Hello from Sydney Australia, a very cool Sydney - only 6 Celcius when I landed at 6:30am this morning. I overheard an Aussie today, horrified that yesterday morning it was 2 Celcius when she left for work - her reaction was that she may as well move to the North Pole! Personally, I find it quite refreshing after the heat and humidity of the Philippines and I happily spent the morning wandering around Darling Harbour and visiting the aquarium. I have a couple of pictures on my camera but forgot to bring the cable so will post them after I get back to Cebu.
Who knew that Canadians require a visa to enter Australia? I didn't! But luckily the young woman at the Cathay Pacific desk in the Cebu airport did and they were able to get me one online fairly quickly so that could make it onto my flight. I had foolishly believed that Canadians could visit any Commonwealth country for a few days without a visa, and didn't even bother to check. I have since checked and we definitely don't need a visa to visit Scotland, so that's good news. Visa requirements is another thing to add to my "visiting a new country" checklist.
The other stupid thing that I did was to not even consider how I would pay for things that required cheques when I moved to the Philippines. Because I didn't set up some sort of international bank account, I spend a fair bit of time withdrawing Philippine cash from ATM's to pay for my rent, and any other large purchase that's required. I can use credit cards for some things, but there are definitely many places that require either cash or a cheque drawn on a local account. I'm planning on setting up an HSBC account when I'm back in Canada next month and that should make things easier. Live and learn!
I'm here in Sydney for a Health Informatics conference (that's very similar to the Canadian COACH conferences for those of you that know them) and to see if Australia might be a good location for the next Global Village Asia Pacific office, once the Philippines is fully up and running. So far, it seems great (fairly similar to Canada), but I'd certainly be interested in other's thoughts.
I can see exactly why you wouldn't have thought to question the whole visa thing in a commonwealth country. I am glad to know it through your own journey!
ReplyDeleteAlso, glad to know you are coming home in August, and I really hope I might get to see you for a drink or something!
I also would like to second the idea of an office in Australia! I might finally visit there if someone I knew lived there, so yes, purely selfish motivation here. :)