Advertisement
Published: December 1st 2007
Edit Blog Post
G-day everyone, greetings from Down Under!!! My first time to the Southern half of this planet! Australia is the oldest continent of the world and was colonized by the British back in 1788. That’s why they speak English and they drive on the left. The currency is the Australian Dollar. 1 EURO = AU$ 1,67 these days.
Australia is considered in the top-3 best countries to live (after Norway and Iceland), in terms of general life conditions. The United Nations ranks countries with a mark between 0,1 and 1 for their life conditions (education, income, healthcare etc etc), it’s called the Human Development Index (HDI). With a mark of more than 0.96 Australia is on the third position. Just to compare: Holland ca. 0,94 / Venezuela ca. 0,78 / Suriname ca. 0,75 / Indonesia ca. 0,71 / Haiti ca. 0,48; and just a guess for Curacao would be around 0,885 (which means that the general living conditions are far from bad).
Last week I met the rest of the group at Schiphol. We stayed together for the 5 first days and then everybody went their own way.
The flight Amsterdam-Hong Kong took 11,5 hours in an Airbus A340-300. We
got heavy turbulences enroute above western Mongolia...tail winds exceeding 150 km/hr. For the rest, the flight was ok...Cathay Pacific is considered (one of) the best airline(s) in the world.....not a surprise because the service was more than excellent!
Hong Kong Once we arrived in Hong Kong around 7:30 local, we were brought to our guesthouse where we had a chance to rest until 13:00. Then we all went on a booked city tour. With about 7 million people living on just 1100 square kilometers of land, of which most consists of steep hills, Hong Kong has dozens of skyscrapers...all concentrated on a small piece of land. We went to visit the old harbour, where people live on boats and of course up to the famous Victoria Peak, from where you can enjoy nice views of the city. Hong Kong was British until 1997 and belongs now to China, but they are allowed to maintain their own currency, laws etc. In fact you could still consider Hong Kong as a different country than China….Hong Kong has press freedom and is at least 10x wealthier than China. Hong Kong’s streets are very busy, lot’s of advertisements and businesses boards hanging all
the way above the main streets….at night it’s full of colours (like Times Square in New York, but in Chinese 😉.
Sydney At 23:55 local we board Cathay Pacific’s A330 to Sydney, a flight which took other 8,5 hours. Once in Sydney the group leaders were waiting for us. They took us to the hostel where they explained what we’d do the next 4 days. They helped us with opening a bank account, get a Tax File Number and get a Medicare pass. They also gave us lots of tips; we got also discounted tours from them (I booked two for the northeastern coast). We also did a Harbour Cruise in the Sydney Harbour, from where you can have nice views of the city, including the famous Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. We went then in the area of Watsons Bay, where there are a few beaches. All I can say is that the harbour is very very beautiful! With over 4 million people, Sydney is Australia’s largest city. Sydney itself is very nice, I think everyone would like this city. It has a good nightlife (we went out 3 times already), it has many beaches nearby, it’s
a very international city with people from many many different countries and the city has a great and fun atmosphere. I really hope to be able to stay in the city for the coming 2 to 3 months. The only thing I don't like about Sydney, is the lack of culture. There is no culture and history here, it's a very "new" country. I’ve been looking for jobs since last Monday: on the internet, on boards in the hostels, newspapers, leaving my CV in a few places etc. I got involved into a job for Sales & Marketing. It’s not really my thing, but I’ll give it a try anyway, just because I don’t have anything else yet. It’s about informing people about a certain service and let them sign in for it. Depending on the project, you’ll get paid for each customer you get. I went one day with a group to see how they do it, and I had 2 days of training until now. You learn a few things and skills that might be useful in the future so I’m glad I did it. Although I’m sure I don’t really want to do this, after two interviews
and trainings they think that I’m good enough to do the job and with a little training I’ll be able to do well. Still that didn’t convince me a lot, I’m still looking for something else because I don’t like selling door-to-door or face-to-face at all…although I did sell to one person yesterday. What we’re doing is registering people to donate for a charity (Save the Children). I’ll continue with the job search these coming days and if it really doesn’t work out I’ll leave Sydney and go to another city, or try to do some fruit picking 😊.
My roommates in the hostel are Cornelis, Rick and Arjan (see picture)….all from Holland, they also came in the group and on the same flight. They’re cool, no problems with them so far. We all decided to book one extra week in the hostel. After that week I don’t know what they’re going to do. They are spending a lot of money already, drinking, partying, surfing etc. and they want to work when they almost run out of money. I prefer to work and save first, and then go travel around Australia and enjoy.
It’s quite warm already these
days and it’s not even summer yet. It’s still spring, summer officially starts Dec. 22nd.
Blue Mountains National Park Tuesday we went to the Blue Mountains National Park, just 2 hours to the west of Sydney, in New South Wales (name of the state). It was a bit rainy that day but we enjoyed the day anyway. The park has a lot of flora and fauna, including kangaroo’s (the first time I saw kangaroo’s), spectacular waterfalls and many nice views.
That's all for now. My telephone number here is 0061 420 886 820 (for sms it's +61 420 886 820). It's a Vodafone SIM-card.
The time difference is +10 hours from Holland and +15 hours from Curacao.
Address:
Elton Sint Jago
Level 7, 428 George Street TCP# 11688
Sydney, NSW 2000
Australia
(This is a post address only, where I can always go and take my mail. When I¡¯m outside Sydney they will forward my letters to the address I give to them).
Take care all and greetz from Australia...where the SUMMER is about to begin!!!
Elton
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0322s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Joel
non-member comment
Greetzzzzz
Hey Elton enjoy your stay. We will keep in touch. Later Bro