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It's outside, Julie. Let's go. Good morning. Go outside, Julie. Go outside, It's really cold outside and I just wanted to try on my new vest. A gilet. She got her wife from France to order it like that. Goodness, I so bright. Good morning, everybody. Hi. Um about to start something that I should have started a long time ago when I first moved to Sydney. I am going to be starting a weekly vlog.
I've really missed doing this since the Summer Glow Up. But, the thing is I don't want this to be the Summer Glow Up. I'm not actively trying to lose weight. I'm not going to be weighing myself every week. There's not going to need to be the disclaimer in all of these weekly vlogs. But, I definitely am trying to actively stay healthy and eat healthy whilst I'm here in Sydney. As many of you know, I'm a full-time house sitter and I think that's something really interesting that I do that I don't think I've been documenting well enough since I've been here. And I think it would just be a fun way to connect again. So, welcome to the new weekly series. What do you think I should call it? Because I'm not sure.
The house sitting diaries is okay, but I want to talk to you about just everything going on in my life at the moment, not necessarily just the house sitting. So, if you have any ideas for this series, let me know. But, right now, it is a Saturday morning, a beautiful Saturday morning. It's actually been sunny the whole week here in Sydney. Oh, do you want to join the vlog? I'm going to go do the park run. Now, half of the park runs in Sydney do start 7:00 a.m., which is brutal. Luckily, the one closest to where I am right now starts at 8:00 a.m. It's called St. Peters. Apparently, it's one of the biggest park runs in Sydney. So,
I'm kind of excited. I'm doing it with some friends, so we're not going to go for any kind of time goal. We're just going to run around the park. And Ben's going to come. He's just going to hang out with you cuz I don't think you can run 5K. As you may have gathered from the title of this video, this week I'm going to be getting laser hair removal for the first time, which I'm really excited about. I feel like since I've been living in Sydney, staying in one place for a long period of time, I'm slowly tackling all the life admin things that I just put or are not possible when I'm constantly on the move. That is not excluding digital admin as well. With that being said, I want to introduce you to the sponsors of
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code backpacking or head straight to incogni.com/backpacking, and that will get you 60% off an annual plan. Truth be told, I've been nothing like the whole day. Oh, okay, maybe not the whole day, but like for an hour and a half and it was 4:30. The sun was about to go down, and I was like, "You know what? I'm going to come back to Sydney Park. It's so nice here. I've got the doggies." Come on, doggies. Oh my gosh, it's so busy at this time. Come on.
I have a ball for you. I think it might be an A380. It looks like an Emirates one, meaning are they flying to Dubai now? I must be really behind. I've got no idea what like the airspace is looking like in the Middle East at the moment. Oh, you're so cute. At some point in the walk, she just stops walking um and it means she wants to go in the bag. This morning, we're in the car. We're just driving to Watson's Bay, which is it's like 40 minutes from Asquith, which is not ideal. However, we are having a meeting with a homeowner for a potential house sit, and this is going to be a 5-week house sit in Watson's Bay in a really lovely apartment. I feel so lucky that we've now reached the point where
we kind of have enough reviews where we're even considered for house sits like this. And I really enjoy these meetings, actually. It's really interesting just getting to know the owners and their dogs. Hopefully, they like us, and hopefully the dog likes us as well um because we haven't confirmed the sit yet, but this is usually something that we do every single time, you know, we apply to a sit and we say, "Hey, we're already in Sydney. We'd love to come and meet you and your pet just to get to know you before um approving the sit." And almost every time they're like, "Oh, yes, we'd love to jump on that opportunity." So, that's where we're going now, and hopefully they like us, and hopefully we'll confirm it because that would just
be a really good chunk of time to have solidified in the calendar for the year. Thankfully, the meeting went really well, and I actually made the most out of being in Watson's Bay because you can get a ferry that goes directly to Manly. So, I met my friends, we got that ferry, and then a bus to Spit to embark on the famous Spit to Manly walk. I did this walk just a few weeks ago, but jumped at the chance to do it again because it is such beautiful Sydney coastline. This is Clontarf Beach. This is Castle Rock Beach. The whole thing's about 10 km. Aw, there's another one. You know, like he's going to jump out at me.
Woah. And they have just opened a brand new cafe along the way close to Fairlight called Boee Kiosk. So, we stopped there for a coffee. It was so cute, and the water was glistening. So, we are checking out of our house this morning. We just took our doggies for one final walk, which was so sad. Well, it wasn't so sad. It was really fun, but I'm sad that was our last walk. And we just basically cleaned the whole house. We've washed the sheets. The owner's going to be back in like 20 minutes, so the sheets haven't quite dried, and there's not quite enough time, but that's okay. We do the best we can in the time that we have. And we have arrived in our new house sit. We've actually been here before.
We're back in Cremorne Point. We spent the whole of March in this house with this dog, so we're super familiar with it, which is really nice. And the first thing that I'm going to do I'm really, really tired, actually. But, I have been wanting to make hummus the whole week because the previous house sit that we were in did not have a blender, but I know she has a blender here, and I have all of my ingredients for hummus. These are my two very large bags which everything comes around with me on. They're marketed as like large shopping trolley bags cuz they've got wheels on the bottom, but they're just like these massive tote bags. Now, I got these from Kmart for $20 each. They're 110 L, so I was pretty happy with that.
And I thought it works well with the situation that we have. Um and then I saw people on TikTok raving about them, but like people in America, and it was being called the Hulken bag. And I had a look, and these Hulken bags are being sold for like $100. And I was like, "Are you joking? You can get them in Kmart for 20 bucks." So, anyway, I keep all of my clothes and stuff in one of them. This one here is basically like just stuff, including some additional clothes, but mostly kitchen stuff, our pantry stuff because we carry around things like our Tupperware. I have a big grater because you'd be surprised at how
[__] a lot of homeowners' graters are. And I'm a girl who loves my cheese. So, yeah, this is my kitchen bag on wheels. Oh my gosh, I didn't tell you when we reached Manly yesterday. I picked up not one, not two, but three Butterboy cookies. If you are in Sydney in either Manly or Broadway or Brookvale or Is it bad that I can literally list off every single Butterboy store? Chatswood, I think is the other one. You have to go here. Chickpeas, olive oil, Now, my Garmin says that my training readiness I'm in my prime, which it hardly ever says this. So, I think I'm doing really well. So, I feel like I should do um my training status is peaking. I don't know how this has
happened. So, I should do the workout that it wants me to do today. It wants me to do 25 minutes of weights and a 48-minute easy run. I'm not really near my gym right now and I don't really fancy doing the weights, but I will do that easy run. How good is Cremorne Point? It's so beautiful. I'm pretty happy with that with my average heart rate being beats per minute. I feel like I have gone a step back from what I was like 6 months ago, but that's understandable. My training over the past 83 months has gone down loads, but I'd love to get to a point again where my zone two runs are back at like 6:30 minutes per kilometer. What we also got to allow for is that Sydney is bloody hilly and even going around Cremorne
Point, which is supposed to be flat, there's still like over 100 m of elevation that I just did in that run. So, that's definitely got to be accounted for as well. I went to early Barry's because I have my first ever laser hair removal appointment this morning, which is very exciting. It is in Laser Clinics Australia in Bondi Junction, which is why I thought that Barry's was a good thing to do beforehand just because they're always in a convenient place. I've got the train to Bondi Junction. Um I had my like everything shower last night, shaved everything cuz they're just supposed to um shave the areas that you're getting done 24 hours beforehand. I hope I shaved
okay. I'm never the best at shaving to be honest. Um I'm a little bit nervous about the pain. Some people have told me it's the most painful thing ever. Other people have told me it's really not that bad. So, we shall see. She asked me to strip off completely from the waist down, but as my t-shirt was backy, I could leave that on. I was in there for about 30 minutes getting my full legs, Brazilian, and underarms done. You can see how fast she moves and you get to wear these nice sunglasses. That package cost me $120 for one treatment. I'll talk more extensively about it when I get home, but first I just got the train over the
Harbour Bridge back to the North Shore and did a little food shop before heading back. I'm absolutely thrilled I'm getting loads of deals in the shop today and we're shopping in the morning, so this is surprising to me. Normally, the deals are in the afternoon, but we've got like pretty much almost half-price salmon. This is an insane deal. Like a massive roast beef for $6. We got two of those cuz they were both on offer. And then we got some burgers for less than half price. We got some fish schnitzels also for less than half price. Like, what the hell? We're shopping at like 10:00 a.m., so very unexpected to be getting all these deals, but maybe we should be shopping at 10:00 a.m. more often. Okay, now that
I'm back, I can give you a proper little debrief. I didn't want to be like talking about the laser appointment when I was in public. So, do you know what? It was totally fine, totally bearable. She started on a slightly easier setting and she did a few pumps of my underarm and she was like, "Is that okay?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's absolutely fine. I could hardly feel it." And she was like, "Okay, we're going to go up a notch to the most preferable intensity." And so, I was a little bit nervous, but she did that and she did my underarm.
Literally, for one underarm, I think it she like 10 pulses, which took about 10 seconds. So, even when she did hit a spot that was like slightly wincier than others, she was onto the next area already. Went really, really quickly. Then she did my Brazilian. So, Brazilian is basically all of the top of your vagina, your bikini line, and then around your flaps, but not down towards the butt hole. That would be the Hollywood and I could have added that on for an additional $16, but I was like, "I don't know if I'm going to want \{slash\} need that. I don't even see that area." So, I said, "Let's not do it on this occasion, but if I find myself in the future with less hair in
the Brazilian spots and if I find it weird that I'm still growing hair back there and I don't like it, then maybe I can add it on in the future. But for now, we just did Brazilian, so she moved onto that next and that was the worst part for me. The triangle area was the worst, but like still it was just bearable cuz like I said, it's so fast that even when she's doing it and it's like before you even know it, she's just moved on to the next area. And not all the areas are super wincy. My friends have told me and she even said that the flaps are usually the worst area, but actually I found that to be okay. I found that not to be as wincy as the triangle area. Um and she said, you
know, everyone is different. And then I had my full legs done, which I didn't necessarily need. I grow a lot of hair on my lower legs and with that I'd say the shins were the most wincy area, but again, they were absolutely fine. And then she did my upper leg. But the reason why getting my full legs isn't entirely necessary is because most of my upper leg hair is blonde and the laser just doesn't work so well on blonde hairs. It's not as effective. But that's fine anyway. I don't even mind the blonde hairs, but the reason I went for full legs is because I do get dark hairs that kind of grow sporadically on the inside of my upper leg and also on the back and that kind of bothers me. Well,
it doesn't bother me. It's just one of those things where it's just like I got to shave that as well. So, yeah, I'm really relieved that the pain was just totally manageable and I'm not completely dreading my next appointment. I don't know if I've mentioned this before. I've only ever had one wax in my life, like, you know, going to get waxed of my Brazilian bikini area and I found it to be the most awful pain ever and I was like, "I am never having this done again." I hated every second of it and I was like making exorcist moves in how much pain I was in. So, I was slightly worried that it was going to be just as painful as that, but it really wasn't and so I was like, "Why haven't I done this sooner?" I
mean, I know it is more expensive in the UK than it is in Australia, but I'm so glad that this is something that I'm finally addressing. I can't wait for summer when every single day when you're like in a bikini and I'm not even going to need to think twice about, "Oh, am I tidy down there? Do I need to do a touch-up?" To my knowledge, I'm going to need to do like around nine sessions of this over the course of the next year. So, that's going to cost me about 600 quid for the year and then maybe one to two maintenance sessions a year after that. To my knowledge, I think that's what I can expect. But for the sake of doing that and then never really ever needing to shave again, I think this is pretty good. She did
upsell me some products, but I'm glad that I've gone with them. So, basically straight after the appointment and she said for the next 24 hours I'm going to want to apply something called Laser Aid, which is very similar to like after-sun. Basically, just like a cooling kind of lotion and I think I could use after-sun, but I just felt good knowing that I would be using the products that they use. So, I got this and then she said in 5 days time I need to exfoliate everywhere and then every week from there on out. And I asked if she recommended any exfoliator in particular cuz I actually don't have one at the moment. And then she obviously was like, "Yes, they have one that which
they recommend." And so I was like, "Okay, I'll pick that up, too." And she said that for the two of these it was $99, which I think that's like a slight discount by buying the two of them. And then she said if I got three products, it's $109. And I was like, "Well, what other product is there?" Turns out they have like a kind of whole skin care range and actually I was in the market for a new face moisturizer. I was going to go to Chemist Warehouse afterwards, so I was like, "Okay, for another $10 to get a face moisturizer, I feel like that'll be worth it." So, I told her I had dry skin and she recommended me this So, $109 for my new three products, which I'm feeling pretty good about. And that is my first
appointment done and dusted. So, my next one is going to be in 4 weeks time and then I've also booked a third appointment for another 4 weeks time and I've only so far paid for a package of three just because at the time that I was paying, it was 50% off. So, it was kind of tempting to pay for the entire 10 sessions, but that would have been an upfront payment of $1,200. And I feel like every single time I've gone on the Laser Clinics Australia website, it's been 50% off or like something similar. So, I was like, "I think it's just going to be better for cash flow for me just to pay for three initially and then in a few months time we can pay for another package and hopefully the price is not too
dissimilar." So, that's the way that I'm playing it. She also said that I shouldn't do any intense exercise or go in any saunas or anything for the next 24 hours just because my skin is already quite hot, so I shouldn't make it hotter. And I did actually read about this beforehand, which is why I did Barry's just beforehand just so I know that I can relax for the next 24 hours. This is such a cool stretch. I keep forgetting to walk even though this is a weekly vlog so I'm really going to need to get used to this.
This morning just went to go and have a picture of coffee and then I've been working most of the day to be honest. And I thought I've really not moved my body today. That's really long run. That's where I had to guess where I am. The thing is where we are right now around Cremorne Point it's so hilly and so I don't want to do a long run around there. That's a horrible place for a long run. So my idea and I mapped this out before I came, take the ferry to Circular Quay which is what I've done and then I'm going to go west following the harbor all the way until I reach Balmain East and then I'll get the ferry again from there. So let's see how I go.
Made it to Balmain East. Luckily it was not quite as far as I was expecting. It's 11.3 km I think the run was. It was tough at times. There was some bridges I needed to get over which meant like you know going up and over. It was good. My legs My legs held out even past the 11 km point so I am pleased. And it's kind of crazy being here in Balmain East now because what I'm looking at here is the Barangaroo Reserve which is what I ran I like kind of came around the Harbor Bridge here like that's when I last vlogged and I went all the way around. This is Barangaroo, Darling Harbor and then around like this. And now I'm getting the ferry from here literally just to the other side of the Harbor Bridge
there. Going to Milson's Point because that's like an easy place where Ben can pick me up in the car. So I figured that would be the easiest kind of route that we could take here. I have come into a WeWork today and I like coming into WeWorks on days where I just need to get admin, editing, all things laptop work done because as much as I like to think that I can be productive in a home environment I know that I just I get so distracted by everything. Mainly my phone which is obviously also I can still get distracted from my phone here at WeWork.
However, because everyone around me is working I feel like I'm less likely to lean towards that and then other distractions at home are normally just food. Cooking in the kitchen, any of my extra hobbies that I want to take up, taking the dog out. I will literally use any and every excuse to walk away from my laptop. So that's why today I've come here. I've actually not been using my WeWork passes at all recently which I need to rectify. If I haven't told you before I have a Revolut Ultra membership and it gives me three free WeWork passes a month and here in Sydney the WeWork passes are worth like 70 bucks and so I
think it's really worth using them. So we don't often do this but since I was in the city today Ben's come and join me and we decided we're going to have a meal out. We found this very cute little laneway. I don't even know what the name of the laneway is but I'll put it on screen and we've put ourselves on the waitlist for a spot called Men Show Tokyo. Specializes in ramen which sounds really good right now. What we've gone for enoki chips. So they're made of mushrooms. I bet too much lemon on. We've both gone for the signature ramen. I'm not even going to pronounce the name cuz I cannot it was a long name beginning with T. And apparently this is in a Michelin guide.
We've got all kinds of meat in here. You've got chicken chashu, duck chashu, pork chashu, wagyu chashu. You've got a chicken broth. You've got the enoki chips on here as well and you have a special kind of egg which I'm not a big fan of eggs. I'm going to give the egg to Ben. Mmm. Oh, that's yummy. I really taste the truffle in there as well. Oh yeah, there's truffle. That's really yummy. Do you like it? I hope you guys enjoyed this video. It's been really fun to start filming weekly vlogs again. Like I said I feel like I defo need to get back into the swing of filming them but I've got some exciting things coming up so
stay tuned for more house sitting and Sydney lifestyle updates. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video. Bye-bye.
