Wellington Day 3 (or 2...or 4? Whatever)

Today's blog is written by my wife Kathy, thanks Baba!!

Oops, forgot to write my journal last night. So yesterday on the 10th I started out with a bit of a dizzy spell after breakfast. I don't know what it was from. I know I wasn't hungry because I had just eaten. I guess the jet lag had caught up with me or something. The first thing we did was drive down to find the Embassy Theatre. Mike wanted to go and see his name that is on one of the seats. He had donated money a while to help rebuild it and it's going to be there for 10 years. When we got there we weren't able to see it because there was a film currently in progress so we went to walk around on Courtney Place. That is a really nice street full of restaurants and little shops. It kind of reminds me of St. Hubert street but prettier and wider. We found a little souvenir shop and bought a few things for family and friends and ourselves. We got a cool cloth map of the country to hang on the wall.

After that we walked up and down the street just looking at what was around, took a few photos. We came across a lebanese place that was called Cafe Baba and of course I took my photo under the sign. I still felt a bit dizzy so I sat down for a little bit and then thought I should get a little something to eat. I was interested in a Malasian restaurant called Cinta. We sat outside and I had stir fried beef with noodles and vegetables. It was SO amazing. I would fly back here just to eat that again! After that we went back to the Theatre but unfortunetly we were just too late and another movie had started so we left and decided to go back another day.

We got back in the car thinking of what we should do and decided to drive down to Queen's wharf. There is a lot to do that is so close around you. Queens's wharf is basically another section of the docks and stuff around Oriental Bay, higher up from where we were outside of Te Papa Museum. It is gorgeous there. We took a lot of photos. You can rent Kayaks, go wall climbing, rollerblading etc. It's like a boardwalk and it reminds me of The Old Port of Montreal but with bluer water. There was a cute little playground and instead of sand, there's this foamy bouncy material all over the ground. Much cleaner than sand. There was a HUGE slide that both Mike and I went down. We took video of it. The weather was so perfect. Nice and sunny but not too hot, not too cold. Extremely comfortable. It was a little less windy than it has been too which was nice. Long hair is quite annoying in the wind. Walking around closer to where the restaurants were we saw a bunch of seagulls and pigeons going crazy over some food that was left on the picnic tables. A few seconds later a man comes out of the restaurant and screams at the birds! It was his food that he had left out there and was still eating it!! I felt so bad for him. He scared most of them away but they still lingered around. He was debating whether to eat it or not.

After hanging around Queen's Wharf for a while we came back to the hotel for a bit to rest and then went walking around the hill behind our hotel (to think we could go even higher from where our hotel is!). There are steps that go up and up and lead to a park and feilds to Wellington's Victoria University. There are a lot of nice plants and ferns and flowers around there. I was having way too much fun with the camera. We even saw a praying mantis that we noticed was missing a leg. Once we reached the top of the steps we had a nice view of Mount Victoria and the Bay and all the houses below. I don't think there is a view out there that isn't impressive. We took more and more photos and after a while were disappointed to realize that our memory card on the Digital Rebel was full! So Mike called a photo shop around here and we're either going to burn our photos onto a CD to make room on our card or buy a new one.

Around 6:00pm Mike's friend Erica from theonering met us in the hotel lobby and we went out for dinner. There was the tinyest Italian restaurant I ever saw right on Willis that we went to. I swear there was only 5 tables in it! THere was a sad looking woman that served us, and everyone else in the place. She didn't look too enthoused and wasn't very friendly but the food was good anyway. Again I felt dizzy and hoped it would go away once I ate like it did at lunch but it didn't. After we walked back to the hotel, Mike and Erica stayed in the bar a little bit but I had to go and lie down. I guess we walked around a lot lately and a 17 hour difference is harder to get used to than I thought. So far this morning I feel alright. Hopefully it will keep up! I'll write back later tonight on what we did today. Or tomorrow morning again if I forget!!