Wagga Wagga

Dear Dad,

How are things? I thought I'd write this email to you and just let Adelle print it out for you.

Oks naman ako dito. I spent a little over a week in Sydney... I had to wait until I could find a place to stay in Wagga Wagga... my friend here was able to get me a rented room at the house of a young filipino couple in Wagga. I bought a second hand Honda CRV so that I could drive to Wagga which is about 5 hours away. I also bought a GPS so that I wouldnt have a hard time navigating. This device can navigate for you. Just punch in the house number, street and city... and it will give you directions verbally and visually to the destination. It works using satellite signals.

So i drove to Wagga last Feb 23 and since then Ive been trying to get a feel of the place and also applying to a few jobs which Ive seen online. I attended a conference on the "regional" (read: provincial) economy which was great because I met a lot of people from the city hall (they call it council) and from some big businesses here. Working for the council is a big possibility for me because they pay well and are prime employers here (unlike in the Philippines where you would hate to work for the government).

So far I think it was a good choice for me to choose Wagga because they are only slightly affected by this crisis. Wagga is the center of an area called Riverina, where much of Australias wine comes from. There are a lot of cattle here as well and Cargill, one of the world's largest agri companies, operates here. Many consumers from the small towns come over to Wagga during the weekend to shop so it is also a big retail center. It is like an Alabang Town Center with lots of residential areas surrounding the main city center and main street where all the shops are. There are 2 malls which are right beside each other. Not very large but you can have all the city conveniences you can find there.

Internet connection is expensive here because the population density isnt high so you can imagine the infrastructure cost. But otherwise, I'm surprised that much of everything else (hard goods like appliances) is about the same price as manila. Food might even be cheaper here. But what is really expensive are the services. Anything that requires any sort of labor is expensive like restaurants, haircuts, car repairs, healthcare, etc. Shops close early here (5pm) but at least the grocery is open till 10pm.

Today I tried exercising on my road bike (I brought it partially dismantled from Manila!) for the first time. I rode about 23kms. short ride lang but very nice. Theres a small lake nearby that is very picturesque. Sun sets here at around 8pm so many people exercise right after getting off at 5pm. The weather is extremes. In the daytime it gets hot up to about 32 C but at night it goes down to about 13 C. Sometimes I go to bed in shorts and I wake up at around 2am to put on a sweater and pants because of the cold. Parang the house gets warm and keeps it inside but later on the cold just gets in. and its just summer. Soon it will get colder as autumn comes in around April.

Bye for now.

Dave