s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Since it was a nice day Friday morning, I decided to document my morning walk to work. Yes, I bought a car, but it’s a nice 15 minute walk to the office, so I only use the car if I’m leaving the city or going somewhere I intend to bring back something heavy from (like, say, a 25lb bag of cat litter).

I have two options for the walk to work — walk along Courtenay Place, or cut through the New World parking lot, cross Cable Street and walk along the waterfront. The way the city curves around the harbor, any given walk from one end to the other will be longer, the farther you are from the water. So I usually walk along the water on the way to work, but will sometimes take the longer inland route home if I feel like window shopping or just rubbing elbows with the crowd.

Once across the street, Te Papa, the National Museum, squats squarely in my path. The longer way around it goes past the marina, though, and that’s often nice. Here’s a pic of the back side of Te Papa, and of the marina:

And here’s the view of the city you see when you get ’round the museum (I love this view. It’s often better when there are more clouds to pick up the colors, but I tend to err on the side of caution when there might be rain, and so I don’t bring the camera in that often):

Here is a statue of Kupe, the 10th century Maori discoverer of Aotearoa (that’s “Land of the Long White Cloud”: the Maori name for New Zealand), with his wife and magician. (Columbus never had a magician ! Hah !):

The Kupe statue is right on the boardwalk there, but I took a little detour to get this shot of the lagoon. That’s my building there with the two beige hexagonal towers (I’m in the one with the sattelite dish on top — just so you know where to aim your missles). There are ramps for putting in boats, which you can then paddle out into the harbor — on nice days the water is lousy with kayakers. (How many cities do you know where you can go sea kayaking on your lunch hour ?) One of the Sheds I used to pass when I walked from the train station rents kayaks and scuba gear and roller blades and stuff, so you don’t even have to bring your own.

I’m pretty sure the annual Dragon Boat races start from around here — there are two boat houses alongside the lagoon, and on one side of Frank Kitts Park there is a row of likely-looking doors.

Frank Kitts Park is the next stop on the photo tour — over a bridge and up some stairs. There is apparently an annual sculpture competition held/displayed in this park. Here’s a photo of the Frank Kitts Gull Flock and Social Circle. Or some of the stragglers, anyway — this is actually a little late in the morning for them & many have already gone. These are the guys I described getting pushed around by gale winds in a previous post:

The park also has a playground, and there’s a company that comes around and sets up giant bungy-trampolines on nice days. I mentioned before that a lot of the plants here have a different architecture ? Behold the fearful symmetry of the Norfolk Pine:

And finally, sunrise from my office window:

Good morning !

–37 days til Snog Week