Fractal Blog

Day 1 had gorgeous summer weather to offer but didn't go very smoothly nonetheless, not helped by jet lag. No matter how much sleep one gets during the flight, an 11-hour time shift is still not pleasant. It turned out that the serviced apartment's internet charges are the highest I've ever seen: measured by the minute (for broadband!) and capped at $27.50 per day per laptop for a maximum of 50MB. This is clearly ridiculous as it would have added almost $2,000 to the cost of our 30-day stay. However, reception were rather understanding about it and agreed to give us a discount on accommodation to make up for it. It still isn't great (the 50MB daily cap barely seems to allow downloading our email, never mind looking for jobs or places to rent) but it's a start.

Next thing, getting me an Aussie mobile. We knew this was going to be hassle, based on last year. In this country you can open bank accounts with little checks but try getting a mobile phone contract and they give you the third degree. Eventually I had to settle for a prepay mobile. This can only be set up over the internet. See above for the problem with internet access, so I haven't set it up yet.

Tomorrow's plan is to go to some open inspections for places we might like to rent. There seems to be quite a lot available in the price bracket we're looking at but we fully expect to have a problem renting a flat without having a job.

And it's hard to look for a job without proper internet access, or a (local) mobile to be contactable on. Anyone spot the circularity of the problem?