Neighbors Stories

If you asked me what I like about moving into this house, I would say it's our neighbors. Both my left and right neighbours are very nice, but the one i'm going to tell you about are the older Croatian couple. They are a nice couple and very friendly. You know what, the husband is the one moving our front and backyard while my dad is not here XP

We didn't ask him of course. After we came back from holiday, the wife told us when it's time to mow the lawn, just ask her husband to do it. It's not girls' job, she said. Of course we just laughed it off, but then not long after when I got home, I noticed my front lawn was flat! My lawn is full of weeds so you do notice when suddenly it's flat. When we asked the neighbors, and thanked them, the husband asked said, "yeah, I wanted to do the backyard too but it's locked. So tell me when you want me to mow it". We told him don't worry, we'll do it ourselves but he insisted. Then, he did it then and there XD since then he's been mowing our lawn every 2 weeks :P

Plus, on taking the rubbish day out day, we noticed that by the time we got home the day after, the bins have been pushed in next to the house. Initially I thought it was one of my sisters as I'm the last one to return. However, later on my sister asked me if I did as neither her nor her twin did it. When we confirmed with next door, yeah it was them.

We met them tonight on our way home and ended up talking for quite a while. It's nice to hear their stories about the old times..

They told us in 70s, when they first arrived in Australia, the husband first pay was $50 a week and the wife's pay was $34 per week and it paid for rent and food for them and 2 children! 700 ml milk cost 20cents and a baguette cost 5 cents. Milk really doesn't have much increase. You can still buy a litre for $1 now. While baguettes hmm.. quite an increase. You can leave money for bread and milk delivery in front of your door safely, but outside generally wasn't as safe as now. There weren't much take away places, just fish and chips, burgers and such. You couldn't buy lunches on Saturdays because stores closed at noon! Getting a place to rent was hard if you had kids because landlords worried kids would damage the property. They said people with 2-3 kids usually lied and said they had 1 kid only if they wanted to rent. Childcare of course were not many, so the wife worked in the morning and her sister worked in the afternoon to take turns watching over the children. They had a tough life back then.

They said they had to work hard in a farm when they were in Croatia. They said it was a small village where they lived, probably 50-60 houses. Everybody knew everybody. When they took their children back there for holiday, their eldest was surprised, "Why don't people knock when coming to other house?? They just opened the door and walked straight in!". It's a pity now that that village isn't like how it was before. People don't know everyone anymore and it has grown too.

They were all good story and I guess, worth my blood being fed to mosquitoes listening to it :P

Busy Shopping Weekend! Part 2 :P

We had very busy schedule for Sunday. We hired a van to pick up all the stuffs and asked Kazeman to help us drive around the city. Lucky he is a morning person. Before I even told him the itinerary, he already said eagerly to start at 7 AM!! We did start with 7 AM train to the city. Met him probably at 7:15 on the train.

Here's our itinerary :)
1. Go to city to pick up Van.
2. Go to North Bondi to pick the dining table around 8-8.30
3. Either drop the table home or go straight to Yarrawarah to borrow trolley.
4. If we have time, go to Bunnings in Kirrawee to buy lawnmowers, laundry baskets and stuffs for the garden.
5. Go to Oatley to pick up organ by 10:30.
6. Either drop the stuffs home or go straight to Bankstown to pick the rugs up.
7. Lunch.
8. If we didn't go to Bunnings, go to Bunnings Bankstown Airport.
9. Drop stuffs home if required.
10. IKEA.
11. Drop stuffs to Yarrawarah.
12. Drop stuffs home.

What do you think? Busy eh? My plan was to be in Ikea by 2-3. But we ended up arriving in Ikea by 3:40 pm. Well... Not too bad right?

What was different from the plan was that the dining table was so big and heavy and hard to arrange in the van. Lucky the seller was really a nice guy and helped to load them up and arranged them properly. I don't think you would find this kind of seller often. The wife even gave us a bit of the paint that they used to patch it up if required. How thoughtful! We indeed needed it as the paint was scratched off etc otw home.

Even the parking was an effort! As pretty as North Bondi is with their terrace style townhouses and the tiny streets, the streets are TINY! And there are SO MANY cars parked along the street! The guy had to guide Kazeman to park every single inch of the way. Yep, every single inch. I'm not exaggerating.

Because it was a very big table and a lot of chairs, we had to drop them home first. Again, what an effort to get it in! Then we went to Yarrawarah to pick the trolley up. My sisters went straight to Oatley.

Even on the way to Yarrawarah we already knew we won't be at Oatley by 10:30. My sis text the owner that we would be late. Lucky she didn't mind (we got there at 11). I didn't know Yarrawarrah is so far! And you know what, after all that drive, we couldn't even use the trolley because the organ was too heavy!

I think our lucky stars were with us that day. The owner of the organ is such a nice lady too. Her garage is at the bottom of a slope, and he guided Kazeman along the way too, told him how to drive to get right to the best position to load the organ. Then, she explained every single feature of the organ, what issue the organ has, and even gave us the headset and make sure the chair strange doesn't contain rubbish. She also wiped the organ clean! She went all the extra mile for something she is giving away for free! Really, we were very grateful.

Now, the organ is heavy. She did say to bring strong people. According to her son, the organ weighs 200kg. I didn't believe it. Then I googled it and it says 230lbs, over 100kg. I was like omg, how are we going to load it?? But I thought we have 4 people anyway, should be okay! Umm... Not really. It was really a hard job. That dining table previously was nothing compared to this -.- but we eventually got it up in the van phew... The lady helped us too, even trying to find a piece of slate if we needed it.

Then, we planned to go straight to Bankstown as that organ is the only item in the van. Still have so much space. BUT! Just about 5 minutes drive, the organ fell! We had to put it up again and tied it to the cage. Originally we thought it wasn't necessary as it was very heavy already! But no, it still fell down. Looking at it, Kazeman decided to drop it home first.

Maybe it was really a good day for us all :) when we got home, we had to wait for my sisters to unload the organ. They took the train as the van was only for 3 people. At a time like this, Indo rule where you can fit the whole villagers into a vehicle if you can is really handy T.T then, tadaaaa my neighbor came out. We had a bit of chit chat and then I told him that we just got an organ but waiting for my sisters to unload it. Then, the magic question appeared, "Do you need a hand?". And world sparkled ^^ of course I felt bad asking him such a big job, so I asked are you sure?? It is very heavy! Which he replied yeah yeah it's okay. He genuinely wanted to help. So, great :)

And man, I didn't know that a guy's power compared to girl's is really that big!! Kazeman, my neighbour and me unloaded the organ and got it into the house and it wasn't as hard as when we loaded it up! And we only had 3 people! And I didn't help once they got it in the house (due to small door. 3 ppl can't fit you know XD). Man's power is scary.

That's one big job done. The biggest one for that day I might say. Lucky we have great neighbors :) next time I bake I will give them some :)

So, we went straight to Bankstown. Lucky my sisters weren't already otw home. We went to Bankstown Home Focus, picked the rugs, and had Oporto lunch. We weren't too late, it was around 1:30 when we had lunch. And maybe that Saturday was our lucky day. Even the Oporto guy was very nice and funny. All 4 of us ordered Wasabi Burger and chili cheese chips. Right before I paid, I asked him, "is it nice? If it isn't, I will change mine to something else". He replied, "The burger or the chips?". I said the burger. He said, "I haven't tried the burger, but I've tried the sauce. It tastes like wasabi, but not as strong. I've tried the chili cheese chips, they are great". Then after I paid he added, "If you don't like the burger, bring it back to me, I will change it for you". XD

The burger was good btw, and you can taste the wasabi. I was surprised, it was stronger than I thought it would be. Chili cheese chips were great too.

Then we went to Bunnings Bankstown Airport. It was my first time to Bunnings, and it was HUGE! We could easily spend hours there. What we were looking for mainly was a lawnmower. A staff tried to help us, but he was new, so he said to wait for the other one. The other one was AWESOME!! I told him my backyard size and told him I just wanted something easy. He said he would normally recommend the petrol one, but you need to know engines, I.e. sparkplugs and stuffs. You need to YouTube it and see how to work it together. It takes some time to get the hang of it. But if you don't have all those, he suggests the electric one. It has the power etc, the only downside is you have to carry the cord over your shoulder when you now the lawn. And you can't do it when the lawn is wet. I said I don't mind the cord, it's just like vacuuming the floor. And he went, "FINALLY!! Thank god!! That's what I always says! It's just like vacuuming! You carry the cord anyway! I don't understand why people always complain about it!". LOL

But yeah, he was good. Seems like Bunnings have great staff. Last time my sisters went to buy locks, they asked the staff too and they were very helpful. This lawnmower guy even point to each of the lawnmower and said this is great, this is expensive for what it's doing, this is rubbish, this one is the cheapest but great etc etc. It was clear that he was genuinely helping, not ripping you off.

Then, after that my sisters and Kazeman went to Ikea Tempe. I took the bus to Bankstown and changed train to Sydenham instead. My friend, Jen would pick me up from there to go to Ikea together.

She was late, so by the time we got to Ikea my sisters already got all things we needed (I got to Ikea at 4:20 while my sisters got there by 3:40). The wardrobe Jen wanted was sold out though, so she had to find an alternative. We finished around 5:30, loaded all the things into our van and drove to Yarrawarrah.

Lucky Jen had her in-law at home to help unloading her stuffs, he is STRONG!! So it didn't take us too much time nor energy. Then we dropped our stuffs home, and then went to city to return the van. Jen tagged along with us too so she could drop us all home :)

Then, dinner time! Finally lol. Everyone was so tired, Kazeman too. I told him he could choose what he wanted for dinner. He said, "No, better not, you guys would regret it later...". I said it's ok, even if it's Hotpot I don't mind. He then grinned widely and said Hotpot hahahha...

I don't know if that Hotpot was really good or I was very tired and hungry. We had very nice dinner. We finished by 9:30 and Jen dropped us all home. But I had to patch the dining table and chairs and take shower before going to bed T__T everyone was dead tired and went straight to Cotton Island, including Kazeman Hehehehe... Thank you so much Kazeman!! I bet he won't help me next time lol. But at least you had a new experience today, right? Driving a van! Hahaha XD

That's all! Busy eh? XD

Last Night in Kogarah

Just wanna do a final post while I'm still living in Kogarah. My eyes are only on 0.5 watt at the moment. It's 1:14 am and we will be moving to our new house in less than 12 hours XD

Packing is 99% done. What's left is packing our TV, microwave, mattresses, washing machine and some left over things. It's not bad really, considering everytime I help my bestie moves, I always have to stay awake until 3-4 in the morning. Sleep, then wake up at 8.30 and packing again :P

I hope I will be happy in our new place. It is a bit far from the station, and with limited bus, we will be forced to go home earlier every night or at least reduce the late night outs (not that we have that many anyway lol). But, I'm growing old, so I guess sleeping early is not a bad idea :P

Kogarah is nice. I feel a bit sad leaving this place. I love the environment, I love the library that has really great collection, services, and great building too, I love the area, I love Aldi that's close and making me buy quite few items when their catalogue is out :P damn I couldn't get that French dresser -_- (if anyone willing to deliver one for me, I will be forever grateful :)).

The only thing that makes me can't wait to leave is how I have to worry everytime I open my window due to smoker neighbours blowing toxic smoke to my room and the noisy and partying neighbours. Seriously, if you leave in an apartment, behave man! People nowadays are getting more and more selfish and rude -_- but now lets focus on the good ones of Kogarah :)

I will definitely miss the restaurants around here. There are plenty good Thai restaurant, and my favourite Italian restaurant, Amici di Kogarah :) I took my cousins, my aunties/uncle, and my 2nd nephew there when they were visiting and they all love it! Their pasta is really good. Will definitely miss them :'(

Anyway, time for me to sleep. 1:27 now. I have to wake up early to drop my stuffs to charity, then tidy up the place for the open inspection and then packing again.

Hope tomorrow doesn't rain too hard, hope my friends come earlier, hope my stuffs fit in the truck, hope the removalist get a parking in front of the building, and hope the moving doesnt take too long :)

Wish me luck, will you?? :)