NZ IS EVOLVING!

So I'm guilty of saying my life is boring at the moment and I need to do something to create some excitement.

This morning, I took the train into the CBD (like I usually do when I go to uni) and when I got there I almost walked into one of these:

Upon seeing them, I almost squealed in excitement.

I'm sure you (and the rest of the world) know what they are and will probably look at them in disdain but this system is new to Auckland, New Zealand. These will act as the gate barrier in and out of the train platforms at Britomart (Auckland's transport hub in the CBD - although when I say transport hub, the building is more of a train station than anything else).

NOTE: now don't be fooled by the beauty. That picture has been through two filters. Follow me on Instagram: "essenity"!

Currently, when you take the train in Auckland, you buy the ticket before you get on the train. Once on, there is a man that goes around to everybody. You will present your ticket to him and he will use a hole puncher to punch a hole on the ticket. If you did not buy a ticket prior to boarding the train, you can buy one off the ticket person - cash only. However, there have been instances during rush hour when the ticket person fails to get around to every person before the train reaches the next station. I suspect many people will not pay if they only ride one station. This ticket person is also responsible for opening the train doors when the train reaches the next station... he gets off the train and lets people out and in. So very often, he gets back on and fails to remember every person he's already taken a ticket from etc. I've seen a ticket man miss over ten passengers due to the number of people that get on after the first station.

If this system was used anywhere else in the world, I'm pretty sure many many people would take advantage of this and not pay. But many times in NZ, I've seen people lining up after getting off the train and waiting patiently (during rush hour, no less) for the ticket guy to punch a hole before leaving. Now, there's no reason for them to do this because once they are off the train, it's free for all. There are no barriers that keep you stuck in the station, you can walk off just like that. There are no dates on these tickets, if they don't get a hole punched through it, you can use it the next time.

Anyway, with such gates being set up, it will become really hard for anyone to jump this system since they won't actually be able to get out of the station! Taken us way too long to implement this system! But then again, this is NZ we are talking about. Better late then never. However, just because the gates are now up, doesn't mean it's up and running yet. I asked the lady standing there (to this day, I have no idea what they do. They just seem to stand on the platform all day...) who told me it should be up and ready for use by the end of October. Friking long way away! But I await its implementation eagerly!

Day two of my "healthy diet":

Fought the urge to get roast duck on rice and settled for chicken sandwich for lunch, skipped the mango passion smoothie though. Exercise? Walked from uni, up Symonds Street to Upper Queen Street then all the way down it to Britomart (in heels). On the way down, the strong desire for something deliciously deep fried developed but I managed to fight it into submission and skipped getting a McDonald's meal. After dinner, my choice of dessert was Symbio's passion fruit yoghurt with a mandarin. According to them, the benefits of Symbio include: 

• Aids digestive balance

• Good source of fibre

• 5 billion live DR10™ ("can reduce digestive discomfort including gurgling, flatulence, constipation and irregular bowel movements.")

• 99% fat free

To be honest with you, I choose to consume this New Zealand product because it tastes delicious.

On an unrelated note, I've recently discovered Birdy and fell in love with her voice. Her songs are really soothing to me! Here's a link to her Skinny Love video:

Please check out her other songs!

Aftermath of watching Olympians strut their stuff

Third week of uni!

Remember how yesterday I blogged about how I'd endeavor to blog more often? Well, I'm sitting in my Compsci111 lab doing Lab 2 and I come to question 16 that asks us to create a blog and make a post then take a screenshot of it. I'm not going to create another blog so here's another post on the day after I just made a massive post!

Since I am required to upload at least one image, let me tell you a bit about it. As you should be aware, the Olympics started over the weekend and after watching many hours of stunningly gorgeous athletes with perfect skin, hair, and bodies, I've taken to feel pathetic about mine. Here's to the start of a new goal: go down the path of "healthy" in which I will attempt to eat healthier and exercise more. Hopefully I'll come out at the end of it with half as hot ad the athletes in London.

 

Lunch today? A mango passion yoghurt smoothie accompanied with a chicken sandwich from NZ Natural.

And my attempt at exercise will be done after this lab. I shall walk all the way down to Britomart to catch the train home, despite the horrendous torrents of rain.

Uni, birthday and Batman

NOTE: I'm on Instagram! Follow me? Username is essenity. Duh.




It's been a month since I've come back from Melbourne. A few things have happened since then.

• Destroyed a friendship (possibly, or at least we're both not talking to each other. But whatever, I've done my bit, he needs to step up if he wants to be a part of my life otherwise, I'll hold the door open and help him walk out of it).
• FINALLY sent in my application for the 360 Abroad. My three choices are HKU, CUHK and Melbourne University. Except as soon as I hit send, I felt like my choices weren't "exotic" enough. I had briefly toyed with the idea of Sweden.
• Went out with dinner.
• Got a credit card and then spent too much money.
• Had dinner with a few friends.
• My birthday!
• Worked too much.
• Got sick.
• Started semester 2 of uni! Which has so far been AWESOME.
• Also, watched two seasons of Vampire Diaries and developed a celebrity crush on Damon. *drools*

I'm not going to talk about every point... but where should I start? Dinner with friends perhaps! I went to dinner at my favourite Japanese restaurant in town with three of my friends. More of a dinner than a catch up, I felt. It was a pretty good feast. I would have taken pictures if the environment wasn't so dark and we weren't so starved. We had a lot of sashimi, a plate of beef tataki and the rest, I can't remember!

We did take a few pictures though so here they are!

I sat next to Yumi so here's a pic of us! The flash was so bright! I had to fight to keep my tiny eyes open.

First group shot after dinner!

My chosen dessert! I think they had about three flavours. This one is green tea. It was delicious, but not as delicious as the passion fruit panna cotta in Botany.

 

Didn't quite know what to do after dinner so kinda lounged around outside the restaurant, took another self group shot then left.

We drove down to Aotea Square where they put up the winter ice rink so we could have a look. Prices are ridiculous, I imagined it to be a much bigger rink but there was a lot of space that wasn't utilised. Didn't stop us from taking pictures though. =)

Suki and I

From left to right, Yumi, me and Suki. It turns out Aotea Square at night is a pretty place to take pictures... should have tried harder!

We wandered around and saw a carousel. We got a little bit excited and took pictures. Except, we were too into ourselves to realise that we pretty much cut out the whole carousel.

Here's me in front of the ponies, having my picture taken with the ultimate flash.

Left to right, Yumi, me and Shu in front of the carousel. You can hardly tell it's a carousel.

Then, being the fatties that we are, we went to Yoghurt Story for round two of dessert! I used to be an ice cream girl, but now, I've developed a love for yoghurt! It's pretty expensive though. =S

Watermelon flavoured yoghurt with fruit loops, mango and pineapple pieces!

I feel like that was the highlight of the night though. I love the yoghurt from that shop. There's also a lot of hype going around another yoghurt shop that also recently opened, called Easy Yo or something. I have never been there since it's so far away from me and such a pain to go to (all the way in Mission Bay) but I heard there's a branch opening soon in Botany so here's hoping it's good because then I don't always have to go to the city for Yoghurt. Excuse my fatness, I'll endeavour to lose a ton of weight.

I recently got a credit card again and went shopping a few times. In New Zealand, when you join a rewards programme, many shops send you a gift voucher during your birthday month. Since I joined Platinum (Nike), they sent me a $30 voucher which I used to buy some track pants. I wouldn't have bought it without the $30 voucher so guess free money does draw in customers.

But my biggest spend was at the Body Shop. To be honest with you, I haven't actually used my gift (which is 20% off total bill) but they did give free gift packs with my purchases.

Entire Body Shop haul It's so pretty... *_*

First up, here's some body lotion. From left to right, Shea Whip, Coconut Milk, Mango Whip and Strawberry Puree.

I'm currently using the Mango Whip. It smells delicious! The only other one I've used before is the Strawberry Puree. I can't remember how nice it is, so I can't say which I prefer.

Here is a collection of body care. From left to right, Coconut Shower Cream, Peppermint Cooling Foot Lotion, White Musk Shower Gel, Cocoa Butter hand and body lotion, and Love Etc Body Wash.

Those bottles came for free on the condition that you bought a something from the vanilla line, make up line or the sunshine line (ok, not sure about the sunshine part, I forgot if that's what it's called). I bought the vanilla body mist so I was given them. 

Vanilla Body Mist and the Peach Body Lotion

As I was looking around the store, I saw the Peach Body Lotion sitting on the discounted corner. New Zealand hardly ever has this in store! It smells slightly like the peach hand cream from Canmake's Make me Happy series and since I love that smell, I snapped this up right away.

Vitamin E Illuminating Moisture Cream

The reason I bought this was due to how it made me smile. I was in the store one weekend and I tried the tester. When you apply this, the cream turns a pretty shade of pink. It disappears as you rub it into our skin. I haven't used it a lot but when I used the tester, I felt like the it didn't give a greasy finish so I allowed myself to buy it because this product made me smile so much.

Here was my pathetic attempt at showing you how it changes colour, but it's not very clear on camera. Maybe I should have photoshopped to make it more obvious...

It's been two weeks since uni has started and so far 2012 semester 2 is my favourite semester! There's this geography paper I'm taking that's about disasters and how it impacts on society. There's no exam for this paper and the assignments are whack! One major assignment is an Amazing Race themed treasure hunt around Auckland!!! During the introductory lecture, I was so excited about it all, the girl next to me kept shooting me side way glances.

We got into groups and selected our topic - age and gender. We're supposed to think about how disasters affect society, especially those who fall in vulnerable groups within age and gender. So far, we've only passed one clue... the second clue proved to be much harder - we figured it out, but we have to do an interview and the dude hasn't given us a time yet! Other teams have nearly finished. =(

Thankfully, the marks aren't given based on how fast we figure out the clues.

Another one of my exciting papers is a stage one computer science paper. These two papers have PRETTY GOOD LOOKING LECTURERS! My goodness. I can't usually pay attention for more than twenty minutes on a good day, but I find that I hang on to every word my comp sci lecturer says. Don't know if it's his good looks or because the topic actually interests me.

I have another geography paper about GIS that I'm taking. I know it's not the subject, the lecturer bores me to death. But during labs, I am pretty into the topic.

Last Sunday, I went to the movies with Shu to watch Batman. WHY ON EARTH IS HOYTS SO EXPENSIVE?!!!!! Popcorn and coke is crazily overpriced. We've stopped buying food from the cinemas. We went to Pak n Save to buy snacks to bring into the cinema. We bought Mammoth Yoghurt lemon passion flavour because we thought it was pretty funny (it's advertised as a manly yoghurt). During the movie, we started eating it and instantly regretted it. My god. It had gigantic chunks of GOD KNOWS WHAT. Shu reckons there were lemon rinds in it, I thought there were some sort of seeds as well. The yoghurt itself didn't taste bad. Not very sweet but the stuff inside the yoghurt really put us off. It was also really thick. I think we would have enjoyed it more if we weren't eating it in the dark. I'm not in a hurry to give this so called manly yoghurt another try, I'll stick to the girly yoghurt for now.

Excuse me, Batman was awesome. I had tears in my eyes at the end of the movie. I actually hope there will be another one. And can anyone tell me why Google doesn't recognise "movie" or "movies" as a word?

It was my birthday on Friday. Since Shu was working Friday night, we had dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant in Botany on Thursday. She bought me cake, which we shared with staff. Before I met Shu, I hung out with my other friend, Yun (we've been good friends for ten years!). We went to Cafe Melba in Ellerslie... I usually hate cafe food, but after this experience, it's growing on me. It was pretty good food, and at a cheap price too. Perhaps it's due to location?

Chocolates and letter were from Yun and the cake was Shu. She bought Gold Caramel from the Cheesecake Shop. I thought it would be very sweet, but surprisingly, there was no strong, overly sweet aftertaste.

Spending my birthday with Rachel! Strawberry earrings, sponge cake and tiramisu cake.

On my actual birthday, I had classes for everything! I thought it would be draining but it was actually quite enjoyable. Rachel bought me strawberry earrings from Pascoes and they are honestly the most bling things I own right now. She gave them to me during class and I opened them during class. I wasn't expecting them to be so pretty so I gasped pretty loudly. Pretty fly. =) After my classes, I met up with her again and we went to have cake! I think her one was white chocolate cake or something. It had oranges inside. =/ My one was the Tiramisu.

Since this post is probably as long or even longer than my last post, I'm going to try to blog a bit more frequently. My posts are way too long. Excuse me while I go check over my lab exercises that's due tomorrow. =O should have handed it in last week but cbb.

MELBOURNE!!!!

HELLO ALL! I'm back from my trip to Melbourne! Actually, I was back just after midnight on Wednesday morning but I haven't had the time to post pictures till now!

Starting from Day 1! Thursday:

I had an early morning flight to Melbourne. My parents took me to the airport and when I checked in, I found out I actually needed a visa to get into Australia. I think the reason is because I hold a British Overseas passport and Australia doesn't recognise it, even if I have New Zealand Residency. Never mind though! I was able to obtain an ETA Visa (Electronic Travel Authority) for NZ$30.

I went through customs after checking in and I got picked out randomly and pulled aside to be checked for explosives. What do you know, you learn something new everyday! Apparently, these people are only allowed to check for explosive and nothing else. I.e. they didn't care if I were smuggling drugs or anything else out of the country.

Seriously? Do I look like I'd go and blow up the plane?!

Well, obviously, I was let go! Went through customs and did a bit of shopping! I finally bought Karen Walker's Runaway Girl! You can get it here for NZ$259. While waiting to get on board, I took some pictures of it.

Here's the box!

Karen Walker's Runaway Girl

I flew to Melbourne on Virgin Australia. It wasn't the most comfortable flight but they offered free water, coffee and tea unlike Jetstar if you only paid for the cheapest ticket which only includes the seat and 7kg carry on luggage. I slept a good lot of the way there.

Arrived in Melbourne, on the shuttle bus!

When I got there, I bought a ticket for the Skybus which took me to Southern Cross Station in the CBD. I checked my map when I got there because I had to make my own way to my aunt's workplace.

=O Batman Street!

What followed was pretty uneventful, I spent the whole day at her office. Watched a few youtube videos, and kept nodding off. The original plan was for me to go to her office and get her home key. I was then supposed to go back to her apartment and sleep the day away. What really happened was I lounged around her office till she finished and we walked to her apartment together. On the way, we stopped by Melbourne Central to go shopping at Coles supermarket. AND LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND!

FREAKING PURPLE CAULIFLOWER! On special too! Forgive my fascination, but I have never seen this before!

Dried blueberries! Delicious! Except I think in the end, I preferred dried cherries.

Friday:

So I didn't actually manage to stay awake long. Slept like a baby all through the night. Got up early and went with my aunt to work. She sent me to Boxhill - which is like 45+ minutes by tram from the CBD to deliver a parcel to her boss who works in the Boxhill branch. So off I went, on my little adventure.

Tram! I got excited and thought this was the one I had to get on.

The actual tram "109" that would take me to Boxhill.

Got a little bored on the tram and so took a picture of the seat patterns.

I also kept seeing these rhino signs everywhere...

After I reached Boxhill, I had a little roam around before I went to the office. This suburb is like an Asian country! They had both Chinese and English signs for things. In the pharmacy, they had Chinese labels as well! Crazy! When I got to the office, her boss had bought me some savoury treat to eat! I don't usually like Chinese doughnuts at all! I also dislike spring onion and just about every other ingredient that was found in it, but this was surprisingly delicious!

I think they call this a Chinese doughnut. The savoury version, wrapped in a thin piece of egg.

After I left, I returned to the CBD and had lunch with my aunt. Following this, I walked over to Melbourne Central to get a haircut before I was due to meet up with my high school friend.

Saw this on the way there, it is of course, no significance to you or to anyone else who doesn't know my history. Which is of course for another post later... or never. 

Saw these cupcakes in the mall! Didn't try them though, so can't tell you if they are worthy of being named "heartbreak cupcakes".

And this adorable pup! It was pretty difficult getting a good picture of him. This was the best I could manage. T_T

After wandering around, I finally got my hair cut. A quick cut and wash cost AUD$36. At first, I wasn't too impressed with it, but as I left the mall, a hot Portuguese guy stopped me to tell me how beautiful he thought my skin was. I would have been more flattered if he hadn't tried selling me a product. He was trying to sell me skincare products made from manuka honey. When he found out I was visiting from New Zealand he said "Oh, you should know these products are good then. It's made from stuff that comes from your country!" When he failed to get a purchase out of me, he wrote down his name and number on a card and asked me to message him for coffee.

Meh, whatever. But I still took a picture of my cut after my encounter wit him, even if he was full of shit.

I eventually met up with my friend and I forgot to mention this earlier, but nearly everyone I saw in Melbourne seemed unbelievably beautiful or stunningly gorgeous. Jokingly, I sent a text to my high school friend about this and he replied saying he's the 1% and will try his best to exceed my expectations. And he did! He didn't become unbelievably beautiful or stunningly gorgeous, but his looks did improve from my high school memory of him.

First stop? Harajuku Crepes! I have to admit here... this could be better than the crepes from the actual Harajuku in Tokyo, Japan. Perhaps it's the ingredients used? More fresh, maybe?

  

Green tea crepe with strawberries from Harajuku Crepes!

Following our crepe, he took me on a quick tour of Melbourne. I don't actually know where we went... but here are some pictures!

Opposite the road from Flinder's Station

Flinder's Station

Not entirely sure what that tower thing is...

Brown water of the Yarra River. =S

Sorry, don't know what this bridge is called either. He told me to take pictures because it's the touristy thing to do.

This was taken in Crown (the casino with the flash shops that sold things I can't possibly afford). This picture was my feeble attempt to catch the shots of water that jumped. My camera isn't quick enough. =(

In Crown, we walked around and saw some nice things... every shop was high end and then... I saw Forever New. In New Zealand, that shop is like the high end of high end shops... but in Melbourne, it just looked like a cheap store.

We returned to the CBD and went to Passionflower! It's a cool little ice cream shop! Look at the light fixtures! Aren't they the cutest?!

I just want to steal them all and take them for my room!

I was treated to delicious ice cream! The flavours were lychee rose, vanilla bean and green tea! 

I think green tea flavoured ice cream has been ruined for me by my workplace and Japan. Any other type of green tea flavour just disappoints or doesn't match up! The lychee rose was fantastic! Such an exciting flavour! It tasted like rose tea but then it also tasted like lychee. 

Passionflower also serves tea, but they didn't have the cherry blossom flavour that we wanted!

Just mucking around at the counter

Another picture taken at the counter.

After this, we hung out in the mall's food court. I think I must have bored my friend half the death... eventually my childhood friend turned and she hung with me for the rest of the night. She took me to this burger place and I had one called "Baa Baa Burger". It was the most wonderful lamb burger I've ever tried. Granted, it's the only lamb burger I've ever had... but this was absolutely delicious!!! I completely forgot to take pictures! 

Ok, this is going to be a super long post. On Saturday, my aunt headed off to work in the morning, and I had the apartment to myself. I opened the windows and took pictures of the view.

Straight out the window. Nice view huh?

Straight down. I think that's a pool...

I was like wtf? Apparently that is a design university...

Weird cone thing that I believe to be the building of Melbourne Central

State library

This was my fail attempt to take a cute picture of myself with some sort of view. Sorry.

After this, I gave up and headed down to Melbourne Central. I walked around and did a bit of shopping. I needed to buy clothes as I didn't bring much!

To me, saba is the Japanese name for a type of mackerel fish...

So forgive me if I cannot see it as a fashion brand...

I met up with another friend from high school after this and she took me around Melbourne. We went to the state library! I didn't take many pictures, but here are some:

This was in the state library. I lol'd when I saw this so I had to take a picture of it.

My friend took me to a gelato place called Gelatissimo. It was pretty good! I wish I got the passion fruit flavour instead though... that was really yummy!

Gelatissimo's coffee and blood orange

Around this time, my uncle had called me up to say he was picking me up so after gelato, my friend left and I went in search for him. While walking there, I saw a great rainbow! I had to take two pictures to get the whole thing!

I met up with my uncle and his family. He then drove to pick up the aunt I am staying with (his sister) and we went to dinner. I think the restaurant was called Pacific Seafood or something...

The aunt I am staying with and my little cousin! She's so adorable!

We had crab on some sort of noodles, an entire fish, roast pork and a plate of snow pea veges. Being what I am... and used to Japanese food in which they chop everything up into bite sized pieces, I was completely horrified at Chinese dining. Especially when it came to eating crab. I don't understand why people go through that much trouble of digging out crab meat for themselves and using pliers to break through the shell! On top of that, your hands get so dirty! I was shocked beyond horror. My uncle kept urging me to have some and I just couldn't. I did have some... I had enough. He shouldn't complain, since the less I eat, the more he gets. The roast pork had so much fat. It was like a layer of skin (crunchy and yummy, I can't deny that) and then like over half of what was left was fat and then a measly portion of meat. Despite that... I cannot deny that it was delicious. 

Then the fish came and I wasn't horrified but I don't really like fish. The only fish I seem to eat is raw fish. =/ I'm not a fan of fish at all. This dish had a really overwhelming fishy tang. Not to my taste at all, but by the looks on my relatives' faces, it was probably really delicious. Once again, they shouldn't complain, the less I eat, the more for them.

By the time the snow pea leaves arrived, I was already full but I had some and I WAS BLOWN AWAY by the delicious taste! I ate like... half the plate even though I was so full!

Jumping on to Sunday! After dinner, we went home, I watched an awesome Bollywood movie and then we went to sleep. Woke up on Sunday and I went with my aunt to my uncle's place.

Saw this Barbie tram on the way to the train station...

On the train, taking a picture of a train!

A picture of me on the train

Picture of my aunt on the train...

My uncle's house is pink!!!

My uncle and I. Excuse my fatness.

My little cousin sound asleep!

My uncle took us to Dandenong Ranges and we had lunch at an over priced restaurant. Was not amazing, not gonna blog about it.

But to make up for that, here's a picture of my cute cousin!

My aunt (uncle's wife, cousin's mum) and I.

Baby cousin and her mummy!

Picture of the family, excuse my ugly mug.

We tried to get my cousin to show off her kimono...

Another one of my aunt and I

Baby cousin and I!!!

Acting coy? I don't know, but she's a little drama queen.

Picture of the family again.

After that, we drove to St Kilda Beach and took some more photos.

We left St Kilda's and went in search for dinner. We actually went to two places. The first one, had rude staff, who didn't really care if we stayed or left so we left. The reason we left was actually because they didn't have any suitable food for the baby.

But they had a cute menu...

We headed over to PappaRich. I was astonished at the number of people waiting in line to get a seat... and my astonishment grew when we joined the line. If I were in NZ, I would have gone elsewhere. But we weren't in line for long, so that was surprising.

Dinner was so so. I reckon if I ordered something else, I'd have been more satisfied. I think I'm just not used to South East Asian tastes. I prefer one taste in every spoonful, instead of three. =/

Ok, I'm getting impatient! Monday!!!!!!!!!!!!

Met up with my uncle, had lunch. He gave me a long talk. Ugh. I know he's right and all, but whatever. After lunch, he took me to a department store (?) and he bought something for my mother. Picture at the end of the post.

Dinner, I went with my aunt and her friend to a Japanese restaurant called Meshiya. I wasn't impressed at all. I was impressed with the amount of carrots they used for decoration, but the actual food? No.

Still, here's a picture of the sashimi. Wasn't impressed.

Got watermelon after dinner. I was impressed with THAT. At 60c/kg, we got a massive watermelon for under AUD$4! Most brilliant thing I ate in Melbourne, I swear.

TUESDAY!!! Finally! In the morning, I went shopping, bought a dress and a coat. I'm glad I put it off till today! When I saw the coat, I saw that it was something like $79 but was marked down to $69 then to $49. I hadn't bought it yet because I wasn't sure about it. I ended up deciding to get it and went back to the store. They had reduced the price even further to $39!!! I don't have pictures, but maybe it will make it on here in the future. =D

I ended up leaving my aunt's place early for the airport. Mainly because I had nothing left to do! I ended up reading HP7 on my ipad while sitting in McDonald's in the airport. My flight back to NZ was on an AirNZ plane and I was surprised when I got on! All the seats were black! The journey back was surprisingly comfortable and the service was also good. 

It was only after I posted this picture did I realise... this doesn't actually prove how black the plane seating was...

 Ok, so here's the stuff I got at the airport! 

Marc Jacob's Daisy in solid perfume, Victoria's Secret wallet thing and Elizabeth Arden's mascara and lip gloss.

Ok, here's the embarrassing thing... I intended to buy Chole's solid perfume but I picked this one up instead by accident. I thought I was getting Chole's even though I knew I had picked up something entirely different. It doesn't matter though, I love this just the same, perhaps even more...

These were AUD$10 each! I don't know what they usually cost at retailer's, but on the shelf, it said that it was usually at least AUD$35.

I bought these notebooks at half price from a shop in Boxhill that claimed it was having a closing down sale. I just needed notebooks and I liked these ones so I bought it. I don't really care if they were really having a sale or trying to scam people.

Aesop Skincare

My uncle insisted on buying something for my mother and since I couldn't actually think of anything, he said how about skincare products? He then went on to talk about the Aesop brand which is an Australian product. He mentioned my baby cousin had problems with eczema and this helped a lot and now she doesn't show signs of eczema when they use this. Since I have eczema on my leg and ankle, I showed interest in it so he took me to the store to get samples and bought a small jar of moisturiser for my mother.

When I checked in at Australia, the lady at the counter commended on how awesome Aesop is so I guess it's worth trying. I don't know what's going on with my travel documents, but when I went through Australian customs, the guy at the counter asked me if I had two passports. I don't, and he asked me if I have a visa. What does it matter if I have a visa or not?! I'm leaving the country already!!! I showed him my ETA Visa that was on a piece of A4 paper and he checked it twice and didn't really look satisfied but he was like whatever, you may pass.

Going through customs in NZ is strange for me. I was stopped when I came back from HK and I was stopped once again coming back from Australia! When I came back from HK, I was asked if I had two passports and they checked with immigration about me since my passport wasn't popping up at all on their computer. This time, my passport popped up, but my visa or permanent residency status didn't! The lady at the counter was like "oh this is strange... you don't... exist..." What? Do you mean to say I don't exist or do you mean to say for the past decade I've been in NZ (ok perhaps 5 years since I renewed my passport), I have actually been here semi-illegally?

She then asked me what food and products I bought into NZ then waved me through and told me to sit down. I sat in the same seat I did when I came back from HK and they disappeared off with my documents. My residency status is obviously real, but it seems no one bothered to fix whatever problem keeps occurring! I asked the lady who handed me back my stuff and she said: "what? Didn't immigration tell you anything?"

Of course not! If they had, I wouldn't be asking you! So she told me "well, I don't know what's going on, immigration just handed this to me... so you can have it back. But here's the number you can call immigration NZ and complain that you're stopped all the time and you want to know what's going on. Anyway, did you bring in any food?"

WTF? You're more worried about the crap people bring in to NZ and not the person who's coming in? For all you know, I could be a spy sent to infiltrate NZ. No wonder we have questionable people obtaining NZ citizenship! Y'all don't care who comes in as long as it doesn't negatively impact on your biosecurity. Although, it could have been my accent that gave it away: regardless of my looks, I obviously lived in NZ for a decent amount of years.