Auckland: Day One ...

We decided to spend a couple of days in Auckland before going further up into Northland. We planned to spend a day with Jill and Marley in Auckland and then meet up with Phu, Tamar, Chi, Jason and Grace in Auckland. The kids were quite excited to go on a plane again. We had heard pretty good reviews of Kelly Tarlton from the Dierkings, so we decided to spend the afternoon at Kelly Tarlton's. We took the Super Shuttle from the airport to our hotel, The Quadrant near CBD. The one bedroom apartment was a wee bit too small compared to some of the other places we've stayed at. I guess, big city hotels also mean smaller rooms.

We took the shuttle from Sky City to Kelly Tarlton. The penguin encounter was quite cool and amazing, but the rest of the aquarium was quite mediocre. I would definitely not recommend it for a short visit to Auckland.

Being in the big city, we felt like ethnic food. Having dined at Wagamama in London 8 years ago, we decided to revisit this chain restaurant. In retrospect it was a big mistake, and definitely not recommended. Maya got the kids ramen with chicken noodles, PJ and Marley the chicken katsu curry, Mari the salmon miso ramen, Jill the Chilli Chicken Soba noodle and I got th spicy beef noodles. Except for Mari's dish the other dishes were disappointing to awful. In specific, Jill's noodle dish and PJ's curry were plain awful. The atmosphere however is quite excellent for kids, since its more a cafeteria style place with a high noise level. We walked back to the hotel and bid adieu to Jill and Marley since they were leaving for Brisbane early the next day