New House for Savvymigrant blogs

Hi. I would like to invite you all to visit and bookmark Savvymigrant's new house at www.savvymigrant.com

The new site got better appearance, photos and user friendly tools such as language translation for non-english readers and more accurate currency converters. Thanks to wordpress blogging software.

From now on, all post will be now publish to this site. If you still want to access the old site, do not worry because the new site got a link to the old site. Just look for it on the right side under mylink menu.

There are still on going developments to improve readers experience and audience reach so patience is highly appreciated. I would like to thank you all for your continuous support to savvymigrant blogs. Cheers!!!

Enzo and his Trains

Enzo, our turning 3 year old son, likes his trains so much. He likes them with so much passion. That's why we bought him another toy train. This time it came with a train track and much more that he liked it. In fact, he just slept now as I was making this blog. His enthusiasm for trains seems to be growing and growing especially that he even got a Thomas and friends DVD and toys. Everyday he watches his Thomas and friends dvd on his portable player. He watches it everyday as if he is just seeing it the first time. Are we seeing a future train driver here? Hehehe.. As supportive parents, we would never stop our son from doing what he wants but a train owner would be better than a train driver wouldn't it?

Typical Saturday

Me and my wife make it a point to make Saturday a fun day for our son. We often go to shopping centres and take our son Enzo to some of the rides and arcades inside the centre. A typical Saturday for us is to have lunch out. We try some restos that we've never tried before. After all, being new to the country feels like your just a baby exploring new things around you.

Back on deck

After a month's silence, I am now ready and charged up again to write down our family experiences during the past weeks. Ever since my father visited us, our time was mostly spent on traveling, eating out, watching movies etc.. We tried so much to let them enjoy the beauty of Australia and I know he did. Me and my Wife also enjoyed our holidays specially we did spend our time with our little kid Enzo though it felt just a little short.

Since my parents just got back to Philippines a week ago. I am now ready to write again. I felt many things has happened and I want to share them all to you. There are couple of topics and issues I would like to share to you immediately. Topics like Our work experiences here in Australia, The good restos and cool places that we just discovered lately, the sights and thoughts in visiting our relative in Adelaide and the impact of US financial crisis to migrants and companies here in Australia.

Also I would be documenting on this blog our 2nd child's progress. He or She is 3 months old now in the secure and comfortable domain of my wife's womb. Here, I would also write what are the system in place for pregnant women particularly the medicare support, government incentives and doctors advices about pregnancy.

Again I would like to let you know that I'm back on deck, charged up and ready to roll. Cheers Mate!

Picking up Dad and Mother in law at Melbourne Airport

Last Monday night, 25th of August at around 10.30pm, we picked up dad and my mother in law at the Melbourne Airport. It has been 10 months since my father last visited us. He's staying here for 30 days vacation but my mother in law will stay here for one year.

Its my fourth time to be picking up relatives at the airport. Each time I do it, it seems getting easier and quicker. The first time I did it, I was quite scared. I can only suggest that you follow the signs going to the parking area. If you are just picking up someone, just go to the short term parking area. It only cost us A$6.00 for a good 40minutes park. You can also use your credit card on the kiosk. If you will just gonna take a taxi cab, it would still be alright because there are heaps waiting outside and won't take you long to wait. Inside the airport, there are also a lot of coffee shops you can go to. There's also Krispy Kreme donuts as well that can make waiting a little more pleasant.

Picking up relatives or friends from the airport is always an exciting task. Just need to make sure you are quite familiar with the parking areas and waiting areas before you do so. For more information about parking fees and relevant information, you can visit this link.http://www.melbourneairport.com.au/to_from_airport/parking/short_term.asp

Melbourne Trains

Most of the locals of Australia, regardless of their jobs and status of living, rely so much on trains for public transport. My wife works in Melbourne CBD and she would definitely need to get on a City loop train to reach her workplace and Sydenham line to get back home. It is more practical to use trains than drive your way to work. It is cheaper to pay for the Metlink ticket which you could already use on buses, trains and trams rather than spend on petrol and parking spaces. It is a lot convenient as well to get on train, put your IPod on, sitback and relax than to drive on the busy streets of the city. My wife spends $160 for her monthly ticket to enable her to travel within zone 1 and 2. Connex also offers an option for those who come to work early and would like to save more. If this suits you, Early bird ticket can be availed of for free provided you reach your destination before 7 am. You only have buy 2 hour ticket to get your way home for only $5 something. So, roughly about $100 per month and could make a saving of $60. Melbourne's Metropolitan trains start from city's Flinder's Lane and stop from suburb to suburb. There are also VLine's interstate trains that travel from different states which for obvious reason is cheaper than the airfare but could provide comfort on your travel as well.

My wife's experience on trains is not always pleasant particularly on peak hours. How many times has her train been cancelled? Too many to think of but not more than the times that they were delayed by 5 to 10 minutes. In times like these, you won't be surprised to see a fully loaded and crowded carriage. People are standing againt each other and squeezed in the middle and on the doorside. You could hardly move and talk. These scenarios have already been part of one's everyday journey to workplace and I think people get used to this. However, there are still some people who complain and swear on what hassles these have caused them.

Who would not ever get annoyed to be late on an appointment or a job interview? But think about this, there are a lot more things to be thankful for rather than dwell on this annoying situations. People tend to be inappreciative of things around them when they haven't seen the world outside. We forget to be thankful of the benefits we've got when we haven't seen other people's suffering from the lack of it.

My wife and I migrated from a third world country where you couldn't get both convenience and savings together and where transport system is far uncomparable to what we have in Australia. I won't elaborate more on this but it's really far behind in terms of comfort and safety. If only Aussies would have a feel of what it's like commuting on our country, then they would realize how lucky they are and they will be more appreciative of the service that Connex trains give them. Migrants like us, who have seen both world, are also lucky to be where we are and that it gives us chance to be more conscious of our thoughts.

Community Fair

My whole family recently attended a community fair close to where we live. It was a good and fun-filled day because there were a lot of activities which my kid really enjoyed. There was a little farm with heaps of ducks and bunnies. A goat, a lamb and a little pig played around with the ducks and bunnies. These animals are tame enough for the kids to touch and feed with leafy veggies. There was also a clown that blew a balloon shaped like a puppy. There were also room for those who are selling old but still nice stuffs at cheaper prices. Finger foods were also all over the place. But what me and my kid truly enjoyed was the Dodge bump car. At first, I thought that my little boy will get scared but to my amaze, he actually enjoyed the ride. It was a very enjoying experience because it has been a while since the last time I got on it. This time it was more fun with my kid beside me and witnessing his first ever ride on a bump car.

When we starved for food, we rushed into a chicken & chips food stall. We ordered a roast chicken, large chips ( frenchfries as some of us will call it ) and a rice salad which is surprisingly yummy. The rice salad looks just like a fried rice, only that the stuffs put on it(carrots, peas, onions) were fresh and the whole pack was served cold as it is a salad, in the first place. It was a simple meal that we had but completed the family day with a smile.