Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

It’s been a while since the last post here! Turns out that home schooling plus real life plus blogging would require more hours in the day than there are available.

For those missing the final couple of segments of the psychology notes, they’re coming over the next few months.

So, we’re preparing for another international move, to Australia this time. We’re just back from our initial scouting trip which let us look at a few potential locations and an initial look at a few houses that would be along the lines of what we’re hoping to buy in due course. Moving to Australia is a bit more complicated than moving to France was as we (well “I”) need to apply for a visa rather than just turning up as we did when we moved to France.

We started preparations late last year when I created my IMMI account (https://online.immi.gov.au/lusc/login) which is what you use to apply for an Australian visa these days. Unfortunately, there’s no option to produce a printed version of the form so to find out what documents and whatnot you need, you’ll need to go through the whole application adding in “to be added later” or the equivalent in the various text boxes. And, there’s a LOT of information and documents that they want!

One issue that we noted as we moved through the form and looked at what others before us have done is that it’s largely geared up to couples that have been together for a couple of years and, paradoxically, much harder if you’ve been together for 20+ years as we have been. Now, I know you’re thinking that “hey, we’re married and have a couple of kids, it’ll be easy”. Nope. Each child you have just proves that you were together one day nine months before they were born, similarly for that marriage certificate. What they’re looking for is evidence that you’ve been together continuously for all those years, right up to the point when you submit the application. So, for example, the “relationship history” that you each need to write needs to cover the period from when you first met, all significant events since then, right up to the day you hit “submit” on your application.

In practice, we have found that we’re going to need to create the evidence because we haven’t been saving it up all those years. Seeing as they will be looking at this blog as part of the evidence: dear immigration officer, I know that sounds really bad, but honestly we’ve been together for over 20 years as you’ll see from this blog!

The immigration people like to see that you’ve been on holiday together which you’d think would be a doddle to prove. However, it turns out that the airlines don’t keep records going way back and we only have insurance for one holiday naming all of us because we’re on the Nationwide insurance now and it doesn’t work as proof. Accommodation booking only take the name on the credit card so are no use either. Photos sound good, but although we’ve heaps of photos, we’ve very few with both of us in them and have been making a point of doing joint selfies lately to start creating that evidence.

Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.

Greece is one of those places where you get a mix of the ancient and modern, often side by side and that applies equally to the accommodation as it does to the tourist sights and sites that you will see during your holiday in the country.

The Corissia hotels in Crete are very much at the modern end of that scale as even the briefest glance at their website will show you. That modernity is reflected in the hotel rooms too with all the facilities that you’d expect in the most modern of hotels from the big things such as air conditioning and satellite TV through to the smaller items like the hair dryer that you wish you’d brought but couldn’t face packing it.

Of course, all these means nothing if the hotel isn’t in the right location. That’s particularly difficult on Crete which is quite a long island with attactions all over the place so ideally you want somewhere near the centre and, of course, on the coast (the northern coast is best). However, you can get quite close to this ideal with, for example, the Corissia hotels of Corissia Beach and Corissia Princess both currently offering free airport transfers for early bookers (worthwhile as the airport is towards the eastern end of the island).

 Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.

From this side of the world, there is just “Hawaii” but what we know of Hawaii is just one of the islands in the chain (Oahu) and the others are very different from that one.

Kauai is very different. Here you’ll find a much quieter type of holiday with resorts giving you the chance to have a beach holiday but in a beautiful island setting. Although the whole Hawaii chain of islands looks pretty small on the map, some of the islands are quite large and all of them have so much to do that we’ll only be looking at a small area of Kauai which should give you a good feel of what the island is like.

As with all the islands in the group, Kauai has all the beaches that you’d expect with water sports, snorkeling (in beautifully clear waters) and, of course, the scenery. National parks abound and near Poipu you’ll find the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Along with the other islands you’ll find lava formations and Spouting Horn is worth a visit to see the lava tube formations: quite spectacular as you can see.

Vacation homes are one option that will help make your holiday a little bit more relaxing or for something a little smaller condos (apartments) give you a choice midway between a self-catering house and a hotel room (usually somewhat closer to the action than the vacation homes are, of course).

For the area, vacation rentals seem the best way to go. Hotels are the choice for Oahu but for Kauai, you need a more laid back option to make the most of what the island has to offer.Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.

Hawaii is a loooong way from anywhere so the best option for most people from Europe is to include it as part of a round the world trip and, all being well, I’ll be doing that at some point in the next year or two once more.

Last time we stayed at the Waikiki Surf hotel which is a few blocks back from the beach and a teensy bit noisy as it’s on quite a major road. I think next time around it’ll probably be one facing the sea: ’tis much nicer to wake to the sound of the surf than the sound of the traffic. Incidently, be careful of the exact name of your hotel as there are untold numbers of Waikiki X hotel, Surf Y and Outrigger Z hotels!

Waikiki is on Oahu along with Honolulu and is probably the most touristy of the islands. Having said that, this means that there are loads of things to do. Don’t miss the Polynesian Centre which is run by the students of the Mormon university on the island. Fans of Hawaii Five-O won’t want to miss the view from Diamond Head. Pearl Harbour still holds the remains of numerous battleships. I’ve an upcoming trips guide which covers all this in more detail.

For something completely different, Maui offers you much more of an ecological location. Less touristy and much more scenic. More of a vacation rental place I think as that gives you more of a chance to wind down after the long flight.Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.

Anything to do with boating is never cheap but if you want a holiday experience that you’ll really remember then a cruise down a canal in your own boat is hard to beat.

A holiday on a canal boat (“barge” doesn’t really seem the correct term for the boats that you find these days) is at a totally different pace. Normal guidebooks are completely useless as they are aimed at drivers and cover a much greater chunk of the countryside than you’d be able to see at the pace of a canal boat. You’ll see all kinds of cute little villages that you’d have zoomed past without a second glance and as the canals tend to go through the older parts of towns you get to see some quite historic sections of towns that you’d never have seen before even if you were quite familiar with them.

You can do this in lots of countries but with the exchange rate being what it is why not try out a canal boat on the Norfolk Broads?

This is the type of holiday that you really need to do at least once in your life.Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.