Sydney Stories - Week 16

Hope you had a nice week.

Week was busy as usual. Weekend was even more hectic for a change - more about that coming soon.

Wonder what it is with people and their Ipods and blaring music. If there is one thing that irritates me the most during the morning commute is when people have absolutely no courtesy for people around when it comes to listening to music. I was almost tempted to turn on the music player in my cell phone on speaker and keep it close to my ears as if I were deaf. On this aspect there is seems to be no racial difference. The only people whom I have seen not do this is probably the Chinese. 

Australia has a lot of Lebanese and middle eastern population. Not sure about other cities, but definitely tons of them in Melbourne in Sydney. It is very easy to identify a Lebanese - they tend to grow more hair on the back of their head than in the front - almost like a tuft. Wonder why!!

Weekend was quite busy. Saturday morning a friend of mine had invited me to take his family on a ride. Confusing? Ok..he has purchased a car about a month ago, but does not carry a driving license. Don't ask my why/how, but that is the case. So he has it parked in his garage for most of the time. I believe he takes it out to some short drives close to his house. So I took them on a drive (in their car) to the Helensburgh temple. The same temple which I visited with my uncle a while ago. It was a good 1 hour drive from his place. After paying salute to the deities headed towards the canteen to have a hearty south indian lunch. Had a masala dosa after a long time. Headed towards Stanwell park beach after lunch. The weather was just perfect. Their son (close to 2 years old) had a blast. Since we had not planned it well couldn't enjoy much in the water. Dropped them back at their place and headed back home. On the way stopped in Parramatta at my favourite Malaysian restaurant for dinner. Had Mee Goreng. It was Ok. At the end I asked the waitress if they had changed their chef. I was right. The main chef was off for a couple of days and a substitute was brought in. Seems like my taste buds are too sensitive. ;-)

Today was one hectic day. Started off early in the morning to Parramatta with a huge shopping plan. The first stop was to get a hair cut at a chinese salon. This guy is just amazing. This is the second time I've been there. I think I will go there until I live in this area. My haircut is usually simple - No. 2 on the clipper all around. This guy takes so much care to make it a perfect job. He kept walking around me over and over searching for  strand after strand of stray hair to trim it. As you can imagine it is not an easy thing with my hair. ;-) 

There was a Mother's Day sale going on for baby stuff at Babiesrus. I was hoping to cash in on this sale to get stuff for Nandha and Nandhitha. Had to do a bit of travelling to get to a branch where they had the stuff I was looking for. Finally got all I wanted to buy. Thankfully a sales rep came along with me in the shop suggesting better things than what I had intended to buy. The best part was her suggestions were even cheaper than what I had selected. Haven't seen such customer service before in Australia. 

On the way back an interesting incident happened in the bus. Well..actually 2. While I was walking I saw a bus that goes to my house coming even before I could get to a bus stop. I thought I will try my luck and waved my hand. Normally they wouldn't stop. This guy did. Once I got in he told me that he could've lost some (driving) points and close to $450 fine if he was caught doing that. A good samaritan and lucky me. On the way a asian (could be Chinese or Jap) family got on. A couple and 3 kids. During one of the steep turns the stroller toppled (the youngest kid - a little over a year maybe was inside). The mother trying to grab fell over as well. Boy...that was some scene. The driver immediately stopped the bus and came around to check if everything was alright. He gave them a piece of paper and asked them to write down their name and contact details. He later explained that whatever happened has been captured in the camera in the bus. If in case they got hurt and wanted to claim insurance, the bus company will cover them completely. Free insurance for the passengers. Now that was a first for me.

After I reached home, took help from one of my relatives to give me a lift back to the shop to get the goods I had bought. Luckily his car was big enough to get all the stuff. Finished the weekend grocery shopping along with him. 

This weekend the special here is Ginger Chicken. I tried hard to get a recipe from the internet to make it Indian style. No luck on that so made up my own recipe. Turned out pretty OK.

Have a great week ahead.

Chetty