Auckland doesn’t really have a Chinatown section per se; this was just a humungous aircraft-hangar sized mall-type structure with a food-court, a maze of shops, some restaurants, a supermarket and fish and meat shops. To complete the vibe, nobody really speaks English.

‘A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!'. No, we weren’t desperate like King Richard III, we just loved how it looked and the fact that every time we asked for the prices of other stuff in his shop, the old Chinese guy kept lowering his price for the horse. When we were paying for it, our eyes were glued on the EFTPOS machine to make sure the amount didn’t have extra zeroes in it. Plus, it’s the year of the horse!

Haggle, haggle, haggle! Or not.

Looking for dumplings that have actual broth inside them? You can find them here.

I wanted to buy some skate wings so bad, but I was intimidated by how big these were. I wish I photographed my hand with them for reference; a piece was bigger than an A4 sized paper.