A day to explore Auckland until 6:30 pm when we had our tour meeting. We got a later checkout so decided to walk downtown along the waterfront to take in some sights. It was muggy as hell and we were both sopped when we got back to the hotel. We then took a cab to our g Adventures hotel. OMG!!! It's a f*c*ing hostel!!! So, we went from a 4* hotel to a 1*. Again, my attitude is "it is what it is". I gotta say though I'm very disappointed in some of g Adventures accommodations this time around. Our room actually has its own bathroom and it seems clean so I'll not dwell on this.

We we decided to take a walk to the harbour again as we didn't get to see it all this morning. It was miserable out - raining like crazy. I needed a couple of supplies so we stopped at some stores. I thought Australia was expensive but NZ is worse! We went to the ferry terminal and landed smack dab in the middle of Japan without leaving NZ!! It was Japan day here. They had lots of tents with people making food and entertainment all around. But there were a million people about so we decided to bolt and get some lunch. We found a nice seafood restaurant on the harbour and enjoyed the wet views with lunch. We asked the waitress what we should do and she had nothing for us because the weather was so crappy and spending anything would be a waste. Also it is Sunday and many things are closed. We had lots of laundry to do so we decided to go back to the hotel and get that done to start the new tour fresh.

Some things we noticed:
- many homeless people/ beggars here. We didn't notice any in Aus.
- no garbage cans but still fairly clean
- the shopping mall is akin to Torontos flea markets
- the main street, however, has Prada, Gucci, Coach, Dior, etc. Intermingled with tacky, small shops and a lot of fast food type places
- there are lots of "Asian" looking people here
- price of gas is around $1.80/ litre
- it's a big commercial shipping harbour

Unfortunately, I don't think we saw the best of Auckland due to the weather.

Then it it was off to our meeting. We actually met our CEO earlier. His name is Darren Anniss but goes by Auto. He compates himself to the bus driver on the Simpsons TV show, named Otto. He seems like a nice chap. He told us he'll wear black, red and yellow every day to support his rugby team. I think he will definitely be disappointed with this group. We're with 14 other people: 5 Americans (a couple - the woman is off somehow, 2 gay guys, 1 normal girl), a German couple (hard to read), 4 Aussies (2 from Sydney, 2 from Adelaide - older but seem ok), 1 Scotsman (seems good - it was his birthday today), and 2 Irish girls (seem nice, maybe gay, but quiet so far). We had our meeting and then went for dinner. I'm trying to keep an open mind but so far I'm NOT impressed. I'm usually a pretty good read on people and I don't think this group will be anywhere near as fun as the Australian group. I think there will be no dancing at all. If I had to guess I'd say I'll be buds with the 2 gay guys from the U.S. I'm trying to keep an open mind but even the CEO left after a half hour.

This tour is called the Highlights of New Zealand and will take us to the top attractions in this country. The itinerary sounds amazing and I hope the weather complies. It doesn't sound like it will be good but we'll just don our raincoat, hat and umbrella and carry on.