I published last week that I was house hunting all of last weekend and I had managed to successfully locate and finalize a house in Koramangala, 4th Block.

We met the owner of the house on Thursday and finalized the deal. Our plan was to move in on Saturday, which was also the last day of our scheduled stay at the guesthouse.

So, early Saturday morning, after we settled our bills at the guesthouse, we hired cabs and headed to what will become our new home. I hired a Meru cab, which is more easily available here in Bangalore than in Mumbai, where you struggle to find one. It was a nice comfortable journey. At the same time, my goods from Mumbai also arrived. Was a little irritated that the boxes weren’t plastic coated like they were supposed to be and one box had broken open. The bike handle was also bent a bit. Will have to get this fixed. First, I got to get the road tax done. May also get the number changed, but that is at a later date.

After settling in, we decided to shop for mattresses which was a necessity. We first grabbed some lunch at the Pizza Hut in Forum and after that, we went over to Star Bazaar to pick up mattresses. Didn’t find them there, so the next stop was Big Bazaar. We found one there and others had a delivery period of a week, so we dropped that place. The next stop was Total Mall in Madiwala, where we finally purchased two Kurl-On mattresses and got them delivered home by night.

After we got back, we also realized (much to our stupidity), that there is a Kurl-On dealer five minutes from our house! That’s where we will pick up the remaining two mattresses.

Dinner was at The Rendezvous which is also where we had dinner tonight as well. Seems like this is going to become one of our favorite joints. We did tonnes of shopping at the Smart Mart that is located near our place. We are very pleased by the location because almost everything is available here.

Today was yet another visit at Star Bazaar. This time we totally intended to shop and picked up tonnes of goods, buckets and other items, that we fondly refer to as “restructuring charges”.

I begin another work week tomorrow, which may be more than just five days long.

Landed in Mumbai on 11th itself. The visit to Mumbai would consist of a lot of time spent at home, some bank visits, a lot of traveling, a roce, a wedding and a birthday.

Marise’s friend Priyanka’s marriage was on the 15th and as part of our custom, both the bride and the groom have an individual roce which is a traditional function.

The roce was held on her building terrace in Kurla, which required me to ride in terrible traffic out there. Got there very early in spite of this.

Early did mean that I had to wait for a while before the function actually started… an hour later.

The usual dirtying of the bride-to-be took place followed by dancing. We left the place and I dropped Marise home.

The next day was rather silent. Saturday was the big day of the wedding. Being free in the morning, I decided to head over to Big Bazaar, this time in Mulund. My last two experiences were rather bad. However, since I had Rs. 1,400 in discount coupons, I had to go make and expense. Picked up a black sweather that shall hopefuly assist me this winter. I spent last winter borrowing jackets from Ravi.

Also picked up a salwar piece for Mom, who celebrated her birthday on Sunday.

Saturday evening was the wedding. The reception was held at St. Josephs in Bandra. Marise’s sister and dad were trigger happy and I was able to collect quite a few images.

For more photos check out the photo gallery.

Stayed over at my grandma’s that evening and convinced her to come back with me on the bike. That would have made an excellent photo

Sunday was Mom’s birthday. Just a quiet lunch to which Marise came over. She left in the evening.

Spent Monday visiting banks and my barber in the morning and the rest of the day at home.

Caught the first bus from Mumbai to Pune on Tuesday morning and reach here by 10am itself.

Classes began yesterday with a full four hour class from 6.30pm on Advances in Supply Chain, followed by Strategic Marketing and Advances in Supply Chain lectures today. Thus ends the lectures for this week.

Placements is just around the corner and well I kinda tensed. A well kept secret atleast on the blog was my Preplacement Offer from the company I was in for summers, which I rejected last week since it wasn’t up to my expectations. The scene is bad this year, so my fingers are crossed.

My experience with Big Bazaar during Diwali remains unchanged. Three years back I had a horrible experience at Big Bazaar and this year it just worsened.

As I mentioned yesterday, I intended to go shopping to Big Bazaar at Lower Parel today in order to redeem some discount coupons.

Considering the Diwali season, Big Bazaar has tonnes of sales and offers to entice the Diwali shopper. It is also the time the store is extremely crowded.

However, I was hoping that I would find atleast a single pair of shoes since that is currently a necessity.

Found one, a Puma model. However it wasn’t very comfortable. Hunted throughout the store for anything worthwhile and gave up!

Dropped into the Barista in Phoenix Mills itself where we spent an hour before I found my way home and she to her Aunt’s place.

I intend to go shopping in November when there will hopefully be no sales and hopefully they have something to buy! A lot of hope…

Finished off my FSA paper on 23rd and awoke early Saturday morning for some last minute preparations for the SAP-BIW paper.

This turned out to be a very comfortable paper to write in 90 minutes. Had a quick breakfast and got down to packing for my journey to Mumbai. I love travelling light and infact that is what I did. Picked up my laptop and a few essentials and caught an extremely crowded 11.15am bus from college to Aundh.

Was fortunate enough to get a Metrolink volvo to Dadar immediately. Ticket prices were hiked considering that everyone is rushing to Mumbai for their Diwali vacations.

The bus was quick and we got little traffic on the way back and was at Sion in about three hours. Caught a rick from there to Bandra to my Grandma’s place. Had plans to meet Marise in the evening.

Met up with Marise and her sis and went to 5 Spice in Bandra. The prices have been jacked up there as well and it’s definitely more expensive than the one in town. We did eat and drink well, paid well and got back home. Was so zonked that I crashed almost immediately.

Awoke early morning (well not that early) to go for mass at 10am. Mass has become a lot shorter with shorter sermons

Marise came over for lunch and spent the rest of the day with me before she had to leave for a wedding reception.

The next few days are packed well. I really hope to get some studies done, but vacation can be a real big hurdle to cross when you want to study!

Have plans to go to Big Bazaar tomorrow to shop for anything I can lay my hands on. Got to redeem my Rs. 1400 in gift vouchers. So, what should I buy?

Decided to go shopping to Big Bazaar in R-Mall in Mulund today. Have now decided not to go shopping before Diwali and especially not Big Bazaar!

This is quite contrary the experience I had last year when I went shopping.

This time the place was more crowded than before which I hate. There were very few discounts than last year and very very limited choice, which made me want to scream out loud!

Did manage to pick up a nice salwar set for Mom (her birthday is around the corner) and a pair of glares for me.
Had also picked up two kurtas on offer (buy one get one free). But when I went to the checkout counter was told there is no offer on it X-(
This pissed me off so much that I told the guy to not bother checking them in.

Just picked up some juices from Food Bazaar, because they were on offer.

Was even further irritated because of the major traffic on the way home near Mulund. Note to myself: Take the Eastern Express Highway.

Lesson learnt. I’m not going to go shopping to Big Bazaar in the near future for sure. It’s just not worth the travel. Wasted more than 2 hours out there for nothing!

Will probably just visit Shopper’s Stop in Bandra or Andheri because I like the stuff there, am a member and the ambiance is definitely a lot lot better!