jan 31, 2009. saturday.
i can’t possibly imagine how i missed to say that i had my first pay already. it was from the first contract work i did (for sussie). although not really much (around $400), helen and i decided that we celebrate a bit by having some take-away instead of cooking our own meals, and so it was domino’s pizza night a few days ago. i had a godfather large pizza all for myself, and we bought some cola from pack & save (grocery here). natalie (of germany) joined us too for pizza.
i also got my 2-day pay from john (another contractor) which is a decent $170 as it was an hourly vineyard work. it may seem that it’s easy to earn money here, but the truth is, work is definitely tougher than sitting idly in front of a computer reading and rereading emails or pretending to do something important (not that i was like that the whole time!). i’ve even had times when i get paid for playing warcraft (dota) even if my job title is not Game Tester (can’t help it, it’s a good way to kill time). the point is, earning money to pay rent dues, food, a bit of travel luxury, and save more for future adventure, is possible in farm works. however, contracts are so indefinite that last friday up to sunday we don’t have work, and we still have to hear tomorrow (feb 01) if we have work on monday! apple picking jobs are now starting to flourish, and i might give it a try if there’s nothing worth earning to do by monday.
i actually just got back from rotorua, some 240 kms north of hastings. this is by far the most north i’ve ever been in new zealand. we had a great time, but feeling a bit tired now. i’ve been trying to keep up to date this blog as much as i can, but sometimes i don’t have energy left to sit down and type something. for the english stickler out there, you might have noticed the english language and grammar posted herein are becoming less correct and content less substantial (not that i have anything salient or of great importance i think). i don’t have luxurious time to digitally proofread everything i write, and money too. internet is costing too much for me that i’m only getting online to upload pictures, and copy-paste everything i wrote while offline, and so, everything i have here are like, well, stories..and i find it’s a good way to tell friends back home what’s going on down here.
i have also been to the first beach in nz where i swam. i’ve been to a beach nearby in wellington with some friends from nomads hostel before but didn’t really tried the water. it was waimarama beach day last sunday, and a lot of us from the hostel went to the celebration. the beach itself is not bad, it was very long, the sand is okay, and the wave is high enough for some surfing (sadly, i don’t know how to surf). for the reason that we don’t have surfing boards, we just rode the waves! it was really amazing riding the waves. it could bring you to distance much faster than you could do with swimming by yourself. the waviest beach i’ve been at home is in bataan (monte mar) during a company outing, but waves in waimarama are a lot more powerful and bigger. along the shore are many dead jellyfish, and now, i know why there are called jellyfish. when they are no longer alive, they really look like jellies. kids are playing with them, so i asked “are you sure they don’t have sting?”. a boy answered, “yes, because they’re deed[sic]”. i did not understand it immediately, but then realize he meant “dead”. kiwis have a unique twang, pronouncing their vowels a bit mixed up. “I” becomes “E” and vice-versa, sometimes it even becomes “U”.
after waimarama beach, it was sharing dinner back at the hostel. conrad, tim, and myself cooked together for our share. 2-kgs spaghetti and fried meatballs. i did the meatballs the way i know how to do it, which is a confused mixture of ground beef (pork is better, but for some reason, it is more expensive here), flour, minced carrots, onion, garlic, onion greens, eggs, salt, and pepper. then, deep-fried. (alright, that’s a review for carmi, my friend who loves this version of meatballs too). they liked it as it’s crunchy version of meatballs they’ve had before. in part, i had some authentic japanese udon (prepared by a japanese), a milky soup (from another japanese), salad (done by helen of sweden) complete with wine-vinegar-oil mixture, and fresh pizza (kayo made her own pizza dough!).
farm work, cooking, and going out with hostel friends has been mostly what occupied my time the past few weeks. it was tim (25) and conrad (21)’s birthday celebration last wednesday, and it doubled as farewell party for nao and conrad too as they left last thursday. rita (of germany), helen, and i baked a chocolate cake for them last tuesday night. i cook, but know zero about baking, so what i mostly did was just mixing, but a bit tedious as it’s done manually. right on time at 10pm, we finished the cake, and wrote on it with white chocolate the next day. we can only do cooking until 10pm everyday. we planned to bake each for tim, conrad, and nao but the mixture is barely enough for just one big cake. the other day, kayo asked me of any good food in the philippines, something like sweet. i thought of polvoron and yema, and having a slight idea of how to do the latter (my sister is more expert of it). i asked my mom (via sms) how it’s done, so i cooked a bowl of yema last wednesday which tasted right in my opinion.
it was nice meeting people from all over the world really; learning things (did you know there is no speed limit in germany?), finding out more about culture, but as in travelling and hostels, old people go, and new people come. one day, it will be my time to leave.
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