October 11th, I had to test the efficiency of New Zealand's transportation systems. From Christchurch to Picton by bus, then from Picton to Wellington by ferry, and from Wellington to Auckland by plane. I had bought the tickets in advance, but if someone was delayed by just an hour, the whole plan would fall apart... I didn't want that to happen. The morning turned out to be wonderful. I woke up at 6:00, had breakfast, and was at the bus stop by 6:45, where I still had to go through a simple registration for the flight and exchange my electronic ticket for a regular one. When I entered the office, I saw two women, one of whom was a pure-blooded Maori. I handed her the papers, and she suddenly asked me in perfect Russian, 'Shevchenko?' I didn't even have time to react, and she added, 'Russian?' I was completely amazed 🙂. Then she continued in English, saying that her husband is Russian 🙂. At that moment, the second woman in the office woke up and exclaimed, 'YOU HAVE A RUSSIAN HUSBAND O_O?!' In general, the morning turned out to be positive for everyone 🙂.

Scraped through my coffers and picked up more Wellington photos of all sorts. There are some evening ones, there is Cuba Street, airplanes, another panorama with Welliwood’s stone marshmallows, flowers and sea creepers… stay tuned. We're going to warm up in Picton next.

After the botanical garden, we walked along the waterfront to grab some food.

When I landed in Wellington on Saturday evening, I had already crossed nine time zones heading east. Usually, people take three days to a week to recover from such a jet lag. But as a long-time reader of Exler, I knew about the magical pills — Melaxen — that help the body adjust to drastic time zone shifts. I decided to give them a try. The effect was incredible! The next morning, I woke up at 8 AM feeling like I hadn’t traveled at all. Great stuff; highly recommend!