Return from New Zealand

My family and I completed a 15 day trip to New Zealand

when we flew back to New York from Auckland on

Saturday September 4th. It was an uneventful if

interminable flight back, making me swear to never fly

12 hours again in coach class. Our experience at Los

Angeles Int'l Airport was quite dismal - topped off by

the annoyance of having to wait on line for an hour

in order to go through airport security even though we

were international travelers who had done so when we

embarked at Auckland Airport. We've vowed to avoid LAX in our future travels.

We started our trip with five days in

Wellington where I was pursuing possible IT

opportunities with some recruitment firms there.

Wellington is that nation's capital and it is a small harbor

city with a population of less than 400,000

A lot of comparisons have been made between Wellington

and San Francisco and there are indeed a number of

similarities. Wellington is nestled at the foot of

some considerable hills and like San Francisco it probably

would be a challenge to drive around with a manual

shift car (there's enough difficulty in learning to

drive on the left side of the road. Fortunately I got

my first taste of doing that in the mostly rural South

Island). Wellington also has a cable car that takes

you up to the city's Botanical Gardens and an

Observatory where you can enjoy a beautiful overlook

of the city and harbor. With it's Cuba Street section consisting

of numerous Malaysian, Indian and Chinese restaurants,

a mild if very windy climate, a well preserved

and brightly painted wood frame

buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century in

a style that I call late British Empire, and with

streets that are fun to walk, the comparison between

Wellington and San Francisco seems even more apt. New

Zealand like California is on a major geologic fault

line and Wellington experienced a severe earthquake

in 1855. There are stark differences in this comparison. I saw only

one man panhandling on the streets, the city is

immaculately clean and crime is so low that traffic

accidents are the main stories in the local

newspapers. I walked those streets among hurried

commuters off to their offices and students heading

for the cafes after class and I could easily picture

myself a denizen of this city.

Comments

[John]

Nice pics, David!