Hello everyone! I’m blogging from Australia now! There is certainly natural air-con here at 19 degree Celsius. So darn expensive to get internet connection! If you are going to study in Australia, never come on a weekend because there is nothing. The university doesn’t work on weekends and so there was so internet connection for me. Pure misery! Until I added some credits today that is. Imagine having to pay 15 Australian cents for each megabyte you use! So it’s time for me to practice the good computer usage of not wasting bandwidth by not posting a lot of pics (not that I don’t have them, just that I need to conserve my credits).

My days without internet were totally crap. There’s nothing to do but walk in and out of my room and get some groceries. The latter was actually quite enjoyable until you see the bill. A$4 for a bottle of oyster sauce! Lol… But some (by some I mean very little) of the products are cheap. These would include milk ($1+/litre) and ermm… little else? I think fruits are supposed to be less expensive than in Singapore as well but I haven’t really checked it out. It has been quite surreal because everywhere I walk I see more Chinese than Caucasians. I think it’s because of the break that’s why only the international students are around. The university campus is not as big as I imagined but its hills and valleys can certainly fight with NUS Arts. Surprisingly, the university is younger than NUS by about 4 years. That is the age of the university on the current campus.

What are some of the interesting things I’ve seen so far? On the plane, I realize there are a lot of people with very strong bladders because I had nothing better to do than to count how many times the people around me go to toilet – ZERO! Amazing! It’s not that there’s nothing to do on the plane; on the contrary, the in-flight entertainment system is quite erm… entertaining, if you have a thing for movies and such that is. More than 60 for you to choose from with some new releases such as Man of the House that I’ve just watched awhile ago. Bah! Also found that SQ girls really have very good services. Their smiles never waver (though I think the look in their eyes did). The stewardess did not even bat an eyelash when the difficult girl next to me requested for warm milk after warm milk and for her supper after declining it 5 minutes earlier. The girl’s mouth stinks, metaphorically and literally.

What else is interesting? Australians are generally a helpful and friendly lot except for their bus drivers. I asked the driver how much it cost to get to the grocery shop and he told me, ‘How would I know?’ I think he didn’t understand me then asked again to which he finally told me the fare. And coming back, I asked the same question again (though I expected it to be the same but just in case the cops come and decide to throw me into jail for not paying my full fare),to which the other driver had a pretty surly reply as well. It’s crap man. A bit too early to generalize since I have only taken 2 bus rides since my arrival (need to get my student card to enjoy the 50% discount). There’s like 0 Chinese vegetables here. You would expect local produces to be cheaper right? Wrong. 4 stalks of water-logged pak choi cost A$3.

I think that’s quite enough of my ranting for now, so I shall leave you with this:

Pretty toilet paper with my room as background.