Ive taken up running again since coming here. Mostly Ive used it as a tool to orientate myself with Auckland, but now that Ive been here a little while, Ive started going out to places I know I will enjoy. I found the Coxs Bay one by complete chance, turning down one street by random and ending up at the entrance to what I thought was just a small city park. Boy was I suprised!

Flickr set is here.

I have no idea where this photo was taken. On Saturday, I piled into a very posh BMW and very comfortably enjoyed the view as Elisa, Donna, Dave and I headed out into the middle of somewhere (again, I don’t know where) to go to a party that Ash was djing at. I do, however, know what this photo is of, so at least I can tag it properly for SEO purposes ;)
It’s a cabbage tree, ti kouka in Maori,and Cordyline australis if you want to be fancy about it. …

Auckland is not a cheap city. While beer and wine are startling affordable to a Canadian such as myself, food is *always* more expensive. I’ve found that I go through money a hell of a lot faster here than I did in Toronto, something that is a little bit scary considering I do not have a steady income. After being here for almost two months, I’ve come to realize that I’ve not really done very much because Ive felt that if I spent the money on touristy things, I would …

This entry began as a letter to Scott. About 3/4 of the way through I realized that I wanted to share this with whoever was so lucky as to land on my little patch of the interweb.
Sometimes I feel like Im on the edge of some kind of relevation about myself. I get glimmers of a thought process, but before I can follow it through it vanishes. Its very elusive.
Sometimes, I think about how massive it should have been for me to come here, and how (after I got past …

I was really hoping that someone out there would have already tackled this issue, but to date Ive not been able to find anything, so I might as well. Granted, I don’t really know what I’m talking about here, and this is more for my own personal use, so if you have come here from elsewhere (hello!) please make sure you verify the info yourself.
Step one: Getting your IRD number
The first thing a foreigner has to do, a part from getting the NZ work visa in the first place, in …