It’s so nice to be back in this city.  Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera with me, so I didn’t get to take any shots of this pretty city.  We had a look at the Snapper cards which are now available; Stagecoaches’ answer to clippy tickets. Except they suck, cost you lots of money, and there is no real reason to have them over just having money.  Poor substitute Stagecoach.  The least you could have done is looked at UK’s Oyster cards.  Even if they do nothing else, here are a few things they could do to make them better, and will get people to want to use them:

• Instead of buying the card for $10, have it loaded with $8, or have the $10 refundable. Why would you buy it for $10? Stoopid.
• Cheaper zone fares than using cash – it’s not really clear whether it’s 20% off or not
• Have a daily cap, so that if you spend over $6 off-peak, it’s the same as a day-tripper
• Be able to load your monthly travel pass onto it.

We had lunch at Satay Kingdom in that little alley way off Cuba St.  I don’t think I’ll be going there again.  Prices have gone up, and they’re not as good as they used to be. Food was oily, they mucked up our order, and the waitress did not appear to be very nice – she slammed the plate down onto the table.  On the plus side, we saw Darcy, and met his friend Dave.  It was good to catch up with him, and we found that the escapades with living with Paul and Ellen had travelled far and wide; well not every detail, but the jist of the situation.

We carried on wandering around town after that, down to Lampton, to look at JBL and the games store, and found that our mate Dougie is now engaged to be civilly union’d (? I can never figure that one out) to his girlfriend.

We also stopped into a bookstore to check out their bargains.  There was a wedding checklist folder thing there, which I was tempted to get, but wasn’t sure. I might need to do a little research and see what a good one is.

We then went down to Harvey Normans to check out the price of TVs and see what’s on the market.  Boy those are expensive here! Before we left we were debating whether to buy one and bring it back.  It would have been about $1000 cheaper (even with current conversion rates).  Bit late now.

Tonight Amber and I, and maybe the Anthony are going out to town.  I was hoping to go to Jodi’s to see her, but am unsure at the moment.   Going to Jodi’s means climbing that hill. I’m not sure I’m up to that… I’m used to the flat plains of London!!

Current Mood: chipper

Well, the day started off pretty well. I slept on the couch last night, because Ants didn’t want to sleep on the spare double bed because it was too soft, and I didn’t want to sleep in that room by myself, because that was the room that Yaya (Ants’s Grandmother) died in. So I slept on the couch, which was fairly comfortable, and got a whole 5 hours sleep. Read more…

Current Mood: aggravated & bored & lethargic & relaxed

Ants and I have been together for 6 years today. I can’t believe how that happened, but it did!

I had decided the other day that I would like us to do something little, but together. We can’t really afford much, not even Burger Wisconsin which I would have liked to do – get something little and have dinner together on the beach or something. But instead we had dinner at home, and went up to Mt Vic to see what they had done up there. It was lovely and still up there, but a little cold. The car thermometer said it was 13º outside. It was so clear up there. We read all the new things they’d put up there, along the lines of the M?ori legend, and I couldn’t get over the amount of reclaimed land (both by earthquakes and man-made) that there is in the city i.e. all off it from the basin/war memorial to the foreshore now. That’s a huge amount. After Mt Vic, we got icecream and took a ticky-tour around the hills behind Island Bay and back home for bed.

Photo Source: Wikipedia – click for large version (warning very large)