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19 February 2004
Hello everyone, it’s been just over a month since we landed in New Zealand & I’m finally getting around to starting the blog. As you can imagine, we’ve been quite busy so forgive us if we haven’t been the best at keeping everyone up to date. Hopefully this page will change that.

The flight over started out well. It’s an 11.5 hour flight from LAX to Auckland & then another hour hop to Wellington (the capital of NZ). Not bad in terms of flight times but the weird part is that you complete loose a day. Both kids were really excited to be on an airplane. Deven took the whole trip in stride but Sophia had a lot of trouble. She would fall asleep & then wake up screaming (I did feel sorry for the people next to us) because she was so disoriented & confused. She did this 4-5 times through the flight & it took all my will to calm her down. Whew! Once that was over, we were met at the airport by the Hoopers (for those who do not already know, Alexis Hooper is the mother of our old neighbor Kelvin. She’s an American who fell in love with a Kiwi & moved to NZ a couple of years ago. We met her when she came to visit Kelvin last Thanksgiving. She was quite generous & offered us a place to stay when we got to NZ.) and their van. Thank goodness! Even though we rented a car (I requested a “mid-size” car & got a Toyota Corolla hatchback, fun car but barely fit the four of us) we had 8 large suitcases & 3 carryon bags (we took the opportunity to use the maximum baggage allotment given to us) we had to transport. The weather was absolutely gorgeous when we arrived. I was quite surprised because Wellington is known as a windy city with the weather being similar to San Francisco. Alexis brought a picnic with her & we drove to the top of Mount Victoria to have lunch & take in the view. I couldn’t have imagined a better start to our new lives!

Brian & Alexis (the Hoopers) live in Paraparaumu Beach, a small beach community, about an hour from Wellington by car. For the longest time, we weren’t sure where we were staying and quite embarrassed about not knowing because depending on whom you spoke to there were two different names for the area. After a lot of frustration, I finally asked & was told the history. Paraparaumu is the original Maori (pacific islanders who originally in habited NZ) name for the area but since it was too difficult for the Pakehas (Maori word for Kiwis of European heritage) to pronounce, the area became commonly known as “Pare-a-pa-ram”. With the resurgence of Maori culture, there has been a movement to pronounce the area as it was intended in the Maori language. This pronunciation is closer to the actual spelling, “Pa-rah-pa-rah-oo-moo”. I’m still now sure what to tell people when they ask me where I’m staying but I usually start with the Maori pronunciation. If they look at me with a funny look like where is that?, I give them the other pronunciation & then they know where I’m referring to.

Paraparaumu is a quiet place, quite suburban (it is the last stop on the commuter train into Wellington) with a small mall/shopping center, known as Coastlands in which almost all the businesses one needs are located. Rick & I have gotten sick of going there since it seems as if we are there every day. Need groceries? Coastlands. Need kid’s car seats? Coastlands. Need to go to the bank? Inside Coastlands…you get the picture. About the only relief from Coastlands is a Saturday farmers market in an abandoned parking lot near the ocean. It’s very small compared to So Cal standards but you get some cheap seasonal vegetables & flowers. Other than that life is slow here (hip, hip, hooray!). Mostly retired folks & young families…speaking of, there is a huge number of parks & playground areas here. NZ is very kid friendly. There is playground equipment at the airports for the kiddies & everywhere else as well. We ran into what is by far the coolest & most extensive public playground we have ever seen in a town called Wanganui. The park was by the river and it was huge! It has a two story castle replica the size of an average home for kids to run around in with a slide to go down from the second story, a large pirate ship in the castle moat with various slides throughout, a huge dinosaur slide that is as large a what I imagine a real dinosaur to be, a huge tree house, a shoe, & so much more!

On our second day in NZ, we went down to Wellington to buy a car. We went to a dealership owned by three brothers known as Shackels. They have two lots. On one lot all the cars are $7995.00. On the other lot most of the cars are priced at either $9995.00 or $119995.00. All the cars are used cars imported from Japan. Apparently in Japan, the vehicle tax gets higher & higher the older the car is so that by the time a car is 5-6 years old, people just buy new ones instead of paying the high tax. One of the Shackel brothers is based in Japan & he apparently just buys up these cars & ships them to New Zealand for cheap. After test driving 11 cars, we finally settled on a 1995 Honda Rafaga Sedan (similar to the Honda Accord) for $7995.00 (US$5000) with 103,000 kilometers on it (64,000 miles). The Rafaga is a brand made only for the Japanese market but we figured it’s still a Honda meaning reliable. We’ve been very happy with it so far. The whole business of buying a car was quite pleasant…no haggling since there is a set price. You either decide to buy a car or you don’t.

After a few days getting over the jet lag, we were in the car on our way up to Auckland. I had two job interviews set up before we left California for the Monday after we arrived. It’s an 8 hour drive from Paraparaumu to Auckland. We left on Saturday, got a bit side tracked (missed a turn off), discovered the very nice town of Wanganui, drove through some beautiful mountainous country & then finally spent the night at Lake Taupo (absolutely beautiful & pristine…reminds me a bit of Lake Tahoe). The next day we continued on SH1, had lunch at a very cute country café called the Black Dog Café finally arriving in Auckland Sunday afternoon to humidity & rain. We stayed at the very posh Hyatt next to Prince Albert Park (excellent spa facilities with an incredible indoor pool with views of the Auckland skyline & areas that open up to the sunshine so you get the feeing of being outside; kids loved it!). Normally we wouldn’t have sprung for such expensive digs but it was Sophia’s birthday on Tuesday & as many of you already know, she LOVES hotels. The interviews went okay (the second one was a waste of my time) & then we celebrated Sophia’s birthday with breakfast room service of pancakes (per her request). We then took the ferry to a very quant suburb called Devonport, had lunch & attempted to play in the park (we got rained out). The next day rained most of the day as well so we headed back towards Paraparaumu, this time in one straight day’s drive (we enjoy torturing our kids).

Once back, we got around to the business of acclimating. Alexis was kind enough to initiate me into the world of Pak-N-Save (a discount grocery store chain in which you do everything yourself such as weigh produce, pack groceries, etc.) and I spent hours trying to convert kilos & NZ dollars into number that made sense to me. It’s amazing how much time it takes to shop for groceries when you’re faced with all new brands, packaging methods, standard sizing, etc as well as a spouse who can’t have any sugar (lots of label reading). One thing for sure, I MISS TRADER JOES!!! Most items are readily available so there isn’t a huge adjustment…I just have a problem paying NZ$72.00 per kilo for romano cheese. It works out to be about US$23.00 per lbs which is still really high…I guess it just sounds worse in Kiwi dollars. I’ve had to make my own tomato sauce since the two brands of sauce here both have sugar in them. That required days of hunting down canning jars in second hand stores & online auction sites (they don’t seem to make them anymore). We finally found enough and in one huge session (my obsessive nature) we canned tomato sauce, whole tomatoes, green beans, pickles, onions, & apple sauce. Whew! We spent a whole day & most of a night at it.

In between all that, I had several job interviews in Wellington (the city I would prefer to be near), none of them panning out so far. It seems that Kiwi’s like to interview a lot. Apparently it is typical to have 3 or 4 interviews before being hired. A recruiter told me about one person she knew who interviewed 11 times with a company before being turned down. All this keeps us jumping. I was up for two jobs in Wellington & it seemed as if I was driving down there every day before finding out I didn’t get the job (I was beat out by another candidate that had “local” knowledge, which makes me wonder why they interviewed me in the first place…of course I have no local knowledge!…Oh well, water under the bridge). Most recently, I flew up to Auckland to interview with a recruiting company doing extensively the same thing I did in my last job. While up there, I had two interviews & I just found out that they want to interview me yet again! I guess I’m flying up to Auckland next week.

We started the kids in school. We were going to wait to do so until we were settle a bit more but they seemed so bored so off to school they went. Deven started Year 1 at Kena Kena Primary School. I’m amazed at how much space the schools have. The school even has a pool and it is mandatory for all students to learn to swim (Deven just loves it!). We send him off with his togs (swimsuit) & towel every Monday & Thursday. He seems to be adjusting well; he’s well ahead of his classmates since he already has a half year on them (the school year starts at the end of January here). Sophia has been enrolled at Paraparaumu Beach Kindergarten (preschool) and she attends 3 days a week. Her school is very cool with lots of stuff to do & play with. It is state funded so the teacher’s salaries & facilities are paid by the government. They only ask for funds for materials which runs NZ$1.50 per session. Very cheap. Even though the kids are adjusting well, they miss everyone terribly. Sophia asks regularly if we can go back to California and both talk incessantly about all the people back in California…it just breaks my heart but I know they will adjust.

Weather…the weather when we first arrived as I said before was gorgeous! Warm, not hot. This past two weeks totally erased any of that. We have had incredible storms that have passed through the area. I have never seen such rain & wind at the same time. Apparently there were winds in excess of 200 kilometers per hr (do the math yourselves!) and flooding like you wouldn’t believe. They are referring to the flooding as hundred year floods & the whole area is just a mess. We were just thinking that it might be normal to have so much rain in the summer but we are finding out that is not the case. What a doosy! Very scary indeed! Back to Top

 

 

20 February 2004
Finally! All the wind & rain let up and we awoke to a beautiful day. This is my favorite kind of weather, bright, sunny, breezy & brisk. A light sweater kind of day or a short sleeve shirt if you’re laying on the grass in the sun. Deven was sent off to school this morning as usual. The rest of us decided to take advantage of the gorgeous day & take a walk, & what a walk it was! We went past a new development going up to the bird sanctuary by the beach & found tons & tons of blackberries! Yummy! We spent most of the morning picking wild blackberries…although Sophia wasn’t happy about it; she got caught on one of the thorns & then complained the whole time after. We returned with nearly a pound of ripe berries so I mixed it up with some honey & plain yogurt & had lunch. Yum!

We are now at what is at the moment our favorite restaurant. There is a restaurant/bar right on the beach in Raumati (a bit south of Paraparaumu) that has great food, drinks, & a big basket full of toys to entertain the kiddies. What more can you want? We decided to enjoy the day & took the kids to the park right next to the restaurant where they played for awhile. Then we headed to the restaurant & here we are now hanging out, drinking beers, watching the waves & having chips (french fries) with tomato sauce (ketchup) & aioli (mayonnaise). There is no tipping in New Zealand which has it’s good points & bad. No tipping means that service is mediocre at best but it also means that you can sit a table, have some drinks & a snack & none of the staff give you dirty looks or try to rush you out. Doesn’t matter to them, they make the same whatever you do. Back to Top

 

 

22 February 2004
Today is Sunday & everyone was a bit restless so we decided to take the train down to Wellington. Fun! The kids were really excited although I started getting a bit tired of Deven asking at every stop whether we were there yet. We had lunch at Astoria Café in the Lambton Quay district then browsed around through the shops in the area. We then headed to Cuba Street, a funky little area of Wellington with unique shops, cafés, music venues, etc. We stopped & had drinks at a popular café called Fidel’s (appropriate) & I bought a very cute green & yellow basket (a tisket, a tasket). One of the things I absolutely love about New Zealand is the fact that there are lots of cafés where Rick & I can have our respective fixes, caffeine & alcohol. Most sell all your coffee/tea/soft drinks as most cafes in the USA do but most also sell a selection of NZ wines & beer so that on a sunny day, we can sit out, enjoy the weather, I can have a glass of wine, Rick can have his flat white (an espresso drink similar to a cappuccino without as much milk) & the kids can have a lemonade (here they call lemon/lime soda lemonade…they don’t have the drink we think of made of lemon, sugar & water) & play about. Bliss for everyone. Back to Top

 

 

26 February 2004
Today is Thursday and I’m back on the job-hunting track. I found out on Tuesday that I didn’t get the job up in Auckland. I was perfectly qualified for the job but apparently I have a “big personality” and they were worried that it might shake up the delicate balance of the small office. Unfortunately, New Zealanders (as do the rest of the world) have a preconceived notion of what Americans are like. Images of the loud brash, aggressive Texan seem to come to mind when they hear I’m American. It seems difficult for many to understand that in fact the USA is a huge country with very different regional cultures & styles. I find the whole thing ironic since when I interviewed for sales jobs in California, the feedback was that I was a bit too laid back. New Zealand sales employees are apparently nearly comatose (okay, now I’m just being bitter, sorry). Now it's to the drawing board…I will have to keep in mind to rein in my “big personality ” on the next interview.

Wednesday was a gorgeous day & since I couldn’t bare being on the computer looking for jobs on such a nice day, we decided go out for a drive. We went to Waikanae, a little town just North of here to the Baptist second hand shop. Apparently the Baptists in Waikanae tend to give better things to the jumble sales but it seemed the same as any other second-hand store I’ve seen. As many of you know, I’m an avid thrift/bargain/second-hand shopper but it is very hard to find anything worthwhile here. I think because New Zealand is so very far away from where most things are manufactured, people tend to use their things to death before handing them over to the Salvation Army, jumble sales, etc. Also since New Zealand is a relative new country, you don’t find any really old, cool antiquey things either…the search goes on.

Sophia has been on a weird haircutting thing lately…out of the blue she started asking questions like “Do they have barber shops next to doughnut shops in New Zealand?” & “How do people get their hair cut in New Zealand?” When I finally asked if she wanted a haircut, she whole-heartedly agreed “I want to go the barber shop that has a lollipop for me.” So, after Waikanae, we search for just the perfect hair cutting shop…we found one called Snips (the 4th one we checked out) where the stylist (Jason) was very nice & Sophia got her lollipop afterwards. We got Rick & Deven groomed as well. Quoting Deven, "I want my hair spikelly."

The inevitable has happened. Rick & I have noticed that Deven is already pronouncing words with a Kiwi accent (as his teacher does). Sophia has been getting exposed to the Maori language at school so when we went to the public library, she insisted on checking out a book in Maori. Rick did his absolute best to pronounce all the Maori words when he read it to her. Back to Top

 

14 July 2004
A thousand apologies for being so fricken lame about updating this blog. SORRY! I keep thinking that I will sit down & ever so cleverly write my impressions & experiences of New Zealand but now I know that is one big pipe dream...not enough time in the day to even brush my hair...so here it is - quick and dirty.

Got a job (finally!) with Telecom New Zealand as an account manager. Telecom is the original telephone company here, I say original because the telecommunications industry was deregulated and open to competition.

Rented a house; we found a beautiful one really close to the beach that we fell in love with. A 1930's character home, 4 bedrooms on half an acre. The down side- it is fricken far from my job, it takes me nearly 2 hours to get to work but at least I take the bus and train (where I catch up on my sleep).

Finally got residency! Whew...it was really iffy there for a while but we did it. Now we can vote, pay taxes...fun.

What else....Deven lost his first & second tooth right in a row, Sophia is learning her alphabet, Deven is reading independently, Rick is getting pretty good at making dinner and we are all trying to keep warm.

We still don't have our stuff such as our furniture, winter clothing, etc. so it kinda sucks but we are toughing it out...apparently the boat will arrive end of August.

For those who want to see some pictures, here they are, and again I'm sorry about being so lame about keeping in touch. Send me an email letting me know what you are up to. I really miss every one of you very much.