"Let's pretend we're just two people and you're not better than me." - Pink

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Reflection

I am a sucker at romantic stuffs

I believe in romance
and I love fairytales

But life has its own course for me
sometimes, things doesnt work as you want it to be
and then u realize that you dont have much control of these things that happen
and you'll learn to give in and to accept the facts

A quote that has helped me a lot the past couple of months is this:
"Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional."

I learnt to pick my self up from the ground
I learnt to be strong and to not let anything or anyone push you to your corner
and I learnt that I am not made to be broken
I was made to sustain and to survive

Life has been very lonely for me the past couple of months
I have kept myself busy
I have tried to fill my time with something productive
but sometimes loneliness just found a way to creep in

At those times, how I can't wait to find my prince charming
I want to find someone who will sweep me off my feet and take my breath away
someone that I didnt expect to fall for, but turns out to be a perfect match for me
someone who think that I am the missing puzzle in his life
someone who will protect me from the harm world outside
someone who can accept me as who I am
and someone that I can give all this abundant love I have inside me...

On this xmas day, I just wish that I may be blessed enough to be that lucky...

Monday, November 12, 2007

Toby Mac - Irene

Found a song titled "Irene" today !!!!

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Back to Uni again

Aih aih, After trying to resist and delay this as long as I can, I am finally going back to Uni again for a postgraduate degree. My first class starts tomorrow, Monday, but I've already start feeling the pressure since last week! All these readings that I need to finish before the class is driving me crazy...!!!

I am taking 2 subjects this session, despite everyone's suggestion that I drop one subject so that I can 'have a bit of life' (and believe it or not, in uni orientation last saturday, the Study Skills teacher said this to me after she found out that I'm taking 2 subject 'Oh my, God bless you!') ..... hmmm......

I've just counted the pages that I need to read for 1 subject per week, and it is around 70+ pages!!! That is almist 200 pages a week for 2 subjects..!!! I know I can ready harry potter in 2 weeks, but stilllll, that is a leisure reading! And as a friend of mine who had tried juggling full time work with part time study told me, "when you have assignment due, you will use all your spare time to do that assignment. Then you won't have time to do all the readings anymore!"

Aih aih, all the advice that I have received are just sooo supportive -_-"

Wish me luck, guys !

You all should understand if I ever reject your going out invitation (which I never do), it's not because I don't like you!

Back to my readings..... -_-"

Friday, July 06, 2007

San Fransisco

Ah, where do I begin? San Fransisco is such a beautiful place that it is breathtaking and the only thing that crossed my mind when looking at the city was "I so can live here!"

It is just a clean, neat, beautiful city with nice victorian houses, heritage building, and gorgeous fisherman's wharf (esp. Pier 39).

It helps that I have a friend in SF. Vince took us to his office which is located on the San Fransisco bay, on level 36, overlooking the San Fransisco City, Bay Bridge and the ocean. It was beautiful!



KA - Cirque Du Soleil

If any of you, my friends, are visiting Las Vegas anytime soon, I strongly recommends watching KA by Cirque De Soleil in MGM Grand!

It is by far, the best show I have ever watched!!!

I mentioned this to my friend, Vincent when I met him in SF. You know what he said? "I know that show! I watched it twice when I was there!!"

It is just sooo good! The visual effects, stage designs, costumes and the actors/actresses are amazing!!!! I'm so watching it again if I have the opportunity!

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Ale ambra Mexicana!

I went to Mexico last week for a 2 days tour. I was really excited about it because I haven't been there before and it is a different kind of country from US or Australia.

First thing you notice when entering Mexico is how different it is with USA. This really strikes you because these 2 countries are only separated by a really long wall. This border runs for around 3,141km, and has the highest number of both legal and illegal crossings.

Entering Mexico is not too hard. If you have holiday visa to go to USA, make sure that you got the 5 years visa which allow you to enter USA multiple times. Entering Mexico you don't need visa, however re-entering USA is really strict and thus, you need the multiple entry visa.

We queue up in the border to enter Mexico while the officers are checking cars in front of us. While queuing, you can already see the pollution that comes out from Mexico. You'll see that the sky in front of you has dark smokes , and the sky behind you is clear blue.

The difference really striked me after I passed the borders. Mexico was really hot, dry, everything looks yellowy, and there's not much trees around. While San Diego, the nearest city to Mexico, is a really beautiful,modern city, it has a lot of trees, and nice cool breeze.

We stayed in Ensenada for the night. Before going to the hotel, we stopped by to the famous blowhole (like the one in Kiama - South NSW), it was a really nice place with great ocean view. Along the walkway, there were people selling Mexico souvenirs, it really reminds me to Tanah Lot walkway in Bali.

One of the guys in our tour both a leather hat for $30. The tour guide said that he should be able to bargain until $15! Lol!

The next day, we went to Tijuana for brunch in a really fancy hotel. The hotel is has a really unique Mexican look and feel to it.We ate our meal outside on the balcony looking at the beautiful ocean. Inside the hotel, there's this dining room area where Titanic movie was shot. The dining room has been left like it was, so everyone was taking photos in it.

After brunch, we stopped by near the Mexico monument to buy some souvenirs. I took photos with a fake zebra (donkey with black and white strips painted on his body) wearing Mexican hat ! I'm so framing this photo! :)

The way back to US feels really slow because we need to queue up in the US border. You can come in to US by cars or by foot. Because we were in a tour bus, we needed to get off the bus and queue up in the immigration, just like in airports. US is really strict on who can come it to their country. They also x-ray everyone's bags because they are really concern about people taking unprescribed drugs/medicine across.

In Mexico, drugs/medicine are really easy to get. Alot of prescribed ones are sold freely with much cheaper price. Viagra can be found everywhere! I lost count of how many times I saw the writing "Viagra sold here - 1 box for $10!". There is more pharmacy in Mexico than McDonald in US!

Well, luckily I got passed the immigration fine :) I heard that if they suspect you of anything, like what happenned to the tour guide once before, you'll get interrogated for 2-3 hours. And since I was there with a tour bus, the bus and everyone else won't be able to wait for us, they will need to leave , and we must get our own transportation back to LA! How nice of them =P

So, that's Mexico. A really interesting place and I do suggest everyone to go when they have the time :)

Monday, June 25, 2007

Aloha from Los Angeles!

Here I am in L.A ! Today is a very sunny day with nice cooling wind blowing outside my window. The holiday has been Goooooodddddd. Weather is supportive, Places I've been too are just amazing, and some little shopping won't hurt too! ;-)

So here's the summary of the places I've been to:

Los Angeles:

I am staying in West side of LA in my auntie's house. It is a really nice peaceful neighbourhood with just a 10 - 15 mins stroll to the nearest shopping centre - Westside Pavillion. It is not far from Santa Monica too, only around 15 mins drive (depending on traffic though - Santa Monica Boulevard can be really packed on peak hours).

Our neighbour is a really nice lady, she sent her son once to help us with gardening when she saw us trimming the garden. The son came and told us "My mom asked me to come and help you guys, or else she won't feed me lunch" Lol !!!

Santa Monica
- We went to Farmer's Market held in Santa Monica last week, which is held once a week, every Wednesday morning. Fresh vegies, fruits and nuts are sold here. I heard that a lot of chefs from nearby restaurants come by really early to get the best and first pick of the vegies and fruits to be used in the restaurants! After buying a lot of fresh strawberries, mandarins, nectarine-like fruit, eggplants, pistacchios, we headed to Santa Monica shopping area for some window shopping. The place is gorgeous! Everything is outdoor, something like Pitt Street Mall, but longer and more beautiful. And with Santa Monica beach on the other end! I'll post up some photos when I'm back in Sydney!

Ontario Mills Factory Outlet - 1 hour drive from home - Gosh, what can I say about this place beside that this is HUGE! We reached there at 11-12pm, and didn't stop shopping until 9 pm !!! And even that, we didn't finish visiting the whole place! The stores closed before we can even finish visiting all of them!

Hollywood - Went there to take photos. It's full of shops selling souvenirs (which is hard to find anywhere else in LA weirdly!), tourists taking photos (yup, i'm one of them) and people selling maps of celebrity homes! I would love to buy the map and drive around looking at their houses, but my parents were not up for that idea! Lol! I went to Kodak theatre (where Oscars is held annually), Chinese Theatre (walk of fame) and took photos with Darth Vader and Spidey!!!!

Chinatown - Weirdly, this place is really dry and hot! There's so little trees around! We went to Ranch Market (99) - the biggest oriental supermarket in USA. This is muchhh bigger than Thai Kee in Sydney. It sells everything from sauces , snacks, to meat, live seafood (yes live lobster is sold here), and cooked food (bakcang, bakpao, green onion shallot, and a lot of chinese dishes). I say this must be the biggest oriental supermarket in USA because I see these stores in Las Vegas and San Fransisco too ! Powerfuuu!

Westfield Century City mall - Believe it or not, Westfield is the biggest mall developer in USA. The same Westfield that we have in Australia, with the exactly same logo and colour! We went to the one closest to home, it has just been revamped not long ago and it looks really really nice. Only 10 mins drive from home, this mall has Borders, Container store (love this place!), Macys, Bloomingdale, Victoria's secret, Tumi, Coach, LV ,etc etc. You can find almost everything here! :) Don't forget to ask for visitors card where you can get discounts for tourists on quite some stores!

KoreaTown - We went here for dinner in a restaurant called HanYang. It is a really nice korean bbq place. Big and clean, they also have a children room with TV showing cartoons and sofas for the kids to sit and watch. Over here, they don't seem to serve raw lettuce to use as a meat wrapper. Instead, they gave us rice noodle wrapper! The bbq grill pot is nice, it is a bit elevated on one side so that all the oil will go down to the lower level and out via a special hole.

Marina Del Ray - This is just a 5 mins drive from Santa Monica beach. It's very much a parking place for boats. You see boats everywhere, it's neat and nice, but nothing much to do here, so we decided to just drink coffee in a nearby traditional American Diner, complete with jukebox, bars & stools to sit and chat with the waitress.


Westwood - This is where my brother stays. He stays in UCLA housing for postgraduate students. It's located outside the UCLA campus but not too far, maybe just 5 mins drive. This area is lovely, I don't mind living here at all! There's a lot of shops just underneath the apartment, brand names like American Apparel, Urban Outfitters, and there's a lot of cafe to relax and chat, and also a lot of restaurants and cinema (there's like 3 cinemas?). I watched Ocean's Thirteen in one this cinema with my bro. I also tried Pinkberry which is located not far from the cinema. Pinkberry is really famous right now in US, it started in LA, and now it has start opening branches everywhere. The concept is really simple, it's just a plain frozen yoghurt with toppings. You choose your own topping from the selections of : chopped nuts, muesli, raisins, or fruits (mango, kiwi, strawberry, blackberry, or blueberry), and that's it. It's that simple! I guess people love it because it's a really healthy dessert! And they manage to make it look cool too ;-) So all the youngsters are buying this. I reckon this will work great in Sydney since Aussies are getting really health conscious now! I have also tried Diddy Riese Cookies, the best cookies baked in LA until late at nite. These cookies are served with a scoop of ice cream in between them. It's delicious but sooo fattening!

Well, that's it for today, I'll continue next time on my trip to Las Vegas and San Fransisco!

Cheerios!



Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Happy 6th Anniversary to Us!!!

Yesterday we celebrated our 6th anniversary together with a dinner in beautiful Cafe Sydney. One thing that you must must try here is the Warm apple and passionfruit crumble with mango ice cream and custard. It is sooo divine!!!! I was so tempted to order another serve, despite my bloated stomach! I'll definitely coming back to Cafe Sydney to have this dessert again!

We then went to Sydney Tower to do the Tower + OzTrek combo. But unfortunately the OzTrek was already closed, so we just went to the observatory tower for a Sydney night view. Fortunately the ticket can be kept for futher 3 months, we'll definitely be coming back for the OzTrek! =)

The last time I came up to the observatory tower was around 9-10 years ago. And I was in Sydney as a tourist. Only a few years later that I came back here to study :). The tower was quite empty last nite (it was 9pm). Only a few Japanese businessman that seems to be on work visit to Sydney were up there with us. It felt like being a tourist all over again. Seems like I haven't seen this beautiful side of Sydney for a while :)

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Puppy with Ugg boot!

I went to the pet shop on the weekend. Take a look at what I saw!

Little ShihTzu cross Lhasa Apso puppies wearing 4 Ugg boots!!
How cute!!!!



Thursday, May 31, 2007

Google Developer Day

Today I went to Google Developer Day 2007 with my colleagues. (Photos here). This is a free event held by Google simultaneously around the world (Tokyo, Brazil, US, UK etc). It was held in Technology Park, Redfern. Since this is a free event, tickets were gone really fast! Fortunately I have reserved my ticket 2 months ago!

In this event, Google showcases their popular products such as Google Maps, Ajax, Google Web Toolkit, GData, and also announcing for the first time, their 2 newest products:
  • Google Gear - an open source technology that allows you to take your web application offline and still able to run it! It install a small sized local SQL database to your local machine (while disconnected from the server) and enables you run Javascript asynchronously. Aaron Boodman was presenting this by unplugging his laptop from the network in the middle of the talk! And he's still able to run his url-based slideshow and change database content! Review here. This is way beyond cool! You gotta to check it out!

  • Google Mapplets - mini-applications you can embed within the Google Maps site. Example is real estate search, restaurants search, etc. Using gadgets, it can manipulate map with Javascript calls that are derived from Google Maps API.

A few weeks back, Google chooses 5 finalists of websites that best use and implement their Google Map mashups. One of these finalists is www.propertyguru.com.au (check it out!) - they are our company website made by the Australian Property Monitors team. It features a really simple to use search function and great functional Google Maps to help users look for property. In today's event, all 5 finalists showcase their website and visitors will vote which one they think is the best Google Maps implementation. By the end of the day, it was announced that the winner was *drum rolling*..... Property Guru !!! Congrats to Lachlan, George, and the rest of APM team! :) Photos of the award ceremony is available in my Picasa album.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Chilli Challenge!

We had a Chilli Challenge competition at work today.

This is 9 out of 11 that we had to eat:



Clockwise from 10 o'clock:
Jalapeno + cream cheese + cracker
Fiery chilli paste + cracker
Below it: Cream cheese mixed with heaps of chilli powder and chilli flakes + cracker
Nandos extra hot peri peri sauce infused bread
Very very hot sambal + bread
Sambal with shrimp paste + cracker
Tabasco + cracker (changed to tabasco infused bread later on)

Seeded chilli + creamcheese + cracker
Centre: Whole bird's eye chilli


We started with 20 challengers. But when it's time to eat the whole bird's eye chilli, only 7 people were up for it. Crazy crazy people I must say =P

Since we have so many ppl left, Stuart decided that we need to give more challenging food to narrow down the list!

Next is dried chilli for level 10! Weird taste I must say. It turns out to be not as hot as the bird's eye chilli, but it tastes plastic-y!!!

5 people remaining....

Level 11 is Marie's uncle home grown chilli ! Oh myy it's super spicy! I would say that it's 5 times hotter than bird's eye chilli! Almost everyone finally shed a tear or two!!!!

Finally, there're 4 people who can completed level 11 !!!

There are talks that there gonna be further more challenging competition next week to decide the sole winner! Stay tune to my update if it is so! =P


Monday, May 21, 2007

Tumpengan

Last Saturday nite we went to my cousin's place for a traditional Indonesian dinner. There were 7 of us in total : Me, Yap, Mimy, Johnson, Lia, Russell, and Desmon.

The meal that we had is famously known as "Tumpeng". To be honest, I never even tried it when I was still living in Jakarta. It was a food only served during a celebratotary event, particularly served in presidential events. There are so many photos / scenes of our old President, Soeharto cutting the top of the yellow rice cone that I still remember from my childhood. The scenes always pop up in TV or newspaper as somehow, I'm not sure why, he always have something to celebrate!

The main attraction of Tumpeng is the cone shaped yellow rice on the middle of a round plate. It should be surrounded by alot of variety of foods around it. Because we Indonesians love our chillies, most of the time the food accompanying the rice will be spicy food.

However because not everyone in our dinner can eat spicy chilli, we opted for non-spicy meal. We had:
Perkedel (Fried mashed potato)
Ayam bakar (Grilled chicken)
Urap (Steamed vegetable topped with fried dessicated coconut)
Beef Rendang
Sate Babi (Pork Satay)

Minimum order for the tumpeng was for 15 people. We had only 7 people and we really thought that we would have a lot of left overs. But oh my did we eat a lot! Lol! We finished the whole thing, except for the rice! =P

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Myers-Briggs personality test

Damana sent me an interesting personality test today. This is to measure how introvert / extrovert etc you are.

Here's the link: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

And here is some background if you are interested...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers_briggs

Apparently I am a ESFJ with these points:
ExtravertedSensingFeelingJudging
Strength of the preferences %
1115033

I'm not too sure what it means =P But the description seems to be scarily accurate. Test it and let me know if yours is accurate too or not :)

Here's the description of ESFJ people:

Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Guardians of birthdays, holidays and celebrations, ESFJs are generous entertainers. They enjoy and joyfully observe traditions and are liberal in giving, especially where custom prescribes.

All else being equal, ESFJs enjoy being in charge. They see problems clearly and delegate easily, work hard and play with zest. ESFJs, as do most SJs, bear strong allegiance to rights of seniority. They willingly provide service (which embodies life's meaning) and expect the same from others.

ESFJs are easily wounded. And when wounded, their emotions will not be contained. They by nature "wear their hearts on their sleeves," often exuding warmth and bonhomie, but not infrequently boiling over with the vexation of their souls. Some ESFJs channel these vibrant emotions into moving dramatic performances on stage and screen.

Strong, contradictory forces consume the ESFJ. Their sense of right and wrong wrestles with an overwhelming rescuing, 'mothering' drive. This sometimes results in swift, immediate action taken upon a transgressor, followed by stern reprimand; ultimately, however, the prodigal is wrested from the gallows of their folly, just as the noose tightens and all hope is lost, by the very executioner!

An ESFJ at odds with self is a remarkable sight. When a decision must be made, especially one involving the risk of conflict (abhorrent to ESFJs), there ensues an in-house wrestling match between the aforementioned black-and-white Values and the Nemesis of Discord. The contender pits self against self, once firmly deciding with the Right, then switching to Prudence to forestall hostilities, countered by unswerving Values, ad exhaustium, winner take all.

As caretakers, ESFJs sense danger all around--germs within, the elements without, unscrupulous malefactors, insidious character flaws. The world is a dangerous place, not to be trusted. Not that the ESFJ is paranoid; 'hyper-vigilant' would be more precise. And thus they serve excellently as protectors, outstanding in fields such as medical care and elementary education.


In case you are also interested in futher description of ESFJ people, check this out:
http://keirsey.com/personality/sjef.html

And this is the suggested careers for me: http://www.humanmetrics.com/vocation/JCI.asp?EI=11&SN=0.6&TF=-50&JP=33

Namely: Management, Public Administration, Hotel & Restaurant Management, Nursing, Radiologic Technician, Physician (okay, it is getting scarier!), Education, Social Work.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The day I turned 25....

A few weeks back, I celebrated my come of age of turning 1/4 century.

It's not bad... not as bad as I think it would =P

I thought I'll feel sooooo much older and suddenly the next day, puffy eye bag and forehead lines (famously known as Wrinkle) will come to visit. However, not much thing is different....

I did an online survey thing a few days after my birthday, and the only thing change is that I now checked a different answer in the 'Age Group' section. I used to check "18-24". It felt so good to be in the same group with the 18 year olds! Now I check "25-34" -_-" -_-"

Anyway..... I had quite a good birthday this year =) On my birthday night, Yap took me to Prime Restaurant in No.1 Martin Place (GPO). We had the wagyu beef grade 6, it was delicious!!! It definitely does taste MUCH different than normal meat! You do pay what you are getting! I can't imagine what grade 12 taste like! Apparently grade 12 is the highest grade for Wagyu beef. And it is only available in Japan! Prime Restaurant serves grade 6 and grade 9.

At night we cut my cake, the lovely hazelnut chocolate cake from Lindt! It is so yummy. The top chocolate layer is amazing and the nuts making it an easy to eat cake. Here is the photo of it. Yap put a smiley face with candle on it :)

Mimy and Johnson came by too. And they gave me this beautiful hugeee jewellery box! This should be enough to fit all my home made jewelleries right? Do you think so? =O


Then last Saturday, I had Yum Cha with my friends. It was quite a late one since the weekend of my birthday week was Ineke's wedding, so we can only have it last Saturday which is actually 1 1/2 week later hehehehe. Anyway, we had it in Fook Yuen in Chatswood. It's just located across my house and it's quite a nice place, I've only been there twice before but has been liking it :). My friends gave me a massage chair! NICEEEEEE! I can use it while watching my dvd (HEROES!!!) Thinking about it, I think I'll use it now......







Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Beatiful Saturday

I am writing this to my blog so that I can remember the 2 beautiful events that happened last Saturday, 5th May 2007.

My best friend, Ineke, got married to the love of her life.
It was such a beautiful day to get married!














This is the outdoor photo shot in La Perouse. From left : Yansen, Widi, Herri, Ineke, Lia, Me.

The day started with waking up at 6.30 am for a make up and hair do by Robert De Rooze , a very experienced make-up artist who did Melissa George for Napoleon Perdis shot!

Then at 11.15 am we started our way to the La Perouse church in Little Bay. It was such a cute small church with rooftop that goes all the way down! One side of the church is only made of clear glass which has the beautiful ocean view.

When everyone has gathered inside, the priest asked everyone to stand up ..... I then walked down the aisle first followed by Lia holding the beautiful flower bouquet with violin being played. After we stood on our position, Ineke walked down the aisle with her mom towards Herri who was already waiting on the front.... It felt so magical I almost cried! I just felt so happy! Marriage is a really beautiful thing =)

After the church ceremony, we went on to our outdoor photo shoots. We went to La Perouse, Observatory Hill (The Rocks), followed by Bondi Beach. Then we went to Nick's seafood where the dinner reception going to be held. The bride & groom had the tea ceremony first before the reception started, and then when it was all done and the guests have arrived, the reception began.

Everyone had such a great time that night! Yap was the MC , his first time, mind you, but he did suchhh a greattt job that even someone in the wedding asked him to be his MC for his wedding! LOL! But I'm not too sure that my speech went that well! Hehehhe We then had a very delicious dinner too, it was seafood platter for two! So there wasn't any worry that we won't have enough food! ;-)

We took heapss and heappsss of photos! Maybe I'll upload more one day when I can find a good shot of me! hahehehhe *self-aware*

Btw,....... the second beautiful thing that happen last Saturday was.......... the news that my lovely cousin, Mimy is having a BABY BOY!!!!!! Yes, it's going to be a Johnson Junior after all! She went to the ultrasound on Saturday, and right after the doctor put the ultrasound device on her tummy, the baby opens his leg and shows his true self! HUHUAHAUAHUA



Me & Mimy on Sunday night in Seoul-Ria, Korean resto in Chatswood. She's 20 weeks pregnant!! =D

I can't wait for the little Johnson to come out and poo everywhere!

It will be really exciting to finally have a nephew living near me. It will be a very exciting experience that I kinda anticipate :)

Thursday, May 03, 2007

City vs Suburbia

There’s a discussion happening in Domain blog (http://blogs.domain.com.au/ ) about living in city vs suburbia…

I just read them and found some interesting things from the readers...

Which one do you prefer? :)

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i lived in clovelly 6km or 20mins to the city. beach 200m away. i loved it. then my partner got sick and lost his so called "job for life". we were going under on a monthly basis. i had a great career, great friends, ate well, ocean views the lot. six months ago we moved 1hr south of sydney on the coast just to try it. we live near the windy bridge north of wollongong. we pay $290 per week for a 2 brm fibro house a backyard overlooking the ocean, trees and the occasional wallabies grazing around dusk. we have a garage, a storeroom and a studio, a vegie patch, a laundry as big as my last bedroom with ocean views, 2 dining rooms, a sunroom and an old kitchen. its so cheap to live here I'm only working 3 days a week. its a 1 hr drive to work door to door. the other days i swim in the ocean, do some pilates or go to the gym, shop, read or sew. my partner looks healthier than when I first met him. our friends come down and visit and think we live in paradise. our friends stay with us and we stay at their place if there's a party in sydney we don't want to miss. the locals are friendly, and everything is cheaper. there are nice restaurants and we eat out once a week still. the loaf of sour dough bread I bought in clovelly for $5.50 is $3.50 here, same label. bananas were $3 a kilo when in sydney they stayed up over $10 a kilo. our first bacon and egg roll plus a coffee for 2 people cost only $12 not $40 at clovelly sea salt. i reckon i've had the best of both worlds and my experience is that city life just doesn't compare to being here.

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I live 20km out from Brisbane and hate it, yes I've got heaps of space on my 1600sqm block, but it takes forever to get anywhere, no public transport, no shops nearby.
I blame the council for not insisting on some retail land in the estate. Also the estate is all twisty cul de sacs, it takes me 5 minutes just to get out of the estate. Developers have got obsessed with creating quite dead-end cul de sacs with no through roads, and the whole estate exits at the one point.
The new stage actually backs on to a main road, but there is not access to it, not even a footpath! you have to drive right around for 15 minutes!

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I have lived in a shoebox in the centre of London, New York and Sydney. Now I live in a house in Canberra suburbia and love having the garden and the dog which I could not have in the city. I think much depends on your stage of life - once I would not have swapped the city for this either but now I would not go back.

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Late last year I moved to Lake Macquarie -south of Newcastle NSW after 10 years in Sydney & 5 years in Brisbane. In both cities, I lived in great inner city fringe suburbs - had a great life, easy public transport in Sydney and a short walk to shops, bars etc in both places - all very nice but to buy where I rented in Sydney was simply unaffordable on one income if I still wanted to have any sort of social life. I met the love of my life and within 12 months had moved up the F3 to be with him in a cute 3 bedroom house we bought and am loving it - and I'm still walking distance to everything - including our sail boat on a mooring at the end of our street....I've got the best of all the worlds-at about a 1/3 of the price - and that's for everything - from paying a mortgage to going out for dinner or breakfast - not to mention that everything is just easier - going to the beach doesn't involve paying for parking or sitting in traffic for hours on the way home..
Home is about who you're with & what you do in that home and in your community - it's not about keeping up with the Jones & driving the latest model SUV. Lifestyle is about how you choose to live - and it can be short sighted to think that is defined by the address you live at.