Return to Auckland : Part 3

Monday 20th March - Friday 24th March 2017

Monday
I had a nice leisurely wake up this morning - I'm making the most of the lie ins before I start my Au Pair job! After a short walk around Albert Park, I decided to go to the art gallery today, as I haven't been yet and it's one of the few free things to do here. I actually really enjoyed it! I really wasn't expecting to but some of the exhibits were really cool, and I did a bit of origami!

After spending about an hour there, I wandered around the shops trying to find a little present for the two boys I will be looking after. I have never had more trouble finding a present for a child in my life! There are no toy shops, unless you count fancy dress shops that have party favours, and the book shops are small so they don't have a good selection to choose from. Nevertheless, I got a few ideas and planned to get something nearer to the end of the week. 

Kristine and Lottie had spoken to Neil about staying at his until they get their Kiwi Experience bus on Thursday morning, so they made us dinner tonight which was awesome! Fidya and Lottie went to the spa, so Kristine and I decided to put on a film to pass the time. 

Tuesday

I decided to spend the morning tidying up a bit and sorting out a few bits so I didn't end up leaving the room until after lunch. I decided to go back up to Newmarket to see if th ebugger warehiuse had anything I could give the two boys and, luckily, I managed to find a couple of superhero colouring books and little cars to give them, so I'm definitely happier now I've sorted that out!

I walked back through Auckland Domain, stopping every now and again to spend about half an hour reading. I got pretty lost, and ended up spending longer than anticipated there! But I managed to find a few cool spots that I didn't see when Emma and I went there's back in February. 

 I decided to go to Zambreros for a burrito for dinner, I absolutely love that place - the food is insanely delicious! I then headed back for another chilled evening, I'm doing my best to save as much money as I can so I'm only letting myself go out once this week!

Wednesday
This morning I walked up to Parnell to meet an old friend from first school, Lauren, at a little Cafe. It was so lovely to see her after over ten years! Afterwards, I had a browse through the shops in Parnell but as I have extremely limited room in my backpack I decided to go to Auckland Domain again to do some more reading and chilling out. I walked back to the hotel for lunch, finishing up my noodles beforehand heading back out in the afternoon to chill out in Myers park again. I have been loving this chilled out life but I'm very excited to get back into working and having a set routine - I'm too restless at the moment!

This evening, Fidya, Kristine, Lotte and I went out for the Couchsurfing drinks and it was kind of mixed emotions for me as this will be the last drinks I'm going to, and it's always sad to leave cool people! It was good fun though!

Thursday

Today I met up with Cameron again and went to see Zhan at the cafe he works at, so basically a repeat of last week! This time I got a snickers milkshake as I hadn't long had breakfast and it was the nicest milkshake I have had for a flipping long time! So happy! I didn't stay out too long as the majority of the day relied on me washing, tidying and packing ready for me to leave tomorrow. I had to go and get my favourite dumplings for the last time!

Friday

My alarm went off at 5:30am this morning and that wasn't the easiest of wake ups! But I got myself sorted, tidied up Neil's lounge, had breakfast (well forced it down) and left ready for my elongated journey to the Holiday Inn by Auckland airport as, typically, there wasn't any direct buses or trains there, so I had to get a train to Onehunga and a bus to Mangere. 

The first aid training was really interesting, not much is different to the last one I did, bar a few minor details. Apparently now it's not being taught as essential to give rescue breaths in CPR,  as the blood should be oxygenated enough beforehand and also through the air,  and compressions are more important as it keeps the blood pumping to the brain, effectively making sure the patient isn't brain dead. Other than that everything was basically the same! We had loads of food given to us as well which was amazing! We also had to have a group photo taken and, despite having loads of photos to choose from, the one on the Facebook page is the worst one of me 😂... I'm on the far right with the disgusted look on my face!

It didn't take long before the orientation was over, and it was time to get on the flight to Christchurch. A few other au pars were flying their as well, so it was nice to have a familiar face to look hang out with for a bit. Mary came and got me from the airport, and we grabbed food before the long drive down to Timaru, my home for the next 5 months. We got there at around 9ish, so it was pretty dark, but she gave me a quick tour round the city and we went to see if there were any penguins down at the beach. I didn't see any, but I heard a few in heir nest which is pretty cool, I'm hoping to go back down there a some point and see them before they migrate

More Team Building.

Wednesday 5th September 2012

Today I was told I had to wake up early. Early for me is when I have to get up for work at 6am, I do not appreciate that time in the morning. At all. So it was a lovely surprise when my chum got me up at 8am. We had to go the police station to apply for my temporary residence permit and it turns out I didn't need the pictures that were taken yesterday. Thank goodness we didn't pay for them!

However, when I got to the CC experiment centre, I found out that pretty much everyone else had to use their pictures so that was quite worrying! I was just hoping that we had all applied for the same thing, it would be rather awkward if we didn't. 

We split up into two teams again, this time I was with Georgia, Matt, James, Josh and Ollie, when he eventually turned up an hour and a half late. We walked to another branch of the CC english school and went to a classroom with 6 other teachers. We had another morning of getting to know each other style games. At first we played charades which is definitely hilarious to play with the teachers.

Then we had to pick a folded piece of paper with something to do with our childhood on it. Typically I was picked to go first and ended up with having to teach my favourite song from my childhood. Twinkle twinkle little star was the first one that I could think of so I taught that pretty well if I do say so myself, obviously working at a nursery has helped me exceed expectations, the teachers were loving it! Georgia had to say her favourite subject and she said art as a joke! So I shouted out for her to draw something to which she went bright red and looked completely horrified! It was hilarious. Anyone that knows Georgia knows how awful she is at drawing. Bless. She ended up drawing a few faces and we pretended that that sort of art that got the best grades. The worrying thing was that they actually believed us.

Then some random teacher said her favourite subject was music, so she sang Adele-Someone like you! And then she pulled Ollie up to sing to Justin Bieber - Baby luckily he's a good sport and went along with it. 

Then guess where we went for lunch... KFC again! Georgia had had KFC for breakfast again, so we were all dropping hints that we liked pizza hut or traditional Chinese food. They completely ignored all hints that were made. The KFC was the biggest one we had been in so far, and we had our first experience of some random Chinese people that we didn't know taking photos of us. Now that was surreal. It was almost like we were famous. I've just realised I don't think I've mentioned that in GuiYang, it was very rare to find any other race other than Chinese. The majority of the Chinese citizens had never seen a white person in real life before.

Then we went to Hebin park, although we weren't allowed on the rides which was a shame. with about 40 other teachers! I was surprised that a school could have this many teachers! We did some more team building games not surprisingly, and we eventually ended up having a massive game of football which was good fun. The best game we played was where we had to pass balloons to each other just using our legs. Now, I was well practiced at this game, probably because I have been involved in Girl Guiding thanks to my mum for as long as I can remember. The teachers weren't. Their reactions to it were very amusing!

Another highlight was James attempting to teach a few of the teachers to do the worm. Lets just say that this didn't go well. At all.

The bus back to CC English experiment centre was crazy. It was ridiculously full. This was my first experience of being completely crammed in the buses. It wasn't ideal! Looking back now, it was totally unnecessary as the park is less than ten minutes away from the school by foot. I think they just presume all English people are lazy and need to get transport.