La Niña Strikes

Well, the Christmas rain appears to be here to stay. I can only count on one hand the number of days it hasn’t rained since then. Apparently, we have switched from El Niño to La Niña conditions, after about 10 years of drought and dryness in Australia. Now, as is typical here, it’s either feast or famine. (I still have trouble saying El Niño with a straight face and without conjuring up images of 1990s SNL skits, but I read about it so much now, the silliness is finally starting to fade.) No silliness here, for sure, because we are in flood mode in Queensland. Apparently areas the size of France and Germany together are now inundated with flood water. At least 10 people have died and many more are missing.

I thought being in the city would exclude me from the flood experience, but yesterday, it devastated a town only an hour’s drive from Brisbane City. Today, the Brisbane River, only a few blocks from my office building began to rise, now covering the walking/biking trails and parks along adjacent South Bank. Parts of the train and bus network began shutting down, due to new areas of the greater Brisbane area becoming flooded. People working downtown began leaving the city to get home before routes became impassable and by lunch time, we were told to go home and don’t come back until Monday!

Luckily our apartment building is on a hill, and we’re on the 12th floor, so I don’t think we have anything to worry about. As for ourselves, we’re mainly worried about all the businesses near us downtown shutting down and having enough food/water/electricity, etc. to get us through. This evening we scoped out the situation and the grocery stores (and a few pubs) were still open, but pretty much everything else had closed its doors in preparation for the worst. Fortunately, the grocery shelves hadn’t been raided too bad… only a few items were sold out.



So far, this is said to be the worst flood in over 100 years, when floods actually did affect downtown, so we’ll see what happens. Tomorrow, the Brisbane River is expected to peak. And there’s no dryness in the forecast in the foreseeable future, so Theo and I are just hanging tight and watching it all unfold. Unfortunately it’s going to be boring with even the movie theater shut down, so we’ll see!

(watching debris float down the Brisbane River:)

Summer Holidays

I still haven't gotten used to the idea of Christmas being during the summer. But at least it wasn't as hot as last year. It's actually rained for almost a week straight and has been a nice temperature for most of the holiday season. Sometimes I would squint my eyes and pretend the rain was snow (worked for me)! When the rain breaks for a day or two though, it's back to sweltering heat!

Last year, I was still new to Oz and wasn't working yet, so this is my first holiday experience as a working person. It annoyed me last year when businesses and restaurants seemed to shut down for a week or two around Christmas/New Years. This year, I'm actually part of the shut-down, so I'm ever so grateful for the break and calm. Since Christmas and Boxing Day and even New Years fell on weekends this year, the public observation of those were celebrated on Monday and Tuesday last week and this coming Monday, respectively. That left 3 days between those public holidays, so my employer gave us Wednesday off and because the office is shut anyway, we can use accumulated time off or vacation or whatever to fill the gap. So in essence, I had 6 paid days off work for the holidays. And this is pretty common here unless you work for the mines or a grocery store, or hospital I guess. With most businesses closing during those times and most people off work, it certainly creates a wonderfully relaxed vibe... a true holiday.

If there were one cultural thing I could export to the US, it would be this. I think Americans just work so hard (as people do here and elsewhere in the world), and they deserve true holidays to relax. Many Americans don't know what a real holiday or break is like, especially when they're working multiple minimum wage jobs just to feed their kids. I feel guilty sometimes living here, getting so much vacation time and holiday time. People here think nothing of taking month-long vacations. When I told people my mom only had 2 weeks vacation to come visit me in NZ, they just normally looked at me with a blank stare...like ....what? Everyone in the world can't take 4-6 weeks vacation every year???

A vacation revolution is in order.

We've had nice quiet holidays so far. We had guests come up from the Gold Coast to share a Christmas meal with. Theo and I made lamb and roast veggies and they brought yummy shish kabobs and to-die-for potato salad, among other things. It was certainly a feast (and mostly organic, too)!


(melt-in-your-mouth lamb and melt-in-your-mouth potato salad)


(the kumara looks burnt, but it was actually perfect!)


(ian, rhett and theo)

New Life In Brisbane

So after my very exciting but only marginally relaxing vacation (by choice of course) in NZ, I returned directly to the frying pan of life in our new home city, Brisbane.

I arrived on a Saturday and Theo flew in from Mackay to help me set up living arrangements. Everything was closed on Sunday, so we couldn't really start looking until Monday, my first day in the new office.


(my new office building)

So basically, Theo was left to do all the hard work (once again!) and I only gave my opinion now and then on lunch breaks. After a few stressful days, though, we found "the one"... an apartment within walking distance of my workplace and right next to a train station for convenience of travel.

After that, Theo had to return to Mackay to finish packing, cleaning, and sending our things off with the movers. Unfortunately, it took over a week to get our stuff back on the other end and meant sleeping on the floor again, but on the bright side, theo did such a good job cleaning our house in Mackay, we got almost all our deposit back. The real estate agency was amazed... as they should be, because I'm about 99.9% sure that theo left it about 200% cleaner than when we moved in.

It's also right next to a popular and beautiful downtown park - Roma Park.




Our new apartment is a 1 bedroom unit in a tall apartment building overlooking the city (i can see my office building), the Roma Street train station as well as the park. So we get the relaxing waterfall sound from the park as well as the screeching train noises, but we're on the 12th floor, so it's not too bad.





One side of the apartment is full floor to ceiling windows/sliding doors, which means it's nice and bright. It has a gas stove top (YAY!) as well as a clothes dryer (which I haven't had since the US), although we haven't used it much. The building also has a lap pool and small gym, other amenities we haven't had in awhile, which is nice. We can pretty much walk or bus or train it to whatever we need, restaurants, grocery stores, even concert venues, which we've already visited, as I surprised theo with Gorillaz/De La Soul tickets for Christmas. It was really fun and we felt like we were finally back in civilization.

The (epic) NZ Road Trip

If I spent as much time on this blog as I do Facebook, this blog would be epic! Ha! As there is only so much time in the day, I didn't keep up on my blog during the road trip as much as I had hoped. So I'll just share the highlights (which is no small task either)...

After Christchurch, we drove through the mountains on our way to Nelson, in the top of the South Island. We stayed at perhaps the nicest hostel on Earth. Not having loads of hostel experience (I've stayed at maybe 1 or 2 my whole life), I still think my description is accurate. It was on the 2nd floor in a 1800s mansion perched on top of a hill, with awesome facilities, comfy beds, and a fully equipped kitchen.



Our main activity from Nelson was visiting the golden beaches of Kaiteriteri about an hour's drive.



Next was the 3.5 hour ferry ride from Picton to Wellington, crossing the Mildford sound from the South to the North Island. It was beautiful the whole way.



After relatively easy driving and not huge traffic in Christchurch, it was a shock to the system to be dumped from the ferry into the middle of Wellington rush hour traffic! Thankfully, we navigated our way right to our hotel and parked it for the rest of our time in Wellington.

I have to say, I LOVED Wellington. I've been told it has atrocious weather, but the weather gods shined down on us for pretty much the entire trip. Wellington is the capital of NZ and has probably the most vibrant arts and culture scene in NZ, and you can tell this just by walking around. There are art sculptures, fountains, funky shops and cafes everywhere. We took a walking tour and the guide told us Wellington has the most coffee shops per capita (in the world? Can't remember). I'd believe it though. Any little cubby hole big enough to fit a espresso machine, pretty much had one!! It's a very walkable city, and pretty livable I'd say. We took tours of the parliament buildings, visited the botanical gardens, and toured the Te Papa, an incredible New Zealand/Moari culture museum.





Next we were on the road to Napier/Hawke's Bay, which is on the very Northern end of the NZ wine region (which is huge). I unwittingly chose Napier for our wine tasting (on bikes) experience, not realizing it specializes in reds, which I prefer. If we had visited further south, it would have been mostly whites, so that was a lucky move. I did learn something about my wine palatte... I'm not a syrah fan. Now I know. But we tasted lots of yummy wines, even a white I liked!



We also visited the beach in Napier and discovered how different they are from the last golden beaches... these were black. I think they're the first black beaches I've ever seen!



The trip began to pick up the pace after Napier. The rest of the trip was mainly one day visits in each city.

We sped through Taupo and only got a glimpse of the huge Lake Taupo and stopped briefly to see the beautiful Huka Falls.



In Rotorua we met most of the family for a Maori cultural dinner, including Maori entertainment and a chance to make a fool of yourself on stage! This was mom's first meeting of the in-laws, so it was really nice.



The next day, mom also got to experience the odoriferous splendor of Rotorua. Because NZ has so much volcanic activities and Rotorua in particular contains so much geothermal activity and nearby sulfur deposits, all you can smell is the sulfur... all the time. I had been there before, but never spent the night. Waking up to sulfur smell was an interesting experience... ha! We visited a Maori thermal park (Te Puia), where there's both a weaving school and carving school to preserve the traditions of the Maori people.





After that, we drove to Tauranga and had dinner with my niece, which was nice. The next morning, I forced mom to climb Mount Maunganui, which is a must do activity. The view is completely worth it. Plus, this is the area of NZ where Theo used to live, work, and climb the Mount on a regular basis, so I was kinda part of the Theo tour :)



After the Mount we drove to Judith and Martin's farm, so mom got to see where Theo and I got married. Judith made us a lovely lunch and gave mom the full farm tour. An added bonus was getting to see the local swinging bridge. Very cool.



We spent the night with another sister-in-law nearby and visited her farm as well. We had a lovely dinner with them and relaxing evening sharing photos and stories.



We couldn't have had more opposite experiences than driving from the farm to Auckland, back to the city. Again, we miraculously made it to our hotel alive. We were in the heart of the city with a wonderful city view. The next day we got to have lunch with another niece, this one a student pastry chef. We got to eat at the fancy restaurant where she works :) It was yum, of course!



Our only driving mishap took place in Auckland. On the way to the airport, we got lost. But considering the miles and miles we had driven up to this point, it was bound to happen. But in the end, we made it to our flights safely and on time.

Of course there are many more stories to tell and many more photos. If you want to see more, check out my facebook page. And in the next blog, I promise to tell you more about my new home in Brisbane! yay!

NZ Road Trip Begins

On Friday, I departed Mackay, kind of on a nervous note. I had a dream about missing my plane to New Zealand recently and it hung like a cloud over my consciousness for some reason. First thing that morning, the taxi was late picking me up, making it a close checkin. Then when I got to the Brisbane airport, I had to re-check in my luggage, as I booked the domestic and international legs separately. To my horror and for the first time in my life, my checked luggage was lost. Waiting for the missing bag and then reporting it missing also made me cut it too close for comfort for my Air New Zealand flight. I was standing in the checkin line when I was paged over the PA. I was the last person left to be checked in so they bumped me to the front of the line, thank goodness.

So despite my bad dream, I arrived in Christchurch, albeit without the majority of my stuff. I shuttled it to the car rental office and they actually handed me keys to a car! They had no idea how unprepared I was for this challenge. I've only driven in Australia a handful of times, once of which I was involved in a car crash (not my fault), so I was a little skittish and it took some guts for me to attempt driving to a destination on the complete other side of a city unknown to me without a GPS or human navigator, on the side of the road foreign to my senses. My first turn was a left hand one, which was nice. I like those. I was promptly delayed by a man shooing a duck family across the road to safety. All road traffic was halted. I was definitely in NZ.

Somehow, I have no idea how, I made it to the B&B on the other side of town, without making a single wrong turn. I'm still trying to figure out how that happened.

My mom had already arrived earlier that day and was enjoying the beautiful scenery around the B&B, which was tucked into the side of a hill, among beautiful trees and flowers, with a view of the sea nearby. Our hosts were lovely and helpful, and the house was very homey.



We spend two full days sightseeing in Christchurch, even though I was slightly disappointed in the city. Maybe it's due to so many businesses being shut down due to earthquake damage, but it seemed slightly boring and hum drum. Despite that minor disappointment, we still had a great time on a wildlife cruise, where we got to see a breed of dolphin only found in NZ,



rode a gondola up to beautiful views of the city and harbor,



visited the Saturday markets, explored the local beaches,



and toured the CHC botanical gardens.

End of Mackay Days

My days in Mackay are now numbered and that number is ONE! It's my very last day, as I was chosen for the job transfer to Brisbane that I applied for about a month ago. I leave tomorrow for the NZ road trip I already had planned. So as soon as I get back, I will go straight to Brisbane and start my new position! I'm so excited about moving back to the city. It's going to be great for both Theo and me.

I have no idea where we'll be living yet, but I'm sure Theo will work that out while I'm having cocktails in New Zealand! haha! (don't tell him i said that) There are plenty of affordable (well my new idea of affordable) apartments in Brizzy right in or near downtown so I'll surely be able to walk to work when I get there, and we probably still won't need a car.

In the meantime, land of the long white cloud, here I come! I meet up with my mom in Christchurch tomorrow, then from there, here's the plan:

Nelson
Abel Tasman National Park
Wellington
Cross from South Island to North
Napier
Rotorua
Mount Maunganui/Tauranga
Putaruru and family time!
Auckland

I'm excited about finally getting to see a little of the South Island and that my Mom will finally get to experience the beauty of NZ and the Kiwi people. She'll get to meet the in-laws for the first time and see where Theo and I were married.

Plus, road trips are always a blast. Hopefully I will stay on the correct side of the road.

Updates and photos to come!

Hallowmericain

Halloween passed by without much fanfare, at least in my neck of the woods. The only minute signs I noticed of its presence were a few jack-o-lantern type pumpkins (as opposed to the Japanese or other pumpkins sold for eating) at the grocery store brought in especially for Halloween and a tiny little rack of costumes for tiny children at Target. People our age and younger (20s) seem to have Halloween parties with the full costumes and everything, but it’s mainly just another excuse to have a party, I think. We didn’t get any trick-or-treaters and I didn’t really expect to, but some co-workers in Gladstone got some, which was surprising! I guess it’s catching on a little. I don’t think it’ll ever reach the proportions of the States, though. Looking at all the photos of carved pumpkins and costumes of friends on Facebook probably triggered the most amount of homesickness I’ve had since I’ve been here, probably because Halloween is my favorite holiday.

But I did have a little something yesterday to keep my mind off of it. The 150th Melbourne Cup horse race took place. And it doesn't pass without a lot of fanfare. TV coverage is like watching a red carpet event with all the reporters commenting on the fashionistas and rich ladies’ fancy hats. It reeks of the British Empire, but with the slightly more casual bent of the Australians.

It’s apparently referred to as “the race that stops the nation’ because people stop everything (including working) to watch it. Which is exactly what happened at my workplace (well, my surrogate workplace, as I’m in Gladstone this week). Pizza and roast chicken was ordered in for lunch (why the combo, I have no idea, but it was Yum) and alcoholic beverages were served. Some of the ladies wore their versions of fancy hats, which were actually funny hats like viking horns and top hats. We gathered in the conference room where there’s a huge TV screen, ate food, and played silly games until the race started. There was a betting scheme where you throw in your dollar or two dollars, then you get a random horse assigned to you. I threw in and got ‘Americain,’ which was the one I had my eye on anyway because of the name. I found out later it’s an American bred horse, with a French jockey, owned by Australians. Very cool, and lucky for me, I thought. It truly was lucky for me, because Americain won! I won a whopping $25 but being the day before payday I had used my last $10 on lunch and bets, so I was pretty excited about the win… on my first Melbourne Cup, too. Not bad at all…