Most people who come to New Zealand will arrive via Auckland’s International airport and end up spending at least one night in the countries largest city, around 1.3 million people live there, that’s one third of New Zealand’s entire population. Some people love it, there are some really nice places to eat, galleries to look at, the harbour with its many boats, however, me and Amy really didn’t enjoy it very much, but to be fair we did get off to a very bad start with our New Zealand adventure.
We caught a bus from the airport and got off at Queen Street, right in the city centre, and found our way to our accommodation for the next 7 nights, the ‘Base ACB Hostel’. It was a hot day and we had just flown in from Tokyo and hadn’t slept much on the plane and were both very unhappy to find that our room, booked by ‘Real Gap’ was a 6 bed dorm with no windows, no form of ventilation and the lock on the door was broken, rendering our card key useless. After a stroll down Queen Street, in the rain, which only seemed to dishearten us even more, we stopped and talked and came to an agreement that the Base hostel was shit. Aside from the aforementioned gripes, it was under staffed, unprofessional, unfriendly, even the other travellers staying there seemed like miserable buggers, within an hour we had checked out and booked ourselves into a cheap student apartment for the next 2 nights. We checked in there only to discover that this was also a complete and utter dive, but at least it had windows!
That night we ate at a Mexican café / bar to cheer ourselves up, I ordered a burrito, the waitress asked if I wanted beef or chicken then asked ‘Spicy?’, ‘Yeah, sure’ I replied and soon regretted it as I found myself guzzling coke and munching ice cubes in an attempt to quench the flames roaring within my mouth and spreading around my lips. Later on I called my cousin Phil who lives in Auckland and after a good chat he had offered to pick us up two days later and offered us his spare room to sleep in, I couldn’t say no, and when I thought he couldn’t possibly be more generous he offered us the use of his beloved Land Rover + started talking about day trips, I don’t need to say this as I’m sure you already realise but the man is clearly a legend. We would later discover that his wife Fee is equally as legendary and generous.
We woke the next day determined to enjoy ourselves, I was particularly determined to make sure Amy enjoyed herself as it was her birthday. First thing in the morning, while she was in the shower I stealthily jumped out of the window and fetched her some fresh fruit + yoghurt for breakfast. Yeah, I know, I’m an excellent boyfriend. After taking care of some business (setting up a New Zealand bank account, mailing some gifts home and registering with ‘Job Search’ which was located within the dreaded Base hostel) we went out for a bite to eat at the harbour and had a lovely meal at ‘Wildfire Churrascaria’ a truly excellent Brazilian barbecue all you can eat restaurant, if you end up in Auckland make sure you eat there if your budget allows, the food and service were great, the bill…. well… it was Amy’s birthday so I didn’t mind, I wanted to take her somewhere special. As it was her birthday I told her it was entirely up to her what we did next so we went up to the top of the Sky Tower, it cost $25 each to go up and see the view, a bit of a rip off I thought as it was free to see the view in Tokyo, but I guess it was worth doing as this was the only place in the centre of Auckland where we took any photos. To be honest, at first we hated Auckland but by the time we left we realised that for a city it does seem to have a very chilled out vibe, there are so many different cultures all mixed together, a large number of Polynesians and Asians of all varieties, even some Amish guys but everyone seemed to get along just fine.
I knew that once we got out of the city centre we would begin to experience the ‘real New Zealand’ and I was right, as soon as Phil picked us up and we arrived at his lovely house we were both so much happier, ‘Beach Haven’ where his house was located seemed like a lovely area, close to the sea with lovely friendly neighbours, we settled down and chatted for a long time as I hadn’t seen him or Fee in many years and soon we were introduced to their Alaskan Malamute ‘Onewa’, truly one of the nicest and most magnificent looking animals I have had the fortune to encounter. After devouring two helpings of Fee’s beef stew + some cakes we chatted some more and they decided rather that lend us their Land Rover that they were going to buy us a car, help us sort out the insurance and then sell it when we were done with it.
The next day we caught a ferry to Waiheke Island, we found a café to have breakfast before setting off for the local farmers market where we encountered ‘Ken the cowboy’ a charming local, dressed like a cowboy and singing country songs while people perused the lovely fresh food, he did an awesome version of ‘She taught me to yodel’ and I wished our friend Ady could have been there to hear it, I know he would have loved it! After stopping to take pictures of the amazing views we made our way to a local vineyard and tasted some wine, I thought they were all quite disgusting but the location was beautiful. We drove from there to the secluded ‘Pearl Bay’ which required some trekking up some steep steps and through wild tropical plants but we were rewarded once again with some great views and photo opportunities, from there we went to the beach where me, Phil and Fee went sea kayaking, something I had always wanted to try. We all had a laugh at the kiwi who gave us a very brief safety briefing and didn’t ask any of us if we had kayaked before of if we could swim (It was my first time and I am not a strong swimmer) and then got us to (literally) sign our lives away when we signed documents which he explained were to agree that if anything went wrong such as drowning, being swept out to sea or getting caught in the path of one of the ferries (the route took us right though where the ferries come in and out of the island) they would not be held responsible. Kayaking was a lot of fun, fairly demanding physically when paddling against the tide but slightly embarrassing as according to Amy I looked like a dweeb in my life jacket with my pasty milk bottle white flesh and lanky figure. We ended our visit to Waiheke with a lovely meal at one of the local cafes where I had some of the best fish and chips I have ever tasted.
The next day was very busy and incredibly hot, we spent the morning driving around Auckland looking for a car and eventually negotiated a price for a white ‘Mitsubishi Lancer’, the sun was beating down on me so hard as I walked around in my black t-shirt soaking up the sun (schoolboy error no 1) and jeans (didn’t pack shorts when I left the UK) (schoolboy error no 2), I decided it was time for a whole new wardrobe and soon left the mall at Takapuna with a pair of jandals, sunnies, some t-shirts and shorts and suddenly found that i fit in a little better and was ready for a New Zealand summer. Once we got the car home, Phil and Fee’s neighbour Isobel offered to take me and Amy down to the sea for a swim, she was lovely and asked all about our trip and told us some interesting facts about the area, I decided to walk to the beach in bare feet (yet another schoolboy error) and found that the route to the beach was very sharp and rocky, once we were there it was great, the view was amazing and we had a lot of fun swimming around in the bay, it was soon time to head back for an awesome barbecue.
We had one more night at Phil and Fee’s before it would be time to set off on a road trip to the bay of islands so we took the car out to Takapuna beach got some food and attempted to top up our tans, I caught the sun pretty well but somehow managed to burn my feet and my receding hairline which was now glowing bright red, something which Amy took some pleasure in pointing out as she reminded me that I am ‘pushing 30’. We ended our stay with Phil and Fee by going to Fee’s sisters house for a barbecue cooked by her husband Pete and were sent away at the end of the night with their tent, sleeping bags, airbeds and maps and we were ready for the big adventure the next day.
Friday, 29 January 2010
Monday, 25 January 2010
Part One: Tokyo
(Apologies for the length of the entry below, we have been so busy on our travels that it has taken some time to get this together.... more soon...)
After an 11hr 20min flight followed immediately by a 1hr 30min train journey we finally arrived in Tokyo and got lost the very second we set foot out of the train station. While trying to find our hotel the ‘Sunroute plaza’ we came across a map, unfortunately it was all in Japanese, luckily a policeman spotted us looking bewildered and offered to help, seconds later a passer by stopped and offered his help and we soon found the hotel and checked in. This was the first of many occasions when complete strangers would go out of their way to help us, something which we are not accustomed to back home.
Because we went to bed so early the night before, we woke up very early the next day, we tried to get back to sleep but it just wasn’t going to happen so we went for an early breakfast at the hotel restaurant / bar ‘Villazza’. The first thing we did was get on the train to Harajuku to explore and hopefully find some of the districts gothic lolita's and cosplayers, unfortunately the train map was all in Japanese, we must have looked confused because suddenly a fellow Englishman appeared and offered to help, we gratefully accepted his offer and he showed us how to order the tickets, explained which line to get on and even walked us to the platform, thanks to him we were soon extremely confident when it came to getting on and off the trains and were soon travelling all over Tokyo exploring new places.
So we arrived in Harajuku and after checking out some of the smaller more obscure shops selling all kinds of alternative clothing, jewellery and accessories we came across the chain stores and ‘Kiddyland’, five floors of Japanese toys! We must have spent a good hour in there looking at all the strange things before we set off down the road to Yoyogi park. At the entrance to the park some men were preparing some giant samurai figures for a festival, after taking some pictures we entered the beautiful park and found our way to the ancient Meiji shrine, although we were enjoying exploring the city it was nice to get away for a couple of hours and explore a more relaxed and peaceful area, we took plenty of photos and spent some time observing the locals as they prayed at the shrine, people of all ages and backgrounds entered, clapped their hands together, bowed and threw coins to a large wooden tray. On our way out of the park we were stopped by a man dressed in the most unusual attire, he asked where we were from and when I replied that we were from England he seemed very excited “Oh! Great! English people are really friendly! Great football teams!” well, I guess he was right about one thing there, our new friend asked us all about our travels and then walked us over to a big pile of beautiful paintings that he had made on a silk like material, I guess I should have known there was a reason he was being so nice but as a musician I have a certain respect for fellow artists trying to make a living from doing what they love most so I bought a painting from him to send home as a gift, not before he tried his best to sell me two paintings and told me “It will be very lucky for you!”.
Next we were back on the train and on our way to Shibuya and soon found ourselves at its famous road crossing amongst hundreds of people, flashing lights and neon signs and hundreds upon hundreds of shops, bars and restaurants, it was as if they had tried to cram as many different things into the district as possible, needless to say we spent a lot of time here and visited it’s enormous HMV store, a very bizarre underground sex shop, a pet shop and many more, however the most fun we had there was when we decided to try one of japans favourite pastimes ‘Karaoke’.
After finding the courage to enter we discovered that the karaoke joint was set up rather like a hotel, we entered a lobby, checked in, got our room number and took the lift, you could even get room service! We had the room to ourselves for an hour but must have wasted 15 minutes working out how to operate the karaoke system as all the writing on the screen was in Japanese, once we finally changed it to English we began to look through the song catalogue, pretty much any song you could think of was in there, everything from Elvis to Pantera or Beyonce to Sonata Arctica, I sang songs by Elvis, Roy Orbison and Weezer, me and Amy did Elton John and Kiki Dees duet ‘Don’t go breaking my heart’ which was disastrous yet hilarious + Amy gave me a stunning rendition of Lady Gaga’s bad romance. I really wish we took karaoke as seriously as the Japanese, it would be loads of fun filling a room with good friends, getting drunk and singing cheesy songs!
Next we headed back to Shinjuku and had a meal at ‘Sizzler’ before going to the top of the Metropolitan government building to see the view from the observatory, Tokyo at night from such a height really is spectacular with so many lights as far as the eye can see.
The next morning we got on the train to ‘Ikebukuro’ we wandered around the streets but couldn’t find much to do there so decided to grab a bite to eat at ‘Café Jr: Italian Tomato’ we ordered a pizza, just a plain cheese and tomato one, or so we thought, it arrived with a lovely dollop of mozzarella cheese on top, lovely, I cut straight into it with my knife and fork and… what the hell is this!?! It’s… an egg? A poached egg? On a pizza? Why!? And cold too! It was a weird combo that I won’t be trying again but it didn’t stop us finishing it as we were hungry due to missing breakfast.
Next we headed to Ueno to visit it’s zoo and saw a wide variety of animals, all the usual suspects were there as well as some more bizarre creatures in the nocturnal area + vivarium, it was nice way to spend the last day but the real highlight was visiting the Park Hyatt hotel and restaurant which was featured in the movie ‘Lost in translation’ starring Bill Murray, which is why, to Amys amusement I referred to it throughout the visit as the ‘Bill Murray hotel’, I really think they should consider renaming it. The restaurant ‘The New York Grill’ was on the 52nd floor of the building and it was incredibly posh, I was glad I had put a shirt on and smartened myself up a bit! We hadn’t booked in advance and I was little worried that we might not get a table as it is a very popular place, I had not heard a bad thing about it, critics raved about the place and its world renowned reputation for high quality grub. We managed to get a table right next to the window with the most incredible view I have ever seen, a photo would not do it justice, even while having a conversation with Amy I couldn’t help but gawp out of the window in awe.
The waiters here were something else, we chose a bottle of champagne and the bottle was presented for our approval, then he said ‘May I open?’ and poured a little into my glass so I could taste it and once again give him my approval, not the kind of treatment I’m used to but I wasn’t complaining! After a starter full of unidentified food, some form of pate, raw meat and dips we got started on the main course, mine was the most tender, beautiful steak I’ve ever had, rare enough that it was still bleeding on my plate and covered in red wine sauce with duck fat fries on the side, Amy had the ‘Wisconsin duck’, we were incredibly full after that but couldn’t miss the opportunity to try the cheesecake and ice cream which was just fantastic.
We were sad to be leaving Tokyo the next day and were already talking about returning one day, we made the most of the morning playing strange arcade games, buying gifts for people, exploring some shops we missed the first time round, had a quick go at Pachinko, another very popular Japanese pastime but didn’t have clue how to play and soon gave up… soon it was time to make our way to Narita airport and set off for Auckland, New Zealand.
After an 11hr 20min flight followed immediately by a 1hr 30min train journey we finally arrived in Tokyo and got lost the very second we set foot out of the train station. While trying to find our hotel the ‘Sunroute plaza’ we came across a map, unfortunately it was all in Japanese, luckily a policeman spotted us looking bewildered and offered to help, seconds later a passer by stopped and offered his help and we soon found the hotel and checked in. This was the first of many occasions when complete strangers would go out of their way to help us, something which we are not accustomed to back home.
After a quick rest at the hotel we began to explore the Shinjuku district, we hadn’t slept at all on the plane journey but we could not allow ourselves to sleep as in Tokyo it was still early in the morning. Staying awake wasn’t all that hard in the end as we soon discovered that Tokyo is one of the most vibrant, busy, colourful, and energetic not to mention fun places to be in the world, there was so much to do and see we didn’t know where to start! As with most cities there were huge chain stores lining the streets but take a turn down one of the side roads and you could find all sorts of obscure little shops and bars. Every street had a vending machine lurking somewhere so getting a drink wasn't difficult, some of the juice drinks were really nice, the cold green tea was one of the most vile things we had ever tasted! I was surprised to see that all of these machines were in immaculate condition, no vandalism whatsoever. It was soon time to get our first meal, we went to ‘First kitchen’ which turned out to be a Japanese fast food joint, like typical brits abroad we spotted something we liked the look of on the menu and rather than attempt to use some of the Japanese we had been learning we pointed at the picture and just said ’That one please!’, this approach actually worked a treat and it would not be the only time that we had to resort to it. We took our food upstairs and found that we were the only people in the entire place that weren’t Japanese, sat down took a bite of the lovely chicken burgers we had selected and….. “What the hell! This isn’t chicken, urgh…. It’s a prawn burger!!!” We were too hungry to be fussy though so we finished them off and went back to the hotel where we soon fell asleep at around 5pm Tokyo time.
Because we went to bed so early the night before, we woke up very early the next day, we tried to get back to sleep but it just wasn’t going to happen so we went for an early breakfast at the hotel restaurant / bar ‘Villazza’. The first thing we did was get on the train to Harajuku to explore and hopefully find some of the districts gothic lolita's and cosplayers, unfortunately the train map was all in Japanese, we must have looked confused because suddenly a fellow Englishman appeared and offered to help, we gratefully accepted his offer and he showed us how to order the tickets, explained which line to get on and even walked us to the platform, thanks to him we were soon extremely confident when it came to getting on and off the trains and were soon travelling all over Tokyo exploring new places.
So we arrived in Harajuku and after checking out some of the smaller more obscure shops selling all kinds of alternative clothing, jewellery and accessories we came across the chain stores and ‘Kiddyland’, five floors of Japanese toys! We must have spent a good hour in there looking at all the strange things before we set off down the road to Yoyogi park. At the entrance to the park some men were preparing some giant samurai figures for a festival, after taking some pictures we entered the beautiful park and found our way to the ancient Meiji shrine, although we were enjoying exploring the city it was nice to get away for a couple of hours and explore a more relaxed and peaceful area, we took plenty of photos and spent some time observing the locals as they prayed at the shrine, people of all ages and backgrounds entered, clapped their hands together, bowed and threw coins to a large wooden tray. On our way out of the park we were stopped by a man dressed in the most unusual attire, he asked where we were from and when I replied that we were from England he seemed very excited “Oh! Great! English people are really friendly! Great football teams!” well, I guess he was right about one thing there, our new friend asked us all about our travels and then walked us over to a big pile of beautiful paintings that he had made on a silk like material, I guess I should have known there was a reason he was being so nice but as a musician I have a certain respect for fellow artists trying to make a living from doing what they love most so I bought a painting from him to send home as a gift, not before he tried his best to sell me two paintings and told me “It will be very lucky for you!”. Next we were back on the train and on our way to Shibuya and soon found ourselves at its famous road crossing amongst hundreds of people, flashing lights and neon signs and hundreds upon hundreds of shops, bars and restaurants, it was as if they had tried to cram as many different things into the district as possible, needless to say we spent a lot of time here and visited it’s enormous HMV store, a very bizarre underground sex shop, a pet shop and many more, however the most fun we had there was when we decided to try one of japans favourite pastimes ‘Karaoke’.
After finding the courage to enter we discovered that the karaoke joint was set up rather like a hotel, we entered a lobby, checked in, got our room number and took the lift, you could even get room service! We had the room to ourselves for an hour but must have wasted 15 minutes working out how to operate the karaoke system as all the writing on the screen was in Japanese, once we finally changed it to English we began to look through the song catalogue, pretty much any song you could think of was in there, everything from Elvis to Pantera or Beyonce to Sonata Arctica, I sang songs by Elvis, Roy Orbison and Weezer, me and Amy did Elton John and Kiki Dees duet ‘Don’t go breaking my heart’ which was disastrous yet hilarious + Amy gave me a stunning rendition of Lady Gaga’s bad romance. I really wish we took karaoke as seriously as the Japanese, it would be loads of fun filling a room with good friends, getting drunk and singing cheesy songs!
Next we headed back to Shinjuku and had a meal at ‘Sizzler’ before going to the top of the Metropolitan government building to see the view from the observatory, Tokyo at night from such a height really is spectacular with so many lights as far as the eye can see.
The next morning we got on the train to ‘Ikebukuro’ we wandered around the streets but couldn’t find much to do there so decided to grab a bite to eat at ‘Café Jr: Italian Tomato’ we ordered a pizza, just a plain cheese and tomato one, or so we thought, it arrived with a lovely dollop of mozzarella cheese on top, lovely, I cut straight into it with my knife and fork and… what the hell is this!?! It’s… an egg? A poached egg? On a pizza? Why!? And cold too! It was a weird combo that I won’t be trying again but it didn’t stop us finishing it as we were hungry due to missing breakfast.
Next we headed to Ueno to visit it’s zoo and saw a wide variety of animals, all the usual suspects were there as well as some more bizarre creatures in the nocturnal area + vivarium, it was nice way to spend the last day but the real highlight was visiting the Park Hyatt hotel and restaurant which was featured in the movie ‘Lost in translation’ starring Bill Murray, which is why, to Amys amusement I referred to it throughout the visit as the ‘Bill Murray hotel’, I really think they should consider renaming it. The restaurant ‘The New York Grill’ was on the 52nd floor of the building and it was incredibly posh, I was glad I had put a shirt on and smartened myself up a bit! We hadn’t booked in advance and I was little worried that we might not get a table as it is a very popular place, I had not heard a bad thing about it, critics raved about the place and its world renowned reputation for high quality grub. We managed to get a table right next to the window with the most incredible view I have ever seen, a photo would not do it justice, even while having a conversation with Amy I couldn’t help but gawp out of the window in awe.
The waiters here were something else, we chose a bottle of champagne and the bottle was presented for our approval, then he said ‘May I open?’ and poured a little into my glass so I could taste it and once again give him my approval, not the kind of treatment I’m used to but I wasn’t complaining! After a starter full of unidentified food, some form of pate, raw meat and dips we got started on the main course, mine was the most tender, beautiful steak I’ve ever had, rare enough that it was still bleeding on my plate and covered in red wine sauce with duck fat fries on the side, Amy had the ‘Wisconsin duck’, we were incredibly full after that but couldn’t miss the opportunity to try the cheesecake and ice cream which was just fantastic.
We were sad to be leaving Tokyo the next day and were already talking about returning one day, we made the most of the morning playing strange arcade games, buying gifts for people, exploring some shops we missed the first time round, had a quick go at Pachinko, another very popular Japanese pastime but didn’t have clue how to play and soon gave up… soon it was time to make our way to Narita airport and set off for Auckland, New Zealand.
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