Life in NZ - A 6 months review - Part 1: Working Culture

As the saying goes: Time flies when you are having fun. It has been almost 6 months since we touched down in NZ. When we first started our blog, one of the aim was to document down our process and experiences of migrating to NZ from a Singaporean perspective. Past couple of weeks, we have been receiving feedbacks that there are many others who are contemplating the move and would like to find out more about life in New Zealand. I guess now's an opportune time to do a 6 months review about the good and bad experiences and hopefully it would allow others to make a more informed decision. There's so much to talk about about so we are going to do this over multiple post.


Part 1 - Working Culture in NZ:
We can't comment for every company in NZ, but based purely on our own experiences, the working culture here is very different from Singapore. Most companies start work at 8.30-9am and ends at 5pm. That's about 1 hour less of working time per day compared to Singapore. In both Mr Fatty and Ms Shortie's work place, rarely do people work overtime. When it's time to go home, it's time to go home. There's a strong focus on getting things done and less of "wayang-ing". Because the focus is about getting the job done at the end of the day, going for coffee breaks is not frown upon. Surfing youtube is accepted and there generally is a high level of trust that everybody's get their job done.

Due to the shorter working hours,  time really flies when you are in office. Some initial adjustment one might face would be the need to be more focus and discipline in terms of time management.

The working culture also seems more open. One example that comes to my mind: In Singapore, when switching jobs, there's a tendency not to tell your colleagues too much about where you are moving to. Here people seems to be more open about their career plans and aspirations. Another example would be feedback from your peers and bosses. In the office, it would be made known to you when a job is well done. Bosses tend to be more generous with their praises (Of course, at the end of the day, we are not working for praises brownie points but it does add to the job satisfaction). This open atmosphere also means that when something is not going to workout, it will be part of the feedback as well.

Some of you must be wondering, as an Asian, how is it like to be working in a predominantly "white" environment. Well Mr Fatty is the only Asian in his firm and he gets along pretty well with this colleagues. He gets invited for after office drinks, poker nights, BBQ etc. He doesn't gets called names (at least not in front of him. Behind his back who knows? ;)  Some personal thoughts on Kiwis is that they are generally pretty friendly (and harmless) people. Of course since they are from a western culture, they are generally more vocal but not boisterous. The  Kiwi accent does takes some getting used to (although it's not as thick and difficult to understand as Australians). You will not be able to understand some of their jokes initially but after a couple of months you'll get a hang of their humour and crack jokes just like them. As long as one makes an effort to socialize and be more proactive in their conversations, one shouldn't have an issue assimilating with the Kiwis. Many of Kiwi's social activities has beer involved in it more often then not. So if you can drink a glass or two, the assimilation process would probably be faster as well.

Generally I would say most Singaporeans would find working in NZ less stressful due to the shorter (and well defined) working hours and the more informal atmosphere. Oh did I forget to mention, "informal atmosphere" also refers to drinking session @ many work places on Friday afternoonish.

cheers,
Mr Fatty.

Our Weekends in Pictures

It's been a busy few weeks for the both of us.. Ms Shortie just got back from a work trip while Mr Fatty just completed a conference. Just thought of posting a photo entry on some of our weekends. :)
Here's a glimpse of what weekends are like in NZ:

Weekend getaway in a log cabin in Ohakune

With view of the mountain from our balcony

Driving up Mt Ruapehu

Sledging on Mt Ruapehu

Hiking among sheeps in the cloud at Makara

Makara Beach on a nice sunny day

Start of a 4-hour hike

Check out the view

And the rocks we had to climb

Wind turbines in the distance

Finally hiked up next to one

View from the top 

The steep path down 

250 steps up to the light house at Cape Palliser

View from the top

Cape Palliser lighthouse

View from the top

Hello fat seal!

Our coastal drive back 

BBQ at Martinborough 

BBQ at Martinborough

Weekend roast

Wellington Harbour

Rainbow 

Petone Winter Carnival

Double rainbow

Fireworks on the water

Indian Curry

Been a while since the last post. Nope, we have not been eaten up by a shark.Nope, we have not been poisoned by a spider. That's Australia. Wrong country. We migrated to NZ remember? We are very much still alive :)

The weather has been pretty awesome lately. It's now late-spring. The sun is raising earlier and earlier and setting later and later. Dawn starts at about 5.30am-ish. Dusk is @ 8.30pm-ish. I'll do a separate post on how it affects daily life another time.

 Anyway today's post is about something else. When we started this blog, besides documenting our adventure, we wanted to provide an avenue to share our insights of migrating to NZ from a  Singaporean perspective. It struck me that even when I refer to "Singaporean perspective", everyone's experiences is going to be different depending on his/her background, race,  temperament etc etc...

Thought I'll blog on about something interesting about how the different races in Singapore might experience Wellington differently. I'll try to put myself into the shoes of the 3 major races Chinese, Malay and Indian and talk about the topic every Singaporean loves best: Food. Hopefully this might provide some insight from a different angle on whether Wellington/NZ is the place for you. This is the first of the series.


[Indian Food]

There's this saying that culturally Australia is more American whereas New Zealand is more British. That may explain why there are so many Indian restaurants around ( Chicken Tikka Masala is England's national dish). There's at least 1 Indian restaurant on every street in Wellington City. You'll probably be surprised at how deeply curry has ingrained itself into the Kiwi culture. When you go into an Indian restaurant, you are likely to see more Caucasians dinning than Indians. At my work place, one day a week is desingated curry day.(In case you need me to spell it out: It's the day whereby the entire office goes to an Indian restaurant to have curry).
The Good News: Biryani, Masala, Korma, Vindaloo, Rogan josh and many others which I can't even pronounce. They are all available here. Even Tairu is available here!( I've yet to come across Rasum though). Ms shortie loves papadum and it's available at pretty much every Indian restaurant.
 Are they authentic? Not by Singapore standards. They have been pretty much adapted to the Kiwi's taste-bud. The UK standard of curry customization applies here: mild, medium, Kiwi Hot, Indian Hot.

The curry comes in a variety of meats too. From your standard chicken & mutton to more exotic ones such as duck. Take note that it's quite common to see Beef and Pork curry on the menu though.

A typical set lunch includes the following. Notice that it's pretty high in carbo:

• Rice
• Roti (In singapore we call it Naan)
• 1 portion of curry
• Price: $7-12

The Bad News: Pretty much every Indian restaurant we went to has roughly the same menu. They revolve around curry and curry and curry. I've yet to see Indian Rojak. No soup kambeng. No fish head curry. Can't recall coming across Mutabak.

If you can't live without your Banana leaf or Apollo or Muthu's curry, maybe you want to think twice.


Mr Fatty

Life in Welly

It’s been a while since our last entry. Lots of stuff had happened and lots of stuff ongoing. Mr Fatty and Ms Shortie got married and made their big move to New Zealand. So here we are in Wellington and we’ve already been here for 3 months and counting. So let’s continue our story…..

After we had gotten our Work Visas, we hastily made the decision to be wedded before coming to NZ. We brought forth our wedding plans by 7 months, sent out invitations to our closest friends and relatives and got married in 3 months’ time. Following the wedding, we only had 1 week before we were due to arrive in Auckland. We packed our bags - Mr Fatty packed light; only brought 2 pairs of shorts, while Ms Shortie tried to bring everything including the kitchen sink, and we flew into Auckland via Etihad Airways and Air New Zealand. It was a 13-hour altogether and both airlines were great. We made our way down to Wellington on a 7-day road trip, starting with a nice honeymoon meal at the top of the Auckland Sky Tower, the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, on to Rotorua to see the geysers, mudpools, soak in some Polynesian spa, feast on Maori food, then to Hobbiton where Ms Shortie felt right at home, drove through Lake Taupo which is actually a sunken giant ACTIVE volcano, then to Tongariro National Park for some trekking and snow fun, then on to Palmerstone North and finally reaching our destination: Wellington. We clogged a total of 1,300km though it’s just 635km from AKL to WEL.

We had booked to stay with a nice kiwi lady for 3 weeks on Airbnb and spent our first week here in Wellington searching for an apartment and exploring the city. Finally we found an apartment that made us go “wow”. We had to keep calling up the agent and told him how much we liked the apartment for him to let it to us over the other couple. Took us about 1 week to get all the admin work done coz the landlord requested that we get a Contents Insurance for the house. So Ms Shortie had to call up insurance companies to find out which was the best deal for us. And we scrambled to buy the basic furniture and household items whilst we still had our rental car. I would say we have gotten a rather prime location with Courtney Place and the cinema one block away. Courtney Place is lined up with lots of restaurants and cafes. New World, the biggest supermarket in the city centre, is just around the corner. So is Te Papa (the national museum), the habour, and a Sunday farmers’ market. There’s also an organic supermarket nearby. I would say this location is very convenient and Mr Fatty just takes about 15min to walk to work, while Ms Shortie takes 30min coz her office is a wee bit further away. But its good exercise. And it's pretty normal sight to see people dressed in formal attire with sport shoes on brisk walking to work.

Food

Warning: Eating out is expensive, at least $10 for a plate of fried noodles. But it’s a much bigger portion compared to Singapore’s so we could share and save up a little. There are also lots of Asian food around. Especially sushi. Quite a few Malaysian restaurants around too. So no need to worry about char kuay teow and wonton mee. So far, most food courts we’d seen have Chinese food, thai food, Japanese food, indian food and kebabs. And food here tend to be very salty. We also found a foodcourt that has cheap Chinese food and it’s just across the street from us. So you pay $12 and pile on as much food as you can on your dish! Also, there’s a big Asian supermarket where Miss Shortie can find all her ingredients to make mee soto! They even sell mooncakes now when mid-autumn festival is just around the corner! But, most of the time we buy our groceries at the Sunday farmers market and make our own dinner. Trying to limit eating out coz it's just too expensive! And most people bring their lunches to work.  

Just swipe your Eftpos card, no cash required!

The good thing about living here is you don’t have to bring any cash when you go out. All you need is an Eftpos card. It’s kinda like NETS just that they accept it anywhere and everywhere! You could pay using this at the supermarkets, dairy shops, departmental store, shops, foodcourt, furniture shop etc. So far the only place we came across that doesn’t accept Eftpos are some stalls at the farmers’ market. It’s very convenient and you don’t have to bring large amount of cash out so no worries of getting robbed! Our previous landlady told us she doesn’t have any cash with her at all coz there’s no need to have any! P.S. Ms Shortie tried paying for a $0.29 bill using Eftpos and they accepted! :D

Driving & Walking

Buying a car is cheap (~$3000-$4000 for a 2^nd hand car) but parking is expensive and driving in Wellington is not easy coz of the city’s hilly terrain and Ms Shortie absolutely hate red lights on a slope and not to mention PARALLEL PARKING on a slope!!!  Good thing is the city is pretty small so you could walk almost EVERYWHERE. It’s healthy exercise. It also seems like Wellingtonians are very healthy people. You’ll see people going to the gym or jogging on the streets even though it’s winter. Then again, it’s good to have a car so you could explore the outskirts.  

Renting

Renting is very common in Wellington and rent is usually paid weekly. There is also something called the bond which is paid to the government who keeps it until your lease is up and if you damaged anything in the house, the landlord could use that money for repairs. Bonds are no more than 4 weeks rent. It is also important to choose a house that is built to the earthquake compliance codes (I will come to earthquakes shortly) and if possible sheltered from the northerlies. The northerlies or southerlies are strong winds that blow from the north or south. We experienced a very bad southerly last month that left about 25,000 homes without power. Our landlord’s house was shaking and the lights were flickering. The wind was battling against our window and I thought the roof was going to lift off. 

I’m not sure if this is only in Wellington… you do not have to pay for the water you use; only need to pay for electricity. It’s weird to us coz we pay A LOT for water in Singapore but maybe because NZ has lots of water unlike SG.

TradeMe

TradeMe is probably the best way to buy/rent/browse for anything. It's the kiwi version of eBay. According to Mr Fatty, eBay couldn't make it in NZ coz TradeMe was here first and it was too well established and popular. We were looking for furniture and managed to get a nice sofa off TradeMe for $120 which is MUCH cheaper than buying a new one. We also found our apartment on TradeMe. :)

But there are some things which we didn't want to get second-hand, like our bed. So we went to look for a bed and all the shops we went to sold beds for minimum $2000. *faint* We finally found one for $359 and bargained for free delivery. J So now we have a mattress but no bed frame so we are sleeping the Japanese way – tatami style. Then we had to buy kitchen utensils, table, vacuum cleaner, dustbin, hair dryer, heater, pillows and duvet, etc. which amounted up to about $1,000. We saw an outdoor dining set, 1 table and 2 chairs for $59. It’s the cheapest we’d seen and we needed something so we could have our meals properly so we got it. It’s a mad rush trying to buy stuff before your rental car lease is up. After that, we noticed a lot of buildings have the same dining set on their balconies. Haha.

­Work-life Balance

I'll save this topic for the next entry coz I wanna talk about EARTHQUAKES!!!

EARTHQUAKES!!!

NZ would be perfect if it weren't for the earthquakes! And it's happening too frequently..... :( When we first arrived, we were told by many people that the big ones (like magnitude 5 and above) happens about once a year. I think we probably had like 10 or more since we came and 5 of them above magnitude 6. I can't really keep count of how many we had. Slightly more than a month ago, I experienced my first earthquake home alone and it was very scary. I was doing the laundry and didn't know what was going on when it happened. There were creaking noises and then when I looked up I saw my whole kitchen moving left and right and immediately knew it was an earthquake. BUT I didn't know what to do! We didn't prepare for what to do during earthquakes! Instinct was to get out of the house and run (in case the building collapse). But we learnt that that is the WORST thing to do! Because if you run outside, things will fall on you and it's more likely that you'll get hurt outside. So the best thing to do is to hide under a sturdy table and hold on to it's legs (aka Drop, Cover & Hold). Drop before the earthquake drops you coz its hard to stand up properly when the ground is moving. Cover - I think its for seek Cover aka hide under table and Hold on to your shelter coz it might move away with the ground. And also to prepare an emergency bag with water, food, clothes etc, and an emergency plan with your family members in case communication systems are down. We have packed 2 bags - 1 kept next to our bed and 1 near our main door. Anyway.......... after that first quake, we had a 6.5 one 2 days later on a Sunday evening and Wellington City was shut down the following day to check for building damages. The 6.5 one was scary.. our entire apartment was just rocking left and right and the kitchen cabinets flung open and shut. Many aftershocks continued for about a week. There were about 3000+ quakes recorded for that series. It was crazy..... After that, we hurriedly tried to earthquake-proof our home. Bought child-lock hooks to secure the cabinets, bluetack-ed our mirror to the wall, moved fragile items to lower shelves and put non-slip mats under them, and strategically place our table such that we can dive under it and hide. It was a good thing we did all these because......... 3 weeks later.... a 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit, followed by a series of 5.somethings and 6s!!!! We were VERY lucky we were not in Wellington when it hit. In fact we were on the road to Ohakune to see the mountains and didn't even feel it. But when we were in Ohakune, 300+km away from Wellington, we could feel a bit of the aftershocks so I can't really imagine how it was like. We just hope that our apartment is ok and it was! Everything was intact when we came back except for a fallen bottle of toner. We did well in earthquake-proofing our house. Anyway after all these experiences, I think we agree that we should move to somewhere lower ground. It really doesn't feel nice to be rocked  around on the 7th floor....

Ms Shortie

 

Work Visa: Approved

Yes, we got our work visas! 

After slightly more than a week of waiting (actually Mr Fatty exaggerated in the previous post; because we were too anxious, that's why one week felt like months), Mr Fatty couldn't wait anymore and called up INZ (Singapore) to check on our application status and was told that our passports were ready for collection. So he hurried down the next day and collected our passports and inside them the most beautiful (and possibly the most expensive) blue stickers glittered back at us. We finally understood what the "blue stickers" we read on forums were about. And now we have ours! 

However, there was a slight issue which we overlooked and resulted in the both of us having different visa validity. Mr Fatty got a 4-year visa while I got a 1-year visa. My passport expiry date was the reason. INZ cannot issue a visa past my passport's expiry date and since it was going to expire end of 2014, hence I didn't get the 4 years! We wrote back to INZ and the only way is either I renew my passport now, pay and apply the visa again OR when the time comes, I can renew my passport in NZ and then renew the visa. Haiz..... wasted........  But I guess we will go for the latter. 

Our advice to you if you are applying for NZ visa, ensure that ur expiry date is beyond the expected duration of the visa ! Even if you still have more than a year till it expires, renew it! Then apply for your visa!  

Till we find our accomodation in Wellington,

Ms Shortie

Pro Tip (aka learn from our mistakes):

• Ensure that your passport expiry is later then your expected Visa duration
• In singapore, you can always renew your passport ANYTIME regardless of how far away till your passport expiry date. Note that maximum validity is capped at 5 years 9 months.
• You will want to secure a minimum of at least 2 years Work Visa since that entitles you to free public healthcare in NZ.

It began as an idea...

We are a Singaporean couple starting our journey in migrating to New Zealand. During our research into New Zealand, we wanted to find out more about the new place from a Singaporean perspective.

We were seeking out personnel accords of Singaporeans living (not holidaying) in NZ. Unfortunately information in such area was lacking. A vast amount of information we found tend to be from an European/American perspective. Plenty of blogs detailing personal experiences of Singaporeans living in Australia came up (It seems like everyone is migrating to Australia nowadays). Close but no Cigar.

I'm Mr Fatty. She's Ms Shortie. We are starting this blog to document our journey from SG to NZ. Hopefully it'll capture our state of mind and it's something that we can look back and reminisce about in the future. Maybe it'll help some other Singaporeans hoping to make the move to NZ too.

Our Story

It started out as an idea... sometime in 2010, we came across an article in The Straits Times about  New Zealand government inviting Singaporeans to migrate. The article came with pictures of NZ famed scenery. Mountains, Lakes, Glaciers, Cows you name it, they have it. The article gave plenty of reasons to migrate: Cheaper housing, car, relaxed life style, fresh air, blue sky, etc etc etc.... Basically it's a slacker's paradise. At first we didn't think much about it. Our initial thought was its just propaganda, no country is perfect. Besides what do we have to offer NZ? We are a young couple just started joining the workforce a year ago. No money. No work experience. Why would they invite us? Nevertheless, there was a website by Immigration NZ where we signed up to express our interest and receive their monthly newsletter.

I'm not sure exactly what happened next. It could have been all the monthly newsletter plastered with magnificent views of NZ. It could have been the boredom that has been creeping up to us after a few years in SG workforce. It could have been the rising cost of living, the influx of foreign talents into our homeland. It could have simply been the hunger for a new adventure. Or perhaps it was because it has always been Ms Shortie's dream to live overseas. We don't know. It could have been all of them.

Whatever it was, the idea grew within us and we decided to find out more about what NZ has to offer. We scouted the internet for personal accords of migrants in NZ. We looked at NZ culture. We read on NZ job market and economy (Just being Singaporean here. Kiasu. Wait go there no job how?).

Sometime in late 2011, we came across a company, Immagine New Zealand that conducts free seminars for people who are interested in moving to NZ. Every couple of months, these immigration consultants would fly into Singapore and conduct a seminar on what NZ has to offer. What are the pros and cons as well as the possible pathways to migrating to NZ. If anyone is thinking of making the move, I strongly encourage you to attend the seminar. (It's free. Cheap cheap cheap. But just attend once would do, it's basically re-runs of the same stuff.) We were rather kiasu and went for 3 seminars (listening to the same stuff over and over again) before deciding that we should pay S$180 for a personalized 1 hour session with one of the consultants from Immagine NZ. Prior to that session we had already done substantial research on the immigration process so that session was basically for us to confirm our understanding of the process as well as to find out some stuff which we couldn't find an answer for on the internet. I must say that the immigration procedures are really complicated and despite our thorough research, a few assumptions we made were wrong. These were pointed out during the session. However, by and large we did manage to nail the majority of the application process on our own.

Thus, we started giving more thoughts about making the move. We contemplated NZ, Australia, US, Amsterdam, UK, Canada etc etc. We figured that all these places have their pros and cons and we were largely fine with migrating to either of these countries. At this point it was sometime in 2012. We had been in the workforce for quite a number of years. We were both considered successful professionals in our careers. Unlike our fresh grad years, at this point there is quite an amount of risk involved. We are risking our careers. We are leaving behind our social security net. Can we find a job there? Can we fit into the culture? Lots of questions, plenty of uncertainties, zero answers. End of the day, it boils down to a bread and butter issue. Where can we find a career (not a job)? So our plan was to submit our resumes to companies in our list of short-listed countries. Whichever offers us a job that we are comfortable with, we'll just go ahead with that country. (Think of it as a short-gun method). Sounds like a crazy plan? Maybe it is. We understand how difficult it is to find a job overseas when you are not physically in that country. People have been telling me it's next to impossible. How many employers would be willing to employ someone whom they have not interviewed in person? How many would wait for an employee to travel down the long-drawn path of visa application without any certainty that the visa would be granted? Faced with these challenges and unfavourable conditions, my plan: Just do it.

Fast forward to today. After submitting about 20 resumes, Mr Fatty managed to secure 2 job offers. He decided to go ahead with the one in New Zealand. At this point we were pretty familiar with the entire visa application process that we decided to go ahead and submit the application on our own. Engaging an immigration consultant is just going to cost us additional $$$ which we don't have. Took us about a month to gather all the information and paper work required. After which it's just a matter of submitting the application and wait. And wait. And wait. Did I mention there was a lot of waiting involved?

We are still waiting for the results of our application. Minutes seems like hours. Days feels like weeks. We'll blog again once we have our application results. :)

Mr Fatty & Ms Shortie