During our first afternoon in Auckland, we visited its newest tourist attraction called the SkyCity and Tower.  First off, this is a huge complex which houses a 5 star hotel, currently Auckland's IN hotel, an upscale Chinese Restaurant, a casino, and of course its now popular Sky Tower built a mere two years ago.   By now we had visited so many towers in the course of our travels around the globe.  We decided to go up anyway to get a 360 degree view of New Zealand's premier city.  Admission was steep compared to all the other towers we've visited.  But anyway, here is what we saw from way up yonder.

This is a view of our hotel, The SEBEL, from atop the Sky Tower.

This is the impressive skyline of the city .

Now here's a view of the Auckland Town Hall, now a venue for plays, concerts, symposiums, and the like.  A few days after our departure, Deepak Chopra was scheduled to give a talk here.  As it turned out, he was not just visiting New Zealand but Australia as well as just like us.  I saw a poster advertising his visit to Sydney too at the time of our visit in the land down under.

This is the Auckland Domain, site of the Auckland Museum also known as the War Memorial Museum by some locals.  We visited this museum on our fourth day in Auckland and easily spent the whole morning here.  The Museum is huge with three floors.  I will forever remember this museum for its absolutely impressive exhibit of Polynesian Art.  To tell the truth, I really wasn't a fan of such art until I visited this place.  I became a huge convert.  You may now count me as a fan of anything from the South Pacific.   The place was full of visitors when we went there.  There were tourists as well as locals.  The locals were mainly school children on a field trip with their teachers.

If you watch the program, the Biggest Loser in the US, you no doubt will recall one episode when the group went to Auckland, climbed the tower stairs, and jumped from its very top.   Well, on this particular visit of ours to the Sky Tower, we were fortunate to actually see some people jump from the tower for pleasure and adventure.  In fact, we saw two people, do it.   Here is the picture of a man as he was suspended from mid air.   We, the visitors, were, I must say, quite delighted to see the spectacle and prayed that he got to the ground safe and sound.  Actually, the jumper didn't look a bit frazzled at all.  He was all smiles and he seemed to enjoy the ride.

I don't think Marc was all that rested either.  But like the true culture vulture that he is, he was just as awake as I was all for the sake of seeing as much as we could.  He was just as excited as I was to be in the Southern Hemisphere for the very first time.

This is the area where the Sky Tower jumpers land.  As you can see from the banner, the jump is priced at a

discount, two for the price of one.  Any takers?

As soon as we got back to terra firma, we headed to the mini museum and shop at the tower's ground floor and basement.  It too had a jumper suspended from the ceiling.

At the gift shop and tourist office of the Sky Tower

In front of the mural inside the gift shop and tourist office of the Sky Tower

After the tower visit, we went to the casino for a quick tour.  It was very much like a Las Vegas casino.  We didn't gamble.  After a quick walk around, we left and check out the Sky City grounds.

This is one big Maori pole in the middle of the lobby.

Another view of the Sky Tower lobby with the upscale Chinese restaurant in the background