Hong kong

The view from the hotel is awesome! Like stuti has described, clouds and hills and buildings and harbour. This is just like a wall paper!

A sudden decision and by the time we realized..we are already in HongKong. 

30 years of life on earth and my family presents me a holiday in HongKong. Thanks to all.

Our family friend Arun was also traveling with us as as Raveen and Arun had half a days work in HK. Not as friendly a staff as Emrites but a decent flight I must say. I was immobile through the flight as Stuti slept on my lap. She had no seat belt and that kept me almost awake. We had the refrigerator and the UPS break down because of high voltage problems few days before we left. Sleep less nights for me and for Raveen because of work and work related travel.

I think we did awesome in terms of packing! Clothes, food(we are going to HK where no one understands vegetarian!) was our check-in luggage and it was just 32kgs!!! A stroller, a back pack for Stuti's necessities and a passport bag. The food suitcase will be empty for the return. Not sure if Raveen realized what that means!!! HAHA SHOPPING!



The view from the room is awesome. The harbor, the waters, the man made(buildings) and the God made(mountains, clouds covering the mountains..).


While Raveen went to meet Arun he dropped us at a mall called the hotspot plaza. That's a very funny mall with tonnes of elevators and escalators. I asked one guy if there is a "toy shop" for the baby. He said go to the 7th floor. I went there and asked again for the "toyshop". A lady in uniform took some key and asked me to follow her. I was scared for a second but she was in a uniform! I was so impressed that they take care of the toy places so much that they lock and keep it? Confidently I followed her. We reached the "toy shop" But to my surprise, the board outside the room said something else. Any guesses? "Toilets" ! Toy shop sounded like toilet to her. She took me to the restrooms. As she waited out side I spent some time in the rest rooms and came out. Toilet in Chinese is called Cèsuǒ.


I had one hour and there's nothing to look around for so long unless I find a place. This time I directed myself to a the baby care room. While I was in the lift I saw the board that said baby play area and found our entertainment for atleast next half hour. 

At this point we figured that there is free wifi access for 15 min on the roads. Big hotels or the big internet companies give free public access of their internet but ofcourse with time limits. 


Day2

We decided to be early raisers on this holiday. Never in our life have we been early raisers! [Raveen and Stuti are still sleeping!] 

The great view makes you feel good early in the morning. Food from home and alittle shopping form the market place is what we survived on till now. Oats and bread for break fast. Not sure what's in the store fir today with Stuti. It was another sleepless night with her last night. :-|

Work day today for Raveen. Admirality (pronounced as - Ad mol ty) is where we went. 

After I met Raveen, we decided to take the ferry to Kowloon. We walked and walked and walked for about 40 min and reached the ferry. All we ate the whole day was bread. 

15 minutes to Kowloon in the Ferry. 1 hour by the metro. We reached some local places and did some street shopping too.

Met Arun for dinner and then back to the hotel. Disney Day the next day.

Day3

Our early morning started at 10 when we left the Hotel for Disney Land. Stuti was cranky. She probably was feeling uncomfortable in her stomach. Luckily the MTR station is only 2min away from the hotel.

The best thing was two days after coming to Hong Kong, she askes Raveen to take her to Hong Kong!

The Disney express was fun! Every thing was mickey theme. I felt like we were on the Hogwards Express!

Our adventures start here! While Raveen was standing in the queue for the tickets, Stuti and me went to buy sun glasses for Stuti. I was looking at the glasses for her and a bunch of people came in between her and me. She then started walking in the other direction looking for me. All this happened in a span of 30seconds. I thought she got lost. my heart missed a few beats and tears almost rolled down my eyes when I heard her call out for me...I ran in the direction and found her standing there. I think God told us in his way that it is very crowded and take care of her. We were very careful with her through the day.

In the mean time Raveen came back with the tickets. We were in the entry line and he suddenly realized that he forgot to redeem the discount voucher that we had. We ran back and asked them for help. They were very helpful to cancel the current tickets and give us the discounted ones. There you go! The Walt Disney studios! This was no different from the one in Paris. The first few things we ate was a muffin, donut and a swizz roll.

It was great fun unlike in the Paris Disney, we did a lot this time. We spent 8 hours were tired! 

Stuti was very excited to see a live mickey mouse at the golden mickey show. The kind of shows they put up are amazing! 

We were overwhelmed to see her happy. Its so funny that small things make you so happy! Both of us were so proud of ourselves that we finally did something that made her happy. Tears of joy almost rolled Down our eyes. We exchanged a few moist eyed happy glances and looked at our happy daughter again...satisfied! we couldn't see anything clearly and realized that we have to wipe our tears. It seemed so silly! but we were happy. :)

Live mickey and Minnie were all over Disney land. Stuti wanted to touch them and see what they are about. But when ever we went and stood in the line for the pictures they were done taking pictures. At one point she refused to come with out touching them. It started raining and people around said they will not come. We patiently waited and waited till they came. Mickey and Minnie finally walked out of they house and there we were standing to welcome them. Stuti was over whelmed! They guards saw us wait for so long and let us go first and stay longer. She was happy, we were happy.

                     

Every thing went well except for an hour in between all of us started fighting! We were all hungry. we ate and the fighting automatically settled down. ;)

Day 4

Stuti woke me up as she wants me to get up. I thought Raveen was still sleeping but to my wonder he was up much before all of us. It's my birthday today and I knew he was upto something but wasn't sure what! While we were walking on the roads the other day, we saw some lovely bunch of flowers. I really wished if I had one of the bunches. They were really pretty and  I thought Raveen will get some flowers as he always does for my birthday. He heard us get up and wished me as he walked into the room. He didn't have a bunch of flowers but had a bunch of papers in his hand. He gave those papers to me and said this is your gift! 

Surprised! I could see that it was a really thought through gift. Will describe the gift at the end of the post ;)(creating some suspense ;0)

All the ready to eat food that we got was successfully over and we were ready to leave for Macau. Quarry bay(where we stayed) - Shan wan(pronounced as sha-wa) and then to the ferry. 

Most of the MTR's stations are attached to the Malls. The malls have multiple levels. Each level will have a exit and the exit is either on the road or water or sky or a swimming pool or a golf course.

We went 7 levels up on some steep escalators in the Shan-wa station mall and the exit was to the ferry. It was amazing. Another few levels up was open to sky where Helicoptors take off. 

The super class ferry was fun! I think Stuti and I were sea sick and we slept off.

The Venetian:

Venetian, What a Place!!! It was my first time to a Casino resort. I thought the film makers exgerate when they show casino's etc in the movies. But it was not exaggeration.

The hotel rooms are so big. 10 poor families from India could stay comfortably in one room. The view from the hotel is just buildings but out of the world. The way these buildings are lit up at night is !!!

Site seeing at Venetian itself will take 2 days. We went around the place, played some golf and just hung around. Kids were not allowed into the casino. Raveen went into the casino and he said it was mind blowing. I just walked around just to see how the place looks. We took turns to go around the casino and the huge Venetian. It was really really nice.

The Gondala Ride place.

Inside the Venetian as we were walking we found an Indian restaurant called the 'Golden Peacock'. Its just like one of the restaurants at Taj or Leela. These people understand what vegetarian means! We were over whelmed! We had a heart full and a satisfactory Indian dinner. We ate well after 4 days. we felt home and started eating like we were at home. I started eating with my hand, roti and rice. I was licking my hands when I realized that we were not at home but in a restaurant and in the Chinese land. There were some Chinese who sat next to us and started looking at us. They were exchanging smiles with us and giggling amongst themselves. We were wondering why! Thought 'cozy we have a cute baby and that's why they are smiling. I almost finished eating and then realized they are surprised to see me eat with hand. I felt a little embarrassed but I guess it was ok. We are Indians in an Indian restaurant! Don't we try to eat with chop sticks when we go to a Chinese restaurant? Hmm...they didn't have a finger bowl to wash but gave wet tissues.

The hotel arranged for a birthday cake as it was my birthday. Every thing was perfect and well enjoyed except that we wished if some one could take care of Stuti just for half an hour when we wanted to do the gandola ride. 

It took one full day for Stuti to wish me happy birthday! She said "happy birthday amma".  

May be she relates a birthday with a cake.

No chance of going to the casino with the kid. There were baby sitters but I don't think we could even dare do that! 
We are going back when our kid is grown up.

Macau...await us! We will be back to win the gamble with you.

Day5

We checked out from the room but hung around  in the Venetian. We saw the walking dinosaur. It was quite nice watching the dinosaur  suddenly jump on people. We again took the super class ferry from Macau and came back to Hong Kong. The fare difference for the economy class and the super class is less than HK$10. But the difference in the customer service is amazing. Free food, drinks and wifi for super class passengers. These passengers have a special waiting lounge and are allowed to board first. The seats are likening first/business class seats in the plane. The economy class have no facilities . At the destination, their exit is blocked till all super class passengers have disembarked. 

We checked into Harbor plaza once again, this time on the 23rd floor. We spent the rest of the day exploring the places around the hotel.. 

2 more days to finish the trip! Stuti was done with Hong Kong and she wanted her toys in her room. She wanted to sleep on her bed! We were up late talking and talking. Once the routine starts we are again running around. 

Day6

We went to Ocean park and spent the whole day there. There were two parts in the ocean park, one you see as you enter and the other one you can go using the sky way. The sky was so high up in the sky.

                                

Stuti enjoyed herself and we all had loads of fun. We spent all day and returned home after they almost closed the ocean park.

Day7

The day to leave. Good part about any of our holidays is that we are very sad to leave for home! we enjoyed all our holidays till date. It amazing how people figure out conveniences. There was something called the in-city check-in. This check-in place is in the MTR station from where you have to take the train to the airport. Its around an hours journey from Hong Kong. You check-in your luggage here and then you can go around, shop, have fun and sit on the flight and you will receive your luggage at your destination. It was such convenience. Else it would have been so difficult with Stuti and the luggage.

In the MTR's there is an announcement always going on which says that all the railings are sanitized every 4 hourly and so please hold the railing when you are on the escalator. We thought it was very good.

The best thing that happened in the whole trip was Raveen's gift.

This is what the gift says:

Gift starts here:

Redeem these gifts in the next 12 months

No terms and conditions apply

Actual Gifts:

1. Holiday Abroad (summer or winter)

2. Baby sit for 1 day (can be used 6 times in next 1 year)

3. Do gardening with you (only redeem once)

4. Holiday with in India (6 times in a year)

5. End an argument (6 times in a year)

6. Come home by 5 PM (6 times in a year)

7. Massage anywhere in bangalore(2 times)

8. New bag

9. New shoes

10. Go out shopping with you (2 times atleast 3 months apart :) )

11. Blank - fill it with anything (time frame not mentioned ;))

I had to delay this blog to update on the gifts. Here is the update from 24th July 2013 to 24th March 2014:

full filled till now:

2 - used 2 times

4 - 3 destinations

5 - used 1 time

6 - used 1 time

7 - used 1 time

8 - he got be a new pink bag

10 - used 1 time

11 - He knows what is being filled in the blank :)

Its too shot a time for him to fullfill the rest. He can choose to extend the above for a life time ;)

Lets see what he has to say.

DUBAX - The Dubai trip

"Trek tour to Sikkim will be a lot of fun Raveen.................No, Lets go to Dubai. I have my friends there, Seshu bava is there……..But we are planning for a 10 days holiday, what will we do in Dubai for 10 days. Ok, then lets do the Sikkim and then let’s go to Dubai from there! What say?"

Silence…Silence…

“ok Find out the details”

Hmm…Now the responsibility being on my head to make it look interesting, I did all the permutations and combinations after talking to different people. 4 days 3 nights trek tour at a camp in Himalayas and then fly to Dubai from there. Stay in Dubai for 5 days. Sounded perfect to me.

(After 2 days of research)

“Raveen, This is the best thing we can do…$#%^$%^%^&%&^%&%%%^$##@#$%^&*() ” and explained him about every think I have researched.

“Wow, sounds real fun! ” he said and then paused.

I was so excited to here this from him. I was praying to God to make him say ‘Ok..Go ahead and book it. What dates shall we go?’

We were planning to travel for our 3^rd wedding anniversary. I had already started calculating the dates etc. He was still silent and I was waiting for him so say his next sentence. I really wanted to go for a trek tour with him. I heard from a lot of people that it’s great fun.

And finally, Raveen did speak the next sentence. “Nam, why don’t we go to Dubai?”

“Dubai? For 10 days? What are we going to do in Dubai for 10 days?”

“Don’t worry, we will figure something. I’m sure there will be a lot to do there. We can go to the trek tour to Himalayas in May when its summer here. What do you think?”

Silence took over again…..It took a while for me to think about what are we going to do in Dubai for 10 days and I heard him snore aloud. Hmm… That was the end of the conversation for that night. This had happened for about 2 weeks.

Somehow finally after he promised that we will go on the trek tour in May this year, we have decided to go to Dubai. I have only drafted this post on the 5th of March 2010. Wanted to update on the trek tour before I published it. Its been 6 years of our marriage. We have a beautiful 2 year old girl. The trek tour didn't happen till now! Not sure if I should complain about that but the next international trip we did was a trip to Paris in 2012. :) Trip to Paris with a toddler.

I got the visa before hand and Raveen didn’t need any visa as he holds a Canadian passport. Again after some confusion, we booked the tickets for the 12^th of Feb 2010.

We landed in Dubai at 9 in the night on the 12th, Friday 2010…It was 11 Pm in India. Seshu bava came to the airport to pick us up. It was very sweet of him to come to the airport.

We all went back to the hotel we booked in Bur-Dubai. His house was very close to our hotel apartment - Royal Ascot Hotel Apartment. This was very clean and we liked it a lot. We had booked it only for 2 days. We later extended till the end as it was a nice and spacious.

Unlike in India, there are only 2 cellular networks in Dubai, Du and Etisalat. Seshu bava got a Du sim card for our local and international usage since it will be cheaper that roaming charges. As soon as we landed we had a local number for communication.

Dubai is mostly all about buildings and malls. This mall call ‘Burjuman’ was very close to our place of stay. We 3 went to a coffee shop outside this mall and had some coffee. The weather was quit chilling.

Day-1

The next morning, i.e on the 13th, we went to the closest bazar. Its called the Meena Bazar and is exactly like an other Indian bazar. People who stay in this place are all Indians. Mostly Gujaratis. We didn't feel this place any different from India starting from the look of the place to

the kind of stuff they sell. We felt like we were walking on commercial street. The only difference is that the streets were wide and traffic was regulated. More importantly there was no chaos. It was a week day to expect too much chaos anyway.

We carried our laptop along but internet was not included in the package for the 1st two days of our stay at the hotel apartment. So we had to find an internet place. As any other usual working day, Raveen had tones of emails to reply and we had to mail Rittu for his number. At the same time we have been calling Sach to get us Masood's number so that we can meet him in Dubai. Rittu Sms'ed his number that evening to Raveen's India phone. We immediately call him back. It was nice to talk to him after so many days. We gave him all our details.

After Meena bazar, we went to Deira, the Gold Souk place. 'Souk' in Arab means Bazar. All the gold shops are put up together at this place.

The amount of Gold there is, is amazing!

The place where we stayed and the Gold Souk place are very close by. They  are just separated by water. It was 50 Dhs (1 Dirhams = Rs. 12.5) for us to go to Deira from Bur Dubai and took 40 minutes to reach. While going back some one told us that there is an underpass that goes to Bur Dubai. The underpass is a 10 minute walk. Cycles also not allowed. After crossing the bridge, it costed us hardly any money to get back to the hotel.

After the Gold Souk, we visited a place called the 'heritage village'. Its just like a cultural exhibition. We were very hungry by the time we reached this place. Here they were making Dosa's. These Dosa's are one of its kind.

She spread the batter like in the picture and then opened the egg on top of this and spread it. Then she added butter and some masala which was green in colour and spread both of them. Looked interesting to watch her make it but not eating. It was very bland. We already started missing our food!

By the time we came home Sach figured out Masood's phone number and sent it to us. We immediately called him and scheduled a meeting for the next day's dinner.

Day - 2

We went for Raveen's haircut in the morning. We then headed to go to Wild Wadi. Every one said its a nice place. Its just like Wonder La in bangalore or Ocean park in Hyderabad. We went till wild wadi just to realize that it costs 200 DHS to get in to the place. 200 DHS is equal to Rs. 2000. We then decided not to go inside but go to the beach thats close by.

Next to wild wadi is a 7 star hotel called The Burj Arab. People were crazily standing infront of this building and taking pictures. Normal people are not allowed inside unless you have an appointment. Cars like Lamborghini, Hummer, Ferrari etc, make their way into this hotel. We casually looked in Expedia abt how much it costs to stay in this hotel. We were petrified to see that it costs around   Rs. 10,00,000 to stay for 1 week.

We walked to the Jumerah beach. This is the most expensive area in Dubai. Most of the foreigners who work in Dubai construction companies stay here. There are beautiful houses along the beach. After spending some time in the beach, we met Swathi and kaira at JBR, Jumerah Beach Residents. Rittu and Morie joined us little later. We all went out for dinner to La Meridian hotel where Masood joined us. It was a lot of fun.

Day - 3

We got up a little late and then decided to go to the Lamcy Mall. Every one suggested us to go to this mall as it will have some good deals on clothes and other shopping. Swathi joined us here. Not much we bought there in that mall. We had a limit of 500DHS to spend per day. (which we often over shoot and tried to adjust the next day. We never did that ofcourse..) We went to the Desert Safari after lunch. The car came to pick us up first. We stopped at 3 different places to pick up people. one couple was from Nigeria and the other couple were from England (Indians settled there since ages). We made friends quickly. We occupied the back seats so that no one would prefer to sit there. We were by ourselves.

We traveled almost an hour to reach the desert. Some one told me Dubai is desert!!!
The desert safari finally started. It was like a roller-coaster ride on the sand. It was a little scary for me atleast. An d our MR. Enjoyment was on the phone with someone from his office on the roller-coaster ride.  Grrrrr….

 After this, they took us to a place where there was place to rest. Drinks and dinner were served along with Belly dancing as the entertainment. Nothing much to say about this safari! If given a chance to go for the safari again, I would never go for that. One thing that is very important is that the driver should be very qualified and experienced to take you on the safari.

The belly dancing was just OK. Sitting in the middle of the desert and eating was the only fun part.  

 The sand was fun too. In the middle of the desert :).



Day - 4

This day was the day of Malls. We took the metro to go to the Mall of emirates. The metro station was at a walk able distance from our hotel apartment.  It was so much convenient to take the metro than the taxi. It hardly took us any time to the mall compared to taking the cab. Once we were done with this mall, Swathis picked us up and took us to the Ibn-battuta mall.

The Ibn-battuta mall was a concept mall. It has different buildings, each building like a country. Eg: china, India, Egypt, Tunisia, etc. 
Rittu met us at this mall directly from the office. All of us went to Rittu's house for dinner where Morie and Ammu(Morie's wife) joined us.
Swathi and me went for Grocery shopping to the same mall. We came back and made tomato rice for dinner. Morie dropped us home after the party.

We noticed a surprising thing here in their apartment. The apartment had different blocks - Blocks A to J. A to H were all done. They just look like any other apartment complax in India with greenery and all the other facilities. The construction of the other 2 blocks was just about start. We were amazed to see that the area was a desert. It had zero greenery. What technology they mush be using to convert this desert to such a city that we all go on a holiday!

Day-5- Wednesday


Dubai is off on Fridays and Saturdays. There the week starts on a Sunday.

We went to check the tallest building in the world, 'The Burj Khalifa'. It was really tall. the building and us did not fit into a picture. We went in to see what all went intot he construction of the place. When we went, the place was closed for visitors because the lift got stuck on the 24th floor! Everything in Dubai is auto matic and run by machines. Imagine if any of us were stuck in there!!!

We then checked out the aquarium the Dubai mall had. It was huge! It took about 45 minutes to go around.


We met Masood in the afternoon at the Dubai mall. We had a Lebanese lunch. It was so good that we stuff ourselves so much that we couldn't walk after eating the food. We tried hard to walk around. Masood then took us to a coffee place....guess what we had with coffee??? Hukka! Apple flavoured Hukka!

I if course didn't know how to take it. I would just suck the smoke into my mouth. Then its full of apple flavour. Then keep it in the mouth for some time and then leave out the smoke. HAHA...it was fun!  'm sure Mas and Rav enjoyed it. :)


Rittu then came and picked us up from the same mall. Rittu, Swathi, Kaira, Swathi's Mom, Swathi's sisters daughter Aryana and the two of us in the car. We then drove to this place called the global village.

Global Village:

The concept of global village is similar to the all India exhibitions..Of course the Indian exhibions exbit the art of different states and regions with in India. But this Global village has exhibits from all over the world..Lebonan, Thailand, India, Australia, Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Libia, Srilanka, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey, Europe, etc...

Below is the map of the Global Village:



We bought a few things from this village. We then headed to Morie's house for a party. We were all tired shopping and we needed some refreshments which Morie and wife have arranged for us. The party went on...and on...and on...all night.


We called a Cab to reach back to the place we are staying. It took us around 45 minutes as it was in the other part of the town.

We slept and slept..  

Day -6



We spent this day hanging around the hotel. We went to the local areas around. Any way by the time we got up only it was late afternoon. The previous night was pretty late, I must actually say it was morning. ;).

Day - 7

The day before we left. As usual we were very sad that the trip was coming to an end. We realized that we haven't been to the mall we were very next to. We passed by the mall every day but never went into it. Burjuman Mall. Was nice to walk around. It was a loooong mall. Raveen waned to do some shoe shopping and we went to shoe mart. I bought a bag too. :) Seshu bava met us near shoe mart and we then went to  Times square. Bought some gift coupon for Rittu's daughter.

We headed to-wards JBR again to spend the evening. The beach was calm and it felt good. We had dinner around there...Pizza's and cool drinks. Coconut water in India costs Rs. 15. There was a guy selling coconut water in this area and we were excited. He said each one costs 20 Dhs...'m sure the math can be done!

After dinner we headed home and did some packing and dozed off.

Leaving day!

Very sad! Trip is over. We have to be back to the same old routine again. But thats the reality. Rittu came to drop us to travel back to reality...

An other 2-3 days we would have done Para shooting, seen the Atlantis, did the helicoptor ride over the palm, and also did the hatta trek. Dubai! await us! We will be back soon to complete these.

Long stay at Delhi and Visit to Jaipur

As usual...after a lot of confusion and wait, we finally decided to travel to Delhi and mumbai for his work. I decided to take a break from work and travel along with Raveen. Good or bad my leave for 2 months got approved..ofcourse with out pay!

We left for Delhi on the 22nd of July 2009. All of us in the family went out for dinner on the friday before the 22nd to celebrate my birthday. I got a lot of gifts.

We stayed in a place called the comfort inn, at Kalkaji, Delhi. The room was a little small (actually very small) but it was really homely. All the days we were there, we felt we were literally over each other. May be staying in such a big and spicious house in Bangalore made us feel the space-less-ness even more. Unlike Bangalore, Delhi was very hot. We made sure both of us got enough space by going out and getting some alone time. Raveen any way left for work every morning; so that was easy and we didn't have to fight much for that.

Kalkaji main road was a very happening place. The second day of our stay I throughly knew what was where on the main road. There was a temple in the next street where I used to go quiet often. I visited the temple for my Birthday. That night we went out for dinner and had a lot fo fun. I didn't mention what Raveen gifted me! He gifted me a touch screen - Samgsung Star cell phone. The next 2 day I spent my time trying to figure out the new phone and its features. .

As we do not know any one in Delhi, I had to depend on Raveen to go to any place. I was sad that I haven't gone shopping but fortunately there was a shop in Kalkaji, 3rd left on the main road, which was a combination of the Sarojini nagar, Connaught Place in terms of dresses shopping. They had good stuff and that was my shopping hub. The lady there, Neha, was good enough to me to show all her collections even if I didn't buy anything. That was a good time pass for some time. But I did buy some interesting stuff from her. I found another designer who designes dresses and stitches them. Her name is Ishwin. I gave my dresses to Ishwin for stitching.

Our actual plan was to stay in Delhi till the 14th of August and come back to Bangalore for Raveen's birthday. So this gave me enough time to give my dresses for stitching and also think abt doing something useful for 3 weeks. I was in a confusion whether to join some computer classes or photography classes or makeup classes 'coz every this was there at Kalkaji. We have also registered and paid for using the fitness center that was close by to the place we were staying. I found a good and resonable beauty parlour to keep me occupied for a day.

We went around the city the 1st week end we were there. We went to Lal Khila, Veer Bhoomi, Raj Ghat and Shakthi Sthal. We watched 2 movies each day of the week end. (Kambakth Ishq and I don't remember the other one)

In between we went to the Canadian High commission to submit Raveen's passport for renewal. Raveen was called to attend a student counselling program (as a counseller) that was being conducted at the High Commission. He got my name also added to the list. The High commission was amazing. They have all 5 start facilities. We were provided with some snacks and they tasted out of the world. To mention more...the bathrooms were so clean, big and fresh. It was a good experience for both of us to go around the high commission for some time.

Another week passed and we decided to go to Jaipur that week end.

Jaiput trip was a lot of fun. We took the Jaipur shatabdi express. Reached in the afternoon on the 1st of august, saturday. It was about 10 in the morning when we reached Jaipur. We booked our stay at a Chokhi Dhani, an ethinic 5 star village resort. http://www.chokhidhani.com/ We got a Cab and the driver was very helpful and friendly. We decided to go and see the city 1st before going to the resort as it was a little far from the actual city. We went to see Jal Mahal Palace and then did some shopping. We went to a Governement store managed by the Rajasthan Textile Development Coporation. http://www.rtdcjaipur.com/. We were over-whelmed to see the collections they have. We hardly shopped anything and the bill was 10,000 INR. For thr 1st time after our marriage, Raveen selected a saree and got it for me. I loved it :) We went to the the resort towards the evening.
Our cottage was very beautiful. It was just like a village house with a low roof and the furniture that looked very villageee..

Chokhi Dhani resort has a village which is open to the public. This is like a mela that happens in the villages. People from the near by villages come to this place and perform. There are so many activities like the camel rides, elephant rides, mehandi, dances, puppet shows, eating places, magic showes, games, folk dances, shopping etc.


We got absorbed in the celebrations. After a long time we had so much fun.
We spoke to different people from the village and came to know that these villarges whoc come here to perform get only Rs. 50(women) and Rs. 100(men) a day. They stay there till around 11 in the night and go back to their village by walk whick is a little far from this place. They come back at around 4 every evening.

We got up late and missed the free break fast. We had lunch the next morning, checked out and went around the city. We saw Hawa Mahal, Royal Palace, the pink city etc. and then took the train back to Delhi on the August 2nd night which was a sunday.

The next day went as usual. Tuesday morning we got up as Raveen got a call from his office. He was on the phone for some time. At about 9 in the morning he got ready and went to the office. Before leaving he asked me if I wanted to go back to Banaglore that evening. It was too shot a notice a notice to pack up everything and so I discouraged. In any case he said he will confirm by 11 that same day. It was 11:30 and I haven't gotten any call from him. I thought there is no plan to go and casually called him to here that we are leaving and he is booking the flight ticket for the 9PM flight that night, which means we hve to leave the place by 6 in the evening. He had to be in Bangalore the next morning for a meeting.

I was alarmed. I then realized that i had to start running. I had to collect my clothes from the tailor, get the refund from the gym, get the bill ready for the place we were staying (which Raveen wanted me to do) and on top of all this Pack. We had to pay an amount of Rs. 400 while coming to Delhi as our luggage weighed 45Kgs as against 40Kgs. So this time I have to pack intelligently. I had lot more things to carry than what we came with (obviously I did a little bit of shopping).

I told the hotel fellow to start the billing process. I then went to tailor to collect my clothes. Added to all this confusion, the tailor had 100 questions and some design changes as he didnot get the material for the first design we had decided on. And she said she will get them stitched and give it by 4:30pm. I then went to the fitness center to talk to the owner. Each place was a little far from each other and the only mode of transport was to walk. I went to the center and the owner was not available. I waited there for some time as i thought I will not have enought to go back to the place. I decided to reach him on the phone and left the place. Came back to the hotel and started to pack. In between all this there is an important thing called hunger which started to bother me. I ordered for some quick lunch and got back to the packing again. I have to be careful in packing so that i do not pay naything extra this time. I made 3 hand luggage and 2 check-in luggage. I finished half of it and again went to the tailor once again. this time she said she can't finish my clothes before I leave and so she will get the dress couriered .we discussed abt it a little and then I came back. By the time I was done, It was 5 in the evening. Raveen came around the same time and then settled the hotel bill. We then called a cab and left for the airport.

Thinking about all the running made me type the above paragraph so fast with out stopping.

O Man!!! All the rest I took for the 2 weeks was just over in a day. I badly needed an other holiday immediately. I don't know how successful his meeting was, but I the day has become memorable for me.

No one at home knew that we were coming back. We decided to give them a surprise. The next morning I went to see parents and they were really surprised.