Cyn's Adventure in India

Change in comments

2012-01-31T19:50:00.001+05:30

For some reasons, blogger decided to change some settings in how the URL of blogs are displayed depending where you live, with the result that all blogger blogs viewed from India have their URL automatically changing from blogger.com to blogger.in. I wouldn’t care if it was not totally messing up my diqus comment platfrom, the change in URl is apparently making viewers in Idnia unable to see

Who is the worst

2012-01-30T14:36:00.001+05:30

A few days ago, my blogger fellow and author of the travel site “About India” asked in a poll which city in India has the worst Auto drivers. My reply was Bangalore, because in the 8 years I’ve been in India they went from decent to really bad, the degree of badness being proportional to the proposed and granted hike in basic fares. In the current of the last year they went from 14

I’m a MOTHER

2012-01-24T12:29:00.001+05:30

Back in 2008 I once wrote a blog entry titled “No life without wife” which was pretty much about how courier companies, and repairmen take it for granted that there will ALWAYS be somebody home and that they can show up whenever, or not bother letting you know they showed up to find a closed door. I also added that joints families were only bound to become more and more common in the coming years

Weather talk

2012-01-21T14:46:00.001+05:30

Once upon a time, when I was a teenager still learning English in high school (yes English is indeed not my native language), my course book said something about how British love to talk about the weather, whether it is a stereotype or not, is left to debate and I won’t go there. What is however interesting is that it seems talking about the weather in India is the number 2 topic among

The real winner is…

2012-01-19T16:06:00.001+05:30

I’ve been down with a monumental cold for the past week, courtesy of DH who got the good sense of catching it first and been a gentleman passing it on to his wife, daughter and even mother in law. I started with a sore throat I treated aggressively with paracetamol, and tulsi tea by the litre, despite my preventive measure I followed right after DH into the stuffy nose, bout of fever and heavy

Fishes at my feet

2012-01-18T12:08:00.001+05:30

Fish Pedicure! That is something I first heard of a few years back when an upscale spa in Bangalore started offering that service, articles in newspapers talked about that tiny teeth less Turkish fish that eats dead skin. My curiosity was pricked, but the service was not only a bit far from my place, it was also costly, I don’t remember the exact figure, but definitely too much for the 10-15

Pharmacy Cricket

2012-01-15T11:26:00.001+05:30

And I am back from my hiatus, with a gigantic cold I’m still trying to get rid of but well back to blogging, a short post today, but more to come soon I promise. You know you are in India when a conversation at the pharmacy could go like this: Me: Hi, I need a pack of D-cold, a strip of crocin, a bottle of Otrivin nasal drop and do you have aspirin in this dosage for my mom? (mom

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T12:44:00.001+05:30

2011 has been a rollercoaster year for us, and as of January 1st last year we were in Bangalore at the end of a short trip to find a flat there to move away from toxic Navi Mumbai, back then we just had finalised on a place, we were looking forward to being back in the garden city by February. Little did we know that along with the relocation came money issue at DH’s previous company and a

A new blog

2011-12-31T15:09:00.001+05:30

Well not exactly new, because I created it years ago, under the name cooking with Cyn, but gave it up because of a lack of consistency in posting but never got around to delete, then a few months back I had the idea of going about writing a blog just about continental food and how to get it done at home in India, but then again realised I wasn’t too consistent and didn’t advertise it though it

Shopping in a few clicks

2011-12-31T07:45:00.001+05:30

Online shopping! A notion that was still in an infant stage when I first arrived in India, and is still by far a disregarded one in Switzerland, but is now booming in the subcontinent. Switzerland has never been high on the whole dot com thing, I remember having friends look at me odd when I said I ordered my region 1 DVDs from Amazon.com and that they cost me less than buying then in

In slow mode

2011-12-29T14:18:00.001+05:30

Winter is the season I love the most here in India, Bangalore was the best with the months right after the monsoon getting cooler, to have us pleasantly shiver in our sweater in the mornings and evenings in December. In Mumbai winter is a bit milder, and this year, December was still warm but pleasant, just at the beginning of this week did a cold wave hit us having me happily sleep in my

Keep it simple silly!

2011-12-26T15:19:00.001+05:30

A day after Christmas, this is this Tata Docomo commercial line that keeps going through my head and for a good reason, I SHOULD have kept it simple. Cooking wise that is. My menu was fairly simple: Potato gratin, grilled chicken breast in shiitake mushroom sauce and a nice homemade cake for desert. The problem with that plan, is that first of all I should have started some preparation earlier

In a festive frenzy

2011-12-23T11:29:00.001+05:30

it’s that time of the year again, Christmas is coming with it’s glitz, lights, parties and food, and that is what has kept me busy. I spent a solid amount of time baking cookies that seem to vanish from the cookie jar faster than the time it actually takes me to make refills, I’ve planned our festive menu (simple one though because it is just us, and I don’t want to be pooped out comes the

A twist on aloo methi

2011-12-20T12:01:00.001+05:30

Winter is undeniably the season of leafy green vegetables in India, and while I’m really not a fan of spinach (I hate it, hate the taste, hate the smell and I gag every time I give it a try or a whiff), I like methi (fenugreek) leaves a lot. Now the traditional desi way of cooking it is to briefly stir the leaves in a hot kadai containing a little oil along with some onions and garlic and throw

A healthy start

2011-12-13T12:29:00.001+05:30

Ishita’s school just issued a circular about the introduction of fixed monthly menus for parents to respect when it comes to stuffing their tiffin boxes (lunch boxes), even though her school is 2 hours a day and the tiffin time more a time to sit and adopt good table manners, they are now making sure the kids get to eat healthy as well, and this month set menu goes as such: Monday: Idli

The battle of taste

2011-12-12T12:20:00.001+05:30

Every couple had them, these moments of intense discussion in the middle of a furniture store deciding which table will look better, and inevitably what one likes, the other will dislike if not truly hate. This in turn ensure more trips to various stores, vetoes issued against one style or another, and more discussion, until you find the right compromise between the two pole opposite of what the

Expat Guide: What to wear

2011-12-09T13:02:00.001+05:30

So you are about to move to India, or just moved and you are just wondering what to wear, are shorts ok to wear if you are a woman? Should you stick to ultra conservative clothing and possibly ethnic wear? Are there fashion trends in ethnic wear? What do I pack to go there? Where do I start? First you need to know where you are going, some smaller cities are more conservative than bigger

St Nicolas

2011-12-07T12:44:00.001+05:30

Saint Nicolas day falls on the 6th of December and while I’m from a protestant Christian family and this is supposed to be mainly a Catholic festival it could be considered odd that I am celebrating. But St Nicolas has some deeper roots in Germany and Switzerland where it is speculated that St Nick actually replaced another festival dedicated to Odin in the pre-Christian pagan time.

Expat guide: How to equip your kitchen

2011-12-05T16:16:00.001+05:30

So you are fresh to India, you got a little shock discovering that Indian kitchens aren’t exactly the same as your standard western kitchen and you are now wondering what to do in this room, and where to get what you need to get it up and running First things first, you need to get some basics taken care of, your kitchen is likely to become completely naked, no fridge, no stove, nothing, so

Countdown to Christmas

2011-11-30T15:51:00.001+05:30

that time of the year is coming soon, and like I did last year, I carried the advent calendar tradition into this year again, last year I made a mural one and it looked like this. This year I put a bit more planning and effort into it and came up with this: The entire thing is made of old toilet paper and kitchen tissue cardboard rolls that I painted green and sealed on both side with

Expat guide to the Indian Kitchen

2011-11-29T12:33:00.001+05:30

There are two rooms in an Indian home that will be guaranteed to make most western expat raise an eyebrow or even cringe: the bathroom and the kitchen. I wrote briefly about the bathroom here I might elaborate on that one later, today I will focus on the kitchen because I don’t recall having written about it ever before. In the west we take modular kitchens, or at the most well laid and

Shopping in India

2011-11-28T12:39:00.002+05:30

A while ago while we were still in Bangalore and about to get the “Shift-back-to-Mumbai” plan into gear I googled my blog’s url to see where it appeared in a bout of curiosity I must admit. It appeared on this blog, which is the blog of a lady who is in an intercultural relationship and living in Bangalore, I never came across her blog before, and I never really got the time to read into it in

A new Painting

2011-11-23T12:06:00.002+05:30

A few weeks after we moved into our new place I bought a big blank canvas to start another painting as there was one big wall behind the dinning table that was utterly depressing complete with cracks in the wall putty. After so many moves in such a short time, I feel the urge to claim my space as MINE and things such as boring white walls, or ugly cheap paint job can’t scream rental any louder

Feeding the Aunties

2011-11-21T12:22:00.001+05:30

Your friendly neighbourhood Auntie usually loves gossip, with a possible inch of drama, and will preferably mind your own tulsi put rather than hers, the years I lived in an independent house flat in a quaint little residential neighbourhood taught me that, from the morning until the evening she will dish out the dirt, inform you that your maid should water your plants, even though you like to do

Elephanta Island and caves

2011-11-17T10:54:00.001+05:30

Today I give you more of a photo blog than anything from our day excursion to Elephanta island, which I mention in my previous post. The Island is famous for one thing: Elephanta Caves, which contrary to name doesn’t mean it was populated by elephants, or dedicated to elephants, the caves are a temple complex dedicated to Shiva and contain many sculpture. The dating of these sculptures is