Thursday 3 January 2013

Living in Aus - the good, the bad, the ugly and the infuriating!

Even though we have lived here for over 4 years (!!!), one of our favourite things to do is still chatting with people who are from the UK and discuss the things we love about living here, the things we miss from home, the things that are just so different and the things we will probably never get used to!

I will try and keep this post balanced, but there is a chance it will turn into a "whinging pom" post... so apologies to the Aussies that are reading this! 

My favourite things about our life.... I think I have to stop calling it our new life now we have been living it for so long!
  • I get to have my birthday in the summer!
  • We are only a 20 minute drive from work and a beach
  • We live in a lovely area with a friendly village feel
  • We eat better here - locally sourced food and generally healthily prepared
  • We have a great work/ life balance
  • We have made some great friends here
  • When we have visitors, we get to spend some real, quality time with them
  • On the whole, Aussies are friendly and laid back - they are welcoming and helpful. the area we live in, especially, has a lovely village feel where everyone smiles and says hello
  • BYO - you can take your own bottle of wine to most restaurants making a nice meal less expensive
  • Coffee! The Aussies know how to make a good coffee - even the crappiest coffee shop will have a decent offering

The things I miss most... please note, things! The list of friends and family would be too long and would end in me sobbing, unable to finish this post!
  • British shopping! From clothes to food, we pay more here for less choice. 
  • Milestones - weddings, birthdays, dinners and nights out. We miss individuals, but we really miss you all when you are all doing things together and we can't be there!
  • Holidays! Leaving this vast country is not only expensive, it is also time consuming as everything is so far! That's why we only had our first proper holiday this year! (Although the fact that we only live a 20 minute drive from the beach does mean that every weekend can be a holiday!)
  • Mum's cooking. But my mummy will arrive here in just over a month so I will get my fill then!

Things that are different here... and I do kind of mean worse!
  • TV! Australian TV is pretty average, so we tend to watch a lot of English and American TV
  • Drivers. Round abouts, lane merging and saying thank you are all alien concepts here and its amazingly frustrating!
  • Crisps and chocolates. I still haven't gotten used to Australian chocolate and would readily donate an organ for an unlimited supply of English junk food... ironic cos eating an unlimited supply would end in organs being lost! 
When I started writing this post, I thought that last list would be much longer actually!

Looking at it objectively, it does look like life is pretty good!

Bye for now 
Kunj x 

Thursday 6 December 2012

The Melbourne adventure...

As most of you will know, Sham works for a small Brisbane based company. Since he joined three years ago, the company has almost doubled in size. The two owners have still kept that "family" feel though - they still fly non Brisbane based staff and their partners to the Christmas party, give all employees a Christmas present and give hilarious drunken speeches (sorry Craig - we haven't forgotten that one!).

When they were taking on a new client in Melbourne, they asked if anyone wanted to go and help set up - it would mean six weeks in Melbourne in a serviced apartment just on the outskirts of the city. The deal included flights to and from Sydney each weekend so Sham volunteered to do it! He left Sydney mid October.

We quickly realised that the return flights were best spent on me - I could holiday in Melbourne at the weekend rather than Sham coming home to help me with housework! Altogether, I got to visit for three weekends - and each weekend was different in what we did and saw, but each was as much fun as the one before!

On my first visit, Sham had already been there five days and was very excited to show me around his new home! The apartment had two bedrooms (he occasionally had a colleague staying for a night or two), a small open plan living, dining and kitchenette area and a bathroom. It was not flash by any stretch of the imagination, but it was perfectly functional, clean and most importantly, it was in a great location! A four minute walk to the office and a ten minute stroll to Flinders Street Station - the heart of Melbourne's CBD.







We spent the first weekend exploring Melbourne on foot - according to an app I have on my phone, we walked approximately 17km that weekend! We wandered down the lovely lane ways, shopped in Brunswick and strolled along the river at Southbank... stopping frequently for sustenance (coffee) and to take pictures of some of Melbourne's delights! It really was a perfect city break.

Yep, it's a busker!

The iconic Flinders Street Station


The second weekend just as lovely, but we did completely different things. Sham has an old friend from London, Mike, whose family moved to Australia around seven years ago. Because his family run their own business, Mike splits his time between Melbourne where his parents live and Brisbane where his wife and kids are. Luckily for us, he was in Melbourne while Sham was there. Mike had very generously offered to lend us his car over the weekend... but as we were negotiating a parking space in the apartment's underground car park, we were not quite prepared for the "car" we were borrowing!!

Our chariot for the weekend

Sharing the driving was out of the question as there was no way I was going to be able to drive that beast! This was a shame for Sham as he had some big plans for the weekend! After a late breakfast with Mike in the famous St Kilda beach, we dropped him back to his parents house and set off for a drive to Mornington Peninsula. It's a lovely sleepy coastal town and as the weather was lovely, we enjoyed a walk and lunch there.

We got back in the car and Sham said the next destination was a surprise! I worked out within 5 minutes that we were on our way to Ramsay Street, Erinsborough... home of Neighbours! Ok, don't judge me... I have watched Neighbours on and off since I was a kid and it was my first reference to Aussie life! I am not even slightly embarrassed to say I was very excited about our next stop! Pin Oak Drive (AKA Ramsay Street) is actually a really tiny, residential cul de sac. I wouldn't say I was disappointed as it was cool to see the Robinson house, but the size and non majestic nature of the street was a bit surprising ( I am not sure what I was expecting!)

Paul Robinson's house, Ramsay Street

Our next stop was the beautiful Dandenong Ranges.
It was a windy, steep drive up there and as we were there for sunset, it was absolutely freezing! I have to be honest, despite my best efforts to keep warm (hot chocolate and jumping up and down), I struggled to keep focussed on the amazing views looking down on Melbourne's CBD, so once the sun had set, I decided to wait in the car while Sham tried to capture the moment!

By the end of our first day of having the car, we had driven over 200km (approx 125 miles) and we were ready for an early night to prepare for the next adventure.

200 km later...
The next day was an early start and after a quick stop for coffee and snacks, we were on our way to do one of Australia's most famous drives - The Great Ocean Road! It really is a breath-takingly beautiful drive.
We stopped frequently to take pictures of the amazing scenery.






It was a REALLY hot day, so by the time we got to the 12 (now 8) Apostles, we wanted to get home the shortest possible way. The journey back on the motorway was not nearly as pretty, but it was quick!

530km driven
By the time we gave Mike his truck back at the end of the weekend, we had clocked up over 800 km (almost 500 miles!!) We loved road tripping together and are already planning our next one!

My last weekend in Melbourne coincided with my birthday so the weekend was spent shopping, eating at yummy restaurants and drinking cocktails!

Birthday dinner!

We both really liked Melbourne both as a city to work in (Sham) and as a city to visit... and we reckon we probably wouldn't rule it out as a city to live in! The weather is not as nice as Sydney, but it's also NOT as bad as London!!




Wednesday 7 November 2012

A proper holiday!


This post is being published in November - 3 months after our holiday... it feels like a lifetime ago!

In July we realised that we hadn't really had a "proper" holiday since we moved here... we have enjoyed lots of weekends around Australia, a couple of lovely visits to Auckland and of course trips to the UK and Kenya... but we haven't had a do-nothing-but-sit-on-the-beach or a drink-cocktails-at-a-pool-bar type holiday for nearly 4 years!!

I had a small window of opportunity at work before various members of the team went off on time they had booked off, so we did something that we are getting quite good at - booked something spontaneously! We booked a 8 night trip to Thailand. It worked out to be a perfect time to go as it would mean we would get to be there to celebrate our seven (!) year wedding anniversary!

The trip was everything we had wanted - the food was yummy, plentiful and cheap; the weather was perfect for lying around on a sunlounger and cooling off in the pool (with a swim up bar) and the massages were exquisite and only $6 each (I enjoyed  at least one every day!)

We stayed in a resort that was an hours drive north of Phuket, a place called Kao Lak - it was pretty and the staff were lovely. It was a really quiet area with only a handful of restaurants and bars, but that suited us just fine for the holiday we wanted.


Relaxing at the swim up bar!

The view from our balcony

A beautiful Thai sunset
We did manage to change out of our swimming costumes for a whole day to do a tour of Phuket - we visited 2 temples, a pearl factory (where Sham bought me some beautiful Southsea pear earrings for our anniversary), Phuket Old Town and a market! In that sort of heat, its more than enough to fit into a day - we were more than ready to have a  nap by the time we got back!

It really was a perfect holiday and I can't wait to do it again... no pressure readers in London, but Thailand is about halfway... we could meet you there??





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