Hot summer!

This has easily been the hottest summer since we arrived in Australia.  Temperatures in Brisbane have been well into the 30s, with high humidity, so it is like walking into a sauna every time we go outside.  Victoria and South Australia have had incredibly hot days too, sometimes hitting more than 40C!  Luckily, that kind of heat doesn't seem to last too long and the 40+C is often followed by a few days of a "chilly" 25C.

Not looking forward to Tuesday!

We just got back from another trip to Melbourne to see the Australian Open tennis.  It is a fantastic time and every time we come back we say that we will skip it the following year, but we always end up going back.  This year we really lucked out with all the matches we saw, with some really good competitive games.  Some years we see matches that are complete blowouts, which are actually very boring to watch.  We decided this year to try the front row "sun-seats".  These seats are exactly what they sound like: front row seats with great views and full sun exposure.  The sun exposure makes it absolutely exhausting to sit there for hour after hour in the baking sun, but the matches were so exciting that we managed to sit in our seats with only minimal breaks.  The pain of sitting of the sun was worth it!

Great tennis action!

Federation Square, Melbourne

We are still discovering new things here.  The other day we saw a beer size that we had no idea existed, the Schmidi!  We have seen pots, ponies, schooners and pints, but never a Schmidi.  You won't find it in Google, only Australia! 

The one and only Schmidi

Still here!

It has been quite a while since we updated our blog.  We have made a few changes in the past year: we are now citizens and home owners!

We got our permanent residence approval in July 2014.  After waiting one year we were able to apply for citizenship.  This involved filling out many forms, scanning lots of documents and studying a booklet to prepare for our test.  We applied on-line and were asked to come in for our interviews and tests 10 days later.  We had one little glitch as the immigration department had made a "recent and unannounced" (direct quote) change to the identification requirements.  Two weeks and a couple of hundred dollars later, we were back in their office and sitting our interviews and tests.  The interview was really straightforward and was about proving that we are the people that our I.D. says we are.  The test was 20 multiple choice questions, which we both sailed right through.  Most of the questions and the process is set up to help people from very different cultures, or for people who don't speak English as a first language.  Many of the questions are related to equal rights and freedom of speech, things that we forget are not basics in many countries.  Our next step is the indoctrination ceremony, where we make a pledge and get our citizenship certificates.  We were invited to one on Australia Day, which we will sadly miss because we will be at the Australian Open.  Hopefully the next ceremony is in February or March, and then we can apply for our first Australian passports!

We also bought a home here in Brisbane.  After 5 years of renting (almost $900/week) we finally bought a place!  We spent more than a year looking for a home, going to at least two open houses every weekend.  It was getting very frustrating because we didn't want to just settle for something.  We originally wanted a house with a small yard and a pool, but we happened across a unit (apartment) in a small building and absolutely fell in love with it!  We have been living in our new place since June and do not wish that we had a pool or a yard.  We have ample outdoor space and we love our new neighbourhood.  In fact, we have stayed in Brisbane for the entire Christmas holiday for the first time since we moved here, just so that we can spend more time in our place and exploring our suburb.

What a year!

 

View from our new place

 

Christmasy pub

View of the Story Bridge on the new commute to work

 

Sunday roast on the spit at a local pub

Long Overdue Update!

It has been more than 8 months since our last update.  In that time we have made a very big decision: we are going to stay in Australia and are now permanent residents!  This really doesn't make too much of a difference to our taxes or our ability to travel, but this does mean that we can apply for Australian citizenship after a year of having PR.  It would be nice to have the Aussie passport for international travel, and we will still be Canadian citizens, of course.  The new status does make it easier if we have to travel through the US, because they always ask the tricky question: what is your country of residence?  Even though we lived in Australia on a work visa, we always ended up telling a 10 minute story about how we lived in Australia but were there on a temporary visa, however we did not own property in Canada and had no residence there...it will all be so easy now!

In the time that we have been making this decision, we have had a couple of trips, most recently to the Great Ocean Road in Victoria.  It was one of the first Australian trips that was recommended to us when we arrived four years ago, and it really lived up to the hype!  Even though neither of us really like being in a car, it is the only way to really see the coast line.  We went in the winter and it was so nice to stop in a pub and sit by a roaring fire, something that we just can't do in Brisbane...not that we are complaining about that!  We have completely lost our Canadian standards and are eagerly awaiting the warmth of summer, so we can put these bone-chilling 23C days behind us!

 

Great Ocean Road

 

12 Apostles on Great Ocean Road

 

Beach at Gibson's Steps, Great Ocean Road

Final bits of Hong Kong

When we reached the end of our seven days in Hong Kong we were absolutely exhausted!  We managed to see every single highlight on our list, and quite a few that weren't.

We had a great trip to the Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery, which was a 30 minute train ride from the central Kowloon Station.  The Big Buddha is the main attraction at the Monastery, which is on top of a mountain.  It is possible to walk the seven kilometres up the mountain, but it is much more enjoyable to take the gondola.  We paid up for the glass bottomed car, which makes for wonderful views of the forest below your feet but is a rather unsettling experience!

The trail up the mountain, through the glass-bottomed gondola

 

 

Once we arrived at the top of the mountain, it is a short 5 minute walk through a little village with shops and restaurants to the base of the Buddha Monument.  The monument itself is reached by climbing 268 steps (which would be rather daunting after walking up the mountain!)



Village at the top of the mountain

Big Buddha Monument

 

Even though the monument steps and village seem crowded, the monument itself is quite serene and has lovely views of the sea below.  It is very close to the airport, but incredibly quiet.  It was a great thing to do and see on our last day in Hong Kong.

 

Big Buddha

Stanley and Cheung Chau

We really did try to get around to as many places as we possibly could when we were in Hong Kong.  Two of the day trips we took were to a very popular tourist destination on Hong Kong Island called Stanley and to a small island southwest of Hong Kong called Cheung Chau (truthfully, they were more like half day trips, but we were trying to not exhaust ourselves!)

Stanley is on the northern side of Hong Kong Island and has beautiful beaches, markets and architecture.  We didn't know until we got there, but it is the location of one of the big battles in World War II, when the allies were trying to hold the island against the Japanese invaders.  We visited a graveyard that has the remains of many of the Allied soldiers who died in the battle and the citizens who were held in camps or died in the bombing raids that preceded the surrender in December 1941. 

 

Stanley Harbour

 

 

Stanley Harbour

 

WWII Cemetery

 

Cheung Chau is a fishing village on an island that is about 10km southwest of Hong Kong.  The village is full of narrow, winding streets and the only vehicles there are mini fire trucks and emergency vehicles.  There was a beautiful temple with ornate dragons and the harbour was full of all kinds of fishing boats.  It is a very small place and only took a couple of hours to cover the harbour and many of the small streets.  Cheng Chau is known for its seafood and there were dozens of small restaurant, as well as stores selling dried seafood.  As soon as the catch comes in, it is hung out to dry.  This was definitely one of the most unique places that we visited on our trip!
 

 

 

Cheng Chau Harbour

Cheng Chau Cat

Pak Tai Temple

Drying fish

More Hong Kong

There are a couple of things that everyone says you must do in Hong Kong: have some clothes made and visit the street markets.  We did find a place to make us clothes and it is just as fast as they say it will be.  We went to the tailor in the morning to pick fabric and get measured, then returned late in the afternoon for the first fitting.  We went back 24 hours later to pick up our perfectly tailored clothing.  It was that easy!  We got our tailoring done on the Hong Kong side which is a bit tamer.  Whenever we walked anywhere in Kowloon we would get hassled to get some tailoring done.  Mostly they target men and we literally would hear "Tailoring, sir?" five or six times per city block.  Oddly, they don't really cater to women for this service.  Maybe there are too many variables in fitting women or maybe women would rather try on the clothes before they buy.  Regardless, JT got chased and hassled all over the streets of Kowloon.

 

Ladies' Market, Kowloon

 

Flower Market, Kowloon

 

Rock 'em, Sock 'em...no idea what this was about

 

Street in Kowloon

The open-air markets are interesting to see and they can get incredibly crowded.  There is a ladies' market, a flower market, an electronics market and a market with everything that is busiest at night, called the Night Market.  The markets are okay but the really fun part is just looking at all the little things, making small purchases and haggling.  It is very un Australian (and un North American) to haggle on prices, but we had to try.  We managed to get the prices down by about 15%, which still means that we paid about 35% more than we should have, so good thing we weren't spending a lot of money!

Hong Kong!

We just returned from two weeks in Hong Kong and Singapore.  This was a first trip to anywhere in Asia and we absolutely loved it!  We started with 8 nights in Hong Kong, split between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.  Out first 4 nights were in Hong Kong and it completely blew us away.

We didn't really know what to expect so we hadn't done much forward planning.  We really just wanted to experience the city and we loved every minute of it!  This is a trip that we will do again and would encourage everyone to visit Hong Kong.

Out first day there we took the cable car up to Victoria Peak and the amazing views of Victoria Harbour.  The ascent takes less than 5 minutes in the cable car, but there is a staircase for the crazy/fit/cheap people.  It is incredibly steep and at some points the angle is so great that it is like you are lying on your back.  We couldn't imagine trying to climb up.

 

Victoria Harbour from Victoria Peak

 

 

Original Gatehouse going into Victoria Peak Gardens

 

 

We walked around the tourist area at the top, then set off for Victoria Peak Gardens and the views out to the South China Sea.  This was an area that was quite posh back in the day, with its glorious views and cooling summer breezes.   There are still some very smart homes up there and we certainly saw more than one Bentley and Rolls Royce driving around.

 

 

Gardens

 

 

Looking out to the South China Sea

 

 

 

The most surprising part of the visit was how different the city felt from any other place we have been.  It is an amazing combination of primarily Chinese and Western culture, made of so many different components that the feeling is just so hard to describe.  In what other city do people commute to and from work on an escalator that goes up a mountain!

 

 

Riding the 800m escalator