Day 318: Strolling Queen Street — Farewell Lobsy — Playground — Spin Class
Lobsy headed home today. But she wasn’t getting picked up at the hotel until 12:30. So we all hit the breakfast buffet together one last time and then headed out for a walk.
From the Pullman we went through the campus of Auckland University over to Albert Park and then down to Queen Street.
We poked into a few stores with the highlight being an end-of-Winter sale at Kathmandu, a NZ based outdoor brand like Patagonia or The North Face.
We picked up a lightweight puffer for James and Lobsy generously stated it would be a Christmas present for him from her and my dad. We also got a couple cute long underwear tops for the kids (prepping for Japan!) and a green kids snap back hat with the Kathmandu logo and slogan: Confidence to go anywhere in the world. Appropriate!
Ok, so they mean places like Everest and we’re not quite *that* confident. But we still had to get the lid.
Lobsy headed out and we were all sad. She’s such an easy, fun, helpful and absurdly generous travel teammate.
The kids were super bummed so we distracted them with a show on TV and then headed out to a playground that Willa had spotted on our Sunday bus tour.
We ended up staying for almost three hours. Willa and James bounced from the netted climbing structure to the swings to the jungle gym but the highlight was a pushable train on a sliding track. They made friends and had a blast pushing each other around. Here’s a vid of their last time around before I dragged them out of there.
Margaret came with us to the playground but left about 45 minutes before me and the kids to walk to a spin class at Westward Cycle. She met the owner, a Canadian who’d moved here three years ago with her boyfriend. Apparently, next to Singapore, New Zealand is the easiest country in which to open a small business. She reported it was a fun class.
I drove the kids back to the hotel and we decided to grab dinner in the hotel bar. The kids love a hotel bar (who doesn’t?). I think they assume they’ll get table snacks, have a fun drink and there will be good stuff for dinner. They were half right: pretzels on the table and sparkling water (better than tap but far from a mocktail). I got an Emerson’s beer (h/t to sweet Emerson Rooke who we can’t wait to see when we get back).
I got them chicken karaage — basically fried chicken nuggets. I’ve seen karaage on the menu in several places and I had it at the hotel where Margaret and I had dinner and drinks before meeting Pete and Jeff on Sunday. Karaage is a Japanese style of prep meaning “Tang Fry.”
Margaret texted after her class saying she was on the way. I ordered her the tomato soup and a glass of wine.
Funny exchange: When I asked about the soup of the day, the waiter said, “Tomato (pronounced Tomahto).” I was thinking out loud, deciding if I wanted to order it and for some reason repeated it, but also using “Tomahto.” James heard me, made subtle eye contact and loudly whispered, “To-may-tow,” as if I was confused and didn’t understand what the waiter was saying but he had figured it out.
After getting the kids to sleep Margaret and I attempted to watch some of Lord of the Rings. On Thursday we’re taking a tour of Hobbiton — the famous set for the LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy. Neither of us have watched any of the films so we caught the first 40 minutes of the first of the Rings trilogy before getting too tired and heading to bed. We thought it’s a bit outdated and hokey — but we caught enough to hopefully make the tour more entertaining.
