outback everything also primitive

alright. i've been here 2 weeks, after 1 week, managed to apply for a phone line and broadband, but it takes 15 working days to get the username and password mailed to me. so i end up buying a pre-paid dialup package. yes. dialup. the backwater this place is. so many isps, so few offering unlimited access plans, everything is data capped, and then connection shaped to dialup speeds once you exceed your data allowance. there's nothing to do at night, transport is bloody expensive, and where there's life, it's usually accompanied by drugs and danger. not where i'd wanna be. asian dude alone in the unsavoury areas of this bloody place doesn't sound appealing to me at all.

on the first day that i got here, rented a car, went out to homebush ikea with coral and bought sofa bed, bought furniture, and then dropped by another place to get a bed.

then the week came and passed, no internet, alone in the daytime, nowhere to go at night, thankfully there was some skating to be done, so it wasn't all hopeless. but the nightskates are getting boring, it's all hills hills hills... the freestyle group is small, and there's no fixed place to hang out and just play.

cny came, had a united nations reunion dinner, corals filipino, jamaican, australian/singaporean and singaporean friend came, and we had steamboat. then my parents also arrived, and we managed to hang out, we queued an hour to yum cha, which wasn't all that great. the chinese dinner wasn't anything spectacular, given the prices the restaurants were charging. then came the italian dinner, and fish market... then they left.. and i was all alone again.

a visit to the olympic park was fun tho, got to do quite a bit of distance skating, and some freestyle, but the weather had to come rain on us after a whole week of nothing but sun.

managed to make it to the uni to get enrolled, get the student card, and lo behold, no free access at the university too. pay and pay and pay for anything related to the internet. what is going on in this country? undersea wires too expensive?

school is starting next week. i'm still contemplating if i want to get a car, it's not going to be anything fancy. i've got to sell it off by december or so, since the initial experience here is so horrendous that i don't want to stay here for long.

mardi gras this saturday, shall go take photos. hope the weather holds. either no rain, or flooding rain with hail warning. bah.