post - weekend

Well on the tail end of the day after work waiting for the next train to come (Auckland trains are one every half hour ..)and this weekend had a big clean up around the house.. I am now the proud owner of a nice sofa i got for 250$ and had to have it moved by a helpful moving company. Once it was in the room, it set me off cleaning the place around it .. my housemate will be suprised as he wont have seen the place yet.

Its been a lovely day both Satuday and Sunday . Saturday post-sofa I went for a drive with an aussie friend and then we went to Villa Maria Winery, very pretty and rolling green rows of vines just off the main motorway and it was relaxing that afternoon we watched a dvd , and then met a mate of mine who was up visiting and we had dinner at a Korean restuarant worthy of KimChi in Carnegie. Sunday I did said clean up triggered by the sofa and the house feels more like a home.

Its a big week.. scrum prototyping workshops and no one leaves till we agree on things..

I'll need another visit to the winery after this lol. And exercise...*sighs and ponders time*

Work work work

just been working, I joined a social badminton group on Saturday afternoons. Whilst I don't suck totally at it, i hope to improve my game. Sudden shots in other directions are my bug bears.

life is good , food is more costly but ok .. the nice to look out the window and see green green green everywhere and poor Melbourne and Australia in the midst of one of the worst droughts ever..

I am on a client site in the burbs writing this in a break..thank goodness I got my laptop and they had a wireless network. It rocks..

ah yes broadband at home grrr. the telecom company tells me 'defintetly after 5pm' to get the technician around. He doesn't show and i found out he came around at 2pm. after ringing the intstaller company (ah the joys of outsource, AND i had to ring them myself) i found out they dont come after 4.30 and you can't fix a time. dont you hate that 'I'll be here between here and doomsday' aproach to it. You have to take the whole day off work ...

ooh Korean Snack-a-licious Day meltdown!

ok I had a late night last night and needed carbs.. so I went to the Korean grocery and got some different kind of chippies. my furry friend here sums up how I felt by the end of the day.. Happy World Usability Day everyone!!

Monday musings

well after a long weekend of dinner with friends and going out, it was Sunday at 1am in the morningI found myself watching 'South Park' and wondered if I was a South Park character what would I look like.. well after looking for a 'create your own South Park Character' website this was the result. for some reason the uploader cuts the image out.. but i love the shirt this guy has

on to Wellington

Thank goodness for cheap fares.. Last Thursday I flew to Wellington. (my first 'local' flight) and got to my friends place there..Friday I worked in the local office which was great, had after work drinks then went out on the town with my friends. Happily another friend was in town from Christchurch seeing his Wellington based other half so we were all able to meet and go out. After a slow wake up I had coffee and a good lunch with one of my Wellington friends, having a try of Schoc Chocolate

you gotta try it! Amazing creativity

After some nice Malaysian for lunch, we continued our walk until we parted ways and I went on to dinner at my hosts place. That night we walked to a great vantage point over Wellington harbour.. The full moon was lighting up the bay and we saw a massive fireworks display Saturday night, and went out again. Sunday I slept in, met my friend up from Christchurch for brunch and we walked around talking, looking at the harbour and went back to Schoc for trying more goodness and I had a chilli hot chocolate. Great! It was good to not have to rush back to Melbourne and have some leisurely time and socialise instead of feeling like exchanges between friends were pressure cooked because of time constraints.. I am lucky to have good friends here and in Australia :) unconditional happy is a great place to get to .. You gotta value those moments..

that afternoon continued picking up my friends new other half and after a coffee and snack they dropped me off to the air port..

despite the flight only taking an hour and two and a half hours from the air port to home (irony) I still felt rested at least in spirit :)

The Game & Rotorua

ok ok I am hopeless at putting stuff up in a timely manner having too much fun to come on and post I guess

21/10 Seeing my wellington mates was awesome too ..we had time to chat, chillout, drink, meet my friends family who were wonderful..One of my mates has met someone new and was wonderful to see him so happy and like his usual self again :)

Friday night in Hamilton at their place, everyone was sittting around talking, listening to music, sitting on a sofa in the drive way in the freezing cold but too fuzzy and rugged up to mind :) I think I wanted to adopt their cat who was cosying up to me..

Flapjacks in Hamilton a great brekkie place, wow generous food, call green peace and throw me back.

22/10 Saturday afternoon sitting at the pub in team colours, watching the rugby parade in the main street..

Saturday nite - the game was great. i never thought i'd be brought to my feet yelling as a player took the ball to the end of the field. getting caught up in a shared collective experience was great fun. the atmophere was great and i can see how people love going to sport games..Waikato my adopted team won.. so there was much celebrating and I even had a crack at Kareoke in one pub. but exhausted by the emotional expenditure of the game I headed back early for an early night.

23/10 Sunday - another side splitting brekkie at Flapjacks and on to Roturua , thermal springs, went to a Hangi and Concert at one of the hotels in Rotorua that night, my friends new other half and i got up on stage to do a Haka which was fun and the footage will never see the light of day.. afterwards we went to some outdoor thermal pools.. sitting in these pools looking over the lake at night was amazing . cold weather and 38 degree celcius pools ..a nice mix and very relaxing..

24/10 Monday - after a morning looking at Whakewerawere thermal village, I had my friend drop me at the bus station and caught the bus back to Auckland thanking my stars i had a laptop on which to watch a movie.. (long trip in bus on the way back from the holiday) as my mates then drove back to Wellington..

Attached are various pics of the trip. interestingly some of the folks from the Maori concert were the same ones from 2004, my first trip here. So a nice turn of the wheel.

in Hamilton

(Dammit missed the Washing machine. someone came in at 1 minute before the auction ended. ah well, spilt milk and all that)..

This weekend, I am in Hamilton , seeing my first ever rugby game live. I am supporting the Waikato Chiefs on the grounds my friend will not talk to me if I don't. Well this is decadent.. I am in a Starbucks in Hamilton, New Zealand, sitting here logged on a wi-fi network (but paying for the privelage). I caught the bus down from Auckland and took the laptop to see what travelling with it would be like.. I could get used to it.. with 6 hours of batteries, I could listen and watch podcasts, dvds and all manner of things..Its a bit heavy to carry but ok..

Hamilton is a pretty city and people are wearing gold, red and black; the Chiefs colours.. Wellington is the opposing team and since I am in Auckland, I better support the nearer team ,as well as keeping my friendship with my mate.

Since I can't get to my hotel room for another hour, I might get my hair cut.. ah coffee, ah internet..this is so nerdy hehe. I even packed the stereo speakers and bass box that i got for the laptop so i can have decent stereo/DVD TV where ever I go..sunday after the game we'll go down to Rotorua and I'll bus down home from there..

Song of the moment

OK I am a child of the pop-culture music from the 70's to now.

Scissor Sisters new song 'I don't feel like dancing' has elements from disco and funk genres.
'Bee Gee' like vocals, 'ELO' like chorus and vamp (look it up under music styles) and cheery montage video.. When I played it, it was really bright, light and fun (we need more things like this in todays world), and had a high replay factor. On the bus to work, I was looking over the Auckalnd bays and water ways with this playing in my headphones. Since purchasing a portable digital music player (ok, its an i-pod, I unashamably love it) it was like having my own soundtrack for a film...

...and in other news, I am in the market to buy a washing machine as I am rapidly running out of clean clothes. One listing in the local trader site here had this 'Hairy Sales rep' on the job. How can i resist..

Movin movin

Well i finally have a new place. After changing countries, moving 2 kilometeres down the road was a relative breeze. A friend came over Friday night and gave me a Tiramisu to fuel the packing from the studio apartment I was in.

The plan.. hire a car Friday night and start moving stuff over to the new place, move the bulk Saturday morning and get my stuff which was in storage since it had arrived from overseas moved in that afternoon. Simple !

I don't believe in Friday the 13th, but it was a comedy of near misses..

• Friday I received an e-mail from the real estate agent that we couldn't move in until midday Saturday..the tenants were still moving out
  
• The moving company hadn't organised my stuff to be shipped when I checked why I hadn't been called to confirm a time (I had organised this Wednesday; so I had thought)
• The Hire car company had closed at 5pm Friday night; so whilst I had requested a 5.45 p.m. pick up time, I had missed the opening hours in the confirmation mail.. However, they had not corrected me and left it to me to work out the generic message.. (who reads everything on an e-mail)

All was looking grim, the house of cards or cascading dependent event plan looked doomed..

Anyway, one discssion with the real-estate agent later by my flat-mate to be (the Agent should have told us earlier apparently) and a few phone calls to the moving company and hire car company it was all sorted..

I picked up the hire car in the morning and last nights' Tiramisu-bearing friend from his acommondation. My stuff from the existing flat moved in Saturday midday, we said hello to the tenants moving out and cleaning. My stuff from Australia moved in that afternoon and 3 professional moving staff helpfully carried it all in to the rooms each item was supposed to go.They were 3 burly fellas and had no trouble carting it all in. It was far less painless than the move out....My friend and I thanked them with 3 six packs of beer which were greatfully recieved. Cable TV was installed and the phone put on. So I spent the afternoon setting up the bed (mechano set big bed), sound system, Kitchen and so we had very nice Fish and Chips (another NZ tradition) using a packing box as a table ..

Sunday I slept in, my friend and I went for coffee, shopping for supplies and house stuff and then I dropped him at the air port. Sunday night, I watched cable TV, unpacked more boxes and went to bed happy in the new place.. I woke up to a view of a valley and extinct volano (there are many around Auckland) ..

so this week it will be unpacking boxes and setting up the rest of the house..I have unpacked a few boxes and everything so far is unbroken; a testament to a friend's careful and experienced packing technique.. I don't know what I would have done without friends like her.

happy:)

Auckland

Here's a pic of Auckland Skytower.. it was taken with a long exposure but without a tripod it was a little shaky..

Wow I see the sun..

I have seen the sun 3 days in a row!! And its warm!! to my suprise I found out it's the Melbourne AFL Grand Final (Australian Rules Football) this weekend. In Melbourne you cannot escape it, and hear nothing but talked about.. Not that I don't like it mind you.. It creates tradition and ritual which are reassuring to people, brings them together around a television, BBQ and gets my family and long time family friends together every year. Go teams...

glad its Friday..

Gardens, wine, respite

Friday night was a nice quiet one after drinks at work..

Having settled in and now I am starting to have a few weekends where I don’t have to rush around.. After some house hunting for a bigger place (no luck this week) , I went to the Domain a park in Auckland, for a walk and took a few photos.. I want to go back there again its such a nice park and that afternoon did laundry (woo hoo) and watched a DVD ‘howls moving castle’ an animated film...

I met friend in a nice café suburb near me for drinks Saturday night and ended up sleeping in late. but Sunday after a slow recovery, I went for brunch and looked around the shops again for a while. That afternoon I watched more cartoons and an animated cartoon called ‘the cat returns’ ... so its been a great mooching weekend.. the weather is improving which was great Sunday and today but its under cut but the ozone hole shifting over Auckland for a few days. its usually over Melbourne.. Jfully open daffodil

blag

well another chest infection woo hoo. antibiotics this time .. so feeling better. but sheesh i am sick of being sick..

and diet.. whilst i am in a nice place in auckland .. the kitchen sucks.. a toaster oven with no shelves and 2 burners.. the healthiest i have done is fried beef strips and chilli, with salad.

gym is something i want to do when i get better too. tho i joined what i thought was a good city gym and then found it wasnt up to scratch, but whilst i dont have a permanent place its ok for now as its central

wat else.. ah i have been out lots, enjoying the cheaper wine, went skiiing and setting in to work so thats all for now..

Respite

End of Week 2 ...A friend booked acommodation on Waiheke Island, 40 minutes into Aucklands harbour . Hoiking arcross some great steaks and food, it was nice to come across on the ferry to and from work for a few days.

Imagine this as your commute to work...












Ferry terminal, Auckland

Departure Arrival

Imagine taking your whole life apart.. even the stuff at the back of drawers. I did this with the help of my friends, well without them it wouldn't have happened.. I had to sort, store, ship my life over and start a new job the following Monday.. in retrospect I would have taken a few weeks off..

Why New Zealand? After a few visits and a few more, I found it an attractive option. Finally a job came up with a firm I had made contact with previously..

Summary of things I did after finishing work in Melbourne. July 17th - 28th.

• packing
• storing
• seeing friends
• cleaning up
• more cleaning
• dinner
• departure at early day
• flight movie
• arrival meet friends
• rest
• party till 5am .. how did i do it
• sleep
• need more sleep .. work tomrrow first day

Week 1 Aug 1

• landed
• partied
• new office
• met the cast at work
  
• projects allocated
• get tax file number, insurance, looking for a place to live etc etc setting up life again..
  
• met new clients at work
• went to business drinks networking night..
  
• nice friends letting me stay with them..
  

busy busy

Too much to do at the same time at work.. reeling from it, no time to process any emotion. Need a break. Great coffee to be had thank goodness