Why New Zealand is a lifestyle superpower

Well, my partner and I have been thinking/planning to move to NZ for quite a while. She has some relative there, we both have desired skills and we plan to do some house hunting at some point... just sent her the article and got another thumbs up

Read this on BBC yesterday. Incidentally, NZ is one of my most preferred countries.

I lived in NZ for 2 years and absolutely loved the place. Still regret leaving to come back to Canada and am always considering going back. What I found of the people in NZ was that they were not just friendly but inclusive. They made you feel welcome and a part of the community. Our first week there we were staying in a motel in North Auckland and my wife's co-workers came and picked us up and took us to a house party where we met alot of folks who we still remain great friends with after 11 years. One thing I remeber was the lady who ran the motel. She noticed that we were taking the Auckland transit to look for an apartment (transit is not the greatest there however) and she told us that we could use her car any time we needed it and gave us her extra set of keys!!! That was within 2 days of arriving in NZ. Wonderful lady! The people in NZ are genuine and love to have a good time. At my job with a large telco company we actually had a beer fridge on the floor!!! Where else would you find that haha. I was a field engineer so my job was driving all over NZ to fix various technical issues. I was showing up at the office every morning bright and early to wait for a job to be assigned and my boss came over and asked me "what are you doing here?" I replied that I was waiting for a job to be assigned to me and he said that I didn't need to come into the office and to just answer my cell when I get a call for a job. He told me to basically just do what I wanted in the meantime. I used that time to explore a bit and hang out by the ocean. He also said that in NZ your home life comes before your work life. This just about knocked me to the floor because it is SO not like that in Canada (at least where I work) My employer expects me to be available at the drop of a dime 24x7.
My wife and I made more good frinds there in 2 years than I have made in my home province in Canada in the last 15 years. That has to say something about the people. I have many great memories of NZ and the people and am sure thinking of returning again. I miss the slang sayings such as "sweet as" and "dodgey" which within a week I was using frequently. One thing I can say to anybody planning on moving there is to not go with an attitude of " that's not the way we do that in "insert country" because you will not get along with the kiwi's. We had many employees that came with that attitude and not one of them lasted more than a month.
My best memory was the first day we arrived and I decided that I wanted to go to the beach, so I looked at the map and seen Bethel's beach. It did not look that far from where I was (North Auckland), so I decided I would walk there. After 3 hours of walking rolling hills through the rainforest I met a gypsy girl hiking to the same beach and she invited me to join her . I gladly obliged as I was already sun burned and sick of walking. We got a lift straight away and I have to say it was worth the walk. What an incredible beach. The sand was black and the waves were awesome. The next 3 days I was in bed with heat stroke though.lol.
Another great beach is Hot Water beach. I had no idea why these people were digging holes on the beach until I went and checked it out.. They were digging their own personal hot tubs. Boiling hot water flowed beneath the sand and you could dig a hole and sit there in the surf in a hot tub.. what a hoot..
I always say great things about NZ and urge anyone who has not been there to do so at least once in their life. I also did a tour through OZ, but only from Sydney to Brisbane and was not blown away by it like I was in NZ , but I suppose I only seen a very small fraction of what OZ has to offer to form an opinon. I did really enjoy Fraser Island though .. oh and of course Byron Bay was wayy cool. anyone who has been there will know why.. Alot of children with names like "Moonbeam and Starflower: hehe.

Cheers to the Kiwi's for having an awesome home!!


Just wanted to add that my wife worked as a psych nurse working with kids that were demmed as out of control.. She said that in comparison to what sehe is used to working with in Canada these kids are angels. We used to take the transit during school hour rush and was expecting it to be chaos when 100 kids jumped on the train, but we were so wrong.. The majority of the youth are courteous and polite and do not get on the train yelling and cursing like they do here. I think it has alot to do with the fact that NZ kids spend alot of time outdoors playing sport rather than sitting in front of an x-box all day. I love that the schools are all uniformed as well.
Great place to raise kids if you have any of the ankle biters..
[edit on 17-5-2010 by nepafogo]

[edit on 17-5-2010 by nepafogo]

reply to post by kiwifoot

Yes Buddy, when NZ is bad it's usually pretty bad.

But when it's good, man is it sooo good!!

Perfect description.

Thanks.

Originally posted by silversurfer6161
reply to post by xpert11

 

There's lots more of negative stuff going on here(drugs,domestic vilolence,child abuse,Maori/Pakeha issues etc.
Its a great country but not paradise.

[edit on 17-5-2010 by silversurfer6161]

Pretty much that on the head really, New Zealands Image is just that, pure Image... sure we're alot better than some countries and I dont dispute that one bit, id rather live here than 99% of America and Britain, but we have just as many problems. Its not all like the post cards and tourism videos... and the problem is we're getting more and more worse every year, but still try to think like we are just like the hype we feed to the world... which hardly goes to solving the worsening issues.

Although the comment that anything outside Auckland is hicks vill is a little rough dude :p I live in Te Awamutu 30 minutes from Hamilton and moved here a good 10 years ago after spending all of my previous life on the North Shore in Auckland in the bays, next to multimillion dollar mansions... and Auckland just comes across to me now as a dirty, bipolar grot hole of a place (although its still my home town and ill always keep it in my heart)... but small town and city New Zealand is just as enjoyable and good and often better than Auckland for the most part, just tends to take some time living outside Auckland to realise that .

As for the comment someone made that we are a violent country... scewed statistics due to cultural and social issues with certain members of a population doesnt mean everyone else are violent, blood thirsty child bashs and thugs. Problem with that is, your not really allowed to say 'its mostly there fault for the bad statistics' since thats considered racist and we've got to feel like somehow its our fault for the modern issues they suffer from in the first place when a good 70% of us are in the same social boat as they are in regards to money, education etc.

You'd think being NZers we'd have the stark naked frankness to discuss it all with each other out in the open... but we lost that somewhere at some point.

As for coming to New Zealnd to live... better hurry ATSers, at the rate parts of this country are being bought up by foreign nationals and corporations and divided up by rich overseas million and billionaires there wont be much left ... even for the 'natives'... weather those natives be white, brown or yellow.

Unless of course your one of the millionaires buying up tracts of our landscape to turn into your own exculsive and private holiday retreats... then you can piss off ... sorry to be aggressive, but its a sore point for me (compounded by the ridiculous fact China's been attempting to buy dairy farms here recently).

Pardon the rant ... but lifestyle superpower? only in the magazines, but hey anything to keep those mighty tourism dollars flowing, welcome to New Zealand... play pen for the rest of the world.

Originally posted by nepafogo
The majority of the youth are courteous and polite and do not get on the train yelling and cursing like they do here. I think it has alot to do with the fact that NZ kids spend alot of time outdoors playing sport rather than sitting in front of an x-box all day. I love that the schools are all uniformed as well.
[edit on 17-5-2010 by nepafogo]

Hmm sorry but im gonna laugh at that comment (not you personally)... New Zealand youth and by that I mean those currently in their mid and early teens are just as bad as American and British kids (just not as extreme). Heck my own sisters are/were like it, even in a good household like ours... New Zealand youth are just as TV, gang culture, cellphone, disrespectful and self opinionated obsessed as any other western countries. Then again that could be me being older and looking at my own youth with rose colored glasses... but theirs a definite difference to my generation who where teens in the 90's and the youth right now and its a bad one.

All I can really think is, if we're as bad as I see us... you lot overseas must be REAL bad if you think we're paradise (which given what i read here everyday is a no brainer . ).

[edit on 20-5-2010 by BigfootNZ]

reply to post by grantbeed


Have lived in England for 11 years, Aussie for 1 year, and New Zealand for 29 years. Born in NZ, there's no place like it, it is as though the country itself has a spirit that calls you back here.

O for Orsum thread!!

I know this will sound mad ignent but I didnt think new zealand was inhabited by people, in fact, I didn't even know it was beside Australia...I believe my school map didn't even write the country name so I assumed it was part of Australia

[edit on 20-5-2010 by AaronTheSpeaker]