Weekend in beach, cricket, birthdays, movie and rest

It was a while since hubby and I went for a long drive. Thanks to the beautiful weather (bright clear sky and 27 deg C) last Saturday, we went to one of the world famous surfing beach in Philip Island called Woolamai Beach. The one and a half hour drive (one way) was worth it!


We strolled along the shore for a while enjoying the cold sea water. The waves were high enough to come upto our waist. After we stood in the water to our heart's content, we had some cheese and crackers for snacks and drove back to our house.


Yesterday's match was a sheer dissapointment. Luckily we saw only the first innings (yeah we are 5:30 hours ahead of IST) and slept with good hope that 338 was good enough for a comfortable win. It's always heartening to see "the little master" scoring the unstoppable 100+ which seemed effortless! But who could guess that it would end in a tie! When I saw the news today morning I was shattered to say the least! Anyway we didn't lose too. It was definitely a thrilling match from what i read from cricinfo.com and yahoo cricket. But it feels sad when such a big total deserved only a tie :(
Hoping for a clear victory for India in upcoming matches.


Saw "King's Speech" last weekend and whaaaatttttaaaa movie! IT IS A MUST WATCH. I mean it...if you haven't watched it, GO WATCH IT! Geoffery Rush and Colin Firth's acting is impeccable! It might look like an art movie but the storyline is just superb (simple yet deeeeeeeeep)! I am sure it's an Oscar material!


Hubby has been surprising me with a lot of new and innovative recipes and they have all tasted godly! I thoroughly enjoyed the fig+goat's cheese pizza, bruschetta+goat's cheese salad with herbs. Yup I cook too, don't get me wrong. It's just that we take turns and it is more apt if I put it this way that hubby likes cooking very much esp likes to try out new recipes. He liked my chettinad style kathirikai karakuzhambu as well.


Both my cute little nieces are celebrating their birthday this Feb, the elder celebrated early this month and the younger celebrates today! My love and hugs to kutty! Have a great birthday darling :)


Hope all is well at your end too. Have a pleasant week ahead!


P.S:  Chettinad style kathirikai karakuzhambu: A South Indian style spicy soup made with eggplant

Here they are..

...the long pending photos for you to see what we did during our Christmas holiday in Singapore. We did a lot of sight seeing this time which included Night Safari, Singapore Zoo, Sentosa Island and Bird park. Needless to say that I did shopping at Orchard Rd too..;-) Got to see the beautiful lighting and decorations for New Year in the city.

The photos shall speak for themselves!

Have a good week ahead...Cya!

Back after a fun packed holiday!

Yup now you know why you didn't hear from me for the past 1 month! I had been to Chennai to visit my parents, relatives and stayed with my parents-in-law along with hubby at Singapore on the way back to Melbourne! I had a fantastic time meeting them all, to say the least!

Parents pampering, mom's delicious delicacies, aromatic filter coffee, thattai, polli,kalli+kootu, mavadu, mahali kizhangu, margazhi kutcheris and what not! The list is never ending. Spending quality time with parents, eating great tasting food, relaxing, meeting relatives, going to temples, shopping and sight seeing were the main agenda and were fulfilled thoroughly!

Not even a bit of me wanted to come back, but no holiday can be endless right, so here I am back to reality although I am happy to be back in a way, back to my routine, back to my own world..:-) We are in the middle of spring cleaning the house and sorting out the travel and shipped stuff. We are expected to get back to the routine in a week's time.

So spare me for few days to elaborate more on the holiday and watch out for this space for some Kodak moments too!

Have a great week ahead and a very happy new year to all you guys!

P.S: thattai: a type of savoury
polli: a type of sweet which looks like thick dosa
kalli+kootu: a recipe prepared on a festive occasion
mavadu: a pickle made of small unripe mangoes
mahali kizhangu: a white coloured pickle
margazhi kutcheri: a series of carnatic music concerts which happens during December

ROSE is a rOsE is a RoSe is a rose

I am loving it! Yes I am in love with the spring esp with the blooming roses in our garden, the fragrance from them very time I walk along the driveway, the very welcoming sight when I get back home from work. Much to my whinging in the last post, I am happy that the real spring is here! Thanks to the house owner, who must for sure be loving gardening and ROSES (when I am saying this I am also referring to all sorts of garden tools, fertilizers, potting mix, lawn mower etc placed in orderly fashion in the car shed)! 

No doubt I have seen many flower shows and hill stations, but this is the first time I got to see so many roses, in so many colours grown in a household garden. In fact I see so many houses here in Melbourne blooming with flowers esp ROSES. Not just one colour, but in colours and sizes you might have not seen before!

Ok let me just stop talking and let you enjoy this visual treat!

Quarter century and so...

Yes I turned 25 on 28th Oct. I am happy that I am now officially old enough to have just 3 months of learner's permit for obtaining drivers license! I no longer need to pay additional car insurance for being under 25. Also it's kind of cool to say 25 because, in your early 20's you are considered YOUNG, also in your late 20's you are categorised as NEARING 30. So 25 is chic and safe..lol..;)


We are having a gala time with my MIL for the past 1 week. Sadly she will be leaving this coming weekend. Also with the outings we did, made my birthday exxxxsssshtra special!!!
 

Entrance of Dandenong National Park

  

Though our plan to visit the Lakes Entrance got cancelled due to bad weather (I know but it's supposed to be the beautiful spring season), we did have a plan B. So on thursday morning after a sumptuous lunch, we started for the Dandenong mountain ranges. This place is about an hour drive from our place. Thankfully the weather was superb (25 deg and bright blue sky)! We reached the national park at around 2 and planned to do the Living Bush walk which was moderately steep trail walk out of the many mentioned in the map there.






Tall green eucalyptus trees

 The first part of the walk was plain ground with little ups and downs. We walked through gigantic eucalyptus trees and huge fern plants. Surprisingly we saw a lot of people doing the walks though it was a weekday. Some were even running all the way till the top. My attire didn't allow that since I didn't want to sweat in my new birthday dress. But I am sure I shall be running there sometime in near future. It's a very good work out since it's not a monotonous route of plains to the top of the ranges.





That's me..:-)



After we reached the start of 1000 steps walk, we delibrated little bit about continuing further since it said that the route is steeper. But we wanted to fulfill the whole purpose of visiting there and so WE DID "THE 1000 STEPS". These stretch of steps were built in the memory of those killed in Kokoda Trail. Along the way there were plaques depicting the lives of the men who fought and died on the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea during World War II. After reaching the top, we got a beautiful view of the city and the walk was worth it! The walk still continued from there but we wanted to return back since we didn't want to get late for the evening plans.

After resting for a while, we climbed down the steps and reached the foot at around 4:30. We drove back home and freshned up for our temple visit in the evening.

The Shiva Vishnu temple that we usually go is huge and gives me immense pleasure and peace everytime I go there. After offering our prayers to the God, we drove to The Madras Banyan Tree for our dinner. I don't need to say much about this restaurant since the food speaks for itself. We had a fantastic dinner and were quite FULL after that. We returned home and called it a day.



Melbourians enjoying their sunbathe

 
The next day we didn't want to make the best use of gorgeous weather (because it rains in between) and so went to enjoy the sea breeze. We drove to one of the famous beaches in Melbourne city, the Elwood beach and it was the first time I went there and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Wetting the legs in cold clear water in warm weather was such a treat!







The couple

 



There were quite a few who enjoyed their sunbathe, walked along with their dogs, swam etc. We strolled along the shore for a while and did the very traditional thing of eating ice creams in the end. I loved my gelato..yummy!

And so these outing were like icing on top of my birthday cake..:-)

The next big festival Deepavali is kocking at the doors and we are looking forward for a dhamaka!

Advance happy deepavali to you all. Have a wonderful time with your family wearing new dress, bursting crackers, eating good food, watching newly released movies, catching up with friends and relatives!

Cheers :-)

Is it really SPRING season now?

Yup we are in the southern hemisphere (sounds like some alien) and it is spring here..but not really ;( Spring is one of those ideal getaway times when you just go on long drives, enjoy the beach walks, do trekking and mountain climbing, stroll along the park. Between how do you describe spring season? Temperature around mid 20s, blooming trees and plants, bright and longer days, early sunrise etc etc. I can hardly find any of these indicators here :( May not be us but our lawn is in full spring mood. It needs mowing every week...uffff. You might think I am kidding when I say that the average temperature since the start of oct has been 15 deg C. To make it even better it rains almost everyday and we are still wearing sweaters to keep us warm for the most part of the day!!! Ok ok no more whimping about the climate for hopefully it would get warmer in coming days...
October is special for me for many reasons. My hubby successfully completed his 2nd full marathon (Melbourne marathon) on 10th. Yes it's full 42.6 km and yes it's a very BIG deal!!! My appa celebrates his birthday on 20th, yours truly on 28th. By the way I am going to hit the quarter century milestone this year..;-)

My hubby's mom is planning to visit us for 2 weeks from coming saturday. We are super excited to have her with us. We are planning to do some sightseeing during this time and have good fun. Also this Deepavali will be all the more special! We shall make sure to see the fireworks at Federation Square which we missed last year.

Anyway I shall keep you posted about the proceedings. Meanwhile happy shopping for Deepavali..;)

Licensed Memories!

Driving like all other skills needs regular practising. Once you lose touch, it takes a while to get back on track. Last Saturday evening, my dear hubby offered to refresh my driving skills after which I realised that I needed to start from scratch! Though I have the Indian driving license, it turned out out to be just for namesake..;( Partly because since I didn't drive car after I passed the test (which is after I passed out of college and started working), so I hardly drove and also our college driving instructor ("Anna" as we call) was too naive to help me passing the driving test without much driving actually!!! I bet ya getting license here in Australia is real hard. One needs to get L, pass the test and then drive with P for 3 years, have a clean record before getting the full license!

We bought our own car last weekend (Toyota Camry - Sedan) and from now on the real ordeal starts. My lovable hubby has agreed to teach me driving during the evening. So hopefully I should be able to drive soon.

That evening when I was trying to drive after a LONG time, I was reminded of those days when we girls in final year in college enrolled for driving class in the mechanical dept in our own institute. Apart from getting good campus placement, we wanted to achieve something more! Our college is fundoo ya..has a driving school too unlike other colleges. "Jia ho NITT" and best part is they made sure most of us got our license!!! They had quite a few batches during both morning and evening. Morning means eeeeaaaarrrrlllllyyyy around 4-5 since there used to be 2-3 sessions then and each needed around 30-45 minutes. So we girls according to the slots available enrolled for both morning and evening sessions. If it were the morning session, we girls made sure that the rest of the goup got up early and were in time for the class. It used to be pitch dark outside then and also cold (talk about climate in Trichy).

Opalites correct me if I am wrong, the practising route started from the sports club or civil dept - left at library - along the other entrance road along SC/Compsci - till the boys hostel intersection - left at Pearl (not sure though, but some boys hostel) - drive till other end - left again at Chemical eng dept - straight to the Mech dept - practise reverse gear near the T.P building/Meta dept. We drove Maruti 800 (white colour, manual car) and a jeep. Many among us felt driving Maruti was easier but I personally felt the jeep was easier. Anyway apart from the car, we were taught to drive 2 wheeler too. We practised on a old Luna like moped on the sports ground near the main entrance.

The driving sessions used to be quite fun. I must admit that the Annas were quite patient and instructed us every time we stopped the car while leaving the clutch or speeded when we were not supposed to! While driving near the boys hostel, the guys walking on the corridor or playing cricket on the backyard would yell out our names. We used to get bit nervous during that part of the drive. We didn't want to drive to the ditch with the guys watching us (insulting ya!!)

With many days of such training, we girls (around 10) appeared for the license test at the RTO, Trichy with our beloved Anna. The RTO office is situated in the outskirts of the city. After finishing the paper work and paying the fee, we proceeded to the actually driving track which was further from the RTO. We girls formed small groups and hopped on to the jeep which we were supposed to drive. The procedure was like each of us took turns are drive the jeep a short distance with the Brake Inspector sitting beside us, Anna and other girls sitting behind. The Brake Inspector must have been in his BEST mood that day, because he let Anna prompt us while changing gears (manual jeep again), applying brake or speeding. Come on ya, we were tensed, don't think we were so dumb! We kept our fingers, toes and everything possible crossed till all our girls did a decent show. Thankfully I was just asked to drive around few turns and not asked to take reverse in which I suck!!!

After we girls test drove, we were asked to wait under shade for a while. Meanwhile Anna collected Rs.100 from each of us and drove the jeep with the Brake Inspector alone leaving us behind under the tree. We all had butterflies in our stomach. Atleast all these days practise should be worth it. GOK what happened, but Anna came smiling saying "You all got your license!" What more could we ask for then! You won't believe but Anna said that he was not so scared before for any other group for getting their license. May be the Rs.100 helped in sanctioning our license! We had to wait for long to get our photos taken and license made. WHATEVER..we all got our license for next 10 years! Yuppy..;-)

On the way back to the college, Anna was kind enough to take photocopies of the license and make duplicate license for general purpose. After returning to the college, we stopped at the Mechanical dept and you won't believe, we all took photos with our Anna for we were so happy that we got our LICENSE!

Hopefully I pass the test here and get the Aussie license too. Watch out for this space for more of my driving adventures!

Have a great week ahead :-)

P.S: Anna: Elder brother