Blade Down Under

Seconded

ellenarosemary

How everyone is so trusting, example we ordered food for a work do in Auckland (we're in Wellington), they delivered it and left the bill. No cash in advance or on delivery. I personally never found that in the UK it was money up front or nothing.

Stormer999

Moved into our rental Chch home and used my 2 deg PAYG to phone Telecom for a land line and Broadband. He asked me the address and my name and said he would call back straight away, he did said that would be no problem and the line would be active within the hour and gave me my new number and said the Broadband would be delivered next day, (it was, 07.30 in the morning) hung up then realised he had not actually asked for any card details but all on trust...magic

Stormer999

Floppy door handles...down to Mitre 10 and asked for small springs...sorry we do not carry stock what is it you are after?...showed the man..ah yes NZ door handle return springs plenty in stock...

Stormer999

AB's v Ireland (AB's won closely!) jumped on to the Orbiter bus after the match (free buses) and after 1/2 hour realised we were on the wrong one. When we were the last ones on the woman bus driver knew we had made a mistake so she drove us back towards the city centre, radio contacted a bus going in our direction and flashed him to stop and pick us up.....now that's NZ!

Bo-Jangles

I know what's with the threesome thing? It seems there are always two of them that are married / closely related (a la Polly & Grant), plus one other hanger on. Then you have to listen to way too much spew making information about private bits of their lives, that no one really needs to hear.

Kentishgirl

Their obsession with sport support tape - any child falls over or injures themselves they are 'taped' in coloured tape to an inch of their life.

Bo-Jangles

All provided and paid for by ACC no doubt.

Persephone

Plenty of public toilets which are generally in a reasonable state

Definitely more trusting: I insured my car with the AA when I first moved over, I had had a company car for many years in the UK and hadn't picked up any documents on my insurance status. They were happy to believe me when I said I'd had no claims or accidents and took that into account in the pricing.
And yes, I was telling the truth!

How bright the sun is.

The 'hello, how are you?' when you enter shops. Gets a bit annoying if you're going into a lot of shops looking for something specific - or is that just me

Purrball

Returning to New Zealand for the first time in over 20 years, things that immediately struck me:

• Cicadas

• Utes

• Soft water

• Unbelievably crappy TV advertising

• Lots of cannabis smokers

• Sparrows inside public buildings

• Bare feet shoppers

• How many Asian people in Auckland compared to the 1980s

• Chain link fences

• Unnervingly quiet town and city centres at night, especially when you're a pedestrian

• Lack of decent pubs with a (generalised) middle-class aversion to even visiting them

• Calling a goverment department and getting through to a person straight away, with no call waiting or 'choose option 2'. That person then followed up with an email within five minutes.

• How humid Auckland can be

• Corrugated iron roofs

• Strange interior decorating choices

• Unsatisfying clothes shopping

• Public loos in parks and reserves with toilet paper in them

• Over-friendly supermarket checkout people*


Also, on the trust issue, two incidents come to mind:

• Waiting at a bus stop in Wadestown, within minutes, being offered a lift by a complete stranger back into town.

• Office premises leaving their front doors open for anyone to walk upstairs and inside. Few door buzzers/intercoms.

*Originally coming New Zealand, it's easy to now see how many British people appear standoffish, when I think it's more about privacy and initial reserve, rather than rudeness per se.

RedDragon2008

Feejoas

JaneRiley

Spot on!

RedDragon2008

Keep cool til after school

Bo-Jangles

There's been a lot of this in the media recently regarding top 20 surnames

Auckland babies born in 2013

1 Wang 2 Li 3 Chen 4 Liu 5 Smith 6 Zhang 7 Lee 8 Patel 9 Huang 10 Singh 11 Taylor 12 Wilson 13 Jones 14 Brown 15 Wu 16 Yang 17 Wong 18 Xu 19 Kim 20 Zhou

Auckland in 1988

1 Smith 2 Williams 3 Taylor 4 Jones 5 Wilson 6 Brown 7 King 8 Patel 9 Thompson 10 Walker 11 Anderson 12 Stewart 13 Thomas 14 Harris 15 Johnson 16 Shaw 17 Green 18 Simpson 19 Bell 20 Martin

auckland.scoop.co.nz » Top twenty New Zealand Surnames

Purrball

I can imagine. Talkback radio, too... especially in the provinces.

I'm not trying to make any specific point, as I don't live there anymore and have no interest in opening a can of worms in terms of a political discussion. But it surprised me, because I'd been away for so long, had little contact or familiarity with the country, and had no idea how much Auckland, particularly, had changed in the meantime. At first, I thought they were all tourists. Hehe.

One thing's for sure: it's much easier to get good sushi and noodles in Auckland than it was in 1988.