October Begins and so do the Halloween Festivities!

So I must admit: I've never been a fan of Halloween. I get scared easily, so don't watch horror movies and such (although I do like scary books. Go figure), and I simply just never saw the point of it: dressing up in silly costumes and having kids asking strangers for candy; it all just seems strange and pointless to me. That being said, it's only the start of October, and I can already see how much Australia misses the point of Halloween. As with many other things, Halloween in Australia is just a big gimmick of something American and completely misses the point.

I am usually finding weekend activities for the three of us to partake in via Facebook. And browsing around just these upcoming events has really opened my eyes to what Halloween's about here in the US. And from what I can gather, it's more a festival of harvest time, hence the pumpkins. There are lots of events this month on little farms where kids can pick pumpkins, play in hay bales, go for tractor rides and other activities relating to the country life and harvesting produce. And the spooky theme seems to accompany that as secondary whimsical decoration. I have no idea where the spooky thing came from, but that's not all that Halloween's about here.

On Sunday we went to Clancy's Pumpkin Patch! I've never seen so many pumpkins in my life! I wasn't really too sure what to expect, but we met up with some friends who have a son who's a bit younger than Mr 2, so that was also nice. When we arrived, we could just see lots of hay and pumpkins! It was about a 20 minute drive from our apartment in the city, so it's not like we were in the middle of nowhere, but it sort of felt like we were! Hay was piled high, adorned in pumpkins of various sizes and even colours (mostly orange and white). There were also scarecrow-type decorations hung up with friendly faces. Kids were running all over the place. We were basically walking through rows and rows of pumpkins and hay! 

Once we'd met up with our friends, we grabbed a ride on the tractor where you could pay $4 a person and sit in some hay in the back trailer and ride around a bit! Mr 2 was very unsure of it all. He's not really the type of kid who jumps right into things; he takes his time to take things in and just adjust to new places. But he relaxed after a little while and enjoyed exploring a bit: checking out the pumpkins, the Autumn leaves all over the ground and the dirt. LOL.

I like little events like these: they give you a small appreciation for country life and life outside of the big cities.

There were also a couple of small references to the upcoming Thanksgiving, just little signs that said things like "give thanks" etc. I don't know a lot about Thanksgiving; only what Robert's told me (he learned quite a bit when he spent some years of his childhood growing up in this country). I feel like October is really the beginning of holiday season in this country.

We probably would have hung around a bit longer, but we got rained out! It was the first rain that SF's had since about May, apparently! Plus, Mr 2 was getting a bit tired and grumpy. So we picked a couple of pumpkins to take home and made a run for it! Needless to say, I felt like something pumpkin flavoured, so I had to find us the closest Starbucks as I'm currently addicted to their pumpkin spice latte (I know, it's terrible: I've become addicted to an American coffee. Struth!). Plus, we now also have a couple of little pumpkins sitting next to our TV as our Halloween/October decorations. LOL. I've seen some cute decorations in Target recently, so I may buy a couple to keep the pumpkins company. Haha!

Anyway, as usual, I leave you with some photos of our recent "adventure". :-)

xoxo

Just a few of the 1000s of pumpkins...

I feel like this one is really channelling my Dad/the Count from Sesame Street. LOL!

These dudes were just hanging out on trees and in bushes.

House!!!

So after having been here for only two and a half days, we have scored ourselves an apartment! Woo hoo! After a week of being homeless, I was really starting to get sick of it! It's a place that Robert had been eyeing off for a few weeks, we saw it yesterday, filled in an application last night and managed to beat another keen guy and (apparently) someone else in trying to get it! We met the owner/s of the place today, and they're a couple who have a two year old and another on the way, so it's great to know that they had a toddler in the place and that it's suitable to Mr 17 months who thinks he's boss of wherever he goes.  (As a side note, it's sad to understand why there's been an increasing no. of homeless people in this city when you see how crazy real estate prices are here. I didn't think any other place could make Sydney look cheap, but San Fran does...! We have a two bedroom inner-city apartment for which we will be paying more rent than a single person's yearly salary! Although the computing and tech industry probably had a huge impact on these costs, I'm still awesomely proud of where my husband's going in his career in the industry. Oh, the irony...) But, like I said, I was already sick of being homeless, so I'm just excited that it didn't take long for us to secure a place at all! So we have a place to call "home". It's also only a few blocks away from Robert's office, so he won't need to spend much time or money on commuting, which is great! I think he was always aiming to walk to and from work, even if he needed to go a couple of KMs, but a few blocks makes that so much easier!

And excuse the D&M, but it got me thinking last night (when I couldn't sleep at 1am) of the idea of "home". I've been referring to Sydney as "home" and I probably always will. Yet, I always felt like a small part of me belonged in Korea, so I consider it to be mildly a second "home" country as well... yet now we live here, and depending on how long we're here for, our baby may end up considering this his "home", regardless of how I feel. Maybe that's all irrelevant, but it's a weird feeling of displacement when you realise that you're not quite sure where your "home" truly lies...

*Ahem*, excuse that side note. Heh.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to explore much. Between finding a place to live and adjusting to the other side of the world, time's gone by a bit quickly. But I'm hoping to venture into the city a bit tomorrow and find some places where Mr 17 months can run around and burn off energy a bit.

Right. Well, it's 9pm and I'm basically ready for bed. Haha. 

Oh, and I actually had an alright coffee today...! #priorities

xoxo