Random Bits of Life

At least it has inspired me to write this blog at least.... Anyway I am back after a break, just taking to time to settle back into my old world. No I didn't stop my story of Tasmania half way. And yes of course as I mentioned earlier, we did have a great trip. We'll be extra cautions to make sure any such travel plan gets executed seamlessly unlike a project in office....right?:) Well, we started our journey on a Saturday morning flight, with an initial hiccups of flight getting delayed leaving Shreya bored and frustrated. Reached Hobart an hour late anticipating a big airport with lots of Cafe's to fill our morning,hungry stomach. But the 'look and feel' was EXACTLY same as Managalore airport + a sniffer dog :). So before we realized we were picking up our rented car started our Tasmania journey. Just by the knowledge of not having GPS in the car we felt kind of lost and then actually lost our way inside Hobart city. I was suppose the be holding the map and gu...

Story about this trip is incomplete if I don't mention about preparation of it. I spent so much of my vacation time on it, it almost had become mini project to me. I had read about Tasmania long back in Outlook Traveller. Somehow I had decided that time I will visit that place sometime in life, though I not was pretty sure about where exactly it is placed on the map. My geography knowledge is as bad as any other subject. Though I knew Australia was a great travel destination I didn't know anything other than Great Barrier Reef there. I took a first look at the map of Australia in http://www.australia.com/ when Prasanna was in Melbourne and it was finally decided that I'll join him. Tasmania which looked quite near to Melbourne than Sydney caught my eye. I knew even after multiple blackmail and pestering, Prasanna would settle for not more than 2 long weekends, forget about a whole weeks off. Though I didn't get much time kick start my project Australia, I had dropped...

I completely agree with all who mentioned to me earlier about the 'learning talk' is a best phase of kid's growing. This is the phase Shryea is in right now...trying to converse with 2-3 words putting together. It has been really good to spend whole day listening to her complaints, explanations and giving her own version of trips, outings. Last month when we started from India, she was able to speak most of the daily use words, mostly Kannada, few English, only a word at a time. She was not showing much interest in combining these words or making a conversation. During our first week of stay here, one day when I was making her dinner she started saying 'Kurchi mele kothkondu' (I'll have food sitting on the chair), taking us by surprise. Slowly each day there were more sentences started getting added up. Then she started with her favorite rhymes, 'Teddy bear teddy bear turn around', it has become 'Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn nanana round'.... the...

Before leaving from Bangalore I didn't have any particular expectation on this city. I always thought it would be like yet another international city, never expected much of character like European cities. Nor I expected it to be that cosmopolitan. Though Australia was always my dream country to visit, Melbourne never placed itself in my list of dream cities, which has names like London(now off the list after visiting :)), Paris, Vienna, Zurich etc. This city turned out to be a pleasant surprise to me and places itself as one of the best cities I have ever visited, may be next to Jerusalem. It is scenic, cosmopolitan, laid back, friendly place to be in. It has a unique identity which cannot be found in any other place in the world, I am not sure about the other cities in Australia itself. I am yet to explore at least another one. Scenic Beauty First impression is not necessarily be the best impression. Didn't get a very good feeling about the city on the night we reached, may ...

I never enjoyed cooking much during initial days after marriage. Every evening I tried hard on being creative, not in cooking but finding a reason not to cook. Having said that I am a big fan of good food. It is only couple of years since I finally started to enjoy cooking, that too only during weekends. I even used to collect recipes from my mother, sister, aunts, and Internet. May be it was only that I was in search of good homely food more than the joy of cooking in itself. Lately I seldom got my hands dirty in kitchen other than preparing Shreya's food, courtesy, my cook. I never bothered to take additional pain in keeping culinary skills up to date. I regret it only after my cookery knowledge is put to test with this trip of mine to Australia. First day in the kitchen was quite a messy business. I could hardly come to terms with little things, may not be fully because of the new kitchen. Some could be because I lost touch of finer details of cooking. To mention a few, pouring ...

Thanks to Singapore airlines and Shreya's travel friendliness...I never expected it to be so smooth. From the time we boarded taxi we expected her to start getting impatient to get out of the car. But it never happened. She was really co-operative through the painful journey to airport with lots of traffic jams. Even after reaching, she was totally excited about everything in the airport, be it and baggage trolley or the line separators she was happily running around, talking to strangers without her usual anxiety. I was happy to see the new Bangaluru airport as well. It is a good place like any other international airport. I was puzzled on why people keep complaining for not being up to the mark. Then there was a huge disappoint about not getting a bassinet and seat together between Singapore to Melbourne. Both me and Prasanna were anxious asking ourselves how are we going to manage Shreya for such long flight. Bangalore to Singapore flight was reasonable with Shreya sleep...