Down Under Day 5

Posting this from the airport on day 6...

So yesterday morning we were allowed to get up late for once. Left the hotel at a leisurely 10 am and hit up a couple more places in the city.

We visited St. Patrick's, the Fitzroy gardens which included Capt. Cook's cottage and a "fairy tree". Then the Shrine of Remembrance, another war memorial.

At lunch we ate at Chinatown, a dim sum place called Shark Fin Group (食为先). We were actually to try the taste of kangaroo though, since you can trust a cantonese diner to serve anything. So we had kangaroo meat cooked in the style of mongolian beef. It was pretty good. The appearance of the meat looked more similar to beef. The texture when chewed was kinda a midway between pork, chicken, and liver.

Afterwards we killed about an hour or so in a local Chinese museum (澳华历史博物馆) about the history of the chinese community in Australia. It was a really well made museum, with 5 floors that made the best of its limited area. It was also full of infostats and anecdotes. Wonder if there's anything like it in SF.

In the afternoon we drove a long way over to Phillip Island. First stop was at the seal rocks place called The Nobbies. Unfortunately, the weather was too chilly for the seals to come out so we didn't see much except seagulls and one lone wallaby.

Dinner was lobster, nicely done but not much else to say about it. There was wine served for once, and I think our tour guide was a little drunk. He certainly did a lot of loud singing on the bus afterwards, though at least his singing voice was ok.

Then we waited out the sunset at the beach for the penguin parade. A lot of chilly waiting for a bunch of blobs wobbling in the distance. No lights/flash allowed, no cameras period with or without flash...meh. We actually got a better look at the penguins on our way back to the parking lot, wobbling along the causeways just outside the fence. No photos even if they'd allowed it though. The lack of ambient light meant your average digital camera and cellphone just showed a fully black screen if you tried.

The drive back to the hotel was quiet. It was nearly midnight when we got back. Then this morning we all got woken up early to catch the flight to NZ. And here we are.

Down Under Day 6

Continued from previous entry... So, the flight from Australia to New Zealand was not quite uneventful.

One family apparently joined our tour group using a third party tour company from China. Everyone else are from the USA using the actual tour company (Ritz Tours). The problem is whoever hooked that guy up only got him a visa for Australia. Now, apparently if you have a US passport, you don't actually need a separate visa for NZ. But a chinese passport? SOL. The guy ( who was there with two twin daughters maybe 12 years old) had to stay behind in Melbourne. Not sure if he can get a last minute visa to join the rest of the tour eventually or figure out a way to go back to Sydney and stay there until the return flight at the end (which has a connecting stop there).

Another thing that took everyone by surprise was how stringent Customs was in NZ about bringing in anything resembling food products. One family got fined $400 for a container of commercial honey they bought in Australia. My mom got pulled aside because their k9 unit caught a sniff of some shreds of curry beef jerky in her backpack (the rest of it had been eaten in the flight and it was just some spilled remnants, thank god). There was also a camera guy there taking pictures of everyone being pulled aside. When asked he said that the film was going to go on TV. Ugh. Dick move.

Anyway...after the almighty struggles with Customs, we finally left the (very...small) airport into the city proper. Queenstown, though, is also a very small city, for all that it's an almost 100% tourist city. It is maybe ten blocks by six blocks in size, and at most a 30 min walk to cross the whole place. Then again, NZ itself is a sparsely populated country; I think the entire population might be smaller than some chinese cities.

The hotel is called the Millennium Hotel. Decent for a small town I guess. WIFI is only freeform the lobby for 30 mins out of every day, so I'm actually purchasing my internet use for an outrageous price. Bleh.

Dinner was just some random chinese restaurant in the town. Tomorrow is another full day.

EDIT: Forgot to add...we did get some time to wander the town after eating. We took a short stroll through along Lake Wakatipu and then through the local rose garden. The flowers were mostly in bloom, and they were beautiful.