Hello! It’s MONDAY again (for the 34th time) ~
I’m currently sitting on the bed in an accommodation at Fox Glacier typing this blog post and pray that the internet connection doesn’t go haywire. I was practically watching my netflix drama pixelated but oh wells, can’t complain as at least it loads. The connection I had yesterday at Hokitika was so bad that my macbook can’t detect any internet connection at all.
For the whole of last week, I have started my real holiday, where I no longer have to be worried about finding my next short-term job as I don’t really plan to work in New Zealand anymore. Well, if the opportunity comes; why not? But I won’t really be looking out for jobs. I started my jobless journey with a 2-night road trip down to the west coast. I started off from Motueka, went down to West Port, did the cave rafting where we were able to float and stare at glow worms (which shined like a night sky full of stars), before tubing down a rocky rapid river.
For the second time ever, I had to drag my luggage from my hostel to the i-site and boarded a mini van from Greymouth to Christchurch. All my previous times, I had been driving or have been able to hitch a car ride with friends or friends of friends.
For 3 nights, I was back in my comfort zone – the christchurch sharehouse where I have spent almost 3 months in. This time round, I was really lucky as I had 2 friends who were unemployed too. We hanged out together and.. the best of it all – I went for a 3-hour KTV session! It might not sound pretty impressive to you but I really love to sing in KTV. It’s something that I do every few months back in Singapore and this was only my second time here in New Zealand.
Finally on Saturday, it was kind of the start of my real holiday with.. real spending of money as I was on a family trip! After weeks of agonizing on whether New Zealand will ban Singaporeans (like what they do to China nationals because of the COV-19 aka Wuhan Virus), they successfully arrived into New Zealand that morning. I haven’t traveled with my family in a really long while as when we grow older, we just end up traveling more with friends. Now that we are older, the kids are in charge of the planning while the folks are just enjoying the trip, no different from as they were part of a tour group. The vibes are really different as compared to traveling with friends because you can just slack off when you feel like it. You don’t have the guilty feeling like oh no am I not doing enough, am I a liability and all that nonsense. I don’t feel guilty for dozing off in the car and I take an afternoon nap and wake up to dinner. I also wake up to find my water bottle filled with water. I guess this is what traveling with family is all about. As for me, my biggest contribution was planning, booking and paying for everything (first).
For the past 3 days, it really feels likes a real holiday. I am no longer staying in hostels and i don’t feel guilty spending $5 of lattes or $20-30 for my meals. I’ve been drinking wine and cider every night and everything feels good. Everything; but the weather. We had been bestowed with crappy grey clouds and endless rainfall since they arrived at Christchurch. It’s a little upsetting that we don’t see the blue-ness of the lakes and rivers. It’s upsetting that the skies are not blue in my photographs and.. it’s upsetting that tonight is the darkest place of all my accommodation and I had plan to take photos of the night sky but there’s nothing up there but clouds and rain. I’m supposed to wake up to the view of mt. cook from my bedroom window but I reckon it will be all clouds tomorrow as the weather forecast refuses to be inaccurate this time. Oh wells, this is just the 3rd day and I can pray that things will get better for the next 9 days right?
I have yet to book my return flight home and I have no concrete plans for the next month or so. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m making use of COV-19 as an excuse to not have plans. The economy right now is seriously crappy and things will kind of worsen in the next few months. I do have thoughts about escaping reality and going for the australia working holiday but the thing that’s holding me back is that I have to attend 8 weddings this year. Most of the weddings are of my closer friends and I feel bad to not attend as they have already informed me of the date one year in advance. Oh wells.
Let me not worry about the future and live in the moment for the next 6 weeks or so. Apparently, I am currently on a deficit of $285 which means that every single cent spent now will be expenses of my new zealand adventure as I will no longer be working. I just hope the damage ain’t to crazy when I do go down to the calculations at the end of my adventure.
Okay that’s the end of this weekly update as I need to battle some insects in the room.