What is a 'Noodle Change'

Some people have a Sea Change, some people even have a ‘Tree Change’.......

We, however have decided on a move from the clean, orderly, cosmopolitan Lion City of Singapore to the sometimes sleepy, often crazy, always beautiful - Ancient city of Hoi An !…….

WE are taking a ‘Noodle Change’

I by no way think we are unique in this crazy travelling nomadic’ish’ lifestyle that we have chosen…...agggghh hmmm…... (not sure I necessarily CHOSE this but it evolved over time & I have learnt to ‘go with the flow’ & i’d actually have it no other way) fallen into whilst raising our young kids. 

We meet & are surround by families almost everyday that have chosen to raise their kids outside the norm, away from their birth countries & bring up ‘Third Culture kids’ - MAN the combinations of people that I have met, one of my dearest friends is South African, her & hubby have chosen to raise their kids OS & have so far lived in Poland, Vietnam and Jordan & their kiddos are only five & nine ! Ladies & gentlemen we have a mini United Nations right there - in their living room ! I have other friends that have taken their young families to live in South America, Africa, other parts of SE Asia & beyond - my point being, WE are not special or unique, in fact around these parts we are actually really quite ordinary ! 

I have travelled since I was 22, leaving home as a bright eyed, slightly green (although I would never have admitted it) young excited backpacker to travel the world and settle down for a few years in London. I instantly FELL.IN.LOOOOOVE with London, so much that after my initial two years there, my heart & soul itched to get back and I moved back & lived there an additional two times ! This is also where I met my husband - after having grown up in the same area of Sydney we met on the other side of the world ! See folks what travel does :)

In additional to living in London for a total of around five years over time we also spent six months living in Peru & have been blessed to have the opportunity to travel to many parts of this big beautiful world including, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Europe, the Pacific and South America & Central America. It is an honour & a privilege to show the world to my kids & such a buzz to see it all again through their fresh excited eyes. What is it that they say ? "The school of the world IS the world" & I love that my kids have had a childhood filled with worldly experiences.

I grew up in the same house, in the same street, in the same suburb with the same neighbours MY.ENTIRE.LIFE !!! I LOVED what we had, the stability, the certainty the predicability of having such history with a house & a neighbourhood - however my kids have a VERY different childhood to me ! 

My eldest had lived in 4 countries by the time he even turned six FOUR COUNTRIES !!! plus had also travelled to a few more. My anchors in my childhood were my house, my bedroom, my neighbourhood - his are us, his parents, his brother, his family (& at times his iPod - hmmm)! Its a different kind of reality - not bad, just different ! 

So - I repeat, WE are NOT special, this is not why I am writing this blog. Why I am writing this blog is, in a way for my kids. See this is our LAST ‘hooray’ our last year away before we head home to ‘settle down’ sometimes it completely takes me by surprise but my eldest 'Kid 1' is now heading towards the end of Australian grade three (OMG where DID that time go ??) which means by the time we head ‘normal side’ he will be due to start grade five ...... GRADE...FREAKIN....FIVE !! (I keep telling him he’ll always be my baby :) ) - with NO schooling in Australia AT ALL (although he attended an Aussie school in Singapore) 

My point is - no history, no mates he’s known since he was really small, no sharing birthdays & school camps year after year, no school pictures with the same kids to look back on when he is a teenager & laugh at how everyone has changed, no one to say - hey remember the summers when we were kids & used to ride our bikes around all day ! ……but like I said, not bad just different. 

Instead he has friends from literally ALL OVER the world, his average weekend as a two year old involved searching for crabs on Samoa's most exotic & STUNNING beaches, he has ridden on the back of motorbikes to school in Vietnam (& yes those families that squeeze 4 people onto a motorbike - that has been us),  he's gone on a 2 night school excursions to Malaysia when he was only 8, walked the Myanmar soccer team onto the field in an International soccer game, Represented his school alongside Sir Peter Cosgrove presenting Koalas to the Singapore Zoo & attended ANZAC day dawn service and Kranji War Cemetery, BUT amongst other ex-pat kids, all those experiences are terribly ordinary ! SO how do you measure a childhood ?

Sorry, I digressed -  my point is, before he heads off to High School (GAAAA - that always seems so far away) we have decided its best for him to have two years at an Aussie primary school, to create some history before he heads into that next chapter of his little life.  So being that this IS our last year away from ‘planet normal’ Ive decide to document this for my kids, because although this IS their normal, I know once they get back to the REAL normal that there is a chance that no one will even care that they have lived in Samoa, & Vietnam & Singapore & Vietnam again ! They will just be the 2 new kids at school who like Minecraft & soccer & Skylanders & I am sure pretty soon all that  they have seen & done & experienced will fade into the back story of what makes them them. 

But one day, when normal becomes so normal that they have almost forgotten what its like to ride a motorbike & rattle off numbers in Mandarin & eat Prata for Sunday breakfast in the local Hawker & have friends from all over the world - they can look back, here to this blog and see what an amazing experience they have had, and if they want, they can show their friends.....IF they are interested - in what life was like for them growing up as a ‘third culture kid’

So here it is, for my boys, for our friends and family and for anyone else that is interested:

OUR NOODLE CHANGE xx

PS: Would LOVE to hear your thoughts and comments :)