I had a great day at work on Friday, and had the chance to see one of the shyer students I teach really come out and speak some great English! I doubt it had anything to do with me, but she's a real sweetheart, so it was nice to see her really enjoying herself. We played some English board games on Friday afternoon, and all the students seemed to really enjoy it.
Friday evening was my first Birkram Yoga experience with Jetts. It's where you basically do yoga in a sauna. As all my workout clothes are at mum and dad's house, I had to go along in track pants and a t-shirt. There were people there wearing only their swimming costume. It was so hot! The yoga was pretty intense, and we went to 90 minutes, and by the end I think I was actually the sweatiest I have ever been! I enjoyed the experience, but I think I prefer Iyengar yoga. The poses are held for longer and it's less dynamic that what I did on Friday. I like the feeling of being able to have the time to concentrate on the pose rather than moving on as quickly as we did in Bikram. I will certainly try it again if I get the chance though. I quite enjoyed the heat!
Catching up with Jetts was great too!
On Saturday, Brook and I celebrated my birthday, which isn't until Wednesday, but we moved it for convenience :) He organised a whole surpirise day for me, and it was awesome. First he made me pancakes for breakfast, which were yummy. Then, he took me to Sky City and up the Sky Tower, which was pretty cool. It was a cloudy day, so we couldn't see as far as you possibly can, but what we could see was really interesting. It was quite disorientating seeing the city from above. I enjoyed it a lot.
However, the real experience of the day was feeding a red panda at the Auckland Zoo! The red pandas and the otters are my favourite animals at the Zoo, and Brook had organised for both of us to go on a tour and feed a red panda named 'Maya'. It was amazing! We had a really lovely tour guide who knew heaps about the zoo and all the animals, and we got to go into the red panda enclosure and watch Maya, and then feed her some grapes and pear. Red Pandas have just gone from 'threatened' status to 'endangered', so it was nice to know that the money Brook paid was put towards red panda conservation and education. Feeding Maya was a wonderful experience, red pandas are beautiful animals, and I'm so glad I got to do it! She was really inquisitive and interesting to watch, and SO keen on the food. She took a real shine to Brook :) The tour lady took lots of photos, which they put onto a CD for us. Here's a couple:
It really was amazing, and a truly great birthday present!
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