What great news! Australia eh? That’s super cool. As you know I am a fan of the rest of the world and like to drop in on it when I can or when I have good cause. Can’t wait to come visit :) Do try and keep in touch old mate!

Shawn

From SFish to NYish is about 4,500 km and is about a 5 hour flight. From Sydney-ish to Beijing-ish is about 9,000 km. It’s probably more like 10 hours or so I would guess.

And by another coincidence, I’m working with my employer to relo to Aussie (Brisbane area). It’s taken a while to get to this point, and it finally seems to be getting some traction. No dates yet, and there are still some things to consider. For one thing, I’m Canadian, not American; I suspect getting my work papers might be more straightforward (I’m guessing) due to the whole Commonwealth Nation thing, and probably moreso because of the whole wife thing.

I’m rather looking forward to it. If anything, there should be some aspects of the culture which I’m already familiar with, such as Parliament, saying ‘eh’, the public healthcare system (trying to learn the US health insurance system has been rather confounding).

I’m not really a sports buff, but I’ll leave that to my wife; I’ll live vicariously through her. ;-) She dearly misses watching Rugby League (or Rugby Union in a pinch), and would probably get back into playing it if the opportunity were to arise.

I was also going to express surprise at the “5 hours to get to China” comment. I’d done some research, and while it was some months ago, I could have sworn that getting to The Philippines or Thailand from Sydney was 9 hours. Would also enjoy going to Hong Kong or Japan, although whatever Mandarin I still remember would be useless in HK (I think?). Maybe I’d need to take a course in Cantonese first.

Yeah, so… big move. Disruptive to say the least. Way cool after the dust settles. :-)

Gives me another reason to head out to WebDU again :-)

Spike

Here’s a few sayings to help get you familiar with the Australian vernacular:

• G’day (yup, that’s pretty much all you need overseas to be instantly recognised as an Aussie)
• you little bloody ripper (or you little bloody beaudy… actually pretty much anything starting with “you little bloody…” is pretty handy)
• strewth (crikey is interchangeable here)

There’s a bunch more Australianism’s all of which I’m sure you’ll come across in time.

Good luck with the move.

I, for some reasons, have been wanting to meet you since I encountered CFEclipse and Spike’s code at somewhere in Brisbane ;-)

Hope you enjoy your new life down here.

Cheers. Terry

(And easier timezone changes too. :)