Day 218

Sigh. If only my laptop wasn't so fussy and stayed on for more than 5 minutes at a time. Woe to all the pending posts of trips long past.

November came and went so fast. Every weekend was busy. I traveled a lot, had visitors and did so much. Even work was busy. Sadly the interns leave this month and it'll be a bit quiet at the office before the next ones join us. 

This post has been in the drafts section for so long and I've had to change the post Day so many times.

The past month has gone by fast. Work has been busy on and off. And weekends have been as busy as weekdays with play and choir practices for the Christmas programme.

But it's December and it's the bestest month of the year and even though I am away from home, it's going to be a great Christmas.

Aside from the music and the baking, we really needed a tree to get our house in a true festive mood. We researched many kinds of DIY Christmas trees before deciding to make one out of paper cones. We spent about 4 hours of folding and sticking and trying to keep it from toppling. The final touch of the lights made it just perfect.  :)

We went for an absolutely grand concert last week. The Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka. Watching an orchestra live is a totally different experience. So many instruments it's hard to focus on one thing at a time. They played some familiar classics in the first half and then played a selection of Christmas music with a choir backup. It was so perfect. For the last 3 songs, the audience could join in. The three of us sang loudly, with absolutely no shame. So much fun. :)

With a few days off next week for Christmas, we'll hopefully squeeze in a trip to the hills in between all the other Christmas things.

Here's one of the interesting covers I heard over the past few weeks.

Day 170

This is quite shameful. I had decided to post many times, but kept putting it off.

Days and weeks have gone into an interesting cycle. 

Days when I get a bus immediately in the morning and manage to catch the evening bus too and it's empty and the driver is super fast. Other days when the morning bus comes half an hour late and drives so slow that the trees have grown an extra ring and days that I miss the bus in the evening too. 

Days when things are a bit relaxed at work and I get to catch up on new music and have time to read. Other days when there are busy crazy deadlines and hours of extra work late into the night (and early into the morning once too).

Days when we cook up a storm at home- desserts and juices and multiple course meals and other evenings when we feel so blah and drag ourselves into the kitchen half asleep.

Some days I have the energy to read, to catch up on my online courses and to be productive and many days I scroll up and down my Facebook news feed all evening. 

And yet in all routine and mundane weeks of hot sultry afternoons and rainy nights, I still love it here. There are still so many exciting things in the middle of blah days. Here are some I can remember from the past 3 weeks.

- This morning I saw a snake in my loooong wait at the bus stop. It slithered into the gutter just a few feet away. Happened too fast for my brain to tell me to be scared.  

- Two weeks ago did a measured drawing in an old building and in the middle of our snooping and scavenging through the massive house, we found some old black and white pictures. 

- We went for the production of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' Was so awesome. Such great singers and a pretty solid show.

- The weekend following that, we did a musical marathon that continued into the week. Watched Evita, Rent, Mama Mia, Fiddler on the Roof, Moulin Rouge, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Annie. Had my fill of singing. Was great!

- I always look forward to weekends. Now a days they are extra special because of the Christmas programme practices. Choir and the play and lots of music in general. 

:)

November is going to be a busy month. I have trips being planned and friends visiting and beaches to look forward to. Cannot wait. 

Day 132

The past week has been busy and the best kind of busy. My mum came to visit and I got to spend 4 days away from work with her. I've been looking forward to this for so long. She arrived Wednesday night and although my aunt sadly couldn't come, we all still had such a grand time.

Thursday morning was our perfect kind of morning. Slept in, had a big fry up for breakfast and watched Schindler's List while still in our PJ's. 

We headed over to Water's Edge for The Good Market. We had visited the market just the week before (read here) and knew my Mum would love it. As we hoped, the market was a lot more fun this time. There were loads more stalls, and because we were there early, the food stalls were plenty and the food was so fresh.

Skipping lunch gave us great appetites. We went straight to the food section. The tables covered with icing topped cakes, gooey brownies, fruity pies, perfectly decorated cupcakes and trays of cinnamon rolls and other delicious things. We liked the 'Butter Boutique' best. Desserts that don't skimp on butter are true desserts. :) We had a lovely smooth chocolate-y pie, sticky cinnamon roll and one very rich dense brownie.

I wish I could have taken more pictures, but the desserts were too distracting and my hands full anyway. We beat the heat with some passion fruit popsicles.

We stopped at The Bread Company. We didn't buy any of those lovely rolls, but we made use of the free samples. :P We picked up some bags of ground nutmeg and cinnamon from Saaraketha and got a slab of jaggery and some Kithul treacle for my Mum to take home.

We needed something savoury to balance out all that sugar. While there was a ten minute downpour, we took shelter in a very popular stall; the toasted sandwich stall- Panino. They hot crispy toasted stuffed sandwiches were in great demand. So much so, that things got crossed of the menu while I was ordering. The hot sandwiches with oozing cheese and fresh mushrooms and veggies were definitely worth waiting in long queues for. We ended the eating spree with some polos (baby jackfruit) cutlets along with garlic+chili chutney and mango+peanut chutney. Yummy. 

The other stalls weren't as exciting as the food section. Loads of clothes, crafts, paintings, shoes, etc etc. Plenty of colour and textures, especially in the Selyn stall.

The ambiance was vibrant. A live band complete with a double bass and a harp, a lone percussionist with a drum at the percussion instrument stall (I've always wanted to own a rain stick). Little kids covered in wet smudges of colourful paint and another gang of them walking around in single file with animal faces as part of the Ecokids walk, plenty of photographers trying to capture the spirit, and loads of interesting aromas which sadly no gadget can capture yet.

This has become one of my favourite things about Colombo. Was a great afternoon spent with the mother and cousins. 

Thankfully all the food was digested fast enough to make room for our Japanese dinner that night. 

Day 125

Happy Onam! (the Kerala harvest festival)

I am one quarter Malayali and I am quite proud to say that Onam is my favourite food festival. Sitting on the floor and eating almost 20 differnt things off a banana leaf.

This year I missed out in being in Bangalore and getting to be part of an Onam Sadya. Over the weekend and today, there were so many people posting pictures of the large spread of food. It was more than enough to bring about sudden cravings.

I went through many websites for recipes. It was so hard to chose a few that I could make. But finally narrowed it down and came up with quite a menu. Cooking was quite fun and my cousin- my food stylist and photographer for all meals in low light did a great job of making it look even better.

The blog I finally chose to follow- http://www.vazhayila.com/

Top Row (L-R): spiced banana chips, apalam, cabbage thoran
Middle Row (L-R): vazhakka kalan (green plantain curry), red rice, avial 
Bottom Row (L-R): More kuzhambu, sambhar, inji chutney (ginger and tamarind chutney)

Today is my Emily's 9th birthday. How I miss my drooling, hair shedding footstool. She's the sweetest dog ever.

Two more days for my Mum to arrive. So excited.

Oh, today my Covent Garden blog post was featured on The Open Window Exchange. Extra excitement.

Day 121

Every Thursday from 12-8 pm the marquees of The Good Market fill up with exciting stalls. 

We had heard about this a while ago but always assumed that it would be too late once we got home. So glad that we decided to check it out this week. 

The market is at the edge of a lake and the lights and glowing canvas tops cast reflections on the water. The whole setting created a hazy blur through the light drizzle as we drove up. 

Despite nearing closing time, we were still able to enjoy the number of exciting stalls ranging from healthy desserts (quite an oxymoron! I personally prefer full-fat desserts), handmade jewelry, spices, art, organic vegetables, hot food and some other stalls too which were packing up when we came.

The whole setting was faintly reminiscent of Bangalore's Sunday Soul Sante, but a less-glam, smaller scaled and more homely version. 

One of my favorite things about food markets like this is the people. All the stall owners were extra friendly and chatty. We got to sample some of the food too (another reason I love these places); healthy kurakkan brownies, cinnamon tea (perfect for the weather) and some tangy tamarind pulp. 

The hand made jewelry stalls, aromas of coffee, crepes and egg hoppers wafting through the space, live portrait pencil drawing and the music by a banjo player created quite an exciting evening. 

After buying some cauliflower and potato tartlets, apple and cinnamon cake and some spicy banana chips we walked around the aquarium. I would much rather see fish in the ocean than in a tank, but it was a nice addition to the market entertainment. 

Looking forward to more Thursday evenings spent here. 

Day 116

Last week was dessert week. 

The first one was Cheryl's apple and cinnamon with amaretto and oatmeal crumble topped with whipped cream. It was so good. Such a contrast of flavours and textures. I ate it for breakfast. It was pretty much like eating fruit and cereal but on a completely different level :)

The second was my version of a lemon pie with a chocolate base. It was a lot of fun in the kitchen that night. A couple of crazy mishaps that sent us in a panic wave. But at the end of it we had two perfect desserts quite different from each other.

I was pretty proud of it and even posted a blog post. I had to take the desserts outside to photograph. Natural light is so beautiful to photograph in.

Read here- Lime and Chocolate Pie

This Sabbath was really nice too. It was the Adventist Youth Forum which was basically a get together of the youth from the other local churches to spend the day worshiping together. Really enjoyed the day especially the singing. I've missed singing with the praise team in Cunningham church, so it was extra special being able to sing again.

My mum and aunt will be visiting soon. I'm so excited. Counting down the days. :D

Day 96

I've been here more than 3 months! That went by pretty fast. 

In my research of desserts that don't need baking, I remembered that I had attempted a Banoffee pie a while ago in Bangalore. Despite it being a relatively easy recipe, it didn't come out perfectly then.

You can only judge a pie after it's been cut and a slice is taken out. This time the layers cut through perfectly and the consistency, flavours and textures were pretty much spot on. The only problem was that I didn't make enough.

I cannot remember the exact quantities I used to post the recipe here, but I am quite sure I will make this again.

The combination of biscuit, toffee, banana, chocolate and cream was absolutely yum! 
The rest of the weekend was a blur.

:)

Day 91

We have a new plan. Every week, one of our dinners is going to be a special one based on one specific different cuisine.

We did a Thai night a few weeks ago. Today we had a Japanese feast. 
I did lots of researching since I've never really attempted Japanese before. When I was in Bangalore in June, we had quite an authentic Japanese meal at Harima. I have since been inspired. Such an interesting cuisine. So many methods of preparation and yet their ingredients remain so distinct and fresh in each dish. Such strong flavours and enough substitutes to make vegetarian adaptations.

Nen found a Japanese store where she picked up wasabi, sesame seeds, seaweed and chopsticks. We may have lacked some other essential ingredients, but in general the meal came out really well. Next time, we'll add tofu to the menu.

We were quite pleased with how it turned out that we spent extra time in serving it up and taking pictures. I was a bit too tired to take out my camera, so relied on my cousin's phone picture for this post. Clockwise starting with the rice- sticky rice, oyster mushrooms in oyster sauce, bok choy with sesame seeds, tempura fried zucchini, sushi with dipping sauce and wasabi, fried eggplant and satay sauce.

We started watching a Japanese movie (I think it was a Chinese movie actually, but I wouldn't know the difference) to add to our Japanese evening, but it was so hard to pay attention with all our focus on the chopsticks and trying not to drop the sushi in the dipping sauce.

And if that wasn't enough, we had apple pie (bought, just in case you thought we had time to bake a pie too) and whipped cream for dessert.

I'm so stuffed and there's enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow. 

Next week is either Mexican or Burmese. :D

Day 81

The weekend came and went. It was another movie marathon weekend. My cousin and I are (over the course of the year) going to attempt covering as many as we can from the IMDB top 250 list. I mean a lot of them don't interest us at all, so we're likely to skip them, but lets see how far we go. This weekends list was  Immortals (slightly rubbish, but liked the 'renaissance painting' genre), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (totally entertaining!), Pulp Fiction (didn't quite get why it was no.4 on the IMDB list, but I guess for 1994, Quentin Tarantino took commendable risk) and then off to the cinema to see The Wolverine which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to. 

I've been missing baking this week. I went through so many of my old food pictures and blog posts. Came up with a list of non-oven desserts that are possible to make here. Chocolate and coffee mousse seemed like a good one to start with. I improvised a lot to the recipes I read and unfortunately it didn't set like I hoped, so froze it and had mousse ice-cream. I have now found a Julia Child mousse recipe which has the same ingredients, but different process and proportions which I will try out the next time I want to perfect this.

Day 75

In contrast to the last post- My package arrived, my phone works with the bent battery and some cellotape. All I need is a new memory card and the back panel. The last two days, I got the bus all the way back. Relief.

I thought receiving letters and postcards in the mail was exciting, but a package is a whole different level of excitement. My cousin sent me a package of goodies all the way from England. Little things all individually wrapped up in the package. It felt like Christmas. So glad the customs guy didn't open all the packages; would have totally spoiled it for me.

Did some more experimenting in the kitchen. Fried up some dambala (also known as winged bean) As the name suggests, just a bean with 4 wings. 

Also picked up one of the most interesting fruits I've seen- Dragon fruit. The exterior gives no clue what what it was inside. Kind of similar texture and taste to a kiwi.

Day 70

I've been putting off updating this blog even though there have been things to write about.

It was Poya on Monday and we had a nice extended weekend. My first Bangalore visitor was here in Sri Lanka for a short visit and I got to take him around Colombo. Well, there isn't much to see in the city, but we walked around Beira Laka and then to the pretty Seema Malaka temple on the water. There was a long fancy perahera (Poya day procession) around the lake and through the city, stopping traffic everywhere. Lots of fancily dressed up people dancing, but was a bit lazy to take pictures. 

I took some pictures at the temple, but the lake was a horrible algae green and spoiled the look of the Buddha statues. So, black and white it is. We then went to the coast and did another walk from Dutch Hospital down the Galle Face along the beach. 

Dutch hospital is one of my favourite places in the city. It's an old Dutch hospital building which is converted into shops and restaurants. I love the courtyards and the ambience in the evenings. I was back there again Tuesday evening at the Heladiv Tea Club. I really enjoyed the chocolate fudge cake that I ate, but I think it was the dim lights against bright yellow walls, the old wooden window shutters and the concrete tables on the stone paving that  makes me love the place. Will take the camera along next time I visit.

The tropical monsoon weather has been particularly crazy the past few days. I got terribly drenched on my way home yesterday, despite having an umbrella. I was slightly tempted to ditch the umbrella and run through the puddles. But they might not have let me on the bus. Even this poor cow was trying to get out of the rain. :P

I did a bit more experimenting with food today. Made some Thai curry. My mum makes Thai at home and this was my first time trying it out. It didn't come out the same as hers. I lacked some ingredients, but still tastes pretty good.

The weekend is almost here. Woohoo! :D

Day 32

The weekend came and went and then it was Monday again. But somehow one month of work is not enough to start Monday blues. 

Sunday morning, the snooze button got the better of us and we made it to Freedom park for the 'jog' almost two hours after we planned to. The warm sun was already in full blaze and I will blame that entirely for my inability to actually jog more than 1 1/2 rounds in the park. Sigh. I am back to feeling unfit. How I miss my swimming days.

The park was quite beautiful. Here is picture I took last year on my holiday when we visited the park at night. The place was beautifully lit.

Sunday's picture is not as cool, because I took it while briskly walking (so brisk it was almost jogging! Hehe)  

We were at Galle Face as the sun sank below the horizon. Phone pictures don't do justice to the golden colours in the sky. The breeze left my hair in a tangled mess and my skin sticky and sandy, but it's all part of seaside enjoyment. The street food however, didn't look appetising to me.

Day 26

I said no more boring food and vegetable posts, but this one's an interesting one. I bought Banana Flower at the supermarket yesterday and made a fry with the recipe from Love Food Eat.

Came out a lot better than expected. Even made it to the main blog. Pictures are ok. I struggled with the macro setting. Just wasn't focussing like I wanted it to. Oh well. Read recipe HERE.

Have two new interns at work. Two students from India. It's a bit weird to have to tell them what to do. My last job was an internship and I haven't quite gotten used to the fact that I have moved up from that. 

The weather has been lovely the past few days. Gone are the hot sticky days. It's been windy and rainy. Will love it while it lasts.

Day 21

My 'normal' kind of week is almost over. Have two new people at the office and will have two more soon. So it'll be fun working with more people at the office.

Bus commutes, work and more work while frequent short showers create random patterns on the glass, going through playlist after playlist on 8tracks, quiet lunchtimes and hoping it will stop raining while I travel back home. I've been missing my 2mbps internet. Had to watch Game of thrones bits at a time. 'Buffering' is such a horrible word. Ugh. And to make it worse, it was such a useless episode. Also had to watch the French Open matches by staring at live updates of scores online. Who would have ever thought I'd miss TV?!! Catching up with the Bangalore crowd in the evenings while fighting mosquitoes- Sri Lankan mosquitoes are tiny, but their bites are worse than the Bangalore variety (so hard to catch them!) That has been my week in summary and probably of many many more weeks to come.

Been cooking too- didn't try out any new vegetables this week. Made Egg Fu Yong for the first time. Somehow wasn't quite the same as what we used to make at home.

Stringing beans was strangely fun today. (Yes, I know it's a weird thing to find fun) I loved how the stings curled up once pulled off the beans. 

Yay for Friday tomorrow! Bring on the weekend, and maybe a more exciting coming week (otherwise I will have to resort to more uninteresting food pictures) :)

Day 17

The weekend came and went so fast. I have a busy week ahead. Lots of work at the office and some annoying visa things to sort out.

I finally finished putting together my write up for Vesak. Read HERE. Taking pictures at night was not that easy. So many blurry ones. :( Managed to get enough good ones for a blog post.

Today we went into the centre of colombo. We drove down Galle Face Drive up to the World Trade Centre. Fanciest part of town- all the posh hotels and big offices are in this bit of the city.  We had lunch at The Dragon. Sri Lankan Chinese food is definitely different to the Indian version. I enjoyed the meal except for the Chinese Tea. Bleeah. The Dutch Hospital building is a beautiful contrast to the modern high-risers. Can't wait to visit the little cafe there with an empty stomach.

Day 11

My second weekend in Sri Lanka was spent in the beautiful hilly town of Nuwara Eliya. I missed having the Canon 450D around, but the G5 was not as bad as I thought. The camera battery didn't last as long as I hoped and I realised that many of the pictures were over exposed and some out of focus. It will take some getting used to.

Anyway- the blog post is up on Fudge Together since it is a feature post- Read HERE.

Day 10 was mostly spent at home washing muddy clothes and reading my camera instruction book. In the evening, we courageously drove into town to see the lights of Vesak. It felt like the entire Sri Lankan population had come into Colombo. But the lights and lanterns on Beira Lake was really beautiful. The reflections in the water, the hanging lamps and the competing lanters all created quite a colourful setting. That blog post will be up soon.

Today, I cooked with another new vegetable- Thai Eggplant. Apart from the appearance, it was only a bit firmer than the usual brinjal and hence took a little longer to cook. Tasted quite similar too.

Day 4

I woke up to a complete downpour and felt quite lucky that my new boss was picking me up for work. Working out bus routes in the rain would not have been fun.

The office is located right out of the city in the middle of nowhere and is part of a beautiful stone and exposed concrete house. I sit at the corner desk and have the nicest view. The rain, the jungle outside the window and some smooth jazz playing created quite a tranquil setting. It was almost too nice to be working in (note: almost). Oh, Andrea Bocelli was featured in today's playlist at work- I 100% approve of my boss's music choices!  :)

Despite being such a small office, there are many big projects to work on. It was only my first day at work and have already been loaded with things to do. I'm quite excited. And the shelves and shelves of books only adds to my excitement. 

Last night, went grocery shopping and was quite interested in the variety of strange vegetables here. Potatoes and cauliflowers are expensive, so I'm going to be experimenting with new veggies this year. Bought some snake gourd to cook with dhal. First time cooking with snake gourd and it came out quite ok.

The picture was taken from my phone. I didn't bring the 450D with me and I'm not going to carry the other camera everyday everywhere. 

Day 1

Welcome to my new blog.

I've been planning to start a new blog completely dedicated to my year in Sri Lanka and the name only came to me this morning. I don't want to clutter my other blog with ramblings about the weather, my job and the food, so will post all that here on 'Hello Humidity.'

After a month of job hunting, I was offered a job on the island of Sri Lanka. Despite only being a 1 1/2 hour plane ride away and in the same time zone as India, it'll still going be one crazy year ahead away from home.

I stepped off the plane to 27 degrees and 80% humidity (at 10pm!), but was especially appreciative of the orderly traffic and garbage-less roads on the way home. 

Day 1 -at home in my new room. Internet makes it even easier to feel close to Bangalore. I forgot to pack my toothbrush. It was the last thing I used before I left home, and it didn't make it to my suitcase. Hooray for finger brushing!

I ate some Sri Lankan brinjal pickle with my lunch today. Indian Priya pickle you have no competition. 

^ view from my bedroom.