When I first came to Brisbane, to say that I was clueless was putting it very lightly, very very lightly.
I had no idea where to get a bottle of water, no idea where to get a pizza, or even where to live… Luckily, now that I’ve been here for almost three years, everything is sorted and I can safely say that I can navigate myself anywhere now. However, the experience of finding the perfect place to live will always be one that I remember.
Looking for the perfect place
When I first came to Brisbane, as I’ve mentioned earlier, I had no idea where to begin with regards to looking for a house. I did not want to live in the usual Unilodge, Urbannest and other student housing because 1) they were too expensive for me, and 2) i wanted an authentic Australian living experience. So thus, I began my search, looking for the perfect place. From what I can recall, I mostly used sites like realestate and etc.
The house that I ended up living in was the third house that I found. It was a really unique red brick Queenslander which I’ve never seen before. The moment that I stepped into the house, I was overwhelmed by the carpeted floors and old wooden furniture that was so different from my own home back in Singapore (see: HDB). I took the room without a doubt, and there began my experience of living in an authentic student sharehouse in Australia.
In my 3 months of living in that house, I was fascinated by the open space, the wide backyard and the fact that we had to hang our clothes out on a triangular shaped thing (STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S CALLED…) in the backyard.
Cultural differences?
In my entire life, I’ve never had the pleasure of living with people from different cultures and countries. In our house, we had an American from Texas who was fond of hunting and who taught me how to use Google Earth (#NOOBALERT), a lovely Spanish couple from Barcelona that I became great friends with, an Australian girl who had the most fascinating tattoos and who taught me what are ‘soldiers‘, a Brazilian girl who baked the most fascinating little treats and a Chinese couple who were the friendliest. We were literally from all over the world, sharing our little anecdotes of our lives and learning new things from each other everyday.
Nonetheless, after that semester in that house experiencing so many new things, I realized that maybe it was time to move on. While staying in that house was a whole new experience, I did not really like sharing bathrooms nor having that many people in the house. (Disclaimer: my then housemates are and were lovely people, just in case you think otherwise.)
So, the hunt began for a new house, which hasn’t really started too, when I bumped into an old friend from high school sitting on some steps at GP’s X block and she offered me a place in her apartment. Up till this day, I have no idea why I did it (saying yes to a friend who I barely knew from high school and whom we’ve only met TWICE) but … without having even seen the place, I told her “YES PLEASE” and decided on a gut feeling that that’s the place for me (NOT ADVISABLE, KIDS).
To be continued in next blog post…
