Bought my first car–it took me 31 years!

Last October when we visited Australia for our first visit after getting the PR, we could see a clear picture of the situation with public transport in Melbourne. It is OK, but for someone who has spent the last 5 years in Japan, it was a huge let down. In Japan, you don't need a car if you live in a metropolitan area. Even in Sri Lanka, you don't need a car unless you live in a rural place. Australia is not an efficient country. It probably is because Australia has a lot of resources with a very little population density. So, they do not seem to care much about improving the public transport system , hence roads are the main medium of transportation.

That means, I needed a car. And I needed to buy one soon, as I would need my cousin’s help as he knows about cars. And after I move to my apartment, I would be far away from him, and it would not be practical for him to come look for cars.

I was originally planning to get a cheap car and get a decent one later on, but after talking to my cousin, I felt that I had to spend at least $6,000 on a car if I did not want any immediate repair work. You can get a 10 year old car with that amount, but they would have travelled over 200,000 km. Australia is a large country, and to travel about 60km a day is not unusual. Some travel even farther. The roads are good and very (VERY) wide with 3-4-5 tracks on each direction, so if you can avoid the city, you can get to your destination pretty quickly.

My target was to get a car with less than 100,000 km on the clock and below the $7,500 price tag. I found few cars that fit the criteria, but obviously I was not the only one who was looking at similar cars. Unfortunately, I only could check out the cars during the weekend because that is both my cousin and I would be free. So I missed out on few opportunities.

One of them was a 2007 Honda CRV, but ironically that happened on a Saturday. It had been done only like 100,000km and the owner was asking about $10,000, but we could not make it in the morning and someone grabbed it before we could check it out. There was a 2005 Honda Accord which had done only 57,000 km for $8,400 and sadly that was also grabbed by someone else.

Renting a place in Melbourne

Like I mentioned in the previous posts, I was living with my cousin after migrating to Australia. But now that I have a job, it was about time I moved out of my cousin's place. Let's be honest now, it is a hindrance when someone else is living with you.

I looked for available places for lease on RealEstate and Domain mobile apps, and noted down a few. It is easier to check them up on the phone because the apps show the places on the map.

On the day before I was supposed to start working, there was a schedule for inspection of a house near the work place. I went there, because I was free on that afternoon. That was when I realised the state of renting in south east of Melbourne. This area is old, so the houses are old; some of them look like my parents' parents' houses. Most houses do not have air-conditioning. They only have heating; some very rare ones don't even have heating! People in Australia seem to have a made up a habit of spending the hot days at shopping malls. There are of course new houses; they demolish old houses and build three small houses on the same land. And they are expensive. But there are cheaper and newer houses if you are willing to go farther from civilisation, but I did not want that. I set a maximum rent target of $350 per week, which is still crazy high compared to what we paid in Japan. Sadly, you should be really lucky to get a cheaper rent in this part of the country.

So that first house was a bad one. Then there were few inspections on the next Saturday. I went there early in the morning by train. The first house was a $340 one and it was quite large, had a split air cooling system but was pretty old still. I wanted to look around a bit.

After that inspection, I paid a visit to my friend's place in Clayton and he drove me around to the other inspections. We checked about half a dozen houses and towards the end of the day I was able to shortlist 3 places: two houses and an apartment.

One of the houses was right in the centre of Clayton and they asked $360 for it. It lacked an A/C but considering the fact that we could simply walk to do the grocery and that I could walk to the office, I decided to give it a go and I could apply easily as it could be done online.

The MagSafe charger of my MacBook Air is kaput!

When I moved to Australia, I could only bring the CPU part of my desktop PC with me. I had to leave the display behind. I did not bring the keyboard as well, since I was planning to buy a mechanical keyboard from Australia. So my desktop PC is not currently functional. That means, I am stuck with my 2011 MacBook Air.

I really miss my desktop PC. What happened a few days ago made me miss it even more. The MacBook Air's charger got damaged. The charging adapter is intact, but the cable is damaged near the adapter. It was slowly coming apart since a week or so ago, and last night it had its last breathe.

I do not know what is wrong with Apple’s cable designs. I have had similar experience iPhone cables as well. But the iPhone cable is easily replaceable. With the MagSafe charger, the cable is permanently attached, so you need to take it apart, find a replacement cable and solder it again if you want to bring it back to life. There are eBay sellers who sell replacement cables and there are guides on how to solder it back. But that is not a urgent solution. Without the PC, I am lost. The phone is not a replacement for the laptop.

I needed an urgent fix, which meant that I had to buy a new charger. There is an Apple store about a 30-minute-bus-ride from the office. But the original MagSafe 45W charger would cost $129!