Wellington, New Zealand

 February 10, 2011

We had high expectations for Wellington because everyone we'd met along the way said, "Oh, you HAVE to go to Wellington."

Perhaps it didn’t help that the day we arrived was pouring rain, and a public holiday. When we arrived at our hotel downtown, we quickly needed to find something to eat (you KNOW I get very irritable when I don’t eat!) I suspect it was a combination of being on the wrong street (lots of shops, not so many restaurants) and of it being a public holiday… but literally the only open restaurants we found were Starbucks and McDonalds! This was quite a shock because even in the most remote places we’ve been (El Nido and Phu Quoc) it was easy to find a restaurant. I just assumed that Wellington being the capital of New Zealand would have restaurants coming out the wazoo!

I kind of expected to see lots of special stuff going on, since it was Waitangi Day… but found nothing (probably a combination of rain and being on the wrong streets?)

We decided to just have a night in and watch some shows since nothing obvious seemed to be going on.

The next day we got a late start (Seriously… how are we going to be able to get up for work when we return???) and then headed out to find some food. This time I did an Internet search first and found the two streets where I was most likely to find restaurants. Oddly they weren’t that far from us!

I also did an Internet search for some used bookstores. The prices of books here are insane. Seriously. Most new books I looked at in a regular bookstore were $40 each, and a Poker book that Steve wanted (it costs $23 on Amazon) was $86. At that price, how do they actually sell any books? Some of you may be wondering why I care when I have my handy dandy Kindle. Well it seems that you can’t order books on your Kindle from New Zealand! I looked online at the countries it works in. There are over 170. (How many countries are there altogether? 190? 193?) Believe it or not we’ve chosen to travel to three countries so far that you can’t order books on the Kindle from (Thailand, Philippines and New Zealand) If you can get them in Vietnam you think you’d be able to get them from New Zealand! (Oops off on a bit of a rant there…) Anyway, I found a couple of used bookstores right in the heart of my “restaurant streets”.

We headed out to “Cuba Mall” and found a few choices for restaurants. We chose a nice looking Irish Pub that had some lunch specials. Guess what was just starting when we sat down in the pub? The Super Bowl!!! Yep, it was the middle of the afternoon on Monday and we walked into a basically empty pub to watch the Super Bowl. So there we were… two Canadians drinking Australian wine watching American Football in an Irish Pub in New Zealand. It doesn’t get more multicultural than that 😉 (Okay… it does… but it’s kind of funny, right?)

An interesting thing we discovered about the pubs in Wellington is that when you go in and sit down the waiters don’t come over to your table. You just go up to the bar and order your drinks and food and pay right away. They give you a number to take and put on your table, and when your food is ready they bring it out to you. This was very handy, because you don’t have to wait at the end of your meal to get your bill.

After we ate, we got another glass of wine and sat to watch the whole Super Bowl. Now I don’t know if you’re reading this, Tim… but let’s just say the whole time the game was on I was thinking about what I might buy with the money Steve was going to win from you on your annual Super Bowl bet ☺ GO PACKERS! I think if I go back to Vietnam I can get two outfits!

After the game was over and we were both filled with euphoria (a combination of the wine, winning the bet and imagining my new outfits!) we headed out to find one of the used book stores. It ended up being right next door to the pub. How handy is that? I managed to find three books I was interested in (used books for $18 each… highway robbery, I tell ya) and then… hmmm… I can’t seem to remember what happened next. (Combination of the euphoria described above and my increasingly failing memory…)

Okay, never mind. Let’s just go to the next day... Since it was Tuesday, Steve wanted to go to a movie…cheap night at the Theatre… would you believe the cheap price is $10 and some change each (Does anyone else out there remember $2 Tuesdays?) I wanted to go see the Botanic Gardens. We worked out a plan to do both of those things and eat some food too.

We started our morning at Starbucks. I’ve finally learned to order my drink as a Tea Latte instead of a Tea Misto or London Fog… but in Wellington they are still London Fogs 😀 The guy thought I was a bit crazy until he figured out what I wanted and said, “Oh, we call those London Fogs.” Anyway, we had our drinks and a muffin and enjoyed a little people watching.

Afterwards we headed over to the cable car and took it up the hill to the Botanic Gardens. At the top of the hill, before you enter the Botanic Gardens, was a little cable car museum, which had the original 100 year old cable car in it. It was interesting to see the slanted seats on the outside of the car. For sure, that is where Steve would want to sit!

Then we spent a few hours walking through the Botanic Gardens (for those of you who don’t know it is completely outdoors, not like a conservatory…which I thought it was going to be).

It was absolutely gorgeous. The park was gigantic and had many beautiful plants.

My favourite sections were the hydrangeas (absolutely stunning!!!!),

the fragrant flowers (lots of star lilies and other pretty smelling things)

and the Rose Garden (I can’t remember how many varieties, but I’m guessing at least 100).

Seeing all the beautiful flowers made me want to take a photography class. I just couldn’t capture the beauty of those plants on our camera.

After we walked through the Botanic Gardens we headed over to the movie theatre for a late afternoon showing of Burlesque with Christina Aguilera and Cher. Wow! The story was predictable, the acting was mediocre… but the music was INCREDIBLE! We both really enjoyed the show.

After the movie we headed out for a late dinner at a different Irish Pub (there are an extraordinary amount of Irish Pubs here!) where we both enjoyed a Moroccan Lamb Salad. Now, normally I am not a fan of lamb, but this lamb was fabulous! (Well, they do have a lot of sheep in New Zealand. I guess it makes sense!)

I had seen an ad for a tour in a visitor’s guide that I thought we might check out tomorrow. When we got home that evening I looked it up on the Internet. The tour was a shocking $192 per person. Yeah…. I DON’T think so! After looking at a few more tours that seemed to be similarly priced we decided we’d just wake up in the morning and see where the day took us. (The money still has to last 7 more months!)

Now I don’t really remember what happened (I’m typing this three days later…) but I know we had a nice lazy day that included more lamb, more walking, some of the best milkshakes ever made, and another trip to the used book store (where they wouldn’t buy back one of the books I bought from them (and finished)… even for a credit towards another book… GRRRRR!)

And that about sums up our days in Wellington. It was nice… but for us, didn’t live up to the amazing praise that people had given it.