Issac I take it you will be picking up the tab in may for dinner eh

As long as I don't have to pick up the tag for flying you guys out to Four Points Sydney....

I am gonna search on the cost of an aussie vacation right now. I just have to watch for the snakes and spiders and jellyfish

We will work on you footing the bill for a vaca later.

Australia is a very safe place. Except for inside the Tasmanian Devil cage (at Featherdale Wildlife Refuge). Tasmanian Devils make a really weird high-pitched scream when their pissed off:

Ahh yes I know it well!

I have stayed there before once or twice.

You may have seen alot of Asian tourists as they are usually the only ones who can afford to stay at such beautiful hotels! The Yanks and Europenas tend to stay in hostel or lower quality accomodation to save money and stay longer!

Bondi, that place had an incredible buffet dinner. My wife and I cleared out all the sashimi, before going on to the shrimp and crab. The shrimp still had their heads on. That's something I hadn't seen in the States. And the crab clearly was a species I had never seen before. They cut it in half down the middle. It made it very easy to eat.

The myths u hear about Australia with snakes, spiders, crocodiles etc are overblown thanks to Stever Irwin et al.

Fact is most tourist destinations here are big cities. While it may not be big compared to the US almost 5 million ppl love in Sydney alone.

The only place you will find these deadly creatures is in what we call the outback (rural areas) and not many people go there.

I would fathom to think it would be quite expensive due to the distance most of you would have to travel. Thats why people come here and stay for a month or two to make it worthwhile or tag it onto their asian, bali, fiji etc holidays

It was probably a blue swimmer or sand groper crab! Shrimp (prawns) are almost always served with heads on here to keep the freshness and the taste.

It is probably a 4.5 to 5 star hotel so the service, food, room, view would have been magnificent!

I guess that makes sense. They were all over me at the concierge desk. I'm surprised they didn't give me a scalp massage every time I asked for directions.

We were trying to find all the nude beaches but didn't want to come out and ask directly. So, we would ask about places around the beach. And they were like, "Why would you want to go there? There's a much better restaurant/store/part/etc. at" some place about 10 miles away....

See most of the stuff I seen was ont he discovery channels top ten deadlies **fill in the blanks** shows that they do and the top two always seem to be in Austrailia they said the brown snake I think it was is commom in populated areas.

That is what scared me but I am thinking it would be worth the trip now.

When you are over my way in a few months go eat at the crab pot the heads are on them there to

Correct... the Brown Snake is Australian but it is only found in the outback of rural/ semi rural type areas and its not like they are all over the place so much so you cant see the floor! If you come to any major city the only place you will see these deadly creatures you speak of will be in ZOO's!

Ok I feel much better now, they were showing them in communities crawling through garages and stuff I was like forget that.

Seemed the deadliest everything was there:P

haha no doubt we have some deadly shit here but not in the city!

You should be more worried about people like me!

I live here do you really think I am worried of you

Allthough that wolf creek movie the dude was pretty wacky

muhahaha *best evil luagh i can do*

It was too cold for us to get into the water (although, it didn't stop us from hanging out naked on the sand). However, if it had been warm, I would have been worried about:

Irukanji (not sure if I have the spelling right)
Sea Wasp/Box Jelly
Stone Fish

I have no idea what the first one is?

Box Jelly fish are only found in deep water so swimming at a beach you'll have no problems. No one has EVER encountered a box jellyfish at a sydney beach!

Stone Fish are tropical I believe so you'd only see them in the Barrier Reef and once again will not harm you unless you piss it off!

DAMNIT I had a bunch of questions for you Bondi and now I cant remember any of them

Just relax and it'll come









(get that one Gnappy)

Ok i remembered one thing, Is crime high there?? And what sort of natural disasters do your guys get ?

ok one more cause I am having trouble finding it online, what is the average price of housing in the sydney area. Like 3 bedroom maybe 4 bedroom home in a good area. I can find plenty of houses online but not the cost and what is the average home loan in Aus. length that is of the loan.

Diane, I don't know what the cost is, but it has to be more reasonable than the U.S. Crime rate seemed very low. We are out at night a lot in Sydney and Melbourne and everything seemed orderly and safe.

By the way, while we were there, Australia was running public service announcments encouraging peopel to move there. I was really surprised about that. I remember reading something about Australia estimating that it needed to increase it's population pretty dramatically to achieve certain things.

THanks Issac I was trying to look up realesate online and was having a hard time finding a cost or what is a good affordable area away from the snakes and spiders:P and such.

The wolf Creek movie creeped me out but heck that is childs play to the daily crime we have here. For my profession it would be easy for me to get a visa for the family to move there allthough I am thinking 10 years down the road. Give or take but I am seriously considering it. I want to be able to enjoy life not just be worked to death always trying to stay safe and get by ya know.

Australia is probably the first, second, and third choice for an American to consider moving to if you were going to leave here. Except for what side of the road you drive on, it seemed identical to America to me.

Less tv channels, though. I think there were like 5 in my Sydney hotel room.

Also, it is a freaking 13-hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. 13 hours!!! So, if you move, you will basically be leaving your friends and family pretty much for good.

That is not a casual flight -- I can tell you that. I watched something like four full-length movies on the trip up. On the positive side, beer and wine were free and unlimited. Being someone who loves free stuff, I drank three glasses of merlot (maybe more - who knows?) and passed clean out. When I woke up again, all the lights in the plane were off. I had to use the bathroom and almost threw up getting out of my seat. I staggered down the aisle into the bathroom, holding onto seats the whole way.

Glad I wasnt on that flight.

Friends I can keep in touch via internet we dont see eachother a lot anyway and only family I have is dad and step mom and I would try hard to convince them to come too LOL.

Not to bum you out, but you would really have to think of the logistics of it. By the time you move, your sons could be of the age where they flatly refuse to go. I know people whose kids stayed behind and finished high school with friends rather than move with family. So, this is the kind of thing that you would have to do soon, or would have to make a great "marketing push" to them that being on the other side of the world would be good for them.

Actually Issac the kid aspect would be the easiest part. They are very eager to go new places and expiearnce new things us moving to CO they are more excited than us to go and to live where there are beaches they would be in heaven.

In relation to major cities in the USA crime is low. As in every major city around the world we are no utopia but crime levels will almost certainly be lower than anywhere in America.

In the north of the country you may get the occasional hurrciane/cyclone but that is it. In sydney the worst thing you will get from mother nature is sunburn



The closer to the CBD you get the higher the prices are. Median prices I believe are approx $450k to A$500k

Home loans can be taken over any period you choose to pay it off, usually with a maxiumum over 30 years but its a case by case situation.

Isaac yes we only have 5 free to air channels but cable is very common and inexpensive here

I forgot which hotel only seemed to have the 5 free to air channels. I think it was Carlton Crest Melbourne. Four Points Sydney was a better hotel in ever way. Not that Carlton Crest was a dive, though.