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

Sydney Stories - Week 66 - Easter Special

Hello,

Life seems to be getting interesting every 33 weeks in Sydney. Week-33 was when we had bought the car. It took another 33 weeks for us to actually do some sight seeing in and around Sydney. Brace yourselves...this one is going to be long.

We had a very refreshing discovery this week in a nearby suburb called Pendle Hill. This place has a row of Sri Lankan - Indian restaurants (take away places rather) that serve a dinner for a family (of 4) for about $15. To give you a comparison, in any other restaurant a single dish  would cost about $15. You do the math...

The other day I was on the train and there was an Indian woman and 2 caucasian kids (girls). The first instance I thought maybe a baby sitter. However the kids very soon broke that speculation by calling her mom. At some point the kids started fighting over some candy and the elder one (probably about 7-8 yrs old) gobbled the particular colour that the younger one (about 4 yrs) wanted. She started crying "It is not fair...". The mom quickly quipped - "Life is not always fair darling." and went to explain that concept of life's unfairness. Could only think - WOW - now that's quite an early start for life's lessons.

Good Friday, Easter and ANZAC day - put together gave us a 5 day weekend. The longest public holiday I've ever enjoyed so far. I guess Prabhu Deva's song "Pandigai thaethi Sundayil vandhaa.." does not apply to Australia. Holidays have to be taken during week days even if it means 2 events happen on the same day, 2 week days have to be given off. So our weekend started on a Thursday night when we had friends come over for dinner and hence the Gobi Manchurian. The girls did have a lot of fun.

A lot of plans were thought of for months on what could be done during Easter. For a long time we were contemplating on a road trip to Melbourne. However decided against any major trip for a simple reason -  we haven't looked around much in Sydney yet. Decided to take a completely casual "play by the ear" holiday without any concrete plans.

On Saturday we left on a short trip to Hunter Valley Garden along with 2 other families. 1 of them was Nandhitha's pre-school friend's parents and another of their friends - both of them from Wipro. Hunter Valley is the wine country for this region in Australia. It was a nice drive up there with just a little bit of scare from the rain god. Probably not a great season to visit though as the vines were all dried up. Uma took over most part of the driving. The main agenda was to take part in an Easter egg hunt which was organized in Hunter Valley Garden (www.hvg.com.au).

 Our last memories of an egg hunt was a few years ago in Phoenix when Nandhitha was about Nandha's age and we didn't want to miss it for any reason. We somehow made it to the last session of the egg hunt. Nandhitha had fun and Nandha had his own private egg hunt too without the pressure of his peers running over him. At the end of the hunt each participating kid was given a bag of Cadbury Easter eggs.  A trip cannot turn out to be too pleasant if you are tagging along with some one where your cell phones don't work. The battery in mine died and the pre-paid call charge in Uma's drained up after (quite) a few calls. It was a comedy of life. Got to make another trip to the garden some other time in leisure. We made it back home by around 7.30 PM completely drained out on energy. Wonder how our parents managed to take us out while we were this age. I was telling Uma that next time we go out on such trips need to have an energy shot taken - double shot long black (aka strong black coffee) couldn't do the trick!!

Sunday our plan was to take a ferry to the city and cover a bit of Sydney CBD (Central Business District - Downtown in USA). We had a pretty lazy start without any hard bound plans. The ferry was an interesting experience too. We parked our car near the ferry wharf in Parramatta. Being the Easter sunday the ferry was quite crowded that we had to wait for 2 hours for our turn. We had to "reserve" our seats so we could get on to the ferry. Of course we made the best use of the time - had lunch which was originally scheduled to be had in the city. Went to a Thai restaurant - Saute Thai. More about that in the kitchen. Got to know a bit of history of Parramatta - which is an English version of the aboriginal word Baramada (or Burramatta) meaning the place where eels rest. Now I understand why the local rugby team is called Parramatta Eels.

The ferry ride as such was nothing great. It was a typical ride along the backwaters of Sydney. However the view that we got just as we were entering the city was something. The ferry reached Circular Quay after a 45 minute ride. It usually stops in a few places along the way, but since it was full occupancy it turned to be an express ride. Circular Quay is where we need to go to the Opera House.

 Even though we initially thought of covering a few places in the city, yesterday was spent completely at the Opera.

 This was the first visit for Uma and kids to the Opera. My first with a camera so I was having a field day myself. We took the guided tour around the house which is considered to be one amongst the "World Heritage Sites". It was an interesting tour even though we had taken only the basic version. 

There is an extended back stage version - maybe some other time. Nandhitha became the star of the tour. When the guide took a short break for questions it was Nandhitha's hands that went up first. :-) Of course she "forgot" what she wanted to ask. The next time she stopped for a question everybody was looking at Nandhitha if she had any. ;-)  Anytime a project goes over schedule and budget it can easily be called as "Project Opera". It was initially budgeted for 7 million dollars to be completed in 3 years. It "just" took 102 million dollars and 16 years to complete. Not sure where this can be attributed to. We hung around there till about 7 PM to get a view of the skyline at night. 

 and returned by train. I asked Nandhitha whether she wanted to go back by the ferry or by train. She says "It's Daddy's choice isn't it how we go home?" and then adds on "but but but...in the boat there are too any holes (windows) and lot of cold air and I feel cold. So better take the train so it is not cold." And so the train. 

The transportation for the entire journey costed $5. In Sydney they have a concept called "Sunday Funday" where they encourage families to get out and use the public transport for quality family time. So each ticket cost $2.50 for the whole day and you can take a train, bus or a ferry anywhere within metropolitan Sydney. I already had my monthly pass and just had to buy tickets for Uma and Nandhitha.

So long folks...the weekend is yet to be over. More about that in this week's ramblings.

More photos available at: Hunter Valley Gardens and Opera House.

Have A Great Week!!

C

Sydney Stories - Week 65

Hello,

Hope you had a good week.

Weather here is getting "pleasant"er and pleasanter day by day with the minimum going below 20s.

Me and my train journeys...continue to be interesting. I have slept on the way home and missed my station, slept on the way to work and missed the station - but the heights was this week. I took a completely wrong train to home. I was so engrossed in reading a novel that I didn't bother which train came on the platform. The first few stations were along the same route and of course I didn't notice. Luckily I realized the moment it took off from a station about half-way along the way. Something told me that something was wrooong. Got down at the very next station. It was one lonely station at about 8 PM. Fortunately the next train back came in about 2 minutes.

My company's logo has changed last week from a dull grey pyramid to a more colourful one. A major facelift to the website as well - http://www.igt.in/. Remember this rainbow flower thing happening in Wipro. Millions of $s spent on designing the new look. It was IGT's turn now.

After my take at cricket the previous week it was a Tennis tournament last weekend. What made it interesting was that I forgot about it. ;-) I went to the courts about an hour later than the tournament started. I had forgotten about my signing up for it until the time I left the house. Once I reached there I was told someone else filled in as a substitute. It was a round robin mode so I had 4 chances to play. My substitute gracefully agreed for me to play the last 2 sets. He happened to be a super duper player and had gathered a lot of "points" under my name. At the end of it I was tied with another guy with points in my group for the prize. However I was "disqualified" since not all the points were mine. Technical issue.. ;-)

Have been experimenting quite a bit on my Thai culinary skills. More about that in the Kitchen.

Have A Great Week

C