I’ve been in New Zealand for 5 months and counting and today (Sunday) is my 160th day here in New Zealand. If you haven’t already realise, I do have a daily counter on my Instagram account @flyhoneystarstravel where I upload one post everyday to mark my time here. These days, my life is getting kind of routined and the post updates get a little boring and sometimes I just have to do countless throwback posts because I fall asleep before I remember to do that nightly update. It started as sort of a recap diary of the things I’ve done, places I’ve visited, things I’ve ate or cooked. It’s nothing fancy, just real photos (with minimal edits), random captions and snippets of my time here.
Let’s talk about the not so good stuff (to continue on my story from last week). The workshop that I went back for their third opinion told me that they couldn’t figure out the issue (as nothing shows up on their computer) despite spending couple of hours on it. As promised, he didn’t charge me a single cent. He recommended me to an auto electrician and hopefully he can do up a check on my car and not charge me an arm or a leg for it. As a result – I am crippled for the weekend. No car = No freedom = dependent on others to adopt me and bring me out.
Anyway, these are the varying possibilities of options available in my life right now.
- Spend $900-1000 (which I do not have in my bank account) to change the remaining 7 ignition coils in my car but there’s no promise/guarantee that the problem will be fixed.
- Pray that the auto electrician can find out what is wrong exactly and recommend a fix which is affordable.
- Find a car guru or damn brave driver that’s willing to accompany me or drive my car back to Christchurch for a weekend so I can find a more affordable mechanic to change the coils.
- Drive my car minimally from now till end January and drive 5.5 hours back to Christchurch after ending the cherry job.
- Sell my car for a reasonable price but.. who would be willing to buy my car after the test drive?
Depending on the situations above, I may decide to
- Go home for Christmas
- Go home in January after heading back to Christchurch
- Go to Nelson (heard the Abel Tasman area is really beautiful) and work for a month or so and fly home from Wellington
- Go to Nelson, head up to North Island for some travel and fly home from Auckland
Well, I’ve also yet to receive my approval for my 3 months extension but usually it should be approved so let’s see how things go.. I mean, for whatever rhyme or reason should it gets rejected, I guess it’s fate right?
On a side note, my car broke down 3 days after I submitted the extension. Technically if I was meant to go home early, the car could have broken down before I submit the paperwork so tell me, what kind of sign is this? Asking me to stay or go home early..?
To be honest, things have been rather agonising because my mind can’t stop thinking about my car. It’s like my life is a drama right now and the ending has yet to be written down and I’m just slowly filling up the pages and unsure that will this end at Chapter 27 or perhaps my adventure here will be dragged on to Chapter 40?
Work wise, I’m still thankful that I’m working for a very decent company which makes the tough work a little more bearable. What was meant to be a one-day experience became three weeks and counting. As advised by one of my readers, I did watch ‘The Vineyard Man’ a 2006 Korean drama which features a vineyard or perhaps grape farm. There were moments where I could relate to the drama when it comes to the type of hard work involved but of course my real work is boring. I’m really thankful that I now have a friend that can drive me to work and there was another friend that joined us from Thursday. To be honest, I thought I would quit now that the weather is heating up but when you’re working with friends, it’s not that easy to just quit.
The best part of not quitting was that.. we actually had a chance to go on a winery tour one afternoon! It was a short 30 mins walkthrough but we were also given chance to taste some wines – comparing between new and old and I found myself liking the old barrel more. The wines live up to their expensive pricing ($49.99 for a bottle of Pinot Noir) and I guess I have to wait till 2021 to taste the wine of my hard work because the ageing is 18 months. Hopefully I can find a bottle in Singapore when the time comes.. If I haven’t forgotten about my time here in the NZ. Then again, perhaps I can do a re-visit to this country as well.
The weather kind of heated up slightly last week but this coming week, the forecast is all rainy. Well, it is kind of good for me cause I really hate the sun but at the same time, it also means that the cherry start date would be delayed as it is not hot enough for the cherries to ripen. Oh wells, we can’t get the best of both worlds right?
Another thing – this time next week, I would have moved out of my lovely accommodation and comfortable bed into a.. garage. It’s not exactly the move that I want but we don’t have much options right now and I’m no longer making a decision for one person as I’m kind of with a group of 3, temporarily. I guess I just have to challenge myself; as if it was like a camping adventure and make do with the limited facilities and options that I have right now. Sometimes I feel, every single ordeal/adventure/setbacks that happen is providing me more content to write and sustain this blog. Positive thinking at its best.
(Continue writing on Monday night and I’m off to bake eggplants for dinner)
Okay I’m back and now its 9pm on Monday. As usual, I’m kind of all ready for bed but it just feels so wasted to sleep so early. Anyway, the good news that I received today (like finally something good) was that my cherry job will be starting next week! This means that it will be my last week of outdoor job (in the sun; though its pretty rainy this week) and after that I will not have to sit/drive a 30-min car ride to and from work. Hopefully everything works out fine and I get my car back in time for my work next week.
It’s gonna be a tough weekend this week. I will have to do the thing I dread the most – packing and probably not unpacking cause I’ll be moving again in another week. I kind of lost count on the number of times I’ve moved house but I think it’s probably a number between 4 to 6 times.
Now that I’m looking back on my 5 months journey, it’s pretty much a far cry of what I thought I would have achieved before I came. Technically, I wanted to explore NZ and go home within 6 months. Right now, I only explored perhaps 20% of South Island. I don’t know why I haven’t been traveling much, often opting to work or rather, the opportunities just keep coming by? Now that I look back, There was only 3 weeks (out of 23 weeks) where I wasn’t working. It was my first two weeks (where I was settling the administrative matters and job hunting) plus the week where I went on a somewhat solo travel to Te Anau/Milford; transiting from my ski resort job to.. apricot thinner.
Well, I started this journey with no expectations and I’m gonna end it (gosh is it soon?) with no regrets cause there was nothing I wanted to do. I kind of already achieved my goal of leading a stress-free life (before my car issues) and I’ve even fulfilled the bucket list of others – seeing the Aurora, seeing the lupins at Lake Tekapo and working in a cherry orchard (soon to come). Gosh, why do I really sound like I’m ready to go home?
Another enriching part about my work here is that I got to ‘zhng’ myself by listening to audiobooks. I listened to about 70% non-fiction books, including titles relating to leadership, clearing my clutter, digital transformations and things about positivity, empowerment and finding satisfaction. Through this books, it did help me straighten up some thoughts I had and my ‘no need to think so much’ job gives me the freedom to let my mind wander while I move my hands. I know I will never have the luxury of time to do this when I go home so I’m actually really glad I get to do all these ‘reading’ while I work.
Today’s book ‘The path made clear’ left quite an impact in me as I found myself remembering many relatable quotes. Another book that I’m likely to re-read again was ‘The Making of a Manager’ which I felt was clear in the delivery and she writes in a way that was totally relatable to my past experiences and I really like that the author was able to be honest, humble yet motivating at the same time. Times like this, I really do get the feel to write my own book. It was something that I attempted back in primary school (I was 11 or 12) but my stories never go beyond Chapter 2. Back then, we don’t use the computer much and I had to write it on pen inside an exercise book which I don’t remember where it would have been left. I might have 6 weeks of solidarity coming up so.. let’s wait and see if that feel comes again.
I guess that’s it for now. Thanks for reading my (once again super) long weekly update of mine. Hopefully somewhere, wherever you are, you find the random musings of my life keeping you entertained in some way another.
^^