Wandering around Wellington

I spent Wednesday and half of today (Thursday) exploring the downtown area of Wellington. Yesterday I did some shopping - mostly book stores since I can never resist a book store. Today I've been to the Wellington Museum (has history on this city and bay specifically), Olympic Museum (New Zealand was involved in reviving the Olympics!) and Te Papa (to see the colossal squid that was pulled out of the ocean on a fishing trip near Antarctica a few years ago). I'll leave you with a random assortment of what I saw around town.
Interesting apartment building...
The "beehive" is an interesting (and somewhat controversial) piece of architecture. It's part of the government buildings and apparently some object to having such an odd/non-traditional building for an official building. I can't really get a feel for the architecture here, though. It's very eclectic.
Even the office buildings are interesting. You can also see all the wires from the trains.
Close-up of the orb...I forget the story on it (sorry).
This is a courtyard down by the bay with near the library. There were lots of interesting statues in the vicinity.
I love this quote - the headquarters of the verb!
There are lots of signs around town that are funny to me. These were a couple. The one on the right was on a billboard outside a Prebyterian Church.
Even if I have no idea what this says, I like it. The plaque by the statue simply said "Spinning Top" and listed the artist/year/medium. It was in a little courtyard-type mall between two high-rise buildings that sloped downhill to the main street. Note the cyclist - it seems like lots of people commute by walking or cycling here. Cycling looks fun (lots of steep hills) but there are virtually no shoulders and I have yet to see a bike lane. Keep in mind that they drive on the "other side" of the road here too -- I'm still learning which way to look for cars (and here's where that kindergarten advice of "look both ways before crossing" comes in handy).
Cute statue in another little courtyard mall.
Wire sculpture outside of Te Papa Museum.