To Be Continued...

Last day today, but my flight isn't until 23:45, which is about 12 hours away. My cousin, Tim, is going to give me a lift to the airport, but not before we watch the mighty Sharks take on some rubbish team from Canberra.

GO SHARKS!

 But that is in the future, the present is currently me with a hangover after the past saw three Scottish folks move into my room saying 'We're going to get a beer, would you like to join us?' To which I replied 'Yes' and the rest is a mix of watching the All Blacks beat Argentina in the rugby, beer, French people on tables, singing, more beer, Scottish people on tables, joking and now my camera is slightly damaged but has got a mix of funny and embarrassing photographs that I won't post here because that would be a silly idea.

I think this picture sums up the evening quite well on its own.

All fun and games aside I am leaving today, as I mentioned in the first sentence, and I'm all packed and ready to fly home (via Singapore) as Singapore airlines carries me over borders and oceans in the cheapest seat available.

I come for the service but I stay for the 1950's approach to hiring female staff.

And as those lovely, lovely ladies walk up and down the aisles in their fitted dresses I will be thinking of the past year, the sheer number of people I have met and who have in some way influenced my life, all the things I have learned and all the things I didn't learn

Like how I learned to drink excessive amounts on a budget and how I didn't learn it would hurt in the morning.

I also learned that travelling is a lot of fun, whether you go to broaden your horizons or just to have fun in a far off place, you should definitely travel. It doesn't have to be 10,000 miles away, you can drive for a couple of hours and get lost somewhere pretty but now is the time to travel before it all becomes too expensive and before you're too old. I know I'm not going to stop travelling, even if it is just visiting a city I have never been to or going to Scotland to try some traditional Scottish fare in Scotland

"And a dram of your finest Irn-Bru"

Now it is traditional to end these sorts of things with a song, a song that doesn't muck about, a song that can capture an emotion or tell a story. But which song would cater to the idea of flying home on an plane? John Denver's 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' is about leaving, not returning, of course this would all be a lot easier if one of Britain's finest bands made a song that fits, with lyrics that were specifically about flying home from far away and seeing runway lights as the vapour trails align, adding some guitar solos with the sweet tones of Bruce Dickinson's voice...
Oh, they did.

Time to put the 'Great' back into Britain! Fire up the engines, I'M COMING HOME!

Final Daze

My time in this part of the world is almost at an end, although I will repeat my promise to return, even if keeping a promise to yourself isn't really a promise becausenobody would really care if you broke it.

Today was my last day at Brunch 'n' Lunch, but my mind is so far away at the moment, trying to find a way out of my money woes, that I barely remembered it was my last day until a customer reminded me. They asked why I was heading back to Essex and I couldn't think of a less embarrassing answer like 'funeral' or 'I've been in New Zealand a year and my visa has run out' so I told the truth, which is is an uncomfortable truth. Losing control of your money, when your debts control you instead of the other way around, is the greatest embarrassment I have had, aside from when I stood silent for a full minute after forgetting my lines during a drama practical monologue assessment thing at secondary school. But that ended up turning out quite well as my teacher said it built tension, like the 'character was struggling to hold something back'. Maybe my financial situation will turn out to be a good thing in the end? It probably won't, but who knows?

So I went about, selling sandwiches to the usual suspects and when walking between offices my subconcious took over and horrible thoughts came through to my frontal lobe, where they stood and glared until I paid them some attention. Like all people I often dwell on the bad side, knowing there is a bright side but not willing to look at it until I have studied the bad parts to the point that even the bright side seems to dim. I managed to depress myself quite a bit by focussing on all the things I couldn't afford to do. I didn't see Ayer's Rock, didn't see the Barrier Reef, didn't swim with dolphins, didn't see a crocodile or a snake, didn't see a koala in the wild, didn't kick a cane toad, didn't drive the Great Ocean Road... the list went on for sometime.

It's a shame, but the human mind is wired to focus on 'mistakes' as that's how we learn not to make them again, although I'm sure most of us can think of examples where that isn't the case. Like how I always have a hangover after a night out even though I know how and why I get them.

It's all a bit deflating, but looking back at the photos I have taken is a great reminder of all the thing I did do. I did see some bloody big spiders, I did feed kangaroos, I did go to Tasmania, I did drink too much goon, I did see NYE at Sydney Harbour, I did work on farms, I saw Dylan Moran, I did go to Melbourne, I did grow up a bit, I did a Japanese girl, I did jobs I never thought I would, I did a lot of other stuff too and I did document it all.

I also met Frankie.

These blogs were a great idea, even if this post is a bit of a lame one. I have looked back at a few and although some of the photos I stole from Google Images have gone missing the words remain and I refuse to change them as they not only document what I did they manage to document who I was when I wrote them and the subtle changes in myself as I have seen and done more things.

The last day at work ended like any other day at work, to be honest I kind of wish I'd just left New Zealand last week rather than keep it in this comatose state for another week. Sunday I'll be flying out and for 26 hours I'll be travelling back to England. I couldn't sleep when I was flying to Sydney just over a year ago and I doubt I'll sleep this time as I try to think of funny things to say when I inevitably get questioned as to why I'm so bad with money, why I'm back so soon and why I haven't got a tan.

Because skin cancer.

I know this is not how I wanted my travels to end and the fact they are fizzling out in such a poor way is the worst part about it. The 'what if' question continues to hang over me and it will be a long time before I shake it off, maybe I won't fully get rid of it but I now know I don't want to know when I'm going to die, seriously, if I'm feeling this much regret because I'm leaving Australasia for a while imagine how bad I'm going to be when I'm shuffling off of this mortal coil forever?

Well, that's a great way yo end a blog post, death. I normally try to end with a joke, so...

Here's the first picture I posted on my Australia Blog

Wow, that was a while ago.

Final Countdown

One week left in this corner of the world. Yesterday I did nothing of merit, but I did stumble upon the 'UK Food' aisle at Countdown...

That's one Hell of a mark-up they've put on there

20p = 39c not $1.05

I don't need to buy that over priced crap anyway, because soon I'll be back where that crap comes from. Note to self, buy Irn-Bru and Fugde Fingers as soon as possible!

I'm looking forward to getting home now, the initial feeling of regret has gone and I'm ready to just get on with clearing my debt, seeing some mates and sleeping in a room without 7 other people snoring. Honestly, it is a sad thing when a young man/woman snores like a train.

So, yeah, that's it for now. A quick note that all of the pictures may disappear from my blogs because I can't afford to renew my Google Storage at the moment.

Phone Home

Those of you on my Facebook will already know I had my phone nicked this week, also that I'm going back to England next week.

The going home thing is a little bit annoying as the only real reason I have to bail on my travelling dreams is money, that you all know I owe so I won't go into detail. The phone thing however is very annoying as that phone was potentially priceless, some very important numbers on there including the lady from Tuesday night. So whoever stole my phone has essentially cock blocked me and for that I hope they get a nice dose of AIDS, that's right,

Not HIV but full blown AIDS!

It's even more annoying that my phone was nicked just before I was going to leave the country, just like my camera was nicked just before I left Australia. Oh well, shit happens, the problem was shit all is going to happen with me and that girl now, which is a shame because I was planning on becoming a symbol of hope for penniless, uncool guys that deliver sandwiches and listen to AC/DC.

Guess which one got her number, that's right, the pink faced one on the left of the picture. So buy yourself a Turbowolf t-shirt and charge up your phone! - Ryan's Guide to Love (Vol.2)

I guess I can still be that symbol, which is incentive enough to get my money sorted the fuck out and get back to seeing the world and more of the women that it has to offer. But it's not only the ladies I want to see more of, the world in general is worth seeing (although I have still seen very little of it) which is why I have the drive to just get home, sort out my debt and get back out there before I'm too old and dead to do anything!

Of course my money troubles won't go away over night, home happens to be a village with no buses and no train stations without driving 20 minutes to get to them, which might be a problem when I have to, oh I don't know, go to work. But I'll sort that out when I need to, first thing will be to sell my hundreds of games and DVDs, maybe even a few of my collectable t-shirts and memorabilia, to start off my new adventure into the world of over coming debt. Not much of an adventure in any way I am usually writing about, but if anything the whole blog writing/diary thing is a great way of remembering stuff clearly, like the time I saw in 2012 at Sydney Harbour or seeing live bands I never knew about before and the first time I drank Sapporo beer and all the people and animals (or most of them, some were only around for a day) I've met, including Frankie the Wallaby.

Any excuse to post this picture again.

There are the secondary life lessons, the less immediate ones that will hopefully become useful in later life, the kind I will use to back up advice I give my gran-kids, the kind where I say 'travelling is a lot like university, but with more foreign people that challenge stereotypes and Irish people that cement them' or 'don't spend all your money on beer, save some for the women' and the golden advice that 'Japanese chicks are crazy in the sack, like 'trying to break it off' crazy'.

I might just get myself one of these so I'm prepared when I start telling these stories.

So yes, I'm leaving New Zealand and Australia, for how long? I don't know, but not forever (hopefully) because I haven't seen as much as I'd want to. But I'll also have to make time for seeing Asia, India, Canada, USA, Brazil, the rest of South America, a few bits of Africa and Scotland. Well, at least I have something to look forward to when I give up clearing my debt and just declare bankruptcy...
Kidding! Bankruptcy is like using a cheat code, one that accidentally puts the game into 'impossible difficulty' mode.

You should have just played the game on hard mode like everybody else

Lap Dances & Kiwi Birds

What I love about the fashion industry is that no matter how many things they try to make for men, men will always stick to the basics. A suit for formal t-shirt and jeans for everything else. Easy, no amount of double collar shirts and weirdly cut trousers is going to change that. Women on the other hand will wear pretty much anything, even 'jeggings', which are great if I don't want to spend time imagining what that girl's vagina looks like. Auckland however seems to be the home of 'compression shorts', the kind of thing footballers wear under their regular shorts and the sort of thing cyclists wear all over because they like looking like a sponsored condom.

Pictured: A sponsored condom stuffed with drugs

In Auckland though it seems perfectly normal for men to walk down the highstreet with a tank top and compression shorts and nothing else, now I can not only see your girlfriend's genitals I can see yours too, do you even own a bike?

"Now nobody will think I'm gay."

Genitals aside, I went out last night to Globe Bar and then to Cassette Nine. Good stuff, although I almost didn't bother but I was peer pressured into going by a guy called Andrew, from Norf Landaan. I say peer pressured, it was more of a 'he asked once, I said yes' and it was the best mistake I've made in a long time.

At the time it didn't seem like a mistake, but today it did. I'm still hanging a bit now but it's ok, because I got a Kiwi girl's number. I probably would have got a lot more if her South American friend wasn't so drunk they had to leave quite early. I know what you're thinking, 'Ryan, no doubt you did something amazingly charming and chivalrous to acquire the digits of this fair maiden' to which my answer is 'yes, if by 'charming' you mean dressed in women's clothing and by chivalrous you mean 'gave her a lap dance''.

Andrew signed up to give a scouse girl we'd just met a lap dance on the promise that the best dancer (after an audience cheering vote) would get $50 of free drinks. Then the guy taking the names asked me to sign up and I naturally thought of a reason not to, the reason was 'I don't have a partner'. A hispanic accent jumped from nowhere to land in the ears of myself and a few others, 'She'll do it!'. 'She' was actually quite nice to look at, a bit shy, but she seemed keen (not something that normally happens when a girl is going to get a lap dance from me) We didn't win, but I got a bigger cheer than Andrew, so I won the 'South East England division'. We also got a shot of Jager each for partaking in what wasn't a very funny attempt at some 'crazy backpacker party shenanigans', mostly because we were all pretty good a lap dancing (I've done my research)

Ah, nice to see a youngster getting involved in such a noble tradition.

Cassette Nine was cool, cheap beer back packer night kind of thing. I got talking to the Kiwi girl by keeping her company in the smoking shelter (I'm not a smoker, unless I'm offered a ciggy from a girl), who I won't name because it's an odd name that sounds a bit 'chavesque', also because I don't want to get in trouble for telling you she was 36 years old. Thirty six? Honestly, she looked closer to 26, and now I think about it, an attractive 36 year old woman hanging and having a bit of a smooch and a dance with a 26year old English guy with a 'good personality'... Did I dream all this? Maybe she's a bit mental? If it wasn't for this hangover I'd guess I just made all of this up, but I didn't.

Andrew almost got laid too, almost. Still we had a laugh, met some new people and had a bit of a knees up. Good stuff. There are a couple of photos on my camera, but you don't need to see them.

Jokes

Debt? Not funny, unless it's a clown's debt, which isn't all that funny either but those creepy fuckers deserve it.

Your drain may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage

Honestly, who wants to be a clown. Of all the circus acts that has to be the easiest and therefore least impressive one. Trapeze artists, contortionists, lion tamers all have some level of skill and danger, even juggling chainsaws and babies takes a lot of practice. But clowns do nothing, they just drive around in little cars, wear stupid shoes and put on tonnes of make-up... Clowns are basically women.

Should I buy it a drink? Or throw a custard pie at it?

Last night I went out for a cheeky beer with Tom, Andre and a load of other people. We had a cheeky beer at the Classic Comedy club, where it was $5 entry to sit and watch open mic night!

Open mic night is a gamble, it could be 10 really funny people or 10 not funny people, but the law of averages suggests someone will be funny. Fortunately the god of averages was smiling on us as we saw 9 funny comedians (even the MC was on good form) and one guy that just repeated jokes we'd all read in forwarded emails last year, like the one where "I reversed into another car today, the driver got out and I was a bit shocked to see he was a dwarf, he said "I'm not happy" so I asked "well which one are you then?"" A very few laughs escaped the mouths of a few audience members. He then went on to tell the joke about being on a whiskey diet, "I lost 3 days last week", I hate theives.

Pic related.

Talking of 'hate' there was a guy, on stage at one point that looked like a university lecturer. He stepped onto the stage and immediately I judged him based on his appearance. Bald, with a white beard and a 'jolly' figure. Yes he could have been Santa, if Santa makes people laugh at the idea of murder. He started his set like most comedians, with words, but it all felt a bit weird when he said something about a marketing guy saying "'I'll kill him, I'll kill him' but we never do it do we? Why not?.... Because we're worried we'll get caught. The problem is what to do with the bodies? If you bury them in a sand dune somebody is going to dig it up in ten years..." He would pause and breath heavily through his nose, it was a really good set that I'm not doing justice here.

The other acts consisted of people telling jokes, some funnier than others but all generally good. It was nice to see people giving stand up a go, some were more polished than others, but even the rougher ones had some gems.

After the comedy club the lot of us went to a place called 'The Wine Cellar' on K' road, interesting place with dry cloudy cider on tap and plum liqueur (very nice stuff). On the way we were all in a comedy mood and oddly enough we were all very funny which was in no way beer related. We riffed one liners and came up with a joke that was on the same lines as the 'murdering Santa' comedian. "I'm very much into Facebook. I have lots of people on my list. It always annoys me how the blood from the back of the faces seems to seep through the pages though." Or something, it needs a bit of work, but for a few people walking up Queen Street I'd say we might have got a good joke there.

The night went on, a couple of drinks and some banter at the table before trotting back down town. Then up for work this morning.

Same old sandwich selling and no replies yet from other jobs. Looks like I might be heading back to England soon, which is worrying as there is a lion running around my home county. How did I know about that? Not from Facebook, from one of the comedians last night. It was an odd moment when he said 'anybody watch the news? No? You...fucki... Well, THERE'S A LION ON THE LOOSE! A LION RUNNING AROUND! Not in Auckland, in London or something, but still THERE'S A LION!" He then told a story of a lion that was roaming around New Zealand a couple of years ago and a girl from the crowd said her dad shot that one! It turned out she was there supporting the same comedian but it made me wonder whose dad will shoot the lion roaming around Essex, if indeed it is a lion and not just an Essex girl with bad hair extensions crawling around after a night at Bas Vegas.

On the subject of cows, there was another joke that stuck in my head, kind of, I think I can remember it enough. "When I was a kid I wanted to be a vet. My Mum cottoned onto this and it turned out my uncle was a vet, so one day he took me to a farm to see what it's like to be a vet. Well, he went to the farmer and they looked over at a cow and my uncle went up to it and stuck his hand right up the cow's arse! Right up there!... I didn't want to be a vet after seeing that. I wanted to be the cow"
Goodnight ladies and gents!

The Ultimatum

It's probably time to admit something, it's probably something you have already suspected for a long time. I have been mentioning job applications quite a lot in recent posts and there is a stark lack of me doing anything else. That's right, I'm broke, not 'oh no I can only afford a small latte instead of a regular' I mean full on, 'owe lots of money to various parties with no real hope of paying them off any time soon' broke.

I was in debt before I left for Australia little over a year ago, but it wasn't too bad. Once the culture shock of just how expensive Australia is to a foreign type hit I managed to deflect a majority of the blow onto my credit card and I have been struggling to make the minimum payments each month ever since. I'm more than a little annoyed at myself for losing control of my finances like that, but I have learned a valuable lesson, so valuable it's going to cost me about £5000, don't get a credit card, EVER! You will regret it and it just makes everything even more expensive anyway because who clears 100% of their account each month? And if you can do that why don't you just not have/use a credit card?

This fiscal issue has always been around, but now it has come to a point, one I must sand down a bit to make it less likely to stab me in the arse soon (You like that analogy? Good right?) Of course to fight this burning money pile I must burn more of my money (These metaphors doing anything for ya?), money I sadly am not earning enough of right now. I have given myself one week to find a 'proper' full time job that will pay enough to actually put up a fight against this demon of debt.

Pictured: Barclaycard

Failing to find a job here I'll be returning home, to England, to tackle the problem head on by selling as many of my possessions as I can and put some reigns on that run away debt.

This took longer to make than it should have.

It will be sad to be prematurely ejaculated from this corner of the globe (another excellent metaphor), but it would be foolish to think it's worth staying, stagnating in Auckland, with no money and having no fun (because fun costs money). But rest assured, if the worst happens and I do have to fly home, I will endeavour to travel to this part of the world again, better, harder, faster and with stronger finances.

Sky Towering

Auckland Sky Tower, the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. I have taken many a photo of this 328 metre marvel

Here's one

Here's another

On Saturday I decided to go and see what the view is like up there.



Well, it looks a lot like this...

There are two (3, but one is a bar/cafe) that you can look out over Auckland. The top one is the Sky Deck, which is 220 metres up and has windows, but of course it's what's outside the windows that matters

Pictured: Miles of stuff all far away

Here's a guy doing the sky jump

I couldn't see London from here because I'm on the other side of the planet, duh!

It's pretty cool being up that high, fortunately it isn't too expensive a tourist attraction as finances are something that I am steadily losing control of, but that's another story and no where near as good as a picture of me squatting on some glass about 200 metres above the ground.

After standing on the shoulders of a giant building I had a quick email check at the library, no replies from full time jobs yet... Which sucks.

Later I would watch the All Blacks kick some wallaby arses 22-0 in 'The Championship' (which is like the Southern hemisphere's 6 Nations, except there are 4 nations across 3 continents)

D'you like Daggs?

Good stuff. Although I've never understood why Australia call their rugby union team 'the wallabies'. I've seen a wallaby, they're not much bigger than a rugby ball and they run away a lot, hardly the kind of image you want a rugby team to have.

Unless you want the opposing team to just say 'Awwww'

Today I'm job hunting again and planning various plans that will become active depending on certain circumstances. It's all very complicated, but it all boils down to 'I get a full time job, if not I go home'. For more details I have taken the time to go into detail regarding the realisation that I am not really financially stable enough to realistically keep travelling.

English Commodity

I've been looking into teaching English and it turns out the whole enterprise of teaching English is run by the TEFL guys. I have looked at 3 different books, got a pdf file emailed to me about teaching English and they all say 'get a TEFL', which I think classes them as a monopoly, which Microsoft has been fined for in the past. Honestly, I want to just get on and teach without paying out for a qualification, but I wouldn't know where to start. Example, if somebody asked me 'Herro, Lyan. Can Yoou Learn Me Engrish' I wouldn't know where to start, well, I'd start by saying 'my name is 'Ryan', not 'Lyan'' but after that I'd be stuck. I have found a place online that could aid me with my lack of teaching experience without having to awkwardly talk face to face with a person, however I'm not sure I trust them.

And neither does Windows

It's a company that offers online instruction to Japanese students studying English. The idea is they submit some English writing and I exercise my grammar Nazi skills to help them learn English. It's win win, I get some teaching experience and some Japanese guy learns how to write 'I cleaned my whole house' properly.

If I wish to go through with it I have to pass a 'test', nothing too tricky, just prove I can speak English better than they can, which most children above the age of 5 can probably do.

The whole thing seems remarkably easy, but the quality of their Engrish emails is probably what made Windows suspicious of them. Here's a couple of samples from an English teaching company's email to a prospective English instructor.

NOTE:YOU DO NOT PASS THE TEST IF YOU DID NOT FOLLOW OUR TEXT  CORRECTION PROCESS CORRECTLY REGARDLESS OF YOUR CORRECTION SKILL.
So please watch our Work process video(moving screen) before you take the test.
 Am I the only one who thought of the Saw movies(moving pictures) after that first line?

IDIY offers online English text correction service for Japanese customers.
I hope you'd enjoy interact with them through teaching English.Google Translate still needs some work.

We will contact you within 10days (of our business hour) if you are selected to
take the next step/recruitment test.
I'm sorry to inform you that if you did not hear from us within 10days
(of our business hour) which means you did not get selected.

In Japan they are so efficient that they have one hour, which lasts ten days.

I'll do their 'Test' but if it starts asking for bank account details and Western Union deposits then I may just give up on the whole idea, do a TEFL and gamble on getting a teaching job somewhere in the world. Or I'll just carry on delivering sandwiches in Auckland.

The Return Of An Idea

Before I even thought about going to Australia last year I had a dream...

...cast

Well, it was less of a dream and more of an idea brought on by a good buddy teaching English in Japan for a year. Yes, I intended to do the same thing, but then that plan got Fukushima'd up by an earthquake and the Japanese government getting all shifty about the integrity of their nuclear reactors and the rest of the world knowing Japan wasn't being too honest so advising to not go to Japan unless you're up for coming back with no hair.

Or stomped on, either way it wasn't a good idea.

 But now I'm thinking teaching English is worth doing, but first I need a qualification, which costs money, which sucks. But I'm definitely going to seriously look into it because then I'll unlock a whole new avenue of employment opportunities. A bonus is I can already speak English, which is really handy, another bonus is that a TEFL course is an internationally recognised certificate (like my CompTIA A+  desktop IT support thing that I haven't had to use, ever) or at least I think it is, more research is required on the subject methinks.

Meanwhile I took some photos the other night, so, here they are

This was on the bottom of a wall just above the grass and mud, which seemed odd because, well, why bother putting it there? Unless it's intended to be read by the dogs that are not allowed there?

Apparently Satan made this.

Right, I'm done for now. Not much going on but the teaching avenue may be one worth going down, we'll see. Until then, stay cool!