Auckland #2: Onehunga!

Today I ventured to my local shops/town centre: Onehunga, or 'The Hunga" as Mick Duncan, my amazing lecturer, calls it. I really like Onehunga. That's pronounced Oh-knee-hung-ah for my non-New Zealand readers. I don't think it's a Maori word so I think that pronunciation is right. It has the biggest outlet shopping mall in New Zealand, Dressmart, which is about 100 stores of awesome stuff at mega cheap prices. And it feels like a normal mall too, not shabby at all. I got Grab jeans the other day from 190 dollars down to 20 dollars! But apart from good shopping, Onehunga has heart. Isn't that beautiful? Just on the main street. I went into an antiques/second hand furniture store as I have very little furniture (cardboard box as bedside table etc) and the man there was so helpful! Told me a lot about Onehunga, and pointed out the best second hand book store, the library, and lessons on not walking at night :) I joined the library and the video store. The nice man at Westpac refunded all the fees they had charged me. My heart broke when I walked past the council apartments and the toothless lady on her porch smiled at me when I smiled at her. She was lonely. Edit: Onehunga is a Maori word indeed! Well according to wikipedia. Hmmm. Then the pronunciation should be Aw-neh-hoo-ngah or something.. I feel bad now. Maori words should be pronounced correctly. "The name Onehunga is Māori and probably means 'burial place', referring to the Māori burial caves in the area, probably among the lava flows issuing from One Tree Hill (Maungakiekie). However, an alternative possibly meaning is 'one' meaning 'beach' or 'sand' and 'hunga' meaning 'people', the word being pronounced 'Onehoonga' with soft 'g'.[citation needed] Onehunga was close to one of the richest areas of the Auckland Isthmus, and saw many battles in pre-European times." (Wikipedia)