Perth of Australia and my son starting medicine study at UWA
Last week I visited Perth to help my son (Steve) settle down there for his 6 year study of medicine at University of Western Australia. As it was my first visit to the city and the university, I would like to share a few things I learned there.
City of Perth is really beautiful with lots of parks and refreshing air. I really like the Swan River that is really unbelievably wide to be a river and it is at the centerpiece of what makes Perth a beautiful place. I thought it was a sea bay in the first sight but I noticed it is a river. I would do a windsurf in the river sometime later - It's really windy in the morning. Temperature-wise ... day is hot and it is hotter than Korea, but it is not that intimidating due to low humidity. It is kind of cool in the morning. I like this weather.
University of Western Australia (UWA) is the member of G8 (8 prestigious schools) and Sandstone (6? old schools) Medicine faculty there seems to be very good with a few of professors being Nobel prize winners. It located right beside the river and close to King's Park which is the largest park in town. But the downside is it is relatively expensive to live and it is really hard to get a place to live. I managed to get a small studio(?) AUD310 per week for a property listed for 280. I had to pay a premium and pay 3 months upfront to secure the place among several competitors for the same spot.
Metropolitan Perth has about 3000 Korean population. "3000" is not enough to have a good list of Korean markets and restaurants. So don't expect any good Korean dish down there. My wife complained a lot about Korean food there. But Italian food there was very good!
Any interesting experience? It was my first time to drive a car "left-sided" with a steering wheel on the right(vs left not vs wrong) side. I felt really weired and scary to begin with but it became comfortable to a reasonable degree if I'm kind of in alert state. Funny thing is behind the steering wheel I triggered "wiper" (on my left in Korea but on the left in Australia) a few times a day when I intended to trigger a "turn" signal - that made my whole family feel we're in a country far away from home
