Funny Valentine

My cook never ceases to amaze me...for my valentine dinner, he went all out to cook me a special dish <* which I am so dearly touched by the gesture...I certainly have made progress cause he is cooking a special dish and NOT the usual fried chicken, fried rice, fried noodles, fried egg, fried potato, fried bread...yippee!!! *>.

So me all ready for me dinner sat down at the dining table and oh gosh...what is this...some vegetables swimming in a thick layer of oil...I could actually scoop the oil up and down in tablespoons. Oh dear...oh dear...

Me: Special dish - vegetable salad...peas, carrots, long beans, mustard, egg...and oil? Olive oil?

Cook: Yeah oil.

Me: Olive oil?

Cook: Oh normal cooking oil. Taste good?

Me: <* silently - I am eating salad swimming in spoonfuls of cooking oil - brilliant - I nearly cracked out laughing *>...Er...ok...but too much oil.

Cook: <*Smile happily *>

My special valentine dinner in India. Totally one very amusing cook!!!

Black Buddha

Oh dear...this is going to be tough...soon I have to self-conjure things up or I may just drive myself crazy during weekends. Officially, I have been to almost all four corners of Hyderabad. On Saturday, it was flipping and flipping through the travel brochure 1001 times and still could not pick out where to go. Finally, I told Razzak, ok I will go see the Birla Mandir temple...the supposedly marvellous temple made solely from marble <*I have come to discover that marble is kinda cheap here so for those of you who are dreaming of a little Taj Mahal maybe worth making a trip here and import them back*>. Hot! Hot! Silly me...I am becoming to wonder if my IQ has dropped due to being fed all those carbs by my cook...not a too brilliant idea to be bare footed on marble floors under the hot arvo sun...I was nearly jumping off the floor...reckon those indian locals must be thinking what on earth is she doing...some acrobatic show...gosh how on earth do they manage to walk normally...I must remember to measure the skin of their feet the next time I go to the temple again...just to see how pathetic my delicate feet are :-).

Gandhi...such a symbol for India...so when I saw this big statue of Gandhi as Razzak was driving...I was like 'Stop Stop Stop the car, I want that Gandhi'. I think I must have horrified him when I said that...he was like 'Huh...Oh...but Mam they won't allow you to go in'. 'Really...but I only want to gawk at him from outside...can you just stop outside the building please' Heh heh and I got my wish but it was sure railed up. I had to crawl in between the rails <*Totally unladylike doing that in my skirt*> and nearly triggered the double wired up fence while taking the photos. Not entirely keen to be spending the day in the police lockup, I snapped my pictures and ran back to the car...phew!!

Onward to the tallest Buddha statue in India. A standing giant in the middle of the lake - a boat is required to get you there. Well, I supposed you can swim but I won't suggest it unless you want to get muddy all over. For a 30Rs boat ride, I had the company of a very very brady college kids. This guy...gosh keep asking me to take a pic of him...for souvenier...I finally relented and took his pic <* Hhm...perhaps I may just broker him his first modelling job *>.

Not too happy when I got to the Buddha platform...the sun was behind him so every single pic I took of him came up black black and black. Arggh...and Mr. Friendly Guy was like 'Pic Mam You N me...souvenier'...I am like "Er...later...I let you know". By the time the boat attendant round us up for the trip back to shore, well apparently you are only allowed 10 minutes on the platform, my photos were still of Black Buddha so just before I hopped onto the boat, I took the back view of Black Buddha just to prove that he is not black. And nope I did not take a pic with Mr. Friendly Guy on the platform. God must be smilling on me by then cos he was kind enough on my trip back to give me a marvellous side view of Black Buddha :-).

Cricket Rules!

Despite cricket being a crazy mania thing in Australia and the Green and Gold team won the latest Ashes Series, I have unfortunately been very ignorant on learning the rules or the game. Always thought it is such a boring game cause it is so SLOW...well...until this afternoon. The Miss 'DunNoAnythingAboutCricket' has braved herself and joined the guys at work for a game of cricket...that I have been assigned the umpire job was even more hilarious...so I told the guys before the game today...'Whoever bribes me the most I will close one eye!!'...Haha....turned out I actually did enjoy the game. Despite me being the worst bowler and bat person on the field <* so glad they didnt pelt tomatoes at me *>, it was really fun and I FINALLY LEARNT cricket - YIPPEE!!! Some of the guys at work are really good...so when they have to stop the game and call it a draw as light was disappearing, I was actually disappointed. Heh heh...now it makes more sense to yell 'Thanduka' down the street :-)

Ekka Patato

Mam...ekka patato...special Indian dish....silly me so enthusiatic on trying Indian food that I told him..."OK..cook away". To my horror when he opened the wok and showed me the dish, I nearly ran straight to the nearest hospital...staring at me was 3 DEEP FRIED SUNNY SIDE UP EGGS on DEEP FRIED POTATO swimming in VERY VERY YELLOW OIL!!!

Ekka patato -> Egg and Potato!!!

Obviously, when he asked me "Is it nice?" I am like barely touching it but still want to be polite, "OK, not bad" which I then said 'You can go. I will clean up". Sinful sinful..."God, please forgive me" cos once he was out the door, I threw the whole dish into the bin and made myself a cup of milo for dinner. I think I will have to fire him quite soon...cos it is either that or I die of high cholestrol and over obese!!!!

Going Solo Again

Michelle has gone home...so am back to solo again. It was sure nice to have some company for two weeks and seeing myself in the photos...guess it's back to taking scenery picture and self BIG picture now and WHOA...the whole apartment to myself...heh heh. I hope your dad is doing well. Luv ya!

Overnite Pin-up Poster Girl

Today, the feat is to visit the biggest fort in South India - the amazing Golconda Fort. Situated at the top of the hill, it purportedly has the best city views in town. We set out after 2pm so we don't get charcoal burnt. Totally excited but also totally worried as it is a 3km climb to the top of the hill and both of us are so unfit after weeks of being chauffered around and not hitting the gym at all. Oh well, we will just climb at a pace of 0.1km/per hour.



On route to the fort, we stopped at the Qutub Shah Tombs, the seven tombs of the greatest rulers of the Nizam era. I think we were so confused by the tombs that we spent so long doing our 'chic chak chic chak' act when we hit the first tomb thinking it was the greatest tomb until Razzak tapped on our shoulders and said " Er...this is only the small ruler's tomb...the main one is over there!!" We were like..."What?".



The ultimate tomb turned out to be not much different to the smaller tombs just bigger and have a better view and higher grounds. You could actually see the Golconda fort from here. It was so huge that it was virtually impossible to capture the full view so I resorted to cuddling to a corner just to get it...Michelle couldn't help laughing when she saw me doing it..."blending in with the flowers huh? :-) "



On to the fort finally...gosh the number of local guides that leech to you are shocking...when you say 'NO' they still follow you...again 'Ignore Ignore' and they will get the message. The special feature of this fort is the acoustic of it, if you clap your hand at the entrance of the fort, the sound will go all the way up to the tower...and it was sure one deafening sound when everybody is doing it together!!



Are we there yet? The climb was getting really cruciating...I was like "Michelle, I am dying here"...She's like "Yeah me too and we are not even one quarter up".



We are so keeping to our word of climbing at 0.1km/ph :-). Thankfully the view was superb along the way else we would have given up almost immediately.



I reckon the most hilarious thing during the climb is the numerous times we were stopped by local Indian guys asking us "Can we take a photo with you?". We were like, gosh...do we really look that weird?...Well, we both were wearing Indian blouses...mmm...the ultimate was when this dozen odd army guys wanted a picture with us...we nearly died of heart attack and since we were outnumbered, we obliged. So officially, we just became the overnite pin-up poster girls for the guys in the army barracks and a lot of local indian guys...oh dear oh dear...let's just hope they don't go start telling their friends..."Meet my foreigner girl friend"



Oh...one more thing..we discovered that the fort is a favourite dating place cos every corner we go (the hidden corners), we seemed to bump into couples having their secret talks...I think we were more embarassed than them.



I supposed that also explains the numerous graffities on the fort's wall...A love B...C and D forever...obviously the 'Writing on the Wall Is Prohibited' sign is not big enough and we sure caught a lot of them in action!!!




Tired, exhausted and freakingly hot - we were so glad when we made it back to the bottom of the hill...full blast A/C...we told Razzak...and it still wasn't enough to dose off the heat so we asked Razzak to bring us to have kulfi - indian ice cream. He sure did and brought us to this really er very 'local' looking ice-cream place called 'Famous Ice Cream' - where the rich and poor will come and have their ice-cream. Okies, we will try. We sat down at one of the outdoor table and was going to order when I saw the guy at the stall took a block of ice-cream from the freezer, unwrapped it and plonked it down on a plastic plate with his bare hands - yes his bare hands!!! Oh dear oh dear...I told Michelle and she was like "Let's do the ice-cream sticks to be safe" and then I signalled to her..."Look look"...they have all the unwrapped ice-cream sticks in this big plastic bag and the ice-cream man was just fishing them out with his bare hands and handling it to the customers.



"Arghhhhhhhhh....we going to get so sick...never mind never mind don't think don't think just eat just eat". And the tactic sure works cos the kulfi was really yummy...and that is honest from the bottom of our hearts! Did we get sick hahaha........