Relaxing day…..

by Mandeep Gaygoat

This morning I awoke early so I could get some money from the ATM and pay the hostel host when he arrived at 9am.

I found the nearest ANZ bank and took out some cash. Afterwards I went to McDonald’s which offer free wifi, so I paid NZ$3.40 for a coffee and logged on. The Internet was awfully slow so I had a wander to the library which offers free wifi and computer access, unfortunately it does not open until 9am. I headed back to the hostel annoyed that I paid NZ$3.40 for sloooooow Internet (when you are on a budget every cent counts!)

Later in the day Sangeet, Marlene, and I were sat in the common room chatting, well at first I was also chatting then I nodded off. When I awoke a couple of hours later they were still chatting. We talked about the meaning of life, death, love, Sikhi and the Sikh Gurus, karma, Christianity, it was an interesting afternoon of deep conversation!

Afterwards we went for a Chinese dinner at:

The Hong Kong restaurant
36 Esk Street
Invercargill
New Zealand
E: [email protected]
T: + 64 3 2188531

They have vegetarian and meat dishes but they are cooked separately, the starter of spring rolls was not nice the mains chilli tofu and vegetable with chilli and garlic sauce was very nice.

As we needed to use the internet, we walked to the library. As we walked we talked about our home towns. We invited Marlene to come and stay with us when she came to visit England. Marlene said “we have a small apartment so you cannot stay with us but you can come and have dinner”. We really appreciated her honesty and directness as it is very easy to make offers without backing it up. Marlene needed to get to Queenstown tomorrow and as she was unable to get a bus ticket we offered to take her…..our plans in New Zealand are very flexible as we first thought we would be WWOOFing for ten days.

We returned to the hostel which had more backpackers, mainly from Europe…..so now you had the people talking in French and the Germans did not understand…people talking in German and the French did not understand…..I did not understand any of it!