Met an Irish couple on their way to NZ who had spent most of the time in Australia well off the beaten tourist track. They had one night in Dubbo and then the rest of their stay in Lightning Ridge, a small outback NSW town known mainly for its opal mining. It turned out their daughter was living and working as a nurse there and had already started a family after meeting an Aussie guy on her travels around Australia. The reason for their vist to NZ was to visit another daughter who had settled there. I suspect they'll be making a few more trips Down Under in the future.
Among others I spoke to this week were a Singapore woman who had been holidaying with her husband in Coffs Harbour and a Sri Lankan lass who had come for her cousins wedding in Sydney.
I also interviewed a young Thai student who had been studying hospitality at Uni in Armidale and was soon to be working under a major Australian chef in Brisbane. She was very excited about that.
Want to know more about Lightning Ridge? Find it here.
Talk again soon. Don't forget I'd love to hear your comments or stories about overseas travellers you have come across in Australia.
Peter
Souvenirs Australia Warehouse
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The Wrong Sydney and Russian & Kiwi Family Visits
As per usual I met some nice friendly visitors to the land of OZ in this last week but also a few more people than normal that weren't keen on talking.
There were quite a few family gatherings that included a Russian lady from Petersburg who had just spent 6 months with her daughter in Canberra and a very sociable Kiwi who had been babysitting the grandchildren in Sydney while the parents were holidaying in Europe. I also spoke to an Irish woman who had come a long way to see her sick sister in Sydney.
I sometimes get some very interesting passport/nationality/ethnic/residency mixes. One this week was a Thai who was travelling on a Swedish passport and came to visit a friend in Sydney. She had been married to a Swede but was now separated and back in Thailand while her children were still at school in Sweden.
Other friendly chats I had included one with a student from Saudi Arabia studying in Sydney and a Canadian guy in the hotel business who had been in Sydney for work for a few days and was on his way to Beijing also for business. While we have large numbers of Asian students now studying in Australia, I hadn't come across any from Saudi before.
One person I didn't get to talk to was an Argentine tourist who ended up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada instead of Sydney, Australia. Read about it here. She booked the flights online so maybe she should use a good travel agent next time!
Till next time.
Peter
Souvenirs Australia Warehouse
There were quite a few family gatherings that included a Russian lady from Petersburg who had just spent 6 months with her daughter in Canberra and a very sociable Kiwi who had been babysitting the grandchildren in Sydney while the parents were holidaying in Europe. I also spoke to an Irish woman who had come a long way to see her sick sister in Sydney.
I sometimes get some very interesting passport/nationality/ethnic/residency mixes. One this week was a Thai who was travelling on a Swedish passport and came to visit a friend in Sydney. She had been married to a Swede but was now separated and back in Thailand while her children were still at school in Sweden.
Other friendly chats I had included one with a student from Saudi Arabia studying in Sydney and a Canadian guy in the hotel business who had been in Sydney for work for a few days and was on his way to Beijing also for business. While we have large numbers of Asian students now studying in Australia, I hadn't come across any from Saudi before.
One person I didn't get to talk to was an Argentine tourist who ended up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada instead of Sydney, Australia. Read about it here. She booked the flights online so maybe she should use a good travel agent next time!
Till next time.
Peter
Souvenirs Australia Warehouse
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Life in Zimbabwe and Stories about God
Came across a friendly Italian guy last week who was working in Oz for a few weeks. Turned out he was a technician for aluminium manufacturing machines and for the past 8 years has spent 3 weeks out of every 4 travelling the world fixing these machines. I didn't ask him how many frequent flyer points he had!! He was due to go to Iran next month and wasn't particularly looking forward to that visit.
I also interviewed a young Irish guy heading to NZ last weekend. The book he was reading caught my attention - the title was 'God Is Not Great'. I made a comment about it and he then showed me the card he was using as a bookmark. It was given to him by someone who saw him reading the book in a Maccas somewhere up on the North Coast of NSW. I'm trying to remember the exact wording but it was along the lines of 'The cost of sin is death'. The interesting part though was that when you turned the card around the other way you could read the wording 'the belief of faith is life'.
Vicki has passed on some details of memorable people she has interviewed in recent times which I have included here.
* Some time ago I spoke to a very nice New Zealand woman who had been to Australia to deliver her very sick daughter to a live-in eating disorder clinic as they don't have any in NZ. The daughters illness was at the life threatening stage and I often wonder how the story ended.
* Also a while ago, I chatted to a very quietly spoken American who was part of the US navy and also part of the team that rescued the Russian sub off the bottom of the ocean. He was very interesting.
* I think my most enthralling interview to date was a young white woman from Zimbabwe who shared with me just what it is like to live over there. No power for at least 15 hours a day, no running or hot water and living off the blackmarket. She had a well paid job as a school teacher and earnt just $US160 per month. It certainly made me appreciate our lifestyle here!!
I also interviewed a young Irish guy heading to NZ last weekend. The book he was reading caught my attention - the title was 'God Is Not Great'. I made a comment about it and he then showed me the card he was using as a bookmark. It was given to him by someone who saw him reading the book in a Maccas somewhere up on the North Coast of NSW. I'm trying to remember the exact wording but it was along the lines of 'The cost of sin is death'. The interesting part though was that when you turned the card around the other way you could read the wording 'the belief of faith is life'.
Vicki has passed on some details of memorable people she has interviewed in recent times which I have included here.
* Some time ago I spoke to a very nice New Zealand woman who had been to Australia to deliver her very sick daughter to a live-in eating disorder clinic as they don't have any in NZ. The daughters illness was at the life threatening stage and I often wonder how the story ended.
* Also a while ago, I chatted to a very quietly spoken American who was part of the US navy and also part of the team that rescued the Russian sub off the bottom of the ocean. He was very interesting.
* I think my most enthralling interview to date was a young white woman from Zimbabwe who shared with me just what it is like to live over there. No power for at least 15 hours a day, no running or hot water and living off the blackmarket. She had a well paid job as a school teacher and earnt just $US160 per month. It certainly made me appreciate our lifestyle here!!
Till next week.
Peter
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Some Memorable Travellers
To start things off I'll recall a few travellers that I've spoken to in recent weeks and then try and update this on a weekly basis.
The first one is actually from some time ago - perhaps 18 months or so. He was a young guy in his early 20's, a New Zealander I think, and he had spent only one night in Sydney and then 3 or 4 nights in Thredbo. That was his entire stay in Australia and as this was during the summer period I was a little curious as to his reason for visiting Thredbo.
It turned out he was a mountaineer and was progressing towards his aim of climbing the Seven Summits, ie. the highest mountain on every continent. His father had already achieved this and he was well on the way, having climbed at least 2 or 3 of the others before Kosciuszko. I can't recall those those he had already done but do remember that it didn't include Everest. I reckon Kosciuszko was the easiest one to achieve as even I've done that one.....
A couple of weeks back I interviewed a young German girl who had spent a few months in Australia. At first I thought she was just another backpacker who had travelled and partied up the East Coast but it turned out there was a little more to her story. She had worked as a jillaroo for a couple of months on outback farm in South Australian and then spent a couple of months working in the pub in an outback S.A. town of only 7 people. Presumably there was a reasonable amount of passing traffic. During this stay she met an Aboriginal Australian guy and was now engaged to him. He now has his trip to Germany planned for later in the year. Just shows that you don't know where your travels will lead you and where you'll end up finding love.
I met an Australian woman recently that was working in the Cayman Islands as a speech therapist and her husband is a lawyer there. She'd been there 3 years already and was just visiting family back home. It never ceases to amaze me how far and wide our 1 million Aussie expats are spread around the world.
An Indian gentleman I spoke to recently after his few days stay in Sydney told me about the family wedding he had attended in Hua Hin, Thailand. I was curious and asked why in Thailand - did some of the family live there? Was it a Thai style wedding? He said that no, it was an Indian wedding and none of the family or other guests lived in Thailand. As some guests were in India and others were in the USA, they just decided to have it in an in-between place. I have been to Hua Hin - its a weekend beach resort more for Thais than international visitors - and am still getting my head around how the locals reacted to a big Bollywood style wedding in their midst!!
On MH140 a couple of weeks back I met a Malaysian civil engineer who was working in Sydney on a 4 year contract on a 457 visa. He was enjoying it here and bringing his family down in December. It seems that there are rapidly increasing numbers of overseas workers arriving on these visas who have skills in fields where there are shortages in Australia.
I recently also spoke to a British guy who had been living in Bangkok for the last 5 years and was working as a lecturer in ecology at Mahidol University. He had come here for a conference in Cairns and was looking at moving there to live. This made sense as his particular field of interest was coral.
Last month I interviewed a young male German backpacker in a group of 3 who gave me World Youth Day as their main reason for coming to Australia. He then told me about how he had hitched around NSW and Queensland after WYD activities getting lifts with truckies and even sleeping in a shower/toilet block in one place. Then the 3 of them started eyeing off some young attractive women that sat down in the departure gate area nearby and told me that they were having a week in Bangkok on the way home. They just didn't seem to fit the WYD pilgrim profile that I'd come to expect....
Feel free to make comments or tell me about other interesting travellers you've met in Australian or other airports or on planes.
Till next time.
Peter
Souvenirs Australia Warehouse
The first one is actually from some time ago - perhaps 18 months or so. He was a young guy in his early 20's, a New Zealander I think, and he had spent only one night in Sydney and then 3 or 4 nights in Thredbo. That was his entire stay in Australia and as this was during the summer period I was a little curious as to his reason for visiting Thredbo.
It turned out he was a mountaineer and was progressing towards his aim of climbing the Seven Summits, ie. the highest mountain on every continent. His father had already achieved this and he was well on the way, having climbed at least 2 or 3 of the others before Kosciuszko. I can't recall those those he had already done but do remember that it didn't include Everest. I reckon Kosciuszko was the easiest one to achieve as even I've done that one.....
A couple of weeks back I interviewed a young German girl who had spent a few months in Australia. At first I thought she was just another backpacker who had travelled and partied up the East Coast but it turned out there was a little more to her story. She had worked as a jillaroo for a couple of months on outback farm in South Australian and then spent a couple of months working in the pub in an outback S.A. town of only 7 people. Presumably there was a reasonable amount of passing traffic. During this stay she met an Aboriginal Australian guy and was now engaged to him. He now has his trip to Germany planned for later in the year. Just shows that you don't know where your travels will lead you and where you'll end up finding love.
I met an Australian woman recently that was working in the Cayman Islands as a speech therapist and her husband is a lawyer there. She'd been there 3 years already and was just visiting family back home. It never ceases to amaze me how far and wide our 1 million Aussie expats are spread around the world.
An Indian gentleman I spoke to recently after his few days stay in Sydney told me about the family wedding he had attended in Hua Hin, Thailand. I was curious and asked why in Thailand - did some of the family live there? Was it a Thai style wedding? He said that no, it was an Indian wedding and none of the family or other guests lived in Thailand. As some guests were in India and others were in the USA, they just decided to have it in an in-between place. I have been to Hua Hin - its a weekend beach resort more for Thais than international visitors - and am still getting my head around how the locals reacted to a big Bollywood style wedding in their midst!!
On MH140 a couple of weeks back I met a Malaysian civil engineer who was working in Sydney on a 4 year contract on a 457 visa. He was enjoying it here and bringing his family down in December. It seems that there are rapidly increasing numbers of overseas workers arriving on these visas who have skills in fields where there are shortages in Australia.
I recently also spoke to a British guy who had been living in Bangkok for the last 5 years and was working as a lecturer in ecology at Mahidol University. He had come here for a conference in Cairns and was looking at moving there to live. This made sense as his particular field of interest was coral.
Last month I interviewed a young male German backpacker in a group of 3 who gave me World Youth Day as their main reason for coming to Australia. He then told me about how he had hitched around NSW and Queensland after WYD activities getting lifts with truckies and even sleeping in a shower/toilet block in one place. Then the 3 of them started eyeing off some young attractive women that sat down in the departure gate area nearby and told me that they were having a week in Bangkok on the way home. They just didn't seem to fit the WYD pilgrim profile that I'd come to expect....
Feel free to make comments or tell me about other interesting travellers you've met in Australian or other airports or on planes.
Till next time.
Peter
Souvenirs Australia Warehouse
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
