hamilton

my favorite thing about hamilton is that every kiwi i know calls it "the tron." i'm not even really sure why.  it must have something to do with the city ending in "ton," but with the additional "r" in there for flair.  that or everyone thinks of it as a giant space ship.  either way, fun name.

hamilton is the fourth largest city in NZ - and i know that because i was putting together demographic breakdown slides today for a presentation at work.  not to get into the numbers too much, but the size of other large cities in NZ compared to the largest city (auckland) really surprises me.  in this case, hamilton has a population of about 140,000 people, which isn't very big at all when you consider that auckland has about 1.2 million.  it's taking a lot for me not to go into depth on this since i just got home from work, but i'll quit while i'm ahead.

though it is one of the largest cities in NZ, being perfectly honest there isn't all that much to do there.  there is a cute strip of bars and restaurants in town, and you can definitely find a little bit of shopping, but beyond that it's not the most happening city.  which is actually pretty nice when you're winding down from the adrenaline pumping activities in rotorua.

admittedly, i actually went to hamilton for the first time a few months ago, but didn't mention it on the blog. hopefully you can get over this though, and i can make up for it now with these photos of the highlight of hamilton - the botanical gardens.

italian garden.

indian garden.

japanese garden.

the american garden, which was the ugliest one. typical.

the kitchen garden.

to-mah-tos. i'm learning to fit in here.

looking back on the blog, i'm realizing i've been to more gardens in NZ than i've ever been to in my entire life. which is really strange, but at least i'll have a good portfolio of photos to select my computer desktop background from.