Wellington Take Two

It's been a while since I got out of Hamilton, and the guys I've been hanging out with this semester have been feeling stuck in Orchard Park just like me, so we decided to take a weekend trip to Wellington. At first I was hesitant, not looking forward to the 8+ hour bus ride, but I just HAD to get out and do something. I enjoyed Wellington the first time I went. on my way down to the south island, but we only had one day there and since it was Easter Sunday, everything was pretty much closed, so I figured I should really go again and actually experience some the capital of New Zealand.

Surprisingly, the bus ride there wasn't so bad, despite the 3 hour layover we had in Hamilton City (why we didn't just catch the bus from there instead of Uni, don't ask), I actually slept for most of the overnight ride. I think it was the combination of me being sick and taking a nasty Theraflu type medicine, plus the fact that I hadn't been sleeping much all week.

We got to Wellington early Friday morning and sadly the weather wasn't looking too nice, but we dropped off our luggage at the hostel and went around the corner to have breakfast. We decided to eat at a place called Sweet Mother's Kitchen, which was a Southern American / Cajun themed restaurant. It was really nice, and the best part about it for me was the bottomless regular brewed coffee. FINALLY! A restaurant that served your basic standard drip coffee with refills! Fun fact about New Zealand - drip coffee is actually quite hard to find. Instead of brewing coffee, you have to order either a "long black" or a "flat white" which are both made with espresso vs. your typical brew. Basically a long black is an Americano and a flat white is an Americano with milk.

After breakfast, the weather cleared up and it actually turned out to be a beautiful day. First on our agenda was to check out the famous Wellington cable car, one of the top attractions according to trip advisor and super affordable! Only $1 for students one way and $2 with return. I would recommend just getting the one way fair since there are some nice paths to walk back down to the city through Wellington's botanical garden. Since we had all bought a return ticket, we walked down a little ways then decided to go back up to the top and do a little sun bathing.

Here's the gang Silje, Hannah, Me, Ashley, Linn, and Hannes

It was nice to play around in Wellington and act like a bunch of little kids. Also at the top of the hill where the cable car dropped us was this tree that you could climb and sit on the top of. I didn't realize how much of a grandma I've become until I tried to climb to the top and realized that I don't really like climbing trees anymore. I used to love climbing trees when I was younger, and even a few years ago, I still used to climb the banyan trees at Lili'uōkalani park back home, but not anymore. I realized when I was only a few meters off the ground that I am actually afraid of climbing trees now. Also weird since I do alright up on the grid 40 feet above the stage when I'm working tech, but I think it was more about the getting back down part that I was uncomfortable with.

More of us being big kids =) This was the tallest slide!

After our day of exploring, we went back to the hostel to nap before we went out that night. Randomly, the bar in the basement of the hostel we were staying at was having a beerfest that just so happened to be on the night that we arrived, so we just planned to have a chill night and go there. Silje and Hannah on the other hand ended up staying out until the next morning, while the rest of us called it a night well before midnight. Grandma status again.

The next day we ended up having breakfast at Sweet Mother's Kitchen again, and when the girls finally met back up with us, we went to the museum Te Papa. I hadn't been to a single museum in New Zealand yet, so it was good that we went. Te Papa is very very nice and pretty damn big as well. There are 6 floors and some really nice exhibits. They even had a Hawaiian feather cape which was in way better condition than some of the capes we have at Bishop Museum back home - shame. I would have liked to see more Māori artifacts, but it was cool to see a lot of similar artifacts that you would find in a Hawaiian museum.

After the museum, we walked along the harbor and found the Saturday indoor market which we checked out briefly before splitting up and doing our own things for the rest of the day. Hannes went back to the cable car to read at the top of the hill, Linn and Ashley explored the city, Silje and Hannah slept off their hangovers, and I opted to sit at the harbor and think. As I sat there people watching I came to the conclusion that Wellington is like the San Francisco of New Zealand. It was good to have some time to myself to contemplate and just look out into the water like I often do back home. I think I was missing the ocean and the warm sea breeze because I ended up sitting there with my journal for 4 hours before I realized that it was getting late and I should probably find the others since I had no phone and no one really knew where I was.

By the time I got back to the hostel, I was surprised that I was the first to get back not counting the two sleeping beauties that were still passed out.

Later that night, we went to a Chinese food place across the street from the hostel and had dinner. We were all in a pretty weird mood that night, but after we all got some food in our tummies, it was all good and we got up the energy to get dressed up and go out on the town. We had been looking forward to checking out a bar called the Library which was really nice, but completely full, so we found another pretty nice place across the street which had a live trio of singers that were performing like the supremes with sparkly sequined dresses and matching bob wigs. It was super cute and reminded me of a show I did (shout out to the Marvelous Wonderettes) and made me miss performing. After a drink or two at that bar, we wanted to bar hop the city since we only had one night left. We ended up going to two more places that night, but I wasn't really in the mood and we ended up calling it a night early again. I dunno if I'm just not into going out too much in New Zealand or if I'm just getting old, ha. I've just been over the bar scene lately. I much prefer chilling with a smaller group of friends... on a deck perhaps =)

The next morning, we caught the early bus back to Hamilton which took way too long and had way too many transfers. We did get a really nice view of Mount Ruapehu and Tongariro covered in snow on the way back.

That concluded our Wellington trip. I calculated it, and we spent about 19 hours total on the bus that weekend... not too sure if it was worth it, but I did have a good time in Wellington when I thought about it later (after seeing how fun the pictures looked - haha).