Some wierd fruits!

I just realized that there is one tree in our parking lot in our workplace that has some wierd fruits hanging from it! Huge fruits about the size of volleyball are hanging from it. Very exotic!

Sambar powder

Yesterday, Amma was doing her preparations to make sambar powder. Her sambar powder is appreciated all over the world (including all my family and her family here and in the US) and since she is going to the US again in a couple of months, she started preparing for it. The picture is basically all the ingredients that goes in to a sambar powder. She is going to dry them first and then bring them to a professional grinder to make them in to a powder. A lot of hard work goes in to making it but it's definitely worth it. Her sambar powder makes wonders to any kind of food!

デリーへ出張

出張でデリーに行ってきました。今回は、短い出張だったので（1泊2日）、同僚のご両親の所に一晩、泊めていただきました。彼女のご両親は本当にとてもいい方々で、楽しいひと時を過ごすことができました。遅いフライトだったに加え、フライトが遅れて、本当に家に着くのが遅くなってしまったのにもかかわらず、晩御飯を食べずに待っていてくださって、結局晩御飯を食べ始めたのが夜の11時半！なのに、ちゃんとアペタイザーの鳥のお料理が2つ先に出てきて、その後に本格的なお料理が。しかも私が始めて北インドの家庭料理を食べる、ということをご存知で、おば様が色々地元のspecialtyを作ってくだいました。メニューは、生野菜のカットしたもの、鳥の煮込み料理、paneer（インドのチーズのようなもの）のカレー、dal（レンズ豆の煮込み）、ピラフ、チャパティー（インドのtortillaのようなもの）を頂きました。もう全て美味しくて、美味しくて。同僚の家族は、北インド出身、しかもSikh教なので、あーびん家とは全く違ったカルチャーで、本当にいい経験になりました（例えば、チキン中心のお料理、家では靴を脱がない、おじ様は家でもターバンもしくは野球帽をかぶられている、などなど）。おじ様は日本に一回出張で来られたことがあるらしく、しかも接待で色々箱根などにも行かれ、温泉での経験など、楽しく色んなお話を聞かせてもらいました。今朝は早く出かけないと仕事に間に合わなかったので、私達にあわせて、おば様は早起きしてくださって（昨夜全員寝たのは午前1時40分）、私に典型的な北インドの朝食を作ってくださいました。本当に、ご両親のご親切には感動しどうしでした。おかげさまで本当に思い出に残る出張になりました。

IIT Madras Culturals 2

I just got pictures from Arvind's friend who came to visit Chennai for a few days. We all dropped by at IIT Madras to get a feel of the culturals at night before Arvind and I formally went on the following day.

Republic Day

Today is Republic Day, a day in which India became a republic. It seems that although India got independence from UK on August 15, 1947, it took them until January 26, 1950 to draft the consititution, submit to the Assembly, be approved by the Assembly and become the official constitution of India. Anyway, so in all schools, students raise the Indian flag in the morning and come home for the day (no classes). I unfortunately missed the event because I had my morning tennis practice. We went to our aka's place early afternoon and she had a nice tricolour saree with Indian flag colors to celebrate the day. Many people on the streets also had small Indian flags pinned to their shirts. I guess many people are quite patriotic here.

PS - I was able to meet Amuda's children (our maid) since they did not have classes after the flag hoisting. They were very cute.

5K Fun Run

Our company group organized a 5K run yesterday morning. About 40 people gathered in front of Ayaapan Temple at 5:30am and started the run at a bit after 6am. It was so much fun! Since Arvind has a bad knee, he could not run, but he participated as a volunteer providing water and juice to runners at the midway point. Because I was paced by other runners, I ran a bit faster than usual; I finished 5K about 5 min earlier than my usual time. We completed the run at Beach and we were right in time for the sun rise! I wished I had a camera then since it was very beautiful (the sun was coming out from the ocean) but unfortunately, I did not have it with me... Anyway, the entire run was so much fun and it was really a nice feeling to engage in these sports activities with people who usually work with.

IIT Madras Culturals!

Today, Arvind and I went to IIT Madras Cultural Festival called Saarang (Indians usually refer to Cultural Festivals as 'culturals'). It is basically university-wide festival with lots of activities, competitions and food. According to Arvind, many university students attend culturals of other universities to compete in different oral, dance, and acting competitions. It was nice to see all these young bright people having a fun time :) We both felt like we were undergrads again. But the competitions that we saw today was not that good. The quality of nonacademic talents have gone done in the recent years?? That's what Arvind felt when he compared his culturals to this one. Anyway,tomorrow, we will go there again to hear some music and dance programs. This should be fun! All in all though, I had a great time. Nice to be back in an academic setting.

My office

I walk to office everyday. It is only 5 min away. A big headache of most people in Chennai is commuting so I am very lucky. Now that I think about it, I have been lucky in terms of commuting all throughout my professional/student life. It has either been walking distance or commutable by bike. The first picture is my desk - one laptop is for my individual use and the other one is for research. I usually use two laptops to do my research work in office. The second picture is one of the friendliest security guards at work. The last picture is the road right in front of my office. It's always very busy with traffic.

Today's Lunch

Today's lunch was made by Amma. The color balance was amazing! I had to take a picture of it :) Of course, the taste was also very good. This is one of my favorite Indian dishes called Rava Idlis. I don't really like the sour taste of regular Idlis but this kind of Idlis are not sour at all and there are a lot of crunchy things in it that I really like. Thanks Amma for the great food!

Surprise birthday party at work!

My colleagues at work organized a surprise birthday party at the terrace today! I had no clue that this was coming. One of my colleagues came to me after lunch to tell me that there is a small meeting at the terrace to plan for a farewell party for one of my colleagues who will be leaving us soon. When I went up to the terrace with him, ....voila! All my colleague was there with a huge chocolate cake for my birthday!!! They even prepared a small apple pie for me since they all know that I don't like regular cakes but just looooove apple pie! They all sang for me and had the cake/pie :) I am very lucky to have such great coworkers like them :)

Birthday weekend

Saturday was my birthday. Since Arind and I came back from Thanjore very early morning, we slept in. We had a late lunch and went out for shopping. We could not get anything we wanted, but it was nice just being in the city. For dinner, we decided to go to a Lebanese/Mediterranean restaurant called Cedars and it was great! The service was unfortunately very slow (and it felt like that especially because we were both starving) but the food was great :) I think this restaurant will be one of our 'hang-out' places in Chennai.

Today (Sunday), I went to play tennis for the first time in Chennai! My mother gave me her tennis racquet when I went back to Japan and so I had all the gears necessary to play tennis again. Arvind's uncle took me to one of his tennis clubs to 'evaluate' my tennis skills (to find out whether I was good enough to join his group!). I played with a Marker there; Marker is a person who takes care of the courts and supervises ball boys - yes, there are ball boys at tennis clubs! All the Markers were playing tennis with no shoes! Who would have every thought of playing tennis with no tennis shoes?! Very Indian. Anyway, this Marker was very good. He was being very 'nice' in the beginning and was hitting the balls to me in the beginning but once we got over the first introductions, he started to hit the balls from side to side making me run everywhere! Anyway, fortunately, I seemed to have passed Arvind's uncle's 'test' and he told me that if I want to play around the time he plays, he will let me play with him :) I am planning on taking tennis lessons once a week and additionally playing two or three times per week :) I am very excited to get back to tennis and very very happy to be a part of Chennai tennis scene! Arvind will give me this club's membership for my birthday gift!

This weekend is definitely the best weekend I've ever had in Chennai so far :)