The QT Museum Hotel is something else, I've never seen anything like it. The room itself is wicked, but the unique part is feeling like you're living in an art gallery, it's so stylish! We're also lucky to have a view of the harbour from our room.
Last night we had one drink at the hotel restaurant, Hippopotamus, then went to kitchy cool Leroy's Bar for "dinner" and a drink. Because we'd more than eaten our $55NZ worth on the ferry from Picton our dinner was some tacos and kimchi loaded fries, yum.
This morning we work up with a coffee from Mojo's, then headed straight to Te Papa's museum. We budgeted 2 hours but ended up staying about that in the Gallipoli section alone. The Gallipoli exhibit was so well put together, with spectacularly realistic displays by Weta, and fantastic visual representations of what happened from different perspectives. We absolutely loved it, but needed something a bit more light hearted so we spent a couple of hours in the natural history sections to bring up the mood, and what better way to lift the mood than to see the only preserved specimen of a giant squid.
We even managed to find the dead horse! (We were too embarrassed to ask because Phar Lap wasn't on the maps).
The next part of the day was a bit of a struggle. I'd gone to the gym in the morning and had an apple and a coffee for breakfast so was fast running out of energy. Anyone who's seen me after not having food knows things get dire; I don't get angry or in a bad mood or anything, I just literally can't function and am liable to get hit by a car or something. After the 30min walk to Garage Project and arriving at 1:30pm, we realised it was closed until 3pm. Andrew acted fast and managed to get me to Grill Meats Beer for a gluten free burger post stat, and it really was just in time. We then went to Tuatara around the corner for a beer and a chat with the brewer, then made the slow walk back to Garage Project (we'd traded the low energy slow walk for the we ate too much slow walk) for a couple of tasting paddles.
Man NZ beer is wicked! Tuatara has been a surprise source of consistently good beers, and Garage Project was really cool although a little left of center with it's quirky beers and interesting sea weed snacks. After the interesting selection of the day's special tasting paddle we got one more paddle to share of the favourites including the absolute favourite, Death From Above.
After Garage Project we braved the rain and headed back towards Cuba Street where we decided to go see a play, the Pickle King. I won't stay too much about it (because Andrew might disapprove of me being mean), but I will say that it was not my thing. The cast was really talented and I was really impressed with the production, and overall I really enjoyed the experience but I think that type of theatre is lost on me. I found myself asking "is this real life?" on more than one occasion. Maybe it was the beer.
Dinner was ramen and yakitori at Kazu and it really hit the spot, especially in the rainy weather.
I can't believe tomorrow is our last day! We have late checkout so we're going to make the most of the hotel and possibly grab lunch at Hippopotamus.
