darn cool, esp since they were feeding the sharks while we were there, so the sharks would swim directly above us with fish hanging out of their mouths, and the ray that was in this aquarium was ginormous.

Kelly Tarlton's also had an area about Antarctica and penguins, so we got to see both King penguins and Gentoo penguins, swimming, waddling, nesting, etc.  Pretty cool to hang out with them for awhile too.  There were a few of the king penguins that liked to waddle along the windows with us and then make faces at us.  Hee hee. 

A few random observations so far:

* Winter is not as cold here as in Chicago, but when it gets windy, it really gets blustery.  Brr.  Glad I have my winter coat!

* Auckland is expensive!  We stopped at a pharmacy yesterday to get Shawna some sunglasses, and their OPI nail polish was $25NZ (approx $20 US).  That does include their 15% sales tax, but still a mighty expensive bottle of nail polish.  Food, souvenirs, etc all seem to be expensive too.  If we'd taken a city bus back from Kelly Tarlton's instead of the free shark bus, it would have cost $3.40NZ (approx $2.90US).  Maybe it's just being in Auckland right now that things cost more, so it will be interesting to see if prices decrease as we leave the city at all. 

* There are loads and loads and loads of Asian restaurants here - eastern, south-eastern, south, middle eastern, etc.  Wow.  Apparently lots of people from Asia have decided to move to Auckland and open up restaurants with their native cuisine.  If you want indian, thai, japanese (noodles, sushi, izakaya, etc), malaysian, turkish, chinese, hong kong, etc - you're in luck.  Karaoke?  Indeed!  We've also seen a few Mexican restaurants but decided that they probably can't compare to Mexican food we can get in the US (we've yet to see any Mexican people here, but have seen tons of Asians).

* There are also loads and loads and loads of cafes.  I'd read that Wellington is known for its cafes, but it's hard to imagine more than we've seen here.  I saw 1 Starbucks so far (Beth saw a few others as we were on the shuttle from the airport), but mostly it's independent coffee shops, a few Gloria Jeans, and a zillion cafes.  Their coffee and snacks have been good so far, and we look forward to trying more.