Catch up and read part 1 of this guide where I’m documenting my experience of moving to Gold Coast Australia from Sri Lanka.
Now that you are settling in you need stuff for your place. eBay and IKEA are your friends. Also keep an eye out for weekend garage sales.
The Gold Coast City Council website has a ton of information about parks, markets, events etc.
When you get tired of popping burgers those markets come in handy to find curry leaves etc 
Also its much cheaper than supermarkets for fruits and veggies.
Daily needs is a great online shop for buying Sri Lankan food.
One critical thing I should have mentioned in the first post was getting a mobile phone. I recommend Virgin Mobile pre-paid. If you bought a GSM mobile from Sri Lanka just buy a SIM from almost any phone or news stand and top-up on the site.
Virgin Mobile is the only operator that will let you use all your bonus minutes to talk to Sri Lanka. Everyone else has a limit before the full cap amount.
If you are looking to buy a phone try All Phones. There are cheap pre-paid phones you can unlock later or just buy one outright.
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I moved to Aussie just over an year ago from Sri Lanka. Since then I’ve had quite a few Sri Lankans ask me about the move and other information about this place. I’ve tried to help them out where I can. I thought of sharing this information here so it might help out some newly migrating folks.
There was a very real-world blog post on Kottu sometime back about moving here and how it really was as opposed to what migration seems like from a Sri Lankan perspective. If you know about it please comment with the link and I’ll add it as a related post.
Here goes nothing, as with any advice take it with a pinch of salt. Some things are more relevant to the Gold Coast where I live.
Australia is definitely a good place to move to if you are planning to move somewhere. I’ve considered Canada and New Zealand and I think this was the better bet.
Continue reading ‘Moving to Australia – Part 1′
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Went to a supermarket in the morning. There was a 3 kg rice purchase limit on each brand. My guess is its due to the distribution gap because of the new year holidays. Nothing is panic about.
Then again are we going to hit a rice shortage? I still have no idea but its a good time to look back at how we got here.
I’m no historian but I’ve heard my parents talk about bread queues and rice restrictions due to social and economic experiments conducted my previous administrations. Is this a result of another experiment gone wrong?
I know many guys around here that would rather drive a tuk than get down into a paddy field and grow rice.
I overheard an army guy in the early days of the ceasefire who had come home to help out on the fields. He is probably back on duty now.
Most of my family now are professionals or trying to be white collar workers. There are only 2 people in my family that farm. Should we go back to basics and start growing again?
Cause it doesn’t matter what you do or how much you make if there isn’t any food to buy.
Update: there seems to be a stand-off between a price fix by the gov and some traders. Don’t know more details yet. That means I have to check local news… yuk.
Sri Lanka EDITORIAL:: Rice crisis: Rise to the challenge!
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Did you know you can get SMS reminders from Google Calendar in Sri Lanka? Well you can if your on Dialog or Tigo. Here’s how.
- Once in Google Calendar go to Settings (top right)
- Then go to Mobile Setup
- Select “Sri Lanka” for the “Country” and enter your mobile number like +94777xxxxxx
- Click Send Verification Code
- Enter the verification code you get on your mobile and click Finish Setup
Now when you add an event add a SMS reminder and you are set.
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I’ve been chugging through almost impossible traffic for the last 2 days. I changed routes each day (like a true scientist) but had more or less the same result.
It takes about 1 hour in the morning and almost 1 1/2 hours in the evening to get home. Its just a waste of time and money. Think of all the petrol we can save if we could go at about 60 kmph straight home in about 15 minutes like it does on a holiday or around 4am.
And to top it all off I have to look forward to the weekend cars. Don’t know what they are? Well those are the cars that sit at home all week and go out in the weekend. Its a good fuel saving strategy but more cars on the road doesn’t help.
At this point I would happily pay a toll if there was a highway or expressway, but that’s also wishful thinking in a dump like this.
Happy Weekend!
Update: I think part of the problem was the Highlevel road color lights in Nugegoda was out for the last 2 days, hope its fixed today.
You know all I want to do is write about technology. I don’t enjoy writing rants. Its very difficult to separate what you like from what you have to deal with on a daily basis. I will try to get over this crap and write about tech again, I promise 
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