"The rhythm of their day is entirely different; I am foreign." (The first steps in a foreign city)

13th June 2014 (fRiDaY) - tHe ArRiVaL

Goji Berries

First day in Sydney, the amazing city. 

Landed very early in the morning
It was about 7am
Picked up by a friend of mine (Dima, who hosted me for my first week there)
Rich breakfast with him
Hearing for the first time talking about goji berries (??)
Looking through the windows of my friend's flat in Zetland
Buying my first MyBus Ticket (see my previous post)
Catching the bus to get to Central Station and an endless series of meaningful moments.

"Life's all about moments of impact and how they change our lives forever"


ThE mOmEnT I oPeNeD mY bAnK aCcOuNt

"When you believe you can." - Commonwealth Bank of Australia

So we arrived in Central Station and I entered the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Yellow and gray logo, it looked a bit sad as company colours, but I was told it was good. And the Commonwealth Bank actually was a good pick. The part I liked more was that I could "play" a bit with my accounts and set goals of savings and getting somehow "rewarded".

What do I mean by "getting rewarded"? Simply it means that you own a saving account which allows you to move money in and out of your linked CommBank transaction account and at the same time you receive interests calculated daily and paid monthly. So basically you don't have any fee to pay but you receive some extra money every month. Let's say about 20 $/month.

For more details as usual I link you to the following page.

I guess that another useful piece of information you may need is to know how much money to bring with you for the beginning and the expenses you have to face on regular basis.

I arrived there with $4500 (about 3000 €), enough to live for a couple of months. And here below you find a list of expenses:

Pic taken on my first day in Australia
Opera House, 13th June '14

That scarf on the picture got damaged a few
months later in the zip of my bag... sad story ;)

- 230 $/week -- room rental
- 40 $/week -- public transportation
- 50 $/month -- mobile
- 30 $/week -- shopping food

Total per week is about $ 350.

Than it depends on how much you can afford and of course you can find cheaper options or better deals.

That was mine.

If you need more details about expenses in Sydney, just leave a comment and I'll do my best to help you.

See you later :)
VaL

Chapter 1, part 2 - ChinaTown (Street Art)

Me as #citytraveller

Good evening there! Cold day spent under the blanket, trying to nip my cold in the bud, but it doesn't seem to work that much :)

I wanted to talk about a new chapter of this amazing city, but first I feel like giving a few more curiosities and pics on this area of Sydney.

Here you have a view on how the Paddy's markets look like from the inside. Basically it's a huge warehouse with many stands offering mostly Australian souvenirs, but as I said in my previous post, you can also find all sorts of things.

Paddy's Markets 

Such as maneki-neko (the welcoming cat we usually see in the Chinese restaurants, even though it belongs to the Japanese tradition), katana, bags of all kinds, t-shirts, hi-techs tools and so on.

A stand @ Paddy's Markets

"In Between Two Worlds" by Jason Wing

Strolling the streets I ended up in a small lane full of angels. At that time I didn't know what it was and I was not even that much interested in that. It was a hidden world. It reminded me of another installation I saw a year before on a picture of a friend of mine. I didn't know it was in Sydney but I was already somehow captured.

"In BetweenTwo Worlds" by Jason Wing

Only recently I have discovered it was created by Jason Wing, who was born to Aboriginal and Chinese parents. This laneway art is titled "In Between Two Worlds", it' s a reflection of the unique ancestry of the artist by making references
to both Chinese and Aboriginal motifs.

It consists of three main components:
- wall murals
- floor murals
- and 30 suspended illuminated "spirit" figures.

It was a project commissioned by the Council of Sydney in order to create high quality public places in the City.

For further details click here.

Well, that's all for now about ChinaTown. I hope to come back soon for more updatings.

Cheers!