From Hesitation to Departure: How I Took My First Step Toward New Zealand
For a long time, I kept telling myself,
“I’ve never been abroad, I don’t speak English, I’m super shy… It’s impossible for someone like me.”
I tried to suppress the desire, pretending it didn’t exist.
But deep down, there was another version of me yelling,
“This isn’t like you! Don’t play it safe—take the risk!”
Those two sides of me were wrestling in my head every day.
But after I confided my dream to a senior colleague…
The bold version of me won.
“My destination is New Zealand. I’ll leave in the summer or fall, three years from now.”
Once I set that goal, a switch flipped inside me.
Once I decide, I move. That’s just who I am.
I’m a pretty stubborn person, but that stubbornness turns into drive once I commit to something.
And so, the moment I made the decision, I took action.
- Scheduled consultations with multiple study abroad agencies
- Calculated the total cost and started saving
- Created a timeline leading up to quitting my job
- Began studying English
- Researched New Zealand’s culture and history
- Watched tons of videos and posts by past NZ working holiday makers on YouTube and Instagram
Anything I felt was necessary—I tackled it one by one, without hesitation.
“Why New Zealand?” people often ask me.
To be honest, agents kept telling me:
“Oceania and Canada are more popular—you should consider those.”
But my answer was simple:
I wanted to watch the All Blacks (New Zealand’s national rugby team) play live!
Of course, there were other reasons like “It ranks 3rd on the Global Peace Index” and “It’s an English-speaking country,”
but the biggest reason was rugby.
Maybe I’m a rare case—someone who chose a country just to chase a sport.
But deep down, I also wanted to find out if there’s a place for me somewhere else in the world.
The plan was perfect—reality wasn’t.
After deciding to go abroad in my first year of work,
Year 2 was for buying a car and downsizing my stuff,
Year 3 was for saving and paying off loans,
and Year 4 was for quitting and making final prep.
That was the plan.
In reality, I had to quit my job suddenly in Year 3 due to personal reasons and became unemployed.
I ended up taking another job in my hometown just to finish paying off my car.
Still, I managed to stick to the original departure timeline.
So yeah—it didn’t go smoothly at all.
If things had gone as planned, I probably could’ve started this journey with more financial stability.
But the truth is, I left for New Zealand with my bank account barely hanging on.
(By the way, I’ll be sharing the tools and services I used for my working holiday prep—including English study tips—so if you’re curious about how I got ready, feel free to follow along!✨)
As departure got closer, the anxiety hit me hard.
About three weeks before my flight, my heart would race uncontrollably every day.
I kept packing and repacking my suitcase over and over.
No one I knew was waiting for me on the other side of the ocean.
And if I forgot something important, I couldn’t just come back to grab it.
The anxiety snowballed. My overthinking kicked into high gear.
Then, finally—the day of departure arrived.
My siblings came to see me off at Narita Airport.
After checking in my overstuffed suitcase and walking toward the departure gate,
it hit me: “I’m really flying off alone now.”
Right there in front of the duty-free shop, I burst into tears—lugging my big bags, crying my eyes out.
That moment of loneliness is still so vivid in my memory.
First international flight. No clue what I was doing.
As soon as I passed through the gate, everything started to feel unfamiliar.
Once I got on the plane, it felt like I was already in a foreign country.
Excitement?
Honestly, fear was stronger than anything else.
So…
Would I really make it to New Zealand in one piece?
The answer—
Continues in Part 3.
Please, stick with me through this journey 😊
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