Moving in and settling down.

No pictures today as I forgot to bring my camera with me to the hotel to access the internet.

Finally got to actually move into my new apartment on Saturday. Roger helped me move my stuff to the new place with an estate style taxi. Had fun trying to figure out the tradesman entrance to the building as I was told when moving in to use that entrance instead.

I'd already prepared for moving in by buying loads of cleaning stuff from Woolies. I have to give the place a good clean top to bottom, would you lot have expected anything less? Something very strange happened while I was cleaning. I was upstairs hoovering while listening to music and didn't hear someone knocking on my front flat door. I did just hear someone come in and call for me. It turned out to be another estate agent who was showing some old biddie around my flat!!!

I was quite shocked to have a different estate agent showing a prospective buyer around my flat just as I was moving in. From the estate agents point of view he said it was quite normal for a landlord to want to sell a property while it was being rented out. I mentioned that I had just signed a minimal six month contract. He didn't seem bothered by this at all and asked whether he could show his client around the place. I didn't see why not so let him lead her around, next time though I'll expect some sort of reasonable notice. Lucky I wasn't doing my cleaning in only my pants!

I'll have to call my estate agent tomorrow to find out what is going on and whether the place will be sold from beneath me forcing me to move out. God knows what's happening here though. I did think that maybe it's a sneaky ploy by the landlord to encourage me to sign a 12 month contract rather than the 6 month one that I have signed. I am tempted to sign a 12 month contract now though as I quite like the place. Maybe I'll give the place a week to see what it's like to live there for seven days before committing myself to it.

After moving in properly I'm generally very happy with the place. The two air conditioning units don't work really well though and don't cool down the place that much. It felt like ages last night before I managed to get to sleep. It was much much too hot in the bedroom, especially with the air vents and open mezzanine area and bedroom overlooking it. All the heat from the downstairs rises and collects upstairs making upstairs quite warm all the time. Not too good really.

Also discovered that the church in the next block has church bells which ring quite loudly on Sunday mornings! Went out shopping for lots of house things this morning. Even though the place is furnished there are so many little things that I still needed to buy, larger cups, coffee mugs, tea towels, desk fan, sideboard dish drainer (the flat has a dish washer but I doubt I'll ever use it seeing as I like washing up so much), Bose sound system for my iPod so I have music.

There is an ironing board in the property, but it's only a mini one with small legs on each corner. God knows how it's meant to be used to iron shirts though. The legs on the corners get in the way of trying to iron one side of a shirt at once. Grr!

Had to do a food shop to stock up my cupboards a little. Not having a car makes it difficult to be able to buy all the stuff I need in one go. I had to make two trips and the local supermarket is only a small inner city one so doesn't have much in the way of fresh veg in stock. I'm sure I'll get used to buying food two to three times a week. I wish I had my S2000 here, I have a parking space for it in my apartment and it would be really nice to be able to drive outside of Sydney central with it. Mind you the police here are quite ruthless on speeders, so I'd be likely to loose my driving license from speeding quite quickly.

I've not met any of my apartment neighbours yet and don't expect to be friends with any of them really. Was going to go to the nearest Fitness First gym this morning but after not sleeping very well last night I really wanted to lay in a bit rather than visit the gym. I'll have to introduce myself there later on this week instead. Got very chatty with one of the 24 hour security guards though. A guy named Nick who was very friendly and offered me loads of helpful advice.

There's a Starbucks opposite my new flat, they apparently have WiFi computer access so I might be able to log on there over the next couple of weeks. Otherwise don't be surprised if this blog isn't updated till I get internet access at home which will hopefully be in a week or two.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying reading my experiences while out here. Miss you all... xx

TFI Friday!

Just to cheer you lot up some more here is a sneaky picture of my actual office at work. Andrew is modelling his desk at work with my desk just behind his. The doors behind the desks are blocked now as this large room used to be a series of smaller offices. There are twice as many fluorescent lights than there need to be though. The corridor in the previous entries runs along the left of this room.

They appear to have a general policy of donuts or a big cake for Friday afternoon. Ho hum, all the effort I make to get into shape and now it looks like I'm going to do my best to ruin it with regular cakes at work and eating out all the time!
Must try hard to resist the Friday donut sessions.

Finally signed contracts with the estate agent and also picked up the keys to the apartment. I popped round to the place to get a good look at it and go through the inventory.

Here's a shot of the living room just as you enter the front door. You can see the steps going up to the upstairs hallway, bedroom, box room and bathroom. The place has two air conditioning units, that'll be good for my electric bill.

The second shot here is of the north facing double height floor to ceiling windows. I think I'm going to spend lots of time sitting on the floor looking down at the people walking by while reading and listening to music.

You can just see a tower block on the left of the window. This was the tower block that had the tenth and twenty first apartments that I almost went for but were more expensive. The more I look at the space of this flat the happier I am that I went for it. It must be at least half as big as the other two flats. It doesn't have a balcony or opera house view though. But at least no other blocks are near it so no one can easily look into it.

Lots of cleaning and organising to do tomorrow, I'm getting all excited just thinking about the prospect of it. :-)

Those who know me know that the last comment was also semi serious!

Not all good.

Well here is a picture of the outside of the Sydney Water offices. It kind of looks like a car park from a distance and not much better close up. What on earth possessed an architect to think that this was a good look I'll never know.

Another day at the office with more meetings and the such. Had lunch out in Hyde Park after visiting the food court. It was very nice, except that Andrew was bitten by an ant and I think I have been bitten on my hand as well.

I'm sure that as soon as there is an insect within a few yards of me it can smell me and want to have a bite of me. Not good!

It rained quite a lot this evening. There were predicted thunder storms but I didn't see or hear any. The clouds were very dark though, you can just about see them in the picture. Went out with the other WS developers and Shane (A project manager from Melbourne who is working with us) for dinner at Jordans again, the really tasty seafood restaurant in Darling Harbour.

The food is a little more expensive than most of the restaurants probably because of the view, but it does taste good.

I probably won't have internet access for the first two weeks after I move into my new apartment. My phone line is being installed this Tuesday but the ADSL connection won't be ready for five to ten working days apparently. What will I do without access to the internet!!!

The usual suspects.

Not much to say today really. Went to work in the morning for the usual stuff. Have started to discover some of the 'great' food places around the office. Went to a general bar on Monday lunch, the food court on Tuesday and a cafe which did lots of types of lunch food today.

The food court is more like a big mall food court, only with more choice in food types. It's all still junk food though.

Didn't take any pictures today so here's one of an S2000 that I saw in the suburbs. :-)

Left work early (4pm) to pop down to the bank to open an Australian bank account which it appears I'll need to pay my rent and utilities. Unfortunately the banks around here close at 4pm! I'll never call the banks in the UK lazy for closing at five again. What is it with Australians and opening late and closing early? They're just too laid back for me.

Also sorted out to arrange the signing of contracts and paying of rent and bond (deposit) for my new apartment. It'll all go ahead this Friday afternoon, can't wait!

Anything but a working paradise!

Yes, here are a couple of pictures from the corridors where I work.

As you can see it really does look like a hospital or mental asylum. The worst thing are the echoes around the corridors. I'm wearing hard smart shoes and they echo around the floor so much that you can hear me walking from the other end of the building.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm in some horror film and something horrific is going to happen. Then I realise that I'm in the one horror building in Sydney and something horrific is about to happen.

To be fair this is only the old part of the building and the newer building is slightly better. Only slightly though as it's still an old building just without the character of the old building. Looks like a big car park from the outside. I kid you not!

Decided to stay in this evening and not go out for food yet again. After going out for food for almost nine days in a row I've had enough of eating out for now and really needed a break from it. Sometimes you really can have enough of a good thing.

First day at new school.

Started work today at Sydney Water. Quite nervous, as if I was starting at a new job really. Met lots of new faces and also totally forgot their names after introductions too. It all went as expected really lots of new health and safety documents to read and even more meetings about stuff that I don't have much input into yet. I will hopefully have some photos of the place tomorrow.

It's not the newest building on the block that's for sure, if you imagine an old hospital or insane asylum you will get an idea of some of the old building corridors. There's way too much security and fluorescent lighting and hardly any windows where we work. Even the cockroaches don't like it there as I saw one dead on it's back along the corridors.

We were told off at one point by the computer security team for our lax attitude in our temporary wireless network. They came round to our cubicles at the end of the day after having discovered our wireless network and easily hacking into it. I'm impressed that they spotted it immediately and tracked it down to our area. It must have made their day when their unsecured wireless security light went off.

We went out to a local Wagamamas to celebrate our first day at work. It finally rained here too! Much cooler this evening, almost cool enough to not consider wearing T-shirts.

I appear to be suffering quite badly from motion sickness these days. I think it's all the lifts that I have to take and I'm not used to it. I live on the eleventh floor in my hotel apartment and work on the fifth floor at Sydney Water. This is causing me to constantly feel as if I'm moving up and down all the time even when I'm perfectly still on solid ground. It doesn't feel good and makes me quite queasy.

Hopefully I'll get over it as my new apartment will be on the 7th floor! Talking of which I've been approved for my apartment application today and put down a weeks deposit for it today. I even had the estate agent from the 21st floor apartment call me today to try to reduce the price on that apartment so I could afford it. I've still decided to go for the first apartment that I saw last week though. The 21st floor apartment with the balcony and nice view would still be around £15 more expensive a week for rent.

Final weekend before starting work.

Went out to Balmain yesterday to look at potential areas that Roger and Allen will live in. I see it as basically inner suburbia of Sydney. Kind of like the Kingswood of Bristol for those who know Bristol. Didn't quite convince me to want to live there but it was a pleasant enough neighbourhood all the same.

I did see a few S2000's over there though, having not seen one in the city centre and then seeing three on the trot outside of Sydney. I was beginning to think that they weren't sold over here.

This is a view of from the ferry which we took to get out to Balmain. As you can see it was yet another sunny day and the ferry trip was very picturesque.

As the ferry went around the harbour you got a good view of the Sydney skyline. I'm amazed how much cleaner the air was around Sydney. I guess the better weather conditions helped but even so, Sydney doesn't have the same haze that other large cities have such as London, Hong Kong or New York.

In the picture you can see a yellow boat, these are water taxis that can be used to get you around the harbour. They are expensive to use though.

I went to the gym this morning (Sunday) for another work out. I was very surprised to find out that the local Fitness First didn't open till 11am on a Sunday! I guess Sydneysiders prefer to work out later on a Sunday. Even worse is that the nearest Fitness First to my potential apartment is only open on Monday to Friday. What's wrong with these Australians, don't they like to get up early or work out on weekends?

For our last day of "holiday" before starting work, we went out to Watson's Bay. Since Allen wasn't feeling very well only Roger (on the left) and Andrew came along. One thing that is very strange with the trains around Sydney is that they are all double decker trains. You can see the top and bottom deck windows on the right of the image. Having the double decks makes the trains look like cattle carts to me!

Watson's Bay is Sydney's oldest fishing village apparently. Well so the sign said at the village. We went to a famous fish restaurant overlooking the bay. I had some fantastic seafood for lunch and an even better desert. Remember that I went to the gym this morning so the desert made up for it. Ying and yang and all that.

Went for a walk after a long lunch and there are several beaches around the bay. One called Lady Bay was even a nudist beach. No pictures I'm afraid. As you walk around the bay you can see Sydney harbour's widest point as it opens out into the Pacific Ocean.

I've never seen the Pacific so I can now tick that box on things that I've seen now. Looked like any other large ocean to be honest, but it was nice to know that further out would be New Zealand and even further out from that would be South America.

Finally ate in my own apartment hotel this evening. After eating out for over a week or so it was really nice to be able to cook my own evening meal. I'd already had lunch a couple of times but not having to eat out at night and to be able to chill out on my own made a nice break.

They appear to getting ready to show the second series of Lost over here so that's possibly a good thing. Possibly as I'm not convinced that the first series was that great really. In this serviced apartment I have a portable TV in my bedroom which I don't have at home. I'm now convinced that having a TV in the bedroom is a very bad thing. I've hardly read any books since I've been here, it's all to easy to watch TV before going to bed rather than read a book.

Finally starting work tomorrow morning. Looking forward to a change of pace and some more structure to my week now. The sooner I get to move into my more permanent accommodation the better really. Then I can really start to settle down and find my own way around Sydney and Australia. More new stuff and changes but I'm looking forward to it though...

Customs and quarantine and more flat viewing.

We set of for an early start this morning to go and pick up a car that we rented for the day. I was nominated to drive the bungle bus to the airport to pick up our stuff that was shipped over here. We tried to get the largest vehicle that we could hire to pick up the ten suitcases and boxes. As you can imagine the only thing it has in common with my car is that it has four wheels. It was an automatic with a stick shift and handbrake as a foot peddle. Still it was easy to drive as I've driven an automatic before but didn't rev to 9k as my S2000 does.

Reversing it was fun though as I'm used to seeing a very short boot behind my left shoulder rather than two rows of seats and a boot as well.

We spent most of the morning at the airport customs and quarantine filling out forms and waiting at four separate queuing systems. At least none of us were shipping in any fruit or mud which might have been more fun.

This is the state of my box once it had arrived back at my hotel room. One corner of the box looks like it has been crushed a little. I'll not check the contents of the box as I'm afraid if I open the box I'll never be able to close it again. I'll wait till I've moved into my new more permanent apartment first. There's nothing in the box that I need right now.



Speaking of new apartments we went to see two more apartments both located in the same tower block. Both were really well decorated and included all appliances and small things like cutlery and ironing equipment which you wouldn't normally expect and would save me money and time in having to go and buy them.

One apartment was on the 10th floor with a balcony view of a motorway and the Sydney river beyond it. This apartment had a slightly better layout, but because of the view and being west facing was slightly cheaper. The other apartment on the 21st floor had this balcony (pictured) and a much better view of the Opera House too, but as can be seen there were some office blocks that could look into the apartment. I had better not hope the lifts don't break down in this one.

This apartment was north east facing which is much better for the intense setting sun, but it was also slightly more expensive. The layout of the apartment wasn't quite as good as the 10th floor one as it had a long corridor which made the actual living space feel slightly smaller.

Both had excellent specifications of furniture and fittings. Strangely enough they don't require a bond (deposit), didn't need references and I only have to give a weeks notice to leave the place. It sounded quite dodgy to me the more I asked about this. It could have been a guy who had acquired the keys to the apartment and then showed me around hoping to get a quick buck on it. Money talks as the estate agent said!

I've got to make a decision now as to which apartment to take, I think my choice will come down to this 21st floor apartment with all included rent and great views with balcony and the very first one I saw on Tuesday which had slightly better decor but no balcony but was cheaper, but then didn't include all the household stuff that I'll need.

Sorry I didn't take any photos of the inside of the apartments in this case. I think I was too excited by the prospect of living here to remember to take more photos.

What do you lot think? Higher or lower?

Walking and being a tourist...

My internet connection in the hotel wasn't working last night so I've only just published last nights post and here is today's.

Went to the nearest Fitness First gym to the hotel this morning. It wasn't that big a gym seeing as it was in a mini shopping mall. And the receptionist wasn't the friendliest person in the world either. She was reluctant to show me around the gym and after saying that everything was as I saw it, I had to ask where the male changing rooms were because she didn't look like she was going to tell me. Anyhow, I had a reasonable work out, but after a week without any exercise and eating lots of rich food what could I expect. It'll take me a couple of sessions to get back up to speed.

The best thing though is that there is a Mooks clothes shop, Wagamamas and large book store in the same mini mall as this Fitness First.

This is my lunch today, sushi take-a-ways are two a penny around here and this shasumi and sushi lunch only cost me $14, which is about £5.50. Bargain or what, I fully intend to make as much use of all the sushi places in Sydney while I'm here.

Walked around china town after lunch and then wondered up to the central business district where the first apartment which I saw on Tuesday is located. This is a shot of the building from the outside. You can see where the old church ends and the new odd building starts. My apartment could be one of the ones around mid way up the block. I walked around the area to see what was about in terms of local shops and restaurants. Seeing as the place is just on the edge of the financial district, most shops consist of coffee houses and restaurants. The bulk of the shopping shops are only a ten minute walk away though so I can't complain.

I'm looking forward to moving into a place which I can properly call home. A nice as this hotel is, it's just not right to have someone come in the place on a daily basis to change the sheets and clean my own bathroom and kitchen. I'd much rather do these things myself, perverse I know.



There is also a Krispy Kreme coffee shop one hundred yards away from the apartment. I think this is a sign, all I have to do now is work out where the nearest Fitness First is and I can make one of my dreams come true. To be able to eat Krispy Kremes while working out on the machines at the gym!

Something else is that they really do show Neighbours on the TV over here! It is on more of a prime time viewing spot though.

Just don't ask about the current food for arms scandal with the Australian government and Iraq right now. I don't think the Americans like Australians right now.

More flat hunting and lots of walking (oh and a couple of beers)...

Went to Manley beach last night to meet up with the Wallingford Software Sales and senior support team who were on their jolly, sorry sales conference in Sydney. Managed to meet a lot of our sales and support staff from around the world. There must have been people from all over the world.

The beach image is of Manley beach which is north of Sydney. It took a pleasant half hour ferry trip to get here as there isn't any direct public transport route to get here.

I think Allen would rather live out here and they did have a serviced apartment that was next to the pictured beach. Personally I can't see the appeal to living next to this sandy beach with deep blue seas and all year round sun. :-)

This is a picture of some of our sales and support team from Wallingford Software. After beering at the Barracuda bar till almost midnight we went to a club for a quick beer. We had to catch the last 12.20 ferry back to Sydney centre and left the club at 12.15. We had a gentle jog to the ferry port, but unfortunately missed the last ferry home. So we were stuck catching a taxi home.

Because we were catching a taxi home we decided to go back to the club and carry on drinking. We finally finished drinking around 3am and the taxi was only around $30 to get the three of us back to our hotel.

Roger arrived on this mornings flight. He's the last of the three developers who will be working in Sydney for a year. Allen was up at ten am to meet him for breakfast, but seeing as I didn't get to bed till four am I missed breakfast and had some home made toast in my apartment.

We went to look at another apartment for me this morning. It was slightly outside of the central business district and just west of our hotel. A good location for work as it would only be a twenty minute walk or ten minute monorail ride and walk. The apartment block was a half converted car park block. They just converted half the block to self contained two and three bedroom apartments and left the other half for car parking places. Because of this there were big concrete pillars in every apartment. I suspect this was much cheaper to do rather than remove them and reinforce the walls.

The space was really good for the money, but the decor was quite 'funky' in the estate agents terms. I.e. plain unfinished concrete ceilings and some exposed brick walls. The decor was also very heavy on the brown look, almost everything from floor to walls was in some shade of dark brown. It really was much too much on the eyes. Everything was also still being finished and some rooms weren't even complete.

Despite the good price about $800 pw for a two bed furnished and the large space I doubt I'll be taking this property. The place looked really good, but I suspect the location and 'funky' decor would be a bit too much for me over a year.

Spent the rest of the day walking around the inner suburbs of south Sydney looking around potential properties for Allen and Roger. Most of the suburbs are as expected really. But near the end of the day we did really see some really nice ultra modern properties right beside the Sydney riverside. Didn't get a price, but we suspected that they would be well over our budget as they did look spectacular.

In the evening only Roger and I went out for dinner as Deirdre wasn't feeling very well and Allen decided to stay in with her.

We went to a really nice seafood restaurant beside Darling harbour. The food was really good, I had a chill octopus starter with soft shell crab for a main. The quality of the food was great and I'm very comfortably full now. Especially after a filling desert as well.

The above image is of Roger, my dinner partner for the evening, and this picture is of the much better view across the harbour to the central business district.

I can think of much worse ways to spend an evening. Mind you I can also think of much better dinner partners as well!

The evening weather here is delightful, there is a warm breeze in the air with cooling temperatures. Ideal for eating and drinking outside beside the harbour or the sea. Just think of the Bristol docks in a warm summer evening, but without any of the loud drunken bars or Bristol idiots and also on a much larger scale and you might be getting close to what's it like here. Actually it's nothing like that, it's infinitely better here. :-)

Will try to get to the local Fitness First gym tomorrow morning as I haven't done any exercise since last Wednesdays run around in Hong Kong and I'm suffering exercise withdrawal symptoms. Allen and Roger are going to continue their hunt around other inner suburbs while I might scout around other parts of the centre of Sydney, like the local china town.

Second day in Sydney.

Met up with Allen and Deirdre this morning as they arrived on the morning flight from Hong Kong.

Saw an estate agent just before lunch. He showed me around two apartments. This is the first one, unfortunately picture quality is lacking thanks to my shaky hand. I really liked this apartment quite a lot and it was exactly what I was looking for. It's in a newly refurbished old listed church. The first three floors are the outside of the church and consist of flats, but they have extended the building up to ten floors or so for loads of new apartments.

It's a furnished one bed apartment with a massive window on the one north facing wall. The furnishings are all new and there is a part mezzanine level upstairs with study area and bedroom with bathroom. There are large storage cupboards and also a box room. Downstairs is one large open plan area with kitchen and living room. The actual area isn't that large but the big floor to ceiling window over two floors makes the place feel huge.

It's located in a good location for access to facilities and to the train station and a large set of bus stops. It's basically next to the financial district and a couple of blocks from the opera house. I guess a twenty to thirty minute walk to work or short bus hop.

The only down sides I could think of are that the building is so new it's still having the finishing touches put in and 40% of the flats aren't occupied yet, there isn't a balcony or great view, though the view is unobstructed and it is at the very limit of my budget. It's marketed at $900 pw but the estate agent says because so many properties are being rented in the same building and it has been on the market for a couple of weeks the owner is likely to reduce the price to around $800-825 for me. Remember my budget is at around $800 and I should be including utility bills in this figure too.

As I've said before if I find somewhere I really like I'm willing to add some of my own cash to rent the place for a year. It's not for long and probably worth it for some really nice city living space.

The second place I was shown was in Woolloomooloo! It's just east of the previous property and the agent did say I would need to catch the bus into work. The place was nice but not as good as the first property. It's located in an old sheep docks (shown) right beside a marina and navy docking port. The place was much
cheaper at $650pw and the apartments are mixed in with hotel rooms too.

The building was amazingly refurbished with lots of shops and restaurants on the ground floor and apartments upstairs. The bar at one end looked really good. There were plenty of other colonial style shops near by, as well as the start of Kings Cross street a couple of blocks away. Not sure whether this is good or bad as Kings Cross is like the same place in London, very cosmopolitin!

Anyhow the apartment was much smaller and east facing which isn't so good for the intense sun. I've pretty much dismissed this apartment and likely to go for the first one unless something better comes up.

Meeting another estate agent on Friday and waiting for one to call back today to show me a couple of places which sound similar to the first one here.

Talking with the estate agent brought up something quite funny. Woolworths came up in the conversation and he was saying that there is a really up market one in Sydney with fine foods. I had to tell him that Woolworths in the Uk is only a couple of steps up from pound stretcher and mainly sells pick and mix and no other food stuffs.

Should be going out with Allen, Deirdre and many of the Wallingford Software sales/support staff from around the world tonight, as the company has been having their 'sales conference' here in Sydney this week.

First day in Sydney!

Finally I'm in Sydney. The flight was quite good for nine hour flight. Had some food, watched a film and then slept for five hours solid. It was a full flight though which wasn't so great.

This is my serviced apartment (hotel) room picture. The place is much better than I expected. It's a self contained flat really with more appliances than I have at home, like a dish washer and clothes drier. The only problems are that there is an office tower opposite and I'm convinced that they can look straight into my apartment. Not so great when I'm lounging around starkers in the morning and I can see some woman using the photo copier across the street! They also appear to do road works overnight here, great idea but not great when you can hear drilling and an angle grinder at midnight. Fortunately I was quite tired last night so slept easily.

Arrived at the hotel at around ten am yesterday and I couldn't check in yet so had a few hours to kill. I knew the Superbowl was on so after walking around a bit I found a massive sports bar come night club. They were showing the Superbowl to a handful of americans and australians. Met an american called Lester from Hawaii. He's retired from the Navy and was travelling around while his wife worked at home. Got his contact details so whenever I'm in Hawaii I can look him up!

Did a little sight seeing in the afternoon. As you can see from the photo it was really good weather and much too hot. Walked around the Opera house and some of the main streets finding my way around and getting lost quite often in the process.

Also had dinner in one of the Wagamamas here. The menu is much the same, but with additional seafood items, like chilli squid and more of a fish choice. Very tasty!

Also called around some estate agents and made some appointments to see some for the rest of this week.

In some ways Sydney is just like any other big city in the world. Everyone I've met so far is very friendly and willing to help me out. There are quite a few homeless people in the street at night though, but they generally ignore you.

Just to prove I'm really here this is a shot of my hair and the opera house.

The best thing, and the thing that hasn't really sunk in yet is that I was being paid to settle into Sydney yesterday!

Last night and day in Hong Kong...

Met up with and went out for the evening with Allen who I'll be working with in Sydney. This is a picture of him and his girlfriend who got collared by a student with a questionnaire.

We went out up to the Peak for a great view of Hong Kong and also out for beers and seafood later on.

Flying out to Sydney later on today so my next entry will be hopefully from Sydney. I say hopefully because I'm a bit unsure of my work visa application to enter Australia. I guess I'll find out later on whether they'll let me in to their country or not with this printed out documentation that I have.

I'm looking forward to waking up in Sydney tomorrow morning, even though I'll still be on the overnight plane. Again it'll be sad to say goodbye to my folks again. It's a nine hour flight to Sydney from Hong Kong, almost as far as the flight time to Hong Kong from London. Plenty of time for me to watch some more movies, looks like it's a much busier flight though.

One day this will all be yours...

Went for a walk around my dad's village today so my folks could show me the plots of land that have been passed onto me. This is one of the larger plots of land with my Dad in the photo. His mask is because he's just had a kidney transplant and needs the mask when outside to avoid any infections.



My mum and I went to the local market later on to buy some food for lunch and dinner. Now this is a proper fish and meat market with real stalls of fresh live seafood.

This is a secretly taken photo of a fish stall with cascading tanks of fish and shellfish. You can see a small crab trying to make a break for it in the middle. I'm not sure the UK environmental health would approve but at least you know your food is fresh and there is much more choice of seafood here which I absolutely love.

This is my cousin Stewarts house which is about a hundred yards down the well worn road from my folks place. Stewart's on the left and another friend who has the same chinese name as me is on the right. Stewart was born and brought up in the UK like me but he moved back to Hong Kong to work a few years back. He's married now with two kids, married to a chinese wife of course.

He has quite a nice large house with a large garden area as well with grass too, which you don't see very often in Hong Kong.

Later on in the evening a few of my aunties got together to play some mah jong. It's a four player game with engraved tiles. It's a gambling game too so I wouldn't play against these four unless you wanted to loose the shirt off your back.

I did play one round with them and also managed to win, but I suspected I was just plain lucky.

More time in Hong Kong...

Today is the first day that I don't have to go anywhere today! Nothing much to do except for lunch with some aunties and uncles from my dad's side of the family and to see my sister off back to England tonight. For some reason I have to pay for their lunch today. It must be some conspiracy for them to get a free lunch as one of the aunties kept ordering more and more food after the initial order. Still at least the food is cheap here as lunch for eight of us was only thirty odd pounds.

The photo on the right is of the only train in and out of the local town Sheung Shui. I'm always amazed at how clean the trains are here, but then again they do need to have signs to tell people not to spit on the floor.

I saw an amazing big concrete park yesterday, lots of open flat concrete with steps and benches. Would have been a great place to skate around but the authorities have obviously thought of this as there were clear signs saying that you weren't allowed to skate there.

Had a fantastic Japanese meal last night with my sister and my cousin Stewart. I love Japanese food so much and it's so rare to find it in the UK and when you do find it, it is very expensive and not very fresh. Here it's cheap as chips and plentiful, hopefully it will be the same way in Sydney.

The picture above is of the waitress who served us. Some of the food that we ordered was a little strange and not quite to our taste, but most of it was very tasty.

This is an image of my parent's house in the New Territories of Hong Kong in Chau Tau village. It borders China and just behind the hill is a massive city in China. If you climb the hill you can see the barbed wire fence and the city in the distance complete with high rise buildings. At night there is an orange glow from behind the hill. I remember when the city used to be a small trading town for the border crossing but with all the construction lately the town has turned into a sky rise city.

Buried on the side of the hill are my deceased relatives. I think my dad once mentioned that there already is a plot for him and me on the hill side!

Behind my folks house is the rebuilt local village hall (and what used to be the village school where my dad went) where meetings are held on a regular basis to discuss local issues and to also allocate money made from recent sales of local property that is allocated to the family village as a whole. One really strange local law is that only males with the "Man" surname get an allocation of land and cash in the village. Any family females don't get squat, I don't think that this is law just a local tradition which is carried out in most places in Hong Kong. This of course means that I get some money and land, but my sister doesn't. I give her her fair share of course...

Flying out to Hong Kong and my first few days.

This is Naheed with the furry toys left in my bedroom after packing everything on the day that I left for Hong Kong. It was very sad to leave on Saturday, but I had to go.

My main ruck sack was overweight at 25kg so I had to leave some clothes behind. Managed to get it down to around 22kg which should be ok on a 20kg limit.

After checking in at the airport I can highly recommend checking in online if you ever get the chance. There was the usual long queue to check in baggage at the Virgin airport desk but the online check-in counter was empty expect for me and one other. It took me ten minutes to check in as opposed to the usual hour wait in the queue. I could also reserve my seat online earlier on which was also a big plus. I'll never check in at the standard desk again unless I have to.

There was also a funny moment at the airport security where they have started to check laptops separately. Unfortunately I had to carry two laptops through, I could almost hear the woman behind me 'tut' when I told the security woman that I had two laptops when I got to the font of the queue.

As it turned out the Virgin flight was very empty on the way to Hong Kong. As can be seen in the picture. I was at the very back of the plane and had a good few rows to myself. Managed to watch Flightplan, Mr & Mrs Smith and the latest Wallace and Gromet film on the flight. Surprised that they showed Flightplan as it involved a terrorist plot to blow up a plane! Managed to get four hours uninterrupted sleep so the flight went very smoothly.

Arrived in Hong Kong on the 30th to greet my parents and my sister who happened to be out in Hong Kong at the same time.

Went to Lamma Island on the 31st to see my grandma and my mum's side of the family which all come from there. Here is a photo of one of my uncle's houses on the island.

The Island has two sides to it, one side is a hippy commune and the other side is more of a small village with a couple of restaurants. You can guess which side my relatives live.

This is the view from the top of the above house looking outwards to the very small local pier.

Went shopping today with my sister to buy some shoes and clothes. Consumer products are so cheap in Hong Kong. Bought a new pair of the latest Reebok trainers for only £35 and a Muji coat for £25. Shopping here is definitely a plus point. However I have also been bitten three times by the local fauna. The mosquitoes appear to love snacking on my flesh. I always get bitten when I come over here. In fact I always get bitten by mosquitoes whenever they meet me abroad. Bastards!

I really hope they don't live in Sydney as well...