May Madness: New Zealand Trip Part 1, Getting There and First Day

June 18, Wednesday

We are so excited to go on this trip to New Zealand to visit Emily!

This morning, the boys came with me to pick Papa up at the airport and we discussed the plans for the week. When I got home, I finished getting ready. We had a family prayer before Daniel left for work and we said our goodbyes to him. We gave him and Jonny multiple hugs. We were to the airport by about 2:20 PM and our flight wasn't until 4 PM so that was plenty of time. We got our bags checked and thankfully they're checked all the way to Auckland. The flight to LAX was uneventful.

Walking from our flight all the way to terminal B took forever. People complain about Salt Lake having a long walk but this put that to shame. We walked around three long windowless hallways with no breaks and no bathrooms until we finally got to the end. We got to terminal B and there was a food court so we had some KFC. We were able to find a table and camp out there for a while since we had a long layover. We landed a little after 5:30 PM and our flight wasn't scheduled to takeoff until 10:10 PM. I was so happy when we passed a Sprinkles cupcakes machine so I couldn't resist getting a strawberry one. They had pillows and blankets and headphones for us waiting in our seats. There's a nice lady sitting next to us. We were a little delayed on takeoff but they think they can make up the time in the air.

June 19, Thursday

We skipped this day! Our flight left on Wednesday and landed on Friday in Auckland, New Zealand.

June 20, Friday

Our flight went well and even though we were delayed a little bit, we landed right on time. I think it was actually a few minutes early. It was probably about 5:50 AM when we landed. The food on the flight was delicious! We got through passport control fine. We got our Uber quickly. There wasn't much traffic since it was so early on a holiday so he got us to the hotel by about 7:40 AM. It's called Auckland Harbour Suites. The rooms are more like apartments than hotel rooms. Of course, they didn't have a room ready for us because the hotel was booked because it was a holiday but she said she would call us when it was ready and it was guaranteed to be ready by 2 PM. We got organized and left our bags with her and walked to the wharf. There was hardly anybody out on the streets and almost nothing was open.

I really wanted to go see the Sky Tower. We started walking uphill. We found a cute little coffee shop called Baa Baa Black Sheep and that was a perfect place to stop. It was right by the JW Marriott. Michael got a sausage roll and I got a cookie and a caramel slice. I wasn't expecting much of that caramel slice but it was amazing. We sat there and relaxed and did a couple tasks on our phones.

This is a cute little ice cream shop. I thought the name was so funny!

Then we finished the walk to the Sky Tower and took some pictures.

By then, it was time to go meet Emily at the bus so we started walking back. We braved the public toilets by the bus stop. They were really stinky but at least they didn't make us pay for them. We were so excited when Emily pulled up in her bus.

We gave her big hugs and sat down for a minute and decided what to do. We had passed a cute little souvenir shop so I suggested we go in there. Michael bought some Manuka honey lozenges. I tried to find a magnet but I couldn't find one I liked. They had some weird products in there and they were selling some Manuka honey for outrageous prices. Oh, and they had deer placenta which was weird.

We did some more walking around to kill time until we could check in or until it was time to get some food.

We passed a really cute chocolate shop that had a chocolate shoe in the window. They had some English toffee but it was an expensive bag of it and I didn't feel like having that much and I didn't see anything else I wanted to try and neither did Emily. Michael wanted to get some chocolate covered honeycomb so he got that. It wasn't great.

I was pretty excited to walk past the KFC but Emily said she's not that impressed with it here.

We kept walking a little more and then we happened upon our hotel. We weren't really paying attention to our directions so it's kind of funny that it was just right there. We decided to go in so Emily could leave her backpack so she didn't have to carry it everywhere and I asked if by chance they had a room ready and it turns out they did so that was fantastic! We checked in at about 11:20 AM and they didn't charge us extra so that was really nice of them. The room is perfect because it's two different bedrooms and two bathrooms so Emily has her own room and we have our own room and it has a cute little sitting area and a kitchen with appliances. It even has a washer and dryer which Emily says is kind of rare around here to have a dryer. The only problem is there's not a lot of space in the bedrooms so we had to set our suitcases in the living area.

Amazing views from our room!

Michael and Emily went down to the convenience store to get some water for Michael and they got some soda, too. We decided to take a nap for a couple hours. Emily talked to Jonny on the phone and watched TV while we slept. We had asked Emily to pick a restaurant for us and she chose one called Chargrill 44. It was just around the corner and we had a nice dinner. I got the fish and chips. The only thing I was bummed about is that they don't serve tartar sauce but it was delicious. It came with a salad which I didn't care about but it was actually really good and the fries were amazing. Emily got a small margarita pizza and a side of fries. Michael got Koobideh which was a ground beef stick with rice and yogurt sauce and salad. Anyway, we all enjoyed our dinner. It was a cute little place with only three regular size tables inside.

I wanted us to go find some food that we can have for breakfast before our tour tomorrow. We started walking around and went to two different convenience stores and Emily and I couldn't find anything. She looked up where the nearest Woolworths was and it wasn't too far so we headed over there. That was such a cute grocery store! We had fun walking around and seeing what they had and tried to find new things.

Michael got a piece of dragon fruit. You have to pay for your bags there. Michael carried all of our stuff back.

We went back the same way we came. There was a sign for a street called Emily Place so I had to get Emily's picture there.

View of the Sky Tower

Michael had mentioned going to the ice cream shop by the hotel so we walked past there. It's called Giapo. Michael got the Christchurch hazelnut and milk and cookies flavors. Emily got Cher's dark chocolate. I got a kid size hokey pokey ice cream and a chocolate chip cookie.