New Zealand Adventure-Day1 Arrival

In Japan, it is one of its holiday seasons from the end of April to 1st week of May, called "Golden Week". Every year, I spend my vacation in foreign countries during this season and I chose New Zealand this time. 

Why New Zealand? Actually no specific reasons. It seemed that I can buy a cheap air ticket if I go to New Zealand. On top of that, New Zealand appears in some big Hollywood movies as the fields, especially in my favorite fantasy movies.  I would have liked to take a look at the beautiful natural sites in my eyes. Furthermore, I was interested in the country's native Maori culture. In sum, Cheap ticket+Movie sets+Maori-these items motivated me to visit the country.

A cheap air ticket means a long flight including a long-wait transit. This time, I took a flight served by one of the Chinese big carriers, China Southern. The flight took me from Osaka to Guangzhou, a city in the southern china, then to Auckland after 7-hour wait for transit there based on its original schedule. That said, the flight delayed in Osaka for 2 hours, so my transit wait was shortened this time. 

After 20-hour flight including the transit wait, I arrived in Auckland on April 27, 2014. It was at 17:00 and I thought I should go directly to the hostel I'd booked, so I approached to the airport's visitor center called "i-SITE" and asked how to get to the city center. As they recommended, I bought a ticket and jumped on an express bus linking city and airport. Fortunately, my hostel-YHA International Auckland was very near from its bus stop, so I didn't have to get lost.

YHA stands for Youth Hostel Association which runs Youth Hostel worldwide. As one room is shared by several travelers, it's a big cost saver to backpackers. I'm one of them. Sometimes, the roommates are disturbance, but if you match them, you can broaden your friendship. 

New Zealand is popular among backpackers as I heard from my backpacking buddies in Japan. I don't know why but I guess it's because the nation has English-speaking environment, mixture of metropolitan facilities and nature, and coexistence of indigenous Maori culture and British commonwealth. Perhaps because of this popularity, YHA New Zeland seems well organized to me.

The hostel has a big kitchen for common usage. That ignited my lovely cooking instinct. I love cooking! In addition, it could help me save the cost! Reviewing my journey this time, this cost saver was god's help as I could spend money to transportation in New Zealand, whch is too vast to walk around.

I put my baggage in a room I would stay, and I walked around the hostel to get used to the town. It was around 8:00 pm so the whole city was filled with lights in the darkness. Auckland is one of the biggest cities in New Zealand, so there were skyscrapers in the city center. As I work in Osaka's central area where I can see many tall buildings, I wasn't excited much to the night views in Auckland, but I was excited to what I would encounter during the journey. The city's night view decorated with various lights did lighten my journey.