Bangalore Journey...

2007-11-28T08:05:00.000+05:30

23 more days to leave Bangalore...

2007-08-29T05:21:00.000+05:30

Just got to learn about this new local movie in Singapore called "881". This is the theme song "一人一半". I find that the song is really nice and sincere. It has spurred on my interest to view the other mtvs of the movie on Youtube and I would also like to reccomend this other one.

It is called "代替". I feel that these songs have very nice lyrics and will definitely brings out the mood of the story in the movie. I hope this movie will be still showing in the cinemas when I go back Singapore soon. =) Looking forward to buy the soundtrack too.

Read many good reviews from the net about the movie. I alwiz liked local productions when I can relate to the story and characters easily. It is also very interesting that how hokkien songs are being brought to the main stream by this daring young director. Thumbs up!

2007-08-26T04:01:00.000+05:30

Go-karting

Hi all,

Finally, I'm back on this long neglected blog of mine. Time flies... In another 3 weeks time, it will be the 1 year anniversary of my overseas posting in Bangalore. Nope, I will not be celebrating the anniversary in Bangalore. I'd be at the Land of the Rising Sun. =)

Well, things have been pretty boring and uninteresting for the past few months and thus I've been lacking in materials or subjects to post over here. However, the recent trip to try out Gokarting in Bangalore does give me some new photos to put up.

This the Gokarting track which I went to. It is a pretty small circuit. Takes abt 40-50 seconds to complete one lap. The corners are not that challenging as I would imagine. Well, I should be grateful that they have such things here in the first place. The karts are quite ok and the cost is rather affordable. About S$4.80 every 6 laps.

Well, I can't help it but to comment on the driving of the locals. Unlike those hell drivers on the real roads where they can manovure and wingle among the total chaos of vehicles and human, I am surprised at the way the few locals drive on the track. Crashing all over. No offense to lady drivers, there was a local lady who just drove right up a small island in the middle of the track too. And looking at this photo, it is a good example of Indians.... alwiz arguing... one blaming the other of causing the crash... they just never blame themselves.

On the side tracks, there is also a perfect example of how ridiculous and inconsiderate some locals are. Almost everyone don't know what is the meaning of queueing. Some even gave nonsense reasons like "Oh.. we need to go off by 4.30pm, we need to go on the tracks first." Duh.... I can also say "I forgot to switch off my light at home, let me go first so I can go home earlier to switch off the light."

Besides the bad experience of the irritating people crowding all around the gate, there was another unfortunate incident. My nokia phone's LCD cracked internally. I think it only happpened during my last 6 laps. I do not understand how come it will crack internally when it is in a protective cover and the cover and the external of the phone did not crack. Suay lar... Or mebbe I drove too fast? The phone not built to withstand the G force? Hahaha...

Maybe it broke for a reason too. Anyway, gotta look for a new phone soon...

2007-01-13T15:18:00.000+05:30

My Housewarming Gathering ...

Held my housewarming gathering on the 7th January 2007, invited the usual group of Singaloreans to my place to have dinner. It was the first time since I moved in the first week of October 2006 that my apartment has so many people. It was also the first time for me to prepare food for so many people. Planning has to start way back at the beginning of the week… plan on what the menu should be… where to buy the ingredients… drinks…. how to prepare the food… utensils… yup… not easy.

I remember the last time I cooked for some gathering it was a Black pepper crab meal for a bunch of frends quite sometime back. Black pepper crab was relatively easy to prepare especially the black pepper sauce is readily available at the stores. However, there are no fresh live crabs in Bangalore. Therefore I can only fall back on the few other dishes which I know – Stir-fried beef slices, Chicken chops, simple Bai Cai with shrimps and Bak Kut Teh (using ready-made sachets).

Preparing those food can really be challenging as I need to “programme” exactly what I should do starting from having to thaw every kind of meat in the morning. Oh ya… they don’t sell deboned chicken drumsticks here so I had to debone the drumsticks by myself… 15 of them. Washing and cutting the vegetables and peeling the garlic is also time consuming, not to mention the neck ache I got from the prolonged position of looking down as I cut the stuffs.

After the meat is marinated while I cut the vegetables, I started frying my chicken chops. Having small pans, I had to fry the chicken concurrently using 2 pans and had to do it twice to fry all the chicken. Challenging huh? Hehe… as I was frying inside my kitchen, I even almost didn’t hear my doorbells ringing as the first few guests arrive. Not exactly as I planned as I had to continue my cooking in the kitchen instead of entertain the guests.

Next was frying the beef. I was thinking if I could shortcut the “frying two pans at the same time “ thing as beef usually get cooked very fast so I put all the beef in the bigger pan to fry it once… bad choice… I think there were just too much beef for the pan capacity thus it doesn’t necessary heat for all the meat. Moreover, the beef were giving out water that I had to keep draining the water. I think the beef was cooked abit too long in that process and wasn’t as tender as it usually should be.
After the not so successful beef, I reverted back to 2 pans at same time for the vegetable. Once again, I think the pans were too small that after frying all the vegetable leaves, there ain’t space to put in the cut stems.

Nevertheless, all the food are brought out on the dining table and somehow, 10 of us managed to squeeze around the round table for dinner. With additional contribution of food from Margaret, Raymond and Sam, there is enough food to fill everyone’s stomach. After dinner, it’s time to catch an exciting FA cup tie featuring Man Utd vs Aston Villa which Man Utd managed to conjure a win in the injury time through their ever-supersub Solskjaer and to enjoy a nice dessert contributed by Sharon.

As I was busy preparing food and no time to take good photos, I have to refer you people again =) Photos taken by CK.
http://singalore.blogspot.com/2007/01/kah-mings-housewarming.html

2007-01-01T18:08:00.000+05:30

NYE...

We had a small gathering at Ternasser's place with the few Singaporeans left in Bangalore as most of them has returned to Singapore over the holidays. Though smaller crowd, we still had fun with Mahjong and good food prepared by Ternasser.

After the clock struck 12am, we decided to go and set some fireworks (bought since deepavali)which I have brought. We tried to access the rooftop where it would be safer to play but it was locked up. So we went downstairs to the swimming pool area to try out the fireworks and crackers. It's the first time for many of us playing with such prohibited stuffs back in Singapore.

It was hell fun and loud time!

Started off with the crackers (those CNY kind). Just light the fuse and throw to the driveway area... Early celebrations for CNY... =)

Hock Lum seemed to be the most experienced one dealing with these crackers. He took initiative to try out all of those different kinds of cracker, fireworks, bombs... Chris helped to light the fuse most of the time as he had his lighter and most of us were not brave enough to light those short fuses.

Its a swinging sparkle... after swinging for awhile HL swinged it into the empty swimming pool... and oops... it left some burnt mark on the swimming pool mosaic tiles. Hopefully it can be cleaned off. Hehe... or the resident here may be in trouble.

The most fun fireworks are the rockets. HL and Raymond found suitable "launching pads" amongst the branches of the plants and we launch the rockets from there.

These rockets can fly as high as 7-8 storeys. Luckily they are mostly vertical flyers and don't end up in other residents' balconies. =)

We also tried those big bursts of sparkles....

There were also others such as snakes (will fly around randomly), Peacocks (small bang sound), Hydrogen Bombs (really big bangs) and many others... HL was once almost hit by a flying cracker.. luckily the column he hid behind at saved him...

At the end of the "Cracking" session, we did suffer some casualties.. Chris and Raymond's thumbs were slightly burnt when they were lighting fuses... Hope it doesn't hurt that much and will recover real soon. Thanks for their sacrifices. =)

Lastly, let's end with another of HL's silhouette photo...

2007-01-01T17:34:00.000+05:30

Brand new post for the brand new year.

Yup... I know its been another long time since my last post. Been really busy and too lazy to post. Moreover, not much new photos to put up too. However, I will still do a quick summary of what has happened over the month of december.

Throughout the month of Decemember since my last post, I have been busy with work. One of the amusing thing which I have encountered is that one of my local colleagues actually assumed helicopter landing pads to be found on the ground floor of a residential development. There should be 1 pad for each cluster of connected blocks, where to find so much space to have helipads on the ground? Well, it was surprising to me but I have to forgive them for their knowledge as there isn't that many skycrapers in India for them to know that helipads for tall buildings are meant to be at the rooftops. Then again, they should have watched movies or tv advertisements which have shown helipads in the roofs... eg. Independent Day. Ok... shalln't argue further.

Then comes Christmas!...

This is the Christmas decorations at the Bangalore office. Erm... I have sent this photo to some friends previously and they all laughed... hehe.. well... this is a real tree... not a fake one.

Christmas is actually celebrated in Bangalore as well. There are many christians around too. Besides the churches, the people acutally do organise some christmas parties themselves. The residential block beside our office held a family fun and games party on their rooftop on one of those nights nearing to Christmas.

For us, the Singaporeans here, we had a Christmas gathering party at the Chia's house. It was good fun and good food! Plentiful spread of nice home-cooked food. I had contributed my sambal prawns.

We had a gift exchange thingy for Christmas spirit. I've got a black addidas cap. Thank you to the person who bought that. =)

Good party and some of them stayed back to play Mahjong till wee hours in the morning. U can view this entry for a better description and photos of this gathering. http://singalore.blogspot.com/2006/12/christmas-party-2006.html

I called taxi to fetch me back. It was another confusing process. Called one operator, he told me he has no cabs around my area so I called the other company. After talking for a long time to tell him the address, I thought he understood... in the end, I got a call from a cab driver asking for directions again. Duh... Never mind, then another cab driver called me ... he is from the 1st operator I have called. So confusing... dunno how these people work. Anyway, I did managed to get back home safe and sound.

For Christmas itself, I din really go out as I was quite tired with all the rush work in office and also the thought of trying to get transport (telling drivers directions etc) makes me totally sian. Had a good rest at home and played WoW.

2006-12-11T22:09:00.000+05:30

Some of my home cooked food...

Sambal prawns...

Bak Kut Teh... Yummy =Þ

2006-12-11T21:24:00.000+05:30

Some more "Uniquely India" photos for your viewing pleasure...

Ever seen such long fire extinguisher? Not me...

This photo is taken from Grand Ashok hotel where I went for the Branded clothes sales about 3 weeks back. Really good warehouse sales... armani exchange, zara, D&G, FCUK, DKNY etc... all originals... I guess they are surplus from exporting goods...
Very good deals... one long sleeve or short sleeve shirt/Tshirt for only S$15-20. I bought so many... I think I don't need to shop for the next year already. Oh ya... also bought a Gucci pants for S$60... can't imagine myself buying Gucci in my life if it's at the normal prices.

1st December, I think this is the world's Aids Day. I didn't know about it till I see long line of people walking along the roads... as if they are on a demostration (luckily its a peaceful one)...

2006-12-11T19:52:00.000+05:30

Finally got the time to blog again...

You guys must have been wondering what has happened to me. =) Well, I'm still well and kicking here in Bangalore. Like what people always say... "you will get to open your eyes when you go abroad... you will experience new things that you never knew..." Very true indeed in every aspect. However, more importantly, its how you handle such experiences that matters. Sometimes, you got to just change the way you see things to suit the new environment.

Talking about new environment... Let's get on the the minibus to go to Nandi Hills... let me show you the short day trip, I made together with the fellow singaporeans in Bangalore on 26th November (ya... I know... can almost considered as outdated news liao)...

It is a relatively small hill 1,478 meters above sea level, 65km away from the Bangalore city. The bus journey took about 1.5-2hrs.

When we reached the hilltop after the numerous turns and passed a really narrow entrance gate, we decided to find a cooling place with nice view to have our lunch as we came prepared with lotsa delicious food like fried mee hoon, curry chicken, apple pie and bread etc. No humans can resist such delicacies, not to mention our distant cousins - monkeys!

It was really quite scary to lunch when you got the whole family of hungry monkeys staring at your food. Luckily some dogs came along... also eyeing at our food... but at least they helped to chase away the monkeys. We did give these dogs some food for their effort.

Tried to do a pananormic view of the place but the photos did not stitch up that well (click on it to get enlarged view)... haha.. partly also because I took the left side in the afternoon and the nice sunset in the evening. =Þ

Basically its juz this kind of view, very steep vertical cliffs on the perimeter of the hill. Weather not that cooling up there because it is of higher ground. It's only until the evening time when the winds start to blow and the usual cool (cold) evening temperature drops in.

Here are some more of the photos...

Wonder how does this cow get here on the hill?!

And my favourite (love this kind of background sky)...

Please do visit the other blog for another entry where u get much better photos...

http://singalore.blogspot.com/2006/11/nandi-hills.html

2006-11-22T23:20:00.000+05:30

adopt your own virtual pet!

Hmm... Just tot this was cute to add in my blog. Have fun playing with Nekkie!

2006-11-16T21:57:00.000+05:30

HSBC... the world's local Bank...

Ermm is this slogan correct? Hopefully it doesn't mean the Indian local bank version. Today, I have finally received my debit card and my bank account number after 2 months here? I think the lengthy delay is partly due to my company's admin people and also the inefficent working procedures of HSBC in India. Yeah... Hadn't received the full amount of my last month's pay and had been surviving on the advance handout (cash from cash cheque).

Well... as I alwiz mentioned, people here never fails to surprise me... here comes....

I mentioned I received my debit card right? The PIN should be sent in separate letters and luckily it did arrive together on the same day with the debit card but in different mails. How lucky... no need to wait... Let me show you my PIN (IMPORTANT : Do not disclose your PIN to any person, not even the Bank staff)....

Can you see it? No? Did they use any high-tech invisible ink? Should I catch the new James Bond movie to learn new spy skills to decode this PIN?

Hmm... oops... its blank... the Bank has such high security that it doesn't tell the printer the PIN to be printed for its customers. Looks like I've still gotta wait sometime before I can use my debit card to withdraw money from the ATMs... so I still gotta spend my remaining cash carefully.

2006-11-16T21:47:00.000+05:30

An view of the surrounding area of my project's site.

Just been to my project site for the 2nd time (1st time was when I just arrived in Bangalore) to do evaluation for the showflat that is under construction currently.

2006-11-16T21:37:00.000+05:30

Just wanted to show you pple the interiors of Garuda Mall just in case you all are wondering how Indian Shopping Centres look like.

Garuda Mall photos

Yeap.... they had Mark's & Spencer here too like what I've mentioned in my 1st entry. However, they do not sell those lovely cookies like Singapore ones.

2006-11-15T19:30:00.000+05:30

On Monday, I had accidentally sat on my specs and caused it to bend a little. Just wanted to share with you people the kind of life I get here... ("screw") ups & downs.

I asked my driver to send it to any Optical shop to see if they can help me bend it back properly. Before lunch, my driver returned with the specs... still not properly bent. So I guess I had to go personally to tell the optician how it should have been done.

When I reached the shop, the person say that they do not have the necessary equipment like the simple plyer. I would have to leave my specs behind for him to send to the workshop for fixing. Ok... just leave it with him...

The next day, when my driver collected back the specs, it is still not really twisted back properly. I had to scout the whole MG road and Brigade road for optical shops. I remembered when I was just strolling along these places, optical shops are everywhere. Strangely, that night... all these shops seemed to have disappeared. Managed to find one optical cum watch shop. The guy examined my specs closely for sometime and tell me it will break if he tried. I asked if I could borrow the plyer, I'll do it myself. He said he dun have plyers. Duh... 2nd shop that dun have plyers. Can't believe how they adjust spectacles.

Got to another shop along MG road. He said his technician had gone home and locked his toolbox. Duh... I decided to try my luck at this shopping centre called Garuda Mall as my driver said the shops close ard 9 to 10pm... it was only 8.45pm then... Gosh... the only 1 optical shop is closed. =(

Finally today, I went to find the one at MG road (technician gone home that one). To my surprise, the shop is closed! Closed on a Wednesday daytime. Maybe scared that I'd go and find them. Anyway, found another optical shop along MG road. The boss was once again another one who is reluctant to help. Until I persauded him to just lend me his tools, I'll do everything at my own risk. He only then agreed to let his helper bring me to the basement. This helper is a young chap. Very eager to help. However, he is overly cautious about handling my specs that he didn't really bend it back properly too. I took over n try. He was nice to remind me on which part of the specs i must be careful not to apply too much pressure as it may affect its alignment to an extent where the lens will not be able to be held in the frame.

Yeah... learnt something new... He got impatient looking at me fumbling with it that he decided to kar kar lai and bent it hard...and he managed to kinda fix the specs to my satisfaction. He was nice guy who refuse to accept tips from me... Hmm.... Moral of the story is... in India, everything can screw up in ways you could not have imagine. However, most things will eventually work out and works out better that what you expect (maybe after too much disappointment, your expectations dropped too).

Very longwinded hor? hehe...

2006-11-15T19:01:00.000+05:30

Okie people, finally got myself to post another entry....

It has been over a week since my last entry... Well, I've managed to accumulate enough materials to blog now.

This is Bangalore Central Shopping Centre. One of the newest ones around here I guess. It is basically one big mega mall where it is a departmental store spreading over 6 storeys I think. It sells everything that a normal deparmental store will but it is not really a Hypermarket. However, the supermarket on the topmost floor does have some vegetable which I hardly see elsewhere. I managed to buy my first "Bai Cai" from there. Its called "Exotic Phakchoy" on its price tag... yeah..considered exotic enough over here.
They taste quite nice with my oyster sauce. I also managed to cook garlic fried rice too. This is the second attempt and it finally got the taste of garlic unlike the 1st attempt.

Looks like they are celebrating Christmas like back home in Singapore? Hehe... nah... it was Karnataka Formation Day on the 1st Nov recently. Only till last week, the people around my area started the mini celebration with lights and getais... yah... "Getai"s like our 7th month festival like that... they set up stages for people to sing and perform on the streets. They also celebrated their Elephant God, Lord Ganesha together. 2 birds in one stone...

Well, it does make me think of the chirstmas lightings along orchard road.. heard that the lights are on already to create the festive season atmosphere to make Singaporeans spend..

Here's a "Uniquely India" kinda photo. A bus with roses stuck to the sides with scotch tapes and also colour papers stuck on the wheels. Wonder if its related to the State Formation Day celebrations.

Over here, they do have unique buildings which catches my eye too. This is a castle-like building along St Marks Road. I liked the castle stone wall kind of design. I think we might only see this kind of designs in Singapore when they clad up a busstop along Orchard for some advertisement.

2006-11-04T10:29:00.000+05:30

Yes... Its been quite sometime since I last upload new posts. I guess I'm getting abit lazy in trying to find photos or any themes to post in my blog. I realised that I'd better post something here or I'll start to lose the interests of people popping by my blog and see the same posts all the time. =)

Took some photos last week during lunch time at the places I went for lunch during working days. The first 3 photos are from Koshys Restaurant off St. Mark's Road. Koshys is quite a old established name in Bangalore I reckon as they also have a few confectionaries in their name. I ate a grill meat platter... really alot of meat.. beef, mutton, chicken, chicken liver, bacon and egg. It is also served with bread n butter... all for abt S$10.

Next is the Japanese Restaurant "Harima". They serve Japanese set lunches with quite a few choices. Teriyaki beef/ Teriyaki Chicken/ Tofu etc.... I forgot the other choices.. hehe. The food is quite nice... but it's quite costly too... it's about S$14-16.

Over the past weeks, there were also gatherings organised by the Singaporeans (they call themselves "Singaloreans") and their Indian friend, Saritha.

On the 29th Oct, they celebrated Chris's birthday which fall on the 30th Oct. We have a fest at his place with all the wonderful food prepared by his wife Margaret. We had popiah and fried hokkien mee which makes me start to miss the singapore food.

On 1st Nov, Karnataka Formation holiday, we went to our indian friend's place. A nicely decorated home at Saritha's place and she prepared some curry crabs for us. (Rare to see crabs availiable in Bangalore). Had some good fun 'dancing' after the dinner and desserts.

Look at everyone crowding around the table for food....

2006-10-23T19:55:00.000+05:30

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...

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

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...

2006-10-23T01:50:00.000+05:30

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

2006-10-14T17:00:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-10-07T22:52:00.000+05:30

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…

2006-10-03T18:20:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-10-03T18:09:00.000+05:30

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...

2006-10-03T17:42:00.000+05:30

Okie... showing you guys my current service apartment... However, I gotta move out to another lousier apartment all because of the property agent (the company driver) who is unable to settle my apartment problem for sooooo long that this service apartment is unable to accomodate me due to its pre-arranged bookings. This driver... alwiz wasting my time... show me crap apartments deep inside estates where its impossible to walk out to a main road thru those dark and poorly lit alleys or to a nearest provision shop at nights. When there are better ones and I made my choice on it... then he tells me the landlord is unable to offer me at the company's budget. CRAP... wasting my time... It happened twice already...

2006-10-03T17:05:00.000+05:30

Hey people,

It has been Holidays for me for both Monday (Gandhi's Birthday) and Tuesday (Office hols), therefore I finally have time to post more photos for your pleasure viewing...

First... my office and my pathetic table...

The one on the top is a view of the office from my table (bottom)... My table is sooo.. small... according to my boss... its temporary... he is looking for a bigger office for 100pax and move by January 2007... let's see what happens then... for now... =(

This is the outside view of the office building... Bikaner Signature Tower... erm... ya... nothing much to say about this building.

Let's have a look at the JP Nagar project which I am helping out (not my project)...
Keith, you remember what you were measuring and estimating when you first joined DLS? This is the product...

Under Construction...

Pictures from the Showhouse... looks good with the imported furniture... but poor workmanship when I see the walls, floors and finishes in detail...

Primitive bore piling methods used in India... looks like I'm doing a school project on construction methods...

Okie... more photos of other places in my next post...

2006-09-27T00:42:00.000+05:30

Remember those bubbles we play with when we were young... They actually decorate it with small stuffs like "Love you" little hearts and sell on MG Rd... wonder who will buy... hehe =)
This is the Indian pirated version of Hello kitty.
Pictures at a club called "Taika" in Bangalore... colleague brought me there on my first Friday in Bangalore.

2006-09-27T00:37:00.000+05:30

Here are some of the photos I took when I explored the MG Rd, Brigade Rd by myself last Sunday.

Levi's Square... not bad huh?
KFC!!!!
Pizza Hut... Swarovski....
Busy street huh? so crowded....

2006-09-25T22:06:00.000+05:30

Dear All,

More than a week has passed... Away I am in this foreign land of India, Bangalore. Thought it would be great to set up a blog to show you guys n gals how I am getting on and also to know more about this India IT Hub City...

Here's the Bangalore Map I found online for a start....
http://www.onlinebangalore.com/guide/map/blrmap.html

Okie... not easy to see here... click on the link... My office is somewhere in the middle, along Richmond Road and the apartment i'm trying to get is about 1km away from the office. A blow-up map for you...

The main shopping district are along Mahatma Gandhi Road and Brigade Road.

They do have some of the international brands here such as Levi's, Nike, Adiddas, MANGO and Marks & Spencers. Prices of things over here are comparable to Singapore so not really that enticing to be shopping here.

Food wise, Chinese food, Western Food and Fastfood such as Macdonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut can be found here. I tried a Japanese Restaurant before too. Not bad... but a meal cost about the same as Singapore... around S$7 to S$12. Macdonald's and KFC combo meal is ard S$4. For Pizza Hut, a personal pan pizza+garlic bread+500ml softdrink is about S$6.50.

More photos in the next Entry....