Sydney

When deciding on the city to live in, initially we wanted to go to Melbourne because my husband like the city. But I have some reservations about Melbourne.

I visited Melbourne with 2 of my ex-colleagues when they came and visit me in Sydney. So it was natural that I decided to follow them to Melbourne. I heard that it is the best city to live and I was curious about the trams there. My expectations (again) was quite high of this city and naturally I was a bit disappointed at what I see. I like the trams but I don't like the lines above it, it makes the city views from the trams looking like spider web hehehehe (a bit exaggerating, I know). Only after visiting Melbourne I realise that I am a city girl. I don't like old colonial buildings which I thought would be cool, until I'm surrounded by many of them.

Sidetracking a bit, I notice a pattern here. I thought that I don't like stressful city life but I miss the hustle and bustle of Singapore when I was in Sydney. I thought I like European-like city like Melbourne, but actually i'm so used to new, modern buildings. It seems what we thought we would like may not be the same until we go through it.

So, I convinced my husband that it would be easier for me to find a job in Sydney. I'm not sure i'm 100% right. But, I know of a friend who chose Melbourne as his city of migration coz he lived in Sydney before (schooling) . He couldn't get a job after half-year or a year until he got an offer to work in Sydney. From there, I deduce that it is easier to find banking job in Sydney.

Also, all my friends are in Sydney.
Let's see, 7 friends from my church migrated there in the last 4-5 years and most of them are in the same church as the one I went when I was in Sydney. So I'll get to meet these old friends and we have many things in common. We are Indonesians, we worked in Singapore before and we went to the same church here. All of them are closer friends from choir group or young adult fellowship, and most of them are within the close circle of group e-mail. Of course, it'd be different this time as most of them are married with kids, but it's always nice to know that you know some old friends in a foreign land.
And I made new friends over there, and I hope I could see them again. I hope I could still go to have breakfast at Coogee beach with them before going to the office.

But housing would be expensive there.
We would most probably rent an apt there first. Get a job and try to save up for a house. If we can't afford a house there, then maybe we would explore possibilities of some other cities.

My 'gang'-mate told me that he's going to Brisbane to work and hopefully buy a house. He thinks that Sydney houses are unaffordable and he's finding another place with reasonable price. When he told me that, I started to worry that what I read from the news are really true (you know sometimes news usually exaggerate the actual problem). My husband's friend in Adelaide asked us to consider Adelaide too. With so many choices, I decided that it'd be good to stay in Sydney as job security would be important in the first few years.

I was a bit worried if my hubby could find an engineering job there, but i'm sure he would be happy to be a stay-at-home husband for the first few months or years. Anyway, he's thinking of doing business so i'm going to let him explore in his own time.

If he is desperate for a job, and he got an offer in other cities, I will follow along and it'd be my turn to relax hehehe....

So, we will evaluate the city choices again after 2 years in Sydney if we can't buy a house in Sydney.