Auckland

Funny that Auckland reminds me of somewhere... somewhere with lots of trees, water, islands, and ferries. The water here is a different color and I cannot figure that out. When you fly into Seattle on a sunny day, its blue. Here, its green.

We started the day by taking the ferry to Devonport which is like an upscale West Seattle. It's also like West Seattle geographically in that its a peninsula across from downtown Auckland.

on our way to the ferry.. lots of things to remind us of Seattle

We had to wait a few minutes so we walked along the pier where there is a large port. Again, it looks like our port but the equipment that loads the boats are painted blue instead of red. A large red fence borders the cargo area.

There are lots of reminders of the history of the area. The Mauri were here first and there were lots of signs describing what the port used to be.

This mosiac commemorated the sinking of an anti-nuclear Greenpeace boat that was sunk by French spies. The boat was docked north of Auckland in the Bay of Islands and en route to some place that France was testing nukes. Not sure why they got to test their nukes near New Zealand.

We arrived in Devonport and walked along the boardwalk to a navy museum. They had a kids interactive exhibit on courage.

The view finders showed art kids had made about how they dealt with fear.


Here's the thing I learned about New Zealand today. Their military is very small. Right now, it employs ~10,000 people (according to the people at the navy museum who were in the navy but were not soldiers). However, they have fought in most of the major conflicts of the last 100 years -- WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan. One third of the New Zealanders who fought in WWII died there. It is understandable that they are proud of their service. It is hard to imagine how citizens of a country not interested in world domination and really geographically isolated would volunteer to travel to distant countries to die in battles that are not threatening their own safety. It was about their alliances I guess. Now people told me their military is mostly involved in peacekeeping missions rather than combat.

After the museum, we went to Torpedo bay (lots of war memorials and memorabilia everywhere here) to spend some time at the beach. It is almost summer here. It's warm and sunny and the days are long. However, the water reminds you that you are not far from the Antararctic.

Sonia made a shell monument.



But wait! there's more. We headed to MOTAT - the museum of transportation and technology.  That was Jack's request but the guide books recommended it. There were two sections. One section filled with world war II era planes and the other that was a sort of activity village. There was a section on Edmund Hillary -- first person to summit everest. There was another section on innovation in New Zealand. My favorite was the springless trampoline. It was invented by a new zealander who loved trampolines but wanted them to be safe for children.


Other than that, I was underwhelmed by the museum. It seems neglected.  They usually have a tram that transports people between sections of the museum (they are several miles apart) but the tram was broken so we were on a bus. There was a tour guide who usually works on the tram on the bus. He was an older man who had worked in the tourism industry for years. He'd been to Seattle to see the World's Fair in 1962. He had lots of good tips on getting around the city.

Unfortunately, the kids were tired. We couldn't get cash out of an ATM and ended up taking Uber back to our cave-like airbnb. The kids fought the entire car ride. It was miserable.

We are all in separate corners. The kids are listening to audio books and Ryan is researching where we should go tomorrow when we rent the motor home. Travel is not a state of perfection.

Honolulu -> Auckland

Yesterday we left Honolulu early. We flew out on an Air New Zealand 787. It is by far the nicest airline I have ever flown. It makes all the American airlines look like the Pike Place market bathrooms in comparison. You have plenty of space. They paid so much attention to detail that even the bathrooms are cool. Each one had wall paper. The first was lined with butterflies that all have clever names such as the wide winged swift with a latin name septum octo septum (787). The other wall paper was books -- all with clever New Zealand puns and cultural references. The airline is subsidized by the government.  I wonder if that's why the plane was so nice. New Zealand counts tourism as one of its growing industries. Perhaps they can afford to think of airline passengers as human rather than as cattle.

We all watch movies during the 9 hour flight. I finished season 1 of The Good Place. Loved it. Lots of fun. At the end of the flight the flight attendant asked the kids if they'd like to hand out candy to the passengers. Notice Sonia's scarf. It belonged to the flight attendant. Sonia was happy about being chosen.

We arrived in Auckland at 545PM. It was 645 in Honolulu so we didn't feel jet-lagged. However, there's a 23 hour time difference so we lost a day.



We ate Thai food near our airbnb which is in a great, central location but sadly has no natural light.. one window to the outside world that faces a wall.

Everyone was tired from the journey so we went to bed.

Hawaii!

We left Seattle yesterday. Jack was so excited to go he woke up at 4am. We didn't have to get up until 6. We watched the sunrise in the great northwest, traveled 30 minutes to an airport and 5.5 hours in an airplane, then watched the sun set 2600 miles west and south.

Today, the kids decided they wanted to go to the "camp" at the hotel. It's childcare but there was an actual excursion to the Waikiki aquarium. I tried to discourage them by saying I thought the camp looked "academic" but they were not deterred. While they attended camp, Ryan and I swam in the ocean. Waikiki beach is calmer than Lake Washington on a slightly windy day. It's a great beach for open water swimming. However, I am still afraid of the random shark attack so I was very pleased when Ryan said he would come too. He paddles on his surf board. I am not sure why that made me less nervous.

We swam about a mile down the beach then walked back. Perfect weather. Beautiful day.

This is the second time I've stayed in Waikiki but the first time I noticed that American tourists are outnumbered by Japanese tourists. I am so used to being the culture being catered to by the local tourism industry. I walked into several stores and one restaurant where the people who worked there barely spoke English. Waikiki is so touristy but this experience actually made me feel like I was somewhere culturally interesting.

We ate lunch at a restaurant called Sam's that was in an alley. We ate their world famous shrimp and drank their world famous iced tea. It was good. I understand why it is famous.

When the kids finished camp (which they enjoyed.. especially the lunch because of the Hawaiian cookies) we rented a paddle board. Fun and fighting had by all. For Ryan's birthday dinner, he chose a Japanese restaurant called Chibo that specializes in pancakes (savory) and they prepare the food right in front of you.

Tomorrow we are up early to go to Auckland. I am most excited about going to Auckland while Jack is most excited that we get to fly in a 787. Everybody wins!

bye for now Seattle

view from hotel

a not very good picture of us on the side of the rainbow tower. Godzilla climbed this tower a few years ago in the latest iteration of that movie.

After eating world famous shrimp.

Why do we bother putting kids in these pictures?

I'm Down

This is the memoir of a white woman (around my age) who grew up in the Central district of Seattle in the 70's and 80's as the only white family on her block. Her parents were divorced, her mom worked all the time so she lived with her dad. All of her dad's friends were black and they were generous enough to allow him entry into an all-black men's social club.

The author never felt like she fit in anywhere. But worse, her dad seemed not to approve of anything about her. She blamed this on the fact that he didn't consider her "black enough" -- that she wasn't "down." Her mom moved her to a school program here now called Highly Capable where she was among white people but they were all wealthy and she was poor. Her younger sister got approval from their dad when she was caught smoking in the school bathroom as a kindergartner.

There were lots of funny/sad stories of 1970's style parental neglect.. but mostly, this was the sad story of a girl who grew up feeling like she could never please her dad. I chose this for our book club but it made everyone so sad, we vowed to choose a comedy for the next book.

We need to talk -- How to have conversations that matter

The first point of this book is that you think you are a good listener, and you are wrong. It takes training to learn to truly listen to another person. You need to be aware of your biases. You need to overcome your strong urge to talk about yourself. Accept you will not change the person you are talking to and be open to learning from them. It is important to be present, ask questions, and really try to understand what the person is trying to say.

I appreciated how she calls everyone out for their lack of skill in this area. It helped me pay attention to what she wrote without telling a bunch of stories about myself while reading.

Easy book to read, and very practical.

Naked Economics

I learned a great deal from this book. As we are listening to A LOT of Hamilton in my house, I thought I'd read the biography of Hamilton that is the source material for the play. I am listening to it anyway. The genius of Hamilton is vast but his theories on a central banking system are the basis for the world's economy today. Big time stuff. I realized I understand very little about the basic ideas of economics and so, when I was in my local bookstore recently, I saw Naked Economics on their store's bestseller shelf.

I learned what the Federal Reserve does ( at this point, attempt to keep the economy stable using low interest rates and controlling inflation ). I learned why every economist thinks trade is the foundation of a strong economy. I was one of those poorly informed people who thought Trump had a point when he said too much manufacturing is leaving the country and the US needs to impose tariffs to protect its workers. Turns out, that won't work. Not even the most fringe economists have any faith that will restore even one American worker's paycheck.

Why did 10 cents buy a hamburger 50 years ago and now it costs $5? What is inflation? Why did we stop basing the value of the dollar on gold? Why is the US able to run its government on a deficit? The end of that chapter is basically that the habit won't end well.

I recently read an article on the problems with our bloated assets and real estate market. The Fed can't control either of those and they are damaging the average person's quality of life either directly or indirectly.  Naked Economics gave me the basic info to understand the article. Every high school should teach a class on finances and basic economics. This book would be a great foundation for the class.

Commonwealth

I would not have read this book if it weren't for my book club however, again, I loved it. I am not a good predictor of things I will like apparently.

The book is written by Ann Patchett. I read Bel Canto years ago and really enjoyed that but the plot of this book sounded uninteresting at first. Two families are joined when the parents have affairs and blend the families. Sounds awful really.

The book was one story but it feels more like a book of short stories. The action takes place in many different eras from the 1970's to today. The characters age 50 years and somehow Patchett manages to tell you so much about them in a short period of time. It was an easy and entertaining read.