I’ve started to post pictures from my New Zealand trip to my Flickr account. The first set is a 360° view from the top of Key Summit on the Routeburn Track.

Two weeks in New Zealand and only one blog post? And kind of a terrible one at that. Several points in my defense (defence, in Kiwi)…

• I didn’t bring my laptop, and even if I had, free WiFi in New Zealand was as rare as hen’s teeth.
• Three of the four hotels I stayed in during the trip had computer terminals for guest use, but the first (Westin, Auckland) had just one – with a time limit; the second (Heritage, Queenstown) had just two and charged by the minute, to a maximum of 15 minutes; the third had four Internet “kiosks” with limited functionality.
• New Zealand is all about bungee jumping, tramping, jet-boating, wine-tasting and sheep farming. Warming a chair in front of a computer is not encouraged.

Anyway, I’m back. I’m going through my thoughts and my pictures, and I’ll try to post some highlights later tonight and this week.

One problem with living in a city like San Francisco is that it’s hard for other small cities to compete. For its size, San Francisco has an amazing number of great restaurants spanning every cuisine you can name. It’s a city of gorgeous views made more so by the constantly-changing weather.

For this reason, I love to go to big cities – New York, L.A., London, Paris, Bangkok, Shanghai (and hopefully someday Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney and many more).

Auckland so far feels a bit small and quiet. Of course, we arrived on a Sunday morning, and we’re leaving tomorrow (Tuesday), so I know we’re seeing it at its least lively. It certainly is a picturesque city. For example, there are beautiful glass-walled condos next to this Westin hotel with parking out front for the residents’… wait for it… sailboats. The Westin itself is one of the loveliest I’ve stayed in.

There’s a pretty good density of food options here, and since New Zealand is a country of many wine regions, the wine lists everywhere are vast and varied. We’re trying to live on a moderate budget, and it’s been somewhat difficult to get consistent restaurant recommendations. One person’s “can’t miss” is someone else’s “meh.” Last night we ate at Soul, which was just OK. We ordered our wines by the glass, and that seemed to peg us as philistines or penny pinchers in the eyes of our waitress.

I had a pan-fried hapuku with an olive tapanade, on a bed of braised onions and fennel. The fish was cooked nicely, but the olives were overpowering, and the onions and fennel were really oily.