I was not doing anything illegal at all, but I needed to be personally prepared to enter New Zealand during this season.
Reason #1: I have some acquaintances, and I have to bring a lot of souvenirs. (No one has asked me to bring them, but I can’t meet people without gifts due to a genetic trait I inherited from my mother)
Reason #2: even then, biosecurity at the airport is strict.
Reason #3: Prices are on the rise, and accommodation is expensive.
Reason #4: Security in the city is getting worse.
Reason #5: The houses are extremely cold (at least for me).
Reason #6: The hours of daylight are short, and the weather is unstable.
It’s all bad…lol.
I wonder why I bother to visit New Zealand at all, but there are, of course, good things about visiting during this season.
Advantage #1: You can see rainbows frequently, even on one day.
Advantage #2: The sky is clear, and you can see stars beautifully, even in the city.
Advantage #3: There are fewer tourists…or rather, fewer people on the streets.
Advantage #4: Therefore, accommodation costs are relatively lower than during the peak season.
Advantage #5: It is rugby season.
Advantage #6: The Women’s Soccer World Cup will be co-hosted with Australia this year.
Good, I was able to come up with as many good points as negative factors.
Buying souvenirs is a big job for me, as it costs me a lot of money and time in both countries because I have friends in New Zealand and Japan.
As expected, I thought I was used to it since I have been back and forth so many times already, so I put off going shopping this time.
As a result, I was in a flurry of activity until the last minute.
Gift list
Daiso … Children’s toys and stationery
Gelato Pique … Matching hair bands for child and adult
MUJI … Tea bags (Hyuganatsu green tea, black bean tea, green tea, etc.)
Supermarket … Snacks
AKOMEYA … instant Japanese rice porridge, Ochazuke
Tobu Department Store and Seibu Department Store … Japanese accessories and sweets
Daiso toys come in a wide variety, from crafts to educational items, and have English explanations, making them ideal for giving to children overseas. At reasonable prices, I could buy character stationery and snacks for my adult friends who are Japanese geeks.
I got Gelato Pique for my partner’s brother’s baby.
Muji‘s tea selection can be great gifts for anyone, especially for Asian friends. The Chinese friends enjoyed it.
I also brought some wonderful instant rice porridge and Ochazuke (お茶漬け) from AKOMEYA, which I received from a friend.
I thought I could eat them myself and give them to Japanese people living there because I assumed that some of them were missing Japanese high-quality instant food.
I bought a Japanese-patterned eco-bag at a department store and a bookmark for my partner’s parents. I also bought some sweets for my family and to give to anyone.
My partner’s family, who are European New Zealanders, are likely to wonder about things like red bean paste and soy sauce flavour sweets. Therefore, I chose Western-style confectionery made by Japanese brands in Depa Chika that anyone can eat.
It is a bit strange that Japan’s gift to a Western country is Western style, but it can be seen that it reflects Japanese society. We, Japanese people, like Western styles but like to reform them in our own ways.
Wrapping Paper Issue in an Eco-Advanced Country
Even though I love Depa Chika Sweets, it is not perfect. The problem with department store items is the packaging.
They are all over-packaged, which makes me hesitate to give them to Kiwi people.
In Japan, plastic bags or wrappings are made from environmentally friendly material, I suppose, and they are incinerated.
From my understanding, it may be fine to wrap items and pack them, and then wrap them and put the package again and again…
In NZ, rubbish is basically landfilled as it is in general. Instead, all paper can be recycled. (In Auckland).
For example, suppose you buy an assortment of baked goods at a department store in Japan.
The cakes are wrapped individually and put in a boxed package.
Additionally, it is wrapped in beautiful wrapping paper by a shopkeeper who even asks if you need an extra bag when you give it to others.
If you say “No” for the extra bag, you can still get a nice bag to carry it.
All include the service for free. This kind of wrapping is sometimes considered etiquette in Japan, particularly for the older generation.
However, it can be thought that it creates extra steps to reach the gift itself, and more importantly, it creates unnecessary rubbish. Since individual packaging is rarely found in New Zealand, I would like to avoid this.
This is one of the things I have learned from the souvenir issue over the past few years.
Therefore, I carefully choose which shops I get, especially sweets.
What to wear in July in Auckland
Now, most of my own belongings are winter clothes.
New Zealand is in mid-winter, which is completely opposite of Japan, so it is essential to take measures against the cold.
Lack of exercise ( perhaps and age too ), I have lost muscle, and I have recently become terrible at being in cold places.
Where New Zealanders walk around in hoodies, I wear a down jacket.
UNIQLO’s HEATTECH is a must-have item. Its leggings are especially useful for me personally.
There is no UNIQLO in New Zealand.
I don’t want to catch a cold, so I am prepared to wear as many layers as I can anyway.
My maximum thermal style in Auckland is,
Underwear + HEATTECH + sweater or hoodie + Light Down + puffer jacket + scarf and HEATTECH leggings + jeans + thick socks + short boots.
In fact, this year, July and August were warmer than the end of June last year, so I did not need a long puffer coat.
I could manage it just with a waist-length jacket.
I wonder if foreigners have different muscle mass from Japanese people. They tend to feel hot regardless of their physique.
Even my partner, who is relatively smaller for Kiwi, short sleeves + sweater, hoodie or Light Down Jacket (UNIQLO gift from me) is more than enough.
From my point of view, it does not make sense to wear a knit over a short-sleeved one. His skin might be thicker, like a dinosaur’s.
Moreover, many New Zealand houses are old wooden structures, and unlike Japanese houses, they may not be well-equipped for the cold.
You must be careful when choosing accommodation because a house that looks so historically beautiful can be freezing inside.
I got the impression that not many houses have Japanese-style air conditioners (heat pumps here) and that many houses have only heaters in each room, even though the number of houses that have installed heat pumps has been increasing recently compared to when I first arrived in New Zealand. Many people seem to have electric blankets on their beds.
My partner did the same, and so did I when I lived there. But, as you can easily imagine, it’s so hard for me to get out of bed.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen central heating in a house in Auckland, yet it may be more common in the South Island, where the temperature drops below zero in the winter.
It is said that New Zealand has more sheep than population, but, of course, you can go to supermarkets and daily goods stores to get everything you need in Auckland.
However, to be honest, I do not really feel like buying things, especially clothes, in New Zealand because there are not so many cheap and high-quality products, only if you compare them to Japan.
(Except for beautiful New Zealand wines.)
Anyway, I brought more souvenirs and cold-weather goods on the way,
It turned out that I couldn’t fit all of them in one suitcase, so I got one more carry-on suitcase as well.
After all, I successfully operated my mission even though I was in a flap until the very last minute before check-in.