Mid-Sem Tour, Day IV – Rotorua

Arrived at the Rotorua, the town with the rotten egg smell. Actually, I kinda like the smell. It is so unique. By the time we settled our accommodation, it was alr 3pm and too late to do any activities because the sun sets so early in winter. At the same time, we were tired from our restless night at Whakatane so, we went to the Polynesian Spa. There are 4 mineral pools, each of a slightly different temperature. I think it ranged from 38-42 degrees Celsius. 2 of the pools faced Lake Rotorua. The view was just spectacular. Can u imagine, soaking in warm mineral pools with seagulls beside you and the lake and mountains as your backdrop!! I really enjoyed the view. The pools were not hot enough for my liking and the sulphur smell wasn’t strong enough. For hot pools, my experience in Taiwan with Wanzhen still wins hands down. The entry fee for Polynesian Spa is quite reasonable, $15 and you can stay for as long as you want. Yeefang and I wanted to see how it’d be like at night so we stayed till just after the sun had set, a total of 3 hours of soaking!! We were like prunes when we came out. Ok, exaggeration. We weren’t continuously in the pools. A pity we didn’t stay till it was a little darker. Rose told me that the Korean Carol went at night and she enjoyed a starry night.

The pool with the best view

Rotorua is so cool, it has like 4 big supermarkets within walking distance from each other. There was Woolworths, Pak n Save, Countdown and Warehouse. We were just spoilt for choice. The thing abt supermarkets in NZ is that the price of groceries fluctuate day to day, u never know when u’ll get a good deal. Yeefang and I were lucky, we got a chocolate mud cake at half its usual price at just $2.50. A whole chocolaty cake for $2.50!! It was soooooo delicious.