Kiwi Food

Sometimes I feel that I am lucky in New Zealand. There are a lot of things happened over here, but most of the time, things turn positive at the end. I have moved to another house as we want to cut down our expenses. Life is not easy and we need to count every single cent that we spend.

Now, I stay with a kiwi with my friends. It’s lucky that we stay with a local because we able to know more about others culture through this. One day our house owner suggested to do an exchange with us. Exchange what? Exchange meal. He cook us a local kiwi meal and we cook him Malaysian meal. Sound good right? We were so excited over it because finally we had a chance to taste on the genuine local food.

The kiwi meal looked like this.

Riscotto rice cook with red wine, rosemary, oregano, tymes, spring onion. First time in my life tasted rice cook with wine. The rice is quite sticky compared to normal white rice that we had and it consists of rich and strong flavor. Yummy, yummy~

Broccoli, cauliflower with white sauce and bread crumb.

Green pea. Honestly I rarely eat green pea but I think this is nice.

Bake lamb with white wine. I love their lamb so much, the taste is totally different with what we had in Malaysia. You can feel that the lamb meat is so ‘original’. Some people do not take lamb is just because there is a smell in lamb meat. But the lamb over there does not consist of that smell! Delicious~~

This is my house owner~

Jealous?

Working In Farm

When we were jobless, our house owner employed two of us as a helper in his farm. Yes, he owns a farm. I think owning a farm is a norm for a kiwi. Two of us were excited as we can finally earn some pocket money and we can experience the feeling working in farm!!!!

When we reached there, we were told that we need to set up a fencing in the farm. Setting up fencing?? It didn’t sound easy and that was what I never done back in Malaysia.

See, this is the long long fencing. Firstly, we put a long wires along the fencing.

Then, we fixed it up with the help of the owner. At that moment, I finally admitted that body height plays an important role in certain circumstances.

Yeah, finally it was done~~

Well done~~~

Unpredictable life - Car purchase in New Zealand

Life is really unpredictable in New Zealand. So many things happened since the last update. I went missing last few days because the internet was down in my home and I finally can connect back to the world now. After the kiwi season, we were jobless. During that time, the feeling was definitely bad and we can fully understood the unemployment feeling. Everyday our account showed figure in credit part without any in debit part. Then, we were confined in the small area without much places to go (Te Puke is a small town). The only things we did was searching for job everywhere. We walked one hour to a packhouse to ask for job, we walked in every shop to ask for vacancy and we used all the methods we could just to get a job.

After one week, one company located in Auckland called me up for a job interview! My friends decided to follow me to Auckland and have a walk. After we planned everything nicely and bought the bus tickets, my friends picked up a call from a packhouse and informed us that we got the job. We were requested to start work the next day! Oh my god, where should I go???Auckland or stay here for the job? At the end, I decided to delay the job for 1 day to continue my travel. That was the reason I travel alone to Auckland for the job interview.

At the same time, we saw a post written that a car that we want was selling in Auckland with an affordable price. So, I was given the task to have a look on the car. Some people might not understand why we want to buy a car. The public transport over here is not well developed. We can’t even look for a job without a car. Therefore, we NEED a car urgently.

The responsibility was too big but I needed to take it up!! I was given the authority to decide buying the car or not. Stressful.....  The car was just met our requirements so I told my friends ‘yes, I’ll buy it.’

The procedure to buy a second hand car was very simple in New Zealand.

Car purchase procedure
1) Go to the post shop (= post office), fill up ‘notice by person acquiring motor vehicle’ form (MR13B).
2) Send in the form in post shop and show them the original passport and driving license.
3) Pay notice of acquisition fee $9.41.
4) Pay the cash to the previous owner.
5) The car is yours now!!!!
Very simple right?? It is just like buying a sweets in a grocery shop. I like it!

Of course, I need to drive back to Te Puke. There was no place to park the car in Auckland city as the car park fees is damn expensive. Driving 4 hours alone with a small little map in foreign country was a totally new experience for me.

This is our car~~

Yes, Honda Odyssey.

Packhouse lunch

Finally, Kiwi season was coming to an end. For the last few days of working, we were forced to off early instead of 5pm. During the first time our supervisor announced in the short meeting 'Today we are going to off work early at 2pm.', all of us had the same respond 'HARR??? Off early??' We didn't celebrate for the early off work but all of us felt upset for it. This is the first time in my life felt that off work early is a sad news!! (This is because our wages are paid according to hours, which means we will get less salary!!! OMG, money getting lesser and lesser)

During the last day of our work, my kiwi packhouse organised a buffet lunch for us. Yes, buffet lunch. Finally I had the chance to taste the local buffet lunch in New Zealand. Let me show you what we had for the lunch.

The arrangment is almost same with our style.

I think this is pork.

Salad Shrimp. I like this. It is fresh~

Salad Broccoli

Yup, salad again.

Pumkin~ Again, this is the food I don't take in Malaysia but this pumkin is really taste good! Yummy~

Not sure what was this but it was nice~

Yeah~ This was my portion of food~ Basically, all food served was scrumptious! Yes, all. Argh, I want to eat again!!!

Sometimes, kiwis (New Zealand residents) love kiwi so much, their decoration on table was like this.

And even their tissue provided was like this.

My goodness, kiwi everywhere.

My supervisor and I. Very nice and lovely.

The end of kiwi season indicated that I am jobless!!! OMG, I need to search for job again!! Help.......

Kiwi, Kiwi, Kiwi...

On of my friend asked, since my job is related to Kiwi, why I never posted photo for kiwi tree? Frankly speaking, I don't like kiwi fruit before I came to New Zealand. I just don't like the taste. But guess what, I eat kiwi everyday here! It just because the fruit taste good in New Zealand, it is sweet and not sour!!!Of course, the second reason is, those kiwi fruits are free!!! We are allowed to take kiwi back from packhouse!

OK, let's kiwi now.

Hey, my name is Kiwi although I look a bit strange.

We are twins~ We don't separate with each other.

Yes, I am kiwi~

I am giant Kiwi!!!! Don't believe?

See? I am much more bigger than normal kiwi.

I am kiwi also, please don't discriminate me...

We are from here!!!!! Welcome to our kiwi family~~~