love30stm

Yes same as me I have two girls 17 and 15 far too expensive to do things like skiing and hoping on a plane

Dustybin

Its funny how people have different ideas on boring.

When we settled in Chch me and her made the allocation of a 'local' pub a priority. We dont have kids and thought it might be a good way of getting to know some like minded souls. Now after buying a house (still within walking distance of the 'local', who cares about school zones, pubs are way more important.) and 4 years later we have made a small but eclectic bunch of mates from the pub. This did take some effort, but we were prepared to put in the effort to go for a pint on a regular basis!.

There are few nights now that we pop down that there isn't someone in there we know, indeed most of the staff know our names, what we drink already.

As for everyone being in bed at 8pm, you should have discussed that on Sat when mrs bin was, to quote 'dying of tired'. I think it might have been cider actually!.

We have just found that people over here take longer to notice you, although from my experience of working in the south of the UK, chch at least, is a much more social place to be.

Outside of alcohol intake i think nz is like everywhere else, you can be as busy as you want to be, granted i have never lived in 'small town' nz but that was a choice on our part. We knew that we weren't ready to get the pipe and slippers out just yet.

Anyway i like my glass to be half full.... as long as a refill is on the way.

Just a point to end, and mostly because i have no form of reference, but isnt having kids expensive no matter where you live?

waikatoguy

You seem to be in a rut in Wanganui with a lack of nightlife etc. Is it not possible to get your OH and/or yourself to look for a job in Wellington or Auckland?

Debbie2NZ

Sorry it's all more than a bit crap for you in Chch just now. Was in Linwood until the end of June. Stayed for 2 nights before our departure in the Worcester City Motel on Worcester Street. That's the one where two women were tied up and robbed at gunpoint a couple of days ago. The women may have been the ones that can be rented by the hour from the nearby massage lounge. Don't worry, we used to live in Worcester Street !
You could apply for that job. In the time it takes for the recruitment process to play through your oldest could be finished school with your youngest hard on his heels. Good luck.
NZ dull ? Knitting patterns, home brew beer, cheese making kits. There's no need for anyone to be bored. Yes, I was joking !

love30stm

Luckily i do have a few friends who like to socialise, and I've made good friends in wangas, but husband is looking at other jobs and a interview lined up tonight actually.

Wanganui is not the worst place or not the best in NZ btw.

Dumbledore

Agree totally with you - NZ (in fact anywhere new) is fairly exciting & adventurous the first couple of years you are there (... also lonely & unsettling as well for a lot of us !!)
I loved NZ when I first came here in the late 90's - raved about it, did all the adventure tourism activities, went to the South Island about 4 times in my first 3 years here, persuaded numerous friends & family members from the UK to come & visit etc
However I now find it boring too. Why ? - too small, in the middle of nowhere, long way to go home, very insular culture, lack of variety in all thngs - clothes shopping, arts, theatre, supermarket choice etc. But I've also lived here for over 10 years of my life now too (now everything's a bit same old !)
I think we tend to forget that we are constantly changing as people through different stages of our lives.
Afer living in Sydney for 3 years, we came back to Auckland 15 months ago with OH for 'lifestyle reasons" - certain that this was the right thing to do. We now find that NZ has changed a lot since we were away - " Kiwi lifestyle" is now expensive to make most of (god knows how average family survives to make ends meet) - and job market radically altered from what we left in early 2007.
Now we are looking at going back to Sydney next year - better opportunities and long term propsects - but probably the most major factor is that we also changed as people during our time away & now we are older have different priorities in life. What we saw as a prioirty in our mid 30's (enjoying our disposable income) is different to what we want in our early 40's (buidling up decent amounts of super & trying to move up the career ladder). Did we realise this before we moved back to Auckland ? NO. The fact however is that there are no right or wrong answers just the best decision you can make at the time.
Re the cost of living in Sydney - please note that yes, Sydney is an expensive place to live (especially housing - renting or buying) but what we found was that our money (somehow !) seemed to go further when renting in Sydney and between OH and I we were earning around 50% more than what we earn currently in Auckland. You also have to factor in longer term opportunities and the fact for most roles you have more earning potential there due to larger companies, bigger market etc

Charismatic

I liked W(h?)anganui, good town to go and have a few drinks in on a summers afternoon .

Snazishaz

I like a good laugh and have in general a sense of humour, However a couple of months ago i was pulled into the office by my kiwi boss and told that some of my colleagues complained that they didnt know how to take me, ie was i being serious or having a laugh ? firstly i said so who complained of course she didnt tell me. Anyway, i stuck up for myself and said well they just need to get over it, its not my fault they dont have a sense of humour, mmmmmmmmm she didnt like that answer and then proceeded to say i was over assertive lol, is that the best you can do i said, being assertive is a quality required for my job. So thereafter i went to staff room and said ok so who has a problem with me having a laugh they all looked very sheepish and said were did that come from was hilarious. I decided to hand in notice after that and moved job after that and to my disbelief my kiwi boss is now also working in the same department but not as my boss. Whilst working my notice i got on with the job and only spoke when i had to the girls then complained to me that i had lost all my fun duh! hello i cant win. Moral of story Kiwis get a life and a sense of humour its all about me you know hahaha

rick78

So whats the phonetic spelling for Whakapapa?!

Persephone

Naughty!

whitesand

Have just seen the question and got me thinking about this. I think it's becasue it doesn't live up to the hype. It really promotes itself, especially overseas, as something it's not, and also at home there is this sense of greatness which really is ridiculous. Other places I've travelled to or lived in have in reality been better than I'd hoped becasue they weren't hyped so much.

I also can't understand they this is so big a difference between Oz and NZ in the quality of life. Surely, they both had a large proportion of Brit as immigrants and you would have thought this would be reflected in the way of life, in the quality of houses, culture, etc. But this is not the case. To me NZ seems like a third world country compared to Oz. There seems to be much more colour and sparkle in Oz, and more innovation and change which is lacking here. Hence, this lack of change here comes across as boring and mundane.

It's an interesting question.

dubstar

sounds like my work, they dont know what to do with me

hazeandsteve

F O K A P O P A

....and as I'm boarding there tomorrow, I'll do a little follow up.
The reason we can do these outsidey things is because we live within our means. Bought a small house, best we could that left us mortgage and rent free. The bigger house may follow, but why live in a mansion you can't afford to heat?

barnsleymat

To be fair to the Kiwis I find a fair few of the British expats boring, the 2.4 kids mondeo brigade.

Woodlea

Two teenage boys?? They'd love the slopes and it doesn't cost $1000 but it will cost a couple of hundy total for the day - go for it!