New Zealand #7: Wellington
Mood: 
|| Sick
Tune : Watching The Princess Bride
June 30: We spent six hours in the bus to get from Hawera to Wellington, but it luckily went by fast I may have fallen asleep once or twice. Arriving at the railway station we already had the opportunity to check out something fandom-y, because while we were not in London they had a Platform 9 3/4! Unfortunately a dry cleaner's store had taken up the space underneath it, because according to Parul it used to be a blank wall (as it's supposed to be! How are the students going to get on the platform now?), but it was still pretty cool.
We walked to our hostel and took some time to settle down before we went back out to explore Wellington. From that first moment we went into the city I knew I'd adore this place. Wellington is covered in adorable little gift shops (that first day Iko Iko was the most awesome one) and completely random pieces of art in completely random places, loved it! We also went to check out the Embassy Theatre (where all the Lord of the Rings world premieres were held) but it was a bit of a disappointment tbh. We just browsed some stores in the city, and after having spent a significant amount of time in a secondhand book shop (as would be a running theme with us for the next few days, lol!) everything else had pretty much closed down. However as we were not tired yet (what with me catching up on some Z's in the bus) we went to the movies.
We decided on The Hangover because of all the awesome reviews I had read about it (and hello Bradley Cooper! I am pretty sure he managed to gain another fan by Parul as well xD) and both of us had an absolute blast watching it. It had a little bit off a slow start but once it was off, it was off. I went to see this movie for Bradley and didn't know beforehand who else was in it. However, afterwards I kept thinking of Doug and it bugged me that I couldn't remember where I'd seen him before. When I finally thought to IMDB him I saw he was Riley in the National Treasure movies, which I love! (both the movies as his character). I can't believe I didn't realise this sooner...
Arriving back in our hostel, and still not tired, we went to play some Jenga. It took us a while to figure out how to build up the actually tower (we were both newbies at the game and lacked the box and instructions), but once we figured it out it was fun thinking up strategies to win the game xD
Platform 9 3/4!
Me in front of the Embassy Theatre
Tripod statue in front of the Embassy
Giant umbrella in Cuba Mall (told you the art in Wellington is random!)
The adorable Iko Iko store as seen from the outside
Ads for The Hangover! :D
Parul in front of the Harry Potter display (OMG YOU GUYS, 1 WEEK!)
July 1: At 6am we all got rudely awoken by a piercing alarm running through the building: the fire alarm!! I instantly jumped out of my bed and walked out of the room, but actually waking up in the hallway I ran back inside to grab my purse, room key & laptop (yes, a priority to save in the middle of a fire outbreak!) and went back outside. The hallways were filled with people already moving to the staircase, so it was easy for Parul and I to follow the mass of people outside. We shivered in the cold for fifteen minutes or so, watching fire trucks arrive and eyeing the hostel looking for smoke, when people started going back inside. The next day we found out the alarm had actually gone off on our floor, over something really silly like the steam from a water boiler.
Because of this unfortunate interruption of a lovely night's sleep we decided to stay in bed for an extra half hour or so. After we finally got up and got dressed we set out for the Weta Cave, our first destination of the day. Looking at the map the distance between our hostel and Weta didn't look so big, I estimated it at a 45 minute walk. However, we ended up walking for 2.5 hours! And we only got lost 2 or 3 times so it was just really far off. That wasn't too big of a deal though, it wasn't like we were in a rush and it was fun exploring more of Wellington and its suburbs by foot. We saw some more random art and killed time by trying to spot fandom-y references in store/street names/etc.
The Weta Cave was totally awesome. When you walk in there this big statue of Gollum with a fish in his hand on one side and Lurtz on the other. And then there's little figurines/merchandise everywhere, from The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and even Doctor Who, totally wicked. Unfortunately everything was really expensive and they didn't have cheap things like card or keychains so I didn't end up buying anything.
After browsing the store for a few minutes as well as the mini museum - which contained mostly figurines that were no longer available to buy (heaps and heaps of LotR) - we got told the documentary (which was playing on a loop in a small room in the back) was about to start again and we could check it out if we wanted to. Of course we did and it was really interesting. It lasted for about 20 minutes and showed how Weta started out way back and how nowadays all the different departments operate (from turning ordinary people into more often than not disgusting monsters to the skill of making genuinely looking armoury). They also showed example shots and scenes from the movies they had worked and were working on and it was overall really interesting, and enlightening, there was a lot of stuff I had never heard about. The docu was shown in this small room from which the walls were covered in swords and other pieces of armour made for movies, which was a pretty neat environment to be watching it in.
Random memory from our visit to the Weta Cave: this guy walks into the shop and asks the girl behind the counter if he can borrow one of the guns for the moment! Not long after the girl comes towards us and says: "This is the only store where people would casually walk in asking to borrow a gun". xD
After the Weta Cave we had to find our way back to the city. Not wanting to walk the whole 2,5 hours back we decided to take a bus, but we didn't actually know where and which one to get. So we backtracked our steps for a bit, got distracted by a secondhand shop (books!) and finally ended up at the library, hoping we'd be able to use the net there to check. We were unable to do so, but the girl behind the reception desk was able to help us and before we knew it we were back in the city.
We browsed the Harbour and came across the Museum of City and Sea, which wasn't as boring as it sounds. Amongst others they had a timeline for Wellington and for 1997 they had a display on The Lord of the Rings (because preproduction started up for it then I suppose) which contained a prosthetic Hobbit foot used by Billy Boyd (cue me going "OMG!") as well as an Elven glass. There was also a little show in another room which included a hologram of a woman talking to the audience and interacting with the items that were actually on the stage, which had Parul going "OMG!" We had a *heated* discussion afterwards about what was cooler: Billy Boyd's hobbit foot or an actual hologram irl, lol!
After we got out of the museum we went to look at the shops again. I picked up a copy of Enchanted for only $15 (which is way cheaper than I was able to find it in Australia) and we went to this really cool bookshop called Arty Bees. It has both new and secondhand books and we literally spent hours drooling over the gorgeous old books they had in there. There was so much awesome stuff I wanted to buy, but most of it was fairly expensive so I didn't end up getting anything. Btw, in the store we also saw a sign that Guillermo del Toro (the director of The Hobbit) did a signing only 30 minutes earlier in another bookstore. And we missed it, fail!
When we finally managed to leave Arty Bees most stores were closed or closing. We didn't feel like going back to the hostel just yet so we went to Starbucks for a coffee (or a hot chocolate in my case) and made ourselves comfortable on the couches inside of the store. The lady came towards us fairly soon though, notifying us that they close at 6pm and looking at our watches we saw it was 10 past 6, oops... We were then told we were allowed to stay on the seats outside of the store (which was still kind of inside an office building or something) and we spent some time there people watching and looking at the light display besides the elevator that continuously changed colour.
One of the fandom-y references we spotted: Zach Quinto :D
And another one: David Tennant
Random art. This one is called "Pacific Grass" and is made by artist Kon Dimopoulos. It lights up at night, which would be pretty cool
Another thing I spotted, Pinto juice!
And we arrived at the Weta Cave! :D
Me with Gollum
Lurtz
Hobbitses <3
Cyberman
The gun the guy came to borrow xD
PIPPIN!
Harry Potter stuff
Orc coming out of the wall
Cool license plate in front of the Weta Cave that Parul spotted
Hobbit foot used by actor Billy Boyd (Pippin) asad;hgalgdagdl;gadg
Close-up on the Elven glass, also used in the movies
More funky art
Inside a gorgeous building that reminded me of the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney
July 2: As most of the things would be open longer today we figured we had enough time for a sleep-in first xD When we finally head out we first went to the parliament buildings (including the famous "Beehive" building) for a really interesting tour of about an hour.
After that we made a stroll along the harbour and while checking our maps several times we finally made it to Te Papa; the big museum in Wellington. It must be one of the best museums I've been to so far, mostly because of all the cool interactive displays. Like there was one display where you could pick photographs and short videos from a huge selection on the computers (including webcam pictures you could make right on the spot) and then project onto a big wall to make a collage. Another display consisted of several big round circles on a round table, each containing a different (mostly drum) beat. You could then move your hand over the circles (including several at a time) to create music. In the middle of the table you could also pick from various album covers to have a different genre off music; there was reggae, rap and even country music.
In the evening we went to see the musical Starlight Express by Andrew Lloyd Webber. We bought the really crappy cheaper seats because the previous night we'd ran into someone Parul knows who already went to the show and she said it was easy to just move to the better seats as it wasn't sold out. She turned out to be right, though we were a bit anxious for a while hoping nobody would notice we weren't in our own seats. In the end though, we weren't the only ones who moved around to get a better view.
While intended to be more of a children's musical I enjoyed Starlight Express a LOT more than Cats, which I'd seen a few weeks earlier. It was fairly obvious from the start where the storyline would go and which character you were supposed to root for, but I couldn't help but fall in love with the very eccentric Electra (a big black dude dressed in tight blue leather pants, covered in bright blue/red/silver and sparkling all over), he reminded he off Rum Tum Tigger from Cats, only way more over the top.
The story itself is quite simple and centers around a bunch of trains that come to live in the mind of a little boy. They have several race offs to decide who the fastest train is, and in the end it's between the diesel train (an American character called Greaseball, once referred to as "Oil is the Diesel himself", lol!), the electric train (rich, powerful and cool Electra) and finally the underdog, a steam engine called Rusty. The actors race on roller-skates over the stage, which is quite spectacular (though they didn't do as many stunts as I had expected them to do). The few minute or so long races are projected onto big screens on both sides of the stage and are supposed to be in 3D but for some reason Wellington decided against this (though the screens still have the messages "put your safety goggles on" and "please remove your safety goggles" on them) which was a bit of a disappointment.
Dinah the Dining car was supposed to have Southern accent but the actress performing her was just butchering any American accent possible, which was was quite horrendous. Other than that though all the actors were magnificent (as they should be, most of the main ones have performed in the show all over the world!) and I was particularly fond of the representation of Dustin the Big Hopper, as he was the understudy for the part.
Overall it was great fun, despite the very obvious religious message in the musical (see previous quote about the Diesel), which was most notable towards the end when Poppa (a retired champion Steam engine, who was kind of a priest) burst into a gospel song about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and tells Greaseball he can be "converted" into steam. When Electra (an eccentric - probably gay - character) asks to be converted Poppa has to think for a while but in the end decides it's possible. And of course the Starlight Express itself - what the whole musical is based around - is the train version of God.
After the musical Parul and I realised we wouldn't be able to get back to the hostel by 11pm and we didn't have a key to get in (as we were changing rooms that day)! We tried to get back as fast as we could, on our way wondering what to do if we were unable to get in after reception hours. When we finally made it back to the YHA however it was still open and we could breathe again. We checked our watched to see what time it was and it was only after 100pm, not 11, we had somehow both completely misread the time.... oops.
When we were all organised in our new (twin) room, we decided to watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother as Parul picked up the first two seasons dirt cheap earlier that day and I'd always been curious about the show. It was so much fun, omg! I have to obtain the series myself soon, we had such a blast watching it. We completely lost track of time too as at one point a guy knocked on our door asking us to be quiet (we can't help it was so funny we had to laugh so often) and when we looked at the clock it was already past 1am. We did continue to watch though, but tried to be as quiet as possible. In the end we watched the first 6 episodes before we decided to call it a night, but it was very hard to turn the show off.
The Beehive
The other part of the parliament building
A bumblebee! We saw bumblebees everywhere, as they're apparently some sort of symbol for New Zealand (don't ask me why)
More art
Te Papa
The collage we made, Heroes orientated with a Kensei like costume, something flying, a gray picture (Gabriel!) and Parul in the middle
Parul yatta-ing over Mt. Taranaki
Parul with a psychotic penguin
A bird we created on the computer (kind of like a mix 'n match game)
Parul playing around with that music display
Wellington at night on our way to the musical
Starlight Express poster and the inside of the TSB Arena decorated as a train station
July 3: Today was a sad day as in the morning Parul had to leave to go back home. And unfortunately for us her cab driver was very speedy so by the time we went downstairs he was already waiting and we had to say a quick goodbye :( The 10 days we travelled together though were amazing; I had heaps and heaps of fun. Random memories: "die, Die, DIE!", geeking out over old books, crappy superpowers, "whatever loser", knocking four times, "A Man's Gotta Do...", etc., etc., etc. Thank you Parul for a fantastic time <3
I didn't end up doing much noteworthy that day besides wallowing in misery. I planned my trip for the South Island, started on some travel recaps, did my laundry, changed rooms again and watched some movies I got off Parul. Pretty relaxing.
More pictures can be found HERE.
|| Sick
Tune : Watching The Princess Bride
June 30: We spent six hours in the bus to get from Hawera to Wellington, but it luckily went by fast I may have fallen asleep once or twice. Arriving at the railway station we already had the opportunity to check out something fandom-y, because while we were not in London they had a Platform 9 3/4! Unfortunately a dry cleaner's store had taken up the space underneath it, because according to Parul it used to be a blank wall (as it's supposed to be! How are the students going to get on the platform now?), but it was still pretty cool.
We walked to our hostel and took some time to settle down before we went back out to explore Wellington. From that first moment we went into the city I knew I'd adore this place. Wellington is covered in adorable little gift shops (that first day Iko Iko was the most awesome one) and completely random pieces of art in completely random places, loved it! We also went to check out the Embassy Theatre (where all the Lord of the Rings world premieres were held) but it was a bit of a disappointment tbh. We just browsed some stores in the city, and after having spent a significant amount of time in a secondhand book shop (as would be a running theme with us for the next few days, lol!) everything else had pretty much closed down. However as we were not tired yet (what with me catching up on some Z's in the bus) we went to the movies.
We decided on The Hangover because of all the awesome reviews I had read about it (and hello Bradley Cooper! I am pretty sure he managed to gain another fan by Parul as well xD) and both of us had an absolute blast watching it. It had a little bit off a slow start but once it was off, it was off. I went to see this movie for Bradley and didn't know beforehand who else was in it. However, afterwards I kept thinking of Doug and it bugged me that I couldn't remember where I'd seen him before. When I finally thought to IMDB him I saw he was Riley in the National Treasure movies, which I love! (both the movies as his character). I can't believe I didn't realise this sooner...
Arriving back in our hostel, and still not tired, we went to play some Jenga. It took us a while to figure out how to build up the actually tower (we were both newbies at the game and lacked the box and instructions), but once we figured it out it was fun thinking up strategies to win the game xD
Platform 9 3/4!
Me in front of the Embassy Theatre
Tripod statue in front of the Embassy
Giant umbrella in Cuba Mall (told you the art in Wellington is random!)
The adorable Iko Iko store as seen from the outside
Ads for The Hangover! :D
Parul in front of the Harry Potter display (OMG YOU GUYS, 1 WEEK!)
July 1: At 6am we all got rudely awoken by a piercing alarm running through the building: the fire alarm!! I instantly jumped out of my bed and walked out of the room, but actually waking up in the hallway I ran back inside to grab my purse, room key & laptop (yes, a priority to save in the middle of a fire outbreak!) and went back outside. The hallways were filled with people already moving to the staircase, so it was easy for Parul and I to follow the mass of people outside. We shivered in the cold for fifteen minutes or so, watching fire trucks arrive and eyeing the hostel looking for smoke, when people started going back inside. The next day we found out the alarm had actually gone off on our floor, over something really silly like the steam from a water boiler.
Because of this unfortunate interruption of a lovely night's sleep we decided to stay in bed for an extra half hour or so. After we finally got up and got dressed we set out for the Weta Cave, our first destination of the day. Looking at the map the distance between our hostel and Weta didn't look so big, I estimated it at a 45 minute walk. However, we ended up walking for 2.5 hours! And we only got lost 2 or 3 times so it was just really far off. That wasn't too big of a deal though, it wasn't like we were in a rush and it was fun exploring more of Wellington and its suburbs by foot. We saw some more random art and killed time by trying to spot fandom-y references in store/street names/etc.
The Weta Cave was totally awesome. When you walk in there this big statue of Gollum with a fish in his hand on one side and Lurtz on the other. And then there's little figurines/merchandise everywhere, from The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and even Doctor Who, totally wicked. Unfortunately everything was really expensive and they didn't have cheap things like card or keychains so I didn't end up buying anything.
After browsing the store for a few minutes as well as the mini museum - which contained mostly figurines that were no longer available to buy (heaps and heaps of LotR) - we got told the documentary (which was playing on a loop in a small room in the back) was about to start again and we could check it out if we wanted to. Of course we did and it was really interesting. It lasted for about 20 minutes and showed how Weta started out way back and how nowadays all the different departments operate (from turning ordinary people into more often than not disgusting monsters to the skill of making genuinely looking armoury). They also showed example shots and scenes from the movies they had worked and were working on and it was overall really interesting, and enlightening, there was a lot of stuff I had never heard about. The docu was shown in this small room from which the walls were covered in swords and other pieces of armour made for movies, which was a pretty neat environment to be watching it in.
Random memory from our visit to the Weta Cave: this guy walks into the shop and asks the girl behind the counter if he can borrow one of the guns for the moment! Not long after the girl comes towards us and says: "This is the only store where people would casually walk in asking to borrow a gun". xD
After the Weta Cave we had to find our way back to the city. Not wanting to walk the whole 2,5 hours back we decided to take a bus, but we didn't actually know where and which one to get. So we backtracked our steps for a bit, got distracted by a secondhand shop (books!) and finally ended up at the library, hoping we'd be able to use the net there to check. We were unable to do so, but the girl behind the reception desk was able to help us and before we knew it we were back in the city.
We browsed the Harbour and came across the Museum of City and Sea, which wasn't as boring as it sounds. Amongst others they had a timeline for Wellington and for 1997 they had a display on The Lord of the Rings (because preproduction started up for it then I suppose) which contained a prosthetic Hobbit foot used by Billy Boyd (cue me going "OMG!") as well as an Elven glass. There was also a little show in another room which included a hologram of a woman talking to the audience and interacting with the items that were actually on the stage, which had Parul going "OMG!" We had a *heated* discussion afterwards about what was cooler: Billy Boyd's hobbit foot or an actual hologram irl, lol!
After we got out of the museum we went to look at the shops again. I picked up a copy of Enchanted for only $15 (which is way cheaper than I was able to find it in Australia) and we went to this really cool bookshop called Arty Bees. It has both new and secondhand books and we literally spent hours drooling over the gorgeous old books they had in there. There was so much awesome stuff I wanted to buy, but most of it was fairly expensive so I didn't end up getting anything. Btw, in the store we also saw a sign that Guillermo del Toro (the director of The Hobbit) did a signing only 30 minutes earlier in another bookstore. And we missed it, fail!
When we finally managed to leave Arty Bees most stores were closed or closing. We didn't feel like going back to the hostel just yet so we went to Starbucks for a coffee (or a hot chocolate in my case) and made ourselves comfortable on the couches inside of the store. The lady came towards us fairly soon though, notifying us that they close at 6pm and looking at our watches we saw it was 10 past 6, oops... We were then told we were allowed to stay on the seats outside of the store (which was still kind of inside an office building or something) and we spent some time there people watching and looking at the light display besides the elevator that continuously changed colour.
One of the fandom-y references we spotted: Zach Quinto :D
And another one: David Tennant
Random art. This one is called "Pacific Grass" and is made by artist Kon Dimopoulos. It lights up at night, which would be pretty cool
Another thing I spotted, Pinto juice!
And we arrived at the Weta Cave! :D
Me with Gollum
Lurtz
Hobbitses <3
Cyberman
The gun the guy came to borrow xD
PIPPIN!
Harry Potter stuff
Orc coming out of the wall
Cool license plate in front of the Weta Cave that Parul spotted
Hobbit foot used by actor Billy Boyd (Pippin) asad;hgalgdagdl;gadg
Close-up on the Elven glass, also used in the movies
More funky art
Inside a gorgeous building that reminded me of the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney
July 2: As most of the things would be open longer today we figured we had enough time for a sleep-in first xD When we finally head out we first went to the parliament buildings (including the famous "Beehive" building) for a really interesting tour of about an hour.
After that we made a stroll along the harbour and while checking our maps several times we finally made it to Te Papa; the big museum in Wellington. It must be one of the best museums I've been to so far, mostly because of all the cool interactive displays. Like there was one display where you could pick photographs and short videos from a huge selection on the computers (including webcam pictures you could make right on the spot) and then project onto a big wall to make a collage. Another display consisted of several big round circles on a round table, each containing a different (mostly drum) beat. You could then move your hand over the circles (including several at a time) to create music. In the middle of the table you could also pick from various album covers to have a different genre off music; there was reggae, rap and even country music.
In the evening we went to see the musical Starlight Express by Andrew Lloyd Webber. We bought the really crappy cheaper seats because the previous night we'd ran into someone Parul knows who already went to the show and she said it was easy to just move to the better seats as it wasn't sold out. She turned out to be right, though we were a bit anxious for a while hoping nobody would notice we weren't in our own seats. In the end though, we weren't the only ones who moved around to get a better view.
While intended to be more of a children's musical I enjoyed Starlight Express a LOT more than Cats, which I'd seen a few weeks earlier. It was fairly obvious from the start where the storyline would go and which character you were supposed to root for, but I couldn't help but fall in love with the very eccentric Electra (a big black dude dressed in tight blue leather pants, covered in bright blue/red/silver and sparkling all over), he reminded he off Rum Tum Tigger from Cats, only way more over the top.
The story itself is quite simple and centers around a bunch of trains that come to live in the mind of a little boy. They have several race offs to decide who the fastest train is, and in the end it's between the diesel train (an American character called Greaseball, once referred to as "Oil is the Diesel himself", lol!), the electric train (rich, powerful and cool Electra) and finally the underdog, a steam engine called Rusty. The actors race on roller-skates over the stage, which is quite spectacular (though they didn't do as many stunts as I had expected them to do). The few minute or so long races are projected onto big screens on both sides of the stage and are supposed to be in 3D but for some reason Wellington decided against this (though the screens still have the messages "put your safety goggles on" and "please remove your safety goggles" on them) which was a bit of a disappointment.
Dinah the Dining car was supposed to have Southern accent but the actress performing her was just butchering any American accent possible, which was was quite horrendous. Other than that though all the actors were magnificent (as they should be, most of the main ones have performed in the show all over the world!) and I was particularly fond of the representation of Dustin the Big Hopper, as he was the understudy for the part.
Overall it was great fun, despite the very obvious religious message in the musical (see previous quote about the Diesel), which was most notable towards the end when Poppa (a retired champion Steam engine, who was kind of a priest) burst into a gospel song about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and tells Greaseball he can be "converted" into steam. When Electra (an eccentric - probably gay - character) asks to be converted Poppa has to think for a while but in the end decides it's possible. And of course the Starlight Express itself - what the whole musical is based around - is the train version of God.
After the musical Parul and I realised we wouldn't be able to get back to the hostel by 11pm and we didn't have a key to get in (as we were changing rooms that day)! We tried to get back as fast as we could, on our way wondering what to do if we were unable to get in after reception hours. When we finally made it back to the YHA however it was still open and we could breathe again. We checked our watched to see what time it was and it was only after 100pm, not 11, we had somehow both completely misread the time.... oops.
When we were all organised in our new (twin) room, we decided to watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother as Parul picked up the first two seasons dirt cheap earlier that day and I'd always been curious about the show. It was so much fun, omg! I have to obtain the series myself soon, we had such a blast watching it. We completely lost track of time too as at one point a guy knocked on our door asking us to be quiet (we can't help it was so funny we had to laugh so often) and when we looked at the clock it was already past 1am. We did continue to watch though, but tried to be as quiet as possible. In the end we watched the first 6 episodes before we decided to call it a night, but it was very hard to turn the show off.
The Beehive
The other part of the parliament building
A bumblebee! We saw bumblebees everywhere, as they're apparently some sort of symbol for New Zealand (don't ask me why)
More art
Te Papa
The collage we made, Heroes orientated with a Kensei like costume, something flying, a gray picture (Gabriel!) and Parul in the middle
Parul yatta-ing over Mt. Taranaki
Parul with a psychotic penguin
A bird we created on the computer (kind of like a mix 'n match game)
Parul playing around with that music display
Wellington at night on our way to the musical
Starlight Express poster and the inside of the TSB Arena decorated as a train station
July 3: Today was a sad day as in the morning Parul had to leave to go back home. And unfortunately for us her cab driver was very speedy so by the time we went downstairs he was already waiting and we had to say a quick goodbye :( The 10 days we travelled together though were amazing; I had heaps and heaps of fun. Random memories: "die, Die, DIE!", geeking out over old books, crappy superpowers, "whatever loser", knocking four times, "A Man's Gotta Do...", etc., etc., etc. Thank you Parul for a fantastic time <3
I didn't end up doing much noteworthy that day besides wallowing in misery. I planned my trip for the South Island, started on some travel recaps, did my laundry, changed rooms again and watched some movies I got off Parul. Pretty relaxing.
More pictures can be found HERE.