In order to see as much of Auckland as possible while in the city, we decided to do the coast-to-coast walk starting at the Viaduct Harbour and ending at the Onehunga Foreshore. The idea of this walk is to be able to say that you “walked across New Zealand,” as you’re technically going from the northern shore of the country to the southern shore.
It would’ve gone a lot faster if we just took a straight route to the end, but we wanted to see as many notable landmarks on the way as possible, so we took a bit of a zig-zag pattern and spent 4 hours and 40 minutes completing the walk. The total distance was about 10.8 miles (17.4 kilometers) and had an elevation gain of about 1,476 feet (450 meters).
The day after our arrival and during our first full day in Auckland, New Zealand, we decided to tackle the Auckland coast-to-coast walk. This route took us through some points of interest, one of which was Cornwall Park and Maungakiekie, also referred to as One Tree Hill, on the eastern side of the Epsom neighborhood.
I’ll be sharing photographs highlighting some of the most interesting sights from the coast-to-coast walk soon, but because I had a lot of photos concentrated in Cornwall Park and the closely-surrounding area, I decided to split them out into their own post in the meantime.
Here are some pictures I took near the entrance, in the park, during our ascent to the summit, and of the view from the top:
The day after our arrival and during our first full day in Auckland, New Zealand, we decided to tackle the Auckland coast-to-coast walk. This route took us through some points of interest, one of which was Maungawhau in the Mount Eden neighborhood.
I’ll be sharing photographs highlighting some of the most interesting sights from the coast-to-coast walk soon, but because I had a lot of photos concentrated from Maungawhau and the closely-surrounding area, I decided to split them out into their own post in the meantime.
Here are some pictures I took during our ascent to the summit and of the panoramic view from the top:
At the end of last month, my friend Doug Wreden held his annual charity event for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, during which one of the stretch goals—at half a million dollars—was for him and me to go to New Zealand to buy cologne and visit the aquarium as an inside joke. We met that threshold, so as promised, Doug and I went to SEA LIFE Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium in Auckland, New Zealand.
I’ve been to a handful of aquariums before—the Aquarium of the Pacific, South Carolina Aquarium, and Seattle Aquarium just to name a few—and comparatively, SEA LIFE was a little bit underwhelming. With that being said, Auckland isn’t exactly one of the biggest cities ever with a ton of resources, so contextually speaking, SEA LIFE wasn’t actually that bad.
The aquarium started with a section that was basically a history museum, which was a little bit strange. However, once we got past that part, it started resembling what you’d expect from a typical aquarium.
My favorite part of the aquarium was the immersive tunnel. I’ve seen other aquariums that have the 180° glass tubes that allow you to see fish, sharks, and other sea life above you, but the one that SEA LIFE had was far more advanced. The tunnel was much longer than expected and laid out in a circular pattern. It had an automatically-moving conveyor belt so you could stand in one spot and take in the view around you without needing to walk.
I took a lot of photos throughout the aquarium; below are the ones that turned out the best:
I’m off on my next adventure after my week in the San Francisco Bay Area for Open Sauce, but I had some spare photos that didn’t fit in any of my previous topic-based blog posts, so I decided to do a final travel round-up.
But first, a story. I call this one… “How not to travel out of Burbank Airport.”
As is probably blatantly obvious by now, I travel a lot. Not only do I travel a lot in the conventional sense, but in case you’re new here and missed it, I used to travel literally full-time during 2021-2023 when I road tripped across the United States and Canada and lived out of hotel rooms for two years straight. Throughout my travels, I have become an expert and acquired some specialized knowledge.
Upon arriving at Hollywood Burbank Airport for my Alaska Airlines flight to San Francisco, I entered through Terminal B to get through security, as my plane was scheduled to board from the B gates. I noticed that the TSA line was unusually long, so I decided to walk to Terminal A to go through an alternative security checkpoint. I thought I had made a great choice, because upon my arrival, I noticed that the line in Terminal A was nearly non-existent. I entered through the TSA PreCheck® line and finished screening within two minutes.
After popping out the other end, I looked for the connector between Terminal A and Terminal B so I could get to my gate. I looked around and there was only one way forward, so I mindlessly started walking from Gate A1 deeper into the airport. I eventually made it to Gate A9, upon which I had a fateful encounter with a brick wall. Confused, I checked my GPS location on Google Maps and realized I had walked in the literal opposite direction, away from Terminal B. I turned around and walked all the way back to Gate A1.
But, remember how I said there was only one way forward after the security screening checkpoint? Once I made it back to Gate A1, I had that exact same problem. I needed to walk west. The only path forward was east, unless I wanted to leave the building and go outside. Confused, I explained my situation to a nearby officer, who let me know that there isn’t actually a gateside connector between Terminals A and B and that I would have to exit outdoors and go back through security in Terminal B.
By trying to outplay the system, I outplayed myself.
I went outside, walked back into Terminal B, and stood in line to go through Terminal B’s security checkpoint. I made my way to my gate with four minutes to spare before boarding doors closed.
Here are some photos of Los Angeles on the way out.
Burbank to San Francisco is a short flight so there was no meal service, but I did get some snacks. I felt the need to take a picture of this bag of chips because it only had about five chips inside it. (Insert disgruntled statement about shrinkflation here.)
Landing at San Francisco International Airport is always an interesting experience due to its location—SFO has runways extending into the San Francisco Bay. This creates an amusing visual where it looks like your plane is about to dive directly into the water, up until asphalt magically spawns under you and you touch down safely.
If you followed my adventures during my road trip, you probably know that I’m a Marriott loyalist and achieved Ambassador Elite status from my time living out of hotels full-time. Unfortunately, I had to cheat on Marriott and stayed at a Hilton during Open Sauce because I had a room inside the designated special guest hotel.
I don’t have any special status with Hilton, so I didn’t have lounge access for free food (if there was even a lounge at all). This meant that, on the day I flew in, I had to go searching for my own food. I didn’t have a rental vehicle so I decided to order on a delivery app. Conveniently, the restaurant did not include utensils with my tonkatsu donburi, so I had to pull off my hotel specialty: using two coffee stirrers as chopsticks.
I extended my stay in the San Francisco Bay Area after Open Sauce finished because I have a friend who lives in the area, and I figured it would be a good opportunity to spend time with her while I was already there. On the day after Open Sauce before I transferred from the special guest hotel to my own hotel, some friends and I stopped by ToToRo Ramen for lunch.
After ridesharing from San Mateo to downtown San Francisco, I checked into The Jay, an Autograph Collection hotel under Marriott. After the mediocre room and service from Hilton, stepping once again into a Marriott felt like coming back home.
On my way out, I decided to fly JSX from Oakland International Airport back to Hollywood Burbank Airport. I’ve generally had positive experiences with JSX from back when they were still known by their full name JetSuiteX, and because I was leaving from downtown San Francisco which was almost equidistant between SFO and OAK, I decided to go with OAK and fly JSX again (they only service OAK and not SFO).
That was a mistake. JSX’s quality of service has severely degraded to the point where I’d rather save the money and fly premium economy on a mass commercial airline from now on.
They used to have nice, luxurious lounges with food and drinks, but it seems like they got rid of all the food and only have a Starbucks dispensing machine. The only trace of food available was cat and dog treats next to the sink. I had not eaten at all this day, so I was literally banking on having food at this lounge, and I could not. Note that JSX flies out of a separate hangar, so it’s not like I could walk to an airport restaurant and get food either.
The interior of the jet I got seemed to have not really been taken care of that well. The jets also used to be a 1-2 all-business-class configuration, but for some reason, this jet was a 1-1 configuration… except instead of using the extra space from the missing row of seats as just extra space, they installed gigantic blocky armrests that make the entire cabin look cramped and unnavigable.
My rideshare vehicle from my hotel to JSX’s Oakland hangar was a Tesla Model Y that had an extremely jerky ride so I was already very motion sick, and I ended up flying on an empty stomach; this combined was a great recipe to get severe air sicknesses. I was on the verge of throwing up the entire time, and the fact that there is more turbulence on JSX flights due to the small size of the jet didn’t help.
Fortunately, I made it back to my friend’s house without vomiting, but I got really close.
And finally, to close this blog post, here is an out-of-context photograph of my friend’s blanket after I wrapped it in plastic food wrap.
I’m currently in San Mateo County of the San Francisco Bay Area in California for Open Sauce, a science and technology convention that I was invited to by my friend Billie-Rae. As part of the special guest itinerary, I had the opportunity and privilege to tour Adam Savage’s workshop, “The Cave.”
Adam Savage is best known for being the host of MythBusters, an educational show during which the cast uses scientific inquiry to test common myths in order to “confirm” or “bust” their truth and validity. Although I didn’t watch full episodes of the show when I was younger, I would sometimes watch highlights of the best moments that people would upload on YouTube.
The workshop was impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many different objects so well-organized and compacted into such a condensed space. I think I spent a little over half an hour there and did multiple loops around the workshop, and I noticed something new and fascinating every time I revisited an area.
I tried to capture pictures of as many props as possible, in hopes that I can share them with MythBusters fans and they would recognize seeing some of them in prior episodes. Here is a collection of photographs, in no particular order, that I think turned out the best.
There was a guest book for visitors of the workshop to sign and leave notes. My friend Sam made fun of me for only signing my name, so she left an extra heartfelt message to make up for the both of us.
Open Sauce spans for a total of three days, between June 14-16, so I should have a few more convention blog posts coming soon.
