catching up

We've done quite a bit since I last posted so let me try to catch you up. On Saturday we went out with some new friends who showed us some very different parts of Auckland. In the morning we went to the Otara Market, which is basically a big flea-market type gathering with a bunch of different Polynesian and Maori vendors (as well as a few other ethnicities). We got to the market a bit late so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time there. We’re planning on heading back at some point so I will post a picture of the market at a later date.

From the there we headed out to Mission Bay, which is a pretty “flash” part of town. The bay itself is situated on the Waitemata Harbour and has many cafés, restaurants and shops lining the main street that follows the beach. Incidentally, we were later disappointed to find out that none of the sand on the Mission Bay beach is actually from Mission Bay. It has all been brought in to make the beach more user friendly. However, while the beach itself was semi-fake it did offer an incredible view of Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto is actually a volcano. The island appeared about 600 years ago when the volcano erupted and formed the landmass you see in the picture. You can take a ferry over to the island and hike up Rangitoto and Brooke and I are hoping to do this is a few weeks.

We had lunch at Mission Bay and then headed over to a Netball tournament. Netball is similar to Basketball. From the picture you can see that one of the differences is the absence of a backboard. Also, in Netball you aren’t allowed to move with the ball (no dribbling). There are a lot of other rules I wasn’t able to pick up on, it’s a pretty fast moving game. Nitika’s friend Dallas was playing in the tournament with his provincial team and they ended up winning the tournament.

There were four women who had birthdays on or near Saturday so that night there was a big birthday bash at the house we’re staying in. This was a good time of talking with people and getting to know them better. Some of the younger crowd hung out at the house until pretty late and it was good to spend that extra time with them and just to have people in the house with us.



On Monday we headed into downtown Auckland with our friend Rebecca and she showed us some cool spots in the city like Ponsonby and K Road. There were tons of cool shops and (more importantly) cafés along these roads. Later we visited the University of Auckland where Rebecca had an afternoon tutorial. There is a marae near the University. A marae is basically a piece of sacred Maori meeting land. It was very interesting to see the contrast of the marae with the modern city that surrounds it. Brooke will probably post some more pictures of this most recent trip to Auckland (be on the look out for more cool trees!).

I apologize for the long post. We are hoping to have Internet access in the ministry house sometime later this week. When this is up and running I’ll be able to post more regularly and keep the posts shorter.