Flora and Fauna (and Food)

Being jobless can be very boring at times. So I've started doing things that I've never imagined I'd ever do, like cleaning... gardening... and cooking... Do I hear gasps of disbelief? :P

Well seeing is believing... so, here are the evidence:

This is my little vege patch... there's dwarf beans on the left, half a bokchoy in the centre, and broccoli on the right. These were planted last week and hey they're still alive!



My hanging flowers which are thriving on the patio.














The culprits responsible for my half-eaten bokchoy:

The spotted rabbit is probably wild and would run if we approach it. The brown rabbit however is very friendly and would let us stroke its ears if we feed it. They never come to the house together though... are rabbits territorial? Anyway we've put a mesh on the gate between the front yard and back so that they can't get to the vege patch. Otherwise, guess what will be on the menu? ;)
















Speaking of menus, I've become quite good at cooking and have been experimenting with different combinations every night. Well, nobody's had food poisoning yet, so that's good enough for me :D




Fish with tomato and spring onion












Chili beef with red hot chili padi... boring cabbage on the left isn't cooked by me hehe.





Ok, next pic has nothing to do with flora, or fauna, and definitely not edible - but I'm too lazy to start a new post just to put one pic. This is our new car, a Mitsubishi Colt which we bought from John Hughes. The salesman was very friendly and sweet, he even gave me a bunch of flowers for being such an easy customer. As you can see it was presented to me with a sign with my name on it (even though they got my title wrong :P)

Our House

After staying with our friends Julianna and Paul for 2 weeks, we finally found a place to rent which is affordable and big enough for the 2 of us and also with additional rooms for family or friends in case they wish to come and stay with us. It's a cute little bungalow in Victoria Park which is really near the city, and is within walking distance to shops and a big supermarket. It is on a quiet street near some schools and has security alarms installed and a fence around it so it's relatively safe.

It took us about 2 weeks to get most of the furniture and appliances in and now our new home is more or less complete. Everything is expensive here, especially after converting from Ringgit to AUD. Interestingly enough, we bought most of our furniture and knick-knacks from Ikea because the things there are actually cheaper than most other furniture shops. What's more they look good too! However Ikea charges a lot for delivery (roughly about A$130) so we decided to cut costs by renting a van and carting the things to our house ourselves. Well we almost broke our backs doing that but hey, we have Medicare!!! :D The funny thing about Ikea is that although their brand, design, and concept are from Sweden, everything is made in China... except maybe the meatballs lol. Nevertheless, their products are still very well thought of, and the design is clean and simple, just the way I like it.

Anyway before I ramble on further, here are the pics:

This is our living room. The big brown bean bag was generously lent to us by Julianna when we moved in since we had such a hard time finding affordable sofas. The stereo is also one of the first things I bought since I can't live without music :) So in the beginning, all we had in there was just that big beanbag and the stereo :D

The sofa, single-seaters and the TV table are all from Ikea. Even the floor lamp, red cushions and blanket are from Ikea.


Next we have our dining room. It was pretty hard to find a dining table set which would be able to sit 6 people (in case we have guests) and still be able to fit into the small space but we persisted and were able to find the perfect one. As you can see from the pic, the dining room has very nice floor to ceiling windows which look out into the patio.



The tiny kitchen is separated from the dining room by the kitchen counter. It comes ready with the stove and cabinets but we had to buy all the other appliances like the fridge, microwave oven, kettle, toaster, and the most important one... the rice cooker which can be seen in the right hand corner :D. Eating out is very expensive here so I've been cooking at home a lot. So far there has been no casualties :P

The house comes with 3 bedrooms, at the time being we're sleeping in the master bedroom and one of the rooms is used as Pet's study room and the other smaller one is used as my computer room. Our bed is actually made in Malaysia, we didn't buy it because of that though... it was only because it was cheaper than most other metal beds and has a very sturdy frame. All the desks and rugs in these rooms are from that shop which starts with I, I'm not going to say the name again in case people think I have a share in there :P



Master Bedroom










Study Room










Computer Room









Last but not least, we have our sweet little patio which is right behind the living room and next to the dining room.


This is where I normally sit with my coffee when there is a bit of sun. As you can see from the pic, I've also been doing a bit of gardening (strange things never cease to happen here). So far no plants have died under my care... so far. I also have a tiny vegetable patch at the back with half a bok-choy. Why is it half? Well we have 2 very cute wild rabbits which come to visit almost everyday and we feed them carrots but I guess they got hungrier and so they decided to try out my vege. Luckily they only took a few bites, otherwise I'll be serving rabbit stew soon ;)