Goodbye New Zealand: The Goods and the Bads

 

 

 

 

They say it is the purest country in the world

 

 

 

 

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New Zealanders sometimes have difficulty understanding my (Canadian) accent. I tell them, “No, it’s you guys have the accent!”

 

 

 

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+ NZ groceries are horribly expensive; tomatoes are $11.99/kg. That’s about a dollar each – and that’s for an off-coloured, small one.

 

 

 

As a result, travellers must be resourceful. Can’t afford tomatoes? Substitute tomato sauce.

 

 

 

Been there, done that.

 

 

 

The most popular brand of tomato sauce, the one most New Zealanders “grew up with” – Wattie’s – is so sweet you could pour it over an ice cream sundae.

 

 

 

Warning: Unlike stores in Canada, New Zealand ones don’t easily refund groceries – only sometimes “when it’s gone off; not because you don’t like the taste.”

 

 

 

 

(I succeeded in returning my tomato sauce, but it was an ordeal.)

 

 

 

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New Zealanders drive very fast and don’t give a hoot about pedestrians or cyclists.

 

 

 

NZers also drive on the wrong side of the road so if you’re out walking, look over each shoulder twice before you cross.

 

 

 

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Amazing city: Dunedin (south of Oamaru, South Island).

 

 

 

This city is build on hills. Neat to look at how they can fit houses onto the sides of hills. Sidewalks are sometimes so steep that they have staircases moulded into them.

 

 

 

Dunedin is great for walkers and joggers, Check out Cannongate – the steepest sidewalk I’ve ever seen.

 

 

 

And a jogger was ascending it when I was gawking at it.

 

 

 

Accommodation for travellers: Other than my bnb (see this diary #1), I booked into a youth hostel for 2 days.

 

 

 

Hostels have changed.

 

 

 

I’ve stayed in them since 1990s and witnessed deteriorating decorum.

 

 

 

Travellers are a great crowd to stay with – and the conversation and comradery is still unbeatable.

 

 

 

But at any given time, the state of the hostel’s kitchen is a good reflection of the mind set of the incumbent travellers.

 

 

 

Kitchens of the ’90s were basically decent with each traveller cleaning up their dishes etc.

 

 

 

Nowadays, consider yourself lucky if there’s a single pot clean enough to boil some water!

 

 

 

Today’s youth don’t know how to clean!

 

 

 

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Departure

 

 

 

Airports now are becoming tourist attractions in and of themselves. Witness how the big airports are all madly under construction (Vancouver, for example).

 

 

 

 

The Auckland airport was a great last stop on my way out of NZ.

 

 

 

 

Five years ago it had one outside food outlet out at the edge of its property – a burger chain joint, which was worth tramping out to from the stuffy confines of the terminal and it’s obscenely overpriced food kiosks ($7 for a small smoothie).

 

 

 

 

But! Very treacherous to cross the Auckland airport’s road to get to the aforementioned burger joint.

 

 

 

 

This time, five years later, with a handful of hours to kill, I headed for the same burger joint, almost (literally) getting nailed by a vehicle zooming around a roundabout (my fault completely for jaywalking).

 

 

 

 

As I got to the burger joint, I saw that it is now flanked by an entire shopping plaza including a full-scale grocery store for last-minute, pre-flight eats.

 

 

 

 

And that’s not all: As I smartened up and this time followed the proper sidewalks back to the terminal, another entire plaza came into view; including Sushi and … a gym!

 

 

 

 

Suggestion from me to the airport authority: The airport should provide a shuttle bus to these plazas.

 

 

 

 

There are sidewalks and the distance is walkable yet those sidewalks all seem to end before they get to the terminal and then you’re back to dodging extremely heavy traffic.

 

 

 

 

This might explain why the two plazas of shops and services, as wonderful as it is to have them, didn’t seem very heavily patronized – except the gym.

 

 

 

 

[The end.]