The 'hood

Our street is a court so it is blind ended. This makes it particularly quiet most of the time. No traffic whatsoever. Despite the street being a junction off a main arterial road, we rarely hear the sound of traffic except for the semi-trailer horn once in a while.

Our neighbour on the right is an elderly couple; never talked to them yet but they smile and raise their hands a lot to us when we pass.

On the left is a young family. The oldest boy is perhaps 12-ish. I saw him in our backyard once picking up their stray balls. It gave me a fright! Well, you don't see a strange blond teenager lurking in your backyard looking suspicious and not feel frightened? In a suburb most people call "dodgy"??? Turns out it was the neighbour's kid. Well, he could've just rang our bell and asked if he could pick up the balls from our backyard. Apparently breaking and entering and trespassing is better than neighbourliness.

The houses here are one house per lot so I'm glad the houses are not that close. It feels more private and we don't hear their noises or vice versa.

So far I have not seen another hijabi around here anywhere. I was first quite scared to go around in public for fear of being stared at and pointed to. Then I noticed no one was looking at me (rather, they were avoiding looking at me). It was not that weird after that. Still, I prefer not to go out. I just don't feel comfortable being an alien. I have been used to living in a Muslim majority neighbourhood these past 5 years. Now, not only am I minority.. perhaps I am the only hijabi living in here!

We are still lost at how to find things. In our old suburb, there was a small section of street (town) that had everything you need; and you could walk to it. Now our new "suburb" is a whole city and it has a huge shopping complex and huge stores scattered about and needs driving and parking. I'm not sure how to find things. It's been 2 weeks and I still don't know where I can duplicate keys.

Our house is close to a childcare centre + kindergarten. So we enrolled Layth in 3 year old kinder. Thankfully and surprisingly there was a spot for him. Usually there is a year's waiting list!!! The centre is really nice. Lots of toys and they understand halal (woo hoo!). Layth will start orientation on the 12th Jan. Then he'll go there for Tuesday and Friday mornings for 5 hours each. It will cost $320 a month!! Ouch. But he really needs to socialise and be more independent. He's becoming really shy with strangers (which on another level is quite safe!).

The beach is a 5 minute drive away. Lovely beach with clear pristine waters and warm soft sand.

We brought Layth to the beach yesterday as a birthday treat.

Tiru Layth yang tak nak tengok camera

Puteri lilin with very good reason... UV 10 (very high) yesterday!And this was at 12-1pm

It was very sunny yesterday but the wind was chilly. How la the mat saleh pakai bikini aje..I was cold wearing my cotton blouse!