Sydney Stories - Week 71

Hello,

Hope you had a good week.

I did have a good one. The week days zoomed as usual.

Happened to go a new Thai restaurant (http://www.thaipothong.com.au/) in a suburb called Newtown. Am sure the suburb must've been new at some point definitely not now. The restaurant was just amazing. We had a colleague of mine who had stayed in Thailand for many years. The responsibility of ordering food was left to him. For the first time I tried the Thai Green Papaya salad. Now I wonder why I had stayed away from this for so long. The restaurant was pretty unique. As we get seated the hosts tie up a couple of balloons in the table saying "Have A Great Party". A nice marketing tactic to show people that many people party there. Once the meal was over everyone was given a coupon booklet which resembled cash. The deal is - we can get a few $s off if bought stuff from the gift shop or a small amount reduced in our bill during the next visit.

Weekend was awesome. My friend Senthil and his family had come down for the weekend. He was in Melbourne on a short business trip and visited us for the weekend. This was my first airport pickup trip yesterday  in Sydney - for that matter in Australia. We had made ven pongal, dosai, sambar and chutney for breakfast. A south indian b'fast after a very very long time. By the time we got ready to leave and reached the city it was well beyond lunch time. Took the train from Westmead.

Got off at Central station and headed to Saap Thai. :-) After a nice meal at  Saap we moved on to take the mono rail to Darling Harbour. Figured out a new vantage point to click the complete Sydney skyline.

 After a few photographs headed towards Circular Quay. After all there can be no trip complete to Sydney without a glimpse of the Opera.

We had a nice long walk from the Westfield mall to Circular Quay - a good 1 km. By the time we reached the Opera house it was fairly dark and we

got to see the Opera by night.

There was an event happening in Circular Quay with something to do with lights. There were many light oriented "sculptures" around the area. The best part was the walls of Opera were lighted from a place at least a KM away from the International Passenger Terminal. Reached back home at around 9 PM - thoroughly exhausted.

Sydney Stories - Week 70

Hello,

As I grow older I realize that I tend to reach out to the services of GOD. Ok...before you go too far - I should attribute this to Nandhitha. For all those hard questions she has these days the word GOD seems to be my effective exit card. Probably that is how religious faiths grew by parents like me taking an easy way out when I can't explain a few things. Feel kind of cheating her of the truth. (In fact she even said that - "Dad tell me the truth " when I was seriously dumbfounded). But yes, for certain things she is not ready for the truth yet. Until then - help me GOD!!!

Starting this week I have started participating in what is called the "Global Corporate Challenge". This is a movement across the globe to make people move around more (physically) than what they are currently used to. I am part of my client's team. We are given a pedometer (and a spare just in case..) to track the number of steps I take in a 24 hour period. There are 2 teams in my client's office and the competition seems to be fierce with some hard core strategies (can't reveal them here). The target set for each one of us is to reach 12000 steps a day. So far I am barely getting close to 6000 steps a day. It's a 2 month effort. Let's see how it goes...

Currently on to a book called "Beneath the Southern Cross" by Judy Nunn. This is about a convict from England on how he arrived at the shores of Sydney and what happened after. Pretty interesting to read a lot of history mixed with fiction. I am not too sure about the history part though.

That's all for now.

Have A Great Week!!

C

Sydney Stories - Week 69

Hello,

Hope you had a great week.

Weather is dropping down drastically these days. Feels like winter already and it is not even June. The minimum temperatures are hitting single degrees. Not that I am complaining compared to the "cool" Chennai weather. Time to stock up on warm clothing for kids.

Last week happened to sit in on a seminar conducted by HP regarding one of the latest version of their products - ALM 11. One of the key highlights of the session was 2 case study presentations by  2 of their existing customers.The intent being someone like us to learn from their experiences. I witnessed the most pathetic case of public speaking by one of the presenters. It was a horrible experience which made me squirm every now and then. He started off with an apology stating he does not have jazzy presentations as others did. He had absolutely no clue of what he was talking about. One general theme I find here is a bashing of offshoring. I suppose people don't know how to make it successful for them. At the end the very last sentence he said was "Finally...THE most important aspect for this to be successful - do not hire ol' farts like me". The entire audience was so awestruck that they simply didn't have any questions for him. That was so sweet of them (us).

Nandhitha has made her censor criteria very clear for her TV viewing. There should be no fighting, no loud noises, no blood, no fire, no shooting. Of course we have our own parental limitation of not to watch any "PG" (and above) rated sitcoms in her presence. Eventually the only other thing that can be seen is Food network. She's quite fine to swap her cartoon for a food network show.

Have A Great Week!!

C

Sydney Stories - Week 68

Hello,

Hope you had a good week.

Happy Mothers Day to all mothers !! This was a special mother's day for Uma - Nandhitha gave her a bracelot that she made on her own at her pre-school. For almost 2 weeks the excitement continued for Nandhitha when she would tell me every day the "secret" of what she has made. Thanks to Mother's day  we couldn't get a table at our favourite Malaysian restaurant (Sambal). Ended up doing a take-away. Probably that was even a better way to celebrate for the mom without having to tend to the kids at the restaurant.

This last week marks my 2nd anniversary at this country. A lot has changed of course over the 2 years. Still slowly learning the aussie way of things. A recent term I got to know was to "spit a dummy". A term used when someone shows their frustration. Apparently it comes from whining kids who don't stop crying even when given a dummy (a.k.a. pacifiier).

Yesterday we had a get together with a couple of friends - 5 families. Since it was the first time we arranged a dinner for this group I planned to take up the cooking on ourselves instead of a pot luck. It was not too bad actually. The only time consuming bit was the shopping and cleaning. Cream of mushroom soup, Thai grilled chicken (starter), Panang Fish Curry, Mixed vegetable pulao and Palak Paneer. More on this of course in the Kitchen. We also made it a poker night. It was a different game with 12 people playing in the same table (er...floor) whereas the norm is a max of 9 at a table. Am sure it would've changed the odds, but who cared for the odds anyway. ;-)

Am almost done with the novel (Playing for the Ashes) I have been reading. Not sure what the right adjective would be to describe it. In some pages, the author makes it so sick that one can almost throw up. The story is based out of London. Guess this would be my first British novel and the language of course is quite different from other American detective mysteries.

A recent favourite TV program here is Rick Stein's food odysseys. Rick Stein is a British food celebrity who travels around the world exploring cuisines and making a living out of it (Lucky fellow!!). Came to know just now that he even conducted a show in Opera house based on this TV program. If you get to see this aired in your part of the world don't miss it.

That's all folks....

Have A Great Week

C

Sydney Stories - Week 67

Hello,

Next time the week starts with 2 days of holidays - BEWARE!! Fun we did have those 2 days, but the rest of the work week was crazy - to put it lightly. Monday happened to be this year's ANZAC day, however since Monday also happened to be the Monday following Easter we had to get Tuesday off as well. Monday we took the train to the city with a simple agenda to take the monorail around. Parramatta station is a good mix of the old and the new.

Got down at Wynyard station and headed straight to Westfield mall Sydney for lunch. We reached the city just in time after the ANZAC day parade. All current and ex-servicemen were retiring back in their badged uniforms to party.

It has been a while since I was amazed just to visit a shopping mall. The last time was probably back in 89 in Singapore. The best part of it was a modern food court. The ambiance was just too cool. Food from all over the world (read Asian, Italian, Mexican) were there. Of course our intent was not the food court so moved on. I might probably go there once again just for the food court.

After food we proceeded towards the monorail station. The weather was wet and gloomy - not very suited for sight seeing. I pitied those who would've spent hundreds of $s to spend a 5 day Easter vacation in the City of Sydney just to be rained out. Enjoyed the mix of old and new buildings at the city center. Saw some really old buildings - a pharmacy that was established in 1886. We went around the city for a few times on the monorail taking a day pass. It gave a good elevated view of the city. Especially on a rainy day it seemed the best way to look around.

The week sped in lightning speed with so much to catch up on. We were planning on rather quiet weekend after all the roaming around the previous weekend. Saturday night managed to watch  கோ (Ko) in a theatre. A brilliantly done movie. Except for the heroine's hard attempt to act (reminds me of Simran in Naerukku Naer) and a silly song during a tense moment everything else was almost flawless. The final punch with திருக்குறள் (Thirukural) was so apt to the ending. Enough of the movie. It also marked Nandhitha's first official sleepover at our friend's place. They offered to babysit Nandha as well, but we took a raincheck on that. 

Last Sunday we had a chance to pick apples at a PYO (Pick Your Own) orchard at a place called Bilpin about 1.5 hours drive from here. Got to know a few things about apples there.

 The most interesting fact was that the apples we get in the market are from last year's produce.

 All through the year different varieties of apples come into season. Probably explains why suddenly certain varieties get cheap at times. This time the season was for "Pink Lady" - a sweet and sour variety. The taste of fresh apples straight from the tree was truly something. The deal was we can pick and "taste" as many apples as we want, but not to waste anything. Anything we pick needs to go into a basket which will be weighed and we had to buy all that we picked. First thought it would be cheaper to pick our own apples. Apparently not, the farmers had marked up the price to make up for all the wastage that happens in the orchard.

That's all folks.

Have A Great Week