Kiwis

[MuFu]

NZ is as beautiful as it's women are ugly.

MuFu.

 

[drspangle]

Well in the process of applying for a residency visa so I'm sort of wondering the following.

How long do they keep you waiting to say 'yea' or 'Nay'?

It can be over a year now. When I moved here in 2001 the waiting list was only 6 months. Since then the amount of applications from Asia have picked up dramatically. AFIAK it`s still a shorter wait than Oz

How easy did you find it to settle down and find yourself a job?

Well, I only just finished High School, so I can only give you the experiences of my dad. He has worked in the insurance industry for almost 30 years now. He has headed departments with thousands of people below him and has a MBA with an A passing grade. It took him 3 months to find his first job (working for the immigration department, no less, in charge of their online systems etc). He made it 2 the last 2 in 3 much higher profile jobs, (that he was overqualified for anyway) only to be turned down, with them stating "insufficient Kiwi experience" (or insuffient experience, which is BS, as stated above he`s been doing this for almost 30 years). So he worked and the immigration service for ~8 months getting his "kiwi experience". Since January Last year he has been working for Sovereign Insurance (NZ`s largest Insurance company),albeit stll in a lower position than he is qualified, but these things will take time.

Pretty much what I`m trying to say is that you may need to do some "burger flipping" before you can get into your preferred position.

What's the price of PC equipment and cigarettes like out there? Especially the cigarettes.

Not sure about the cig`s, but hardware is reasonably priced, I find Intel CPU`s to be very expensive here however. You can try www.stylespc.com(Based in CChurch), www.ascent.co.nz (Based in Wellington) or www.pp.com (Also Wellington based, but free shipping) to compare prices. ATM the exchange rate is around 70cents to the dollar, so you can get some comparisons

Any real problems adjusting to the 'culture'?

Not really. Mostly humoured my it tho. It`s very PC, especially in terms of the Moari people. Not much news on, so they tend to overreport on crap which I find frustrating. It`s a big thing here that everyone need councilling after any criminal event (You hear on the news occasioanlly that witnesses to a police chase from accross the street will need therapy, it`s a bit lame)

thinking of moving to christchurch so if anybody's got any idea what it's like there I'd appreciate it.

No idea, but I chat online to people living there and they don`t seem to mind. From what I know it`s very flat there, gets hot (High 20`s) and dry in winter and cold and snowy in winter. Only about 2-300,000 people live there AFAIK

Hope some of that helps

 

[Simon F]

To quote Robert Muldoon, our qloriously drunk ex-Prime Minister.

New Zealanders emmigrating to Australia raise the average IQs of both countries

Hmm. I think I'd take something old piggy Muldoon said with as much respect as something from Paul "J-Curve" Keating.

 

[London Geezer]

Well i've never heard of any place in here called "The Church"... Sounds interesting...