C'est LA viE

Yea, finally not a staying-home-weekend! I had been staying home for all weekends since the weekend I went to Auckland in May (did not count in the Wellington day trip during Queen’s birthday long weekend, cause I just went out on one day, still stayed at home for 2 days).

I went to a brewery tour today with Ping and her boy friend, and her flat mate. The last brewery tour I gone was in 2009? It was at Speight brewery in Dunedin, and actually I had been to that brewery for 3 times! So, I claimed myself understanding the beer processing a lot, moreover, I wrote a report on that!

This time, I visited Tui brewery! Tui is a NZ branded beer which produced from the Tui Brewery at Mangatainoka, nearly an hour from Palmerston North. To find out more:

Tui was famous with their hot advertising beautiful chicks working on to produce their famous beer, and they also used many humour and sarcastic slogan for their advertisement board. For example, this one:

Different from Ping, who looking forward for the beautiful chicks producing beer, I am more expecting some random and very interesting ideas in their brewery. Moreover, I could tell, there won’t be any chicks around.

Here comes our tour! I nearly thrown-up on the mountain road to the brewery, luckily it did not take too long to reach the destination.

We got this special passport to join the tour (aka NZD20 for this), and it includes vouchers for free beer and discount for Tui’s products. However silly me, I lost this passport, I couldn’t remember whether I left it somewhere, or I just accidentally lost it.

And I don’t understand, why do we need to put on this ‘traffic police’ vest??

As I expected, there weren’t any pretty chicks around, well, there’s photo….and I can be one of them, lol.

At least our tour guide is a lady too, because another tour group has a male tour guide.

Basically, I didn’t really listen to what our tour guide said, she has a strong accent and well, I actually not really understand what she was talking.

Anyways, here come photos….

As I said, there weren’t pretty girls around, but there are many pretty girls’ photos. I guess these photos maybe motivating some male workers aye?

Yeah, I basically caught the idea of their beer processing, as I already have background for this. The tour just took us around 35mins, is a very short tour~ The Speight brewery tour I had been to at Dunedin was more detailed, took longer time and cheaper (if the price still NZD15).

Then, we headed back to their café for free beer on tap and grabbed our lunch.

I tried this special released beer, but had no idea what type of beer it is. However, tastes good! =D I know that many girls actually dislike beers, but I do like beers! Well, I tasted my first entire bottle of beer at Dunedin, forced by my ex, since then, I started drinking beer occasionally. =P For wine, I only tried it properly (a glass) in 2009, but still prefers beer.

Ping ordered a very sweet and fruity Henry Wagstaff, this was the first sweetest beer I had tried. It is like shandy, very easily to be consumed, and many females will like it.

Then, here comes our lunch. I ordered this Brewers’ recommendation: Wagstaff’s Paua fritter. It comes with 3 pieces of paua fritter with 2 slices of white bread. (White bread? Are u kidding me?)

Paua is a Maori name for NZ abalone, and this was also my first time tasting it. However, I would like to taste the entire Paua rather than making it as fritter. I ordered this simply because it was recommended by the brewers. The taste was alright, not too fancy or great. Well, there were not many options.

Ping and I also shared a little dessert, because the meal wasn’t big enough. Caramel slices with vanilla ice-cream, it was ok.

An interesting board at the café:

Besides, they also used the wasted (faulty) kegs for making it into usable product! A sink and bin! It also become the toilet bowl in the male toilet, but of cause I dint go there!

So, that’s the end of our tour, and I also ‘stole’ the glass from Tui. LOL

I love to be home, well, my home here refers to the flat I stay in palmy now. Of cz, I even feel better to be home in Malaysia.

I know is a bit late to introduce my flat now, which I already stayed for nearly 10 months…lol. Well, I will be staying here for longer if I get my contract soon (hopefully).

My kitchen and dining room.

My sweet room…..

my mayday poster following me since 2009, and my cute cow toy gifted by Lizzie, Ping and Ken, and there's go my heater than comfort me.

my photos.....all my special frens on my wall.....

 Paris Eiffel tower everywhere....=D

and my grad cert and also other photos....and there's 2 postcard, from Taiwan (chyi) and Holland (bee)

and my foodie rack....

my jewellery.....

Finally, finally!! I guess and hope (finger crossed) now is it all done!

I got my letter of offer for my renewed contract for another year this morning, and signed it, and got my visa renewed as well!

It was such a long day!

I was so nervous, so anxious, so frustrated. Haha XD. I rushed to Massey to get my letter, then headed back company to check if the conditions applied on the letter is correct. (I actually received a letter last week, unfortunately the terms on the letter was incorrect). However, this time, all good! I signed the letter, and went to Massey again and got my filled employment supplementary form. Then, I back home to collect my passport and passport-sized photos (was struggling to find them, and luckily found them in another folder which I had no memory I left them there), and went to immigration office at town straight away.

The officer was really helpful, he patiently waited me to fill in the application form (I left many blanks and was struggling to fill in last week). Nearly 10 minutes later, I got my visa renewed!!! Super efficient!!!

For the rush in the entire morning, and missed the lunch time, I deserved a little fancy lunch. LOL, I went to sushi house nearby to grab lunch. Although I managed to finish them in 5 mins, I still missed the 1.40pm bus. TT

Forced to wait for another 20 mins, and went to HR at Massey at 2pm to photocopy my new visa (to prove that I work legally =.=). Finally, I back to my desk around 2.30pm. Aaron was looking at his watch, like: hmmm, 2 hrs?? :P

I hope now this mean all done, all good. Well, Aaron and Sergey said the contract was all signed and sent to Massey, and guess Massey will just sign them once they received it. Sergey had demanded for a celebration cake as well before he enjoying his trip at Samoa in this coming Saturday.

Lol, you are more than welcomed!

A big thank you to Aaron, Sergey and Alastair! I really appreciate your efforts and a cake definitely not enough to express how grateful I am to have you guys as my supervisors. However, I will bring u guys one this Thursday! =D

What a random dinner, "we should have dinner because I finished my exam", said Halie.

LOL, Halie is my colleague, she is still part-time studying at Massey, and apparently she just finished her 2 papers’ final yesterday. Therefore, here come our dinner.

I skipped the drinking event before the dinner, just went to Yeda at 7pm. Palmerston North really small and there are no good Asian restaurant. Unfortunately, those kiwi also could not differentiate what is a good Asian meal. Therefore, they don’t mind spending $$ to eat a bad and small meal. Then, they will eventually have this mind-set: Asian meal is small and pricy.

Go to Asia, explore, Dude.

However, I do not blame the kiwi, I blame the business-minded boss of Yeda. Your food sucks!

Back to the event, there were nearly 30 of us, a very large group which include our company employees and the FGTP students. Initially I do not like them, I knew that they were smart, and they need to be very skilful and has strong potential to be developed to become a manager in order to get into FGTP. Of cause, as far as I knew, perhaps networking is easier to get people into these roles. Therefore, I don’t care about this programme, and also do judge its effectiveness on developing future scientists/technologists/managers. Well, students who enrolled into that programme were likely (not all) to be arrogant, and thought they are the best.

That’s why I am not willing to get along with them, but well, Halie invited them because she thought the event will be more fun. Ermmmmm.

However, I am happy that, eventually I am able to talk to Halie (another Halie in the FGTP), she was a senior of mine at Otago Uni. The world is so small, we used to stay at Aquinas together in 2008, then we were course mate for some papers, then in my final year, she actually guided us in using the Microsoft project software in 311. Then now, we work in the same company! I knew that she was enrolled into FGTP for some time, just I had this mind-set that they are arrogant and unfriendly, moreover Halie has this cold face. Well, but glad that we had a short conversation today, and hope that we can say Hi normally next time we meet.