My Weekend

I last talked to you from a cafe in downtown Auckland on Saturday. I thought I would tell you how the rest of my day went. After leading the cafe, I headed towards Upper Queen street to find a nice little Korean restaurant. Well, not only did I find one, I found atleast upwards of ten, along with plenty of Japanese restaurants, and Asian markets, and Korean grocery stores to go along with them! I was tempted to ask a stranger to pinch to make sure I wasn't having a korean food induced delusion, but I thought better of it. I had found the Korean town of Auckland, located on Upper Queen street. Every dairy store (convenience store), and grocery store had a plethora of ingredients and products that I had searched in vain for, for 4 years in Charlottesville. Not only did they have Chapagetti at every corner store, it was easy to find red pepper paste, premade bulgogi, and fresh kimchi. Needless to say I was ecstatic. I thought of buying everything I could get my hands on, however after realizing that I only had my laptop bag with me, and considering the somewhat shall we say, "potent" smell that kimchi can have I decided not to. Instead I settled for just a package of Chapagetti hoping I could have Leigh and Christoph try it, and if the liked it, see if they would start buying it in bulk. Regardless, if they don't I will. So after a delicious korean meal, and my first lonesome experience of eating out... alone, (something I swore I'd never do (that was before I realized I had no friends when I travel)) I continued to walk around. I had previously saw a "Shakespeare brewery" on my walk, and decided to try to find it again. However upon arriving and realizing it was roughly 3:30 I decided maybe it was to early to have a beer. So I decided to do the much more responsible thing and go to the Casino in the SkyTower, and blow some money. (Its never to early for that) So I found my way to the skytower, and realized that it is also a huge mall with a large casino in it. Now I have never really been to a casino when I was above the age of 8 and could walk off the big red carpet that made its way straight to the elevator (my experience at the age of 8 in Las Vegas). I especially have never been to a casino where half the games in it I have never understood. This casino had your regular slot machines and such, along with roulette and blackjack. However along with this they had a several tables for Tai Sai which is a dice game, and a several tables devoted for Pai Gow which was a domino game. I got pretty excited at this, because my parents will attest that I've played some pretty mean domino's in my time. Yet, I thought for my first gambling experience I should take on the "7 DRAGONS" slot machine. I figured by the title, it was the most fierce game I could play. So I dropped my one dollar in the machine. (I should specify that in New Zealand, both 1 and 2 dollar bills are actually coins. So the lowest bill they have is a 5 dollar bill, and then there is a 2 and a 1 dollar coin, and then 50, 20, 10, and I assume a 5 and 1 cent coin however the latter two I have yet to see.) At any rate, a one dollar coin was the most money I had on me except for a 20 that I didn't really want to break. But to my unfortunate dismay, my coin fell right through. Apparently my pathetic, 1 dollar offering wasn't even large enough for the 7 dragons to begin to acknowledge me. All the slot machines I soon found out had a 2 dollar minimum, regardless of how many credits a pull was. So I stared long and hard at the slot machines seeing if the intensity of my gaze would scare one of them to accept my one dollar. However upon failing that, I yelled to the heavens, and swore I would return with a vengeance. Then I calmly walked out, nodding politely to the security guards posted all around the rather large casino. I then headed to the Imax cinema thinking it might be neat to see a film, however all films had either started an hour before, or would start 2 hours later, so in defeat I roamed several business nearby, till I found another cafe and read for an hour or two. Then I finally, decided it was late enough to have a mug of mead at the Shakespeare brewery, but when I arrived there, I actually decided to e lame and go home instead. It was to be saved for another day. After that I caught the bus, and returned home. The next day, I pretty much spent the entire day finishing the "Bourne Ultimatum". Which is a great book and series. I would recommend it to anyone. Well, till next time. Sorry these posts are so long. I will hopefully one day learn to write less.