Canberra Through The Eyes Of The Rockstars – Arrival And Chill Out

Sorry for not responding to comments, even with our own wifi and calling the company couple times the pages load real slow – and Disqus practically doesn’t load, which is probably why I’ve had Facebooks in the past saying they can’t comment easily.

Yes we are in Canberra!

The rental apartment was a little cold (we only locate the portable heater on the last night, by which time we have mostly gotten used to simply bundling up in the 6-9 degrees celsius thereabouts nights), but The Rockstars are liking the whole idea of an apartment stay that’s “kind of” in a whole other world. Like, people around us speak English (well, Aussie). Rockstar’s had Aussie and/or Kiwi classmates pretty much all 3 ESF years (2 Kindy + Primary), but <gasp>  people in supermarkets, restaurants, the guy who told us we were lucky after narrowly escaping a parking ticket – they’re not speaking Cantonese! 😀 This where we’ve been holed up enjoying each others’ company the last few days…

The breast milk in the cooler (bott right) arrived… mostly intact – maybe 4 bags out of 36 had started to melt, so I defrosted those and used them first, over a day or two. Here’s where I should mention the nice sales ladies at Japan Home had advised I buy the Rubber Maid ice box, if I simply must pack 2 weeks of frozen breast milk on a 9 hour flight plus 2 hour stopover plus another 55 min flight, as that was what other customers had apparently done (my girlfriends packed their pumps, then had hotels store the milk for them). I packed mine in those 4-hour cooler bags from Bumps to Babes, then fit the bags into the cooler with 14 of those reusable mini-cooling/ heating things. When we arrived at the apartment we rented, there was frost on the outside of the cooler bag, in the portable ice box.

We spent the first couple days totally pigging out on free-range eggs, milk, mushrooms and spinach, and lots and lots of bacon. Rockstar, almost vegetarian, has eaten more meat last few days than possibly the last few months put together in Hong Kong. To us it’s like we walk in virtually any place and the milk et al is going to taste so much yummier than our average place back home so we always pig out when we’re in Aussieland…

Our first meal at the Blue Olive (I forgot to take a pic of the food!! Food bloggers your job is SO safe)

At least I got everyone in this pic 😛

And here are The Rockstars uh, “breaking in the apartment”…

(We didn’t pack the cot after all – at the last minute we couldn’t find the case, so we packed her sheets and did what we used to do when Rockstar was an older toddler – push the bed against a wall..)

And Rockstar was in charge of hunting the apartment for all the baby toys Little Miss flung about, then washing them down in warm, soapy water.

Rockstar was very thorough.

He didn’t get bored of doing it til the last day. Otherwise the last few days have been spent vegging in the apartment (Rockstar made his own Mac and Cheese with cherry tomatoes and olives one evening) and doing mostly uneventful stuff (but enjoying each others company)…

They did have lots and lotsa rides though

And this is one of the gorgeous views we took pics of when we hung in some of the parks…

When we weren’t taking selfies

Or being made to pose in front of random letter boxes in the sun (Kings’ fault) because your mum wanted a pic of your new Stella McCartney sweater (my fault – but it was about HKD 200 heavily marked down! It even had cashmere in it!)

Or feeding ducks (big luxury we don’t get in HK. Huge. You get fined for feeding birds back home)

The biggest lesson I’ve learnt in the last few days is… to speak to my kid(s) nicer. Everyone is so…. indulgent of kids here. That is to say, when Little Miss starts up (and she is a high decibel screamer) we might get looks. But the looks are significantly milder than if/when I snap at Rockstar to chew his food or whatever. And once, just after Little Miss had been going on in the car, we entered a shop and when the lady cooed at her and struck up conversation, I remarked how Her Highness was just carrying on a moment ago. The response was, “Well, that’s what they do at that age now, isn’t it?”

Contrast that with me and Rockstar on playdate in Hong Kong, and a mum once telling me I’m so patient with my son, talking to him and- and- probably not even caning him.

ps: We drove to another destination today… will write again when I can dears