DeeKnow’s Grotto

Well Easter weekend has come and gone in no time, but my employer has graciously given us peasants the day off tommorow when most of the rest of the towns-folk will be back at work, so my Easter break has still got another day left. Excellent!

Saturday morning we decided to head up to Auckland for a couple of nights, thinking that most of that city's inhabitants would be heading out of town in droves and that we'd have the place to ourselves (not that we have anything against JAFAs mind). This was mostly the case, except we ended up having to share the city with a few-hundred thousand asian folk.

They seemed pleasant enough though, except for the queue-jumpming ones, Oh, and those wearing SARS-masks which was a little disturbing to see in the flesh. Oh yeah, we had another humourous Asian encounter when we thought we'd check out a Church, given the nature of the weekend. As we approached St Patricks a wedding party was just leaving and they were both Asian. They looked great, and happy of course.

With Kym being the keen negotiator in our team I dropped her outside a couple of Hotels in the middle of the city to see what sort of deal we (she) could get for a couple of nights. We ended up checking-in to the Stamford-Plaza of all places at a super-duper Easter-special, all-you-can-eat meal-deal price of $130/night, including full breakfast, valet parking, Sauna, Gym, Pool and Ego-Massage.

Didn't actually use the Gym, shit no, but everything else was bloody wonderfull. We ambled round what seems to be a pretty smart hotel, and had fun watching the nobs checking out our backpacker-like attire and baggage. No Louis-Vuiton travelling chests for us!!, no sir, just a couple of dodgy old weekenders and a couple of plastic bags from shopping at Borders down on Queen St.

The weather was absolutely shite. A constant drizzle most of the time, but it didnt really matter, it was quite a nice way to wind down. We ended up sploshing round downtown, dashing from one covered walkway to another, took the Link bus round a few hilights and hit the Maritime museum.

We also watched a lot of telly, the Easter showing of Jesus Christ Super-Star was the highlight, and Kym seemed to find my rendition of some of the dance routines from the show rather entertaining (dont ask me to repeat the performance)

10:52:05 PM