Category: Australia

March will be a big month. The first week begins the countdown to the huge Mardi Gras Parade and Festivities. Sydney is world renowned for this event, and the streets are already being flooded with tourists coming for the event. March also is the beginning of the Fall Semester at University of Sydney. I will begin classes on March 6! My classes this semester should be quite interesting and on the whole will be focusing on Global Marketing, with emphasis in the Asia Pacific regions.

Along with these festivities, my birthday is coming up. I cannot believe I’ll be 27 this year. When I start thinking of ‘how many years since such and such’, it really starts sounding old. For instance, it was 8 years since I graduated High School, 6 years since living in Tokyo, 4 years since graduating university, and 9 months since I moved to Sydney.

So to celebrate march, I’ve decided I’m going to get an iPod nano. This will solve the problem of lugging my 20gb 3G iPod to the gym and having my headphones pull out of my ear because of not having any way to hold the iPod closer to me. This new nano I’ll be able to get an armband for and I can move freely while exercising. When will there be a waterproof one so I can swim with it!

Tonight, I went out to eat sushi on one of those conveyor belt type things. I was quite excited because of their creative creations–which I haven’t seen much of since leaving San Francisco. We ate, and ate, and continued to eat, until we had about 10 plates stacked up. The way these places work is the plates are colour coded and priced accordingly. Since we were seated at a table, we kept going back and forth to the conveyor belt to see other plates. However, during our last time up, we were chatting and trying to figure out which thing we actually wanted as our last pieces. During our time up at the conveyor belt, the waitress thought we had left and cleaned our table off. When we got back, it was like we started over. The waitress came by and looked confused, as we did back to her. She said did you pay already, and we said, no we just got up to get more sushi. (Cue free food). So she said, well, I guess you guys can just start over.. Sorry about that. So our $100+ meal went for about $20 total. Guess I’ll go there again!

I remember when Clinton was in office, there was so much attention to the budget, about how much of a surplus we were able to gain with the fiscally responsible plans of the administration. I just came across the US National Debt Clock which calculates the amount of debt the country has gone into. What’s interesting is not only is it soaring past $8 Trillion, but also, how is it possible that Congress continues to pass bills requested by Bush for his new endeavors. And with ratings as low as they are for succeeding at his job as President, all we can do is sit and endure what amazingly, more than half of the voting population felt was the best option. Absolutely incredible, and frightening.

Since I moved to Australia, you tend to keep your ears open about things that you know you have to do, but are yet ready to do it. Such as, going to the dentist. I had heard from other people what a terrible experience they have had before, so I wanted to make sure that I didn’t go through the same thing–especially since I’ve been lucky to have amazingly healthy teeth despite all the timtam intake I’ve had :). So, when my friend Leandro had mentioned how he liked his dentist, I made sure to get the details. So I too made an appointment. It HAS been 7 months since I’ve been in Australia–hard to believe! So, I called and made the appointment, and asked how much it would be. I really get annoyed when I ask such a simple question, and the receptionist, who I’m sure handles the bill pay at the end of the appointment, can only answer by saying, we cannot quote anything. All I want to know is it $6 or $600, and she still wouldn’t tell me.

When the day came of my appointment today, I made sure to ask what the method of everything was. She still wouldn’t tell me how much, and with that frustration, I went in not sure what to expect. Of course, they tried to upsell everything in the office, I was surprised he didn’t even offer me the little water fountain next to the chair. After a 30 minute cleaning and a ‘You’ve got pretty good teeth’ I was sent out with a bill of $225. After gasping and asking for a repeat, she said it again. I couldn’t believe it. I felt robbed, cheated and moreover, shocked. I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t warn me beforehand of such an expense, and as Australians have been quite famous in my book for not knowing how anything works or goes on here, I was unable to be advised properly by any of my friends. For some reason, no one knows how much things cost, or where to find things etc. It’s been quite an experience. So needless to say, I will not be going to the dentist again during my stay in Australia.

Happy Australia Day! Today I went down to the Quay to meet up with Janneke my friend from uni. We met up and had lunch around the rocks looking the festivities. Which, surprisingly weren’t that amazing. There were some booths, and some music and such, but not as big as I thought it would be. Hiromi then joined up with us and walked around for a while trying to find the ‘real activities’. However, nothing was really to be found. So we got our Aussie Flag tattoos, and started to head home.

Happy Australia Day everyone!

Today, I headed down to the Quay to meet up with Paula, Sarah and Ben to drive down to Garrie Beach in a national park. It was great to see some scenery as we headed off for the beach. After winding through some back roads, we finally hit the beach and carried the surf boards out to our spot on the sand. The wind was pretty strong, and sand whipped across us at times, but the sun was warm. The water down south was absolutely cold, and I just didn’t even want to be completely submerged, so trying out surfing took a back seat today. Apparently the surf board was mad, because while I was standing, a gust of wind picked up the surfboard from the ground and slammed it into my thigh as it was going to blow onwards — if I hadn’t been standing there, Paula and Sarah would have been completely knocked by it! Anyhow, the day was spent relaxing and enjoying the sun. Thanks guys for a great day!