Its August 19th today, and I am running seriously behind on my goal of having the blog updated at least once in three days. I guess it requires a good deal of discipline to write up something while you are on a vacation ;)
Anyway, right now it is 5:30 in the morning, and we are all packed and ready inside our suite in the SIN – KUL overnight train. If someone had told me 2 years back that I would be up, had a shower, and be all packed up at this hour – and that too on a vacation – it would have been really difficult to believe the story. But here we are!
Ok, so coming back to where I left off – which was just before leaving Chicago. We did manage to get most of our tasks accomplished by the 8th, bid adieu to our wonderful host in Chicago (DKC – I’m already missing the morning teas!), took the cab, did not get stuck in traffic despite it being 4pm on a Friday (Tip for Chicago visitors – avoid O’Hare as much as you can - Midway is way more convenient to get to, and is less congested), and ultimately boarded the Southwest flight to Oakland well on time.
There was a nice little reunion with HimBha at OAK. Bha was sporting two colorful, fluorescent band-aids on her arm, with a print of Jimmy neutron or Mickey Mouse or whatever it is that the girls look at on a band-aid and find incredibly cute! The band-aids were the only remaining indication of the yellow fever and other vaccinations that Bha had got, in her preparations for their trip to Brazil. (Wow – I wonder why I have never been sent to such exotic places on work related visits. As a contrast, my last work visit was to Columbus, Ohio…Oh, the rocking life of a management consultant!)
Him was looking thinner than usual – which he claimed to be the result of an optical illusion due to his body-hugging t-shirt. We argued about it for a while, and then started calling up our Big Oil Executive turned chauffeur (Prerna). She turned up, we debated if we could squeeze in 6 bags plus five people plus two beach chairs in a mid-size sedan; learned that we could; sat in the car, and then Ms. Pigeon (Prerna) gave us the great news – “Yaar thodee see fight hai. The brakes in this car don’t seem to be working, ‘coz I was driving the car with the handbrake on!!” Ha-ha Hee-hee followed, 6 bags + five adults + 2 beach chairs got out of the car, the rental car was exchanged, 6 bags + five adults + 2 beach chairs again got into another car, and we finally left the airport at 1am. And then came the drive. Pigeon must have felt that we travelers needed a dose of adrenaline to wake us up, and hence gave us a glimpse of some crazy driving, which included
Anyway, right now it is 5:30 in the morning, and we are all packed and ready inside our suite in the SIN – KUL overnight train. If someone had told me 2 years back that I would be up, had a shower, and be all packed up at this hour – and that too on a vacation – it would have been really difficult to believe the story. But here we are!
Ok, so coming back to where I left off – which was just before leaving Chicago. We did manage to get most of our tasks accomplished by the 8th, bid adieu to our wonderful host in Chicago (DKC – I’m already missing the morning teas!), took the cab, did not get stuck in traffic despite it being 4pm on a Friday (Tip for Chicago visitors – avoid O’Hare as much as you can - Midway is way more convenient to get to, and is less congested), and ultimately boarded the Southwest flight to Oakland well on time.
There was a nice little reunion with HimBha at OAK. Bha was sporting two colorful, fluorescent band-aids on her arm, with a print of Jimmy neutron or Mickey Mouse or whatever it is that the girls look at on a band-aid and find incredibly cute! The band-aids were the only remaining indication of the yellow fever and other vaccinations that Bha had got, in her preparations for their trip to Brazil. (Wow – I wonder why I have never been sent to such exotic places on work related visits. As a contrast, my last work visit was to Columbus, Ohio…Oh, the rocking life of a management consultant!)
Him was looking thinner than usual – which he claimed to be the result of an optical illusion due to his body-hugging t-shirt. We argued about it for a while, and then started calling up our Big Oil Executive turned chauffeur (Prerna). She turned up, we debated if we could squeeze in 6 bags plus five people plus two beach chairs in a mid-size sedan; learned that we could; sat in the car, and then Ms. Pigeon (Prerna) gave us the great news – “Yaar thodee see fight hai. The brakes in this car don’t seem to be working, ‘coz I was driving the car with the handbrake on!!” Ha-ha Hee-hee followed, 6 bags + five adults + 2 beach chairs got out of the car, the rental car was exchanged, 6 bags + five adults + 2 beach chairs again got into another car, and we finally left the airport at 1am. And then came the drive. Pigeon must have felt that we travelers needed a dose of adrenaline to wake us up, and hence gave us a glimpse of some crazy driving, which included
- driving on the wrong side of the road,
- driving with two wheels on the curb, and
- taking hairpin turns at double the recommended safe speed.
Needless to say, the strategy worked, and all of us were wide awake and on the edge of our seats within minutes. Bha, M and I all agreed that it was a good idea to let Him take the front passenger seat to witness this superb demonstration of night-time rally driving. Moreover, we also unanimously agreed that it would be better if we let him take the front driver seat in the future.
Miraculously, we reached home in one piece ;) (No offence intended Pigeon – I still believe that you are a good driver. It was Him who was the doubter). After that, it was all fun and birthday celebrations. Pigeon had made this wonderful cheesecake which I was quite reluctant in sharing with anyone else. The Gobi Manchurian was also out-of-this-world – a phrase that you can apply to pretty much whatever Pigeon cooks. Next day involved getting six people (five of us plus Pigeon’s roommate) into an SUV to drive up to Napa. Fortunately or unfortunately, this drive was rather uneventful, and had a nice time taking winery tours and tasting wines.
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