Airport Osaka-Kansai 135° 27' E, 34° 47' N
Airport Auckland 174° 48' E, 37° 00' S
Airport Wellington 174° 48' E, 41° 20' S
On Wednesday I've arrived in Wellington and I feel fine, hardly any sign of a jetlag. The weather is great, sunny and a breeze. After a Dutch rainy winter it is summer! It were two long flights (10 and 11 hours) and I hardly slept in the planes or actually I just can't remember that I have. Waiting 7 hours in Osaka for the next plane was fine. The best thing were the comfortable couches and the shuttle between the gates, so we had some fresh air and some entertainment. The airport was just very clean and modern, but no idea if this gives a proper first impression of Japan. It was nice to meet other Dutch people, waiting for the same flight to Auckland, so we went to the transfer desk together with 15 people, and we talked a lot about our plans in New Zealand and our lives in the Netherlands.
In the second plane I tried to sleep, but this was hard because I was surrounded by 8-12 year old South-Korean children, who really and quite loudly enjoyed the entertainment center and all the movies in the seat in front of us. My bandana to cover my eyes and my mp3-player to cover my ears were just not enough to create my own private place to be able to sleep. It seems the children just fell asleep, before breakfast. Arriving at 8 o'clock in the morning in New Zealand I just felt sorry for their teachers to deal with a lot of extremely tired children who have to travel further to a 'language lab', maybe 3 hours from Auckland.
In Auckland the border formalities were not that hard as I expected. The regulation is very strict and food is forbidden. I got my first stamp in my new passport. Maybe I looked too happy with it, and the border control man understood that being part of the European Union you just never get a stamp in your passport, traveling in Europe.
I just had to show the back of my hiking shoes, because I, honestly, filled in the form that I have been in a forest in the last 30 days, but I've cleaned my shoes very thoroughly. It was funny that after traveling for 36 hours, with hardly any sleep, I felt fit enough to stand on one feet, carrying my big backpack (12 kg).
In Auckland I took a domestic flight to Wellington. This was just one hour. From the plane I've seen a lot of the West coast, very promising. I took a taxibus to my hostel and the driver was telling a lot about the city, rugby etc. This gave me a good opportunity to get used to New Zealand English, because the pronunciation is somehow different than the British English I've learnt on highschool.
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