noticed differences

Lingo-
elevator = lift
bathing suit = togs
candy = lolly
friend = mate
banger = sausage
take-aways = take out/fast food
bloke = man
knackered (pronounced naked) = exhausted
capsicum = red or green pepper
wee = little (said all the time!!)
flat = apartment
greasies = fish & chips
heaps = “lots of”
judder bars = speed bumps
jandal = flip flop
ring = to call/phone someone
sunnies = sunglasses
sweet-as = awesome, cool
tramping = hiking/backpacking
sealed road = paved road
rubber = eraser
full stop = period (end of sentence)
checkmark = tick

School-
-students all call their professors by first name, no Dr. or Prof.
-professors dress very casually
-most students support themselves through university, either by student allowances (financial aid) or by working, parents rarely pay for their education
-most classes have a midterm (maybe) and a final exam, plus an essay or lab component…a lot more weight for each assignment/exam!
-labs are very laid back (no lab reports, no quizzes, no reading before lab…it’s great!)

Randoms-

-all bbqs consist of sausages (either beef or lamb) on a piece of sliced bread with grilled onions. I’m getting quite sick of sausages…
-driving in new zealand is a bit different- they drive on the left-hand side of the road, and give different priority to people turning at an intersection. If someone is crossing the intersection, they get to go before the person making a short left turn.
-roundabouts make a lot of sense when everyone follows the rules
-almost all new zealanders eat marmite or vegemite on toast/bread- it’s a yeast-based spread that looks like tar and smells about as lovely…I have yet to try it!
-all school children wear hats during recess and lunch time
-the sun here is more intense than anywhere in the northern hemisphere (people say there’s very little ozone here)
-new zealanders tend to do lots of activities as a whole family- most events are geared towards families with children
-overall, people here are very laid back- their lifestyle seems to be less hectic and stressful than in north America

I’ll continue to add more to this throughout the year!

cheers-

s.

akaroa day trip

Today really tested my knowledge of driving on the left hand side of the road, on small two-lane highways, up and down narrow windy and sometimes unpaved roads. Wow! Rebecca (from Auburn), Katie (my flatmate) and I took a day trip and headed south of Christchurch to the sleepy French settlement of Akaroa. It was settled by the French in the mid 1800s before the British took control and by the time the French explorer came back to claim New Zealand, the British were already there! Nevertheless, the street names are still in French and there are several little French cafes and restaurants. The drive from Christchurch is about an hour and a half, part of which is across the dry, flat Canterbury plains and then the rest is up the remains of three different volcanoes that erupted to create what is now known as Banks Peninsula.

We arrived in Akaroa, parked and walked around town, checking out all of the restaurants and finding the best place for lunch. We ate at a little café called “by the green” (the green was not a golf course, just a field across the street by the water)- the food was delicious! After lunch we did some window shopping (mostly out of our students price-range), got ice cream, walked down to the water and along the wharf where the boats leave for tours, dolphin watching, and swimming with the dolphins. Akaroa is home to the Hector Dolphin, the smallest dolphins in the world and the only place they are found! We didn’t actually see any- I think it requires taking a (rather expensive) tour around the harbour.

After leaving town we decided to try and take another route back to Christchurch. Our first attempt at this was quite unsuccessful- we ended up at the top of a gravel road amongst sheep. The view was well worth the mistake though! We headed back through town and found out that there is a scenic drive around the summit of the volcanoes (the main road goes along the water). What a cool drive!! At one point we turned off the main (paved) road and ended up on an even smaller (unpaved) track. At first we thought it was a short little road but it ended up going all the way to the other side of the peninsula by the cliffs overlooking the ocean! It was stunning. There were a few houses visible in the distance but apart from those and several sheep, we didn’t see a single person. Despite being quite isolated it would be a magnificent place to have a home.

After our little off-roading adventure we made it back to the main road, and back to Christchurch in time for dinner. All in all, a beautiful day!

s.

class, week 1

two days of class down, so far so good. schedule this semester is looking good, no class on wednesdays and i’m done at noon on friday! i’m taking animal physiology, biochemistry, abnormal psychology, and industrial & organizational psychology. all of my profs so far are really laid back, students here tend to call them by their first name and overall they seem very approachable.

last weekend was a weekend of true exploration. saturday i participated in what is called “the not so great race”, a sort of scavenger hunt around christchurch for new international students. i was in a team with another canadian, a german, and a girl from iceland! we spent a good part of the day walking around downtown, picking up things on our list, getting lost, getting lost some more….we found our way back though and had a great bbq. kiwis are crazy about bbqs here but so far the only thing they seem to cook on a grill are sausages. I have yet to see someone eat a sausage on any sort of bun, they always serve them with plain white bread. interesting. saturday night a group of us took the bus towards town to hagley park, a huge park near downtown complete with a golf course, running trails, cricket pitches, rugby fields, tennis courts…etc. the city council was holding a musical concert called “starry nights”, a whole show of broadway songs complete with dancers and the symphony. it was awesome. They estimated that over 100,000 people were there, which works out to be about one third of the city’s population.

sunday was equally exciting and exhausting…my roommate katie found a place on the web that pointed out some of the filming sites for the movie “narnia”. off we went in my little white corona (car, not beer…similar to a toyota corolla) up towards arthur’s pass, about an hour west of christchurch. we didn’t really expect to find the place we were looking for, all we had was a name and that it was an hour from Christchurch. amazingly we found it, a place called flock hill in cave springs scenic reserve. we ended up doing a fairly strenuous hike, up and around flock hill, down to broken river, around another hill…at one point we got stuck on the wrong side of the river and had to hike all the way back to the road to cross at the bridge! thorbjorg, my icelandic friend was clearly in better shape and myself and katie, we were quite content walking along the river bed but she kept “suggesting” that we climb just a little higher. it was well worth it though, the scenery was amazing and the weather was beautiful. also in cave springs is a huge cave that you can go “caving” through. we didn’t bring the right gear but i think i’ll try to get back there sometime soon to check it out.

that’s about all…please feel free to leave comments, notes, jokes, etc…

cheers-

s.

PS-more pictures coming soon, i promise. internet is expensive here and they charge me per MB, so posting pictures gets to be quite expensive!

orientation and enrolment

As of today I am officially enrolled as a University of Canterbury student- and it only took about 8 hours of standing in queues and running around campus trying to get courses approved! (I can no longer complain about Auburn’s system; waiting an hour for the computer to register is nothing!!) I did manage to get the courses that I needed, so as long as nothing gets changed everything should work out!

I’m living in Ilam Village, an on campus apartment (or flat as they call them here) with 5 other people; 2 Kiwis, 2 Americans and a Malaysian! Everyone seems to get along well so far, we are going to cook together once a week and then fend for ourselves the rest of the time. Our flat is spacious but reminds me of a nice concrete cell…the one advantage is that you can’t hear anyone through the thick concrete walls! My room is comfortable- I have a huge built-in desk and wardrobe, a single bed and a huge window! I’m going to have to do something about the boring walls through…if anyone wants to send me posters that’d be great!!

Classes start on Monday so until then I’m pretty much free to explore and hang out. I’ve met some great people so far- I think tomorrow a group of us are going to the beach! I don’t think the water is very warm (about 14C or 50sF) but a guy from Sweden has been and says it’s not that bad. I’m not sure I believe him though- he probably swims in freezing water in Sweden!

Email me if you want my address or phone number…letters and phone calls are definitely welcome!


Cheers!

s.

beautiful new zealand

Here I am (finally) in Christchurch. After arriving in NZ on February 3, mum, dad and I traveled around the northern part of the South Island. We left ChCh and headed to Hamner Springs, a mountain town with thermal hot springs! It had 9 different pools- anywhere from 41C to 28C…it was awesome! The next day we headed back to the coast and drove to Kaikoura, a coastal town known for whale watching, scuba diving, seals, and crayfish! The crayfish (or crawfish…) are also known as rock lobster- they are the same size as lobster but with no claws. They’re not too hard to find but the price of one in a restaurant is ridiculous (around $70-90NZD); we bought one at the side of the road, steamed and ready to eat for $30! The meat is really sweet and tender!

After Kaikoura, we headed further north to Picton, where the inter-island ferry goes to Wellington on the North Island. From Picton to Nelson we took the Queen Charlotte drive, it was absolutely stunning. The two lane road twisted and turned all through the Queen Charlotte Sound, up and down hills, in between little harbour towns. We made it to the Marlborough winery area for the night and spent the night in a little studio apartment amongst the vines!

Next up was Nelson, right at the top of the South Island. It was almost like a mini San Francisco, with a beautiful water front and houses perched up on the hillside, complete with small twisty roads! A hotel room was hard to find so we headed further north to Motueka, right near Abel Tasman National Park. We had big plans to go sea kayaking there the following day, but woke up to pouring rain….so we left. We drove across to the west coast and saw the famous Pancake Blowholes-wow! The power of the sea on that side of the country is unbelievable! There is a walkway around the blowholes and along the edge of the coast; it’s hard to believe how much watch get slammed against the rocks there!

We headed further south to Franz Josef Glacier, one of many along the west coast. This is a unique glacier because it’s only 12km from the ocean and sits at the edge of a tropical rain forest! Once you park your car it’s about a 45min walk to the edge of the glacier. The glacier itself is very different than the smooth and wide glaciers that I’ve seen in western Canada, this one is jagged and rough with lots of crevasses. It’s also really dirty near the bottom. Franz Josef is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world; it changes at a rate of over 1 meter per day. There’s a pretty good size river coming out of the bottom too that runs through a huge rock valley- during the 1960s it was actually a full lake at the bottom of the glacier. The next day we took a guided hike up the bottom of the glacier- it was awesome! The ice is really blue underneath. The glacier is very dynamic- there were countless man-made steps in the ice and even a few bridges across crevasses (I didn’t look down…!). It was definitely worthwhile, even through the boots and ice crampons I wore gave me huge blisters!

From Franz Josef we headed back to Christchurch, across the middle of the island through Arthur’s Pass. It’s about a 3 hour drive from one side of the island to the other but not many roads go straight through because of the Southern Alps running along the middle of the island.

Here are a few pictures from the trip…enjoy!

s.

mom and me hiking through the park that has the longest swing bridge in new zealand!

queen charlotte sound near Picton, where the ferry goes between the North and South islands

more pics later- it's taking too long!

tioman island scuba diving

i love scuba diving! mum, dad and i just spent 5 days south of here on an island called Tioman in the South China Sea. We took a 90min ferry from the mainland there and stayed at the Berjaya resort.

I took the PADI Open Water Diver course with another family from Kuala Lumpur...6 teenagers and their dad.the water was overall really clear and warm, we had to do a few training dives in the pool because the waves were too big but most of the time we dove at Reggnis Island, about a 5min boat ride from the beach. Among other things we saw turtles, nemos, sting rays, and eels!

here are a few pictures...



getting ready...

















me and my buddy Farin, 14 year old from Kuala Lumpur







all 9 of us on the boat to go diving...it's a good thing we weren't going too far!












Renggis Island...my first dive site!








ok, bed time!! tomorrow is laundry day and packing for New Zealand, I leave on Friday morning!

s.