ok well i think i am long overdue for some additional posts...this one is (as you can read) about my first day of work!
I’m sure many of you want to know how things are at work…well my first day of work was like the first day of anything. The usual mix of butterflies and not being able to sleep the night before because you’re also really excited. Except its a lot worse when you are halfway around the world trying to adjust to the time difference on top of it. After waking up bright and early (2:30am to be precise but I hit the snooze until 6am tho- haha), I got ready and headed off for the 2.5 minute trek to the office. On the way, I ran into not one but TWO people I know! What a good start to the day – yay! I only know like 8 people in total so thats like 1/4 of my peeps! After being approved by the security guards I headed up to get familiarized with my new office. Lucky for me they were doing the kickoff to their new induction program. After learning who Jim Turley is and all about “people/quality/growth” for the like 30th time, we were finally granted the real essential – laptops (um old school back breaking dell 610s! eek!), securIDs and…dum dum dum dum…our building passes. Here they put all the ID pictures into the directory - no opting out. At least hopefully when people see mine and then meet me, they can think I look better in person..haha. After we got all settled we still had a couple of hours until the end of the day so my buddy, Max took myself and one of the other JITs (just in timers…that’s what they call us out here) Martin around the SGM (Strategic Growth Markets) floor and a half and introduced us around as well as helped us get oriented and showed us how to print, etc. Its crazy – here to print you actually have to swipe your ID card at the printer where you sent your document in order to get it to print out! They are also super strict with their network too – myspace, aim, etc are all blocked! Oh well…I guess it doesn’t really matter since at most client sites we can’t even get an internet connection. Seriously. Haha..as all us “JITs” have been saying, welcome to technology…10 years ago. Well after getting settled in, it was actually already time to leave. The mandatory workday is only 7.5 hours! Wooo! No point in staying past that my first day, especially since I was starting my first client the very next day. After packing up, I headed home, had some dinner and “retired” quite exhausted by 9pm. Hmm..I could get used to this…
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
first post! first post! first post!
Hi!
Welcome to my blog! Yay Australia! I warn you this is going to be a massively long first post (esp since I had a massively busy first day) but after that they'll be short & sweet. In a nutshell - so far so good - I love this city!
So where to begin? Ahh, the plane...the flight was surprisingly relaxing but as always not without incident -- i didn't get my seat assignment until they had already begun boarding coach! 14 hours on a plane can go by pretty fast when you haven't slept in the two days before you go. Highly recommend this as a way to approach long flights. Once we got onto the plane in LA, dinner was served then it was time to pass out and let the pilot take over. (ps Hong - you were totally right about Quantas..coach was surprisingly roomy!) All in all I slept about 10 hours of the flight..and managed to squeeze in not one buuuut TWO Drew Barrymore romantic comedies (music & lyrics and lucky you).
As the plane landed, the sky was just barely waking up so it was hard to see what the city looked like right away. After that arrival was nothing too spectacular - altho I'm sure it was amusing to see me put a 75 pound suitcase on the baggage cart. My driver met me as soon as I cam through customs and was very pleasant for someone awake at 6am on a Saturday morning. As we started to drive through the city, it looked very european...lots of small two story houses packed tightly together with the occasional convenience store thrown in. As we got more into the heart of Sydney I looked up and was greeted by a familiar Times Square sight - a ginormous E&Y building. The driver went a couple of blocks further and then pulled up outside of a fancy building right across from the park (Hyde Park). They definitely did a good job on housing here! Our accommodations are actually a converted hotel and are great except for one thing - they are freezing! For those of you who went to Albany, you can imagine the poor insulation of Empire Commons but with much prettier views and a less powerful thermostat to boot!
The lady from the housing place met me, showed me around the building and my apartment but before I knew it, it was 8am and I was alone in whats going to be my new "home" for the next 3.5 months. Having slept so much on the plane, I decided to being conquering my list of things to do. Since 7-11 is pretty much the only thing open so early on a Saturday, a phone card became my first order of business since I wanted to let my parents know I was in one piece on the other side of the world. After that I walked around and immediately realized how much I love my new neighborhood. Literally three minutes from my apartment is the E&Y building and it borders right on chinatown which means lots of prime asian food! There are tons of other places too - including a bunch of tapas restaurants. mmmm and lots of other cute shops and restaurants.
there are also a TON of banks. not that thats exciting..but there just are haha. One thing they don't have is litter! I love this clean streets thing!
After walking around in Chinatown a bit, I decided to hit up vodaphone for a cell phone and then went in search of the supermarket for some essentials. One of the supermarket chains here is called Coles and its pretty decent for a supermarket in a city..just expensive. Its in this underground shopping plaza beneath the E&Y building. Walking around, it was basically like being home except for the produce selling at $ per kg. After my groceries were tucked away in my apartment, I set off again to explore some more. One thing I'll say for Sydney is they love their food courts-they are everywhere! There is one giant shopping area all set up in various arcades (not video game ones..architectural ones). As I walked around, I picked up random things...tim tams (now verifiably the best cookie on earth. EVER.) some flowers to make things more homey and some authentic Australian Riesling (haha..yes, I know how to take myself out on the town..wooo).
After that, I headed home and decided to stop at 7-11 for a bottle of water. It turns out that two of the guys from my program were there so we chatted a bit and they invited me to a birthday dinner being held for one of the girls that night. Even though I was exhausted by this point, I couldn't pass up the chance to meet everyone and get some "modern Australian" cuisine! We had dinner at this really cute place called Otto right on the finger wharfs in Wooloomooloo (yes thats the real name of the town!) After that, it was time for some chilling - literally and pun intended - we went to Minus 5, a bar made entirely of ice. Once they suit you up with some parkas, Uggs and gloves, you get to go into the minus 5 degree (centigrade) bar and have a drink (in a cup also made of ice). Nothing like some good cold fun!
After that, it was bedtime for me! I think I crawled into bed around 12 so I was shocked to be wide awake at 6am. Thats definitely a somewhat annoying and pleasant aspect to the jet lag. Its nice to start your day early but weekends should be for sleeping in! Since I was already up, I decided to get ready and meet some of the girls for a tour of the Sydney Opera House. It was sooo beautiful inside..and with great views of the harbor so I was really glad I went. (see pictures) After that we walked across the Harbor Bridge (the famous one) and went to have lunch in a cute little town on the other side. Then we walked down to the harbor on the other side, took some pictures and were off to Luna Park to check out Australia's first "Coney Island" amusement park. After a quick ride around on the ferris wheel, we then we walked back across and walked all the way home...and like that my first weekend was over!
cool views of the opera house - from the inside!
Welcome to my blog! Yay Australia! I warn you this is going to be a massively long first post (esp since I had a massively busy first day) but after that they'll be short & sweet. In a nutshell - so far so good - I love this city!
So where to begin? Ahh, the plane...the flight was surprisingly relaxing but as always not without incident -- i didn't get my seat assignment until they had already begun boarding coach! 14 hours on a plane can go by pretty fast when you haven't slept in the two days before you go. Highly recommend this as a way to approach long flights. Once we got onto the plane in LA, dinner was served then it was time to pass out and let the pilot take over. (ps Hong - you were totally right about Quantas..coach was surprisingly roomy!) All in all I slept about 10 hours of the flight..and managed to squeeze in not one buuuut TWO Drew Barrymore romantic comedies (music & lyrics and lucky you).
As the plane landed, the sky was just barely waking up so it was hard to see what the city looked like right away. After that arrival was nothing too spectacular - altho I'm sure it was amusing to see me put a 75 pound suitcase on the baggage cart. My driver met me as soon as I cam through customs and was very pleasant for someone awake at 6am on a Saturday morning. As we started to drive through the city, it looked very european...lots of small two story houses packed tightly together with the occasional convenience store thrown in. As we got more into the heart of Sydney I looked up and was greeted by a familiar Times Square sight - a ginormous E&Y building. The driver went a couple of blocks further and then pulled up outside of a fancy building right across from the park (Hyde Park). They definitely did a good job on housing here! Our accommodations are actually a converted hotel and are great except for one thing - they are freezing! For those of you who went to Albany, you can imagine the poor insulation of Empire Commons but with much prettier views and a less powerful thermostat to boot!
The lady from the housing place met me, showed me around the building and my apartment but before I knew it, it was 8am and I was alone in whats going to be my new "home" for the next 3.5 months. Having slept so much on the plane, I decided to being conquering my list of things to do. Since 7-11 is pretty much the only thing open so early on a Saturday, a phone card became my first order of business since I wanted to let my parents know I was in one piece on the other side of the world. After that I walked around and immediately realized how much I love my new neighborhood. Literally three minutes from my apartment is the E&Y building and it borders right on chinatown which means lots of prime asian food! There are tons of other places too - including a bunch of tapas restaurants. mmmm and lots of other cute shops and restaurants.
there are also a TON of banks. not that thats exciting..but there just are haha. One thing they don't have is litter! I love this clean streets thing! After walking around in Chinatown a bit, I decided to hit up vodaphone for a cell phone and then went in search of the supermarket for some essentials. One of the supermarket chains here is called Coles and its pretty decent for a supermarket in a city..just expensive. Its in this underground shopping plaza beneath the E&Y building. Walking around, it was basically like being home except for the produce selling at $ per kg. After my groceries were tucked away in my apartment, I set off again to explore some more. One thing I'll say for Sydney is they love their food courts-they are everywhere! There is one giant shopping area all set up in various arcades (not video game ones..architectural ones). As I walked around, I picked up random things...tim tams (now verifiably the best cookie on earth. EVER.) some flowers to make things more homey and some authentic Australian Riesling (haha..yes, I know how to take myself out on the town..wooo).
After that, I headed home and decided to stop at 7-11 for a bottle of water. It turns out that two of the guys from my program were there so we chatted a bit and they invited me to a birthday dinner being held for one of the girls that night. Even though I was exhausted by this point, I couldn't pass up the chance to meet everyone and get some "modern Australian" cuisine! We had dinner at this really cute place called Otto right on the finger wharfs in Wooloomooloo (yes thats the real name of the town!) After that, it was time for some chilling - literally and pun intended - we went to Minus 5, a bar made entirely of ice. Once they suit you up with some parkas, Uggs and gloves, you get to go into the minus 5 degree (centigrade) bar and have a drink (in a cup also made of ice). Nothing like some good cold fun!After that, it was bedtime for me! I think I crawled into bed around 12 so I was shocked to be wide awake at 6am. Thats definitely a somewhat annoying and pleasant aspect to the jet lag. Its nice to start your day early but weekends should be for sleeping in! Since I was already up, I decided to get ready and meet some of the girls for a tour of the Sydney Opera House. It was sooo beautiful inside..and with great views of the harbor so I was really glad I went. (see pictures) After that we walked across the Harbor Bridge (the famous one) and went to have lunch in a cute little town on the other side. Then we walked down to the harbor on the other side, took some pictures and were off to Luna Park to check out Australia's first "Coney Island" amusement park. After a quick ride around on the ferris wheel, we then we walked back across and walked all the way home...and like that my first weekend was over!
cool views of the opera house - from the inside!
<--Luna Park Ferris Wheel (Harbor Bridge in the back)
At the Harbor Bridge on the other side of Sydney
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