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Gabriel

Week 6 & 7: Home

The last two weeks have revolved a lot around home for us: Celebrating National Day, moving out of our current place, finding a new 'home', cooking local dishes.


Oh, we're merging the last two weeks into one post because we got lazy but I'm on duty today so here goes.

The Lockdown

We've just crossed week 6 & 7 of lockdown. It's strange that even with lockdown in place, the case numbers don't seem to be going down. Instead, the case numbers are going upwards peaking at about 450 yesterday which led to a tighter statewide lockdown starting tomorrow:

  • Reduction of travel from 10KM radius of where you live to 5KM

  • Increase in police fines from $1,000 to $5,000 for breaching rules

  • In effect for 7-days to try to bring the numbers down

So how's lockdown been? Some days are pretty bad, others are okay, and in between we have some highs. I guess that's the difference between going on a holiday and actually living in another country. Holidays are just stacked with awesome stuff over a short burst of time and then you head home. Living here is like living anywhere else I guess - Some ups, some downs.


Kayaking & A New Awesome Discovery

Last week was pretty interesting for us. Our only two friends here invited us to go kayaking which we've not done together ever. Who goes kayaking in Singapore.


This was peak Australia with the blue skies, clear waters, cool weather, awesome beaches. Kayaking's pretty awesome and a more awesome discovery was finding out there's such a thing as a pedal powered kayak which is exactly what it sounds like - Using your feet to pedal instead of fiddling around with an oar.

While your feet does the pedalling, what do you do with your hands then? This damn kayak comes with a cup holder. A tempting purchase at just $1,500. Soon pedal powered kayak, soon.


Celebrating National Day Away From Home

First time that Sarah and I are away from home celebrating National Day. We decided to take advantage of the slow work day by heading out to a new spot for a hike and what a discovery that was.

Apparently Mission Impossible 2 was filmed here


Man, this place got us excited as we were driving up. Everything was exciting with this spot: The island, the bridge, some historical buildings. It's one of those places where we'd definitely bring friends and family to if/when they ever make it over.


And since it was National Day, we decided to make Mee Goreng after getting more hand written recipes from my mother-in-law which turned out pretty okay visually.

But was let down by the taste because of the Ayam brand seasoning packet that wasn't quite the same flavour we were expecting. Or as Sarah would put it, "This is not Mee Goreng" x 28 times.


We streamed the National Day parade while eating and WE CRIED. More teared than cried but we definitely got emotional. Patriotic much. Leave Singapore for Australia and then get all patriotic. Lame.


I guess we got emotional because there was such a familiarity with what we saw on screen that we haven't seen in months (Side note that yesterday was officially our three months here) so yeah, I guess we're missing home. All things considered, it was a pretty good National Day.


Finding 'Home'

The lease of our current place ends September 6 and we've not secured a new place yet so we definitely spent a lot of time last week doing house inspections. I mean, it's not like our house criteria is super intense, all we need is:

  1. Safe neighbourhood

  2. Cool neighbourhood (Can't be Chinatown type)

  3. No carpet on floors (It's a thing in Australia for some reason. Like 95% of houses have that)

  4. Two decently sized rooms

  5. Decently sized living room

  6. Near a supermarket and other amenities

  7. Relatively near a train station

  8. Good weekly rent price

  9. Semi-furnished with the big items (Fridge, washing machine)

Like I said, not unrealistic expectations to find a place that checked all nine criteria. Duh.

We definitely came close to compromising on a few things to secure our next place but thankfully we didn't. Our decision making is getting more and more on point being here and having to make more decisions than usual.


In total, we visited 14 houses and we finally managed to secure one which starts on August 23 (Coincidentally, Sarah's birthday so that's her birthday gift settled).


And amazingly enough, it checked every single criteria that we wanted. It's also hilarious because after running all over Sydney looking at houses, we ended up in a block directly opposite ours so we're moving from block 2B to 2C.


It's also strange because this unit has been on the market for TWO MONTHS and it's still available. For context, the apartments we've seen go fairly quickly like a week or so? Kinda makes us think why this place hasn't been snapped up yet. We'll find out when one of us gets possessed in a few weeks.


Could be a coincidence, could be God at work (again). I'd like to think the latter here.


Moving to a New 'Home'

A pretty uneventful week 7 of lockdown for us. Work was pretty brutal so we didn't get to go out much but thankfully the weekend picked up for us as we made Laksa on Friday:


And went back to our awesome hiking spot for more nature walks. Seriously, this place has got the sea, nature trails, beaches, bridges, historical buildings. We're 100% bringing anyone who comes to visit to this awesome spot. Readers be warned.


The rest of the weekend was spent getting excited around doing up our new place in a few weeks since it comes largely unfurnished and man, do we have super grand visions for this place. I'm like 100% sold to purchase a fire pit so we can sit in our backyard with the fire going under a string of fairy lights with an outdoor projector for movie night. #kingofenvisioning


I think we're pretty excited for a few reasons:

  1. We've both been sleeping on a really small Queen bed and we can't wait to either get a King and be slightly further apart or to have two rooms where we can sleep on our own.

  2. Everything in the apartment we're in doesn't belong to us. The couch was sat on and farted by tons of people, the carpet is filthy with hairs from at least 50 people. So it'll be a nice change to get stuff we want + it's brand new.

  3. Also, the opportunity to experiment with a different home style is awesome since our Singapore home is already done up in a certain way.

  4. Thankfully furniture here is damn affordable + you get a good variety so that creates a ton of options for us.

HOW CHEAP IS THIS?


All in all, a pretty eventful two weeks. Getting stuff for our new place will keep us occupied for the next two to three weeks which hopefully will see us through the end of lockdown and we honestly can't wait for life to get back to some normalcy.



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