Chapter 3: The Challenges of Getting Around

After one week, we had to give back our lovely little rental car, and we were left to figure out Wellington's great public transportation system. People assured me the public transportation system here was quite good, and I'm sure it IS good...but I am from Tokyo, where trains come every two minutes and are never late unless someone jumps in front of one.

We were told by our landlord that a bus comes right to the front of our house. Hurrah!--I thought. Perfect! But I soon learned that the bus comes only once an hour (granted once every 30 minutes during peak times) and it doesn't come AT ALL on Saturdays, Sundays, and Public Holidays. This realization had me dumbfounded and wondering how were were going to do the simplest thing like grocery shopping with no bus service on the weekends. The nearest convenience store is a 20 minute walk away, and the nearest supermarket is on the other side of the earth, as far as I am concerned.

The week after we lost the car, M and I went on a particularly extensive grocery run downtown. We loaded up with bulging bags like pack mules and walked to the downtown bus stop to catch our beloved #20 back to Highbury, confident that it was a week night and only 7pm. We learned soon enough, though, that the last bus departing for our neighborhood left at 6:10pm and our only option was to catch another bus that stopped at the foot of a steep hill, nearly a 20 minute walk away. (Yep, everything is a 20 minute walk here.) We hauled our groceries up the mountain in the dark, chatting cheerfully about how, "At least it isn't raining!" before we fell into silence and then muttered under our breaths, "We need a car. We need a fucking car."

Everyone also said that Wellingtonians are hearty people and they walk everywhere. Now I see why. They have to. And on a beautiful, sunny day, the walk downtown (which the landlord said took "20 mintues" but actually takes half an hour to get to downtown proper, and additional time to get where you want to go) is actually really nice. Wellington has many shortcuts--steep steps cutting down the hills that deposit you onto main roads and then cut you down some more steep slopes through houses and bush. It can be really pretty walking through those short cuts. Birds sing, the sunlight dapples the path, there's palms and ferns and flowers everywhere. But coming back is another story. Climbing those steps can be, for lack of a better word, a bitch. A huffing, puffing, sweaty bitch. "I'm going to get fit!" I say cheerfully to M between pants and gasps of air.

I get to the top of the hill and then wheeze, "We need a fucking car..."



At night, we have taken to catching cabs home. And I've even guiltily caught cabs during the day when I wasn't sure how to get somewhere, or if I could get somewhere on time. Cabs in New Zealand are much cheaper than in Tokyo, and although the price of cucumbers can still send me into a rage, 15 dollars for a cab ride still seems...well, quite reasonable, dammit. (Note: I am really, really good with money.)

As I don't have any friends here yet, and the more the Wide-eyed Tourist phase wears off, it can start to feel a bit lonely. This has made me quite chatty with the cab drivers, who have been mainly foreigners too and incredibly interesting people. Our first cab driver was an old man from former Yugoslavia. He told us that in his native Serbia, he had been a Professor of Agriculture, and used to travel back and forth from NZ but finally settled here at the pleas of his family. He tried to find a similar job here, he said, but couldn't. "Driving a taxi was only supposed to be temporary..." he said, "but you know...this is life."

Another cab driver I talked to was from Cambodia. He was cheerful, full of life, and when I asked him why he came to New Zealand he said in the sunniest voice that lilted upwards at the end of sentences, "Oh you know...very bad time my country...was in Refugee Camp in Thailand!! I was lucky to come here. I wanted to be a teacher in Cambodia. I taught myself English. Now I drive taxi--very good!!! My wife...she had hard time when she come here. She speak no English, no job. Now she work in supermarket--very good!!" He had a huge smile and laughed a lot. He told me he loves sushi and that the "Japanee" have "very good sauces!"

My most recent cab driver was from Iraq. Despite the fact our countries are at war, he was friendly and didn't blink an eye when I said I was from the States. He even became my new potential best friend in Wellington when he said, "Pardon me...but you are... BEAUTIFUL." He pronounced the fact that I was half Japanese, half American, "A beautiful mix!" Being both embarrassed but totally suckered by compliments, I smiled hugely and thanked him for making my day. I asked him why he came to NZ and he told me he also was a refugee but seemed more interested in telling me how much he knew about Wellington streets. "There are so many one-ways. You may think cab drivers are ripping you off, but this is a big problem for us!" I complimented him back on his savvy navigation skills and promised to always call Kiwi Cabs from now on. (Go, go Kiwi Cabs! Everyone call Kiwi Cabs! They are the cheapest in Wellington! No one is cheaper!)


Although I am happy to be in a country where the landscape is beautiful, where I no longer have to stand squished in a train on my way to work breathing in recycled salaryman breath, where I can walk freely in a street without bumping shoulders with the strangers around me, I think there is still a little bit of the Tokyo City Girl inside of me. I had come to take it for granted that you can find a Conbini no more than a couple minutes walk away. I am used to finding 50 vending machines full of cheap drinks along every street. I am used to never walking more than 10 minutes to find a grocery store.

I need to realize that truly appreciating this sweeter, slower pace of life is to let go of that Tokyo Girl who had come to feel that Instant Gratification is to be expected from my surroundings. Falling asleep in my Tokyo apartment to the sounds of cars and taxis whizzing by on Hongo Dori, I used to dream of country quiet and birds singing like they do here in Wellington. Now that I am here, I catch myself whinging about the inconvenience of things and feel suddenly ashamed. The "inconvenience" is actually what gives space for these beautiful things to be.