Visiting Lumbini Park

We were planning on a quiet Sunday and thought that we should go check out this mall called Prasad along Necklace Road that houses the only IMAX theatre in Hyderabad.

Sad to say, the mall had nothing to retain our attention so we decided to head off after grabbing some lunch. The question of where to go next came up and since we were so near the floating Buddha Statue at Hussain Sagar Lake, we decided to visit it impromptu. This is one of the tourist attractions that was on our list to visit anyway. 

What we didn't know is that we needed to get into Lumbini Park to go see the statue.  The Hubby was not happy that he didn't have his camera with him and though my LX-5 was with me, I had left the memory card in my lappy!

But the LX-5 never fails me including today because it has its own internal memory!

There was an entrance fee of Rs10 (SGD 0.30) into the garden which is really affordable for the locals and the boat ride to the floating Buddha will cost another Rs30 (SGD 0.90) person.

Don't be fooled into thinking that this is a natural lake because it is not! This 24 sq km lake is entire man made eons long ago in 1562. I have no idea however how long did it take!

We enjoyed the trip as the park was not overcrowded and its a change to be surrounded by greenery. Am not sure if we will revisit again but for anyone visiting Hyderabad, you definitely should drop by.

Welcome to Lumbini Park

Woman selling corn at park entrance

Another street vendor

Children cooling off in the heat

Favourite past time here

Front view of the the 18m statue

Upclose in its original colour

A ride in the park that will give you a vantage view

Radio Silence

Yes, I have been procrastinating again when it comes to blogging. It is still not in my DNA to update people about my activities through the internet but since I had decided to start this to keep you folks updated, I will continue to endeavour.

My reminder for me to pen down (maybe this will soon be a obsolete phrase since no one uses a pen much anymore it seems) the days of March came while watching House last night.

The episode was about a female blogger who started blogging as a form of communication but has developed to be so dependent on her online community that the very minute when she faces a question, she blogs about it to get opinion. Her boyfriend was against her asking her online community if she should undergo surgery as he wanted to maintain their privacy.

He told her that her belief of "no one will need to be alone again with the internet" has turned into one where it is an obsession for more "eyeballs" (i.e. clicks/ visits) and it has turned their lives into entertainment for others.

This is the reason why I am a late adopter towards blogging. I cannot draw a clear line between what is too private and what is not. Will my friends like to be named/ identified? Will the pictures that I post be held against me in public opinion one day? For now, think Kate Spade and a 27 year old gal and I believe you understand my hesitation.

But I also believe that blogging can help friends to stay closer in touch because though Facebook is de rigueur, how much can you share in that short status update?

Because of the internet, I have benefited much from strangers' blogs about their experiences on travelling, product review and more. 

There are many people out there who are happy to share step by step photos on how to cook a certain dish, resolving a computer glitch, why you should wait for ipad3, etc. Forget about the dummy guide books.  

Hence, this love-hate relationship causes me to resist clicking "New Post" because each time, there is that battle in my head about where to draw the line of privacy. 

Of course, this becomes easier with each post published but the question of this too too much never goes away.

Guess I will be practising drawing the line while working on all those March posts that are still in draft.

Christmas away from home

My mood was terrible starting from the days leading up to Christmas and I was turning into the Christmas Grinch. In fact,this Grinch stayed till Boxing Day when Christmas was over.

As a Christian, Christmas is of course about celebrating the birth of Jesus, thanking God for sending His only Son to earth for us. That is the spiritual part.

As a Singaporean, Christmas is about running around madly in different malls at the last minute, re-checking my shopping list and keeping fingers crossed that the present will not be going onto that person's re-gifting list. That is the GDP contribution part.

As me, Christmas is spent in sunny island Singapore, having Christmas dinner on Christmas Day at this tucked away place called Cooling Close. That is the social part.

For this year, of course the spiritual part of Christmas remains unchanged and I am more than happy not to be contributing to GDP growth but I was missing the social part so much more than I thought I would!

Nearing to Christmas, I was checking my Facebook account less frequently and I told myself that I will not check Facebook at all on Christmas Day! I don't want to know about where my friends are enjoying themselves, who is getting what "wow" presents or looking at pictures of yummalicious food that is so far away from me.

These actions are not from feelings of jealousy or envy but rather homesick-ness. I could now understand why people are willing to brave all the travel chaos, travelling across continents and time zones just to be with family and friends during the festive season.

On Whatsapp with J who is also away from home for the first year, I agreed with her that we had taken the annual Christmas dinner for granted without realising it till now. From Cooling Close, friends wanted to call me on Viber or webcam but I said no. It was too sad to see them so close yet so far.

I have a friend R who have been bringing me into her lectures, karaoke sessions, etc via webcam. She wanted to have me join her Christmas party too but I also said no.

Yes, I know I don't have to make myself feel so miserable and that I have the hubby here but it is just not the same when a tradition is broken. I know the hubby misses being there at his family's Christmas dinner too.

But the good news is, I have decided to make New Year's Day better by going out on New Year's Eve to have dinner and counting down to a great 2011.

Friendship Milestone: Level Up!

I had spent Sat evening like many other ones – sitting down with the girls snacking on potato chips and having multiple conversations simultaneously. We have this group habit of talking to one person but always able to butt in another conversation still clued in.

Yes, it’s the usual girl talk bonding over conversation like fashion, work, food, etc. Nothing unusual about that except that it was not over the dinner table or at someone’s house – it was over Skype. Three of my closest friends are in London and here I am in India looking at them (through my 14.1 inch screen) eating gourmet chips and them looking at me eating Lays.

The Skype call happened because two of them had just arrived in London to visit J. As J was waiting for them to get ready before heading out, we moved from MSN to Skype. After the updates of recent events, we moved on to the usual direction-less chatter.

While sitting here looking at three of them chat, they really didn’t seem that far away. For me, they really could have just been over the table. Too bad the technology of multiple video calls is not yet readily available, else we could have got the rest to dial in too.

Point is, we agreed that to be able to hang out together via Skype is akin to hitting a new milestone in our friendship. I suggested that to take this further, they should bring along the laptop for dinner and we can all have dinner together! Ha.

Anyway, girls, am counting down to CNY when we will all meet again for many steamboat sessions and mahjong!

P.S: Within 5 mins after we hung up, I had a blackout that lasted for almost 2 hours.

Mystery of the Dead Fruit Flies

Wednesday was everything but routine.

In the morning, I had gone to open the balcony door as usual and I could only stare at the sight that greeted me. Half the balcony was covered with dead fruit/ water flies plus a few other random dead insects. Just so that you can have a better idea of what I saw, imagine that you had disturbed the ant nest, all the ants came out but died on the floor. Except that instead of ants, they were flies. 

What happened???
On Tues night as we were in the shower, we already noticed that there were more of these flies than usual. As these flies seem to like damp/ wet areas, we decided to make a bigger effort of drying out the bathroom so that they do not multiply so fast. But on weds night, things had gone back to normal, the flies from Tues had disappeared (probably dead on the balcony).

The few theories that we came up with:

#Theory 1
We leave a small light on during the night and that light had attracted the flies who tried to come in. But of course, they could not fly through the glass balcony door. Therefore, they had hit themselves on the glass, sustained head injury and died.

#Theory 2
Animal migration. It could be that they were flying through the area in a big group, some got stuck/ attracted in the balcony area and decided to die there. But this theory does not explain how they died.

#Theory 3
I had sprayed some baygon in the balcony area on Tues to kill an stick insect on the floor and my helper had removed away the dead insect. But there could have been some baygon lingering around the balcony that killed these flies. But my question is, how can the baygon on the floor kill flies that are in the air?

Can anyone solve this mystery for me?
*There are no pictures as it is just too gross

Anyway, I have kept the balcony door closed the last 2 days (even in the daytime) to keep out all these unwelcome visitors. But because I had to dry the laundry today, I had started to keep it open again.
Every morning now, I say a very short and quick prayer before opening the balcony door. Lord, please no dead insects/ flies/ creatures.

What else kept Wednesday far from routine was:

1. Gmail seem to have lost/ not able to display the emails from the past one plus month. I freaked out as I do not use an email client and everything was online. There was no important emails lost (I think) but how could Google do this to me?!?
I did a quick search online and realise that this is not a new issue for Google except that it is not common. My emails started showing again yesterday, so I had quickly downloaded them all. So guys, you have been warned by me.

2. Installation of Windows 7. With the Gmail incident, I decided that it was finally time to do the upgrade on my lappy. As most of you will know, this is time consuming and not fun at all.

3. Power cuts. Of course, it had to happen more frequently today because it will disrupt the internet connection that I need to install Windows 7. Murphy's Law. Didn't help that today the building's back up generator took its own sweet time to kick in. At about 7-ish, I sat in darkness with my backup lamp staring into space for about 20-30mins.

Chicken Curry via SKYPE

Technology is a life-saver in many many ways. For one, it gives me direct access to a walking cookbook also known as my mum. :)

A few days ago, I had by mistake cut open a packet of coconut milk instead of tomato paste. Yes, it is possible when both packs are identical with only the printed name on the pack as differentiators. When the fire is going and there are 10 others things lined up to be done, you (or is it just me?) just don't take a second look.

The metal version of pestle and mortar

I know I am not ready to cook curry with no curry paste but I also don't want to waste the packet of coconut milk. So I decided to improvise with what I have and try. Finally, I took out the mortar and pestle that I had bought on a whim when we first got here.

My plan was to try to re-create something close to curry paste. I have helped my mum do this chili paste thingie for vegetables (think sambal kangkong) before when she cooked and thought that would be the next best substitute. I know there was chili, onion, garlic, belachan, ginger but what else? Then the other questions came up. Was there lime juice? Do I have to add water to the coconut milk? Does the paste go in first or later?

I tried looking for chicken curry recipes online without using curry paste but could not find any. So I decided to call home using Skype to ask mummy. We had paid to get Skype credits for calls to Singapore and these calls do not cost much at all. So I have the luxury of calling home when I want to. I mean, if it was 10 years ago when the call might have cost $10+ for a few minutes, would I have called for curry? I doubt it. 

So, she told me what went into the paste and of course, I didn't have all the ingredients. Though she was saying "the taste will be different without this and that", I just had to make do. I felt quite happy with the end result though I just could not get that red colour typical of our chinese curry.

This was what the end product looked like:

The weak looking curry that tasted not too bad!