South Australia road trip – Chapter 2

After securing our accommodations, the next mission was wrapping up the work year amid a frenzy of EOY kids’ events, work obligations, and Christmas parties cramming our schedule in November and early December. The tight timeframe left us with no room for detailed planning, and packing became a last-minute scramble.

Recognizing the forecasted temperatures of 35-40 degrees in some regions, we added a car fridge to our arsenal, safeguarding our perishables from spoiling. Clothes, cooking essentials, outdoor and swimming gear, books, devices, and an abundance of snacks were packed the day before our departure. Loaded with the initial set of items, we planned to set out early at 3:30-4 am, with Hay as our first destination, just over 7.5 hours from Sydney. Accounting for 2-3 half-hour stops, we anticipated a late afternoon arrival in Hay.

While planning was meticulous, executing the plan presented its challenges. Though we initially allocated 15 minutes to load the remaining items that morning, the process of packing, tying, and securing everything demanded a solid 45 minutes.

Our preferred strategy for keeping luggage secure during long road trips with kids involves elastic cargo nets. These nets ensure everything stays in place, preventing rolling or shifting, especially when navigating inclines or unsealed roads.

Despite the hustles, we managed to hit the road at 5 am (I had anticipated a 5 am departure anyway, an hour buffer to the original planned departure time).

South Australia road trip – Chapter 1

Embarking on a journey of exploration is always a feast for the senses, and our South Australia escapade proved to be an irresistible adventure. The decision to venture into this diverse region was made in 2022 and materialised in June 2023, yet the intricate planning woven amid our dense workloads, only came to life in October 2023.

As November unfolded, we faced the daunting task of curating our route, selecting towns, cities, and must-see sights. The challenge lay in compressing the vastness of South Australia into a mere three weeks – a familiar struggle, considering our previous attempt in Victoria during the December holidays of 2017-2018. Unsurprisingly, we found ourselves revisiting Victoria the following year to uncover more hidden gems.

Returning to the SA planning, our journey gained momentum as we transformed our draft into a concrete list of locations. Accommodation, a critical piece of the puzzle, became our next focus. Despite being tardy in reservations, our memberships with caravan parks and loyalty to booking platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com proved to be our saving grace.

Wagga and Nullarbor were early commitments in our route, and securing rooms in these destinations for our trio became our first mission. Subsequently, delving into Booking.com, Airbnb, and various other sites based on Google searches became nightly rituals. In just three nights, a few hours each evening, we managed to book a variety of accommodations – from motel rooms and cabins to studios and houses. Our priorities were clear: fully equipped kitchens and washers, with dryers as a delightful bonus. While we didn’t opt for camping or a RV, our stays in diverse lodgings remained affordable putting together the camping site and caravan hire fees. It allowed us to immerse ourselves fully in the charm of South Australia.

Awesome Tamil Movies – Ep:2

Just like some movies, there are some songs which can never be re-made too… To me, one such song is ‘Chinna Chinna Aasai‘. This song and the movie are always in the Tamil Legend movies’ list… Although I like ‘Pudhu Vellai Mazhai‘ song more than this song, in terms of lyrics, I thought may be I should share this song as there is a lot of background to this song and the reason why we ended up watching this movie.

I was 9 years old when the movie ‘Roja‘ was released and my mom was so happy one day that we are going to watch a movie that is about the district where her parents are originally from. Yes, even though mom was born and brought up Chennai, she loved her native place so much which she has seen only a couple of times in her life then. Dad, mom, my maternal grand-parents and I, we all went to watch the movie and I was thinking that it could be only be a village type movie and so was really bored and not interested much but when I later saw the posters in the cinemas with the director name as Maniratnam, I thought that it would be nice if the movie is like ‘Mouna Raagam’. Yes, I was such a ‘Kedi’ even as a 9 year old who knows the director and the famous movies and that too nice romantic movies.

Only the first 30 mins of the movie was set in the village background and then the remaining 10 mins of the story was set in Chennai and then the rest of the story is completely set in Kashmir. The movie shows how diverse the Indian Culture is. It would be a massive leap to take a story from Chennai to Kashmir and my small brain couldn’t understand what is Software Engineering and why could a Software Engineer be kidnapped. True, I also did not understand what a ‘terrorist’ mean. That would now explain exactly the situation of India in 1992, how the people from South India especially Tamilnadu have never experienced anything related to terrorism.

I won’t discuss the story line in detail but I cannot stop discussing about a few things. First is the director, Maniratnam who don’t need any introduction from me, but at that time, I realised that this guy has made a different movie, totally out of the world, a totally awesome movie. Second is A.R. Rahman the music director for the movie. This was his first movie as a full time music director and yes, he broke all the records at that time. He is so famous now so I don’t have to introduce even him. Like I said before, I loved the song ‘Pudhu Vellai Mazhai’ more due to the dashing introduction to the snow fields in Kashmir and for the beautiful lyrics. So obviously the third thing about the movie is the Lyricist Vairamuthu. Tamil, as a language is very beautiful and that too when you have such a jewel like Vairamuthu who can use such beautiful words and sentences to write such beautiful subject of comparison. What he wrote for the song ‘Pudhu Vellai Mazhai’ would forever speak for his poetic greatness in the Tamil movie industry.

Awesome Tamil Movies – Ep:1

I thought I should write about the Tamil movies that I liked and this is a result of that. I first wrote about this in my FB page but then I thought I should actually write a blog instead of a FB post.

The movies that I am writing here are not in any order and I won’t say that these are the only best movies, but these are the movies that I enjoyed the most and watch them again and again any time.

There are certain movies which can never be remade and ‘Kannathil Muthamittaal’ is one such movie. The exact English title for this movie is ‘A peck on the cheek’ but I would say that the person literally translated the Tamil words without understanding the full meaning of this movie. It can also mean that, ‘She(Here the she denotes all the 3 female leads) gave a peck on the cheek’ even though the ‘Muttamittal’ has a small Tamil ‘il’ at the end. The 3 leads here are Nandita Das, Simran and Keerthana. I strongly recommend this movie to all who ask me which is the best Tamil Movie that they can watch… This movie has romance, kids and fun, war and more than all some great acting.

This scene and a few minutes following this scene in the movie makes this movie really special to me.
You can’t stop thinking about those 3 women and what goes on in their mind. The shot where Nandita breaks and hugs her daughter, The shot when Keerthana calls Nandita as ‘mom’, even though the camera 🎥 focus on Nandita, if we see the dull Simran’s image in the background, it will break our heart too. (the feeling of a mom who sees her daughter calling her real mom as mom)… Finally the winner here is Keerthana, when she slowly brings tears and closes the paper and finally when she hugs Simran and kisses her while realising what a great mom she has been to her all these days…

My First Sunday market in Leura

I was very excited when my application to the Leura First Sunday Markets was approved by Di. I have to definitely mention here what a wonderful person she is. Life is sometimes about meeting some great people and she is definitely one such person and definitely the best in writing instructions for the market stall. There were no harsh statements, no commands and no threats in her email. She was so kind and elaborate and very friendly and yes, she tries her best to be timely as well, but I don’t worry even if I don’t get a reply immediately because when she writes me, she really writes very elaborately as if we were sitting opposite each other and chatting about the things that I wanted to ask her. One of the best market event organiser I have interacted with so far. She really reminds me that I should read and write a lot.

When I booked the stall, I thought winter would be soon over and by the first sunday of August, Leura would be really warm and nice. I was definitely wrong because the winter chillness started pretty late this time up in the mountains. I wanted a henna and a handmade jewellery stall as they were both my passion and love. Jewellery, all ticked but when it came to henna, due to the change in my health condition, I was so tired and couldn’t prepare wholesomely for the event but thanks to my husband, I was able to test few of my pre-packed henna cones and some new batches that I mixed few days before the event.

I tried a whole new ‘Winter recipe’ so that anyone including kids can enjoy henna in the chill weather as we all know henna could sometimes cause super cool effect in cold weather due to its ‘cooling’ behaviour. The winter recipe was tested and the colour was very satisfying (see below tests on my hubby where the paste was kept on his hand for only 30 mins and this is the stunning colour after 20 hrs of paste removal).

IMG_9421

The day started very early with both hubby and I checking the weather reports and reading one of Di’s detail email where she raised the same concerns but was keeping us calm by giving a lot of positive suggestions and hope. Yes, as we all hoped, by the time the markets started operating we had a slightly warm weather and the 70% rain prediction from 11am got postponed a bit and ended up with a mild hailstorm at 2pm when we started packing our stuff. Not bad!!!

I did henna on few amazing kids and beautiful ladies. I hope they would get good stains and would follow my after care instructions to develop a deeper henna stain.

Before wrapping up the post, I would like to mention about some great vendors in the market…

  1. Paintings by Philip Layzell (An international Award winning artist) – www.playzell.com
  2. Fresh Darling – Handmade memo boards and peg bags – www.etsy.com/au/shop/freshdarling
  3. Mountain blue Vintage linen – Amazing Crochet linens and lace linens all handmade in vintage style and a lot of variety – Katoomba Vintage Emporium (59-61 Katoomba Street, Katoomba, NSW 2780)
  4. Sergio Veloso – www.sergiovelosodesignstudio.com.au – He sells handmade beautiful  tote handbags with excellent cloth material with a lining cloth for all the items that he has stitched to give that extra care and protection.
  5. Cardoness Beads & Jewellery – sells gemstones and beading supplies www.cardonessbeads.com.au and based in Lithgow at this point of time.

including my stall named ‘Spadiga – Handmade Jewellery and Henna Body Art’

Spadiga – Henna Body Art

Spadiga – Handmade Jewellery

 

Leura – A Garden Village

IMG_9247

Leura is pretty famous among the Blue Mountain residents who consider this village as the most beautiful place in the mountains, yes it is famous than Katoomba. We were planning to visit this place for a while and finally decided to drive around today as the temperature was forecasted to be really warm (12° C). An hour drive from home in the Great Western Highway through some of the beautiful mountain suburbs. There were only a few places marked in the websites as a must see places in Leura but since it is only few minutes away from Katoomba, we have a plenty of lookouts in this village.

We visited the Olympian Rock Lookout near the Toy & Rail museum, Gordon Falls Lookout, the famous shops in Leura like Ainsley fine jewellery, Leura fine Woodwork gallery, Moontree Scented candle shop and a hot fresh baked pie for lunch… You can never imagine walking in this town at this time of the year with no jackets but today was a warm day so we managed it. We have to note that around this time last year it was snowing in these regions.

Visited…

Renommee – A recycled designer clothing shop with a beautiful Quilt shop in the same campus

 

Bakehouse on Wentworth – They serve yummy hot pies, coffee, cakes and special sourdough bread…

Ainsley Fine Jewellery – Their Amber collection is from Holland and indeed very beautiful.

Olympian Rock Lookout:

 

The craft  markets, vintage shops and boutique shops sell a lot of beautiful handmade jewellery and warm winter clothing…

 

 

Live YOUR life not others…

Hard-earned success should be enjoyed but sometimes we do not have enough time to even live that moment and we start thinking about the next mountain to climb.
Every individual has a reason to live and every one has a unique characteristic and specialty.

My mom always used to say that everything has its purpose and even a small grass on which people step on, have medicinal qualities so never under-estimate yourself. If you can’t do something, you may be better in doing something else. Never compare yourself with anything/anyone else.

This is the biggest lesson I taught my son who showed signs of his first fear about life during our Japan trip. This trip taught him a lot and taught me how to handle the fears of that tender mind and bring back confidence.

Never ever compare yourself with others and never think of anyone as your competition because you will never know when one of you would change path and exit out of the competition and when it happens the other person who stayed there in the competition would feel that his/her life has become totally useless all of a sudden with no competition.

It is the biggest damage we would cause to ourself and if it applies to us then it applies to our kids as well.

I think all kids and adults should travel a lot, especially to a unfamiliar environment and culture and it will teach us a lot.

Japan- Day 12 

The most expected day of my whole trip. We went to Tokyo station and Shibuya and did some very little shopping.

The station underground had 100’s of shops and there is a big complex in the station with 12 floors called Daimaru, selling cute and Japan stuff and food items for Tax free (but it was a bit expensive).

So many yummy cake shops… Take away Bento box shops… Looked very yummy…

Earrings made with Sakura flower petals…

Costs almost $30 AUD…

Ladies toilet in Daimaru building…

We then headed to Shibuya and walked in the world famous Shibuya crossing. Thousands of people crossing the roads at a time from four directions taking a selfie and video. The Starbucks there and first floor ofother buildings are crowded with people taking pictures of the crossing.


All this time, I wondered where I can see those world famous Japanese fashionista kids  and we finally saw all of them here. All English speaking Japanese kids, store staff, girls with super heavy foundation and make-up. It is a very good experience. The shops here ask us to wear a veil while trying clothes as the foundation and make-up might stain the clothes.

We can see the world famous Japanese fashion here… Beautiful Japanese girls whom we all envy… What more do we need… We spent the rest 4-5 hrs there and left the place just because of our 6 yr old son who started dancing to every music we hear in the street 😍