Life in Brussels

Asking a Cow to prove it can Mooo.

2011-01-27T05:25:00.000-08:00

Yeah I know I haven't posted in the longest time. But well, nothing much to post about and besides I decided to share pictures through FB anyway since its more convenient.

The reason why I suddenly decided to post here is because I have something to voice out. I was just looking at websites of the International Universities that are available here with the idea of seeing what Masters programs are being offered. There are plenty of courses available at varying price ranges, locations e.t.c..

The requirements are generally standard, a bachelor's degree, 2 recommendation letters, notarized copy of passport , the non refundable application fees e.t.c. What irritated me and forced me to come up here and post this is one of the "standard requirement". The requirement of submitting a TOEFL or a IELTS score (or whatever it is called) for anyone who is not a citizen of America or UK or Australia or one or two other countries. Why? Because those citizens are considered native speakers. Oooooooh....

Really? I have personally met people from some of these so called native English speakering countries who can't speak proper English for their life's worth! They cannot structure their sentences properly or use correct grammar! I am not saying all are like that, but definitely some are like that. In that case, why employ such a biased mechanism to judge the proficiency of one's English?

I had been studying English since primary school and I even have Cambridge O and A level certificates! Yet I have to pay a few hundred euros and do these ridiculous tests which will test if I can say A B C? What kind of logic is that? How is that fair?

Or perhaps, these universities get a nice cut of the money pie from the TOEFL and IELTS organisations? Ya. That should be the only logical explanation.

Oh well, I won't be applying to any Universities (if & when I do my Masters) which employ such unfair practises and try to extract a few hundred bucks and a lot of time to prove something that I have been doing my entire life.

Its like asking a cow to prove that it can mooo. Well of course it can you idiots! Its been moo-ing all its life!

Missing Kota Kinabalu..

2010-10-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

I am missing the times I had during my trip to Mount Kota Kinabalu.. 10 new faces, 1 familiar face, 1 hell of a trek and living life at the bare minimum. Such an adventure it was! I hated every second while I was climbing the mountain, but I am loving every second thinking about what we had done and accomplished! What a trip it was!

I want to do something exciting again. Something challenging. If not we begin to lose the sense that we are alive and our bodies are capable of such things.

Some of those beautiful times captured on my camera:

We were crazy enough to go to level 4 water rafting the very next day after our trek ended! Insane. All our legs were filled with jelly and we were running on pure excitement and adrenaline. Oh yes, there was that breakfast too =) Water rafting was a blast! With Jimmy and me in the front of the raft and incoming waves which were something like 3 meters in height! Yeeeehaaaa!!!!

Of course, at the peak of the mountain. Little did we know that our troubles were just beginning!! Getting down was near impossible for me as I realized about muscles which I never knew I had. They just became rocks and all I could feel were 2 stone like things for my legs. Oh God! And that lonely trek down the dark mountain side with one dim light for 3 hours! Felt like a lifetime!

Best water rafting that I have done..

The instructor said you can go overboa....SPLASH!..rd.. Before he even finished it, I dived into the water :p Was just waiting for the chance!

Nah these are people from 2 rafts.. Not just one!

One of my favorite shots. I really love the colors in this and the expressions on the gals. Pure joy and happiness :)

The first glimpse of the huge mountain that we were supposed to trek. Once we saw it, you could hear people muttering, 'oh shit', under their breaths.. Little did we know what we got ourselves into! =)

My friends are one inch closer to having a safe & tasty dinner at my place!

2010-10-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

So I made more stuff! I made onion bhajis along with baked potatoes in olive oil with seasoning and a mild biryani styled rice.

These are the onion bhajis. I made quite a lot. Not the most fantastic. I need to make them into smaller pieces and fry them to more crisp golden color. But they are definitely edible and tasty!! Had them with some rice I cooked.

These are the baked potatoes. Thanks to ideas from Li Shan, I actually made these up and they were fantastic! I can foresee me making a lot of these in future! Very easy to cook. Only downpoint being, it takes 1 hour to bake in the oven but damn they are nice! So who cares :)

And then for the main dish! The rice! Of which I cooked a lot. Enough that it is lasting me for 4 days =D And still tastes fantastic and yummy. Again thanks to Li Shan as she was the one who suggested I can mix rice with all these and more. I had the ingredients but I am obviously clueless as to how I can use them. Haha.. thanks Li Shan! U saved me for this week :) Please think about something for next week now ok?

And of course, it would be of no justice if I don't have a macro shot of it :p

Ok anna, I know technically this isn't macro shot! =x

I would be experimenting with some new dish this weekend. Lets see how it goes. Any suggestions as to what I can make?! Do tell me in the comments. You would save a poor soul (me!) from eating crappy frozen food :D

All the matters with respect to my car are almost settled now and I am beginning to love my car. Its so powerful! One press at the accelerator and you can hear the engine kick up and WHOOSH u go!! Of course being an automatic, there is a transition lag time between the change of gears and transmission of power to the wheels, but that can't be avoided with an automatic unless we are talking about the F1 paddleshifters that Ferrari started putting in their automatics. A auto clutch system which works in the hundredths of microseconds! Imagine that! An automatic which is actually faster than a manual in terms of gear change!

If only I had a Ferrari.. Someday.. I will have it!

Carrot Halwa!!

2010-10-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to post the pictures of the Carrot Halwa I made 2 weeks ago! But well, I got real busy with so many things needing attention and required to be done. So finally I had the chance today and here I am uploading them online for all to see and drool!

I was just reading about what I can make here with simple things and I thought why not check out carrot halwa recipe. To those who do not know what this is, its an Indian sweet made out of grated carrot (duh?), milk, sugar and some nice roasted nuts along with a few pods of cardamom spice.

I started my experiment and my mouth started drooling just with that smell!! Again to those who don't know, carrot halwa, I would say, is my favorite Indian dessert!! I just love it! Once I finished making it, I tasted it and went to heaven! Woot~! Hahaha.. I know I am exaggerating but the joy of cooking something for the first time and getting it so good and tasty is just a joy in itself!

I decided good things must be shared with good friends and so brought it over to dinner the next day at my friend's place where 4 others tried it and gave thumbs up! I had made a small quantity thinking that I would most likely screw up and I would be the only one eating. But well, the dish was totally smack cleaned as we all helped ourselves to it :)

Anyway, enough of blabbering from me, here are the pics!

So there you go! As some of you know ( I am overusing that phrase!), I have already uploaded some simple pics of my car in facebook :p So you guys can see the pictures there. I would post the pictures here after I have taken a proper photoshoot in a nice location and all.

Close encounter with the Mushroom Kind!

2010-09-20T02:41:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post this update for quite sometime but I have been caught up in stuff! First and foremost, I finalised my new car on Saturday!!!! Yipee!!!!

I think this is one of my big moments.. You know.. We always have them. The first toy you got from your parents (at least the ones you remember), the first bicycle, the first pet, the first computer and all those landmark moments in our life which give us the joy. Of course this is nothing much to what my colleague got! He just became a father on Friday (17th)!! I am real glad for him and his family! Congrats man!! =)

So yah, I think buying my first car is a kind of landmark moment in my life. I would be finalising the deal and doing all the necessary paperwork and hopefully be able to drive it early next week. What? Pictures? What car? Nah! I am not gonna tell you that! Only a few people know about it and those who know, you are banned from posting here what car it is!

I will reveal it with pictures once I have it in my hands :)

Anyway, changing the topic back to food, since I am such a food junkie, this weekend was declared (by me of course, who else?) as the Mushroom Weekend! And so I ate mushroom until I got sick of it.. Actually I am not sick of it yet :p

I made Mushrooms with almost everything you can think of! (Ok, I am exaggerating now).

I made Buttered Mushrooms with Garlic and Hot Pepper Sauce:

Eaten with some nice bread.

Time taken to cook: 10 mins Time taken to Gobble up: 10 mins

Then I made Buttered Mushrooms with Cream (and a bit of garlic & black pepper):

Again with some nice bread.

Time taken to cook: 15 mins Time taken to Gobble up: 10 mins

Then I added some pasta into this creamy mushroom sauce that I had conjured up. I can tell you, it was SUPERB!!!!!! I loved it!!!

Time taken to cook: 15 mins Time taken to Gobble up: 30 mins (ok, I was watching TV and really enjoying this thing)

Long time no post!

2010-09-10T05:30:00.000-07:00

Hello all after a very long gap!! No no, I do not have internet at home yet, I'm using office internet to post this up. Anyway, the good news is that I should be getting internet at my home in about 6 days! Hurray for that!

I realised that I can actually survive without internet for almost 2 weeks! Well for one thing, I can still use it at work. Although sparingly, but nevertheless, it isn't like I am totally cut off from the cyber world.

I know that a lot of you are anticipating pictures of my new place and all, but I am afraid you all gotta wait up a bit! I will only post the pictures after I receive my goods from Singapore and after I go to IKEA and get some minor stuffs and once I have arranged all that properly and cleanly in my home.. So yes, you would have to wait probably about 2 weeks?

I have decided on my car but now no one knows about which model I am targetting for! Haha. So I would only reveal that once I have gotten the car in my hands! =)

I have started cooking more "proper" meals since I have all the tools for cooking at my disposal now. Not many pictures yet though. The only one that I can show you right now is of the potato fry that I made and added some chillies and also cheese to make it look nice :p

Mom, my new home doesn't have anti-stick frying pans so it is more difficult right now as the potato tends to stick to the pan. But anyway, I have managed to fry them pretty well. Here is the single picture that I was talking about:

Yah.. So that is about it actually. It is raining nowadays almost every other day currently. And the temperatures are definitely more cooler than couple of weeks back. But they are still comfortable and nice.

I have been watching quite a lot of movies. Yesterday I caught The Incredible Hulk followed by Scream 2. Nothing much to do actually. Over this weekend, I would be going to the supermarket to replenish my supplies and probably go and get a haircut too. It costs something like 25 € for a haircut!!! But do we have a choice?!

Decreasing Indian student numbers in Australia.

2010-09-02T04:10:00.000-07:00

Well well well, an interesting article I found on Times of India online edition. It is about the steep decline in the Indian students enrollment in Australia.

Click here to get the article in a new window

I guess it would be pretty obvious to most Indians that the single biggest contributing factor for this result were the numerous attacks that happened on Indian students in Australia a few months back. At one point, I remember, there was an attack almost every week!

I am not jumping the gun and stating that these are racial attacks. We will not know for sure unless each culprit is caught and interrogated regarding the motives for their attacks. But on the other hand, they do seem to be racial attacks since it seemed that only Indians were attacked (as far as the news that came out) and they were attacked by Australians.

What made me write this post is the following statement from Times of India article:

"Student security would be lower down on the list of reasons than the difficulties of getting a visa and the lack of differentiation among providers," Connelly said.

Student security would be lower down on the list?? Are you kidding me? You mean the drastic decrease is because of mainly increased difficulty in getting a visa? Who is affected by the drastic decrease in foreign students? Yes, the Australian Universities as they suddenly have a huge drop in the funding. And whom will the Australian Universities affect? Yes, the Australian economy of course! So you mean that Australia is actively making it difficult to get student visas so that their economy is hit? 0.o

Of course there are a lot of assumptions in my statements but the fact remains that Student Security would have been one of the biggest factors why there was a drastic drop in Indian student enrollment. I doubt it is a matter of getting visas which is primarily influencing this enrollment figure.

2010-08-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Finally I got my house settled. I will be shifting this Saturday, that is 4th of September. It is located in an area called Auderghem which is near some nice parks and all. That was the first house I looked at among all the others. There were some pretty good ones but some were hard to maintain, some were in an awkward location and yet some others were just having real weird and spooky furniture.

Here is the google maps image:

Well you can't see nothing much from that I guess. Its in a good convenient location with Carrefour being just about 5 minutes and many other shops and restaurants like Pizza Hut and others. It is right beside the expressway and its easy to get to work. Except that I would have to drive about 40km just one way. So its about 80km to 90km everyday.

Here is the google maps image showing where I would have to drive daily:

So I made pasta again. I am waiting to shift to my house before I can start cooking more "complicated" things with rice and all. Anyway, this time I added extra things like capsicum, chillies and red wine into the pasta sauce along with onions, garlic, mushrooms. Sounds like a weird combination perhaps for some, but it was damn good!! The best I've made so far I think.

Another random picture I took:

Haha.. Yeah, thats a lot of tea and a lot of coffee! But the Nescafe Cappuccino and the Twinnings Infusion Selection teabags are for office. The Nescafe Colombian coffee is plain fantastic! Well, I think that is about for now.

2010-08-22T03:58:00.000-07:00

Well I didn't really know what title to give this post so I skipped the title part. Been pretty busy over this weekend as I cleaned up my small little room a bit and then ironed my clothes and all that.. I also attempted to make omlettes. I know they are fairly easy but its always a "mission" when you are doing it for the first time.

So the good thing is, they turned out rather damn well! The bad thing is, I ate them up in a moment.

So with the help of whatever ingredients I had, that is onions, mushrooms, corn and cheese, I made my omlettes! The first one turned out a bit dark and the picture actually makes it look very dark. Trust me, it wasn't that burned out in real life. The second turned out just perfectly..

So here you can see the two of them.. I remembered the chef from my recent trip to Bintan with xihao, ai teen, yean ling & li shan. This was at the breakfast and he was neatly folding away the omlettes while the insides were still slightly raw and liquidish. I thought that looked just yucky, but when I ate it, the insides were perfect! So thats what I did and it really turned out nice.. Apparently the inside gets cooked by the surrounding heat even after u remove it from the pan. Which is why you have to leave it a bit undercooked. Interesting eh?

This is the close up of the darker one.. You can see how yummy it looks! Trust me, it was really good! With some pepper and salt on it.. And these two filled me up completely and there was no room for anything else..

Time to cook: 20 mins, Time taken to GOBBLE up: 15 mins.

So there you go. That was my breakfast/lunch kinda thing yesterday. After which I met up with Chris & Tudor and we had a BBQ at Tudor's place. He has a very nice and cosy place! With a neat lawn/garden behind where we had the BBQ. We caught a lame movie called Kick Ass. It was just time pass sort off stuff..

So here I am on the Sunday. I should be cooking something simple real soon and having my lunch e.t.c. Thats about it for now!

House Hunting & Food

2010-08-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

I had a fruitful day today! No no, that doesn't mean I don't have fruitful days on the other days.. I spent the second half of the day going around looking at various flats and apartments. Some I straight away liked some I straightaway disliked. One was so complicated that even the agent got confused! Oh dear...

Anyway I sent an email to you, you and you. Basically my parents & bro that is. That email, although very long, contains basically most of my thoughts. Goodness, I typed too much for today. My fingers are beginning to complain. Imagine how they must have scolded me when I told them after typing the email that they have to type this blogpost. They just might hold a strike against me!

Ok.. Enough of all that nonsense. So yah, a lot of you have been asking what I have been munching on and surviving on. So far it has been simple to make things or heat and eat kind of stuff. But as we all know, we get sick of things sooner or later. For me, it is sooner. I decided that I have to experiment and torture my stomach to see what I can conjure up as Master Chef Arjun!!! Tada~!!!

So this was the simple thing. Before you start laughing your head off, do note that I have NO experience in cooking at all. Well except for my fried rice and cookies that I made God knows how many years ago! So yah. When I say it is simple, for you ladies (mom excluded as she knows much I can't cook!) , it has to be understood as SUPER DUPER SIMPLE! When I say not that simple, in your terms it would be THAT IS STILL SUPER DUPER SIMPLE!! So yah, please leave your laughter aside for a while :p And marvel at what Master Chef has prepared!! Hahaha..

So here is the first dish. Which is really simple and actually I have no idea why I am posting here. Perhaps because I have nothing else to post? Haha...

Below is just some instant noodles with some vegetables and mushrooms! Mushrooms are great! =) It was good!

Time taken to Cook: 10Mins, Time taken to Eat: 15Mins

Look at that color! Fried Garlic, Onion and mushrooms! Smelled great! Ok, I was really hungry too =x

Pasta sauce with my fried stuff mixed in! I like the colors in this too :p Still smells great!

And finally my first home made pasta! ( Yes first. Laugh all you want >.< )

At this point, I wasn't thinking of smell or colors, I was more of "Yes! I can eat finally!"..

Time to cook: 30Mins, Time taken to GOBBLE up: 10mins.

Thats all for today folks! By the way, you can post your comments now! Do give me some feedback or rather just entertain me a bit :p Adios and Ciao!

Flower Carpet 2010 and Brussels Summer Festival 2010

2010-08-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

What a perfect time for me to come to Brussels I must say! This weekend we are having the Flower Carpet 2010 and the Brussels Summer Festival has started too!

Flower Carpet event happens every 2 years in the Grand Place Square in Brussels. This place is just a huge area surrounded by beautiful and historical buildings, some of which were built in the 14th century!! Yes! They are ancient buildings. It is considered one of the most beautiful squares in the whole of Europe apparently according to some websites.

I should show you the pictures so that you will clearly understand what I am talking about :)

More information on wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Place

For 360 degree view check this page: http://www.visitonweb.com/wikipedia/grand-place-bruxelles-uk.html. This page is really brilliant!

The two pictures below are of the Brussels Town Hall. The building also contains a hotel in it and there are huge paintings and real ancient furniture and items inside. The main building was built in 14th or 15th Century!

This building shown below is the Breadhouse or the King's house in more proper words.

The flower carpet from the ground level!

And then I found out that I can go up to the balcony of the Town Hall from where we can get a bird's view! Brilliant! Well I had to pay 3 bucks for that, but who cares!

Here is the entrance of the Town Hall. The sculptures are so intricate and beautiful. And they would look scary in the wrong lighting.

I can't take pictures inside that Town Hall. It is gorgeous inside! All those architecture and paintings and decor! Superb!!

And here is a quick and dirty collage that I did on my small mini laptop with limited resources:

So yep! There you go! Flower Carpet 2010! As for BSF 2010, I don't really have any pictures. I went out with my colleagues/friends last night to catch some performances and stuff. Great bunch of people I've met here thus far. Thanks to Christophe actually. The crowd was amazing. Its a pity we can't really have this scale of events in Singapore. And the pricing is cheap too with 30 bucks for 10 days! In Singapore we would probably be ripped off through the roof! Haha..

My temporary service apartment.

2010-08-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

So here we go, I've pictures of my temporary service apartments finally uploaded. Its just a kind of small studio apartment but its more than enough for me to survive for a month. It is in the city center and just 2 stops from Gare du Midi Metro. Very convenient for most of the stuffs. I have a Indian grocery shop, a Pakistani Grocery shop and an Indian restaurant within 150 meters of where I am living. Talk about convenience!

Anyway here they are:

So thats my simple room in one nutshell. The bed, the heater, the chair which I don't use, the dining table and all that.

Here we have my kitchen area! Pretty well equipped I must say! All the cutlery are there, electronics like microwave, kettle, stove, coffee maker, toaster are provided. Good eh?

Thats my bathroom. Well yeah, I took pictures of that as well! Haha.. I have no idea why I took these pictures. Anyway, there you go.

My first shopping trip to Carrefour Express! After that I eventually went to the Hyper Carrefour but I think I didn't take any pictures of that though..

Good Morning Everyone!

2010-08-08T21:03:00.000-07:00

Yes yes, its already afternoon in Singapore but its only 6am here =) I had woken up not so long ago and am just finishing my coffee up. It tastes great! I am ready to begin the new week on a positive vibe!

This is probably going to be a very important week at work. I need to have enough sleep and proper food intake else I won't be able to concentrate properly.

Anyway, I am still staying in my temporary service apartment. I would be staying here at least 2 more weeks I believe. I would be looking for an apartment starting next week. That would be the 17th & the 18th. Hopefully I will be able to get a nice little home fitting my budget and my requirements =)

I should get going now and get ready to go to work. At least this time I straightaway know how that damn GPS works.. lol..

Goodbye Singapore!

2010-08-08T13:33:00.000-07:00

I am here. In Brussels. Finally.

After keeping it all hushed up for so long, I am finally here in Europe and ready to begin a new phase of my life. It is going to be a tough 2 to 3 years to come. Staying alone, trying to perform to my best and all of that.

Anyway before we talk about all that, I must thank all of you for the wonderful farewell that you had given me =)