Continuing from my previous post....Return from India Trip 2013 - Part 2
At the Newark airport, we get out to wait for the
wheelchair and there are few other people as well who had assigned
wheelchair, so we had to wait a little since the wheelchairs were being
assigned by whose flight is leaving sooner than later. We had about
10-15 minutes wait and then headed with the wheelchair person to get to
immigration. All of a sudden, on the way, he says that we can't go
with my dad since the immigration people won't allow anyone with the
wheelchair person. What?? That's definitely new!! We told him that we are
all one family and we won't be going separate since we had already
filled out one immigration as a family..... We said let us at
least go down the elevator with you and then we will join in the
regular line while he took my dad in front of the line, but the guy was
adamant!! While we were talking with him, another wheelchair guy comes
to pick up someone and I asked him whether we can or can not go with my
dad since we are all together and he happily said that yea of course you
can all go together....and he looked at my dad's wheelchair guy and
said...take them together...well, at that point I wasn't sure if our guy
was telling the truth or not. We went down to the immigration
department with my dad and started heading in the line with him, and all
of a sudden another security personal comes and asks where we all were
going. We explained that we are one family and going with our dad...so,
she refused and said that only spouse goes with him and the rest goes
to stand in regular line. At that point, we did not have any choice and
me and my brother filled out another immigration form. As we were
going to the other immigration line, the wheelchair guy called out to us
and signaled us to stand right behind him. This way we got our turn
right after my parent's immigration got through. Phew!! That was
interesting but it was nice of him to do that!!
Finally we got through immigration in like 2 minutes and headed
to get our bags. Since bags had already started coming on the belt, it
didn't take much time for our bags to come. Now, this was getting little
hard since we had to pull our check-in baggage along with our
carry-on bag and a personal item....but it wasn't too long before we had
to hand our check-in luggage for the connecting flight. All the
previous times, if we had a lock on our check-in bags, we were told to
take it out but this time there was nothing like that. We had the locks
on our bags and when I started to unlock them, the wheelchair guy told
us to keep them on since it's not necessary to unlock the bags. I was
surprised and asked him twice if it was alright and he said nothing to
worry about. We headed to the security after that and straight to the
gate! There was still one and half hours for our flight, so we got some good time to relax near the gate.
United Airlines from Newark to Denver: Our last leg of the flight was from Newark to Denver on United Airlines which was about 4 hours flight. I was pretty surprised to find touch screen monitors behind each seat which had pretty good selection of movies. I felt some of the movies that were in the selection weren't even provided on the longer flight we were on. Anyways, with over 4 hours flight, I was just waiting to get home and sleep!! We reached Denver in time but apparently it had snowed that morning in Denver due to which the airport had runways covered in snow. We must have flown in the air for about 15-20 minutes in order to be landed, but since only one of the runways was open and another one was being cleaned, the pilots had to take a detour to Colo. Springs airport and wait there for half an hour before they get a green signal from DIA to come back. At this point, I was really tired, my body was aching, my legs were killing me (just from sitting for over 20 hours) and I wanted to go home!!!! Finally we get to our airport, get our baggage and my friend had already arrived to pick us up. After that, straight ride home, and then as I always say "Home sweet home" :D
Well, with this post, I conclude my journey experience and hope you all enjoyed reading!! Have a beautiful day :)
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Return from India Trip 2013 - Part 2
Mumbai International Airport: We reached the international terminal via the transfer shuttle and were told that the gate for United Airlines was Gate C. We showed our boarding passes and got in.
*Important Note*: If your flight is late at night (after midnight) and if you show up 5 to 6 hours before the flight time, the security at the gate might not let you in and tell you to come back 3 or 4 hours before the flight. I saw that they sent back one family right in front of me and didn't allow them to go in.
Once we got in, we find that the United airlines counter doesn't open until 3 hours before the flight time. Well, that leaves us plenty of time to sit at the airport. Upon checking the counter again, I found out that they were going to open the counter at 7:30 pm, so we head for the counter around 7:25 pm and line had already started forming. We stand in line only to wait another 45 minutes before they start checking in passengers. While in the line, they give you new hand baggage tags, so it's another task to remove the old tags and replace them with new ones. By the time we got our turn, all the passengers passports were checked twice by two different agents. Also while in line, one of the agents was asking couple of questions to each of the passengers (or group if you are together) whether you packed the baggage yourself, whether anyone handed you anything at the airport, etc. etc. which are mainly security questions. We get our turn and got new boarding passes and headed for the immigration. The immigration line was really really long!! This would have taken us another 30 minutes to an hour if we were to sand in that line...but thankfully we didn't have to. We were able to bypass this line with my dad's wheelchair and get in the front. Our passports were stamped and we moved onto security. Again, there was some shortcut for the security that we were able to take and clear the security screening quickly. I think it was in the basement, or that's what it felt like. Well, finally, now I felt like we were at the airport!!
This is the first time I have seen this part of the Mumbai international airport. The place was booming with all the high-end brand shops whether it's perfumes, handbags, clothing, and also some nice food courts and restaurants. I was pretty amazed. We got to our gate and settled down. All of a sudden we realize that we have entered into an on-going party which must have been organized by the head of the mosquitoes!! They were everywhere...hovering above, below, sideways, everywhere!! Instead of fighting a loosing battle, we decided to move away from the gate and sit somewhere else where we were still close enough to keep an eye on our gate to know whether they start boarding or not. When the United Airlines agent announced the boarding, we went to the gate and headed inside for one last security screening. Once through, we had to wait again for about 30 minutes or so in the passage before they started the actual boarding process. Finally, boarding started and as we went in the plane, I noticed that the mosquitoes voluntarily checked-in and brought their party inside the plane as well!! This was really annoying because we had to constantly move our hands around to get rid of them....unbelievable!! Finally, the staff on board sprayed something to crash their party and make them disappear. And so the plane peacefully takes off.
United Airlines from Mumbai to Newark: Our second leg of the journey was from Mumbai to Newark which was going to be a good long 16 hours journey!! The seats were comfortable and manageable. The entertainment portion was, unfortunately, the same as the flight from Washington to Dubai, so there was no new addition of Bollywood movies and the same selection of Hollywood movies. The food (we had Asian veg. meal) was definitely good...and provided different variety for dinner and breakfast. And if I remember, I slept through most of the flight since I was just really tired. We reached Newark early morning around 5:15 or 5:30 am and were happy to know that we were close to getting home :)
I will continue talking about the journey in the next post...until then, have fun!!
*Important Note*: If your flight is late at night (after midnight) and if you show up 5 to 6 hours before the flight time, the security at the gate might not let you in and tell you to come back 3 or 4 hours before the flight. I saw that they sent back one family right in front of me and didn't allow them to go in.
Once we got in, we find that the United airlines counter doesn't open until 3 hours before the flight time. Well, that leaves us plenty of time to sit at the airport. Upon checking the counter again, I found out that they were going to open the counter at 7:30 pm, so we head for the counter around 7:25 pm and line had already started forming. We stand in line only to wait another 45 minutes before they start checking in passengers. While in the line, they give you new hand baggage tags, so it's another task to remove the old tags and replace them with new ones. By the time we got our turn, all the passengers passports were checked twice by two different agents. Also while in line, one of the agents was asking couple of questions to each of the passengers (or group if you are together) whether you packed the baggage yourself, whether anyone handed you anything at the airport, etc. etc. which are mainly security questions. We get our turn and got new boarding passes and headed for the immigration. The immigration line was really really long!! This would have taken us another 30 minutes to an hour if we were to sand in that line...but thankfully we didn't have to. We were able to bypass this line with my dad's wheelchair and get in the front. Our passports were stamped and we moved onto security. Again, there was some shortcut for the security that we were able to take and clear the security screening quickly. I think it was in the basement, or that's what it felt like. Well, finally, now I felt like we were at the airport!!
This is the first time I have seen this part of the Mumbai international airport. The place was booming with all the high-end brand shops whether it's perfumes, handbags, clothing, and also some nice food courts and restaurants. I was pretty amazed. We got to our gate and settled down. All of a sudden we realize that we have entered into an on-going party which must have been organized by the head of the mosquitoes!! They were everywhere...hovering above, below, sideways, everywhere!! Instead of fighting a loosing battle, we decided to move away from the gate and sit somewhere else where we were still close enough to keep an eye on our gate to know whether they start boarding or not. When the United Airlines agent announced the boarding, we went to the gate and headed inside for one last security screening. Once through, we had to wait again for about 30 minutes or so in the passage before they started the actual boarding process. Finally, boarding started and as we went in the plane, I noticed that the mosquitoes voluntarily checked-in and brought their party inside the plane as well!! This was really annoying because we had to constantly move our hands around to get rid of them....unbelievable!! Finally, the staff on board sprayed something to crash their party and make them disappear. And so the plane peacefully takes off.
United Airlines from Mumbai to Newark: Our second leg of the journey was from Mumbai to Newark which was going to be a good long 16 hours journey!! The seats were comfortable and manageable. The entertainment portion was, unfortunately, the same as the flight from Washington to Dubai, so there was no new addition of Bollywood movies and the same selection of Hollywood movies. The food (we had Asian veg. meal) was definitely good...and provided different variety for dinner and breakfast. And if I remember, I slept through most of the flight since I was just really tired. We reached Newark early morning around 5:15 or 5:30 am and were happy to know that we were close to getting home :)
I will continue talking about the journey in the next post...until then, have fun!!
Friday, March 29, 2013
Return from India Trip 2013 - Part 1
It was sad but already time for us to leave India and head back to the states. We woke up early morning and got ready, checked all the bags one last time and got everything ready. We had nice lunch with family and decided to leave around 12:30 pm. We reached Ahmedabad domestic airport in 45 minutes. All of us just hung out outside of the airport and finally at 2 pm we bid our relatives goodbye and headed inside the airport. The airport was empty. There was no crowd and no lines.
We got to the Jet Airways counter to check-in. The agent weighed our bags and it turns out that we had about 3 kilos more among 4 bags. So, the agent tells us to take out 1 kilo. From what I remember, back in 2008, when we flew with Jet they were not this picky. In fact, at that time we had more than 4 kilos and there was no problem. I think it also depends on how flexible the agent is. Anyways, I reduce the weight of one of the bags by taking out an item and the agent continues by saying "Please bring your carry-on bags forward to weigh them"....Whaaaa??? Well, this is new!! I have never had to weigh our hand baggage whenever I have traveled, even with Jet. This kind of had me worried because I knew that all of our carry-on bags had more than 7 kilos. After weighing all the carry-on bags, the weight was about 6 - 7 kilos over, but, the agent didn't say anything. Phew! That was a relief. Good thing is that the agent didn't ask to weigh our personal items (purses & backpack/laptop bag) because we were all carrying additional 5-6 kilos in hand :P. Anyways, after the weighing luggage fiesta, we got our boarding passes for the entire journey (including the United Airlines passes), however, the agent told us to exchange the United Airlines passes with United when we reach Mumbai. We also got tags for all of our carry-on bags and personal items.
*IMP*: Make sure that you have a tag for each carry-on bag and personal item you're carrying. If you don't then you'll be sent back from the security screening to get the tags. The reason for this is that during the security screening, after your bags have gone through the scanner, the tags for each carry-on gets stamped which later gets checked before you board the plane.
Before we head for security, we say our final goodbyes (in the form of weaving) to our family who were anxiously waiting to see us and make sure we checked-in fine. The domestic airport is very small with only 6 or 7 gates, that's why you don't know the gate number until last minute. Once our gate was announced, we headed upstairs and again, find no crowd. Once the boarding started, our bags were checked to see if all the hand luggage had stamps or not. After that, straight to the plane!!
Jet Airways from Ahmedabad to Mumbai: Our first leg of the journey was from Ahmedabad to Mumbai on Jet Airways, less than 1 hour flight. Our flight left on time around 3:55 pm. The seats were good and comfortable. Even though it was an hour long flight to Mumbai, Jet served complimentary meal to everyone which included Cheese & Chutney Sandwich, and a Fruity. This was nice since I was hungry and also good to know that Jet is not "Kanjoos" (Cheap) like FlyDubai who even charge you to get water. We also got the immigration forms on board to fill out ahead of time. Once we landed at Mumbai domestic airport, I had an impression that we would have to take a bus from plane to get to terminal but things seemed to have changed. Our plane taxied at the domestic terminal gate. We were already at the terminal, so we headed to the transfer desk, so we could be transferred from the domestic to international airport. Again, something seems to have changed. In the past, I remember we had to go to the transfer desk, show them our onward boarding passes, and then they would give us tokens that we take to the transfer shuttle. Now, we just headed straight to the transfer bus line and didn't need to get any tokens. All we needed was our passports and the onward boarding passes. The line for the transfer was huge...thankfully my dad had assigned wheelchair so we went straight in the front of the line and got on the shuttle first. Before you get on shuttle, there is one more security screening of your bags and yourself which kind of takes longer time but it's for the safety of the people. Once the shuttle was full, it was about 15-20 minute ride to the international terminal. Mumbai's international terminal was crowded like crazy!! The bus driver had to honk at the people signaling them to move so that the driver had enough space to park the bus!! We get down and head inside for our onward journey.
I am going to stop right here and continue in the next post since this one is already becoming long. Until then, see ya!!
We got to the Jet Airways counter to check-in. The agent weighed our bags and it turns out that we had about 3 kilos more among 4 bags. So, the agent tells us to take out 1 kilo. From what I remember, back in 2008, when we flew with Jet they were not this picky. In fact, at that time we had more than 4 kilos and there was no problem. I think it also depends on how flexible the agent is. Anyways, I reduce the weight of one of the bags by taking out an item and the agent continues by saying "Please bring your carry-on bags forward to weigh them"....Whaaaa??? Well, this is new!! I have never had to weigh our hand baggage whenever I have traveled, even with Jet. This kind of had me worried because I knew that all of our carry-on bags had more than 7 kilos. After weighing all the carry-on bags, the weight was about 6 - 7 kilos over, but, the agent didn't say anything. Phew! That was a relief. Good thing is that the agent didn't ask to weigh our personal items (purses & backpack/laptop bag) because we were all carrying additional 5-6 kilos in hand :P. Anyways, after the weighing luggage fiesta, we got our boarding passes for the entire journey (including the United Airlines passes), however, the agent told us to exchange the United Airlines passes with United when we reach Mumbai. We also got tags for all of our carry-on bags and personal items.
*IMP*: Make sure that you have a tag for each carry-on bag and personal item you're carrying. If you don't then you'll be sent back from the security screening to get the tags. The reason for this is that during the security screening, after your bags have gone through the scanner, the tags for each carry-on gets stamped which later gets checked before you board the plane.
Before we head for security, we say our final goodbyes (in the form of weaving) to our family who were anxiously waiting to see us and make sure we checked-in fine. The domestic airport is very small with only 6 or 7 gates, that's why you don't know the gate number until last minute. Once our gate was announced, we headed upstairs and again, find no crowd. Once the boarding started, our bags were checked to see if all the hand luggage had stamps or not. After that, straight to the plane!!
Jet Airways from Ahmedabad to Mumbai: Our first leg of the journey was from Ahmedabad to Mumbai on Jet Airways, less than 1 hour flight. Our flight left on time around 3:55 pm. The seats were good and comfortable. Even though it was an hour long flight to Mumbai, Jet served complimentary meal to everyone which included Cheese & Chutney Sandwich, and a Fruity. This was nice since I was hungry and also good to know that Jet is not "Kanjoos" (Cheap) like FlyDubai who even charge you to get water. We also got the immigration forms on board to fill out ahead of time. Once we landed at Mumbai domestic airport, I had an impression that we would have to take a bus from plane to get to terminal but things seemed to have changed. Our plane taxied at the domestic terminal gate. We were already at the terminal, so we headed to the transfer desk, so we could be transferred from the domestic to international airport. Again, something seems to have changed. In the past, I remember we had to go to the transfer desk, show them our onward boarding passes, and then they would give us tokens that we take to the transfer shuttle. Now, we just headed straight to the transfer bus line and didn't need to get any tokens. All we needed was our passports and the onward boarding passes. The line for the transfer was huge...thankfully my dad had assigned wheelchair so we went straight in the front of the line and got on the shuttle first. Before you get on shuttle, there is one more security screening of your bags and yourself which kind of takes longer time but it's for the safety of the people. Once the shuttle was full, it was about 15-20 minute ride to the international terminal. Mumbai's international terminal was crowded like crazy!! The bus driver had to honk at the people signaling them to move so that the driver had enough space to park the bus!! We get down and head inside for our onward journey.
I am going to stop right here and continue in the next post since this one is already becoming long. Until then, see ya!!
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
India Trip 2013 - More highlights & fun...
After the wedding (India Trip 2013 - Wedding festivities) and 2 weeks of non-stop fun, we still had 1 week left in India. This was not enough time as there were so many things we wanted to do, so many places we wanted to visit, a lot more restaurants we wanted to eat at, but had to fit all that in JUST 1 WEEK!! We already had planned to visit some of the Jain temples after the wedding, so that's what we did. To visit Palitana, we needed at least 2 days, so scratch those 2 days off the week we had left. Unfortunately, while going to Palitana, my mom got really sick and couldn't come to the temple at the top of the mountains, but was able to do puja at other temples at the lower level. Our trip was successful to Palitana where my brother and I got to do puja very nicely since there was no crowd at the temple. We got back from Palitana on Tuesday night. My mom started to feel better when we got back but I got really sick on Wednesday morning :(. Not fun at all. Seems that I might have caught it from my mom or got something from the Palitana itself. In either case, I was shivering with 102 to 103 degree temperatures for 2 days which was not fun at all!! It made me really weak and I had lost taste of food no matter how delicious it was. Finally, after starting an antibiotics course, I started feeling better on 3rd day and was getting my energy back.
With me being so sick, I seriously thought that my birthday, that was coming up soon, was going to be ruined with me lying in bed with no energy and high fever. Thankfully, as I got better, I instantly made a plan to celebrate my birthday in a restaurant with my family and close relatives. My cousin and I called couple of places to ask for the menu and finalized on a restaurant. Some of the relatives couldn't come, but we still had a nice family time.
Also one of the other highlights of my trip was meeting two of my high school friends after 13 years!! It was the best time I had where I laughed non-stop for 2 hours.....credit goes to my friend D, and also G's 4 years old son!! We laughed recalling a lot of old school memories where I don't even remember half of it, but thanks to D for bringing those memories back. It was also great to meet D's wife for the first time. They make cute couple!! After that evening, we only had one and half days left until our flight back to the states :(. I celebrated my birthday a day before with the family since I knew that on my birthday we'll be doing a lot of packing, but I got even a special surprise on my birthday at midnight. My cousin and his wife brought home a delicious chocolate-almond cake at midnight to celebrate my birthday!! It was really sweet of them and that concluded the day by me cutting the cake!! The next day, instead of packing, we were out meeting the remaining relatives. After a tiring day, we went out to eat with family to celebrate my birthday again!! And that's it!! That was the last day before we all leave and our vacation is over in no time!!
We did our final check of the bags, and went to bed. This vacation was a lot of fun with some of its downfalls with my mom getting sick, then me getting sick, and then, oh yea, I forgot to mention that my brother also got some viral eye infection which lasted for really long time :(....but what can you do? When these things happen, you really don't have control over them and just hope and pray that you get well by taking the medicines :(....
In the next couple of posts, I will give you guys the details of our journey back to the States from India which was equally interesting!! Until then, have fun!!
With me being so sick, I seriously thought that my birthday, that was coming up soon, was going to be ruined with me lying in bed with no energy and high fever. Thankfully, as I got better, I instantly made a plan to celebrate my birthday in a restaurant with my family and close relatives. My cousin and I called couple of places to ask for the menu and finalized on a restaurant. Some of the relatives couldn't come, but we still had a nice family time.
Also one of the other highlights of my trip was meeting two of my high school friends after 13 years!! It was the best time I had where I laughed non-stop for 2 hours.....credit goes to my friend D, and also G's 4 years old son!! We laughed recalling a lot of old school memories where I don't even remember half of it, but thanks to D for bringing those memories back. It was also great to meet D's wife for the first time. They make cute couple!! After that evening, we only had one and half days left until our flight back to the states :(. I celebrated my birthday a day before with the family since I knew that on my birthday we'll be doing a lot of packing, but I got even a special surprise on my birthday at midnight. My cousin and his wife brought home a delicious chocolate-almond cake at midnight to celebrate my birthday!! It was really sweet of them and that concluded the day by me cutting the cake!! The next day, instead of packing, we were out meeting the remaining relatives. After a tiring day, we went out to eat with family to celebrate my birthday again!! And that's it!! That was the last day before we all leave and our vacation is over in no time!!
We did our final check of the bags, and went to bed. This vacation was a lot of fun with some of its downfalls with my mom getting sick, then me getting sick, and then, oh yea, I forgot to mention that my brother also got some viral eye infection which lasted for really long time :(....but what can you do? When these things happen, you really don't have control over them and just hope and pray that you get well by taking the medicines :(....
In the next couple of posts, I will give you guys the details of our journey back to the States from India which was equally interesting!! Until then, have fun!!
India Trip 2013 - Wedding festivities!!
After a long journey to India, you would think that we would get chance to relax, but that was not the case in our situation. I went for my cousin's wedding where the ceremonies were going to start from Feb. 10th, just 5 days from the time we landed!! That meant no resting for us. We had to go for shopping right away to buy clothes for all of us....so that started our 1st week in India.
We did pretty good in terms of shopping this time because we were able to cover a lot of places in the 1st week to get most of our shopping done. I bought a lot of my dresses, my mom bought her dresses, and we got the traditional man's wear for my dad and brother ordered since theirs needed to be stitched....not bad for 1st week!!
Then comes the 2nd week for the wedding ceremonies to begin. There were total of 7 events for this wedding which made me think of this wedding as a preview of some Yash Chopra movie!! It was seriously celebrated in a grand way with ceremonies like Siddhchakra Pujan (Big Puja), Aanu(explained later), Sangeet Sandhya, Mehndi, Wedding, & Reception!!
Siddhchakra Pujan is considered one of the most auspicious pujan in Jainism and the purpose behind performing this pujan was to give the blessings and happiness to the couple who was going to start their lives together. It's considered to be one of the longest Puja as well.
Moving on, the next event was Aanu. This event is basically performed by the bride's side. Aanu is a term for the things that the bride's family gives to the bride, when she gets married, to take to her in-laws house. The things can be from anything to everything which includes clothes, jewellery, shoes, makeup items, crockery, etc. etc. This was huge!! We all helped my cousin decorate the terrace with her stuff and it pretty much covered the entire terrace...which was amazing!! The fun part was when the groom also came to look at the Aanu and he jokingly said that he might have to shift his wardrobe out of the house in order to fit everything that my cousin was bringing :). It was fun.
Next event was the Sangeet Sandhya!! My favorite favorite ceremony which I enjoyed to the fullest...best show put together, hands down!! For those who don't know what Sangeet Sandhya is, here is a short intro. The meaning of this ceremony lies within the name itself, "Sangeet", which means music and dance. This ceremony is usually performed by either bride or groom's family. In this case, this event was organized by the bride's family. Since my mami (aunt & my cousin's mom) is a famous singer in Ahmedabad, there were some brilliant singing performances by well-known Ahmedabad singers. I don't remember everyone's names but one of the singers was Bhumik Shah. He sang songs like Chaand sifarish from Fanaa, Teri Deewani by Kailash Kher, and more. One of the other singers sang very emotional Gujarati song "Dikari mari ladakvayi" where my aunt joined later singing with him. While the song was being performed, I noticed that all my masis (including my mom) was crying :(. This song is really that emotional that it just makes you melt when you hear it. Kudos to my mami who sang it so bravely for my cousin and didn't break down during the song!! After the singing performances, then comes dancing performances. This included performances by us cousins, my cousin's friends, the groom's friends, bride's side family members, and finally the performance by the bride & the groom!! After everything wrapped up, party was not over yet :). We all had dinner together where the food was just too delicious!! The menu was so good that I literally ate everything more than I could handle (in intervals, of course, otherwise I would have exploded)!! The menu had Indian style Pizza, Pasta, Sizzler, Chole Bhature, Jalebi, Mango & Kiwi shake, is your mouth watering yet?? Anyways, that was the end of the day with an amazing night of fun and entertainment.
We were all very tired from the Sangeet Sandhya but had to pull ourselves together for yet another ceremony of Mehndi. This event was kept at a place called Choki Dhaani where they have made the place to give a village-like atmosphere with Khatlo (a kind of a village bed) and all. During Mehndi, there were also singers performing mehndi songs while Mehndi (henna) was being applied to the ladies. Here is a snippet of my Mehndi.
We had a day break in between Mehndi and the Wedding which was a good time to relax and do some last minute preps for the wedding. The wedding was going to take place in the evening, but before the wedding there is one more ritual that was going to take place early morning at 6 am. And that was Ganesh Matli & Pithi (also known as Haldi rasam). This ritual is performed by mostly women where the Ganesh (Ganpati) puja takes place in the morning and after that ritual, Pithi (Haldi rasam) takes place where we apply Turmeric on the face, hands, legs of the bride. The purpose of Pithi is to apply Turmeric on the bride so that her face glows at the wedding.
The Wedding itself is broken down into a lot of rituals where the groom's side family comes dancing to the wedding venue, the bride's family welcomes the groom, and the groom & his friends demand to see the bride before entering the venue otherwise they'll stand outside until we bring the bride out, stealing groom's shoes and then demanding the money for returning them, and the list is never ending since there are a lot of wedding rituals itself that take place during the wedding. All of us cousins had planned to steal the groom's shoes at the entrance when they demanded to see the bride. Unfortunately, that plan failed and groom's friends secured his shoes in a room which was guarded by his 3-4 bodyguards (his friends, of course!!)....there was no hope of snooping into the room to steal the shoes :(. Then we found out that one of the groom's friends was wearing his shoes to distract us thinking that the shoes are still in the room. Unfortunately, by the time we found out, groom's friends brought the shoes to him. But of course, one of the other cousin was a fighter and she tried to snatch the shoes from the hands of the friend who was carrying it. That plan failed miserably too since we couldn't snatch the shoes and one of the ribbons on the shoe broke in the snatching process!! NOW, the groom was refusing to give even a penny for that shoe...but all of us cousins hovered around him like a helicopter and didn't let him go until he paid us Rs. 5000 (it's like 100 bucks). Well, he wasn't agreeing but obviously we weren't going to go down without a fight. After much debate, and negotiation, and the pressure from the adults to come to a settlement, we fetched Rs. 3000 from him, that too when we didn't have his shoes in our possession :P...hahahaha. This was great fun!! Want to see how the wedding mandap looked? Here is a snap! (please google up the meaning of "mandap" if you don't know, because it'll be too big of a description here)
Moving on to the Reception, a final event that was going to conclude this wedding festivities. This was more relaxing event because it was hosted by the groom's family and we didn't really have to do much except to be present, take the pics with the newlyweds, and stuff ourselves with the absolutely delicious food they had!! The weather was pleasant that day and we took a lot of family pics that evening which have become memory for life :).
Wow, I didn't realize how much I wrote until I previewed the post!! This is what happens when I get carried away in writing but it was worth it since I wanted to share the wedding that I attended and also explain the ceremonies associated with the wedding. Apart from the events I wrote about, I forgot to even mention that we had a bachelor party for my cousin, and also get-together from 1 week before the wedding almost every night, so we got to see a lot of relatives during the wedding. I guess, instead of making this post even longer, I will stop right here and share with you some more trip fun in my next post. Hope you all enjoyed reading!!
We did pretty good in terms of shopping this time because we were able to cover a lot of places in the 1st week to get most of our shopping done. I bought a lot of my dresses, my mom bought her dresses, and we got the traditional man's wear for my dad and brother ordered since theirs needed to be stitched....not bad for 1st week!!
Then comes the 2nd week for the wedding ceremonies to begin. There were total of 7 events for this wedding which made me think of this wedding as a preview of some Yash Chopra movie!! It was seriously celebrated in a grand way with ceremonies like Siddhchakra Pujan (Big Puja), Aanu(explained later), Sangeet Sandhya, Mehndi, Wedding, & Reception!!
Siddhchakra Pujan is considered one of the most auspicious pujan in Jainism and the purpose behind performing this pujan was to give the blessings and happiness to the couple who was going to start their lives together. It's considered to be one of the longest Puja as well.
Moving on, the next event was Aanu. This event is basically performed by the bride's side. Aanu is a term for the things that the bride's family gives to the bride, when she gets married, to take to her in-laws house. The things can be from anything to everything which includes clothes, jewellery, shoes, makeup items, crockery, etc. etc. This was huge!! We all helped my cousin decorate the terrace with her stuff and it pretty much covered the entire terrace...which was amazing!! The fun part was when the groom also came to look at the Aanu and he jokingly said that he might have to shift his wardrobe out of the house in order to fit everything that my cousin was bringing :). It was fun.
Next event was the Sangeet Sandhya!! My favorite favorite ceremony which I enjoyed to the fullest...best show put together, hands down!! For those who don't know what Sangeet Sandhya is, here is a short intro. The meaning of this ceremony lies within the name itself, "Sangeet", which means music and dance. This ceremony is usually performed by either bride or groom's family. In this case, this event was organized by the bride's family. Since my mami (aunt & my cousin's mom) is a famous singer in Ahmedabad, there were some brilliant singing performances by well-known Ahmedabad singers. I don't remember everyone's names but one of the singers was Bhumik Shah. He sang songs like Chaand sifarish from Fanaa, Teri Deewani by Kailash Kher, and more. One of the other singers sang very emotional Gujarati song "Dikari mari ladakvayi" where my aunt joined later singing with him. While the song was being performed, I noticed that all my masis (including my mom) was crying :(. This song is really that emotional that it just makes you melt when you hear it. Kudos to my mami who sang it so bravely for my cousin and didn't break down during the song!! After the singing performances, then comes dancing performances. This included performances by us cousins, my cousin's friends, the groom's friends, bride's side family members, and finally the performance by the bride & the groom!! After everything wrapped up, party was not over yet :). We all had dinner together where the food was just too delicious!! The menu was so good that I literally ate everything more than I could handle (in intervals, of course, otherwise I would have exploded)!! The menu had Indian style Pizza, Pasta, Sizzler, Chole Bhature, Jalebi, Mango & Kiwi shake, is your mouth watering yet?? Anyways, that was the end of the day with an amazing night of fun and entertainment.
We were all very tired from the Sangeet Sandhya but had to pull ourselves together for yet another ceremony of Mehndi. This event was kept at a place called Choki Dhaani where they have made the place to give a village-like atmosphere with Khatlo (a kind of a village bed) and all. During Mehndi, there were also singers performing mehndi songs while Mehndi (henna) was being applied to the ladies. Here is a snippet of my Mehndi.
The Wedding itself is broken down into a lot of rituals where the groom's side family comes dancing to the wedding venue, the bride's family welcomes the groom, and the groom & his friends demand to see the bride before entering the venue otherwise they'll stand outside until we bring the bride out, stealing groom's shoes and then demanding the money for returning them, and the list is never ending since there are a lot of wedding rituals itself that take place during the wedding. All of us cousins had planned to steal the groom's shoes at the entrance when they demanded to see the bride. Unfortunately, that plan failed and groom's friends secured his shoes in a room which was guarded by his 3-4 bodyguards (his friends, of course!!)....there was no hope of snooping into the room to steal the shoes :(. Then we found out that one of the groom's friends was wearing his shoes to distract us thinking that the shoes are still in the room. Unfortunately, by the time we found out, groom's friends brought the shoes to him. But of course, one of the other cousin was a fighter and she tried to snatch the shoes from the hands of the friend who was carrying it. That plan failed miserably too since we couldn't snatch the shoes and one of the ribbons on the shoe broke in the snatching process!! NOW, the groom was refusing to give even a penny for that shoe...but all of us cousins hovered around him like a helicopter and didn't let him go until he paid us Rs. 5000 (it's like 100 bucks). Well, he wasn't agreeing but obviously we weren't going to go down without a fight. After much debate, and negotiation, and the pressure from the adults to come to a settlement, we fetched Rs. 3000 from him, that too when we didn't have his shoes in our possession :P...hahahaha. This was great fun!! Want to see how the wedding mandap looked? Here is a snap! (please google up the meaning of "mandap" if you don't know, because it'll be too big of a description here)
Moving on to the Reception, a final event that was going to conclude this wedding festivities. This was more relaxing event because it was hosted by the groom's family and we didn't really have to do much except to be present, take the pics with the newlyweds, and stuff ourselves with the absolutely delicious food they had!! The weather was pleasant that day and we took a lot of family pics that evening which have become memory for life :).
Wow, I didn't realize how much I wrote until I previewed the post!! This is what happens when I get carried away in writing but it was worth it since I wanted to share the wedding that I attended and also explain the ceremonies associated with the wedding. Apart from the events I wrote about, I forgot to even mention that we had a bachelor party for my cousin, and also get-together from 1 week before the wedding almost every night, so we got to see a lot of relatives during the wedding. I guess, instead of making this post even longer, I will stop right here and share with you some more trip fun in my next post. Hope you all enjoyed reading!!
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
India Trip 2013 - Part 3
.....Continuing from my earlier post India Trip 2013 - Part2
FlyDubai Airline Experience:
While we were waiting at the gate at terminal 2, FlyDubai began the boarding process. While getting on the shuttle to get to the plane, FlyDubai staff said that the plane is full and we'll have to check-in all of our carry-on bags. After much debate, they agreed to let us keep 2 of our carry-on bags and check-in the other 2 bags which we were going to get at the final destination along with our check-in bags. We get boarded on the bus and obviously, the bus doesn't move for another 15-20 minutes until it's full or everyone is aboard....ughhh!!! After long journey, and sitting and waiting, we were all really tired and I wouldn't have minded the wait on the bus either, but there were no seats on the bus and we all had to stand, that's what made me more mad. It was extremely tiring, but I had no choice!! Finally we board the plane and find out that it's half empty...x-(.....What???? Why did they take our carry-on bags if it was half empty and told us it was full???
Just a side note, our flight left at 9:45 pm at night from Dubai and once we were in the air, it was a sight to see!! Dubai looked so beautiful at night with the city completely lit up!! Just gorgeous!! Now, about the flight experience.....the flight left on time and seats were comfortable too. But, this is where the niceness of the airline ends. With that said, EVERYTHING on this airline comes with a price, even water!!! Can you believe this?? They don't even give you water for free!!! We paid $2 to get a water bottle. After all that you have spent for the ticket, the airline doesn't even have courtesy to give you water, but oh well!!! Big minus for this airline...
Ahmedabad Airport:
We reach Ahmedabad International Airport on time as well. Luckily, there were no other flights at the airport when we landed, which meant no crowd at the airport :). We got transported from plane to the terminal via shuttle and got in line for the immigration. We got the immigration forms while in plane by FlyDubai staff, so we filled out the forms in the plane. This made it quick for us to get in the immigration line. The line moved quickly and we were done with immigration in 5 minutes. After that, it took maybe another 10 minutes for our bags to come and we were the 1st people in line for the customs which was surprisingly fast too....another 5 minutes maybe. This is the quickest we have been out of the airport that I can remember.
Anyways, what follows is much more fun to read than these immigration and customs timings. When we were collecting our bags, I thought I saw my uncle and aunt outside of the airport, so we got out of the airport all excited to see them. As it turns out, there was no one from our family....haha!! Big Blooper!! It must have been someone else's family that I was waving at when I was inside, because surely there was no one from our family at the airport. From a near-by shop I call my uncle and they got so surprised to hear our voice and even find out that we were already outside the airport. He said he was on his way and soon after talking to him, they all came to receive us at the airport. I think this is partially our fault too because before our journey, we kept telling them that it will take us at least 1 and half hours to get out after we land since that has been the case in the past. But, today was a complete surprise to even us when we got done with all the formalities so quickly and got out within 20 minutes.
When the family arrived, they were so upset that we had to wait outside but were also happy to see us. We put all our bags in the car and drove away to my aunt's place. It was a long journey, but finally at home now :)
With this last post, I conclude my India journey and hope my details give you the answers you are looking for regarding an airline or an airport experience. I hope to actually share with you the 3 weeks of non-stop fun in another post, but that will take little while, so until then, have a great week ahead!!
FlyDubai Airline Experience:
While we were waiting at the gate at terminal 2, FlyDubai began the boarding process. While getting on the shuttle to get to the plane, FlyDubai staff said that the plane is full and we'll have to check-in all of our carry-on bags. After much debate, they agreed to let us keep 2 of our carry-on bags and check-in the other 2 bags which we were going to get at the final destination along with our check-in bags. We get boarded on the bus and obviously, the bus doesn't move for another 15-20 minutes until it's full or everyone is aboard....ughhh!!! After long journey, and sitting and waiting, we were all really tired and I wouldn't have minded the wait on the bus either, but there were no seats on the bus and we all had to stand, that's what made me more mad. It was extremely tiring, but I had no choice!! Finally we board the plane and find out that it's half empty...x-(.....What???? Why did they take our carry-on bags if it was half empty and told us it was full???
Just a side note, our flight left at 9:45 pm at night from Dubai and once we were in the air, it was a sight to see!! Dubai looked so beautiful at night with the city completely lit up!! Just gorgeous!! Now, about the flight experience.....the flight left on time and seats were comfortable too. But, this is where the niceness of the airline ends. With that said, EVERYTHING on this airline comes with a price, even water!!! Can you believe this?? They don't even give you water for free!!! We paid $2 to get a water bottle. After all that you have spent for the ticket, the airline doesn't even have courtesy to give you water, but oh well!!! Big minus for this airline...
Ahmedabad Airport:
We reach Ahmedabad International Airport on time as well. Luckily, there were no other flights at the airport when we landed, which meant no crowd at the airport :). We got transported from plane to the terminal via shuttle and got in line for the immigration. We got the immigration forms while in plane by FlyDubai staff, so we filled out the forms in the plane. This made it quick for us to get in the immigration line. The line moved quickly and we were done with immigration in 5 minutes. After that, it took maybe another 10 minutes for our bags to come and we were the 1st people in line for the customs which was surprisingly fast too....another 5 minutes maybe. This is the quickest we have been out of the airport that I can remember.
Anyways, what follows is much more fun to read than these immigration and customs timings. When we were collecting our bags, I thought I saw my uncle and aunt outside of the airport, so we got out of the airport all excited to see them. As it turns out, there was no one from our family....haha!! Big Blooper!! It must have been someone else's family that I was waving at when I was inside, because surely there was no one from our family at the airport. From a near-by shop I call my uncle and they got so surprised to hear our voice and even find out that we were already outside the airport. He said he was on his way and soon after talking to him, they all came to receive us at the airport. I think this is partially our fault too because before our journey, we kept telling them that it will take us at least 1 and half hours to get out after we land since that has been the case in the past. But, today was a complete surprise to even us when we got done with all the formalities so quickly and got out within 20 minutes.
When the family arrived, they were so upset that we had to wait outside but were also happy to see us. We put all our bags in the car and drove away to my aunt's place. It was a long journey, but finally at home now :)
With this last post, I conclude my India journey and hope my details give you the answers you are looking for regarding an airline or an airport experience. I hope to actually share with you the 3 weeks of non-stop fun in another post, but that will take little while, so until then, have a great week ahead!!
India Trip 2013 - Part 2
.....Continuing from my earlier post India Trip 2013 - Part 1
Dubai Airport Experience:
Where were we?? Yes, at Dubai airport. So, we had just landed in Dubai airport at Terminal 1 (United Airlines terminal). We land at 3:40 pm instead of 4:40 pm ....which is a 6 hours wait for the next flight :(. As we got out of the plane, my dad's wheelchair was waiting for him. The person pushing my dad's wheelchair told us to take the escalator and go up to the 2nd floor and wait near transfer desk while he was going to go another route to bring the wheelchair by an elevator. We thought it must be close by so went and waited for them near the transfer desk C even though that's not the transfer desk for our next flight. 5 minutes go by and no sign of my dad. I kind of worry that we didn't have any contact with him and thought if we took the wrong route but just then I see him and take a sigh of relief. We all head down to the lower level to get to the transfer desk E. For those wondering what these transfer desks are for, well, if you are connecting to another flight in Dubai, you have to go to the transfer desk of your airline in order to get the onward boarding passes and then continue with your journey. For us, our onward flight was going to be with FlyDubai Airline and that airline took off from Terminal 2 which is located couple of miles from the Terminal 1. For our onward journey, we had to go to transfer desk E (this is the desk you need to be at if you need to catch an onward flight from terminal 2) to get our onward boarding passes.
Our ticket was issued by United Airlines and it was 1 PNR where FlyDubai was also on that single ticket. One advantage of this was that we did not have to collect our baggage at Dubai. It was through checked-in from our first leg of the journey and we were only going to get it at the final destination. We just had to give our baggage tags to the agent at the transfer desk so that they made sure to transfer our luggage for us. Another advantage was that since we were flying with United Airlines and then going on FlyDubai, FlyDubai did not weigh our hand luggage since it was a connecting flight!! This is a very important piece of information to know for people who are connecting to FlyDubai because their hand-baggage policy is very strict where they only allow 7 kilos of hand luggage and if it's more than that, you have to pay for it per kilo rate!!
We get to the desk and I give the agent behind the desk our passports, temporary FlyDubai boarding passes (that we got from UA at the first airport) and baggage tags. Even though we had valid 10 years Indian Visa, it took them half an hour to issue us FlyDubai boarding passes. There was something that the agent wanted to confirm on the Visa and he was having hard time reaching someone at the embassy. It kind of concerned me because I knew we had all the necessary documents for travel but God knows what else they wanted to confirm. Finally after 35 minutes of waiting the agent got the info they needed and gave our passports back. They did the exact same thing with all the other passengers who were traveling to India with us where it took them really long time to issue boarding passes to each of those passengers. Oh well, we were ready to go to terminal 2. We waited for the shuttle to come and once it came, only then the agent provided everyone with their onward boarding passes. The shuttle took about 15-20 minutes drive to go from terminal 1 to 2.
Once we were at Terminal 2, we had to go through another security screening, and then off to our FlyDubai gate.
Terminal 2 of Dubai airport: Here is little insight into the Terminal 2 of the Dubai Airport. The terminal is pretty small!!! It is a 1 floor building which has 6 gates and 1 big duty-free shop. Due to being small, it was very crowded and it's hard to find seats. The space started to open up a little as the flights took off and people left. I had read that there is a free wi-fi at the terminal which I tried to connect to, but no luck! I was able to connect to the wi-fi, but couldn't connect any of my iphone apps and it kept complaining that there was no connection. That was a big bummer!! With no wi-fi and over 5 hours of wait time, there was nothing for me to do but roam around in the duty-free shop and rest at our gate. The only interesting thing out of the terminal 2 was that you could see Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world) from where we were sitting at terminal 2. It was kind of far but you can spot it easily with its unique design of the building.
Alrighty!! Well, my journey is not over yet, but if I continue writing any longer, there is a possibility of the post getting very lengthy and boring!! Sooooooooo, with that, I conclude this post and give you our FlyDubai Airline experience in the next post. See ya :)
Dubai Airport Experience:
Where were we?? Yes, at Dubai airport. So, we had just landed in Dubai airport at Terminal 1 (United Airlines terminal). We land at 3:40 pm instead of 4:40 pm ....which is a 6 hours wait for the next flight :(. As we got out of the plane, my dad's wheelchair was waiting for him. The person pushing my dad's wheelchair told us to take the escalator and go up to the 2nd floor and wait near transfer desk while he was going to go another route to bring the wheelchair by an elevator. We thought it must be close by so went and waited for them near the transfer desk C even though that's not the transfer desk for our next flight. 5 minutes go by and no sign of my dad. I kind of worry that we didn't have any contact with him and thought if we took the wrong route but just then I see him and take a sigh of relief. We all head down to the lower level to get to the transfer desk E. For those wondering what these transfer desks are for, well, if you are connecting to another flight in Dubai, you have to go to the transfer desk of your airline in order to get the onward boarding passes and then continue with your journey. For us, our onward flight was going to be with FlyDubai Airline and that airline took off from Terminal 2 which is located couple of miles from the Terminal 1. For our onward journey, we had to go to transfer desk E (this is the desk you need to be at if you need to catch an onward flight from terminal 2) to get our onward boarding passes.
Our ticket was issued by United Airlines and it was 1 PNR where FlyDubai was also on that single ticket. One advantage of this was that we did not have to collect our baggage at Dubai. It was through checked-in from our first leg of the journey and we were only going to get it at the final destination. We just had to give our baggage tags to the agent at the transfer desk so that they made sure to transfer our luggage for us. Another advantage was that since we were flying with United Airlines and then going on FlyDubai, FlyDubai did not weigh our hand luggage since it was a connecting flight!! This is a very important piece of information to know for people who are connecting to FlyDubai because their hand-baggage policy is very strict where they only allow 7 kilos of hand luggage and if it's more than that, you have to pay for it per kilo rate!!
We get to the desk and I give the agent behind the desk our passports, temporary FlyDubai boarding passes (that we got from UA at the first airport) and baggage tags. Even though we had valid 10 years Indian Visa, it took them half an hour to issue us FlyDubai boarding passes. There was something that the agent wanted to confirm on the Visa and he was having hard time reaching someone at the embassy. It kind of concerned me because I knew we had all the necessary documents for travel but God knows what else they wanted to confirm. Finally after 35 minutes of waiting the agent got the info they needed and gave our passports back. They did the exact same thing with all the other passengers who were traveling to India with us where it took them really long time to issue boarding passes to each of those passengers. Oh well, we were ready to go to terminal 2. We waited for the shuttle to come and once it came, only then the agent provided everyone with their onward boarding passes. The shuttle took about 15-20 minutes drive to go from terminal 1 to 2.
Once we were at Terminal 2, we had to go through another security screening, and then off to our FlyDubai gate.
Terminal 2 of Dubai airport: Here is little insight into the Terminal 2 of the Dubai Airport. The terminal is pretty small!!! It is a 1 floor building which has 6 gates and 1 big duty-free shop. Due to being small, it was very crowded and it's hard to find seats. The space started to open up a little as the flights took off and people left. I had read that there is a free wi-fi at the terminal which I tried to connect to, but no luck! I was able to connect to the wi-fi, but couldn't connect any of my iphone apps and it kept complaining that there was no connection. That was a big bummer!! With no wi-fi and over 5 hours of wait time, there was nothing for me to do but roam around in the duty-free shop and rest at our gate. The only interesting thing out of the terminal 2 was that you could see Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world) from where we were sitting at terminal 2. It was kind of far but you can spot it easily with its unique design of the building.
Alrighty!! Well, my journey is not over yet, but if I continue writing any longer, there is a possibility of the post getting very lengthy and boring!! Sooooooooo, with that, I conclude this post and give you our FlyDubai Airline experience in the next post. See ya :)
India Trip 2013 - Part 1
As discussed in my last post, I am back with the post on my India trip with each and every detail of my travel.
As usual, before the journey I can never get full night sleep due to last minute packing, lots of excitement, and a lot of other things. With the excitement of going to India (let's just call it excitement), woke up early at 6 am and helped my mom make the sandwiches to take with us. Everyone got ready by 8 am, checked everything one last time and headed for airport around 8:20 am. My friend got us to the airport in half an hour which was pretty fast compared to the time it takes us to get to the airport. There was quite a bit of line for check-in but it was moving at steady speed. This time, we were only allowed to check-in 1 bag per person, so the situation at the airport wasn't so bad with 4 check-in bags & 4 carry-on bags. Every time we have traveled to India, the situation becomes a bit awkward when we have to drag all the check-in bags, and carry-on bags to the counter since there are always 6 or more check-in bags plus 3 or more carry-on bags plus ladies purses and laptop bag and/or backpack. People at the airport glare at us as if we are going on a journey to never return back!! Anyways, we got our turn in line within 10 minutes, and we pulled our bags to the counter and checked-in. We got our baggage tags, and boarding passes. Again, check-in wasn't bad either, maybe 10-15 minutes. We headed for the security check. Security checking lines seemed long but they always move faster and I have never had to wait for more than 15 minutes. We got to our gate @ around 10:20 am and then we had all the time to sit and relax and observe the airport crowd going and coming....haha.
United Airlines from Denver to Washington Dulles: Our first leg of the journey was on United Airlines from Denver to Washington Dulles. The flight was to depart at 11:24 am, but since the plane came late we boarded around 11:35 am and didn't take off until 12:10 pm. The flight itself was fine. I think in-between my sleep I saw the movie Alex Cross which they were showing on board. No comments on that! We got to the Washington Dulles airport at around 5 pm and it took us about 15-20 minutes to get out since we were sitting all the way in the back. Since our next flight was not until 6:40 pm, we were not in hurry. We got off at one of the Concourse C gates and our next flight was also going from the same terminal which was a relief to not change terminals. This is the 3rd time I am connecting to another flight via Washington Dulles and every time it's been from either from concourse C or D and both of them are on the same terminal. This is one terminal I have encountered which is always busy, there is no open space, very little set of windows that makes it very dark at places, and always crowded. But, what can I do? I have no choice!!
United Airlines from Washington Dulles to Dubai (13 hours flight!!): Our second leg of the journey was from Washington Dulles airport to Dubai on United Airlines which was going to be the longest flight - 13 hours long!!! Yup!! This was first time for us to be on a long flight with United Airlines, so didn't know what to expect in terms of food, entertainment, comfort of seats, etc. We boarded the plane and were not disappointed!!
The seats were comfortable, and there was enough leg room. Entertainment wise, they had good selection of Hollywood movies like Argo, Taken 2, Prime Rush, etc., but very limited selection of Bollywood movies. Only 5 movies which included Rowdy Rathore, Shanghai, Student of the Year, English Vinglish, & Monsoon Wedding. Last time, I remember, I had watched so many movies on my Qatar flight but this time I didn't feel like watching anything. I think I slept through most of my flight and only woke up when the air hostess came with the meal. Now, about the food, the important part of the long flight!! UA was providing dinner and breakfast. We had requested Veg. Asian Meal and I wasn't sure what to expect but it sure didn't disappoint us. They served dinner just after an hour the flight had taken off and it included Mix Vegetable & Dal with Rice, salad with yogurt and vinegar. It was tasty but not enough. Also for breakfast, which was served 1 and half hours before the flight landed, they served 2 coconut bhajiya, 3 puris, and a paneer vegetable along with yogurt, one small (really small) bread, and cream cheese. Honestly, when they served breakfast, I was fast asleep and didn't want to wake up but whatever they were serving smelled good, so forced myself to open one eye and respond to the air hostess who was asking me if I wanted breakfast!! I wasn't really hungry but wanted to try out the coconut bhajiya which I have never tried before and they sure were delicious! Along with the dinner & breakfast, United Airlines have snacks in the back where people can go and grab them as needed. They had veg. and non-veg. sandwiches made and packets of chips and candy already made.
This flight to Dubai had a lot of Indians traveling, especially a lot of Gujaratis which made it interesting because we got to hear other people speak in Gujarati instead of us :).
Apparently, our flight reached Dubai 1 hour before its assigned time. What it meant for us? Well, an additional hour meant that instead of 5 hours wait at Dubai, we were now going to have a 6 hours wait :(...that's really long time!!!
I am going to stop right here and continue the journey in the next post to make sure you are not fast asleep after reading this one!! Upcoming is the experience at the Dubai airport .....
As usual, before the journey I can never get full night sleep due to last minute packing, lots of excitement, and a lot of other things. With the excitement of going to India (let's just call it excitement), woke up early at 6 am and helped my mom make the sandwiches to take with us. Everyone got ready by 8 am, checked everything one last time and headed for airport around 8:20 am. My friend got us to the airport in half an hour which was pretty fast compared to the time it takes us to get to the airport. There was quite a bit of line for check-in but it was moving at steady speed. This time, we were only allowed to check-in 1 bag per person, so the situation at the airport wasn't so bad with 4 check-in bags & 4 carry-on bags. Every time we have traveled to India, the situation becomes a bit awkward when we have to drag all the check-in bags, and carry-on bags to the counter since there are always 6 or more check-in bags plus 3 or more carry-on bags plus ladies purses and laptop bag and/or backpack. People at the airport glare at us as if we are going on a journey to never return back!! Anyways, we got our turn in line within 10 minutes, and we pulled our bags to the counter and checked-in. We got our baggage tags, and boarding passes. Again, check-in wasn't bad either, maybe 10-15 minutes. We headed for the security check. Security checking lines seemed long but they always move faster and I have never had to wait for more than 15 minutes. We got to our gate @ around 10:20 am and then we had all the time to sit and relax and observe the airport crowd going and coming....haha.
United Airlines from Denver to Washington Dulles: Our first leg of the journey was on United Airlines from Denver to Washington Dulles. The flight was to depart at 11:24 am, but since the plane came late we boarded around 11:35 am and didn't take off until 12:10 pm. The flight itself was fine. I think in-between my sleep I saw the movie Alex Cross which they were showing on board. No comments on that! We got to the Washington Dulles airport at around 5 pm and it took us about 15-20 minutes to get out since we were sitting all the way in the back. Since our next flight was not until 6:40 pm, we were not in hurry. We got off at one of the Concourse C gates and our next flight was also going from the same terminal which was a relief to not change terminals. This is the 3rd time I am connecting to another flight via Washington Dulles and every time it's been from either from concourse C or D and both of them are on the same terminal. This is one terminal I have encountered which is always busy, there is no open space, very little set of windows that makes it very dark at places, and always crowded. But, what can I do? I have no choice!!
United Airlines from Washington Dulles to Dubai (13 hours flight!!): Our second leg of the journey was from Washington Dulles airport to Dubai on United Airlines which was going to be the longest flight - 13 hours long!!! Yup!! This was first time for us to be on a long flight with United Airlines, so didn't know what to expect in terms of food, entertainment, comfort of seats, etc. We boarded the plane and were not disappointed!!
The seats were comfortable, and there was enough leg room. Entertainment wise, they had good selection of Hollywood movies like Argo, Taken 2, Prime Rush, etc., but very limited selection of Bollywood movies. Only 5 movies which included Rowdy Rathore, Shanghai, Student of the Year, English Vinglish, & Monsoon Wedding. Last time, I remember, I had watched so many movies on my Qatar flight but this time I didn't feel like watching anything. I think I slept through most of my flight and only woke up when the air hostess came with the meal. Now, about the food, the important part of the long flight!! UA was providing dinner and breakfast. We had requested Veg. Asian Meal and I wasn't sure what to expect but it sure didn't disappoint us. They served dinner just after an hour the flight had taken off and it included Mix Vegetable & Dal with Rice, salad with yogurt and vinegar. It was tasty but not enough. Also for breakfast, which was served 1 and half hours before the flight landed, they served 2 coconut bhajiya, 3 puris, and a paneer vegetable along with yogurt, one small (really small) bread, and cream cheese. Honestly, when they served breakfast, I was fast asleep and didn't want to wake up but whatever they were serving smelled good, so forced myself to open one eye and respond to the air hostess who was asking me if I wanted breakfast!! I wasn't really hungry but wanted to try out the coconut bhajiya which I have never tried before and they sure were delicious! Along with the dinner & breakfast, United Airlines have snacks in the back where people can go and grab them as needed. They had veg. and non-veg. sandwiches made and packets of chips and candy already made.
This flight to Dubai had a lot of Indians traveling, especially a lot of Gujaratis which made it interesting because we got to hear other people speak in Gujarati instead of us :).
Apparently, our flight reached Dubai 1 hour before its assigned time. What it meant for us? Well, an additional hour meant that instead of 5 hours wait at Dubai, we were now going to have a 6 hours wait :(...that's really long time!!!
I am going to stop right here and continue the journey in the next post to make sure you are not fast asleep after reading this one!! Upcoming is the experience at the Dubai airport .....
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Welcome 2013!!
With the welcome of 2013, I didn't know what was in store for me, but surely there was a vacation in store right at the start!!
My cousin's wedding was going to take place in February of 2013, but didn't know if we were going to attend or not since all of our vacations needed to be at the same time. After everyone's vacations got approved, we decided to attend the wedding in February in India. I booked our tickets for 3 weeks in Feb which covered pretty much the entire month of February. My family and I were very excited since all of us were going together to India for the first time after we moved to US. Since we moved, there was always 1 person missing in each trip, so this time it happened to be all of us going!! And another reason of excitement was to go to India was to attend a family wedding and meet the relatives!! It's always great to visit family but more of the excitement comes from the joy of shopping and the variety of food :D...hehe. That's the best part about the vacation!!
In the next couple of my posts, I will be jotting down every single detail of my travel/journey how I have been writing in the past, so that gives other readers and travelers idea about the airline we flew with, airports we visited and an overall experience. Also I will write about all the fun I had during the wedding, meeting families, and meeting 2 of my school friends after 13 years!!
So, lots of posts coming up...stay tuned!!
My cousin's wedding was going to take place in February of 2013, but didn't know if we were going to attend or not since all of our vacations needed to be at the same time. After everyone's vacations got approved, we decided to attend the wedding in February in India. I booked our tickets for 3 weeks in Feb which covered pretty much the entire month of February. My family and I were very excited since all of us were going together to India for the first time after we moved to US. Since we moved, there was always 1 person missing in each trip, so this time it happened to be all of us going!! And another reason of excitement was to go to India was to attend a family wedding and meet the relatives!! It's always great to visit family but more of the excitement comes from the joy of shopping and the variety of food :D...hehe. That's the best part about the vacation!!
In the next couple of my posts, I will be jotting down every single detail of my travel/journey how I have been writing in the past, so that gives other readers and travelers idea about the airline we flew with, airports we visited and an overall experience. Also I will write about all the fun I had during the wedding, meeting families, and meeting 2 of my school friends after 13 years!!
So, lots of posts coming up...stay tuned!!
Belated Happy New Year!!!
Wow....I can't believe that I am writing my first 2013 post all the way in March'13!!! It does feel like forever since I wrote something on my blog....and I have missed it badly writing something!! I am really sorry for that friends....(at least to those who read my blog)...but things have been just very busy and partly it is also because of some laziness, but that has its reasons which I will explain later.
First of all, Wish you all a belated Happy New Year!! Yea, I know it sounds silly, to wish a belated new year, however, I don't want to be left out so better to wish late than never!! Anyways, to start off, let me just shed some light on the past year of 2012 and the inspiration for doing this comes from my two blog buddies and best friends, Llamas'r'us & "Blog" is such a silly name, however, my reflections of 2012 is going to be much shorter than theirs depending on how much I remember :D.
Looking back at 2012:
I can't really seem to remember much of first half of 2012. I do remember that I was really busy with work during the first half of 2012 so didn't really do much except hanging out with friends here and there, going to few movies, etc.
Then comes May: One of my friend's in-laws 40th anniversary was coming up in June, so they wanted to perform during their anniversary. For that I was given the task to choreograph and teach all of them dances, so I was pretty busy with that choreographing and teaching them the dances for about a month. Dancing is something I love, so I enjoyed it thoroughly teaching my friend, and her kids and her family. June and July were again busy with work trying to meet the deadlines and finish up the projects.
August: In August, one of my good friends invited me to visit him and his fiance in St. Louis. I was meeting my friend R almost after a year and meeting his fiance, T, for the first time. It was great to see both of them. While in St. Louis, I was able to explore the place as well which included visit to the Arch, The Downtown, Zoo, Art Museum, Missouri Botanical Garden, Cathedral Basilica, Montelle winery, Hindu temple & Swaminarayan temple. Along with all the exploring, also got to spend some quality time with friends. Overall, this was a much needed relaxing vacation!!
September: Now this month is the highlight of my entire year of 2012 because this was the more of a happening month for me and my family!! I had planned two vacations in the month of September and also attended one of a close friend's wedding. So here it goes...from August 31st to September 9, I had planned the family vacation to New York & New Jersey. The plan was to stay 5 days in New Jersey and 5 days in New York. We first went to New Jersey to visit my mom's cousin and her family, my brother and I met them for first time, and it was a delight to play with our 2 and half years old nephew and bond with him. While in New Jersey, we were in Princeton, so we visited Princeton University (very beautiful campus), The Downtown, new Jain Temple in NJ, Oak street which is like a mini-India, and Atlantic city. Also from Princeton we went to Siddhachalam (Jain temple) which is located about 2 hours from Princeton, away from all the city noise, and is built over 120 acre land. Very peaceful and spiritual place. They also have trailers for those who want to come and spend a night there or come for a weekend getaway. After our 5 days in NJ, we headed to New York to visit one of the other families in Long Island. We stayed in Long Island, but went to NY 2 days to take the Gray Line Double-Decker tour bus. Within the 2 days of the tour bus that we took, we pretty much covered a lot of NY's hot spots and tourist spots. Also visited temple in Long Island. After 10 days of non-stop fun, we were back home, but not for so long!! During the mid-September, one of my close friends got married and I was honored to be part of the ceremony. Then comes the last week of September where I had another family vacation planned to Las Vegas & California!! This was a road trip visiting Vegas first and staying there for 2 days, exploring the strip, trying our luck at casinos and then heading to California to visit my aunt, visited Disney Land and Universal Studios, and then back to Vegas for a day before heading home. Overall, This was the best month with all the traveling and personal events.
October, November & December: I think I tried my hand at new recipes during these months, especially in the month of December. Cooking has been fun too if a recipe really interests me, so tried my hand at making mutter paneer, chilli paneer, pasta (desi style), and cauliflower manchurian. And all of them turned out to be great!!
With this summary, I conclude my 2012 and welcome 2013 with a big smile and wait to see what it has in store for me :)
First of all, Wish you all a belated Happy New Year!! Yea, I know it sounds silly, to wish a belated new year, however, I don't want to be left out so better to wish late than never!! Anyways, to start off, let me just shed some light on the past year of 2012 and the inspiration for doing this comes from my two blog buddies and best friends, Llamas'r'us & "Blog" is such a silly name, however, my reflections of 2012 is going to be much shorter than theirs depending on how much I remember :D.
Looking back at 2012:
I can't really seem to remember much of first half of 2012. I do remember that I was really busy with work during the first half of 2012 so didn't really do much except hanging out with friends here and there, going to few movies, etc.
Then comes May: One of my friend's in-laws 40th anniversary was coming up in June, so they wanted to perform during their anniversary. For that I was given the task to choreograph and teach all of them dances, so I was pretty busy with that choreographing and teaching them the dances for about a month. Dancing is something I love, so I enjoyed it thoroughly teaching my friend, and her kids and her family. June and July were again busy with work trying to meet the deadlines and finish up the projects.
August: In August, one of my good friends invited me to visit him and his fiance in St. Louis. I was meeting my friend R almost after a year and meeting his fiance, T, for the first time. It was great to see both of them. While in St. Louis, I was able to explore the place as well which included visit to the Arch, The Downtown, Zoo, Art Museum, Missouri Botanical Garden, Cathedral Basilica, Montelle winery, Hindu temple & Swaminarayan temple. Along with all the exploring, also got to spend some quality time with friends. Overall, this was a much needed relaxing vacation!!
September: Now this month is the highlight of my entire year of 2012 because this was the more of a happening month for me and my family!! I had planned two vacations in the month of September and also attended one of a close friend's wedding. So here it goes...from August 31st to September 9, I had planned the family vacation to New York & New Jersey. The plan was to stay 5 days in New Jersey and 5 days in New York. We first went to New Jersey to visit my mom's cousin and her family, my brother and I met them for first time, and it was a delight to play with our 2 and half years old nephew and bond with him. While in New Jersey, we were in Princeton, so we visited Princeton University (very beautiful campus), The Downtown, new Jain Temple in NJ, Oak street which is like a mini-India, and Atlantic city. Also from Princeton we went to Siddhachalam (Jain temple) which is located about 2 hours from Princeton, away from all the city noise, and is built over 120 acre land. Very peaceful and spiritual place. They also have trailers for those who want to come and spend a night there or come for a weekend getaway. After our 5 days in NJ, we headed to New York to visit one of the other families in Long Island. We stayed in Long Island, but went to NY 2 days to take the Gray Line Double-Decker tour bus. Within the 2 days of the tour bus that we took, we pretty much covered a lot of NY's hot spots and tourist spots. Also visited temple in Long Island. After 10 days of non-stop fun, we were back home, but not for so long!! During the mid-September, one of my close friends got married and I was honored to be part of the ceremony. Then comes the last week of September where I had another family vacation planned to Las Vegas & California!! This was a road trip visiting Vegas first and staying there for 2 days, exploring the strip, trying our luck at casinos and then heading to California to visit my aunt, visited Disney Land and Universal Studios, and then back to Vegas for a day before heading home. Overall, This was the best month with all the traveling and personal events.
October, November & December: I think I tried my hand at new recipes during these months, especially in the month of December. Cooking has been fun too if a recipe really interests me, so tried my hand at making mutter paneer, chilli paneer, pasta (desi style), and cauliflower manchurian. And all of them turned out to be great!!
With this summary, I conclude my 2012 and welcome 2013 with a big smile and wait to see what it has in store for me :)
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