Health Scare: Part 2

Okay people, just a quick update from me. I have since recover from my skin disease if you can call that. So you can now stopy worrying over my health. ^^

We all self diagnosed it as skin allergy most likely due to dust from environment. Read: factory.

My skin rashes has reduced to almost none now. My lips are no longer swollen. It's nice and perfect just as the way it is teehee!

So there, I'm fine once again! God bless us all^^

Health Scare

Work has been going smooth nowadays. Almost everyday we get to work in the packhouse already. All thanks to the sunny days we are having lately. Since the weather had been really accommodating lately, the pickers get to work and we packers get to pack.

It’s really a dream come true to us. We have dreamed about days like this God knows how many days. All’s well and we are happy and contented. Despite work gets boring (well, it is repetitive and monotonous after all) we will still go to work and money is really a great motivator.

I knew this is too good to be true. I just knew it!

Finally my deepest fear came true.

Sick. Illness.

Medication.

Doctor.

I never thought this will one day happen to me. God how I wish it wasn’t me. Why me????

Warning: don’t read on if you do not want to read my description of my illness.

One fine Sunday as usual after work we came back home, cook dinner and bath before sleep. While in the shower, I realized that my back is not quite the same and there’s patches of red spots on my upper body. These red spots were a little itchy as well.

But I shrugged it off and ignored it thinking it will go away the next morning. I wanted to tell others but then I don’t want to appear like a baby and whine every single moment I get so I didn’t.

The next morning, the red spots did not disappear as I hoped! Damn! What is happening to me???? Truth to be told, I was beginning to feel scared over it. I mean, what sort of diseases I have caught??? I just know it is a symptom of allergy of some sort.

At this point, I still keep mum about it and go to work as usual. It wasn’t until my supervisor noticed the spots I am having and asked me if I have some sort of allergy. Then I know this is really getting serious if she can see it even when I was wearing a sweater.

At that moment, I was like, “oh shit, this is really getting bad if it is showing on my arm and face” She says she saw red pactches on my neck and ear and that my face swell a little. We both tried to find out the cause of my allergy. Was is soap? Shampoo? Diet? Kiwi?

I don’t know. I seriously can’t pinpoint the cause of it. At this point, I am really getting itchy all over. To make things worse, my eyes swell and I can’t open my eye lid to the fullest!

This time, during smoko (break time) I rushed to the toilet and have a good look at myself in the mirror. (looking into the mirror is kinda a luxury to me as our house got limited mirror and most of the time, the mirror is steamed all over after shower -.-“

For the first time I had a clear view of myself. How my eyes are swollen and red spots begins showing a little on my neck, ear, forehead and eye lash area. Some red spots also appear on the cleavage area. Of course, the rest are at my back where you can’t help but feel like scratching it every moment you get.

This time, everyone spotted my problem already. Twister thinks it is “fong mok” which is allergy to dirty things or surrounding. The only things we can suspect is our workplace, which is dusty from the kiwi furs especially the grading table area which I currently work at. Another possible explanation is the bed I am using now is dirty.

With everyone’s help, I tried my very best not to scratch my body. Gradually, I feel that my eyes are not so swollen anymore as I can open my eyes completely and I take it as a good sign of recovery. I was so happy beyond relief. Hopefully my rashes will go away soon too. Even my supervisor notice my “recovery” She commented that my face is not so swollen anymore.

Boy, was I wrong!

Yes, my eyes are not swollen anymore and my face are not covered with rashes. BUT, my upper lip started to swell. SHIT!!!!!! By the end of the working day, my upper lip is half swollen!!!! If I wasn’t feeling any fear previously, I definitely do now. I was so so so afraid that I almost broke down crying.

Godzilla keeps suggest that we go see a doctor but finally I decided to wait for another day and see how it goes. I have some medication for swell and anti-allergy at home and I planned to see if it works.

Hence we went home, take a bath, eat medicine and apply dermatitis cream on my body and pray for recovery.

Twister says normally the rashes would go away in a day or two so I was clinging to the comforting words to sleep.

As you can probably guess by now, no the rashes did not fade away. My upper lip is even more swollen than the night before. This time, I really broke down and cry during breakfast. I am sure Dinosaur, Godzilla and Twister were uncomfortable to witness crying scene early in the morning. But I just can’t help it.

I also experience some stomach pain at this moment. Since I was not feeling my best and emotionally fragile, I decided to skip work today. Also I feel sad to lose my income for a day, but then I really don’t think I can go to work and act as though nothing happened. I don’t think I can face the curious stare and concern enquiries from colleagues.

No I definitely can’t face all this yet. I prefer to hide out and sleep away the morning. Hopefully this nightmare will go away ASAP.

I wonder how expensive it will get to pay a visit to the doctor here? This idea is starting to appeal to me provided the doctor can miraculously make all these rashes and swell go away in an instant. IN that case, I really don’t mind paying!

Updates from Opotiki

In the two months that we are here in New Zealand, we have had a tornado scare in Auckland. The tornado that kills a few persons and injured several others happened in Auckland but we are here in Opotiki, which is like 5-6 hours drive from Auckland so we are safe. Our parents back home were worried though. Until we report home that we are safe only they feel better ^^

Apart from tornado scare, we also actually had a few earthquakes here in Opotiki which we never felt. Thing is, it mostly happened late at night and we were already fast asleep by then that we don’t know it happens at all. Not until the next day people are talking about it only we realized that earthquake happened the night before. This is the time people starts to ask around see who feels it and who didn’t.

Personally, I think the earthquake here are really minute type or else everyone would have felt it already. I agree that I normally sleep like a log, but Godzilla is light sleeper. Even she didn’t feel a thing! We all agreed that this is dangerous as we might be dead not knowing why -.-‘

Enough of the scary stuff, right now its not really winter yet but the weather has turn chilly. Previously, the weather was really cold, but now it’s getting colder. In fact, nowadays the average temperature is like 11 Celsius at night at 17 Celsius in the afternoon.

Our house does not have any heater so we can only rely on burning woods in the chimney at night whenever necessary. Maybe the chimney is a little small, because I feel that it is not really generating enough heat for the whole living room. You practically need to sit in front of the fire to feel the direct warmth of fire burning logs.

At night, we go to sleep on a cold bed. Although we have duvet, but still, the bed itself is cold. Nowadays, we practically bundle up in duvet to sleep. As it happens, your body can only generate enough heat to warmth up the place you sleep in at that moment. Once you turn to another side, instantly you will feel the cold bed greeting you again. Trust me, it is not nice to sleep in the cold.

Sometimes when it gets so chilly that in the morning, you can see frost formed on the blades of grass. The other day, frost also formed on our car windscreen and roof. This is how cold it can get, no kidding.

Work is the same. Repetitive and monotonous. I am doing grading job which is almost like a dog actually. We need to smell the fruits see if there’s any rotten fruit or juicy fruits so that we can discard it immediately to avoid contaminating other good fruits. Sometimes, you have no idea the fruits is just plain wet or covered with juice so you need to pick it up and use your nose to smell it.

Trust me, when some fruits in the bin ripe, burst or squashed, the juice will smeared the nearby fruits. When it is kept in that condition for a couple of days, it will go rot. Trust me, rotten fruit smell is not something you wished to experience. I always joked that if I smelled more of these rotten fruit smells, it will cure me of my fondness for kiwi fruits.

We kinda run out of creativity already when it comes to food. We have been cooking the same dishes almost every time. To the extent that when you mentioned bread for lunch, Dinosaur will pull a long face and ask, “huh, bread again ah?”

Even me who is always very easy going when it comes to food starts to feel bored already. Then again, it’s not like we have a lot of choices here. The only vege we can get here are capsicum, carrot, tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, lettuce and bak choy.

Tomato and spinach here is very expensive therefore we hardly have any of those. Our own garden grew bak choy and lettuce so we just pick fresh from the garden WHEN it is nice and big which doesn’t happen very often.

Oh and potatoes. We have tons of it here. Onions, ginger and garlic is not very cheap here so we need to ration and use wisely.

All in all, life here is very stable, static, calm and yeah, boring.

Collecting firewoods adventure

At times, it gets very chilly at night which prompted us to experimenting with the chimneys in our living room. We don’t have any firewoods and we tried to get our landlady to supply us but, hehehehe not happening. HOWEVER, she suggested that we go collect some woods in the beach to burn instead. We were like, why not? It’s free afterall.

Off we go to collect woods by the beachside and when we were satisfied, more like when Dinosaur was satisfied with the amount of woods collected we decided to head home to chop the woods into burnable size. And this is when it gets interesting. We unconsciously drove our car slightly too deep into the soft sandy area thus our car are stucked! The tyre’s just cannot find any grip on the soft sand and can’t rolled the car out. It only creates a bigger hole each time we tried.

We tried many ways to salvage the situation as it is a deserted, isolated beach area hence no one was around to offer any help when we needed it. We tried putting woods on the sand so that the tyre can find a solid grip amongst the soft sands but to no avail. We tried making the car go forward and reverse but nothing worked.

We were stucked there for quite some time. We tried calling people for help but no one picks up their phone. We were really on our own back then.

Since nothing works, we resorted ourselves to dig our way out. We have the time and nothing else works so not much choice left right? As all four of us are crouching and digging the sands out from under our car, we hear the most wonderful melody – a humming car sound!

Finally, savior has come! Thank god for HIS devine intervention. A minute later a Hilux approach and we describe our dire situation and imploring for help. Thank god they are nice people and they practically towed our car out from the sand pit in no time with the Hilux. They are Sam and Rick, nicest people in the earth that offers help without charging a single dime!

Yup, it’s FREEEE~~~~~~~

I knew that previously Small Gas and Cunning also faces a similar situation but they weren’t that lucky cuz they got charged a hefty 40 bucks for few mins job. Talk about gold digger!

Previously we were sympathizing over their misadventure but unbelievably we had the same misfortune as well.

What an adventure we have got. This is truly an enriching life experience for all of us ^^

Food experimenting

As you all know, we are a bunch of people that has no prior experience in cooking whatsoever. Among the four of us, I think I have the least kitchen experience. Theoretically, I know how it works, the procedures, steps, how-to, but practical wise, I’m a zero.


Therefore now is the best time for us to experiment with food. We improvise the cooking recipe as we have limited supply of seasoning and ingredients. Truth to be told, our limited cooking skill is not a limit to our creativity. IN fact, I think our food turn out rather well if I may say so.


We started off with easy to make dishes. Gradually, we try on the harder stuff. We make a few phone calls back to mom asking for cooking tips and recipes. We had Godzilla here whose specialty is pasta. Then we have Twister here who does Hokkien style dishes. Dinosaur just loves cutting and chopping and dicing. Whereas for me, I tried helping in every area that needs attention. I’m good at giving directions, advice and how-to ngek ngek ngek ;p


To date, we have been experimenting with many varieties that would make everyone proud of us hohohohohoho~ Our experiments results in new “dishes” that I would like to share with you here.


1) Hokkien Style Fried Spagetti
How did we come out with this dish? One day, we wanted to cook Spaghetti Bolognese. Therefore we cooked the pasta and opened up few cans of spaghetti sauce. Only thing is, the cans of spaghetti sauce is not what we thought it is. It is actually cans of spaghetti IN sauce. We were like, “Oh, Lord! What are we to do?” We definitely have too much pasta noodle on hands expecially since the pasta is already cooked. Then suddenly some genius (can’t remember who) suggest that why don’t we do fried spaghetti like those in HK café in Msia? Then we save the cans of spaghetti for the next day. Hence the birth of our very own hokkien style fried spaghetti.
Ingredients: Spagetti, dark soy sauce, soy sauce, chicken, onion.
Optional: carrot or any vegetables, egg,


2) Potato Salad
Wow this is truly a gem! Thank God Dinosaur learned something useful during his time in D&P. He learned how to make a mean potato salad! Simple to make and can be kept for a couple of days if needed to. I really like it^^ In fact, yesterday I had my first try at mixing it^^ Fun I tell you!


3) Roti Canai
Actually we have no idea at all how to make roti canai like those in mamak ones. However, we were adventurous enough to attempt it. In the end it wasn’t really a success as we only uses plain flour, oil, salt and water to make the dough. It didn’t end up like the soft texture we always see the mamak when they toss the dough and all. Our dough seems more compact and harder to “fold”. Nevertheless, it doesn’t tasted too bad. It’s quite like roti canai, except not as soft and fluffy. We suspect we need to insert baking soda to make the dough more fluffy. However, we really have no idea and we doubt the mamak people would share their recipe with us. We’ll just have to improvise ourselves and experiment more on it.


4) Fried Rice/Porridge
Okay, this is kinda a failure really. You see, we haven’t had any rice for more than a week and we missed it. Truth to be told, we are all kinda rice bucket (fan tong) but here in NZ, it’s not easy to find rice cooker. People here boil rice either in pot or in microwave which as you can guess, is not our specialty. Yours truly attempt to cook rice in pot over the stove. We mix brown and white rice together and the result is disaster. The water is too much because we thought the brown rice was not cooked! Little did I know that brown rice texture is harder compared to white rice. Therefore, the pot of rice turned out half lumpy, like porridge but less water. So left with no choice, we just have to fry it. So it kinda in between fried porridge and lumpy rice. Still rice cooker is the best!!!


Apart from new experiments, we also do the normal dishes such as chicken rice, stir-fry vegetables and rice. You know, the things that our mother normally cook at home. The only thing is, right now we need to dissect mom’s dishes in our mind to figure out what ingredients she put into the dishes in order for us to re-create the dish here on our own. Well, of course sometimes we do call mom up and asked for recipe. But most of the time, we just rely on our own judgement and do “Jamie Oliver” style. *Secukup rasa*


Seriously, asking mom about recipe is pretty much Jamie Oliver style too. Like, would they tell you how much sugar and salt you need to add to your dish? Now you understand me^^


Let’s see what else we have cooked so far…. Erm we cooked bah kut the (yes, we can cook a decent bah kut the ok?), steamed chicken rice, stir-fry chicken in sesame oil, grilled venison steak, salami, fried vermicelli, stir-fried variety of vegetables, ABC soup and et cetera et cetera…


Due to time constraint and limited internet usage, I am unable to load any photos for viewing. For photos of our creations, please view the photo album posted by Dinosaur in FB. You may contact me for more info. I am more than happy to share my knowledge, or lack of it^^

A short note to all

As usual, I will updates multiple post one shot due to my limitation on the internet usage. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I writing it.

Have fun^^

Mundane life in Opotiki

It’s been quite sometimes that we are here in Opotiki already. Our everyday life here is like go to work, think what’s the menu for lunch and dinner, watch tv or play mahjong. Haha, yeah we don’t really have much life here as you already expected. Let me try to break down what we did here every day or occasionally.


1) On a good sunny day, we packed our lunch, which mainly consist of bread and some fillings such as tuna mayo or sausages or hashbrowns and head down to the river bank to have a picnic. Our lunches are normally simple, easy to make kind of food to save time. Either we will be having sandwiches or pasta mostly. We only spend more time and effort on our dinner.


2) Occasionally when there’s sales, we will sample some wines and beers. It is one of my wish to sample as much wine and beer as possible here. Short of you labeling me as alcoholic, I would very much like to point out that liquor here is actually really cheap. Definitely cheaper than back at home. Wines here can go as low as NZD6.99/bottle. Beers are ranging between NZD15 – NZD25 for 12 pack bottles. Frankly speaking, drinking liquor here is cheaper than drinking bottled water. No wonder the locals here likes to drink a lot. It is bloody affordable to drink here!


3) On a clear night, the sky here is sprinkled with stars. Literally the whole sky is filled with stars, big or small. As winter is approaching, the sky here’s almost pitch dark by 6pm. Everyday after work, on our drive back home we can see lots of stars. Too bad I’m not good in astronomy so I can’t make out the star shapes or zodiac.


4) Every night, we are kinda glued to the tv. We watched mainly American series from 7:30pm onwards. In fact we practically memorized the series for most days already.
Monday – Amazing Race, CSI Las Vegas
Tuesday – Hell’s Kitchen, CSI Miami
Wednesday – Survivor
Thursday – Bones, Project Runway, The Next Great Restaurant in America
Friday – American Idol
Saturday – American Idol Result

Yup, that’s how we spent our nights here. Watching telly.

5) We tried to limit ourselves to do laundry once a week in order to save on the dryer’s cost. Our house only has a washing machine and no dryer. To dry it, we need to bring our clothes to the town’s laundranette which charges us NZD1 per cycle (Big dryer= 5mins/cycle & Small dryer= 7mins/cycle).

I still remember our first time using the dryer. We thought, “hey, that’s cheap, only NZD1!” Boy, how naïve we were. We didn’t knew then that one cycle is NOT enough to dry our clothes. You need at least 3 – 4 cycles! Which means at least 3 – 4 dollars. If your clothes are quite dry, then you can spend 2 dollars or so.

We didn’t knew then what we know now. No wonder our clothes weren’t dry the first time and we keep putting coins for one cycle and checked our clothes and still it’s not dried, then we insert coin for another cycle and checked again. We repeat the process for 3 – 4 times I think.

That’s our embarrassing but funny experience with the dryer.

6) We watched the news every morning and night to catch up with the current happenings in the world. Also, we keep tracked the weather forecast to speculate on our work schedule. Not only that, we get to save money on the dryer as we now tends to do our laundry on sunny day and leave our clothes to dry on the drying line. Let the sun and wind dries our clothes ^^

That’s all for now. Will update more next time. Bye bye^^

Pipi Harvesting

We also went to hunt for pipi and cockles at the beach during low tides. Pipi is a local shellfish which is very much similar with our lala, but the pipis here is so much more tasty and the texture is chewy. To collect pipis, you need to go to the popular pipi spot/bed beach during low tide and dig the sand and feel for pipis. You’ll need to go at least knee deep in the water (yes, during low tide) and start digging. The bigger ones are usually in deeper water. Just dig under the stones especially and you’ll get plentiful easily.

You must go on clear days when the water is clean and calm for best result. Normally you will see the locals collecting pipis too. If you went to the right place and see no one, means it’s not a good time as there will be people collecting all the time. Ask the locals for the best spot (in our case it’s in Waiotahi Beach or the Ohiwa Beach). In fact, there’s a signboard confirming the pipi beds too. Per person you can collect 150 pipis and cockles a day. These is quite a big amount already. Only collect the bigger ones and leave the smaller ones back on the water to ensure the ecosystem is not harmed.

For cockles, you practically can find it littered on the beach. You’ll only need to go ankle-deep in the water to find it hidden in the sand. The bigger ones usually is hidden most deep inside the sand.

The cockles here are white fleshed, not red like what we had back at home. It’s still pretty tasty but I kinda prefer the ones we had back at home. Godzilla totally don’t fancy it as pipis are her favourite.

While harvesting pipis, we have to go in the water which is pretty cold. At the same time, we need to brace the winds that keeps blowing. Well, we are at the beach so definitely there’ll be winds but cold wind and cold water is really a challenge to your immune system.

The first time we went to harvest pipis, the wind was really cold and strong and Twister was not in her best state so we decided not to go in the water. But Dinosaur and Godzilla were really gung-ho to harvest pipis hence they went and harvest pipis while we wait at car. The weather was sunny but don’t underestimate the wind man! The wind will really freeze you to your bone!

After the harvesting, Dinosaur immediately felt a little unwell. I guess the heroic attempt at pipi harvest bare-chested is not without consequences. Luckily he recover fast enough after a nap.

The second time pipi harvesting, me and Twister decided to wet our feet and go in the water this time as we probably won’t be doing this anymore because the weather has turn colder day after day. The very next day I felt sick. I knew it then that I had caught a cold. Darn!

Thank god I recover the next day after taking medication. It would definitely be so unwise to fall sick and jeopardizes my work at the packhouse. I would hate to miss a work day and thus missed the pay cheque as well.

Since all these shellfishes are embedded in the sand, we had a hard time trying to clean it and

clear the sand away. This is mostly my job, but even after rinsing it in fresh water and changing water numerous time, there’s still sand in it! Gosh! How do you clean it???

Getting a Job finally^^

Finally we got a job at a packhouse. Of all the three packhouses in Opotiki, ours is the furthest away…about 7 minutes drive away hahahaha but hey! We got a job!!!

And that’s what matters!

The people that we worked with are all very nice and friendly people. They will teach us the ropes in the packhouse and they will constantly help and guide you. No scolding at all even if you make mistakes. They will simply just guide you again.

It’s a great working environment actually. I don’t think we can find such working environment in Malaysia. Somehow, I can just imagine how the people in Malaysia like to scold you if you make mistakes. Then if you repeat the same mistakes, they’ll probably think ,”gawd, how can this person be so stupid?”

The first two week of work is barely what we imagine. Apparently, packhouse don’t operate all the time. They only can operate when there’s fruit to pack. The fruit pickers can only pick kiwi when the day is good. So the chain reaction starts with a good sunny day for pickers to do their job and us packers can pack the fruit for export.

So whenever it rains, it means we are doomed. No work. No money. Nothing to do. In the first two week, we only work for 2 full days. The management told us that they haven’t really go in full swing as they are awaiting the result and approval from the lab (sugar content in fruit test etc). ONLY when the lab say yes, the fruit is good to go, then only they can really pick and pack the fruits.

WE packed mostly gold kiwi but sometimes also green kiwis in between. WE packed 1st grade fruits and sometimes 2nd grade as well. Work is okay, literally stress-free and easy. A bit monotonous though. As the whole day you are repeatedly doing the same action over and over again. Hey, but the money is good so no complain!

I started off as “packers”, just like everyone else. Gradually, I have been moved to grader’s table and become a “grader”. Not too long later “tray pack” was short of people and I was transferred to help. So for a short time, I was in “tray pack” as well. I am multi-talented aren’t I? Hahahaha but in the end, I am a full time “grader” until some other department in need of help then I will be transferred there. Hahaha sometimes I do feel like I’m a ball that’s been kicked here and there whenever they want.

Personally, I quite like being in “traypack” as it allows more movement and thus my leg won’t feel that painful for standing whole day. The downside though is that “traypack” takes up more energy as well compared to other job. But it’s okay. I take it as a form of exercise to keep fit hehehehehe^^ Oh, if you are fast in your work, you can sit down for awhile, which is a luxury that not many people

Unlike some big company, our packhouse offers the same pay rate for all jobs so… no difference la. As I know, some company pays higher for grader and traypack. But nevermind la, got job also happy dy, cannot complain so much^^

Made many new friends in the packhouse. Some kiwis (New Zealanders, not the fruit) local Maoris, Malaysians, Hong Kong, Czech Republic, Taiwan….and more to come^^

All in all, we are happy here^^

Work rolling in

Finally work are starting to pour in. In average, we get to work like 3 – 4 days a week. Still not on par with my expectation yet (I was hoping for full swing of 6 days a week!!!) Can’t believe that the whole month of April were gone and yet the packhouse is still not running on full swing??!!!!

Holy shit! There goes my dream of working 6 days a week and earn more dough to support my life here. Damn! One whole month come and goes and still, I am not earning enough. Bad news is, packhouse only works til end of May. If we are lucky, maybe it might drag until first week of June.

And now is already May. We have not even work for more than 4 days a week. This is bad news man! Terrible. And sometimes the weather is not helping either. You see, when it rains here, it practically rains whole day. Rain means no work. No work means no pay. No pay means bad news.

Damn!

Previously I mentioned that we stayed at a self contained apartment in town which comes with free internet. Well, we moved again. This time to a house slightly out of town. Which has no internet. Bummer!

Why do we move again you ask? Well it’s not like we were not happy with the apartment. No, in fact it was great actually. The landlady was great, the apartment is self contained and it is smack right in the middle of the town. It just so happened that we met a Malaysian lady (we shall address her as Ms A) in the library and she is a nice lady that helps us to find a cheaper place to stay.

When she heard that we stayed at the apartment, she kinda freak out. Okay, not really. She freaked us out more like it. She told us that she knew few people that previously stayed there and they claimed that the place is haunted. The “haunted” room JUST had to be the room I’m sharing with Twister. F***!!!!!

Suddenly everyone is very conscious of the place there. Not that we are superstitious or anything but then IF someone just tell you that the room you are residing now is haunted, how would you feel?

As expected, we were disturbed by the news. Like it or not, once the info is out, it’s stuck in our mind. My imagination gets wild at time hurhurhur~

Ms A found us a house and bring us to take a look at it. The house is already occupied by a Chinese (as in China Chinese) lady and a Hong Kong guy who’s leaving in a couple of days. The house itself is pretty much self contained as well and the best thing is, the rent is only HALF of what we are paying for the apartment.

Whereas the apartment is nett rate, the house is not. We have to pay the electricity bill ourselves which we estimated at about NZD10 per week or so. It IS still much cheaper.

Being as thrifty person as us, it is without any doubt that we will move in to the house right away! This means another round of spring cleaning. Seriously, I don’t think I have done so much cleaning in my entire life than what I have done in few weeks here in NZ.

I am so proud of myself. You can’t call me a pampered princess anymore okay? I did my share of cleaning and cooking as well, which is something that I don’t have to do back at home. ^^

Our new house has three bedrooms and one is occupied by the Chinese lady, and the other two is for us. As we need to move in on Friday (our rent ends on Friday at the apartment), we did the spring cleaning on Thursday and move in on Friday morning. Actually, the Hongki still stays there as he’s taking the bus to Auckland to visit his sister on Saturday. We had no choice but to erm, kick him out of his room as Godzilla and Dinosaur will be occupying it.

Poor Hongki had to sleep on couch that night. But hey, our landlady did return his fair share of the rent. This is seriously an unavoidable circumstances. Totally not intended.

Oh! Our new house does not come with pillows and comforters. We had to get our own. This Ms A so happened had four sets of pillow,comforters (they call it duvet here) and bedsheets which she can sell to us cheaply at NZD20 per set.

I am beginning to think that is this some sort of conspiracy scam going on? Short of buying everything brand new, we had no better choice but to buy it from her. When we go and collect the goods, I was quite taken aback when I see that all the pillow cases and duvet covers are the same for all FOUR sets. I mean, why would she had all FOUR SAME DESIGN?

Hello? I was actually thinking it’s gonna be colourful and individual. Definitely not as uniformed as these! Who would buy all same design?? I nonchalantly approached the questions to her and it turns out that these four sets were bought at backpackers in Te Puke which does not provide all these but the tenants had to buy it from them or bring their own.

Therefore, these bed sets belonged to her and her friends when they first came to Te Puke. She assured us that it has only been used for like 2 months max and it’s practically new. Well, for the price we pay, I guess we can’t complain. It’s pretty okay too, it’s like army military design but it’s pink in colour. Talk about a twist of humor in fashion hahahahaha^^

Now that we purchased our own bed sets, guess we will have to bring it with us where ever we go next time. More load for our poor car that was already packed full to the brim previously.

First Trip to Rotorua

It is Godzilla’s birthday and we went to Rotorua as a treat^^ She’s eager to go so we decided to comply with our birthday girl^^ We made lots of calls for all the packages and things we can do there asking for prices and duration and stuff.


Turn out, we can’t really afford most of their popular activities such as Zorb, White Water Rafting, Geyser pool and so on. All of these are quite expensive especially to people that does not have regular job and income.


In order not to disappoint her, we decided to go still, but kinda more of a window trip. That is, we will go to all the places that are free for sightseeing in order to stretch our moolah hehehehe^^


Rotorua is famous for their geyser but we have not got the opportunity to see one yet. Instead, we visited the geothermal spot in Kuirau Park. The whole park is practically splattered with steams coming out from the mud pools or cracks on the earth. The boiling mud “lake” is really a sight to behold.


Rotorua is really not some town that you will forget easily. The whole town smells of sulphur (geyser, remember?) The wind carries the rotten egg smells everywhere. The time that we went it was rainy day so it wasn’t as bad as I expected. Perhaps the rain somehow reduces the smell I think.


Lake Rotorua is also a beautiful scenic place to visit. A good spot for camwhoring I would say :p Then there’s a famous jade carving shop named Mountain Jade, It’s actually a shop selling all kinds of jade accessories and you can see the carving master doing their magic at the room behind the shop. It has glass windows for everyone to see. I think you can also go in and have a closer look if you ask the shopkeeper nicely J


Let’s see what else we’ve done there… Erm we tried their 3D Maze at somewhere outskirt of Rotorua. It cost us each NZD9 and truth to be told, it’s quite lame. It’s just a maze where you need to find your way to reach the four post at four corner and come out back to the same entrance that you entered earlier. Since it rained the day before, the maze is wet and puddle of water pools everywhere. Despite it being lame, it’s still some activity to kill time with. Seriously, not recommended. Don’t waste your time and money for it. Go for other activities, man.


We had our lunch at a buffet restaurant named Valentine’s. They had a special promotion where you don’t have to pay if it’s your birthday. The condition is that the minimum pax is four. Just nice since there’s four of us^^ The selections aren’t as extensive as some I’ve tried back in Malaysia, but the price is definitely quite affordable.


As for dinner, we had McD’s Dinner Set. (time limit is til 8:00pm) It cost about NZD29.90 and it comes with 2 cheeseburger, 1 Mighty Angus, 1 Grand Angus and four fries and drinks. The drinks is refillable. Yup, all are beef burgers but it really tasted very good. In fact, we all agreed that Mighty Angus is the best. It’s the champion of all^^


McD here don’t just serve burgers like back home. It also serves cakes and some pastries. We got Godzilla some chocolate cake as birthday cake. It taste really good and we finished it up despite being super full. A real satisfying meal I would say.


If you’ll like to know, it’s about 2 hours drive from Opotiki to Rotorua. Along the way, it’s pretty uneventful and the scene is just about the same as everywhere else. You see mountains, hills, orchards, small towns, cows, sheeps, yeah the usual.


We didn’t get to explore Rotorua to our heart content yet therefore you bet we will return again. We will definitely make another trip to Rotorua before we head to south. You can count on it^^