Is Sydney Public Transport satisfactory?

North Sydney to Brookvale by bus. ( Distance: 13.6KM)

“What the h-!”

When I found out that I had left very important stuff including my wallet at home, my mind was in the dark. I did not know what to do…. Especially when I didn’t have my car with me.

I quickly tried to get a grip on myself and find a way to go home and get the stuff back as soon as possible. How? I have decided using the proud Sydney public transport for my short trip back home. It couldn’t take that long, right?

Taxi? My first option was a taxi but it would cost me about $50AUD to$80AUD (depends on traffic.) If I am not lucky and stuck in a terrible Sydney traffic jam, for sure that I would not feel comfortable to sit down in a taxi and looking at the meter goes up and up. It was too expensive option for an average earning citizen like me.

How about train? Unfortunately, there are no trains to Northern Beaches. Not many people overseas will believe that we don’t have a train line to Northern Beaches in Sydney, is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populated city in Australia (Wikipedia). But due to various reasons which I cannot really understand, the government has not yet processed with any Railway construction or expansion that dates back to the 1920s. We are now living in 2013 and nothing has happened for the last 93 years. This fact depresses people that live in the area. But what can we do? Therefore, train was out of options for me.

Bus? Taking the bus home was the only option I had. I have been working at North Sydney for many years but I rarely take a bus home as there are not many direct buses to Brookvale. As I am not familiar with bus time tables or directions, I even did not know where to get a right bus to go home. However, did I have any choice? No, so I borrowed $20AUD from a colleague and started my remarkable bus trip.

Let me share with you my bus trip from North Sydney to Brookvale.

I walked down a block to the closest bus stop and check if there were any buses to Neutral Bay where I needed to get a bus to Northern Beaches (3 minutes). As I expected, there was no bus to Neutral Bay.

I walked down to the next street and luckily found some buses to Neutral Bay (3minutes walking). After 5 minutes waiting, I could get on a bus and paid cash $2.20 AUD (for about 1 Km). 
 
I had my eyes open wide as I tried to find a correct bus on a time table attached on the bus stop which I had lots of trouble reading as it was so worn out. After 5 minutes waiting, one of the buses that go to the Northern Beaches stopped in front of me. I felt lucky that I didn’t have to wait too long. But the happiness didn’t last too long. I jumped in and handed $5AUD note to the bus driver,but he refused to take my cash and ask me to buy a bus ticket. Another barrier to jump… I begged him that I needed to take the bus but he gave me a simple and clear gesture, pointed the gate. “GET OUT!”.

I was pushed out and left on a busy street without any idea where to get the ticket. As I do not use bus services often, I hardly ever bought bus tickets so it was not easy to find where to buy bus tickets. I walked for 5 minutes to find a place to get a ticket and found a convenient store where I could purchase a ticket. “$4.60AUD!” when the shop keeper told me the price, I could not believe my ear. $4.60 for 12KM? I walked 3 more minutes to the next bus stop and waited 5 minutes for the next bus.

 

I was proudly showed my $4.60 bus ticket to the driver and wished to get home as soon as possible.There is no sign or map in the bus, I needed to ask/bother the bus driver if he would stop a bust stop I need to get off. Even though I know the area well, I didn’t know where the bus would stop or not. I could not even imagine how hard it would be to find a right place to get on and off for tourists or strangers.

It took me almost 1 hour to get to Brookvale. 1 hour for 13.6 KM? It is similar time to when I run home from North Sydney. I still had to thank that I could catch a faster bus called limited stop bus and it was not a peak hour of the day.

Sometimes I feel bit guilty not using public transport often enough, but I can promise that I am not going to stop driving and using public transport. First of all, I don’t have enough time to waste. Secondly, it is economically not an efficient choice as using bus costs more than driving a car. Lastly, I do not want to be in a Sydney Public Transport Chaos which happens so regularly. I feel sorry for the people who spend enormous hours on the public transport to commute between work and home every single day. Some of my colleagues spend more than 2 hours to come to work (over 4 hours a day!!!). What a stressful journey it would be!

The conclusion of my bus trip was neither easy nor pleasant. I will keep avoiding using public transport until Sydney Public Transport is working for PUBLIC. I would like to ask people in the government who have got power and responsibility on Public Transport to do something, for the public who they always say they work for.

 

Day 3. 3 Flowers and the Butterfly

Follow your Dream.

Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.” – Napoleon Hill

A couple of days ago, when I was staring an excel spreadsheet on my monitor as always, my email icon was popped up and asked for my attention.

“Geeee... another one....” As usual I tried to ignore the message and focus back to what I was doing but then my eye caught the word “....leaving....” and my blank brain was suddenly wide awake. I clicked the icon with a deep gasp.

“.... is sadly leaving us to follow her lifelong dream.... to Europe.....”

I kept shaking my head and opening eyes wider than a student at an exam trying to get one more point and read the email again and again. Especially the part, “ follow her lifelong dream...”, I whispered  to myself again and again.

Do you have a dream?

Do you have a dream that you put aside for the RIGHT time to come?

How many of us live our life without dreams/goals?

How many of us are delaying on trying/starting our dreams with millions of excuses?

The email made my stomach flutter and heart beat faster all day. Various studies show that 80% of us are not happy with what we do for a living. Are you one of this majority unhappy people? Unfortunately, I am also the one of the 80% but luckily I still do have my dreams and I am ready to change my life for my dreams. This is the reason any news about who tries to escape their comfort zone for their dreams impress me very much. Time Ferris at the 4HWW blog (www.fourhourworkweek.com), Jon Morrow at the Problogger (www.copyblogger.com/author/jonmorrow), Sean Ogle (www.seanogle.com) and Scott Dinsmore (liveyourlegand.net) are a few of those who inspire and encourage me to challenge my current life and go towards to my dreams, so if you share my ideas, it would be very valuable to visit their blogs and learn their thoughts and attitudes on life.

I challenged myself to talk /interview her to know her impressive story. She has always wanted to work and live in overseas all her life but her personal circumstances didn’t allow her to pursue her dream as she was the prime earner and carer of her family. Recently she discovered that everything around her seems to be settled and she wanted to grab the chance to fulfil her lifelong dream. She admitted that she is nervous and unsure about her decision but at the same time extremely excited. Her 14 year old son is also very excited about their new journey. While I was talking to her my heart seems to get bigger and bigger like a hot air balloon. Her face was bright and her eyes shining and I could feel delight around her. Dreams, it seems, make us positive and bright.

After the talk, I feel more proud of and value my dreams more. I wish all the best on her new journey and believe she will feel an enormous amount of happiness and experience many priceless experiences by this valuable life change decision. I gave her a large smile and returned back to my desk, and made a simple note.

                                                           “I will follow my dreams!”

 

Day 2 - Butterfly on the flower



Want to Travel More? 10 tips to travel well under the budget.

Do you like travelling? Do you dream about going somewhere and enjoying your life? Who doesn’t?

My husband and I LOVE travelling, so we try to travel as often as possible. At least 3 times of overseas trips and 4 times of trips in Australia in a year. Whenever I announce our trip plan, the responses of people around me are pretty much same ways. “ Again? ” or “How can you afford all the trips?”, or “ You much be very rich!”. I travel 3-4 times more often than friends or colleagues around me but I promise that my travel budget/expenses are not too higher than their ONLY trip for a year. I want to travel more often than go on a expensive (people calls “a luxurious travel”) trip and cannot go anywhere for a long time and only dreaming about it.  So, I would like to share with you some tips how to organise a travel under the budget.

1.       Change your perception on “Travel”; Definition of ‘travel’ is the act of going from one place to another, as on a trip; journey (according to the dictionary). Through travel we can experience new/different things in new/different places and it can be unforgettable experiences and events in our lives. However, quite often people misinterprets that travel is for a life opportunity to spoil themselves by behaving that they can afford “the LUXURIOUS treat” even though actually they can’t. Travelling is not for forgetting your realities and disguising yourself as others who are wealthy and can go and afford the luxurious breaks any time they wish. This kind of travel will fantasize you for a short time and give you a LONG and TOUGH financial pain for a long time.

2.       Set a reasonable budget and choose affordable place to go; Before you plan a trip, you need to set a reasonable budget which cannot effect your daily life. It doesn’t mean you cannot go anywhere. If you don’t have enough money for a trip, set a plan and save money for the trip instead of borrowing (especially from Credit cards). Choose inexpensive places such as Thailand or Indonesia instead of Hawaii or Maldives (from Australia) if you have a low budget. You can find plenty of places where you can travel on a low budget in the world. You can plan and go where you need to have a bigger budget (where you cannot afford at this stage of life) next time when you are financially comfortable for the trips.

3.       Use a local travel agency; In my case, the biggest part of my travel budget goes to getting a flight ticket. I normally check on-line to find out a good deal but as you would have experienced it is not always easy to get a one, especially if you want to travel when most of people want to travel such as school holidays or public holidays. So try to avoid this time and season. If you really cannot avoid it, move your travel time a couple of weeks earlier or later.  Bit of flexibility will allow you to get a better deal.  But back to the flights. Last year one of my husband’s colleagues who is Thai recommended her Thai travel agency (located in Sydney) for our flight tickets for a trip to Bangkok and we could get the best deal from them which even other travel agencies refused to match. Their excuse was according to their policy, they can match the prices with only Australian travel agencies.  Anyway, since then I have always used the Thai agency for any trips to Thailand, even for the next one which happens within 2 week time. The difference on the price is 25% to 50%. So why don’t you try a local agency located in your area to get a good deal. Do not focus on only price. If you need to stop 1,2,3 ... places and waste a long time to transit, better pay bit more for a direct line as time is money.

4.       Use a web site shows compares hotel prices such as Hotelscombinded (hotelscombinded.com.au);  Use a web site that shows compared hotel prices of major accommodation websites such as Hotelscombinded (www.hotelscombinded.com.au); Choose a hotel which has most of (not all) your needs such as a gym (as a gym addict, Very important for me), swimming pool, internet free access, breakfast, etc... You can choose some suitable hotels which meet your requirements through one of major accommodation website. Because it is easier to see the pictures of the hotels and REVIEWS. Focusing on tourists reviews is more important than number of starts of the hotels. We were surprisingly pleased to stay in a 3 start hotel/motel in Busan (South Korea) for $35 per night. I booked the hotel based on the reviews (VERY GOOD over 8/10) and it was an eye opening experience. Once you know where to stay, you go back to a website that compares prices of major accommodation websites and find a best deal. Surprisingly, quite often you can get a cheaper/better deal through this website than any individual website. For example Agoda offered a same room $80 per night on their website but I could get $75 per night through hotelscombinded. I hope this helps. Also do not forget to ask upgrade a room when you check in. Amazingly, very often you can get free upgraded room if you ask. So why not?

5.       Necessary to have a travel insurance; You never know what will happen while you are in overseas or far away from your home and family. While you travel, many unexpected things can happen to you which are beyond your control so I do discourage you to have ‘couldn’t careless or don’t care attitudes’. A few years ago, one of our employees made her lifelong dreamed travel to Europe with her sister. How exciting it would be as she was late 50s. Unfortunately, the first day in Europe her sister fell from the stairs and broke her both legs. They found out that they didn’t organise a travel insurance while she was filling a form for her sister in the hospital. Painfully, the accident without travel insurance costed them unbelievable amount of hospital treatment charge and heart breaking memory from their life dreaming. You really never know what can happen so insuring the ‘in case’ is very wise things to do. My husband and I never expected we would get a ‘Dengue Fever’ from Lombok (Indonesia). You can use a website that gives you compared prices offered based on the range of cover by Travel insurance companies. 

6.       Don’t prepare too much; “Are you moving?” when I was a beginner traveller, my husband yelled at me because of my overloaded suitcases. We are all excited before travelling but frequently we become out of control on preparation.  Buy this, buy that, will need this, and also need that, just in case this will be helpful and that one, too.... endless list of things to prepare before the journey will make you get stressed instead of get excited and your unnecessary travel expenses will go up and up. The world is now one. You can buy anything anywhere so you don’t need to carry a department store and chemist with you. Be simple and light baggage will help you to travel easy. Buying local goods or international products in a local shop will let you experience unique fun. Last time we used local mosquito repellent which costed 1/3 of the price here but we didn’t get bitten even one bite.

7.       Include local transportation in your itinerary; Use local transportations such as train, bus, subway, taxi or ferries. Firstly it is such a great fun and sometimes unbelievably cheap (not like a day trip to Manly by ferry). Last time when I was in Bangkok, we took a ferry to across a river and paid 3 THB. It was old and wouldn’t pass any standard safety check, but it was simply amazing. 3^rd class ticket for a train to go 400km, we paid 60THB (less than 2 dollars per person). No booked seat and sitting with local people who looks at you like an animal escaped from the zoo with curious eyes made us all day smiling. Using local transportation will make your budget under the safe zone and bring you extra fund for the trip as long as you can scarify bit of your comfortable life style.

8.       Eat local food; Eat what local people eat and where local people eat as long as the hygiene meets your standard. Some people tell me that they had Pizza and Mexican food in Phuket and spent time to find a restaurant which sells international food such as Hamburger, cheeps, pasta, etc in Asia.  If you travel Asia, be ready to eat and experience Asian food. If you travel Europe, be ready not to eat rice for a while. That is fund of travel, isn’t it? Eating local food/fruit is experience you will never get anywhere else. Avoid going to a “well-known restaurant for tourists”. You will pay as much as you pay here and you will not get the REAL local taste as they will make/change for the tourist taste. You go local market to buy their fruits. They are so cheap and nice we will end up walk around and around all day long.

9.       Learn/study about where you travel; When you learn and know about where you travel, I promise you will enjoy and learn more from the trip. To be frankly, I am not a great reader so very often leave reading about the place to go till the last minutes or make a dramatic excuse that I will enjoy the mysteriousness when I get there. Lucky enough my husband is an enthusiastic reader so he reads a book about the place before the trip and carries it everywhere. Lonely Planet is his favourite travel guide as it has plenty of practical trip tips including history of the place you visit.   Travel with basic knowledge about the place will enrich your trip. If you do not learn anything from the trip will be same as no profit from you hard working business.   

10.   Be aware; Travelling is an exciting event in our life but not always going a right direction as we expect so we need to be aware of unpleasant incidents and unexpected problems that can happen anytime of the travel. Always be aware of that there can be pickpocketers around you so keep safe your bag or wallet as your money and travel documents will be in. Especially loosing passport will give you an awful headache so leave your valuable belongings (why would you take your valuable belongings to travel at the first place?) in the hotel. Avoid carrying too much cash with you if it is unnecessary. Be aware of traffic accidents. Quite many tourists are involved in car/bike accidents especailly young ones. Do not expect that the roles will be same as where you are from and respect (be careful) the difference. Remember that you are in a defferent place with different culture so not everything will work same way as you are from. They know how to drive safely in a caios but you don’t. Keep away from going out too late or alone. Most of dreadful things happen at nightime so start and finish the day bit ealier for the another beautiful morning. Maybe too boring for the young ones but better be safe then. Don’t get too stressed on what could happen while you travel but if you are aware of things can effect your trip and life, your trip and life will be much happier and safer.

As a story teller, my tips got longer than I expected but I do not want to remove any thing as I believe all will help you to travel well and keep you under your budget.  Hope this makes you think about how to manage your life with more times of travel and plan for a next trip. Good Luck!

 

                                          Day 1 - Butterfly on my sketched canvas.

10 tips on how to shop for clothes wisely

Quite often, my husband can’t believe how I could buy clothes for so little money. I can buy whatever I want without his comments and not impact on our living budget. How good is that? So I would like to share with you how to do cloth shopping base on my life experience.

1.       Never pay the original price; Nothing can be that urgent and we all have enough clothes to wait until the price is down. Australians are paying about 20% more for the same items compare to any other countries. Unless you don’t know what do to with the extra money, don’t pay the full price.

2.       Need vs. Want; Before you decide to buy, ask yourself if you really need it or only if you only want to buy it. Buy clothes when you need to not when you want to buy it. Think about your wardrobe. How many clothes you have not touched whole year, or thrown away without even wearing it a lot? Don’t buy things just to put them aside. 

3.        Be patient and wait till they are on further discount; Check further discount items in a big department store. A few weeks ago, I walked around a department store and I found a great bargain on sports pants. It was originally $60 and went down to $35, and went down again to $24.50 on a further 30% sale. I was willing and satisfied to pay for them as I needed them and I paid well for the good quality item.

4.       Can’t afford? Then don’t buy; Quite often we mistakenly believe that wearing expensive clothes make us rich (or look rich). No, it will make us poor, with limited savings.  If you need to think about your budget to buy any clothes, it means you cannot afford them so, don’t buy them. Never overstretch yourself to buy things that don’t make any real impact on your life. Once you don’t have to think about the MONEY, then, and only then you can buy whatever you want.

  

5.       Compare the price between shops; when you do shopping, don’t focus on buying. Just enjoy walking around and seeing new things.  Don’t buy an item in the first shop you visit. If you like anything, remember it and walk around other shops to find the one or similar one and compare the price. On my experience, you can find better deals when you check and compare more shops. Walking will also keep you in shape so you can get two birds with one stone.

6.       Don’t buy it just because it is cheap (impulse buying); To tell you the truth, I do (very often) make this mistake.  If you buy it just because it is cheap, highly likely you will not wear them or wear only couple of times and sit in your wardrobe till thrown out. You think you buy cheap things but actually they are far more expensive if you don’t wear them.

7.       Use online shopping; The article below is from a newspaper, The Australia and it simply shows how much we are unfairly treated when it comes to international prices.

You can pick up a Ralph Lauren business shirt for $125 in the US, but the same item will cost you $180 at a Ralph Lauren store in Australia (Georgina Safe, Fashion editor From: The Australian )

This unfairness leads people to spend thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff when they could save so much in other countries. Use on-line shopping to get a better deal. There are millions of stuff on the internet so you can find what you need and want with a lot cheaper price. But remember, be cautious about the size as it can be different from Australian size and hidden delivery fees. Also, before purchasing anything from the sight, read about reviews on the suppliers. Choosing reliable suppliers will be helpful to get what you order in a promised time and safely.

8.       Buy good quality clothes from well known brands that are on sales, instead of worse ones for full price; It is clear that no one wants to pay same money for the worse items, but funnily enough, we often make this mistake. I found so many times, that the good quality ones are on big sales in department stores. If you know when and where to go to get a good quality clothes at a cheaper price, you will be happier with your choice and the goods will be used by you much more often.

9.       Think before following the ‘trends’; I know we want /need to be looking  “Fashionable”, “Hot” or “ Sexy” some occasions. But if you want to buy clothes for work or normal daily life, please avoid buying too trendy clothes.  Quite often so many pretty girls/boys are wearing too ‘hot’ (revealing) clothes on the streets and they would look heaps better if they hadn’t been wearing them. Being practical, you can’t really wear them for more than one season unless you have a very thick skin or you don’t care about other’s unpleasant opinions. So buy bit more practical clothes if you want to use them for at least a few seasons/years. If you really need/want to be ‘in fashion’, buy cheaper ones so you can throw away after the season without the heartbreak.

10.   Don’t go shopping with too many shopping crazy friends (especially girls); Most of time you will buy unwanted/ unnecessary stuff if you shop with too many friends. Girls especially will tell you “You look FANTASTIC!!!” even though you could probably look better. Their polite encouragement will push you to buy more stuff and often more expensive stuff (even though you can’t afford it.)  You will find that you will hand your almost empty/already under balanced credit card to the shop keeper. By all means, do shop with a couple of friends but those who can give you honest opinions and help try to keep your budget.

If you shop well, you can enjoy shopping and it will bring you cheerful days but if not, unnecessary spending will eat up your money and sometimes even your life. One of my friend she’s recently divorced due to her unstoppable shopping habits and debts. Do you want to go through this? No, so let’s shop wisely.

10 tips on how to secure your dream home

10 tips to know/prepare before going property hunting (inspections)

“What did you do on the weekend?”

When my colleagues ask me this clique question on Monday mornings, I know they would normally expect standard answers such as “I went shopping, cleaning the house or just relaxing....” in order to go back to their desks and start staring their computer screens. But quite often my answer shocks their ears and makes them to confirm my strange answer by asking “What?” and/or “Why?”

“I went to property inspections.”

My husband and I regularly check property prices and often go to property inspections on Saturdays because we both are very interested in property market and also keep an eye on opportunities which can bring our goal (financial freedom) a bit closer. As a young couple from overseas and starting as international students, buying our own property was definitely not easy (is it easy to anyone these days?) but our strong determination and commitment helped us to purchase 4 properties and sell 3 properties within last 7 years, and on top of that, buy our own house in a nice and quiet area.

I believe that having a look around properties regularly will help us to get a feeling about the value of properties and property market performance, and also motivating to think about future. So I would like to encourage you to go inspections if you think about purchasing your first home or investment properties. It can be a fun.

Based on my experience, I would like to suggest to you 10 things to know and prepare before going to property hunting.

1. Be ready to visit at least 50 properties before purchasing ; You need to know what is actual value of the property to grab a good value of property so you need to compare location, price, size of property etc., with similar properties around. A few years ago, one of my friends proudly announced she purchased her first home at the first inspection. Guess what? She overpaid for the property and she found out through the recent bank revaluation that she hadn’t had any growth on her property after 5 whole years. So it is very important to put more time into inspections to get a good deal, even though it may seem troublesome at the time.

2. Location! Location! Location! ; An old property in a good location is always better to buy than new property in a bad location. It is best to avoid a busy road or street and also keep away from places that have a bad reputation with crimes, street fighter, etc… Before you make your selection, consider whether or not you can live in the house and area happily and peacefully until someone will buy it from you when you want to sell.

3. The first property, not the last one; Remember that the property is only your first one, not the last one. I have seen many cases where people think the property will be their last one and they will live there forever so they attempt over-stretch their budget. Don’t try/expect to buy your dream house from the beginning. Set realistic goals. If you make an affordable and manageable purchase at the very start, you can get your dream house in no time, but if you try to buy your dream house now, the daunting mortgage will eat at your life for a VERY, VERY long time.

4. Look for potential changes you can make to increase the value of the property in future; Look around and find out if there can be any potential changes to increase the value of the property. Empty storage in the garden can be converted into a granny flat which might bring you stable sweet rent. If there is any usable space that can be converted into a spare bed room or study, the changes will increase the property’s value.

5. Right stage /age of property; The property should have right stage or age. If everything is perfect and there is nothing to repair mean that you will most likely overpay for the property. You will pay for the previous owner’s work but more than necessary (more than if you did). However, do not buy a property that needs too much work unless you are a builder and know what to do. Dealing with builders is not always easy or pleasant and quite often you need to pay a lot more money than you should/expected.

6. Watch out hidden cost such as special levy, strata levy and available sinking funds; If you want to buy a unit, you need to find out if there will be any special levy coming up. Sometime you can find unreasonably cheap properties compare to other properties around because there is a hidden special levy waiting for the new blind buyer. Previously, my husband and I had to pay more than $10K for a fire system upgrade for our units. Anyone can see that it was quite a large sum of money to pay from our own personal savings. Can you imagine what it would feel like if you need to pay a special levy by the due date while you struggle to save even a little money after paying mortgage? It is not easy so better avoid. Find out what current strata levy is and how much money in the Strata sinking fund so you can estimate how stable the building management is and what can be future strata levy rate. Strata meeting minutes will be worth to look at.

7. Any potential development next/close to the property?; Look around if there is any new development next or close to the property. You don’t want to live in the property that will be constantly subjected to noise and dust. If the new building can effect on your privacy and convenience, it would be best to reconsider your choice.

8. Keep a reasonable level of privacy; We had to sell our first property because of this reason although it was in a very good location and had a potentially very good growth. Our bedroom window was facing directly towards the neighbours’ balconies and whenever they sat there and talked (only talked, thankfully), we wouldn’t be able to sleep because of the echo effect the noise had.

9. Any options to pay off mortgage faster; If you are alone or a couple and ready to sacrifice a bit of your personal space for a while to pay off your mortgage faster, you can get a flatmate which we did at the beginning (We could put most of our salaries into our mortgage so we now mortgage free.). Therefore, a 2 bedroom unit will be better option than only one bedroom unit.

10. Parking on title; Make sure that parking is on the tile. In Sydney, the value of parking spaces is about $40K to $200K and it is a very important condition for resale of the property.

Don’t be shy to ask questions to the agent who shows the property. The more information the better chance to buy a good property. So now that you have these 10, are you ready for the house hunting?

P.S Thanks to my niece and husband who help and support me to post this blog.