Sydney Stories - Week 57

Hello,

Hope you had a good week.

This weekend went to drop Nandhitha in her Tamil class and was hoping to catch up on some shopping. The school principal came up and requested me to "take a class" since one of the teachers was missing in action. Thankfully I was given the "pre-kg" group - Nandhitha's class. Nandhitha was the first to get excited and shouted - "Daddy you are not teacher. Why are you here?". What should I say - it was an interesting 2 hours. The syllabus I had to cover as அ and ஆ (the As of Tamil), words starting with them and an alphabet rhyme. It was a bit embarrassing to begin with having forgotten how to write அ.  Stretching this for 2 hours, yes it was an experience. Made the kids write the letters in many ways on the board. Luckily one of the kids mom was also sitting in the class who gave some tips, finally ended the class with நிலா நிலா ஓடி வா. :-)  In between I had to do ஆயா work as well taking kids to the loo.

`

While shopping in the local Woolies (Aussie for Woolworths) noticed an interesting operation. At regular intervals the cashiers bundle up the cash and coins in a "bullet" and send it up a tube / chute up. I guess there should be a gajaana (treasury) somewhere inside where they get deposited. Seems like secure way of transferring and collecting the cash.

This weekend made Pad Kee Mao - flat white noodles with basil leaves (and chicken of course). Figured out the trick not to kolanjufy the fresh rice noodles. The tip was out there on the net of course. A lesson not to be repeated - way too much noodles than what the kadai could take (inspite of that being a fairly wide one). Made 2 versions - one not too spicy for overall consumption and another with a Thai spicy rating of 3 *. The 2nd version which I made with lesser noodles and more spices came out pretty well. Marinating the chicken slices with soya sauce, fish sauce and ginger garlic paste (with a bit of corn flour for binding) gave a good effect as well.

At work a senior client executive had flown down from the US of A and was addressing the gathering here in Sydney. I think he did not realize that I was an external "vendor" sitting in the mix. He went on and on ranting on us vendors how we take them for a ride and how he intends to put a stop to it. Felt a bit awkward since I was the only "vendor" guy in that group. Oh well, at least now I know his plans.

That's all folks.

Have A Great Week!!

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 56

Hello,

Hope you had a good weekend. 

Enjoying the "pleasant" Sydney weather these days. A good change from the hot and humid. While it was hot and humid one day it drizzled a bit as I was walking home from the train station. It felt as if I was in a sauna filled with Eucalyptus steam. The road to home has a line of the Eucas (making up my own Aussie term here) which gave that superb effect. Don't remember when I had this before. Probably in Yercaud? 

Currently on a book on Leadership written by Robin Sharma. I think this will be my last Robin Sharma I will be reading. This is like a sequel to his first book "The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari". He is like the Deva (music director) of  such books. He takes content from all places, spins a story around with supposedly colourful words and makes it a "best seller". 

The tennis club I go to has a lot of interesting people. This weekend I met a person (probably in his 70s) who carries his tennis racquets in a well autographed wooden brief case. Was almost tempted to take a photograph, maybe after I know him for a little while.

One of the recent weekend routines these days is to go to a huge market called Parklea Market to buy vegetables. It's a mini-mall - mega market. There's a row of vegetable shops  amongst all other shops selling almost everything except automobiles. The veggie shops are located one after the other without any clear boundaries. One can easily take veggies from one shop to another without even realizing. The only way you can differentiate would be by the different coloured plastic carry bags. Invariably I find some desi lady "inconspicuously" sampling a grape or two. They do it so casually as if it was their right to do so. 

Oki doki. Have a Great Week!!

Oh yeah, Happy Valentines Day!! :-) Would've committed a sin if I didn't wish!! ;-)

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 55

Hello,

An almost event less week which was of course made up with the weekend. It seems like one can fight reason, but quite a challenge to fight stupidity (or something like that). If you know how to do that (win over stupidity) do let me know.

Weekends are becoming busier than ever. Nandhitha is busy with her swimming and Tamil classes. In the swimming pool, Indian men have a very unique way of presenting (or un-presenting) themselves. Almost every desi guy out there jumps into the pool with a t-shirt on, whereas you can see the fair skinners being quite comfortable baring down - regardless of their "form" to just their swim trunks. Is that a cultural thing? (Comments on men only) ;-)

The Tamil class is another interesting thing happening here. There is an Australian government funded Tamil School (chain of schools actually) being run for the past 33 years. It is primarily run by volunteers, but the government funds some part of the expenses. It was run in one of the public school campuses around here. There are 4 such schools in Sydney which runs their classes through out the year. I hear that the scores obtained in these classes can even be used for +2 (year 12 as they call it) scores. One of our friends is a principal in one such school. It was funny to see a "principal" running around in shorts and t-shirt with slippers. :-)

While the kids were busy learning Tamil the parents were catching up in the "cool" 42 degree weather. Felt like being in Phoenix that day. The temperatures dropped to 20s today. What a drop!!

Working with North Indians these days I get to know something interesting regarding Punjabi culture. Not everybody in a family belong to the same religion. Apprently the first son born is considered a Sikh - dedicated as a warrior to the army and the rest of them are Hindus!!!

Our recent spice addition to our kitchen is Kecap Manis - an Indonesian sweet soya sauce. The noodles came out pretty well after using that. Nandha was also impressed that he even slurped up the left overs the next day.

Oki doki.  Have A Great Week!!

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 54

Hello,

Hope you had a good week.

Work is just getting better and better at "entertainment value" every week. Spent a month trying to get something done only to know that the person who could help me with it sits right next to me. 

Last week marks my first anniversary at our apartment here in Westmead. Realize that I haven't been in the same house for so long since Phoenix. 

Auto body shops (as they call it in US) are called "Smash Repair" shops which takes care of all the tinkering and fixing done to cars after an accident. To the point.

Celebrated Australia Day on Jan 26th with a day off from work. This is ONE day where the the Aussies don't mess around with the day of the week to make it convenient along with a weekend. Some people I know of course made it a pretty looong weekend. It was supposed to be close to 40 deg C with humidity of around 90%. Not many people seemed to have ventured out. We had been to the local park here late in the evening to see fireworks. Nothing too great to talk about the pyrotechnics -  very ordinary. 

While returning from the carnival we saw a lot of cars parked on the curb since the parking spaces were all full. It looked funny so I took out my camera and clicked one such car. Just as I turn around, I see that car's owner walk past me and get into the car giving a very "warm" look. Escaaaape.... ;-) 

This weekend had a barbeque (barbie in Aussie) party arranged at Sydney Bicentennial park by a group of friends. A bunch of guys apparently went at around 8.30 in the morning to reserve a spot in the park for a barbeque lunch. Several varieties of vegetarian and meat options were available. A good alternative to host a party if one doesn't have the space at home or to invest in a barbeque setup. It is free if cost for space and fuel. Just need to find a good spot.

Post lunch they had arranged for a game of cricket. Of course I was a silent spectator. The 2nd round the guys decided to include the ladies as well. The rules were bent...or should I say twisted?? The ladies were given an handicap of few feet to bowl. They were not expected to field and every ball that hits the bat scored a run. Seemed like heights of female chauvinism. How could the women take such a liberty???

The weekend ended on a good Aussie Open match. Not sure if I should say Novak deserved to win or Andy deserved to lose. Guess both are appropriate here.

Oki doki. Have A Great Week!!

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 53

Hello,

This weekend, I broke my tennis racquet strings right when we were in the 3rd game of a doubles set. My spare racquet was unusable - broken strings again. I was given a dummy old one as a substitute, but simply couldn't play with it. My doubles partner then offered is racquet to me while I was returning serve and then switched racquet while he returned serve. He did the same whenever I had to serve. Not that I made a big difference to the scores...but my partner felt maybe a better racquet would help. Poor guy.

Today had the chance to eat in a super duper malay restaurant - Sambal. It was recommended by a Malay client of mine. It definitely did not go wrong. Did a taste test with the basics - Mee goreng, Char kway teaw and nasi goreng. None of them disappointed me, though Uma was not impressed with the Mee. It was a bit far from where we live. I was asking the manager if they had any thoughts of opening a branch closer to where we live. Thoughts are in progress. The restaurant was very unassuming tucked along with another Thai restaurant in North Ryde. The prices were quite affordable too. A unique thing about this was as you enter the restaurant there was a basket of blue crabs set like a prop. I first thought they were dummy and even saw a few kids (NN included) playing with them. Just while we were going out saw the slip "Do not touch" and saw the eyes prodding in one of the crawlers. Oh yes, if I had to order a Chilli Crab dish, I had to order  2 days in advance. Now that was definitely a first!!

Continuing with the malay theme I made Kway teaw at home tonight. It was almost like being bitten by a Malaysian bug. Turned out pretty well except that I ran out of soy sauce and was missing THE ingredient - Sambal. Next time I go to Sambal will get a box of their home made sauce.

Have a great week!!

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 52

Hello,

So yes, this weekend completes a year in Sydney. Has been a pretty interesting ride so far and I suppose it will continue to be so.

The news from down under as many people have been asking me is flood, flood and more flood. Sydney is so far not being directly impacted by nature's calamity. However we could already see an impact by increase in vegetable and fruit prices. Am sure this will have some long term impact for the next few years. Talking about flood there has been bit of a flooding situation at home for the past few weeks. Every time we turn on the AC, there is one spot in the house where water is leaking due to condensation. It is creating a big nuisance with the carpets being soaked in a 2 feet radius.

It has been a week since the real estate agent knew about this and no action taken yet. Thanks to Aussie efficiency. Last weekend had a bit of an anti-climax with the apartment inspection. The previous inspection was a nightmare when a lady inspected each and every inch of the house with her heightened sense of perfection. This time the guy came around had a very quick look and determined all is OK. All the preparation that we did went unwanted.

Nandha has been walking consistently in the last 2 weeks. This has started causing newer troubles with respect to Nandha-proofing the house. He is quite excited with the new "perspective" he has now on the books and plates and what not is now within his reach. If our eyes are off him for a few minutes he would be in some room setting things "right". 

This weekend went in a jiffy as usual. Saturday went for a bowling party in the afternoon. Scored 95, which I was not disappointed at all - considering that I am bowling after close to 3 years. Later in the evening there was a Pongal party arranged by my neighbour's friends. It seems to be a common practice here to rent out "community halls" for getting together. Definitely seems to be a cheaper option when compared to a hotel and less nuisance than having at one's house.

Have A Great Week!!

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 51

Hello,

Hope you had a great week.

Week started off on a great note with a trip to Lithgow. A sudden invite from our neighbour if we were interested in a trip to see glowing worms in a tunnel. Didn't think twice since they all had small kids and sure that it should be manageable. What I did not consider though was that there would be a 30 km unpaved road and others had SUVs or bigger vehicles and I had a sedan. The ride upto Lithgow was a beautiful hilly route with a good view of country side Sydney. From Lithgow had to get into a "dirt road" which I thought would be few kms but not 30. Had to hold my breath at a few spots where I was not sure if the tyres will hold up in the mushy clay. Thankfully made it up and down. The trek up to the tunnel was quite easy - easy enough for 4 year olds to walk all the way through. It had a bit of everything in the short 1 km walk to the tunnel - bridge, slightly steep steps, creeks running through etc. The tunnel was cool with basically a bunch of glow worms stuck to the walls. Had a view like watching the stars in the sky with everything else pitch dark (had to carry flash lights). Another unique view was the ferrous trees. There was a stretch where all the trees had green leaves but ferrous orange barks. Photos upload at http://picasaweb.google.com/ncchetty/LithgowJan2011#

The work week was crazy after coming back from almost 3 weeks of non-action. Almost everybody wanted to get things done at the same time. I thought Aussies were supposed to take it easy!!

The week ended on a wonderful note with a good 3 hours of tennis. Finally made it to a tennis club in a suburb called Crestwood about 7 kms from our place. Played about 4 sets of doubles non-stop. Ouch...my shoulders hurt!!  The concept was very similar to the social tennis I used to play in Phoenix. However they had a unique rule that everybody served on only one side of the court. Every 2 games the players switched sides and served continuously without handing over the serve to the opponents. The tennis club is located in a beautiful park. Took Uma and kids later in the day to entice them on areas of interest to them. Nandhitha has now added this to her list of favourite parks. "Now I have 3 parks to play Daddy!!".

So long folks...

Have A Great Week!!

Chetty