It is a country next to Australia but I felt somehow distant.  We planned a month trip and arrived in Christchurch via Sydney, we had a bit of trouble immediately.

 

We flew with Emirates to Christchurch, but one of my suitcases was left behind in Sydney. The next flight from Sydney was about midnight, so they said they would deliver it to our hotel. Luckily, it was a suitcase with trekking equipment, so we thought it would be OK for a night without it.

 

The only thing I missed was a conversion plug to charge the smartphone, so we tried to buy one at an airport store, but it was too expensive!  We thought that a shop in town would be cheaper, so we decided to first go to the hotel.

 

When we checked in, we asked, "Do you know a shop that sells conversion plugs?"  The receptionist handed us one from behind the counter and said "Here you are, you can keep it if you want."  We were grateful.

 

The suitcase arrived safely before checkout the next day. I have traveled a lot, but this was the first time a suitcase had been left behind. It was fortunate that we didn't lose it.

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It is a beautiful country.  Once we left the city, there were very few people and I could enjoy the scenery. The trouble is that there are a lot of black flies anywhere near water.   We bought insect repellent in Christchurch because I heard that Japanese repellent wouldn't work. We also tried to avoid bare skin as much as possible because we didn't want to be annoyed by itching for a long time from insect bites.

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There were encounters with many birds that I enjoyed, as well as the wonderful scenery. There was one bird whose crying sound was unique.

It is a country where you can easily enjoy as soon as you get there, because there is almost no jet lag flying from Japan.  It became one of the places I would like to visit again someday.