Monday 30 August 2010

New home :)

Second new home in nine months!

18 Aug, Wednesday

So we arrived on the morning of 18 Aug 2010 after a long flight via Narita - I would love to say Tokyo but unfortunately we never left the transit area... Found a cool system at the airport that allowed us to pick up a receiver to talk to a cab operator, and soon, we were on the way to Evanston!

It took only 30 min at most. We alighted opposite the Hilton to see this: McManus, our new home!



We got our keys and found our room - 516. It was fully furnished but of course we still had to get stuff like bedsheets, appliances, and even a landline phone to use the already activated line. We got online to find out some basic info - the wireless worked like a charm! And I could use it anywhere on campus - woohoo! No need for data plan! :)

My priority was to get bedsheets - else I couldn't sleep! But before that, the bank. And before that, to get Sito's student ID. And before that, we had our first meal in Evanston - BK!! It was right outside our place :p Not the best, I know but we were hungry and new! :p

With the ID, we can go to the bank. Apparently, it was really easy to get Citi Gold here but for some reason, Sito's ATM card had a mistake. My card for the moment :)

After that, I think, we checked in with the international student office and went to the health centre to make an appointment to do a health test.

Next was to get bedsheets!! After checking out a local store, it seemed that our best bet would be to take a ride out to a shopping mall named Old Orchard (and apparently now renamed to something else but I don't remember!) - we were lucky that there were some discounts going on and spent only some $300 on bedsheets, pillows, duvet and covers. Well, could be worse..

Dinner was um, Subway - haha! Slightly healthier than BK... Got some essentials at a convenient store and went home.. And when we eventually went to bed, we decided that the bedsheets and duvet etc were so worth it :)

19 Aug, Thursday

Woke hungry. And found that we had no cup for our milk! *.*

This was the day when we MUST buy the rest of our essentials. We learnt the day before that the round trip to Ikea cost too much at $100 (!) so we went to Target instead. What should be a short walk from the bus stop turned out to be a long long walk cos somehow, google map was wrong!!!

Luckily we had Macs for lunch - oops, another unhealthy choice :p

Anyway, spent some two hours walking the entire store, getting pots and pans, rubbish bin, phone, rice cooker, cleaning stuff etc.. We had to a cab back but yes, it was so worth it! We felt so much settled after that. And, it was great fun setting up home even though it was tiring :)

Met another Singaporean at his house after that and we had dinner with him and another guy at Koi, an Asian fusion kind of place. We ordered too much - I've never seen a bigger plate of sweet and sour chicken!

We bought cereals on the way home. Americans don't seem to eat much muesli - I am sad =(

20 Aug, Friday

So we had utensils for breakfast - or brunch :)

We headed for T-mobile to get local mobile lines. The guy was so helpful. And funny too - he said he would see me again cos I would want to change my prepaid plan to postpaid :p Well, so far so good, we shall see :)

We had lunch at BK - again! - before Sito went for some tech check while I went to buy a night moisturiser cos my face was drying up *.* The weather was like Sg weather - hot and sunny - but dry. In fact, the highest temperature reached was higher than that in Sg!

Went to a pre-KWEST BBQ dinner that evening - more on this in later post...

29 Aug, Sunday

Couldn't sleep in although we just got back from KWEST the night before cos of iCIM - international CIM! Ok, so I don't know what CIM stands for, but it's some orientation thing :p More on CIM later..

We did two loads of laundry in the morning and headed out for iCIM. Had coffee with a guy from Malaysia before getting some groceries - cooking dinner at last! A simple one though :)


PS: I boiled the sausages to cook it first - and to get some oil out! :p

30 Aug, Monday

Today marks the start of CIM. I had some time in the afternoon to iron all our clothes!! Finally cleared the mess of clothes on the top of our drawers! Finally took pictures!! :)

First of all, the label at our door had a typo in Sito's name, so he changed it, quite drastically, to include me :)



This is the entrance to our room - a sofa on the left for our bags and the bookshelf to the right:



These show the living room from the door and the bookshelf. Sito works at the desk while I use the dining table for both leisure and ironing clothes on our mini ironing board :)





Kitchen! Can do with a dish holder though...



We have a big rice cooker that can take like 10-14 cups - bought it cos it was cheaper than the rice cooker for six cups :p



A corridor leads us into the living room, via a huge wardrobe that's only one of three - yeah!!



And this is our bedroom - it's bigger than our first at HV! Think we can fit another queen bed next to our king...



Finally, our very important bathroom!



Monday 16 August 2010

A mini farewell note

This time tomorrow, we'll be at the airport.

We will be gone for two years, though I'll probably be back more than once in between. Yet, many friends have been so nice to us with all the little farewell gatherings :)

Just came home from Mum's place, and that was really for the last time since it would be sold by next month. We had some good memories at Varsity Park :)

Now that we are at the cusp of our upcoming journey, with things mostly packed, I suddenly feel..complicated...

I'll miss girly chats with CY and Yan. I'll miss prata nights with KLK. I'll miss our little flat. Hell, I'll even miss being in the loop of work (!) but not work of course :p

Luckily I have Sito with me :) For the rest, there's Facebook! See you again soon...