Canberra Through The Eyes Of The Rockstars – The Living Conditions in Jindabyne

We drive to the studio Kings has booked in Jindabyne, which is where we will stay while Rockstar gets his snow/ski fix.

Goodbye, Home For First 3 Days Of Our Stay…

In the first pic, Rockstar has piled the pillows up because Little Miss bumped her head on the window sill trying to look out…

It were a fairly uneventful road trip… Even for Her Highness, surprisingly.

That was our first jump in the snow when we arrived – I packed the snow stuff separate, then took them out and left them on the car seat when we started the journey, because Rockstar was likely to be unable to contain his excitement the moment we hit the area. So I promised him he’d get snow first chance we got – before we even went to the apartment. (Also tell him when he behaves well, people try harder to do more of the stuff he likes/ wants – if he doesn’t exhaust me by being naughty/ destroying things, I have more energy to “try harder” at giving him more things he wants, like remembering to take out all our snow gear early.)

And so we arrive at the studio apartment, as always, late – Kings runs up and down in the cold and dark desperately trying to find our place, while I swing a very messy diaper change in the car.

Then when we finally get into the apartment….

This is pretty much the entire apartment…

We’d seen pictures of the place, but…… to be fair I don’t immediately smell anything until I open the ski/boots storage near the kitchen/ bed. Well I was getting sick when we arrived which could’ve clouded my view somewhat – next morning was better when I recovered…

The family rolling around on the sofa bed

Now, we lived in a 600 square-foot studio along Orchard Road, Singapore and then close to 8 years in HK where my local RMs say the average dwelling space is 700-1000 square feet, so it’s never actual size that bothers me. But the dingy-looking wall to wall carpeting and the smell in the storage grossed me out (how do you clean carpet everyday the way you’d sweep and mop a bare floor? The occasional chemicals right? Read tabloid about some celebrity’s child getting really sick from carpet cleaner. I know it’s a tabloid, but I figured whether the child got really sick from carpet cleaner in itself is not what sells magazines, it’s Kate’s Pregnancy Style or who’s seeing who, i.e. I didn’t expect Carpet Cleaner Bit to be particularly embellished.)

This the rest of it – that’s the ok bit, I forgot to take a pic of the store room

The baby wasn’t allowed on the floor. That night I would wonder if any of us would wake with bug bites. (We didn’t.)

Every time we dropped a baby toy on that carpet though, I was cleaning it. That was just always gonna happen because Dingy-Carpeted Floor was right there. Y’know, that inconvenient Newton thing whereby if you drop something it ends up on the floor.

Then some time the next day, Kings tells us we are moving to a 4-bedroom, place called the “Castle”. (It’s unexpected enough that I’d not taken many pictures of our morning – cramped, but filled with sunlight through the windows overlooking the busy highway.) The next place was the only other thing available, and Kings somehow eventually wrangled a good discount, at least. Still, the space is extravagant – 4 bedrooms. A boxing ring. Bare wooden floors with exquisite little area rugs. Beautiful, spotless little rugs and probably the only time I’ve ever felt that comfortable about the baby on carpet (we have no carpet back home because of JD. She could probably shed us up her own rug. Darn I miss JD). Apparently no one’s really stayed in the place, other than the owner a month ago – it’s actually a showroom/house. It’s clean.

There’s a study. Jacuzzi or some hi-tech shower thing in every bathroom. I am a big bathroom person. Huge. That hot shower when we first got in was just the best.

That was the first night we arrived, and the first morning. The Rockstars exploring in a place so big as to be pretty much unheard of in HK unless you are the Li family or something.

Kings whipped us up breakfast. Just in case anyone forgot he put himself through school waitering and cooking in a restaurant in Brighton.

It’s beautiful, but also so very extravagant. The floors are heated, with electronic controls.  A sloping ceiling with lots of skylights. It doesn’t really have to be this big though. The first couple days I flip-flopped up and down those beautiful pine stairs countless times just because I was so unused to that many rooms I kept forgetting where I put my stuff.

My favorite thing besides the kickass bathrooms? The kids’ rooms. The darling little girl’s room, the spacious boy’s room. It’s still a dream to us, being able to have a home to call our own, to raise kids in. After that very first condo in Singapore Kings and I split a down payment on, two freshie bankers just starting out – we never even stayed a day in the place. We’ve stayed more days in this place now, how ’bout that?

And it’s a really weird feeling, not knowing where in the house the rest of the family is. Just in case the other stuff hadn’t already weirded me out.

ps: More in a bit, this just a quick update of our 3 moves (and more than a little getting disoriented and lost, resulting in Rockstar being late for a couple ski lessons) in the last week we’ve been here – and yes the frozen breastmilk and baby purees and gadzillion toiletries and accessories went with. (I know our pastor does this to save money, pack all the foodstuff etc from home, that’s a nice plus but I do it predominantly because I hate going to an unfamiliar place and then spending time looking for similar stuff we use back home in an unknown supermarket, just don’t want to spend more vaccie time than absolutely necessary in a grocery store…)

pps: It was very sweet to finally log in to my email accounts once we got the wifi up, and find messages asking which part of Australia we were in, and whether we might be near some of you guys. It’s one reason I’m so “motivated” 🙂