Day 1 - Queenstown

In the morning of Boxing day, we left Ibis hotel by the airport free shuttle bus. As our flight to Queenstown took off at 7:10am, we have to get up very early. Actually we just have a few hours rest in the hotel as we arrived late last night. So was it really worth to stay over just to save a little bit?

The check-in was smooth and we got on the plane on time. Air New Zealand was doing very good in arousing passengers attendance in watching the emergency demonstration video. The recruit Kiwi cricket stars, though I knew none of them, and put some Lord of the Rings materials into the video.

After another connecting flight from Christchurch, we finally arrived Queenstown at 10:05am. I love early arrival because we have a whole day to walk around! Queenstown is a very popular vacation destination for Kiwi and Aussie. She is famous for extreme sports and adventure activities.

The Remarkables, took from Queenstown Airport. The two sharp peaks at the left side of this mountain range is Double Cones.

We stayed at Jeff's home, who is a friend of Stephanie's colleague. We would spend three days at Queenstown. On the first day, we would walk around at Queenstown and prepared our day trip on December 28, 2012; on the second day, we would go to Arrowtown by cycling; on the third day, we went to Doubtful Sound through a local tour.

Queenstown downtown looks like Stanley Market to me. Both located by water and filled with shops and restaurants. After arriving Queenstown Airport, we went to the downtown by bus. As the time was close to noon, and we were getting hungry. I decided we should have something good to celebrate our trip, so we have our lunch at Pier 19, a restaurant that we could see the Lake Wakatipu directly. One point to note is that all New Zealand restaurants are liable to charge more on their public holidays, starting from 10% surcharge or more! That's okay, as we are visitors and prepared to pay more to enjoy our trip! Stephanie chose pancake (What? Pancake in New Zealand???) and I chose lamb chop. Our conclusion is never chose pancake at restaurant as it is probably a microwave oven pancake! Total NZD44.4, with surcharge, probably 20%!

Pancakes...um...not a bad decision after long flight!