Auckland Museum and Kelly Tarlton

We went to the Auckland Museum today. It is an absolutely gorgeous building with heaps of exhibits. I could ahve spent the whole day there. The first floor of the museum I devoted to the Maori culture. The workmanship of the Maori's is amazing. They were able to make and crave so many gorgeous things out of wood, stone, and bone. I was such a sight to see.

 We had the opportunity to see a Maori cultural performance as well. The performance was amazing. The Maori people are very talented with music and dance. They performed some traditional Maori dances with poi balls and te rakka sticks. At the end they did the hakka. It was such a sight to see.

The Maori people are so kind and it was fun to see there culture. The men in there culture stick their tongue our for the hakka and the women make their eyes big. So we tried both for picture. So funny. 

On the 2nd floor of the museum was lots of stuff about the Natural World. There were dinosaur, ocean, land, coastal, ect exhibits and some exhibits on Asia and other cultures. We went into the volcano house to see what it felt like during a volcanic eruption. It was a cool simulation. 

The top floor was devoted to exhibits on the world wars and how New Zealand was involved. It was pretty cool. I am such a World War II nerd. Everything about it just intrigues me. And seeing holocaust exhibits always bring me to tears, but I still like go to them. Going to the museum was such a great experience. I just love museums. 

After the museum, we drove a short while up to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater water, which is an aquarium in Auckland. The aquarium was rather small, but it had a cool penguin encounter where we got to ride around and see some penguins.

We also got there just in time to see the stingrays get fed, which was pretty cool. I don't think I have ever seen stingrays that big before.

Some of us decided to have some fun at the aquarium too and act like little kids. We climbed inside a shark's mouth, and I put my hand in some polar ice for 30 seconds. It was so cold. My hand hurt from the cold and was freezing for a few min after.

All in all it was a pretty great day and adventure down in Auckland. I had the opportunity to see so much and it was fun to explore with the whole group.