Homestay
Rosehill Pl., Nawton, NZ
Today marks my first month stay here in New Zealand. In the past days, I have been thinking about how am I going to make this day remarkable. There's one like preparing a hearty meal for my host family then I had to consider my cooking skills. That one is slashed off. I don;t want to be risking whatever they have in the fridge. (I will leave the cooking part to Ate Marissa, my landlady.) She knows what she's doing. So, I ended up deciding to write an entry on this blog. Let's live up to the mantra of this blog--- memories immortalised!
Obviously, I will not be here in this amazing country #NewZealand forever, To make every moment worthwhile is more of a challenge than a cliche to me. It's not that easy. There had been days since my arrival when I just wanted to curl up on my bed and spend the entire day sleeping or browsing through my Facebook's news feed. Yeah, not a good idea. Especially when you only have 300 days or so to be here. But I came to realise that it's not bad at all. Through the years, I have learned to be nice and kind to myself. So yes, those times are okay. It's normal for a normal person. So when it happens, when you just feel like so lazy to get up and to try to be a wonderful wanderer of this world, embrace it. But don't embrace it too long that you get stuck to where you are until everything gets too late.
So there, in the past 30 days I have been through it. Besides, as what I learned from our numerous International Students' orientation in the past weeks, everyone indeed goes through it. There is this honeymoon stage when you get so excited and exhilarated of the new things around you, then you drop into Culture Shock when things suddenly appeared less to what you expected and you start missing home, and finally you get to adapt yourself and finally, you survive.
Spoiler Alert: There might be some of blog entries here that will talk about Culture Shock I am going through and how I am dealing with it. This is my blog so put up with it. :)
I might be proud of myself today for I have gracefully survived the month without putting so much fuss in the culture shock thing. I am not sure, maybe I am still in the honeymoon stage. Sooner or later, readers of this blog will have to witness the changes of seasons in my journey under the long white cloud.
A month has passed, and yes. I am feeling lucky and blessed by God. I was able to tick off a number of great places to visit here in New Zealand. Let me give a roll of the amazing places I have been to:
1. Lavender and Blueberry Farms- It was just three days after my arrival. Ate May (one of the Filipino host families) drove us there. She's a very hospitable host. I had my first time experience of blueberry picking and yes, blueberry eating! It was just so memorable that I literally had to munch a palmful blueberry. It was in fact despite of the biting Sun! (UV here in NZ is worse, a few minutes exposure can cause sunburn!) But I enjoyed it a lot, especially the ice cream that Ate May bought for us after the picking.
The Lavender Farm visit is also remarkable. It was too late though for our visit. The farm owner already started to harvest the blooms so they could make them into byproducts such as soap, lotion, perfume, etc. In short, we arrived there with leftovers. But we still had a good time taking photos. The background wasn't so lavender though.
2. Rotorua--- A Sunday mass was celebrated there with Father Gelo. A Filipino priest hailed in Pampanga. The Pinedas were my host family this time. The experience was also worthwhile because Rotorua (means TWO LAKES) is one of the tourist destinations here in New Zealand. Believe it or not, Rotorua is figuratively a gateway to hell. Geothermal spots are everywhere. Some, as Fr. Gelo mentioned, would just pop out even inside the house of the local people there. It's crazy because I can imagine smokes coming out from the pavements without a single warning. But the place been gifted with two lakes. The Green and the Blue lakes. They literally stand true to their color. A bit of unfortunate we are for we came there raining. We failed to behold the beauty of those lakes. There was also a short trip to the Red Woods where I can imagine Bella and Edward got married. And yes, we ate out at Carl's Junior afterwards. One of the firsts too!
3. Cathedral Cove--- Yes, darling! Just exactly the cove where a part of the famous film, The Chronicles of Narnia was taken. It was such a view that takes your breath away. Like, literally. We had to travel on foot from the Bus Stop going down to the cove for 45 minutes! Yes, almost an hour under the scorching sun. But we had a few stops to marvel the amazing horizon kissing the crystal blue waters. And here's more, every 15 minutes of trekking, you see signage telling you how many minutes you need to walk more. Kind of inspiring, huh?
4. Whitianga White Beach-- This one is also an awesome experience where we got to sleep overnight in a beach house owned by my host family's close friend, Ate Chona. She married a Kiwi who loves fishing. Whitianga, and I guess, the whole of New Zealand owns a very rich ocean. We ate crabs to our heart's content! I had to savour every moment I had with the crab meat. Thus, I ended up having pains in my knees. Signs of rheumatism, yeah.) But it was a rare experience in spite of myself. It also from this beach where I got the chance to visit a wonderful abode owned by ate Chona's sister who also married another Kiwi man. The place is romantically beautiful. A house set on top of the mountain overlooking the wide Whitianga ocean. The owner mentioned, in peak summer seasons, they'll have their breakfast on the dining set where they get to watch people riding on Vintas by the beach. The image is just really beautiful.
5. Hobbiton Movie Set Tours--- Yeah, baby! This, in fact, is the only thing I have been wanting to visit when I first heard that this one's located in New Zealand. And the good thing about this is, Hobbiton is located only 45mins away from Hamilton. So upon knowing this, days before my flight coming here, I decided to save 75 dollars for that Hobbiton Movie Set tour. And, grace from God, Fr. Gelo and Ate Dina (another friend of the host family) are panning to hop on this tour. Just the sad thing about it, I had a class on that day. But I had to weigh risks and options. So I chose this over attending my class orientation. Well, I think I made a good decision. Hahaha.
There you go. I visited five amazing places without counting the Hamilton Lakes and Gardens which are equally beautiful. Nah.. I got two hundred more days to visit these gardens. But with those places I listed above? Not sure of that. So they are worth immortalising! :)
