Sydney Stories - Week 5

Hello,

So its been a month since I reached here. Its been quite a ride already. :-)

Talking about ride, there is one thing I am pretty impressed about here in Sydney. It is the T-way (Transit way) bus transport system. In Sydney there are various modes of public transport for intra-city travel - train, bus (normal), bus (t-way) and of course they have a ferry system as well. The train network does cover a lot suburbs, however that is not helpful if I need to reach someplace away from the train line. The option then is to take a bus. The speciality of the T-way system is the city has paved a separate lane just for the buses. Therefore there is absolutely no chance for a traffic jam to happen. Unless of course if a bus breaks down. It is the ultimate express bus service for intra-city travel. Luckily there is a T-way stop right outside my apartment complex and about 6 buses stop here. I take those buses whenever I need to go to Parramatta  (Parra for the locals) for shopping. 

This weekend I did the groceries myself taking my trolley. It was not bad except when I had to take escalators to go down with a trolley completely loaded with veggies and groceries. There was only one casualty - one broken egg. :-) I suddenly (??) got a craze for Thai food and have bought a couple of ingredients (basil leaves, fish sauce) to start cooking Thai. I think it must be my Friday lunch at Saap Thai which is making me drool for more. Found a nice website for Thai recipes - http://www.thaifoodtonight.com/thaifoodtonight/home.htm. I'll let you know next week with my Thaixperiments.

Yesterday visited a school friend of mine for lunch who is living in a suburb called Liverpool. It was a good T-way journey cutting across Sydney from north to south with the company of Outliers. Had a good time there. Lunch menu - mutton briyani, chicken varuval and prawn something. Covered all the bases. :-) 

Work has been getting crazy and crazy. Sometimes it is like one of those Sun TV soaps having to manage under currents. I got my first customer complaint with this client this week. I survived a month!! :-) The best part was I had updated my manager just the day before on what was happening here and what is to come. Lo and behold the next day the customer calls up my manager to complain about me. Thanks to my update, my manager was not taken by surprise - which could've turned out nasty. 

Adventures continue.... :-)

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 4

Hello,

A relatively quiet week this time. Work was hectic till Thursday. Friday felt so relieved since it was a holiday in India. Not that people in India disturb me but I get busy in the afternoons disturbing them chasing up on work to be done. This time there was no chasing up possible...so left everything to Monday. The funny thing is Monday is a holiday in the US. So my boss in US will not be on my back either until Wednesday Sydney time. Might've as well taken a long vacation myself. :-) 

With all the "adventures" that were happening so far I missed out on one update i.e., my trip to the Opera house. It was actually a couple of weeks ago on Australia Day - Jan 26th. Yes, Indian Republic day coincides with Australia day. Me and 2 of my colleagues went to see some events happening around the Opera house area. Opera is an interesting architecture. However I  think it loses its charm once you get too close to it. It's nice to see from far but nothing much up close. I don't know maybe its just me. Of course didn't get a chance to go inside and view the auditoriums. Maybe that will be interesting.

Saw a boat race. Bunch of boats all dressed up and competing in the Sydney harbour bridge area. It was alright. Later in the afternoon there were a series of cultural events going on. A few of them were good to see - an afro pop show, a spanish dance show etc. Apparently there was an Indian dance show as well but missed it. Got a chance to see the New South Wales Premier (Chief Minister). Interesting to see the minimal security that was arranged. There were the usual police forces roaming around within the crowd in groups of 6. However there were no special Z category security for the politicians on stage. There was fireworks planned as well. I retreated back to the hotel before it started. Didn't want to get stuck in the crowd when everything was over.

Anyways..this weekend was alright. Got my home phone and internet setup. Feeling much relieved. Had invited one of my relative's family over for lunch on Saturday. Typical Salem style food. Brinjal sambar, cabbage poriyal, tomato rasam and kudal appalam. After lunch they took me along for one of their shopping rounds. 

Today I caught up with some of the pending DVDs - Kandasamy and Kandhakottai. I really pity those who paid money to watch in cinema theatre esp giving the exorbitant rates these days. I can understand that the director has tried to be a little...just a little creative on a typical robinhood story. I almost watched it till the end. I know I am vetti enough...but it really tested my patience and had to quit just before the climax. ;-) Kandhakottai was nice to watch. 100% Kollywood masala. Nothing more nothing less. BTW, saw SA-RO-JA last weekend. Very interesting movie. The cast and the untimely quirkiness was refreshing.

Finishing up on reading "High Performance Entrepreneur" by Subrato Bagchi. Yet another interesting read. It has a lot of directions / insights for one to think about when somebody is looking to start a business. Maybe it might come in handy some day. 

Oki doki - Have A Great Week!!

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 3

Hi There!!

 

Sometimes I think if I will have any material to write about for the week. Sydney provides me no lack of opportunities. ;-)

Last week was quite hectic that all my household stuff from Melbourne had arrived. "Worked" from home on Wednesday to be able to be at home when the stuff arrived. It took a couple of days after that to completely get things to their rightful place. Actually no, I still have some stuff to be sorted out. Atleast setup the kitchen first. FIRST THINGS FIRST. :-) Technically my very first meal in this house was instant cuppa noodles (I dont consider brewing black coffee as a meal). The second meal was a slight progression - Maggi 2 minutes with frozen veggies and egg. I got frustrated with my cooking progress and made chicken curry yesterday inspite of being invited for dinner at an Uncle's place.

Met another school friend on Saturday. Spent a couple of hours with him catching up on life and people. He happens to have taken a reverse turn in career (compared to me). His family owns a hotel in Salem. They have a family restaurant run in Bangalore. He left all that, picked up a few IT courses and started his IT career here.

So here comes the adventure... - Saturday night I came back from a friend's place at around midnight. The lift in the apartment did not work. OK...not too bad...5 floors I can climb up of course. Only when I reached my floor I realized that the keys I had on me will not open the door from the stairs into the floor. Security reasons!! So I come down look for some emergency maintenance numbers to call - nope. No luck on that front. I called my realestate agent who's supposed to be taking care of such stuff. No luck. (He did call me on Sunday afternoon to say that he can't help me out there.) I would've climbed up and down the 5 storeys a couple of times trying to get out via various exit points. Luckily I found one after about 30 minutes (or so it seemed). If I didn't find it I would've been stranded in the steps outside my apartment until someone from my floor could open the door. PHEW!!

I've been using wireless broadband to stay connected from home until my regular internet connections becomes active. Sunday morning that ran out of the pre-paid charge. I was on the phone with Uma in the morning and the call got cut suddenly. All my communication channels were disconnected without any notice. I get an SMS from Uma asking why I cut the call. I couldn't respond back to that either. I do a recharge somehow. A email junkie as I am couldnt stay away from the internet. So I checked my Gmail on blackberry and lo...all my re-charge went for a toss. Apparently the pre-paid charge amount I selected should not be used for browsing the web. Yet another lesson.

 

Later in the night I get an SMS from Uma, but just couldn't reply. It was quite a helpless feeling when you are not able to communicate back!! Luckily the ordeal ended now that I back at work and as connected as I can be. :-)

On the book front have completed reading Blink. Definitely an interesting reading a lesson or 2 to pick up.

Have A Great Week!!

 

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 2

OK I lied. I didn't have to wait till next Saturday to find a place to stay. Thank your God or Good Time or whatever your belief may be that you will not hear about my house hunting woes for a little while.

Last week I got connected to a real estate agent who was known to a relative of mine. She RELUCTANTLY agreed to meet me. The stress here is because it was so obvious. Anyway, we did meet and she did show me a house. Remember, if I came alone without my relative's "recommendation", the reply would've been "sorry no private inspections. Please come during an open house next Saturday." One would think such recommendations are not necessary in "developed" countries...no sirree (or madaam). 

However I didn't like the house she showed. It had some dead cockroaches lying around the floor. REJECTED!! She had a couple of other houses to show that I was interested. However I was told that I had to wait till Saturday. I simply don't seem to understand this SYSTEM!!

Anyways...I did get a house to move into on Friday in a suburb called Westmead. I suppose I stood a better chance against the one other who applied who didn't have a job!!  I vacated the hotel just in time before my relocation allowance ended (2 weeks of hotel stay). The apartment is in a heavily secured complex. The area is quite calm with only hospitals around. It's a 10-15 minute walk to the train station. Hope that reduces a little bit of mass that I added during my stay in India.

Here's a little bit about Australianism or Aussiesm. If you were to use start talking like an Aussie here's a simple trick - any word that had more than 2 syllables, you have to break it at the 2nd syllable and add an "ie" or an "oh" to it. For eg., "Australian" - "Aussie", Breakfast - "Brekkie", "Wentworthville" (a suburb) - "Wentie" and so forth. Oh...the other trick is to pronouce "a" as "i". If someone tells you "Have a good die", it means "Have a Good DAY". 

Had a busy weekend shopping and setting up the house. Hopefully I get settled by end of this weekend once the rest of my stuff from Melbourne gets delivered.

Cheers

Chetty