Our Little Jaunt

Happy Christmas From Us in Sydney, Australia

We feel like the Queen – what with having a Christmas Message – but, HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!

All of the Christmas pictures that we have taken whilst shopping, walking about and socialising over the last month or so.

[View with PicLens]

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At 12:01AM in Sydney – The girl, she says:

All our love to our lovely family and friends.

A&V.

xx

Tags: Australia, Christmas, Sydney

Starting hunting for Jobs In Sydney, Australia

Starting yesterday, we have now started with a vengeance to hunt for jobs in Sydney, as we are thinking that we should really look to have something underway before Christmas / New Year – what exactly we don’t know.

Searching for Jobs and Writing CV's in Sydney

A is looking for an SEO / Online Marketing role (the computer job that I have done for the last ten years – Mother!) and V is looking for some kind of office job at the minute, and also exploring the opportunities with the language schools in Bondi. The temporary work seems to be the main thing that will be there for V – it seems that it is a lot better paid and a lot more local than the language schools in Bondi (which still isn’t that far away!).

All this job hunting started out last Friday with a slightly elongated trip out to Surry Hills (we took the wrong bus, and ended up in the wrong direction) to meet @ScottRhodie – as friend of V’s who works for Hot House – a Sydney interactive marketing agency. He and another chap run the interestingly named social media networking event #shtbox (Surry Hills Twitter Beer Oclock Xchange). We had a rather strange realisation that his former boss is a  friend of A’s @TheJeffster – he hooked up with us at the V8 Supercars on Saturday. How bizarre? We come to the opposite side of the world, only to find that we have friends who independently know each other. They are both quite well known in the marketing and media circles, so I guess it would be inevitable.

At Shtbox, we ended up meeting some interesting characters, some in a more lubricated form than others, and did more drinking than networking, but headed home for an early night at about 12am leaving the rest of them out until apparently 4.00 ish. It was from Scott and Jeff that I heard about the SMCSYD (Sydney Social Media Club) Christmas party last night, which was a useful opportunity to meet up again with some of the people from Friday night.

Monday arrived, as and having spent most of the weekend sorting out an updated CV – SEO and Online Marketing Contractor Sydney, I headed off over to the centre of town in temperatures of about Gas Mark 4 in my shirt and trousers to meet up with an online media recruitment chap at a company called Xpand Recruitment I had spoken to them once we knew that we were coming over here to see if anything could be lined up in advance, but I soon found out – basically you have to be here to even speak to people – I guess that they get a lot of dreamers.

Sydney CBD around 120 Sussex St

Anyhow, Xpand Recruitment are based on Sussex St in the CBD a good few floors up a modern tower block. From street level, it isn’t anything special to look at, but once I was sat in the reception area, it offered great views looking out over the area that we had walked around over the weekend – specifically the Australian Marine Maritime Museum. Have a look at our walkabout in Darling Harbour if you missed any more of the pictures. I had a good chat with Xpand about the opportunities and there is a mixed bag of junior SEO roles, or very senior roles that would be great if I was planning on staying long term.

So having finished that meeting, I dashed out to try and find a printer to get some business cards printed, as the mobile phone numbers that we got have now been activated and are working problem free – we have even got the internet to work on them after a few initial problems.

We signed up on the text and talk Vodafone deal after talking to a few people about connectivity with the other networks. We just stuck $30 of credit on them both to start out – we will see how long it lasts. It isn’t just broadband that is really expensive over here – its mobile phones too, maybe it is all comms equipment – I don’t know. Anyhow, I got some same day business cards from a company called Kwik Kopy on Clarence St. in the centre of Sydney – they did a good job and they were only about $100 so I was happy enough.

Last night was very much a networking night – to try and meet some new media people in and around Sydney, I haven’t really done much of it in the last job I have had at AdStorm, so I really enjoyed going out solo and having a mosey about at the SMCSYD Xmas Party. It was held in something called the Oxford Art Factory which looks like it might be quite a cool little gig venue. There are a load of gigs and events listed on their website, I expect that we will end up back there at some point in the future. I ended up back in Darlinghurst at the Darlo Bar at about 10pm – everyone headed home early as it was a school night – there wasn’t a lot of shenanigans as I had expected – you would expect that in London, and I kind of imagined it would be the same here… Wrong! (there is a first)

The one thing that I have noticed about new media and marketing roles here is that everyone has a VERY specific and incredibly vague job title… Now I am used to London Marketing Spiel, but Sydney seems to have its own league… Whereas in the UK an online marketeer will have a broad range of skills and be adept at switching between roles and tasks, this is almost not the case here from what I can gather – everyone has a very niche job title and the roles do not seem to stretch much outside the job descriptions – its a bit odd – but I guess that it must work for them. I think that I am going to be very much looking at senior SEO roles over here as it is what my most recent jobs have entailed – and apparently the salaries are reasonably good if you have got the skills.

The other thing that I have noticed thus far is that they are quite a long way behind the UK in terms of internet connectivity because it is driving the two of us mad trying to find and apply for jobs! We are spending half of our time waiting for the internet to load rather than actually being able to do anything. In a nutshell – don’t expect to use skype very effectively when in Australia on Optus mobile broadband – we brought our parents and sister a webcam so that they could keep in touch whilst we were here, the video is pretty sporadic, audio is good, but can delay and drop depending on the time of day and the strength of the Optus signal. I would say don’t do what we did and buy expensive webcams, because they just won’t be able to perform on the mobile broadband – maybe we should find a cyber cafe – however it is just not very convenient going out at 9PM or 7.30 AM to make phone calls.

Anyhow, that’s your lot for today. V is out in the City with some recruitment lass, so hopefully she will be able to find something soon, or I will have to get out digging roads or something Alternatively – I could send V out digging roads… lol

Much Love,

Himself.

Tags: Australia, Christmas, jobs, Sydney, temp jobs

Christmas and Critters

A Very Random Christmas Bus at Sydney Central Station

The strangest thing about being in a hot Western country at Christmas time is seeing effigies of Santa Claus in a heavy velvet red and white suit. Poor bugger must be sweating like a dying badger. A hat with dangling corks, a pair of shorts and sunglasses would be so much more appropriate. And 12 ‘roos to pull his sleigh.

Anyway, enough of my random thoughts.

Last night, we went to Shtbox (Surry Hills Twitter Beer Oclock Xchange) at The Clock on Crown Street in Surry Hills. The evening is an opportunity for new media types to get together and have a beer and do some networking. Most people I met there had job titles I’d never even heard of. Our primary reason for going was to meet a long-standing internet buddy of mine (we’ve been chatting online for 11 years) which was cool, if a bit strange. He introduced us to a good crowd and I spent the more generous portion of the evening chatting to two young men who delighted in subjecting me to a run down of all the things that want to kill me in this country. So that’s most things, then.

V's Mosquito Bitten Toe

I’m leaving tomorrow. That is, if the red back spider or cassowary (a bird which can disembowel you – who knew?) don’t get me as I step onto the plane. I have already had my own run in with the local wildlife, in the form of a mosquito as I previously mentioned. My left foot middle toe is currently being loaned out to Sydney airport traffic control as a landing signal for incoming aircraft. It is a veritable beacon of itchy swelling and currently resembles the kind of sausage you would find on a cocktail stick at a child’s party.

The possum in Baz Luhrmann's Garden

On the positive side, I met a possum yesterday evening, to which I pretty much lost my heart. I know, I know, they get in your loft and nest in your wedding dress and such like and probably cause untold havoc to your insulation – but they’re so damn CUTE. Just look at his widdle nose….. of course, tear your face off soon as look at you if you were to go within a metre radius of it but from a distance – so cute.

I digress… so last night was the real beginning of our Sydney social scene and it rather feels like we’ve so much to fit in and so little time in which to do it. It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do it. Sigh……

Tags: Australia, Christmas, dangerous animals, shtbox, Sydney, sydney social scene