Friday, September 26, 2008
Checkers
The week has just flown by! I visited a couple of cash and carry shops earlier this week,one of which is called Checkers Hyper. As the name suggests this is a hypermarket.It resembles a huge, almost mammoth warehouse.They sell everything that you need to set up your home.Its here that I got some groceries.Milk in a plastic carton,apples,oranges,coffee powder, sugar, salt, corn flakes, whole wheat bread and some fruit jam.Threw in a bag of tomato and onions for cooking.Rest of the stuff I have it at home right? Got a whole lot of stuff from home from pickles,sambar powder,rasam powder,tamarind paste,asefotida powder,corriander,chilli,turmeric powders and even morkuzhambu powder ;) never knew this existed!Ah.. how can i forget the khakras that my sis Dona "Di" handed over at the last moment!i still got a pack of it left with me.With all these, life shouldn be difficult here right?? Right... we cook at home.. and my roomy is bharath from gujarat.. i guess my excitement has also caught up with him .. its a real sight to see us cook.. its food and songs from us.. thank god.. so far none of our neighbors have complained.. its kinda great .. he sings the hindi version of a song and i sings its tamil version (pls forgive me ppl.. but this is the best time pass we have!!) and all of a sudden we break in to one of those olden goldies... kora kaagaz tha yeh man mera.... wah! and bharath does sing well!! once the song and cook routine is over, its time to pack my lunch bag for the next day.. yup.. its very much the freezer - micorwave oven life .. but its interesting nevertheless.. all set, we sit down to have a great dinner!Typically its a variety of dhal/sabji/rice combo .. ya.. i got a tub of plain yoghurt.. so we finish it off with a round of curd rice and pickle(gongura for now)..after washing the microwave tub and dishes, we talk for some time and then its time to sleep.. wake up at 6 and get ready for office by 8.. breakfast is either cornflakes with coffee or brownbread toast with coffee.. i take an apple a day to keep u know-who-away, neatly cut,in the tupperware that SHE got me ;) .. drive to office takes 25 minutes on the freeway.. then its routine.. till we get to cook again in the evening.. ai la! and one week has flown by..
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Johannesburg!!!!!!!
Johannesburg... the adventure capital of the world in south africa.. thats the place am gonna call home for an year ahead.Picture book town at times spooky coz of the vast area it covers, Jo'burg as they affectionately call, is a welcome relief from the hustling and bustling life in chennai. The roads are clean and broad, ample street lights that never falter, amazing cars and self-disciplined drivers are the marked difference from India.No No, am not already into India-bashing. Just pointing out some obvious things that came to my mind on reaching here.
People here are great and they greet you even if they dont know you!! And thats the best way to socialize here! And the best part is we get all the indian food stuff here! Right from puligore mix to payasam mix I guess! So in a way, I wont be missing FOOD!!!! OK OK.. i get it.. am on diet ppl! Believe me! Me having corn flakes/apples/Juice in the morning and had a brown bread sandwich for lunch yesterday! Of course my room mate had made a little rice and aloo ki sabji for dinner ;)
Office on the first day was excellent! I even had a BEER party for welcome!! .. Nay.. just kidding.. it is a quarterly get together in Nielsen with drinks on the house... Just that I happened to be there at that time.. Mark my words, I just a coke and veg samosa during the party! After the rounds of introduction and security tags, I was at my desk and already ploughing in to my mails :) it was good experience!... Evening, we went to one of the biggest malls here called Cresta to do my FOREX.. sounds odd na?? three days back I was riding a MTC bus to Kottivakkam and now am at Joburg to encash my Travellers cheque... Oh.. ya.. coming back.. then we all (Me, Sasi my team mate, Ramani , sasi's room mate and Ammiya, a mutual friend landed up at North Gate Mall for a round of Ice skating !!No .. i did not take the risk as I know my fall on the rink would have shattered the ice ;) what a sight to behold!! An hour and a couple of icecreams later (tobelerone with rum and raisin) we headed back home... of course with my local currency in hand.
Guess i did not describe the house that i am in.. its a 2BHK appartment on the first floor covered by mountains on all sides and fenced in electrically.. to save us from wild beasts :) And along the perimeter of the fence is a 10-15 ft dug outs just incase anything happens to dart in over the 10 ft fence. Now, i have living room with a cozy couch of beige and a seperate armchair of the same ilk. To the wall is a 21" flat tv with dish connection so that i can watch Sun tv! and also a decent dvd player to go with. To the right of the tv are glass sliding doors that open up to a spacious patio. there is a wooden table with four chairs, which is perfect for a game of cards over any kinda drinks/food. And we have a stand to hang our clothes to dry. Now right behind my couch is a dark wood, round dining table, just like the one my dad wanted, with four matching chairs. To the left of the couch is the kitchen entrance. Thats a fully equipped one with Electric stoves/Microwave oven, an electric kettle, a toaster, and fridge with freezer. It also has a Bosch front loading washing machine for laundry. All cutlery are in place. Groceries am yet to buy.. else am all set.
Now leading from the dining chairs is a passage that makes way for two rooms. A master bedroom and a smaller one. I am put up in the smaller one, as is the case with first come first serve basis. Mine is an excellent one with a cool spring bed with matching linen and a huge french window with drapes. Ward robe can put up with a couple of ppl's dresses! There is a seperate bath that comes with bath tub. As is the case with all foreign countries, the taps pour out hot / cold water with a twist of the handle.
So thats pretty much it for the first couple of days in joburg.. I will keep updating this as and when we progress!!
Au revoir!
People here are great and they greet you even if they dont know you!! And thats the best way to socialize here! And the best part is we get all the indian food stuff here! Right from puligore mix to payasam mix I guess! So in a way, I wont be missing FOOD!!!! OK OK.. i get it.. am on diet ppl! Believe me! Me having corn flakes/apples/Juice in the morning and had a brown bread sandwich for lunch yesterday! Of course my room mate had made a little rice and aloo ki sabji for dinner ;)
Office on the first day was excellent! I even had a BEER party for welcome!! .. Nay.. just kidding.. it is a quarterly get together in Nielsen with drinks on the house... Just that I happened to be there at that time.. Mark my words, I just a coke and veg samosa during the party! After the rounds of introduction and security tags, I was at my desk and already ploughing in to my mails :) it was good experience!... Evening, we went to one of the biggest malls here called Cresta to do my FOREX.. sounds odd na?? three days back I was riding a MTC bus to Kottivakkam and now am at Joburg to encash my Travellers cheque... Oh.. ya.. coming back.. then we all (Me, Sasi my team mate, Ramani , sasi's room mate and Ammiya, a mutual friend landed up at North Gate Mall for a round of Ice skating !!No .. i did not take the risk as I know my fall on the rink would have shattered the ice ;) what a sight to behold!! An hour and a couple of icecreams later (tobelerone with rum and raisin) we headed back home... of course with my local currency in hand.
Guess i did not describe the house that i am in.. its a 2BHK appartment on the first floor covered by mountains on all sides and fenced in electrically.. to save us from wild beasts :) And along the perimeter of the fence is a 10-15 ft dug outs just incase anything happens to dart in over the 10 ft fence. Now, i have living room with a cozy couch of beige and a seperate armchair of the same ilk. To the wall is a 21" flat tv with dish connection so that i can watch Sun tv! and also a decent dvd player to go with. To the right of the tv are glass sliding doors that open up to a spacious patio. there is a wooden table with four chairs, which is perfect for a game of cards over any kinda drinks/food. And we have a stand to hang our clothes to dry. Now right behind my couch is a dark wood, round dining table, just like the one my dad wanted, with four matching chairs. To the left of the couch is the kitchen entrance. Thats a fully equipped one with Electric stoves/Microwave oven, an electric kettle, a toaster, and fridge with freezer. It also has a Bosch front loading washing machine for laundry. All cutlery are in place. Groceries am yet to buy.. else am all set.
Now leading from the dining chairs is a passage that makes way for two rooms. A master bedroom and a smaller one. I am put up in the smaller one, as is the case with first come first serve basis. Mine is an excellent one with a cool spring bed with matching linen and a huge french window with drapes. Ward robe can put up with a couple of ppl's dresses! There is a seperate bath that comes with bath tub. As is the case with all foreign countries, the taps pour out hot / cold water with a twist of the handle.
So thats pretty much it for the first couple of days in joburg.. I will keep updating this as and when we progress!!
Au revoir!
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