Sydney Updates

Hello,

It's been a while since I could sit down and write about the happenings. Not that nothing happened...way too much happened. Things that I could write about and things that I couldn't as well. It's all good though...

Let me start with a recent visit to a "hairdresser" - note this is no barber shop. This weekend had to get a "hairdo" done before I left on my trip. I couldn't make time to visit my usual one (Chinese/Vietenamese ??)in Parramatta.  Ended up at an Italian place close to home. I think I've seen this in some movie before, but the hair dresser's place seem to be some sort of rejuvenation spot for people. There was this lady who seemed to be pouring her heart out to her hair stylist. Couldn't quite catch the conversation but her facial expressions were quite animated that she would be going out with reduced hair and stress. The guy who "worked" on me was quite good too. He made some "calculated" judgement of what size I should trim my hair to. Of course he started striking a convesation with me. I think the standard is with "Where do you live" and goes on to "What do you do for work?". By then he strikes some common thread to extend the conversation. This experience is different from the Chinese guy. He does the job without a word except for a "looking sumaart eh" at the end.

Nandhitha is dressing up as Mother Teresa for her Tamil school annual day. We did as much as possible to re-create a "Missionaries of Charity" costume with a dhoti with 3 blue stripes at the end. Her dialogue is "மற்றவர்களுக்காக வாழாத வாழ்கை வாழ்கையே அல்ல" (A life not lived for others is not a life). She seems quite confident with the words. Got to see how it goes at the function. Must appreciate her tamil teacher. She has put in a lot of effort training these pre-schoolers. After Vivekananda set the stage with "Arise and Awake..." now it is Mother Teresa. ;-) Wonder how I still remember some traces of that. I think I even remember the toy that I got as the prize.

Emirates - my first experience with them this time. AMAZING is the word. My loyalty towards Singapore airlines is now being questioned - big time. I flew a Boeing 777-300ER (ER = Extended Range). This bird is supposed to fly long hauls upto 14594 Kms. Their inflight touch screen entertainment system is state-of-the-art. It even has a front and bottom camera. Supposedly we can see exactly what the pilot sees and don't have to worry if you did not get a window seat. I didn't see this in Airbus 380. Of course the moment it takes off it is nothing but a grey screen. ;-) The interior deco is quite cool. Very pleasing seat colours and patterns. The best part was the ceiling that lit up after the lights went off. There were scattered white lights attempting to give a feel of a starry night cloud. The flight from Sydney to Dubai was quite empty. I had my entire 3-seat row for myself to stretch.

The restroom in the flight was quite unique. It had different warning messages in different languages in various places. Too different eh!! It was!! For instance the instruction to wipe the toilet seat was in Arabic, Hindi, Punjabi (seemed like it), Kannada (or Telugu) and probably some other script (Chinese / Japanese). However not in English. The sign for not smoking was in English, Arabic etc and had Russian which was not found anywhere else. Almost seemed to target specific customers from specific origins. The complimentary toileteries was also given in a very decent bag. 

Listened to Vivaldi 4 Seasons after a long long time. A good start for a 14 hour+ long journey. Watched Dhobi Ghat - something that was in my "To See" list for a long time. A very different movie of course. Even though it seemed to end with some logical conclusion leaves it open for interpretation big time. 

That's all for now. To continue later after I manage to kill the remaining 6 hours in Dubai airport.

Have A Great Weekend!!

C