Last weekend was my long awaited trip up to Auckland. It’s been over six months since I left to move to Wellington, and it was so nice to be back. I was really frustrated with my situation when I lived there, so going back now that things are so good in my life was such a treat. The weekend was spent catching up with my friends and having great meals (and lots of wine). I also sorted out my Australian visitor’s visa so now I’m good to return to Melbourne …

It’s been a super busy time for me lately. I moved house over the last few days, and am now living with my friend Naiana, a girl I met up in Nelson in April. A group of CouchSurfers from Christchurch were up for the Easter long weekend and invited me on a day trip out to Cable Bay. Absolutely gorgeous spot, has a massive hill that completely kicked out asses. The view was worth it though!
My last apartment while nice, was a very stressful environment for me. The building was …

I few weeks ago I received an email from an American who had saw a post of mine on a New Zealand Facebook page. He wrote me asking if I had any advice for him as he was planning to move here in a few months and wanted to know things that the guidebooks just dont tell you.
Work visas
When I was younger, I thought that having a Canadian passport meant that I could work for six months in any Commonwealth country no questions asked. It was a benefit of being …

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Had a nice and lovely cruisy day yesterday with Kat. After a very late start to the day (we’d been up till nearly 3am planning our Christmas Roadtrip), we drove out to Sumner and Taylor’s Mistake to enjoy the sunshine and blue skies. The weather in Christchurch has been really craptastic for the last few weeks (cold, gray, rainy), so it was a welcome surprise to see that Sunday dawned so amazingly.
We weren’t the only ones with this idea, the beach had quite a number of people just sitting and …

Shortly before I left Canada I made a list of oddball things I was looking forward to about New Zealand. Now that I’ve been here eleven (!!) months, I thought it would be a good time to revisit it and see how things turned out.

New Zealand telephone rings. Is it a double ring like in England, or more North American sounding? Most Kiwi phones have a double ring, although with the total cellphone addiction that is going on down here, it isnt often that I actually hear a landline telephone.  …

My flight from Toronto to Auckland took me through Hong Kong. With my friend Alex living in nearby Taiwan, it made sense that I break up my travel time with a quick visit over to Kaohsiung. I’d never been to Asia before, so even leaving the airport in Hong Kong on my own was a HUGE deal for me. Looking back I laugh at myself for feeling uncertain and nervous about it, as HK is a very efficient city with a fantastic public transport system and more importantly for this …

Last January I went and visited my friend Stephanie in Melbourne. She’d moved down from Toronto, and after my friend Alex had convinced me to go to Rainbow Serpent with him, it only made sense that Stephanie come too. She wrangled another expat Canadian friend, Tim, and the four of us had a fantastically dusty weekend in the bush. Of course, the week I was there was when Victoria had the hottest heat wave in 100 years. Tram tracks were buckling under the intense heat, and people were collapsing from …