It’s Xmas Day - 25 December 07

This was the best meal I ever had since I came to New Zealand. I am staying and working at Coachman Backpackers Hostel (http://www.coachmanbackpackers.co.nz/ ). The owners were so nice , they hold a Christmas Lunch and invited all the guests to join them, there were a lot of food, beer & wine.

• My xmas lunch

• The house keeper team


• My xmas present from Wendy & Rene( the hostel owner)

• Isabel and Me

• The coachman Backpackers at night

• Xmas Tree and Me

Moving from heaven to hell.- 24 December 07

That’s what my Taiwanese roommate told me. She said back in Taiwan she worked comfortably in the air-conditioned office and now she has bruises all over her body and legs working as the cleaner here. Life isn’t that bad here. Haha…

Comes and goes – 23 December 07

Farewell to my Israel room mate, Yulia she is leaving the backpackers hotel today and will begin her travelling soon. This might be the last time I ever see her in my life. She comes and goes and it’s part and parcel in the life journey.

And now I have a new German roommate and he is joining the house keeping team.

Got 2 jobs offer in a day! - 20 December 07

Finally, I got a part-time waitress job working at the Restaurant starting on 9-January-08. I just received a stack of documents including the offer letter, restaurant rules, employee booklet, etc mail to me. I haven’t sign it yet. Perhaps, I will sign and return to them after Christmas. I will be given training, uniforms, free shuttle to & from work and meals. Well, I was bombarded with a lot of customer service questions during the interview then they made a call to Malaysia to the referral that I had provided to ask about me. This is just a part time job and they are quite serious about the employment! Things and plans are keep changing here and I begin to fear of the versatility. I might stay longer in Christchurch but I really hope that I can move on asap. Once I earn enough for travelling expense, I will leave Christchurch.

And, I got another part-time job offer working in the Thai restaurant.

I really wanted to work for both restaurants. I will take all job offers because there is no guarantee on the working hours that I will get each week. I might be getting 2-10 hours each week. So, now I will have 2 part time paid jobs and 1 unpaid job( work as cleaner in exchange for the accommodation).

Today I went to the beach called Sumner, nice beach….

• Sumner Beach

• This is the whole view of the cave rock

• I climbed up the rock and this is the picture of me lying on the top of the cave rock ;-)

Shalom everyone!

Shalom is a Jewish greeting or farewell. I learnt this from a Jewish gal. Life is such a marvellous journey where you can meet peoples from all over the world and become friends. I began alone in the city and now I have some cool friends to hang out with.

It has been some time that I didn’t blog. It’s another sunny day, times fly.. Most of the afternoon I will spend my time watching people on the street. The weather is nice but unpredictable, it can be windy and cold in the morning and hot at night.

Sometimes, I ask myself what the heck I am here for? Working as a cleaner .. sharing a small room with 5 strangers? Haha.. working as a cleaner has never cross my mind .. life is just so unpredictable if you want it to be. For the first few days, I feel a little uncomfortable doing it, but now I feel that it’s really an experience for being one. I wouldn’t do this back in Malaysia.

There are still a lot of things that I wanted to do here. I like New Zealand but I loved Malaysia so I will come back to Malaysia ;-)

Here are some highlights:

~Cathedral~


~Xmas Parade~










~Casino~
~Ice Cream at New Zealand Natural, Westfield Riccarton~

1st Interview in Christchurch

I went to my first interview in Christchurch today as a wait staff(waitress) position. I didnt do it badly but I believe it was not good enough to get hired. There are few kiwis after the same job too. Hehe .. Seems like finding a job here is so competitive. No matter what, I have gone so far and I am not going to give up so soon.

There are orchard jobs around but I dont want to do it at the moment because it will be too much of physical work. Every morning until noon I am working as housekeeper already used a lot of my energy.. hehe ..

I will continue digging the newspapers for job!

My day as a hostel housekeeper a.k.a cleaner

5-December-07

Today is my first day working as a housekeeper in the hostel in exchange for accommodation. The job will start at 9.30am every morning and usually end at 1 pm. I wouldn’t say that it is an easy job and not a very difficult job too. Remember, there is no free lunch. ;-) The team consists of 4 Taiwanese and 1 Malaysian(I’m the Malaysian). Perhaps I can put this in my resume under work experience .. haha .. Nothing much to write today. Tired ..

My life has become so versatile and I really don’t know how’s going to be ..

Recaps of the past few days in Christchurch

1-Dec-07

Staying in the hostel is a good place to meet like-minded people. Most of them are tired about their working life and decided to take a break from their life. Met a Hong Kong backpacker and we decided to go to New Brighton Beach, the only word that I can said about this place is marvellous. The sun was very bright but the breeze was cold. It’s something different back in Malaysia where everything is so hot, the sun, the breeze and the sea water.








2-Dec-07
Today is Sunday, we pay a visit to the Sunday Market at Riccarton with some Taiwanese.

~ Lemon tree at the market ~

Earning money is not easy in New Zealand. Most of the seasonal work in the orchard requires a lot of hard work. Besides, they pointed out that the freckles on their faces were caused by the sunlight exposure working at the orchard. (Low pay, cheap labour!) ;-) I might need to be one of the cheap labourer… haha

Heading to Christchurch

The trip didn’t really start very well. I almost couldn’t board to New Zealand. I was informed that I need a return ticket to go out from NZ and I am unaware of this policy, anyhow I ended buying the return ticket on the spot. Thanks to the helpful jetstar team. I was the last person to check in and the baggage carousel was already stopped by the time I wanted to check in. Someone from Jetstar helped me with it.

Finally, almost 2-3 hours flight I reached Christchurch. The weather is colder than in Melbourne. Without thinking much, I just hopped into the airport shuttle and reached the Coachman Backpackers Hostel. It cost me NZD 20.

I went for a walk around the city. By the time I finish walking it is almost 5 pm. It’s dinner and lunch time, I went to a Russian café called Red Square. I had buckwheat with mushroom in the hot pot. The taste was so-so or maybe it’s just it doesn’t suit my taste. It cost NZD 16.50. I will start hunting for a cheaper food tomorrow. Besides, I need to hunt for job too. I am living on a budget ..hehe..

Will post the pictures in the same blog entry later because I left my cable to transfer the pictures from my camera in the hostel.

Summer in Melbourne

The weather and the air is really nice here, during the day the temperature can be quite hot from 32 degrees Celsius and at night it can drop to 12 degrees. There a lot of flies here, even walking along the roads there are flies flying around my face. The place that I stay is in Clayton. A lot of Asian here, by taking a train to the city I can hear people speaking in Mandarin, Cantonese, Indonesian Malay and Korean. Melbourne is just like another small city of Asians. I can easily find Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Malaysian and Indian food here too.

I did not go to a lot of places in Melbourne because this is just a stopover I will visit more places in Melbourne when I return from Christchurch. In Melbourne, I spent most of the time walking at the streets and some windows shopping.

Spectacular view of the melbourne city from the top of the mountain(Skyhigh Mount Dandenong)

Giant Chair
St. Paul Cathedral
Trams along the Chinatown
Sorry I dont have sufficient time to align the pictures and the captions nicely. ;-)
I will be leaving melbourne tomorrow morning and will be heading to Christchurch.

Salted fish experience in Melbourne

My travel began at 24-November-07, 2 pm from Ipoh to KLIA. Reached at Melbourne at 25 –November-07 8.40 am (Melbourne Time) and was so tired and feeling jet-lagged. It made my day worst when I found out that someone bought some salted fish, some of the bottles got burst and the ‘seasoning gravy’ spilt all over my backpack. The stinking smell of the dead fish was really unbearable. I could even see the fresh of the salted fish stuck at my bag! At that moment I wish I can just throw the bag and get a new one!

It is a 13 kg backpack that I need to carry it on my shoulder and I have no choice but ended with the dead fish smell all over me. I felt so embarrassed by the smell, imagine I took a bus to the train station from airport and my bag ‘polluted the air’ in the bus! From there, I need to take another 30 minutes train.

I did everything I could to reduce the smell, I used some tissue to absorb the ‘seasoning gravy’ from the bag. I even used the hand dryer to blow it but it just doesn’t help. Luckily, I brought along a mini sized perfume. I used half bottle of it, it did help a little. I think the smell was reduced to 20-30%!

Personally, I don’t really fancy on salted fish and I don’t hate it but after this experience I doubt I will still want to eat it or not.

Notes to all salted fish lovers, I know you would like to share this ‘precious food’ with people around the world, but please seal it properly if you would like to check in to the plane!

It’s now or never

I know I must do it, if I don’t I will regret. Counting down for the day to happen, I m really looking forward for this day but I still have the fear that I need to overcome. After weeks of searching job in Christchurch, seems like it’s not that easy. My initial plan to get a job before flying to Christchurch failed. And I don’t want to wait anymore, I decided to go to Christchurch on 29 Nov. I will be staying at the Coachman Backpackers Hostel. I will fly to Melbourne on 24 Nov and from Melbourne, I will fly to Christchurch, New Zealand. I bought a Deuter backpack. My ‘everything’ will be inside this 65+10 liter backpack but it’s super heavy! Even though I keep telling myself to travel light but I still ended up with a long list of items to carry. ;-)

Good bye Penang

6 years in Penang is going to end tomorrow. I have been postponing the date to leave Penang. I always tell myself I haven’t finish packing my stuff and there are still many things that I have not settle in Penang. Perhaps, I am just giving myself a lame reason to stay longer in Penang.

It’s time to leave behind my friends and Penang. I remember seeing my friends leaving penang one by one and now I am following their footstep too.

Thanks to those who had been giving me love, guidance & help.

I'm gonna miss u all.

Mascots of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

I got a set of Olympic Games 2008 Mascot, Fuwa. It carries the message of friendship and peace. This Fuwa was given by my ex-colleague from China. (I am still not so used with the word "ex-colleague" yet) Even though I do not fancy this kind of stuff, but I feel great to have the collection of Fuwa. Moreover, I am no longer working in the company yet I still got my souvenirs. hehe...

I m free! I m free!

I joined Dell on 17 May 04 and yesterday it finally ended. Now, I am free .. Day and night I have been waiting for this day to come but when it came, I wasn’t felt as happy as I thought that I will. Sort of sad to leave friends in Dell. A friend told me that this is called “Post-resignation depression” .. ha ha ha…

Suddenly, life becomes so slow ... wat should I do today? tomolo? the day after tomolo?

Frankly, I am not so used the freedom I have now, I think I need to re-adjust my life. I also need to reset my alarm not to ring at 6.30 am every Monday to Friday. ;-)

My decision to resign & travel solo really gave a surprise to many of my friends. I do have fear to overcome but I want to push myself to reach the limit.

I understand that it is uncommon for Asian people to backpack alone to conquer the world, it is the time to break the tradition! I was bombarded with the same questions again & again. Perhaps, it’s good for me to drop down my answers here so that everyone can find the answer about my trip to NZ. :P

1) Travelling alone?
Yes

2) Do my parents agree with the decision?
After some sharing sessions, I managed to convince them to let me chase for my dream!

3) When I will be leaving Ipoh?
Have yet to decide, within 1-3 weeks time.

4) When I will be flying to NZ?
In Nov

5) Have I bought the flight ticket?
Not yet until I have a confirm job in Christchurch

6) Why choose NZ?
Cost of living is lower compare to Europe.

7) Why not Australia?
Australia government doesn’t offer Holiday Working Visa to Malaysian.

8) How long I will be in NZ?
2-3 months.

9) What kinds of jobs are available for backpackers in NZ?
Cleaner, waiter, receptionist, fruit pickers, data entry.. etc. It’s all depends on the location.

10) How did I apply for the visa?
Online. www.immigration.govt.nz/

11) Do I need to undergo interview in order to get the visa?
No

12) Why I want to do this?
Life is being too monotonous. I want to see how far can I go. Moreover, I had friend who did it before.