Become someone that you are not...

After a great kickoff @ office, we started to the Survo Mansion (Kuokkala).  Well the theme was "Become Someone that you are not..."

It was really fun & frolic... with the dear colllegues donning different roles/characters.  The best part was the Asterix attire of the team.  

  And with some food & drinks, we sta

rted participating, singing, dancing, enjoying the Karaoke.

Well I did chorous for "We will we will rock you..." song & also in our team song... (Ricky Martin's Livin La Vida Loca...)

That was pretty coooooooooooooooooool...

Christmas Party kicked off @ Office

It's just a month before the Christmas, and it's my first Christmas in Europe. Well it's good oppurtunity to get to know lot more. Trip to Lappland is still in the planning stage, but @ office we started the Christmas party and it was kicked off with Glogg, the traditonal way. And all the folks would be enjoying in nearby mansion. Whole night food, drink, sing, dance...
Recipe for Glogg, in case if you want to try out ;)

My First Snowfall in Life @ Jyvaskyla

I was excited to see the little snow fall on the way to my office and whole the roads are painted/covered entirely with snow.  As I said, we captured few more photos over this weekend.

colors @ Jyvaskyla - 3

It's just 2-3 weeks back when I wrote about a new set of colors that are fast approaching in Jyvaskyla. It's brown, brown....everywhere. Most of the trees lost the leaves, stood out with branches, lifeless... But soon, a new color started taking over the role of brown to fill up the tiny Jyvaskyla. Yup as you can guess, it's white in the form of "snow".
Though it started snowing bit early, somewhere 10 days ago. The rains made it tough for snow to occupy pretty faster. But as I got up in the morning I was surprise and was a feast to the eyes.

Could not believe my eyes, though it was sunny still snow took over and took the lead.




So me and Malyadri, decided to go around and capture beauty more over the weekend.
Watch out for more photos ...

colors @ Jyvaskyla - 2

It's already November and I find very little green and more and more brown. Well I mean, trees are losing all it's leaves and now they are left out with branches, stems... the snowfall just started thought I should capture before the trees are painted white.

I am back 2 Jyvaskyla :)

It's been a long gap. Well I can justify by saying that I was at home. Actually I started this blog and filled this blog with many posts only when I was at Finland. Now that I spent a nice time at home with parents and busy with brothers marriage, I did not get much chance to write here.
And the loads of project work kept me busy. Moreover, I also started a blog entirely dedicated to my brother's marriage, highlighting, explaining the traditions behind the (Indian/Telugu) marriages.
The blog is sudheer weds sujani :)

Reached home safely...

The flight journey was good and hassle free trip. I thank one and all who made my journey so eventful
Bijesh
Ganesh
Vamshi
Madhusudhan
Rasheed & his friends
...
...
...

:)

Happy Navaratri...

Navratri (नवरात्रि) is a Hindu Festival worship and dance. The word Navaratri literally means nine nights in Sanskrit; Nava meaning Nine and Ratri meaning nights. During these nine nights and ten days, nine forms of Shakti. female divinity are worshipped.
more...


Wish one and all HAPPY NAVARATRI

Chocolates, Candies...

As the traveling date to India approaching, started going across to take few unique and finnish specials along with me. In the process lot many advised me to carry chocolates that are really finnish. Hmm... I took it up , it did sound good to me as I have few nephews and niece back at home who would love them.
Sonja, my colleague helped me to visit nearest Panda chocolate factory. Sonja and me left to Vaajakoski, Finland which is quite near and just hardly 10 - 15 minutes drive. So many varieties, with her help I did take many of them.







And here is my whole selection of different varities :)


yummy....

colors @ Jyvaskyla

It's been 4 months here at Jyvaskyla. I landed here in June which was mid-summer. Enjoyed the glorious, bright sun through out the day and night. And now started getting the feel of Winter already. Getting used to the foggy days, lazy and not so bright mornings. The best part is the colors I find around. The deep and lavish green trees are slowly losing it's greenish. There is entirely different feeling when I see this transition of the colors.
Today on the way back to home, I was really excited about these colors and took few snaps. It was really good that I captured them...










Hope I capture more of them...

Saunaa and Candle light dinner

Well after tired with shopping I went to Bijesh's apartment which is quite far and made bit more tired. Anyways, it was worth and enjoyed the Sauna at his apartment. During sauna, was talking to Estonian guy, Russian guy and a Finnish for over one hour length sauna.
Now that body got enough rest now rushed backed to apartment to fill my hunger. We cooked Sambar, Majjiga pulusu (masala curd), Rice and had enjoyed the candle light dinner :)




Hmm.... how does this look :)

Shopping, Lunch @ Afghan Restaurant

Very busy and tiring saturday...

Bijesh's call woke me up and I soon joined him at the City center to do shopping. I picked few blazers (Batistini) and suits (Signor) from Dressman. Lots of choice and it was very difficult to pick few and luckily Bijesh helped me with few good deals.
Then we moved to nearby Afghan Resataurant, where we enjoyed the Pizza Buffet.

Team Lunch & Horse riding @ Laukaa

hmmm... a nice break from routine coding, development ...work. It was guaranteed a nice team outing and it is :)
The day of beautifully planned and implemented and every moment was used amazingly.

11.00 Long lunch in Figaro
13.00 Leaving from Jyväskylä to Laukaa
13.30 At the stable (changing clothes, saddling...)
14.00 First groups riding lesson
15.00 Second groups riding lesson
about 16.15 Leaving from Laukaa to Jyväskylä
about 16.45 Back in Jyväskylä
Being vegetarian I have only one choice... vegetable mossaic dressed with few sausages, beans, fried eggplant, carrot...
I know you people would surely like to have a look at it, well here it is:

Well, though it looks simple it was stomach filling
Then we started to stable @ Lauka, it was 30 mins drive by car. As soon as we reached the stable, we were shown the horses and started with few basic tips like how to brush/clean the horse, how to ride!
The whole album here...


More about the stable... http://www.haapasalontila.net/
Map : http://picasaweb.google.com/tosumanthkrishna/HorseRidingLaukaa/photo#map

Ganesh Chaturthi @ Jyvaskyla, Collage

Thought I would explore the picasa3 and started creating movies and collages with the existing photos.  Started with "Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations" - Lord of Obstacles.

From GaneshChaturthi celebrated @ Jyvaskyla

Desi's Celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi @ Jyvaskyla

Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Shiva and Parvati, is widely worshipped as the supreme god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune. Read more from here...
Back in India it used to be great gala time. I used to roam around streets to visit Ganesha Idols installed in every street. It is celebrated as 10 day festival with songs/dances/stage dramas/shows, sweets. And the festival mark its end by immersion of Ganesha Idols in nearby lakes/water tanks.
Well there are lot many bests associated in celebrating Ganesh puja. All Hindu festivals start with Ganesh Chatruthi, Lord Ganesha is the bes tower of Wisdom, Lord who clears obstacles, Satsang (spiritual gathering), Singing bhajans, devotional songs and various food items.
I felt I am going to miss all those bests, as I am here at Jyvaskyla, Finland. But believe we desi's made it possible. All the Indians gathered and did the puja in the traditional way.

• Roshan sang bhajans, devotional songs
• Jitender sang few oriya and hindi devotional songs
• I recited Ganesh Atharva Sheershana stotram, Mantra Pushpam
• I narrated the stories relevant to the puja
  

And we had lots of prasadam and sumptuous dinner. Thanks to the hosts :)

@ night Jyvaskyla

Just came back from "night" - is the new night club at Jyvaskyla. Well after last week's disco at Giglin & Marlin, I am kind of becoming a party animal. 'night' is quite a large one compared to Giglin & marlin. The best part was 'karoake', where lots of people gathered around. After 12 the people started gathering at dance floor.
The item numbers started bit slow and very less beat but the 'maha' song pulled me to the floor. Well this was the song that I heard through "Mantra" a telugu movie, where beauty 'charmee' danced to the number. Below is the video from you tube, look into it even you start to dancing to this number.



Well another night at a different disco. It was spent very good till 2AM and worth it :)

Week of Food Experiments. Experiment 1: Riisi

After Sampath moved to Helsinki for a Java project, I was all alone in the house. So I declared it as week of Food Experiments. We have been using Basmati rice during my stay at Jyvaskyla, I started my experiments by evaluating different kinds of rice varieties. By the way "Riisi" means Rice in finnish.

Materials Used: different varieties of rice.
Cooking method: Rinse the rice properly and soaked/boiled in appropriate amount of water as mentioned.
Heating Method: Gas stove.
Temperature: 200 degree C
Cooking time: 20 - 25 mins


Day 1.
I tried with Jasmine risi, thai fragrant rice. I don't know what went wrong but it was burnt at bottom but the top layer was little watery.

Day 2.
I tried with another variety of local brand "Pirkka", par boiled rice. The good thing is the bottom most layer was not burnt but the top layer was left un-cooked.

Day 3.
I tried this time with some fat rice variety and as u guess, even this was flop :(

Day 4.
Back to square, went to nearby shop got my Rainbow brand Basmati Rice!

Conclusion:
Rainbow basmati rice is the best one for my style of cooking :)

Have a nice weekend...
For me it is going to be experimental weekend :)

Disco @ Giglin & Marlin...

Another weekend celebrated with most enthusiasm. My friends Aditya and Ganesh were here at Jyvaskyla on a official trip and had a fun time at our house. Cooking, discussing, joking pulling each other legs and many more...
As usual it's another rainy day at Jyvaskyla, but decided to start to pub once I am done with my phone calls. Grabbed few burgers and coke at Hesburger and then entered Giglin & Marlin disco pub. We realized it was to early and had initial round of drinks and slowly as more and more people are pitching in DJ started playing the nice tunes and the soothing to nice beat songs.
Well it was all dance and dance, with lots of bubbly girls around.






I can only say, another weekend spent nicely... :)

Cruise Tip to Tallinn, Estonia

Going into details of the trip...
Last weekend was very energetic and bubbly, guess what I did sail again on Baltic Sea this time to Tallinn, capital city of Estonia. It was a packaged trip that includes pick and drop. Bijesh booked a cabin in the Tallinnk Cruise.

We were picked up @ Jyvaskyla and it was a 5 hour drive to Helsinki port, where we need to catch our cruise. We moved on with a lunch break in the middle and around 5:30 we were given our access cards to cruise .

It was few minutes and we joined the people who are eagerly waiting to get into the cruise. And we all started moving to respective cabins.













The Tallink Cruise team was eagerly waiting to welcome us. They distributed sufficient info brochures and booklets regarding the sales and outlets that are available in the cruise. Hey forgot to show you, this is the cruise.

It was called as "Baltic Princess", hmmmm yup they were right. Let me quickly show few snaps of it that would justify the naming...
no-slippery deck, well lit corridors and more...


I spent enough time on deck before left to "starlight" to enjoy the light music. Within few minutes the orchestra started people started flocking around from everywhere and starting enjoying the music with drink and couples occasionally dancing to the tunes...
We had a nice time and we reached Tallinn Port by 10:00 pm.

Warm sunday @ Jyvaskyla beach

Thank God (Sun God) for his mercy and he was bright even this Sunday. Bijesh guided us to go around the beach(across lake), church, city malls...
I was bit excited as this is my first time into the beaches ;) I made few sandwiches, grabbed some fruits and ready with spare clothing, shorts. It was just 20mins bike ride


There were many people who were immersed in their own activities. Many of them were enjoying sun bath, some were reading books, relaxing, some with kids and some were busy with preparing/arranging food & drinks.




It was great :)

Desi party @ Jyvaskyla...

Soon I will be completing two months of my stay at Jyvaskyla, Finland. It's been fun and fortunately good weather. Sun God was really blessing me with his warmth, without Him I wouldn't have dared to stay here for this much time.
Yesterday was really great evening. Indians gathered for a desi's party to wish Kalyan on his B'day. It was nice with bunch of people gathering from different states including Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamilnadu, Orissa, West Bengal.
Thanks to our hosts Padma, Kalyan, Roshan.


Will soon upload and update the photos :)

Cruise Trip to Stockholm

Last weekend was a great one, as it was mid-summer day Friday was holiday and I just grabbed the chance to visit stockholm.
The trip contains lots of "my first" apart from "my first on site trip - Finland"

• My first cruise trip - stockholm
• My frist Cruise - viking line
  
• My first sea I sailed on - Baltic
• My first Sauna refreshment

About sauna, I just made a post highlighting the benefits and it's History.
It was a great experience touring, I met lots of people who expressed their respect to our great Mother India and the fortunate, blessed Indians.

Search for Indian Restaurant ends here :)

It's been very tough for me to manage daily with Noodles, Bread and spreads, Pizzas... how much or how many ever you eat you can not compare them with one plate of rice and Andhra pickels combination.
Luckily we just spotted "Shalimar" restaurant @ Jyvaskyla. Anyways once we move to the flat from our hotel we can start cooking our varieties. Hey this is our hotel, "Omena Hotel" @ Jyvaskyla.




The best thing is the entry needs a pass code not the usual way of key

88517 - well this is the room code, and will be removed once we check out of the hotel.

A random pick during my stay @ hotel.

Album is here :)

@ Helsinki, Jyvaskyla