Five quick updates from what's been happening since it's been awhile since I blogged:
We're still in lockdown (101 days now apparently)
Lockdown is scheduled to end when Sydney reaches 70% double dose
We are currently at 67.45% double dose (I've been logging the numbers daily)
Lockdown is scheduled to end on October 11 (Literally a week away!)
Our Premier/State leader was forced to resign because she's corrupt (I think)?
Outside of that, our weeks seem fairly repetitive only because the lockdown has limited our ability to do more things. So it's generally food stuff, weekend/evening walks by the beach or nature, takeaway food, home upgrades. Even with this mundane routine, there seems to be a silver lining which we tend to end up on the side of.
Silver Lining #1: Takeaways Only
Lockdown has emptied out the busiest suburbs which is awesome because we never have any problems finding parking and just checking out new restaurants for takeaway.
Takeaway can never be as good as dining in but because the suburb we live in is like the Tiong Bahru of Sydney, we're 5, 10 minutes drive from the good stuff so even takeaway food tastes pretty good by the time we get back.
And it's such a good opportunity to check out the suburbs together. Other than going around to collect items for the house, takeaway food has also taken us to new places. We even have our favourite Indian, fried chicken, Thai, and Singaporean/Malaysian food places now.
It would be a bit of a downer once Sydney opens up because the streets would be packed and parking would be ridiculously difficult.
Silver Lining #2: Home Cooked Food
Our home cooked meals has also levelled up during lockdown.
Although it always looks like I'm doing the cooking (Which I am), behind the scenes it's Sarah who gives suggestions of what to eat and I just figure out how to make it.
Probably one of the better pasta dishes we've made: Prawn Aglio Olio Linguine (Sarah's idea).
Fish & Chips (Sarah's idea)
Eggs frittata (Gordon Ramsay's idea)
Chicken Karaage (Sarah's idea)
Soba Tempura (Sarah's idea)
Good food can't be enjoyed alone. Ok, technically it can. But you get the idea. Takes two to make a good meal. Ok, it only takes one. You. Get. The. Idea. Moving on!
Silver Lining #3: Home Life
Even during lockdown, our new home life has been pretty good. Two observations from setting up in our new place:
It's likely no tenant goes as far as us in setting us a temporary home.
It's also likely nobody has set up a house to this extent as quickly as we have.
With all the shops closed, we can't go out and pick up stuff so Sarah has mastered the art of Facebook Marketplace which is massive here. She finds, consults me, we decide, I do the pick up. Which is awesome because we get to check out random neighbourhoods (within our 5KM range of course) and go to people's houses. You can refer to her last post about all the good deals she's struck and we've done even better since then.
Like this set of metal shelving units FOR FREE. And it's not just one metal shelving unit, we picked up FIVE of them. FOR FREE.
You would think five shelving units for free, they must be pretty run down. Rusted and cursed. Not sure if it's cursed but they definitely weren't rusted.
So this is how our backyard organisation looks like now.
We also put up some fairy lights in the backyard which is my little contribution to the house. It's awesome and recommend fairy lights anywhere to anyone.
So far, we've done two outdoor movie nights because the television we have comes with its own standing legs so we just carry it wherever we need it to be and our first outdoor hot pot (Which was also found on Facebook Marketplace for $18. Shops were selling hotpots upwards of $70 at least)
Another opportunity we have with a huge backyard area is to grow our own herbs and plants. Since we never really grew these things back in Singapore, we started with the three basic herbs which has now started to grow so that's exciting as well.
And then we have the kitchen island which is a story on it's own. We originally had a smaller Ikea kitchen island that came with two bar stools. Sarah saw this new, more awesome one online, flipped the island and bar stools separately for profit (I think), and then bought this one all in the span of a week.
That's just the big item stuff. The smaller items include rugs, plants, art that she's scored for amazing prices on Facebook Marketplace. That woman has a true gift.
Our proudly hung art piece that promptly fell off the wall two days later.
Silver Lining #4: Connecting with Nature
We're pretty lucky that our 5KM from home allows us to reach a number of beaches so we've done a lot of those nature walks over the weekends/weekday evenings if we can fit them in.
We'll never ever get enough of these sunsets, that opportunity to connect to closely with nature, and getting that breath of fresh air.
With lockdown ending and everything opening up, I would be a little sad that our time out would be spent more at restaurants, bars, and shopping centres and less in nature.
Silver Lining #5: Oh duck.
It's a little worrying, for me at least, that we're settling in too well to the point where we may not want to leave. Before we arrived in Sydney, we spoke to a few people who had lived overseas and the story always goes: "We thought we'd stay for a year and ended up staying for six years."
Not sure if that's happening to us slowly but the last five months here have felt like a year with the amount of things happening. And most if it has happened within the confines of lockdown.
I'm pretty sure with Sydney re-opening on October 11, whatever we've experienced so far will be dialled up ten-fold.
And whether or not those experiences further deepens our roots in Australia isn't really something we'll be thinking of. Just like how we've navigated lockdown with these silver linings, we'll take everything one step at a time and see where we end up. Whatever happens, it'll definitely be quite the journey.
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