Mich’s Journeys

G’day from Sydney! Here for about 3 weeks now and slowly getting familiar with the place. Almost done with the unpacking of our shipped items from SG, just need to figure out where it will all go. Mum is also here helping us ease in to our routines, she’ll be flying back to Manila next month. One drawback to our place now is that there are no malls nearby, the nearest mall is three stations away by train but we do get most of our food and supplies in the neighborhood stores.

Some of the stuff in out things to do list:

• buy a dresser, tv stand, altar stand, book case, shoe racks
• finalise preschool for E, check into the other preschool which is a bit further away
• research car options

Some of our pics:

Braving the cold while waiting for the train. Di naman halatang nilalamig na kami di ba?!	market day
Still a train station shot, this one on our way home from Ikea. Parang naglalayas si E.	@ North Sydney, waiting for Ichi to finish work
Posing muna kahit hirap na sa maraming dala!
Train station pa din, this time with mumsy.

We’re down to our last few days here in Manila and we’ll finally be able to join Ichi in Sydney. It’s been more than a month since Ichi left. I know it hasn’t been easy for him to take care of all the stuff there from looking for a place for us to furnishing the place and unpacking our stuff from Sg. Our stuff was finally delivered to our place last Thursday. He will be off to Perth tomorrow but will be back in time for our arrival. New chapter here we come.

Finally able to get some time to blog again, still here in Manila for those of you wondering. 3rd week of May had us finally moving out of our rented condo in Singapore. The day before we moved out we had arranged to have the movers come to pack the stuff that we were shipping to Australia. What stressed us out was the organizing of all our stuff, deciding also which ones to send, to donate or to throw away. But on packing day it was all a breeze, it was the first time that we were using movers and we marveled at how efficient they were with packing all the stuff, aside from their experience I guess it also helps that they’re not concerned with how many boxes they fill up, haha. Even E was okay with his toys being packed, the uncle (a title of respect for elders even strangers in Singapore) who was packing his toys was really friendly and was also patient in answering some of E’s questions. After the movers left we still had some work to do as we had to clean the unit up for handover to the landlord the following day. We had also scheduled a pickup of a balikbayan box we were sending back to Manila filled mostly with E’s old toys that we were giving to his cousin Mika.

We finished late into the night cleaning (uhm, remind me next time to just hire cleaners ok!) what we anticipated to be a smooth handover to the landlord didn’t happen. Pagkatapos magikot-ikot sa unit ng ilang beses para siguraduhin na maayos lahat, umupo na kami kasama ng kasero para pagusapan na ang pagalis at pagsoli ng deposito. Akala namin ay wala ng magiging problema dahil simula’t sapol ay maayos namang kausap ang aming kasero, walang palya naman ang aming pagbayad ng buwanang renta pero syempre sa huli din nakikita ang tunay na kulay. Naghanap talaga siya ng paraan para hindi maibalik ang deposit namin dahil hindi namin tinapos ang kontrata kahit na dalawang buwan na lang yun at aalis pa kami ng di pa tapos ang buwan ng mayo na bayad na ang renta. Iginiit niya na ayon sa kasulatan ay kailangan daw na pinadalhan namin siya ng sulat para abisuhan siya na aalis na kami hindi daw pwede na sinabi lang namin sa kanya at dahil wala nga daw kaming pinadalang sulat ay ang gagamitin niyang basehan para sa dalawang buwang pasabi para sa diplomatic clause (kung saan maari naming makuha ang aming deposito kahit na hindi tinapos ang kontrata, kailangan lang ay dalawang buwang pasabi at kailangan din ay aalis ng bansa) ay ang text ni Ichi sa kanya (mga isang linggo pagkatapos namin siyang makausap) upang ipaalala nga na aalis kami. Sana naman ay binanggit yung pagpapadala ng sulat at hindi puro oo lang ang sagot, eh kahit na yung deposito na yung paksa oo pa din yung sagot. Ang nakakainis talaga sobra ay kung paano ginawa yung hindi pagbalik ng deposito sobrang underhanded, eh wala namang hindi nadadaan sa maayos na paguusap. Hindi na nga niya naisip na pasalamat nga siya na aalis kami at maari na niyang paupa yung unit sa mas mataas na renta. Nanghihinayang kasi siya sa kung magkanong halaga at hindi na tiningnan yung bigger picture. Laking pasalamat na lang namin at nandun yung aming ahente para tumulong sa handover. Siya yung nakipagusap sa kasero para maibalik naman ang karamihan sa aming deposito at para na din hindi umabot sa away ang usapan. In the end, we just decided not to let that incident overshadow the good memories of the place that we called home for almost two years. It is what E knows as his first home. We feel blessed with how everything unfolded and how everything was taken cared of.  

*zài jiàn = goodbye

Yesterday while browsing through the latest issue of the local tv guide, 8 days, I came across their horoscope page and as I often do when I come across these pages, I read them. Here were mine and Ichi’s horoscopes.

Capricorn : You will be extremely busy, and probably twice as nervous. There is so much to do and so little time to do it, although you may try to evade your responsibilities. Perhaps you can try to put off some of your more burdensome commitments until next month.

Virgo : Woe betide the foolish person who takes you for a ride or gets in your way this week. Yet, with such power comes the need for wisdom and compassion.

Now, although I read them I’ve never put too much into what they say but yesterday it was like a soft nudge for me. You see, we are moving again. The reason why I had to immediately renew my passport a month ago was because we were processing for our visas then. I’m happy to say that we got them after a little more than 2 weeks from submission and now we are in the midst of preparing for our move. Where are we moving to? To the land down under - Sydney, Australia.

So why the soft nudge? because I think I’m starting to get overwhelmed and my reaction to it is to delay doing stuff even though I know that I would end up getting harassed or panicking to do things at the last minute.  And in Ichi’s case, they’ve been pretty stressed at work with the short time frame for the project so when some people point fingers it’s either you just take it or in Ichi’s case give them a reality check. hehe. (dito na din nakikita na tumatanda na talaga at kun dati daw nangyari yun sa kanya eh malamang na di siya kikibo)

Ooohh, on another topic remember my wicked post? I wasn’t optimistic in getting the chance to watch that before because initially we were going to be based in Perth but now that we are going to be based in Sydney, there’s a glimmer of hope!

We were doing our usual weekly grocery last Sunday. Normally we go to Fairprice since we get rebates and rewards via linkpoints but we were late in going out that we ended up doing the grocery at Cold Storage instead (they close later than Fairprice). I bought just some essentials and food that we were going to eat for the next 3-4 days, so I paid at the counter and left with the bags. It wasn’t until we reached home and I was storing the groceries that I noticed that a bag was missing and that bag contained all the food. We tried calling the store to check for the bag but it was already closed, we did shop near closing time. So I was really pissed that I left the bag and had no choice but to try and go back the next day to see if the items were still there.

I was only able to go back to the grocery after E’s playgym class in the afternoon and really I wasn’t expecting that the bag would still be there. I think I was more or less resigned that I wasted about $20 worth of food by forgetting that bag. So when I got to the grocery I approached this guy to ask about the bag and he went to a couple of the cashiers to ask and he was told to check the logbook (it was a logbook of things that got left behind, it would seem that it is a common occurrence :p) and he got back to me to check with me if the items listed on the book were the items that I left. After confirming the items, he went to get similar items off the shelves to give to me, it turns out the actual items that I left were put back on the shelf so whatever is of the equivalent price would be the ones given back, most of the items that he did give me were priced higher than the items I bought. He asked to see my receipt just to note on it that I had already taken the items and that was it. Now I don’t know if this is the way that supermarkets handle things like this, this was the first time that it happened to me but I was pleasantly surprised at the procedure they had. It was simple and easy for both parties. And is it bad for me to think that if that were to happen to me in Manila that I would never have been able to retrieve the left items?

Because of a visa application (more on that in another post), I had to renew my passport which expires in January 2009. Initially we planned to have it renewed in Manila so that the renewed passport would be a machine readable one (MRP). But since we were advised against doing that and to avoid any issues that may arise we just decided to have it renewed here at the Philippine embassy in Singapore. What’s really disappointing is that the passports they still issue here for renewal is still the old green passport (the MRP has a maroon colored cover). Kainis  when I have to renew again in 2010 as the International Civil Aviation Authority requires all UN member countries to use MRPs by April 1, 2010. Not to mention the cost, it’s SGD85 for a 32-page passport, that’s equivalent to 4-5 passports in Manila. Hay, I wished I had renewed my passport in Manila last December, malay ko ba na mag-aaply pala kami ng visa. Anyways, I applied for the renewal last Sunday and will be getting my new passport later.

To our extended family that is. Our new baby niece - Mika.

Congratulations Ival & Cathy.  Welcome to the world baby Mika.

The other day I was able to meet up with an old college friend. It’s our first time to meet up since we graduated from college. Shortly before graduation we got into a misunderstanding that got blown out of proportion. Thinking back, we both could have done something about it but didn’t. We were supposed to meet up a few months back when she was in town but things didn’t work out and finally this time we were able to. Ej, if you’re reading this thank you for being the first to reach out months ago (wonders of technology na din :p) and we had a really fun time catching up. See you again and here’s to the start of a renewed friendship.

I was chatting with my youngest brother yesterday about some things that we (Ichi and I) told them. And at one point in the conversation he told me about his positive outlook on a situation that we (my mom & siblings) have been facing for several years now. Instead of assigning blame he chose to look at it positively and thus have a brighter take on things. I know of other people in the same situation or have gone through similar situations that are up to now stuck in that rut because they chose to point their fingers. I was really happy and proud about it that I started crying. I’m so used to seeing my youngest brother be this happy-go-lucky type but this shows that he has a good head on his shoulders.

Good luck with your new job sioti! Love you!

Last week we bought an electric oven so that we can eat more baked and less fried foods. Since the oven was delivered I’ve used it probably 3-4 times and most of the time the food got slightly burnt. So everytime I used it I’ve adjusted the temp lower than what was indicated in the boxes or recipes to make sure that the food doesn’t get burnt again. Now at this point you’ve probably deduced what my problem was but the whole time I really didn’t not until yesterday when hubby pointed out to me (ok after the muffins in the oven were getting burnt again) that the temp in our oven was in celsius while the recipes were in fahrenheit!! For the life of me, it really didn’t click until he pointed it out, gosh I’m not brainy but ibang level na ng katangahan ito, just proves how my mind is not working these days - it just seems to be on auto-pilot.