Thursday, August 14, 2008

More thoughts on Auckland

With a refreshed internet card, I can give a little more attention to New Zealand's largest city of 1.2 million souls--Auckland. The city of sails is much more diverse than I expected. In eating lunch and dinner, having a drink in a pub, and checking in and out of our hostel, having a coffee, etc, we only encountered one native New Zealander. Like any modern big city, there were numerous immigrants.

And like any big city, the City of Sails had numerous skyscrapers. Most famous is the Sky Tower, which is a big space needle. It's actually taller than the Eiffel Tower, but that's kind of weak because the observation deck is not higher than the Eiffel Tower's. Anyway, in true Kiwi style, you can actually base jump off the Sky Tower, from about 200 meters [or should I say "metres"?] up. It was unbelievable. The national monument permits people to free fall (granted, you're tied to a wire) for about 11 seconds before you slowly land back on earth. I will try to post the video I have of some yahoo jumping off the tower when I have a little more time tomorrow.

Tonight Sally and I are off to a traditional Maori Hangi (concert/dinner). Should be awesome!

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