J's birthday in Auckland

We arrived in Auckland and it was lovely to be in a big cosmopolitan city again for a few days...getting stuck in rush hour traffic and watching workers in suits heading to and from work really made us appreciate how lucky we are to be here.  We are definitely trying our best to embrace all the opportunities presented to us.

The first thing we spotted in Auckland was the massive PwC office on the waterfront..so being a cheesy tourist I took a few snaps of it!!

Auckland is the main point for the World Cup and this is where the opening ceremony was and where the semis and final will be.  They have created a massive fan zone and display down on the waterfront so we headed down there to see the show and enjoy some of the atmosphere.

During matches this is completely full of people to watch the big screen

This 'giant rugby ball' has travelled around the world to places such as Paris, London and LA.  Inside it is like a simulator and it was showing videos and films of highlights around NewZealand, every wall within the ball is covered in the film and most of the viewers lie on the floor to watch it - it was really cool and free which is even better!!!

Inside the 'Great White Cloud' there were unique designs from New Zealand designers on show, there was also the 'Taste of New Zealand' section where chefs from around the country designed taster food.  There were 16 choices all tapas size and each item was matched with a NZ beverage.  Since it was James' birthday while we were in Auckland we decided to do this as a treat - we were so glad that we did it was fantastic and a real highlight.  A lovely friendly atmosphere and really interesting to see all the different stalls and chefs selections.  It was hard to choose only 4 pieces but we were both pretty pleased with our choices...I especially loved the bubbles that was conveniently matched with 2 of my tapas choices haha!!
It was a nice treat for James birthday since he considers himself quite the food guru so he really enjoyed it too and nice memories - will be a long time before he spends another birthday in New Zealand never mind in the world cup fan zone eating typically New Zealand food and drinks designed by executive local chefs!!
Living the dream haha!!

Enjoying our tasting and bubbles for J's birthday!!

1 of James choices - a smoked salmon cone - YUM!

One of the stalls..the decor was really cool!

A great day and then a great night as we had tickets to the South Afria v Samoa match in Auckland.  We were innocent observers although James insisted we support Samoa...the match was brilliant and the Samoan supporters are so passionate the again the atmosphere was brilliant.  There are alot of Samoan people live in and around Auckland so the support for both teams was about equal, they are not quite as vocal as the Irish supporters but it was still all in good spirit.  We had brilliant seats...they were sold late and cheaply as they apparently had 'restricted views' but this meant you had a front row seat where the camera men run up and down a little....we were delighted and felt we had 1 of the best seats in the house!! The camera men did not affect us really at all so that was a great bit of luck and another nice thing to do for his birthday!

Spirited Samoan support beside us!

Samoan Haka!

Samoan winger Tuiligi whose brother is playing for England!

We really enjoyed our few days in Auckland and look forward to being back there again during the finals weekend...Come on Ireland!!!

Next stop...Kiwi Experience North island bus..bring on the banter!!

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