I can finally confirm that it is possible to have a great and authentic Thanksgiving meal outside of the US! While I couldn’t find a bird bigger than the one we got, it turned out tasty and delicious! I started hunting for ingredients several weeks before at the American store in Auckland – Martha’s Backyard, and started popping into thrift stores (or op shops) to hunt for various serving things to make Thanksgiving great! I got a turkey the a few days before our Thanksgiving celebration and thawed it right away! We didn’t have room in our freezer because the turkey wouldn’t fit. It’s not a b ..read more

We’ve been busy working and experiencing normal life, which means less traveling and less exploring. Since the weather is getting warmer, we decided it was time to go on a little drive and a little hike. We decided to drive over to Rotorua for part of the day! By the time we arrived, we were starving. We saw plenty of parking spots by Eat Streat available, but realized they were metered until noon on a Saturday. Since we arrived a little after 11:45am, we decided to risk it. Shhh… don’t tell anyone. We initially planned on getting a bite at one of the food outlets on Eat Streat (yes, spelled l ..read more

Here’s a little vent session. I just witnessed my boss deny someone a job based on race – and maybe gender too. I should have known right away when I was told the characteristics of the person I was replacing as soon as I got hired. The dilemma is: should I call out my boss out? Should I report it? The discrimination laws here in New Zealand are drastically different than the policies of the U.S. and doesn’t promote the need to report unless you are directly discriminated upon. So I’ve been working at this dollar store stocking shelves and providing “customer service” as best as I ..read more

Dining out in New Zealand is very different. There’s the obvious no tip. But along with that comes limited service. Yes, some places try, but many could care less. It probably varies from city to city; however, in our experience, food outside of “take away” or “take out” is typically quite pricy – yes, after conversion and assuming you’ve paid your fair share in tips. Take out, take away or cafe food is affordable for the most part, but if you want to eat at a proper restaurant, you’d pay your fair share. But the portion sizes. So very tiny we joke about it being a food tasting. Yes, y ..read more

We’ve been in New Zealand for over 9 months now, and I still encounter the occasional culture shock. Actually, it happens more often than you think as we move around to different towns and interact with different people. First off, children’s toys here remind me of my childhood (totally 90s). Apparently marbles are big here, so are things like slime, kites and yo-yos. I haven’t seen kids play with these things in AGES. Also, you can walk into a store and purchase a superhero magnetic pencil box. Remember those? Random image from Google.What is surprising though, is that kids as young as ..read more

Hello December! We have been enjoying our apartment so much we haven’t ventured out too much. It feels surprisingly good to have a place of our own! I don’t think I’ve appreciated having a calming and peaceful place to return to so much. We saw a whole bunch of vintage cars on the road!For the weekend, we spent a day in Mount Maunganui/Tauranga. While we’ve spent a good amount of time there over the last few months, we have yet to go back up there since we moved to Whakatane (and since it got warm). We didn’t really plan out our time there, besides walking around aimlessly – like usual ..read more

After flatting (New Zealand way of saying house-sharing) and living with people for the last year, I am beyond happy to have a space to myself. Well, I still share a space with Bryan, but he goes to work and does a pretty good job of not interrupting me. Actually, I’m the one who ends up interrupting him. With my newfound space, I’ve been spending time reading and getting a whole lot of tasks (like catching up on CEs) completed. And, it makes me feel so good! I’m feeling super satisfied. It’s not that I am tired of traveling around, I believe I still have the energy for it. It’s just t ..read more

We spent some time in the Mount working in exchange for accommodation during our working holiday in New Zealand. During that time, we got to try out some restaurants in the area! Here are our top 5! Rice Rice Baby Rice Rice Baby’s bahn mi.Kiwi take on Vietnamese food. We got the Bahn Mi, which was delicious, but definitely not authentic. My version of authentic is probably all the phos in the US. But it wasn’t even like the bahn mi in Vietnam; however, they did a great job making the food taste delicious and plated beautifully regardless. The duck dish someone else got looked delicious t ..read more

There are towns that wear you down completely, and it will take weeks to recover from the damage. While traveling long term, you know very well to leave a town when it doesn’t feel right and move on – that’s why you don’t book too far ahead. But the struggle with a working holiday is to be able to save some money to continue onward travel. Some towns have jobs (because no one else wants to work there) and cheap accommodation (for the same reason)! Because of that, they attract diverse groups of people. Many of our coworkers have left the town mid way through our work contract – including u ..read more

Bryan and I managed to WWOOF/HelpX around at a couple places now -without having to pay the HelpX membership fees. For one of them, we made arrangements via AirBNB. For the other one (turned out much better of an arrangement), we found through regular backpacker job posting sites! The jobs we’ve been doing hasn’t been hard, and the places haven’t been too bad. The one place was a a tad bit toxic, but our second WWOOFing host definitely made up for the flaws of the first one. It’s actually quite relaxing working out in the garden for the most part – except when it rains. I wouldn’t mind m ..read more