Dragon Boat Fun

Last weekend the dragon boat crews did a fun training day here in Wellington. The final event will be on 8th & 9th of March.

As you can see in the images the number of girls in the teams is quite high and seems to be the new girl sport here.

Sadly it was very windy and so they only could practice in the small area at the boat houses. But still they got up to pretty decent speed at this short range. I am really looking forward to the final event with hopefully better weather conditions.

Originally the dragon boats and racing comes from china and dates back to 400BC. It is based on a legend where Qu Yuan a Chinese statesman drowned him self as a protest. Fishermen rushed to him with their boats to rescue him.
Today it is a world wide sport and the different festivals are still associated to the  traditional Chinese Duen Ng Festival in Hong Kong.

As always you find some more pictures on my flickr site

The Most Dramatic Sunset… yet!

Todays sunset was just amazing. It just went crazy and was a bit overdramatic if you ask me ;). Anyway made a couple of pics and uploaded them to flickr. Enjoy

The View From My Living Room

New Zealand - From my living room, a set on Flickr.

Every two or three days I have an amazing view out of my living room. So I thought I just make up a new set and call it New Zealand - From my living room.
It is just unbelievable what happens when the sun sets behind the hills of Makara. So enjoy them updates will follow.

Turn it up!

Yesterday we went to The Embassy Theatre to watch Gravity. This is the premier theatre where Peter Jackson shows his movies to the world and was completely refurbished in 2003 for LOTR: The Return Of The King. And since the premiere of the Hobbit it got upgraded with the new Dolby ATMOS surround system. This gives you a true 360° sound feeling including sound from the top.
And it was f***king awesome! The whole cinema rumbled with low frequency sound effects and combined with the movie it was a really great experience. I even would say this is a must to visit if you are in Wellington or nearby for vacation.
The movie with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in the main and only visible roles was a really great and deep experience. But this flick won't work on your small telly with crappy sound. This movie in my opinion only works in a great theatre with great surround sound. That being said for me it was a very intense experience. I would it compare a little with 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick but only the feeling and the sense of realism. The story itself is much much simpler, almost not existent and in the end a bit too exaggerated for my taste. Nevertheless it is a must see for all space lovers and it is from start to finish an audi-visual bombardment for your senses.

A Little Shaky

So the first weird thing happened today early morning. A woke up and a couple of seconds later our hotel room shook for two seconds. If you are a Kiwi it surely isn't worth mentioning but hey I am new here and I have never experienced a shaking ground. But the funniest thing was that I thought "Oh no! Please don't get worst. I don't want to get up! It is too early!" and then I fell back to sleep.

Upate:
I found the quake at this site here. Seemed to be a moderate one with a magnitude of 4.7 in its center.

Finally there

So, after 30 hours we finally arrived in Wellington New Zealand. Luckily with no surprises. Boarding passes were not an issue in Melbourne, luggage arrived savely at baggage claim and customs were easy going.

Currently it's very windy and rainy but it should clear up in the next days.

The hotel which WETA provides us is great and will help us to settle down.

I will try to fight the jetlag for two more hours and then I'm done for today.

That's what I call leg room

Yes the 60 € more for the emergency isle were definitely worth the money. Plus we were sitting in the upper deck in the tail section. It was quiet and the service was very good. Food wasn't as good as with the Emirates flight but they made it up with hot chocolate with marshmallows :).

Now we are waiting for our last trip to Wellington. This could get interesting because we still don't have our boarding passes. Let's see.

Dubai Airport

The three hour stop in Dubai is almost over and our big bird has arrived. 

The flight to Munich wasn't that bad. I was surprised by the dinner. I think it was the biggest meal I ever had in a plane and with metal cuterly.

So in 30 min comes the big leap of 14 hours flight. Let's see how the Quantas a380 is holding up. 

This is it

So here we are at the airport in Munich. Baggage is checked in (3 kg were still free, damn...) and now we are sitting here at the MC Donald's enjoying a small snack and we are looking forward for the first six hours in the tin tube. Stay tuned next stop Dubai.