Picking Up Data (Adelaide Airport)

My wife arrived this morning. I was happy, of course, and also stressed, since this was finals week. We had group project deadlines and my Database Management finals was at 6 PM. 

I needed the cheapest way to pick her up, but knowing she's been through at least 15 hours of travel, I didn't want to force her to take a bus on her way to the city. So here's what I did.

I took the J1 Bus from Currie Street. Any of the J Buses (J for "Jet") pass by the airport. Travel time was about 30 minutes. I arrived about an hour early, but that was okay. My wife's flight arrived about 15 minutes early too. 

While waiting, I asked the info booth about shuttle buses that may provide a cheaper alternative to taxis. Turned out there was such a thing called SkyLink and it only costs about A$5.50 per person. SkyLink has 25 designated drop off points, some of them right at hotel doorsteps. 

Our hostel was not listed, plus the next SkyLink shuttle would only be available until after an hour, so we just took a cab back to the city. It cost us less than A$15.00.

After that, we had breakfast at Zuma Cafe in Central Market and left my wife to sleep, while I went back to school to resume our group project and to review for our Database final exams.

Wonderful Glenelg Beach

I think I'm going to visit Glenelg beach every weekend. I wouldn't mind moving out of the city and living in Glenelg.

We went there to celebrate La's birthday (she's Cambodian). We boarded the tram and it cost me only A$4.00 for a round trip (student concession at half price; full price is A$8.00). I haven't received my ID yet, but the conductor was nice and he simply waved us off and gave the ticket at half-price.

Glenelg is actually livelier on weekends and at night. It's like an upscale Boracay. It's got a wider beach and warm water, unlike in Bondi. I regretted not bringing my swim shorts -- I would have gone swimming. Unlike Bondi though, the waves aren't big enough for surfing, but Alina said that people go boogie boarding (or body boarding). That's also good for swimmers. Also saw some skim boarders and I took photos of them.

La brought her crab net. They tied it to the scaffolding of the jetty and left it in the water for about 3 hours. When we got back, the fish heads (bait) were gone and no crabs. The other people were catching lots of tasty-looking crabs, so assumed somebody must have cleaned out the net.

La's birthday was simple but fun. Mamun brought cakes from Coles. I got her some Lamingtons from Coles, too. Someone brought a box of Coke and Alina brought in TimTams and sparklers. We first ate this food. Then we left the unfinished food wrapped up in the blanket that Alina brought as a makeshift picnic cloth.

Alina toured us around the area, showing us an arcade, the ritzy part of Glenelg, and a playground that had very nice gadgets that worked like the machines you find only at indoor gyms. At the playground, we met a Pinoy family -- Jeng, who studied Physics in UP and her hubby Louie. Jeng looked familiar (she said I looked familiar too). I first met their kids who were also playing at the playground. Following a hunch, I asked the girl if she spoke Tagalog and she nodded.

After that, we headed for the takeout shops. I got a small box of vegie noodles from Wokinabox (A$5.99). We went back to our picnic place in the grass and the leftover birthday food was still there.

La bought a nice big watermelon. Before we sliced it, I penned "OFFICIAL CARNEGIE MELLON" on it and took a photo of La with it. The watermelon was nice, cool and sweet. I love Glenelg.

We headed home at around 8:10 but the tram arrived only at about 8:30 pm. The trip took 30 minutes. Walked off to find Cyril, Anne, Rachel and Steven watching Elections (Reese Witherspoon) and I showed them the photos. They were envious :)

This week's finds:

* Whole Black Pepper in a refillable plastic mill (A$5.99) -- now I don't have to grind pepper with the butt of a mug :)
* Lamingtons
* Sirloin Beef at A$4.00
* Knorr Sinigang Mix (0.80 c) and kangkong from the Oriental grocery.

This week's menu:

* Beef Tapa with grilled red capsicum
* Prawn sinigang
* Spaghetti
* Stir Fry Broccoli
* Adobong Kangkong and Shitake
* Fava Beans with Chorizo and Bacon
* Extras: Bacon for sandwiches
* Cost: A$11.91 per person, rounded up to A$12.00

Essentials: Mobile Phone Strategy

Summary:

• I got two mobile phones.
  
• First phone is my old postpaid phone, downgraded to the lowest Globe plan (P500/month).
  
• This first phone is used for receiving SMS from the Philippines. Alternatively, ditch your old postpaid sim and get a prepaid like Globe OFW sim pack.
• Second phone is an Optus prepaid phone. This will be used for communicating in Australia AND texting back home. Ironically it costs cheaper to use the Optus sim to text back home.
  
• For Optus prepaid: the cost is A$30 to recharge (reload) the phone (see "Jargon Watch, below"). This charge (load) could last for about a month.
  

Details:

Before leaving the Philippines, I did some research and asked around for the best way to save on costs of maintaining a mobile phone. The winning strategy? Most advised me to get two sims: a prepaid Globe phone on roaming, and a prepaid sim card in Australia. There's a Globe OFW prepaid sim pack. It has got lots of conveniences on it. For one, the overseas Pinoy doesn't have to reload, so long as someone back home sends a text message to it.

But I simply decided to retain my old postpaid number. To minimize on the monthly overhead, I downgraded my plan to the cheapest level, P500/month.

Why did I choose this? I acquired my first mobile phone around 1999 and haven't changed my phone number. Since then I have accumulated 10 years' worth of contacts. It was going to be a headache to tell all of these people that I would be changing my number for one year.

I did a quick cost-benefit analysis. Cost of retaining my old number using the P500/month rate: P6,000 for one year in Australia. This seemed to be a good price to pay for the knowledge stored in my phone book.

Mobile Phone in Australia

There are three main providers in Australia: Telstra, Optus and 3 (yes, that's "three mobile"). There's also Virgin, but they're small right now. I got Optus prepaid, mainly because back home, Globe customer service advised me to choose Optus because rates are cheaper and both Optus and Globe are owned by SingTel.

The Optus prepaid plans are very confusing though (here they are, in full glory and here is the official Optus list). In the Philippines, there is only one prepaid plan, where credits can be applied to text messaging or voice calls or internet. In Optus, there are about five to seven prepaid plans. Each plan has a different set of quotas for SMS, voice and internet.

Activating the Mobile Phone and/or Sim

This is very important and please follow this carefully before activating your new Australian sim card. When I got my sim pack from Optus, it had a sign that said I needed to activate the sim by calling a number. Do not follow this advice immediately. Instead, go to the Optus website and read the descriptions of the prepaid plans and activate your sim from that website. This will save you from forcing yourself to make a decision quickly over the phone.

Obviously, excited to start using my new Australian sim, I immediately called the activation number. It connected me to an Indian call center. Although the girl was nice, she had a very thick accent that I could not understand.

To make things worst, she was asking me to choose which prepaid plan to use for my phone. I could not even understand the names of the plans she was reading off her script. At the end of it all, I decided to take the Power Up plan, which, upon reading the website later, turned out to give me about A$120 worth of credits.

These credits would be divided into more confusing categories which, upon further investigation, turned out to be allocated for SMS and voice calls with a twist. The twist is that I could register 5 "family" phone numbers (must be Optus too) which I could then call for a big discount. Just explaining all these is already dizzying. Wait till you read the whole Power Up description!

I will write more about why Optus plans are confusing, later. For now, let's just focus on the topic. :)


Jargon Watch
Recharge: load up your sim with credits. Equivalent to "reload" in the Philippines.

Recharge in Philippines means to physically charge the phone battery. "Reload or load" does not mean anything to Australians.