Metropolitan Sydney

Sydney is a globally recognized city with the most famous harbour, the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and awesome beaches. In addition to being the most famous city in Australia, it also has the highest population and contributes around a quarter of the national GDP. Sydney too is ranked high in the world's most liveable cities.

However, with strong population growth and competition in cities throughout Australia and the world, Sydney's pace is slowing in comparison. Two important natural hindrance is that 1) the current CBD is actually far to the east of the Sydney metropolitan area; and 2) the harbour (which ironically is what made Sydney great) is acting as a barrier to efficient transportation and is limiting the growth of the city.

The NSW government has realized for many years that to ensure Sydney remains globally competitive, productive, sustainable and liveable, the best strategy forward is to strengthen "a city of cities." The image below is taken from the “Metropolitan Plan for Sydney 2036” and shows the cities and centres in Metropolitan Sydney.

It is clear that the current harbour CBD is not the centre of Metropolitan Sydney. Parramatta is the closest to being considered the centre, and is in fact already officially regarded to be the second CBD of Sydney. Forecasts show that half of the population in Metropolitan Sydney will live west of Parramatta within the next 20 years.

The NSW Department of Planning & Infrastructure has pointed out that the best strategy going forward is to ensure most of the jobs and homes are close to the existing or planned cities and centres. I agree with this strategy and also many points in the long-term planning document, except that not enough emphasis is placed on growing Parramatta to be a truly great CBD.

I would like to have the second Sydney CBD to rival that of Melbourne, with:

1. the tallest skyscrapers in Australia;
2. motorway and world-class traffic interchange with heavy and light rail connecting other cities and centres in Sydney; and
3. high-speed rail connecting Parramatta to the harbour CBD, airport, and other Australian capital cities.

The current habour CBD can continue to be the world famous tourist destination. The two CBDs can work hand-in-hand, playing their respective strengths, to ensure the long-term competitiveness and prosperity of the whole metropolitan region.

Parramatta is still far from being a premier CBD, but there is certainly the potential if you buy into
the vision and help make it happen. Parramatta is the true geographic centre of Metropolitan Sydney, and it'll be to the benefit (think more affordable housing and less traffic congestion) of all Sydneysiders if it can become a truly amazing CBD.

We need everyone's help, no matter how big or how small, to make Sydney a competitive, dynamic and liveable city. Our home.

1. Design and build iconic landmarks and skyscrapers in the second CBD.
2. Locate company headquarters and government organizations there.
3. Work, live, shop and dine in central Sydney where possible.
4. Provide feedback on the "NSW Long Term Transport Master Plan," asking for more transport investment for Parramatta.
5. Spread the word!

Harbourside Apartment

This time I chose to rent a one bedroom at the Harbourside Apartment, which is right next to the McMahons Point‎ Ferry Wharf. There are ferries connecting the wharf to Circular Quay, Darling Habour, and Pyrmont every 30 minutes or so (timetable), making it quite convenient.

Commuting by ferry turns out to be feasible but not cheap -- the best choice would be MyMulti 1, which costs $43 a week and allows for unlimited ferry, bus, tram, and short-distance train.

There's limited bus to this area but the North Sydney train station is just 1km away -- though it's uphills to the station so it may take a good 20 minutes of walk. After reaching the station you can easily reach Chatswood and various parts of the Sydney city by transferring at the usual hubs.

Apartment facilities are okay with good swimming pool, laundry, vending machines, and friendly reception that's open 7am-11pm.

The one bedroom apartment has an open lounge + dining + kitchen, which makes it feel quite spacious. The amenities are not great but reasonable, with all the required appliances (LCD TV, DVD player, hifi, refrigerator, stove, oven, dishwasher, kettle, toaster, hair dryer, iron, heater, etc) and kitchenware.

The dual layer curtains are very practical, but as with most apartments the noise from plumbing or neighbours are quite expected. (Note some high-end buildings in Taiwan actually do an excellent job in noise prevention.)

One of the best features of the apartment is the view of the harbour, notably the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Here is a 300x time-lapsed video that shows the view from the kitchen window -- the video is under 3 minutes but captures 15 hours from sunrise to sunset.

 The area at McMahons Point is very quiet with few shops around. It's nice there's greens here where you can lay back, enjoy the great view/sun, and read a good book.

Although I've enjoyed the stay here, the price tag for short stays, at close to $2,000 a week, is too high.

Trip to Blue Mountains (Katoomba, Leura)

Went to the popular tourist destination Katoomba and Leura in Blue Mountains this Saturday. Katoomba is very accessible, with return rail tickets from Central costing only $11.40. Simply search for the Blue Mountains line to Lithgow when you are at Central station. Note trains depart hourly (search for timetable on 131500) and the ride takes 2 hours (driving seems to be 30min faster), so you probably want to bring a good book to read on the way (or do your favorite group activities such as play guitar and sing, card/board games etc.).

Although Katoomba and the nearby Leura are both relatively small towns, it can still take tens of minutes to walk between the various attractions. You can choose to hop on the Blue Mountains Explorer Bus (more frequent but more expensive) or the Trolley Shuttle (cheaper, less frequent, last bus runs later) to get to various attractions faster, and save your time for good hikes along the cliff or the valley.

 Scenic World is a major attraction in Katoomba, claiming to have the steepest railway in the world (Scenic Railway), the highest cable car in Australia (Scenic Skyway), the biggest cable car in Australia (Scenic Cableway), and the longest boardwalk in the Southern Hemisphere (Scenic Walkway). Scenic World takes a good 30 minute walk from the Katoomba station, so you'd want to take the Explorer Bus and get off either at "Skyway Eastern Anchorage" (the east point of Scenic Skyway) or Scenic World.

The Scenic Railway apparently holds the Guinness Book of Records for the world's steepest railway. The official certificate says it's 310m long with a gradient of 1 in 0.82, while the sign post in the valley claims it's 415m long with a 206m vertical drop, a 80m long natural tunnel, and with a steepest incline of 52 degrees. Anyway, it's definitely a worthwhile ride, especially if you can get in the front seat like I did!

  

At the valley there's a coal mine exhibition explaining the mining history of Katoomba and there's elevated boardwalk through the forest. The boardwalk is partially carpeted that allows casual walking in most weather conditions.

I chose to take the Cableway to go back up. It's a huge cable car that claims to be able to hold 84 people. And I also took the Skyway that has a good view of the Kaboomta Falls, and has a part of its floor transparent to see the 270m drop.

Echo Point is a great place to see the Three Sisters and blue mountains at a distance. Below are some of the pictures my colleagues and I took. You can visit my album at Google+, which offers a great photo viewing experience.

There are several nice hiking trails in the vicinity. I took the cliff walk that has several great outlooks. Although the weather is good at the time, some parts of the walk are muddy from the continuous raining previously. On the bright side, waterfalls are likely to be more spectacular. Below are shots of the Leura Falls that is highly recommended by the bus driver (we were originally planning to check out Gordon Falls but the driver persuaded us otherwise). 

A colleague has suggested us to go to Leura for great restaurants after visiting Three Sisters and Scenic Railway, so we pulled out Google Maps and found Silk's Brasserie which had a 5-star rating. Below are photos of the Pan-seared scallops with avocado, salmon, tatsoi salad, light wasabi dressing and the Roast Moroccan lamb loin with couscous, pine-nuts, date, tomato relish + spicy harissa dishes that I ordered. They are indeed very good!

Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is really a wonder to look at. It's spectacular in many angles and when coming close one gets to appreciate how large the structure is (and that the roof is covered by more than a million "glossy white- and matte-cream-coloured" tiles).

The (essential) tour is quite worth it IMO with good tour guides explaining the details and history of the Sydney Opera House (and here are some good sites: 1, 2), and also that we get to walk in and sit in the two large halls -- Concert Hall (2,679 seats with the grand organ) and Opera Theatre (1,507 seats).

Airline selection when living in Sydney

Most airlines have frequent flyer programs to encourage customers to choose their airline, offering incentives like lounge access, higher mileage accumulation (which can be used for upgrades or free tickets), check-in and luggage priority, reservation priority, etc. It's thus beneficial to stick to an airline where possible.

My previous airline of choice was Eva Air (based in Taiwan), and I have achieved Gold card status (just after Diamond) where I have enjoyed the airline's quality lounge and priority check-in/luggage services. Unfortunately, the airline does not fly to Sydney but only Brisbane:

• BR0315 TPE → BNE 3 5 ; 2230~0910
• BR0316 BNE → TPE 4 6 ; 1025~1725

My most frequent destinations after moving to Sydney is likely Taipei, followed by maybe San Francisco, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, and Bangalore for work, and maybe other places around Asia and domestic cities and destinations in Australia (e.g., Brisbane, Melbourne) for leisure. Qantas, the flag carrier of Australia, may be the logical choice of airline for most people in Sydney (above image shows its hub/destinations), but unfortunately it doesn't have direct flights to my favorite destinations such as Taipei and San Francisco (last flight 2011/5/6).

In fact, the only direct flight between Taipei and Sydney is by China Airlines:

• CI0051 TPE → SYD 2 3 5 7 ; 2355~1105
• CI0052 SYD → TPE 1 3 4 6 ; 2210~0540

And direct flight between Sydney and San Francisco is by United Airlines:

• UA870 SYD → SFO ; 1445~1101
• UA863 SFO → SYD ; 2250~0625

Although there's plenty of connecting flights, I would rather forfeit frequent flyer incentives than withstand the extra time and effort (which can easily bump a 9h flight to 14+ hours).

Finally, it's worth pointing out the three global airline alliances:

1. Star Alliances  -- includes United; Eva Air may become a member;
2. SKYTEAM -- China Airlines and Virgin Blue may join in the future;
3. oneworld -- includes Qantas.

Metro Light Rail in Sydney

While "strolling" around Pyrmont using Google Earth/Maps, it occurred to me that the Metro Light Rail (MLR) is not what I initially thought it was. The website deceivingly shows a picture of the train on normal roads, whereas in reality it mostly runs on dedicated tracks, as can be seen from this time-lapsed YouTube video that shows the complete MLR trip (there's also a related video that shows nearby attractions for each stop which can be useful).

Another surprising find is that the Exhibition stop, although right next to the Sydney exhibition halls, does not seem to actually access them. Instead, from evidence of Google Street View and Bing's Bird's eye (image on the right) it seems the stop is accessed via Pyrmont road.

Update (2011/05/31): as the above hypothesis is quite unbelievable I went to check out a real metro light / monorail station (Convention station) -- it's feasible for the station to be accessed on both sides.

Considerations of renting in Pyrmont

My first thought is to find a place that's within walking (or biking?) distance to the office (preferably within 20mins). Compared to my current 1.5 hour commute (between Zhubei and Taipei), this will save me more than two hours a day. =D

Public transportation seems quite good around Pyrmont, with seemingly very convenient Light Rail and Monorail, ferries, buses, trains (@Central station), etc., so I should be able to tour various parts of Sydney easily. On the other hand, I could live further away and take public transport to work, but unless there's good reasons I'll stick to my plan of walking to office.

I need only a small unit (maybe a studio), preferably nicely decorated and fully furnished with bed, fridge, laundry, etc. so I don't need to worry about buying furnitures, decorating the place, or cleaning up gardens but instead focus more on adapting to working and living in a new country in the first months/years.

It would be nice if there's swimming pool and gym in the building so I can stay healthy and fit unless there's an aquatic/fitness centre nearby.

Thanks to a colleague that made a "My Map" of local info near the office, it seems living in Pyrmont is quite convenient with all the public transportation stops, groceries, medical center, entertainment, fish market, and more. My next steps is probably to "stroll" around Pyrmont using Google StreetView to learn more of the vicinity, find a few units that matches my criteria on real estate sites, and then physically fly to Sydney to inspect the units and experience the environment for real.

Finding housing near Pyrmont, Sydney

Let's start looking at finding an appropriate housing when working in Sydney. I would want to rent as I am not familiar with Sydney/Australia real estate yet, and also there is perception that housing prices in Australia are overvalued. I'll spend much time in finding a good place to ensure it's comfortable (considering that half of one's time is spent in a house), convenient, and affordable. Also, efforts spent here can help in buying an ideal home later.

The median weekly rent in Sydney seems to be around $450 (1, 2), up from $250 in 2006! It seems the rent near my office (Pyrmont) is even more than that for just a small unit, which is not too surprising as it's next to the city center.

There seems to be several websites that lists places to rent, such as:

• Domain -- likes its feature selection is easy to use, and can specify if the feature is important or nice to have;
• *Nestoria -- likes its Ajax UI that allows very intuitive and responsive selections;
• realestate.com.au -- claims to be the biggest address in property (not sure what that means); though I don't like its selection (such as bedrooms) is only single selection;
• property.com.au -- claims to be the largest list of properties; the site strangely has the same interface as realestate.com.au;
• homehound --  seems okay, but there's bug in UI (overlapping text);
• LJ Hooker -- available units for rent seems sparse near Pyrmont, and photo gallery for each unit also seems sparse; 
• Real Estate First National Australia -- few units around Pyrmont, search interface hard to use;
• Just Rent Sydney -- even fewer units near Pyrmont.

Let me focus on the first four sites for the moment, and also come up with my criteria for a good place to rent in the following posts.

*Updated on 4/21 -- thanks to Kat for pointing out the Nestoria (Australia) site.

Learning about Sydney/Australia

Whilst waiting for the visa, let me learn more about living in Sydney. Wikipedia is a good start that gives a high-level overview of everything about Sydney, while Wikitravel is more suitable for traveling to and living there. The official City of Sydney site may eventually be useful but it's harder to swallow at the moment than more casual sites such as http://www.sydney.com/.

The resources available on the web is abundant, but I still prefer reading books to learn on subjects I'm not familiar with to gain a very comprehensive understanding of the topic efficiently. Already bought and read some books but will continue to read more.

It seems there are a lot of nice attractions and things to do in Sydney and in Australia, so I know I won't be bored there! =)

It's interesting to note the different timezones in various states/territories in Australia. It can range from UTC+8, +9.5, +10, +10.5, to +11 (Taipei +0~3h). This is one of the main reason I selected Sydney (UTC+10 standard time and UTC+11 daylight saving time) to work in, since it's only 5~7 hours from the headquarter in the U.S., while Taipei is 8~9 hours away.

Preparing to move and work in Sydney, Australia

I have lived in Taiwan (mostly Hsinchu, Taipei, and Kaohsiung) for 20 years and in South Africa (Johannesburg) for 12 years. It's now time to move to Sydney and turn over a new leaf in life. =)

There's a lot of things to do. Fortunately, there are a lot of resources on the web that can help, such as the site dedicated to "starting a new life in Australia."

Let's work on each item one by one. First, I'll need to get an appropriate visa so I can work in Sydney and make a living. For my case, it'll be the 457 visa -- Temporary Business (Long Stay) - Standard Business Sponsorship thanks to sponsorship from my current employer. Even with help from dedicated migration agents, there's a lot of documents to prepare (such as resume, transcripts, references, etc.) and I will need to perform health checks with designated panel doctors in my home country after the migration agent lodged the visa application.