My Sydney Abode

Ok I think it is time for me to put up some images of the place that I call home during my current adventures in Sydney.

It is a lovely apartment located in a nice quiet neighbourhood on the eastern side of the city.

This is the view across the street.

Although it’s small but my room is bright, cozy and sufficient for my needs. The bed is surprisingly comfy but it didn't come with pillows so I went out and bought myself 4 really nice and soft pillows. Am wondering if I should pack them home with me... :)

My bright little room.

Here is where I get my dose of TV whenever I am in. I'll indulge in my favourite past time of eating dinner while watching whatever is showing at that moment. This shot was taken about 2 weeks ago. The room looks slightly different now with an added couch and shifting around of some other pieces of furniture.

The lounge room in the middle of the apartment.

Apart from my own room I think the other room in the house where I spend the most of my time would actually be the kitchen. Yup, I have been cooking alot since I moved in here. It started out for budgetting reasons but then I really enjoyed the process. There is a certain sense of accomplishment and of home for me when I sit down to enjoy the meal I cooked. Especially when it tastes good. Although there were a few disaster meals.
I'm glad that this house has a nice clean kitchen where I can rediscover the joy of cooking and my love for it.

However I also do admit that it is so much easier when cooking for just 1 person. I don't think I'll enjoy it very much if I had to do it everyday and for 10-12 people. My mum does that everyday and I don't think we show our gratitude to her often enough. So Mum, on behalf of everyone A BIG THANK YOU for taking care of us everyday for all these years!

The kitchen: the room where I could recreate a little bit of home for myself whenever possible.
We now have a proper dining table where the small round table is.

And there you have it: my shelter from the elements, the roof over my head, my cozy abode, my home in Sydney.

Author's Note

To those who have been following my blog:

I felt its necessary for me to put in this short note to explain a little about the lack of updates.

There are actually lots that I would like to blog about regarding my days here in Sydney. But an unfortunate combination of tiredness, a bit of laziness, and a good dose of lousy internet connection where I am staying at the moment has resulted in the aforementioned lack of postings.

We are expected to have proper broadband internet in the house in about 15 days so hopefully I'll have less of an excuse for not writing more often.

Currently I have to lug my laptop around with me into the city if I wanted fast and stable connections which takes time and energy away from exploring the city and getting on with my photography.

Anyways, I hope that this little note will help fill in some blanks. In the meantime I hope you enjoy the latest posting below: 'My Quest for Comfort Food'.

:)

My Quest for Comfort Food

During the first 2 weeks in Sydney I was struggling with a really bad ulcer on the palate of my mouth near to the back. It was extremely painful to swallow anything in the first week as whatever that needs to go down my throat essentially had to brush up against that area. At times even drinking water hurt.

So as you can imagine eating became a major problem as well as finding the right sort of foods while I was in the city. But thankfully Sydney being a city with so many different cultures, it wasn’t impossible to find suitable soft foods to eat.

Found an underground food court while wandering around one day and settled on a bowl of Vietnamese beef noodle soup (Pho). The soft noodles went down relatively well, and by chewing longer on the beef and swallowing in smaller bits the meat went down with less pain then I had anticipated. It helped that I was also quite hungry at that time which gave the added motivation to keep eating. :)


Went to the fish markets on one of those days with Missy Em. It was so upsetting to see all those delicious looking seafood but not being able to eat most of them because they were mostly either deep-fried or baked. So settled for oysters, sushi and fruit salad instead. Missy Em got some raw oysters and some baked oysters with cheese. Surprisingly the raw oysters went down without any problems, which lead me to falsely think that perhaps I was feeling better. But the baked oysters brought me back to reality when I felt the all too familiar stinging sensation. However the pain caused by the rock melons in the fruit salad surprised me the most, although the sushi rice was a close second. The photo was taken Before I ate the food, which was a good thing. :)

While exploring Chinatown on another day I was again looking for soft foods. Was at Market City at that time and found a big food court on the upper floor that was quite similar to the food courts we have in Singapore. After walking pass all the stalls twice finally settled on a bowl of Cantonese style salted lean pork with century egg congee/porridge. It was by far the most satisfying meal I’d had while on my own in the city since getting the stupid ulcer. It took longer than usual to finish the bowl of hot congee, but it went down with almost no problems, tasted good and warmed my tummy comfortably. For food court stuff this was quite good. Also you probably could not find any food court stall in Singapore that served their congee with as much pork & eggs and at a lower price.
This was good comfort food. :)

As I recovered from the ulcer and the pain became a manageable ache I developed a craving for pasta noodles. On one cold and wet afternoon (happened to be Valentine’s Day) while exploring The Rocks on my own I just had to get myself some nice hot pasta (was actually thinking of PastaMania back in Singapore).
Came across this nice little café restaurant that had a lunch special on prawn linguini in tomato sauce. At this point I didn’t much care for the cost of this meal as I just wanted to get out of the rain and tuck into some hot savoury pasta.
Not sure if my pictures did much justice to the dish as I was somewhat impatient to start eating but the photographer in me needed to document this little detail of my adventures here in Sydney. The pasta was cooked just nice, the sauce just the right amount of tomato, and the prawns were fresh and succulent. My only complaint was that the portion was surprisingly small.
After savouring the last bits of my pasta I looked out the window and was reluctant to venture back out into the cold just yet. So I ordered myself a nice mug of hot chocolate. It was such a simply pleasure to be sitting indoors on a cold wet day with a steaming cup of hot beverage in your hands.
I am glad I took the time to photograph the pasta and hot chocolate. This way I’ll always remember my cozy shelter from the rain and the comfort food that I found within.

*Satisfied sigh....aahhhh.....*