Christchurch (9/29/11)

 This is day 3 in New Zealand and I am flying from Auckland to Christchurch.  Most of these pictures are taken from the plane so I apologize for the quality.  So this photo to the left is of the North Island, north of Auckland.

 This photo is also north of Auckland probably right around Kaipara Harbor.

 More of the same, the plane took off going north then flipped around to head south to Christchurch.

 Now the plane is heading south and this photo is along the east coast of the North Island.

 I am now over the Tasman Sea and since it was a beautiful day again I thought I would take a picture of just the ocean and clouds.

This is the very northern tip of the South Island. The tail sticking out is Farewell Spit and beyond that is Golden Bay.

 Here is closer look at Farewell Spit.

 The bay to the right of the land is Golden Bay and the lush green land is Abel Tasman National Park.  This coast line is home to some of the most beautiful beaches so hopefully I will get to come up here and explore them firsthand.

 The mountain range or Southern Alps still has a good bit of snow on it.  This is even easier to see in the next photo.

 Once I got over the Southern Alps into the prairie lands it was really cloudy so I don't have any photos of Christchurch from the air.

 The next few pictures are of my room.  I have a closet, twin bed, dresser, a shelf and a desk.  All provided for me so that was really convenient. 

 Here is my bed, nice purple sheets to go with the purple curtains.  A maid comes twice a week to clean the common area of the house and to do laundry (sheets and towels only).  So the place is run more like a hostel than a flat but it is still really nice.

 This is the desk and shelf unit, small but gets the job done.

 The last few pictures are of the University of Canterbury where I will be conducting my research for 3 months.  The campus is pretty big so on my walk to the Civil Department I took a few pictures of the campus.

So that is all the pictures for now.  I start work on Monday, so I will be getting busier I am sure, but hopefully I can find some time to do some side trips on the weekends.  When that happens I will update this blog further and show all of you more pictures!

Auckland ( 9/28/11) - Day 2

 Day 2 in Auckland - Walking down to the water from Lucas'  place.  This is looking out into Mission Bay, a nice beach area straight ahead and shops, bars and restaurants behind me.

 We were going to go to Rangitoto island but we missed the last ferry to the island so we decided to go to the museum and soak up some culture.  This picture is on the way to the museum which is located in the heart of Auckland in the center of a large park (Auckland Domain).

 Me and some flowers.  This is a botanical garden in the Auckland Domain. Saw my first banana tree and some other very tropical flowers, all and all it was very beautiful.

 Lilly pads in a pond.  I wanted to see if I could run across, bouncing from pad to pad without getting wet but then I thought that would not be the best of ideas.

 A jungle within a trellis structure, it was very cool and damp.  The large column looking plants are really fern trees which look just like northwest ferns just with big column like trunks.

 A different view of the same place.

 The Auckland Museum on top of the hill in the middle of the park.  To the right a large open field area where tons of little kids were playing flag rugby.

 This a view from the front gate of the museum.

 Again, another view from the gate of the museum and you can see Rangitoto Island in the background again.

 This was a full replica of a sail boat used to fish in the South Pacific Islands ( Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia , Cook Islands, etc.). 

 This is a native Hut (more like a house).  Each beam and column is painted or carved differently.  The carvings and paintings are very beautiful.  They use Abalone shells for the eyes of their statues. You can kind of see this in the next photo.

 Typical statue with Abalone shells as eyes.  This is carved into each of the column of the hut in the photo above.

A big croc skeleton, Yikes!!

Auckland ( 9/27/11) - Day 1

 Just stepped off the plane at 7:30am NZ time excited and extremely tired.  It took 14 hours from LAX to Auckland.  It was starting off the be a beautiful day and the sunrise on the plane was amazing.

 Once I got into the city I met up with my friend from Cal Poly, Lucas and he took me to the best view in city (that you can see for free).  This just happened to be on the top floor of his engineering building at the University of Auckland.  The island in the background is Rangitoto, one of many volcanic cones around Auckland.  This view is looking northwest.

 This view is looking north from the same view point as the previous picture.  The Auckland Sky Tower is the main landmark of the city and is the tallest man made structure in all of New Zealand.

 After meeting some people Lucas works with, we went out for some beers.  It was me, Lucas (in the next picture) and his Kiwi friend Matt (left).  It was fun catching up and talking about his PhD work.  

 On the walk back from beers, this tree caught my eye and you can see why it is quite the crazy looking tree.

 It was a beautiful day but still not really warm.  It is just the tail end of their winter here and soon moving into spring.  It was averaging 10 degrees C (50 F) which is very similar to the northwest weather.

 This is me at the PhD and Faculty lounge playing pool on a snicker table, it was an extra large table with small balls and pockets.  This place was very English!

 Currently the Rugby World Cup is going on in New Zealand and most of the games are being hosted in Auckland.  Since the US was playing Italy the day I got in we had to go to the Rugby center (called The Cloud) to watch the game.  This tent structure behind me is full of interactive entertainment that is open only for the rugby tournament but it was closed by the time we got down there. 

  The building to the right is a large bar, full of projectors showing the game.

 This is the inside of the Cloud and there were actually a lot of people supporting the US.  People were wearing American flag capes and sporting all the colors for our team but we were no match for anyone in the tourny, except the Russians.  We lost the game of course, but it was still a lot of fun.

Preflight

Packing the day before I leave, realizing I can't take everything I want to take.

Getting really excited about the flight so I am taking pictures of my boarding pass.

Little skittle snack while waiting in LAX for my flight to leave.