Category Archives: Personal

‘Right of Way’ is wrong in New Zealand

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*2013 Update* After I left the country, New Zealand changed their traffic laws so that the right of way turning now makes sense. This post reflects how NZ law USED to be.

New Zealand has a very quirky traffic law. In fact, it’s the only place in the world that has this type of law, and there is a reason for it: It’s stupid.

The law I’m talking about is concerning what happens with who has ‘Right of way’ when turning on a road without the aid of stoplights/stopsigns. I’ll give an example in North America of what normally happens.

Two cars approach a McDonald’s from opposite directions and want to turn into the parking lot. The car making the right hand turn gets right of way and turns first. The car making a left hand turn has to wait for all traffic to clear before proceeding to make their turn. Nice, safe and makes sense to all involved.

This isn’t how things work in New Zealand.

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Penny for your thoughts?

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No longer has any meaning here in New Zealand – they have completely scrapped the 1 cent coin. Actually, they’ve gone one step further and gotten rid of the 5 cent coin as well. I didn’t actually realize it until a few days in, when looking through my change and thinking…where are all the useless coins? Everything is useful:

You can probably make them all out, but from left to right it goes 10c, 20c, 50c, $1, $2. So somewhat similar to Canadian/US denominations, but with the elimination of 1c and 5c parts it simplifies things considerably. Back in Canada I came to loathe change – Anything less than 25c, and I’d simply take it home and toss it in a box. After 4 years, I collected the change in that box, rolled it, and took it to the bank – I had ~$80 of change sitting there.

Part of this simplification is handled by the tax system – New Zealand has a GST very similar to Canada’s GST/PST/HST – 15%, but instead of adding the tax to the displayed price, ALL of New Zealand’s prices already have the taxes included. It’s such an elegant and simple system, and you always know what you are going to pay when you buy something. No more mental math required to find out if buying something that costs $90 will require you to break out $100, or $120 to pay. All in all, it’s wonderful!

I’ve also come to enjoy another simplicity of New Zealand monetary culture – tipping. Tipping here? Non-existent. Wait staff are paid full wages, unlike North America, so tipping is not expected nor common at all (the two places that I’ve paid by Credit, you aren’t even given the option). And since the value of the meal often is a nice round monetary number, walking out after putting a $10 bill down on the table for a $10 meal is as simple as can be. I rather quite like this kind of sophistication! 🙂

Treats

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In celebration of getting a new (very) old car, I treated myself to some sushi this evening. Not the usual sushi you find here – the to go variety, but I actually sat down and ordered some freshly made, to order stuff. In other words, the good stuff. I didn’t splurge that much though – I had a handy voucher from a website called Grabone – very similar to Groupon and the like in North America. So for $15 on Grabone, I get a $35 gift voucher at this sushi place (which was, as it turns out, about 4 blocks from my hostel). Not to shabby!

So I splurged by spending $15 (dinner would normally be $8-10NZD for me or so), but ate darned well. From the $35, I got 16 big fat pieces of assorted Sashimi (6 salmon, 5/5 of two different tunas), and the biggest Dragon Roll I think I’ve ever had:

Oh so good. I couldn’t even get a full piece in my mouth (they were 2-bite sized), but I tried, indeed I tried. I’m going to sleep well tonight.

Cars are fun

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Being able to drive again, I quickly remember how much I miss having a set of wheels. All of a sudden I’m no longer restricted to bus schedules and routes (though Auckland’s bus system has been good to me), I have the freedom to go wherever I want whenever. Not that I have grand plans right now, I’m still in Auckland until the 4th, after which I am going to head over to one of the nearby islands for a week of work. That’s right, I found work on a small farm on Waiheke Island! I’ll be joining a family of 3 and help them weed, trim, and various other farming like activities (pick rocks?).

I found another very inexpensive part of Kiwi life – car insurance. It’s interesting, unlike most (nearly all?) developed countries – car insurance isn’t required here. Still a sensible investment though, in the event you do decide to pile into someone. But with the numerous low cost imports on the road, most people only opt for 3rd party insurance. This means prices on it are incredibly low – It will cost me $128NZ (so barely $100CAD) for a full year of 3rd party collision insurance. Going up to full comprehensive still isn’t too bad – $800NZD/year for me, but not much sense given my car is only worth $2000NZD. I’ll just avoid getting into an accident in the meantime.

Which so far, hasn’t been too bad! I’m adjusting to driving on the left, signalling with my right hand instead of left (I’ve still operated the wipers, which is now on the left, erroneously a few times), and learning to beware of Kiwis general lack of ability to signal pretty well so far. There has just been one daunting task so far – the roundabouts.

Now, I’m not entirely unfamiliar with roundabouts. Sarnia had one afterall, though the amount of traffic on it is nearly non-existent. That didn’t stop me from going round and round on it once or twice for amusement. Here, roundabouts are fairly common, especially getting onto and off of the freeway. This means fast moving traffic. This means terror to someone learning to simply drive on the correct side of the road. Because of course, the roundabout operates in the opposite direction as in Canada. There aren’t any new or odd rules (that I’ve been able to figure out), but the quantity of cars and the speed they are moving entering and exiting mean that things are quite a bit more daunting. Here is a typical example (completely to scale by the way and 100% accurate).

 

I’ve only been stuck going round the merry-go-round once so far. For the next few days though, the car will likely remain parked as I finish up my time here in Auckland and try and get my leg healed up (ie I’m not going to be doing much the next few days – lounging around mostly!).

Wheels!

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So I once again have a set of 4 wheels and several tons of steel at my disposal.

Not going to win any beauty contests, but I don’t think I did too badly! It’s a 1996 Honda Accord Station wagon. I originally was thinking about getting a normal, small sedan, but after talking to a few people at the hostel, decided to move up to station wagon. The reason being is that sleeping in your wagon is a great way to save money in the summer – and there are some really awesome places to do just that in the south island. Nothing like waking up to the beach outside your car or something similar. Since the costs were pretty much identical (though gas will likely be slightly more), the savings I can make by sleeping in here instead of a hostel are pretty substantial. And it’s not a bad looking car for the money either – $2000NZD got me a Honda with 185,000km.

The interesting thing about the kilometers though – they can’t always be trusted here. The vast majority of cars in NZ are imported, used, from Japan. Apparently it’s pretty normal for the odometer to come looking…a little too good. I got my car at the Ellerslie Car Fair, a MASSIVE market of private sale cars put on every Sunday. There were probably 500+ cars there today, ranging from ~1000NZD to near new cars. The majority were under $5K though. And it was interesting the range. Seeing 1995 cars with under 100,000km is highly, highly suspect, given they might only be asking $4000 for it. Pretty much if it was too good to be true, avoid. I got mine a thorough inspection before, and while the car isn’t perfect (passenger door kinda squeaky with the lock, brakes need replacement soon), it was in pretty good overall shape. Hence, I took it! I hope that it lasts the year, and sees me around both islands. It drives smoothly without funny noises. Plus, has quite a few nice little amenities, like automatic climate control, power windows and locks and a tape deck!

By the way, I totally rocked the parallel parking on the backward streets here, on my first attempt and everything.

Tempting!

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But I didn’t succumb to my curiosity to find out what exactly Fried & Spicy Chicken Beer might be. My loss. I know where to find it if the craving ever sets in. There is one thing I have been known to have an insatiable appetite for though:

The fact that they charged *$1.20NZD* (roughly $1CAD) for a single scoop and under $2NZD for 2 scoops of glorious ice cream was beyond awesome. I was in heaven. Now, I know what you are probably thinking, but I’m not entirely obsessed with ice cream – I did not specifically seek this wonderful building out, I simply happened upon it. Honest! I was actually in the North Shore area of Auckland looking at a car just up the road of the heavenly spot of ice cream deliverance. The car turned out to be pretty decent – a 1993 Mitsubishi Galant, ran well, and was in pretty good condition, for around $2000NZD. I’ve put in a bid for it, I’ll find out Sunday if I get it. The only problem with it is the exterior colour – it’s purple. Blech. But, if it gets me from Point A to B and is reliable, I’ll be happy as can be. Much like I was eating ice cream (got ‘Hokey Pokey’) in winter time.

What’s mine is mine once again

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After a very easy 20 minute meeting, I now have a fully accessible New Zealand Bank Account, Visa card and bank card (all in one). This has been such a remarkably simple process – I was able to partially open an account online, from Canada. This gave me an account number, transfer agent to ask questions to, and most importantly, allowed me to do a bank transfer from Canada before I even left. So my money was sitting here waiting for me when I arrived, I just needed to meet with my transfer agent here in New Zealand, provide 2 pieces of ID, sign a few papers and off I went. It still is startling to me how easy New Zealand has made everything to pick up and move here – I imagine havine thousands of kilometers of ocean around you on all sides before any major landmass helps a bit, as the worry of illegal immigration would be pretty low I imagine. While I imagine the problem still exists, it certainly doesn’t seem to be a concern from what I can see. They seem more than pleased to allow me into their country and have made everything so darn easy!

It’s alternating between rain and sunshine again today, so I’m currently hiding out from the showers. This allows me to start looking at my next major hurdle – buying a car. All it has to do is get me from point A to B, so it’s going to be cheaper than anything I’ve had previous. Given my mechanical ineptitude, this could be disatrous. I also seem to be on a bit of a downward slide in terms of the car I have – I thought I was supposed to have nicer cars as I got older?

 

Range of costs

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So far I’ve noticed that New Zealand certainly does tend to the upper end of expensiveness, especially compared to Canada. I know we in Canada love to complain how much more expensive things are compared to the States…well, we have it pretty easy it turns out. That being said, there are a few things working in New Zealand’s favour (their dollar is worth less than ours, their minimum wage is higher). Plus, one thing that I really like – they have a sales tax much like Canada, but all their prices shown are tax inclusive! This is one thing I wish Canada would move to, it makes things 100x easier when pricing out.

What I’ve noticed so far:

Transit, Sushi, Mobile Internet and Cell phone plans are much cheaper in NZ than in Canada. I’ve opted for Mobile internet rather than struggling to find cheap/free wifi, and at $25NZD/month for 500MB, it’s fairly reasonable and usable throughout New Zealand. Compare that to what you have to pay in Canada for similar ($30CAD+/month for 500MB, considerably more if using prepaid like me), and it’s a definite bargain. Sushi simply is due to demand and competition – there are a TON of sushi places here. I’m not lacking for my tasty raw fish, and $5-10NZD will easily constitute a relatively decent, filling sushi dinner. $10CAD won’t go very far in Canada when it comes to sushi. As for Cell Phone plans…well, Canada is considered one of the most expensive mobile phone providers, and for good reason. One huge perk here in New Zealand – while I have similar minutes to what I’d get in Canada, incoming calls, regardless of where they come from, are *always* free. Canada and the US are pretty much the only places that charge you for both incoming and outgoing calls. I didn’t know that until just now! On top of that, there is no ‘roaming’ nonsense in NZ – regardless of where I am in New Zealand, my rate is the same.

That being said, there are many things MORE expensive here that I’ve seen. Pretty much universally, food is expensive. Fast food, snacks, milk, cereal, bread, you name it, it’s mostly all more expensive. On the ‘considerably more’ category, I’d put stuff like bathroom stuff – toothpaste, shaving cream, shampoo and the like seem to be obscenely expensive (I’d say twice as much as in Canada). And I was looking at the prices in their supermarkets, corner stores are even more. Luckily, someone had mentioned to bring a bit of extra toiletry supplies, so I’m decently well stocked there. The aforementioned wifi in cafes is also noticeably more expensive, as are tourist activities – I’ve taken a peak at a few things, and many start around $100NZD here in Auckland – for a large group day tour, that seems *expensive* (I’ll just be walking myself anyways). I’ll save up my money for the activities anyways (rafting and the like seem more reasonable for their prices).

Oh, and as for different (and yes, these are the genuine article, not a knockoff).

Baffling!