We got up and headed down for our complimentary breakfast in the hotel. It was the same nice place that we had dined the night before, except it was setup for a small buffet instead. The staff was very friendly. I grabbed a bunch to eat. Afterwards, we headed back for our car and took off. I had asked that they put the valet charge on the room bill, but at the end of the trip, it turns out they didn't. I don't know if I was supposed to do it or what, but I definitely thought that the valet guy said that he would put it on. Maybe he didn't know what room we were in or something.

We headed out to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter, which was kind of like an aquarium. We went in and looked around, and boy, was it a disappointment. You could barely call it an aquarium. There were some exhibits about the South Pole expeditions (and how they ended in disaster), and then a little car ride the drove on rails so we could see some penguins. Apart from that, there was a tank with some manta rays in it, the obligatory shark tunnel, and then a few tanks that look like they could belong in a rich person's house. The tanks at Monterey, you would definitely not expect to find at somebody's house. I'd say maybe there were 10-20 tanks there, tops. Waaay small. And then at the end they had the gift shop with a small theater showing Spy Kids. Huh?

The only saving grace for me was that I managed to catch a guy going around and feeding a lot of the different tanks, so seeing some of the fishies eating mussels and the seahorses eating small floating things was fun. We also caught the manta ray presentation, but it was not particularly interesting to me (it's not like you got to feed them, like at Seaworld). He did make the ray splash a bunch of people, though.

We then drove up to see a couple of the volcanic cones in Auckland. The first one was One Tree Hill, and the drive up reminded me of going to Twin Peaks on the day that I proposed to Patricia. There wasn't much to see, except the city of Auckland stretching off in all directions. You could also see the other volcanic cones that made up the landscape. Guess it was a little weird seeing these hills here and there in the city. Afterwards, it was lunch time, so we stopped at a little restaurant next to the i-Site at the park. It turned out to be a fancy expensive restaurant that we were not expecting, so we got out of there and decided to find something else.

I drove us over to Parnell Street, where there was supposed to be a lot of small shops for shopping. Finding a parking spot was horrible, but I finally got one at a small side street. Patricia had seen a nice Italian place, so we went there and it turned out to be another expensive place where there were people in business suits having their power lunches. Man, we must have looked out of place with our backpacks and everything. We had a pizza, which wasn't too bad (hand-made). When we got out, we decided to walk down the street a little bit to see what was around. As we were walking, we passed the Italian place that Patricia had seen, so we had gone to the wrong restaurant, which was nagging me. Doh!

We found a few nice shops to look at. At this point, we kind of decided that we wanted one of the Maori symbols that represents two lives intertwining and becoming one, but all the ones that we saw were really dark (dark, dark blue). A lot of the other symbols had a lighter color to them, so we were hoping to find one that was a bit lighter. But we didn't have any luck there. I found a small little wooden block game where you are supposed to balance them on top of each other. The blocks are horse shaped, so I wanted to use it as a display to show that I could get the horses to do whatever I wanted (Patricia is a horse remember -- I'm the sheep).

I was a little bit worried that we would not be able to bring wood back due to animal/plant restrictions. What was more worrisome was the wool that I still had back at the hotel room, from when we saw the sheep get shorn at the Agrodome back in StinkyTown. I wanted to put it in a plastic bag or something so that if customs did decide to confiscate it, that I wouldn't get into all sorts of trouble with the exposed wool also contaminating my backpack or something. Patricia offered to let me use the little Ziploc bag that she got from Pak N' Save also at StinkyTown. Yeah, right. I didn't really think that would be a great improvement, because that was the Ziploc bag that she had bought all those dried mangoes in. And I knew they don't let you bring dried fruit anywhere, because when we got to New Zealand, they made us throw away our unopened dried fruit snacks, even though we had gotten them on the Qantas flight to New Zealand (and we told them that, too).

We found a little pastry store too where Patricia got some shortbread. We had some confusion over what exactly shortbread is (besides a type of cookie-type thing). The Chinese guy behind the counter tried to describe it, but not very well. Guess it's a hard thing to describe. I got myself a huge fruit tart (like bigger than my fist). As I was still stuffing myself and licking cream, we also stopped by an ice cream shop...hahaha.

We still had a little time, so we went off to the other volcanic cone that I had planned, Mt. Eden. Another twisty drive up, and we were up at the top. This one was a bit more interesting because you could actually see a deep depression which made it sort of look more like a volcano (if there were grass growing on the inside of the volcano). I wanted to go down there, but a) it looked steep, b) it was really windy, c) I think there were signs saying you were supposed to stick to the paths. There was a path, but I couldn't decide whether it was an official path, or just a path that happened to form because of all the people who wanted to go into the cone.

After that, we headed back to the hotel, where I tried to figure out the parking situation since the valet cost was a little high. There was a parking lot across the corner from the hotel, but we had a hard time figuring out how to use it. And there was no attendant anywhere, just the automated pay machine. You could only pay for a max of 12 hours, but that meant that I would have to come down and pay again at like 5am in the morning. A couple guys came by and Patricia said that they just bought two tickets of 12 hours (both expiring around 5am) and then concluded that displaying both of them would be good for 24 hours. That seemed a little shady to me. I decided that I could just come back late at night like at 10pm or so and just pay for another 12 hours. I found a spot away from where there was a big pool of water in the middle of the lot.

There wasn't anything else to do for the day, so after a while of looking at stuff online, I found that there was an IMAX theater nearby at SkyCity. So I told Patricia we should go, since we had been bemoaning the fact that we would miss all the movies that were coming out when we were gone. I confirmed that this theater was a "real" IMAX (one with a gigantic screen). I have no idea why the ones at Mercado or Vallco or wherever are called IMAX.

We walked down the streets looking at shops (even though a lot were closed). I thought we were going to the big tower, which is SkyCity, but apparently SkyCity is like all over covering what seems like five blocks of Auckland. So we eventually got there thanks to my trusty GPS and got some tickets for Transformers.

We had a little time before the movie, so we looked around a little at the SkyCity. Patricia was not handling it particularly well because the other floors are high up and you have to walk on walkways where you can look down. The place got me turned around so much -- I could never figure out where the elevators, or even the stairs were whenever I came out of a shop. There was an arcade and a game shop on the second floor that I said I might come back to. I thought maybe I could come back on Friday and do some FNM! (yeah, right).

Downstairs there was a neato Japanese store like Daiso with really crowded aisles. Patricia picked up a few things she needed. And then we went into a Borders and browsed around. I found this interesting book co-written by Arthur C. Clarke called The Last Theorem (about Fermat's Last Theorem, and also invading aliens) that I decided that I would pick up when we got back home. I must have spent too much time browsing because when it was time to leave (since Borders was closing) Patricia totally wanted to get out of there. Maybe it was the sugar level, so Patricia got a little something at the food court while I mooched off of her.

I'm sorry, but for a summer tentpole movie, Transformers sucked. I suffered from the same exact flaw as the first movie, which is that the models for the robots sucks. As a concept, the robots are cool, but as a story driver (and that's what movies are, stories), the design of the robots are horrendous. It's because it's virtually impossible for anybody watching the movie to be able to instinctually grok what in the world is going on up on the screen. I've heard it from a lot of people -- they have problems telling who's an Autobot and who's a Decepticon in many fight scenes. But it goes beyond that. I think people have problems telling what's an arm and what's a leg and what's a face. So a) it's harder to follow the story since you have to (unconsciously) devote a fraction of your brain into figuring out what you're looking at (is that a chest?) instead of instinctively knowing right off, and b) you don't get invested in the characters as much because it's that much harder to view them as characters instead of an amorphous blob of metal. And the new characters that act all goofy and everything? Whaaaa????

And that was it -- we walked back to the hotel, while it was raining a bit. I went to go pay for 12 more hours on the car, and the lot had flooded a whole lot more, so I'm glad I didn't completely soak my shoes or anything. After walking through the dark minefield that the lot was and getting to the car to put in the new ticket, I figured the safest way to exit the lot was to actually hang onto the chicken wire fence that was on a bit higher ground and kind of shimmy my way to the street.

When I got back to the hotel, I wanted to see if they had complimentary umbrellas that we could use in case it rained more for the rest of our stay. So I went up to the conceirge and asked them if they had any umbrellas. Well, first asked me if I was staying at the hotel, and then he made me confirm it by asking me what my name was and what room I was staying in (plus, the room was not under my name, it was under Patricia's). So after all that rigamarole, he told me that yes, there were umbrellas available, and was just about to go to the back to get one, so then I had to explain that I didn't want one right that moment, I just wanted to know if they were available in case I needed them the next day. Blarggghhh.

I went to sleep with horses balanced on my nightstand. =)

We got woken up in the middle of the night (it was actually only about 10pm) by a loud blaring sound. It kept going on and on, so I blearily got up and decided it was a fire alarm. I briefly contemplated just staying in the room and ignoring it, but decided I should play it safe. So I grabbed the nearest pair of jeans, put them over my pajamas, and we went out. I grabbed my wallet on the way out, so that I could get back in the room afterwards.

It was a good measuring stick for me to use to see how I would handle myself in an emergency. One, we didn't check the door before going out (see if it was warm, etc...). Two, I didn't take the keys, so if we needed to get out of the area in a hurry, the car was not an option for us. Three, we didn't take our passports, so we could have lost those. Four, we were among the last ones out of the hotel, though we weren't that much slower, I think.

We had to wait around with everybody else outside next to the cars until the firemen came. Meanwhile, the hotel staff had to check lists and bang on rooms and make sure no one else was in the hotel. The firefighters were pretty fast. They seemed faster than the ones on Stanford -- and I imagine they were coming from further away. Patricia opined that firefighters in New Zealand are just as hot as in the US.

After the firefighters gave the all clear (also fairly quickly), they let us back up, with apologies. It turns out someone had left the door closed in the laundry room while drying clothes and it set something off. As we got back to our room, we noticed that our door was open (along with everybody else's). I had particularly remembered to close the door on our way out (guess I was more concerned with robbery than safety) -- I had definitely not left the door propped open with the wastebasket. Whether it was to allow the firefighters easy access in case they needed it, or a service in case the guests had forgotten their keys, I don't know, but I wasn't so happy about our belongings not behind a locked door. Oh well.

The next day, we checked out and said goodbye to StinkyTown. We drove down a little ways to go to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland in order to catch the daily geyser eruption. We got there a little early, and got tickets for entry into Wai-O-Tapu and also the geyser (which is a little ways off, outside the park). I suppose it might have been walkable to the geyser if you had plenty of time to spare...it made me glad once again that we had the car. Since it was still a little bit of time before the geyser was scheduled to go off, we decided to head past the geysers a little bit where there were some mud pools (free to see).

The mud pool was big, with various places bubbling with different speeds, viscosity, etc... Sometimes one bubbling site or another would erupt with a fairly large expulsion (at least human height). Patricia said that one erupted a good amount and actually splattered a little onto her jacket. She also showed me how smooth the mud was against skin when another one splattered a little bit onto the railing. That's probably when she decided to buy some of the mud to see how her skin would handle it. I was fine with that...I get to make fun of her by saying she went all the way to New Zealand to buy mud.

We drove back to the geyser where a ranger was checking tickets. There was some amphitheater-type wooden bench seating around the geyser, so we sat down and waited since we were still a little early. As it got more crowded, we moved over a little more to get a better view. The crowding was more than I expected, so we decided to try to leave early if possible to beat the rush. I was pretty sure most people would go straight to the Thermal Wonderland afterwards.

I always had this memory that I went to see Old Faithful with my family (at least, I remember my dad being very close by). But when we got back from the trip, my parents confirmed my nagging suspicion that we had never been to Yellowstone. So whether I imagined/dreamed it all, or saw it on a TV program, or got Old Faithful confused with some other geyser in California, I don't know. But anyways, my memory is that the geyser I've seen before shot out really tall, like 100 feet maybe. So I was expecting this geyser to not quite match up to that, and I was right. While we were waiting, Patricia and I conjectured a little bit about why the geyser erupts at the same time every day. I figured that it was extremely unlikely that any geyser could align so perfectly with a 24-hour cycle, so the odds were against it being natural. I figured there was a little pipe that led down to the geyser (at an angle, so it doesn't come out the cone of the geyser), and at the appropriate time, they would dump something into the geyser to stimulate it to erupt.

It turns out, the ranger actually acknowledged that the geyser eruption is unpredictable, so they help it along by dumping something into the geyser (it was some powder of some sort, I think. I forgot what it was, the ranger explained it all). And the ranger proceeded to dump a small bag of it into the geyser cone itself. No attempt at subterfuge at all. I guess I was expecting the geyser to just go off by itself, not have a little presentation by a ranger as well, hence the need for remotely setting off the geyser and my elaborate pipe and everything. Now that I think about it, maybe the ranger dumped in detergent or something. It needed to reduce the surface tension of the upper chamber of water so that the pressurized water underneath would come out or something. Anyways, the geyser frothed a bit while the ranger continued his speech, and then finally the geyser erupted. And it was about what I expected...not extravagant...just there.

[Note: Wikipedia says there is another geyser called Old Faithful in Calistoga, California, so maybe that was it.]

We took off while other people were taking shots of themselves with the geyser in the background and so forth, and made it back to the main Wai-O-Tapu center without getting snarled in a traffic jam. Wai-O-Tapu itself was interesting. Patricia was dreading another Craters of the Moon, but it turned out to be worth the visit, I think. Things were definitely colorful. After all the thermal places that we went to, I finally got up the courage to touch a couple small pools as we passed them. The first one was sort of bubbly and normal luke-warm. The second one probably would have burned me if I kept my finger in a little longer. So some of them can get pretty hot. As we headed out, I'm pretty sure Patricia picked up the jar of mud. Heehee...

My GPS was having super problems charting a route back to Auckland, for some strange reason. So I had it instead route to Highway 1 somewhere a bit south of the Auckland airport. And since I still didn't trust it, I had Patricia use the directions that I had printed out beforehand from Google Maps. Before we headed back, I kept joking that we should just continue south a little bit more and we'd end up back at the Honey Hive for more honey-flavored ice cream...yumm.... But instead, we went back north, passing through StinkyTown again. In fact, since it was lunchtime, we just decided to stop at downtown StinkyTown one last time for food. We went into a nice Japanese restaurant.

For some reason, there was some confusion with the directions while Patricia was giving them to me, so I ended up heading backwards (east) on 29 for a while before getting back on track. So we lost a little time there. The drive was pretty uneventful, except for a portion where we were heading west on 2, and the sun was shining through the clouds, which made these brilliant shafts of light. At a certain point on highway 1, my GPS was no longer getting super confused so I let it guide us the rest of the way to the hotel. The highway kept getting bigger and more congested as we got to Auckland. The Spellbound guide at Waitomo was totally correct when he said that Auckland is just sprawl. A big contrast to the little towns in the rest of New Zealand...Auckland is more like the Bay Area in the amount that it sprawls out all over. At one point, I was following a cute little green eco car since it was making good time through the traffic. And then the next thing I knew I had followed it all the way onto an offramp. So I had to figure out how to get back on track.

The GPS was a lifesaver for me while we were driving around. I can't remember how many times I missed the turn or went the wrong way, and having the GPS tell me how to get to my destination from where I currently was as soon as I made a wrong turn was invaluable.

We decided to not do much when we got to the hotel. It was a pretty nice hotel, but there was no parking. So instead of dealing with parking when I was exhausted from the drive, we let the valet deal with it for the night. I told them to just put it on the room bill, and he said he would. So we got to our room and didn't go out for the rest of the day. I spent the time reorganizing my luggage for the Auckland stay -- I put my passport into the safe, but the safe was smaller than the one in Sydney, so I couldn't put the passport in my locked backpack and then into the safe. Instead, I put the passport under the foam padding at the bottom of the safe so that it wouldn't be obvious that it was there.

I'm always super suspicious of the safes ever since I locked my belongings into a hotel safe in China, and they sent somebody up to help me out. Well, the person just typed in some override code into the safe and then it opened up, presto! Basically, that means there are a lot of people in the hotel (and ex-employees) who can just open all the safes. Blargh.

We also went downstairs to have dinner at the hotel restaurant. I thought the hotel had a nice view, but it was just a view of a small harbor...you couldn't really look out into the ocean or anything. And besides, in the restaurant, it was so dark outside and so bright inside that all you could really see is just your reflection.

We spent the rest of the night doing laundry in the awesomely large tub in our room. Patricia wanted to use the laundry facilities at StinkyTown, but I didn't want to, because the machines looked dirty/rusty, and I was also afraid that all our clothes would come out smelling like StinkyTown. Luckily, there was a hair dryer we could use to speed up the drying, so we didn't have to hang our underwear outside the window for all to see... We'd just do without room service for a couple days while our clothes dried.

We got up fairly early the next day to go back to Rainbow Springs Nature Park to follow one of the staff around as they fed the birds. Guess nobody else was as interested as we were, because we were the only two to come along. We got to hand-feed the swans some food which they gobbled up fairly quickly. Also, it was interesting to see the keas getting fed. They would grab some bread, and then soak it in their bowl which was filled with milk.

We went back through the park one more time since the guy skipped some of the animals since he was just feeding the birds. I also picked up some bags of fish food ($5 for 3 bags) and went around to all the different pools at threw bunches of fish food in. The fish didn't make a huge fuss like I saw when they fed the fish in Kauai...maybe because they were not as used to being fed that way. Most all of the ponds in the park were open to the stream, so all the fish are free to come and go as they please. By the end of it, our hands and gloves smelled like fish food....haha.

Luckily, they let us use their phone to call our next destination, because we needed to make a reservation so that they would know to prepare lunch for us. We couldn't call from our hotel because the village hadn't opened yet at that time. Our next stop was the Whakarewarewa Thermal Village (a name that I could never pronounce...). It was pretty much next to our hotel. There was another native village next to our hotel, but the man at the i-Site told us the previous day that this one was more authentic, and also was the only place that you could eat a real Hangi meal for lunch (other places offered Hangi meals for dinner).

Along the way, we stopped by Pak N' Save again so I could replace the horrid batteries that I had gotten the day before. I also picked up a donut to munch on. The donut was so weird...it tasted more like a piece of bread with sugar sprinkled on top. No wonder us Americans are so fat...

In addition to it being a geothermally active area, it's a real village that tries to preserve their unique culture. I found it a little disconcerting that the village had western style houses and cars and such, but I guess that's what happens to cultures. You can't expect them to be static and be exactly like they were centuries ago. We got to see a performance where they danced and sang. And then they decided to get volunteers from the audience in order to help demonstrate their next dance. Well, the lady picked me to go up, and what could I do but go up? Good thing they also made a bunch of other people go up (it was a dance for males, so it was only guys). It was only after I was up there that I saw that some other people refused to go up when they were asked, so they weren't force to. Dang! I should have done that!

Anyways, we had to do a dance that was supposed to intimidate enemies or something, and the culture believed that making a face where you stick out your tongue and make your eyes pop out is scary. When we did it we made everybody in the audience laugh, so I guess we were not so intimidating... 8-p Afterwards, we went to have a lunch, which was a traditional meal that was steam cooked in one of the thermal holes. It wasn't disgusting at all...heehee

We had some free time before our next scheduled activity, so we decided we had a little bit of time to go see another sight that the guy at the i-Site recommended...the Blue and Green Lakes. This was a couple of lakes nearby StinkyTown where one of them is supposed to be blue in color, and the other one green. Well, we got to the carpark (nobody else was there), and we took a look at the two lakes. They looked pretty much like any other ordinary lake. That was a waste. I think the color difference is only obvious from the air, like if you're flying over them. Oh well.

Next, we headed off to the Agrodome, where they had a sheep show. I was really sleepy at that point, so I told Patricia that she could take a look around while I napped a little in the car before the show started. I kept half-waking up afraid that I would miss the show, and just as I was deciding that I'd better wake up for good and go look for Patricia, she was back. She had already paid for my entrance, so we walked right in. It later ocurred to us that anybody could just bypass the line and walk right in like we did, so we didn't have to pay, maybe... =p

They showed a bunch of the different kinds of sheep in New Zealand. The sheep were off to either side of the stage before hand and you could look at them and take pictures and stuff. When I first got in, I totally second guessed myself and thought they were fake because they were generally pretty still. But they were all real. They also sheared a sheep on stage and then threw the wool out to the audience to feel how soft it was (it was not as soft as Angora rabbit fur...) I kept some...figuring maybe there would be a way for me to keep it.

Afterwards, we got to see a sheepdog herding some sheep outside into a little pen. But the best part of all is when we went to the animal nursery and we saw a bunch of little lambs in a pen. Even better, there was a sign saying "Feel free to enter to pat the animals and take pictures," so of course we did that right away and had all sorts of fun. Of course, I was continually afraid of the lambs eating something -- my camera strap, my shoelaces, my jeans, Patricia's hair... Still though...really, really cute. As we were leaving, we found out that it was basically their feeding time, and they were basically picked up to be fed from a bottle, so no wonder they were all crowding around us wanting to be picked up...

Despite spending extra time with the lambs, we did make it to our last scheduled event, back at Rainbow Springs. We made it in time for the last tour of the Kiwi Encounter next door. They ladies behind the cashier were kind enough to let us upgrade our Rainbow Springs ticket to give us entry to the Kiwi Encounter (20% off the total), instead of making us pay full for the Kiwi Encounter. We didn't want to buy it yesterday because we weren't sure we could make it back to the Kiwi Encounter in time.

The Kiwi Encounter was another great highlight for me...it's hard to see kiwis, even in the zoos, and even though they are the iconic animal of New Zealand. We got to spend a lot of time with three of the adult kiwis, while the guide answered several questions. As I was leaning against one of the railings of the pen, the kiwi sniffed the fence higher and higher, and eventually put her bill on the top of the railing, sniffing what was up there (Me. I was up there.). Kiwis have their nostrils at the end of their bill, so they use their bill to sniff things. I didn't want to scare her, so I didn't move and then she went off to continue digging/sniffing in the dirt nearby.

I thought that was an awesome experience to have a kiwi get so close to me, so I went off to look at the male kiwi in the other pen. After a little while, I decided to go back to that curious female kiwi, and decided to put my arms and hands right on the edge of the railing. Well, it took some time (and a few more questions from the rest of the group to the guide), and she eventually came sniffing up the fence again and then poked her bill into the back of my hands a few times. I was totally ecstatic but again didn't move too much because I didn't want to startle her (we were not supposed to make loud noises so as not to scare them). Definitely a highlight to have "touched" a kiwi. =)

We ended up finding a place to eat downtown again, this time at a steakhouse-type place that looked like a nice, fine dining experience. We were the first ones there (they had just opened for dinner). After a while, though, I was surprised to see that several families came to eat there. The food was not really cheap ($35 for my steak), so I didn't think it was really a family-type place to eat.

New Zealand is slow. They are reallllly laid-back. We encountered several times where we were in a rush to get to our next activity or had a timeline to meet, and food service was generally slow compared to what we're used to in the US. There's just no rush over there. And we're already pretty laid back in California... I can't imagine what it would be like for someone from New York. It wasn't just restaurants either -- in general, I didn't really come across any speedsters. You drive down highway 17, and all these people are trying to pass you. But over in New Zealand, I was more often passing people than being passed (I tended to be maybe 5kph above the limit). I only got honked at once, when I forgot to look to my right when entering a roundabout.

Speaking of driving again, we totally got confused. We were making a right turn from a right turn lane at an intersection with no light, no stop sign, nothing. Remember that we are on the left side of the road. Think of it as turning into a shopping mall or gas station or something. There are other cars coming down the road from the opposite direction, so of course I'm going to wait for them to go first. Some of them put on their turn signal -- they are going to turn into the same road that I want to turn onto. Well, each one of them comes to a complete stop briefly, and then makes their turn. After two people did that, and generally acted somewhat confused, I figured out that unlike the analogous situation in the US, I actually have the right-of-way. Weeeeiiiirddd... But again, nobody got mad at me and honked.

Once we figured out what looked interesting to do in the area, we checked out of the hotel and drove back into town to try to find something to eat. I thought it would be nice to eat next to the lake, so we started driving down and there was absolutely nowhere to eat. Just hotel after hotel. I just kept going, thinking there's got to be something around. We passed one hotel that advertised a restaurant too, but once we turned in, we realized that the place was under construction. Another eating place that my GPS said was nearby turned out to be nonexistent. And the last place we went to, we went all the way into the hotel and up to the restaurant on the second floor, where there was a janitor vacuuming the floor and we learned that the restaurant didn't open for brunch.

Well, I drove all the way back to where we initially got to the lakeside, and I kept going for literally one or two more blocks and there were eating places galore. D'oh! So we grabbed a nice brunch there. The waitress was really helpful and pointed out that since Patricia had ordered their special dish we also got another free dish with eggs and bread, so I had that. While we were sitting there looking outside, I thought one lady who had been sitting outside to smoke had left her scarf on the chair; she had taken a seat in the restaurant and I wanted to go tell her. But then Patricia pointed out that all the chairs outside for this restaurant had scarves on them. Haha. Oops.

After eating, we drove up to a nearby lookout spot, where we could see Tongariro, all covered up in clouds. It was a pretty nice day next to the lake, so it was definitely a good choice that we didn't go up the mountain.

Up the roads a little ways, we came to a small trail for Huka Falls. It was a very short waterfall, but somewhat wide, sort of like a miniature Niagara Falls. We asked someone to take our picture, and they took probably one of the worst pictures of anybody we asked. They took a picture just when Patricia was reaching up to her hair to brush it out of the way, but then didn't say anything or take another picture to fix it. And that was after I had already helped them take a picture for them. Oh well.

Next stop was Craters of the Moon, which is a geothermal area. I knew we were going to see a lot more geothermal type stuff up in Rotorua, but I had remembered reading about this place briefly when I was looking at stuff to do in New Zealand, so we stopped by. Yes, it didn't smell too nice. Some smoking craters, and a few spots that were bubbling. There was a lot of smoke, so it looked sort of like the valley was on fire or something (but the smoke was white). At one point, I decided to go on the extension trail, which goes up really high. I tried to run up, since Patricia was going along the much shorter trail, but I got ultra tired about two-thirds of the way. In the end, it wasn't that much to look at.

Our last stop at Taupo was at the Honey Hive. Bees are also a big industry in New Zealand, I guess. I had some delicious honey ice cream. They had several different flavors, and I didn't know which one I would like, so I asked for a sample, but the lady told me that they didn't give samples, otherwise they'd run out of ice cream. So I just went with her suggestion, which was honey with pralines in it (I forgot the name of the flavor). I turned out to be really good. But as I was eating it and browsing the store, I wondered if she would have given me samples if I promised her that I would buy an ice cream cone. I even would have taken only half a scoop to make up for the samples.

Besides ice cream, they also had free tasting samples of honey, like ten different kinds. For me, honey is really, really sweet, so I didn't want to try any for fear of sweetness overload. They also had free samples of honey-based alcohol, so I tried a couple. They were really interesting, so we grabbed a couple bottles as gifts. They assured us that we would be able to take it into the US, just as long as we declared it.

After we came out of there all happy and on a sugar high, we started on the drive to Rotorua. In the morning, I had thought that we could go to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland on the way there, but I had forgotten to look up that the geyser eruption was daily at 10am, so we had already missed it. We just drove up to the hotel at Rotorua instead. Hereafter, Rotorua will be referred to as StinkyTown. The whole city didn't smell, but large swaths of it did, due to all the local geothermal activity. Our hotel was right next to some of it. We could open our back window and see bubbling mud pits and a geyser that went off at all times of the day. So it gave us great views, but was also really smelly. I got used to it after a while, but unfortunately, being there also gave me probably some of the most smelly farts I've ever had. =p

After settling down a little bit, we drove into town to the local i-Site to see what kind of activities were nearby. After somewhat planning our activities for the next couple of days, we went on a small hike by the lake. There was more geothermal activity over there. We came across one family that stepped off the path to investigate some of the smoking holes closer, ignoring the warning signs nearby, so we quickly continued off in case something bad happened. There were like six of them, so there wouldn't have been a problem with them getting help even if something did happen.

When we got as far along the trail as was interesting, we turned off and made our way through the downtown area in order to get back to our car. Some lady who we had seen a few times walking along the trail as well stopped us and asked us for directions to some place or other, but we didn't know where it was. It was a little bit hard to understand her (we found out that she was from Korea). Afterwards, when we had gone for a block or so more, I was looking at my GPS and the place she was looking for was right there. I just thought she had something else.

We went back to the hotel to rest a little bit and on the way, stopped by a Pak 'N Save to pick up some supplies. It was a little weird because of the layout. Instead of being able to go to any aisle you want, they forced you to walk past all the fruits/vegetables and the bakery section in a twisty turny area before getting to the aisles. We picked up some water, breakfast foods, and I needed more batteries again. The batteries I got seemed to be a pretty good deal (like $10 for 8), but they turned out to be the worst batteries ever, I think. They were labelled as high energy or something, like the best of that brand. But when I put them into my camera, it right away complained of not enough batteries, although if I turned off then on the camera again, it seemed to be OK. I think activating the lens motor presented such a drain on the batteries that the camera thought they were on the verge of dying. When I put them into my GPS, my GPS would eventually die without ever telling me it was low on batteries. So yeah, I had to come back the next day again to buy the more expensive Energizer batteries.

Before heading out to the last activity of the day, we stopped by downtown and found an Indian place to eat. Being in an unknown area, we were too afraid to order to food spicy, so as a result the curries came out ultra mild.

We went up to Rainbow Springs Park next, since they turned on colored nights that gave the park a different experience at night time. Tickets were good for 24 hours, so we planned to go back the next morning as well. We weren't sure if we would be able to make their scheduled Kiwi tours, since we had other activities planned that would make it a close call, so we didn't buy tickets for that. The guys behind the desk were really helpful, even though at one point they told us that they don't normally work behind the cashier. Guess not that many people buy tickets late at night. They were more like keepers/security guards.

The park itself was pretty nice. There was an open air kiwi enclosure where we got to see some kiwis doing their thing, since kiwis are nocturnal. There's also a fountain where you can drink water from the stream where all the fish are (it goes through filters first). I thought it would be ultra cold but it was only cool.

New Zealand has sheep. Lots and lots of sheep. When we entered New Zealand, there were some signs in the airport that said that New Zealand had like 40 million sheep. As we drove from town to town, we also so a bunch of cows and some horses, but it was predominantly sheep. Sheep are interesting for us since I was born in the year of the lamb (year of the ram? goat?). Patricia is a horse. So I kept joking that she better watch out -- I have 40 million sheep behind me...and I was the king/prince of them! =) The sheep are also very scared of everything. You can drive by in a car and sometimes they'd all start running away. I figure there's some truth in that book that I read (Douglas Adams?) where he talks about sheep being scared by the sun rising.

I remember hearing a lot of gusting and creaking while I was sleeping, so the semi-bad weather continued through the night and the next morning. But when we woke up, it was somewhat clear with a nice rainbow outside. What was more worrisome was that the next day we were playing to go to Rangitoto to do a big, adventurous hike. Clear weather was key, because otherwise they would not let us go up the mountain (because all you would see when you got up there would be clouds and bad weather instead of breathtaking vistas).

We had some time in the morning, so we went down to the trail next to the Aranui Cave again and walked along the whole length. The river was still pretty active because of all the recent rain. When we finished that, we checked the time and figured we just had enough time to go further along the road past the Aranui Cave and check out a couple more short trails (really short, they are like 10minute trails, roundtrip). So we went to see a waterfall and a natural bridge. There was nobody at the waterfall when we got to the trailhead, but a car did turn in and stop after we parked. They looked lost because they had their map out and looked like they were trying to figure out where they were. I wanted to go over and see if we could help, especially since I had my GPS, but we were short on time (we basically jogged to the waterfall and back). By the time we got back to the car, they were gone, so hopefully they figured out which way to go.

Well, we made it back to Waitomo Caves in time to catch the daily shearing at the Shearing Shed, where they shear Angora Rabbits! We got to see a lot of products made from natural Angora rabbit fur, and a rabbit being shorn. The rabbits were so cute! They stretch them out and then shear them. It looked a little alarming, but the rabbits don't struggle or seem to be in any distress (any more than rabbits usually are), so it looked OK.

Afterwards, we grabbed lunch at the Huhu Cafe, which was right next to where the Spellbound tour was going to leave. There was only one other group of people on the tour, which was nice, because we got more personalized attention from the guide. The other group was odd. It was a husband and wife from Auckland, and they brought their baby (about 4 months old). The baby was great. She was quiet through the whole trip (they might have slipped her a drink when we went in the dark cave though). But they didn't look like they were prepared for the tour at all. The girl was wearing these thin shoes, I don't know what they're called, I'm not a shoe person, but they look sort of like ballet slippers, with no support at all. And I was like (in my head), "You're going to go into a cave with that?! You'll step on rocks and get your feet all wet and everything..." The guy was wearing shorts. They had a handbag with all their stuff (like baby formula and what not), and they seemed to be struggling with it often (well, I didn't notice it much, it bothered Patricia more). They had the baby wrapped in a blanket. Later on, we wondered what was wrong with using a backpack to hold stuff, like we were doing, and also what about a sling to carry the baby on your back or to your front, leaving your hands generally free? I mean, c'mon, slippery cave, and possibly dropping the baby when passing her from one person to another so you can get stuff from the bag...jeez...

It was a little drive over to the cave that the Spellbound company operates out of. We got to see lots of sheep on the way. I also had the honor of getting out of the van and opening/closing the gates that we came to. I guess I was the logical choice, but it was wet outside, and the gates were wet. One of them got stuck on the ground so you had to lift it a bit before it could swing all the way open. That one made my gloves wet.

The guide dropped us off at the top of a small hill, and Patricia and I followed a trail down to get to the cave entrance (the tour guide drove the others down to the cave entrance on the road). We got to get up and close with a lot of sheep that were standing around. They were naturally afraid, so they kept running away from us. As I tried to avoid all the sheep poo lying around, I wondered what kind of steps they would make us do upon arriving back at the US.

The cave itself was cool. There were no pre-installed lights; the guide gave us little helmets with lights on them so we could see. I again tried to get some handheld shots of glowworms -- the guide suggested that I could lean my camera on the rail to get it to be more steady, and that was an awesome suggestion. We got into a little boat and turned off all our lights, and the guide took us down the river a ways where there were loads of glowworms all over the ceiling and walls. That was cool. Definitely a highlight. Also, after a while, our eyes got adjusted to the dark and we could see a lot more.

Afterwards, we stopped by a little shack (well, a covering -- it had no walls) just outside the cave to have some drinks and biscuits. Patricia and I opted for the hot chocolate to warm ourselves up. After that, a little more driving and gate opening, and we got to another cave. This one was a little bit more natural than the other ones we had seen, even though there was an installed path. There were bones littered here and there, from when animals fell into the cave and then couldn't get back out. Some of the other caves had bones too, but the guides told us they were put there in order to give the tourists an example of bones in caves. The ones in this cave largely undisturbed, or at the very least, wasn't placed there from somewhere else by humans.

All in all, a great experience. I liked the small group, and our tour guide was awesome. When we got back, I tried to tip him, but he told me that he didn't accept them and wouldn't take my money. Oh well...I tried. Patricia and I had been wondering the entire trip whether we were supposed to tip guides or not...but we definitely felt like this guy deserved extra.

Once again, we were leaving the town after check-out time, so we had already loaded all our bags into the car before the tour. We decided to call our hotel at Whakapapa village to see what the situation was up there. We had called the previous day and had gotten a recorded message saying that all the trips up to the mountain had been cancelled, but to check back later for the day that we were planning to go.

Well, basically it was a no go. Nobody would be going up to the mountain due to weather, and in fact, some people had gotten trapped up in the ski slopes the previous day. Some of the smaller trails were probably open around the base of the mountain, but I figured it probably wouldn't be so great if the weather was bad. The hike that we were planning to go on was a 7-8 hour trip, one-way (you take a bus or coach to the start and they pick you up from the end).

On top of that, we found out from talking to the hotel staff that Patricia had booked the hotel on the wrong day, she had booked it for the night we arrived in New Zealand instead. So at first they couldn't find our reservation, and then they said that it was missed, which is when I started checking our papers and saw that it was the wrong day. Oh well.

So it wasn't really worth it to go to Whakapapa Village and Rangitoto anymore, so we decided to adjust our plans and went over to Taupo instead, sort of along the way to our next stop, Rotorua. On the drive over, the sun started setting, and we started looking for a place to have dinner. It was really funny -- Patricia was looking at the map, and said, "There's a small city up ahead that we're going to pass through." So we decided to have dinner there. Well, we entered the "small city," according to the map, and passed maybe a total of ten buildings (it was probably less, it felt like only five buildings). And then we were pass the "city". That was pretty crazy. So much for dinner there.

We did pass another place to eat though. When I took a wrong turn, we ended up passing a pizzaria-type restaurant that wasn't out in the middle of nowhere, so we stopped by and grabbed something to eat. For a while it looked like we wouldn't ever get attended to (it was one of those places that you go up to a counter to make your order), and I was on the verge of leaving to just eat at Taupo once Patricia came back from the bathroom, but then she took our order. And of course they were out of the dishes that we wanted. But we ate there anyways.

We arrived at Taupo without any idea of a place to stay, so I first went all the way down to the lakeside where we found a bunch of motels. We went into one, but then decided to try to find the one that was in our guidebook. So we took off and with a little more driving got to a hotel that looked liked it was used primarily for business conferences. They had little standalone duplexes for their rooms.

The building was weird because it had three glass doors -- one was definitely for our room, and one was for the other room that people were in (the lights were on), but the middle one was dark. It seemed like the other door in our room led to that dark room, but we never figured out what that room was for.

We picked up some travel brochures from the hotel to try to plan some interesting things to do in Taupo. Of course, the hotel wireless network was another one that I should have been able to access with iPass, but it was still not working properly. It was at this point that I found out that there were toll free New Zealand numbers I could call to get connected to a modem too. So I no longer even had to pay the $2 per local call for internet access any more. At Waitomo Caves, we paid Colin $2/hr to use their wireless network, since our room didn't have a phone (we only used one hour's worth).

So that was it for our caving adventures. The Lucas Cave was a good overall experience, it had a lot of people, but also a lot of different basic cave-type things to see. I thought the Orient Cave was better primarily because of the weird helictites sticking out in so many places. As soon as we walked into the Aranui Cave, it had a totally different feel than the Jenolan Caves. I can't really describe it, the formations just looked different. The Aranui Cave tended to have really tall ceilings. The Ruakuri Cave was just wet -- there were a few glowworms there. The Spellbound trip was awesome because of all the glowworms.

The second word to describe New Zealand is that it's hilly. The roads wind back and forth along the hills, so it's not like I-5 where you can turn on your cruise control and just head straight for miles and miles. It's more like 17 when you're trying to get to Boulder Creek. I never did figure out whether our car had cruise control or not. The hills are apparently left over from volcanic activity, which is what gives New Zealand its look (think Hobbiton or Rohan from Lord of the Rings). At night I used my highbeams since there were very few people on the road. And I tried very hard not to repeat my mistake in Oregon and was not afraid to use the middle of the road when it was safe to do so. =)

It was totally late at night by the time we arrived in New Zealand. On the plane ride, we had to fill out entry forms for New Zealand. We ended up having to declare that we went hiking in Australia. So we had to get into the special line where they inspected our shoes and made us step on this blue spongy material that was soaked with some sort of antimicrobial liquid.

In the airport there was a big welcome sign and we passed under an arch that I assume was created with Maori influences. I didn't have my camera out so didn't get a picture of it.

We went to pick up the rental car and I got ready for my first experience of driving on the other side of the road. When we were passengers in various Australian vehicles, it didn't seem like driving on the other side of the road weirded me out too much. Well, I obviously underestimated things because the weird part was having the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car instead of the left hand side. So it was easy to tend to drift out of the lane on the left hand side. I had to always focus on keeping unnaturally close to the dividing line on the right hand side. And of course, as soon as I tried to leaving the parking lot, I ended up switching my windshield wipers on because the wipers and the turn signal were reversed too. I think I was really lucky that the gas and break pedals were normally placed.

Luckily, my dad had noticed before the trip that I had originally booked a car with a manual transmission. But even with the automatic transmission I managed to mess up and make the car be stuck in second gear instead of the normal drive setting. Oops. Good thing the hotel was pretty close, and the roads were not that filled up with traffic.

We got to the hotel safely, which was the cheapest hotel that was relatively close to the airport. Which also meant that it was one of the most ghetto hotels I've ever stayed at. It wasn't horrible, but it didn't exactly exude confidence either. It was OK, since we were only staying there because it was so late and we couldn't really get anywhere.

The next day we headed out for Waitomo Caves, and I got to practice more driving on the wrong side. Good practice since the roads in between cities are pretty empty, even though they are all two-lane roads. We stopped by a McCafe along the way for some brunch (which is basically a McDonalds).

I forgot to mention that the night that we got back from the Blue Mountains in Sydney, there was a pretty major quake off the south coast of New Zealand. I only happened to know about it because I had the TV on that night and I saw on the news that Australia had issued a tsunami alert for the southern part of the country. Obviously a little distressing since we were pretty close to the harbor, but luckily nothing happened. I talked to a few people in New Zealand about it and as expected, none of them felt anything, being so far away on the North Island.

We got to our lodgings at Waitomo Caves, which was basically some accomodations run by a nice elderly couple and their dog, Gypsy. I had thought that Gypsy would be used to people coming up since it seemed like people often stayed at the place, but Gypsy barked noisily at us whenever she saw us. But she was nice. The couple were really nice too, explaining what the various activities we could do were.

The room was great -- nice and cozy. We got the highest one, which gave us a bit of a view. And there were toasty (electric) blankets and two heaters in the room. Not that it got really cold. And also a jar of Colin's homemade biscuits that was really good. I wish I had figured out how good they were earlier because then I certainly would have eaten all of them!

We headed out to solidify our schedule. We had to change the reservations that we had made online because of some shuffling around, but everything worked out. We also decided against the trip where you get into the water in wetsuits because we figured the water was just too cold for us. We saw several people do that tour though, both after they were done and when we were in the caves (they were floating in inner tubes below us).

First up, we went to the Aranui Cave tour. We got there a little early and walked on the little path nearby for a little bit. We were planning to come back at night and wanted to make sure we had some idea of how to get to the bridge before we came back with only flashlights (or torches, as they call them over there. Also, parking lots are carparks, and cookies are biscuits, and instead of renting things, you hire them). We didn't have time to walk the entire path -- we had to save that for the next day.

The Aranui Cave itself had a different quality to it than the two Jenolan Caves that we had gone to, but a lot of it was the same too. What was definitely the same was that every tour guide has to talk about how before this cave was at the bottom of the ocean, and it was made from layers of shells that turned into limestone, and this is a stalactite and that is a stalagmite...oh man, this was only our third cave tour and it was already getting horribly old. Oh, and I take back what I said before at the Jenolan Caves -- it was this cave that had the tall red-headed kid who kept touching everything.

Afterwards, we were able to grab a little bite to eat while waiting for the next tour to start, which would be at the Ruakuri Cave. This one was ultra wet from all the raining that had been recently going on (it was slightly raining when we drove to the hotel the night before). And again with the big speech, limestone, meeellions of years ago, blahblah. The entrance was this big spiral staircase that went around probably five or six revolutions. It made me think of the cave level in GoldenEye. Also, here is where we saw some people down in the river below in their inner tubes. Both Patricia and I shouted out at different times asking them how cold was it, but we didn't get any responses (maybe their teeth were chattering too much...). We also got to see a few glowworms hanging around...cool...

On our way out back up the spiral, our guide pointed out that there were some miniature stalactites that were forming out of the artificial ceiling at the top (it looked like it was a metal ceiling). So stalactites really can start forming anywhere.

That was it for our activities for the day (except our adventure at night). So we hung around at the room and then decided to get some dinner at the local bar/pub. It was pretty packed. Patricia said she saw one of our guides (I'm assuming it was the younger, female one), but I didn't recognize anybody (not that I was looking very hard). A lot of people were drinking beer, and watching the game up on a big screen. Patricia and I could not figure out what game they were playing. We thought we had seen rugby on TV at Sydney, but the game they were watching looked slightly different (but also rugby-ish). I also saw a flyer posted that gave some interesting facts, including one that said that it wasn't illegal for underage kids to drink alcohol, the law only said that it was illegal to sell kids alcohol. And other facts that were on the side of more drinking, basically.

Well, it was alternatively raining and not raining while we were eating, but we decided to head down to the Aranui path anyways to see if we could catch the glowworms. That's right, Colin told us that the bridge on the path was a great place to see glowworms at night (and it's also free!, although that didn't matter too much to us). So we drove down there (the only car in the carpark) and struck out with our torches.

The weather wasn't too bad, in fact, it was basically great when we got to the carpark. The wide open carpark also let us get a view of an absolutely beautiful southern night sky, since there was basically no light pollution anywhere around. One of the few times that I've gotten to see the disk of the galaxy, and experience the awe of what our ancestors must have felt when they looked up and saw all the twinkling lights. When we got to the bridge (with a fairly thundering river below it), we did get to see a bunch of glowworms just hanging around, doing their thang. Well, we couldn't really see the actual glowworms, just their glow. Little blue lights. It was pretty neat, like a miniature night sky. We stuck around for a few minutes, enjoying the romantic nature of it (which included the little fear of it being almost pitch black all around), but the rain was starting to come down again. I tried to get some good pictures of the glowworms, and by the time we were done there was rain all over my camera. So we headed back to our room.

I wasn't done yet, though. I decided that I wanted some pictures of the awesome night sky, so I told Patricia that I would head down there again, and she could stay at the room. I went down there again and try to get good shots, but the clouds kept obscuring parts of the sky. And it was hard to see where the clouds were because they were black on a black sky. I could only assume there was a cloud when a section of the sky was completely black. For some reason, the clouds move ultra-fast in New Zealand. I would take a couple long-exposure pictures and then the clouds were either gone or in a totally different section of the sky. At one point, I decided I wanted to try to get more pictures of the glowworms, but I hadn't brought a torch and didn't want to go down the path armed only with whatever pitiful lights I had (it basically would have been my camera and GPS displays. And though they look really bright at night time and totally ruin your nightvision, they are still pitifully dim in terms of lighting your way.

So I went back (noting that people were still in the pub, it was a little past 10pm), and, satisfied, drifted off to sleep with Patricia. =)

New Zealand is green. That's the first word that comes into mind. All the hills are green with grass. It's really striking compared to the Bay Area where all the hills that you see are basically brown or yellow. I wonder where all that dead plant life comes from. You always see dead yellow brush on the hills around here, but you never see it green. Shouldn't that dead brush go away at some point? Or does it get replenished, but then, where is the green when the hill should be alive?

Connections back home was pretty horrendous when we were over there, mainly because of two things: 1) The entire cellular network over in Australia and New Zealand is GSM, which my cell phone doesn't support. So zero phone calls. 2) My iPass connections were hardly working at all. Even though I was supposed to be able to connect to a bunch of the wireless networks that were showing up, it was not getting through. So mainly I had to get internet access by making local calls via modem to connect to the iPass network, which meant connecting at 56k (usually worse, though, like 33k). Even some of the local calls didn't work. Anyways, the end result is that our hotel bill end up having a bunch of local calls on it, each call was about $2. I guess if I had known that local calls weren't free, I would have just called once to connect and left the laptop connected for one ginormous 150hr phone call. =p

I had called the front desk the previous night to ask them if we could postpone check-out until later since our flight was like at 6pm (which is what they recommended doing when we first checked-in, to see if it was possible), but they told us that they needed to get the room ready for the next guests. But they were delighted to hold on to our bags while we explored the city some more.

Originally, the plan was to go to a Koala Park that is a little bit north of Sydney, but since we figured there wouldn't be much to do beyond what we already got to experience at Featherdale, we scrapped that and instead did some more exploring. First up was the Harbour Bridge, but we stopped by a little café on the way for breakfast. Patricia ordered some monster breakfast while I ordered a little something to munch on (I think it was a basket of fries and garlic bread). Well, that turned out to be a mistake since Patricia only ended up being able to eat just part of the breakfast, so I had to eat a bunch of it too, which was way too much food for me.

We passed a cute little farmer's market being set up on the way to the bridge -- we thought about getting Emery some wine or Angelique some soap, but they were not quite open yet. When we got to the bridge, the Pylon Lookout wasn't open yet, so we decided to go a little ways down the bridge. It had a pretty good view of the Opera House, but I'd have to say that being on the Brooklyn Bridge was definitely a better experience for me. Patricia was not doing so well with the heights, so we quickly walked to the other end, and I suggested to her that she should take the train back to the CBD and she could do some more shopping. We could meet up with each other again at about 1pm for lunch at the front of the Queen Victoria building (which is a big shopping mall). It made more sense to meet there than back at the hotel, since it'd be a little out of the way for both of us. In case we couldn't find each other there, we'd meet back at the hotel at 3pm.

This time I made sure she had the TenTravel Pass. The previous day, she didn't have it, but she ended up not needing it anyways because she apparently found the one bus that was free and just went up and down St. George street, which our hotel is on. It did take her four or five tries before she happened on that bus though. I didn't think I would need the TenTravel Pass since I tend to be fairly quick on my feet. Plus Patricia had all the books with all the bus routes, so I wouldn't really know which bus to take. If worst came to worse, I would just take a taxi. Plus I had my GPS.

So I made sure Patricia made it to the train station, then headed back up to the bridge. Not sure if I caught her train by the time I made it back to the bridge, but I waved anyways. Now that I didn't have to worry about Patricia, I made my way back across the bridge, this time taking a shot of the Opera House every twenty steps. Hopefully I can put it together in an animated gif or something and post it.

By the time I made it back, the Pylon Lookout was open, so I headed up. Inside the Pylon was a museum where they described the history of the bridge. I thought it was interesting how they built the two halves with these huge cables holding the halves from falling into the water. And then when the halves were finished, they slowly loosened the cables until the two halves met in the middle, and then the bridge was finished! The lookout also had little markers on the top to tell you what direction various points of interest were.

Afterwards, I walked along the harbor to the Sydney Aquarium. I was originally planning to buy a Sydney Aquarium ticket the previous day for Patricia since I thought she would be coming along, but I couldn't since they only sold the combo pass at the Wildlife World, not the Aquarium-only pass. So it was a good thing, since Patricia wasn't coming to the Aquarium with me.

The Aquarium was an...interesting experience. I think I'm the same way about fish as Patricia is about birds. To me, the fishies all tend to blend together, so I'm not very interested in them. You have to be a pretty unique or interesting fish for me to want to look. So there was not much for me to look at, except for most of the standard stuff: jellyfish, seahorses, and then they had some underwater tunnel exhibits where you could see sharks (it seems every aquarium tries to lure in patrons with special shark exhibits, so by now they are just more fishies to me), dugongs and sea turtles. Probably the only really interesting thing was the platypus exhibit, where I got to see a platypus fairly close. (We did see a platypus on the surface of a lake when we were leaving the Jenolan Caves, but it was a little ways off and it dove down before I could get my camera on).

It's not a bad aquarium, but I guess I'm a little spoiled by having gone to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The more aggravating part of it was that there were tons of kids around. And actually, the kids aren't so bad, even though they are constantly yelling and running and you have to watch your step lest you kick or trample one. The bad part was all the parents, who it seemed were continually getting in my way. Especially the ones with strollers. Blech. And oh yeah, because all the kids were on vacation, the Aquarium was doing something special to attract them -- SpongeBob SquarePants! Yes, several of the tanks had random SpongeBob SquarePants characters in them that the kids could "collect" (they mark a little checkbox when they see that character). So that was distracting too. Oh well.

Once I got out of that circus house, I saw that I was running totally late, so I found a cab outside a nearby hotel and asked him to take me to Queen Victoria building. He didn't want to take me -- he told me that it was "right there", just go to the signal and make a left. I was like, "Oh." So I went down. It actually was right there, I for some reason that it was a bit farther. But still, it would have been faster for him to drive me there.

I got there and didn't see Patricia around (I was just a couple minutes early), so I took a look around the building. Turns out there were four different entrances, one on each side of the building. The south one was definitely the main entrance, since there was a courtyard with a couple statues there and on the front of the building there were big banners saying "Queen Victoria Building" or something. But the two middle entrances led in to some big staircases to the upper floors and the information desk. Well, I decided wandering around from entrance to entrance was a sure way to keep missing Patricia if she was doing the same thing, so I sat down at the restaurant at the front of the building and had a hot chocolate to wait for her.

While I was sipping my hot chocolate, this elderly lady came up to me and started asking me questions about her phone. Something about wanting to know how to get her phone to do something. Well, I couldn't really understand what she wanted (she was speaking Cantonese), but at least as was able to communicate with her that I didn't know...anything, I guess.

Speaking of Cantonese and Chinese people, Sydney is filled with them! Guess they were right when they said that a lot of people from Hong Kong immigrated there in the 80s. Basically, I have never seen/heard so many Cantonese people in my life (probably because I've never been to Hong Kong). Not even Shenzhen or the Bay Area come anywhere close to what I encountered in Sydney. In fact, Central station is pretty close to Chinatown in Sydney; one time when we exited out to the street, we couldn't see a single caucasian person, only twenty to thirty Chinese people. Kind of weird and cool at the same time.

Well, after paying for my hot chocolate, it was twenty minutes past time, so I decided to make a quick round of the the other entrances to see if maybe Patricia was waiting at one of them. And indeed she was, sitting at one of the big staircases, despite it definitely not being the front of the building at all, which is where we specifically agreed to meet. Oh well. She had picked up a few more items and we ended up grabbing lunch at a food court that was nearby. This time I was smart -- I only ordered a small piece of cheesecake (banana mocha lemon tart cheesecake, or something ridiculous like that), and Patricia ordered a huge burger and fries; I had to end up eating some of that.

We had a little more time to kill, so I hung around while Patricia looked at some bags, and we eventually made our way to a park and church nearby. We rested a little bit on the lawn outside, then went in -- it was a pretty typical Catholic cathedral, with all the little alcoves for the different saints. When we left we saw someone outside with a wedding dress on -- she must have been freezing...

On our way back out of the park, we passed the giant chessboard that early some people were playing chess on. All the people were gone (except for some nearby tables where they were still playing regular-size chess), but it looked like someone had also left their grocery bags too. Or maybe they were left there on purpose. It looked like there were three or four loaves of bread, and the birds and pigeons were attacking it. I tried to get them to get closer to me, but they were still pretty afraid of me, even after sitting still for a while. So I gave up and we took a taxi back to the hotel to pick up our bags.

Public transportation is pretty good at Sydney, I think we got around fine and a car wouldn't have really helped us any. There were a few things that might have been interesting to see further out in the suburbs, but I don't think we missed out on much.

The day wasn't over yet -- we had to get to our accomodations in New Zealand, but I'll save that for the next post...

Patricia wasn't happy with the turn-down service the night before because the maid moved her makeup bag and made everything upside down. So we started hanging out the do not disturb sign outside. Actually, the real reason was because we started washing some of our clothes and left them hanging around all ugly-like.

We were done with our outside-Sydney activities, so we got ready to hoof it through Sydney's CBD (central business district). We got up a little early and walked along the quay towards the Royal Botanical Gardens. Along the way, we stopped by a little cafe type place to grab a croissant. Most places said that restaurants next to the harbor did not serve nice food, but I liked it (I think I had a banana bread or something).

The gardens were pretty quiet, apparently it fills up a lot during lunch time when a lot of people use it for their jogging routes. We didn't see that many people, just a few joggers and dogs. The view of the harbor was nice. The trees...not so interesting. Our real goal was Mrs. Macquarie's chair, which was a good scenic point. We took some time trying to get some good pictures with my tripod. We got there early enough that there was only one group of tourists, and they left soon after. There were also a couple of guys who tried to take our picture for the purposes of selling us the printouts, but we only had to tell them once that we didn't want any and they left us alone, which was nice. We chose a few different spots to try to get some nice pictures -- there was a Chinese group that was just standing around next to a bus talking instead of looking at the view or taking pictures, which was kind of weird.

Since there wasn't anything playing at the opera house at the time that particularly appealed to us, we stopped by and took the tour to see what it was like inside. I never really thought that much about the architecture of the buildings, and it was interesting how the architect designed it all, and then later fell out of favor with the government when elections were held and the government changed hands.

After that it was pretty much time for lunch, so we found a bus that seemed to be going the right way (got to use the TenTravel, yay!) and got down to Chinatown in order to try what was supposed to be a good dim sum place. Apparently, a lot of people from Hong Kong moved to Sydney during the 80s, so the dim sum is supposed to be on par with the food in Hong Kong. Well, I couldn't really tell if it was all that good or not (although nothing was bad...), maybe I'm a little spoiled since the food in the bay area is already pretty decent. One thing though...the 蓮蓉包 really good. Warm and fresh and yummy -- plus an egg inside! I thought I was done eating, but I caught sight of it when Patricia went to the bathroom, so I had to order it with my limited Chinese skills. I ate two of them, even though I was full. Yum yum yum.

One other thing about the restaurant, though. I wasn't really happy with the table that we got, since it was out of the way of the main cart traffic area. Of course, being the passive guy I am, I didn't work up the courage to suggest to Patricia that we move tables until we had already been served one dish (鳳爪, I think it was). So we picked up our tea and check and sat down at the other table. Nobody noticed. We joked that one of the busboys might wonder why the table we were at was empty so soon (and didn't pay!!! o.O), but nothing happened. Until we ordered our next dish and then the lady got confused because we had one check that had a stamp on it already and then another one that was blank...she stamped the blank one, because apparently it corresponded to our table....hmm.... So, yeah, when we asked for 買單 the guy looked thoroughly confused and we had to explain that we moved table, blahblah...whoops...

At this point, we decided to split up -- Patricia would go off and do some shopping and I would go do some sightseeing. We'd meet up back at the hotel later in time to get ready for our cruise. I didn't feel like going up Sydney Tower -- most towers that I've gone up were not very spectacular, unless there was a whole mess of iconic buildings, like in New York. I was planning to save the Harbour Bridge to do together with Patricia, so that pretty much left the Sydney Wildlife World to do. Patricia was happy enough with what we got to do at Featherdale, so she wasn't really interested in going to the Wildlife World since they didn't seem to offer much more. And I wasn't really interested in doing heavy-duty shopping since I'd probably get bored out of my mind... =)

Wildlife World was pretty close to Chinatown, so I made sure Patricia had everything that she needed (and promptly forgot to give her the TravelTen pass), and headed off on my own two feet. Along the way, I passed by a convenience store so I thought I'd pick up some batteries. Now, between my handheld GPS and my camera, I was running through batteries pretty quickly (I think I ended up averaging close to two AA's per day). They were super cheap here. The other places that I had picked up batteries (including touristy places), they came out to be like $15.99 for a pack of four....bleah. This place was selling them for a more reasonable $8.99. And all the places keep the batteries behind the counter for some reason, next to the cigarettes. Do people try to shoplift them a lot? I guess I could have brought a bunch of batteries from the US, but I was trying to save room on packing and thought it would be pretty painless to buy them when I needed them, not realizing how fast I would use them up.

I bought the combo pass since I figured I would be returning there tomorrow with Patricia to go to the Sydney Aquarium. There wasn't that much there -- I primarily took advantage of the chance to get a picture taken with a koala that would look nicer than the pictures we already had. I also got to see the Pyrmont Bridge, which I was originally planning to take a walk over, but it didn't look so interesting (Darling Harbour itself didn't look so interesting, compared to Circular Quay), so I decided to pass on it.

I took a taxi to get back to the hotel early, and then busied myself while I waited for Patricia. She showed up a little late, with big bags in her hands (yay!). She just had enough time to change and then we walked back over to the quay for the cruise. A few times on our walks to and from the quay, there was a performance artist playing the digeridoo (there might have been some other stuff too, I didn't look too much). It looked pretty high tech, with a sound system, and someone else trying to sell what seemed to be CDs of more digeridoo music. There was usually a fairly large crowd gathered there.

The cruise itself was definitely another highlight of the trip. Beautiful sunset views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and yummy food. Surprisingly, I was able to take some decent pictures even after the sun set. I just had to time to shot so that the ship was at either one side or the other of rocking, so the picture wasn't too blurry. I also proceeded to order a bunch of (okay, only one) drinks. The meal came with bubbly and wine, and I added to it with a margarita that was pretty good. I had to pay extra for that. And they made me pay for it up front first... =p

Day 4, got some great pictures, and the sunset cruise was awesome. Dim sum was definitely yummy, if only for the 蓮蓉包. The next day would be the last day in Sydney...

After getting all appropriately dressed, we headed out. We were heading out to Katoomba and the Blue Mountains again, but stopping by at Blacktown on the way in order to check out the Featherdale Wildlife Park. Since our itinerary was a little complicated, I decided to ask the ticket agent on the best way to handle it. First I asked him whether we could stop off in Blacktown if I bought roundtrip tickets to Katoomba. He said no, you can't stop off somewhere on the way. OK. That's fine. So then I told him that I wanted to buy tickets to Blacktown, then to Katoomba, then back to Circular Quay, where we were. I figured it would be more convenient to buy all the tickets for the day at once, so I wouldn't have to keep buying tickets all day. Well, here's where things turned weird, because the guy was not helpful at all. I forget what the actual conversation went like, but he kept asking me where I wanted to go, like "You want to go to Blacktown?", and at some point, he told me that what I wanted to do -- going to Blacktown and then Katoomba, was not doable. So in the end I gave up and just bought the two tickets to Blacktown.

Well, stupid me, with the train tickets out of the way, I decided to ask him if I could buy a bus pass, since I had looked the routes up the previous night. I knew I wanted to buy a TravelTen pass -- ten bus rides (as long as it was within one or two "sections"), and it wasn't limited to one person, so for a roundtrip bus pass, Patricia and I would end up using four uses out of ten. Well, Mr. Unhelpful told me that they didn't sell bus tickets, even though their website said that the passes were sold at all train ticket counters. Well, when I finally conveyed that I didn't want a single bus ticket (which nobody sells -- you just buy it when you get on the bus), he then wanted to know what type I wanted. Now I think he wanted to know what color I wanted (1-2 sections, or 3 sections, etc...). But I had no idea what type I wanted, I needed his help -- I told him I wanted one so I could take ht 725 bus. Oh man, that set off another round of confusion and I just gave up and decided it couldn't possibly be any worse at the Blacktown station. So we took off (by this point, there were like five people behind us in line). I was obviously a tourist. Was it too much to ask to help me to figure out what I need to buy to do what I want? Ugh. That was my one experience of unfriendliness in Sydney. He was Chinese, bleah. I figure it probably wouldn't have been so bad if I was talking to somebody at Central station instead.

So after that experience, when we got to Blacktown, I decided to try to make it as easy as I possibly could on the ticket agent there. I asked if they sold bus tickets (she said no). Then I asked if she sold Ten passes (she said yes, rrrggh...), and I confirmed with her that I wanted to blue one (1-2 sections).

Well, just our luck, when we got on the bus, the bus driver said that he didn't take the TravelTen passes because the route was operated by a private bus company....whaattt??!! So we had to pay for the bus separately anyways (and fumble around for the necessary change...)

Well despite all the hassle, it was completely worth it to get to Featherdale. Definitely one of the top highlights of the trip. I thought we were early, but the park had already opened. We rushed over to the koalas to pet them and get some pictures. For me, the best part was that the were fairly big areas where the wallabies, kangaroos, and emus were all in the same area as us (translation: you step in their poo a lot...), and we got to feed them. We were early enough that all the wallabies and kangaroos were all clustered around the entrance door -- guess they knew that they were going to get food. You basically get ice cream cones filled with feed ($2 each or something, but the ones that we got, we didn't know you were supposed to pay). Other people (especially children) would drop theirs, usually because they were afraid when the animals would try to eat the cone/feed. The emus were scarier since they would peck at the cone. I probably ended up getting more than 10 cones -- I tried to give them back to the kids if they were still around.

Back to the train station and off to Katoomba, whether the cold wind was more bearable now. It was getting late, around 2-3pm, and I was afraid that the sun might set on us while we were out hiking. We started off down Katoomba's main street, and oh man, it was a lot longer than I thought it would be! I thought it would be shops and stores all the way down, but halfway, it turned into a more resedential area. So we trudged down until we got to Echo Point where we could see the Three Sisters.

By this time, it was very lightly sprinkling (more like misting), and I went to ask the i-site people in the gift shop whether they thought the weather would hold (they said to look at the daily forecast, which was pretty useless) and if we could make the trail. My info said that the trail was 2-3 hours one way (I was planning to take another route back, which would be another 2-3 hours), but the lady said that it was probably only 90 minutes. So we decided to go for it.

Heading down the Giant Staircase was hard -- from the description, I thought it would be pretty wide, but it was actually a pretty narrow and winding staircase, so Patricia had trouble getting down. We passed some people who were going to the section of the staircase that went to the first Sister, but after that, we only encountered a guy and his kids on their way up, and on the rest of the path there was nobody. It was nice and not thronged with tourists. Didn't get to see any wildlife -- maybe we were making too much noise.

When we got to the end, we had a choice to make -- either try to get to the scenic railway that would take us back up the cliff, or head up the Furber Steps. It was basically 5 minutes until the last railway car left, and we didn't have a good idea how much further it was from the fork, so we decided to go up the steps. Except we found a sign that said that the rail platform was pretty close, so we ran to see if we could catch the last rail.

There was nobody there. Except I saw a man in a wooden shack -- he turned out to be a wax dummy. Silly me. That's OK, Patricia was fooled when some hidden speakers started playing. Well, we decided to take some pictures on the platform since it was a pretty good view and then we heard the railcar coming down -- yippee!! So they took us back up on a pretty scary ride -- they advertise themselves as the steepest ride in the world, and yeah, it was pretty much at least 70 degrees (probably close to 80 degrees) close to the top, so half-way through you were basically standing on the seat in front of you. That was not good for Patricia. Even I probably would have preferred to climb up the steps, even though the sun was setting. When we got to the top, we caught the last tour bus heading back to Katoomba.

Back at Sydney, the train stopped at Central station -- I thought we could walk back to the hotel, but it turned out to be farther than I thought. We ended up taking a taxi back, but not before stopping by a nice Japanese restaurant on the second floor of a building. It was more of a traditional Japanese place, so we ordered stuff like yakitori and those little octopus balls that I can never remember the name of. Tsukiyaki or something.

Day 3. We didn't freeze -- we actually got pretty hot during the hike and started shedding layers left and right. Definitely getting to hold and pet and feed and generally be around the wallabies and kangaroos was awesome. They were really tame. Yay!