February Fun

NZ Sevens
01 Feb 2007
Every so often, kiwis get to wear funky costumes and sashay along the road along with other sevens participants (I’m not sure what to call them). To a foreigner like me, it’s a bit hard to understand and take in but it sure is fun. Imagine bumping into Captain America or the teenage mutant ninja turtles on the street! Sevens is basically an annual international rugby tournament where instead of the normal 15 players, they have seven instead. I am not really sure about the details of the game but from what I reckon, it’s all brawn and intimidation. What do I know? I’m really not into sports – well, if you consider thumb wrestling a sport, fine by me. Anyway, if you’re interested to know more about sevens, here’s the site: http://www.sevens.co.nz/. But parades and all the activities surrounding sevens, that’s what I like! So on a sunny afternoon, my officemates and I left our desks for a while to watch the different sevens players in their uniforms on floats, surrounded by voluptuous babes and popular icons like Colonel Sanders (Go KFC!) and Austin Powers. On Sevens day, those who will be watching the sevens were in their best outfits – I had fun watching them and figuring out their costumes. Three of us from work volunteered to hold donation buckets on the street for Ronald McDonald Foundation and I was able to see the participants up close!

Bitten By the Love Bug and Birthday Blues
14 Feb 2007
Ever since Ronnel and I got together, I learned to let go of those girly romantic stuff like expecting flowers and chocolates on valentines. Sometimes, I get envious when I see girls holding long stemmed roses on Cupid’s day but then I have to agree with my husband when he says that he’d rather spend money on the stuff I’d really enjoy for a longer period than something that will wilt after a few days. Plus, he says, everyday should be valentines anyway. Okay, so he’s not mushy. I think I’m mushy enough for the two of us anyway. So on Valentines, we went to this Korean restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try ever since we came to NZ. I think watching all those Korean dramas have influenced me a lot.

20 Feb 2007
It’s my hubby’s birthday! Every year, I try to surprise him and every year, he never fails to ruin my surprise. The first time I tried to surprise him was back in 1999 when I organised a birthday party for him. He ruined my surprise when he didn’t want to change clothes for his party and I was trying hard to convince him to wear nice clothes (well, understandably, I didn’t want him to show up in his shorts with all our friends and classmates there). Well, that went quite well and he was really touched despite him knowing in advance (a few minutes before the real party) that there was gonna be a party for him. This year, (no, I didn’t prepare a party for him), I bought an xbox game that he was eyeing on for quite some time. Mind you, it wasn’t just any xbox game. It was one of the few left around the country. He was trying to get one over the Internet but was out-bidded by somebody else. Stores here don’t hold the game anymore and the only store that had it was quite far from where we stayed. So he was a bit depressed when he couldn’t get hold of it. Well, I’m not his wife for nothing so yep, I made some other arrangement for the game to be transferred to a store so that I can pick it up. I guess luck was really by my side that time but then it just flipped on me when the store announced online that they had it in stock. When Ronnel found that out, he was so excited that he wanted to go to the store immediately to buy the game. I was in a panic. I had ordered the same game and it wouldn’t make sense for him to have two copies of it. So yeah, I had to fez up and admit that I actually had that reserved. There you go, another birthday surprise ruined.  But in the end, he was really happy. He got the game and enjoyed every minute playing it. By the way, it was an Xbox NBA 2K7 game.

Wellington Walkathon
17 Feb 2007
Every year, Wellington has this Round the Bays event where everybody can join in to either walk or run seven kilometres. Now you know I am not into physical activity much so you’re probably surprised why I joined. Well, I guess my curiosity got the better of me and I just wanted to see what this event was all about. On the day of the event, my officemates and I wore our BNZ shirts and trudged to the meeting place. Wow, what a turn out it was. There were over ten thousand participants – runners and walkers alike. It was a fun experience, despite the fact that my feet hurt. My seatmate and officemate Kristan, accompanied me for the whole walk, fascinating me with stories about his twenty years with the Bank and other stuff. I knew I was slowing him down but I’m glad that it didn’t bother him too much – his favourite phrase was—“No, it’s not a competition” and he claims to be the least competitive person around. That works for me coz even if he didn’t compete with me, I’d still lose! Well, my predictions were right anyway as I turned out to be the in the last place in our team (sob sob). If you want to see the results, you can check it out at http://res.championchip.co.nz/default.asp?id=1095. (Our team name is Analyse This and you’d see my name at the bottom! Well, at least overall I’m 6,427 so that means I’m faster than the four thousand left.. ha ha).

Cuba Carnival
24 Feb 2007
The last weekend of the month was filled with surprises when we saw several stalls along Cuba street. These stalls are similar to our "tiannges" in the Philippines where all kinds of stuff are sold. The whole Cuba street was transformed into a carnival as several people from all walks of life check out the free shows, the food and the fun. I had a flashback of the fiestas we had in the Philippines and felt a little sad that instead of being with my family and relatives, I'm surrounded with people that I don't really know (or look like, for that matter). So yeah, I went home pretty depressed-- Ronnel says it's probably because I was unable to buy at least one item from the shops. He had his eagle eye on me all the time, so how could I shop?!!! Oops, no, it's not about that... i just started to miss my family and friends back home. :(