More of Mumbai

This morning I indeed woke up when my alarm went off at 7:30am. I considered staying in bed for a minute, but decided to follow my plan to check out the gym before breakfast. Walking around in fitness tights and a tank top in a Conference Centre hotel feels very weird... especially standing next to business people in the elevator.

The gym was small, but had huge windows looking out over Powai lake, palm trees and the towers of Mumbai city behind. Have to take a picture tomorrow morning. It was quite busy, but I found a hybrid between a cross trainer and a stepper called "Summit Trainer". Perfect! So I enjoyed that marvellous view, thinking of my imminent trek up Kilimanjaro while I was sweating. Every one of the cardio machines had a small bottle of water and a fresh towel laid out. That's Indian service for you. It's really amazing.

The breakfast buffet was extensive and I was in such a good mood after a fabulous workout. I started off with some fresh fruit and something call "baked yoghurt" which tasted a bit like sweet greek yoghurt. Not too bad. Then had a bit of chicken sausage and some bacon to satisfy my need for some British cooked breakie and finished off with two Indian... err... things. One looked like a doughnut. It was fried and had a hole in the middle but inside it tasted a bit like soft bread with a good deal of herbs. Very tasty! The other thing looked like a red curry and was indeed a bit spicy but also mild compared to lunch/dinner curries. I will try more of the Indian food tomorrow morning and note the names of each.

The company driver picked us up at 10am. I was on time and enjoyed the warm sun and air thick with moisture. Looked out over the lake a bit and had a chat with our driver who hardly speaks English but there's always a way to communicate.

View from the hotel entrance

The front seat of the car gave me a better view this morning and I took some pictures but traffic was flowing and I hardly got some good shots.

Heading in late means less traffic

Day in the office was busy as always. Lunch break at Pizza Express was a bit of a let down. This is seriously the first place where I don't find anything on the menu that I want to eat. Thought I had found something when I ordered some spicy chicken, peppers and chillies only to realize this was also put onto pizza dough. Urgh. Well, cheat day it was then. Hmpf.

Around 5pm the IT guys normally go out for a short break with tea and samosas and I trailed along. Don't want to just see the office, the car and the hotel. In retrospective I have to admit, it probably looked quite unusual: me the tall fair-skinned woman between five Indian guys all a head smaller than me. Haha.
We left the office building premises and just walked a few meters along the pavement to go to one of those crumbling huts. Ohoh. I heard the people from home as tiny voices in my head saying "Don't go near street food." But my colleagues were so nice and friendly! So I said I only want tea, but one asked me if I just want to have a bit of one of the samosas and if I like I can get myself one. Did that and it was indeed nice so I got one. I mean it's fried outside and cooked inside. What could possibly go wrong, huh?
The samosa came with a red sweet dip and a red very spicy one. Loved the green one and also try a tiny bit of fried pepper. The tea came afterwards in what looked like miniature cocktail glasses. I really like Indian tea, but this one made all the others taste weak. Such an aroma of ginger, cinnamon and honey. Yum!!! Can't wait to have it tomorrow at 5pm, haha.

Did some more work and left as late as 8:30pm for the hotel. Had some amazing kind of thin steak roll filled with parma ham, herbs and blue cheese at the Italian restaurant. Wow! I almost licked the plate clean. Outstanding!

View from restaurant terrace

Long day, so will go to bed when I'm finished with this. 11pm already and it's gym time tomorrow morning again. Good night.