blurpenguin

Whilst Julie's Parents and Bro's Family changed cars and drove back to Christchurch to fly back to Malaysia, we were on our way to Rotorua...

We were taking another 2 days to check out Rotorua, the only North island place we were visiting... not counting Auckland lah... cuz we were going to just drive straight from Rotorua to Auckland Airport.

Rotorua... is the land of sulphur pools... mud pools and Maori culture...

with limited time at hand we had our days all mapped out...

But first, lets see what we ate there!

McDonalds!... unique burger called "The Boss!" - actually its a mesh of 2 quarter pounders with added tomatoes. We had initially just wanted to try Burger King, which had more unique stuff then Mc'Ds but we ended up here for lunch after helplessly wandering around a shopping venue looking for food... not cheap at NZ$9 (value meal)


After a relaxing dip in some thermal pools at Waikite Valley Thermal pools, we headed back to Rotorua for dinner. We were very afraid since it was late most places would be closed but thankfully after roaming around we came across a whole stretch of restaurants... We went to a pizza place first but it was closing... then wandering to another restaurant, they seemed so busy and would care less of us waiting to be seated, so ahh... we walked next door and stumbled upon the restaurant, "Solace Cafe & Restaurant" which offered us a steak special at NZ$19, which each of us took... it was lovely...


Seafood chowder for Hannah... (it was good with lots of fish and scallops)


& Tiramisu dessert to cap off the evening...


The next day after our trip to Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland, we went to Fat Dog Cafe for some of their Nz$9 lunch specials... it was served with rice!

I had the Pork Ribs Special... awesome amount of ribs...


and Julie had the Chicken with Apricot sauce... the rice served was mash like...


Our last dinner in New Zealand was a Hangi dinner - traditional Maori dinner, after an excellent cultural show! It was all cooked via hot stones and steam in the ground... more modern now... but still a traditional method.


All the Kūmara (Maori, for sweet potatoes) you could eat; they were really sweet and nice!


Lamb central... it was a buffet... serving this much lamb is sinful...


Chicken galore... plus potatoes which was served with a thick creamy sauce...


suffice to say... it was an extremely extreme dinner... :p