New Zealand Side Trip

April 9th ~ 16th , 2005 <<>>

在微雨之中, 我的超級好朋友 Vivian 開著她的標緻愛車載著我倆前往機場第二航廈......我們今天搭晚上的紐航班機前往 紐西蘭's 北島 Ackland.

尚未登機, 我已開始採購 ! 聽說台灣的機場化妝品價格, 比很多地方的免稅店, 還便宜 ! 尤其是五月底以前, 長榮卡還可以有部分商店接受折扣 !

就像我強調的, 這次紐西蘭之旅, 原為我們公司的旅行. 我和 Vivian 考量: 要飛如此之遠, 當然要多玩幾天囉 ! 所以北島的行程, 是我們額外安排自己負擔的.

4/9 飛到 4/10 中午抵達奧克蘭.
New Zealand is located in South Pacific Island and has three main islands, south , north and Steward islands. The size is near Japan and England. They are the United Kindom league and worship British Queen. Actually they have Prime Minister as their Political leader. NZ has 3.8M population with 75.8% from Europe, 15% as Maori, 5.3% Pacific islands 移民 adn 4.5% Asia 移民. When you go to NZ during March to Oct., there are 4 hours time lag; otherwise 5 hours earlier than TPE.
Ackland is in North Isand of NZ. There are 20+ IBMer with spouse arrived at Ackland international airport on April 10 after we have a long flight from April 9. My brave Partner - Vivian went to Hertz rent a car and drove it right away. You know what: the driving seat is opposite from TPE but she is so skillful.

4/10 We drive to the Hotel and stayed for awhile. Our Hotel named Lamham hotel and there is a NZ Rally night when we arrived. We went to Queen Street for a walk and has nothing to shop so we go to have a dinner near the houbour named Grill. Lamb is good , fish is bad. At this night, there are many bands singing outside, it is a wondeful night.

4/11 Since we have connected with Kiwi (紐西蘭奇異果) GCG Manager-Joseph Yu, he suggested us to go to Weiheke island for a good restaurant - Mudbrick. It is a French restaurant, both seafood and lamb are very very nice. It is very good to eat there at night but you have to go there before sunset because it has a great view there. It is easy that you just go to take the Ferry to Weiheke island and when you arrive Weiheke, simply call a cab telling him you are heading to Mudbrick. It is very famous so every drivers know where it is. It is a beautiful Vineyard and is in Church Bay Road. You may order some main dishes and have a cup of Mudbrick Wine or try the Weiheke wine. Vivian and I have the following dishes and costed us NZ$120 including the tip. After the dinner , we went back hotel.Entree: Prawns NZ$18, Mains: Lamb NZ$37, Pan Seared Duck NZ$ 33, Red Wine NZ$ 12, MB Pinot Glass ( no good ) . Beer NZ$6. Both the entree and main courses are very very nice.

4/12 We checked out from Lamham hotel and headed to Rotoruwa. 9:55 am, we stoped by "Detour Cafe" for another breakfast because Vivian needs to have a break. Then we drove to Rotaruwa and arrived Hobbitan information center first. The visiting tour in the morning only have two sections, one from 10:45, the other is 12:00. We could only join 12:00 and the ticket is NZ$50 each (expensive). Due to Hobbitan is an opened area so it is better to join earlier trip next time. We took the HOBBITON Movie Bus to have this visiting but most of the things we saw were all Ss : Sheep and Sheep Shit ! There are only some Hobbiton small house there and look not like in the movie. The tour guide told us it is because most of the things was taken by WHITE and then painted on the film.... computer is great things ! After the bus tour, we went back to the information center and I bought one shirt. You know what: you can't find other Hobbiton souvenirs in any other place, if you want to buy you could only find them in the information center. No need to waste time to search - because I did it and found nothing.After the Hobbiton tour, we drove to Skyline to meet with Joseph. He lead the China BP to have an NZ trip here and bought us (Vivi & Me)the ticket to the Skyline for playing and a buffet dinner. I played Skyrides twice, it is very interesting. During our joining to this KIWI tour, big brother-Liu treates us very well. After that Si-Chun四川 BP found that our table has many "horses". I also raised my hands to join the horse team. They don't believe that I am also hourse. They even checked my VISA. Leaving Skyline, Kiwi group took the bus to leave and we drove our Toyota to our hotel. Our hotl is "Prince hotel" which is very very cute but remember one thing: you book the hotel in internet then you need to print the voucher to the registration. Vivi did not do it so we encountered some troubles in the beginning. After settle down, we went to Polinicia SPA. I tried to drive but only tried for 3 minutes, I was being kicked out by Vivian. It is a very nice SPA, you could just buy the cheapest ticket NZ$ 15 each and enjoy 4 different temperature ponds which has three outside pools and one is near the lake with stars in the sky. So romatic !

4/13 We heading back to Ackland downtown to find the airport, I could not give Vivi the right direction so we have drove over our destination and turned back. It is fortunate, we still arrive airport early. From 4/13 afternoon, it will be IBM HPC tour , I will use another session to describe it later. I enjoy this NZ side trip with Vivi very much and have a very good memory