Wellington
Time is flying here in NZ, and we are loving every minute of it. Here are a few more details since last I posted (adding a few feminine touches to Dave's).
Sunday started off interestingly, with the five of us (Josh, Mark, Dave, Kate & I) deciding to check out a church in downtown Rotorua. We had seen the sign for the church the night before on our before lunch. It was called Destiny Church, and that's pretty much all we knew. We woke up fairly early, and headed down to a craft fair (where I bought myself a rather nice "green stone" necklace for a souvenir). Afterwards, we walked over to the church - praying that we could all make it through the service without eating our own arms, as we hadn't eaten breakfast yet.
The church was amazing! It turned out to be a Maori Gospel church (Maori's are the native peoples of NZ). The worship was fantastic, and the message was inspiring. We were challenged to become "choose-able", to be Christians that are ready to be chosen, to be followers of Christ that can be trusted. After church, we were approached by several people, and asked about why we were there. Guess our blond-haired, blue-eyed selves stuck out a bit at the church!
Breakfast was at a little place called the "Fat Dog". GOOD FOOD. After that - we hit the road to Wellington! The drive down was interesting with five of us crammed into a Mitsubishi Diamante. Those of us in back were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder for about six hours. It felt like an incredibly long journey, but we were able to splice it up a bit with a side stop at Huka Falls.
When we arrived in Wellington, we couldn't believe the accomodations. Dave went into several details, so I won't step on his descriptions as they were quite apt. The only thing I will add about our first night is that we got dinner from a place called Hell's Kitchen and the number had a "666" in there, which I didn't notice until the box came... and then I felt really weird about liking the pizza so much! The pizza here is rather different - our choices were unlimited. We had cashews, apricots and all kinds of different things on our pizza. We also found out the the first choice for sauce here is BBQ, not tomato. Their BBQ sauce tastes a little different, it's a little sweeter and a little less spicy. Regardless of the evil numbered pizza joint, the pizza was delicious.
The first night was rather uneventful, we were just so excited to be soaking up the atmosphere of the house (which was so unbelievably affordable). Dave and Mark spent quite a bit of time on the deck taking pictures of the amazing nightscape from our balcony. The Palliser House, as it is called, was quite a palace. (NOTE: I will be updating these links and pics at a later date!)
The next day, as Dave said, the guys got up and took AMAZING pics of the sunrise.
Kate & I entertained ourselves sitting on a bench, soaking in the moments of the sun peeking over the mountain-tops and doing calisthenics to stay warm. Then, off to the grocery store to buy things for a nice big "brekkie" and a wonderful dinner. We chose a local Wellington fish called Tarakhi. Mark and I broiled the fish and served it with a mango apricot salsa on a bed of risotto. It was AWESOME! The day was spent in Wellington, visiting many sites as Dave mentioned (the Te Papa Museum, taking a cable car up the side of a mountain, watching students train for the upcoming Dragon Races, and a visit to the Botanical Gardens). WONDERFUL WELLINGTON! 
Sunday started off interestingly, with the five of us (Josh, Mark, Dave, Kate & I) deciding to check out a church in downtown Rotorua. We had seen the sign for the church the night before on our before lunch. It was called Destiny Church, and that's pretty much all we knew. We woke up fairly early, and headed down to a craft fair (where I bought myself a rather nice "green stone" necklace for a souvenir). Afterwards, we walked over to the church - praying that we could all make it through the service without eating our own arms, as we hadn't eaten breakfast yet.
The church was amazing! It turned out to be a Maori Gospel church (Maori's are the native peoples of NZ). The worship was fantastic, and the message was inspiring. We were challenged to become "choose-able", to be Christians that are ready to be chosen, to be followers of Christ that can be trusted. After church, we were approached by several people, and asked about why we were there. Guess our blond-haired, blue-eyed selves stuck out a bit at the church!
Breakfast was at a little place called the "Fat Dog". GOOD FOOD. After that - we hit the road to Wellington! The drive down was interesting with five of us crammed into a Mitsubishi Diamante. Those of us in back were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder for about six hours. It felt like an incredibly long journey, but we were able to splice it up a bit with a side stop at Huka Falls.
When we arrived in Wellington, we couldn't believe the accomodations. Dave went into several details, so I won't step on his descriptions as they were quite apt. The only thing I will add about our first night is that we got dinner from a place called Hell's Kitchen and the number had a "666" in there, which I didn't notice until the box came... and then I felt really weird about liking the pizza so much! The pizza here is rather different - our choices were unlimited. We had cashews, apricots and all kinds of different things on our pizza. We also found out the the first choice for sauce here is BBQ, not tomato. Their BBQ sauce tastes a little different, it's a little sweeter and a little less spicy. Regardless of the evil numbered pizza joint, the pizza was delicious.
The first night was rather uneventful, we were just so excited to be soaking up the atmosphere of the house (which was so unbelievably affordable). Dave and Mark spent quite a bit of time on the deck taking pictures of the amazing nightscape from our balcony. The Palliser House, as it is called, was quite a palace. (NOTE: I will be updating these links and pics at a later date!)
The next day, as Dave said, the guys got up and took AMAZING pics of the sunrise.
Kate & I entertained ourselves sitting on a bench, soaking in the moments of the sun peeking over the mountain-tops and doing calisthenics to stay warm. Then, off to the grocery store to buy things for a nice big "brekkie" and a wonderful dinner. We chose a local Wellington fish called Tarakhi. Mark and I broiled the fish and served it with a mango apricot salsa on a bed of risotto. It was AWESOME! The day was spent in Wellington, visiting many sites as Dave mentioned (the Te Papa Museum, taking a cable car up the side of a mountain, watching students train for the upcoming Dragon Races, and a visit to the Botanical Gardens). WONDERFUL WELLINGTON! 
posted by KM @ 8:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home