Sachin Agarwal: December 2007

I went to Death and Company last night, my favorite bar in Manhattan. They completely changed their menu and my old favorites were gone. I had a couple whiskey based drinks which were delicious, but a little sweeter than I wanted. So then I ordered a Perfect Manhattan.

The Perfect Manhattan came in two parts. First there was the standard martini glass with the cocktail in it. Additionally there was a glass beaker with more alcohol sitting in a bowl of crushed ice. They serve it this way because the martini glasses are small, and it keeps the drink chilled.

I love this place.

Yeah, it's 40 degrees outside. But we needed to take a walk after eating lots of food.

Who needs a fancy billboard?

Finding an affordable (and clean) apartment in New York City is nearly impossible. It's the worst part about moving to this fabulous city. I just heard an interesting story about someone getting evicted from their rent stabilized apartment. I can't go into too much detail (or name names) because there's an investigation going on!

Some rent stabilized leases stipulate that the apartment must be the primary home of the lessee for at least six months of every year. If the lessee doesn't occupy the premises as such, they can be evicted. There may be other reasons for eviction, like if the apartment is used as a place of business.

Unfortunately, it's in the interest of the property owner or management company to find out if someone is breaking these lease terms and evict them. Then they can rent the apartment for a lot more money.

A friend of mine received an eviction notice for breaking the terms of the lease. The property management company hired a private investigator who confirmed the actual lessee (not my friend) was not occupying the apartment. They knew where the lessee was living, where their car was registered, and other information that gave the landlord a strong case for eviction.

So my friend came home to find an eviction notice from the property management company along with a list of findings from the private investigator. My friend's apartment has been on rent control for 30 years and the rent is probably 25% of the market rate.

It must be a big business to kick people out of their apartments and re-rent them for four times the price.

I was petting him just before he fell asleep.

Geysers, hot springs, bubbling mud pools

Very scared:

Try to find me

I agree, all-nighters are ass.

The TranzCoastal train.

The Cook Strait.

This is the view from the helicopter. That's the previous group waiting to be taken back.

The hike up.

Looking towards the top.

a short slide through an ice cave.

a long slide through an ice cave.

Taking a break.

The glacier is huge.

• The population of NZ is 4 million people and 40 million sheep. New York City alone has 8 million people

• I planned the entire trip using Lonely Planey New Zealand and TripAdvisor. Both were incredible resources.

• I drank a lot of coffee in New Zealand. I would always get a long black. I tried replicating that at Starbucks by ordering a double short Americano but it wasn't nearly as good. Not strong enough.

• Whittakers Chocolate, made in New Zealand, is as good as my favorite Belgian chocolate. I brought back a ton. Flake bars are also amazing

• You can't get good tea biscuits in the US. I brought back a bunch. You also couldn't get good flavored chips here until recently. I really liked Honey Soy Chicken in NZ. NZ has great soda (some passion fruit thing)

• All the wine is twist off. Perfect for traveling.

• Every hotel in NZ gave us fresh milk for tea. My mom was a huge fan of this.

• Internet was expensive. Some places charged per MB. Opening my laptop, downloading email, and checking a few webpages easily hit 20mb. Very annoying.

• People in NZ say "sweet as" to mean "cool" or "awesome." Not "sweet ass"

• They were playing a lot of Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox 20

• Most of the towns we went to in NZ were so small we didn't need to look up the hotel's address before showing up. Just go up main street and you'll see it.

• My dream: To live in Queenstown on a huge lot on a hill. Have a ton of sheep. Run a hotel and a restaurant/bar. Operate a bungy jump and jetboat. Oh, and I wish Queenstown was closer to Auckland.

• Roundabouts are fast, efficient, safe, and way cool. The perfect place to do donuts
• Sometimes you'll see a speed sign before a blind turn like "45" in a 100 zone to make sure you slow down. But sometimes you also see "95" in a 100 zone, which I think is to make sure you don't slow down but keep traffic moving. Cool!
• The roads in New Zealand are perfect. The best I've ever seen. But they are constantly working on the roads, to the point where it's damn annoying because you have to slow to 30km/hr every 15 minutes
• They have trucks with lawnmowers attached to the side so they can mow the lawn on the side of the highways
• Regular gas is 91 octane, super is 98. We get piss for gas in the US (that's what Avi said)
• All the European cars seem to be in Auckland. That's where the money is
• The Acura TSX is the Honda Accord Euro
• There are tons of old Preludes everywhere. I guess it's a common tuner car
• Didn't see a single accident or a hit a bit of traffic the whole time we were there

From Rotorua we drove to Auckland. On the way we stopped at Waitomo Caves where we spent a few hours hiking through huge limestone caves. We also took a boat in pitch darkness through a cave to see millions of glowworms.

Then on to Auckland. Auckland is a real city. Christchurch and Wellington were jokes, but Auckland is the real deal. We arrived on a Friday night and the city was buzzing with life. Lots of young people going out to restaurants, bars, clubs. Auckland is very similar to Sydney with a sky tower and harbour bridge. It's another beautiful city on the water.

In Auckland I went to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter. I saw Gentoo and King Penguins in a simulated Antarctic world just like March of the Penguins. They have 700 pound sting rays, the same kind that killed Steve Irwin, and they were feeding them by hand. They also have an underwater tunnel where you can see sharks and other animals up close.

I went to the Auckland Museum where I saw more Maori cultural artifacts and the War Memorial. I loved the sections that discussed how New Zealand was formed from the volcanos, glaciers, earthquakes, etc.

Finally time to return home. Unfortunately there was a mechanical problem with our plane and we were delayed 12 hours in Auckland. We were provided a hotel and dinner, but it was still an absolutely horrible 12 hours. I expected Air New Zealand to be better than the american airlines but they aren't. They treated us like shit and there was nothing we could do about it. *sigh* I hate flying.

My first night back in New York and already happy to be here (though I wouldn't complain if i had the chance to move to New Zealand either). I grabbed a quick dinner at Bouchon Bakery in the Time Warner Center. Sydney and other cities in Australia and New Zealand have been decorated for Christmas since September, but they can't compare to Christmas in New York. The decorations, music, (cold weather), and crowds in the Time Warner Center really bring out the holiday spirit.

I went to see the play "Is He Dead?" which is a Mark Twain play that was just discovered by Stanford professor Shelley Fishkin. It was GREAT. Hilarious. I highly recommend it. This was a Stanford event and after the performance there was a talkback with the cast and producers of the show.

It was very interesting to hear how the play was discovered and went all the way to Broadway. I never really knew what a producer did until watching the last season of Entourage, and listening to the producers of this play. It actually sounds like a great job.

The producers are a little worried about the success of this play given it's a completely unknown story, and being by Mark Twain will have an unknown effect on demand. It really was great. Very funny, well written, well acted, gorgeous theater and sets. I recommend it.

This I don't recommend:

Brisk and cold

On Thursday we went to Paradise Valley Wildlife Park, another highlight of the entire trip. I love going to zoos and seeing animals, especially big cats. Paradise Valley has lots of New Zealand animals like sheep, pigs, a donkey, alpacas, and a ton of trout. One of my favorite animals was the wallaby. Wallabies are similar to kangaroos except smaller and softer. They were super cute and would eat from your hand.

The stars at the zoo are the African lions. They let you pet the 7 month old "cubs". They aren't soft at all, unfortunately. They have bristly hair and a tough skin. You have to pet them hard because if you touch them softly, you tickle them. (In New Zealand you "pat" animals, not "pet" them)

Paradise Valley has a daily lion feeding. I've seen lion feedings at other zoos. They put a piece of meat at the end of a stick and push it through a hole in the fence. The lion eats it, big deal.

This was way cooler. The main lion pen had one male and six female lions in it. The fence was electric and there was barbed wire along the top, exactly like in Jurassic Park. The zoo keeper was throwing chunks of meat over the top of the fence for about 20 minutes.

As he threw each piece he called out a lion's name and threw it in their direction, but it was still anyone's meat. The lions were running after each piece fighting for the food. There was actual roaring and fighting going on. Max, the male lion, was the most aggressive and went after every chunk of meat as it went over the fence. The sounds of the lions fighting was loud and frightening.

Paradise Valley wasn't something I had read about before arriving in Rotorua, but I love lions and tigers so of course I had to go. So glad I did. I was going to steal one of the baby cubs, but decided against it since it would probably eat the koala I stole in Sydney.