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Ask HN: If you could live and work somewhere, where would it be?

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Re: Ask HN: If you could live and work somewhere, where would it be?

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True that! Moved here from Germany in may working as a backend developer. The people are awesome and once you get used to the language it just feels like home :))

1. In which area of Switzerland did you move? 2. Which languages should you know besides english? 3. How did you find the job: online, recommendation? 4. Did you move with family or alone? 5. How many years of experience did you have?

1. Zurich city

2. English is enough for working in IT. Live gets a lot easier if you know German in German-speaking Switzerland, French in western Switzerland or Italian in Tessin (southern Switzerland)

3. I searched online and was approached by Hays. Then I had three interviews with three offers and took the best fit.

4. I moved alone but my girlfriend already lived here which made it easier of course

5. 10 years in total, 1.5 years as project manager in an agency, 8 years in a big utilities company. Had a side business for web development since 2009.

Looking back I would say getting that job was even easier than finding a new job in Germany. Developers are searched for so you can easily apply to open vacancies even if they do not explicitly search for foreigners. I can recommend jobs.ch as a source for jobs.

Re: Ask HN: If you could live and work somewhere, where would it be?

#73
post #11
post #4

Japan (not sure which city), at least for a while but only for a while (not sure if I could keep up 10 years there). I love the culture.

Culture yes, but depending on the company, the working environment is not that awesome :p Also it's very easy to feel isolated as a foreigner and seeing thousands of people squishing themselves into the trains every morning doesn't make it better. Though the startup scene here is changing very strongly and bigger companies from all over the world open offices here and consider Japan as the 'gateway into the asian mar…

I just got my visa for 1 year running a company here. I setup the company to be distributed. I am based in Tokyo. I can say despite not speaking the language it was the best decision I have ever made. Both locals and expats are friendly. If you are going to do business here it is best to have someone on your team who speaks the language though.

Another big reason I love it here is how safe it is. After having lived in SF for a few years, there's a lot to be said for that.

Re: being difficult. I would disagree. Moving to Japan and dealing with immigration took me 4 months and multiple lawyers. The bureaucracy is real.

Re: Ask HN: If you could live and work somewhere, where would it be?

#74
post #70
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The enormous hassle for me is transferring money in and out of the country. My internet service in Phnom Penh is fairly steady fortunately. Let me know if you need any advice, translations, or whatever while traveling!

I was surprised to see that half of the banks dont accept mastercard and half of the rest was somehow out of service. I can imagine there is quite a banking hassle. Thanks for the offer. Maybe i need to come back to it, but so far everything is nice (except the internet, where both 4G and the hotel Wifi fail every other hour). From all the interesting dishes, what do i have to try?

Try all of the exotic fruits. Salak, jackfruit, sapodillas, dragonfruit, rambutan, mangosteen, durian, custard apples, and whatever else you find. Any of the familiar fruits are especially good here too (there are many types of bananas and mangoes here, for example, that taste different from any that I had eaten before). There are also fruits that I only know the Khmer names of -- /pɲiev/, /lɔŋkɔŋ/ -- that are very good and also unusual tasting (they both look like longans).

I like a lot of Khmer food but tend toward simple vegetable-heavy stir fries with okra, kale, bamboo, lotus stems, water spinach, etc. Rice porridge is very common here and usually includes bean sprouts and coagulated cow's blood plus added lime / pepper / chili (the cow's blood is great, but chicken blood tastes terrible IMO). I also eat grilled fish and grilled chicken skin on a near daily basis.

Re: Ask HN: If you could live and work somewhere, where would it be?

#76

Melbourne, Australia needs to be on your list. Pros: Most livable city in the world. Great startup scene. Phenomenal transportation options. Great universities. Fantastic street art everywhere. Amazing food. USD vs. AUD is quite good for USD right now so it is pretty affordable. Cons: Internet not blazing fast. Beaches elsewhere in Australia are much better (it is on a bay = no waves).

Pros: Weather is nice. Cons: The weather can turn sour in 15 minutes.

Re: Ask HN: If you could live and work somewhere, where would it be?

#79

Melbourne, Australia needs to be on your list. Pros: Most livable city in the world. Great startup scene. Phenomenal transportation options. Great universities. Fantastic street art everywhere. Amazing food. USD vs. AUD is quite good for USD right now so it is pretty affordable. Cons: Internet not blazing fast. Beaches elsewhere in Australia are much better (it is on a bay = no waves).

Great to hear you've had a good time here Andrew!

I feel the need to add...

Melbourne does have great surf beaches within about 1-2 hours’ drive: Bells Beach (which hosts an annual World Surf League tournament [1] and was depicted - falsely - in the 1991 Patrick Swayze & Keanu Reeves movie Point Break [2]), Jan Juc and Fairhaven on the west coast; Gunnamatta, Point Leo, Cape Woolamai to the east.

These beaches can offer world-class surfing for serious surfers.

However, the weather is quite cold in winter and it's not a tropical climate, so they're not very pretty beaches and not much fun for ordinary leisure beachgoers, except for the warmer months of December to March.

The beaches in Sydney and further up the East Coast to Far North Queensland are much more pretty, and for much more of the year, as are those in Perth and up the Western Australian coast.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Curl_Pro

[2] https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

Re: Ask HN: If you could live and work somewhere, where would it be?

#80

Melbourne, Australia needs to be on your list. Pros: Most livable city in the world. Great startup scene. Phenomenal transportation options. Great universities. Fantastic street art everywhere. Amazing food. USD vs. AUD is quite good for USD right now so it is pretty affordable. Cons: Internet not blazing fast. Beaches elsewhere in Australia are much better (it is on a bay = no waves).

(As an Indian) Pros: The MCG

(As an Indian) Cons: India usually loses/struggles in boxing day tests.

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