My House

I have been meaning to post pictures of the house I’m living in for a while, and just never got around to it.  The couple that actually lives here is busy having a baby in Australia.  Conveniently, they’ll be doing that right until the beginning of August, at which point I will no longer be here.

The view from our front gate. Seriously.

 

we have a jackfruit tree and a mango tree! Unfortunately the mangoes are too far up for us to get. So they just hang there, mocking us.

 

the stairs to the balcony and the front door (which is on the second floor)

my favourite part of the house. We do a lot of chilling here in the evenings.

 

onwards! Into the house!

 

our living room. There are lots of clothes strewn about mainly because even though the housekeeper does our laundry, we're too lazy to put it away. We prefer instead to leave it in the living room and just take items of clothing when we're ready to wear them.

 

Our kitchen. It is lovely and equipped with pretty much anything you could think of . Downside? Ants. The ants in this country are INCREDIBLE. They will get into anything. We lost two completely sealed, unopened bags of rice before we realized that they were burrowing through the plastic.

crazy spiral stairs to my part of the house

Sienna lives upstairs, in the room with the double bed. But in compensation, I pretty much get all of downstairs to myself. Included here: the bed for visitors.

 

also included: an office, and some books about Jesus. Also some books about how to raise a religious baby (you know, in case I'm interested)

of course, the tradeoff is this teeny child's bedroom with no closet

I do have my own bathroom though!

The house really is incredible.  We are located on a really nice side-street, 5 minutes away from Independence monument, and right beside some really nice restaurants and cafes.  It’s almost impossible to work there though – the wooden floorboards, the garden, and the balcony all communicate “vacation!” to me.  Maybe it’s because in Thailand Paul, Abby and I stayed in cottages that looked exactly like this.  When I get home from work I immediately jump to “drinks and ukulele on the balcony” mode.

This Sunday, this is exactly what we did!

Kunthea has been promising to teach me how to make fresh spring rolls for a while, and on Saturday night when we were out with some friends, the idea somehow emerged to have a party at my house on Sunday afternoon.  It was going to be a luau.  There were gonna be spring rolls (which Kunthea and I would make), drinks (which Sophea would make, since he owns a bar at which he bartends), and ukulele songs.

Kunthea and I bought way too many ingredients to turn into spring rolls by ourselves, so the boys pitched in to help when they arrived.

Rith working his magic

making one of my first spring rolls. I must have made at least 30.

 

taking a break from rolling to enjoy mojitos made by Sophea (left). This man can make a drink - instead of sugar he put lychees and sugarcane in.

By the time we had finished making the spring rolls all of us were full from eating as we cooked, and definitely past tipsy.  We then made our way onto the balcony with the food, the drinks, and chilled for the rest of the evening.  At points we were singing so loudly that we could see people on the street peeking in trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

And, to top off the night:

Squeeee!

Sothy brought me flowers for hosting the party!

All in all: a fantastic Sunday.

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