Well, here we are in the Perth International Airport Departure Lounge. Check-in was something of a nightmare, and not through any fault of our own. It still astonishes me how many people can't grasp the concept that the onus is on them to ensure that their check-in goes as smoothly as possible. Needless to say we waited in queue for quite a while, the upshot being that because we were pretty organised by comparison, the guy checking us in gave us two seats with an empty seat in between, and ignored the fact that we were a wee bit over our weight limits. So pretty happy with that effort, and thinking that maybe the travel warnings for Thailand will mean that the Singapore to Bangkok leg might be quite an empty flight too... Fingers crossed!
Time for the mandatory magazine reading, iPod listening, and of course people watching.
See you in Singapore!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
2 pre-travel thoughts
1. Bangkok seems pretty fierce right now. We only have about 12 hours there before heading north, but apparently some of the protests are happening that way now too. Will be monitoring the situation pretty closely!
2. British money is RIDICULOUSLY big.
2. British money is RIDICULOUSLY big.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Visas
I have found it interesting the variability of visa prices for SE Asia...
Cambodia: $20 (US), 1 month visa on entry
Laos: $30 (US), 30 day visa on entry
Vietnam: $75 (Australian), 1 month visa, had to send an application to the Embassy in Canberra for approval
Go figure...
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Great (Britain) Expectations
So we leave Perth in less than 4 weeks, and I'm becoming pretty excited about both our trip to SE Asia and the prospect of living in the UK for a couple of years. I have my reasons for wanting to leave Perth, and I have my reasons for wanting to head for the UK, but I guess I also have some idea of what I can expect once I get there.
So my first big step once I'm in the UK is to find a job. I have worked in agriculture for the past year, but I am keen to get back on the environmental sciences track. I gather from other friends that have made their way to London from New Zealand that they struggled to find a job at first, but once they had some UK job experience they found it much easier to find work they enjoyed. I have also heard that Kiwis are considered to be pretty solid workers, so hopefully I can ride on that wave when I get there.
Finding somewhere to live is going to be the second biggie. It will probably depend on where we can secure work, and we aren't tied to London, although it is where most of our friends are so would be a good place to start. There are other obvious reasons for wanting to experience London life too, so I am pretty sure we'll end up there (at least for a while). We'll almost certainly flatshare, and while I've heard much of the great north/south of the river divide, I doubt it will have any sway on where we end up living. I expect we will look for something near our mates.
So what else is there? Once we have jobs and somewhere to live, I hope that we will not find ourselves as homebound as we ended up here in Perth. And you know what, I expect not to end up that way. I feel that there will be so much more to see and do than in Perth that the motivation and opportunities will combine to get me out of the house. Here's hoping!
While every country is supposed to be creeping slowly out of recession, Great Britain included, I have heard much of the enormous debt currently burdening that government, and the impending need for something to be done about it. While I do not know who to expect to be in power once we are over there, I am not expecting tax cuts, and I won't be surprised if not long after we arrive there are tax rises of some kind.
And finally, I am pretty happy with the exchange rate at the moment. The Australian dollar is strengthening as the pound stirling weakens, so things are looking good for us exchanging our money. I expect that in the 2 years that I have to save money over there the pound will recover and I will do pretty well out of my currency conversion. Again, here's hoping...
So my first big step once I'm in the UK is to find a job. I have worked in agriculture for the past year, but I am keen to get back on the environmental sciences track. I gather from other friends that have made their way to London from New Zealand that they struggled to find a job at first, but once they had some UK job experience they found it much easier to find work they enjoyed. I have also heard that Kiwis are considered to be pretty solid workers, so hopefully I can ride on that wave when I get there.
Finding somewhere to live is going to be the second biggie. It will probably depend on where we can secure work, and we aren't tied to London, although it is where most of our friends are so would be a good place to start. There are other obvious reasons for wanting to experience London life too, so I am pretty sure we'll end up there (at least for a while). We'll almost certainly flatshare, and while I've heard much of the great north/south of the river divide, I doubt it will have any sway on where we end up living. I expect we will look for something near our mates.
So what else is there? Once we have jobs and somewhere to live, I hope that we will not find ourselves as homebound as we ended up here in Perth. And you know what, I expect not to end up that way. I feel that there will be so much more to see and do than in Perth that the motivation and opportunities will combine to get me out of the house. Here's hoping!
While every country is supposed to be creeping slowly out of recession, Great Britain included, I have heard much of the enormous debt currently burdening that government, and the impending need for something to be done about it. While I do not know who to expect to be in power once we are over there, I am not expecting tax cuts, and I won't be surprised if not long after we arrive there are tax rises of some kind.
And finally, I am pretty happy with the exchange rate at the moment. The Australian dollar is strengthening as the pound stirling weakens, so things are looking good for us exchanging our money. I expect that in the 2 years that I have to save money over there the pound will recover and I will do pretty well out of my currency conversion. Again, here's hoping...
Monday, March 22, 2010
Hello, I'm back
So this blog has been silent for some time now, and also deviated significantly from it's original purpose as a travel blog. Neither of these things particularly upsets me as a) I haven't had a whole lot to write about and b) Once you settle in a place travelling doesn't exactly take up much of your time.
Anyway as we are leaving Perth in just under 6 weeks now I wanted to see if I could get this bad boy cranking again, particularly for the purpose of recording our 6 weeks travelling through Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand before hitting the UK for (possibly) a couple of years. We have passports, we have visas, and we have half of our flights booked (with hopefully the rest sorted out this evening). We bail at the start of May and fly into London on June 15, probably just in time to contend with the rush hour tube-goers. It'll be a good test for us I'm sure...
So really the last few months in Perth has been a combination of enjoying the most of what we like about the place, namely for me our friends and the weather, with trying to get our savings back on track for SE Asia and setting ourselves up in England. We have both taken on extra work in the weekends - I've been supervising in bars at two of the local stadiums. That meant I worked the first AC/DC concert, which was madness, but as we went to watch the second on it was cool to get a double dose. We've seen a couple of other gigs recently, the highlight definitely being Lupe Fiasco at Metro City. Talib Kweli is here in mid-April, so I might have to make that my send off gig...
We have been back down south which was lovely, and our trip to the Gold Coast to see our mates from Wellington was awesome. I have been back to wonderful Wongan for a week of work, and actually managed to enjoy myself this time, largely because we hit the pub on St Patrick's day. Just now (literally in the last hour) we had the first proper rain since mid-November, and it cam in the form of a monster storm. It hit 32C here today, and yet we have just had golfball sized hail stones. There is debris everywhere, our substation was hit by lightening, the roads are flooded and because of all the windscreen detergent build up on the roads since November, they are also slippery and bubbly.
I'm going to sign off with a photo from our recent trip to Gracetown, but I hope to be back soon, and I look forward to getting some blogs in from Asia :)
Anyway as we are leaving Perth in just under 6 weeks now I wanted to see if I could get this bad boy cranking again, particularly for the purpose of recording our 6 weeks travelling through Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand before hitting the UK for (possibly) a couple of years. We have passports, we have visas, and we have half of our flights booked (with hopefully the rest sorted out this evening). We bail at the start of May and fly into London on June 15, probably just in time to contend with the rush hour tube-goers. It'll be a good test for us I'm sure...
So really the last few months in Perth has been a combination of enjoying the most of what we like about the place, namely for me our friends and the weather, with trying to get our savings back on track for SE Asia and setting ourselves up in England. We have both taken on extra work in the weekends - I've been supervising in bars at two of the local stadiums. That meant I worked the first AC/DC concert, which was madness, but as we went to watch the second on it was cool to get a double dose. We've seen a couple of other gigs recently, the highlight definitely being Lupe Fiasco at Metro City. Talib Kweli is here in mid-April, so I might have to make that my send off gig...
We have been back down south which was lovely, and our trip to the Gold Coast to see our mates from Wellington was awesome. I have been back to wonderful Wongan for a week of work, and actually managed to enjoy myself this time, largely because we hit the pub on St Patrick's day. Just now (literally in the last hour) we had the first proper rain since mid-November, and it cam in the form of a monster storm. It hit 32C here today, and yet we have just had golfball sized hail stones. There is debris everywhere, our substation was hit by lightening, the roads are flooded and because of all the windscreen detergent build up on the roads since November, they are also slippery and bubbly.
I'm going to sign off with a photo from our recent trip to Gracetown, but I hope to be back soon, and I look forward to getting some blogs in from Asia :)
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