We went from the best toilets in the world to some of the worst! This is going to be a “shitty” blog, so if you don’t want to read about that topic, stop now.

Tokyo has some amazing toilets! I know it’s a funny thing to write about, but if you’ve ever had the luxurious experience of pooping on a Toto brand washlet, you’d understand. Enough said.

Australia is not exactly backward in their toilets, but they could use improvements in some areas. For example, the simple toilet seat is made from a really cheap and flimsy plastic. I have been to many places now in Australia, from low to high end, and they all have this cheap poop seat! We couldn’t even find a nicer seat to buy for our own house! Those cheap seats are even expensive… everything seems to be expensive here.

Another interesting thing are the urinals. All men’s bathrooms have troughs! Big metal troughs where all the men crowd to pee! I have never seen an individual urinal in Australia. While the trough style might be a more convenient option for cleaning, it’s not really very nice. It gives me the impression that I’m camping instead of being at a nice museum.

One good thing though is that Melbourne has public toilets. I think that is a really nice thing for a city to offer. The public toilets look like subway stops, and have big staircases that lead underground. As far as public toilets go, they seem to be pretty clean and well taken care of. Luckily they have only certain hours of operation, because otherwise their location underground might make them a bit sketchy. It is interesting though that they keep the toilets open late during the Christmas season and for new years. I guess it’s much merrier if you have to pee then!

[Show slideshow]

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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!

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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.

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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!

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