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Browsing category: Uncategorized

  • November 26, 2013

    Desert days: my favourite US landscapes

    Much as I loved the coastal cities, when it comes to natural beauty, the Southwest blew my mind. I love a good desert landscape, and you guys did not disappoint. I can’t decide whether I love New Mexico’s white sands or Arizona’s red deserts more! Here’s some of my favourite shots from the region.

    There’s the red rocks of Sedona…

    red rocks sedona arizona nzmusered rocks sedona arizona nzmuse

    The can’t-quite-believe-what-I’m-seeing painted cliffs…

    IMG_1721

    IMG_1613blog

    painted cliffs arizona

    That big ol’ hole in the ground, the Grand Canyon

    tree bare branches grand canyon nzmuse

    grand canyon colours nzmuse

    And the surreally blinding White Sands. I can’t believe entry is only three bucks.

    white sands new mexico nzmuse

    white sands new mexico nzmusewhite sands new mexico nzmuse

    white sands new mexico nzmusewhite sands new mexico nzmuse

  • November 23, 2013

    Link love (Powered by bush walks and curry laksa)

    Week 2 update:

    T mentioned that I’ve seemed a lot happier in the last few days than I have been in awhile. I will admit, it’s nice to not constantly be thinking about our next move, researching and trying to plan stuff, organising and coordinating departures and arrivals and accommodation and transport.

    And while I miss being able to see amazing new places every few days, I don’t miss having that be dampened by the thought that most of it basically exists because the native people got screwed over years and years ago (something that was really starting to weigh on me toward the end of our trip).

    Aside from that, it feels like we’re bowling around in Toyland sometimes. Everything seems so small after North America – cars, houses, distances. And of course, I miss the prices! I know you’re burdened with insane health and education costs in the US, but as visitors, those didn’t affect us. We’re trying NOT to annoy everyone around us and get out of the habit of moaning about the cost of all consumer goods here. That said, petrol was $2.20 a litre when we left and has dropped 10-15 cents since, so, small mercies.

    Anyway! Something different this week – only one link, but it’s a goodie, I promise.

    The single best thing I’ve read in a very long time is undoubtedly The Hulk on why we need to change how we talk about rape. Yes, it’s long. Yes, it’s all in caps. TL;DR? Here are my favourite snippets, which I have painstakingly retyped for your reading:

    On the pervasive mindset of victim blaming:

    If the victim is our darling daughters we react to their rape as if they were a young child being raped by pedophiles and it just shatters them completely. But hey, if they’re some random chick who was being ‘too liberal’ with her body? Who had a little too much to drink? Well then men seem to care much, much less. Then men seem far more willing to defend and identify with the guy just trying to get laid in the situation.

    Because if a girl goes to a party and gets drunk and someone MURDERS her we don’t say ‘Hey, you shouldn’t have gotten drunk!’ Of course we fucking don’t. So when you look at the dynamic of all this for what it really is, the reality becomes horrifying.

    We’ve made it so rape isn’t actually about rape. It’s about the sexuality of the person being raped.

    On the hypersexual, double-standard society we’ve created:

    Doesn’t this male desire for sex and the yearning to keep our daughters pure create a super-obvious conflict? Isn’t that a catch-22 where we want two things from ‘girls’ at the exact same time? Doesn’t this just create a non-functional culture where men are shamed if they don’t have sex and yet girls are shamed if they do?

    We feed team-thinking. We say ‘Be a Madonna! You will be rewarded with marriage and get to be judgemental of all those whores!’

    (Ed: Hence my problem with the ‘why buy the cow’ schtick.)

    On why individual advice (Don’t go out at night! Don’t get drunk! Don’t wear skirts!) may be well meaning but it is in no way a fix.

    1) It’s a solution that doesn’t address the problem itself

    2) That supposedly aids the individual but doesn’t help the overall societal dynamics

    3) That puts all the responsibility on the shoulders of the would-be victims

    4) That directly limits the rights to certain behaviour of one side of the gender

    5) That not only does that, but puts those limits on the side of the gender that’s the VICTIM

    6) That completely increases the troubling gender dynamic of the Madonna and the Whore, by creating another impossible dichotomy of women to live up to (You gotta drink! You can never drink!)

    7) That just ends up completely apologising and placating a rape culture by not ever directly challenging it

    AND 8) To top it all off, it severely hurts the mindset of the girl who becomes a victim despite all this and essentially tells her it was her fault for drinking too much, because, psychologically speaking, ‘the only difference between tips and blaming is timing’

    Seriously, in the end what is right about this ‘reasonable’ solution?

    Why must the solution fundamentally fall to creating another inequality, instead of doing something about the inequality of the situation behind it? Doesn’t that say something about our unwillingness to point the finger in the right direction?

    (If that doesn’t convince you, how about considering it from this viewpoint:)

    Most parents love their kids so frickin much that they want to send them off to school covered in bubble wrap … but we don’t do that. We know it would be ridiculous, and more importantly, it wouldn’t actually help in the ways that matter. It wouldn’t actually solve anything. It would even just make things worse for the kid.

    Something to chew over this weekend, perhaps. Have any good links to share?

  • November 22, 2013

    The truth about flat hunting in Auckland

    If there’s one thing we took away from our various American hosts, it’s that you guys enjoy an insanely high standard of housing.  Your bathroom is straight out of the 70s, you say? Oh, please, spend a day a flat hunting in Auckland and you’ll realise how good you have it…

    When we left, the state of property here was insane. Six months on, the market is even crazier, and there are no signs of the housing shortage abating or of any political action being taken to fix it. Yes, Mum, there’s nothing more I’d like than to buy a place of our very own, but even a standard house in humble suburbs like the one I grew up in are well over the $500,000 mark.

    We’re looking for a cheap rental so we can save up for a down payment. Somewhere that won’t kill us financially – or physically. One place we looked at … well, I wouldn’t let an animal live there. Dank, filthy and creeping with mould in every room. All the other people there to look at it seemed to be new immigrants, and I worry for whoever winds up renting it. My mother has taken it upon herself to help us look through listings, and it’s cute to hear her keep muttering “If I was a landlord, I’d fix this up and …..” Of course, if she were to do that, she’d also charge a lot more rent and probably price people like us out of the market.

    We could flat with others, saving money and also getting to live in a nicer place as a result (as long as I’m not head of the house; I had that responsibility before and will never do it again). If we had our own bathroom, I think I could probably handle it. We’ve even looked at a couple of shared houses.

    T isn’t so keen, however, and so we focused mainly on rental properties. Ideally:

    • around $300 a week (or less)
    • in an area where it’s easy for me to get to work (I work in the suburbs, not the CBD, so this makes things trickier, as we are a one-car household)
    • not visibly mouldy (it’s a little sad that this has to be said)
    • with a full kitchen (oven and stove, not just a hotplate)
    • mixer taps (my pet peeve is separate hot and cold faucets; I want to be able to wash my hands without either burning or freezing them)
    • off-street parking (garage would be a dream)

    Beggars can’t be choosers, of course, so I was open to compromise. (And all going to plan, today we sign on the line for a tiny but very nice place, which is very affordable and includes whiteware – but has only two cooking hobs and no oven. Lots of stovetop cooking for us, then…)

    But as well as being a beggar, I am also a blogger, and predisposed to ranting about things that get my goat. Here are three things that completely blow about flat hunting in Auckland.

    If you don’t have a somewhat flexible job, you are shit outta luck

    Agents don’t give a flying f*ck about renters.

    Viewings for rental properties are always held during regular working hours, and because the market is so tight, there is only ever usually one single viewing. If you can’t make it, tough luck – it’s almost a certainty that property will be gone after that viewing to someone who DID attend. (By contrast, open homes are always on weekends – usually both Saturday AND Sunday.)

    You might get lucky and find the odd property that’s managed directly by the owner, but in our experience (that is, lower end of the price range in central west Auckland) almost all rentals these days are managed by agents.

    You will waste a lot of time

    Compare a typical rental listing on TradeMe to a typical property for sale listing.

    One will have a multitude of photos of every single room from every possible angle, and a flowery description to accompany, along with address or at least the name of the road.

    One will state the bare minimum and the bleeding obvious (number of bedrooms, type of dwelling, and maybe the total move-in cost). It MIGHT list the address, but often it will simply only give the suburb. Super helpful. As for photos, there are a few rare listings that include photos of all the important rooms as well an exterior shot. Most of the time though, one of the following is true:

    • No photos at all (yes, this really happens)
    • One single photo of the exterior
    • Multiple photos of the exterior from different angles (sometimes up to about 10 – why?!)
    • Photos of the interior – bedroom and/or lounge only
    • Photos of the interior – minus the kitchen
    • Photos of the interior – minus the bathroom

    I will remind you again that almost all of these are managed by agencies. I’m sure many of these amateur photos are provided by the owners, but that’s a weak excuse especially if you’re paying someone to manage your rental for you.

    Then again, it hardly matters since the market is so tight that even crapholes get snapped up in a flash.

    What sucks is that the managers put zero effort into the listings, forcing US to take time out from work to go along to viewings to get any sort of idea whether a place is really like inside. If we were better able to screen listings online, this would make flat hunting a lot less of a headache.

    Did I mention that lots of agencies still don’t offer online application? Apparently they’re still stuck in the 1990s. Seriously – if I have to download and print a form (then scan it to email or physically deliver it to the office), then it doesn’t count, *cough Barfoot & Thompson*.

    Meanwhile, house hunters have apps to get pre-approved in 10 minutes. I know there’s a lot more money to be made off buyers, but renters are people too, you know – and we need shelter over our heads just as badly.

    On a budget? Then your choices range from Damp to Downright Uninhabitable

    Yes, our climate is pretty dang mild compared to most part of the world. But that doesn’t mean living in an uninsulated house is healthy.

    Did I ever tell you about the time we found a mushroom growing through the carpet in the hallway of our last house? I also hate to think how many spores I’ve breathed in over the past few years in the process of cleaning mould off bedroom and bathroom ceilings (and walls, come to think of it). I met up with a Kiwi friend while she was over in San Francisco at the same time we were, and we collectively marvelled at how warm and dry it was inside American houses.

    If there wasn’t such a shortage of (affordable) property, maybe landlords would sort out their act. But there is, and so there’s no incentive to.

    Please, share your other big city renter sob stories in the comments. Let’s wallow together.

  • November 19, 2013

    Safe travels? Yeah, nah

    safe travels nzmuse rtw

    There’s something about the cover of night that lends a sinister air to, well, just about anything. Like when I’m out for an evening run and the sun sets faster than I expected, I find myself picking up the pace just a little, hoping to beat darkness home.

    A few weeks before we left for our trip, I was walking through downtown at night. I saw a swarthy, scruffy looking guy approach a young girl at the bus stop. I was walking past at the time, but I slowed down and kept looking over my shoulder to see what was happening, relaxing only once he walked away. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he’d tried anything – screamed? Rushed back to confront him? – but I felt somewhat obligated to keep an eye on that particular encounter.

    In KL I was urged not to make the 5-10 minute walk to Times Square from our hotel alone by my friend. My parents, who still keep up with headlines back in Malaysia, always seem to be relaying news of some stabbing, kidnapping or home invasion.

    In Bangkok, and Naples, and Athens, I always heeded my aunt’s warning to hold my bag close to my body. Busy spots like Times Square and the Trevi Fountain always seemed like prime spots for pick pocketers to haunt. I never went as far as to carry a fake wallet to deter any would-be muggers, though.

    In six months away, however, I never once felt actively uneasy about my personal safety. That may have had something to do with the fact I almost always had T with me, who cuts a reasonably imposing figure. I definitely looked like a tourist, with my camera, day pack, and often, my trusty zipoff travel pants. It’s probably worth noting that we didn’t venture into any ‘dangerous’ territory, sticking to stable, fairly popular destinations. Safe travel is much easier when you follow well worn trails.

    I have to admit that we took a few risks, getting more and more lax towards the end. The more cautious traveller might lug a laptop around all day in tropical heat; we almost always left ours back in our hotel rooms, many of which didn’t have safety deposit boxes. In the US, I stopped wearing my passport pouch under my clothes, leaving it in my bag instead (I did have digital and paper backups of the important pages, though).

    You always think that these are things that happen to other people. Even to experienced travellers, sometimes! In hindsight, there really was no excuse for my slacking off. I am immensely grateful that we had such good luck with weather, political stability (no riots, uprisings, and no real impact from the US government shutdown) and safety. The closest we got to any whiff of crime was Sunday brunch at a restaurant about a block away from this shooting in San Francisco.

    So when I’m asked about any mishaps we had along the way, really, the worst I have to point to is the infamous ceiling fan incident. It could be worse.

    Do you have any travel horror stories to impart?

  • November 17, 2013

    Link love (Powered by Grain Waves and new shoes)

    nzmuse blog link love

    Good news! I’ve survived my first week back at work (despite coming home to this epic public transport clusterfuck)! I’ve veered between wondering how I would ever cope again, to feeling something along the lines of ‘this is what I was meant to do’, thankfully finishing out Friday on that more positive note.

    It’s strange to see how quickly some things have changed (shops and houses disappearing, being replaced by others) and how others have stayed static.

    As I said last week, the part I’m struggling most with is the air. Give me dry, polluted international city air over fresh, pollinated NZ air any day if it means the end of this respiratory misery. Sheesh.

    Thankfully, I’ve been sheltered a little from sticker shock, as I’m staying with my parents till we find a place to live. (That said, we did go to the supermarket today and spent the entire time griping at the price of literally everything we saw.) This is weird for me, as I moved out at 17 and never looked back. I had a lightbulb moment, however, when we were all out to dinner and happened to run into some of my mother’s friends at the restaurant. How she gushed about having me back in the country, newly married, and her friends’ responses – all along the lines of how nice it was to see the family together again. And you know what? It IS surprisingly nice. I’m glad T has been pushing me to make more of an effort, and I am super grateful to them for helping us out and easing the transition.

    While I wait for the latest Scandal episode to buffer, here’s my picks of the interwebs for you this week.

    Her Every Cent Counts interviews a 31 year old programmer with no formal education who has amassed $943k in net worth

    A reminder not to sacrifice relationships in pursuit of your dream, at Married with Luggage

    A fun but practical post with personal finance advice for couples, via Financial Samurai

    Blonde on a Budget shares the biggest lie she ever told herself

    Budget and the Beach confesses to being a teenage shoplifter

    At Make a Living Writing: why idiots make good freelance writers

    The Asian Pear voices a lot of my own thoughts about personal finance blogs

    I would never attend Burning Man (wayyyy too hot out in the desert) but was glued to this post about what it’s really like

    Thanks to Funny About Money, I might start using conditioner as a bathroom cleaner

    Finally, I thought this LinkedIn post on why you should avoid saying ‘you’re welcome’ was intriguing. It’s such an instinctive thing, and here we all say it reflexively – but I noticed in the States that a brisk ‘of course’, ‘sure’ ,’mmhmm’ or even just a silent nod of acknowledgement was more par for the course.  (Service staff excepted, of course)

    Happy weekends!

  • November 12, 2013

    The great US road trip: My favourite eats from across the country

    sugar in coleslaw - WTF

    This, my friends, sums up the one thing that is wrong with American food.

    (Well, there’s also the misspelling of ‘mayonnaise’, but that’s less egregious. Also, I dearly wish T hadn’t kept insisting on getting coleslaw so often, let alone in Disneyland, since it was always a disappointment – and of course, I usually felt compelled to taste it as well.)

    But let’s not dwell on that for TOO long. See, we also had plenty of good eats in America – mostly Mexican, BBQ, and hole-in-the-wall diners, the kind of stuff we gravitated to since we don’t get it at home. Here’s a few of our favourites:

    Best Burger – Hook Burger

    Blows In-N-Out out of the water.

    Best BBQ – Mrs Hyster’s

    We had some pretty good BBQ in Memphis, but the downhome sloppy, saucy stuff in this New Orleans hole-in-the-wall edged it out.

    Best Chain – Chipotle

    Please, please, please, open up in New Zealand. In the meantime, I’m going to have to start making my own burrito bowls.

    Best Diner –Welcome Diner

    This is kind of a hipster diner, tucked away in Phoenix, where we were served by a dead ringer for Seth Rogen, who wrote the comics that you’ll find tucked into the shelf. For more old-school, downmarket dining, I tip my hat to Mike and Ronda’s The Place along Route 66 in Flagstaff.

    Best Pizza – Joe’s

    It wasn’t so long ago that we were enjoying pizza in Naples for real, but we HAD to try New York pizza too – and Joe’s is where it’s at.

    Best Hot Dogs – Superdawg

    Chicago institution. Enough said.

    Best Mexican – Fat’s Burritos, Roswell / Garcia’s Mexican, San Antonio

    Really dug the relleno plate at Fat’s, but beware, it’s tricky to find (it’s moved a few times – don’t be fooled by the mural/building that catches your eye on the way in! Keep driving till you hit the actual street number.) And Garcia’s breakfast tacos can’t be missed.

     

  • November 11, 2013

    The kindness of strangers…

    is absolutely astounding.

    I envisioned couchsurfing across Europe; we ended up hostelling and hoteling. (We did surf a few times though, and hosts generously drove us to the train station/lent us bikes/gave up their beds for us). I then envisioned us couchsurfing across North America, and instead, we ended up staying with so many generous blog friends. Not to mention the many others who took the time to show us around, take us out to eat, or put together adorable goody bags/welcome packs for us.

    We also miss your pets! We’ve met so many awesome dogs along the way, which was such an eye-opener for me; to date, almost all the dogs I’ve ever encountered back home are outside dogs that belong to, erm, Westie trash types and fall into one or more of the following categories: dirty/mangy/loud/ill-behaved/scary. By contrast, I now know that clean, housetrained, inside dogs DO exist.

    I think it was a little weird for T, but he quickly got used to the idea that we’d be meeting semi-strangers in almost every city we visited. There was Manda in DC, Sandy in Massachussetts, Asian Pear / Save Spend Splurge in Toronto, Windy City Gal in Chicago, Athena / Funny About Money in Phoenix, Revanche / Untemplater / Financial Samurai in SF, Tiny Apartment / Erika / Stacking Pennies / Tonya in LA. I can’t forget Lesley in Iceland (formerly of 23toLife.com), either, plus we narrowly missed a few others along the way (so close!): Leslie, Amber, Daisy, Katie, Stephanie (I’m really hoping I haven’t forgotten anyone! Eek!)

    I can’t thank you guys enough, and hopefully we’ll be able to return one day to relive the magic. It’s probably going to be quite awhile before we leave NZ again though … so, come see us soon. Okay?

  • November 9, 2013

    Link love (Powered by plane food and house hunting)

    The thing that stands out to me most about being back home is not the rain, the familiar accents, or the cars.

    It’s the air.

    About an hour before we landed, I started sneezing like mad, and have barely stopped since. A day later, it’s pretty obvious that it’s a lot more effort for me simply to breathe here than anywhere else we’ve been in the past six months. (It’s almost summer here, and while our summers are very mild by global standards, it’s definitely not super cold.) My chest feels constricted and in a quiet room, I’m THAT person huffing and sniffling nonstop. Might be time to seek out a doctor.

    Continuing on in a slightly depressing vein, we’ve also come home to the news of the death of a guy I went to school with, and this Roastbusters stuff, which is already making headlines round the world.

    But happily, there are lots of good things I’ve read recently too! Here’s my picks for this week.

    Here’s Cordelia on 15 surefire ways to guarantee a dead end life

    Jen Dziura on whether you should lean in to what you love, and Funny About Money on the perils of following your bliss

    Figuring Money Out on 20 daily habits of the wealthy

    An intriguing discussion on career sponsorship vs mentorship at Publishing Trendsetter

    Ashley on reconciling our present selves with our former selves

    Afford Anything on how to escape the ordinary, step by step

    Get Rich Slowly on learning to bargain

    Save Spend Splurge has put together a nice list of wardrobe essentials (male AND female)

    Donna reminds us that time is something we can’t do over

    Caroline joins me in hating the traveller vs tourist argument

    Sydney shares five of her favourite inspirational travel destinations

    Michelle ponders the American dream

    Finally, APW on what feminism means and why feminism matters. For me, this used to mean shunning pink, and dresses, and pop music, and cooking. Now I’ve come to realise it’s really about doing whatever the hell I want; I can wear lipstick but shun heels, like Mariah Carey AND Metallica, and realise that sucking in the kitchen isn’t actually cute or something to be proud of.

    Happy weekends!

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