After thirty hours of flying, five trusty airplanes, two Golden Horn Buns (a yummy Taiwanese croissant), six delightful China Airlines' meals, many new international friends, and a few cups of tea, we have arrived at our new home --
Wellington, New Zealand.
Despite fighting a disillusioning jet lag, we most definitely are two of the happiest people on this big wonderful world. SO, SOOOO HAPPY!!
A brief summary of the journey to Middle Earth: We started off with a bittersweet goodbye to to our lovely family in Winnipeg, and headed for Vancouver. After celebrating the New Year of 2015 twice, we boarded a very large airplane to Taipei, Taiwan. On that flight we met an older Taiwanese couple who were living in Vancouver, but heading home to get the lady's new book of poetry published. She is a well-known writer, poet and painter, and wrote in three languages! Chinese, Taiwanese and English. Her partner, who did not speak English, passed Eric a pin of the Canada flag, and the lady translated his message to us: "For when you are in New Zealand, so you never forget your home."
Arriving in the early hours (after losing a day when crossing the international date line), we jumped on a FREE half-day tour of the most northern city in Taiwan. We met a wonderful traveling family who took their kids out of school in Montreal and were heading to buy a camper van and live in Australia while the dad was on a sabbatical. Awesome. On our tour we explored Sanxia temple (an ancient buddhist temple protected by lion statues and dragon carvings), Yingge ceramics museum, watched a busker in old town, and were educated on the local culture while we watched a traditional Taiwanese tea ceremony.
Next, an overnight flight to Brisbane, Australia. Eric fell asleep before the plane took off and was out cold (we were awake for almost 40 hours at that point). We landed in Brissy, and were greeted with blue skies and tourists wearing shorts and sandals... at around the same time back in Winnipeg there was a snow storm. :)
From there we finally landed in Auckland!!! New Zealand was welcoming and warm, and a nearby hotel provided us with a well needed shower and a good nights sleep before our 5th and final flight the next morning to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.
From what we have explored so far, Wellington is an incredibly diverse city with a windy climate, bright blue waters, bushy terrain, houses stacked on top of one another (not really stacked, but built up along the big hillsides), and the kindest people. It also has more trendy little café's than people. :)
<-------- Outside of the airport, waiting for our new flat mate to pick us up!!
Maricia, a lovely kiwi lady, greeted us with a big hug, and took us off to our new home! Wellington is full of hills. It is rare for the roads to lead to your house. It's actually quite rare to not get a workout just trying to get to your house! Lucky for us we have a cable car that we share with our little community. It took us up the hundred or so stairs to the top of the hill. When we finally arrived to our front doors we met the second half of our new international family, Sam and Molly. Sam is from the UK, and Molly is from California. We dropped our bags off, put some coffee on the pot, and started to get to know each other.
The view from our place is not bad --->
Maricia was kind enough to take us around city and help us get our homely necessities. We stopped first at a grocery store and Sunday fruit and vegetable market, then to get our New Zealand phone plans figured out. We even found time to look at some mattresses (didn't find anything). We spent the evening at the beach with Molly and Sam, and the rest of the night moving into our new room.
All all, WOW. . . this day could not have worked out better if we planned it. This city - and this house - already feel like a home to us two wandering Canadians, and we are beyond excited to enjoy every second of this new adventure.
