Went to Melbourne a while back for a long weekend. Kelly was on training for a week, but she decided to go up on the Thursday beforehand, and I decided to tag along for the weekend.

I have to say, it became my second favorite city in Australia next to Perth. I’ve since then learned that the weather is quite a lot to deal with and may recall my vote, but that weekend it was perfect!

We covered quite a lot of ground as well. We stayed in Williamstown right on the bay with a pretty sweet view of the city (a photo my wife wants to make art). We traveled to Ballarat to visit a wildlife park where we played Canadian tourists and were allowed to pet the kangaroos and koalas (and snakes). We traveled to Phillip Island where, whilst we don’t have any pictures, witnessed a flock of hundreds of penguins waddle in from sea to their homes scattered across the island. And, we circled the bay pretty much from one tip to the other stopping at random beaches and look outs. We spent one evening in the city where we had a nice dinner and watched the film ‘Australia’ on it’s opening night.

Definitely, a place I want to visit again. In fact the drive from Adelaide to Sydney with a decent chuck of time in/around Melbourne is what I have in mind. Will just have to time things for more good weather…

I’ve posted more photos here and here.

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I’ve had a chance to visit Brisbane a few times in the last 6 months or so. Twice on business. Once as part of our summer holiday over the Christmas break.

I managed to find time on the first trip with work to rent a bike and do some riding along the river, but to be honest it didn’t really sell the city well. Living in Perth now, I am spoiled by blue skies and ocean blue river water all around. On all of my visits to Brisbane the skies have been cloudy and the river murky. The bike ride was especially disappointing though because the river is also quite narrow with less sport and in general less to look at it. It’s also quite separated from the bike path so that while you may be riding beside the river you wouldn’t know it because of the trees that separate you from it. Most frustrating of all though, were the rolling hills that I was not accustomed to and tired me out all too quickly.

It’s also very difficult to get oriented in Brisbane. I am generally really good at having a sense for N, S, E, and W no matter where I end up but in Brisbane (the city at least), it is so easy to get turned around. Again, with the rolling hills, you can only get a feel for everything between you and the next hill top (generally a couple of blocks), and the river winds in every direction, so that can’t be used as a baseline either.

All of that said, the time I spent in the Brisbane surrounding area over the holiday was good fun. We drove from Sydney stopping for 4 nights in a quiet spot called Ashby, and for another 3 nights in Lismore. Ashby was great because we had a fantastic cabin overlooking some scenic countryside. We spent Christmas day almost entirely by ourselves at the beach, and amongst many on boxing day. We took the opportunity in Lismore to check out Mount Warning and Nightcap National Park, as well as Byron Bay and Surfers Paradise. The rain forest region was cool and Byron Bay was awesome … Surfers Paradise was OK. All in all Gold Coast got my vote, and to live in Brisbane even if just to be 1 hour away from that is enticing alone. I didn’t get out to the Sunshine Coast but I’ve heard it’s even better.

I posted photos here: Sydney, Random NSW, Ashby, Mount Warning, Nightcap National Park, Surfers Paradise, Byron Bay, Brisbane

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I spent 2 weeks in South Africa last fall on business.

I was quite lucky, because I was sent over with a guy from work who a) used to live there, and b) didn’t mind taking me around and showing me things.

We were working in Witbank which is a coal mining town about 2 hours south east of Joberg. There wasn’t much too do in Witbank, but luckily we were staying in a great guesthouse, with great hosts, good food, and it’s very own English pub.

The whole experience was quite eye-opening for me and like nothing I had ever been exposed to before. Most residences, including where we stayed, were completely gated with high fences and electric wiring at the top, as well as armed guards at the entrance. Driving around was filled with tension once I heard about the regular carjackings. A night out at the pub found me chatting with locals and silently observing the fall-out and in some ways, the continuance of the old Apartheid.

With a weekend to spare in between our 2 work weeks, George and I made our way to Johanesburg to catch up with some friends of his. The first night was 3 of us over several bottles of good South African red whines, and the second was at a poolside brai with a larger group who only made me drink two shots of straw rum.

We also had a chance to check out a big 5 game park, where I saw all but elephants. It was feeding time when we arrived so most of the wildlife were quite active.

I was also encouraged to try an interesting whisky desert, savanna dry, Steers burger, and billtong. I got to witness a money drop like no other and spent every minute watching as if I were about to witness a major heist go down. Armored vehicles and dudes with machine guns and everything. Crazy.

I’ve posted photos here.

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We went to watch Australia vs. South Africa for a Tri-Nation Rugby match at the Subiaco Oval. I’ve posted photos here.

South Perth, WA

South Perth is where we are going to live, so have been spending a lot of time in the area. I’ve posted photos here. South Perth is a short ferry ride from downtown Perth (CBD). Some shots are from the ferry, some are from the highway, and some are in South Perth along the riverfront. Our new apartment (also a photo of that in there) is on the west side of South Perth, overlooking the Melville waters and several yacht clubs (and the freeway ).

South Perth, WA – Perth Zoo

Perth Zoo was pretty cool. It’s got quite an open concept, which allowed for a more interactive experience with the animals. We even had a kangaroo greet us on the path, who especially liked tummy rubs. I’ve posted photos here.

West Perth, WA – Kings Park

Kings Park is in West Perth and is the nicest park I have ever been to. It has amazing views, botanical gardens, water gardens, monuments, etc. I posted photos here.

Cottesloe, WA

Cottesloe is a coastal Perth suburb. It has a great beach with restaurants, pubs, cafes, hotels (world famous OBH for example), and ice cream shops overlooking the Indian Ocean. We’ve been here on 3 occasions already. I posted photos here.

Birds in Australia

Because we keep bumping into them everywhere, I started a ‘Birds in Australia’ album here.

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It turns out, besides standing for ‘Western Australia’, WA is also short for ‘Wait Awhile’. Everything moves slowly around here and customer service sucks. In my opinion, this is largely due to service not being rewarded by tips. It seems the service industry pays really well (an effort to keep everyone closer to middle class I’m sure), and as a result, services are expensive and people don’t tip. Consequently, good service is not rewarded, thus not exercised. So besides the already sleepy, slow moving culture, there is also nobody seemingly interested in going out of their way for you.

* My wife couldn’t help but laugh at me when I sat on a park bench frustrated with the lack of service we had been receiving from property management companies while looking for a rental apartment. I was justifying our need to stand up one apartment viewing for another. I said something like “**** it, nobody is looking out for us …“.

This lack of customer service has made finding a place to live especially difficult. All rental properties are managed by property managers (not sure if there is some sort of legal requirement motivating it), and the property managers are managing several properties each. As such, they tend to have mass viewings where anyone who is interested is invited via email to see the property during a 15 minute time block at the discretion of the property manager. Property managers do not return phone calls, are never in their office, and are generally not helpful at all.

I’ve only ever rented one place before, but there are definitely some significant differences in the process over here. Rental rates are per week. I’m not sure if this makes rates appear to be lower than they actually are, but I am convinced that at the very least it makes rental increases appear to be less significant than they are. By law, rates can go up every six months and when they do go up they increase by nothing less than $50 / week, which is actually $200 / month and is quite significant. Also, washing machines and fridges are considered furniture, so unless you are renting fully furnished, do not expect to find either of those appliances included with rent.

On a positive note, Perth is a beautiful city. The city itself is very clean and often sunny, even though it is their wet / winter season right now. We have been staying downtown and walking pretty much every where we go. During the hunt for an apartment we were walking 5-10 km each day. There are a lot of shopping options downtown. They also have a great public transportation system here with free buses within downtown and high speed trains going out to all of the surrounding suburbs. The apartment we have lined up for July 3 is in South Perth and is a short ferry ride (also a part of public transit) across the swan river. We have made our way outside of the core on 2 occasions, and plan to make it a weekly occurrence. Most of Perth’s attractions are actually not downtown, but in suburbs closer to the ocean (Coastal Perth).

Technology seems to be somewhat advanced here. As I mentioned above, the transit system is pretty impressive. Their website and many others, including banking websites, government websites, etc. have all been quite impressive. The company I have been interviewing with has quite the operation in the works and is full steam ahead with incredible growth potential. All of the appliances are more intelligent with many environment-friendly features. Toilets all have a half flush vs. full flush option , and dishwashers / washers / dryers all have power saving features.

All of this considered, the communications industry seems to be somewhat behind the times. Like Canada, there are a few local giants and no real competition driving the market. It seems mobile phones, high speed internet, cable television, and home phone are all going to be extremely expensive and very lacking – much more so than Canada even. It sounds like billing is a combination of flat fees and usage fees. So for phone you are looking at a monthly plan + usage fees for each phone call (even from a land line). For internet, a monthly plan + usage fees for downloads. My low-priced, feature rich Extreme Speed Internet / Long Distance Telephone / Cable Television package via Shaw is non-existent here. Nothing similar at all.

Other interesting things about Perth: Crosswalks are a free for all because walk signs light up in every direction at the same time so pedestrians just randomly walk in any direction (including diagonal) across the intersection; Pedestrians legally have the right of way within crosswalks, but that rule is not abided by at all; J-Walking is illegal but seems to be most common (and probably safer); Outdoor shops are much more common than malls; Fast-food is almost non-existent (unless at a found court in a mall); Cafes are the substitute; Breakfast is the most popular meal here; Cafes serve breakfast all day; Coffee is always instant / expresso style; Coffee options include long black and flat white (long black with milk); Coffee creamers are non-existent; Ketchup is called tomato sauce; Aussies prefer a yeast-based spread called Vegemite that tastes awful; Aussies manage to make most statements sound like questions which is really confusing.

All in all, I can’t complain too much. A few things to get used to, but it is certainly nice winter weather (18-24C), and the beaches are going to be great. We landed a pretty sweet, spacious apartment with nice views, and the job hunt is coming along nicely.

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Well, Kelly and I are officially living in Perth, Australia now. We left on Tuesday, June 2 and arrived late on Thursday, June 5. Fortunately we weren’t flying for 4 days straight, but aside from our full day in Fiji, it really felt like it.

Our iternary was:

Monday – Calgary -> LA
Monday – LA -> Fiji
Tuesday – Didn’t exist
Wednesday – Day in Fiji
Thursday – Fiji -> Sydney
Thursday – Sydney -> Perth

The first hiccup occurred before we were even checked in at Calgary. We had heard that it is very expensive to send things via cargo and that the cheapest way to get things over is to just pay for your overweight and extra bags. What we didn’t realize is that while you can pay extra for heavy bags, at a certain point (80 lbs) they simply won’t take them. Makes sense, and I had meant to phone the airlines in advance to find this sort of thing out, but simply didn’t get to it. So there we stood with 5 bags, 1 which we would be charged for as extra, 2 which we would be charged for as overweight, and 2 which they would not accept. The fellow almost had us convinced that with another empty suitcase, we could get 6 suitcases on their way for under $1000. This didn’t sound half bad until he corrected himself. Because Air Canada did not have a baggage agreement with United Airlines, our bags would not be transferred in LA for us and upon checking in there we would be up against the same time of overage charges, and then most likely again in Fiji, and again in Sydney. So, this was turning out to be closer to a $4000 ordeal that we weren’t interested in. We managed to pick up another suitcase at the airport and get 4 underweight bags on their way, leaving the 2 heaviest behind in Calgary (luckily Kelly’s parents stood by at the airport after dropping us off).

So now we are waiting for our flight and we find out that the Air Canada pilot has decided not to show up for his shift. This delays our flight by 4 hours, in turn causing us to miss our connection in LA to Fiji. Regretably, we decided to have our bags pulled and catch a Monday afternoon flight out of Calgary rather than spend the night at an airport hotel in LA. I teased Kelly about having missed out on a day at Disneyland because of it. The whole thing was a mistake because they weren’t actually able to pull our bags in time so the bags went on to LA without us. Except, Air Canada couldn’t tell us for sure wether or not the bags actually made the flight until the next day via various discussions with baggage support. Even then we weren’t convinced that the bags would be there when we got there, but hoped for the best.

* Direct quote from helpful (possibly stoned) Air Canada employee on Sunday night: “One of two things could have happened here. Either your bags are on that flight and will be heading for LA, or they are not on that flight and will not be heading for LA”. You figure?!?

Turns out, the bags were there when we arrived and easy enough to collect. We spent the afternoon at LAX and boarded for Fiji at 11pm Monday evening. We slept most of the way.

Fiji was a great place to stop over. I am not sure that I would want to do it every time because it did somewhat complicate the connections schedule and I’m sure added a few hours to the flight plan, but it was definitely a good time. We decided on strictly R&R (it seems there would be a ton of neat things to see and do on the island). We plopped ourselves down in beach chairs and took in the views, basically from sunrise to sunset. I posted photos here.

By now we were ready for the second leg and Fiji to Sydney, Sydney to Perth seemed to go by a little bit quicker. We had an afternoon in Sydney so we took the train in and began the hunt for my new mac laptop. We didn’t make it far beyond china town before we ran out of time, so didn’t have much luck finding anything. The weather in Sydney was awful with wind and rain, so we didn’t enjoy much of the afternoon at all. That said, Kelly decided to leave her purse at the table where we had lunch in china town complete with our passports and boarding passes, so that made the adventure somewhat more interesting.

At last, we made in to Perth and checked into our first hotel. We only stayed one night, before checking into our more permanent temporary residency at the Medina Grand. The Medina has been good and they have set us up with basically an apartment suite which makes living a normal life somewhat possible.

More on Perth soon …

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Well, things have finally come together for our big move. We will be relocating to Perth, Australia for 2 years. We leave on Sunday, June 1, spend 2 nights in Nadi, Fiji, and arrive in Perth on Thursday, June 5 (unfortunately we lose a day on the way over).

Perth is on the coast on the SW tip of Australia. The population is ~1.6 million and it is one of the most isolated cities in the world with over 2000 km separating it from the nearest city with a population greater than 1 million. Temperatures are moderate (15C – 30C) year-round, and the economy is booming. My wife and I are really hoping for a better work-life balance for a bit, and feel Canada (esp Calgary) is not very conducive.

We’ve liquidated pretty good, but plan to keep a place here and rent furnished over there for the two years. We don’t plan on coming back at all over the term, and would rather use any vacation time traveling from there (and entertaining our Canadian guests when they come to visit!).

As for some updates on the last few months, I hope to get to that sometime in June …

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I attended a conference recently in Washington, DC. I was in the city for five days and although mostly busy with the conference, tried to get out and see the sights at night.

Having become an avid cyclist at home in Calgary, I have realized that there are so many things to see from a city’s bike paths, so my plan was to rent a bike for a couple of hours each night in order to get some exercise, and tour the city a little bit. I did the research before I went down and found a good site for Washington cyclists (local and visiting) that offered useful information about the trails, safe zones in the city, and places to rent.

After the first conference day, I started calling up the rental companies from the hotel. It turned out, there was one very close by and they actually offered guided tours as well. I was all over that because I liked the idea of having someone else show me around a little bit in order to get a feel for where things were.

The tour was not what I expected but a worthwhile investment nonetheless. I guess I expected to be doing more biking, but in fact we did very little biking and spent most of the time wandering through the different monuments and memorials instead. That was perfectly fine though, because I wanted to get to that anyway, and our guide was a wealth of information. We visited the Washington Monument, the Reflecting Pool, the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.

The folks at Bike the Sites gave out preferred rider cards, so I went back twice after that to rent for a couple of hours and get out to do some real riding. The trails where pretty impressive (way better then Calgary), and the weather was thirty and above every day.

The conference hotel where I stayed was downtown, and was surrounded mostly by government buildings, so the bike idea was definitely handy for getting beyond that. I thought I had lucked out with the bike tour when I first learned of it, but I think it was a common theme (that and segway tours) because it simply allowed tourists to cover more ground in a shorter period of time.

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Kelly and I just returned home from a one-week vacation in California. All in all, everything went really well. We both had our concerns about one week not being enough time, but I think we managed to see a lot without an extremely demanding schedule, and as a result we really enjoyed ourselves. Of course, we could have spent months trying to see everything there is to see, but there will be other opportunities.

We flew to LAX on Sat, July 21. Rex gave us a ride to the airport that was much appreciated. When we arrived we picked out a rental and made our way for Santa Monica, where an old friend (Gustavo Garza) lives. Gus’ place was only a short drive and we only got lost once along the way .

After settling in, Gus and Viviana took us straight to the beach. For this excursion Gus insisted we take the top down on the rental jeep. It was already getting close to supper time and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we found a restaurant named Coggies with an amazing ocean front view. We ate some really good steak and seafood while watching the dolphins jump right before our eyes. We joked about the switch they must have had to turn on the dolphins for the tourists …

Afterwards, Gus took us to Pepperdine University, in Malibu, where he studied for his MBA. The University had a really nice view – even with all of the fog. We drove around some more, and went back to Gus’ place to shower up, watch the soccer game, and meet his roommate – Ricardo.

It was about midnight before Gus, Ricardo, and Celso decided to take us out to the club, so Kelly decided to stay in. The club was fun, and I got to meet some more of Gus’ friends there as well. We weren’t ready to call it a night yet when they kicked us out, so we decided to have some more drinks and cigars back at the apartment. Ricardo had a tequila liqueur (Agavero) that him and Gus were fond of so I joined in on that …

The next day was rough! Finally, at around noon we all rolled out of bed and started looking for food. The boys decided we needed to experience some authentic Mexican food in East LA. They took us to La Casita Mexicana. It was a bit of a drive, but well worth it. We had Agua de Orchata (Rice Milk with Cinnamon), Lemonade, Enchiladas, Queso fundido (Cheese Dish), Mole Verde and Mole Rojo.

Ricardo is part-owner of a bakery (La Monarca Bakery) just down the street, so after lunch he took us there to show us around and stock up on treats. Him and his partner plan to launch 3 more stores next year!

After the bakery, Gus took us to Hollywood. We went to the top of the hill and did what every other tourist does – took our picture in front of the Hollywood sign. Then we drove down Sunset Boulevard, through Beverly Hills, and into a more industrial area, where Gus’ friend Tonio lives. Jaime (met him the night before at the club) was also there. Tonio had just moved into a really cool resort-like apartment complex (also right across the street from the office he works in as an architect). We had beers and a bbq that seemed to go on for hours outside by the pool. Afterwards we had desert. Then we smoked Columbian cigars. I sure do love holidays! We finished the night off playing shuffle board in the games room of Tonio’s apartment complex.

On Monday, we left for Anaheim. Our original plan was to take in San Diego Zoo with Gus on the Sunday, and then Disneyland on the Monday, which is why we had a room booked in Anaheim. We didn’t make it to San Diego Zoo on Sunday, but we had pre-purchased the tickets so decided to go on Monday instead. We had also given up cancellation options on the Anaheim room, so we decided to swing through and drop our bags off, continue on to San Diego, and then come back for the night when we were done. The plan worked out well. We only really needed a half-day at the zoo (which is good because it was noon before we got there), and we were back in time to hit up Downtown Disney for some shopping, dinner, and fireworks.

On Tuesday, we made the trek to San Francisco. Of course we got a late start (as always) so decided to take the interstate (I5) instead of the Pacific Coast Highway (1) (google only shows us US 101, but 1 is actually right on the coast) – which we heard was a better experience driving South anyway. Furthermore, it was much warmer inland. We took the top town (the highways had signs posted warning drivers to turn off AC), put on the sun screen, and made sure to make a bunch of stops for water.

We stayed at Rita’s house (Kelly’s mom’s cousin) in Sonoma Valley on Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night. We arrived later on Tuesday, so didn’t do much besides catch up with Rita, and get to bed early.

Wednesday was our day in San Francisco. We started the day with a tour of Alcatraz. I am really glad we bought tickets ahead of time because it would have been impossible to get on otherwise. It was a 20 minute ferry ride (with an amazing view of the bay bridge and fogged-over golden gate bridge , and then a self-guided tour once we got there. Once we made the hike up the hill to the prison itself, we were given a set of headphones and the audio tour guided us through the prison.

When we arrived back in San Francisco, we walked around briefly in Fisherman’s Wharf. We had lunch at an Italian / Seafood place on the Wharf and enjoyed a nice Napa Valley merlot while we where at it.

Afterwards, we made way for the cable cars. I had really wanted to try one out, but realized they were highly overrated once we got there. It was going to cost $5 per person – for each trip, and the wait was at least one hour. Luckily, there was a sketchy dude running around offering limo rides downtown for $5 per person – same price as the cable car. Kelly talked me into it and 10 minutes later we were downtown.

The shopping downtown was unreal. I could have spent thousands. Luckily I was already broke. We hit up some of the stores that are hard to find here in Canada (like Abercrombie and Fitch), and then called it a day. We had planned on having dinner at Cliff House. Jaime had recommended we go there because it was right on the ocean. Unfortunately the cab driver took us to Clift Hotel – which was very fancy but did not have a restaurant on the top floor.

We ended up going out for Thai food in Sonoma with Rita instead. The food was spicy – and good. I had a Thai beer which was also delicious.

On Thursday, we spent the day with Rita. We went to three different wineries in the afternoon. At one winery called Benziger, we actually got a tram tour, and at all three we tasted several wines and bought the ones we really enjoyed. We bought five bottles in total.

We had a bbq back at Rita’s and decided to uncork the Jacuzzi chardonnay. Everything was delicious. Afterwards we were greatly disappointed by the movie Babel staring Brad Pitt. Boo Babel!

On Friday, we traveled back to Los Angelas. We left late as always, but took the Pacific Coast Highway (1) anyways. We returned to Gus’ place late on Friday night, due to taking the scenic route along the coast, but it was every bit worth it. The views from the highway were astounding. We also took the 17 Mile Drive near Carmen, into Pebble Beach resort where we had lunch at the lodge over-looking the 18th hole right beside the pacific ocean.

As I mentioned, we arrived at Gus’ late, and also left early so did not see him, but were very appreciative of the place to stay. On Sat, July 28 we returned home to Calgary, and once again Rex and Linda picked us up from the airport.

Overall, the trip left me thinking that usually, I will choose to go some place new before going some place I have already been, but for California, I will definitely make an exception. This was already my second visit, and it is definitely a place I hope to visit again and again.

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