Tour: North Island

This week the NZSO traveled up the North Island, starting with a flight into Napier. Like Christchurch, Napier suffered a massive earthquake, and since it happened in the 1930s, the whole city was rebuilt in an art deco style.

The architecture, the palm trees, and the small businesses made me think of seaside resort towns in Florida. In a way, I've felt more at home in Napier than in any other place I've been in NZ so far.

This is the theater where we performed. It was technically the "worst" hall that we've performed in, acoustically, and on the inside it very much resembles a high school auditorium. There was even an art deco backdrop on stage, made out of a thin piece of wood painted to look like an old-timey Hollywood design, instead of sound shells. Isn't it cute, though?

Thinking of Florida and walking along the beautiful beach from our hotel, I thought it might be nice to swim. As it would turn out, though, this ocean in Napier has too strong of an undertow for people to get in. 

From Napier we had a six-hour bus ride north to Hamilton. Along the way we stopped at Lake Taupo, which is a crater lake thought to have been created by a supervolcanic eruption. There are still a few active volcanoes in the area, too! I liked being in Lake Taupo and seeing businesses called "Great Lake" this and "Great Lake" that. It's a sizable lake, certainly, but compared to Lake Michigan it's actually not that big of a deal. For example, I could see to the other side.

I had really been looking forward to Hamilton because everyone went out of their way to tell me how ugly and low-class it was. The problem is that Kiwis clearly have different standards for ugliness and classiness than Americans do--I think something was lost in translation. While many of the musicians were counting down the minutes until they could check out of the hotel, I was actually enjoying a walk around the town. Here's a scene from crummy Hamilton:

The last leg of the North Island tour, which was reached by a nice quick bus ride, was Auckland. I love Auckland, and I'm glad I had the chance to have spent a day here. It's the largest city in New Zealand, and it might be the only city in NZ you've ever heard of. Probably due to its size, the downtown is spread out, so it's not as easy to explore as Wellington. 

With its sky tower, Auckland looks to me like it could be a city in Asia. The shopping mall beneath our posh hotel is also Asian-style. The food court menus are all in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and the stores are laid out exactly like they would be in Beijing. I started to get nostalgic for my travels to China six years ago while walking around there.

Our concert was performed in the Auckland Town Hall, which is a beautiful European-style space, with the orchestra seated in tiers. The orchestra was clearly happy to be playing there, and the performance sounded so nice.

Just one more day here in New Zealand! We still need to perform this program in Wellington, the orchestra's hometown. I think it will be a fun one, since it concludes a long trip and brings us back to a familiar space.