20120907 Blue Mountain

Blue Mountain day with Lynn & Monkey. We're lucky to hitch the ride with them as it's our first time to go around Australia in a car not a railway. First time on the australian expressway is a bit of unexpected because of the plenty of cars on the road. With GPS help, we drove all the way to blue mountain echo point and three sisters and they're not really remote and abandoned as I would thought they are. The view is spectacular and all the pictures you look over in front of your eyes are just the green trees down the valley and extended to who knows how many thousand or maybe million acres.  It is said that the boundless eucalyptus down there exude those particles and made the blue scene people see surround the mountains and valleys in blue mountain area. It's the scene you'll never to get in Taiwan, so I'm happy that I got a hitch to be there. Just the wind on top is blowing all the time and I would guess the summer time visit is a smart option. The weather today on the top is fickle, sometimes so windy that you get your ears frozen and hair so massy that you don't want people to look at your photos, sometimes compunded with drizzles so the dark cloud covered the sun and gone with blue sky. There're three made for tourism rides available to give it a spice on the blue mountain tour, railway, cable car and skycar. The ticket for unlimited experiences are 42 AUD (expensive), so we chose only railway and cable car rides, 21 AUD per person (not cheap for any transport in AU). Railway is steep and cable car claimed can take in as many as 84 people per ride. Worth a try for either ride, you're here after all.

20120906 Day 3 of being a housekeeper

Day 3, we're earning more with around 65 AUD per person for 2 check out room and 8 daily services. I prefer daily services honestly because it took less time and less effort and still can amount to the same amount as long as we do it efficiently and precisely. The manager had a pep talk to us when we're finished. We all knew things are always hard at the start and we'll get used to it and earn more with the curve. Just I would still hope we could end up with a decent job with hourly pay as fair as 19 AUD and worked for 8 hours per day. Davy, Franka and Jessie got such jobs working in a clothing facotry and I just heard that the weekend load can get 26 AUD per hour, what a envy job they got. I'll enroll work and travel agent the first thing after my duty tomorrow, haha. Even if I could finish my check out room within 40 or 50 mins which hardly can be mangaed is hardly comparable to their jobs, per my calculation. We did send out our application to berry exchange but I think it's a long shot and I don't even sure when we could be on the list. My plan now might will be to stay in Sydney for a while and try to get a stable job from work & travel. I could feel both my hands are extremely dry to a point that my finger tip are so sensitive that it's painful to even grope something out from my bag. My thigh and ankle are sore + aching and my waist is stiff. How could I be a glamor and grace woman if with those coarse hands and swollen calves. Though, it's good for Michael to learn to work with foreigners and listening to english. It's interesting to see how he handle the parts of language he felt difficault to understand. It's so true that he doesn't really to understand everthing to do his job well and that's how he got his praise when our supervisor Shamim told Michael's doing perfect for his room, the bathroom, the kitchen, the bed and that's a bit surprise to me to hear Shamim to say I could learn from Michael. I'm glad to know that Michael is doing just fine. We won 100 AUD in the star today again, haha, and going to casino is not what I see myself doing when I planned the AU trip.

  

20120905 Day 2 in Oaks Darling Harbour

Day 2 in oaks is the first day we run the room on our own and I started to help with Michael's room because I don't have any room check out yet before 10:00am. We tried to clean everything which we realized that it is the reason slow us down; instead, we should go through the dirty places first and decided the process that normally goes with garbage --> kitchen dirty trays cleaning --> bathroom chemical spray ---> Bed Making --> Wipe everything dust free --> and go back with bathroom finish --> vacuum at the last. The first room took us over 2 hours to complete so you know we earn less than a waitress in Chinese restaurant. @@ I think the best part about this job is to leave off work still have plenty of time feel the sun and see the sun goes down. I met about 4 or 5 Taiwanese working here and I later knew that only one of them worked here over 1.5 month and she told me that none of them are from Taiwan but mostly Korean when she first came in. The Korean here seem nice and they seem knew more english than Michael does, haha. There is this one girl named Miranda trained with us the first day and she seem nice, polite and well-educated. The supervisors and managers here are all nice, well-tempered, helpful and working ethically. As far as I can see now, they're mostly from India and two of them whom I asked are from Bangladesh. My guess is that Indians arrived in Australia much earlier than some other ethnic, so they took the helm earlier than the rest of us (meaning us from Korea, Taiwan or other Asian regions.) The housekeeping job isn't a easy thing to manage, especially for the physical learning and the hours we work for penny pay. Hard job, I could say. This day, we only made less than 45 AUD per person for doing 2 check out room and 2 daily service in almost 6 to 7 hours working straight. And, with my leg sour and rubbed hands all I could feel is tiredness of my body. Still, we headed to the casino winning some chips compensating our loss for the uneven pay of being a housekeeper.

20120904 Housekeeper 1st Day

I'm glad that I didn't end up being late to my first job opportunity in Australia. The job is housekeeping which I later found out is not an easy way to earn money and not an easy job to do. Get up at 6:00 am and off duty at around 4:00Pm, the official working hour starts at 8:00AM, so the total working hour is 6-7 hours and I got the pay for around 70 AUD. It's below my expectation but it's at least a start to earn some money. The job isn't easy because there're a lot of details to attend to and everything in the room should be dusted, scrubbed and there're chemicals that hurt my hand and maybe my lung. Michael's feeling the sour in his legs for standing so many hours and with his empty stomach. I think he understood maybe 50-60% english of the trainer who is an Indian and who is nice and working hard. Even the trainer noticed Michael looked confused at times and he must have noticed Michael's poor english. I couldn't help thinking it might be the wrong choice but I think we better hang on this job before there's a good options that with legal minimum hour rate for us. There're many Koreans and Indians working for the housekeeping company. We later went on to The Star and won 60 AUD before heading home. Monkey and Lynn invited us for thick corn soup.

20120903 Fish Market, The Star, Post Office

We wrote our postcards to friends this morning and went to Sydney fish market at the time it's about to close so we are left with fish packs that fried hours ago, which isn't that delicious. The view in fish market is fantastic just like we saw in the movies and the sea gulls are ferocious on seeking the chances to pick up leftover from humans. I'll still like to going back for the view and maybe the seafood when having some money. Later we went to "The Star" again even after the big fight on the way to fish market (all because Michael did't do his job well and we end up with buying my trail instead of my multi so we have to walk to everywhere, not taking the light tram that we hope to hop on.) We earned 40 AUD today. On the way home, there's another fight because I found out that there's no water left for me. I went to bed around 10 something PM and not talking to Michael. Next morning I'll have to show up for housekeeping job before 8:00 in darling harbour, so early and my first job here in AU. 

20120901 Manly Beach (Darling Fireworks)

We went to Manly beach today with Grace who we met one week ago in Mike's sharehouse and who we went to see Oaks housekeeping manager Shadnam the other day. The ferry to Manly is a big boat because it's kinda a really popular tourism detstination for OZ. The area around Manly beach is well developed and with shops open for toursim. However, the wind around Manly is still bothering me and it's cold when the sun is faded for heavy clouds. Grace felt the same discomfort. I caught minor flu the day after and felt weak. Still, I do like to come back when it turns summer. The drizzle made it frozen at night. Then we went to "The Star" again and show Grace the game Baccarat. She's interested in the way and chances of winning and possible formula and even made the notes like Cantonese to make some predictions. Michael earned 35 AUD then gave it back and ended up with 5 AUD winning bets only. We later went to Darling Harbour for the fireworks again. Back home, there're 4 new people checking in Mike's sharehouse just today. We met them the next morning, Monkey + Lin & Janet + Amber. Lin and Monkey have few stories to tell (mostly about Farm) because they already stayed in OZ for 9 months. 5 mothhs of 9 spent in Culbuture (卡布丘) of Brisbane for strawberry picking. It is said that 1000 AUD can be earned during peak season. So tempting that I really like to go try farm immediately!! M+L next stop will be to Young for Cherries.

20120831 Day Pass Railway trip

The day starts with Michael getting up early in the morning after I went angry about his lethargy and laziness compared with these three weeks sharehouse roommates. All of the passengers got up, on bed and went out earlier than we did every single day and that made me sick of seeing him keep lagging behind almost everyone I knew in Australia. I'd like to see him live with a routine life, like got up at 7:00am everyday and catch up relentless day pace and figure out his future plans all the time. Otherwise, he'll just be beaten and reprimanded by me. He then sent to run a errand by me, buying vegetables. It turns out that the markets in Australia doesn't open until 8:30 or 9:00am. What a later time compared to ours 6:00am!! We bought our second day pass my multi "student" ticket and it's really a bargain because we got off trains for over 3 times as far as zone 3 area and 2 times bus ride in a day. The trip could worth over 20 or 30 in total if we buy them separately. However, a cop showed up on our way to Penrith for ticket inspection and it scared Michael out of gut. I was asleep at the time the cop stood in the aisle so I kinda not prepared for the scarry. Fortunately, the cop just check if we're having any ticket at all but not care if we're holding a student ticket. It's a job hunting day but not efficient in the process because we spent all day just went for two places for two possible jobs. One is off Rydalmere station and followed by bus 525 to a medicine packing factory and we just found out the pay is in day rate (80 AUD per day for 9 hours for the first training week) and nothing like it says on the newspaper that it needs a TFN for the payment. (How the world does it requires a TFN if it pays in cash?) The manager then said she needs Michael for the labor work and I am not supposed to have a labor work; instead, she recommanded me applying for cashier. Both I and Michael are disappointed about the day rate and we're not going to trust Chinese employers any more. We took bus to Parramata. Parramatta looks like a new developed city and much more modern and cleaner than the other stations we've visited, no wonder the Chinese agent mentioned the house price there keep going upward. I think living in Parramatta is quite comfortable. The view on our way (by Train) to Penrith is quite serene and green which is great in my point of view. (I like nature) Just the day today is colder and windier which is the hate of my life. Finally, we were in southlands shopping center and it turns out the gift shop there looks like a variety store (五金行). It's really far away from Ashfield and as I haven't figured out where we're moving after Ashfield, I wouldn't jump in here to take the job. We went woolworth for food shopping (again@@) and spent a whopping $18...(Chocolate and Chips on sale...couldn't resist buying some to soothe our long trip and sour leg)

20120830 The Star $10 Buffet & Baccarat 百家樂 earning $20

We finally got up as the earliest ones in sharehouse before 7:30AM because we plan to go to Sydenham for the interview of a gift box operator. Sydenham is a instrial area full of factories and I feel kinda of back to the old days as I worked in Nan-Tou industrial area for 4 years. I met this manager named Gordon and he looks like coming from UK or local and he seems nice. He told me some people just get bored and left and he's looking for someone who can work faster and stays longer. I can come over to try out if I can keep pace with the machine for assembly. I imagine myself being bored but it pays fairly for $15 per hour for 8 hours a day. We then next go for claiming the money back from the Chinese agent Donnie because we all think she's a bad and lazy agent and a fraud as well. We got $300 *2 all back, fortunately. We went to "The Star" Sydney casino for its $10 AUD bargain buffet (Garden Buffet), the tag price is $29.9 for Mon-Fri lunch and it's now only third of the cost. It's my second time enjoy the treat and I didn't spend a penny for either time because Michael won a gift card worth $50 when he applied the memebership. (Lucky him) The buffet has a more extensive menu provided than any buffet I ever had in Taiwan and all of the dishes are palatable and delicious. I think I ate much more than I do in Taiwan these days and that's one of the reasons that I gained weight. Later on, we decided to delve into the field of gambling because we heard Davy, Franka and Sunny all had bit of their plays and won some. It's just tempting to follow suit. We stood there for quite some time to learn what game the casino has and rules of various games. I'm still fuzzy about the rules anyway but I do learn how to play Baccarat (百家樂) after standing beside one of the tables for a few hours. It seems there's a group of Cantonese (actaully I think half or over half the Chinese in Sydney is Cantonese) is good at playing Baccarat which I learned later on that the game is from Hong Kong. They knew how to record each result and count the odds of winner, either banker, player, tie or pair. At certain moment, the group seems all wagering on the correct bets. We followed them and won three times (minimum $20 each time, at that table) but then gave all back. I couldn't resist keep standing there and hope one more turn on the tide. I knew there's no forever winner. Before we leave, we took $20 home. It was fun and Baccarat is concluded as a risk averse game that commoner like us could opt for in casino.

20120829 Ashfield day

It's another day of blue and fear of running out of money. I'm starting sick of staying in Ashfield and not getting a job to support my traveling. About time to accep the cheap pay and brave out. I had this fight with Michael again when I blamed him on lossing the opportunity to book our current landloard Mike's cheaper room during 14 days count down affair in Sydney. I need money to support me living through to the end of this year and wish me luck. Hope luck is with me~

20120828 Matsons Beach & Sth Sydney+Chatswood

Michael went for two more job opportunities in Marrickville (carpet factory) & Sydenham (gift box factory) today and the chance to get the job in carpet factory seems optimistic because the reuqest is nothing more than hard working, diligent and capable of driving manual gear cars. The hourly pay is $18 before tax while the gift box demands girl and pay $15/hour. I went for clothing shop interview in North Sydney and the shop is just cross the street in historic shopping mall (according to the shop's owner, it has 150 histories!!) called "greenwood plaza". The owner Any isn't there and it's her husband did the interview. I'm disappointed to learn that the hourly pay might be just above $10 as the husband keep telling me that only the experienced sales get the minimum legal pay which I hardly believe so. Also, it's a bit unbelievable that he said that Chinese has their own rules on the hourly pay. I think it's so wrong that we should instead help our people to get a higher pay, not trying to explain that we should follow what we got in Chinese. (lower payment!!) Shouldn't we rise ourselves and try to keep up with and even surpoass westerners? Anyway, I gave myself a try (for free) in that clothing shop and realized that I might have a hard time assimilate into the western way of life because the other two senior girls seem quite easy to talk with customers and lit up the conversation. In fact, I think it's a challenge for me and the job presents with a chance of practicing my english. I would assume myself picking up the pace very soon if I've been given more time on this. I also knew that from deep of my heart, I would prefer being a waitress which might be ealier and more interesting. I'm still out of work, haha...I think I really need to try first without considering payment, so I might go for 新上海 and try to learn being a waitress before my imaging to serve australian in those glitz riverside restaurants in Darling harbour or Circular Quay. North Sydney by the way is way more fancier than Ashfield or Burwood and it's more like Taipei 信義區.  No wonder CISCO OZ HQ is located there. I'll think to browse more around the neighborhood next time. Today we bought my trail my multi one day pass and chose to risk ourselves buying a "student" ticket which is half the tag price 21, so we paid 10.5 / person and get all the tickets for whatever the transporations (train, bus, ferry) and whatever the distance. After selling clothing for 1 hour, we went to catch the ferry to Watsons Bay. It's a long way (but it's just our second time taking Sydney ferry) from Circular Wharf to Watsons Bay, about 20 mins I guess and there're three other mid stops before to the final stop. Along the way, the most outstanding scene is the ubiquitous sailboats on the sea and the serene feeling about them. Except I have little appetite for the wind, I do love the uniqe view and the small bay town. We then took bus 324 to edgecliff rail station to return to town hall and took another transfer to chatswood for Michael's another try in 新上海 for another position which is same in preparing materials for 小籠包 chef. The restaurant is located in the mall and it appeared that the job is much ealier than in Ashfield's kitchen. The hourly rate is the same but Michael decided to go for it and earning some money before he actually got a stable high pay job in either factory or housekeeping. He is really tired and fell asleep on bed without  bedquilt covered.

20120826 Summer Hill & Ashfield Park

I just got to know that Ashfield is quite a town that's bigger than most of the rail station stops. Like the last stop Summer Hill that we walked all the way there is just a really small town...haha, I think most of the stops just look like it. We didn't go anywhere else for all day job sorting and calls making at home. After the calls, I learned that 99% restaurants and cafe pay $8-10 / hour. How disapointting is that my edge english is just not that case at all here and I might succumb to cheap labor for money. Keep it up~ I say to myself~ to the last minute

20120827 Two weeks after - Donnie & Sharehouse mates

For the past 13 days in Sydney Asfield, at Mike's pleasant sharehouse, I met and made some friends who are from Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan. It's a bit surprised to me that two out of three Chinese I met here are all gentle and hygiene (at least what I saw), not all of them are all noisy, messy and dirty as most of them I knew when I were in China. (at the very minimum, on the aspect of spitting). Before I met any Taiwanese, I met Davy, Franka & his girl, and Jessie. Davy got along  well with Michael and our landlord Mike and he's a bit out of normal. He seems talanted and kina of a spotlight boy when he's young and he is capable of making lot of money in Hong Kong from a government job. He said the superiority faded away when he's in OZ and it's partly due to the hard-to-find-a-job setback. But I rather think it's partly because of his principles as I think I have now. He's looking for a legal job and he wants to stay around "City" so he could have the count down in Sydney, not suprising as it's a wish just the same as mine. He spent 5000 AUD already according to his words and if he couldn't find a suitable and stable job, he'll just book the next flight back to Hong Kong and get a higher pay job. I kinda of agree the latter option because he's 29 yrs old and I think people should spend their time on what really matters to their life, like accumulating their "real" working experience. It's all about holiday and part-time job in OZ. Maybe what I want is a little big longer holidays and a life experience that I had no chance to live it through after I graduated. Franka, his girl and Jessie are all good and I wish we could meet each other again maybe next time in Hong Kong or Taiwan. The Taiwanese I met are Grace, Any (PR live in Perth now) & her sis Vivian, Sunny (male just back to Taiwan today). Kindred spirit. I went to town hall underground food court+shopping street, OAKS subsidiary - Housekeepers Pty Ltd (accompany Grace for an interview), and ate the famous Harry's cafe de wheels "hot dog" (really delicious, especially the Chilli Con Carne, also the mushy peas, love them!! not to mention the frankfurt hot dog $6.5!! (tenderly chewy) I'll certainly want to have more!! BTW, Michael and I went to the Chinese agent Donnie and she's just not so good in her attitude when Michael wanted his money back and I played the good guy as I knew it's not gonna work out even if we have a big fight with her. Once bitten twice shy. 一朝被蛇 咬，十年怕草绳 Just like others comment, don't ever trust Chinese agnet. I knew now that they're just being buzy and not helpful but just lippy from the very beginning. Like Donnie, she's never in the office before 11:00AM and she always pretends that she made a lot of calls in the morning already to help us. Just Bullxxxx. The information on the newspaper is so much valuable than any of her tinny phony (information). I could be a more successful agent already only by looking into newpaper. Why should we pay Donnie $300 dollar just to get an interview... 

20120825 Taronga Zoo in Sydney

Today starts not with planning to go to Taronga Zoo but starts with an morning fight with Michael because I couldn't accept his not planning anything but one thing which is going to buy a newspaper and wait in there for me to come over if I want to go to somewhere else. He resets to return home because the distance which is only 10-15 mins away. Anyway, I did some homework at home searching on net and found out the Taronga zoo might not be able to let you hug a Koala but it is not only a famous zoo and might be the largest one in Sydney. The most arractive advantage over others to me is the location which is to said can oversee the Sydney harbour from the zoo. We bought the Zoo pass for 51.5 per person so we could enjoy the return ferry+safari cable car to the top zoo entrance+zoo entrance tickets. It's worth it but still kinda expensive especially because we just enjoy the zoo and animals for 2.5 hours. Here comes the zoo part: first encounter is "tree Kangoroo" and they're just adorable for its fresh face and clumsy tree climbing technique which is supposed to be proficient instead. It is said that all the zoo in Sydney is specialized in showing their indigenous animals and it's quite different from Taiwanese zoo. That's why the next we see some nocturnal rodents are not to be seen (at least not as far as I know) in Taiwan. I enjoy the darkness that the zoo provides to those rodent and it felt so special and exciting to find the rodents in the dark. It gave you the kinda of feeling, maybe curiousity. I even saw an "OWL". My first time to see the legendary bird in Harry Potter which is cute with big head and it turns its head back to look at me. The next thing cae to my eyes is the most adorable animal we Taiwanese all love "Koala"!! Unlike those in Taiwan, they are not all spleeping but looking at us and eating their eucalyptus. I think people just couldn't resist their peaceful and indolent manners and of course their just unharmful appearances. The fat butt, the circle eyes and the hairy ears are all the features that ease my mind. We don't have much time after spending most our time watching Koalas jumping (ya, they do jump from tree to tree, lively), crawling (on the ground, when trying to switch to another tree), and appreciating their look and we taking pictures, so we rush to see the giraffes, elephants, lions (a little bit disappointing for their inertia) and seemingly restless tigers (on the alert, keep walking back and forth and looking at all the visitors from the protective glasses). The view from the Taronga zoo is fascinating and so comfortable to stroll in the zoo. The really difference from Taipei Zoo is the animals themselves; all of them look just as healthy as those in the wild. The fur are sleekly shining and the sturdy figures indicate they are tended carefully and live freely and it's so much different from the animals I saw in Taipei; dry skin,  halting and shamble steps,  foggy eyes, they just look like not happy in the zoo. I enjoy the trip to Taronga and I even encounter a Australian mascot when leave the zoo. We see a "kookaburra" in the parking lot!! It's a 笑翠鳥, the Chinese Woman with her boy told me. It's just really amiable and so plump for a bird, no wonder it is selected to be a moscot. I hope to see it again in OZ!!