I Like J.A.F.A.s

Maori cultural show
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"Now why would you go to Auckland? All they have are big buildings and a lot of Asian people." But, for two people who have recently lived in New York and only left to travel around Asia, this is not a terribly difficult question to answer. We like big buildings and we also tend to like Asian people. Which is good, because what they say is actually true- and it came just in the nick of time. We've been driving on 'highways' for the past two months that are often only single lane, and often unsealed, and we have been farming and probably wearing the same shirt for the past two weeks. Then all of a sudden we are hit with actually tall buildings and people who rush around the streets wearing jeans that fit, black tops, and high heels despite the hilly city blocks, and we think perhaps we don't quite fit in anymore. But a quick shower later and we're ready to go.

Mousehead doing some printing in Antarctic explorer Scott's diorama
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We stayed with Ben's aunt Elaine, and spent a fair amount of time hanging out with cousin Claire (again, someone our age, yippee!). We saw a very un-PC play (which was funny, uncomfortable and partially about a maths tutor, yippee!). We went to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World and played like we were children with penguins, stingrays, and sharks (yippee!). At the Auckland Museum, we saw an obligatory cultural show (we would not use this descriptor- but the woman at the museum did!) and a really cool exhibit on how the Polynesians navigated, their technology and how they came to inhabit NZ and the other Pacific islands.

Mousehead with stingray
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We did a lot of laundry. We stocked up on food - particularly fake meat products at the Asian foodshop. We hiked to the top of a volcano, and drove to the top of another one, and got great views of... other volcanoes that sit underneath the 'burbs of Auckland. To top it all off, we toured a plastics factory where we freely discussed polymers and injection molding. (Yippee!)