First day of work

We went to work today. Boy, are we tired. I used to think jet-lag was bullshit, but now I know better. Or maybe it's because we had to absorb tons of information on a few hours. A foreign language makes it just that bit harder too. I had a good night sleep but nevertheless, feel quite weak. Elevators here travel kind of fast. This causes a lot of blood to go from head to toes. If you're not that strong you feel like passing out.

A few more impressions and things I forgot to mention before.

We noticed the first defects in this micro-society. Last night a vagrant inspected a waste bin thoroughly and half a dozen of police-men invaded one of the malls. One of our fresh colleagues here pointed out that almost nobody lives in the center. There's mainly tall office buildings, huge shopping malls and fancy bars. It was only this morning that we realized how crowded it can get. A strange phenomenon here is that pedestrians stop for cars at times. When a pedestrian is crossing the street cars always stop. But there's an exit of a railway station just in front of our hotel. There are so many pedestrians that cars could be waiting for ever. After a while, people stop at the curb to allow the cars to drive by.

Although I didn't see a single blind or visually challenged person (what's the correct euphemism here?) tremendous efforts have been done for them. All sidewalks have rubber dots and all traffic lights have auditive signals. There's probably one very rich blind man living here. Or he has a seat in the parliament. Or maybe everyone's just too lazy to look up. I caught myself relying entirely on the auditive signal. This can be dangerous when the light next to you turns green and you start walking because you think it's your direction (I know as a matter of fact). The streets are full of surveillance camera's and TV's (every bar, every restaurant and every escalator has one).

Taste of music. I was pleasantly surprised here. Yesterday I heard Erykah Badu in the Queen Street Mall. And I could enjoy the sweet melody of Cantaloupe Island right before we took off in Singapore (as well as right after the landing in Brisbane - I guess the pilot kind of likes this one). The CD-collection on the plane contained Coldplay, Thievery Corporation, Herbie Hancock and so many more. And just in case you didn't here me before: you could actually play these songs on demand or create your own playlist for later enjoyment. Same with the on-demand video's. You could start them if you felt like it and when your next del.icio.us meal was presented to you, you could pause it (again, for later enjoyment). Now that's what I call on-demand (you here me telenet?).

The ozone layer is quite thin here. At times you can see people with reflective umbrella's to block the heat and to prevent their head from toasting.

An update on the advertising progression: this evening a billboard was projected on a building from the back of a parked truck.

Not many cool pictures today. Even after work we're still busy, preparing for tomorrow (and blogging of course). Now, there's no denying we look like nerds so you can keep the comments to yourself.


I'm glad I can at least tell you Cornelius had a good time today. As we went to work he watched some TV (even took my hat) and observed the locals.