Oceania The Travel Thread

I decided to make this thread because right now, I am living in a foreign country and wanted to create a space where we can share funny, awkward, and downright scary stories.

 

I travelled to France when I was 16 on student exchange and have plenty of stries there......oh boy.....the teachers at my catholic school would have been appaled if theyd have known

 

I'm off on a 7 week holiday to Europe, England and Singapore in August and September. A well-earned, well-deserved holiday. I'm hoping that I'll enjoy England a little better this time, as my ex-best friend really buggered it up for me last time. To make a long story short, she said I could stay with her in England (she was English) so I never booked any accomodation. Three days before I flew out, I got an email to say that she was working the first week I was there, and then every few days on the trip I received an SMS to say she was still working.

Needless to say, we never caught up in 5 weeks, and I was out of pocket $2000 from accomodation....

 

Went to the States in '98 when I was 20, and I had a ball. I did the whole Disneyworld thing in Orlando for about a week, that was the best. Visited Paramount studios, where I saw Michael Dorn(Worf from Star Trek). Note I said saw him, not met him. My uncle had got me into the backlot for a quick tour. He worked there as a Paramount distributor for amongst other things, TNG, DS9, and Voyager. Anywhoo, Paramount was cool too, but the movie business is not as glamourous as you might think.

On the times when I wasn't visiting family, I liked to explore the US by either walking or cycling. I found that this gave you a real sense of the flavour of a city. LA was just mind blowing, it was like I was in an American TV show. I took a day-long hike through a few of it's neighbourhoods, with no map, and no real idea of where I was going. Did the same in downtown Miami, except that I had a cruiser that I'd hired for the day. Looking back on it today, me at 28 would have said that I was nutzoid, but at 20, you do things like that.

Oh I almost forgot, I also went to a planetarium in Miami that was having a Star Trek/Sci-Fi exhibition, that was a really cool thing too, from my 'geek' perspective. The only thing I wished I had was more of the 'green'. At 20, you kinda have to do things on the cheap, so souvenir shopping was not an option.

 

I just got back from a year in TaiBei, Taiwan ROC. I also went to ShenZen in the PRC, as well as Hong Kong SAR and Singapore.

(Lost in Translation, BTW, takes on a whole new bent - no, Asian's aren't quaint, Americans are just cultural hegemonists who can't adapt)

It's really hard when you throw yourself into a totally alien culture, and my first week was in TaiZhong, in the middle of TaiWan. Nobody spoke English, and the signs were all in classical Mandarin; I was scared outta my wits. You can't help it.

But, you wrestle with your mind which on the one hand is urging you to go home, but on the other is saying "Just stick it out", which I did. Best experience of my entire life.

E_S

EDIT; and for a while, I was even a little snobbish about people who went to live in England - like the similarities with Australia negated the toughing aspect I and others went through. Anyone else have that?

 

I saw that film and couldn't quite help but thinking it was 20 years out of date. Weren't all the "Japanese culture is strange and scary to me" films all done to death in the 80's?

 

Yeah! I especially liked the two Japanese guys in that robot car of theirs during "Cannonball Run" ...





...er, never mind.

 

I spent a year learning Mandarin, and while I was far from fluent, thought I'd have enough to get by until I brought my skills up in-country. Well, Mum got a job in Ningbo, so I'm negotiating with some schools here too. It's a really nice place - apparently it's one of the most afluent cities in China. It's certainly cleaner and newer than what I've seen so far. There's only one problem: by and large the locals don't speak Mandarin. So I'm back to square one: pointing and grunting.

 

Meiyou shou putonwah? Ai yao, tao yen!

You can just point, but know this; if you're counting, like you want two or more of something, turn your hand side on. We count with our fingers sticking up, Chinese people count with their fingers pointing left or right.

Tamen hen feng!

E_S

 

Numbers aren't really a problem - I know the Chinese hand-signals and they seem to work.

One problem we had at the supermarket was actually what inspired me to create this thread - though I didn't want to start it off with a negative. We were buying heaps of stuff to set up our apartment and the bill came to something like 275.45 yuan, and Mum was trying to give them the .45 in change by handing over the coins she had. Well, the shop assistant thought that she was trying to pay the entire bill with the spare change and didn't see the notes Mum had in her other hand. She looked back and forth between the coins and the screen of the till, then called out very loudly to all the other storekeepers to come and check it out. She was laughing hilariously and talking very loudly with the other assistants until one of them said something quietly and pointed to the rest of the money that Mum was holding.

Not being able to speak in their language, we didn't know what was going on for quite some time. And didn't really work it out until we left.

 

The foreign language and culture barrier is certainly a tough one, but each situation has its own troubles. Mine (I'm currently living in Ireland for those who don't know) was the generic homesickness - and that compounded everything else.

Sunshine - by god, that's a small thing but you realise how much you miss it when it goes! I also picked up every bug, every flu, every health calamity in the first year I was here. I think I've very nearly acclimatised, but we haven't had a bad winter this year. I had to leave everyone I knew and start again with new friends and I found that particularly nerve racking. I probably had it really easy compared to other people, especially as I had someone here to explain everything. I still can't wait to move back though. I'm counting the weeks.

 

I now have a job teaching English at a local senior school. This is great, but we are still having problems with our visas. This is because the nutter in charge of our visas is going senile and has no idea what he is doing.

Visa hell - anybody relate?

 

Well...my girlfriend and I are planning on going to Shanghai and Beijing for a year to teach English. We just have to finish our degrees first, and then go from there. I'm really looking forward to it.

 

I've still gotta get out of the south west region of W.A.

it could turn into a debilitating phobia.

 

Yeah...there's bigger places than Perth.

Or Sydney, for that matter...

 

I just booked my tickets from London to Belfast and from Dublin to Birmingham for only $100, for both flights.
Not bad aye?
Starting to get excited about me trip

 

Weren't you meant to go to South Africa, or was that someone else, SoE?

 

South Africa? Nope...maybe in a couple of years for my girlfriends metalurgy, but right now I'm only going to Ireland and Thailand

 

So it was you...and I wouldn't want to go to South Africa, either. And I don't know if they need any further help with developing their firearms and ammunition problems.