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Our fifth day in New Zealand was spent entirely in Wellington. I woke up in the morning feeling extremely tired, and although we planned to start the day at 8am, I ended up sleeping till 10am!! Finally, we dragged ourselves out of bed, showered and changed before heading out for breakfast. Hubby suggested trying out Astoria which was quite near to our hotel…so off we went! The restaurant was packed with the late-breakfast crowd (don’t these people have to work?!?) but we managed to get a small table outside with the pigeons…*grin*

After breakfast, we walked to Cable Car Lane to take the cable car up to the Botanic Gardens (it’s very strange that what we commonly know as cable cars are called gondolas and trams are called cable cars in NZ!). We were lucky that the weather was really good on that day, even though the weather forecast the night before predicted rain! Hubby snapped some photos of the surroundings at the observation deck, after which, we proceeded to take a long long walk around the park.

First stop was Carter Observatory. Nothing much to see since it was daytime, but we did find a sundial on the floor. I immediately hopped over to test it out…all you have to do is to stand at the correct spot on the concrete slab in the floor which is imprinted with the months and dates with your back facing the sun, clasp your palms together and lift up your hands. The shadow of your fingertips will point to the correct time. So there I was, halfway doing a sun-salution pose while asking hubby “correct or not? correct or not?”…*grin* But yeah…it worked. Pretty accurate, actually! And while I was testing it, a couple of other tourists walked past and when we left, I turned back to see them trying it out too…LOL!

The rest of the walk took almost one to two hours, probably coz we kept stopping to take photos. By the time we reached the Lady Norwood Rose Gardens (which had no blooming roses coz it was winter!), we were almost back to street level, which means we could’ve actually bought a one way ticket up the cable car. But since we bought a return ticket, and *someone* didn’t want to waste it…we trudged all the way up again, just to take the cable car down. *slaps forehead*

Back at the street level AGAIN, we walked along Lambton Quay, all the way down Willis Street and Taranaki Street towards Te Papa Museum. Along the way, we stopped by this Taiwanese Restaurant called Cha for lunch. As usual, it was sweet and sour pork for me, and hubby had duck and roast pork rice. Very yummy, indeed!

The LOTR Exhibition was being held at Te Papa for the second time since the shows were released, so we decided to buy tix for that. Unfortunately, no photography allowed…so no pics of the costumes, etc. I think a true LOTR fan would appreciate this exhibition, as there were so many things to see…costumes, the swords being used, video commentaries on the filming techniques, scaled down models of the battle scenes….it was a long long walk from the beginning to end!

After seeing the exhibition, we decided to go for the Time Warp ride. Actually, we didn’t realize that it would be such a kiddie ride…though the sarcastic comment from the person we bought the tickets from should’ve alerted us…: “You know, there IS a museum here…”. *blush* And what’s worse, we bought tickets for BOTH rides…one was the Time Warp where you go forward in time while the other ride goes backwards. What’s funny was that the only other person who went for the Time Warp was an adult as well…haha…and at one point, we all gave each other looks that silently said: “What the **** am I doing here and why did I waste money on this?!?”. The ride ended up in a motion master thingy…and by the time I walked out, I declared that there was NO FREAKING WAY I’m going on the second ride! Luckily, hubby agreed, and we ended up spending a couple of minutes walking through some volcano/earthquake educational exhibition and then it was back out onto the streets of Wellington! It was dark and drizzling slightly outside, so we set off in a brisk walk back to the hotel for a short rest before dinner.

We had dinner at…guess where? Yes! We went back to Strawberry Fare and it was open…=))) For mains, hubby ordered their Porterhouse Steak while I had the pasta of the day: Creamy Chicken and Mushroom Penne Pasta. Hubby said the steak was good, but my pasta totally sucked. If I had to give an award for the worst pasta I’ve ever had…this would be a close second (the worst pasta award would be to all M’sian restaurants who put chilli padi into their pasta and not indicated it on the menu). Too creamy, the penne wasn’t exactly al-dente…and…….wait for this……..

……the mushrooms were missing!!!!

But it’s not like we were there for the mains.

Dessert! Woohoo! Going through their dessert menu was a pain…I wanted everything! We finally settled on Banaffi (yes, they spelt it like this) Pie for hubby and Warm Raspberry Drenched Chocolate Cake for me. The desserts arrived looking like a sculpture…literally too good to eat! But we didn’t come all the way here to just stare at it…heheh…so we quickly dug in. I didn’t try hubby’s dessert, but mine was superb. Soft, warm, sweet…and it went so well with the tart raspberry sauce and cut tamarillo. I think I would’ve ordered another one if I wasn’t so stuffed.

After dinner, we took one last drive around the city center before going back to the hotel for more E! Entertainment and much needed sleep.