Tag Archives: M from nepaliaustralian

Sculpture by the Sea 2016

Sculpture by the Sea is staged along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk. The coastal walk begins at the bottom of Notts Avenue, which runs off Campbell Parade, Bondi. The coastal walk can also be accessed by stairs at various points along the exhibition route at Hunter Park, Gaerloch Avenue and Pacific Avenue. The exhibition finishes at Tamarama Park, Marine Drive, Tamarama.

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It is Chhori’s second time there but its first time she could run around and she loved it.

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Like every year, they had some amazing ones and some fun ones and some weird ones.  Enjoy the photos.

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Take care everyone,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Birth Week :)

Yap, you read it right, instead of just being my birthday on 28th Oct, it turned out to be a birthday week this year :).

I am sure I have mentioned here many times that Nepali people follow different calendars which means we have birthday in different days every year depending on what you are following, the Gregorian calendar, Nepalese Calendar or the tithi (birth chart and position of sun, moon and planets). Normally, I don’t care much as I don’t really know when my Nepali tithi birthday is. My mum normally does some puja in Nepal and that is it.

But as my parents are here, I celebrated my tithi birthday. It was on 21st Oct and my mum did a simple puja for me that day. As it was a weekday we didn’t do much but just tika and sagun to mark the day. It is always special to have your parents around as they make you feel special every day.

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Also after the puja, Chhori gave me a flower (thanks to AS) and a big hug and kisses to wish me on my birthday. I put a few of those photos taken during the puja on Facebook which led to many of my friends and family wishing me birthday as well. Thus the birthday week celebration officially started.

During the whole week, I had birthday wishes and Facebook posts which made me feel very special  🙂

On the 27th, my boss bought me flowers and they were lovely.

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On 28th, I work up early as normal and waited for Chhori and AS to wake up. As I was checking my phone, I saw a message from AS that he had send me before he went to bed so he was the first one to wish me :).

It said, “Happy Birthday to the one who has always been there for me. Whether rain or shine, I’m so happy and grateful that I can call you mine.”

He definitely made me happy and it was a great start of my special day.

There were a few more messages in my Facebook and inbox as well as sms which were flowing the whole day.

When both my sweethearts were awake, AS got Chhori to give me a card and flowers and gifts.

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The flowers were lovely and loved my wallet, sunnies and umbrella. AS has always been so thoughtful and Chhori was too cute hugging and kissing me. I have to admit it was one of the best days I have ever had.

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Since Chhori came into our life, our life has changed for the better and I love being a mum to such a cutie pie.

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It was the first day of Tihar that day so we did Kag Puja and went out for breakfast. I had egg Florentine and AS had the Big Breakfast. The food was yummy and we were stuffed by the end of it.

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The plan for the afternoon was lunch and movie as mum was looking after Chhori and we didn’t want to come home late. I think when you have a baby, you change things so you can be with your kids more and I was more than happy to come home early to be with Chhori.

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First we went to watch a movie. We choose to watch “The Girl on the Train”. I had heard good reviews about it so AS got tickets to it.

The movie was OK. I loved the drama and suspense but at times I found it very slow.

For lunch AS chose a nice Japanese contemporary restaurant called Sorenzo.  When we walked into the restaurant, as it was afternoon, there were not many people. The ambiance of the place was good but the food is what I am still thinking about.

We went there for lunch so we thought we would order a set menu to make it easy as it had a wide range of dishes.

We thought we were getting 5 different dishes and dessert as there was slash in the menu between two items. We thought that we could easily handle much of food as Japanese food is small in portion generally but we realised later that we were getting everything in the set menu.

So we started with our favourite edamame with salt sprinkled on the top. It was warm just like I liked it.

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It was followed by fresh pacific oysters. Both AS and I are not a big fan of oysters but we loved them as they were tasty and full of flavour and surprisingly they didn’t have a fishy aftertaste .

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Then came Kingfish carpaccio which was amazing and we finish them in a few seconds as it was delicious.

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It was followed by the most interesting dish of the day, sashimi platter. But the interesting part of this was the presentation.  The dish came with oozing Nitrogen and a skull making it really interesting. As it was close to Halloween it was a great idea. The platter contained various cuts of Salmon, Kingfish, Tuna and Scallops which were fresh and perfect. We were really impressed at this point and AS was really happy about his pick of restaurants.

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Following the sashimi platter, there was a chef’s selection of sushi which was light and perfectly seasoned.

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Then came the pan fried scallops with white miso sabayon which was one of the most delicious platters on the menu. The presentation was awesome as well.

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Next was tempura platter that included prawns, mushrooms, eggplant and sweet potato. It was fresh and crunchy and very yummy but we couldn’t finish it as we were already so stuffed with the sushi and the sashimi.

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The last and main dish was smoked salmon with sweet and spicy miso sauce. The dish was very delicious and flavoursome but we couldn’t finish it as out tummy was screaming to stop as it couldn’t handle the amount of food we were eating 🙂

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Finally, it was time for dessert and we both choose ice cream. I had lime sorbet and AS had passionfruit and chilli sorbet. The presentation of the dish was great but unfortunately we couldn’t finish them either.

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I think we ate 3 times more than what we normally have for lunch but it was a great experience and loved all the dishes.

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After lunch we headed home where our munchkin was eagerly waiting for us. I had invited my brother’s family for dinner that night.

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So in the evening when everyone was at my place, we had a cake for my birthday which was an amazing rainbow colourful cake.

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The cream was delicious and I loved it so, so much. And thus 28th Oct concluded :).

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The next day a friend of my visited and brought a nice dress for my birthday and the following day, some of our friends invited us over for dinner and I got a nice hand bag for a birthday gift.

I am so happy that there are so many people in my life who have made my birthday into a birth-week with their love, blessing and wishes.

Take care everyone,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Chhori’s first Tihar

Tihar, the second biggest festival for Hindus after Dashain, was from 28th Oct to 1st Nov this year. Please click here to know more about the festival.

This year was Chhori’s first Tihar celebration so I wanted to make sure she had a great memory of the celebration.

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Tihar is celebrated for five days and here are some photos from our celebration this year.

  • Kaag / Kag (crow) Puja

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  • Kukur (dog) Puja

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  • Laxmi Puja and Gai (cow) Puja

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  • Goru Puja,Gobhardan Puja , Mha Puja and Nepal Sambat

As my parents are here this year, it was great to have a whole family celebrating Mha puja.

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  • Bhai Tika

Chhori does Bhai tika to my nephew. It was so cute to see these little ones performing the ritual.

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Hope everyone celebrating had great Tihar too.

Take care everyone,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Hakuna Matata: Lion King, the musical

I have to admit I am not a big fan of musicals and neither is my husband. When I start to think about musicals, my mind drifts away but The Lion King musical was a different story.

I am sure most of you have heard how amazing The Lion King, the musical is.  The show tells the tale of Disney’s “The Lion King” through acrobatics, dance, music and puppetry. Based on the 1994 animated film, the musical follows the adventures of Simba, a lion cub, as he struggles to accept the responsibility of adulthood and his destined role of King.

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The musical debuted July 8, 1997, in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Orpheum Theatre, and was an instant success before premiering on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theater on October 15, 1997 in previews with the official opening on November 13, 1997. It was Broadway’s fourth longest-running show in history and the highest grossing Broadway production of all time, having grossed more than $1 billion.

Since its success, the musical has been produced in many countries and everyone who has watched it has raved about it. It had come to Sydney several times before, but unfortunately, we had missed the opportunity to go and watch it.

In order to quench our curiosity, hubby and I decided to go and watch the musical at Capitol Theatre, Sydney this time. The tickets were not cheap but from what I had heard it was worth every penny.

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We did some research beforehand and bought an aisle seat and the one next to it and it was a great idea. A few times during the show people dressed as elephants, giraffes, birds and other animals walk/danced past us and it is a joy to see them up close.

I have to admit, The Lion King is the ultimate live theatre experience, provoking the full range, an abundance of spine tingles, goose bumps, laughter and tears. It has dazzling visual delight, with hundreds of masks, puppets, state-of-the-art lighting and more than 700 costumes creating the enchanting backdrop of the Serengeti Plains.

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It was amazing to enjoy songs like ‘Circle Of Life’, ‘Hakuna Matata’, ‘Endless Night’ and many more which capture both the pain and joy of the characters. When we finished the show, I was still in awe of the colourful characters, heart-warming story and catchy songs.

Showing great respect to the source and setting, The Lion King has created a world of rituals, traditions and social hierarchy in which the animals and the land are connected as one.

If you every get the opportunity, do not forget to grab the ticket be part of the history of amazing musical. Like me, you may still be humming ‘Hakuna Matata’ even after many days :).

 “Hakuna Matata!
What a wonderful phrase”
“Hakuna Matata!

 Have you  watched any musical? Please share your experience.

Take care everyone,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Child care visit

From the day Chhori was born, every parent around us has suggested putting Chhori on the waiting list for childcare. From their experience it can take more than a year to get a place. As I had to come back to work from my maternity leave, we put down Chhori’s name in two different childcare centres when she was around a few months old thinking she will have to go to child care when she is one, which is when I came back to work.

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But lucky for us, my parents decided that they would come and look after Chhori and we were lucky to have them around. But unfortunately like every good thing in life, their stay in Australia will come to an end in a few months’ time which means we need to put Chhori in childcare 5 days a week while we are at work.

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So it was time for us to do childcare visits to determine which childcare we want to send her to. We got offers from two different childcares so we decided to visit them on the same day and we took Chhori with us.

We met with the teachers in both the child care centres where they showed us around the rooms she would be in and also the play area and the toys they have. They also showed us their process for doing things and updating us about her as well as what kind of food is given to her while she will be there.

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At the first childcare Chhori saw a drawing table with crayons and paper so she insisted that she wanted to draw. The teacher was kind enough so she was allowed her to draw while we had a chat with the teacher. Once we finish our tour, it was time for us to leave but Chhori refused to go wanting to draw some more.

We distracted her and finally we were out.

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At the second childcare, as we were doing the tour, she spotted a few kids and a teacher playing with blocks. She straight away went and started playing with them. We did the rest of the tour without her but I was so surprised that she didn’t seem to care at all that we were not around her. I am sure she didn’t even look for us until we finished everything and went to get her to go home.

No matter what we said she didn’t want to go home so we had to pick her up against her will and leave. She was crying when we left.

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That got both us wondering if we made a mistake by not sending her to the childcare sooner. As I have previously mentioned, she is very social and loves people but seeing her enjoying childcare so much, now we hope she will have an easy transition to go to childcare part time in January and full time from March.

I will definitely share our experience next year. Please do share your own childcare experience with your kids. Is it normal for kids to not want to go home?

Take care everyone,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO