expiration date 

i guess, yesterday was an exhausting day, because the three of us (aina, ari and i) woke up at noon today. or we could also blame it to jet lag. or the lack of alarm.

anyways, by the time we woke up, everyone in the apartment has left, except for ari’s dad. we had a quick breakfast (or brunch, to be exact) and off we went to the city.

 

even though we basically live in the center city of auckland, to reach the main road (Queens Street) was pretty tough. you see, Auckland is a super-hilly city. there are many killer hills.

ah, yea… i forgot to mention yesterday that right after we got off the plane, my left “platform” of my platform boots fell off. well, it didn’t exactly fell off, but the thick sole flapped around with only the front edge still attached to the shoe. good thing that it didn’t happen earlier, because i don’t think the attached edge wouldn’t last long… and it would be very uncomfortable to walk around with one leg is 2.5 inches shorter than the other.

it was my all-time favorite boots, so i had to get it fixed. so we went to the first shoe-repair shop we found — turned out there are a few of them in Queens Street. as usual, the guy at the shop was super nice and very chatty. unfortunately, it would take them they 5 days to fix the boots. it’s rather long, but i got no choice. i’ll be bootless for the next five days, then.

after that, we had lunch at Nando’s. there is no Nando’s in Singapore, and we love the spicy chicken in this fast food joint. so, everytime we visit Australia or New Zealand, stopping by Nando’s is a must.

after lunch, we realized that it’s almost 3pm and it’s time for the wedding rehersal. we didn’t know exactly where the cathedral was, so we asked around. strangely, no one seems to know where it is…

the first girl we asked admitted that she’s “not very religious”, so she thinks we should ask someone else. seh did try, though. she gave us a direction to a completely different church on the other side of the city.

the next person we asked was a front desk guy on an office. he wasn’t sure either. after a lot of staring and guessing from the guy, we told him thank you for his effort, walked out of the building and gave nia a call to ask the address. the cathedral turned out to be 3 blocks away from where we stood. sooo close!

the rehersal was rather quick. they introduced us to the priest who will conduct the ceremony. then we all went through the brief version of the ceremony. aina, as the flower girl, had to walk down the aisle. well, the walk didn’t go smoothly, so i hope she’ll do better on the real ceremony.

 

after the rehersal is done, the flower boy — ando — and his parents arrived. because they were late, we decided to introduce the two toddler to each other, hoping that it will make the walk easier on the D-day.

 

ando gave a lot of hugs, while aina kept chasing the boy around and pulling ando toward her, saying that she wants to take ando home… funny.

after that, the three of us walked back to Queens Street to find a pair of white tights for me. the street is full of trendy clothing stores, so it was pretty easy to find. it was almost 6pm, though, which is the time where everything closed in New Zealand.

we had home-cooked dinner (cooked by ari’s mom) and went to bed not long after. it’s probably the jet lag, but aina had a hard time sleeping. she went to bed around 9pm, but didn’t fall asleep until 2am. that was a long night.

today’s photo is on flickr: 28 May 2009.