Nov 17 - Te Papa and Botanical Gardens

This morning I ate the healthiest breakfast of perhaps the whole trip, consisting of 3 kiwis and an orange. Then our traveling group (the crew we've been on the magic bus with for the last few places) headed over to Te Papa national museum and met up with a couple other magic bus comrades who were staying at a different hostel. Spent the next 2 and a half hours wandering through the 6 floors of the museum and its various exhibits. Overall it wasn't very impressive because although it had a lot of content, most of it was boring. But it was a good time killer and something that's a notable tourist stop for New Zealand, so it was good that we checked it out. The problem with just fruit for breakfast is that while healthy, it isn't very good at keeping you full. So after we finished at the museum, our group headed to an Asian fusion restaurant called Chow for lunch. This was the choice of a couple girls in the group and I could care less where we ate, so the 8 of us headed up to the 2nd floor restaurant. The girls then proceeded to order a variety of items off the menu (which was 2 for 1 on that day luckily). It's good that they ordered, because the menu items were extravagent and I had no idea what to order. Banana-leaf wrapped pork bites and carrot/cabbage/coriander veggie sushi rolls and mint leaf/angus beef spring salad, etc. The food came rather quickly but all the dishes were quite small in portion size. So we all sampled the various dishes, which were okay for the most part (except the ones with coriander..blah) but didn't really fill the gap. We exited and went for ice cream for dessert, and my sundae was much more satisfying than the meal had been. Then we headed over to a vintage cable car that went up a big hill and 6 of the group bought tickets for the 500 meter hill ride but it was a beautiful day and that seemed lame so I opted to walk the hill instead and Dan joined me. We headed a couple blocks over then went up the road until we arrived at the Wellington Botanical garden and walked through that, then up a forest trail to the top of the hill, where there was an observatory and a cable car museum. We checked out the museum, which had 2 cable cars and a old pulley system on display. Not very riveting stuff. Couldn't find the rest of the group who took the cable car, so assumed they must have taken a different trail down while we were going up. Checked out the view over Wellington then headed back down a trail into the city again. On the way back to the hostel we passed the Parliament building, nicknamed the Beehive, because that's what it's shaped like. Back at the hostel we chilled out for a bit until the other part of the group returned as well. We got to enjoy rice with a marinara sauce containing bits of chicken for our free meal at that point, which was better than the awful pasta the previous night, but me, Dan and B were still hungry despite the "lunch" and this "supper" so we walked over to Subway and enjoyed the glorious goodness of some fresh footlongs that finally were a real meal for the day. Walked back to the hostel and watched the movie Lord of War and about half of Seven Pounds until the TV lounge was closed for the night and thus it was time for bed. Tomorrow we all take a ferry across the Cook Straight to the South Island of New Zealand.