Christmas in New Zealand

In my last post I talked about Christmas shopping and my plans to go to New Zealand to visit my family during the break. While it was an expensive trip, it was nice to go back and see everyone. It took a long time to get to my mother’s house from Okayama. First, we had to take the bullet train from Okayama to Tokyo, then we took a train to Narita airport. After that the international flight took about 10-11 hours. Finally, we had to take a domestic flight down south to Nelson, then had to drive about 30–60 minutes out into the countryside. Overall, it took more than 24 hours to get there.

The international flight was better than expected. We flew with Air New Zealand, and they have business, economy, and even premium economy seats. When we bought the tickets, the premium economy was almost the same price as regular economy, so we decided to buy the premium tickets. It was quite an upgrade from economy. The food was more delicious, there was more seat space, and they gave us many free items to use during our flight. We flew overnight, and I usually can’t sleep on transport well, so I appreciated having a nicer flight environment.

When we arrived in NZ, it was morning. We had to spend some time at Auckland airport. I was shocked at how expensive everything was. NZ is more expensive than Japan, but the airport was especially expensive. I was also surprised by how many Japanese things I found. There was boss coffee in the convenience store, and a large Japanese restaurant was in the food court. There was also no security check for the domestic flight, which was unusual, as my hometown Wellington does.

Eventually we reached Nelson in the early afternoon and met some of my family at the airport. It was the first time to see one of my brothers and my sister in six years. We had to drive out to the countryside from there as my mother is a strawberry farmer and does not live in a town / city area. On the way we stopped at a suburb called Richmond which has a fairly large shopping area. We went to the bakery to pick up some meat pies and sausage rolls, two of my favorite NZ foods. It was also a chance for us to check out the supermarket and pick up any other foods I had been missing. It was December 24th, so it was also our last chance to buy anything for Christmas day.

Once we got to my mother’s farm, we were soon greeted by the zoo of animals that she has. At her farm, there are dogs, cats, chickens, lambs, pigs, and cows. It was feeding time for many of them, and we were asked to help. We were tasked with feeding the baby lambs their daily milk. One of them was particularly greedy. Feeding the baby chickens was also difficult because the fully-grown ones would try to steal the food for themselves. Besides this, we did not do much else on Christmas Eve besides talking and eating. It was my chance to catch up with everyone.

Christmas day was also simpler than I expected. Most of us got up late, and we eventually opened presents. I got an interesting variety of things. Some useful, some exciting, and some… a bit random. The personality of each of my family members showed in their gift choices. One of the nicest gifts I received was a pair of Ugg boots from my mother. Ugg boots have sheep wool on the inside and are very nice and warm in winter. My family always has Christmas lunch. We ate a variety of dishes such as roast chicken, glazed ham, potatoes and many more. We also enjoyed strawberry cheesecake that my mother made and Pavlova (a merengue cake eaten in NZ and Australia) for dessert. Me and my siblings also enjoyed playing card games… which lasted for several hours longer than expected. My brother bought a card game called ‘Muffin Time’ which is very crazy and can be very confusing for everyone playing, but it’s a lot of fun.

The next day was December 26th. In commonwealth countries, we call it ‘Boxing Day’. While everything is closed on Christmas day, most people go out on Boxing Day. It is common to go shopping, exchange / return gifts, buy new things to go with presents they received, or just to spend time with the family when everyone is together. We went out to the central part of Nelson city and looked around. We did a little shopping, but nothing else was too exciting. Because it was boxing day, a lot of people were out in town however and it made Nelson seem like a much more populated city than it is.  There are only about 55,000 people living there.

The 27th was an exciting day. We went to a well-known beach called Kaiteriteri beach. I went there several times when I was a child. My grandparents used to live in the South Island, so it was not such a long trip there from their house. My father bought us some tickets for a boat cruise as Christmas presents. The boat cruise sailed around the side of the Abel Tasman, a famous national park in the area. The ocean was a beautiful blue and the weather was perfect. During the boat cruise we saw a few sights including ‘split apple rock’ and some sea lions relaxing on some rocks. It was a nice trip. The boat dropped us off at a different part of the beach and we had to take a nature path to get back. When we got back, I was hoping to go swimming, but my family had already swum when we were on the cruise and decided it was time to leave. We had another plan later that day to get to. My father came down to Nelson and he took us all out to lunch at a local vineyard. The restaurant and meals were quite fancy. I ordered the roast lamb, and while the size was a bit small it was some of the most delicious lamb I have ever had. After our lunch we went to a local pub. But not just any pub, it was the oldest pub in all of NZ. It had pictures and notes about its history on the walls. At this time my sister had to leave and return home, while one of my brothers who was planning to leave as well suddenly had his flight cancelled and had to stay another night. A few of us headed out one more time to buy some fish and chips, a staple of NZ food culture.

The next day was our final day in NZ. We went out to another local area and enjoyed some pizza at a bar. We also helped my mother deliver some strawberries to a local shop to sell them. After that we did some window shopping at the local shops and eventually went back to get ready for our long trip back home. First, we had to fly back to Auckland and had some time to kill so we had dinner near the airport. Our flight left after midnight. This time we flew regular economy and the difference between regular and premium was very clear. We were lucky to have flown premium economy on the first international flight.  I was also surprised when they served us dinner on the plane at 1-2am NZ time. They also served us breakfast towards the end of the flight…. It’s safe to say I ate too much. We finally got back to Tokyo at around 7am in the morning. Despite not having slept much at all, we spent the day in Tokyo and finally took the bullet train back home in the evening.

Overall, I had a great trip. It was nice to see my family again and enjoy Christmas back home. It is a very different experience compared to Japan. Sadly, the holiday season is expensive so next time I will probably go during a cheaper time. None the less, I hope it will be sooner than 6 years….