Day 5 (and 6) after surgery ..

so day 5 was probably the most painful day of all so far. Not very sure why, but might have been due to my "long" walk on day 4 (which had a decent downhill component). Anyway got up at 3:00 am and was quite uncomfortable (bordering on pain, i think) till 6:30 am. I finally asked mari to help me take a shower with the hope of improving things. It did help a bit but not a lot. I also removed both the support and compression bandage for an hour or so and that seemed to help a lot.

The rest of the day was quite similar. Was not really a happy person yesterday. We went to Phu and Tamar's house in Portola valley after school today. The kids had a good time especially when the sprinklers came on. I started hurting a bit towards the latter part and we hurried back home.

Had a great sleep last nite (removed the compression bandage also). Maybe it was a combination of lack of sleep and the wine etc, but things look real good and up today. The pain has decreased considerably and hopefully things will be better from here on out .... Its amazing how different your mood/attitude is after a good sleep :)

Have been doing a fair amout of physical therapy. Do a set of exercises approx 3 times a day (ankle streches, leg lifts and knee bends). So far things are looking good on that front.

Day 4 after surgery ...

So things are coming along quite nicely and am fairly happy with progress so far :) We removed the bandage and the immoblizer in the evening and then i took a nice hot shower. The knee did not look too bad, but it is a bit swollen (which is expected). Mari then helped me put on the ace bandage and the immobilizer. Its kinda hard to require help for every little thing, but over a period of time, i'm starting to do more things on my own. I helped cook a simple dinner of brown rice, dahl and roasted potatoes with olive oil and rosemary.

Tried to sleep without a sleeping pill and it worked quite nicely till 1:00 am. Could not get back to sleep, tried reading god of small things, a book which i've never managed to finish reading. This did not help put me back to sleep either, so finally resorted to taking the pill and got 4 more hours of sleep.

Went with Lara and Mari and had an excellent latte at four barrels on 375 Valencia. Was quite nice and strong, though i prefer the latte at cafe belbo. The space inside is really good (better than belbo and ritual), so overall this might become a regular haunt for us (quick bike ride down 14th street, when i'm able to get on my bike). I also started doing some physical therapy exercises which I managed to find on the web: Recovery after ACL Reconstruction. The straight leg raising is quite strenous and get the heart beating.

After speaking to the Kaiser advice nurse, i went for a short walk. My goal was to have a coffee at Reverie and then get a few books from Cole library. As I started my walk, i realized it was a bit too ambitious of a goal and I was not too sure if i could even make it to reverie. I thought to having coffee at the ashbury market and returning home. It was quite empty and I did not want to hang out there, so i continued onto Reverie. The walk back uphill was much easier and faster. I suspect future walks will be a lot easier. I'm hoping to get more sleep tonite with all this physical exercise. I'll also remove the immobilizer and see how that goes.

Day 3 after surgery and other news ...

last nite and today have been a lot better. Not a lot of sleep last nite either, primarily since i dont sleep on my back, but i've started to twist and turn and sleep on my side which is a good thing. Borrowing a few sleeping pills from my friend, dave, to help solve the problem tonite. Luckily, i have not taken too many of the pain pills, and hence have avoided the stomach issues associated with it.

Took PJ for her first soccer game. Was good fun to see 4 year olds run after the ball and trying to figure things out. Maya prefers to play in the playground and ride her bike instead of soccer. The kids are having a lot of fun in school and integrating quite well with other kids. We've met quite a few of the parents already and will meet the rest over the next few weeks.

For folks who have kids, here's my favorite rhyme which the kids learnt recently:

Where are you going, pig pig pig
I'm going to the garden to dig, dig, dig
Going to my garden to dig, dig, dig?
SHAME ON YOU, pig, pig pig
Sorry man, I'm just a pig
ALL I KNOW is to dig, dig, dig

Day 2 of surgery ...

day 1 went by quite nicely. Could not keep any food (rice porridge) or water in my stomach till late evening. Then had a few pieces of bread and that stayed in. There was not a lot of pain and i attributed it to the nerve block that i took before surgery.

Did not sleep real well last nite :( Woke up at 2:00 am and then pretty much stayed awake for the rest of the nite. Took a painkiller (oxydocin) and that might have put me to sleep for 30 mins or so. Stayed up and finished a quick non-fiction novel (was not very good either, was about the kids and MIT and Las Vegas, forget the title)

Today has been significantly more uncomfortable than yesterday. I dont think i'm in a lot of pain, but am not very comfortable. Walking around is painful for the first few minutes before it gets better. Have been doing a lot of sitting / sleeping and reading the backlog of new yorkers. Hopefully things will be better tomorrow. Am just taking half the dose of the painkiller and might skip it completely till bedtime

Being immobile is a very different feeling. Kinda strange to be dependent on other folks for most things. Sat outside in the sun for a few minutes and that felt quite good. maybe a short walk with crutches on some flat area might help my mood. Doing work stuff (and blogging) is also a good distraction

ACL surgery done and over with :)

Got my knee taken care of earlier today. Kaiser informed me last nite that my operation was scheduled for early morning. So I was there bright and early at 6:45 am and scheduled to be operated at 9:15 am. They have quite a few patients to get ready for when the OR opens, hence the early call. Things were quite efficient the Kaiser way, and I spent a fair amount of time streching and getting a few last minute exercises in (while waiting).

I kinda expected to wait for some time, so had a stash of New Yorker magazines to read while waiting. This proved to be a great decisions since i spent a fair amount of time waiting to be wheeled into the room. My ACL was operated on by Dr. Miller (from Kaiser San Francisco, French Campus). I also opted to take the nerve block to minimize pain after surgery. Seems to be working quite well, since I'm not in any pain right now, but am quite nauseous. Nothing seems to be staying in my stomach, so i'm hoping it improves real soon

Overall things went quite smoothly. I was knocked out for 3 hours and then woke up in the recovery room. Had a few more painkiller IV'ed in, before they let me go home. They ensure that your bladder is functioning before they let you go home. I'm quite psyched that I got this fixed finally, and ready for some good physical therapy and get the knee back up and running soon. Need it to play soccer with the kids :)

More updates later, off to sleep a bit

Life in San Francisco ...

So a couple more weeks since my last update and a few more comments and random thoughts about life in San Francisco compared to life in Nelson

• Getting into a regular routine has been quite good. We dont spend a lot of time on the road on the weekdays, the backroads to the kids school is surprisingly fast (approx 15 mins commute, similar to our tahuna -> richmond commute). Also found a great coffee shop with internet access on the way (in Glen Park, Cafe Bello). I think the coffee there is even better than Ritual. Does give a pretty good buzz :)
• Our favorite restaurants still rock :) So if you are in San Francisco for an extended period of time make sure you eat at Shalimar for north indian food, Vik's Chaat Corner for indian chaat (snacks), Sketch ice cream (any flavor, any time), Lime Tree for malaysian / singaporean food and Spices for sichuan chinese food, La Corneta Taqueria for mexican food.
  
• We've been pretty good with eating most meals at home including lunches. Mari's food club is working great. Last week we got chicken cacciatore from jill. Jill got mari's famous vegetable dahl (the greens book recipe). This week we've got home made pasta sauce from Lisa and Vegetable ghoulash from jill. We combined the vegetable goulash with some dosa mix from viks to have an excellent meal of uttapam and yoghurt for dinner tonite
• Mari and her brothers (benj and benny) along with brian (nephew) and brenda (niece) did the half dome hike this weekend (its a 17 mile roundtrip with approx 4000 ft elevation). I took care of the kids and we had a great time in the valley. Did a few short hikes and a lot of bike rides. We also went for a junior ranger talk / hike at happy isles nature center. Yosemite does have a fair amount of stuff to offer for kids. The waterfalls were non-existent / down to a trickle, so did miss that part of yosemite. On Sunday we took the kids on a fairly long bike ride (2 hours or so). I suspect the kids biked 5-7 miles that day. At the end of the ride, PJ looks at us and whispers that her legs cannot move any more.very cute :). The drive to yosemite on friday evening was quite awful. Took us close to 5 hours to get there. Luckily we did not get stuck in too bad traffic, but it was bad none the less.
  
• Getting my ACL surgery done this thursday. Hopefully i'll be back up and be able to do short walks etc in 3-4 weeks. Mentally i'm quite ready for this and will try to do fairly intensive physical therapy. In the meantime i'm trying to bike as much as possible and do my favorite bike rides (ocean beach/zoo/lake merced, GG Bridge and Sausalito). Biking in the city feels like playing a video game, although the consequences are a bit more severe. Significantly different than biking in Nelson
  
• Found a good public swimming pool for the kids, Martin Luther King Pool in Bayview. Recreation time is typically after school hours (3:00 pm or 3:30 pm) and they reserve a fairly decent section of the pool for families. Last Tuesday we were the only family in there and it was great. Today it was a wee bit more crowded, but still ample space for everyone. The showers are nice and super hot also. Definitely a good surprise. Richmond Aquatic Center still has a significant edge though :)
  
• The kids are doing good in school. Maya has warmed up to the teachers already, and the teachers have already noticed PJ's masti streak. The school is quite good and we are trying to get involved with as many things as we can. There are quite a few evening meetings and educational things for parents on an ongoing basis. Will definitely keep the kids and us busy this year. They have a cool program called WOW (walk on wednesdays). We drive close to school and then join the "walking school bus". There are bagels and milk at the end of the walk.

Pictures and some indepth blog posts on other facets coming soon ..

Back in San Francisco ...

So its been a week since we got back to san francisco. A few random thoughts and musings ...

• San Francisco is dense :) Compared to Nelson (or some other places in NZ), i suspect most of the world is quite dense and crowded. I miss the light traffic, short distances and easy parking of Nelson and NZ in general. I really miss the convenience of the library and the aquatic center and the fabulous playgrounds (though they are quite a few good playgrounds in SF)
• Food wise, I think the two places are quite comparable. San Francisco does have a wider variety, but we pretty much had most things we liked in Nelson too. The two farmers markets are equivalent (in my opinion)
• The kids started at San Francisco School late last week (Sept 11th). They've settled in quite nicely. The school has been wonderful and very accomodating and we did a pre-trip on Monday to get the kids a bit familiar with the other kids and teachers. We also had a play date with two families from the school last week at Walter Haas playground
• The school is a bit closer than I expected :) It takes us between 15-20 minutes to get to school. I was expecting to spend 30 minutes or so driving them to school
• Mari started her food exchange program this week with Jill and Lisa. The program was great this week, since we got to eat yummy rice and nut loaf (mari), cous cous with spicy lemon grass fish soup (jill) and lasagne with home made pesto and sausage (lisa). Here's to more good food in the weeks to come
• Made a quick visit to Monterey Bay Aquarium on Wed before school started. We've been taking the kids there once or twice a year. Is quite amazing to see the various things that holds their interest at various stages of their life. The fish feeding and penguins were a big hit this time. If you are in the area and have little kids, do stop by at the Dennis the Menace playground. There is also a long bike trail which is great for families with kids :)

Review: Richmond Montessori School, Richmond, Nelson, NZ

Maya and PJ attended Richmond Montessori School in Nelson the 20 months we were in Nelson. That probably was our best find in the area. Its a great school with staff that really cares for the kids and gives them a good base for them to build their future on. Both Maya and PJ thrived in that school (along with their other classmates) and most of the times were quite excited to go to school. They were recently reviewed by the ERO (education review office) and came out with flying colors. You can read that fine review here.

Here are some of the highlights of our stay there (in no particular order)

• The teachers (Tameko, Judith, Natasha, Sarah, Niluckshi and Sally) were all so nice, gentle and patient with the kids. I used to volunteer at the school twice a week and observed them and their interactions quite closely. Its quite amazing how they manage to get a large group of kids to work and focus both on an individual and as part of a group
  
• The snacks and lunch :) The school provides lunch on tue-thu. Most of the produce used for the lunch would have been purchased by Niluckshi (the directress) at the Nelson Saturday market, i.e. local organic produce. The kids were introduced to a variety of different types of food from salmon and cream cheese sandwiches to pumpkin soup. At the end of our stay there, maya and PJ choice of sandwich was a mousetrap (a vegemite and cheese sandwich). We'll need to find a local source for vegemite to satisfy their mousetrap cravings
• Bike thursdays and the two scoot bikes that the school offered. Kids out there get to bike and watch their friends bike every thursday. This positive reinforcement along with the help of the scoot bikes resulted in kids as young as 3 years old bike without training wheels.
• Yoga class. Niluckshi would lead a yoga class once a week. Most kids loved doing it. They also had a simple breathing and mantra exercise which really helped the kids calm down. We used this mantra a lot with PJ when she would be upset / throw a tantrum. It worked wonders
• Willing to experiment and try out new ideas. Mari made a few suggestions on things that the school could potentially do to make things better. The school incorporated those suggestions over the course of our stay there. Niluckshi and team really strive to make the school an enjoyable experience for the kids (and parents too)
• Being proactive with regard to a child and their growth. We would talk with both Maya and PJ's teachers on a regular (sometimes weekly basis) and exchange ideas / get tips on how to make things better. Tameko would help us a lot with ideas on how to get PJ to eat better. Judith and Natasha would encourage us to organize more play dates to make maya more comfortable with other kids and adults
• Forgot to mention the Profile books that they create for each child. This by itself is a work of art (and hard labor). Maintaining and updating it seems like a full time job for the teachers. They do have to work extra long hours to update the books for ALL the children
• Maya and PJ also love the cooking classes that are run weekly. They seem to enjoy the music class too (which is run by fabulous grandparents of a former student, ron and gaylor)
  

We'd like to thank the staff at RMP for helping raise our kids and being such fine teachers. Your dedication and commitment to the kids and the school is amazing.

Back in San Francisco ...

We landed in San Francisco yesterday afternoon and are back at home :). The kids are quite pleased to see their old room and toys. Maya and PJ insisted on riding their bikes the minute they got home (after a shower etc)

We had an interesting experience getting to Auckland. Due to fog, the flight was diverted to Hamilton. From Hamilton we were bussed into Auckland. Normally would not be a big deal, but having to transfer 8 pieces of luggage (including a ski bag and a bike case) was quite the challenge. Luckily Maya and PJ are old enough to take care of themselves. They made themselves quite useful by rolling the third cart at Auckland and San Francisco airport.

We went for dinner to Phu's place and met a few friends. We had excellent Beef Stew with noodles / French bread for dinner (mari and tamar had a seafood soup) along with a good bottle of Rimu Grove Pinot Noir. For dessert we had some yummy bi-rite icecream. We had exhausted the kids out there and hoped they would sleep all the way home and into the morning. unfortunately they were still on NZ time and stayed awake a bit late, till 11:00 pm or so. Hopefully they'll get over the jetlag stuff pretty soon. Got a pretty busy weekend ahead with quite a few scheduled activities and events

Restaurant Review: Bouterey ..

We had two great meals at Boutereys the past few weeks. Boutereys was a finalist this year in the Cuisine magazine restaurant of the year awards (along with Hopgoods in Nelson). On both the visits we had a large enough group that we had a taste of everything on the menu :)

Our first visit was with JD and family. The restaurant (as most kiwi restaurants) were very accomodating and gracious to the kids. They had just re-opened after a three week summer break and had a new menu to start with. Since we were 4 adults and 4 kids, we ordered all 5 appetizers and all 5 main courses and did a lot of sharing. Some of the starter highlights include the tuna tartare, beetroot ravioli, the fried squid, the chicken pate with wafers and the pork belly. I just realized that I mentioned all the 5 starters as highlights. The kids were quite famished (we had a long full day with them in the great outdoors), so they were responsible for finishing off a large section of the starters. One slight disadvantage of dining with small kids sharing your plates is you dont get to taste things as a whole, since the kids typically pick and choose parts of the plate that they like. So the experience does get diminished a wee bit :(. The mains were quite excellent also. We liked th duck breast, the beef cheeks and the potato cannelloni. The only dish that was good but not great was the fish of the day (salmon). The chocolate mousse, creme brulee and the tarte tatin desserts complimented the fine meal. We also shared a very good bottle of the Felten Road Pinot Noir.

On our last week, we organized a farewell dinner at Boutereys with the staff at Richmond Montessori and a few friends. We had a total of 16 adults and 9 kids. We scheduled an early dinner so we could get out before the restaurant got very busy. Fortunately for us, this was a slow winter night and the restaurant was quite empty. I managed to sit with a group of folks who liked to share, and we did the same as our first visit, i.e. ordered all the starters, main courses and desserts. This time however, the restaurant paced the meal very well. The kids had a risotto for their main and a chocolate mousse with icecream for dessert. They got the kids meals out approx 10 minutes before the adult meals. This gave the adults time to ensure that their kids ate most of their meal. This allowed us to enjoy our meals with the various sauces and flavor combinations. Once again everything was quite excellent and I really enjoyed the vegetarian ratatotouille and cannelloni. We managed to stay there for 3 hours and it was quite cool to see 9 kids behave for most of that time. Our thanx to Tania and Matt for being such gracious and accomodating hosts

Restaurant Review: Food Game ..

I should have written about Food Game a long long time ago, but i did not, and I feel real bad. A bit late is better than never. Food Game is basically a deli / take away / wild game food shop in Wakatu Square, Nelson (next to Lightning Direct and across from the Hunting shop). The yellow pages address is: 70 Achilles Ave, Nelson, 03-545 6505

Ben and his wife also started Fishmongers in Auckland, which is a great fish & chips shop in auckland and a must visit. It serves quite a few other yummy stuff besides F&C. We normally would have a meal there when we spend the day in Auckland before flying to SFO. So it was quite cool and nice for Ben to move to Nelson and start a great place.

The place has got the worlds best sandwiches! There is a different hot sandwich (or two) every day. Some of my favorites include the wild pork, the fish cake and the roasted doppler lamb. Ben will make a grilled fish sandwich for mari since she does not eat meat. Our friends the dierkings visited the shop a few weeks back and mentioned us. JD ordered quite a few things (none of them veggie), so Ben reminded him that Mari does not eat meat and packed a really good fish sandwich for her. Our neighbours Paul and Toni are also frequent visitors to Foodgame.

Here are a few items that we've had there that were wonderful.

• Blue cod fish cakes
• Smoked Fish Pie
• Rabbit Pie
• Balinese Goat Curry
• Hot smoked salmon
• Raw fish in coconut milk
• Jamaican style Goat Curry
• Wild pork vindaloo
• Hummus and Babaganoush
• Gnocchi with pear and gorgonzola

So far, we've only had one dish (filipino stule goat curry) that was not great. Unfortunately we had it after the balinese goat curry which was extremely good. Foodgame carries a lot of wild game (from marlborough) and also carries Doppler lamb. Definitely a must visit place in Nelson. I suspect this will be the place I will miss the most on our return to San Francisco.

back to san francisco ..

So in 3 days from now, we'll be heading back home to san francisco. All of us seem to have different reactions to going home. Maya is thrilled to go home and live in a big city. PJ wants to get reunited with her dora-dora couch. Mari is happy to go home to be with family and friends. I'm kinda in between.

I'm a bit sad to be leaving nelson since i really enjoyed the slower lifestyle here (specifically the not having to deal with traffic and crowds part). The kids have grown up so much out here and have learnt all the outdoor things we wanted to get them into. Its kinda cool that by the time they are five years, they can bike, ski and swim. Their favorite memories of NZ include the backpacking trips to the two huts (thanx Kat!), Flora Hut and Awaroa Hut. We pretty much talk about the hut trip every week or so. I'll miss all our friends and the gatherings at various playgrounds after school, the combined explorations. I'll miss the market and the food, but that is a whole new blog post :)

We've taken the move back as a good reason to reduce the amount of clutter and stuff in our lives. So mari has been spearheading a major major cleanup of our stuff. We also had to give away most of the furniture that came with the house. Luckily our network of friends managed to help us out :)

I'll blog a bit on the various things as we go through the process

US trip report ...

I went to New Orleans for a CiviCRM training. Getting there direct from AKL involved spending a lot of time at LAX. I opted to break the journey in San Francisco (on both directions) primarily to meet a few friends and wrap up some paperwork. On a related note, booking a multi-city trip on the Air NZ web site is pretty much impossible. I tried to use Judy our NZ travel agent to book the tix, but her response seemed to span quite a few days. Finally I just did it online and booked two separate round trip tix ( AKL <-> SFO and SFO <-> New Orleans)

Did not spend too much time in San Francisco. Did have a few good meals though :). Madras Cafe in Sunnyvale served a pretty yummy mysore masala dosa and a filter coffee (does not come close to the one at Mitra Samaj though). An excellent takeout meal from Shalimar (naan, chicken kofta, bhuna ghost and rice). A pretty good seafood meal at a Vietnamese place in South San Jose (at the vietnamese mall on Story Road). Phu preferred to eat at Cha Cha Cha's over Spices, so we ended up there for lunch. Luckily for us his older brother and family were also there. So it did help to have a bigger crowd and get to taste more dishes there. I think I'm done with Cha Cha Cha for the next decade. The sangria is good but not compelling enough to go back. I think we also need to introduce Phu's family to a few more places in the city :)

The New Orleans trip was a bit more hectic than i would have preferred. A combination of jet lag and 12+ hour work days did not really help things. As such our food experience was good but not great. I definitely would want to go back with mari and spend a week in that part of the country. Might not be a bad idea to do a couple of months road trip with mari, maya and pj on one the school holidays (with wireless network cards pretty much omnipresent in the US, its quite easy to be connected anyplace / anytime).

While walking to the group dinner, we stopped at Fiorella's for a quick snack. We split the catfish poboy (above average) and an incredibly awful gumbo. Not a great start to our NO food experience. Next up, was the group dinner at HerbSaint. I was fortunate to be seated next to Sarmeesha who also is a keen foodie. We decided to get the two soups (shrimp bisque and gumbo) and split 3 small plates (spaghetti with some great cheese and tasso on it, crawfish gratin and shrimp and crawfish over grits (my favorite dish)). All 5 dishes were excellent. I also managed to barter some food with dave for a taste of pork belly with side dishes of dirty rice and collard green. That dish did not seem to be as good as our plates. Dave did mention that his arugula salad with beets and cheese was amazingly good. Overall HerbSaint came out with a score of 7.5/10.

We had a quick breakfast of cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe Du Monde. The coffee was mediocre, the beignet were excellent (according to beignet expert dave). We did find a cafe with pretty good coffee, envie, on decatur street. So the next couple of days we had our coffee there.

Our two sandwich lunches were quite bad, so I will not mention the places here. Suffice to say, dont eat in the central business district of New Orleans. We were a bit disappointed that the line at Mother's was way too long, and hence with a sad heart skipped it. I also had lunch with the US PIRG folks at Casamentos. We had some raw oysters, an oyster loaf (basically a fried oyster sandwich) and a seafood platter. Most of the food was fried (good frying technique, not too greasy), but i do think that all fried food tastes quite good. You cannot judge a place on frying technique alone, so i'll avoid rating it :)

The next night we had dinner at Coops. We shared the jalapeno's stuffed with crawfish (mediocre), 2 pieces fried chicken (good) with rabbit jambalaya (mediocre, a bit too sweet for my taste) and an excellent shrimp etoufee. Unfortunately they had run out of mint (and hence mojitos), so i settled for a decent spicy bloody mary. Overall coop gets a 6/10

We had an excellent training session (in our opinion, need to get feedback from the folks who attended the training!), so we decided to celebrate with a good dinner. We lucked out and got a reservation at our first choice Brigsten's. So off we went. The appetizers seems to be a bit more interesting than the main courses, so we decided to split 3 appetizers and the seafood platter. The appetizers we had were: fried catfish (excellent), crawfish (good) and shrimp etoufee (excellent sauce). The seafood platter had a great jambalaya, and an excellent shrimp with pernod sauce. The rest of the platter (oysters and fish) was mediocre. The service was great and overall i'd give it an 8/10

New Orleans is definitely an interesting place to visit. Its a super touristy town, but also a bit poor compared to some of the other cities I've seen in the US. I suspect this was true even before Katrina and the neighbourhoods we walked thru (quarter, marigny, garden district), most blocks had a mixture of run down homes and good homes. It does seem quite well integrated racially and ethnically.

some good news and bad news ..

The good news is that the both the kids got into San Francisco School in the city. The bad news is we needed to make a decision and figure out some long term plans. Most of you who know us, realize that we like to avoid making any long term plans, but in this case some quick decisions had to be made. They give you a week to decide. Mari and I had an informal agreement that if the kids do get into a school that we like (sf school, live oak and friends school met that criteria) we'd head back to the US.

So we are off to the US for good in September. I'm a bit sad since we do enjoy living in NZ and have a great circle of friends. I really like our work and play schedule and the amount of time we spend with each other as a family. The less traffic / population density and close access to all the things we like doing make it a great place to live. As with everything in life, there are pros and cons with everything. Will be interesting to see how we react to life back in the US for the first few months.

This also means that if you are planning to visit us in NZ, you better do so NOW :). The NZ winter starts in may/june so the earlier the better. We plan to do a fair amount of travelling and seeing a few places down under before we head back. Some of the places we'd like to visit are queenstown, wanaka and southland in the south island, taranaki, gisborne and coromandel in the north island. We'll also try to visit australia (melbourne, tasmania) and potentially stop over in some islands (fiji, tonga, tahiti) on our return trip home.

Seems like we'll switch our travel schedule and go to places when the kids have summer vacation. I'm currently thinking it might be a good idea to spend time in a different country every summer for the next 8-10 years (assuming the kids still like hanging out with us!). Some countries we'd love to visit and stay in include South America (Argentina or Costa Rica), China and Japan.

Quick trip back to San Francisco

I'm headed back to San Francisco (actually at auckland airport / in mid flight) while writing this for a quick business trip. Dave and myself are doing a CiviCRM training in New Orleans, so i'll be spending most of my time there. This is the first multi-day trip in a long time without kids, and it already feels a bit strange. I did the same routine we did with the kids the last time we went via AKL airport. Bought a couple of postcards and stamps from Whitcoull's and sent them to the kids in Nelson. I'll try to do the same from the other two cities i visit on this trip. I was a bit sad on the long flight back and did miss playing and chatting with the kids. Since this was a business trip, I flew premium economy. For the additional cost, this is definitely worth avoiding. The food is relatively good (they serve you business class meals), BUT the seats are just a wee bit better than economy. The number of seats per row is the same as economy, so simple math does dictate that you will not get a lot more space. The seats do not recline a lot more either. Would have been so much better if they had traded off the food and seats. Seems like a scam of the highest order :( On the return trip, I did manage to get a decent rest. I was a bit stupid and did not call up and get a window seat ahead of time.

New Orleans seems to be a food mecca. The number of good places to eat seems to be mind boggling. Need to spend less time at work and more time walking and eating around the city. Our good friend Lara seems to know all the good places there. So we've got a long potential list of candidates. ChowHound is quite good to do research also. Between the two, i think i can spend at least a month eating and walking around New Orleans. More food reports as I visit those places.

We've ordered a lot of toys and games from amazon. Things in the US are significantly cheaper than NZ. A card game that cost us NZD 25, costs USD 8 at amazon. The price differential seems crazy and stupid. Since I'm traveling along and light, I figure I can pack a couple of bags filled with toys (and some food too!)

Bouterey's Restaurant

After a 2+ hour hike up the Richmond hills, Kath and I showed up at Bouterey's. We were hungry. The restaurant was full on a Saturday night. The other diners were dressed nicely and more than casual and we were not. Thank you Bouterey's for not having a dress code.

I was looking forward to dessert so I only ordered a main dish. Kath ordered the curry bread and vegetable side. The very knowledgeable waitress reccomended the bread and said it was amazing. She wasn't kidding about the bread. It was amazing. We ate all but one slice which Kath asked to pack for home. Somehow it didn't get in the doggie bag. Every bite of the curry bread tasted like it was dipped in curry. Yumm. I asked if I would be able to order the bread, but it's made to order so it depends on how many reservations they get on the day, etc., but worth a try to call and request.

On to the main course. Kath ordered the monk fish which she said was very tasty and cooked well. They stacked the fish and layered it with vegetables, salad, and a few ravioli's.

I ordered the vegetarian - a tower layered with beetroot, pumpkin ravioli, and mushroom. Very good, tasty, special sauce. Eating the bread along with the meal made it a satisfying and delicious meal. The portion was enough that I had room for my own dessert.

I ordered the vanila creme brulee with ice cream. It was good. Sweet enough and rich enough for my sweet tooth. I wish I could've had more than a one spoonfull of ice cream. Kath ordered the chocolate souffle and fondant. It was chocolate and more chocolate of very good quality chocolate.

We left the restaurant feeling not stuffed but eating a very tasty delicious food.

Since I was making sure I'd have room for dessert, I didn't get a chance to try the starters. I'd definitely want to go back and have a couple starters for my main meal next time.

Bouterey's is on my restaurant list, just wish it could be on my lunch list as well.

Life back in Nelson ...

So its been a bit more than 3 weeks since we returned from our trip. It is indeed very nice and relaxing to stay in the same place for some time. Living out of a suitcase gets tiring after a couple of months :)

We've been having a lot of fun the past few weeks. The kids have gotten back into their regular schedule and so have the parents. The kids have made great strides in some outdoor sports. They are both now getting fairly comfortable in the water and can swim a few strokes without floats. We've been hitting the pool at least 4 times a week and have been spending 30-45 minutes or so on each visit. Not sure where the kids get their energy from, but i'm exhausted at the end of the day :) Its still summer here (not that u can tell from the temperature sometimes), so it does not get dark till 8:30 pm or so. We typically go to the pool after an early dinner (6:00 pm), but late enough so that we can use the hydropool (which is a super warm training pool). Its a lot of fun to swim with the kids and see them learn and figure out stuff. Maya right now is experiment with her back float and attempting to do underwater flips. PJ, as always is willing to jump in the deep end and figure out things in real time. As with most things, they each have a very different approach to how they learn and grasp things.

In other news, maya decided it was time for the training wheels to come off. Saturday was the day of the big no-training wheels ride. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, so we went swimming instead!. Sunday turned out to be a great day, so off we went to Neale Park and the Railway Reserve Bike Trail. mari taught maya how to just use her legs to kick off and get the balance feel. I'm a bit sad that we did not hear about the Wooden Bikes at a earlier stage (would have made things a bit easier). Maya did get a quick feel for the balance and pretty soon she was pedalling with mari / me running behind her holding her up for balance (hard work!). We did this for an hour or so, and quite a few times let go and she pedalled quite nicely. So looks like she'll be up and pedalling away in the next few weeks. Am looking forward to doing the railway reserve ride with her and also the ride along tasman bay (near the airport)

After a short afternoon break, we headed back to the pool for another swim session. We were joined by zack/maddy/chris so the kids had an extra long pool session. We returned home quite tired and rested for a bit. After dinner the kids still seemed to be a bit energetic, so we marched them up the famous tamaki st stairs. The kids managed to get up 250 or so steps before they wanted to head back down. All in all not a bad sunday :)

Nelson lunch spots ... (Go Mexico, Bar Delicous, Falafel Gourmet, House of Sushi, Crema)

We've been spending a fair amount of time in Nelson during the day running various errands and paying bills that were due some time back. We also get to enjoy lunch in nelson while running these errands. Here's what we've tried in the recent past, the nelson ethnic food scene is definitely getting much better :)

• Go Mexico: This is a mexican place run by a North Indian on Bridge Street (close to Collingwood). Our friend Chris had visited this place when it first opened and his reviews were not stellar. So it took us a much longer time than normal to visit this place. We went there for lunch today, and boy was it good!. Mari has the grilled fish (monkfish) burrito with a mild salsa and a horchata (home made). I had the chicken burrito with the medium salsa and a fresh lemonade. Ordering the drinks was a mistake :( The drinks were very good but a bit too big and took up valuable stomach space. My chicken burrito was excellent. The rice and beans had a nice spice and sour taste to it from the chicken sauce / salsa. There was a reasonable amount of meat but the combination hit the spot. The burrito seemed to be more like a home made chappati. Mari's fish burrito was also quite good. I tasted the fish and it was fresh and flaky. We only managed to finish half the burritos, so we have a yummy lunch tomorrow. After i mentioned Chris's review, the owner asked me to send Chris back to the place and pick up a free burrito on the house. The burritos are a bit on the steep side for those of us used to $5 taqueria burritos, but the quality of ingredients and size makes up for the cost (its get amortized over 2 lunches!). If you are in Nelson, go visit Go Mexico! now. We need to ensure it stays in business.
  
• Falafel Gourmet is another great lunch spot (actually all the places on this list are great lunch spots!). I always get a large lamb and mari gets the smal vegetarian falafel. The large is good enough for a meal and a half. The tahini sauce they use is quite good. We need to get some pita bread and hummus from that store home the next time we are in town
• Masao and Yuki from our favorite sushi place (House of Sushi) have opened up a new, slightly larger branch on Vanguard St (past the New World). We had lunch there last week. Mari had the fried warehou and salmon over rice with a small salad. I got a pork katsu over rice. We also shared a seaweed salad (which was a large salad with some amount of seaweed in it). We picked a few of their desserts for snacks for the kids. They were ok, i found them a bit too sweet. Masao's japanese curry is very good and worth having. I tried making a japanese curry at home earlier this week, it was good but nowhere close to masao's :(
• Bar Delicious is our alternate to Hopgoods since its next door. It recently won the best cafe award in Wild Tomato (a local lifestyle magazine). The nicoise salad is very good here, so is the pork belly. Mari got the pan fried fish of the day (warehou). She liked it, but i thought it was very average. We finished off lunch with an excellent coffee from Crema (a coffee cart near the cathedral)

Its so good to be back home and not have to travel for the next few weeks / months :)

Brady trip report ..

Our friends the brady's spent a month in Nelson, New Zealand over the xmas holiday. You can read his trip report here. You can also see some good photos of Nelson and NZ here. This link should help folks who complain that the blog has no photos :) Speaking of which, we hope to upload some of our photos to flickr sometime in the near future :)

lobo

A Mumbai Wedding

Claudy and Ruby’s Wedding. It was an outside evening wedding decorated w/ flowers, lights, and more flowers. Pink and white were clearly the chosen colors. The bright lights delayed bedtime and the music started the party. We arrived on time and so we had our choice of tables. Maya and PJ were full of energy and happy to be dancing to fun music on an empty dance floor.

When Maya and PJ’s cousins finally arrived, they happily danced around with them. I took this chance to take pictures of all that was happening. I wore my friend’s sari that she so freely lent to me. Thank you Smita. It was fun to wear as I felt I blended in with the other few hundred guests. Some advantages to wearing a sari – it’s a good guard against mosquitos, and allows air to freely flow through. I had shorts on just in case of it all falling apart. I found myself adjusting it a lot but maybe more so than needed since I was thinking about it’s looseness whenever I wasn’t roaming around taking pictures or keeping up with the kids.

When the two guests of honor arrived, the DJ did a great job keeping the party alive. Everyone had a good time throwing the pink and white tiny styro-foam balls as Claudy and Ruby walked passed all 400+ guests. Right after that they cut the cake. Kurund was more than happy to open the bottle of champagne and squirt a few lucky people. I was very lucky. After the toasts, the dancing started.

While the dancing started, I and Maya wandered around the buffet table. The servers were kind and allowed Maya and I to take some food before the official food announcement. There were a lot of food choices for vegetarians, carnivores and mithai eaters. The jellibee was the best I’ve every eaten. The chocolate cake was excellent too.

There were crayons and paper available to all the children which helped entertain the kids while the adults filled the dance floor or just relaxed at the table while enjoying the moment.

Around 930pm or so, Maya and PJ fell asleep on a couple of the cushy chairs. They’re cousin Anika joined them. When the music stopped around 10pm or so, everyone quit dancing to eat. To end a fun filled evening, we went on stage to congratulate Claudy and Ruby once again.

You can view a few of the wedding pictures here.