Wellington Eats

New Zealand Breakfast!  Start.  My.  Day!

That tea, along with the Spiky Melon and the Man Yogurt, was scored at the grocery store.  Along with magnificent peaches, plums, and avocados...  It was beautiful summer, so everything good was in season.  The tea is more mild than English breakfast, and has a little bit of bergamot.  Like English Breakfast and Earl Grey had a mild-mannered baby.

I also picked up some kiwi berries.  These you can find at home (at least in Philly) at the fancy-pants farmer's markets.  I've had them before.  Just like kiwi fruit, but with no fuzzy exterior.

There is obviously some British influences in New Zealand - they are a member of the Commonwealth and Queen Elizabeth is the head of state.  Even without seeing her face on the money, you'd still know of New Zealand's close historical ties with Britain.  I mean really, meat pies, sausage rolls, everywhere.

I even had a meat pie at the Te Papa cafe.  I think it was venison?  It tasted good, but the insides looked awful.  The girl who gave it to me was like, want ketchup?  I said no, and then she shrugged and said people usually did, so then I said yes.  I wanted to experience my meat pie the New Zealand way!  Which is apparently with Heinz 57.

Based on the advice of a local Wellington dude who was working the conference table, post-day of our talk, luggage resting comfortably in our hotel room, Rachel and I headed to the Mighty Mighty to people watch, catch some live music, and have a well-deserved drink.  Our Wellington contact said it was a divier place, but it seemed wonderful - bright and clean - to us!

New Zealand's close (relatively, compared to Germany for instance) physical proximity to Asia also means that there is a fair amount of Asian eats in Wellington.  Malaysian, Indian, Chinese, Korean, etc. I did have the World's Biggest Sushi for lunch one day.  I tried to put the chopsticks in as a size reference, but it didn't really work.  Let's just say they were regular sushi the size of futomaki.  Salmon rolls on steroids.

Night Market!  In the summer, every Friday off of Cuba Street in downtown Wellington!  Yes please!  A whole passel of us young'ins went and ate Szechuan noodles and a variety of dumplings, cooked as you watched.

Dumpling boat!  Dumpling fork!

Wha-ha-ha!  Starburst sucks!  It totally does!

But in all reality, a suck is actually what Kiwis call lollipops.  Rachel and I have extended this terminology to include hard candies, and spent all of last week jet-lagged, wandering around the lab asking people if there were sucks anywhere that we could have.