The Month Of Australia: September 2023 Recap

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Once again, I don’t know how another month has passed. Since my last update, I’ve been jet-setting around the world and providing more frequent updates on my Instagram page. However, I’m also behind on that at this point 🙂 . So let’s see what I’ve been up to!

I Visited New Hampshire

During our months renting my aunt’s house this winter while she was snowbirding, she asked us if we could return while she was home. I looked at when we had time available in the next 9 months – and this was it 🙂 . So we took a $13 Amtrak from Albany, NY to Boston, MA and then got up to New Hampshire.

It was a quick visit in my mind even though it was 12 days. Retirement really has spoiled me since I now see basically my entire vacation while working as a short trip 🙂 .

Anyway, New Hampshire was lovely as always. We were accidentally there at the same time as the Thunder Down Under Air Show and the Seafood Festival, which were nice surprises.

Otherwise, I spent my time watching the sunrise, sunset and planning my day around the weather and the tides.

I Went To Singapore

…for a day 🙂 . To get into the country, we had to apply for an Arrival Card, which we couldn’t fill out until 3 days before our arrival and hilariously, because of how long it takes to get to Singapore, it was basically right before we left for the airport.

Anyway, we had a 20 hour layover in Singapore and were originally going to get an airport transit hotel room like we did when we went to Thailand last year, but then my Mom had a wild idea – staying at the Marina Bay Sands instead. At first I was skeptical of this new plan, but now that we’ve done it, I’m very grateful she had the suggestion. It was lovely to see Singapore again, even for a day.

I Moved To Australia!

…for a month 🙂 . I talked about the entire (convoluted) process of getting visas for Australia and New Zealand in my March Recap (link below) if that’s helpful to you.

The Month Of Sea: March 2023 Recap

Overall though, Australia has more than exceeded my expectations and they were quite high 🙂 . We started planning this trip in 2018 and I wasn’t sure any experience could live up to that much hype, but this country has done it.

Sydney was supposed to be a quick stop to get acclimated to the climate, but it became another city I can add to the “cities I love” list. I was also able to hang out with some locals that I met through real life and the blog, which I’ll get into later, but that made it even more special.

Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef was the original impetus for this trip and it also lived up to expectations. As I said, I’m behind in Insta posting, but reels of the reef are incoming!

I Sold Some Investments

I finally did it! Despite still having a year of my cash cushion left, I decided to sell my investments for the first time to celebrate entering Year 4 of retirement. I went through the whole process in the post below:

How I Sell Investments To Fund My Retirement: A Step-By-Step Guide

I’m planning to keep up this cadence and always sell on the anniversary of my retirement date so I am not tempted to market time.

I Got My COVID Booster

New booster shots are available and I saw that I could get one before embarking on this around the world trip so I did. The closest pharmacy was CVS and I scheduled an appointment online.

When I looked during mid-week the earliest availability was on a Saturday (which is not my fav since it’s when people are out of work 😉 – oh woe is me), but I went and walked out the door 7 minutes after my appointment time. Not bad at all. I also got the world’s cutest bandage:

I Learned Spanish

My Spanish learning has been slowing down lately as I focus on other things, but I’m still keeping it up. I watched some episodes of Community in Spanish with my partner this month, which was fun though challenging since they speak quickly in English so Spanish is a whole other ballgame. I had to get used to how fast comedies speak again and these new (to me) voice actors. Language learning really is a never ending process 🙂 .

However, slowing down on my learning didn’t mean that I lost the language luckily. I spoke to a family that was speaking Spanish in Singapore and accidentally eavesdropped on people speaking Spanish in Sydney. My Mom and I spoke Spanish with each other during our travels when we felt like practicing.

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly Spanish call with my Mom and Weekly Movie Nights where we watched the below. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

I also met up with friend I haven’t seen in 15 years, but despite the time apart, we slipped right back into our dynamic, which was awesome. It was also hilarious because she (like all my friends and family) know I’m retired and she was like “oh like FIRE?”…It’s catching 😉 …

I Played Video Games

I dove into Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom this month. I was trying to finish it before I went Down Under, but I found myself pushing it and not enjoying the journey so I let go of that goal so I could enjoy playing a literal game 🙂 . I slowed down and did the things I love most in these games, namely fucking around and exploring 😉 . This led to new quests and experiences, which was a cool side effect.

However, taking my time and taking pressure off myself also had another unintended side effect: I finished the game in my original timeline – while having fun doing it. However, after I finished, I learned the news that TOTK is not getting a follow up. I understand and obviously want the artists to follow their creative vision and do what they want, but I may also be crying 🙂 . I guess I just need to replay them both now. They’re such amazing and gorgeous games.

I Read 24 Books

This month I read all these books (mostly) by Roe Horvat:

So yes, I once again found another amazing author that I loved and had to check out their entire collection of works – or just abouts 🙂 . Luckily the plane rides I took literally around the world combined with ample beach lounging gave me more than enough time to read almost everything they’ve ever written. Every month I seem to be finding new authors, getting obsessed with them and reading all of their work I can get my hands on. I’m liking this pattern! 2023 has been great to me in this way.

I also had a random ‘book club’ with friend for the book that the b-movie The Meg was apparently based on since the sequel came out recently. Sadly the book was not the fun time I thought it would be and instead made The Meg look like a masterpiece 🙂 . Great changes all around. If you’re curious about what I’m reading and my ratings of these books, I have a Goodreads account you can check out here.

I Wrote 4 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

I also met up with 1 blogger in Singapore and 3 readers in Sydney. Thank you to everyone who reached out and dealt with my jet lagged ass 🙂 .

I also was on a new podcast episode on What Kind Of Money:

And I was featured in an interview with Canvas Rebel Magazine:

Meet A Purple Life

In addition to those fun things, this month I declined participating in these partnerships:

An AI chatbot for this website
An events company that wanted to pay for a round of drinks for me and 2 friends if I go to a specific event
A company that makes blog posts into YouTube video essays
A platform for financial professionals
A luxury finance company…that might be a scam. I couldn’t figure out what they do even after looking at their website. Red flag
An innovative towel company
AI translation company
A wine company that wanted to send me free bottles of their wine – that’s never happened before
A Gmail app that…does things Gmail already has the features for. I don’t understand 🙂

I’ve also been changing the ads on this site. I noticed lately that there are more of them and they’re more intrusive, which is the opposite of what I want. My ad company was changing significant things without asking or notifying me so I told them to revert those changes. If y’all see anything weird happening on here, feel free to tell me 🙂 .

Physical

Sleep

I slept well this month. The fancy flights above seemed to help a lot with the jet lag though I still went to sleep at 3pm a few times before acclimating 🙂 .

Food

There were simply too many new foods to try Down Under. I’m still surprised with how tasty local shops are compared to chains. I was eating everything people told me to in Singapore and Australia even though after those aforementioned fancy flights, I was more full than I’ve ever been in my life 🙂 . A good problem to have.

Exercise

I was planning to explore Australia while running, but instead found myself doing a lot of hiking, walking, swimming and snorkeling and I can’t be mad at it 🙂 .

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

New Hampshire

Hurricane Lee hit while I was on the coast of New Hampshire and this information about rip tides helped me keep danger in perspective:

“They usually receive little attention but are the third leading cause of weather fatalities and forecasters. Over the last ten years, rip currents have killed more people than tornadoes or hurricanes. This year has already been particularly bad with 76 deaths reported through August.” – NPR

I also was curious about the difference between wind speed and wind gust speed. Apparently the difference between the two is duration. A sustained wind is the average wind speed over 2 minutes. A sudden burst in wind speed is called the wind gusts and typically lasts under 20 seconds. Who knew 🙂 ?

Australia

Here are some fun facts about Australia:

Australia is approximately the size of the US, but has about 10% of the population at 25 million and 85% of them live within 50km of the coast:

After arriving in Australia, I noticed something weird about our Sydney Opera House view. The opera house seemed to get noticeably bigger the farther back I was from the windows and I was curious if I was seeing things, but turns out it’s legit:

The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is the world’s largest coral reef system and includes about 3,000 coral reefs and 900 islands. The entire reef is a similar size to Germany or Italy. Wowza 🙂 .

There are over 400 types of hard coral in the reef and they grow about 1 cm a year so the coral that we saw while snorkeling was over 800 years old. I’ll try to get those videos on my Insta soon 🙂 . Coral is actually an animal similar to jellies instead of a plant. I didn’t know that 🙂 .

While we were in Australia, they had King Tides, which are the 2 times a year where tides are the most extreme – the highest highs and lowest lows. We arrived before Cyclone season, which starts in November. However, I didn’t know that cylones are the same as hurricanes except that in the southern hemisphere these tropical storms are called cyclones and rotate in a clockwise direction, but in the northern hemisphere they are called hurricanes and rotate in an anti-clockwise direction. Say whaaat?

And finally, we were in Australia when parts of it went through Daylight Savings Time. And it messed me up 🙂 . We were traveling between places that did and did not change the clocks and I got all confused:

I had been warned by Australians that I might not understand what people are saying here with their accent, but luckily I never had a problem with the accent – I suspect because I watch a fair bit of Australian TV. However, some actual words did trip me up. So here are ‘translations’ that I wish I had before I got to Australia. They basically speak another language 🙂 :

Mozzies – Mosquitos
Rashies – Rash guard pants or shirt
Takeaway – Take out/to go
Letterbox – Mailbox
Cairns is pronounced “Cannes”
Sunnies – Sunglasses
Hen’s – Bachelorette Party
Avo – “Good afternoon” or Avocado
Capp – Cappuccino
Woolie’s – Woolworth’s Grocery Store
Bin – Trash
Tinnie – Can
Chemist – Pharmacist
Swimmers – Swimsuit
Torches – Flashlights
Thongs – Flip flops

Astronomy

This month I was excited to learn about the Nishimura Comet, which was named after the amateur astronomer who discovered it this year! It only goes by Earth every 430 years so the last one was when Galileo was still alive. However, Mother Nature didn’t want me to see this once in a lifetime event because it was quite cloudy on its brightest days. Oh well 🙂 . I guess I need to put a Space Station on my “to buy” list so I never miss a comet 😉 .

In better news, I’ve been having a great time learning all the Southern Hemisphere constellations and stars that I never see when I’m home in US! So here are some of the constellations that I’ve been learning:

Centaurus, Musca, Chamaeleon, Carina, Volans and Hydra

And here are some of the planets and stars I’ve seen with my ‘naked eye’:

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Canopus, and Alpha Centauri

I was also able to see the Full Moon this month over the ocean. It was so bright it almost looked like daylight. Wild.

Flora

There were a lot of fun plants in my life this month. Here they are broken down by location:

New Hampshire

Orange day lily, Blue hibiscus

Singapore

Malabar melastome, Simpoh air, Common lantana, Sensitive plant, Blue pea, Little ironweed

Australia

Everlasting daisy, Wisteria, Sydney rock orchid, Crinums, Tree waratah, Macadamia tetraphylla, Queensland bottle tree

The Queensland bottle tree has trunks that grow to 2 meters in diameter and can be a water source. Cool!

Fauna

The animals I saw this month were WILD! I got seriously lucky. The highlight for me were the Grey-Headed Flying Foxes that flew past our balcony in Sydney. Apparently flying foxes are the largest bats in the world and some have a wingspan of 5 feet. They seemed to live in a tree right next to our Airbnb. It was terrifying and amazing 🙂 .

Birds

Birding was also on overdrive this month. Here’s what I saw and freaked out about:

New Hampshire

Semipalmated sandpipers and Semipalmated plovers

Apparently semipalmated means that a bird has webbed toes for part of their foot.

Singapore

Myna, Plume-toed swiftlet, Common myna

Australia

Australian brushturkey, Black-faced cuchooshrike, Australian ibis, Pied currawong, Australian magpie, Australian swamphen, Pacific black duck, Silver gull, Noisy miner, Pied butcher bird, Masked lapwig, Sulphur-crested cockatoo, Superb fairywren, Fairy martin, Red wattlebird, Willie wagtail, Satin bowerbird, Australiasian figbird, Mistletoebird, Orange footed megapode, Rainbow lorikeet

A Rainbow Lorikeet liked landing on our balcony in Sydney and I had a great view from the couch. Lazy birding FTW

Also saw some uncommon and rare birds, such as:

Radjah shelduck, Beach thick-knee, Wompoo fruit dove, Pacific reef heron, Common greenshank, Osprey and Southern cassowary

The Common Greenshank needs a new name since it’s now uncommon 🙂 . An Osprey has a wingspan of 5 feet. The Wompoo Fruit Dove looks wild and tried to fly into our house:

And a Southern Cassowary is super rare. There are only about 4,000 in Australia and apparently they’re one of the closest living descendants of dinosaurs! Look at this terrifying thing:

Creativity

This month I’ve had bursts of creativity, but mostly I’ve just been trying to enjoy these new places I’m visiting, which made me very lucky that I had those creativity bursts while staring at the ocean in NH so I could full focus on exploring Australia.

Emotional

My emotions this month were good though I got a little more reflective than usual 🙂 . I don’t usually think about the past. I find that a healthy mindset for me because it means that I’m happy in the present and don’t need to “relive glory days” or anything like that. My life just keeps getting better since I quit my job.

However, this month I heard a song that took me back. OneRepublic recently released a 2023 Version of their famous song “Counting Stars.” And I know the new version has nothing to do with me 🙂 , but I found it quite relevant to my life all the same.

In 2013, the original version was released and it was my interview song 🙂 . I would listen to it as I left the NYC subway and stomped my way towards a new ad agency like I was pounding down a runway. The song pumped me up and every time I hear it, it reminds me of that time. Young and scared in Manhattan, trying to get paid enough to pay my rent AND eat. Big dreams 🙂 .

So hearing the new 2023 version, which is softer and calmer than the original, stuck out to me. Because in 2023, I am so much calmer and softer than I was 2013. Anyway, I found that parallel interesting 🙂 .

Money

I arrived in Australia an Australian millionaire, but it doesn’t look like I’m leaving that way 🙂 .

Regardless, this Australia trip is the one I’ve been saving up for for literal years so I’m excited to experience it and happy that it looks like I’ll still come under budget for the year without really trying.

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in October! It kind of looks like a lot when laid out like that 🙂 . Anyway, I’m writing this while staring at the Great Barrier Reef and getting ready to dive in. So, until next time!

If you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly (2020)

Monthly (2021)

Monthly (2022)

Monthly (2023)

How was your month?

10 thoughts on “The Month Of Australia: September 2023 Recap”

Claire says:

October 3, 2023 at 2:54 am

So glad Australia is living up to expectations! The food there is awesome, and diving/snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef is a bucket list item. The Sydney Opera House is beautiful in its own right and there are lots of lovely architectural details.

I liked the original Counting Stars too, and still listen to it semi-regularly. I’ll have to check out the 2023 release. Music has a magical ability to transport us back to earlier periods of our lives. I hope you’re listening to some special tunes for this Australia leg.

Also: did you actually see a cassowary!??! OMG that’s REALLY rare!

1. A Purple Life says:
  
  October 3, 2023 at 3:00 am
  
  Yes! I’m loving it. I’ve been eating well and just started posting reels of snorkeling the Reef. I’m glad you like Counting Stars too! I embedded the 2023 version from Spotify in this post so if you click on it it should play automatically.
  
  And yes indeed I did see a Cassowary! It was wild!!! I posted a photo of it on my Insta stories. It’s currently in my Cairns Story Highlights if that helps.
  
Andrew says:

October 3, 2023 at 3:27 am

Hi. Great post, and I enjoyed reading it (even if I feel if I am not doing that much in my early retirement life (6 months in)). Anyway, quick one on the the image of Australia and the US: I had not realised the size of Australia for some reason, and also this:

Australia is approximately the size of the US, but has about 10% of the population at 25 million and 85% of them live within 50 meters to the coast

Do you mean 50 km?

I enjoy your blog, and look forward to upping my own game here in the UK.

1. A Purple Life says:
  
  October 3, 2023 at 9:16 am
  
  Hi! Please don’t feel bad about not doing a lot during the first few months of retirement. Even though it was the pandemic and I was literally staying at home all the time it took me more than 6 months to get my energy back. Be kind to yourself and take your time 🙂 .
  
  And yep that’s definitely a typo 🙂 . Thank you for bringing it to my attention! I’ve updated it. I’ll also talk to my editor about missing that (my editor is my Mom🤣).
  
  You’ve got this!
  
Hem says:

October 3, 2023 at 8:06 am

Glad you are enjoying Australia! I am planning a few months in AUS and NZ for next year and was wondering if you have any tips on the visa situation. I read the other recap link too.
I am thinking of 2.5 months in AUS, 2.5 months in NZ and then 2.5 months again in AUS.
I think I am good for NZ but wondering if you came across any data points where the same 601 visa class would work for this return visit?
also, look forward to the posts on great barrier reef and your itinerary in AUS in general!

1. A Purple Life says:
  
  October 3, 2023 at 9:21 am
  
  Thank you! That’s exciting 🙂 . I’m not sure what to do in that visa situation actually. They might make you get a second 601 for Australia since each is for 3 months, but I’m not sure.
  
  I just posted some reels of my reef snorkeling on Insta if that helps! Also my AUS itinerary is pretty simple: just Sydney and Cairns. Originally when this trip was happening in 2020 I was going to hit every coast of Australia and the center, but I had to recalibrate in 2023.
  
The Orchard says:

October 4, 2023 at 8:31 am

Australia looks like a blast! It’s fun reading these travel recaps. It’s like a FIRE-themed edition of “Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego?”

Did I read correctly that you got plane tickets that normally cost $15,000 for just $27? That’s some really impressive travel hacking!

Also, I like hearing about all the sponsorships and other junky stuff you declined. It’s refreshingly honest, and a good reminder of just how many bottom-feeding ad companies there are out there.

1. A Purple Life says:
  
  October 5, 2023 at 1:59 pm
  
  Yeah I’m really enjoying it! I’m glad you enjoy the travel updates 🙂 . I actually already made a joke about “Where in the World is Purple?” in my post on Tuesday so we’re on the same page 😉 .
  
  And yes that’s correct lol. It’s wild. And thank you!
  
  I’m glad you find it interesting as well. I like to highlight the outlandish ones because I had no idea so much trash was out there either and I find it humorous 🙂 .
  
Jim says:

October 6, 2023 at 3:39 pm

Thanks for the updates, you’ve been to 2 places I have on my Bucket List, Singapore and Australia, my problem is I hate flying and taking a boat is too slow. Maybe if I can score the same deal you got, I could handle the 20 hours. Glad you had a great time!

1. A Purple Life says:
  
  October 13, 2023 at 1:39 pm
  
  Thanks for reading 🙂 . And that is very fair. I’ve taken a boat across the Atlantic, but not the Pacific (which is obviously larger) and the Atlantic one took quite a while. I hope flying in style would help. I seriously forgot I was on a plane at times 🙂 .