{"id":127,"date":"2011-04-28T17:38:54","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T17:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/?p=127"},"modified":"2019-08-19T16:04:26","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T16:04:26","slug":"127","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/2011\/04\/28\/127\/","title":{"rendered":"More in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, week #2 is done and so is my solo portion of this trip\n\u2013 later today I\u2019ll fly to Melbourne and meet up with Abdulla.  By the time week #3 is over, we\u2019ll be off\nhiking somewhere in northern Thailand\u2026\nlots of exciting things to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the mean time, I\u2019ve had a much more relaxed, low-key week\nthan the last one.  After uploading my\nlast post in a McDonalds in Rotorua, I took a nice stroll around the town and\ntreated myself to a gigantic dinner of NZ lamb shanks \u2013 delicious.  It was so big that I saved the leftovers for\nlunch the next day!  Those of you who\nknow me well know that this is rare\u2026 I\u2019m capable of eating a lot for dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning I got back on the Kiwi Experience bus and\nheaded for Auckland.  We arrived in the early afternoon, and by\ndinner time I\u2019d finished a 2-hour walking tour of the city.  I ate dinner at a place called Food Alley \u2013 its\na little food court packed with about 15 different hole-in-the-wall Asian\nrestaurants serving up delicious and dirt-cheap meals.  I had a nice big plate of Indian lamb curry\nand went to bed happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day I decided to take a ferry over to Devonport, a\nsuburb just across the bay from Auckland\nwith great walks and views.  After an\nimpulse-buy gluten-free muffin and a ferry ride full of school kids, I realized\nI\u2019d forgotten to put on sunscreen =\/. \nLong story short, after an annoying search through downtown Devonport\nfor sunscreen, I bought a cheap stick of unusual sunscreen and ultimately got\nburnt anyway.  Oh well, lesson learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunburn aside, I had a great time walking around\nDevonport.  The city itself is\u2026 quaint,\nand decidedly wealthier than Auckland itself; instead of Polynesian thugs\ncruising down Queen Street in low-riders blasting rap, Devonport is full of old\nwhite women driving Mercedes.  What\nreally makes the town rich and desirable, though, are the views from Mt.\nVictoria and the harbour\u2019s North Head \u2013 after lunch I walked to both of these\nsightseeing spots, and got some great panoramic views of downtown Auckland and\nthe surrounding areas.  No wonder this is\nwhere the rich live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the afternoon, after getting back to the hostel and\nresting for a bit, I used up most of my remaining NZ cash on a trip up\nAuckland\u2019s Sky Tower: their space needle-equivalent building (and, it so\nhappens, the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere).  I watched the sunset from the top, and got\neven more great views of Auckland.  All\naround a very sightseeing\/picture-worthy day =).  After the sun set, I went back to Food Alley\nfor another quick cheap meal (this time a Thai soup), and wrapped up my last\nday in NZ with another trip to McDonalds to use the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday morning, I went back to the airport to fly to\nSydney.  But boy was I surprised when\nthey told me I couldn\u2019t check in \u2013 I didn\u2019t have a visa to enter Australia!  There had been a miscommunication with the\ntravel agent and a visa was never arranged \u2013 luckily I was able to buy one at\nthe airport right there and then, and I made my flight with no problems.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I was in Sydney, I met up with my old friend and coworker\nJames Polley, who I\u2019ve been staying with during my time here.  We had a nice dinner at home with his friend\nGraham, and watched heaps (Ozzie slang for lots) of TV before going to bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday was a rainy, unpleasant day.  But I was still determined to get out of the\nhouse and see something, so I walked to the Google office, the opera house, the\nRocks, and Obseratory Hill Park \u2013 some of my favorite places from my time here\nlast year.  I came back to James\u2019 place\nfor a video chat with my parents, and then met up with (ex-boyfriend) Dave for\ndinner.  It was great to see Dave, and we\nhad a fun night; after dinner we out went to a comedy club, and then finished\nup at a bar in Enmore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning (Easter), Dave and I drove out to the Blue\nMountains west of Sydney.  After a long,\ntraffic-filled drive, we made it to the town of Katoomba (the main city in the\nBlue Mountains) for lunch.  During the\nafternoon we visited Echo Point, the Three Sisters (a rock formation), and\nWentworth Falls, all of which were absolutely beautiful.  Back in Sydney by the late afternoon, I met\nup with James, Graham, and another friend Tim for a great home-cooked dinner at\nGraham\u2019s apartment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday was an easy, uneventful day.  The rain returned, so I stayed inside, did\nlaundry, and surfed the web.  I had a\nfantastic gchat with Nate, Eliza, and Leo, and caught up on some television\n(Rupaul\u2019s Drag Race and America\u2019s Next Top Model).  That night James and I met up with James\nMcGill (my former boss at Google) and Eddy Meade (another former coworker) for a\nsushi dinner in Glebe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, though it was still rainy, I was determined to\nsee more of Sydney while I still could. \nI took a walk out to Hyde Park and the opera house (again), caught the\nbus to Bondi Beach, and took a nice leisurely stroll from North Bondi down to\nBronte Beach.  The sun poked through during\nmy time at Bondi, which made for some gorgeous walking in the sand \u2013 I was in\nheaven.  In general, the weather ended up\nworking in my favor throughout the day; it stayed clear during my entire time\non the coast, and just as I finished up a fruit juice I\u2019d bought at Bronte\nBeach, it started to rain again.  I\nwalked straight to the bus stop and went back into Sydney \u2013 perfect timing.  That evening I had dinner with James and\nGraham at a Thai restaurant in Pyrmont, and came home to watch a little more\nTV.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now, here I am \u2013 its Wednesday morning and I\u2019m about to\nroll out of James\u2019 apartment.  I\u2019m on my\nway to Google for lunch with some coworkers from last year, and from there it\u2019s\nstraight to the airport and on to Melbourne. \nI\u2019ve got to say, I am sad to leave Sydney yet again.  Even in the rain it\u2019s a beautiful city.  I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll be back here again some day\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d conclude with a \u201ctidbits I\u2019ve learned\u201d segment, but the\ntruth is, I haven\u2019t really learned any new tidbits!  I covered all my Kiwi knowledge in the last\nnote, and I\u2019m already well-versed in Ozzie oddities after living here for three\nmonths last year (check out my Facebook notes to see what I wrote last summer).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next time in Thailand!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Izaak<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hello again! Well, week #2 is done and so is my solo portion of this trip \u2013 later today I\u2019ll fly to Melbourne and meet up with Abdulla.  By the time week #3 is over, we\u2019ll be off hiking somewhere …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175,"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}