To Brittany with love

Some interesting food I had tasted off late. So thought it would be a good idea to share them.

The unofficial farewell dinner we did with some office folks was at Creperie Ar-men. This place, as you can guess from the name, specializes in crepes, or as they put it, "Authentic French crepes from Brittany." A few early birds amongst us decided to order starters and a group of them decided to go for escargot (perhaps an obligatory French fare). I, on the other hand, just stuck to ol' traditional onion soup (which turned out to be yummy).

The escargots had sth greenish on them which I assume to be green herbs. Reminded me of pestos actually. My colleagues urged me to try the escargots and so I did...a teeny weeny piece. Verdict: Rubbery black substance.

Soon after the rest of them turned up, we moved on to the savory buckwheat galette selections. I had the mushroom-based broceliande, which I felt could not go very wrong. (how can one go wrong with mushrooms anyway?) while my colleagues had various other crepes with interesting fillings in them. As soon as we were done choosing the main course, we had already decided on our dessert. Val and myself decided to share the rum and raisin ice cream with chestnut sauce. This was way better than my main course and I loved every bit of the sweet crepe.

Some Kodak moments of our food galore.

Speaking of food, I think back fondly on the Swiss delights I had in Switzerland during my honeymoon. I tried the Raclette, Rosti and the Cheese fondue - Swiss delights INDEED! The raclette (which I was quite sceptical about) was amazing i tell ya. For those unfamiliar with raclette, it is essentially melted cheese, served over boiled potatoes with lots of ground black pepper, accompanied by small pickled onions and gherkins. Need pictorial illustration?? Here u go...

Yummy!! I know....:P

Tata

Before my Auld Lang Syne

Its been about 9 months in MOE where I work as Corporate Communications Executive. I love my job, and more importantly, I love the people in my dept. The idiosyncracies of colleagues which I will not belabour on this blog. (I know they will kill me if i did). We've had some really goofy times in CCD despite the madness comms work present us with. I think I have picked up quite a lot about communications as CCD has exposed me to a wide range of works areas: Media relations, speeches, internal comms and the works...

It's a pity I have to leave so soon, at least when I am enjoying being in this place. Yet, another part of me is looking forward to the new experience lying ahead of me. While at present, my career stands hanging, I am all geared up to go to Calcutta, settle down in the new way of life (yet again) and find out whats in store for me.

Colleagues @ CCD held an unofficial farewell dinner at Creperie Ar-Men and an official lunch at Fig Olive. Both eating sessions were fabulous. U know the best part of being in CCD is the food. 1 more day in CCD...

Some kodak moments in the next post.

Till then

Cheers

Love in the Swiss Alps

As we slowly found ourselves settling down into a new way of life, in our new apartment, we were counting down the days for the much-awaited vacation cum honeymoon. We were heading to oh-so-gorgeous Switzerland for a 10 day vacation. And as planned, we landed at Zurich airport on 12th May 2007.

Heres our itinerary for the trip. Something that we worked out after lots and lots of changes.

May 12th, 2007

We flew out of SIN to ZRH via Singapore Airlines at around 1 am. That flight was really memorable I must say. We were in the business class (for me this being the first time in business class, i was thrilled). We were in a 3 seater but it wasnt cramped because the plane we took was the bigger one which had more room for movement. I was sitting in the middle- to my right, Vinod and to my left, an old lady who I later found out was 70 yrs and travelling alone. Halfway through the flight, she started feeling breathlessness and asked the stewardess for oxygen masks. She used up one whole tank and asked for another. The cabin crew asked her if she would like to see the doctor on board but she refused. Eventually, they did get a doctor to attend to her ( I was wondering why they even had to ask her, they should have just called the doctor right from the start) She was pricked, had drips attached and what nots. Anyway, that lady made it through to Zurich (though I have no idea what happened to her thereafter).

Along the 12 hour flite to Zurich, the cabin crew brought out a cake that read "Happy Honeymoon" and 2 glasses of champagne for us. We were pleasantly surprised. I was later told by Vinod that his best friend, Bharath and wife had arranged for these.

Eventually, we landed and got our rail pass for the trip validated at the railway office. I think it was 6ish-7 when we landed. I couldn't believe I was out of Singapore and in Zurich. It was amazing walking out of the airport to the railway station, against the background of the alps and the chilly weather. We trodded along to the railway station to catch our train to Lucerne. The first place on our itinerary.

May 12-14th

Zurich- Lucerne

We couldnt check into our hotel till about 2-3 pm that day so we decided to dump our bags in the hotel and head out to explore the place a lil. I must say Lucerne is one pretty city. So beautiful and idyllic. Throughout our stay in Lucerne, we did a city tour, visited the lion monument, the glacier museum sort of thing and BUT OF COZ, Mount Titlis. Who ever goes to Lucerne and not see Titlis. And so we are, at Mt. Titlis, all geared up in our winter wear.

There was this mirror maze we went to in Lucerne..No idea what the significance is, but it was damn cool.

May 14th-16th

Right after breakfast on 14th, we made our way with our bags to the train station to head to Interlaken. We took the Golden Panoramic Train ride which was awesome. Loads of beautiful scenery...felt like heaven. I was really excited about Interlaken because of the famed Jungfrau. Heard so much about it from my colleagues that I wanted to see for myself those beautiful mountains. We were in for a pleasant surprise at our hotel in Interlaken, when they told us that they were upgrading our room to a suite for our honeymoon, complimentary of the hotel. We visited the casino near our hotel, a flower clock and did a mini city tour. Oh yes, we also visited the St. Beatus-Hohlen Caves. Basically, amazing caves. Some pics for yr eyes.

On our way to famed Jungfrau, we stopped by some waterfalls called- Trummelbach Falls. Its basically a series of glacier waterfalls in the mountains....Gosh, the crowd up there...I tell you they were from a tour group and I swear, if you didnt give them space, they would have probably pushed you down the waterfall, leaving you to fight for dear life. So Kiasu!! And they weren't even Singaporeans! After seeing the waterfalls, which was again awesome, we made our way to THE JUNGFRAU! It had been a cloudy day that day and visibility from the top of the mountains was close to 0. Yet, we wanted to go up..at least to tell ppl we visited Jungfrau. When we went up, as expected we could see nothing but clouds. It was snowing so heavily with strong winds. Although we could not see the beauty surrounding Jungfrau, having heavy snowfall and strong winds was an experience on its own!!

May 16th-18th

From Interlaken, we made our way to Geneva for a day. There, besides a lil shopping, we walked around the city. It was a real change from Lucerne and Interlaken as we were suddenly surrounded by lots of people- a real busy city. We saw the flower clock which was quite a disappointment..I mean..it was nothing compared to the one we saw in Interlaken. Oh yes, we did UN, which to me was the highlight of our Geneva trip. We mamaged to do a tour around the UN premises and even watched some health conference in progress.

May 18th-19th

From Geneva, we made our way to Zermatt. One other place I was excited to go. Perhaps coz it is a car-free village and I just wanted to know how people commuted. And u know what..the day we landed in Zermatt, it was actually snowing. According to the hotel guy, it was unusual for it to snow...so we counted ourselves lucky to be able to see it snowing! Went up Gornegrat, another mountain in Zermatt..played with the snow and chilled in our room. It was there in Zermatt, where we had a wonderful dessert...crepe with all sorts of alcohol poured on it.

May 19th-21st

Our final stop is at Zurich where we go round the city and then back home (:( ) to Singapore. Did some or should I say lots of chocolate shopping for ourselves and our friends and family back in Singapore. We also did a day trip to Heidi land and to Liechtenstein. A bit about this place...The Principality of Liechtenstein is a tiny, doubly landlocked alpine country in Western Europe, bordered by Switzerland to its West and by Austria to its East. However, you don't need a visa or a passport to enter this place. Nonetheless, you can get a chop in your passport if you visit the Post Office. At the end of our Zurich tour, we felt like the pic below: TOP OF ZURICH!

The flight back was smooth as well and this time we got the cake and champagne from his colleagues in Singapore. We landed in the morning and went straight to home sweet home.

Till the next post, Adios!

Home & hearth

Well, the tying of the knot led to a slew of activities- that included getting our new home. We arrived in Singapore on 20th April 2007 and were slated to move into new apartment on 22nd April 2007. And so we did.....Boxes and boxes and boxes of things were shifted into the spic and span house. Together with the help of my mom and brother (who hardly did anything in the end, as usual!), we managed to unpack enough things to find space to walk around the house. The rest of the unpacking took many more days..But nonetheless, a beautiful house, a house we wanted to make home ASAP.

When one buys a new house, we have these prayers to bless the house. Likewise we had prayers done one Sunday. And from that day....we were all geared to get ready for our long awaited honeymoon!!! More than anything else to get away from familiar faces, from fatigue, from the hustle and bustle of everyday living.

Adventures of our honeymoon in the next post...in the meantime, here are some pics of our new home.





During the housewarming prayers

"I do"

I wanted to start this blog with some background instead of jumping straight into my life in Kolkata. I felt it would be essential to provide the reasons why I moved to Kolkata. And when I looked back, THE reason it happened was because I said "I do" to someone called Mr Vinod Kannan. (who thereafter got posted on work to Kolkata in June 2007)

The moment of realisation that i was going to spend the rest of my life with Vinod came on April 12th 2007. (It's a hint for all u people to wish me on this date) when he tied the knot. For the clueless, Vinod and myself got married to each other in Bangalore on 12th April. It was one heck of a hectic period but definitely an unforgettable period. Anyway, who can forget the day you sacrifice yr freedom and youth for yr partner??

The wedding was a 2 day affair but the fatigue from the ceremony lasted more than 2 weeks!! So many people to visit, so much food to eat and so many new people to get used to. Amidst all of this, I even wanted to squeeze in the shopping I love doing in Bangalore. Like this wasn't enough, we had arranged for 2 receptions in Singapore. One for Vinod's colleagues at Raffles Hotel and the other one at Khalsa Association for my friends, family's friends, etc. Here are some pics from our celebrity wedding.








































Now that I have set the context to my move to Kolkata, in the form of my wedding with Vinod, let me rave a lil about my new home in the next post. Adios!

Pre-posting trip to Kolkata, India

We had lived in our new abode for only slightly over a month. And the news came : Just two weeks notice to pack our things and leave for Kolkata. Vinod's posting from HQ to Kolkata as Manager, Eastern India (Singapore Airlines). Sounds big eh. When he told me about the posting, I was shell shocked. We had just invested time and energy setting up our new home and now it was time to leave...and I was beginning to enjoy my job at MOE as well.


A wife's gotta do what a wife's gotta do...especially when moving to Kolkata meant entering high life. The company has provided us with some good perks. Not only that, I get to return to singapore almost once in 2 months. Something I am so looking forward to coz I know I am so gonna miss my mom when in Kolkata. According to Vinod, we get invites to high-end functions..and better still...the spouse gets to go...That means more reason to shop for cool clothes and more reasons to dress up!


Ok...so the day to leave for Kolkata comes...and on 9th June, I accompany him on a pre-posting trip to Kolkata to see the city and the apartment that we've been given. I was there for a weekend trip..Stayed at Sheraton..did some shopping..partied... The experience was good. What I gathered from my weekend trip was that this place is quite liveable contrary to my preconceived notions of Kolkata being totally unliveable.


My colleagues congratulate me on my promotion to being a tai-tai. But you know what, I think I'll not enjoy this life for long..Can't imagine sitting at home all day with no work for the mind. So for a start, I registered with TEFL International (Teaching English as Foreign Language) for a certificate course. Its a one month intensive course where I can get theoretical and practical experiences of teaching English to Second language learners. Am really excited about going back to school so to speak. I would say this posting came a lil too late. Had it come by May, I would have made it for a Masters course in a university in Kolkata..the Masters I am planning to do someday..speech pathology. Anyway, for starters, this TEFL course would hopefully keep me entertained and engaged. Below are some pics of the apt in Kolkata. More than decent I feel.




So, on 11th June, I returned to Singapore while he stayed on...We are back to leading single lives...while I await 3rd Aug to join him in our indefinite journey of vagabondness.

Cheers...