Hi Cate,
I have been in POM for a year now working for a Christian NGO. You cannot be as casual as you are in Austr. However with reasonable caution you can enjoy the city. There are several well secured Expat shopping areas including a modern mall with stores, food court and movie theater with current shows. There is a museum, a national botanical garden that many people got to for picnics and family. There is also another family fun area called Adventure land that has some rides for the kids, animals and birds, a nice grounds for picnics and more. There are usually craft markets a least a couple of weekends a month. Crystal Rapis is about an hour away and place that is very beautiful to take the family fr an outing and swim and March Girls Beach Resort is about 30 minutes outside POM with beach side cabana, good food and ocean swimming. Shopping, though kind of expensive is okay with a few large department stores, expat grocery stores and a variety of more local stores. You can get "almost" anything you want here. All in all POM is better than it was a year ago and I think things are improving overall. Please fell free to contact me with IM for more info if you wish.