Day 3 in New Zealand

Today (9th June 2010) I have traveled from New Plymouth to Hamilton via Auckland.

I drove from a site known as Whareroa to the New Plymouth Airport. I drove a Ford Falcon XR6. It is a shift-tronic car with a 6 speed gearbox.

At 100km/hr the rpm is only approx 1,500, which is really low. The car is really powerful. Although I could not determine the actual capacity of the engine.

I begin the day with a discussion with a customer which I have met when I first came to New Zealand. Then, we drove for about 1 hour to another site to meet with another customer at about 1pm.

After the meeting, I drove back to the New Plymouth airport to catch our flight. First we flew to Auckland, in which the flight is about 45 minutes and transit for an hour before boarding another flight which the flight time is only 20 minutes to Hamilton.

I boarded one of the smallest plane I ever flew on. It have just 2 seats each row side by side. The coolest is that in the plane, we can see the pilot doing everything during the flight. The plane model is BEECH 1900 D.

Landed in Hamilton and checked into a nice hotel in the town. It was too late for dinner, as when we arrived in the hotel, its already 9pm, hence, just ordered a BBQ Chicken Salad with avocado, tomato, cucumber and coriander oil. It was nice, light and refreshing.

Tomorrow will be another day of heavy travelling with another 2 customers to visit within Hamilton. By this time tomorrow, I will be in Palmerston North. The flight from Hamilton to Palmerston North is about 50 minutes.

Stay tune, more updates on the way...

Day 2 in New Zealand

Well, so fast Day 2 (8th June 2010 - Tuesday) is over, now its about 11pm, just checked in to the hotel, Auto Lodge in New Plymouth.

The flight initially was suppose to leave Christchurch at about 1730hrs, but was delayed until 1815 and we were place on another flight instead.

The weather in Christchurch is really cold and it was raining the whole time we were at site. I think the temperature in the middle of the afternoon was about 4 degrees C and it was raining quite heavily.

Took a flight from Christchurch to Wellington (Capital of New Zealand) and then from Wellington to New Plymouth. The journey started at about 1815hrs and due to delays, landed only at about 2100 hrs in New Plymouth.

Again, my colleague rented a car and drove our way from the airport to the hotel. Tomorrow will be another travelling day with 2 customers on the list to cover before leaving for Auckland (transit) and then finally to Hamilton.

Its about 12am already, I better go hit the bed and get some rest. Stay tune for more updates later when I get to connect to the net.

Day 1 in New Zealand

Yesterday I arrived in Christchurch after 8 hours flight from Malaysia to Sydney and transit to Christchurch, New Zealand.

By the time I arrived here in Christchurch, its already 4pm. Did not do any sight seeing as the sky was already turning dark, its winter here, by 5.30pm, it will be dark.

Went for dinner with my colleague and we could not see any good place to eat, hence, just had good old fast food, the one which is popular for grill burger, if you know what I mean and straight came back.

Not many people is in town yesterday evening as it was a Public Holiday here in New Zealand (7th June 2010), Queen's Birthday.

Today, its about 750am now, will be leaving for a long day site visit and will catch a flight from here (Christchurch - Wellington - New Plymouth).

Will keep posting when I have time. Stay tune....

Loaded with work

It had been a while since I last updated this blog. Recently, work load in have been really high. Not much time for me to think of this blog.

Next week, again I will be travelling to Australia and New Zealand for 2 weeks for work.

Well, keep this posting short. Hopefully the weekend in Australia, I can have some time to update this blog further.

Passing of Aunt

Yesterday (24th May 2010 - Monday(11th Day of the 4th Month)) at about 0845 am, one of my Aunt pass away. She was 67.

This Aunt have been quite close to our family. She is the one who had introduced me to my first 2 part time bank job when I first finish school while waiting for the results and just before I went to the the UK for my further studies. She is the one who had also extend a great helping hand to my brother when he further his studies after leaving school. She allows him to work there in the canteen she operated in the morning and in the afternoon, he will go for his classes. She not only did not cut his pay, but instead paid him a full salary and provided him with lunch before he left for his classes.

It seems when She first got married, she and my Uncle (BP) stays with my parents in my current house. My God-Sister was born in my house and that is how she became the God-Daughter to my parents.

She had struggle all her life to make ends meet. She started a steamboat restaurant about 11 years ago (back in 1999) and when the business started, it was not as good. However, over the last 5 years, the business have picked up really well and that is when she just started to have a more relaxing life no need to worry about making ends meet.

About 3 years ago, her family bought and renovated a Semi-Detached house in PJ area and that is when she started to enjoy the fruit of her struggle. Unfortunately, earlier this year, she was diagnosed with a critical illness and yesterday she succumb to her faith.

We (my mom, my brother and myself) made our last visit to her on Sunday evening when she was admitted to the specialist center after she had difficulty breathing.

The funeral ritual is was held yesterday and today and tomorrow (26th May 2010 - Wednesday) at 10am she will be cremated and her remains will be placed at the Memorial Park which is not too far from where I am working now.

Dearest Aunt, sincerely thanks for all the joy and cheer you have bought to our lives, thanks for everything you have done for us. I hope you are now enjoying the peaceful and joyful life wherever you may be. Perhaps you might meet my Dad and the rest of the Uncles / Aunties and now all of you are having a great time keep each other accompany. May you rest in peace Aunty.....

Getting the House Key

Yesterday afternoon, my mom called and inform me that the developer finally send a letter informing us that the house is now ready for handing over.

Finally after more than 1 year of waiting, the house is ready for occupancy. However, the process is not as simple as just go and collect the keys. Firstly, I need to clear off the outstanding amount with the developer which as of today, taking out the bank portion, I still owe them RM80+ even after I got a rebate of RM1,188 from them.

The developer paid for the whole year guard fees which cost RM70 per month x 12 months = RM840. Then, for the 2 pieces of touch card it cost another RM50 a piece = RM100. On top of that, it seems they have appointed a company to do some management work on the rectification or some kind, which I yet to discuss with them, that is another RM300.

Even after paying the RM80+, I will still have to wait for the bank to clear the outstanding 20% which will take another 2 weeks or so before they make the payment.

All in, as expected, the key can only be collected by end of this month. Anyway, its better than nothing. Now the major coordination work will start. Work on the renovation will start the moment the developer rectifies all the complaints (hopefully the list is not too long).

Stay tune. I hope I will have the time to post the development of the renovations in as the process goes on. It was an interesting journey from the day we sign the Sales & Purchase (S&P) agreement until today. But, I think the journey gets more interesting from now on until the day we shift in.

Insurance

Last Friday (7th May 2010), my brother experience chest pain while driving to work. Hence, he went to consult a General Physician (in a Polyclinic). However, the doctor fear that he might be having some heart complications, he was referred to a specialist center for further investigation.

So after discussing with this wife, he admitted himself to a reputable specialist center for further check up. The specialist center's business is so good that he waited from about 12pm till 6pm before given a room to be admitted.

They run all the test and investigation, he was found healthy and on Saturday morning, he was allowed to be discharged and can you imagine, he waited from about 11am until 6pm in the evening for the insurance clearance?

This is not the worse. The worse news came when the insurance company actually rejected his claim saying that he have had a some medical history and hence he is not covered. What is this??

He claim under his company's group insurance and in group insurance, anyone and everyone is insured regardless of their medical history. Unless otherwise stated initially, that the certain number of staff due to age, previous medical history or whatsoever is not covered or if the insurance company wanted to add loading to their premiums, it is by default everyone is 100% covered. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. So my brother have to pay the medical bill first and then pass the claim to his company for them to 'fight' with the agent / insurance provider.

This is the thing about insurance. When they wanted you to buy, they will give you 100% + 10% guarantee, everything under the sun also they say can claim, no problem, easy procedure etc. But when you really want to make a claim, they will come out with another 100 + 20 reasons to inform you it is not claimable etc.

Sometimes, I see, it is a cause and effect that the largest and possibly the oldest insurance provider in the world gone into liquidation. You know which company I am referring to, no need to mention names here.

That is the reason sometimes, when it comes to insurance, I am quite skeptical. I see those agents as people that was misguided and misleading the public. They think they know everything to the very last details of the product they are selling, but in actual fact, I think what they really understood is less than 10% of the whole story.

So to all insurance buyer out there, if you think you are always fully covered with all sorts of protection plans, coverage etc etc, please double and triple check again. You don't be surprise when the above incident that happens to my brother happen to you!! There is always a fine print that you might have not noticed in your policy and it will come back and haunt you!! Beware!!