Our second day in Wellington

Just dropping a quick note to say we're on our second night in Wellington! Winter has just ended but it's still cold.

It was a fortunate turn of circumstances that brought us to the home of our host family. We are temporarily staying with a Filipino family here who I met online as I was looking for a place to rent. Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. Online advertisements require that you need to be a member to access contact information of the advertisers (they rarely give away contact information publicly). I will no longer divulge their names but he advertised an apartment for rent and I said we wanted the place. But we were arriving a month later still and so the place cannot be guaranteed vacant when we arrive. He still said he will help in sourcing out a place for us if ever.

His apartment was rented out two weeks after we arrived, but he fetched as at the airport, graciously opened their home to us (it is our second night tonight with them), helped us with our groceries, look for furniture, open a bank account, get local mobile numbers, do occular for the apartments, and all the while driving us around. His family was very generous with their time and resources. To think that we just met online!

Other Filipinos also pitched in. One asked me to send her a list of places we see online and she would do the scouting for us. Another also asked around for vacancies. This is how we were able to get our place, which we are now populating with some furniture and food before we move in, hopefully by tomorrow.


I am still simply astounded by the outpouring of support by our fellow Filipinos here.

Right now I am using the internet connection of my host. When we get our connection in the place we are transferring to and have some photos, I will be updating my blogs again.

Winter has just ended here but it's still cold. They said summers here can be quite hot though.

Here's a surprise: we were the only Filipinos in our trip from Manila to Wellington! I guess that says a lot about the number of Filipinos here. But we have meet quite a number too in the two days of stay here.

Until then...