I am starting to miss Singaporeans' favourite past time after living in the countryside for a month. Determined to spend Easter Saturday in the city, we diligently woke up at 6.45am to catch the only bus to Featherston and train to Wellington. First thing we did was to charge to Little Penang (Dixon St) for Hokkien mee and Assam laksa. $12.90 per bowl...
On Easter Friday, we joined our new friends and their family to catch paua (abalone) at Cape Palliser, about 1.5hrs drive from Martinborough. Stella is from Singapore and her family was in New Zealand for holidays during the Easter break. We were naturally excited to be going out with fellow Singaporeans! Wild and crazy waves While our friend went out to recce, we...
We were going to start our next job in Martinborough, a small town in South Wairarapa, 65km east of Wellington. Useless nakedbus doesn't go there so we had to take an hour train from Wellington, get off at Featherston to take a bus to Martinborough and walk another 30 mins to our new accommodation. I had enough of begging others to give us...
We heard there's good yum cha in Wellington so we told ourselves we definitely must try it while we're in the city. Have been deprived of Asian food for awhile you see. Both Dragons and Regal are located in Courtenay Place and we compared prices between the two restaurants. Dragons was relatively cheaper but it turned out their price list was actually outdated...
The blueberry season was coming to an end and we needed to find a new job quickly. A vineyard contractor whom we have gotten in touch with offered him a one week assignment to assemble furniture for her client before the start of the grape picking season. As the furniture job only require males, we decided he would head down south first to...
Rotorua, the nearest town from where we lived is about 20 mins drive away. It is known for its geothermal activity and Maori culture but we weren't keen on the expensive commercialized tours to thermal reserves or Maori villages. It was difficult for us to even get out of the countryside not to mention visit the sights which were scattered around town. Thanks...
This scene reminds me of the children's game in the popular Korean reality show 'Dad, Where Are We Going?' which I have been watching in NZ... 무궁화꽃이 피었습니다! 木槿花开! ...
What is life like living on a farm? It's interesting during the first few days but not so fun anymore after spending a month in Mamaku. Behind the lovely scenes of sheep grazing on green pastures were plenty of inconveniences and uncomfortable cold nights. Nonetheless, it was a good experience learning to make do with the simple and crude facilities in the countryside....
The best blueberries are picked by hand. The not so good ones are harvested by machine and usually made into juice or jam. While the machine is able to pick more and at a faster speed than humans, it loses lots of blueberries in the process. To minimise wastage, nets are first laid on the ground under the trees to collect any berries...
