In this post I will state the highlights instead of the exact dates.
For starters, we bought a new car. We shopped around online and found a trustworthy car dealer called Paul Kelly. We visited their garage in town and looked at what they offered. We needed a bigger car than what we've previously had due to our growing family. We ended up buying a Toyota Prius 2011 hybrid car. It only has one car key though, and ordering spares are VERY pricey. :/ I'm naming the car "Nescafe", as it has 'NCF' in its number plate.
We handed in our hire car a few days later.
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| New car, with old hire car on the right |
A new car also meant buying a child car seat for Mioni. New Zealand has this huge superstore for baby's, called The Baby Factory. Its like the UK's Mothercare, only, still in business.
The worker in there said that some time ago, it became illegal to drive children under 11 years (or under 148cm tall) without a child seat. How times have changed! She said it gets awkward if you have your child's' friend ride in your car. In this instance you either need to own a spare car seat, or borrow that child's one from their parents. What a head ache! Oh, and car seats all have expiry dates on them. Roughly 12 years before they are deemed unsafe for use.
Putting aside the headache legal jargon that is child car seats, we bought one that Mioni approves, because she finds it so comfortable that she easily falls asleep in it!
We were told of a cool new place in town, which is under a year old. Its called Riverside Market. It like the hippest place in town, buzzing with lots of people. Its like a Tokyo/Japanese market in that there are a hell of a lot of shops/stalls, nooks and crannies and places to eat in such a small area. They thrive on selling real foods from all over the world. If you rush or walk too fast you would miss everything on offer. We have been there multiple times now, and ate at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, had a sweet crepes, a souvlaki, a real German bratwurst hot dog, ate a burger, bought real Turkish delight, cakes, interesting real fruit tea, and also bought decent fresh bread. But there is much more there, including Italian cheese and interesting Asian foods.
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| Conveyor belt sushi |
On top of this, we have also been to a really nice sushi restaurant which is kinda close by where our AirBnB is. Their sushi specialises in local Salmon. Its really good quality, even though I'm not the biggest fan of the stuff. To me they all taste kinda the same, despite what each one looks like.
We went for a short walk around a wetlands on a nice day. Pictures below.
All 3 of us are registered at a local GP. Mioni needed an injection
to catch up to the NZ system. Her next immunisations are at 1 years old.
I also got her registered on the Plunket system. Plunket are basically
the equivalent of the baby health visitor that the UK does.
Mioni is getting old enough to start wanting to climb the stairs. She has 4 teeth now, the bottom and top front two teeth. She hates me cleaning them each morning and evening.
We visited Yue. He had been kicked out his room because the lady is caring for more kittens, so he is now based in the main room with a lot of other adult cats and kittens. He appreciated us being there, and I even got him on my shoulder for a while.
Labour won the election at 49% of the vote.
Well done Jacinda! To be honest though, its hardly surprising as she's
one of the best leaders in the world at the moment.
We also drove to Dunedin last weekend. The weather wasn't that great to be honest, but we enjoyed catching up with people we knew, including an afternoon with Gerald and Gaylene, our previous next door neighbours. A year ago Gerald was building an aeroplane in his garage. Well now he has had a hanger built in Taieri airport for his plane to be moved to for the rest of its build. Gaylene is looking forward to being able to park her car in the garage again! lol!
Sabine had an evening at a pub with Caroline, one of her ex-colleagues, and another time we both visited Rebecca, one of Sabine's ex-supervisors. That was a nice chat.
We went to see the butterflies at the museum, and dined in our old regular cafe's and restaurants. The prices have gone up about $3, but still just as good.
I drew this picture (below) at Governors cafe. I decided to draw a picture on their napkins again. This cafe encourages it, they actually display them on their wall. Last time I drew a flower that was sitting on the table. Not knowing what to draw, I asked Sabine and she said jokingly to drew a person with Venus fly traps for hair. So I did. But I wanted to add some other flowers too. I had no internet. I was drawing purely from memory and not being too judgemental on myself for getting it a bit wrong. I liked the idea of it being a bit abstract and imperfect. I handed it in before we left, so its likely on their wall now.
We also visited Orokonui Ecosanctuary despite the grey weather. Lucky it didn't rain.
Their cafe is closed for good, as well as the opening times having changed from every day to Saturday to Monday only. We had the majority of the place to ourselves,
though there were two other families around. The Robins were very
active, and I saw a Rifleman very clearly at one point. The Kaka were not active at all.
As per usual, to get a fuller idea of things, I also film short videos which you can still find here: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPQFbxh_BoDXEfEB7EpWaIuTYGzlFRzA1qc_4Ip2B9HVDqJiv7-Rr0AoUpiv0mmtg?key=T1ZZb1pRLXZ3Vk14YUVSSGs0Mm13N0ZQT0c4NERR
