So who felt gross today? It was a day of change as Fraser’s brother David, Leonie, Lachlan and Alistair had to head back to Adelaide in the early evening. We have been a little naughty as they have been staying in the rental apartment with us which only allows the maximum of five people and charge additional for the fifth person.
So of course we had the two boys in the apartment with one sleeping on the couch and the other on a blow up bed on the lounge floor and not paying the extra money. We asked that the apartment only be serviced as we request it, but something seems to get lost in translation as they have been servicing it every day. The building is run by Asian people, cleaned by Asian people and we appear to be the only white fellas staying so hence the language difficulties. So they have been in and out of the apartment but don’t appear to be bothered with the additional people.
Paula and Dex returned early this evening after having a fun Christmas with friends down at Newport. It was decided we would head out for dinner but poor Fras had hit the sack as he has a nasty cold that he is fighting. Pretty amazing that neither of us have had any colds before now considering the travelling we have been doing.
We have been to Melbourne many times before and both of Frasers parents come from the city but since our return this time there is a huge change. The population has exploded, there is frenetic building everywhere causing chaos in the city and the traffic is at grid lock. The population of Melbourne is 5 million and soon to surpass the 5.1 million population of Sydney. A lot of this has been created by immigration but also a lot of people moving in from regional areas. We have decided that inner city living is for the younger people.
Like Sydney, Melbourne house prices are ridiculous. The median house price in Melbourne is $903,000 whilst in Sydney it is $1.1million. Who on earth can afford these horrendous prices. Melbourne and Sydney have exactly the same problems as Toronto and Vancouver with overseas people buying up homes and leaving them empty forcing the average home buyer out of the market.
Auckland in New Zealand home prices are exactly the same. Median house price there is $911,000. What the Kiwis have done to combat this problem is by making it that any overseas investors are only allowed to buy new builds. Whether this helps or not only time will tell. Australia has slapped on a foreigner purchasers tax. Not sure where all this is going to end but we do know we wouldn’t be able to afford to live in Melbourne. We always thought Melbourne would be our city of choice were we to move to back here because of the cooler weather and four season climate. It is certainly out of our reach plus it is just too big now.
Enough doom and gloom. Dex, Paula and Di headed across to the casino to the food hall for some dinner and chose Thai whilst Fras went to bed to recover. It was true authentic Thai food as it blew the top off Di’s head whilst even Dex got a bit of a glow going on but it was very tasty. We wandered around for a little while and came across this beauty at the main entrance.
They had nine faberge eggs that would open with a Christmas Carol theme on the main stairwell. This created for a huge crowd of people and especially of children. It would have been a very magical sight for the kids….but….pity it was at a casino.
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