nz day 1: wellington city

I got to fly free to Wellington, NZ courtesy of the two Air New Zealand tickets Van won in the last Rex X'mas Party. We were rather shocked when we were upgraded to business class upon check-in. The inflight service, food and entertainment were excellent, not to mention the super comfy and extra spacious leather seats right up the front. All the express customs slips and priority baggage tags further enhanced the entire travelling experience.

Due to NZ being two hours ahead of the AET, even though we took the first morning flight out of Sydney, we only arrived in Wellington in the late afternoon, which left us not much of a day to explore the city.

First stop enroute to our accommodation for the next two nights was at Mount Victoria to get a glimpse of the entire city underneath it.


Left: Some kind of monument on Mt Vic.
Right: We were elevated on a huge rock.


Our very hospitable hosts for most part of the trip.


Baby Zoe with the whole of Wellington City at her feet.


Pretty Van taking in the view with a sweet smile.


Can you see I'm wearing my new Ray Bans courtesy of the peeps from work?


We looked like tourists through and through!


We had paparazzi at our rear all the time.

Next stop while still enroute to our accommodation, we dropped by the city to take a quick look-see around and also to say hi to some peeps. The city is not unlike Sydney, except it's a lot cleaner in Wellington and not as crowded. We saw familiar names everywhere we went, such as Westpac, Vodaphone, Gloria Jeans, and more. It didn't quite feel like we left Sydney at all!


Stopping for a quick pose at a traffic junction.


We popped into Gloria Jeans for coffee and some sweets. Look what I found! Triangular berry cheesecakes! Have you even seen triangular cakes???


I was soooo fascinated by the triangular caramel slice too...

We were quite bushed after the short tour of the city so we headed back to our hosts' house at Newlands where we were gonna put up at for half our stay. The friendly Holden family gave us such a warm welcome with a super yummy homecooked dinner of beef stroganoff and lots of mashed potatoes that we felt very pampered indeed.

The view out of the dining and lounge rooms left me dumbstruck with awe. Imagine looking at such a night scene every evening while enjoying a slow cosy homecooked dinner. It's a million dollar view! I couldn't wait to see how it looks like in the day.



We did another stop in the city to catch up with another couple over dessert and discovered this gem of a cafe called The Library that had the most exquisite deco. The best part of it was the walk up the dark dodgy flight of stairs to the cafe - it was like a scene out of a horror movie of a haunted old school library or something. Didn't take any photos at all as it was too dark.

And so we concluded our first day in Wellington overstuffed with hot chocolate, caramel ice cream and earl grey creme brulee...