First Day of Classes & A Trip to the Museum

My first day of classes was yesterday. I only had one class, and it was in the morning, so I had the rest of the day off. The class seemed pretty interesting. It is "Introduction to New Zealand Literature". The first section we are doing is about New Zealand short stories. I actually just finished the assigned reading which is due for class tomorrow. The stories were pretty interesting. This class should give me some insight into New Zealand culture. I have three classes tomorrow, so I hope those ones are interesting as well.

My friends and I

My friends and I had a chance to check out the Auckland War Museum the other day instead of going to Davenport. It was a rainy day, so we figured we'd be better off indoors. The museum is very close. It is located in the Auckland Domain Park, which is about a 10 minute walk from the WSA building. It is quite large, and I imagine you could spend a couple days checking it out. For me the most interesting part was that they had a live Mauri presentation, where they showed us different Mauri traditions, dances and games. The Haka was very cool to see performed live. The other parts were quite interesting too. They had this section about the flightless birds of New Zealand. They had bones from one species called the Moa which is now extinct because it was so easy to hunt. It was about 12 feet tall, and was formerly the biggest bird on Earth. They had this other section I did not get to check out which had stuff from Egypt. I am definitely going to go back and check it out. They also had this one section where they had these giant spiders that I guess live in some New Zealand caves and stuff... so I might not be going in any caves here any time soon.

My shadow is the third one from the left.

One of the pieces at the Museum



Buddhist Statue

A traditional Mauri meeting place

Performing different Mauri traditions

Close up of one of the Mauri dances

My roommate Micha trying out one of the Mauri dances

Me with one of the Mauri people

The Haka

Short video clip of the Haka

Another video clip from the presentation

I already have quite a few plans for the weekend. Friday I plan to go to Davenport (if the weather is good), and then on Saturday I will be on a free bus tour which will take us to historical and notable places in Auckland, and following that is the All Blacks vs. Australia Rugby Game. Finally on Sunday I plan on check out a volcanic island place(the one mentioned in the post below)

So be expecting more posts and more pictures.

cheers,
Shawn