Sunset after the Storm

A severe storm was forecast for this weekend. We managed to stay out of the torrential rain on Friday night but couldn't avoid the drizzle on Saturday. But we were rewarded on Saturday evening with this spectacular sunset.

Wellington Waterfront

Had a work trip to Wellington this week. After a very pleasant dinner in the Backbencher Pub, opposite the Beehive and full of minor politicians, I took a stroll along the waterfront at sunset.

Here's the CBD from the museum:



And here's the museum (far right) from the CBD:

Break for Bubbles

When we were small, Katie and I used to spend our hard-earned pocket money on a slush puppy each after swimming at Hyndburn Sports Centre. Now that I’m a little older, I’ve found a new, slightly more sophisticated drink to follow a session at the Tepid Baths.

Ice crush from Easy Way Bubble Cafe is a variation on bubble tea, a Taiwanese speciality. Basically a crushed-ice smoothie, it comes in a range of flavours such as mango, passionfruit and plum (Skene’s favourite) and extras include herb jelly, aloe vera and chopped lychee. My preferred addition though is black tapioca pearls – sweet balls of starch with the consistency of fruit pastilles but none of the animal products. An extra wide straw is required and specialist skills must be developed in order to suck up every last pearl.

Here’s a picture of some actual bubble tea from our recent visit to Hong Kong airport. It may look unappetising but, trust me, it is in fact delicious.

A Royal Visit

I arrived at the office this morning to find a pretty impressive view of the Queen Mary II arriving in Auckland.

The ship is so big - longer than the Sky Tower is tall - that she won't fit into the usual cruise ship berth by the Hilton and so moors instead amongst the containers at Jellicoe Wharf. Not terribly glamorous.

No photos from today but here's a video of the QMII's first visit to the city in 2007:

Merlin and Me

After dinner last night we headed to the late showing of Marley and Me - a newly released romcom about the world's worst dog. I thought it would be sensible to find out exactly what I'd be letting myself in for before we go ahead and adopt a dog. Now I'm thinking it's not a good idea.

On the other hand, the story did remind me of Merlin who was rather a lot of trouble too. He chewed the sofa, stripped the wallpaper and was hopeless on a lead.


So if we survived him (just) maybe we could manage one of these beasts from the SPCA...

Little Tokyo

As a birthday treat, we headed up to a row of Japanese restaurants and bars for dinner last night.

The oriental eateries can be found towards the top of Queen Street, Auckland's main drag, and are housed in one of the older buildings in the city. The shops are more than 100 years old and are protected by the New Zealand historic places trust. They were constructed from native kauri wood and the cellars feature bare volcanic rock retaining-walls. Once threatened by development by the nearby municipal arts centre, it's hoped that these shops are now in the clear thanks to a petition boasting around 7000 signatures.

We were shown to a traditional Japanese table and kicked off our shoes before taking a seat. The dinner that followed was delicious. We started with edamame, pork belly (for him) and deep-fried whole soft shell shrimps - complete with pincers which Skene declared to taste like pretzels. Next up, we both plumped for donburi. Mine was a fairly standard eel teriyaki on steamed rice but Skene selected the special Kura option which featured all sorts of odd ingredients - grated yam potato paste, Natto-fermented soy bean, mentaiko (the marinated roe of pollock), fresh sashimi, and raw egg yolk. Eugh. He assessed it as wrong but good. All washed down with Kikumasamune chrysanthemum flower sake.

Later we moved down the road for a post-prandial jug of dew of peach blossom sake at the Nombe stand bar - a recreation of a Japanese tachinomi - a standing-room only bar frequented by Japan's salarymen on the way home from the office.

Record Breakers

On the day that Auckand temperatures reached a record level - 32.4 degrees, the hottest since records began in 1868 - we headed to the North Shore Events Centre in Takapuna to see our first basketball match, thanks to an invitation from one of my new colleagues.

The Auckland-based NZ Breakers were playing the Cairns Taipans - a key match in the ANBL ladder, according to the New Zealand Herald. It was an incredible spectacle, rather medieval in nature. In addition to the action on court, there were gymnasts, cheerleaders, drummers and small boys polishing the floor, making me wonder whether there was going to be curling too.

The crowd was keyed up and the play rewarding. After losing six games in a row, the Breakers found their stride and led the opposition throughout the match. The final score was 103-69 earning the Breakers their first home quarter final.

And if evidence were needed that New Zealand is a very small place, we sat behind David Tua , a heavyweight boxer (and the 48th greatest puncher of all time, apparently), and spotted Jenny Shipley, the country's first woman prime minister.

Best Act of Parliament Title Ever!

Could this possibly be the best Act of Parliament title ever?

• Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes Trust Act 1966

Summer Skiing

We were sorry to be missing out on all the London snow so we decided to go skiing this afternoon at SnowPlanet in the delightfully named Silverdale on the North Shore.

We stepped out of the car into temperatures topping 28 degrees and were relieved to walk onto the slopes to find that it was a very comfortable -4 degrees!

Remarkably, we both still remembered how to ski after almost a decade and had a great afternoon zipping down the slopes. Just what was needed after several weeks of heatwave here in Auckland!

The Year of the Ox

Auckland is the city with the largest Polynesian population in the world but it also boasts a growing Asian population (ie Chinese and South East Asian), with nearly a quarter of a million Asians reported in the 2006 census, making up a fifth of the city's residents and representing the nation's largest Asian community.

So Chinese New Year has been a relatively big thing, culminating this weekend in the Auckland Lantern Festival. It was the tenth event of its kind and also marked the 20th anniversary of the twinning of Auckland with its Chinese sister city, Guangzhou. We headed over to Albert Park to find Queen Victoria surrounded by farmyard scenes consisting of brightly coloured, ornate lanterns.

She was not amused but we were.



For more photos, click here.