I turned 40 yesterday. It was also my 3rd wedding anniversary. So how was it? EXHAUSTING!
But God is His goodness, still able to give me a sweet surprise. 🙂
My original plan was to have a big birthday bash here in Tamworth, inviting everyone but then that’s very impractical. In the end, I just gave gifts to some people who helped me in 2021.
My husband and I decided to book a flight to Melbourne so we can celebrate my birthday there. However, because of the surge in the omicron variant, we didn’t know how to celebrate my birthday together with my relatives.
A few days before our flight, Qantas kept changing our flight hours and the night before our flight, we received a message that our flight was cancelled. We had to look into our booking and it showed that the flight was just changed. But we weren’t really sure so we just cancelled our flight.
We thought about alternatives, in the end, we rebooked for Newcastle-Melbourne, but we got confused with the travel restrictions. We had to cancel the flight again, and when we were about to rebook it for the 3rd time, I couldn’t anymore. Probably because there are no more seats available.
We ended up driving to Sydney in the afternoon the day before my birthday. It only took us 5 hours because we ended up going through a tunnel that has a toll fee.
Once checked in, we quickly went down to buy toiletries and food since it was already 9ish at night. We thought everything would be closed already. But the restaurants were still open as well as the chemist. We bought some food. We brought them all back to our hotel room, we didn’t want to eat outside, cautious of covid. And with just one bite of the Sparrow Mills’ Korean fried chicken, all these hassles faded away.
The next day, we were early, ready for shopping. I had to make sure to stop by a bookstore. Dymocks was the most convenient to go to at the time so I went there. I wanted to buy more books but I opted to just buy 2. They were also discounted.
I also had to try the nasi lemak since I saw a Pappa Rich restaurant under World Square. It was definitely better than what I had in the Philippines. Some of the beef rendang was hard, if all are tender then I would have really enjoyed it. I also convinced myself into buying a perfume I’ve been wanting for a while now and because of that, and since it was also my birthday, the store gave me a gift, which was nice. It was the only gift I received for my birthday.
After shopping in the city, we checked out earlier than planned because we wanted an extra day of rest. Then we went to the nearest outlet store and met my friend and her daughter there. It was amazing to see the progress of my friend’s daughter. She was so talkative now and she can walk on her own. She is also a curious kid and she speaks her mind. She’s one smart girl.
It was sweet of God to remind me of His goodness, to let me know that not everyone is against me. I never plan to meet anyone in Sydney, but my friend went out of her way to see me since I was in Sydney. She didn’t even know that it was my birthday so she wasn’t “obliged” to. She’s definitely my person.
Sometimes I write 