Today Google photos sent me a “Rediscover this day” notification for 16 January 2017 and showed a photo that I took on the day I relocated to Sydney from Hong Kong three years ago. It seemed like only yesterday that I left Hong Kong!

Three years on, I think I still don’t quite see Sydney as “home” home. That spot in my heart still belongs and will forever belong to Singapore. I see Hong Kong as my second home and Sydney as my third home.

I remember the moment I considered Hong Kong home – it was upon touching back down at Chep Lap Kok airport after a 10-day trip in Mongolia. The days in Mongolia were spent camping in remote areas without phone or internet connections and without modern amenities such as toilet bowls, showers and taps. Life (including the food) was so basic and different during those 10 days. I went without a shower for six days (the longest I had ever gone without one). Despite the “hardship”, my two friends and I thoroughly enjoyed our time being cut off from the modern world.

But arriving back to Hong Kong felt good; like I was back in my element and somewhere familiar. I remember feeling I was glad to be home. And this was after being in Hong Kong for six years!

I don’t have that feeling with Sydney/Australia just yet. There are places and sights I love here (mainly the coastal areas and bushland in the mountains) but I still feel like a visitor passing through.

Ultimately though, it’s the people that make a place feel like home. I haven’t made many friends here; I have to admit it’s been more difficult here than in Hong Kong. Perhaps it’s to do with age. When I went to Hong Kong, I was younger and many people my age were still single and without families. Arriving in Sydney in my late 30s, people my age were mostly married with a young family. No one is going to hang out with this singleton who lives like she’s still in her late 20s and early 30s!

Anyways, I think it will take awhile more before I truly consider Australia home.