Days off & Bangkok flashbacks

When Dayle and I first got into Melbourne we were sad and happy at the same time.
Happy because we were off on a new adventure in Australia but sad about leaving the awesome beaches (and mopeds) of Thailand.
C'est la vie, I suppose.
We don't often get days off in Echuca, but every Sunday (or when it rains) we're running through a huge list of errands that can only be completed on that single day. Like clock-work we find ourselves at the laundry mat with a bit of spare time to look back or forward on our adventures, our 'chill out' time.

We knew that Oz would be the same as Canada but different. Hence we've termed this difference 'Bizarro Canada'. At the moment, in this alternate version of Canuckistan, they're coming into the 'winter' season. Winter here is a lot like Vancouver during summer but warmer, a lot warmer - and sun. And instead of it raining all the time, it rains on the odd blue moon.

Australia is the middle of a 10 year drought, they need to import water from various places, and it's even a tradable commodity on the stock market. This was all explained to us by the owner of the tomato shed; Joy, whom politely explained the ins-and-outs of running your own tomato farm.
So when it rains you think that farmers would be delighted, nay orgasmic, at the slightest bit of moisture falling from the sky. Hardly, they quietly mutter and get a little fussy as though it were a great inconvenience and shut down all operations.
This is why I have day off.
And it's not just for tomatoes, but fruits and veggies too. It has something to do with the branches of trees or mud (I think), either they tend to snap due to the added weight of the rain or Ozzies don't like that sticky sock feeling when you've been treading through wet grass all morning.
They even have a cool name for the drought too: "The Big Dry". I think Canada should start naming our natural disasters.

So rather than kicking around the hostel watching "American History X" for the six thousandth time (there's a guy here who watches it daily, ugh), I'm up and about running errands (courtesy of Dayle, who left me an encyclopedia of things-to-do).
On my way down the street I saw the local bus whiz by and I was amazed that such a small town has a public transport system, then I remembered Bangkok.
Dayle and I have been dying to write about the bus system in Bangkok, and it's on my 'stuff-to-do-today' list.
At first is seems like there's no real system to the the Bangkok bus 'system'. All traffic in Thailand is chaotic and operates at a break-neck speed. But there is a method to the madness...
There we were at the bus stop outside our Bangkok hostel avidly waiting for the number 3 bus to come by. Key word: BUS STOP.
In Bangkok 'stopping' in inefficient and only for Westerners. Oh yes, the we saw several #3 buses, mostly as they flew by us at 60kph. To the other Thais at the 'stop' everything (it appeared) was running as usual. Then we figured out the trick...
As your bus approaches you need to flag it down by holding your arm out straight with your palm down, then in robot like fashion wave your arm up and down (but never above shoulder height). This gets the attention of the driver, who then cuts across 2 lanes of traffic without a second thought and opens the doors. This is your cue to start up a healthy trot in the direction of traffic, as the bus doesn't quite stop so much as slows down to 10kph.
This is just enough speed for you to grab hold of the (half attached) railing inside the doors and with the encouragement of the shouting fare collector, hop on quickly before either sucked under the wheels or left behind to dodge traffic.
After that it's like any other bus; hot, bumpy, and that 'weird/mumbly' guy that gets on at the next stop always picks the seat next to you.
On the upside it definitely makes the day more exciting, plus if the Bangkok bus system worked here you'd have more stories around the water cooler at work... "Yeah Bill, got my heart rate up today running next to the bus waiting for my turn to hop on. Poor Ms. Figgs got sucked under the wheels though."

Unfortunately we get to work by mini-vans that have leaking gas tanks or burnt-out interiors (really!), but that's another blog.

Love,
Adrian & Dayle "?"

Happy Paddy's day from Echuca!

Adrian 1505
Originally uploaded by bigquestionmarks.

Hello everyone, as promised we’ve updated our photos and videos. We’ve been working like crazy the past few weeks we’ve barely gotten a day off.
Some good news though, I’ve upgraded to a tomato shed, and we finally bought a CELL PHONE!!!
It’s great, for some reason we now feel like humans again instead of somekind of drifter, that’s the amazing power of the cell phone!
Go ahead, give us a ring: (04) 3201 3597

We’re both doing great, Dayle took on the night shift at her tomato shed so we devised a message passing system with these cheap 35 cent notebooks we bought. The idea was that we’d keep each other updated on our activities and what food we’re running out of etc… Go figure, come back from work to read a ‘note’, what I end up reading is a 7 page short story of Dayle’s day – she’s a journalist alright.
Shed work is weird, there are different stations they put you on but mostly we've been working the conveyor belt. Basically tomatos come down a belt and you sort through them and throw out the bad or funky ones. The only problem is that the belt speed is pretty fast, so you end up with tomatoes wizzing past you all day you develop a feeling that your in a fast car looking out the window. Then the abrubt stop when they shut off the belt for lunch, you feel like you're going to fall over, or that everything is still moving. In the end, your brain feels like mush from watching tomatos for 10 hours, so it's great to settle down with a book of ActionScript code and a cup of tea at the end of the day.

Living here a month we’ve begun to pick up on some of the slang and talk of the Ozzies, Dayle and I have compared some notes on what we’ve heard.
Tomato = Toe-ma-toe
Garbage = rubbish
Pot = half pint of beer
“How ya goin’?” = “What’s up?”
Hello / General inquiry / What? = Aye!(?)

And we’ve now both been driving in the land down under. It’s odd, but you get use to it, natrually everything is on the opposite side of where it usually is. You just have to keep repeating: “Stay to the left, stay to the left!”.

Well now we’re starting to get on our feet and off the credit cards. We have a lot more fun photos to upload and we’ll be doing that shortly.
Tonight some of the kids are off to the pub to enjoy the green beer - karaoke was last night!

Talk soon,
Adrian & Dayle






Pear picking in Oz on Vimeo

Guten tag Echuca

So long time no talk... we haven't forgotten you! I've been writing this blog in my head for weeks, it seems, but there's never a chance to get it up online. Here's what been happening:

Adrian and I are out in rural Victoria, in a town called Echuca. Living in a working hostel (as opposed to a party hostel), we're doing our own version of "The Simple Life", where we try out different jobs that are rural and completely out of character for us. We forgot to bring our chihuahua, oops.


We both started out pear picking together on a Monday, made not-very-good money ($31.50 to fill a god-awfully big wooden bin with pears), we came home aching and scratched to hell and never wanting to eat pears again. I got news that night that I could move onto work at a "tomato shed" (er, tomato sweatshop), but for $16, I thought I'd brave the tyrant boss and monotonous robot work I'd heard about. Figured I'd try to make it to 4 days and, well, I've done 8 shifts there now! Adrian continued with pears (the shed ONLY wanted females, since supposedly we concentrate better or something), but today (Saturday of Victoria's Labour Day weekend) he's trying out a tomato shed job of his own. We'll have to see how that went... me: finally, a day off, yippideedoo!!!!!!!!!!

The work kind of sucks, of course. We knew it would be hard work going in but you can't really fathom the backaches and counting down hours/bags of pears till you're actually doing it. But it's the end goals in mind... cell phone (coming this weekend, we'll give you all the number... txt/call us whenever! we're 16 hours ahead of you guys in ontario)... soon an apartment in Melbourne with a toasted that burns Hello Kitty into bread (yes, we saw one in Target). But the good news is the people here are fantastic-- at the hostel, at work, etc. Lots of Germans (we have learned many German words, some of which we should not repeat unless picking pears), English, Irish, Japanese, French and Koreans.... and even the people at work are pretty cool too-- I think the "tyrant" boss fired too many people before we started work and she's being extra nice. We're tired all the time and I start night shift at the shed for this week, watching and squeezing tomatoes going by on a conveyor belt, ugh, hour after hour. I got to start boxing them and it felt like a holiday. Other good news is we're on our way to extending our visas (we need 12 weeks of this kind of work) and so I guess we can stay longer in each place and check out the west coast when we buy a car, tis the plan. Yippee!
Oh yeah, and I got offered a "job" last week while me and the pear-picking boys were killing time in a local pub while the farmers wrote our paycheques... Aussie guy: "Hey, you want a job for tonight? $24 an hour, two hours." Me: "Oh yeah?" Pig Aussie Man: "Yep. You just need to sell raffle tickets in your bikini top in the pub tonight, only two hours." EW! Needless to say, I promptly turned that offer down and told them the other "sheilas" at the hostel probably will say no too...

What else?

Aussies are funny people. It's taken a bit of language-learning... there's no such thing as "granola bars" here, they're muesli bars. If I ask someone if they have eaten dinner yet I get a blank stare, so I translate to "tea". And I've actually started using the word "rubbish" in sentences. (Adrian's been concentrating more on learning useful German words like "armpit".) There is wicked camping equipment here-- we saw bunk-bed mattresses for tents! Multi-room tents! Etc etc, and we bought sleeping bags for $8.99 each, cheaper than a dinner out. Weird. They have a store called "Big W" here which looks and has the vibe of a WalMart (i think it's affiliated) and I went to the kitchen section for fun, and they have appliances for everything here-- pancake maker (like, really, DUH!), popcorn maker, ice-cream maker, of course, artistic toasters, and even a donut maker (that's just besides the conventional ones like blenders and cuisinarts and such). That's just a few observations...

Another one is that internet in this hick town is really expensive, and without USB plugs, so no photos again, I'm sorry! But we promise to keep you posted, and we love all of your comments. It's still hot here in days and getting cold at night... yes, it's fall. Thinking about you guys and your snow that will be gone soon, don't worry! Anyhow, keep in touch...
Miss you!
Love Dayle (and Adrian, from the shed)