Sydney

There are many great cities in this world! Some I love more than others. My favourites include London, Paris, Rome, Honolulu and San Francisco. Australia, however has some of my absolute favourites, these include Perth and Sydney.

Melbourne has retained its position as the best city in the world to call home. Often derided as Bleak City by Sydneysiders, Melbourne topped a survey of 130 cities, narrowly beating out the other four Australian capitals surveyed - because its weather rated the best. Sydney lost ground because its crime rate was rated on a par with New York and London.


The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey ranked Melbourne, Vancouver and Vienna as the best cities for expatriates to live, with Perth fourth and Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney equal sixth.

The other Australian cities were all given a two for climate, while Adelaide also received two for housing, Brisbane and Perth scored two for transport and Sydney for its crime. Port Moresby received five for crime and an overall score of 80. While Perth was given an overall mark of 1.1, Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney scored 1.2.

The heightened terrorist threat only had a minimal impact on western cities, even those in the United States, largely because of newly developed security measures.

The highest ranked US city was Honolulu in 19th on eight points, while New York was 51st with 16 and Washington was the lowest of 16 American cities in the survey at 57th, mainly due to a higher risk of terrorism giving it an overall score of 19.

London was equal 45th, along with Los Angeles, Madrid and San Francisco.

Kuwait fell the most places, dropping from 87 to 97 because of the war in neighbouring Iraq, while Harare suffered the greatest actual drop in living standards as a result of ongoing unrest and slid eight places to 118.

I Love My Dog

His name is Cyron!!! That's right. Why Cyron? Well, it was the name of my very first dog! I’ve always loved animals. Dogs and cats in particular! I’ve always had a dog while I grew up. My first very own dog was Cyron. He was the son of my mother’s dog which she named Lassie. I had so much fun with Cyron till it died. A really sad day in my life.

Later, I got another dog. Its name was Smokie. Smokie was a sausage dog. Oh! How we all loved Smokie. Even our “mother” cat loved it. Believe it or not, but mother cat would actually nurse Smokie! It was so small and cute and would always fall asleep on my lap. Smokie did not have a very long life, our bread delivery man ran over it with his van.

My father, not wanting to upset us, told the delivery man not to tell us (the kids) about it. However, the following week, feeling guilty, he brought us another dog and apologized for killing Smokie. What followed was loud and sorrowful mourning. We named the new dog “Hai Joo” After the bakery that made the bread. Mother cat was so excited to see Hai Joo, thinking it was Smokie! Poor, Hai Joo, as soon as mother cat smelt it, her clows came out and she attacked the poor dog.

Now, I have Cyron. My dear Cyron. Cyron is a miniature schnauzer. It was a gift from my dear friend Alvin. Cyron is such a good dog!! He lets me bathe him all the time and does as he is told. I truly love my new dog. I’m writing this blog all the way in Sydney and I miss my dog so much!! There is actually something I miss much more, but I guess I will not be writing about it here!