Fantastic Friday

Pearlyn, Sidney and Us

It has been a fantastic Friday! We managed to find Singaporeans in Darwin! These are the first Singaporeans we have met in Darwin. Her name is Pearlyn and she gave us a shout on a Singaporeans in Australia Facebook page. Shed owned an Asian food shop in the city together with her husband and Sangeetha and I headed there for lunch. The food was good and it was cooked by her husband who was actually a Papua New Guinean by birth. The both of them have lived in Darwin for the past 18 years and informed us that there are quite a number of Singaporeans living in Darwin. We even had our monthly cult meetings in various Asian restaurants. Wow! She invited us to the next cult meeting on 5 March! I am so going to go crazy on candles right now... KIDDING! 

She and her husband sat with us throughout our lunch while pouring us Chinese tea... We learnt about free parking in the city, places to go for shopping, the job market etc. It was a fantastic meal not only for the food but for the company as well. She only had good things to say about Darwin and that only served to reinforce our decision to move here.

With a good lunch out of the way, we headed to ANZ bank as we had received more good news. Our shipment from Singapore had already completed its quarantine period in Adelaide and was now ready to make its way up north to us (when the shipment actually arrives, I will do a more detailed post on the entire shipping process from start to end). We had to pay the port duties to the receiving company before they would release our shipment to us and that called for us to go to ANZ. In ANZ, we found ourselves facing a banker (Chinese but with an Australian accent) who gave us an alternative and faster way to get the money over to the receiving side. He then leaned over slightly and with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow, he questioned, "Are you from Singapore by any chance?". And so we found a second Singaporean. Its like we had unlocked the next level in a computer game and reward was Singaporeans! We will be looking forward to the meeting in March to rendezvous with the rest.

More good news after that! Our Singpost parcel (we had to ship some stuff via Singpost as our luggage at insufficient space) had also arrived and we headed to Winnellie Post Office to collect the two boxes that contained more clothes, some shoes and containers for the spices. Now, Sang and I are eagerly anticipating the arrival of our main shipment from Singapore. Once that is in, we will be fully settled in.