Memories of our home….
We will be shifting out of our current flat at the end of the month. Still haven’t gotten a new place lined up yet. As the time draws nearer, I can’t help but get a little nostalgic about this house which has been home for the past year. So being the ‘list’ person that I am, thought I’d list a few things down of what this place has meant to me and the memories that have become attached to this place:
- I have been flashed more times than I’d care to remember in this house!
- I have done more clean-up jobs in this house than I do back home….
- I threw a lot of things around…very good therapy!
- Worked from home…
- Got through my entrance exams…
- Celebrated my birthday in the best way last year….sleeping (really really needed to sleep).
- Enjoyed a few glasses of Goa wine sent with love from Goa!
- Alcha Bura and Hector came into my life…
- Went to class, returned from class and slept on those precious My Notes!
- Enjoyed the wonders of Slice of Italy, Republic of Chicken, The Rai, Flipkart and Infibeam all from the comfort of my own home….hmmmmmmmm.
- Cried.
- Laughed.
- Cried some more.
- Laughed even louder.
- Had plenty of tea parties! (will miss you, our high-flying, soon-to-be New Yorker!)
- Had a slumber party with friends before any of us had moved in! The house was plain, bare, mosquito-ridden, only one mat for four of us but it was the best slumber party ever!
- Fought and argued.
- Kissed and made-up…
- Seen high drama and pathetic low’s…
- Started a blog.
- Started my MPhil…
- Lost over Rs. 400 playing cards…good sobering lesson….
- Lost a grand total of 4 earphones, one cellphone charger, one USB cable, internet cables, two pairs of flats, one pair of floaters, one Puma shoe, one laptop charger (thankfully repaired with black tape!), one Bible, one leather wallet, one pillow, one lovely black sling bag, one clothes rack which has gone rusty thanks to incessant chewing, one plant, a Rs. 10 note, three bamboo mats (nearly threadbare due to chewing, again) and still counting! Phew….
As you can see, this house holds a year’s worth of memories. Some of them have been crazy, some have been happy and some have been totally ‘ughhh’ but all memorable. I will miss this place and the shelter it provided, the meeting point it served as and the final departure point it will be at the of the month. I know it’s just a house move but for me, it means so much more. It’s a new beginning, a new chapter and a time to wrap up these memories in a neat little box and put them aside for a while. Then when some time has passed, you can take them out again for later perusals and look back on them with an incredulous smile and laugh about it….
Thank you to this home and God bless to the next tenants!
AIM Cafe and a cute pot!
Since John’s Bakery got a mention, I felt I should finally mention that much beloved cafe that gave students, non-students, educated unemployed, educated and employed (lucky few) a place to ‘hang out’ and chill…AIM Cafe in Outram Lines.
Let’s face it, we were seriously running out of places to hang out in North and suddenly the buzz was going around that a Korean cafe was coming up! What joy (and hesitation) when it finally opened!!! I say hesitation because well…what exactly does one GET in a Korean cafe? Hmmm :/
It’s been almost 2 years since it opened and to no one’s surprise, the place is doing well. They had these cute cards that you could get stamped everytime you came in and got a cup of coffee or a drink. Not sure what you would get once you finished stamping the whole card…we were hoping for some goodies but most likely it would have just been a free coffee or drink…Hmmm…
The are a variety of drinks to choose from in this place. Thankfully, nowadays the ice is crushed and blended much better in drinks such as the shakes and frappuccinos. I just wish the ice in the Bingsoo would be slightly finer and a little less in quantity compared to the fruits and the topping i.e. red bean powder, sweet potato, green tea. Note: the Sweet Potato Bingsoo is delicious…and ‘freaking’ rich! Awh…but very good! :p Nonetheless, on a hot summer’s day, nothing refreshes a person better than a cool, nourishing Bingsoo! Their shakes section has also expanded to offer shakes such as Blueberry, Pomegranate, Cookies, Sweet Potato etc. I’ve tried most of them (the Green Tea shake was a big fave of mine at one point) and my new fave is the simple Milk shake which is incredibly light and the only word I can use here is ‘satiating’.
The coffees are even better and you get the option of hot or cold. I am fond of the Vienna coffee with the dollop of cream…hehe. A friend once had the Caramel Macchiato…it was sweet but delicately sweet and surprisingly light. Must try the cold version. Had a cappuccino once too and it wasn’t bad either. I might be slightly biased as I tend to go for cold drinks more. But in all honesty, their coffees are really good.
Their tea section is also commendable. A friend of mine loves, I mean LOVESSSS Job’s tears tea. This tea, along with walnuts and pine nuts also uses a seed called Job’s tears (Yulmu in Korean) and the Job’s tears tea is called Yulmucha. The tea is made with the powdered Job’s tears seeds. It’s slightly sweet, creamy and delicious! I like the Sujjeonggwa which is described in wiki as a fruit punch, but the predominant flavours you can taste are ginger and cinnamon. Not sure if AIM cafe makes their sujjeonggwa with persimmons too? Hmmmm…Apart from these personal faves there is on offer Darjeeling tea, Assamese tea, Nilgiri tea, Early grey (if I’m not mistaken) and the ‘flowering’ teas like the Dragon Flower tea (dip a rolled ‘tea flower’ in a pot of hot water and watch it unfurl to reveal a dazzling flower). That has to top the list and the lovely tea sets that they’re served in are just to die for! In fact, the crockery is just so beautiful in this place: clean lines, lovely designs and unique for this part of the world.
If you’re worrying about what to eat with your selection of drinks, don’t worry. This cafe also has a growing list of snacks to accompany your drink. There is the fruit yoghurt which looks deceptively small but is incredibly filling with a topping of fruits. Waffles, Chocolate fondue, Volcano (chocolate cake with chocolate sauce and a scoop of ice-cream), Korean pancake (slightly sweet), Korean noodles (with soup and without), Ham ‘sandwich’ (it really is actually a small burger) and more. The recent addition to the menu was the ‘Big kimbap’. To fill you in, they already a Little Kimbap and the Kimbap which would be better called a Triangle Kimbap. The Big Kimbap is Rs.140 BUT you get every rupee’s worth! The rice is actually the glutinous, slightly sticky rice. It comes coated in lightly fried sesame seeds and the filling is predominantly tuna with kimchi but all the flavours combined just makes it all taste so much more complex! Auuugghhhh….(drooling like Homer Simpson). So gooood!
I have a few pics of the place but I need to stop forgetting to take a picture of the food before I stuff it in my mouth!!!!!!!!!! ARghhhhh! It’s a bad habit but I will endeavour to pause before plunging! Also while waiting for your order, there is a book case with most of the popular magazines around i.e. Elle, Vogue, Cosmo, GQ, Maxim etc etc and also informational booklets and books about Korea. Good ‘browsing’ materials.
The pic below is of a cute little container for the sugar syrup used to sweeten coffee or tea. It’s just so cute!!!! For pics of the food, check out practically the same write-up on the Food page with a pic of the Big Kimbap!
