It's been an adventurous weekend! Friday all the roommates headed up to the Bay of Islands (I'm going next week when I can take more time so will describe it more in detail then) so I had the place to myself - almost. Chantel, A friend of Pam & Beck's was in town so I invited her to enjoy the space too! That's a decent size place for 2 people. 5... well... it's cozy.

Saturday Chantel & I discovered there was a Maori & Pacific Island festival in Manukau City (20 min drive, 1 hour bus ride) so we were onward bound. It was held in a large park (think it's part of a college) and there were almost as many people as at last week's cultural festival. The only difference is that of 100,000+ people there, only about 10 were white (pakeha). I've never been so aware of my skin colour before. There was no racial tension or anything of the sort, it was just very obvious who the outsiders were. Anyway, it was super cool. It was a competition between secondary schools (high schools) for traditional dancing. Each culture (Maori, Samoa, Fiji, etc) seemed to just compete against themselves on separate stages. We just made it to see the last Maori group perform a couple of slower traditional pieces, a modern interpretation (Hey Ya by OutKast - very cool), and the battle songs. They all wear beautiful costumes with grass skirts and bone jewelery and are painted with intricate patterns, particularly on their faces. I took pictures and a short video but am having trouble burning them lately. I'll post as soon as I take the time to figure out this slight technical difficulty.

Today I decided to hit some of the reputed suburbs. I started at the Victoria Park Market (all shops with crafts, jewelry, clothing) then headed onto Ponsonby. There's a Fringe festival on there now but I must have been too early in the day to catch any of it. So I kept walking down to K'Road which is home to one of my favorite bookstores ever (I think I could live in bookstores. If it wasn't for the mothy/must-induced sneeze attacks, second hand shops would be my preference). Being another beautiful day, I continued my little jaunt on down to Auckland Domain, a large park where I watched a bit of a cricket match. Not for long as then I decided to go into New Market, a great little shopping district. After that I decided I may as well hit Parnell while I was at it. In Parnell I found a second hand designer boutique where used brand name clothing was sold for what I would still consider outrageous prices. Cool idea, but really if was going to spend $100 on an item of clothing or shoes, I think I'd like them to be new. That's just me. I found another 2-hand bookstore that had 2 books I've been hunting for though, so my faith was restored in the value of 2-hand materials. I kept walking, now struggling to get myself back to Albert Park in city centre where I plunked down to read and realized, apart from the 15 min rest in the domain, I had been walking for over 5 hours. It was a great day and now I'm very pleased with my weekend accomplishments! Tomorrow, when I have trouble standing, I may feel differently though...