So its been a couple of weeks now, we’ve 90% settled into our place. So far it has been a whirlwind of meeting new people and having lots of lunch/dinners. We’re so blessed to have so many generous people taking us out to yummy food at the same time, we’re both feeling pretty ‘yeet-hay’ and in need of a bit of detox or ‘ching’ food.
We’ve been blessed with a large and comfortable home. The house is still pretty messy though and needs to go through more sorting out till its ‘hospitality-friendly’:
In this time we’ve noticed a few things about Brisbane while we’ve been adjusting:
1. Climate: the is the most obvious one. It’s super hot! I used to be morning shower, Chris was night shower. We’ve now become more pre-dinner showerers. It just means its a bit harder to concentrate cause its so warm all the time. Interestingly, we’ve noticed no-one really uses those reflective shades on their cars, even if they park outside! So our car was the only one in the carpark which had it.
2. Wildlife: Toads, geckos, there are just more of them around. We’ve had a couple of little reptiles in the house already…eek…
3. Asianness: although not as many asians as Sydney, there is no shortage of quality asian groceries/restaurants at all. There is a famous ramen place in Gold Coast (Hakataya Noodle Bar) which has a couple of brances in Sydney we were able to try. I was very impressed, much better than say Ichiban Boshi or something. Also, Brisbane has ‘Mos Burger’!!
Rather than being more Hong Kongnese, there has been more Taiwanese influence. The main asian centre is the Sunnybank area. It’s a little like Eastwood, Carlingford combined. We go regularly to this food court in this area where it has an Easy Way, Cha Time, and two other tea/asian dessert places within 5 metres of each other! People don’t tend to go to Chinatown since it appears to be the Kings Cross equivalent area although I’ve noticed lots of asian restaurants in that area as well as all the Asian dance party posters point to this area the ‘Valley’.
4. Transport: its pretty crucial to have a car in Brisbane. Sydneysiders think Cityrail is bad but Brisbanites say at least the train comes…the bus system seems pretty good though, but a little more expensive. It’s pretty good that everything we need is really close by! Church, shopping, leisure…we’ve never commuted so little before in our lives. And most of the time, finding a carspace is not an issue at all.
We thank God things are slowly becoming ordered, we’ve figured out where to shop and everything. Thanks for all the well wishes and prayer throughout this transitional period.
Grace Lung 