Hi there, my fellow readers who may be interested in my mediocre life.
Thanks for the few encouragement comments that I’ve received for my Day 0 post. Things like that kind of motivates me to write more as there is indeed someone reading. I plan to do a weekly recap once a week, in addition to my daily IG post on my instagram account: @flyhoneystarstravel
To be honest, I’m not confident of keeping up with the ‘live’ weekly updates as I failed twice – in USA and Korea – but I always manage to continue with the updates after I’m back. Let’s see if I can do better this time in New Zealand, the land of lesser distractions.
I stay in a beautiful neighbourhood.
It’s been 7 days and I’ve done the following
- I’ve successfully activated my ANZ Bank Account, applied for a custom photo debit card (waiting for it to arrive in the mail)
- Received my IRD number – which makes me eligible for employment
- Started cooking and had one session of baking failure
- Instant Ravioli
- Beef with Indomee
- Beef with half-cooked potatoes
- Bake Chicken Wings
- Failed Almond Cookies
For the following week, I’m gonna attempt to bake egg tarts and more cookies with the ingredients I have bought.
- Rented a car for one day and my car ‘stalled’ and I freaked out
Well, I’m still searching for a car but I haven’t found any yet. I kind of shortlisted one but it got sold one day after I did a test drive and my dealer said he couldn’t help it cause I didn’t pay deposit.
Anyway, let me type of my rental car story before it gets lost in my memory. I was driving along this long and windy road and I kept feeling like jerks in my acceleration. Initially, I thought it could be my driving skills which caused the jerks and I thought that I’ll just feedback to the dealer later but the nightmare happened – the car suddenly stopped accelerating and all 3 lights came up – the ‘check engine’ light, ‘battery’ light and ‘low oil pressure’ light. I took a photo and panic and called the car dealer for help. For whatever reason, he was pretty calm and asked for my location (which was 25 mins away from town) and assured me that he will be coming to find me with a replacement car. As much as I am pissed off, I was more freaked out than anything as I was on a slight hill ascent and it was near a curvy turn (from the opposite side). I turned on my hazard light and turned off my engine.
About a minute later, I turned on my engine again and the warning lights reduced to one – ‘check engine’. I tried to step on the acceleration pedal again and it was a miracle that the car moved. Thankfully, there was a slight kerb out 20-30m away and I managed to drive the car there. The dealer called me and told me he will take about 20-30 minutes and asked me to send my location (THANK GOD FOR DATA).
I’M SO GLAD FOR SPOTIFY PREMIUM – I had music to keep me company. It was also really early in the morning (4 hours earlier) and I think my friends were not awake to entertain me.
Anyway, the dealer did come within 25 mins and even brought a hot coffee along (thankfully it was latte) and apologised for the faulty vehicle. He gave me a much better car – with bigger engine and bluetooth audio – for me to continue with my errands of the day – which wasn’t much anyway.
Well the best part of my week was.. the weekend!
It just so happen that the house I’m doing HelpX at right now, planned a 2D1N trip to the town of Geraldine for stargazing. It was really nice to have a short getaway SO EARLY INTO MY TRIP which makes the Holiday of the Working Holiday more significant and I have no idea where the ‘working’ part of it disappeared to.
I also completed my first short walk in NZ – to see the tiny Aclan falls at Peel Forest.
Christchurch famous Cardboard Cathedral
I visited lyttleton too – which didn’t have anything much.
Hopefully by the time I update the following week, I’ll finally be employed and earn some money instead of living off my savings.
Anyway, the worse part of it all was that my luggage handle broke. Not sure if it is covered by insurance but I’ve failed a claim and now I can only hope. Sighs. indiegogo project – why are you doing this to me. I had so much love for this Shapl luggage =(
Till then ^^ Time now is 10:57pm and I’m way over my bedtime.
Back in SG, I hardly ever go to bed before 12 midnight but for the 6 nights I’ve been, I sleep between 10 to 11:30pm. Let me maintain this healthy habit. haha.