Not so impressed

It might be hard to see in this photo but these are the Chinese characters Oliver needs to learn in Primary 2. 160 of them. He mastered 80 in Primary 1 - so double the amount this coming year.
I know you can do it Oliver!

Haircut

Always great to get the kids hair done in Osaka. This time I managed to have my hair washed and blowdried too!!

Family photo

It was great to have this photo taken. It is quite rare to have all the 8 cousins for dinner!

Mum and the boys:

Mum and the girls:

NZ to Osaka

Our first attempt - Flying Auckland to Osaka!
We were super lucky to have the last 4 seats on the plane. We did have some problems sitting together (poor Oliver had to sit by himself with some other passenger beside him all the way to Hong Kong) but all in all we managed to get to Osaka without getting stuck anywhere.

The entertainment on our seats didn't work at all. I was very worried at the start of the flight but Luca and Ashley are so used to being on the plane and they were fantastic. They were super happy getting some special treats every now and then during the flight. 

I must say the Cathay flight attendants were among the best we have had. They were always checking on Oliver and seeing if we needed anything else. Our 11 hour 25min flight didn't feel that long. Plus we were super lucky getting seats from HK to Osaka too. 

It was such a looooong day but I now know it's possible to fly with three kids by myself from NZ to Osaka!!

The last day in Auckland

We spent the entire morning at Silvia Park shopping mall. Hiroko and I enjoyed doing some souvenir shopping together. Once we got home and did a little bit of packing we headed out to the North Shore to spend our last day in Auckland together with some other Rose family members.

First stop was my favourite place - Takapuna Beach. The kids had loads of fun playing at the newly built playground by the beach while Hiroko and Kentaro enjoyed this great view of Rangitoto Island.

We picked up some fish and chips and drove to the meeting spot near QBE stadium. Merryn and Dennis and the Fenwick Roses were all waiting for us. 

Must have - a donut from the fish and chip shop!

Devon and me :)

It didn't take long for the kids to get to know each other:

Deven even baked a pavlova for me!! How sweet!!!

The very last entertainment for us was to watch a rugby game - Auckland Blues vs SA Bulls.

We got there early enough to take photos with some famous players (They are famous but we didn't recognise all of them to be honest... and the boys were wearing the wrong colour jerseys!)

We were given lots of free supporter goodies :)

Nice for the boys to be able to watch the warmup so close:

The final score was 38-14 to the Auckland Blues. Lots of action and great atmosphere. 

Great way to finish up our little NZ holiday. Looking forward to our next visit already. 

Waiheke Island

No sleeping in, we were up and about very early. We took a bus into the city centre to catch a ferry to Waiheke Island. This was a MUST on Hiroko's list of things to do while in Auckland. Matthew and I even did a trial visit back in December to make sure they would have an amazing time on the Island. Well... the Island is full of wineries - they WILL have fun without a doubt!

Arriving on Waiheke:

Unfortunately it was clouded over when we arrived but at least it wasn't raining. 

Matthew and I navigated ourselves quite well back in December using the hop-on-hop-off bus. So that's what we did. While we were tasting some NZ wine the previous night Hiroko and I made a plan and marked places to visit for the day. Our first choice was to visit MUDBRICK Vineyard. They had fantastic reviews and it looked very close from Matiatia Wharf where we got off the ferry.

We took a stroll along this beautiful Kiwi walkway to get to the bus stop.

We spotted a Tui which is native to NZ - such a beautiful looking bird and it sounds amazing. 

We somehow ended up walking quite a long distance to catch the bus. We tried to take a shortcut so that we didn't have to go around the whole Island before getting to our first stop. Even so due to their one way only routing and unpunctuality it took way longer than planned before we did our first wine tasting. 

Finally! We got off at this bus stop - super view of Rangitoto Island:

Lucky all the kids were very happy just walking. We still had to walk between the vines to get to the vineyard. 

It was such a stunning location and the restaurant was just beautiful. We started off sampling their wines (while all the kids sat outside on a bench with iPhones...). I think I was so dehydrated from all the walking the wine went straight to my head!

By the time we got a table on the restaurant side it was almost lunch time. So we bought a bottle to share and enjoyed delicious food. 

It all tasted amazing especially when we were surrounded by this stunning view.

With a couple of glasses of wine we were all smiling :) :) :)

And crazy rolly-pollying down the hill!

I am getting good at taking kids jump shots :)

We wasted our precious time by using the hop-on-hop-off bus. It is ok if you are only visiting one or two wineries in a day like we did last time but if you plan to visit more than 2 in different locations on the Island, it takes too long just waiting and being on the bus. I think next time we will hire a mini van or a taxi.

We heard that the Rangihoua Estate - one of the famous olive oil producers on the Island was closing early so that's where we headed next.

The olive oil tasting was interesting - we ended up buying a sample bottle set each. 

Another spot on the Island I wanted to take the kids and the Kobayashi family was Oneroa Bay. We heard that they serve the best pizzas on the Island, from a little minivan with an open fire pizza oven on the beach! 

The kids had lots of fun while we waited for the food. 

Some delicious pizzas for the kids, calzones and kebabs for the adults. Finger licking good!!! We are definitely going back when we visit the Island again. 

Then the kids were treated with some gelato which was produced by a lady who almost won on the famous TV show- MasterChef NZ. 

This wasn't the end of our fun day. Our last stop was at the Waiheke Wine Centre which has the largest selection of Waiheke wines. We could taste 32 wines from Waiheke!!!  Including the free ones I think I tasted 8 different wines there. 

We timed it perfectly to catch the ferry back to Auckland. By the time we left it was starting to get quite cold. 

I feel bad the bus on the Island didn't work out too well this time for us. We could have visited more wineries. But still I think we all enjoyed our big day out and for sure we are going to go back again!