yes, then, more from my odyssey to New Zealand, or if you prefer (and many do) Aotearoa, look you see. indeed it is likely my journals (or "blog posts") shall be spread out over a greater time than what i was there, but there seems little sense in throwing it all out at once, so to speak. and oh yes there are numerous pictures featuring moi here, so don't say i didn't warn you.
my main, as point of fact only, aim (or ambition) whilst in New Zealand was to spend as much of the time that i had (just north of two weeks, or south of three) with my family. having not seen them for so long i would have been entirely content to just sit there with them all, drinking tea. or that magnificent L&P drink what they have, which i miss dearly. it would not at all be fair to say that the family ignored this wish, they simply wished to spend time with me and showcase what an incredible place it is that they have found a home in.
just the one day spent in the business end (literal and figurative) of Auckland then. and as the title of this post gives every indication of, a fair bit of it spent in, on and around the magnificence of the Sky Tower. and yes, in the above image, that is indeed moi, stood on one of them presumably reasonably safe glass walkway bits up at the top viewing (observation?) deck.
going up the Sky Tower was not on my "would be nice to do" list, but mostly because my thoughts do not work in such a way. as we embarked on the ride up my sister did kindly think to ask if i "still had an issue with heights"; a thing that was true. well, sort of. it was not being at height that i had a quarrel with, rather that sensation of being stood on a surface quite high up and knowing there was nothing at all beneath what you stood on. like a few things this would appear to have fallen away as i revel in my three quarter life crisis, embracing a decidedly "yolo" or "f*** it" approach.
oh, hang on. it turns out that earlier picture (the first one) is me on the main observation deck, which is not the top one (sky deck). that was only 186 meters (610 feet) up, so no, i suppose i don't look quite so much the brave hard man i thought standing on it. unlikely a fall from such a small height would do a very great deal of damage, maybe a fractured bone. also, apparently (no idea how they worked this out but still) the Sky Tower weighs 21,000,000 kgs. twenty one million. which makes it even heavier than my @r$e. blimey.
presumably one or two of you won't mind seeing images of moi (me), what with you visiting my blog and all. so there you go, above, me enjoying a cigarette (sorry) before going in and up the Sky Tower. the practice of smoking is a rather rare sight indeed in New Zealand, no doubt some do smoke but on a face value assessment their plans to eradicate it would seem to be working.
being perfectly honest about it, yes i do enjoy a cigarette (sorry) regardless of circumstance. every now and then, mind, i like to have one prior to doing something which might be the last thing what i ever do in this world. as unlikely as it was that anything would go wrong, or some harm befall me, at the Sky Tower, well, you know, still. better to have one that might be the last one, just in case.
similarly, of course, as illustrated in the above image, it is also very nice indeed to have a cigarette after one has completed whatever it was they were doing. here i am enjoying one in a rare dedicated smoking area, just outside the restaurant at the bottom area of the Sky Tower. many thanks to Daniel for taking this picture of me whilst I was unaware of him doing so. actually yes, there was one other person making use of this facility at the time, so a rare instance of me being not alone.
every chance exists of some of you reading this having a preference to hear less ("fewer") of my grand smoking exploits and a bit more about the Sky Tower. or a bit more about that and some further tales of the odyssey on which i embarked. there's already been some factual information included in this post, but yeah, go on then.
regular readers shall be reasonably aware of it being so that yes, that's my sister and moi in the above picture. stood, of course, on one of the observation decks in the Sky Tower. probably best i do indeed clarify that, as there are pictures of other Auckland places to follow.
as far as i am aware this is the second time my sister and i have been up a rather tall tower in the region casually referred to as Australasia. well, should New Zealand fall within such remit. several years, actually a few decades ago, we all, as a family, went up what was once Centrepoint Tower in Sydney, the one in Australia. my understanding is that now it is simply called 'Sydney Tower'. no doubt some clever marketing people came up with that name change, or it was done for tax purposes. quite a few things in the present world appear to be done only for tax purposes.
those of you what are quite eager (or fond) of pictures of moi must be enjoying this post. yes, once more, that is me, having a bit of a gander out of some binocular or telescope things. quite splendid views offered by them. something that i was encouraged to look at (and worship in awe) by Daniel was of course Eden Park, where the celebrated New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks, had resoundingly thumped any number of visiting sides. i dare not look at how England have gotten on when they have bravely gone there to play; will assume we got battered.
mostly, i would say, of the above picture, is that i am rather pleased by the quite accidental throwback to days of school when i encouraged friends to adopt the "Laibach stance". for those unaware Laibach are a somewhat (and still going) peculiar band who inexplicably managed a fairly significant hit single with what ostensibly was a cover of Life Is Life. on, or rather in, the video for it there was a couple of seconds of a shot of some members of the band standing and posing, looking up at a waterfall or something. for whatever reason this amused me greatly and so somewhere i have a stack of pictures of friends striking the very pose. hello, if you are one of them reading this.
you are probably better off going to visit the Sky Tower yourself to take in the views, but still, above is one of the pictures i took from there. no, not sure why there is an oddly blue hue to all images taken inside. anyway, indeed you can see Auckland Harbour Bridge there, and yes i crossed it. perhaps some video and images of that in another post, then.
we, and the we you can see in the last picture (below) did indeed wander around aspects of Auckland, since we were there. actually we went off to meet up with an old friend of mine. indeed i did have a couple of pints. whereas photographic evidence of this exists unfortunately it is of a nature not suitable to include here. however, there is this.
for some reason i thought someone somewhere might quite like an image of me enjoying a cigarette whilst stood near a cruise liner. apologies (i suppose) if i have that one wrong. yes, by the way, a great many cruise ships do stop off in Auckland, and all of New Zealand for that matter. briefly, as it turns out. when i asked why Gill told me that it's because it costs an absolute fortune to dock in New Zealand, so they tend not to stay longer than really required. if you are planning a cruise that way you may wish to make a note of this, but i dare say the crew shall mention it.
it is rather (highly) unlikely that i would ever go anywhere in the world and decline to go shopping for tapes, records, discs and related. this i very much did in New Zealand. many thanks to Dad, who suggested to Gill that she take me to Real Groovy records (link here) as he was certain that i would rather like the place. yes, i most certainly did.
on the list of "it would be nice if i get the chance" things to do in New Zealand, procuring some Split Enz tapes (actual, or discs) was high up. another nice thing would have been finding the New Zealand and Australia only release of the single One Tree Hill off of U2. sadly the latter didn't happen, but the former very much did. at Real Groovy i was able to pick up a couple of Enz albums and some Finn as solo concerns ones. on top of this they had some of the 12th Man discs, and i got the tape (actual) of the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. most happy of happy days.
how much, to vaguely get back to the point of this post, does it cost to go in, on or up the Sky Tower? that i cannot say, as Gill elected to (kindly) treat me to it. from what i could see the "Sky Fall" or similar, possibly drop, was expensive. that's where you get attached to a harness and go ahead and freefall down the tower. not bungee (bungy) as it would be rather unwise to bounce around quite so close to glass and concrete. yes, Daniel has indeed done it before.
i did indeed pay for one of them tourist things where you get loads of pictures. one of them is very much above for your consideration. let me assume you know who each in the picture is on the basis that you have probably looked at other posts.
right, so yes, the Sky Tower is amazing, and suspiciously slightly taller than what is now know as Sydney Tower, but about 23 meters or so. nothing wrong with a bit of provincial rivalry, especially with regards to the construction business. undoubtedly more New Zealand related posts to follow.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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