No More Shopping, Mother

I have been to the street bazaars of Hong Kong, and to the souqs of Dubai. I have spent time inside Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, and on Champs Elysees in Paris. I have seen the fashion streets of Milan, and London's High Street. I also had a stroll through Beverly Hills and even the Wal Marts and Targets of that large consumer country known as the United States of America.

You will find in them all the goodies and stuff that you can ever imagine money can buy. You will drown in the people that flock to these hallowed grounds of shopping. I always was fascinated by this phenomenon. Consumerism was always king in the Philippines, sharing the same philosophy in spending as that of the Americans. In fact, this little country has two of the largest malls in the world.

Arriving in New Zealand changed all that. It is not that consumer products here are lacking. You can almost buy everything you need and want, albeit limited. But it is just that there are a lot more things to do than being boxed in a mall. Here, you would rather go to the grocery and buy food to bring to that special place in the mountains. You would rather spend the day mountain biking through the woods, or go tramping to see the scenic views of the hills.

It is the kiwi way of life. In fact, for being a first world country, the average age of cars here in New Zealand is 12.5 years, more than double that of the United Kingdom at 6 years. What does that mean? It means that an average kiwi really do not care that they have the newest and shiniest cars in life. It means that they would rather spend their money on houses, as evident on household expenditure numbers from Statistics New Zealand. And this further points to the fact that there is that everlasting kiwi dream of someday owning that magnificent house with a view of the mountains and the sea (or is it just me?).

So if you are planning to go to New Zealand for a shopping spree, then you should better think twice, or you will just end up with a bunch of kiwi wools that would probably be useless in the hot paradaisal islands collectively called the Philippines. But I promise you there are a lot more fun activities you can do to spend your money with.