The Death of Surfers?

For the past few weeks, I've been doing a bit of work for an organization in Surfers Paradise that works with city council to organize events and marketing for the suburb. It's been one of the most interesting jobs I've had, mostly because what I've learned in this short time about our town is astounding.

Surfers Paradise is a beautiful place on the beach, built on tourism and living perpetually in holiday mode. It's full of restaurants, hotels, shopping, and attractions like mini golf and wax museums, and the weather is pretty great year-round. For decades, it's been the place Aussies would holiday to with their families, it's the place where high school kids celebrate the end of their school years (Schoolies Week) and it's where international backpackers come to party, enroll in English courses, and soak up the sun. People come to have fun here, and then they come back again because it's such a great place to be. This has been going on for years and years, and so construction companies just kept building, and people keep opening more businesses up here. But realistically, this kind of success couldn't really go on forever.

These days Surfers is full of "For Lease" signs on storefronts and "Vacancy" broadcasted from hotel signs. It seems more and more shops are disappearing all the time, and the sidewalks are sometimes empty enough to envision a tumbleweed blowing through. There's even a totally vacant shopping mall on the main street, hidden behind a few shops that are still open (for now at least). We've been noticing this more and more the longer we stay, but what truly hammered in this point was taking on a work assignment where I ended up chatting up local business owners and managers about the state of Surfers.

Contest at Sin City nightclub

No one is entirely sure of the real reason why Surfers has lost so many visitors, but the consensus is, business began getting slower in the last three years or so and is now at an all-time low. And something's gotta give! Is it the global economy keeping international visitors away? Is the high Aussie dollar simply making it a better deal for Australians to holiday in Bali instead? Or has Surfers simply lost its former lustre/sense of fun/wholesomeness? Some say that Surfers has become too much of a party town, gotten a really bad reputation, and now families are staying away or heading to other suburbs on the Gold Coast (well, with a bar strip full of drunken hooligans roaming the street nearly every night, and some nightclubs offering a contest to win a boob job, it's no wonder). Others say that town planners and restaurants are trying to get too fancy/expensive and it's forcing families to eat at KFC when they holiday — we'd have to agree with this argument too, as we've been unable to rationalize spending a small fortune ($20 a plate AT LEAST) on a Thai or an Italian dinner. Some are saying that we need to encourage locals from other suburbs to visit, but the city keeps raising the cost of street parking ($2 an hour now I'm told) in Surfers but not in other suburbs, which is working against promoting local business as well. And it's not just Surfers that is suffering: newspapers are reporting Gold Coast with the highest unemployment rate in Australia (government reports are saying it's around 7%, though some are saying it's probably closer to 13% unemployment — some timing for our arrival!), thanks to both the lull in tourism and the collapse of some of the biggest construction companies/investors.

It's not happy days for Surfers Paradise, but underneath all of that, what I encountered most in longtime locals was a real nostalgia for what the place once was (it was the most exciting place in Australia to spend a week, or simply a laid-back beach town, etc.) and a strong belief that it'll make a comeback, with some careful resuscitation. Some people think some twinkly lights along the streets might liven up the atmosphere. Some say we need a better arts culture (me included) and perhaps some quality entertainment, beyond buskers (ugh)— like a music festival to get people coming back. Agreed! I've actually just signed on to work with the same organization for the next few months (I start my new job this week!), to help run the upcoming Surfers Paradise Festival in June/July and a bunch more events following that, so I'm extra excited now to find out what will happen to this place. And I'm not quite sure when it happened, but I think somewhere along the way, perhaps while I was meeting so many lovely locals, and discovering all the hidden gems of this weird and wonderful place, I think I'm starting to lose a little piece of my heart in this town, too. -D.

Trapped by Twinkle Lights

So, you'll never guess where the last two weeks of travels have taken us-- Saigon, and more Saigon! Aside from our three-day jaunt down to the Mekong Delta last week (which was a fantastic time), we've pretty much been stationary in Vietnam's biggest city. There's a certain pull to the place that we're having trouble putting our fingers on: during the daytime, it often feels like just any other city, exciting enough and different, but just another place where the goings-on of everyday life happen. There's some sort of switch that happens as soon as the workday is over: around 4:30pm, the streets are crammed with motorbikes (good luck crossing by foot!), the sun starts to dip lower, and as soon as it's nearly dark, HCMC's lit up with a billion neon signs and there are strings of twinkle lights everywhere... and that's when we fall in love with the place all over again. Or maybe is it just the slight change in temperature that does it?!

We've been flirting with the idea of staying in HCMC, landing English teaching jobs (or better yet, media and web jobs, if they're out there), getting motorbikes of our own, learning Vietnamese, and settling into expat life here. We even got going on our resumes and started making contact with the English-teaching world... but after more than a week of flip-flopping between staying and making a go of things, or continuing our leisurely travels, it seems fate is pointing us in the way of the holiday. Contrary to the impressions we had before, it's NOT as simple to slide into a decent English-teaching job here without getting a TESOL type certificate (something we're not prepared to fork over a lot of our savings for, at least while in Vietnam-- ie. $800-$1200 USD a person!). We've met a good bunch of English teachers who are loving the life in HCMC, but right now there aren't many classes going (the Tet new year celebrations have just finished= not so much spare $ to go around for English school) and people are lucky if they get 10 hours a week! And then there's all the set-up of starting anew... something we know so well from our various homes in Australia. Our hearts just weren't totally in it. And then, on the morning we were about to start printing resumes and getting serious about the job hunt-- OUR AUSTRALIAN TAX RETURN APPEARED! Now if that's not fate, we don't know what is. So it looks like we'll be taking the travelling option once again, and see what happens...

Not that we haven't immensely enjoyed relaxing and really getting to know Saigon! We have found the BEST coffee--in a suitably dim and ancient-looking coffeeshop which feels like we've stepped into 1970s Saigon; ridden cyclos, those bicycle-cart thingies; observed the after-work routine of kicking around a shuttlecock in the park; sampled much random food (OK, there's been quite a bit of eating involved!); and have explored street after street. [Check out our new photos!] On Saturday we'll head north to Dalat, a charming mountain town about six hours from the city, and then onward north to explore this amazing country...

Spending Like Millionaires.... of Dong

We've just woken up to our second morning in Vietnam a little fuzzy-- maybe from the 4 hour time difference from Melbourne, maybe from the million or so dong we spent on a big day of eating and drinking. EEK! OK, so a million dong (that's the Vietnamese currency) works out to be about $90AUD, and less than that in Canadian, but we've now learned it's still definitely possible to spend lots of money, even in a place with prices as cheap as Vietnam. So today we'll live frugally! Except for our "extravagant" hotel room, that is-- with TV, free internet, A/c, balcony, ornate sculptured ceilings, private bathroom, fridge, and enough room to fit two dressers and a desk-- for $15 USD. Sweet!

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City at about 8pm on Feb 20, and were immediately awestruck by all of the people and the lights-- the neon light signs were visible even from the plane! After spending so much time in the vast empty parts of Oz, riding streets alongside hundreds of buzzing motorbikes was a trip! We checked into out guesthouse and hit the town with our friend Warren, who is teaching English here (Adrian used to work with him at ANZ bank). Good times on the tourist strip-- eating great noodles from a street vendor on child-size tables and plastic stools!-- for less than a $1 USD pp., drinking Tiger beers for next to nothing too, and people-watching... welcome to Asia! Warren's been enjoying the HCMC life for about 8 months now, and isn't at all ready to say goodbye to the city-- something we're starting to understand as we get into its energy, which is sort of laid-back but a little nuts at the same time. Got scared half to death by a giant rat scurrying through our laneway on the way back to our hotel (seriously bigger than the stray kittens hanging out on the street) and we were thankful to be staying on the 4th storey of our building.

Yesterday we woke up with that "Oh my god, where are we?" feeling that happens on the first morning of any trip and ventured out in the humid sunshine (29 degrees). I grabbed a Western breakfast and Adrian went straight for the pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) and we took a walking tour of part of the city, marvelling at the scenery and practicing our street-crossings. First lesson: There are crosswalks painted on the roads, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference where you cross. Lesson 2: Find a tiny gap in the constant barrage of cars, buses, and motorbikes, and start walking across very slowly... something that goes against all instinct when a speeding bike's coming at you, but if they'll steer around you with ease if they can tell where you're heading and how fast. Cars are another story-- GET OUT OF THE WAY! is about the best advice to follow.

We wandered through some street markets (vendors very grabby in parts) and managed to find the necessities-- a SIM card for our phone ($6 AUD!), a plug converter, and a bath pouffe-- which all took a bit of Charades and Pictionary, as we're finding Vietnamese is a very hard language to pick up quickly! But we've learned a few basics already and we're working on mastering the conversion math [11,000 Vietnamese dong equals $1 Aussie dollar; $1 USD equals 16,000 dong. We'd like to eliminate one currency, but our savings are in AUD and some of the prices here are in USD and some in VND.... and then there's all the bloody zeroes to deal with..... yarrrrrrrr!].

We met up with Warren in the late afternoon at Fanny, a great ice cream shop with delicious flavours and very artistic sundaes (I had a Canard, ice cream in a duck-shaped basket with wafer wings!) and the evening went on from there-- to gorgeously decorated, swanky coffee shops, a Pho restaurant, and a bar or two. But most memorable of the night was when I got entirely lost in the city on the back of a motorbike taxi-- it's scary enough being right in the thick of the traffic, but then my motorbike taxi driver lost Warren and Adrian, who were on Warren's bike and said "Follow us!" and zoomed off to disappear into the crowd. Everything looks mildly familiar in HCMC, but the street names are long and difficult to remember, and I have a terrible sense of direction without a map or the sun to guide me. So I spent about 45 minutes on the back of this old man's (who didn't speak a word of English) motorbike, reading street names aloud and hopelessly trying to communicate with him. Of course, Adrian had our phone, the hotel key, the backpack.... I was lucky we split up our money in the morning and had 500,000 dong in my pocket, as I'd left my wallet in the backpack on Adrian's back too! I also had our new phone number in my pocket but didn't know how to use a payphone, let alone speak the word "telephone" to the driver. Eventually he pulled over and had me speak with some other motorbike drivers, and I managed to write down our hotel's address, as I guess I'm hopeless at pronouncing it properly.... and then my driver couldn't find the street.... it went on and on.... finally in some miracle we came across it, and I had to run around trying to change this big VND bill to pay my 50,000 ($5) fare. Somehow Warren had a feeling to check our hotel, and I was just about to call the guys when he appeared on his bike to save me! We zoomed back to where he left Adrian, and who was Adrian hanging out with but the old motorbike taxi driver who didn't know his way around town! We decided to go to a bar close by, this time split up the mobile phones, and when Warren and I got to the bar, this time it was Adrian who had disappeared.... well, I guess we shouldn't have used that driver's services again, cuz he dropped Adrian right off at our hotel, despite the driver and Warren's agreements to meet on a certain street. At least Adrian's ride was a bit cheaper than mine.... needless to say a lot of beer was necessary after that.... and that's about all I can say about our second day in Vietnam!

PS. If you can figure out how to call/text Vietnam, we'll be reachable for the next month or two at +84 (that's the country code) 1265772662. Good luck & miss you all! xoxoxo Dayle & Adrian

A bit of context

Whoa there! For anyone who's checked out our Flickr photos lately-- don't worry, we're still in Melbourne. We've just been doing a bit of catching up with our uploads before we hit the road in November and go snap-happy again.

We've also just recently gotten our 8 or so rolls of film developed which we've been collecting since we left Canada. We often forget to use Dayle's SLR Olympus film camera, as it's a little heavy to carry around, but it's still taking wonderful photos (and has been since her Dad bought it in 1980!) Digital's great-- easy, instant, and you can fix your focusing/lighting errors right away. But we do miss that visual quality of film, and the anticipation of what may be in the prints envelope when picking them up from the camera shop! There have been a few surprises, including a very lewd humping-monkey picture we still aren't sure whether or not to post (is it porn??). Ahh, the joys of film...

So the film pics, which we've tried to label the best we can, span our travels from Thailand to Cambodia and back; from Far North Queensland to our side trip to Hong Kong; down through Sydney to Melbourne and most recently, chilly Tasmania.

The other photos are from late August to the present, random snaps of the goings-on in Melbourne, including:

- Culture Week at our ANZ: Apparently this is a huge event which happens in our office building in Richmond annually in September, and a good reason for office 'teams' to do something more fun than bank work. Each team is designated a country, decorates their area and eats lots of the national cuisine. At the time, Dayle's department was still insanely busy, so Indonesia got a bit neglected. Adrian's section did really well as Japan--there was origami, kimonos, flags, and even a Japanese prison camp encased in barbed-wire, yipe!-- and he even got recruited to wear a costume in the fashion parade. (They definitely have more fun!) This Culture Week thing is SO awesome it brought out the CEO of ANZ, who we've learned recently gets paid $9 millon a year (hopefully he does more than make appearances at costume parties for that kind of dough). Adrian got to shake his hand. Wowee!!

- Our apartment: The many stages of our little flowering balcony garden... and that pesky Huntsman spider which set up camp outside our apartment door for a few weeks. Thank god he's gone now!

-Visiting the Dandenongs: Our pics from when we took Daisy for a spin to visit the cool, rainforested mountains & William Ricketts Sanctuary just east of Melbourne.

- Exploring Melbourne: the many places to eat, drink, and relax in town; cute houses and cool window displays. There's still so much to look at here!
We hope you enjoy them...

The monthly update

Oops-- we didn't mean to abandon the blog again! It's just we've been trying to take a decent photo to post with our updates and... well... this was the best we could do. As you all know, we're quite photogenic (!).

So what's new? Lots. And since another evening has been half-consumed by TV cop dramas again, we'll have to update you all in point form (damn you, television!).

** The big road trip: We've been scheming and mulling over our maps and calendars and we've cooked up a loose plan for our jaunt around Oz. We've spread the driving over 9 weeks or so and plan to leave Melbourne somewhere around November 23; we'll make it back here to part with Daisy (boo hoo!) at the beginning of February and to fly out to Vietnam on February 19th. And it looks like it'll be Christmas in Alice Springs and New Year's in Darwin. We plan to kit Daisy up with our twinkle lights to try and feel a little festive in the 40-degree Outback heat!

** Work: The countdown's on! It turned out our employment agency remembered we could only work 6 months for the same company (yarrr) on our visas, so Adrian finished up at ANZ at the end of September and Dayle will finish on the last day of October. Luckily, Adrian had no problems scoring himself a new job, which conveniently kicked off exactly the day after he finished at the bank. He's now working in the payroll department of Myer, a huge and historic department store chain in Oz, kind of like The Bay is to Canadians (minus the fur trading legacy). He greatly misses goofing off with his pals at the bank (who would have thought bank work could be fun?), but as we're learning more all the time, a job's a job, though we'll both really miss the friends we've made at work. Adrian will work at Myer until close to our departure day (22 days left!) and Dayle will finish at ANZ next Friday (7 days!) and be in charge of packing and sorting the many loose ends which need to be wrapped up before we head off. And then-we hope!- it'll be no more work for the next 6-8 months or so...

** The apartment: The balcony garden was finished a few weeks ago-- it's awesome-- and a few plants, like these cute daisies, have already been devoured by bugs. Nonetheless, we've been enjoying many a Corona on the balcony on summery days (we've learned a Melbourne spring day can be anything from 11 to 27 degrees...sometimes on the same day). We're dreading the packing of our stuff, which has surely expanded quite a bit over the past 11 months in the city! And no sign of the Huntsman family... at least for now. Phew!

And the little victories:
- Finally reaching someone at the Vietnamese embassy to get a price for our visas, which we're required to pre-arrange (what a headache!)
- Buying tickets to Melbourne Cup-- the horse-racing/drinking/fashion extravaganza which shuts the city/country down the first Tuesday of November. Now we have 2 weeks to find ourselves something to wear!
- Seeing a big Aussie band on their home turf... proving there are definitely way more Living End fans in Melbourne than anywhere else.
- Visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens finally- a really awesome park with plenty of plants and funny ducks.
- Locating, after 8 months, our favourite wine in a store. We first had One Goat Shiraz at an Italian restaurant in February, and loved it. We've been asking around for it at bottle shops ever since and no one's heard of it (didn't help that we only vaguely remembered the name!). Recently we had another dinner at the same restaurant and copied down the label details this time (and yes, it was just as fantastic as that first bottle we had). We learned the vineyard's actually just 2 1/2 hours from the city but luckily they could name a few obscure bottle shops around in which to purchase their wines, and last weekend we bought every bottle we could find at Duncan's on La Trobe Street... which was two bottles. Hooray, we win!

Working for 'the man'

Yup, that's right, the news is out. We're now BOTH bank monkeys, typing up files and looking at data and following protocol (kinda like CTU but a bit less glam). Although she was getting lots of annoying errands done, 3 weeks of 'vacation' was enough for Dayle-- and she's landed herself a temping job at ANZ as well. Although we're in different ANZ bank offices, in different city suburbs (Adrian's in the heart of the downtown business area and Dayle's building is in Richmond, nestled in between a Ferrari dealership and countless wacky interior design showrooms), we're both part of the same bank family now. Dayle got the call last Tuesday and began work the very next day in the "Travel Card" section, processing forms for this cooler version of the travellers' cheque. It's amazing to see how many people have 12,000 Euro to slap down in card form, and also sad to see people's Aussie dollars get decimated by the British pound. But there's plenty of folks heading out on vacation now, that's for sure... and it's making our poor little (constantly growing) team work really hard. But nice people, decent pay -- ah, a job's a job. And way better than fruit picking! Luckily we've just discovered our company email address book, so we can chitchat under email subject lines like "Further information needed re: application". Too cool.

We went on a little shopping spree this past week, finally giving into the chilly Melbourne weather and buying ourselves winter coats. And of course, now it's 18 degrees in the day! Nonetheless, we are very excited to wear our new coats. We're learning some tips on how Melburnians stay warm, living in old houses without insulation- layer, layer, layer! We've actually even turned on the furnace lately (it's freezing at night!), something that led to great debate and a week's worth of household tension between us and our New Zealander housemates; we've since learned that in New Zealand, people simply DON'T heat their houses, and if they do, it's with a fireplace/wood stove. (Reminds us of our rustic cottage in Stanthorpe!) And they consider heat "a luxury", which was equated to owning a dishwasher in the 'heated' discussion. Ha! It was getting so cold in here that we were feeling like we might as well been sleeping in our van outside, and we were beginning to wonder if we'd just acclimatized so much to the tropical weather (not that it's been tropical here for ages) that we can't take the cold anymore. We are so sick of hearing "This is nothing! You're from a cold country!" And then we went out for drinks with an Irish and an English couple and discussed the philosophy of heating-- and as it turns out, they've all been using the furnace for weeks now. Sure, we're from countries which get cold, but you know what? We heat our houses to make it bearable. It's just how it works in the northern hemisphere. We felt much better after that.

Last weekend we also did a little exploring, and checked out the insides of the Hotel Windsor, a grand old 19th-century hotel which is on the edge of the CBD, right across from the state parliament building. Apparently many Aussie prime ministers have stayed there over the years since it was built in 1883, and it reminded us of the grand old CP hotels in Canada. The chandeliered lobby is beautiful and it was cool to read through the historical blurbs & photographs, including how a politician (a premier?) took ownership and sold booze there illegally for years. One day when we're rich and visiting Melbourne again, maybe we'll stay here instead of good old Miami Hotel (our Xmas abode). It's funny how there's so many buildings one might take for granted in their own city, passing them every day without any notice or understanding of their history. It's fun to be a tourist in your own town! Next mission: read up on the history of Melbourne. We'll relay what we find!

Costumes, crepes, and kitty fun...

It's been a busy few weeks but plenty of good times to write home about. Adrian's been Mr. Corporate lately ("Buy, buy, buy! Sell, sell, sell!" he likes to say)-- well, maybe he doesn't work on the stock exchange but he sure loves dressing the part. You've gotta have a little fun at work! Adrian has been working downtown in an office tower of one of Australia's major banks (ANZ) for almost 3 weeks now, and has gleefully discovered a games floor in his building. So every Friday he and his co-workers sit in those video-game cars and race each other. Word is there's a beer cart that comes around the office on Fridays as well- now that's the life!

As for me (Dayle), I've been blissfully unemployed since last Monday, enjoying another wave of sunny, 25-degree autumn days. This week's been a little colder, so I'm not spending as much time doing crayon drawings under the old trees in beautiful Carlton Gardens (the nearby park where we sometimes chase possums at at night). It's been really nice to enjoy some "me" time, exploring the nearby neighbourhoods and shops, and running all of those little errands that have been neglected for months (and fixing tattered clothing and shoes!). The work will come soon enough-- but it's just nice to relax a bit for now. It's a "working HOLIDAY visa", as we say here, not a "working slavery visa"!

But actually, I'm not totally unemployed. On Saturday afternoons I get paid to play dress-up at this wonderful, humongous costume hire (that's Aussie for rental!) shop called Costume Factory. I applied for the job way back in January but only recently did they decide they still needed another staff member for busy Saturday afternoons. It pays great and the staff are all quirky arts students, painters, writers, and theatre enthusiasts, and we basically just help people piece together costumes for the unbelievable amount of costume parties that happen in Melbourne. (For a country that doesn't do much for Halloween, I have been shocked). My first day consisted of fixing up wigs and dressing mannequins as tacky tourists, gladiators, cowboys, and even a 'gay sailor' (that's a sailor suit with sequins!). And ever since I've dressed people up as flappers, Prince, Tina Turner, Alpen yodeler and even an Indian chief and Pocahontas. It's been a real exercise in creativity because a lot of customers walk in without any costume ideas, and it's also easy to get lost in the huge shop/showroom. But it's a nice place to spend a weekend afternoon and I do wish we were staying long enough to see what Halloween brings. And apparently the company's been around for ages, evolving over the years since the Gold Rush days! For that reason we have an amazing amount of gorgeous medieval wear, etc., which we rent to a lot of theatre productions too.

In other news, our roommates got a kitten last week! Pax is rambunctious and lively, and he's completely adorable (but more about him later!). He's also a great entertainer of houseguests--we've just finished a multi-day goodbye party for our French friends Stephane and Jenny, who came to stay with us after working in Tasmania. There was lots of wine-drinking, reminiscing, and a final crepe feast... and we definitely caught (me more than Adrian I think) a bit of the travel bug as we chatted about their plans to travel Southeast Asia. Our friend Bianca's also off to New Zealand now and we're possibly the only people left in Oz from our original Echuca crew. We can only wonder on which continent we'll all meet again... we'll miss you guys! xoxo, D.

Hangin' at the Grand Prix

Melbourne Grand Prix
Originally uploaded by bigquestionmarks.

Last weekend we both worked at the Melbourne Formula1 Grand Prix- both for the cash as well as well as for the experience. At $99 a ticket, there wasn't much chance we'd be going as fans, anyway!

For two kids who aren't much into cars, it was actually still really cool. Adrian was the guardian of the corporate box for CAT, where he schmoozed and hobnobbed and ate lots of free food, and watched bits of the race where he could. Dayle was placed right on the Grandstand, checking tickets (and busting people who tried to sneak through), and getting to run to the track once in a while to watch. She was ecstatic to find she was right between the start and finish lines!

The weekend was hella hot- we're told quite unusual for March in Melbourne- Friday and Sunday were the worst, wearing thick uniform shirts (to quote Adrian: "I now know what it must feel like to wear a burqa") and sweating like crazy in the 40-degree heat. At least it was sunny! We saw many a drunk sunburned Aussie hiding in the little scattered patches of shade. Dayle actually had a zombie scare (and had begun comtemplating climbing the grandstand frame) when a dude in an orange t-shirt did a loping zigzag shuffle, hands out front, right towards her gate, and then promptly tripped on the first step and fell on his face. She realized then with relief he wasn't a brain-thirsty zombie, he just had a few too many VB's. Phew!

The crowd was really all for Ferrari- maybe it's all about the name?- and there were fans in red everywhere (or perhaps because Kimi Raikkonen won the race here last year). Lots of people wore flags as capes (quite the Aussie sporting tradition it seems) and there were even a few gladiators (check out our pics on Flickr). The band Kiss was closing the weekend, so on Sunday there were also many weird-looking people in black and silver, limping around the grounds of Albert Park in their moonboots.

But the coolest part was the noise- even while wearing earplugs there was something exciting about the vrooming engines on these machines. If you had to take a earplug out, even for a few seconds, the Formula Ones would rattle the teeth. Insane! We were told by some fans that the cars go 300 km/h or so... just unbelievable! (Especially since we have a van which barely does 100 km/h!). We also watched the V8 cars racing, an Aussie tradition of Ford vs. Holden (the big car manufacturer over here, which we heard is going to make a go for it in North America). There were also some miniature-- but super-fast-- races by the "Aussie Racing Cars", that were so tiny the driver's head was seen where the back seat would be, in these little rounded cars. Cute! (No pictures of those but they're probably online somewhere) Then it was the usual fighter-jet shows and people drinking lots of beer that seems to come with such events... that about sums it up.

Word on the street is that the Melbourne Grand Prix continues to lose tons of money and might not be here past 2010 (it came here from Adelaide just a little over a decade ago). Kind of sad, since there's a cool track for it around a lake and people get pretty excited about it. We didn't even realize there's a Grand Prix in Montreal, but when we're back we definitely want to go! Sure, it's terrible for the environment, the blue clouds of exhaust, but there's something so cool about these terrible beasts vrooming around a track with fire coming out the sides. There were even these handheld TVs you could rent for the weekend (called Kangaroo TV I think) which looked like PS3's but fed you live camera footage of each racing team, in the pits and in the cars, aerial views on the track and so on. You could eavesdrop on whoever you want and actually follow what's on when it's too fast to keep up. Pretty cool!

Now we're working on recovering our hearing and are heading out for some camping along the Great Ocean Road. There's a big surfing competition on at Bells Beach, so we plan to hit that, just chill out a bit and eat chocolate eggs on the beach. Happy Easter everyone and thanks for reading! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! xoxox, D&A "?"

Does a possum see its shadow Down Under?

Happy Groundhog Day! We're missing old Wiarton Willie right now. But with Melbourne's "4 Seasons in a Day" infamy, could a rodent really be trusted with such a task as predicting the weather? Maybe we'll go ask a possum, just for fun.

There's not a ton of exciting news to relay, more the ins and outs of everyday life. But here's our week in review anyway:
--> Australia Day: We didn't spot as much in the way of supremely bad Aussie fashion as we had thought we would. We also arrived to the festivities late, having to watch the fireworks from two suburbs away as we walked down to Federation Square. We did notice a definite increase in drunk people hooting and hollering from cab windows, and the odd patriot wearing a flag as a cape. We spent it with a couple of Frenchies and an Iranian, celebrating our collective "Australian-ness" by having a few Tasmanian (James Boags, nice beer!) beers in the park by the Yarra River. Not too bad at all.
--> On the Job Front: Adrian's still working on it, though our landlord is keeping him plenty busy with paid handyman chores around the apartment (he's practically a professional painter now!). Dayle is getting used to her fairly mundane office job, and had her first encounter with negotiating a contract. She was served a very one-sided deal to sign, with terms like, while the company could terminate her on a moment's notice, she had to give a month's notice to them to quit. There were also some sketchy pay terms-- in Oz, if you make over $450/month the employer must pay 9% superannuation (basically retirement money) to you on top of the wage. Dayle's company was trying to include superannuation into the agreed wage instead of paying it over and above. That's a problem because as travellers, we can only access our "super" money when we leave the country for good. It's a nice little savings plan, but not something we want taken OUT of our wages. The meeting with the boss went surprisingly well and he reworded the contract to meet Dayle's demands... so she didn't get to walk out in a huff like she planned. So maybe these guys aren't so bad after all.
--> TV: We are very jealous that you people back in Canada have already seen the first episode of Lost. We won't get to see it 'til this week, making us officially a week behind the rest of the world in everything except Britney Spears gossip. We drowned our sorrows in a massive 24:Season 6 marathon last weekend instead.
--> Scenic Musings: We're really digging the grand old buildings, the huge green parks filled with giant trees, and the little nooks-and-crannies bars/cafes Melbourne seems to have hidden everywhere. Today we went to this cafe with a cozy little patio perched almost 3 stories above the street, off of an artsy, warehousey kind of building. There's no storefront sign, and the entrance door is all graffitied; I doubt we would have had any idea that it was there if it weren't for friends taking Adrian there a week ago. And they made the best (and prettiest) mochas we've ever seen. It's such a cool city!
--> Drama on Powell Lane: We're now up to 12 official + 1 unofficial people living in our little converted-warehouse apartment. And lately, someone's been peeing all over the toilet seats! Everyone's been getting increasingly tense about it-- finally Adrian made it his mission to confront each and every person with "Look, I'm not blaming you, or ANYONE in particular. But this has got to stop! Especially as we're the ones who have to clean the bathrooms every week!" It's since stopped (though it's only been 2 days), possibly due to Adrian's efforts, possibly due to one key suspect coincidentally moving out later that day. Definitely the GROSSEST roommate situation we've had yet. And this is coming from people who lived in a van, and then lived in a cottage with a dunny!
And that's about all. We've added some new pics to Flickr, so go check them out. Bye for now!

Happy Australia Day!

Hello and happy Australia Day! Soon we'll be off to the festivities (believe it or not, more fireworks) and a full report on how the Aussies celebrate their day-- we've heard it basically about getting trashed and having barbecues. We expect more of the fashions we spotted at the Australian Open- flags worn as capes, face paint, strange wigs. Full report & photos to come tomorrow.

As for updates, the biggest news this week is Dayle got a job! It's quite dull- basically data entry and paperwork for a web solutions company. It's lame, but there's plenty of moments there that remind her of the movie "Office Space". Just something to pay the bills while she looks for something better (ie. in journalism), anyway... the company was pretty busy, so it was basically phone call Tuesday morning, interview in the afternoon, start work on Wednesday morning. And it's already a long weekend! (Thank god for that)

Adrian's still on the hunt, but managed to make the perfect latte for an interview at a cafe. This is after he fibbed a little and said he had "heaps" of coffee making experience-- and after his little bluff over the phone, took to the internet to find Videojug.com's guide to making gourmet coffees. Much research followed, and with zero practical experience, Adrian made his first latte with full confidence. He even made a design in the foam- a circle!

In other news, Dayle's first tram to work ended up crashing into another tram... so after planning to be on time, of course she wasn't. (Yeah, yeah, what else is new?!) No one was hurt, there wasn't even any damage, but the whole scene looked very much out of a 9/11 terrorism/disaster movie... people screaming, bouncing around. Quite funny, really.

We had a visit this week from our friends Bianca (from Germany) and John the ranger (from Taunton National Park in Queensland). Good fun! We sat around chatting, and had some beers in the "backyard"-- actually, more like the parking lot next to our front door. The house is getting pretty crowded and we're really missing having a living room and a backyard/front yard/porch... so we might try to find something better at some point. The landlord's quite annoying and comes around a little too often.... but that's another long and tiresome story.
For now, we're off to celebrate our very first Australia Day. And weird-- where we Canadians celebrate our independence from Europe on Canada Day, the Aussies are celebrating the first European settlements on the continent. But really it's about the beer for all of us, isn't it?

When possums attack

Howdy, y'all! We're now back to livin' it up in the country (if you can call it that).
Brisbane was great and all, and we'll definitely be back, but for now it's time to hunker down and get the rest of our required six weeks of harvest work done for our second year's visa-- and hopefully we'll never have to pretend we're Paris and Nicole on The Simple Life again.

After Brisbane we decided to take Daisy for a camping night on the way to Stanthorpe. We visited an information centre and they pointed us to The Gorge campground, a strange prviately-run campground near Boonah, QLD. It was a little rugged, but recommended because it was by a creek-- and they really love to swim in anything here. One look at the black, murky water with vines overgrowing the sides and we were like "Forget it! Where's our pool?" But we parked next to it and it was a nice setting to eat cheese and crackers in.

Not long after we had started our snack, a friendly man with beer in hand came over to invite us over to the large cabin across the lane for his group's annual men-vs-women Trivial Pursuit faceoff and apple pie. How could we refuse? We were there for hours in a fierce battle with retired schoolteachers, posties, etc... until the men finally took it (though we were aces at sports, us girls just couldn't get the Arts & Literature questions!)

We get back to our van, which we had left open to get some air into (it was stiflingly hot) and immediately think "Eek, what kind of bugs are going to be sleeping with us tonight!?". Adrian gets in to investigate. Everything seems in place. I'm standing outside the van when I hear a rustling and a cat-sized figure just behind the driver's seat-- A POSSUM! Our first possum sighting (finally) though maybe not in the manner we were hoping. The damn thing wouldn't leave, and there was a baby one on the roof trying to sneak inside as well. With some help from our Trivial Pursuit mates and some fierce possum-shooing tactics, we finally got them back up the tree and surveyed the damage: they apparently had fancy tastes and only went for the French baguette we bought to accompany dinner. Yarrr! They tried to pay us back by scritch-scratching trails along the roof of the van for the rest of the night...

On Sunday we drove the rest of the way to Stanthorpe (the farm town in the mountain we ditched for HK a few weeks ago) and found a much better caravan park than our last-- at Top of the Town, we get a pool, nice patches of grass to park on, showers you DON'T have to put coins in to use (sheesh!), and microwaves and real ovens to use in the camp kitchen. AND we have phone reception (at our old "home", Blue Topaz, the phone bars dropped off randomly on the highway about a 1/2km before the park) AND it's walkable to town. We had just started our laundry and jobs came to us within about two hours after arriving-- and now we pick cherries for a farmer named Beaver. :)

We did our first day out it the orchard yesterday-- and without jinxing anything, it's probably our best harvest job yet-- we get a bit dirty and sticky by the end of the day, but there's no ladders, scratchy branches, or even a hovering supervisor to deal with. Not bad! Today we got rained out, so we even get to catch up on our errands and though it's kind of freezing, but life is pretty all right here. (Though we're thinking Brisbane hotel for Xmas!)

Oh yeah-- And if anyone wants to mail us, send away! We'll be staying at Top of the Town for a while-- here's our address:

10 High Street
Stanthorpe, QLD 4380
AUSTRALIA

Yup we're in HONG KONG!

Yes, yes, the rumours are true, we're in Hong Kong. It's a long story so bear with us!
There we were on the pruning fields of Farmer Bob's slave emporium, working for some extra money and visa time. It wasn't the worst job in the world but for that second visa, it was kind of easy. Basically we just had to thin some fruits off the trees by picking off some of the smaller nectarines so the others can grow big and juicy.

Anywhos, here's how this crazy adventure began (so make sure your sitting down, because it's so amazing and crazy you'll fall over or cry blood):
Friday, TGIF, we finished work and we're heading back from the farm when I noticed we needed to fill up old Daisy (the van), the problem was we were kinda low on money (one of the pitfalls of traveling for 2 months straight), so we made our way to the ATM. The logic being that one of us had more, thus the gas buyer.
As I (Adrian) was waiting behind Dayle, admiring the sleepy little town of Stanthorpe, was shaken when Dayle began to screech with joy. I thought something had gone horribly wrong but was corrected by Dayle when she announced that our tax returns had gone through-- making us $4000.00 richer!

Back at the caravan park we were celebrating with a beer as the night was preparing to drop to its usual 3 degrees (at this time it was our 4th day in Stanthorpe, and our 3rd day of 'work'), when one of us came up with the brilliant idea - "Who needs this crap, what if we used our return plane ticket to go to HONG KONG!?"
Some back story: our return tickets to Canada (which had a stop over in Hong Kong) were scheduled to leave on October 20th at 11:30am, it was already Oct 19th at 6pm.
Hell why not?! Quick like a bunny we packed up all our stuff, the whole time wondering if this was the stupidest thing ever. (We didn't even have time to quit our jobs.....er, and still haven't gotten around to it) Some quick phone calls and a lot of help from the most awesome guy ever - THANKS GRAEME!!! - We had our return tickets figured out and were driving like mad in the dead of night the two and a half hours to Brisbane International Airport (and we made it with time to spare).

Now here we are, in Kowloon, Hong Kong sleeping in a closet of a room with a coffin sized bathroom attached. Our window looks out to a moldy, dank elevator shaft, but we have free internet! We love it!
It's busy, crowded, a little smelly but beautiful. Hong Kong is very cool. Not 3 days ago we were freezing our butts off in a bumpkin town in rural Australia and now we're taking on the big city.
We're doing lots, and trying to take in as much as we can. Yesterday we took the tram to the 'Peak' of HK and had a bird's eye view of the city's skyscrapers, and somehow spent the night drinking with Triad members, paralegals and cops - whom all burst into random karaoke between 'Liars dice' games and shots of whiskey! Today we're recovering by going to someplace quiet, probably at a museum or two, and maybe even Starbucks.
We've mastered the brilliant subway system, and already have a free junk boat trip scheduled for Thursday.
We'll post tomorrow or tonight of our adventures thus far, but for the meantime we're okay, we're just in Hong Kong looking for congee breakfast.

-love D&A