Tag Archives: Life Goals

2016 Week 50 Update

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Another week in Mumbai and we are now counting down to the days before we return back to Singapore and our usual, humdrum life. We leave at the end of next week. 

I will do a detailed post on the poonal, but this will have to wait till I am back in Singapore to gather my thoughts together and put it down coherently. Though I am on holiday, here I realised that I don’t even get 30 minutes to myself. The past week has been a whirl of activities – shopping for things, catching up with my aunts and grandmother and visiting Temples. I also started meeting up old friends and so time has been literally slipping from my hands!

I’ve realised one thing though this trip which never bothered me before – Mumbai is incredibly noisy! My parents’ home is right next to two schools which run on two shifts – the first from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm and the next from 1 to 6 pm. So we have to contend with not only children talking and shouting (as children are vaunt to do) but also listen to them rote learning their lessons. And during both the starts and dismissals, you have children eager to get out of school. Now this is not as bad as the noise generated by horns. I realise now that Mumbaikars love their vehicle horns. Even when there’s no one in the street they are driving on, it’s a compulsion to use the horn a couple of times. And if you are caught in a traffic jam, unless you have incredibly strong eardrums, your ears will be subjected to the incessant noises that horns generate. I’m typing a draft version of this post while waiting for some friends at a mall and there’s a free open air concert by a Bollywood singer going on. The singer is not here yet, but my eardrums are going to pay for this for sure later. I knew there was a good reason I don’t like discotheques and loud pubs….

The meeting with old school classmates was good. We spent a couple of hours talking and catching up on each other’s lives.

As an early anniversary meal, the four of us plus my parents went for lunch at a mall. The place we ate, Barbeque Nation overlooks the descent of planes into Mumbai airport and BB and S had a good time planespotting. Both specifically requested to go to this particular outlet to have the lunch as we had gone here last year too and they had a ball looking at all the planes landing and trying to figure out the airline from their tail regalia and the type of planes. 

This marked week 2.5 of ours in Mumbai. I’m meeting another friend later today and also some more friends during the week. So am looking forward to those gossip and catching up sessions too!

2916 Week 48 Update

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This update comes from Mumbai! I’ve been here for a couple of days and have been shopping a storm for the poonal. As of today, we’re done with the shopping and also have given the sarees to have the falls done and the blouses have been given to the tailor to be stitched. 

The past few days have been incredibly busy too, what with packing for the trip and making sure we don’t forget anything and then the last few days in India with shopping. 

S, along with his mum, aunt and sister are coming next week. My grandma and two aunts are also coming the day before the function and I am really looking forward to meeting them. 

Ok, gotta go now…have a good week everyone! 

2016 Week 47 Update

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Another hectic week where I was left wondering where the days flew by!

BB went for his school leadership camp for 3 days and GG missed him terribly. She kept asking me when he would come back and that she missed having him around to fight and play with. BB said pretty much the same thing when GG went do her leadership camp a couple of weeks back. Guess this showed me once more the special bond that both have, which is more I think because they shared a womb and have been together their entire life. I really hope GG will be able to cope with BB’s absence during his National Service which will be for two years, though he should be able to make it home most weekends. They’ll be older too, so hopefully more mature. 

You all must have heard of the demonitisation of the Indian rupee which happened two weeks back. What the government did was declare the 500 and 1000 rupee notes not legal tender anymore and it’s created chaos in the country. Suddenly the money people had for their daily expenses didn’t exist anymore and the queues in bank were and are insane. What it means to me is that no bank or money changer in Singapore has any relevant and legal rupee anymore. For us, who are flying to India next week, this has created so much problems. I’ve been running around asking people for whatever small change they have and have just about managed to cobble enough for a taxi ride from the airport to my home! Hopefully there are money changers in Mumbai airport from whom I can change some money, otherwise I have no idea how I am going to shop for the poonal. 

I also decided to take my involvement in BB & GG’s schools up a notch. I volunteered to be part of the school Parent Support Group’s exco committee. I also want to do the same for GG’s school but I am already in what they call the core committee and her school is not so into the PSG as BB’s school. 

We also caught Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them over the weekend and all of us, me, GG & BB loved it. It’s a sort of prequel to the Harry Potter series and I understand this is the first of five movies. If you are a Harry Potter fan, please do see the movie. 

That’s all from us this week. The next few updates will be from India! So more from there….

Have a wonderful week!!

2016 Week 46 Update

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Wow! What a week this turned out to be! I was so busy this week, that almost every day I was out and had to actually think back on what I did each day.

For one, the US elections took centre stage this week and we all now know what happened. I also penned down my initial thoughts a couple of days back in this post.

On Thursday morning, after I woke up, I was reading my Facebook feed when suddenly my phone blanked out. I was initially flustered and then took to Google to see what the issue was. Long story short, after checking websites, chatting with Apple advisors online as well as speaking to a local Apple advisor, I decided to bring my phone to the nearest service centre to see if it can be repaired. My phone was nearly 2 years old, but working well, so I was pretty confident it was a small issue. When I saw an associate at the service centre, I was told there was water damage to the phone and it was pretty much unrepairable! I was upset (understandably) and so had to buy a new phone stat! That was some serious cash outlay which I didn’t want to spend in the first place!

I also took BB & GG to the Singapore National Museum later in the week as I wanted them to have a look at what Singapore went through, especially since this was what they were learning in school. Before we went there, they didn’t tell me they had already been there before (yikes!) but we had a good couple of hours there checking out the various exhibits. I also want to take them to the other museums while I can.

Our India trip is just days away and we are all super excited! I’ve also finalised the photographer and videographer for the poonal and now all I need to do in Mumbai is fine tune the guest numbers for the caterer and also see if we need to add/delete any items from the catering list.

So that’s all folks, have a great week…..

2016 Week 45 Update

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Somehow in the planning for the Sumangali Pooja later today, this week just zipped by. 

Last Sunday, all of us (the four of us plus S’ mum and aunt) went to the Little India district to buy some of things for the pooja like sarees and long skirts to give the people sitting in the pooja as well as some other things. The rest of the week, I was fine-tuning the recipes to be cooked as well as taking advice from my mum and mother-in-law. 

Most of the dishes are done now, the house is clean and lamps lit. The ladies will come home in a couple of hours and then (fingers crossed) everything goes well. I done the bulk of the cooking and hope they taste nice. We can’t taste the food as it has to be offered to the Gods and so cooking for such occasions is usually a test of your skills as a cook. I’ll do a proper post on this function later in the week as putting it down will not only help me later, but perhaps help others who are in a similar situation. 

I also met GG’s English teacher earlier this week as I had not met him earlier during the Parent Teacher meeting. He also had some good things to say about her, especially her command of the language and her writing style. So that is good for her, especially since she wants to further her studies in Humanities. 

I also had some issues with the photographer I had contacted in August for BB’s poonal. Early in the week, after chasing him for almost 10 days, he messaged me that he will be unable to photograph the function. I was so mad at him being so unprofessional, that I messaged him back quite a strong note. Lucky for me, some friends came through with recommendations and I have now 3 quotes which are within my budget. I’ll decide one by tomorrow. Also the original photographer came back saying he can now do it, but I will not go with him for sure!

Ok, gotta go now, cooking to complete. I took a small break to update since I have been up from 4 am cooking. More later. Have a wonderful week folks!