SALTY SEA DOGS AND DESIGNER HANDBAGS

Sometimes on a Monday morning when the house is a mess and there's promise of sunny weather, you just have head out in search of adventure.  By mid morning we were bouncing along the motorway on the bus to the Auckland port in search of fishy sea air.  In my mind I like to imagine it the way it might have once been, salty sea dogs with peg legs and glinting earrings, the pungent odor of fish guts being fought over by greedy gulls, drunken sailors tripping out of illegal whiskey bars and fish mongers yelling their best price.  Instead you're met by this very odd combination of luxury apartments, gleaming yachts owned by Russian billionaires and huge restaurants that transform into meat markets (basically imagine Jersey Shore), jumbled in with rust bucket fishing boats, plastic containers of freshly caught sea life gasping for breath and the odd real weather worn sailor looking disheveled and a little out of place in this surreal surrounding.  Regardless of this, I love walking down the pier and watching the scenes unravel. Squeals of delight and gasps of 'look mama, a boat', 'look mama, a bird', 'look mama, strange lady' coming from Ayana's mouth in a constant flow as she sprinted along the harbour confirmed that she was a fan too! And so we ambled along the water for a couple of hours battling the wind (so much for sunshine) and taking it all in until the grumble in our bellies got the better of us.  We found a dingy ramen house, slurped our way through a big bowl of delicious noodles while the broth dripped down our chins and before we knew it, it was time to run to our bus and get home for a very late nap.
Now I'm sitting here typing and my house is still a mess, but for the morning we had it's totally worth the fact that I now have to scrub the toilet shortly before dinner.
xx