There are a lot of things
that work opposite from what we are used to.
The water in the toilets is much lower that in the States (they take
protecting the environment very seriously) so it is hard to see the water go in
the reverse direction. I have seen water
drain counter-clockwise in the sink. My
scientist father says it is not necessarily the rotation of the earth pulling
the water the other way around and that it could be the shape of the container
that the water is draining out of. I
then challenged him to get something in his house to drain counter clockwise,
because things just don’t drain clockwise here and it looks weird.
Other things that are
“backwards”: you flick a light switch up
to turn it off, cars drive on the left side of the street, the two-dollar coin
is smaller than the one-dollar coin, seasons, of course, are reversed, and
dates are given as day then month, even when speaking.
It is odd to see classic
American cars, like a Mustang, with the steering wheel on the right side of the
car. Clearly they were manufactured for
the left-driving market because the cost and effort involved in moving it to
the other side of an already running car would be prohibitive. Not only does the steering wheel move but
also the whole of the dashboard, the pedals and most of all, the mirrors.
The phone numbers are
something to learn. There are 1800
numbers and 1900 numbers, just like we’re used to but then there are 13
numbers. I’m not sure if there is an
additional charge for 13 numbers or if there is no charge for them. I’ve generally seen them as customer service
numbers or as the number that a company will use in their advertisements. 13 numbers don’t usually have many digits in
the, they’re usually a total of six digits including the 13. There is an ad for a company whose phone
number is 13 30 32 (they don’t use dashes between the numbers here) and they
end with a boy saying “firdeen ferdy firdy-two”.
Other phone numbers are
different too. Land line numbers are
eight digits, and there are leading zeroes in some city codes (
Mobile numbers have a “mobile
area code” and then a six-digit number.
So my mobile is 0423-622-818.
When I bought the phone the number was already programmed onto the SIM
card. So regardless of where I buy it or
use it I have this same “area code”. I
could have purchased it for use pretty much anywhere in
When Australians say a number
like 622 they say “six double-two”, not “six two two”.
Electrical outlets all have a
lightswitch so you can turn off the electricity to one plug at a time. It can’t be for safety to toddlers because it
is so easy to flip the switch. For lamps
with a complicated on-off switch it is a convenient way to turn on the
light. I still am not convinced that’s
why they’re there.
Many things here seem
smaller--not in the Japanese, we will out-tech you in the smaller and better
mode but in a just plain smaller sense.
I know that many people comment that everything in the
Our oven is too small to hold
my beautiful Kitchen Aid roasting pan.
We have two sinks, one is big enough for about three mugs and the other
is still smaller than the sink we used to have.
It is difficult to wash a big pot in it.
We feel like we are doubled over to get things out of the fridge. Cars are generally smaller, with the
exception of SUVs which are about the same size as in the States.
Like good old Ma Bell,
Telstra, the major telephone company, will allow you to rent your phone from
them. I’ve heard that they recently
privatized Telstra and it has become the Verizon of the Southern Hemisphere.
Dial tone in
This page is copyright 2003, Laura Giletti
Last revised: October 2003