9 unusual things to know about New Zealand ( part 2 )

Hi ! A new article about differences between Belgium and New-Zealand 🙂

Remember, I had already done a first article on these 9 differences between theses two countries that you can find here.

So, let’s go for a new series of things to discover.

1 : They Honest boxes.

Along the roads, close to homes, you will sometimes see small wooden shelters, sheets, … with small bags filled with various things to eat: vegetables, eggs, fruits …

These are often small farms or individuals who sell products from their garden.

The principle is simple: the price is indicated on the small bag and you will find a small box next to put the money. There are a lot of little things cheap and really tasty. (Also find here other tips here to save a max money in New Zealand).

2 : Their accent

So … I have already traveled quite a bit and heard all sorts of English accents, but this one has the palm of the one I do not understand the least. New Zealanders have a really strong accent that’s hard to understand. So : sorry, i do not understand are common to say here.

3 : Mailboxes

Houses are often quite far from the roads and many are in the countryside. Imagine the nightmare of a postman, hundreds of miles a day at a minimum! Suddenly, they found a trick: put all the mailboxes of the most distant homes at the beginning of the road. It is therefore up to the owner to come and collect his mail.

4 : Large hedges cut:

I do not know what kind of machine they have, but along the road we can very often see hedges cut in a very “square” way. They are quite imposing because very high. Like big walls but … green. They are between 4 and 5 meters high.

5 : Hospices shop

They are too few in Europe, but here, in every city, even very small, we can find one. These are second hand shops where you can find everything and really at a very good price, it’s really convenient to buy clothes just for the trip. Then, if they are still in good condition, to return them at the end to give them another life.

6 : phone booths spark Wifi

In Europe, the trend has been to remove all old phone booths. Here they are still there and are even used to transmit wifi via an operator. If you subscribe to the Spark operator for your phone, you can have 1GB per day of data per phone booth, just park next to enjoy the connection. A real good plan when we know that wifi is pretty bad in this country!

7 : House health checks

Here, no strict sanitary rules for restaurants. We saw some kitchens here that would make the controllers of the afsca or any other sanitary organization shudder with horror! (Even if totally safe in the end). It is therefore rather free in the kitchen in terms of cleanliness. But … they have sanitary controls for their homes. That is, as a tenant or landlord you may receive a letter saying that your home will be inspected for a check, it seems pretty random. It is therefore with each received letter, a big cleaning of spring!

8 : Rail tracks

Railroads in New Zealand are as rare as winning the lotto and. I’m not kidding! As a result, the few paths we have crossed have no traffic lights … not even a barrier that descends like ours, nothing !. You just have to turn your head and check that no train crosses the road. Really scary … we even saw cars passing without looking, poof, like that ! (These people are crazy).

9 : Their politeness to say “hello”

When you meet someone here, anywhere, the cashier, the ice cream vendor, the restaurant, ect, the greeting to say hello is a little different from ours, which is just a “hello”. Here, it is as follows: