Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland is the largest city in Polynesia.

BLEARY-EYED AND BEATEN DOWN by 12 hours of airline food, airplane sleep and what seemed like three screenings of America's Sweethearts, I arrived in Auckland, New Zealand at 6:50 AM on Oct. 29. Touted by no less an authority than Let's Go New Zealand as the island nation's most cosmopolitan city, Auckland intimidated me a little bit - at least from the Arrivals lounge. Subsequently, I found the city's true character to be exceedingly pleasant, if not a bit toothless.

Auckland occupies an isthmus near the top of New Zealand's North Island. Built on a series of sometimes steep hills, the city is crowned by a central business district of modern office buildings and that seemingly ubiquitous (in former British Commonwealth countries, at least) monument to 1960s architectural banality: the space-needle-like concrete urban observatory – in this case named SkyCity. To be fair, the Kiwis have tried to spice theirs up by offering a bungy-jump at the top. Palm trees and silver ferns (which look like enormous inverted artificial Christmas trees) dot the cityscape and dominate the parks. In the same spirit that Manhattan gives you roughly six delis per city block, Auckland gives you the "newsagent" (followed closely in number by the Internet café). Ads for some variety of Cadbury candy bar occupy every third billboard. And although I hate to generalize like this, the people are very friendly.

I had a bus to catch at 1:30 PM, so I locked my bags in a locker and tromped around town, snapping pix and crashing out in city parks before grabbing a tasty seafood chowder at a dockside restaurant on the east harbor. The most striking aspect of this 6 ˝ hour tour was the utter absence of filth, crime, street people and run-down neighborhoods – which anyone knows are essentials for any metropolis of import. If a city hasn't driven a certain amount of people to steal, vandalize, go crazy or just plain give up on life, well, how edgy can life there be? While cities like New York and London go out of their way to answer this question in no uncertain terms, Auckland seems content to smile, and with a polite nod, say "not very."


On to Lake Taupo.