OFF from SG!! Here we come NZ!!

New Zealand, 19th March 2008, Wednesday

Was picked up from the airport by Uncle Alan, uncle of Anthony. He bought us to his place and we had dinner with his family. Brought to our new place, Aucklands Central Backpackers, soon after dinner.

Not a very big room. Has a small fridge. The kitchen is shared at level 3 and there is a bathroom at every level. Overall, not a very bad place. It is a pretty lively place and is like a lodge for all the young liked minded people from all over the world to be in. Not to mention the good "scenery" here. Gonna meet Shona, the job agent recommended by Mindy (our job agent, Anthony's dad's friend), early next morning. We were told to call her at 9am. Hopefully we are given a job asap. =)

20th March 2008, Thursday

Was supposed to meet up with Shona at 9am, but wth? She pang seh-ed us. Zzzz. Cos tml is Easter Day and by their law, no work is supposed to be done AT ALL. Zzzz. What a lame law. Monday comes as a public holiday too. Means we are gonna be jobless for 4 days and surviving on our own with the little money we had.

lor. I predicted that we will met up with some problems when we come over here, but we didnt expect the problem to come to us right on the second day. So the first lesson learnt is, never ever come to work over here before its public holidays. Zzzz. Whats worse is that it wasnt like what Anthony had painted the picture to be. The internet is like 3 dollars per hour. The job is not coming. The food is expensive (7-10 bucks for a simple meal). Its a mess. =\

But everything isnt too bad. We met some nice people on our quest to set up a bank account, get a new phone number, get an IRD (Inland Revenue Department, I think?) number for the income tax and stuff. Eg, one of the lady at ACB's job agency, who directed us to the IRD building, search some jobs for us, directed us to our bank (ASB) and even recommended us places to visit our the weekend. And this Dutch guy in the bank whose name is Erikk, not only applied the accounts for us, he also answered our "101 questions" that we need to know about Auckland. Like we asked him hows the people like, where is the supermart, where to get cheap food, where to get good food and where to take a look at, etc. In Singapore, I doubt the people would be so kind to catch up a small chat with you and answer ALL your questions that has no business to do with them whatsoever. We even almost attempted to ask where to get water from, as we are running out of water, but thinks that it will be too stupid to ask something so simple to someone in a bank. They probably think that Singaporeans are stupid nutcases. =\

Went to have lunch at a foodcourt below ACB (basement level 1). The portion of the food is so much that Ant ate 1/2 way and da bao-ed the rest for dinner. Coz of pride, we will probably never do that in SG. But coz we are poor and helpless now, we had no choice. Haha. Ant had problem with his contact lens (it cracked) so we went back ACB for a while. Earlier on that day, his nose also bleed. Zzzz. So many problems.=\

So, we made our way to Takapuna(another city up North of Auckland, over the Harbour Bridge) which is where the IRD building is located at. While waiting for the bus, we saw these 4 Argentinian girls (found out their nationality later at the IRD place) and we suspected that they are going to make their IRD numbers too. Coz they had the "lost" look on their faces. Indeed we were right! But the thing is that we alighted one bus stop earlier than them, yet we arrived at the same place. Making us look stupid walking the extra distance (is alot of distance for one bus stop difference in NZ). Throw face for SGs.

After applying, we made our way to visit the nearby beach and Lake Pupuke (recommended by the lady at the job agency)

Pics at Lake Pupuke:

On our way back, we had problems finding a bus stop in the area. So we walked and walked and walked and were too paiseh to ask passerbys where it is. I think they public transport system for NZ really suck. The bus trips are expensive (we paid 4.80 per bus trip for 3 stages), the waiting time is long (we waited for ages), the bus stops are far from each other, the bus stops rarely had a shelter, had only 1 small post(20cm by 15cm) stating that they are bus stops and there are only a few bus stops in one huge area. Zzzz. Now I know why people say that SG has a good public transport infrastructure. In SG, the bus is there for the people. In Auckland, the people must be there for the bus. Thats the difference.

On our way back to the hostel, we met some Chinese who asked us to do some survey. We stopped to do it (Surprisingly, coz in SG I ALWAYS without fail only put up a hand and smile to them. Maybe I am influenced by the friendly culture too? ^_^). The survey is written in Chinese and soon after, we realised that they are from a church. They seemed to be trying to convince me to believe in Christianity more than they are trying to do the survey. He offered to bring us to view his church on the coming Easter sunday, but the question that really came to my mind was:" Will there be FREE lunch?" (I have turned into a typical, kia-su, SG auntie! ZOMG!!)

Was damn shag when I got back to the hostel. Having walked for miles today manz. Lied on bed and K.O. was immediate.