I remember the first time I heard of Auckland. It was an episode of Full House, in which the Olsen twins find their way onto a plane, thinking it's headed to nice and close Oakland, and subsequently find out it's headed all the way to New Zealand. Since then, I've wondered what lay on the other end of that plane, and today I got to start to find out.
We began the day with a visit to the Sky Tower, a giant tower that is part of the Sky City hotel/restaurant/casino complex, and which is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere (standing a few tens of meters taller than Sydney Tower).
There are two observation decks on the tower, at 198 and 220 meters. The view is fantastic (and roughly the same) from both. Probably the biggest advantage to going higher is that fewer people do so (it costs extra), so it's less crowded. The 360-degree view of the Auckland area is great, especially if you get a nice day like we did.
One floor down from the lower observation deck is a cafe, which surprisingly was quite reasonably priced. We had some sandwiches and lasagna while looking out over Auckland.
We actually didn't have very many things on the itinerary for today. EJ wanted to see the Sky Tower, Omar wanted to see the University of Auckland, and I wanted to see the Museum of Transport and Technology (until I learned it was clear across town). After walking around the University's campus, we went through the adjacent Albert Park, admiring old cannon and gnarled trees.
Having nothing else to do, we walked back towards our hotel, when we ran into the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, which had on a special exhibit of Pacific art from artists based in Auckland.
In addition to Pacific art, the museum also had an interesting collection of contemporary art from European artists, such as the visual Environment, an enclosed room with mirrored floor and ceiling, and a steel hoop kinetic sculpture manipulated by electromagnets.
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