Everyone is going nuts about twitter which I still think is absolutely useless unless you are in college or have a ton of time on your hands to play with the facebook apps and read multiple peoples twitter feeds.

PA says it best.

I getup an hour later, shower and head out to town.  Besides a few lone runners and a large group of people decked out in expensive biking gear there is no one around.  I find a coffee shop with 2 penguins as their logo and order a hot chocolate.  There is nothing better than drinking or eating something while exploring a new town.  The sky is overcast and there is a chill wind, Auckland looks nothing like the Shire.  I wonder if people would get offended if I ask for directions to the Shire but not wanting to be a jackass tourist I don’t ask anyone.  All the gift shops are run by mainlanders from China.  I speak to a few and they are surprised at my Mandarin, they don’t give any discount for our shared language.

Auckland is a nice city, nice is a word that you can apply to a lot of things in New Zealand.  They have nice sheep, nice views, nice people, nice food…. It’s just all very nice.  Can’t complain.

It’s lunch time and I look for the dirtiest kebab shop I can find.  Whenever I am on the road I look for the dirtiest, grimiest food vendor I can find.  That’s how I keep it real with my homies.

The kebab sucks, I try to wash it down with an equally dirty pearl drink and the pearl drink sucks as well.  It’s probably the worst pearl drink I have ever had, I make a mental note not to buy a pearl drink from someone who speaks Cantonese ever again.  Or rather I should avoid places that don’t mind cockroaches freely walking around.

I walk by Starbucks, Wendy’s, Dunkin Doughnuts and Burger King.  If there is a Shire anywhere around here I am sure it has a McDonalds in it.

Gambling is legal here and there’s a large casino next to my hotel.  I walk in and I could be anywhere in the world.  Vegas, Atlantic City, … The sounds are the same and the people have the same blank looks as they drop quarter after quarter into the machines.  There’s a poker room, I know I’ll be back.

I walk around town and don’t take any pictures.  I’ve stopped taking pictures on my trips.  There is no point, if you want to see any of the locations just do a Google image search or go on Flicker.  Earlier this year I was looking at a friends picture, he had recently been to Japan, he had also gone to Kyoto, he had incidentally also gone to the same temple in Kyoto that I had been to.  His picture of the fountain in the temple could have been a copy of the picture I had taken at the same location 3 years earlier.

So I am on strike from picture taking until I figure out a way to make the pictures unique or interesting.

It’s become instinct, something you don’t even have to think about anymore, you just do it.  The extra laptop battery, the DVI-VGA cable along with the USB charger.  Then you have to look up the region and see what type of power plug they use.  Next money, have I been there before ?  If so I probably have change left over from the last time.

Next comes the bags, it’s a one week trip, 6 pair of socks, change of underwear, 3 dress shirts, 2 khaki pants, 2 going out shirts and a pair of jeans.  Can’t forge the contact lens solution, last time I had to pay $18 for a small bottle of contact lens solution.  Taxes are a bitch in Brazil.

Finally the haggling with the airline, this isn’t a real United flight so I don’t get any upgrades, it’s a 13 hour flight I need an upgrade it’s going to kill me sitting in economy but the stewardess is unrelenting.

At least the plane is new, I have a row of 3 seats to myself, normally that would be more than enough but some genius has decided that you can’t move the arm rests all the way up, and I am too tall for 3 seats anyways.  Around hour 4 I wake up with a seat buckle digging into my back.  That’s going to leave a mark.  I switch over to the neck pillow and spend another hour drifting in and out of sleep.

The stewardess shows up with my special meal, it’s Hindi this time, I’ve tried Jewish, Halal and Vegetarian.  So far my favorite is Halal, although I am willing to give the Hindi meal another try.  I was hoping for curry but it’s just some type of spiced chick peas.  I want to order Asian next time but I am worried they will just give me a box of Ramen noodles.

We land at 4:30 AM, 15 minutes early.  I change some money and head over to the cabs.  It turns out my cabby went to UC Davis  and lived in Sacramento it’s a small world and I have stopped being surprised at running into people who used to share a particular geographic location with me.  Last time my cabby in Sydeny had spent time in Belgium and had taken the same bus line as me on his way to school.

The cabby drops me off at the Heritage Hotel, he asks me to double check as sometimes people are booked into the Heritage Tower and instead they go to the Hotel.  I check, I am booked into the Hotel according to the American Express travel agent.  I go to the check in desk where I am informed that no, my reservations are for the Heritage Tower.  I go outside and walk to the Tower, it’s a 5 min walk.  I check into the Tower where the clerk seems to take it personally that I am checking in this early.  It’s the strangest hotel room I have been to in a while.  There is a washer in the bathroom.  I can do my own laundry.  I just look at it for a few minutes and then try to get a few hours of sleep.

Before falling asleep I message Tina.  “Auckland is great, we should think about moving to New Zealand”.