DIWALI

This is some Diwali celebration outside a hypermarket called "Big Bazaar". Its something like our Carrefour. This branch which is just 15 min walk from my apartment is the smaller branch. I've heard that there's a bigger Big Bazaar on the other side of town. I've bought 70% of my basic household items from this place. Those sales items are really cheap... 50% off. Oh... I'm drifting off from the main topic - Diwali.. Yup... they have some performance of a band and dancers, playing loud music. Maybe equivalent to our Chinese way of getting a lion dance troupe to perform during occasions.

Besides the usual festive sales, the main thing abt Diwali, the festival of Lights is of course the Lights. Lights in all kinds of forms, 1) Candles, 2) Electrical Lights and 3) Fireworks...

1)

Candles... My neighbour units are all litted up with candles at their doorway.

2)

Dun really have a good photo on lights ... this will do?

3) Lastly the fireworks! As I'm only using my Nokia 6280 2.0 megapixel camera... Have limited nice shots of the fireworks. Also, no luck lar... alwiz when aim with my camera, the big ones dun appear... once I put down my camera... all the big ones banged everywhere.

It's like a warzone in Bangalore, the city people will start firing their fireworks from 6pm to 1am! Non-stop throughout the darkness... the night sky lighting up every minute and the explosions sound like city kena heavy bombardment... can be very noisy.

As the building in Banagalore is relatively low level, I can get a good view of the whole city in all directions from my rooftop at the 5th floor level. The rooftop is also used for people to play fireworks. I have bought a box for abt S$17... but dun dare to play by myself.. no experience... hehe. Wait for this coming sunday singaporean party... will bring the crackers along to see if they wanna have a go.

Bright one like the sun in the night...

My Humble Abode .... Apt at Shanti Nagar

Hi,

Its been about a week since my last post. As promised, I'm finally able to take photos of my 99% completed apartment to share with you people as the last furniture (my master bedroom bedside tables) were finally delivered by my landlord on Saturday. Was it my diwali (deepavali) present from him? hehe...

Anyway... let's get started.


This is my apartment from the entrance. It is called "Shantiniketan". I live on the 2nd storey but in India, it is called ground floor and our version of ground floor is their level 0. Interesting huh?

My unit is Apt No.3 and its balcony (2nd room balcony) is visible from this photo, juz below the building name.

Let's take a walk around the Level 0 first....









First on the left is a small garden whick looks quite nice with good carpet grass at the end. However, I hardly see anyone walking around this garden. Its really more for decorative purposes. Then Level 0 is mostly for carparks and you can we got Toyota, Honda and MERCEDES here. Quite rich people ya? The chairman of the resident committee is a doctor, Dr Rao. Okie... lets go up stairs with the Lift. (I usually juz take stairs...)

This is the entrance of my apartment unit... its facind directly towards the East. Good feng shui?

This the shoe rack behind the entrance door. The upper cabinets is used to keep those DHL boxes which I've used to carry parts of my belongings over to Bangalore. Thanks again to Cousin Limin for the boxes.

This is the Living Room. Looks quite spacious huh? Or maybe coz there isn't that much furniture thus it looks pretty empty? I've tried to add in something besides the sofa the landlord provided. Remember? the Rs99 ea cushions? Yup.. those two black cushions. Don't ask me about the colour of the sofa and the curtains. I didn't choose them. =P The Landlord also provided me with a brand new 29" Samsung flat screen CRT TV. Not bad. Except that I've been calling the TV network company to give me 2 more sports channels for 1 week plus liao (currently I've only got ESPN and Ten Sports, I want STARSPORTS and Z Sports). As usual, in India, everyday they tell you tomorrow it will be done. As someone said to me before... India is the Land of Tomorrow...

This is the Dining Room with a small basin at the corner for you to wash hands. I got the Landlord to install a mirror there too. The basin is juz next to a toilet on the left (hidden in the photo) and on the right is Bedroom No.2 which is also furnished. More on the right is the kitchen...

This is the kitchen fully equipped with microwave oven, rice cooker, kettle (I hardly use coz I got "Aqua Guard" - equivalent to water boiled for 20 mins), refrigerator and toaster. Pretty spacious too... like the one at home. =) After buying frozen 750g of beef, 1 kg of chicken, 500g of tiger prawns and 500g of minced pork for S$28 (very expensive as it is good quality hygenic meat from branded shop) on Friday, I cooked my first real meal on Saturday - Steak with Rice.

Looks good? Well... of coz it tastes good too! hehe cooked by me mah... Well, guess have to source for cheaper meat next time. This S$28 worth of meat should last me for 1 week plus I reckon.

Next, my Master Bedroom. Had so much trouble trying to find a quilt cover of the right size of the comforter which I've bought at a Diwali sales. Realised that if you don't buy the covers and the comforter/quilts from the same brand, its difficult to find a matching size one in India... as usual... screw ups.. no standardization... at least the shop was good and quick in letting me exchange the quilt cover from a doublebed one (the salesman claimed it could fit queen size bed when i bought it) for a queen size one before I start scolding them. There is a balcony at the side of the room. Hardly go there... coz its right next to the neighbouring apartment.. maybe juz 10m away... no privacy. Also, the leaves from the tree (rem the garden at Level 0?) alwiz get blown into the balcony... Recently, a cute Teddy Bear Floor Mat was blown into my balcony too! Hehe... its almost the same as the one I bought for my toilet. Gonna wash it and use it somewhere else...

See the cute Teddy Bear Floor Mat? This is the toilet to my Master Bedroom. There a toilet ajoining to each Bedroom. Got my Landlord to install a pole for me so I can hang up the shower curtain I've bought.

This is another little garden which is juz outside the window beside my toilet door. It is juz pots of plants to create greenery around the staircase area outside.

Finally, this is the 2nd furnished Bedroom. It also has a queen size bed with pillows. I have used on of the pillows in this room to put in my Master Bedroom... that's why only 1 left.. Think I will juz this one over too. Unless someone is coming over to visit me... anyone interested? =) Also, the balcony to this room is used as my drying area for my laundry as there's sun in the afternooon shining on this balcony. Remember right at the start of this entry, I mentioned about the balcony which you can see from the apartment entrance? Yup.. this is the one... it also brings the tour of my humble abode to a close... hmm... a very long post indeed... spent a LONG time getting this done with all the alignments correct.

Not to mention that I had also spent the Sat mopping the whole house twice and cleaning all other stuffs... Phew... okie... Next entry shall be on the Diwali celebrations they have in India... stay tuned.... =Þ

Been really busy with Tender Document preparations as well as settling down with my apartment. Busy shopping for all sorts of household items and daily necessities. Wah...didn't know that there are actually so many things to be bought! Haven't even started buying food stuffs yet.

On the Landlord side, everyday have to liaise with him on which items to be done up in the house. Things such as lights not fixed, getting him to install a rod for me to put up a shower curtain, fixing clothes hanger behind bedroom door, moving the furnitures into positions I wanted. Also not to mention about getting the cable tv connected, broadband internet connection etc... Everything takes damm long. Everyday he will tell me the person doing that particular thing will come tomorrow, everyday is "tomorrow". Duh....

Just bought a comforter today @ sales price of about S$35 and matching bedsheets with pillow cases @ S$17, two square cushions for the living room sofa @sales price of S$3.50 each... reasonable quality for its price, a glass bowl with some colour stones to decorate the living room coffee table @ S$9. Going for all bargain prices for my apartment.

There's this local hypermarket called "Big Bazaar", bought many household stuffs there. Those sale items are really cheap. Tupper ware like those branded "Lip-Lock" ones are going for 25% of the branded ones. Will be going back there either later tonight or tomorrow to buy more stuffs and also to buy food. They have this membership card scheme where it's free to apply and they give u 1kg of sugar free each month! Wah... so nice ah.. I must wait for my bank account to be opened first before applying (it's coming to 1 month already and the HSBC account is still dunno what status???)

Will be uploading photos of my furnished apartment once my home broadband internet connection is up. Can't be depending on the slow wireless data network card the company got for me to upload photos... will take eons to do so..

Stay tuned for my furnished place... =)

P.S I have removed the Tag-Message board as the website seemed to be having troubles. Will put it back once the provider solve their problems.

My Apartment Finally...

This is brand new apartment… abt 10min drive from office… with a nice spacious kitchen. It has a separate area at the end for the gas cylinder storage and washing machine. Looks good.The

Landlord will provide water purifier, washing machine, smoke extractor and refrigerator.




This is the photo of the would-be Master Bedroom. Very spacious too. It has a nice balcony, enuff to put a chair and small table outside if I wanted a place to rest n relax. But the view is not that great as next door is another building. This apartment is on the 2nd floor. The Landlord will be furnishing with a King size bed and a normal working desk with chair too. The built-in cabinet is also brand new, need some cleaning though.

There are 3 bedrooms altogether, each will have its own toilet with shower. However, the landlord will only be furnishing 2 bedrooms due to the budget. Well, its okie. Dun think I’ll be utilizing up to 3 bedrooms anyway. =)

Hmm, no mirrors fixed at the toilets at the moment but the Landlord will get it up for me. Maybe I’ll need to install a nice shower curtain myself. The photo on the left is the balcony at the Living room which will be furnished with a sofa set. Landlord will also be providing curtains for all the windows. Hope he will choose nice colours.


There is also a spacious dining area which I didn’t manage to take a photo of… Dining table with chairs will be provided too.

Pretty good place… Finally a reasonable one after these weeks of view rubbish apartments. However, I can still foresee many problems ahead.

1) Getting the cutlery and crockery (How to eat when I move in on Tuesday??)
2) Microwave oven
3) Electrical Rice Cooker
4) Electrical kettle
5) Iron and Ironing board

Nevertheless, at least I got my apartment…

More photos around Bangalore...


Some government building... really big and grand...

















Barton Centre is at MG road... and another typical boutique stall - Adidas.

Now the more down-to-earth local market... Russel Market...

The photo with buses is their Bus Interchange...












Planet Fitness? ... here's Pet Planet... they sell all kinds of pets... from fishes to birds (small birds to big parrots)...







Looks familar? In Singapore, there's also this MLM company... Its near DLS office... at the old Lam Gui Fang.

Acer Service Centre











This is the Acer service centre which I went to to seek assistance in configuring my laptop wireless network card... however, end up that I can configure it out myself... They did help me to take out some dirt that going underneath my "A" button on the keyboard...