“Old Home Week”

We don’t really have a week, but today we started visiting many of the places we especially liked from our stay in NZ seven years ago. We started with Mass at the Auckland Cathedral, St. Patrick’s. We’d never attended Mass at this church before, but from a couple of prior “touristy” visits we thought we remembered it being a bit different. Turns out that it was NZ$12.5 Million different! We did remember taking pictures in front of this statue of Jesus as a carpenter, although we’re pretty sure Margaret was in a stroller then. I probably remember visiting the bookstore of the Cathedral most of all, since this was the only source of Catholic reading materials I found locally.

Another favourite place was Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. It was no less interesting now that the kids were older. In fact, many improvements had been made to enhance the experience. Made famous by the curved acrylic viewing tunnels in which the fish seem to have humans in an aquarium, it appears that they’ve made use of the technology to make many more aquatic displays with curved “glass.” I truly enjoy the historical exhibits about Antarctic explorations with several recreations of the living quarter. The favourite of the kids though has to be the penguins. Today we saw three brown downy-feathered chicks – that looked full size. They won’t be allowed in with the older birds until they have their adult feathers.

Finally, we strolled Parnell Street and visited one of my most favourite spots – the Chocolate Boutique. This petite shop has an amazing selection of chocolate desserts, as well as chocolate and other candies for sale. It was a perfect way to pick up a birthday treat, and the prices were still as good as ever.