First week back in Cali

Here we are, day five back in California. Joel keeps turning to me and saying "can you believe we're back here? I feel like we're on vacation or something." It's true. This has been the easiest landing we've done yet. Due, I expect in equal parts, to knowing the area and being really prepared.

Joel did his first two days of work last week from the Venice office and the studios in Manhattan Beach. The commute to Manhattan Beach is a bit of a pain but the office in Venice is walking distance from where we are staying. 

My mother headed home on Thursday and I had my first ever solo parenting day on Friday. It was fine! Really I was nervous for nothing. Then we had our first ever weekend just the three of us. 

We bought a car! Well almost. We still are in the process of transferring the ownership but we are soon to be the owners of a marvelous road trip vehicle. I can't wait to hit the open road and see the golden state unfurl ahead of us as we blast out of town. 

Austen ready to go to the bank with us in his collared shirt and cardigan

What else have we been doing? Well I hit up a farmers market that popped up across the street from our building last week. It was amazing to get produce that fresh again. We've been eating a ton of Mexican food and I've been out for cheap awesome brunches nearly every day. For our first shopping binge we hit Whole Foods, Anthropologie and Petco all in one night. We followed that up with Target the next day. It's just insane how cheap everything is. We have this urge to shop a lot as if we were just passing through. I have to keep reminding myself that these stores are still going to be there later. 

Wild roses along the Venice canals

Lilies everywhere

On mother's day I just wanted to walk. We put Austen in the stroller and did the Venice boardwalk, 3rd St Promenade and all the way back again along Main Street and Abbott Kinney. The whole way we were treated to clear blue skies, a breeze and clean fresh air. It's hard to describe how it's been to live without clean, cool air for as long as we have. You do get used to the humidity but damn! When you get a fresh lung-ful of this ocean breeze it's euphoric. 

Overheard in our household this week

"I can't sleep, it's too quiet"

"Let Kopi-o under the duvet, his ears are cold"

"Hey, a package of diapers is $11, weren't we paying $35 in Singapore?"

"LA drivers are so skilled and... polite" 

"I keep handing people my credit card with two hands"

"Look at all this food! You could fit a whole Cold Storage just in the produce section"

"Look a crane! Just ONE construction crane on the entire skyline"

"Hear that? No jackhammers"

"Oh yeah. Socks"

Our move from Singapore to LA

I know you’re curious. How did three adults, a cat and an eight week old baby do on this 24 hour odyssey? Overall I’m going to say, it went well. Here’s the story as I remember it in my jetlagged state.

Three packers from Altair Global came on May 6^th and spent 7 hours in our place meticulously making custom boxes to fit all the furniture and bubble wrapping delicate things. The din of all that packing tape was deafening and to add to that our neighbours were jackhammering at the same time. Austen loved it. Our helper arrived in the afternoon to clean and by dinner time all the big stuff was done. To celebrate we headed down to My Thai in Holland Village to spend one last night in our hood.

The next day the 20’ container arrived to take our boxes away. The landlord and agent came by to take the keys and officially transfer the remaining year and a half of our lease to our friend, Stefan. We were extremely lucky to have a really nice landlord and a good friend who was willing to move at just the right time to help up out.

Our final night was spent staying with friends and having a BBQ in the humidity we’d soon find hard to be able to comprehend. 

The travel day began at 1:45am. We left for the airport at 2:15 and were at the check-in desk at 3am. Here we are with three baggage carts, the baby in the stroller and Kopi-o in a carrier at my feet.

Even after checking our bags we still had four pieces of carry-on luggage, the stroller and the cat carrier. Walking through the airports was a gongshow. Kopi-o and Austen were quiet and well behaved except for one time that Austen decided in the middle of the Narita airport that he needed to eat RIGHT NOW and made a wail that pretty much confirmed to passersby that we were actually torturing him. 

Kopi-o at my feet

Austen in his carseat on the plane

Between feeding and changing Austen we also had to try to get Kopi-o to eat and use the litter. We did this by taking him in his carrier into various bathrooms and producing a small tray of his litter and a little travel bowl of food. The whole way there he refused to pee and only ate one bite of his food. It was very frustrating but I can’t say we didn’t try. I think he fared ok though. He never panicked and was very happy when a hand came into his carrier to cuddle up to.

One really funny difference I noted passing from Asia into America is that in Asia people think pets are icky and are all goo-goo eyed over the baby. In the US people think babies are icky and are goo-goo eyed over the cat. Kopi-o is now the number one most celebrated member of our travel party.

So we finally landed in LA and cleared customs. Our first stop was for coffee and then burritos before checking into our serviced apartment. Everyone crashed for five hours while Kopi-o conducted a thorough parameter sweep. After a late dinner out we are now stretched out on the bed playing white noise because it’s too quiet to sleep. We’re also freezing! I somehow never got a chance to finish pulling my winter clothes out to pack so all I have are a few silk sundresses and one thin sweater and it’s 16 degrees at night! Good thing we’ve got plenty of duvets to huddle under tonight. 

That's all for now. We're going to attempt to sleep again and will update the blog as we settle in this new home.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

See the album on Flickr.

We just returned from a 5 day trip to Cambodia. My first trip since New Zealand in November. It was about time! 6 week old Austen was his usual "zen baby" self just cruising along with us.

Pictures are up on Flickr. As always the pics of us are viewable to "friends and family" so make sure you log in and have added me as a friend.