Meng's Travels: Wellington

Wellington is almost at the southern tip of the North Island. It's the capital city of New Zealand, with a population of about 400,000 in the metropolitan area. Because of its location, it is subjected to some unpredictable weather. It also sits on a fault line so its citizens are always conscious of the possibility of earth quakes. Its most well-known current resident is probably Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He is ready to premier his latest movie, "The Hobbit" at the end of this month. I went on a 1-day tour of the Lord of the Rings movie locations. We went to various sites where they filmed different parts of the movies. I thought part of it is visiting Peter Jackson's studio. We were able to see only the outside of the studio. It was a disappointing tour. Not only that, it was a cold and windy day.

Wellington's most famous landmark is probably the Te Papa Museum, aka the Museum of New Zealand. Not only it's a beautiful building, the museum inside has some great contents on the history of the Maoris and the early European settlers. I spent about 6 hours over 2 days there and still did not finish seeing the whole museum. Best of all, it's admission is free.

The museum is located along a beautiful waterfront. Walking north, you go towards the city center, then through Lambton Quay, the main retail street in Wellington. Although it's the capital, there are no big shopping centers or malls here. They also do not have a big departmental store like Walmart or Target in Wellington. I did not bring enough warm clothing so I was looking for a store to buy some cheap warm clothing, something that I can get at Target for around US$10. I asked around and had a hard time finding one. Finally, I went to a kind of department store called appropriately, "The Warehouse." They have already stopped selling their winter clothes even though the temperature was still in the 50s'. Luckily, I was able to find a couple of long-sleeve cotton shirts on the clearance rack.

I joined a Walking City Tour on my last day here. It was supposed to be an hour and a half tour but our long-winded retired guide dragged it on to almost 3 hours! However, he provided some good historical information and facts about some of the buildings and history of Wellington. This was on the day after the US Election and when they asked me whether I was happy with the outcome, I told them yes. Everyone in the group cheered and said they were all relieved that Obama won.

On the night of the election, while I was doing my laundry, a British lady told me that on Courtenay Place, where the bars are, the kiwis were cheering when they heard that Obama has won.

I've spent four and a half wonderful days in Wellington. It was nice getting to know the city. I was able to catch up on my rest and blog. I will talk about the second part of my trip in the next post.