After a week in Mumbai, Ashwina and I set off to Pune to spend time at her place with her Mom and Dad. I like going to Pune because, unlike Mumbai, I get to spend a lot of time resting and relaxing. As expected, this holiday also delivered the same. I even had time to work on my WordPress plugins as well as catch up on office work. Purchasing a car Ashwina planned to buy a car in Pune for her parents to replace a very old Maruti Suzuki Alto. She had shortlisted the Maruti Suzuki Ignis and we had the vendor send us a test drive vehicle on Friday.…
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Holiday in Mumbai
Ashwina and I embarked on our annual visit to Mumbai and Pune on Feb 1. In 2018, we visited India in March. However, this year we decided to stick to our Feb schedule. To Mumbai We booked ourselves on premium economy with British Airways as this was the best deal we could find. Unfortunately, as I did the bookings in October, we couldn’t take advantage of the reward flights and the Amex BA voucher. Speaking about reward flights, I feel that British Airways has gotten quite miserly about them! I’ve always loved Heathrow Terminal 5 and we took advantage of my status to use the First check-in and security which…
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Happy New Year 2019!
Sitting here on the final day of 2018, I’d like to wish all my regular and irregular readers a Happy New Year 2019. Keeping with my long tradition, here’s my life in review post for 2018. Do you agree with Dilbert’s view on resolutions? I know I’ve barely kept mine from last year. Work Work takes up a significant portion of our lives, mine included. 2018 was a long year for me at work including a tonne of projects, long hours and quite a bit of travel. Life 2018 involved quite a bit of travelling for Ashwina and me. India We started the year with our annual trip to India.…
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Closing the holiday with Montreal
Montreal was the last part of our two week holiday in September that began in New York and continued in Canada. We decided to drive from Toronto to Montreal which in retrospect is not for regular train travellers like Ashwina and myself. Two hours into the drive and I realised that I had forgotten the bag which had my laptop, iPad and most importantly my specs and contact lens. If it wasn’t for the latter two, we could have just carried on. However, this big mistake cost us dearly as we had to drive back to Toronto to pick the bag up. We finally made it Montreal late in the…
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Niagara Falls 2018
Having spent the first day in Toronto, we set out on Monday to visit Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls is less than a two-hour drive from Toronto and so can be visited in a single day. However, my dad got a good deal with the Sheraton Hotel in Niagara Falls so we decided to bunk there for a night. We grabbed lunch in Toronto before heading over to Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls clearly is a busy town by the falls complete with several eating joints as well as a casino. Walking by Niagara Falls We settled into our hotel rooms and then headed down to take a walk along the falls.…
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Hello Toronto
I posted about New York a few weeks back. And although it has been several months since our visit to Canada, and I’ve been meaning to make a few posts on the time we spent in Toronto, Niagara Falls and Montreal. So, without further ado, a short post on a fun day in Toronto. We reached Toronto on Saturday and went over to Ferdy and Anita’s house for dinner. They live about 20-30 minutes from my dad’s place in Toronto. The drive was not too bad and traffic was limited being a weekend. After a good evening of food, drink and chats, we headed back home. On Sunday, we set…
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The Brooklyn Bridge
If you’re in New York, especially for the first time, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge should definitely be on your to-do list. It was on ours and we parked it for the last day. I had started the day by meeting an old friend at One World Trade Center. After this, Ashwina and I set out. On our way there, we stopped by a really expensive Greek restaurant which appeared to be well rated. I keep thinking that Manhattan has a separate standard when it comes to food and the expensiveness of said food. We saved our energy for the Brooklyn Bridge, so we took the subway to Brooklyn Bridge…
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New York – Views from the Top
I’m back in London and the week has been busier than busy catching up on work. It’s Saturday, so trying to find a time to finish this blog post. My New York diaries continued with meeting Sneha after nearly 10 years. She took me and Ashwina to ABC Kitchen which turned out to have some really good food in well-sized portions. Remains the best food I ate in New York. After the failed attempt to view New York from Top of the Rock, we decided to try again. It seems like many others also had the same idea as we only got tickets for little over an hour later. We…
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Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
If you’ve been following the last few blog posts, you’ll know that Ashwina and I are in New York and wandered around Times Square at the start of the week. It goes without saying that most tourists have the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on the top of their places to see. And so did we. Let me tell you about our fun visit to see Lady Liberty. Planning our trip I spent a good deal of time researching where to buy the tickets – or more like what would get us the best sightseeing deal. We looked at the New York Pass which allows you access to several…
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Wandering around Times Square and Wall Street
Sunday, our 2nd day in New York was spent with Ashwina’s cousin and his wife in New Jersey. On Monday, we set out to explore the city. Destination: Times Square. We’ve found our way to New York right in the middle of hurricane season with Hurricane Florence heading towards the US East Coast. Although it is still a few days away, we’ve generally seen rather wet weather since our arrival here on Saturday. Given it is my first trip to New York, we have a list of very touristic things to do. Two of which are Top of the Rock and the Empire State Building. As the former has rather set…
