[as a note on my last blog entry, it turns out that today was particularly windy here — they even had to close down the airport for the day!]
We are noticing some interesting things here in New Zealand that are different from what we are used to. Note that between Cindy and me, we’ve lived in 5 different countries and even more different states, so we are no strangers to different things.]
One thing is that no houses here have central heating. Everyone seems to have those large electric heaters that look like radiators and are filled with oil. They are quite heavy. You roll them around to where you need them and plug them in. No gas heat at all, probably because they don’t produce much here, so it would have to be shipped in somehow.
Another thing is that there are no screens on windows or doors. When it gets hot, you open the doors and windows and all the flies come in. I don’t think I’ve seen a screen yet, and we asked some Kiwi friends and they don’t think they’ve seen them either.
Some things are unusually expensive. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that they are an extremely isolated island country, and many things need to get shipped here. But other things are just expensive. Everyone seems to have a mobile phone, but they are expensive — both the phones themselves, and the per minute charges. Phones are NZ$300 and up, some costing over $1000. The cheapest we’ve seen minutes is around 49 cents per minute, and on some plans minutes can cost as much as $1.39! And calls from your home phone to a mobile phone are toll calls, even if the mobile phone is in your area. Cell phone companies (and there are only two of them, so not much competition) seem to be raking in the dough!
Books are also expensive. A cheap paperback book costs around NZ$25. You can buy the same book used for “only” $18. Food, depending on the item, can also be a bit expensive, although not that much higher than the rest of the world for most items.
On the other hand, most museums are free, and health care is free (only for residents, unfortunately for us). The concerts we keep going to are free. Restaurants are reasonable, and there is no tipping. So I guess it all works out.
So, do we need to ship books to you down under?
Glad to head that you’ve arrived, and all your stuff. We had an ice storm here Friday night through Saturday night. The Nettles swapped their Tacoma gig with the Seattle band that was supposed to play here, so that neither had to drive through Portland.
Comment by William — 18 Jan 2005 @ 6:46 am
They have those same portable room-sized oil furnaces in Japan too! But hopefully you won’t need to use them anytime soon since it’s summer there now!
That’s wild about no screens though – do they WANT the flies to come in? Is it to keep the fly-swatter-maker union happy?
Comment by Jennifer — 18 Jan 2005 @ 8:07 am
Yick on the flies — that would drive me nuts… How spoiled are we???????? 🙂
Comment by El — 20 Jan 2005 @ 10:04 am