I’m finally settled in and feeling like this is “home” for me, in one sense at least. And then…
And then I think, crap, only, what, 5 months to go? And I’m back to Sydney. I’m getting the moving cycles shorter and shorter, which is one thing moving (back) to Sydney was supposed to reverse.
I guess it matters less and less these days, in the context of near-instant communications and the whole e-World that makes the distance near meaningless, or at the very least lets you redefine it to your own needs. I’m at least as up to speed with Australia’s news as I am with England’s, but despite being that much closer to Europe I’m still by and large clueless as to what is happening some 300 – 400 km away on the continent (distances on Australia’s scale are near-meaningless here).
What makes it even more interesting is the people I’m sharing my flat with. One is a Japanese guy, Hiro, studying Moving Image Design. How cool does that sound? I have to make sure I get some lessons or something before I leave. Another guy is Korean, Shin, studying along with Hiro. And finally we have Eun-mi, a Korean girl, who is a hairdresser. Who studied Civil Engineering (Yeah, go figure).
What makes things a little more interesting is that both of the Koreans have Japanese partners (in place of a generic term for boyfriend/girlfriend), and as such everyone in the house has a little Japanese skill at least =) While our language is by default English, occasionally we’ll dip into Japanese. I’m finding it tough to recall those Japanese skills that I did have at one point – the value of practise is not to be underestimated.
We’re a generally smoothly functioning unit. Hiro is the “manager”, taking care of rent, bills, etc. Eun-mi moved in last week and suddenly the house in two days was completely revamped, shiny and new (which is not to say it is new; quite old and creaky in fact). Shin and Hiro between them keep the fridge stocked and the cooking going. And I… well, I’m the regular-job guy =)
There’s things around the house that need fixing, but it’s a decent little place. The location is superb for convenience – about 5 min walk to a 24 hour supermarket (except on Sundays when it’s 11 – 5…), 5 min to cinemas/entertainment complex type thing, 10 min to the station, and not to mention we’re in the old docklands area so there’s heaps of little water courses & artificial lakes from that time, which is really nice to have a stroll around. A 10 minute train ride would make it the perfect spot for commuting if the station on both ends wasn’t 10 min away from the respective destinations, and the fact that it is afterall the Tube and thus hellish in summer. Or winter.
And that for now, is life here in London.