Back in Australia!

 On 12 August 1999, with a roaring hangover, I boarded an Ansett flight to Osaka via Sydney. It was the first time I had left Australia. While I would come back for holidays, it would be 23 years before I returned for good. When I left, I had two bags that weighed 35kg in total and a backpack that was 10 kg. Essentially all my worldly possessions save a couple of small(ish) boxes of stuff at mum and dad’s. On my return, I have a whole family and between the four of us, about 12 cubic meters of stuff. Including a swimming pool!

Moving to Australia brought the question of ‘home’ into sharp focus. Having lived overseas for more than 20 years, the idea of home is kind of complicated. I had an article published in a magazine in Singapore about this question. As I conclude in the article, Melbourne is now home for us. Which is great because Melbourne is a great city and we fortunately live in a lovely part of town. 

Moving was a pretty big deal. We all came down to Melbourne in late March and moved into our new house (perused and applied for completely online with only photographs and video to go on). Unusually, the real estate photographer did a good job of making the place look smaller than it actually is. Given the rental market in Melbourne, we were quite fortunate to get this place. We were also super fortunate to have people around us to help. Bruce and Christine (friends from our time in Singapore) picked up our keys and passed them on the mum and dad who came down to meet our furniture deliveries. Mel’s mum and dad also came over from NZ to help out after I left.

With 4 months left on my contract, I returned to Singapore to tidy up our house and get rid of stuff. This was a really tough time for us all. 

*UPDATE*

I'm so crap at blogging! I started this post last year some time. Anyhoo, it has been two full years since we moved to Melbourne. It has been challenging but I think we are reasonably well settled. Mel has started a new job as IBDP co-ordinator at MLC which just down the road from my school. Matilda has started Year 7 at Auburn High School, which is just down the road from our house. She was quite chuffed to be accepted into their SEAL programme. This is an accelerated learning programme for Years 7 to 9. Flynn is now in Year 2 at Auburn South Primary School, which is across the road from Matilda's school. Although he is well settled at school, he still thinks of himself as Singaporean.