Monday, May 25, 2009

Adjusting and settling down

I have been in Canberra, Australia for 7 weeks and I am still adjusting with the whole Australian way of life.

We actually had smooth transition because my mum in law was kindly enough to provide us place to stay until we ready to move to our own place. We are now settling down in our own place, nice apartment near to Sam's office yeah just 2 minutes walk lucky him, nice courtyard view, near Lake Burley Griffin, 10 minutes walk to Manuka Circle and Kingston shops.

View from our balcony to central courtyard.













I also glad that I met this wonderful lady through cyber world, Katadia was soo kind to pick me up on our first land coffee (kopi darat) during the election day and we went to Indonesian Embassy so I can meet other Indonesians. At the Indonesian embassy I ate this pempek without knowing that it hasn't been fried yet, it shown how clueless I am about that kind of thing ha ha. After that we went to Katadia's house and meet Mr. Husband, how cool was that, first land coffee we come to each other's house, top that other bloggers! :p.

Last Friday Katadia took me to this Indonesian's take away shop to eat proper pempek, this time I eat the fried one hahaha. Thanks for that Katz.


I am sure my mum will be very proud of me because now I can cook and do domestic stuff like ironing, washing the dishes (when our stuff is not enough to use the dish washer), cleaning and tidying up the house ;).

I find this city more relax compare to Jakarta, people usually finish work at 4.30pm to 5 pm and after that they are at home preparing dinner. The no traffic jam roads make it possible to do that, things that you can't do in Jakarta as usually take hours to reach home from work. I love the blue sky, fresh air, beautiful green yellow and red leaves and empty road, I kinda like the quiet environment it's soothing and people are less stressful.













What I miss from Jakarta is the people friends and family, food and the cheap things (salon treatment, massage and spa, clothes, taxi). We are still comparing price to Jakarta and it still shock us how cheap living cost in Jakarta. I know, we should stop compare it and start to live with the local price, we're getting to that point slowly.

I promise I will write again soon and posting something about my new home. Just wait and see ;)


4 comments:

Elyani said...

Ecky, to be honest I often comparing the food prices here with what I usually paid in Jakarta. The other day I saw sweet yams (ubi manis) and thought that they would be great for my breakfast, so I took 2 of them and bought another groceries. When I reached home I noticed that 2 yams costed me CDN 1.80 or about Rp. 16,000 just for 2 yams!! I said to myself in Jakarta I would get 5 kilos of yams with for the same amount of money I spent here. And the yams were not as good as in Indonesia when being fried...they were a bit watery, not like ubi goreng that I usually had in Indo. I also do not like the taste of cucumbers and green beans (buncis) here...they are not just the same and taste different than our local produce in Indonesia. I really miss going to pasar tradisional in Jakarta :(

Katadia said...

Hey... you're tagged! Liat blog gue ya bo!

Anyway, on the price difference thing, I found that I actually can save money by living here. Mostly because I can take the kids out and entertain ourselves with just 20 bucks for the weekend (buat beli pempek2 di kippax! Kekkekk)

Neng Keke said...

It's a beautiful view, ky... :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Ecky,

Glad things works well! How is your new neighborhood, how are the people there? I was told by somebody that people makes the place good or bad. I hope they are friendly and interesting to talk to. Besides Katadia, is there any other bloggers from Indonesia?

I've never been to Australia and I don't know many Australians.