Me and Ruth have spent the Christmas morning on Byron Bay. Soaking up the rays, swimming in the sea and throwing shrimp on the barbie!
We have recorded this short greetings video for you all to enjoy!
Have fun guys and speak soon.
Saturday, 24 December 2016
Christmas Day Greetings from Australia!
Merry Christmas, seasons greeting and a very festive cheer to you all!
Me and Ruth have spent the Christmas morning on Byron Bay. Soaking up the rays, swimming in the sea and throwing shrimp on the barbie!
We have recorded this short greetings video for you all to enjoy!
Have fun guys and speak soon.
Me and Ruth have spent the Christmas morning on Byron Bay. Soaking up the rays, swimming in the sea and throwing shrimp on the barbie!
We have recorded this short greetings video for you all to enjoy!
Have fun guys and speak soon.
Wednesday, 2 November 2016
Halloween and our third week in Melbourne
Hey there sports fans (that's a new thing I'm trying out), How's the past week been? Hope it was a treat as opposed to a trick. Not to rub it in or anything, but ours has been choc-a-bloc and a good mixture of work and play!
It started with us following our noses in local towns and suburbs, to searching for jobs in all sorts of places, we had a lot of coffee this week; including a very exciting Barista Experience day.
Over the last weekend it was Ruth's birthday of course, and then to top it off, Halloween! More on that later.
Let's start at the beginning....
We ended up handing out absolutely bloody loads of Resumes in person and online with very little success during the week, so much so that it got us down a little. It's fair to say that looking for work in and around the city is pretty similar to UK, but we'll continue on.
Our backup is to work on fruit picking farms which are just about to come into season in this region, so we always have a backup.
Whilst we were out looking for jobs, we took advantage of being out and about in the towns and city's to the max. Halloween was fast approaching and we needed costumes, so it was off to the Charity Shops!
Mention Charity shops to anyone here in Oz and you'll likely to receive a blank expression, here they're referred to as Op shops! Which is short for an Opportunity Shop......I have no idea why, wiki seems a little clueless too.
Anyway, we delved through the treasure troves for Halloween Costumes, I already had mine but Ruth was struggling for her's. More on that later.
:There are no photo's for this section So here is a picture of people playing giant chess followed by Saint George fighting a Croc statue outside the Melbourne Library:
As you'll probably realise/understand, Melbourne and the surrounding areas have an absolute ton of places to go for food and drinking, so I've just complied them down into a few of our favourites.
Firstly, Om Vegetarian. This was a "restaurant" which caught our eyes on the very first visit to Melbourne as it was vegatarian (obviously), it was only $6.50 AU each (amazing price) and finally it was all you can eat lentil curry, rice and Naan.
Having passed the place a few times, we decided to try it out. The ordering system, layout and whole process of the place was a little chaotic, but we waded through, paid at the front desk then squeezed onto a table by the front entrance. This place was really popular.
The food itself was actually rather good! I can't complain at $6.50 all you can eat curry, and there were members of staff buzzing around every 5 minutes offering more Naan Bread, Incredible!
We'll definitely be back here!
After one particularly tiring day searching of jobs in the city centre (and not a lot else actually), we decided to treat ourselves and experience what food the city had to offer.
Half of us wanted to try out the famous Italian flavours of the city, while the other half wanted to try something different. We headed to what we've been told is the Italian district, which is East Brunswick (correct me if I'm wrong).
Needless to say, there was way to much to choose from, and true to form, Ruth didn't really feel like Italian after all. So we started heading back into town through the Brunswick/Fitzroy area.
This part of town is sort of the trendy area of Melbourne (as far as we can make out anyway). It's really cool and a lot of hipster type places to dine out.
We plumped for a Lebanese restaurant in the end (I forget the name now, but will check for later). We've only even had Lebanese food once before (in Manchester), and were excited to see all the similarities and differences.
We were very impressed once again, the flavours were sublime! Tastes I've never experienced before and foods I still can't identify. These guys know how to do vegetarian food!
Finally on the subject of food and drink, as you can imagine, being a city known for its coffee culture, we had many, many coffee's during our trips.
Most notably for me, was a latte I had near Melbourne Central at the League of Honest Coffee. Great setting, good atmosphere and great coffee made with beans from Panama. Yum Yum.
During the week, we were very much focused on finding work, costumes and exploring the local area, meaning in terms of actual things we did, it was pretty lame. However, cometh the weekend, it was a different story.
On Friday evening, after a long day in Croydon (no, not that Croydon) we decided to go and see a film. Marvel's Doctor Strange has just come out and we thought why not, it'll be good to see Bene Cucumber-batch with an American accent. Off to Croydon cinema we went.
Let it be said that it's an independent cinema and the prices are far and away cheaper than anywhere within a radius of 50 mi, the whole experience was rather charming and endearing.
The screen was about the size of the one at Theatre Clwyd (quite small), the audio system did the job alright, nothing flashy about it. But for me, the greatest part of the experience were the local adverts before the actual film. 10 minutes or so of total amazing hilarity. We'd go again just for those.
They had taglines such as: "Croydon; it has it all!!". Incredible.
But I digress. It was a good film and fun experience.
On the Saturday morning, me and Ruth booked ourselves on a Barista experience course in order to get a bit of practice for our Resumes and show off any flare that we had underlying within us. Needless to say, there was very little flare to be seen from either of us.
It was an incredible experience and we fully enjoyed making and tasting the variety of different coffee's.....and both of us squirted hot frothy milk everywhere.
:We didn't do any latte art worthy of a photo:
On Sunday, it was Ruth's birthday! She wanted to save money for a present and spend it on an experience later on, so instead, I cooked her a meal the night before and just got her some of her favourite chocs and stuff like that.
Then on the Sunday itself, we went out for a walk with the entire family along a river (I've actually forgotten the name). It was a really nice day out and Estyn (Ruth's 4 year old Cousin) got a little bit too close to the river and went for an quick dip.
Brett made a yummy chocolate cake for Ruth which we all munched up, then we capped the day off with fish and chips from the town.
On the 31st October or Halloween to the rest of us, we got dressed up and decided to head out into the city for a few beverages. Halloween appears to be a relatively new invasion to Australia, I even overheard one store assistant say "I might do that for Halloween next year, if it continues".
Regardless, and sticking to my tradition of silliness, I got dressed up in a suit, with a toy gun and some kinky handcuffs and went to town as James Bond-age, whilst Ruth wanted to go as the Mexican Day of the Dead skull face.
Unfortunately for Ruth, her wig, face paint AND temp tattoos she ordered online were all a bit rubbish, but I think she looked great.
We drank some Sangria before catching the train, so it's fair to say I was a little drunk before we even got into the city.
When looking for a place to party in Melbourne, we saw an advert online for a Latin music Halloween party. This looked fantastic, it advertised salsa-type dancing, Latino music and various related Halloween type things.
After struggling to find the bar for a good 15 minutes, we stumbled upon it on the top floor of central station......it was an English Pub.What are the chances of being dressed as James Bond-age, being from UK and stumbling into one of only a few English pubs in Melbourne!
It was an alright pub, but unfortunately lacked any of the Latin spirit that we'd been searching for (other than the tequila we had at the bar).
We left that bar and headed for a roof top bar. This is something I've been desperate to experience since coming to Melbourne. I'd seen them in all the adverts, a glorious splendor of views, fun a frollocks to be had.
We got to one that we saw recommended online and walked up the 6 or more storey's of stairs to the roof top bar. The views were fantastic, but only if you were early to the party and parked yourself in a good position.
So standing next to a reasonably good view, me and Ruth chatted and giggled for a good while with overpriced drinks in hand, literally the only people decked out in Halloween costumes.
It started with us following our noses in local towns and suburbs, to searching for jobs in all sorts of places, we had a lot of coffee this week; including a very exciting Barista Experience day.
Over the last weekend it was Ruth's birthday of course, and then to top it off, Halloween! More on that later.
Let's start at the beginning....
Plenty of job hunting, exploring the local area and Op Shops
To start the week off, we made the conscience decision to head into the different outskirts and suburbs of Melbourne as well as the city centre itself in search of job vacancies and to hand out printed CV's or Resume's as they''re widely referred to here.
We ended up handing out absolutely bloody loads of Resumes in person and online with very little success during the week, so much so that it got us down a little. It's fair to say that looking for work in and around the city is pretty similar to UK, but we'll continue on.
Our backup is to work on fruit picking farms which are just about to come into season in this region, so we always have a backup.
Whilst we were out looking for jobs, we took advantage of being out and about in the towns and city's to the max. Halloween was fast approaching and we needed costumes, so it was off to the Charity Shops!
Mention Charity shops to anyone here in Oz and you'll likely to receive a blank expression, here they're referred to as Op shops! Which is short for an Opportunity Shop......I have no idea why, wiki seems a little clueless too.
Anyway, we delved through the treasure troves for Halloween Costumes, I already had mine but Ruth was struggling for her's. More on that later.
:There are no photo's for this section So here is a picture of people playing giant chess followed by Saint George fighting a Croc statue outside the Melbourne Library:
Food and drink
As you'll probably realise/understand, Melbourne and the surrounding areas have an absolute ton of places to go for food and drinking, so I've just complied them down into a few of our favourites.
Firstly, Om Vegetarian. This was a "restaurant" which caught our eyes on the very first visit to Melbourne as it was vegatarian (obviously), it was only $6.50 AU each (amazing price) and finally it was all you can eat lentil curry, rice and Naan.
Having passed the place a few times, we decided to try it out. The ordering system, layout and whole process of the place was a little chaotic, but we waded through, paid at the front desk then squeezed onto a table by the front entrance. This place was really popular.
The food itself was actually rather good! I can't complain at $6.50 all you can eat curry, and there were members of staff buzzing around every 5 minutes offering more Naan Bread, Incredible!
We'll definitely be back here!
Half of us wanted to try out the famous Italian flavours of the city, while the other half wanted to try something different. We headed to what we've been told is the Italian district, which is East Brunswick (correct me if I'm wrong).
Needless to say, there was way to much to choose from, and true to form, Ruth didn't really feel like Italian after all. So we started heading back into town through the Brunswick/Fitzroy area.
This part of town is sort of the trendy area of Melbourne (as far as we can make out anyway). It's really cool and a lot of hipster type places to dine out.
We plumped for a Lebanese restaurant in the end (I forget the name now, but will check for later). We've only even had Lebanese food once before (in Manchester), and were excited to see all the similarities and differences.
We were very impressed once again, the flavours were sublime! Tastes I've never experienced before and foods I still can't identify. These guys know how to do vegetarian food!
Finally on the subject of food and drink, as you can imagine, being a city known for its coffee culture, we had many, many coffee's during our trips.
Most notably for me, was a latte I had near Melbourne Central at the League of Honest Coffee. Great setting, good atmosphere and great coffee made with beans from Panama. Yum Yum.
What we got up to
During the week, we were very much focused on finding work, costumes and exploring the local area, meaning in terms of actual things we did, it was pretty lame. However, cometh the weekend, it was a different story.
On Friday evening, after a long day in Croydon (no, not that Croydon) we decided to go and see a film. Marvel's Doctor Strange has just come out and we thought why not, it'll be good to see Bene Cucumber-batch with an American accent. Off to Croydon cinema we went.
Let it be said that it's an independent cinema and the prices are far and away cheaper than anywhere within a radius of 50 mi, the whole experience was rather charming and endearing.
The screen was about the size of the one at Theatre Clwyd (quite small), the audio system did the job alright, nothing flashy about it. But for me, the greatest part of the experience were the local adverts before the actual film. 10 minutes or so of total amazing hilarity. We'd go again just for those.
They had taglines such as: "Croydon; it has it all!!". Incredible.
But I digress. It was a good film and fun experience.
On the Saturday morning, me and Ruth booked ourselves on a Barista experience course in order to get a bit of practice for our Resumes and show off any flare that we had underlying within us. Needless to say, there was very little flare to be seen from either of us.
It was an incredible experience and we fully enjoyed making and tasting the variety of different coffee's.....and both of us squirted hot frothy milk everywhere.
:We didn't do any latte art worthy of a photo:
On Sunday, it was Ruth's birthday! She wanted to save money for a present and spend it on an experience later on, so instead, I cooked her a meal the night before and just got her some of her favourite chocs and stuff like that.
Then on the Sunday itself, we went out for a walk with the entire family along a river (I've actually forgotten the name). It was a really nice day out and Estyn (Ruth's 4 year old Cousin) got a little bit too close to the river and went for an quick dip.
Brett made a yummy chocolate cake for Ruth which we all munched up, then we capped the day off with fish and chips from the town.
On the 31st October or Halloween to the rest of us, we got dressed up and decided to head out into the city for a few beverages. Halloween appears to be a relatively new invasion to Australia, I even overheard one store assistant say "I might do that for Halloween next year, if it continues".
Regardless, and sticking to my tradition of silliness, I got dressed up in a suit, with a toy gun and some kinky handcuffs and went to town as James Bond-age, whilst Ruth wanted to go as the Mexican Day of the Dead skull face.
Unfortunately for Ruth, her wig, face paint AND temp tattoos she ordered online were all a bit rubbish, but I think she looked great.
We drank some Sangria before catching the train, so it's fair to say I was a little drunk before we even got into the city.
When looking for a place to party in Melbourne, we saw an advert online for a Latin music Halloween party. This looked fantastic, it advertised salsa-type dancing, Latino music and various related Halloween type things.
After struggling to find the bar for a good 15 minutes, we stumbled upon it on the top floor of central station......it was an English Pub.What are the chances of being dressed as James Bond-age, being from UK and stumbling into one of only a few English pubs in Melbourne!
It was an alright pub, but unfortunately lacked any of the Latin spirit that we'd been searching for (other than the tequila we had at the bar).
We left that bar and headed for a roof top bar. This is something I've been desperate to experience since coming to Melbourne. I'd seen them in all the adverts, a glorious splendor of views, fun a frollocks to be had.
We got to one that we saw recommended online and walked up the 6 or more storey's of stairs to the roof top bar. The views were fantastic, but only if you were early to the party and parked yourself in a good position.
So standing next to a reasonably good view, me and Ruth chatted and giggled for a good while with overpriced drinks in hand, literally the only people decked out in Halloween costumes.
Some extra photo's of cute kids to wrap things up
Wednesday, 26 October 2016
Friday, 14 October 2016
Day 5
Howdy Everyone!
Today we had lots of fun exploring the busy busling streets of Melbourne city. We had a late start as I sifted through my suitcases trying to find something to wear; but EVENTUALLY we ventured out :)
The train station luckily was a two minute walk away from where we were staying and with our "Myki" - the equivalent to the Oyster card, we were able to use buses, trams and trains and go all around Melbourne city.
Now Melbourne for those who haven't yet had the pleasure; Melbourne is a far far larger city than the Uk people are used to, it's VERY spacious; with lots and lots of shops, cafes, bars and restaurants and had many little gardens thrown in amongst them so you can kick back and have a chill on the grass. There are a great many buskers; very good ones too! and colourful graphetti hidden on some of the side streets.I'd describe it as like London but nicer, better weather and on a far far larger scale...
I mean...we walked for hours! - Good exercise though! Anyway here are some random pics of Melbourne...(I'm sure better ones will follow as we do more exploring)
We started off in search of a place recommended to us by Jamie's Mum 'Marios', this unfortunately due to our terrible map reading skills and partly due to technical malfunctions with Google or our phones; didn't happen...instead we ended up in a bit more seedier part of town (yes, EVEN beautiful Melbourne has them) and after exhausting ourselves and running away from some druggy who had taken a shine to Jamie we decided...shops and picnic food would do us fine! So we stumbled across a supermarket and got the essentials every veggie needs - bread, houmous, falafel, crisps and ice cream and managed to jump on a train to St. Kilda beach.
St Kilda beach was beautiful! We had a good explore there, met a nice London lad called Mason who gave us some helpful advise and invited us to a pub crawl next Friday and we found Luna Park, Melbourne's famous Theme park (for a future time) We then lay back and enjoyed the sun and the beach and the food :)
We also eye spyed some excellent looking jobs, so fingers crossed we shall secure one soon!
That's all for now, Chow! :)
Wednesday, 12 October 2016
Australia - we have landed...
G'day mate!
We have now been in Australia for 2 days! and..it's rained and rained!! However; despite the weather we have had a lovely time. After what seemed like a never ending flight we were picked up promptly from the airport by my cousin Brett and returned to their lovely house in Mooroolbark (Melbourne suburbs)
After being quite jet lagged, we had an early night and in the morning we had the pleasure of meeting the kids; Indie (6 yrs old), Epsy (4 yrs old) and Delphi and Ellie (the twins - 11months old). We then had a super day with the twins and Epsy where we went to a chocolate making place; which of course was a winner of a day for everyone. There we went to the cafe and enjoyed gourmet pumpkin pizza and berry ice cream. There was also a huge field where Jamie enjoyed chasing and playing monsters and crocodiles with Epsy and Chelsey and I enjoyed playing with the twins and letting them explore the environment. Needless to say we tired them out :)
Today we ventured to Skyhigh point and got a fantastic view of Melbourne, explored some gardens, saw some wildlife, had tea in a cafe and took a scenic tour around the Mt. Dandenong . Indie and Espy loved playing in the fields and running off around the gardens in search for fairies - they had so much energy! Meanwhile Jamie, Chelsey and I juggled the twins between us taking turns in keeping them happy. They were very cute! and wanted to put everything in their mouths, especially the pretty flowers.
So far we have an an amazing time thanks to Brett and Chelsey and the kids who have made us feel very at home :)
We have now been in Australia for 2 days! and..it's rained and rained!! However; despite the weather we have had a lovely time. After what seemed like a never ending flight we were picked up promptly from the airport by my cousin Brett and returned to their lovely house in Mooroolbark (Melbourne suburbs)
After being quite jet lagged, we had an early night and in the morning we had the pleasure of meeting the kids; Indie (6 yrs old), Epsy (4 yrs old) and Delphi and Ellie (the twins - 11months old). We then had a super day with the twins and Epsy where we went to a chocolate making place; which of course was a winner of a day for everyone. There we went to the cafe and enjoyed gourmet pumpkin pizza and berry ice cream. There was also a huge field where Jamie enjoyed chasing and playing monsters and crocodiles with Epsy and Chelsey and I enjoyed playing with the twins and letting them explore the environment. Needless to say we tired them out :)
Today we ventured to Skyhigh point and got a fantastic view of Melbourne, explored some gardens, saw some wildlife, had tea in a cafe and took a scenic tour around the Mt. Dandenong . Indie and Espy loved playing in the fields and running off around the gardens in search for fairies - they had so much energy! Meanwhile Jamie, Chelsey and I juggled the twins between us taking turns in keeping them happy. They were very cute! and wanted to put everything in their mouths, especially the pretty flowers.
Take care everyone, that's all our news for now from Down Under!
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
First post/arrival photo
Hi there everybody, how are things on the other side of the world?
Just writing a super-quick post to tell you that we've landed safely in Australia, in Melbourne to be more specific, and currently we're both a little jet-lagged and adjusting to the time difference.
We didn't take many photos or video footage during the plane journey, as a.) we were particularly tired and b.) the journey wasn't particularly exciting. Oh well.
We're staying with Ruth's relatives for the moment in Mooroolbark and they've been absolutely incredible, hospitable and welcoming.
We've spent today with Chelsey and the children Indy, Espie and the twins. Visited a chocolate centre and tested out the local flavour, then just enjoyed walking about, driving around and seeing the local sights and sounds.
We're going to take a trip into Melbourne itself in the next few days, take a look at all the touristy types of things before going out to find jobs to start the working holiday experience.
Wish us luck and feel free to comment and/or get in touch.
Jamie
Just writing a super-quick post to tell you that we've landed safely in Australia, in Melbourne to be more specific, and currently we're both a little jet-lagged and adjusting to the time difference.
We didn't take many photos or video footage during the plane journey, as a.) we were particularly tired and b.) the journey wasn't particularly exciting. Oh well.
 |
| Picture from the plane as it began flow over Australia |
We're staying with Ruth's relatives for the moment in Mooroolbark and they've been absolutely incredible, hospitable and welcoming.
We've spent today with Chelsey and the children Indy, Espie and the twins. Visited a chocolate centre and tested out the local flavour, then just enjoyed walking about, driving around and seeing the local sights and sounds.
We're going to take a trip into Melbourne itself in the next few days, take a look at all the touristy types of things before going out to find jobs to start the working holiday experience.
Wish us luck and feel free to comment and/or get in touch.
Jamie
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