June 22, 2011

Today was a big day. We met up with a former coworker of mine. She is from Japan but I met her while she was on a visa in Canada. Turns out she got the same idea and is currently in Australia.

So today my coworker, my Aussie, my Aussie’s friend, and myself made a trip to the Melbourne Museum, where we spent about 3 hours wandering through each of the sections.

We also ended up at the Melbourne Aquarium but I took a lot of pictures there, so I'll save that for its own post.

June 19, 2011

What I really love about Melbourne is the immense variety of architecture. No two streets look the same. There is such an eclectic mix of old with new, classic with modern, familiar with strange.

June 18, 2011 (Australia time)

It was impossible to wake up this morning. Our view looks onto a brick wall that is probably a grand distance of 1m away from our window. We get no sunlight. This is not in the least conducive to getting over jetlag.

We went to the Queen Victoria Market today. It was close to our hotel and would allow us to get some fresh fruit and veggies for our room – something I, in particular, had been looking forward to since leaving Canada. For so much of the year we get our food imported so I’ve been counting on fresh, local produce.

What I was not counting on, however, was the price.

$12.98 for 125grams of blueberries?! Are you for real? What, are they specially manufactured, dna-spliced blueberries? Good lord.

In other news, I now feel a little more like I’m in Australia – kangaroo! Maybe not in the form I was expecting...

The market was pretty cool, it was quite large and had many stalls with many interesting things to choose from.

Back at the hotel we had ourselves a nice little picnic of cheese and dips.

June 18, 2011

Sitting in the hotel room, watching tv with all the Aussie accents. Strange thing about Australia and this move is that it’s somehow scarier to be here than it was for me to move to China on my own. The thing is, I find it easier being in a country with a different language because it’s nice to be able to use the language barrier as an excuse. Here, if I do something wrong or stupid, it’s harder to have an excuse. If I’m confused here, I feel stupid. If I watch the news and am half-listening and think that they’ve been talking about (and showing replays of) rugby only to be told it’s football – I feel stupid.

I feel a bit of shock every time an Aussie opens his or her mouth. I keep expecting the comfortable Canadian accent and slang, that ever-present “eh”, and am always slightly jarred to hear the crazy Aussie accent. I feel like I’m in a film that’s been dubbed, like the voices don’t quite match the faces.

Being in the hotel is kind of a safe place. All airports and all chain hotels are the same, generally speaking, around the world, so I haven’t yet been fully exposed to “Australia” so to speak.

And also, I've been here 14 hours and have yet to see a kangaroo.

June 17, 2011

I’m travelling with a born and bred Australian who has been away from home for the last three years and never made it further north than Melbourne. So while I have an advantage with a local, most of this trip will be new for both of us.

We are in the Pearson Airport. It’s really late. Actually, it’s technically really, really early. My family has gone home after dropping us off and are likely already asleep, preparing for the next day of their regularly scheduled lives, while I prepare to live on the direct opposite side of the world.

Our flight is really long, but smooth. I am watching several movies while trying to ignore the children pulling back on my seat. If this flight is so much as an hour longer, I may whip around and smack some good manners into the mother who is refusing to control her children.

We are at the Hong Kong airport which is huge and completely deserted.

I wish we could explore Hong Kong for a couple days – I never did make it down while I was in China. The view from the flight is beautiful and makes me vow to myself that I will return someday for a bit of sightseeing.

I’m told I’ll love Tim Tams and since this is my first encounter with one, I consider this my first “Australian Meal”.

 It’s totally more Chinese than it is Australian. I know this. But still. A Tim Tam!

In the Melbourne airport with our entire life on one trolley.

It has begun.

 

April 19, 2011

My Australian visa was officially just approved. I have a nice long letter from the Australian immigration people. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. I just keep staring at the letter waiting for it to come to life with a song and dance congratulating me and welcoming me to the wonderful land of no winters, funny accents, kangaroos, and baby-thieving dingoes.

Australiaaaaa!

August 23, 2011

My newest adventure thus beginneth! I am in Australia, the land down under, the place stereotypically renowned for blonde suntanned, surfer bodies, for killer bugs and snakes, for gorgeous beaches, and for foreign phrases such as “crikey!”, “throw a shrimp on the barbie”, and “how ya goin’?”.

I’m no longer the travelling English teacher, but feel like the travelling English student, as I navigate through the unfamiliar, and often bizarre, terrain that is the Australian accent. As I post entries from my journals written since first receiving my visa acceptance letter in April, you might find that I seem more shocked by Australian customs, speech and way of life than I did in India or China. Frankly, this is sometimes exactly how I feel. Perhaps I relied too much on how similar Canada supposedly is to Australia – maybe I didn’t prepare myself for the culture shock. Maybe I relied too much on North America’s simplistic, one-dimensional view of the land down under and felt that I already knew everything. Perhaps after experiencing such obviously different cultures in India and China, I overestimated myself and felt that nothing could equate or surpass the adventures I have already lived.

Regardless of the explanation, the fact of the matter is, I’ve thrown myself into Australia, now I’ve gotta live it.