Day 2

     After a long night of sleep, I awoke to the sun illuminating my small hotel room. I already had my day planned out and I was ready to go. Today I was going to be spending most of my time in the city of Rotorua.

     First, I went and rode the Skyline Rotorua Gondola at 11:00 A.M. The gondola left high from Mount Ngongotaha and I got to see extensive views of the wonderful city of Rotorua, Lake Rotorua, and surrounding highlands. After I was done with that, I went and enjoyed a delicious meal of roasted kumara with cashews at the New Zealand Buffet and Grill.
 
      Then I just had to go skydiving at Nzone Skydiving. Everyone was telling me that I just had to go skydiving in New Zealand since I had never done it before. It took around an hour and a half to learn the basics of skydiving and then I went up in the air. I put the safety harnesses on and was ready to go.At first I was a little afraid to jump, but the jump was exhilarating as I plummeted 12,000 ft towards the earth.

     To end my day, I went and visited the Te Puia which is a New Zealand Maori Arts & Crafts Institute. I went on a guided tour and got to experience the Māori world. It was a very different experience and I got to meet some of the native people. In the end I got to see the ancient valley where the world famous Pohutu geyser is. When the tour was over, it was getting late so I went back to my hotel for the night.