October 18, 2005 for the third time

Hello, Wellington

I hailed a cab outside the airport and asked to be brought to the hotel. I was trying to enjoy the sights when I was distracted by how fast the cab meter was moving.

It was insanely fast. Ten cents every five seconds. Really, I counted.

And so when we pulled up at the hotel driveway, I felt like fainting.

I paid the cabbie almost 1600 pesos.

Starting today, I shall walk everywhere.

I shall comfort myself with the thought that I made the right decision of not buying the travel guide I was eyeing. Because at the airport, you can get travel books for free. Yes, books, not pamphlets. That was P1700 saved. (P1600 of which ended up with the cabbie -- I know, I know, I couldn't get over it.)

I am now in my room at the Wellington Intercontinental.

After checking in, I headed straight for the media registration where I was given my pass, my schedule for the next few days and a kit from the New Zealand Tourism board.

The kit is pretty cool - it contains guides and a DVD set that contains songs, short films and music videos from New Zealand.

I thought, hey, we should do this at home too.

It's 6:20 p.m. now and I have the entire night free.

I might take a walk in a bit but I'm starting to feel like I'm floating.

I might just stay in. The hotel's nice and cozy and Snuggle Puff is waiting for me in my bed.

And I've got another reason to stay inside. Because my room is on a club floor, I get 24 hours of high-speed internet access for free (as long as I don't exceed 100 MB).

Great. I can keep bombarding this blog with photos.

Like this:

My view from the plane.



The clouds were incredible.



My view from the room. I can see ships as I'm typing this.



And of course, me taking mirror project shots in my room.



I think it's fantastic that I can blog from here.

That way, when I get back to Manila, I only have to worry about writing my articles.