Great Storm of Perth

Source: http://www.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/w/WestAussie1/4.jpg

I was disgruntled at the weather forecast for saying there was going to be a storm on Monday (got me all the trouble of doing laundry and use the somewhat ineffective dryer). Then as of 10am it was sunny like usual and I was "WTF?". So I carried on with extra effort to dry my laundry and other tasks. Then at 4pm on my way to campus it was cloudy again and I thought it was going to be another fake, all dark and cloudy but no rain. But as of 5pm, everything went down.

The sight was awesome! The chaos, the lightnings, the razor winds, the hail the size of golf-balls, the flooding, tree pieces flying, the blackouts, the EMP shockwaves that severed telecommunications, owh man it was like the end of the world complete with idiots screaming "OMG WE'RE GONNA DROWN!" and occasional near-naked laughing dudes running around in the heavy rain and hail storm. And I can't believed I was told to evacuate the campus (I was taking shelter in the library with hundreds others trapped) with all those lightnings and flying debris.

I thought this was normal occurrence in Perth but it is not. They said this was the worst/best(?) hail storm ever for the past 15 years.

Source: http://www.watoday.com.au/photogallery/wa-news/hail-storm-hits-perth/

Too bad I didn't record anything because I didn't wish to be struck by lightning while filming. All the way from campus to my house I was thinking about saving my ass and avoiding trees. I won't upload much to save bandwidth, so below are some of the links you can read to see the severity of the hail storm. Owh you might be interested to join this facebook group:

FACEBOOK: I survived the Great Storm of Perth 22/3/2010
WAtoday: Perth wakes up to a $100m clean-up after storm of the year

Perth So Far

Me & my mates from Unit 14 (and a Wallaby at Caversham)

Well it's been a month, and everything seems to be going pretty well. I've done almost everything I wanted to do in Perth e.g. see and touch the natives such as the koalas, kangaroos and other Australians. Walked around town in different times to experience the foreign weather (the 20-16°C temperatures are just nice.... to sleep in...).

However after a while there are also unanswered questions left in my list e.g. why is the 2 dollar coin bigger than 1 dollar? or which way the toilets here spiral? (can't tell, the flush here is so aggressive and splashes every direction). Made a few connections with the locals, especially the food sector (fingers crossed can get discount :p).

I also have started to value the food here after not converting them with the 3x currency exchange rate, I mean 3 dozens or 18 eggs/carton for $4 is cheap! And the random item they put up for offer are always welcomed. $1.99 2 liter Pepsi? $0.99 Snickers? $2.99 for a large Cadbury caramello? (Well they are cheap because they are near expiry). Those are really sweet to fill in the gaps in between meals because I've been eating more since the weather cooled down. And no I'm not gaining weight because they get burned fast because I do 99% walking from my house to campus and the not so nearby shopping centers.

As for campus life, the fact about low class attendance was true after all. I remember stressing out a day before Week 1 because some of the classes I want and CAN enroll in have 0-1 vacant spots left. But as the week progresses (now entering Week 4), a full 32 pax seminar is now attended by only 15-20 people and the number is expected to decrease over time. I should've forced myself into already full classes so that I can have 2-3 days-only of classes per week. But never mind, the current timetable scheme of Mon-Thur class is okay by me.

The capped bandwidth here is a killer. After I reached the 500MB usage after 2 weeks (got the 1.5GB home use for 3 months) I became more apathetic of the bandwidth because 1.5GB for 3 months is seriously unfeasible. A round of case study, research and journals download can take up to 60MB per session. Looks like I have to top up soon to 5 or 10GB to survive the coming weeks. Gonna fork out the bank again. Haihz, the supplies expenditure is okay with $70 per week. But it is these external expenditures on services that contributes to stress and a lot of sighs. Like what a Bruneian comrade here said "money here is like water"... some of you should see how Irwin reacts when he receives the bill; like receiving results and delay opening the mail until tomorrow, and if possible never...

Speaking about cash, I've decided to pause my search for a part-time job because I no longer have a unit that requires me to (apparently I don't appear in the Perth's unit list, and the class was already full so I had to swap to another unit to graduate). Apart from that there's the distance issue and balancing time with studies. So what do I do now? Make my own laptop servicing and online web-designing to earn some cash from home. Some of the local laptops here are amazingly advance I dare not to cut them up to service them to avoid legality issues. I mean, have you seen a 22 inch screen, i7 processor with CUDA Dell? Hardware-wise is a no-no, and even software-wise I might think twice considering all the stuff here are authentic and non-lanun :p

Well I better get busy again, next week is Week 4 with a portfolio due and a midterm paper to score. After that it's 2 tuition free weeks with vague plans of doing some more sight seeing around Perth. Itadakimasu!

Perth!

Finally I got a stable line of my own to start blogging. Damn it took me more than a week to do so, but anywho, let's write them out before my memory depreciates.

It all began at the LCCT (yup I took AirAsia for both SBW-KUL and KUL-PER). Arrived at KUL at 4pm and got 6 hours to kill before the PER flight at 12am. Thankfully got Sitchin's 400 pages thick The Wars of Gods and Men to help me avoid turning into Tom Hanks in his movie The Terminal.

Then by midnite, regrouped with my mates who were on exchange program as well, and then we embarked on our 5 hours journey to Down Under. Gosh, the flight was no where close to the word "comfort". It's either my seat was nonadjustable, or maybe I'm noob and can't find the adjusting lever. So the whole flight I was trying to sleep at 30 degrees position, leaning behind the wall of the lavatory. How long did I sleep? 1 hour. Had a nice chat with a 2nd year UWA A&F girl seated beside me though, but that did not change the fact I did not get enough sleep.

Arrived at PER around 5:30am, ok la technically 6am because of the long immigration and custom checks. After those were done, got me a Vodafone simcard (BIG MISTAKE!) and got out of the airport.

Wah, the air in Perth is so fresh and cold, although it is not the chill-to-the-bone kinda cold. Got to a friend's aunt's place to chill before check in (thanks Khe Han's auntie!). At 2:30pm checked into Vickery in Bentley. The campus IS large, but it's kinda short walking distance from one point to the other. It's just the huge buildings that make the campus seem bigger. Owh and my house is "happening" with all dudes from Kenya, Mauritius to Malaysia. Reminds me of the good old days in Curtin Villa in Miri.

Within less than 2 days I met up with old comrades who were already in Perth from the time of old. As mentioned, it's a small town and it is peaceful. And closes at 5pm.

One thing I find it hard to find here is halal meat! Owh gosh the first week went on without a decent meat because I was still settling down. I managed to go through though, although people having misconceptions of what is kosher or halal made me more cautious of the food here (if the chicken is not slaughtered it not kosher dude!).

Well also, the rivalry of big companies here (along with their services) are reminiscent of those at homes. We have Telstra (TMNet) that arguably have poor service as mentioned by the locals (although it's better than TMNet's speed, I wonder how the Ozzies will feel like if they experience Streamyx). And there's this AUD29.00 reload that gives you AUD150.00 credit. Yea I was WTF at first but then I know how they played, hence the joy when I got my Vodafone number. It charges you more for SMS or calls so actually the rate is the same with normal reload value. And a LOT of comrades here uses Optus, so the charge is higher for both sides. Now I'm considering changing to Optus if my usage rate is highER than my tolerance level.

Haven't been to all parts of Perth. Just Swan Valley and Fremantle. Even so I can tell you buildings here don't exceed 3 stories. And to those who Word-of-Mouthed me about the fish and chips in Freo, you guys are spreading it blatantly man. Nothing special about the fish & chips there la, although it does make you full. But I will continue my personal sub-quest for the ultimate Fish & Chips in PER.

Well that's all for now. It's now the transition of summer into autumn with awesome 16°C nights. Semester has begun and from the looks of it, I can't get cocky here because now there are more predators in class with better skills.

Cheers~!