I booked my tickets to come to Mumbai last month, when my plans for a trip to the USA and Canada fell apart due to my crazy work schedule.

My past two trips have been on British Airways, but this time I booked tickets for our very own Jet Airways. I booked a cab to the airport and reached Heathrow Terminal 4 with time to spare. I must admit that I missed the awesomeness of Terminal 5.

The flight was very comfortable, though I did feel the service was all over the place. The flight was a good 10 hours with minimal turbulence and I did catch up on some sleep and three movies, viz. The Lincoln Lawyer, Rio and Pay Check.

I prefer landing at Mumbai Airport over any other airport in India because of the really quick immigration counters. During my last trip to Bangalore Airport, I spent a good amount of time waiting to get through immigration and then had to wait for my baggage. This time it was only the wait for the baggage that I had to handle. What can be improved is the pre-paid taxi desk at which I had to wait nearly 20 minutes.

Now, I need to book tickets for my trip to Mumbai in December. And, the prices are already over the roof!

I began my trip in Mumbai by going for Sunday mass in my church. It sure has been a while… Sunday continued to be a very quiet day with me spending the rest of the day at home.

August 15 is the Feast of Annunciation of Mother Mary as well as India’s Independence Day which we love to celebrate The day began quietly with mass in the morning and lunch at home. Mom and me went over to my Grandmas place. I also met up with Cloreisha after a long long time at Mocha Mojo in Bandra. Mocha’s definitely has a whole new atmosphere now that hookahs have been banned in Mumbai. Another stupid rule after the "no serving alcohol to persons below 25". I am waiting for Starbucks to set up shop in Mumbai.

Dinner was back at my Grandma’s place, who is always enthusiastic to order in! So, I had my first taste of Indian Chinese cuisine after a long time.

I celebrated my 29th birthday on August 16. This time it was a lot different from the years before. Last year, I had a very sad birthday stuck at work till 2am. This time was a lot different. I brought in the day with true geek style by redesigning this blog. I have a bit more website and WordPress work to do in the next two weeks.

Birthday lunch was with Ramya at Global Fusion in Bandra which is a place I will definitely recommend. The prices are a bit on the higher side and the place only has buffet. But, the food was really amazing and the ambience is pretty good.

Next stop was to buy me lots of really cool gifts at Shopper’s Stop. I was definitely disappointed because I didn’t find anything good at the sale. Managed a pair of jeans and some good Adidas deo, but the place was rather dry. I plan on visiting the one at Irla to see if I can find something good.

Spent the rest of the day at my Grandma’s place followed by dinner at home. A quiet, uneventful day to celebrate my birthday.

Yesterday and today have been quiet days with some bank work that didn’t happen and an internet connection that didn’t work and lots and lots of rains!

No, I am not talking about the movie, but just the last 20 days of my life; life that has kept me so busy that you haven’t read about any personal updates.

So, here’s a quick round up of the last two weeks of my life.

The week from 19th to 24th of Jan was like any other week of my life. Spent all of it blogging, reading, eating, talking and sleeping.

23rd was the first and last test of this semester. The test was on Strategic Marketing. We were given a choice between a two simple questions and a case on TESCO. IMO, education should be practical and case based to ensure that people actually apply their minds to everything. A healthy mix of theory and practicals is ideal. However, MBA turned out to be primarily a learn by rote, which is something I simply can’t do. Hence, was forced to understand and write exams where results took a hit. No regrets on that, because I put in my best and did well so far

Aditya, Sneha, Namrata and me decided to go out for dinner on 23rd. After much pondering we went to Haka’s on FC Road, Pune. The food sucked completely and totally. Really felt like I was cheated of my money.

Took the early morning Volvo to Mumbai on 24th to spend the long weekend at home. Met up with Lil white mouse on 24th evening for dinner. I had to get the taste of the horrible Chinese food out of my mouth. So, we headed off to our favorite joint Dynasty. As usual the crab meat soup was delicious. We ordered the Seafood platter and it turned out to be sizzling and not dry, though I would have sworn it was dry the last time I ordered that.

Sunday, the 25th was a quiet day. Lil white mouse came over in the evening to spend some time.

26th is the Republic Day of India and so a public holiday. As a result the roads are usually empty and people stick home. This weekend was different because many had left the city for the long weekend.

I went over to Lil white mouse’s place in the afternoon and we then went shopping to Westside, near Opera House as it was the last day of their sale. Following this, we returned home and then to 5 Spice in Bandra. We were seated at the Non-Smoking, Non-Alcoholic sections of the restaurant, which didn’t make a difference, since it was a dry day.

The service here was a lot slower, possibly because the design of the place is such. The however, remains delicious

I initially planned on returning to Pune on 27th, but postponed that to the next day. Spent 27th at home, working almost all day. Took the earliest Volvo I could to find my way back to Pune.

The last few days has been dinner at Tamanna, dinner at Mezza9, a class and presentation for Strategic Marketing. Looking at my mention of that subject you may tend to think I’ve shifted to Marketing. Well, no, I remain a Finance graduate. That is just one subject

I’ve given Techtites a new look yet again. So, will be spending tonight working on that one.

Friday at 12am we brought in Sneha‘s birthday by cutting her cake and dirtying her.

After a long day of lectures on Friday, in which we gave two presentations in Strategic Management, we headed out to the city. Sneha and Namrata had finalized on a joint called TC’s in FC Road. We had booked the place for eleven people.

Caught the 7.30pm bus from college which drops us at Atur Center from where we caught rickshaws to the place.

TC’s is decently sized place with a good ambience and service. However, I really wonder why they needed to have the lights fading into various colors!

The prices weren’t that high compared to the other places we have eaten at, but then again, neither were the portions. We were offered 11 tequila shots on the house, a pity only five were consumed.

Then we desperately hunted for rickshaws back to Atur Center and rushed to catch the last bus back to college.

Woke up (or more like was woken up) early Saturday morning as all these folks were off to Alibaug for the weekend. I’m not much of an outdoor person and had tonnes of work so decided to stay back.

Went with Maria and her sister Tina for mass on Saturday. Was asked to and did the Prayer of the Faithful. After mass, we decided to go to Mainland China, which is close to where we had to catch the bus back.

This is my first visit to a Mainland China. The food was decent, so was the service. However, they really need to understand the meaning of the word “spicy”.

The bus back to campus was jam packed, but we were fortunate enough to get seats.

Sunday was a quiet day. We gathered together to bid farewell to Maria, who is the first among all of us to begin her job.

Am really exhausted now and will be hitting the bed soon. Have to still get my hands on photos of the birthday. Will put them in my album.

With the Mouse‘s exams over, it was unwinding time.

Met up with her on Tuesday and we set off to town accompanied by her sister to catch The Namesake. The movie was interesting and all the actors do their parts well. I will write a detailed review of this sometime soon.

The movie was followed by “cheap” Chinese… it wasn’t that cheap but we definitely ate our fill for less than 200 bucks.

Then began the journey back home. We took a train from CST, which makes it the first time in my life that I have travelled by Central Railways (did I mention that I am a bike person?)

Got home at almost 11pm and as usual, my internet was down, which is a nightly feature. Anyway, I have picked up a Reliance NetConnect connection. I am supposed to have the first two months free for the 1GB plan that I chose.

The last two nights I have used the plan. I haven’t hit my daily target but I have to keep checking the account. I plan on shifting to the Night Unlimited plan once I get to Pune.

Yesterday, was back to town again, this time was a totally different purpose. I first met the mouse at Metropolis Medical Center. Nice place inside, horrible building outside :O

Lunch was pizza from Garcia’s which is normally good, but was a real disaster this time.

We finally set out to town in the afternoon. Our first stop was at the Strand Book Exhibition at Sunderbai hall. Didn’t find any of the books that I was looking for.

Next stop was near Regal to pick up tshirts from the Tantra outlet there. Women can sure spend a lot of time shopping. And the final stop was at Chimanlal’s to pick up expensive paper!

While there, we roamed the streets of town and I managed to pick up a great deal of books for little amounts of money. Among these I picked up The Alchemist, The Kite Runner, The World Is Flat, The Old Man and The Sea, The Catcher in the Rye and Angels & Demons.

And did I mention that I downed a huge glass of sugarcane juice??

After a rather fulfilling shopping experience and two aching legs we finally found our way back home.

It has been a while that I have gone out and it sure has been a while since I visited my Grandmom, so decided to spend Wednesday at her place.

As has become a trend, my internet was down in the morning (actually since the previous night) which basically meant that I couldn’t do any of my normal blogging that I had intended.

Set off at 11, dropped in at the internet guys… established nothing… and then continued the journey. Travelling to Bandra is getting really irritating now-a-days because of the traffic which is same at any point of the day!

Reached there after noon. Had originally intended to pickup lunch on the way but was strongly dissuaded from doing any such thing. Lunch was great as is the case with my Grandma’s cooking … so you can believe that I ate my fill and finished it off with some strawberry pudding =P~

And for tea there were dosas… I think i’ve put on weight

Met up with Melody after this to get her blog template redesigned. And finally ended the day with Chinese at Gondola’s in Pali.

They have done up the place since my last visit and the prices have also increased, which is possibly a direct consequence of the renovation, but the food was good, could have had a greater quantity though for the price.

Reached home at 11pm and got down to work after that. Thankfully the net was up at that time and could finally get some work done.

At long last I went out with Madam C. She has been missing quite a while from this blog, though I did keep sprinkling her name whenever I got the chance

Picked her up in front of Mocha’s around noon and she agreed to go for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We picked up tickets from Globus for the 2.45pm show and headed off to Dynasty for lunch.

Though we had plans to go there a long long time back, they hadn’t materialized. This time though she insisted and I kindly obliged

The food was good and rather plentiful and I made a mistake of ordering a bit too much.

Got a simply fabulous picture of my beloved.

Doesn’t she look really really gorgeous!?! And am I not the most blessed guy on this planet?

We had some time to kill after lunch so chose to just roam around Globus itself. I need to buy a pair of black jeans but couldn’t find a good fit out there.

Now for the movie. As I have my new trend, Read my review.

Must say that I really should stop watching the series, though I probably won’t !!

The movie ended at 5.30pm and since I had to rush to church for the 6pm mass, I just dropped her home and quickly headed back to reach church in time for mass
Mass was good, so was the singing.

Came home immediately after mass and have spent the rest of the evening at home. My PC is really giving a lot of problems which is getting on my nerves.

And I have a long week ahead!

Went over Melody‘s house around 9.45pm last night and as usual she wasn’t ready!

We finally left only past 10.30pm from her house and she decided to go to Jimmy’s Kitchen. Well I wouldn’t go to that place so I found it very weird that she wanted to go there. Well, it was all a dirty joke.

She made me stop there ask them where to park and ask if they have a valet. Well a place which doesn’t accept a card would definitely not have a valet and so I refused to ask him that. Well anyway, it was enough of an embarrassment.

And when she couldn’t control it anymore burst into laughter and told me it was all a joke and that she had a reservation at the Taj :O

Another joke? Well not really. She didn’t have a reservation there, but we did go to Taj Land’s End.

Had a good Chinese meal at Ming Yang (hope I got this right).

Food is good and so is the service. And the Honey chicken we ordered was good at first and sweet later on.

We wound up past 12 and I headed home soon afterwards.

Had a great time big sis. And it is very bad to take revenge because I made you infamous

So when next ?