South Island ~ New Zealand

HONG KONG layover en route to down under -
We left Shanghai December 19th with a stopover in Hong Kong for a couple of nights. Stayed at YESin SPACE SOHO a cozy hostel tucked away in Kowloon conveniently located between two metro stops-Olympic and Mon Kok. This hostel passes our families critical eye and meets our comfort and hassle free expectations especially for finding something in HK around 100$US per night for 4 adults. You can book directly online with www.hostelworld.com or check out their website at www.yesinspace.com A great little ‘boutique’ hostel!

Two days pre xmas in HK was perfect for us, enough time to enjoy all the cream I could possibly want in my coffee’s and time to take in the beautiful outdoor and indoor xmas decorations everywhere in the city. They really go overboard!
For my 4th trip to HK, I finally managed to get up to the Big Buddha on Lantau Island. We took the gondola up and walked around the monastery and up to the Buddha himself. A beautiful, peaceful area despite the hoards of tourists.

We boarded our Cathay Pacific flight on Dec. 22nd at 8:00am bound for Auckland. A long, but pleasant flight of just over 10 hours landed us in Auckland around 1:00pm. Clearing customs here was a different experience. Although everything went smoothly, officials look for and ask about everything you are bringing into their country. If you plan on visiting, don’t plan on bringing in any food with you-they did let our homemade xmas cake through and chocolate bars-but many other food items are not allowed in.

South Island~

We had lots of time to wait for our connecting flight with Air New Zealand to Christchurch at 6:00pm. We hung out at the airport eating and sleeping until flight time. Arrived in Christchurch at 8:00pm and arranged to have a van meet us and take us to our hostel-Around The World Backpackers, a decent place to spend the night. Most hostels are around 25NZD per person with a shared bathroom. I have the stay I loved all the beds in NZ wherever we stayed. They love the ‘softer’ bed with nice sheets. A basic comfort which seemed so obvious to me before coming to China where the norm is a flat hard bed with hard pillows and sheets not worth talking about. NZ was a luxury in this area! We made our way to DuxDelux restaurant recommended to us by a friend from school. Delicious pizzas and beers on tap including a ginger beer which was yummy & quite different.

Dec.23rd we went to retrieve our rental 8 passenger minivan from About New Zealand rental cars, also known as Apex Rentals. There are a number of rental agencies in NZ and it’s hard to know if one is better over the other. If you want a funky looking van all painted up you should go with Escape or Wild. We saw lots of Jucy rentals as well which looked decent. Our van was 115NZD per day which we thought was kind of expensive for the quality-it was a little used to say the least, but it ran fine and we had no troubles with it. Later a friend told me that this is not unusual for NZ rentals. Most rentals are not new vehicles. Gas all over both islands was pretty steady at 1.65L. NZD.