Grampians

Grampians, a western Victoria District, is a very beautiful place having diverse walk tracks, parks, lookouts and stunning scenic spots.

In the cool breeze and the temperature touches down 11 degree, we have started on Monday Morning. Having lunch at Halls Gap around 1 PM, we collected few details on tourist spots from information centre and planned our first trip to The Pinnacle. We parked our coach at Wonderland car park and took a walk through Great Canyon, Cool Chamber and Silent Street. Finally, we reached The Pinnacle with empty water bottles. We took totally 3 hours return trip. After tea refreshments, we spent our evening at Lake Bellfield. It is surrounded by mountains in three sides and the Embankment runs a length of 0.7 KM.

Tired out of first day, we relaxed at our Cottage in “Halls Gap Valley Lodge” with beer and music. My suggestion is to take accommodation here if you are visiting Grampians. Kangaroos and Emus might cross your door steps.

A very fresh and sunny morning on second day, we started towards McKenzie Falls. On the way, we hop out at Boroka Lookout and Reed Lookout to glimpse the beauty of Halls Gap and its ranges. It was nearly 300 steps to reach McKenzie Falls base. Believe me, it’s gorgeous. Then, we headed towards Brambuk National Park and Culture Centre and spent an hour there. After lunch, we reached Mt Williams, highest peak in Grampians. It was too hard to walk for 2 KM from the car park in elevated road on hill. Believe me, it’s amazing and wonderful view of Grampians.

Then our clock ticked to start towards Melbourne.

One year in Australia

Wow! I’ve completed one year in Australia (Melbourne). I’m looking back the days when I was in Off-shore. Being a highly workaholic person, I was very eager to go for On-site. Yes, it’s my first foreign trip in my life. New place, new people, salary in $ and Kangaroos were various factors boozing my excitement.

I got an excellent exposure while working with business users. Kolkata and Melbourne are the most important places in my life that made lot of changes in my life. I learnt a lot through my experiences in these cities. I suggest everyone to move out of your native place to work especially in bachelor life.

Australia, world’s fifth largest country, is a very beautiful place to live for new visitors. You could find mixed culture environment. Being an Island and a part of Oceania, Australia strictly follows Law and Order and highly secured place. I’ve visited 4 states – Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales (Sydney) and Queensland (Gold Coast).

Since I’m staying at Melbourne, I knew Victoria better than any other states in Australia. Victoria – “the place to be” is very beautiful place, best known for VIC roads. Being a capital of Victoria, Melbourne is also serves as a capital of Australia for Sports and culture. Public transport is one of the merits for Melbourne. It’s connected by Busses, Trams and Trains. Gippsland, Geelong, Great Ocean Road, Ballarat, Mildura are various tourism places in Victoria.

Memorable events in my life are as follows:
a) My first foreign country
b) Salary in $
c) My Nikon P90
d) My First Business Suite
e) Parents were here with me for 3 months
f) Performed music with 3 Australians
g) Parties
h) AFL
i) Australia Open
j) MCG
k) Guitar
l) Hip-Hop

How can I skip “Attacks on Indians”? I never come across this. Moreover, Australians are very kind and friendly in nature. Indians may complain me about my support towards Australians. However, Australians are good. I love their culture, sports, humanity, etc,.

Do visit Australia once in your life time!!!!

The 7 Golden Days

Have you read “Did I catch the train?”

14-June-2009

It had been a long time nearly 7 months; I met my friends and relatives, tasted my mom’s food and heard my dad’s advice. Besides my busy schedule, as well as UAT of my application, I came down to Madurai to attend my friend’s marriage. She is Preethy, one of the 5 members in Microsoft Project. I met some of my class mates there.

Next day, I travelled to Tirunelveli to my uncle’s house to meet my cousin and her children. My brother and sister-in-law, who returned from their kanyakumari trip, joined us. After having lunch, we started towards my village “Sambavar Vadakarai”. Even today, we are paying Rs. 40/- as electrical charge, no water pump, no television, red stone flooring, etc., quite enjoyable. My sister-in-law, who visited for the first time, felt happy about our heritage. The interesting scene was there in our group 2 mothers-in-law and 2 daughters-in-law. My Sister-in-law — My Mom — My Grand Mother (my dad’s mom).

During our second day, we travelled to Kutralum, showered in five falls and visited my dad’s paternal aunt’s house and had lunch (feast) in my mom’s maternal aunt’s house. I snored for few minutes, latter we packed for Madurai.

Wednesday, my brother’s parents-in-law arrived to our house. We visited Meenakshi Amman Temple, which looked elegant after renovated for ‘Kumba Abishegam’.

Following day, I woke up around 3 AM on Thursday and dressed up with my new T-shirt for ‘homam’ (Ganapathy homam and Sudersana Homam). All 9 types of grains and herbal sticks had been kindling the agni. That day evening, everybody left for their home town except me, my parents and my granny.

Friday, I visited IMS and my guru, Balsu sir. More changes reflected in that office. On the first weekend, the day I had to leave for Kolkata. I felt very sad, missing something and afraid about my parents that do feel the same. While I was waving hands through the window, I saw my mom’s smiling face and drenching heart with waving hands.

In the hot Chennai, my sister-in-law prepared vadai, adai, idli, dosai, 2 varieties of chutney and sambar. It was a huge breakfast. Between my break fast and my heavy lunch, she provided a glass full of juice as well. Around 4 PM, we picked 70D to our uncle’s house at Koratoor. We left at 9:30 PM after dinner.

22-June-2009

We had a very sound sleep, woke up around 7 AM. My brother was having his second shift and my sister-in-law got permission from her leader to reach office by 1 PM. My flight time was 2:25 PM. We reached airport at 1:35 PM and boarded into the flight around 2:15 PM. I thought it might take another 6 months to come there.

Look Back May 2009

Hi everyone, every time you are waiting for nearly one month between the posts. Today, 31st March 2009 at 1:43 AM, I’m not getting words to curve it in my log.
My New Home , PG & friends
Now I’ve shifted my lodging from PG to a house in Newtown, where my friends are staying there. It’s a two bedroom flat with kitchen etc. For the last 3-4weeks, my Dosa guy went to his native place for vacation and I felt very bore with that PG but I won’t forget my days over there. We were 5 guys from different parts of India such as Tamil Nadu (I), Jammu & Kashmir (Rahul), Rajasthan (Shanky), Assam ( Anu) and Nepal (Raj). We had a very good time every day. Every night, we went for a long night walk, with kulfi or juice or ice cream in our hand and radio in our mouth, for about 40 minutes to 1 hour. Our non-stop FM radio talks on several topics rather we can say debated on several topics from poverty to politics, from terrorists to technology and every issue in the world. Now, I’m missing those days.

UPA

• Congratulation for the victory in the election
• I hope there will be smooth growth in industries, employment, education, etc.
• Let’s hope for the best

IPL

• 8th seeded Deccan Charges snatched IPL 2 Title
• All the best and hats off to Bangalore Royal Challengers
• Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders should come up in the IPL 3 Table
• Chenni Super Kings should improve their bowling and fielding

I’ve started my CAT preparation. This time, it’s online and hence IMS is providing us e-test series. It’s really hard for me to find time between my MBA preparations, my guitar and work. And today, I’ve started Chords (C & G7).

Ok. Take care. See you in next post

My Birthday

Birthday – I
It’s my 23rd Birthday and celebrated my birthday away from my home for the second time at kolkata. Do you mind if I talk about my celebrations? The truth is there is no celebration. As busy as a birthday boy with phone calls, messages, I reached my office at time. My birthday greetings reached me through mails as well. In the evening, my team mates bought cake for me and have fun along with veg Patties. All non-veg lovers were felt very sad but it’s not me who organised, my team mates did this since I’m vegetarian. Left office around 6:45 PM to Girish Park to worship Lord Venkatesh along with my relative. Thats it, my wonderful 24th year started.

Birthday – II
You have read my Birthday-I of the year 2009. Now let’s move to Birthday – II. I don’t have 2 DOBs. My DOB falls on 19 Jan 1986 according to the English calendar. According to Tamil calendar, it falls on ‘Barani‘ Star in ‘Thai‘ month. Actually, Tamil Calendar depends on lunar. So, there is no specific day for any occassions, we need to calculate the occassions according to the stars. There are 27 stars, 12 Signs and 12 months. It’s interesting right. If we look ‘Aadi‘ month, it has 32 days. We can explore lot of interesting things into these topics. I will update this post regarding that.

Few references:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakshatra
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_calendar