What suprised you about Australia when you finally got here?

[arfishy]

I always considered myself well-travelled and well-informed.

Inexplicably I was shocked when I arrived in Australia and saw hills .

What surprised you?

[eidsvold]

that is so cute arfishy!

[arfishy]

Oh Eids! How fantastic! I would have cried my eyes out.

DD today, bless her, asked what 'Aussies' are.

[eidsvold]

arfishy - dd1 got an award at parade/assembly today so me and the other two monkeys wandered up.

She looked so cute standing tall and straight singing the national anthem - she knows the tune - most of the words are beyond her but she does know most of the end line words as well as the big finale - amazing to listen to these kids - prep to year 3 - 5- 8yo singing their little hearts out. Brought a lump to my throat.

[arfishy]

I love seeing Australian patriotism. I think the UK could learn something from it - not least how to actually win something

[FluffyMummy123]

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[eidsvold]

Cod - I guess that is it. I just know my education and upbringing left me in no doubt of my australian heritage and citizenship. I think now - I am playing aussie folk songs for the dds - sang waltzing matilda to them from the time they were tiny for instance.

Dd1 has parade every week and every time they sing the national anthem. YOu know - little things like that.

In the UK - other than football games I can't remember when you would hear the national anthem.

I also know things like Anzac play a part in it too.

[FluffyMummy123]

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[eidsvold]

wishfort - I love the kookaburras - that is something I never realised I missed living in England until I came back to Aus.

Dd2 loves the sulphur crested cockatoos that come into our garden after the macadamia nuts on the tree.

[wishfort]

Agree about the north/south divide. The lack of a sense of nationality I would put down to confidence - there's no need to go on about it. It's also a form of modesty, and very becoming.

Anyway, let's get back to Au.
What else? Oh, I noticed the very different birdsong. Most Oz birds squawk, and I'm not complaining. However, the song of the magpies, and the way they throw back their heads to gargle so melodiously, is wonderful. When it's hot, they sit in the trees and whinge gently. Tip top.

[arfishy]

I think you're right Apostrophe. Aussies do have a great sense of nationality and the Brits don't particularly. Everybody gets het up if the flag of St George comes out ffs.

Agree about the North/South divide. DP is northern and more than a little odd . I'm a Surrey girl myself.

[arfishy]

I think you're right Apostrophe. Aussies do have a great sense of nationality and the Brits don't particularly. Everybody gets het up if the flag of St George comes out ffs.

Agree about the North/South divide. DP is northern and more than a little odd . I'm a Surrey girl myself.

[Astrophe]

funny that someone said Aussies have a 'chronic lack of confidence' - I think that about Brits! I always feel a bit sad when Brits say "your Australian!? Well why would you come here???" As an Aussie, I would never say that about australia.

Agree about being bad losers at sport .

Something that surprised me about England though (sorry, I digress), is how seperate the North and South seem, and actually, how seperate life is from one region to the next. I've been here for 2 1/2 years, and have no real sense of "England", just a sense of our city. Is that just me though, as a foreigner? I feel a real sense of being 'Australian', and a sense of comraderie with all Australians, but I don't see that here.

[wishfort]

The way that when Aussies discover that we intend to stay here, they ALWAYS say: is it because of the weather?

I can't decide whether it's because they cannot think of any other way that Oz might be preferable to the UK, or that they think it normal for any sane person to make this the entire basis of uprooting their life!

[PestoMonster]

One thing that surprised me in Oz was the larger size of soft drink can. I had assumed a can of coke was the same the world over, but no, it's hooooooooge over there (or was, back in 1994 when I went)

[ninedragons]

The sum total of my plans for my dotage are to move into the Peninsula Hong Kong.

Eloise was always my favourite book when I was a kid. Even at five I could see the appeal of living in the Plaza.

[arfishy]

LOL I agree. I lived for months in hotel suites in Thailand with DD. It was a HUGE shock to come back to the UK. I hadn't cooked/cleaned/shopped for months. I nearly died the first time I realised I'd have to DO something apart from BE. Soon came back down to earth though .

[ninedragons]

I'm glad to you November seems soon - it still feels to me like it could be a decade away.

Ummm, apart from being near my family again, which is the biggest pull, I'm looking forward to a simplified life. Shanghai is so big (estimates vary from 16-20 million people, so it's got around the same population as Australia) it's just a huge pain in the arse to do anything, so you end up doing nothing. Imagine if every time you went to the supermarket, you had to walk down Oxford St on the first day of the January sales (the London one, not the Sydney one).

It's just chaotic. I'm looking forward to living somewhere where it's not perfectly acceptable to drive the wrong way down one-way streets or drive on the footpath, just as long as you're beeping your horn while you do it. I'm looking forward to living somewhere you'll never see an old guy sitting on the footpath with a bucket of live frogs, whacking their heads on the ground to kill them, pulling their legs off and then chucking the heads in the gutter. China is no place for a vegetarian.

I'm even looking forward to going in a car. None of the taxis has seat belts or anchor points for baby capsules, so I haven't been anywhere that's not within walking distance since my baby was born in January. And all of our friends here are childless couples with serious high-powered jobs, so I never really see anyone during the day.

On the other hand, it's going to be very hard to adjust to not being on several hundred times the average local wage. We do, in fairness, live extremely well here. It's probably like what it must be like to be Jennifer Lopez. I haven't cooked since the baby was born because we just call up a different restaurant each night and they deliver dinner to us. I have a PA employed through my husband's company to buy nappies and go to the post office for me. It will be weird not being able to have my jeans and shoes hand-made to my exact specifications.

Blimey, I think that's longer than my dissertation was.

[JulesJules]

OK I've only been to Australia once, on a six month working holiday visa... but the thing that surprised me the most was the double decker trains in Sydney. Also, flocks of budgies/cockatoos. How everyone said things like "I expect you think of us as the colonies" - er, no, actually, have never thought that once. The beer measures which differ state to state - schooner!! And yes, having to unpack my backpack in the supermarket for the checkout girl to search, it was full of washing . Also, how utterly fab Melbourne was, everyone had told me it was rubbish and I should just go straight to Sydney.

[arfishy]

Wow! That's lovely ninedragons. The first time I saw a sulphur-crested cockatoo here in the wild I nearly fainted. They are just so beautiful. Funnily enough where I lived in SW London there was a flock of wild parrots too.

You're back soon aren't you ninedragons? What are you looking forward to most?

[ninedragons]

There's a flock of wild sulphur-crested cockatoos in downtown Hong Kong, weirdly. Their forebears were escaped pets who banded together and bred, and there's now a healthy flock living in Victoria Park. It's very strange to see and hear something I associate so strongly with Australia shrieking between the skyscrapers.

[arfishy]

I love seeing the flocks of wild cockatoos, I always stop and stare, it's just so beautiful to see them.

I was really surprised by the lack of leisure pools, like the ones at home. All the indoor ones around here are ancient and 50's lap pools. It does makes sense of course, but I missed the big indoor heated splash/wave pools with little toddler areas when when I got here with a 2yo. I couldn't take her paddling in the sea because the surf was too strong.

[elvisgirl]

I was surprised by the fact that religion is still so popular here, that striped clothing is so popular, that I find it freezing on what would be t-shirt weather in the UK, by the racism and the sexism. Being a female in a traditionally male dominated field the latter is going to be more obvious but it does seem about 15yrs behind the UK in terms of emancipation.

I find the younger aussie males (teens & early 20s) to look less manly than metrosexual blokes. Think it must be the skinny jeans, pumps & strange flat hairstyles.

[eidsvold]

i tended to find a lot of aussie blokes were straight up rather than game players like the english guys I came in contact with.

[eidsvold]

i find the coats etc okay when worn by guys who work on properties - so they are practical garments rather than fashion statements.

LOL at the rain - if it was qld in the last few years that was probably their annual rain.

[chloeb2002]

The parking thing just reminded me... you have to park in the direction of the traffic. I know it is sensible but on one of my first trips out alone i parked the wrong way and was accosted by an old guy asking me if i was european or south australian? (car had sa plates)... he looked a mite embarresssed when in my best queens english i told him yes i was english!