Which way does the water spin???

April 16, 2011 Billy and Chiz 4 Comments

Ever since I was a little kid, I was told that the water in toilets spin in opposite directions in the northern and southern hemisphere… but is that really true?

I have done a bit of searching on the Internet, and just as you might expect – there are mixed answers. Some say that it is absolutely true, while others say it’s totally false. Some argue that in theory it is true, but it only works on large bodies of water… not toilets. One thing is true though; toilets today have water forced into them and are bad ways to test this theory. In order to test it, you need to let the water spin in a natural way, like in a bathtub or sink.

Well… since Chiz and I were making a move from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere, we decided to put this theory to the test! We took video of water spinning in a natural vortex in two northern cities (Tokyo and Atlanta) and then two cities in the southern hemisphere (Brisbane and Melbourne). Over the course of our long move here, we put this video together. It is an unscientific study to prove or disprove this theory.

So what do you think will happen? Take a guess and then watch the video…

[youtube d2zC1t-07KQ]

Are the lights on or off?

April 10, 2011 Billy and Chiz 2 Comments

light_switch

I have not been very good about blogging since I moved to Australia. It’s not that I don’t have plenty of interesting things to share… I do… It’s just that the course I’m taking is all encompassing. It’s a master’s course, and they definitely pile on the work to suit the degree. I’m not complaining, because I’m really enjoying it and learning a ton, but I just have no time to do much else but read, write and study!

Right now though, I am starting a brief holiday, and have much more free time! During these little breaks from the rigor of course work, I’ll try and post some musings and adventures of our time here in the land down under.

Obviously there are many more similarities between Australia and America than Japan and America, but I am finding many small things tripping me up.

Take the picture above… besides just being old and nasty, is the light switch on or off? Well, if you’re reading this in America, you would say that the lights are off. When a switch is in the up position, it’s on, and when it’s in the down position, it’s off. Well, in Australia the opposite is true. I don’t know why, but maybe because Australia and America are on opposite sides of the earth? Are other things upside down too? Also, as a side note, in Japan the light switches flip from left to right… mind blowing right!?

While screws turn the same way in America, Japan and Australia, the faucets don’t. For some reason you have to twist the faucet left to turn on the water and right to shut it off. The opposite is true in America and Japan. Why?

Another thing that has me confused at times is Australian English. It’s 99% the same as American English, but that 1% just throws me when I encounter it. I have put some examples below, written as American English = Australian English:

1. Math = Maths & Sports = Sport

For some reason Australian’s add an “s” to the end of math, but take the “s” away from the word sport!

2. How are you doing? = How are you going?

How am I going? What!? I’m not going anywhere! When you think about it though… does the word “doing” make any more sense? I’m not doing anything either… maybe we should both agree to say something like “How are you feeling?”

3. Raisins = Sultanas

I’ve gotta look for a box of Sultana Bran – with two scoops of sultanas!

4. Chips = Crisps & Fries = Chips

Since Australian’s call French Fries, “Chips,” they had to find another name for the potato chip. Their solution, “Crisps.” Not a bad idea… I kind of like that name!

5. Trunk = Boot

I wonder what they call boots? Trunks?

6. Mommy = Mummy

I wonder what they call a mummy from Egypt? A Mommy?

7. Marker = Texter

I guess I can understand this one. You can make a mark with it or you write text with it… ok, but it still sounds strange to me. Plus, many of the texters here say “marker” right on the package! I’m just saying…

8. Period = Full Stop

I find this one a bit strange. I’m teaching kids to write sentences and I’m forced to say that at the end of each sentence they need a “full stop.” Are they writing a sentence or driving it down the page?

9. Eraser = Rubber

Imagine my face when a 6-year-old boy came up to me in class and asked for a rubber. “Wow, kids reach sexual maturity quite early in Australia!”

I’m going to stop with 9 for now. I’m sure that over the two years Chiz and I will be here we will find plenty more oddities and differences. That’s part of the fun of living in a new country and experiencing a new culture!

Lives on tram 57

March 19, 2011 Billy and Chiz 1 Comment

tram57

One of the unique characters of the city of Melbourne is its tram. Trams are such a useful and convenient public transportation in the city. You just need to hop on and off. There are many tram lines, and when you look up the sky, you see the tram electric lines everywhere above you like a spider web. Without taking a tram, you cannot tell about a life in Melbourne. Yes, once you hop on a tram, you will find many lives on a tram.

I use tram 57 often. It is because it is the only tram line that goes close to where I live. Tram 57 is a very convenient tram, which goes to the centre of the city and passes a famous and large market, Queen Victoria Market. Also, I often find many different cultures on tram 57. Being on tram 57 makes me realise that Australia is a melting pot. Yet, I still question if cultures are truly “melting” or if they are just “gathering.” Popular lines tend to have two cars and they are usually quite new and clean, unfortunately, tram 57 has only one car and it is quite antique. The size of the car is not so small, but you can hear people’s conversations from the head of it to the end of the car. It does not mean people talk very loud (some people do though), I think voices somehow echo inside tram. The first thing you will notice is the dangerous location of the tram stops. They are usually in the middle of roads having about 70 – 90 cm (about 28 – 36 inches) wide waiting spot divided only by metal polls from a car road. When a tram comes, it comes as close as about 30 cm (about 12 inches) to you. Yes, if you like, you can touch a tram on the move. It is very easy to cause psychical incidents. Some stops have their signs on a pedestrian street, but when you hop on a tram, you have to cross a car road to the middle of road. Since trams have their own traffic lights separated from cars, even trams stop, cars go though. Luckily, almost all car drivers know that they have to stop their car when people are hopping on and off a tram. I guarantee that it will take a while to get use to this weird system.

Speaking of their weird system, no one really pays tram fees. At least to me, no one does. There is a ticket vending machine on each tram, but no one checks. Tram drivers are locked in a booth, separated from the passenger seats. I always wonder how the government can get a profit of running trams.

After I started using tram 57, I noticed many things.

1- There is not even a day without seeing anyone who is drunk or on drugs.

2- Many people tell their life stories, which are usually sad or complaints without paying attention to whether there is actually anyone who is interested in listening/sharing.

3- Crying girls on the phone.

4- Quarrelling people on the phone.

5- People asking for change to buy a tram ticket even though s/he is not intending to buy one.

6- Tram officers (Yarra Trams) are just standing on the tram gossiping with their colleagues. (They are supposed to check if passengers have valid tickets or not.)

7- People complain to the tram driver about the trams even though the driver ignores them.

8- Guys randomly start stripping.

9- People dancing.

10- People asking other people many strange questions about their personal belongings. Even going through other people’s groceries!

At the beginning, I enjoyed watching other people’s lives on the tram 57. I thought listening and seeing a bit of people’s lives on the tram would never bore me. Yet, as time went by, I started being a bit scared. It is because I will never know what kind of person I will meet on the tram 57. Once it moves, I am stuck with those people and there is no way to get off. A driver is isolated from the tram and cannot be reached physically. I have seen some people start quarrelling badly, but no one including a driver did anything. Other people had to just sit still and tried not to get involved or wishing the tram goes to the next stop soon. Sooner or later, I started hoping for a quiet tram ride every time I hop on. Now, I am just crossing my fingers for myself to get used to this soon.

hunting apartments in melbourne

February 25, 2011February 25, 2011 Billy and Chiz 3 Comments

apartment hunting sucks…

chiz and i are from very different places, but some things, like apartment hunting, are pretty similar. you go to a real estate agent and explain what you want, where you want it, and what price you’d like to pay. then they help you search for places and take you around. when we moved to australia, we were expecting this to be the case… but it’s a different world down under!

in australia, owners of property are treated like kings, while the renters are treated like pond scum. chiz and i traveled to our first real estate agent hoping to meet with somebody about renting a property. instead, we were just handed a sheet with listings and shoved out the door. this happened at every agency we went to. soon we learned how this system worked, and we didn’t like it.

in melbourne, (things are a bit different in other places in australia), a rental property is listed on a website and printed on the weekly sheet of available rentals for each real estate agency. a renter can search the sites or travel to the agencies to look at the list. also, even though you pay monthly, the prices are listed as rent per week. it’s a bit tricky too, because it’s not 4 weeks to a month… but rather a bit more. since there are 52 weeks in a year, you have to multiply the weeks by 52 and then divide by 12 to find the monthly rent. that way they can sneak in a bit more money into the monthly rent! viewing a property is tough too. each property has a time listed when it is open for a property viewing. the time is usually for only 10-15 minutes! for example, a property might only be open for a viewing on thursday february 24th from 4:45-5:00pm! seriously…

this causes many problems for the renter. first, scheduling times to see apartments can be a nightmare. sometimes two places have conflicting times and you have to choose to see one over the other! second, what ends up happening is that you have a flood of people all converging on the apartment during that 10-15 minute block of time! these people are your competitors and it’s a bit uneasy and uncomfortable. in this small amount of time you have to decide if you want the apartment. if you do, you put in an application.

right now the market is an owners market. at viewings, there were tons of other potential renters there as well. we tried to apply for a couple of apartments to no avail, but soon learned why. since the demand is so great, you have to make your application stand out from the others. chiz and i are foreigners here and don’t have any references or prior history. also, i’m going to school and chiz is looking for work since we just arrived, so owners were scared to rent to us. when compared with australians who were applying for the same apartment, we had no chance. so we learned to play the game…

first, we had to put all our money into a bank and print off a statement to prove that we could pay for the rent. second, we had to offer an increase in the weekly rental price. then finally, we had to offer to pay months of the rent up front! crazy right!?!? this would definitely give us the upper hand… right… wrong! even with all that, our application was denied!

we persevered though, and after many long days in front of the computer and wandering the streets of melbourne, we got an apartment! it was a really frustrating process, and we couldn’t have done it without the help and support of our friends, lenny and richard. not only did they let us stay with them until we found a place, but they also gave us lots of advice, insight and just let us bitch about the process every night! also, all the long days in the city ended up teaching us about the streets and trams of melbourne. we explored and learned about the many unique neighborhoods of melbourne. if we weren’t in this process, we might never have ventured to as many as places as we did in 3 weeks.

our lease is only for a year… but unless something is seriously wrong with this apartment, i have a feeling we aren’t moving. neither of us want to go though that process again!

What she saw from the corner of her almond eyes

February 14, 2011February 14, 2011 Billy and Chiz 2 Comments

When she travels, she always reminds herself to get close to local lives where she feels true cultures. Since she is always a traveller, it is hard to do everything that local people usually do. But, she believes that is one of great ways to feel the local life.

33 days in the Peach State was also another great chance to understand how local people’s life would be because she had a new family there. Needless to say, people live differently in different areas even in a same country. It is quite impossible to know how people live there in a short time. As a traveller or visitor, she generalised everything she saw, heard and experienced even though she might only see, hear and experience a tiny bit of the world. Although she unconsciously generalised whatever she encountered during her stay, she certainly felt a part of its culture and peeked into local people’s lives during that time.

On her first day, she noticed a symbol of peach on streets, and even found some on menus, such as Georgia peach pancakes at the Pancake House which was very yummy. From seeing many peach related things, she felt local people must be proud of where they live. When she drove around the city, she noticed there were many buildings and facilities were named after Martin Luther King Jr. who is one of the people whose biography always fascinated her. Although she was bit disappointed about the website of the King’s Centre, the centre was actually better than its website. Yet, considering how important Martin Luther King Jr.’s role in history, it should have been organised and built better. The video exhibitions at the centre were brilliant. She found herself close to tears. There were also small exhibition rooms for Coretta Scott King, Gandhi and Rosa Parks, which she wished to be bigger with more information. Yet, there weren’t many things to see in glass cases in exhibition rooms. She was glad to learn about Cretta Scott King whom she did not know anything about. Somehow, those exhibitions were held in two different buildings separated by a street so it was not a convenient way to see all the exhibitions, especially in bad weather. The centre would be a great place to hang out during summer or fall. She wished to come back during those times in future.

One of the things she always does when she is in an unfamiliar place is to understand its history. Learning its past is knowing its present, she thinks. Since she was interested in the Civil War, Atlanta History Centre became one of her favourite places where she learned a lot about the Civil War, slavery and the life people had in 1860’s. Although Swan House was built in 1928, it still has attractive features that she wished to have in her future house. If a ticket were not as expensive as it is (US$16.50) and if she lived there, she would love to spent as much time there as she could. Moreover, they have an Atlanta/Georgia souvenir shop inside the centre where she found such lovely tea towels. She also enjoyed another educational activity; Georgia Aquarium is also a good place to buy Georgia souvenir because most products have its cute logo. It is such a great place to spend a whole day finding and learning about fish and other sea creatures as well as the High Museum of Art where she saw one of her favourite artists’ works, Dali. “Dialog in the Dark”; “for about an hour, visitors navigated different environments in complete darkness, relying on all senses except sight, and ask questions of their visually impaired guide, whose faces they don’t see until leaving. Stumbling in darkness makes the Dialog visitor appreciate how visually oriented the the world is – how would you go grocery shopping? How would you cross the street? As well as the reliance on other senses such as sound and touch to navigate the world” and “BODIES (Chinese version)” were another two educational exhibitions which were in town. Although she has been to BODIES (German version) a long time ago, it was great to see the exhibition again : http://www.forthoodsentinel.com/story.php?id=3399 /http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastination / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xui7q21y0bU

While she was learning the history of the Peach State and having interesting experiences, she also explored some local areas for shopping. Rag-O-Rama – Little Five Points (Inman Park/Reynoldstown Station), Cheery Bomb – Little Five Points (Inman Park/Reynoldstown Station), Stefen’s Vintage Clothing – Little Five Points (Inman Park/Reynoldstown Station) , and Psycho Sisters – Little Five Points (Inman Park/Reynoldstown Station) were great places to for her to explore different tastes of fashion and try to find the best price. Goodwill impressed her the most. Goodwill sells second hand clothes, products, books, etc. cheaply. Things at the store are donated by people. If she spent enough time, surely she could find some good deals there. Although she did not know how popular the store is all around the world, she thought that kind of store should be introduced to all over the world. Things that she was interested in were: fitting rooms in shops where she was given a card with a number of clothes she would try on by people who were in charge of only fitting rooms. It was more like fashion show rooms than fitting rooms because there were so much girl-talks going on. She also felt it interesting that customers did not put clothes they tried on back on a rack but left them in fitting rooms.

Moreover, so many available cuisines never bored her; Star Provisions where she found great selections of cheese, yummy yummy ice cream (honey and almonds/salt and olive oil US$3-), interesting dog treats which actually did not surprise her because she saw so many dogs but not many cats even on streets (it seemed that there were no street cats). She also found a great loaf of cranberry and walnuts bread US$5- there. Quattro (Italian) serves good pizza and hummus but their tables and chairs are somehow very high. Vintage Pizzeria serves a huge and great pizza. Atlata Fish Market serves great fish dishes. Although she enjoyed every meal she had, her favourites were: La Petite Maison (French) and Alfredo’s (Italian). La Petite Maison serves such lovely dishes that she guarantees everybody finds their favourites and leaves with full tummies. Alfredo’s makes your favourite Italian dishes with some twists. These two excellent restaurants are the places you will be spoiled with great tastes. Needless to say, she misses dining at those places as well as home dishes made by her family; burgers with goat cheese, meatloaf and galliano cake. There were two things she noticed about food in the Peach State: to her food tended to be salty and people seemed to eat a lot of eggs in a day.

Obviously, there was much more than she expected; so many TV programmes which are always major subjects in conversations and a variety and “jumbo” size products with reasonable prices; The Body Shop’s double size cream; Olive Oil Moisturizing Hair Lotion; Moroccan Oil and Keihls saved her skin and hair from dry air. She truly felt that she was in “a material world.” It seemed to her that there was nothing she could not get, and she actually missed being in “a not fulfilled world.”

There is a feeling that she always feels at the end of any trip and she felt it at the end of this trip too; there are always pros and cons in any culture and custom. It is just a different way to look at a life and how to live it.

[Show slideshow]