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| Above, a beautiful Maori carving used in one of the museum exhibits. Below, the same mask when shot with flash! |
| Erin's Journal 01-12-03 New Zealand For our first real day in Wellington, we were dismayed to see that the rain and crappy weather had followed us all the way south! As a result, we didn't hurry out of bed, but got up slowly and showered, then hit the road around 10:30am. We planned to go to the Market we'd read about in the little brochure I'd picked up in reception at the holiday park, then go across the street to the famous Te Papa Museum, the 'jewel in Wellington's Cultural Crown'. We drove along the coast toward Wellington, and arrived in a very short time. We drove along the waterfront in town too, and I was impressed by how clean it looked, with all the glistening tall office buildings of varying age and architecture. It was pretty small too, so we arrived at Te Papa in no time. We parked in the museum lot, where they had a $5 max for the day, and walked across to the little marketplace. This was a disappointment, as most of the stalls weren't in use and the ones that were seemed to be selling their used junk. We spent less than a half hour there, then ran back across to the Te Papa. This really is an impressive museum. Huge, modern, and interactive, with descriptions of the exhibits in both English and the Maori language, it has excellent displays with lots of hands-on stuff for kids. It is definitely loud in there though - many of the displays have video clips playing, and the earth science exhibit has a few earthquake and volcano exhibits that filled the entire area with noise! The best part about these regular exhibits was that they were free! The museum is actively soliciting donors, and has donation collection points throughout, with the caption 'keep Te Papa free.' So I envision that it may not stay free for long, but at this point it was a great visit. The other attraction at the Te Papa was the Lord of the Rings exhibition currently going on. It included several miniature sets, models, costumes, and drawings from the film work, as well as video clips explaining some of the major special effects work done in the film. This exhibition did have a cost - $12/person! And the line was incredible - the exhibition was very popular. But we had nothing better to do, what with the rain pouring down outside, so we weathered the crowds and spent a couple of hours wandering through. I was sad not to have any previews of the last film (still filming retakes at the moment), nor much info about the locations in New Zealand used in the film. But of course the museum store carried several books that had this information, although I didn't think I'd pay their price for it! After the exhibition, we looked around a few more of the free parts of the museum before admitting I was tired. By now it was after 5pm, and we checked with the parking lot attendant to see if the lot would close soon - we wanted to walk a couple of blocks up to a movie theater complex we could see from the street, without having to pay extra to repark our car! Although the lot attendant said the lot would close soon, she pointed out some free street parking (it was Sunday) right outside the lot, so we moved the car before heading up to the theaters. When we arrived, both of us were somewhat uninspired with what to do, but there was no better alternative (go back to the holiday park and read?), so we had dinner while we waited for a 6:30 show of Catch Me If You Can, then watched this fun little film along with a crowd of other movie-goers. It didn't let out till 9pm, so we quickly headed back to the car amid the rain. En route to the car, we crossed the street against our light as no traffic was moving, and a stupid driver decided to punish us by almost running us down! I was freaked out for a bit, then the anger set in. I stewed the whole way back about why I hadn't done what I should have and KICKED his CAR!!! You don't threaten people's lives with your car just because you think they're delaying you by 2 seconds!!! We were running, for cripe's sake!!! Boy, was I mad! New Zealand has some of the worst drivers I've ever seen, and coming as I do from Los Angeles, that is a BAD comment! We made it back to the cabin and snuggled up to get warm for the night, which effectively took my mind off my anger and reminded me why I'm glad we are alive. |
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