View From Above

Thursday

Ro and Sherry spent most of the morning at the pool, then Mark relieved her so she could brave the crowds at the grocery store. Once Sherry was home, Mark walked to the stores along Maunganui Road to finish his Christmas shopping. Ro couldn't wait to open his one allotted Christmas Eve present (he had already snooped in our closet and knew which one to pick), so we caved in and let him open his gift from Teta & Pop before dinner: a really cool Pirates of the Caribbean toy and book set.

Who knew you could make a warhammer from paper towel rolls and an egg carton?

Hauling groceries for Christmas dinner

Sweet as!

Sherry made a delicious Christmas Eve dinner, with lamb chops, spinach casserole (with fresh fried onions - you can't get the canned ones here), and gnocchi. Our neighbors Mark and Sharon invited us over to their place to see the Dawn Princess leave port. They live in the penthouse, and we've always wanted to see their view. Lindy and Russel, our apartment managers, also joined us as we chatted over drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Ro really took to Sharon, who has a couple of grandsons his age, and she kept him entertained as we talked with Mark. Eventually our conversation fell to the USA, which he has visited several times. As Americans, we take it for granted, but for a foreigner coming there, "it's like everything you've ever seen in the movies coming to life."

Ro ate his weight in tortilla chips while the adults talked

Watching the Dawn Princess sail away

Sunset from the penthouse

Checking out Sharon's binoculars

Too late to put on a Christmas card

The news broadcast detailing Father Christmas' imminent visit had the desired effect on Ro, stoking his enthusiasm, but making it harder to get him to sleep. Once he was finally down, Sherry set about whisking egg whites for pavlova (her Thanksgiving one was storebought). While it was baking, we busied ourselves wrapping presents and sipping champagne, watching American Gangster on Sky TV for the umpteenth time. Based on Mark's highly unscientific calculations, Tauranga is the first city (>100K people) in the world to get a visit from Santa, as it's farther east than any of the bigger cities in NZ or Oceania.

God bless that woman

Christmas With The Animals

Wednesday

Sleeping in with Ro in the same room is an impossibility, so we were all up bright and early. Still, Mark was only able to mutter a few incomprehensible grunts until Sherry fixed him a cup of tea (all the hotel rooms in NZ have electric kettles). We checked out of the hotel, dropped our bags at the car, and walked down the street to grab some breakfast. There's no shortage of cafés in the area, so we stopped at the first one that looked good for some toasted bagel sandwiches and coffee.

The weather was perfect for our trip to the Auckland Zoo. Overcast and warm, but not hot enough to break a sweat (a good thing since we forgot our deodorant at home), with a bit of a cool breeze. While getting our tickets, Mark ran into a couple from Wilmington, NC (near where Sherry grew up). It is definitely a small world. The first exhibit we came to at the zoo was the kiwi house, and there were two lively kiwis bouncing around the dark enclosure. That was old hat to Ro, though, and he egged us on to bigger and better things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland_Zoo

Summer excursion

The zoo is one of the most progressive in the world, and the big, modern, cageless enclosures keep the animals about as happy as a zoo animal can be. There was a lot of publicity at the zoo on saving the orangutans from deforestation, referring to the movement in Australasia to stop using products made with non-sustainable palm oil. The zoo famously banned Cadbury chocolate (a ubiquitous Kiwi favorite) from its snack bars for that reason.

"Don't Palm Us Off"

Mark's favorite exhibit was the Sumatran Tigers, Sherry's was the noisy Siamang Gibbons, and Ro's the White Rhinos, but we probably spent the most time at the hippos, waiting for them to pop their heads out of the water. There was a little girl at the hippo exhibit who latched onto Sherry's leg, thinking Sherry was her mother. The terrified look on the toddler's face when her real mother walked by was priceless, as in, "If that's my mother over there, then whose leg am I hugging?"

Can we get some ice cream now?

Ro's wannabe sibling

We coaxed Ro into standing in line for the giraffe encounter with an ice cream. We got there 15 minutes early and were the first in line, but when it was finally time to hand-feed the giraffe, there was a good fifty people in the queue behind us. We each got a piece of celery to feed to it, which the giraffe would snake its long tongue around and then slurp up. Sherry was the first to go, then Ro, but he got a little scared when the big male giraffe swung its head towards him, so he just flung the piece of celery down on the balcony and backed away cautiously.

Eat here often?

In the Aussie Walkabout

Sherry wishes she could take back her decision to enter the extensive tunnels under the meerkat habitat, with ladders leading up to clear plastic domes for close viewing. In addition to encountering a rampaging Tyrannosaurus Rex (i.e. an over-imaginative Japanese toddler), she managed to whack the top of her skull on a cement edge, giving her a nice goose-egg and causing her to see stars for at least five minutes! And if that weren't enough, Ro took a tumble down one of the ladders and hurt his shoulder. Mark suspected some of his tears were of the crocodilian persuasion, but since Ro was still crying after we left the tunnels Sherry had Mark take a look at the shoulder. Mark checked his range of motion, "Okay, Ro, put your hands behind your back...now behind your head...good, you're fine, let's go." As soon as Ro got official confirmation that nothing was broken, he was happily off and running again to see the sea lions.

Make way, mummy!

Ro's favorite part of the zoo had to be the Kidzone, where there was a huge Chinese dragon to climb on. He took to hiding in the dragon eggs, lying in wait for another child to come along and look inside. Then Ro would dart his head out, roar and scare the bejeezus out of them! Possibly a bit mean, but pretty darn funny for us to watch as we took a break from walking and snacked on hot chips. Ro did really well for most of the day, and we all had a great time, but he got a little whiny towards the end. Not coincidentally, that's when the sun came out and it started getting hot.

The hatchling with a tuatara

Ro was too comfy to bother posing

Sherry and Ro both fell asleep on the way home. Somehow we managed to avoid the worst of the usually punishing Auckland rush-hour traffic and made pretty good time. We stopped in Paeroa for dinner at the L&P Cafe & Bar. A family-oriented place, they had a small climbing frame in the courtyard so we sat outside and ate while Ro played with some other kids, occasionally coming back to our table to forage. He and Sherry had the pizza and pasta buffet, while Mark stuck with fish & chips, washed down with (of course) an L&P.

http://www.lpcafe.co.nz/home

Snoozing on the Southern Motorway

After dinner, Ro had a nice play at the park across the street. Another boy about 8 years-old showed up after a while, whose dad was in their rustic campervan in the carpark. After playing for a while, the boy nonchalantly wandered over to Sherry's handbag sitting on a picnic table and started looking through it! Sherry gave him the benefit of the doubt, figuring his eye must have been caught by Ro's dragon book, and she even offered to show it to him, but he didn't say anything and walked off sheepishly. There was an abandoned kids bicycle at the park, and we took the opportunity to try to teach Ro to ride without training wheels. It was less successful than we'd hoped. He seemed to think the only reason we held on to the seat was to push him, relieving him of the obligation to pedal!

Part of a photo series we've been compiling of lone shoes around NZ (Sherry's idea)

It doesn't matter if it's a girl's bike, keep pedalling!

Tech Savvy

Tuesday

Mark is off Christmas week, so we wanted to get out of town for a little while. We still had a free hotel night that was about to expire, so we decided to use it at the Crowne Plaza in Auckland and see a little more of the big city. But first we had to get there. The traffic going into the city was pretty heinous, and Sherry needing a toilet break seemed as good an excuse as any to get off the jammed motorway and try to get to the Auckland Zoo via the city streets.

We ended up getting lost, as we were still outside the detailed blow-up of central Auckland in our atlas, and the regional map wasn't detailed enough. We nearly got killed more than once by JAFAs who decided to stop their cars right in front of us on fast, busy roads nowhere near an intersection. WTF!?! We got turned around somehow (there are no compass directions on the road signs) and started going in the wrong direction, and since it was close to noon the shadows weren't very helpful for navigation. We did get to see some of the more, ahem, "ethnic" parts of Auckland. At one point, while stopped at a light, Mark tried to grab the map away from Sherry and she playfully bit at him, prompting Ro to intervene, "Hush, parents!!!" Let's just say it was a true test of marital harmony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jafa (caution)

We ended up losing an hour on our scenic tour of South Auckland, so we had to disappoint Ro when we told him we'd save the zoo for tomorrow, knowing we wouldn't have enough time for it today. Fortunately, the MOTAT (Museum Of Transport & Technology) was also nearby, and after a little convincing, Ro agreed to give it a chance. He was understandably impatient after our ordeal just getting there, but a little food brightened his mood considerably. Sherry had packed ham & cheese sandwiches for Mark and Ro, while she's acquired a taste for Vegemite with sliced cucumbers.

http://www.motat.org.nz/

Picnic in the park

Ro hurried us through the historical displays of huge steam engines, coal-fired boilers, old cars and motorcycles, fire engines, and an exhibit on Kiwi hero Sir Edmund Hillary's exploration of Antarctica. Ro finally stopped to look at something for more than 5 seconds when we got to the Challenge Zone, a series of interactive displays. He enjoyed the crank-powered light bulb, radio, and fan, but even Mark had trouble powering all three at once. The earthquake simulator was a big hit with Ro, probably because he's never experienced the real thing. The mirror maze actually freaked him out a little bit, though; he was afraid we were getting lost, never to return.

Sherry with a 1928 Chrysler Imperial

Cool as!

Whoa, trippy!

Where are you, mummy?

A bit Disneyland-ish compared to the rest of the museum, the motion simulation theatre looked like a moving spaceship from the outside, so of course Ro wanted to go inside as soon as he saw it. The show we saw was an incredible 15 minute ride through New Zealand's Southern Alps. We skimmed over fjords, snowfields, and craggy peaks, but the real treat was when we followed a speeding Shotover jetboat down a river, watching just how precariously it comes to huge boulders before spinning 360 degrees in a spray of water. The film obviously had to be shot by one heck of a helicopter stunt pilot.

We stoked Ro's competitive streak at the sports technology area, where we all raced against the clock, shot baskets (netball and basketball), pitched and kicked balls as fast as we could, and checked our reaction times. Mark got his tennis ball throwing up to 74km/hr, not sure if that's good, but his shoulder was sore for the rest of the day. Sherry denies cheating in the sprint since she didn't cross the starting line until the light turned green, but Mark maintains that it's not kosher to get a running start from behind the line. Ro was getting a little frustrated with his lack of success...until we got to the balance board. Mark and Sherry couldn't manage more than five seconds, but Ro was able to balance a board with his feet on either side of the narrow fulcrum for almost a minute!

How do we make the train go?

The airplane hangar was separate from the rest of MOTAT, so we boarded an antique tram for a ride past Western Springs Park and the Auckland Zoo to the Memorial Aviation Collection. The densely packed hangar featured more planes than we could count, clustered around the two big boys: the only Solent Mk IV Flying Boat left in the world (the initial trans-Tasman workhorse of what became Air New Zealand) and a rare WWII Avro Lancaster heavy bomber. There was a little gift shop at the front of the hangar, and Ro wanted a plane (almost all of which are available at Wal-Mart back home for a third of the price), but we informed him there was no way we were buying impulse toys three days out from Christmas. He was a little dejected until Sherry talked him into getting some freeze-dried astronaut ice cream instead (one of her favorites).

The Flying Boat Aranui was BIG

How the other half lived. TEAL eventually became Air NZ

Ro's favorite was too small even for him

Mark dwarfed by a Lancaster bomber

Catching the complimentary tram

We got back to MOTAT just in time for Ro to have a play on their climbing frame, then we walked back to the car and drove into the CBD to check in to our hotel. Ro really liked the room, claiming the settee for his bed (mind you, he had a double bed all to himself) and making it up with pillows and blankets until it was boot-camp perfect. By this time we were famished, so we walked out of the atrium at the back of the hotel onto quaint Elliott Street, where there were loads of restaurants to choose from.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ro always knows how to make Sherry nervous

Some unintentional forced perspective caught Ro shoulder-perching in angelic mode

Captivated by the energy of the city below

Sherry was craving jasmine tea, so we ended up back at the Dragon Boat (where we ate on our first visit to Auckland). The food was even better this time. The only imported thing we've found in NZ that's cheaper than in the States is shark fin soup, so Mark couldn't resist, slurping up every last politically incorrect drop; Ro kept wavering on whether or not to try it (he didn't, but decided to just tell all his friends he did). Mark's seafood combo was delicious (and huge), while Sherry stuck with some fried tofu that even Mark grudgingly agreed tasted pretty good. In lives past, when Sherry was a much stricter vegetarian, she would have instantly sent back her Hot & Sour Soup, but now she just picked out the meat and kept eating, letting Mark and Ro have a go at the discarded prawns and pork. Ro was a little hesitant to eat his Sweet & Sour Pork at first, but once he got the first piece down he realized that it was really good and dug in. After cleaning half his platter, he loudly announced in the quiet yet crowded restaurant, "I need to poop!"

Good, eh?

After dinner, we walked over to SkyCity Metro to see what was playing at the cinema. Unfortunately, the last showing of A Christmas Carol had already started, we'd already seen all the other kids movies, and Avatar was sold out. We consoled ourselves with some ice cream (Rainbow for Ro and Kiwi Pavlova for Mark - Sherry just got a coffee) and riding up and down the glass rocket-shaped elevator. Sherry stopped in the $3 Japanese Store, where nothing was even worth $2 let alone $3, but Ro talked us into buying a pack of cute vegetable shaped erasers and some markers (we'd forgotten to bring his). While Sherry took Ro back to the room for a bath, Mark did a little Christmas shopping. He brought back some wine and chocolate, grabbed a couple wine glasses from the bar downstairs, and we all settled on the bed watching The Santa Clause 2 until Ro fell asleep.

Ro breaks into an impromptu haka. Benefits of a Kiwi education

Ro made us ride this glass elevator at least 5 times

View from our room

Swim Buddies

Monday

Mark was working this past weekend, so to get Ro out of the house Sherry took him to The Living Art Wildlife Park here in Tauranga. The animals weren't as exotic as those we've seen at other parks, but Ro had a good time feeding them nonetheless.

http://www.livingartwildlifepark.co.nz/

Ro took this one

If only children were as open-minded about food as goats

Farmer Ro

Ro the Rocker

Craig was working today, so we offered to watch Barnaby. The boys ran around the apartment all morning, their racket finally spurring Mark to get out of bed. Barnaby brought his new boogie board, and they made a game of running and jumping on it, sliding on the carpet. Ever fair-minded, Ro told Barnaby, "I'll take the first thousand turns and you can have the next thousand."

Sherry had promised to take the boys to Baywave, but first we stopped by Bayfair so they could get their picture made with Santa. Turns out they weren't the only kids there dressed in their swimming togs and rashies, but Ro's goggles made a nice fashion statement. We got a pic for ourselves and one for Craig, and the boys both received a toy spade and bucket from Santa.

Smile, Ro!

Sherry took the boys across the street to Baywave while Mark did some Christmas shopping at the mall. He's been working a lot the past couple weeks, so is way behind on it. The boys entertained each other at the pool for the most part, giving Sherry some time to read and relax. After finishing his errands, Mark stopped by Imbibe (conveniently located between the mall and Baywave) for a quick pint on the sunny patio. Sherry was a little ragged when Mark got to the pool, as she kept having to referee the boys' sporadic squabbles, so Mark took over the umpire duties while she kicked back with her book and went off to do some grocery shopping.

Not to worry, Barnaby gave as good as he got

Ro and Barnaby were constantly on the Hydroslide, usually riding down together. Of course, this had its dangers, such as when Barnaby's head hit Ro in the mouth. They probably averaged about one minor injury per hour for the nearly 6 hours we spent there. After we got home, Sherry whipped them up some cheese pizzas which they ravenously scarfed down. They finally settled down when Sherry put on Little Shop of Horrors.

Hi-five!

Getting a facefull in the wave pool

After Barnaby left, we were about to put Ro to bed when he got a reprieve in the form of a ship's horn. The Diamond Princess was about to pull out of port, and Mark wanted to get a few pics of it, so Ro tagged along. Pilot Bay was packed with people, like nothing we've seen since, well, last summer. Crowds gathered on the pier for a view of the huge ship entering the channel between Mauao and Matakana Island with the setting sun behind it...sort of a Mt Maunganui summer ritual.

The ship's horn was really loud

Diamond Princess sails away