hiiii from Singara Chennai! The parents had decided to make a trip to India coz appa had some official work to do, and I wasn't sure about my leave and stuff so had firmly decided not to come. And also, I'm always here in Dec so wanted a change and thought of going in Jan, or July for Padma's wedding. But last-minutely, plans changed and I went along, leaving teens alone at home for about 11 days. womg, I know but he was alone for a week last year as well. And I'm leaving for Singapore this sat and will reach on sun morning, so will have time to make sure the house is in living condition before the parents get back one week later hehe. But I think he's managing fine coz he's quite smart and sensible in that sense.
Anyway, leaving singapore wasn't how it usually is. These last 2-3 weeks were extremely taxing and involved working late daily, 9ish was the average, and it even went as late as 11.30. So it was bad. But silver lining was, I fell sick and got an MC for the day of my departure so could help out with the packing at home and stuff. SO MUCH TENSION man. Until the last minute. And my poor chauffeur had to come all the way across the country, only to spend like 2 minutes with me :( but thank God for him and his fast driving hehe. (6 min to the airport!) I was maaaajorly emo-ing in the plane after that.
From South-East Asia to the Indian Sub-Continent:
The plane journey was normal. Flight took off about 20min late, after waiting for many last minute passengers (IST) and landed 3 minutes late which is typical of SIA! And baggage came quickly so patti and chithi didn't have to wait too long at the airport. For a change, I'd opted for Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian instead of the bad, stale jeera rice that they always give for Indian veg. And got SO MUCH scolding at home from everyone coz apparently teenu and I had asked for ovo-lacto a coupla years back and hated it. I had absolutely no memory of this and still insisted on trying out something new. And luckily I did! Got cream fettucine with capsicum and olives and parmesan cheese :D compared to the bad, stale jeera rice and squishy okra curry and dhal which the parents got muahahahahha. Hopefully the return journey'll be good too. So for once, I actually ate SIA food. Oh and there was kit-kat ice-cream for everyone! Usually they give some weird raisin pudding so this was a nice change. And despite my flu which was MC-worthy, I ate the ice-cream and happily fell sick later. The movie selection wasn't that great. I always try to watch the mushiest rom-com possible, to make me feel high and forget about air-sickness. The only one they had this time was All About Steve with Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper. Not at all romantic sigh. But managed to watch the pilot ep of Better off Ted and he's a highly shoodu engineer geek so yay.
Anyway, so we went home close to 11pm, and had to unpack and repack coz we were leaving for Bombay at 10am the next morning. Just me and amma. Coz appa was off to Bangalore for his official trip. Couldn't really sleep thanks to the blood-thirsty mosquitoes sigh. So woke up early and stressfully packed. Sigh too much stress man. And we were off to Bombayyyy!
From the East Coast to the West Coast:
(I realise I always take beaches for granted since they're there in Singapore, Madras and Bombay, all being coastal. Never thought about how it would be in the inner states. Ah I love beaches. Ok anyway.)
We took Jet Airways Konnect to Bombay and reached home around 4pm. So this was on Wed evening. Shopping started immediately! And continued till Thurs evening hehe. And at other times when I was home, I was doing my favourite newspaper puzzles and yakking with patti and thatha. Time passed really quickly :( On Thurs evening, the grandparents wanted to take us to a nearby Gujju Thali place for a buffet kind of dinner. Lots of dhoklas, makai (corn) rotis, dhal and kadi (sweet moor kozhambu), and kicchdi! Typical gujju stuff. It was good. But taste-wise I prefer Punjabi for its paneer :D No time for Bhel and other Chaat stuff, which was sad.
The next morning, they took us to the nearby theatre to watch Paa (Rs. 70 only! slighly over 2 bucks). Different kind of story, and very touching. And I was in some emotional state so you know what happened :P Still, I liked that it wasn't too draggy and drama-ish with lots of crying. There was humour and nice dialogues which make one think! And I actually understood the whole movie without subtitles :D :D :D (this is an achievement coz the previous time we watched Om Shanti Om without subtitles, I translated the whole story wrongly to teenu and he never forgave me for that hehe). Yay my hindi's improving.
After the movie, Neha came over! It was awesome seeing her again after a year :) :) and this time, it was quite late for her to go home after 11 so she stayed over and we had an impulsive sleepover! So much fun. But I'd happily neglected my packing, and there was quite a bit to do after all the purchases, so again, Sat morning included stressful packing :P and teary goodbyes. Neha came to the airport too with lots of sweets and savouries so that was a sad goodbye too. Can't wait to meet her again.
The Bombay airport is such that no one but passengers can enter. And once you enter, you can't leave. Total nonsense. So even though our IndiGo flight was delayed by about 30min, I couldn't go out and talk to neha. So amma and I just walked around, looking for bookshops and interesting stuff. The waiting area was terribly packed. Oh btw there were so many jams on our way to get to the airport coz of the wedding season (I saw random bunches of people dancing on the roads, with decorated horses and a huge marching band hehe.) And these traffic jams followed us to the airport as well, on the tarmac! The domestic flights have buses that take us from the terminal to the plane, and there was a jam there. And after we boarded the plane an hour late, there was a plane queue for take-off!! Crazy. So jams EVERYWHERE. So we reached Chennai really late and everyone there was tensely waiting and praying feverishly and all. It was quite bad. But anyway, that was the end of the Bombay part of the journey.
Last leg of leave:
Back in Madras. After all the rushing around in bbay, I just wanted to relax at home in Madras. Woke up nice and late on Sun morning, but had to go for visiting coz parents were to leave for their own little trip on Monday morning. After they left, I felt very odd. It didn't seem like how it does every year. No teenu, no parents. Cousin's in US. And everyone seems sicker than usual :( :( So I was badly missing Singapore. Then I checked my office email and remembered all the annoying people there and now I'm thankful that I'm here :P Got to catch up with the loosu paiyans back home too, over msn and phone so feeling a lot better now.
The temperamental weather is the same as last year so it makes it tough to go out. Not that I CAN go out anywhere alone, since I can't even cross a road here :P But need to meet up with keeths! (Oi, call me quickly you busy person!) At this point, I'm just rotting at home watching long movies (Quo Vadis!) and cricket, and reading Mahabharatha and my Learn Hindi book :P soo fun to slack! And I'm nicely putting on weight too sigh. Another 4.5 days of this to go heheh. Beware. (note to self: daily gymming pls!)
wogay will go read now. Or take a nap. mmm. rainy weather. byeeee.
Anyway, leaving singapore wasn't how it usually is. These last 2-3 weeks were extremely taxing and involved working late daily, 9ish was the average, and it even went as late as 11.30. So it was bad. But silver lining was, I fell sick and got an MC for the day of my departure so could help out with the packing at home and stuff. SO MUCH TENSION man. Until the last minute. And my poor chauffeur had to come all the way across the country, only to spend like 2 minutes with me :( but thank God for him and his fast driving hehe. (6 min to the airport!) I was maaaajorly emo-ing in the plane after that.
From South-East Asia to the Indian Sub-Continent:
The plane journey was normal. Flight took off about 20min late, after waiting for many last minute passengers (IST) and landed 3 minutes late which is typical of SIA! And baggage came quickly so patti and chithi didn't have to wait too long at the airport. For a change, I'd opted for Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian instead of the bad, stale jeera rice that they always give for Indian veg. And got SO MUCH scolding at home from everyone coz apparently teenu and I had asked for ovo-lacto a coupla years back and hated it. I had absolutely no memory of this and still insisted on trying out something new. And luckily I did! Got cream fettucine with capsicum and olives and parmesan cheese :D compared to the bad, stale jeera rice and squishy okra curry and dhal which the parents got muahahahahha. Hopefully the return journey'll be good too. So for once, I actually ate SIA food. Oh and there was kit-kat ice-cream for everyone! Usually they give some weird raisin pudding so this was a nice change. And despite my flu which was MC-worthy, I ate the ice-cream and happily fell sick later. The movie selection wasn't that great. I always try to watch the mushiest rom-com possible, to make me feel high and forget about air-sickness. The only one they had this time was All About Steve with Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper. Not at all romantic sigh. But managed to watch the pilot ep of Better off Ted and he's a highly shoodu engineer geek so yay.
Anyway, so we went home close to 11pm, and had to unpack and repack coz we were leaving for Bombay at 10am the next morning. Just me and amma. Coz appa was off to Bangalore for his official trip. Couldn't really sleep thanks to the blood-thirsty mosquitoes sigh. So woke up early and stressfully packed. Sigh too much stress man. And we were off to Bombayyyy!
From the East Coast to the West Coast:
(I realise I always take beaches for granted since they're there in Singapore, Madras and Bombay, all being coastal. Never thought about how it would be in the inner states. Ah I love beaches. Ok anyway.)
We took Jet Airways Konnect to Bombay and reached home around 4pm. So this was on Wed evening. Shopping started immediately! And continued till Thurs evening hehe. And at other times when I was home, I was doing my favourite newspaper puzzles and yakking with patti and thatha. Time passed really quickly :( On Thurs evening, the grandparents wanted to take us to a nearby Gujju Thali place for a buffet kind of dinner. Lots of dhoklas, makai (corn) rotis, dhal and kadi (sweet moor kozhambu), and kicchdi! Typical gujju stuff. It was good. But taste-wise I prefer Punjabi for its paneer :D No time for Bhel and other Chaat stuff, which was sad.
The next morning, they took us to the nearby theatre to watch Paa (Rs. 70 only! slighly over 2 bucks). Different kind of story, and very touching. And I was in some emotional state so you know what happened :P Still, I liked that it wasn't too draggy and drama-ish with lots of crying. There was humour and nice dialogues which make one think! And I actually understood the whole movie without subtitles :D :D :D (this is an achievement coz the previous time we watched Om Shanti Om without subtitles, I translated the whole story wrongly to teenu and he never forgave me for that hehe). Yay my hindi's improving.
After the movie, Neha came over! It was awesome seeing her again after a year :) :) and this time, it was quite late for her to go home after 11 so she stayed over and we had an impulsive sleepover! So much fun. But I'd happily neglected my packing, and there was quite a bit to do after all the purchases, so again, Sat morning included stressful packing :P and teary goodbyes. Neha came to the airport too with lots of sweets and savouries so that was a sad goodbye too. Can't wait to meet her again.
The Bombay airport is such that no one but passengers can enter. And once you enter, you can't leave. Total nonsense. So even though our IndiGo flight was delayed by about 30min, I couldn't go out and talk to neha. So amma and I just walked around, looking for bookshops and interesting stuff. The waiting area was terribly packed. Oh btw there were so many jams on our way to get to the airport coz of the wedding season (I saw random bunches of people dancing on the roads, with decorated horses and a huge marching band hehe.) And these traffic jams followed us to the airport as well, on the tarmac! The domestic flights have buses that take us from the terminal to the plane, and there was a jam there. And after we boarded the plane an hour late, there was a plane queue for take-off!! Crazy. So jams EVERYWHERE. So we reached Chennai really late and everyone there was tensely waiting and praying feverishly and all. It was quite bad. But anyway, that was the end of the Bombay part of the journey.
Last leg of leave:
Back in Madras. After all the rushing around in bbay, I just wanted to relax at home in Madras. Woke up nice and late on Sun morning, but had to go for visiting coz parents were to leave for their own little trip on Monday morning. After they left, I felt very odd. It didn't seem like how it does every year. No teenu, no parents. Cousin's in US. And everyone seems sicker than usual :( :( So I was badly missing Singapore. Then I checked my office email and remembered all the annoying people there and now I'm thankful that I'm here :P Got to catch up with the loosu paiyans back home too, over msn and phone so feeling a lot better now.
The temperamental weather is the same as last year so it makes it tough to go out. Not that I CAN go out anywhere alone, since I can't even cross a road here :P But need to meet up with keeths! (Oi, call me quickly you busy person!) At this point, I'm just rotting at home watching long movies (Quo Vadis!) and cricket, and reading Mahabharatha and my Learn Hindi book :P soo fun to slack! And I'm nicely putting on weight too sigh. Another 4.5 days of this to go heheh. Beware. (note to self: daily gymming pls!)
wogay will go read now. Or take a nap. mmm. rainy weather. byeeee.
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