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.