Diary of SpanishI was Born in Latin America, My Friends are in Europe and I'm Living In India… My Daily Life… My Friends… My Diary

The first thing which came to my mind after I got a call from the travel agent about the visa confirmation was “whooooo I’m going to New Zealand!”… the land of natural beauty and hygiene.

So I started the little shopping for my trip… I read a few articles on the Internet about the weather and the fashion. Although I’m a kind of person who can wear anything and doesn’t really bother about what I’m wearing as long as it is decent. Somebody told me that NZ authorities even check if you have dirt in your shoes and can send you back from the airport. I didn’t wanted to come back from the airport, I mean with a feeling of just touching NZ and coming back just because of dirty shoes… so I bought a new pair of Reebok sneakers… hahaha… I really didn’t buy anything special other than my shoes. I just used the same clothes which I bought in the last winter and had used for only once.

I packed everything in my small American Tourister suitcase and also took one HP backpack which I took to my last trip to Europe. LAST TIME it was sufficient so I thought it wud be sufficient this time also.. but I was wrong. Why… I will tell you later…

Well the big day came. I started my journey from my summer place to Delhi. Thanks God we had the reservations in advance, otherwise going in 44 degrees heat to New Delhi… no way. The train was on time and dropped us in Delhi at 9.30pm and then I told my friend to handover me a brand new Panasonic Digital Camera which I wanted for my NZ trip. I also had the Sony H50 Digital Camera but I read the reviews of this one so I thought I will buy Panasonic because I wanted to capture the wonderful pictures of NZ. After a lot of hassle and tussle my friend managed to send a boy at the metro station so that I could get the camera for my trip. Thanks to my friend Manoj for his help. Finally we reached to Dwarka and it was almost 11 in the night. We entered the apartment and spent the night only having cookies and cold drinks. I tried to get some sleep but at the midnight the power went, the AC wasn’t working and the fan could not cool me off, so at 1:30 a.m. I managed to sleep and at 2.45 a.m. I woke up. I could not sleep so I took my bath and got ready. Then I called my cab to pick us at 4:00 a.m. for the airport. We reached to the airport right at 5 o’clock, met my travel agent, took our documents and went straight inside the airport for check-in and security check. Everything went smooth and our flight was at 7.55 a.m. for Singapore.

We boarded for Singapore. We were going in Singapore Airlines. The breakfast was not good at all in the plane and I was feeling hungry as I only had biscuits in my last dinner, but I ate and for the lunch I placed the order of some drinks. I wanted to try something different so I said I wanted a drink called “Singapore Sling”  which was there in the menu. The drink arrived and it was kind of a red juice… I thought no way… so with a little hesitancy I took a sip… and wooooooooooooooo that was amazing… wonderful taste… never took something like that.

Guys you must take it once. It’s wonderful. We finished it quickly and asked for another one. We got another one, finished and asked for another one. We got the third drink without any problem, so I asked for another one and then the air hostess looked at us with the raised eyebrow… OH boy here you go… some problem now… but I just smiled… and blinked my eyes… with little innocence like a small girl asking for a candy from mommy… I guess it worked, she smiled and said wait… 5 minutes… 10 minutes… 15 minutes no drink… but after 30 minutes she came with a drink and some namkeen… hahaha… God the trick worked. We got our 4th drink of Singapore Sling. I knew I will not get another one so I took this with lot of care and taste… hahaha… but I must say, it is wonderful.

Finally we reached Singapore at 2 p.m. in the noon so while going down I just smiled at the air hostess and said thank you for the hospitality… and she smiled back… thanks for the Drinks.

Well, just when we were coming out of the plane I saw one huge plane.. hey this is an Airbus A380 the biggest commercial plane ever made by human. God I have to take a picture of this… I had to have a picture so… OK pictures… 1..2..3..4..10..15.. OK enough pictures, I wanna to go to the loo now… hahaha so I went to the loo which was next. Afterwards what to do… I had 5 and a half hours until the time to catch the next flight… OK lets check out the Singapore Airport Duty Free area and see the new things of Singapore.

Well as usual, whenever I go to out of India now I’ve got the habit of calculating the currency conversion of the goods. I mean like “this is for this much in India”. Well when I came to India I didn’t have this habit, but in India things were cheap (not now… everything is damn expensive.. even tomato is for Rs. 40 per kg.) OK let’s do some shopping in Singapore.

So I started to see the things. Swarovski, Apple Store, Adidas, Sony, Mobile Store, etc. You can see the same stuff at almost every airport, the chocolates, the big brands, the wines, the clothes and nothing is cheap there. They say it’s Duty Free but I never find it cheap or maybe I always choose the expensive things… hahaha.

So after an hour of walking and strolling in the airport I was tired and decided to have some snacks. I went to the second floor and I saw one Japanese restaurant first, then one Chinese, third one Burger King and then an Indian restaurant… wooooo. I ain’t gonna eat Indian roti and American burger in Singapore, so I decided to eat some Chinese snacks. We sat on the table and saw the menu. I didn’t know what I was looking for as I never eat pure Chinese food. Except the noodles and some soups which I normally take everywhere. So finally I got something for me, some veg rolls, some french fries and a Chinese style coffee. The snacks came, they were delicious and the ketchup (you can say chutney) was odd. It had garlic and chilly but had a great taste with the veg rolls. The snacks were more than sufficient for me but as my husband says “Value For Money” I had to finish it. So I finished all like a good kid and enjoyed the coffee. While sitting there I saw the foreigners queuing up at the Indian restaurant for their meals and eating the Indian food. I realised why Indian curry is so much popular all over the world. There was almost no one at the Burger King outlet and also not many at the Japanese outlet. Everyone was either at the Chinese outlet where I was sitting or at the Indian… hmmm… China and India will dominate the world… seems to me even at the airport area.

The time to pay… my bill was of 16.98 in Singapore currency. Well the time to spend the money of my husband, swap the card… hahahaha… cheap snacks… value for money… as thought by my husband with the Indian psyche.

But now I want to drink water, well, well, well… you have to pay… the Indian restaurant charges for the water from their customers. I thought so must the Chinese, but again I tried my old trick… smile to the old lady and her daughter who was at the counter… and I asked for a little water… well, well, well… hummm OK… there you are… asking for something free.. OK girl take this… so the old lady filled a disposable glass with water and gave it to me. With my blinking eyes I said thank you, thank you so much and drank it quietly… and all done… time to start hunting for some cheap stuff from the airport.

Well, well, well, no success in the next 2 hours. I was really tired of going to every shop, so I reached at one place where you could use the Internet for free, and decided to check some e-mails.

But before that I wanted to sit and relax, so I saw a man sitting at one place with his feet inside something… “whats that”… with the curiosity I went there. Hey it’s a foot massager… I felt like this is what I wanted and this is what I got. So I simply threw my backpack on the ground and quickly sat on the empty seat before anyone else could take it. I wanted to capture it. I put my feet inside and started… ahhhh… hahahahaha… giggllinnnggg in my feet… balls moving all around the feet and at the back of your feet and even at your knees. I thought “only Chinese can make these things”. Well, now changing the intensity of the movement of the machine… wooooo… more intense… wooooooo… oh boy I’m loving it. I just sat there and had the feet massage for almost 45 minutes with different speeds. I must say, if I had extra money I could have surely bought it. I saw my watch, well it’s time to do the check-in for New Zealand… no Internet… OK.. I wasn’t so much interested in checking mails. I didn’t wanted to be connected with the same work, so I simply took my stuff and started walking to the check-in counters… saying “goodbye” to the massage machine, “but keep in mind that I have an 8 hours stop on my way back and that I will again use you… hahaha”.

Keep reading the New Zealand trip, part 2, there is a lot to share.