When I read Ka Uro’s February 28 blog post titled Life Abroad is not all Roses, this part reminded me of the time I was forced to move to Canberra way back in 2001:
Ang bansag nga namin sa kanya “Bulok”, kasi wala kang maririnig sa kanya kundi ang salitang “bulok”. “Bulok naman dito sa New Zealand, malungkot. Sa amin marami kang mahihiraman ng VCD, DVD, video games. Dito walang Jollibee, walang MegaMall, etc. etc. … bulok ang New Zealand.”
Like “Bulok’s” comments about New Zealand, I was thinking that there wasn’t much to Canberra during my first few weeks living there. I just came from living in Sydney for three months where it was all so metropolitan.
I was over three months without a client in Sydney at the time and most of my fellow Filipino acquaintances working for the same Australian IT consulting firm I belong to were sent packing back to the Philippines because they couldn’t get a client after three months. You can say that I really didn’t have a choice and I was reluctant to move to Canberra. I had myself thinking of intentionally doing bad in interviews I was going to have in Canberra. Of course I couldn’t do that. I tried my best with each interview.
I didn’t get the first couple of jobs I interviewed for. And when I thought I actually did bad in an interview (I was even convincing the manager that I wasn’t at all qualified for the ASP web developer position they had on offer), I got the job. I guess they were pretty desperate. I dunno. Anyway, it was just as well. I’d rather leave Sydney to go to Canberra than leave Australia altogether.
Since they were in a hurry for me to start working, I wasn’t able to bring all I had with me on my move to Canberra. I had to return to Sydney the next weekend to pack and bring over the rest of my stuff.
I arrived in Canberra on the evening of the day before I start working at the hospital via interstate train. My account manager picked me up at the train station at Kensington and drove me to the suburb of Phillip where I was to live.
During the ride, I couldn’t help but notice the gloominess of all that was around me. It wasn’t that late and it seemed that everybody was already asleep. I was also not used to seeing houses having all lights turned off during the night. Back in the Philippines, people tend to leave at least one light turned on (to ward off burglars I suppose). Right there and then, I realised how much I was going to miss Sydney. I thought then, there wasn’t anything in Canberra.
When I got to the apartment, I felt that it was in the middle of nowhere. It was a compound of townhouse apartments in the middle of the bush. That’s what I thought at the time, at least.
After a few days, I was able to get hold of a map of Canberra and its suburbs. I was able to explore the surrounding area. I realised that I needed a car but since I couldn’t afford one at the time (and I didn’t have an Australian drivers’ licence), I bought a bike instead. I was not pleased to discover that shops close a lot earlier in Canberra than in Sydney (which still has most shops closing early). There really wasn’t a lot of places to go to specially at night.
Raquel was still in the Philippines at the time and my friends were all in Sydney. It was pretty lonely and boring at the beginning. Later on, I found ways to pass the time with activities like starting my own webcomic Lovarian Adventures, watching a lot of DVD and videos, playing PC network games like Counter-strike and Unreal Tournament, and surfing the web.
I eventually got used to Canberra and its slowness of pace and tranquility and serenity. I actually began to like it. All those years I lived in Canberra, I kept on thinking about returning to a big city like Sydney. I missed city life with its crowded streets and late-closing shops and cool events.
Me with my drawing book on Commonwealth Ave Bridge above Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra.
Now that we’re here in Melbourne, Raquel and I realised that we in fact miss living in Canberra. We miss the fact that with a car, we can get almost anywhere around Canberra all within half-an-hour’s drive. We miss the wide open roads and space. We miss the peace and quiet. We miss the people who seem to be more friendly than those who live in either Sydney or Melbourne.
Maybe it’s just a case of the grass being greener but we now think that maybe when we retire, we could return to Canberra, our home away from home in Australia, to live the rest of our lives there.
Oh and before I end this, I just realised something. I originally came from the Philippines. In Canberra, I lived in the suburb of Phillip. And now In Melbourne, I live in the City of Port Phillip. Coincidence or something more mysterious?
