Out of office

My day out of office last week was spent sitting behind a Captain and a First Officer. I flew 2 sectors with 2 different sets of crew to Wellington and back. I was there to support a digital product trial of a piece of software on the iPad.


Pre-flight checks in progress.



Taxi-ing out from the gates.



Coming into Wellington.





Coming into Auckland.





It's nice to get out of the office once in a while.

​ Conference in Wellington

I’ve been away for a couple of days for a work conference held at Te Papa. I had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 3:45am last Monday to catch the first flight out. Meanwhile Jef has had to deal with his work stuff as well as all the parenting duties, including taking Kien to the dr with a sore eye on Monday afternoon. So that's twice in 2 weeks for 2 different reasons. Good thing I did duty of emergency pickup the week before. It's never easy when the school calls to say Kien is in the sickbay, and then Jef and I have to negotiate on who has got the least amount of commitments at work for the day. Last week I had only just arrived at work having driven to the airport through all the traffic (my current project is based out there), only to have the call up from the school office to say Kien is unwell. After I spoke with Jef I ran inside to let me colleagues know I was going home. Very thankful people understand these things - family first...always.

I’ve employed a tutor to help kien out with homework and music practice etc for a couple of afternoons. She came in handy these last couple of days when I haven't been around. That definitely took the pressure off Jef a bit with having to rush home to pick Kien up and then having to do all the schooling stuff, as well as the music practice stuff. Nah, lets just get someone in to help us do all that other stuff that is so tiring and naggy.

Anyway, just a few pics from Wellington. We were very lucky to have brilliant weather yesterday. My colleagues and I went out for dinner to the yacht club, and although cold outside, the views were fantastic. Good thing they supplied blankets for us. We drank our champagne and decided to move inside for the main course. Afterwards nobody wanted to walk the kilometre back to our hotel, so we lazily taxied there, much to my disgust in myself that I too wanted to catch a ride. The conference wore us all out. Thinking is such hard work.

A quick trip to the capital

Last month we went to Wellington for a quick weekend getaway. A colleague/friend was taking her kids there via train, and since Kien is good friends with those kids I thought it would be great to meet them there. I was not however going to spend an entire day on a train - been there, done that in Vietnam, got well and truly impatient, so no thanks, I'll fly! Plus, breakfast (and lunch combined) in the Koru lounge, yes please!

We stayed at the Copthorne on Oriental Bay. We've never stayed down this side before - we've always been more centrally located, so it made for a nice change.

We happened to have been there through a cold snap, and oh boy was it cold and windy. We did a fair bit of walking which kind of helped a bit.

Satnam and the kids finally arrived on Saturday evening, and we walked across town for some dinner at a little Vietnamese restaurant. There was a light festival happening that weekend (which we were not aware of) but it was good to be able to catch some of it on our walk home from dinner.

Sunday morning we visited Te Papa. Gallipoli: The scale of our war exhibition is still running. The last time we were here it was so crowded that we didn't want to queue for hours to see it, but this time, since we got there so early we were able to go through. If there is an exhibition that is worth coming to Wellington for then this one is it. It is truly spectacular with the giant models that look so realistic (and huge).

We all loved it.

We then took the cable car to the top of the hill - how novel.

A run around the playground for the kids to burn off some steam and then we took the cable car back to the bottom again (because we purchased return tickets).

Then a walk back around the waterfront for beers and ice-creams before heading back to the airport.

That's it. Another weekend over. They go so very fast, don't they?!?

From the big smoke to the capital

The Air New Zealand 75 years exhibition at Te Papa closed out at the end of the weekend that we were there - which was a few weekends ago now. We love Wellington, so any excuse was a good excuse to go. The flight is a quick one too; no sooner have we taken off the ground the snacks and hot drinks are served and packed away just in time for landing.



As it was only roughly 7km from Wellington airport to the central city we took the shuttle...which we regretted as we were the last to be dropped off and there was a full van. Plus we were charged an exorbitant amount - so we learnt our lesson there. After finally checking into to hotel we leisurely wandered down the road to Te Papa.





I really enjoyed Te Papa in general, and seeing the exhibition was great even though there was quite a crowd. The advertising history is pretty interesting.



They also had an area for the kids activities, which also included dress ups as cabin crew.



After a couple of hours at the museum I was ready for food and beer, so we went to Mac's Brewbar on the wharf. It was a beautiful day in the capital.





Yes, Kien only wanted an icecream on this very cold afternoon. The rest of the time (when he wasn't eating his icecream) he was stacking bean bags and jumping with the other patron's children.



The night markets were on Cuba Street that evening - literally just down the street from our hotel. There was some pretty awesome food on offer, and a spot of live music here and there.



Also some pretty cool lasers.



On Sunday we decided to have another look in Te Papa. I wanted to see the virtual reality show by AirNZ, and the Gallipoli exhibition. We got there nice and early before the museum opened, but unfortunately there where hundreds of others keener than us lining up way before we arrived, and it was an hour long wait for the Gallipoli exhibition, so we headed straight upstairs to AirNZ.



The virtual reality show did not allow kids under 7 years of age, so Kien and Jef put designs on planes instead while I went and viewed the 3 minute show.



We then went to breakfast at Te Raukura Wharekai - a cafe close to the boat shed.



Their big breakfast was delicious with black pudding and a mountain of bacon.





Kien went and played at/in the water.



After breakfast we walked to the parliament buildings via the waterfront.







The Beehive and Parliament House.



Kien and I ran up those stairs, and then he continued running up and down playing with his flip car.









After our brief visit it was time to head back to the airport and fly home. Good bye Wellington. We'll be seeing you again, no doubt.