After long drive we finally got off the bus at the city centre on a Queen street – the most famous street of Auckland.
We settled in the hotel and headed out to the streets. Queen street is a wide long street crowded with people, lined with restaurants, shops, boutiques, cafes etc. Its busy and vibrant, we didn’t know where to look first. You can not overlook the significant Asian influence in this city. Actually, first moments on the street we thought we are in Hong Kong 😀 Every second person was the Asian and their food is literally on every corner, not to mention 1$shops and souvenir shops.
I must admit that since we left home, we started to be obsessed a little bit by this culture, especially food, and our obsession resulted in our travels to some parts of Asia, but about it later.
The funny thing is, that as we’ve been straying in the city, we got hungry so we went on our first dinner ever in a Japanese restaurant and ordered our first teriyaki (I know, we are like living under rock, but this kitchen is really not so popular in our country) salmon and tofu, and a miso soup of course.
And it was a love on the first taste! Believe or not, the next day we’ve been there again, and ordered the same food.
So what is that Auckland like?
It would be stupid if I would just say that it’s worth to see this city because there’s plenty of cafes, restaurants, shops, nice harbour, crowds of people from every corner of the world… cause honestly, this is in every big metropolis and maybe even better and bigger. In our opinion (which may differ from your view) Auckland is truly unique from following reasons:
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Auckland’s Sky Tower The combination of traditional Maori and Pacific culture mixed with the Asian and western influence offers a different point of view on a social, culture and arts development and it is very significant in this multicultural city where people live peacefully with the respect to each other.
- As cited on Wikipedia, it is the only city in the world built on a basaltic volcanic field that is still active. You can drive close to the them and have a great sights on the city.
- Auckland is called “city of sails” because the harbour is full of hundreds of sails (it is part of Aucklanders lifestyle) and the scenery with the harbour and the architectural structure of the city behind is simply beautiful.
- City is surrounded by exotic white sandy and blue water beaches and some of them are located as close as just 15 minutes drive from the city, for example popular Mission Bay.
- Climate and nature is very different from the one you are used to (if you’re not from Aussie) and the combination with the urban city is even more charming when you visit one of the parks close or in the city centre like Albert Park.
- Some attractions which you can not see and try anywhere else like Sky Tower bungee jumping.
Besides all of these mention things, New Zealand is very clean country as they are trying to preserve their unique native environment and its “ecological literacy” is much more advanced than in other countries all over the world.
We are happy to share this experience with you and will be happy from your experiences, opinions and comments.
Thank you
Barbara
© 2015 Independent Couple
