Originally Posted by aston man

jeez,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!............. .............

Originally Posted by The Koalas

Why is it when somone posts negative, someone replys with a pathetic comment like this?

Whether you agree or disagree with the OP at least let them have a rant. Oz is an eye opener in many ways and its not for everyone. First time around I too would whinge and moan about everything. When you are down the smallest of things seem huge.

This is my second time around and this time I am really loving it. I except all the bad along with the good. Funny but when you first get here no shoes is a strange thing to see. We lived in Sydney for 6 years and the driving there was appalling and frustrating, it is the same in Brisbane. But I have three young children and for me we enjoy it here.

I like to see good and negative posts, keeps an even balance to the whole Oz thing.

Jayne

Originally Posted by Siren & Brian

Slow internet connections, or just they chose wrong company as you can get upto 24mgs dl's. I bet thats faster than most have in the UK

Originally Posted by mark213

Personally my bugbear, and its Australia in general, is Internet connectivity and costs. You are one of the lucky ones to get a ADSL2+ connection. I've never had do do so much research in BB in my life. Australia has capacity and pricing issues with Telstra controling alot of exchanges.

I cant get ADSL2+ due to oversubscription and am stuck on a 512k connection for $50 per month. Stupidly high rates for a city in any country in the world. Others are lucky even to get that. The OP has a good point on BB.

Originally Posted by daunted

Yay - and they are DEAD cheap compared to UK Boy was i glad of them last week

Originally Posted by Siren & Brian

Nothing wrong with someone having a rant, but when the rant is a lot of crap thats when people defend.

OP said about no pubs, they live in Greenwood and there is the Greenwood Pub, which was voted twice as the best Pub in OZ only a few years ago.

Slow internet connections, or just they chose wrong company as you can get upto 24mgs dl's. I bet thats faster than most have in the UK

Etc etc etc

Originally Posted by mark213

Personally my bugbear, and its Australia in general, is Internet connectivity and costs. You are one of the lucky ones to get a ADSL2+ connection. I've never had do do so much research in BB in my life. Australia has capacity and pricing issues with Telstra controling alot of exchanges.

I cant get ADSL2+ due to oversubscription and am stuck on a 512k connection for $50 per month. Stupidly high rates for a city in any country in the world. Others are lucky even to get that. The OP has a good point on BB.

Originally Posted by mbike

I felt the same about BB research until I was introduced to this: http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/ It really does make BB choice very straightforward and is better than anything available in the UK.

Mark

Originally Posted by irishbloo

I have had to get at least six taxis since i got here and have waited no longer then 15 minutes for them.And the ones that I got late at night waited outside till I got into the house,so no complaints from me.

Originally Posted by bridie

Not only that but the thread title is misleading, they are not "realities of Perth" they are "perceptions of Perth"... as stated in the post I've quoted there is little fact behind most of the points, it's someone's personal perception which is obviously very different to what a lot of us have experienced ourselves.

Originally Posted by lang81

My wife and i have now been in Perth for 6 months and all we can think about is when we can get out of it. Unfortunately we are in the process of building a house so we will be here for another year at least !!!! ( jumped into the market to quick ).

I am not writing this to scare people off from Perth however if you are in the UK and are dreaming of coming here then you may like to know of some of the harsh realities of life here.


First of all i would like to point out that most of the shops are closed on Sundays. There are many big shopping centres here and none are doing business on Sundays !!! Yes the city is open but the stores there are crap compared to the UK and it is so small. It may sound trivial but when you have come from a place where Sunday shopping is quite normal it is bloody hard to get your head around. Apparently WA is the only state in OZ where this happens ?

Lots of people walk about in their bare feet !!!! Let me tell you that this is weird to see when you are working in a University (like i am) and you see people walking to classes with no shoes ! Am i the only one who finds this disgusting ????

The freeways are just as busy as the roads were in Glasgow, so don't think that driving here is a pleasure, in fact it is one of the most frustrating things about Perth.
The people here just don't know how to drive. Drivers will sit at 90 ks in the outside lane and they don't move over for anyone so they overtake down the inside lane. It is real life wacky races.
They also love doing burnouts in their V8s. We live in Greenwood and it is a decent suburb however it seems to be the burnout capital of Perth.
Drivers here have no curtesy either. You will sit at a junction for ever and no one will let you out, they don't flash their lights here (to let you in /out at junctions) and a friendly wave of thanks is non existent.

The nearest pub is always miles away and the drink is expensive. $8 a pint in the Greenwood is considered good and $10 is normal in other bars.I have paid $15 for drink in Subiaco ! Getting a taxi from the city or Northbridge is almost impossible. There are no private taxi companies here so they are sparse to say the least. Never mind, you could always have a few pints then drive home. Drink driving here is rife, worse than Scotland.

The cost of living (for us) is roughly the same as it was in Scotland. House rental prices are high as are house prices, fruit and veg is pretty expensive, bills etc are similar to what we were used to. We got a bill from the water board for $84 for 2 months water at our plot of land !!!!!!!!!! It is just a big plot of dirt and have never seen any water in my time there ????
The one big difference though is the cost of petrol, much cheaper than UK prices, although it is going up all the time. It was $1.06 in December and it is now hitting $1.32 in some garages.

Banks are worse here than in the UK. You get charged for having an account with the banks ($5 a month) and if you use atm's make sure it is your own banks that you use, you get charged for using other atm's.
They don't hold any large amounts of cash either which made life difficult for us when we tried to buy a car. We went to the local branch to withdraw $7000 and were told that we would not be able to get this amount from the one branch, so we had to go to 2 banks to get this money out !!!

Internet connection is as slow as a week in the jail. Broadband is miles behind the UK and is such a problem that it features highly in the political stakes.

The topic is Perth and its isolation hits home when you get here too. I thought about a weekend in Sydney recently and it is $300 one way. Instead we chose to drive to Margaret River, one of WA's premier holiday destinations. We walked the length of the town in 10 minutes and had a drink in one of the 2 bars there. Not much happening there, except for wineries.
There are also a shortage of building materials which causes delays in house building.

The good things about Perth are it's beaches and weather, although it is raining heavy as i write this.

I know everyone will not agree with this thread , but these are only our thoughts and experiences of Perth.

Oh and if any of you guys are joiners / carpenters then be warned, they use gyproc over 5 metres long here !!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Vash the Stampede

Wrong.

As a West Australian born and bred, I feel compelled to point out that WA has three major private taxi companies: Swan Taxis, Independent Taxis and Black & White Taxis.

They're all over the place; you can't miss them.

Originally Posted by clougherty family

Hi,

We totally agree with you, not too bothered about the barefoot thing, just think it's a bit weird. The taxi thing is a nightmare, I know some have said they got taxis easily, but every time I've tried to get one it's been terrible. Waited at Hillarys after having a meal in Portafinos for over an hour, phoned taxi a number of times but still didn't arrive. We also ordered one in Greenwood from my niece's school after a mother's night. It was about midnight and we (3 women) phoned about 6 times and waited for 2 hrs. Ended up walking home to my sister in laws and then her husband phoned a taxi and they came immediately! They only come if you phone from a residential address. The cost of living is high when you are earning dollars. Drink driving - there is a certain pub, not naming it but it's in Woodvale and I would think that 90% of the people in there drink drive. You wouldn't get that at home, but then the pubs are nearer and there are always taxis available.

We too did lots of research before moving here, we also came over for a month and thought we knew what we were getting into. The reality is that until you've lived here for a while (2 yrs in our case) you won't know if it suits you or not. It seems on the surface, not all that different from the UK similar with sun, well it does when you're on holiday. The beaches are gorgeous, loads of parks blah blah. But when you have been here a while you realise that that's all there is. Once you've been to the parks/beaches/barbies a few times you suddenly see that there's not much else to do here and if those aren't things you want to do every weekend forever, then don't bother coming here. We are going home in 3 weeks and I can't wait to feel alive again. My OH says this place is like stew, all these people from different places are just chucked in and mixed round and left to get on with it - trouble is, it just doesn't work. It's a bland, fake place. Some may like it, but we need to live in a place with a bit more substance.

Jo

Originally Posted by Amazulu

Australia is not for everyone.

Originally Posted by Bordy

And a puppy is not just for Xmas.