Ugly Vs ugli

Posted on February 9, 2014 | 5 comments

AS teases me sometimes that I don’t know Nepali very well. I get annoyed because I find myself to be good in Nepali language but sometimes I do and say something to prove him right.

Normally we communicate in a mix of English and Nepal. I have to admit I can’t communicate in Nepal only but I try my best to talk in Nepali to prove him wrong.

While watching a movie,

Me: “ohoo tyo herion ta kasto ugly rahecha” (ohoo the actress is so ugly)

AS: “I like her, she looks alright”

Me:”I like her too but she is so ugly”

AS started laughing because he realised that I was trying to say ugli (tall in Nepali) but when mixed in an English sentence it sounded like ugly instead.

The pitfalls of speaking using two languages 😦

Please share your experience in this matter.

Take care everyone ,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

5 Comments

Posted in He said

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My money, your money

Posted on February 7, 2014 | 16 comments

Everyone dreams of a perfect marriage and a perfect partner but not everyone is lucky in life. There are many factors that might rock the boat of marriage and money can be one of the main factors.

In the past, money was mainly the responsibility of the man and few women had access to money and as a result money didn’t play a vital role in marriage, as men worked hard to earn money and women looked after house and kids. However, these days more and more women are working, making most household a dual income house.

This has brought lots of question to newly married couple.

Are we going to combine all the finance so your debt is my debt and so is the money?

Are we going to keep your money as your money and my money as mine but share all the expense?

These decisions in life play a vital role on which direction the marriage will go.

Growing up in Nepal, I have seen most of the couples live in dual-income marriages where each has full access and control of their own and their partners earnings. But in Australia, I have seen the couples living happily in both arrangements.

One of the reasons why people are hesitant to combine their finances is because they are scared to lose control over their money. They don’t want another person to tell them how to spend their money or what to do with their money.

I can’t tell you whether or not you should combine your finances with your significant other; it has a lot to do with individual comfort levels, trust, and many other marital issues. However, it is a decision that all couples face, particularly if they choose to marry or agree to a long-term commitment: should we combine our finances or not?

I can only tell you what I do and why I made my decision. From the day, my husband and I got together, we combined all our finances. It was not an easy decision but we made that decision together because we thought that was the path we wanted to take moving forward. We were both honest about what we had and what we wanted in future.

Both of us have the same goals like getting married, buying a house and travel. I have to admit travel was number one on my list and somewhere on the bottom on his but we made a decision that we don’t travel all the time but will have at least one big holiday a year. That sounded realistic to me so I agreed.

By combining our finance I was answerable to my big purchases so I can’t just go and spend $500 on a bag and another $200 on a dress in one day. Even before I take my credit card out of my wallet, I will have to come up with a good reason why I spent so much. It proved to be a good thing for me because I always think before I make a big purchase and when I can’t justify it, I don’t buy it. It was not that he was controlling my purchase but I knew we have a goal to reach to and buying whatever I feel like whenever I feel like was adding unnecessary obstacles in reaching our goals. And the same thing was happening with my husband which meant our saving was growing steadily.

Luckily enough our arrangement is working well for both of us and both of us are happy with what we have achieved so far. We have a long-term plan like where we want to be financially when we retire and when we have babies and we can see that if we stick to our plan. We can reach our goal and that is a very happy feeling.

Regardless of how you arrange things, you should discuss your money at least monthly with your partner. This will definitely give a real overview of your financial situation. Otherwise, imagine your surprise when you find out that your partner is in $20,000 debt.

This can be as simple or as detailed as you like, depending on your comfort level, but there should be at least some time set aside regularly so that each person can be as informed about your shared finances as possible.

I do believe that transparency and open discussions is very important in a marriage, as it will strengthen the bond of shared responsibility. When there is financial transparency and common goals, it facilitates two people pulling together rather than away from each other and marriage gets redefined as a partnership between two contributing adults.

Do share how you mange your money?

Take care and have a great weekend,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

16 Comments

Posted in Marriage, Relationship

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Rajma (red kidney beans curry)

Posted on February 6, 2014 | 11 comments

This is one of my favourite recipe as it is so easy to make is very healthy.

Ingredients

  • 200 gm Rajma (red kidney beans)
  • 2 small onions diced
  • 3 small tomatoes diced
  • 2 green chilli chopped
  • 1 small piece of cinnamon
  • Few bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon of ginger garlic paste
  • 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
  • 1 tablespoon of red chilli powder
  • 1 tablespoon of garam masala powder
  • 4 tablespoons of thickening cream
  • 2 tablespoons of oil
  • Salt to taste

Steps

  • Soak Rajma overnight and drain the water.
  • Add the rajma in a pressure cooker, add water and cook until 3-4 whistles until you can smell the rajama. Make sure not to overcook rajma.

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  • Drain the rajma.
  • In a pan, heat oil and season with cinnamon, turmeric powder and bay leaf. Add the chopped onion and fry until it turns golden brown.

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  • Add ginger garlic paste, salt, red chilli powder, garam masala powder and fry for a minute or two.
  • Add chopped tomatoes and green chillies and cook until the tomatoes are soft. Make them into a paste.

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  • You can add a small quantity of water if the paste starts to dry and keep cooking the paste until it is smooth.
  • Now add the cooked rajam and mix well.
  • Add thickening cream, mix well and turn off the heat. Do not let it boil.

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11 Comments

Posted in Nepal, Nepali food, Recipe

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In search of the perfect outfit part 1

Posted on February 5, 2014 | 16 comments

I know the title of my post says part 1 because I know there will be more drama in regards to my search for the perfect outfit.

As you may have read on my posts before, I want to find something to wear on my brother in law’s wedding. I am already thinking about it because we have only a week before the wedding starts after we land in Kathmandu and there will be so many things to be done. I am thinking that if I can choose an outfit for the wedding now then I will be less stressed. Thus began my journey in search of the perfect outfit.

I know lots of you have been through the experience so I wrote a blog post to find out about good online stores. Thanks heaps to everyone who replied to my post. I feel like I have so many friends who were lending me their support to help me out with my first world problem.

Anyway, after going through what looks like 100’s of different websites and 1000’s of different sarees and lehengas, I decided that I will be using utsavfashion.com as my final stop. Two reasons for my decision

  • One they have 24/7 operator online support
  • They have heaps of stuffs on ready to ship category.

Of course, on the website, alone I liked many outfits but the decision came down on how soon they can ship the stuff. So after eating AS’s brain for two full day and asking how different lehengas and sarees look, over the weekend we finally ordered a lehenga . It was almost what I was looking for. After talking to the online representative I found out that it would be shipped 5 days later, after stitching the top and skirt to my specification. I was happy so I went online and  paid for it. It was a big relief that it would be in Sydney before I leave and now I had one less thing to worry about.

AS was super pleased as well as I was going to stop annoying him about my outfit question. He even was nice enough to help me take measurements so the top and bottom would fit me perfectly.

But as usual how can things go so smoothly for me.

I came to work on Monday morning and while checking the email, I got the following email from ustavfashion.

Dear M,,

With reference to your order for item lehenga, we wish to inform you that due to as shown design pattern we can provide you lehenga length 40 inch long., not any shorter.

We regret for the inconvenience caused.

It will be appropriate as per your height if you wear the same with 3-3.5 inch heels.

Or

If you are not comfortable, then we request you to kindly choose any other item from the below link instead of cancelling your order:

We request you to check the item description by clicking on the read more options so that you can see the details of the item such as size and lehenga length.

Kindly advise.

If you require any further assistance then do let us know. We are looking forward to hear from you soon.

Regards,

I was really annoyed because I had asked the online rep. about it and he had said, “you just chose your length and all will be fine.” There was nothing in the description on the limit. I didn’t want a length 4 inch longer than what it should be and wearing the lehenga that high up on the waist was a no no. I wanted something that would look good on me so this option was no go zone for sure now.

After going through their website again, and the pain of spending so much time again, I didn’t find anything I could order so finally decided to cancel the order. I told the online person as well as sent an email to cancel the order and refund the money.

They really wanted me to pick something else but I didn’t want to compromise so finally they emailed to say that they are going to refund the money. I am waiting for that to happen.

In the mean time now, I am without choice and back to square one again. So it is definitely the part 1 for my search and hope to keep you update on what happens next.

I have got a few nice website suggestions from you and I hope to find something soon.

Take care everyone ,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

16 Comments

Posted in Nepal, Nepali Culture, Personal

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Lifou – New Caledonia

Posted on February 4, 2014 | 10 comments

Our next port of call was Lifou.  Both I and AS were very excited about this place as we had done some research beforehand and knew the things to do. We didn’t have a tour booked for Lifou as we wanted to tour the island ourselves.

Lifou is the largest atoll in the world – over 1,200 sq km – but it is still delightfully ‘remote’ and we had to drop anchor offshore and tender in.

It is so different visiting an island from a cruise ship as opposed to with another form of travel. Normally I would have done extensive research before going on a holiday but this time I didn’t do much as we were going on a cruise. But going on the tour in Noumea previous day we had the experience how tours normally were organised from inside the ship.  If you go on a tour, you use Australian money and pay about 2 – 5 times as much as you would if going it by yourself.  Because we’ve traveled quite a bit before, it sounded like a great idea to ditch the tour and make your own tracks. I was a bit worried but AS convinced me that it will all be good.

We had breakfast on the ship and waited for our tender boat to take us ashore. It was a beautiful sunny day and I couldn’t wait to go and swim in the water. As it looked like it might be a while before our number was called, we went to the top deck to take some photos.

From the deck of a cruise ship Lifou’s golden beach glows against the brightest of green backdrops, made up of coconut trees and a variety of smaller palms. The vegetation is so dense it blocks out everything behind.

Once we stepped on Lifou Island we knew we needed to find a church and a marine park. As we made our way to the church, we met a staff from a ship who told us that we were going the wrong direction and pointed out to the right one. It looked really far and it was getting hot. As we walked towards the direction pointed out by the ship staff we saw heaps of people coming back. I stopped one of them just to make sure we were heading in the right direction and luckily we were.

The white building we had seen from the ship turned out to be the church of Our Lady of Lourdes, built by Catholic missionaries in 1898. It takes about 25 minutes at a slow pace to get there because the weather is hot and humid year-round, but the climb is gradual, with only one steep section. We are told about 200 locals gather once a year for a mass to celebrate the founding of the church. Sweeping ocean views made it worth the climb on the brilliant, cloudless day, and the sea breeze has visitors cooled down in no time.

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The church provides a 360 degree view of Lifou – a sight not to be missed. The descent takes half the time.

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As we were making our way back we saw two local boys selling fresh coconut juice, we grabbed one each and it was nice and refreshing. I wished it was cold too but it was still worth spending $6 for 2. They also had a mud crab tied to a rock so we took some photo with it.

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On the way back, we stopped at the beautiful Jinek Bay.

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This snorkeling beach is renowned for its vast expanse of corals and wide variety of tropical fish. Couple this with warm and crystal clear water and this provides the perfect platform for a stunning afternoon of snorkeling.  I really wanted to snorkel before but you need a permit and they were not selling any on site, we couldn’t get any permits on ship as they had run out of it. The place looked beautiful from the top itself and we learned that dozens of varieties of fish were found there, including angelfish, clownfish, lionfish, blue stripe snapper, grouper clownfish (Nemo) and butterfly fish.

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As we couldn’t swim, we took as many photos as we could and decide to go and snorkel elsewhere on the Island.

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As we were returning, we met a couple, table mates for dinner on the ship, who informed us that there was a beautiful cave on the other side of the Island. As we had plenty of time, we decided to go and check that out too.

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We started walking up a hill along a road and passed a lot of people coming the other way.  Everyone we met said that the place was really beautiful so we kept on walking.  It was really hot, and we were a bit tired by then. We finally saw a church, and around the side were a few men sitting in front of a sign pointing toward the caves.  As we walked toward the cave, the men came and asked if we were going inside. He wanted money and we managed to get a good price ($10) for the two of us to get in. He wanted more but we said that’s all we had and he lets us go on.

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As we walked inside, I could see that the path was small and steep. The path got rockier and the trees bigger as we continued towards the cave. I was a bit sacred when we had to climb through tight spaces and down wet rocks.

I was thinking it was a bad idea when all I had to hold was a thick ship rope that lined the path.

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Inside the cave, it was dark but there was a large pool of water below us.  There were a few people already jumping into the pool and they told us the water was cold and invigorating but the pool was very deep. The rocks around the pool were limestone and when we shone the torch down we could see tunnels that seemed to go forever.  Tree roots hung down from the rocks and the whole place was scary but beautiful.

I really wanted to jump into the pool as everyone seemed to be doing but we decided not to. We still stayed there for a while and took some photos before climbing up the same narrow path back to the top.

We headed back up the path back to the area so we could swim and snorkel. The beach area was very long so we picked one spot left and our belonging and went to snorkel. The water was warm but as the sand was too fine, you have to go a bit further out to see the beautiful corals and fishes.

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As we were swimming, someone told us there were many turtles a few meters away but we didn’t really see them. Still, we managed to see lots of corals and fish and it was so much fun.

We took some nice shots with the Carnival Spirit in the background.

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Afterwards we were tired so we went to the market where local crafts and colourful shirts and sarongs were on sale.

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It was almost 4 pm by then and we both were starving so we made our way back to the tender boats to get back on ship

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Our day on Lifou was amazing; even though we didn’t book the tours we were happy to discover so many things in one day.

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Take care everyone ,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

10 Comments

Posted in Carnival Spirit, New Caledonia, Travel

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