I had originally left my Friday flexible so that I could get an activity done in the morning then head into the work in the afternoon and work through the evening to coincide with US work hours so that I didn’t have to take a vacation day as I hoard those like a squirrel preparing for winter.
After getting back to the hotel from the national park, I took a shower, nap, and then got into the office before 4pm to get a few things wrapped up and work ahead knowing that I’ll be super jet lagged for the first few days of the following week. Once nice thing about the Mumbai office is that there’s free food at 5pm and 8pm every day in the cafeteria.
The snack was mixed dal wada and missal pav (crunchy stuff with spicy stuff) with fruit. Dinner was a “Chinese” option tom yum soup, manchurian veggie balls, manchurian chicken, hot and sour gravy, veggie fried rice, schezwan sauce, and mango custard. I would categorize this as “food”, it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t that good either. It was at this moment that I realized the difference between American Chinese food and Indian Chinese food where the sauce was hot and sour rather than sweet and sour. This was a mind blown moment for me, later this would become a toilet blown moment as this was the meal that caused me to get Deli belly. Thankfully I brought enough meds to stock a small pharmacy so it was only a temporary setback.
Saturday was my last day in Mumbai before I started the 25 hour journey home. I managed to catch the morning yoga class at 7am. The teacher was cool with me setting up my phone to get some video of the class. She actually liked the pic so much she posted it on her own instagram.
The yoga class was great as it was another private class like the previous week except 2 ladies came in 25 minutes late and then an old couple came in 10 minutes later which totally threw things off which was a little annoying.
I didn’t have much lined up for the rest of the day before needing to head to the airport at 10pm so Ketan invited me to go see the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie at the mall in the morning with his wife. This was quite the movie going experience.
Before every ad or movie trailer appears, this screen shows up for a moment. Ketan told me that it’s like a seal of approval from the government that certifies who the approved audience is for the advertisement. Also the movie was very obviously censored where the audio would abruptly cut out when bad words were said. I think there may have been a scene or two missing as I felt the continuity was weird. I’ll need to do a rewatch to confirm.
The movie started at 9:45 and for the next 20 minutes, 90% of the theater audience filed into the theater. It was so incredibly annoying that people were coming in with their phone flashlights trying to find their seats. Also there were full on conversations happening and I was so close to kicking the chair in front of me and telling them to STFU.
The scene where Rocket pulls out the keycard, the theater lights turned on and the movie screen went black. I was confused at first but then realized movies here have intermissions. I actually needed to pee so this was a welcome surprise but still kind of jarring considering where the cut off was in the movie.
After the movie, we got lunch at a restaurant called Hitchki which means hiccup. Ketan did his best when he asked the server if they could please not use red and green chilis in the dishes. The server came back after talking with the chef and said that wouldn’t be possible.
The food was less spicy but still very good. I had puri which is like a cracker with spiced cold mashed potatoes on top, tandori chicken wrapped in naan and served on a hook, and lamb kabob.
After lunch Ketan’s wife, Avnika, insisted that she get a gift for Joanna. We went to a store called Westside which was like a Macy’s and she picked out an outfit she described as Indian business casual which included bracelets and earrings. Super generous of her and I’m sure Joanna will appreciate the gesture very much.
I’m really grateful for the time spent in Mumbai especially the extra time I was able to have with Ketan as he only joined our team less than 3 months ago. Not only do I have a great working relationship with him but we have definitely become friends after this trip.
I think we’re trying to get him to visit MN prior to a summit event on the east coast so I’ll have to come up with some very Minnesotan things for him to try out as he did with us here.
He called a rickshaw for me to head back to my hotel. I said my goodbyes and was on my way. Shoutout who I think is the #1 rickshaw driver in Mumbai. This guy weaved between traffic like his life depended on it and honked his horn as if he were a professional musician.
I managed to get a nap in and packed up my stuff to get ready for the airport while enjoying the last sunset in Mumbai before heading home.
At around 10 pm the bellhop knocked on my door to pick up my bag to bring down to the car. I walked down the hallway with him and had to stop to plug the dumb air freshener back in. I won this round as no one realized to plug it back in for at least 3 days.
I got to the airport with no issues. While at the security line a young guy approached me asking a question about the line. He apologized for the “dumb” question saying that it’s his first time flying by himself. His name was Omkar, 19 years old, bought a 1 way ticket to France as he’s doing an internship there with no prior French language experience. He told me that he qualified for the olympic rowing team but tore his hamstring and had to stop competing.
Omkar reminded me a lot about myself and I really enjoyed our short chat while going through security and immigration. I wish I took a selfie with him but only thought of it after we parted ways. Talking with him reminded me about how big the world really is and that so much happens outside of the US. I gave him the address to this blog so shoutout to Omkar and best of luck in your internship this summer! Hopefully we run into each other again somewhere in the world.
The flights home were pretty easy. I definitely took advantage of the ability to lay down in business class where I got around 3-4 hours of actually restful sleep on each flight. KLM gifted me another tiny house full of alcohol as we were about to land in Amsterdam. I think I’m going to have to make it my career goal to get whatever job will allow me to fly in and out on KLM to collect as many of these cute little houses as I can.
I’m happy to be home in my sub 100f degree weather and bland food, however the next two weeks are going to be rough in dealing with jet lag. In 10 days we’ll be heading on the honeymoon to Japan that I had originally planned out for March 2020 but due to the pandemic we weren’t able to go. Stay tuned, more blogs to come!
Glad you had the Indian movie experience. Indian language movies in AMC are no different with flash lights and cross talk. 😂
Westside is my favorite store ever! Hope Joanna likes her present.