Give me a sign

I was pretty excited when I found this particular corner on a recent walk… it’s actually the intersection of Vermont St. and John St.

But the signage was incomplete, as is often the case here.

0

Turtle-sitting

My boss went away for a few days over Christmas and I offered to feed the turtles. But these turtles are known escape artists, so I had to try to find them just to know I hadn’t lost them.

Luckily they didn’t get loose on my watch…

0

Christmas break fun

So we went to see The Greatest Showman. Should someone have been obligated to warn us it was a musical? Anyway, on the way home we walked by the other theater and decided to see The Last Jedi. Bonus: theater 2 has a bar!

0

Happy New Year 2018!

We are too old and boring to stay up until midnight most New Year’s Eve evenings, including this one, and definitely not up for being part of the giant crowd out on the square. The fireworks shot from the Sky Tower look wonderful on the video, and maybe even better than they would have looked in person… it seems like one of those things that would have looked great from a drone’s perspective.

But we’re still fond of the idea of ringing in the New Year, so we decided that we will celebrate with Vermont, which occurs at a very civilized 6 PM January 1 for us…. just about an hour from now.

So, to everybody in the 802 and elsewhere in Eastern Standard Time……… Happy New Year!!! We miss you a ton (but not your winter weather). May your 2018 be safe and healthy, and chock full of love, joy, and new adventures!

0

One man’s trash

We have walked past this house several times without really seeing it. Or the old car rotting away underneath. Spooky!

There must be quite a story… the land alone, probably a tenth of an acre, would bring a million bucks more or less, even with a house to tear down.

0

Birkenhead

Another weekend, another suburb… last Saturday we struck out to the north to take a look around Birkenhead, located on Auckland’s North Shore. We had planned to take a ferry across, going under the big Harbour Bridge, but they don’t run on Saturday morning, so onto the bus for us, where we got to drive over the bridge instead.

We had a nice cafe breakfast, cruised through some second-hand shops, and then went for a walk in the park that stretches from the center of town right down to the water.

Biggest tree stump ever.

The view back to Auckland.

The sugar refinery. New Zealand was never part of the big sugar economy that so shaped the Atlantic nations, but Kiwis do love their sweets: lamingtons, pavlovas, Jaffa cakes, Pineapple Lumps… the list goes on.

This plaque memorializes a young man who crashed during a longboard race down this road. It is a sweet piece of road… I can totally see why they would hold a race here.

Then back up the hill, where the same saxophonist who sometimes plays at our own farmers market was backing a singer doing a Christmas set on the square, and into the bus, and home again all in the same day.

We’ve only got another couple dozen of these trips to go before we have to start venturing out of Auckland!!

0

Christmas Ride

I showed up for the usual Sunday ride only to realize it was the annual Christmas ride/party. Luckily, there was a spot for me on Team Cowboys and Indians.

The goal was to ride to five different spots based on photo clues. As it turned out, they were all beaches… not a bad way to spend the morning.

Some teams were more prepared with costumes and so on. It wasn’t exactly a race, but yes it was. We weren’t last to finish, but it was still difficult to be beaten by cyclists wearing tutus and reindeer antlers.

0

Let there be lights!

Franklin Road in Ponsonby is THE place to see Christmas lights in Auckland. We walked the whole length of the street on Saturday night – with a few thousand other people – and it was great.

2

Chamber of Christmas

Last night we headed downtown to check out the decorations. Maybe this is what Christmas felt like in NYC 50 years ago?

Anyway, various businesses sponsor things all over the center of town so you’ll feel the Christmas spirit and buy stuff.

These big baubles were scattered around as were a few giant wrapped presents. But inside the presents were little vignettes of Kiwi Christmas. Like a whole tree of jandals… flip-flops to you and me.

We saw the town tree…

and the giant Santa at Farmers…

The other big department store (think Macy’s and Gimbels) is famous for their decorated windows, and that was pretty good too. They did a whole puppet show called “A Pirate’s Night Before Christmas.” At first we were skeptical, but it actually worked.

All this was tiring work so we stopped into a Belgian bar (at least as authentic as the Irish Pub down the road) for some much needed fortification…

So, now we are officially in the Christmas spirit!!

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑