One Year in Sydney....

Its been a year since moving to Sydney and time has really flown by....sigh.....I am now thoroughly used to Sydney life and have already fit into the routine of daily life here....

Well, about how i rate Sydney as compared to Melbourne....i guess they are different...
I expected Sydney to be pretty much the same as Melbourne but there are actually quite alot of differences. Its much more cosmopolitan in Sydney i feel... i see more different races.....the Thai population is definitely more visible here and there are tons of Thai students and people in the CBD whereas you don't really see that many Thais in Melbourne...there is even a 'Thai Town' in the CBD where alot of Thai people congregate as there are alot of Thai groceries there and Thai video entertainment rentals which is not found in Melbourne. In fact, I hardly saw any Thai groceries in my entire 6 plus years there and hardly saw any Thai rental stores in the CBD....or maybe they are in the suburbs....on the other hand, the Vietnamese community is smaller in Sydney than Melbourne...i mean Melbourne has alot of Vietnamese suburbs such as Victoria St or Richmond but i think Sydney only has one in Cabramatta.....

There are also more Koreans in Sydney as opposed to Melbourne....there is like 'Koreatown' here both in the city (the city area is teeming with Koreans!!) and in Strathfield which seriously looks like a suburb of South Korea...and the Indonesians have 'Indo Town' as well in Kingsford....all these are not present in Melbourne (to my knowledge)...i don't think there is any particular suburb with a strong enough presence of the above two nationalities to constitute a 'town'...although there are alot of Indonesians and Koreans in Melbourne as well!!! There just doesn't seem to be a particular area where they have congregated to form a 'Indo' or 'Korean' Town. I however haven't found a nice Indonesian restaurant yet ( i am going to Kingsford so maybe i will find one there perhaps!!) unlike my fav one in Melbourne on Swanston St...so sad...haha...

Sydney weather is also hotter which is something I miss about Melbourne cos i love the cold....Melbourne also has a much cosier and warmer feeling compared to Sydney and so I miss that too...I miss Collins Street and its Parisian feeling especially on cold winter nights where the entire street just simply looks stunning....I also miss places like Southbank which is quiet and has this nice feel to it, a nice place to live in....

However, what I love about Sydney is the Asian food as there is much more variety and better in choice than Melbourne Asian food....i had authentic Japanese ramen here which is available at Ramenkan which isn't found anywhere in Melbourne....the ramen in Melbourne is not authentic and many of the Sydney ones aren't also like Ichiban Boshi or Wagamama (the ramen there SUCKS...i have like NO idea why its so popular with the Australians...its an international chain too!!) ..however many people like the unauthentic ones so i guess its a difference in taste preferences but the one at Ramenkan is like the ONLY place which serves ramen like it is in Japan...oh yeah and Menya serves authentic ramen too...but i prefer ramenkan much more as the soup stock is superior...
Also, i just discovered that Sydney has the nice suburb of Potts Point which is a nice place to live at just like Southbank....and it has Westfield Bondi Junction which is like the nicest shopping mall in Sydney and the equivalent of Chadstone in Melbourne....the view across the Bridge and Sydney cityscape from the foodcourt is amazing and a must-see for all people visiting Sydney...i mean you pay foodcourt prize for a high-end view....the foodcourt's interior is modernly designed in the style of the 'Foodloft' chain of foodcourts in Asia....

There is also Kings Cross and Oxford Street in Sydney which is absent in Melbourne catering for people whom swing either way.....there are much more visibly gay people in Sydney....i noticed alot of gay men on the streets, much more than in Melbourne, which prob explains why Sydney is named one of the gay capitals in the world....and there are so many Thai gay men that it isn't funny..haha...like out of 10 thai men i meet or see, i think 9 are gay!! Almost all the Thai restaurants have like 9 out of 10 waiters whom are gay....i asked my Thai housemate and she also said there are like so many Thai gay men around and she doesn't know why...she also confirmed that most of the Thai restaurants from the chef to the waiters are predominantly gay....gosh we were both lamenting how hard it must be for Thai girls to find a 'real man' (now, this is the way Thai people call straight men, i find it funny and interesting though i don't condone such misguided terms for sexuality)...she even asked her boyfriend (whom lives together with her) whether he was gay or not when they first met!! Cos she seems to have like over a dozen thai gay male friends, some of whom she never suspected of being gay and even had girl frens...whatever is a thai girl to do these days??

All in all, I think I made the right decision to move here....people have to move on and not always stay in the same place...i like change, i like excitement and i like exploring a whole exciting new place...so i guess the move was the right thing to do....I hope the next year in Sydney brings more excitement and more importantly, more new things to discover....:):):)