It is Boxing Day here in Auckland, Saturday, and the post Christmas shopping frenzy is underway!

We had a terrific Christmas Day roaming some of the very quiet neighborhood streets of Grey Lynn, Ponsonby and Herne Bay. We had not yet made it over to nearby Herne Bay…wow…a beautiful city neighborhood with a collection and mixture of 19th century traditional and contemporary homes that make it truly unique. It also became Auckland’s first $2 million neighborhood in 2008 with that being the median home price! It’s location on the bay and proximity to the city center help drive the prices.

We enjoyed a terrific gourmet dinner at Hotel Debrett, a beautiful boutique hotel, one of Auckland’s first hotels originally built in 1841. It was known as one of the hippest meeting place bars in the 80’s, with the House Bar being the “soul” of the hotel…guess that’s why we liked it! We did meet a great trio of folks, Christopher (Australia), Lucille (France) and Jerod (India) that were enjoying a day off from their managerial jobs of running some of the best restaurants in Auckland. The hotel was a defunct home to a flock of pigeons in 2007 and took two years to transform to its awarded appeal today.

The best Christmas present for us? We fit in our “dressiest” clothes we brought with us after three weeks of “no dinners at home”!!

And a few more pics from the great day we had!