I’ve been here a month or so now, that times flown by, house, job hunting and getting to know a few bits of what is a massive city (in terms of space, there aren’t actually that many people here). I’ll be honest I didn’t really know anything about New Zealand before I moved here, other than the usual things - Crowded House and Lord of the Rings, oh and sheep. It’s a bit like a PG version of 18 rated England, most of the bad stuff has been removed and whats left is the occasional moderate sexual reference that some viewers may find offensive.

Its easy to mock New Zealand, and the first thing that surprised me is how much people do, even kiwis. Its a lovable underdog, fighting to be taken seriously but lacking in credibility beyond Flight of the Concords, a NZ show famous for mocking NZ. I think its up to kiwis to be a bit more patriotic, to stand up for their country. I came here with no knowledge, and therefore no pre-conceptions it was just a whim decision made in an internet cafe in Cambodia, based solely on the fact that the only friend I have in this half of the world lives in Auckland. So when people mock New Zealand, telling me that its only good for a bungee jump or that I missed the party as everyone has left and moved to Australia, I’m like a young kid being taught swear words by an older cousin, if you tell me that I don’t know any better if you bash it I’ll believe you.

As a geek, the first thing that struck me about the place is that the technology market is small and a good year or two behind Europe. Impressively I’ve got a job in both mobile technology and the internet. Impressive because when I went to buy a phone it turns out that the most common form of mobile communication here is a paper cup threaded with string. The internet has arrived, but no-one is quite sure what to do with it yet. So it just sits in the corner in a box. Apparently between England and NZ is the largest time difference of all, but I didn’t know it was 10 years.

No! I’m doing it too. Note to self: Stop mocking lovely New Zealand! But it just makes it so easy.

The great thing about NZ is the quality of life. The other night I was looking out the window (we live right in the center) at the office blocks around, it was 5:45pm (I know because my watch told me) and there was no-one at their desks! What kind of backward nation would allow such a favourable work life balance? Contrast with the ‘most developed’ nation on earth the USA, where they make everyone work 9am-9pm everyday and reward you with 2hrs holiday a year. They call it Annual Leave, we call it a long lunch break. Yet I still feel naughty leaving the office at 5pm, like a school kid skipping Geography to smoke behind the bike sheds.

I now know what its like to be an American visiting England, wandering round taking photos and calling everything ‘quaint’. I can’t think of an apter description of this little dream country. “Oh look honey, they’ve got a little harbour, look at the little boats. My god that’s adorable”. Look at these pictures, can this place be real?

I took this one while sitting on a train. yep, on a train, a moving train, ‘choo choo’.

And there’s a million more sitting on my sd card. You don’t even need to look, just point your camera click, and out pops a beautiful scenic shot. Its the most photogenic country I’ve been to so far. I feel like I’ve moved in with a supermodel, and I can’t stop taking photos that everyone but me is already bored of looking at .

The one claim to fame the country is has is that Lord of the Rings was filmed here. The great irony is that it is the worlds shire. If you ever wanted to hide a gold ring from an evil wannabe dictator, you’d hide it here. No-one going to find this place, its about 50hrs from anywhere, safe and protected from the destructive influences facing other countries.

Its like a little volcanic sim city town, handcrafted by somebody who has no real understanding of the dynamics of public transport design looking at what a bitch it is to get around, but scoring full marks in the aesthetics dept. I keep waiting for that siren noise to start and then a tornado and a little growling godzilla creature to come out the sea and mess everything up. Its just too nice here. The hills, volcanoes, aqueducts, mountains, cliffs, beaches, boats in the harbour, parks, the nice shop workers who ask me constantly how I am. I’m sure I’m awake, but I have to fight the urge to go round pinching other things to see if they’re real and not made of pixie dust or by the acme corporation.

Well I say stop it New Zealand. This is a rallying call, stand up and be proud to be a kiwi! You’ve got spectacular scenery, short working hours, great weather, 0% unemployment….crowded house. Hold your head high and lets put New Zealand on the map. Or on the map in its own right and not as the home of lord of the rings, or a large town in Australia. Long Live New Zealand!

Good news (if you’re my landlord), I now have a new job here in Auckland, my new city (I think HipHipUK is now about two years old which completes the heading). Ironically, I already wrote about what I thought the most important new area of the internet would be - access, in particular mobile (see Web 3.0 post here). Now I have a job working for an Internet company specializing in mobile applications. Is that what they call ‘the law of positive attraction‘? If so then - ‘I think the next big thing is the end of receeding hairlines that you get when you’re only 24′. Lets see how that stab in the dark plays out.

So, desperate pleas aside, the company is called Sprite Mobile.  I’ll be their Internet Marketing Specialist. What does that involve? Well similar things to those that I did at Spreadshirt, but working purely with one product. This time the company is just 13 people, not 250. So I’ll get plenty of responsibility as one member of a two person (the other guy has also just been hired and surprisingly is German, because why would I want to work with a different nationality for a change marketing team. We’ll be devising a go to market strategy for a new and as yet un-named web portal. I’ve only seen an early demo, and I’ve no idea exactly how many cats I can let leave the safety of the bag, so I’ll say no more. But I think its got plenty of potential, especially in the corporate space which is where I see its key audience being. But I could be wrong, its all up in the air at the moment.

I’m excited because I’ll still get to work with communities and evangelize. I’ll still get to write. I’ll get tons of responsibility. Its not a web 2.0 platform per se. The aim isn’t to flip it to google. We’ll be measured on revenue and not eyeballs. Its a niche area, so will have to be advertised to a niche crowd, which, bottom line means - new skills. Oh and I’ll be able to pay my rent.

As I said before, HipHipUK is now my business blog so they’ll be more posts here about this project, and whatever else is keeping me up at night.

Well, I’ve moved to Auckland, New Zealand the exact center of the middle of nowhere a mere 88hr flight from anywhere. It was all of a bit whim to be honest, we were just looking round for an interesting place to settle once backpacking in Asia was losing its appeal. We backpacked for a little under four months through China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. All the photos from that trip are on Flickr.

So I applied online from Cambodia, two days later the visa came through, 5 days later we flew from Bangkok and here we are. The past two weeks have been a blur of flat and job hunting. I haven’t done too much on the latter, but I’m now the proud owner of a beautiful city center two bed flat. I’ve a few partially written posts for this blog, an idea for my next one and ton of updates I should do to the affiliate sites which are paying the bills during my hopefully brief spell of unemployment.

Today the Internet was switched on in the flat, so I guess this is a a mini-congratulatory post, normal life can resume again and early signs suggest Auckland is going to be a really fun city to live in. Yay.