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 still like to add an extra buffer day before and after my travel days to mitigate any delays and allow me to have additional flexibility in my schedule, so I arrived in town the evening of Wednesday and checked into my hotel room at the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina next door to the San Diego Convention Center.
I’m still on a very unusual sleep schedule, so I went to the hotel gym at 4 AM to have a nice, peaceful, solitary workout session.
Because of my Ambassador Elite status with Marriott, I was fortunate enough to get an upgrade to a room with a nice view of the San Diego Bay, even though I booked the cheapest rate available.
I also have access to the lounge, where they serve complementary small bites, snacks, and desserts. I usually forget to take photos of my free food nowadays because it’s become a fairly routine part of my travel experience, but I did remember to take these three:
Apparently Honda was one of the sponsors of TwitchCon, and I officially present to them the “Most Boring Sponsor” award. I was told that they originally had the Twitch community design the car, but instead of going with the popular vote, they overrode the decision and basically designed it themselves anyway.
My automobile knowledge is fairly limited to within the world of pickup trucks, and the only thing I really know Honda for is that their pickup truck, the Honda Ridgeline, isn’t actually a real body-on-frame pickup truck and is basically just a minivan with a developmental disorder. With that being said, I’m not sure how they could’ve picked a more boring car than a Honda Civic to feature (and it’s not even a Type R).
This car looks like a kid designed it in Grand Theft Auto and then tried to convert it into a real-life car. The racing stripes look tacky. The vinyl wrap looks like someone wanted a nice satin black wrap but ran out of the proper color so went with a weird graphite instead. I can’t even tell what the design is on the rear passenger door, and the glossiness of it makes it look like someone just ripped a chunk out of the vinyl wrap.
I wasn’t interested in watching any of the shows, but this is what the stage looked like.
That night, we went to Meze Greek Fusion where they had a performer swing fire around everywhere. As you can see from the bottom-right corner, my friend Dan was very impressed.
I didn’t have an opportunity to walk through Artist’s Alley, but I did randomly take a picture of it from outside after the hall was closed.
On Saturday, my friend Doug Wreden and I held a Twitch-sponsored meet-and-greet session with convention attendees.
A photographer from Getty Images came over to our booth and asked to take a picture. Not only do I broadly hate paparazzi and the nature of their work, but I also strongly disagree with copyright law surrounding the likeness of public figures captured in photographs, so I will never intentionally pose for or make a paparazzo’s job easier. However, Doug was fine with it and specifically wanted to have the most ridiculous picture on Getty Images, so we ended up with this shot. (I did not realize I was in the frame because I assumed she would just be zooming in on Doug, so that is my genuine and unposed “…” expression.)
(Disclaimer: The following photograph from the Getty Images Entertainment collection, taken by Robin L. Marshall of Getty Images North America, is being used pursuant to the Embedded Viewer clause of the Getty Images Site Terms of Use as accessed on September 24, 2024. All rights belong to their respective owners.)
On Sunday, Doug hosted a show called “Just Figure It Out” where contestants had to… just figure it out. Each pair of the bracket had to come up with how they would determine the winner, and failing to do so after ten minutes would result in both players getting eliminated.
Edit (October 20, 2024): It was recently brought to my attention that a political extremist was in attendance at this show, as a competitor’s guest. During the show, I did not know who this individual was and I did not directly interact with her. Fortunately, she was also not at any point mentioned or shown in my blog post. Please note that being on the same broadcast as another person does not mean I share their beliefs or endorse their opinions.
My friend Abby and I were on standby as fill-ins in case any pairs got eliminated. Comically, one pair bet on the results of a second pair, and that second pair ended up getting disqualified for not being able to come up with a winner, so that resulted in a double-elimination, bringing both Abby and me into the tournament at the same time.
The way that Abby and I decided to figure it out was that we were going to go out onto the convention floor, find three random people who stream on Twitch, and bring them back into the room. We would then add together our three representatives’ follower counts on Twitch, and whomever had the team with the higher follower count would win.
Right as I explained this, I noticed some of Abby’s popular streamer friends (who were there as part of the show) sneak out onto the convention floor, so under the assumption that they might try to cheat and be Abby’s representatives, I slid in a last-second stipulation that the people we bring into the room have to be people who do not know us.
After getting all the rules locked in, Abby and I sprinted out into the convention.
I ran around searching for streamers and ended up finding three of them, but on my way back, I ran into Ludwig Ahgren, who has over 3 million followers on Twitch. I successfully convinced him to come join my team, and I returned to the room assuming I had just secured my victory.
I forgot about one thing. The one thing I forgot… was my own rule that I created to protect myself. Ludwig knows who I am. He was disqualified from being on my team. Abby somehow found someone with over one and a half million followers. I suffered a tragic defeat.
Here are some photos from the show that I took. I feel like these work better without any context or commentary.
For our final TwitchCon dinner together on Sunday night, we went to Zama San Diego.
As our first appetizer, we ordered pan-seared crab cake with red beet truffle aioli and avocado.
Our second appetizer was New Zealand lamb chop lollipops with chimichurri and pomegranate seeds.
For my main entrée, I ordered a sushi roll and wagyu beef nigiri.
Although TwitchCon still isn’t really my thing, this year went way better than previous years. The meet-and-greet went reasonably well. I’ve had some issues during previous conventions with Doug’s fans being invasive and acting childishly towards me, but that didn’t seem to be as bad of a problem this time around, compared to before.
Doug’s show was fantastic, and even though I’m not really in streamer friend groups and I actively try to avoid association with streamer culture, I still enjoyed my time participating in the show. It also helped that the person I competed against was Abby, who I see as an intelligent and business-minded professional, even though she works with live streamers.
I don’t know for sure whether or not I’m attending TwitchCon again next year, but if I’m invited to host a meet-and-greet and make an appearance on a show again, then I’d say the chances are decent.
At the end of last month, one of my friends held an annual charity event to raise funds for ocean conservation. The stretch goal for raising half a million dollars, inspired by an inside joke from a prior live broadcast, was for him and me to go to New Zealand to purchase cologne and visit the aquarium. The fundraising event was a huge success, raising US$625,376.68 this year and elevating his all-time total to over a million dollars. At the end of the two-day event, I knew that we would be going to New Zealand, so I slowly began making preparations.
I was born in the United States and have only gone out of the country once when I road tripped into Canada, so this will be my first real international trip beyond North America. I thought about what I would need to buy to get ready to travel abroad. I realized that the only luggage I have is carry-on-sized, and I figured that I would need to purchase something bigger.
I started conducting some research on the best luggages available on the market, and the rabbit hole led me to brands like LuggageWorks and Briggs and Riley that are often used and endorsed by pilots, as well as manufacturers like Rimowa and Tumi that market themselves as luxury brands. However, one particular company caught my eye… Victorinox.
Victorinox is the original maker of the Swiss army knife. I browsed their travel gear selection and became interested in their metallic red Spectra 3.0 expandable medium case. I travel a lot and have seen some red luggages, but never one of this deep red tone and shade, so the idea of having a visually unique and distinct luggage was appealing to me.
Additionally, the Spectra 3.0 line is made out of SORPLAS™, a high-performance polycarbonate by Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation. This means that, even though the luggage has a metallic look, it’s actually made from a proprietary plastic, so it’s more resistant to dents and other surface-warping damage than real metal would be, as well as bearing a handful of other features (though I guess a downside of that is that it would no longer develop a patina over time that I usually like to see on my belongings).
It definitely wasn’t cheap, though—the price tag was US$650.00 before tax, which wasn’t the most expensive luggage I looked at, but still a sizable chunk of money. After consideration, I decided I would test out a cheaper version of the Spectra 3.0 before committing to the more expensive one, so I bought the Spectra 3.0 expandable cabin case, sized as standard carry-on luggage, for US$575.00.
After its arrival, I tested it out by unzipping everything, checking out all the pockets, rolling it around a bit, and inspecting all the components. The color was just as nice in-person as I expected from the photos on Victorinox’s website, the build quality seemed pretty good, and I was overall satisfied with my purchase. I concluded that the Spectra 3.0 line was good enough that I was comfortable committing to the more expensive and larger checked bag, so I put in an order for the medium case too.
After a short wait, the expandable medium case also arrived. The quality was consistent with the smaller carry-on luggage, in that everything was good and I was satisfied with my purchase.
Moments later, I got stunlocked for a good minute or so while I came to two epiphanies:
The size of your luggage has nothing to do with international travel. Just because you travel internationally does not mean you have to bring a checked bag. The thing that determines the size of luggage you should bring is the duration of your trip, not the location of your destination. A single carry-on bag has plenty of space for me to pack a week and a half’s worth of belongings.
It makes absolutely no sense to purchase a similar smaller item to “test out” a larger version of that item. This would be reasonable if you buy an item, retain all its original packaging, and test it out during its return period with the expectation that you would send it back for a refund if it did not meet your quality bar. Buying a different item as a test product, buying the actually-desired item days later, then trashing all the packaging on both products is… incorrect.
So anyway, I am now the somewhat proud but mostly confused owner of two new Victorinox Spectra 3.0 luggages that I don’t actually need.
