are we. Yep we’ve arrived after a gruelling three stage flight, and 48hrs without anything more than a stolen moment or two of sleep. Aucklands nice, very very clean or that could be just after Asia, the whole city feels like a dentists surgery.
Its strange to be back in civilization. The real worlds sobering after Asia. Asia is so absurd, so mental that its hard to summarize, you don’t have to go anywhere or do anything to be entertained, as Steve said last night “I like it ‘cos you don’t have to go anywhere to see a freak show, you can just sit outside and be entertained for hours and hours”. Now we’re doing normal people things like flat hunting (saw 6 or 7 today) and job hunting (applied to 6 or 7 today). The good news is that Steve and Bron (our hosts) have said that employment amongst skilled people is 0%, that employment agencies don’t even advertise jobs anymore as theres no-one to fill them, this place is suffering from serious brain drain as most people have run off to Australia or Europe. Neither of their jobs were ever advertised, the agencies just know people in the companies and when a good person comes along the CVs get sent in and hey presto, a job appears. So employment prospects look good, and hopefully a small or non-existent pay drop. Living wise its pretty cheap, more expensive than Leipzig, but some parts of Asia were more expensive than Leipzig, that place is in a special little bubble all of its own. Way cheaper than England though, and you can live on works doorstep in some real nice apartments with views out onto the harbour.
I guess thats about it, not much else to report because everything here is sort of like it is back in England, only nicer, so there isn’t that much to say about it. I guess I’ll be better at picker up the subtle differences in a few days when we get out of the whirl of flat and job hunting, can get down to enjoying our new home and I can get out of my overdraft
This is quite a serious post because I’m hungry and we’ve been running round the city all day. More interesting stuff to come later.
Asia’s old news, I mean who wants to live in a part of the world where its always sunny, there are empty beaches, you can rent a hotel room, buy three meals and alcohol a day, get a “special” massage and a tuk tuk home all for $20. Rubbish!
So we’ve made a decision, we’re going to emigrate for a year to New Zealand, Auckland to be more exact. Why New Zealand you might ask? Well we’ve researched extensively all the countries of the world and created a list of what we know and like about each country. Perhaps if I share with you, all we know about New Zealand you will understand why it was a clear winner in our minds.
Its not one, but two islands!
Its really far away.
I have a friend there, an old buddy from Microsoft.
Crowded House came from there.
Its not next to Indonesia (I know this because I thought it was, I was then disappointed when I couldn’t find a boat or some kind of asian channel tunnel across from Jakarta).
Need I go on? Yes? Hum, that would be tricky as thats all we know at this point. Armed with such rich detailed knowledge the following happened:
Adam: I’ll mail steve check about rent prices, unemployment, serial killers per capita.
(Steve replies - cheap, low, always room for one more)
Adam: Well I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about the place, so its a yes from me. How about you?
Annett: Yeah okay, lets give it a try. You can apply for a years visa online, pass me my credit card.
(48hrs later)
Annett: Woohoo my visa came through. You have to go online log in and check.
Adam: Oh wow that was quick (checking), oh I have mine too. So it looks like we’re moving to New Zealand then huh?
Annett: Yep seems that way.
Adam: You sure about this?
Annett: Nope. You?
Adam: Nope, but I’m sure it will work itself out, I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about that place and I mean Crowded House came from there right? How bad can it be. I’ll find us a flight
(an hour passes)
Adam: Okay theres one leaving on Sunday from Bangkok, ultra long, ultra cheap.
Annett: Okay lets take it.
Another extensively researched plan comes to fruition. We fly in 24hrs.
If New Zealands reading this we arrive on Tuesday, leave the door on the latch and hoover the red carpet.
I have a ton of posts that I keep meaning to write, but time escapes me. I’ve just spent the last 3hrs naming and sorting the photos from the trip so far. If you’ve been looking through going “thats nice, what is it” you can now look through and go “now i know what it is, its boring” and “why the hell did he take 17 photos of the same thing?”.
The end of the Vietnam had my favorite moments of the trip so far (Cu Chi tunnels and the Mekong Delta), the Mekong Delta turned out to be photo gold. Now I have photo folders and stuff you can jump directly to just those if you like:
Sihanoukville, Southern Cambodia. A beach town about 4.5hrs south of the capital Phnom Penh.
What am I doing?
As little as possible.
Why don’t I reply to mails?
The internet here SUCKS……..It takes me 45mins just to check my commissions during which the internet dies 3 or 4 times and I slip into the fringes of insanity. Theres usually also a naked Cambodian child running around singing and dancing next to my ear, barking dogs, no usb, broken mouses, disabled copy and pastes, blocked skype or all of the above.
New plan might be to buy a laptop so I can actually get some work done as quite a few hotels and wifi. Also we’re thinking more and more about what to do after the trip which means preparing- cv’s, applications, job hunts (at least for Annett, I’m still not sure if I want to be employed) and other boring work tasks that usually end up taking priority.
But I’ll catchup eventually and can find out from you whats happening in the real world
