Sydney Stories - Week 75

Hello,

Hope you had a good week.

Quite a normal week here.

Currently on a book called "Speed of Trust" by Stephen M.R. Covey. I had bought the book initially thinking it was Stephen Covey the author of the 7 Habits. Apparently this is his son who wrote this book. The father has written the foreword and son keeps referring to his dad's words once in a while. One "concept"  that was new was the point about Trust being a factor of Character and Competence. I guess we normally think trust as a factor of belief, good will, honesty etc. However he goes about to a great extent explaining why competence is so important in building trust and good character alone doesn't cut it. Interesting so far.

Nandhitha's first school interview happened this week in a Catholic school. Guess she did fairly well in it mostly because of the fact that she had been to the pre-school here and she was used to playing with some of the "toys" they had given her to play.  Learning a few new rhymes from her now like 5 Cheeky Monkeys swinging on the tree. :-)

Family game time has started here with a kids version of Monopoly and Go-Fish. Remember hearing about Go-Fish many years ago (was it you Sav??) and I think I didn't quite get it then. Even now had to read up the rules several times to understand. It's not that complicated. (Guess  nothing is complicated once understood). Here mom and daughter have teamed up against me. Yet to figure out a strategy to beat them. Of course my winning streak has been on the higher side if it was just me against Nandhitha. ;-) (Shameless eh!!)

Have A Great Week

C

Sydney Stories - Week 74

Hello,

A bit delayed in last week's saga. Have been having a crazy work week with things to follow up over the weekend. Hope it slows down a bit this week.

So it is official now that I will be travelling to India and US for a couple of weeks next month on business (OB??) ;-) . The business visa stamping was quite cool. They just asked me a few questions about my work just to make sure I was consistent with what I had given in the form. I must admit that they were quite pointed questions that if someone was just making this up it was easy to miss. The most painful task was the filling up of the form online. These days even the photos have to be uploaded online. Luckily there are professionals here who know what they are doing. They knew the latest process and even suggested that I will need the photo on CD. Don't bother to save some pennies going to a post office (Australia Post) to get it done.

Am beginning to become a fan of any cleaning material that says "Oxy". The other day I had soaked a blender (with dried up onion-ginger-garlic paste) with a Oxyclean dish washing liquid. A few minutes later the stuff got self-cleaned and I just had to literally rinse it once with water. One might wonder what the great deal here is...but am sure the folks who do the dishes regularly know what I am talking about. ;-) Go Oxy!!

Came to know that I have new fans for my blogs now (Alysson and Ryan this is for you) at work. ;-) They seemed to be quite interested with the variety of cuisines especially the Thai dishes.

Have A Great Week

C

Sydney Stories - Week 73

Hello,

Hope you had a good week.

The dilemma of getting Nandhitha admitted to her Kindergarten next year has started. Yes, am officially in that phase of my parenthood. I've always thought that this problem is only in India where there is such a variety of schools even at the kindergarten level. Of course I have heard about trying to live in the "right" school district so your child can get admitted in a good school. What I had not thought of is the availability of other options. In Australia they have these Catholic schools. They are cheaper by 50% for non-PR holders. Non-PR holders have to pay the full fees - $4500 per annum (in one go) for a public school, whereas in a Catholic school it is almost half. We were aware of one such school but did not apply thinking it was a new school. Apparently it is a part of a well established group. By the time we went to apply we were too late. But then the principal did give us the application forms with a line saying "Do apply - who knows - The Lord works in mysterious ways!!".

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of my company happened to be in town. Had an opportunity to spend some quality time with him (and the head from Manila while showing around a few places in Sydney. It was an interesting experience and got to know a few insights at how top management looks at certain issues. The team here had a chance to raise some of their teething concerns as well. The message was very clear - perform and get rewarded.

This week also officially marked me taking additional responsibilities at work. No change elsewhere - just that it is going to be even more hectic. It's been a while since I posted in the Kitchen. Hopefully I get to add some today. This weekend is a long weekend - Happy B'day to the Queen!! Sydney seems to have a curse that it has to rain on long weekends. It happened during Easter and now again it was a complete washout. Not that we were planning to do much, but it just kept raining on and off throughout the weekend. I hear that this will continue through Thursday.

Today we went to Lollipops playland a kids play area. It's a nice concept with hardly any complex infrastructure. There is a one time entry fee which is good for the whole day. There's nothing great - just a few jumping castles, slides and 1 merry go round ride. If you have seen a kids play area at a Mcdonalds - just expand it by 2-3 times. That is all it takes to charge $40 per family.  If you want to drain out the kids energy there is nothing better than this (esp on a rainy autumn day). This is the 2nd visit for Nandha but the first time he enjoyed on his own. The last time we were here he was just crawling and I don't think he would've enjoyed so much.

Alrighty...you have a great week.

C

Sydney Stories - Week 72

Hello,

Hope you had a great week.

Mine was quite interesting with things at work that keep me on the toes all the time.

My weekend tennis had an absolutely pathetic starting set. It must've been a while since I had lost with zero games in doubles. I pitied my partner who had to pull through the ordeal. After a few sets I played with the same guy on the opposite side and he was wondering where this game was the first time.

How often have you had a chance to enter a restaurant and the food is right there waiting on your table? Am not talking about a buffet here. We started from home pretty late for lunch at a Thai restaurant. Luckily I checked their lunch timing and knew that they closed at 3 PM. As we were driving I called them up and ordered our usual favourites. By the time we could find a parking spot and enter the restaurant it was well past 3 PM. However the food was out there ready at our table and we just started to dig in. The only problem was the food did turn a bit cold. When hunger strikes - who cares!!

Happened to drive around some of the older suburbs of Sydney. At times it gives you an impression if you are in a developed country. Roads so small that only one car can go at any time but still meant to be two-way with cars parks on both sides of the road. At one point one car had to back out to allow us to pass by. Sydneysiders definitely know how to "preserve" their past.

Have A Great Week

C

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