Mumbai Indians vs Delhi Daredevils.

VS

The Planning and the journey : -
This was my first visit to a Cricket stadium, we had been to the spanking new Dr DY Patil Stadium located at Nerul, New Bombay. Edlin, Bertron and Reagan decided to join me, i managed to book the tickets with the help of my friend who resides at Nerul. The game was scheduled to begin at 4 PM.
I was skeptical about watching a match at the stadium and Leo whom i asked to join put some doubts in my mind by saying " Why do you wanna go to the stadium when we can catch the action at home over some beer" but i wanted to experience live cricket and nothing was going to change my mind, i also managed to coax some of my colleagues to join me.
We left for the stadium at 1:45 PM as we decided to go there by train, once we reached the station we had a surprise in store for us, trains were only running upto Vashi which is 3 stops before Nerul, we had no choice and so we got off at Vashi and decided to take a cab to Nerul, once we got out of the station there was total chaos as most people wanted to go to the stadium which was 20 mins away by road, the Cabbies and Rickshaw wallas took advantage of this situation and hiked their price, cabbies were charging Rs 150 we managed to get hold of a Rick and got there for 100 bucks, we reached the stadium by 3:15 PM the crowds were already swarming the place the exitement was in the air, people sporting Mumbai Indian jerseys and merchandise, i had my 99 World Cup jersey.The instructions to get into the stadium were excellent and we didn't have any trouble getting into the stadium except for the seering heat. The stadium looked massive, it was an imposing structure.



Inside the stadium :-
After a security check we entered the stadium at 3:30 PM the stadium was choc-o-block it was packed to its capacity of 60,000.The sight was awesome, there was this energy inside you need to be there to experience it, our seats were located at the Media Center end of the ground, the view was awesome it was better than what i expected we had a good view of the action on field, i was of the thought that we will not be able to watch the action properly but i was wrong.



The Game :-
The toss was won by the Daredevils and they chose to field, so it was gonna be Mumbai Indians batting first the opening batsmen got a rousing ovation from the amazing crowd, Sanath Jayasuriya was the crowd favorite the crowd went wild when he hit Glen McGrath for a boundary, we kept on chanting Surya followed by 3 claps, the Marauder from Matara didn't disappoint he kept smacking the bowlers all around once he fell it was Dominic Thornley's turn to entertain it was an all round effort by the Mumbai batsmen, Polly (Shawn Pollock) another crowd favorite didn't disappoint and his big hits took the Mumbai score to over 160. During the 1st innings South African AB Devillers came to field towards our section, he was in a jovial mood and kept waving and blowing kisses at the crowd we responded by by shouting AB AB AB there were people throwing paper rockets at him and he reciprocated by kissing the rockets and throwing them back into the crowd.
The score that our batsmen setup looked meager after Shewag went on a rampage but our bowlers kept a tight leash and continued bowling well and picking crucial wickets. We also got stuck into Ashish Nehra for his poor fielding but he had the last laugh with a brilliant save at the boundary and the crowd was on his side after that.



My fondest memory of the match will have to be the Mexican Wave yeah we managed the wave not once but we were able to get it going for 8-9 consecutive rounds around the stadium the sight was breathtaking Edlin has taken a video i will upload it if it is good enough i was disappointed as i didn't take my camera along as the rules stated no cameras will be allowed but there were many people with cameras.
The crowd went wild on the fall of the last wicket we were dancing in fact the whole stadium erupted with joy, Polly won the man of the match for his brilliant all round efforts, no wonder he is one of the finest all-rounders the game has ever seen in fact we got to see 4 amazing cricketers Glenn McGrath the Aussie legend whom i love to hate, Polly whom i have spoken about, Jayasurya the pioneer of pinch hitting and Virender Shewag the genius. I had my moneys worth and we are planning to go for another match :)
We had a few beers on our way back home and then headed to Pop Tates stay tuned for the pix.

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Sundance 2008

Sundance 08' Coming soon ....... Stay Tuned :)

Had to post this :)

Article by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.....




"When we were young kids growing up in America, we were
Told to eat our vegetables at dinner and not leave them.
Mothers said, think of the starving children in India
And finish the dinner.'

And now I tell my children:
'Finish your homework. Think of the children in India
Who would make you starve, if you don't.'?"

Sula Wines and Bhandardara (King Arthur Lake)

Wow! What a blast somehow Nasik keeps churning out some wonderful trips and this was one of them this trip will never be forgotten for the sheer fun we had, no drunken brawls this time around ;)

Neil dropped out as he had to get to work for some urgent assignment and wanted to join us in the evening but didn't make it we also had a new face in the very quite Brian who is Nicole's friend, I'm hoping to see you for many more trips and I'm sure we will get to see the real Brian ;). Another small problem cropped up in the form of the vehicle hired, we had booked a Qualis but due to some problems we ended up getting a Sumo but nothing was going to stop us from getting to Nasik.
As decided we managed to leave by 5:45 AM and reached Nasik at 10:30 AM the traffic at the ghats caught up with us again, we checked in to Godavari Lodge and thereafter left to the shrine for a visit this was the reason for us to be here :) we then left for Sula Vineyards yeah u heard that right i know its Lent but we are a bunch of sinners, to know more about Sula visit their website http://www.sulawines.com/aboutus/story.htm

This was what we all were waiting for and Sula didn't disappoint, it was a 45 minute drive from the city/shrine the entrance to Sula was beautifully landscaped, the road leading to the main gates were lined with sunflowers and the grape vines.

We were all impatient to head to the Tasting room Edlin, Natasha and Lolita couldn't taste as they were fasting for lent but we the devils couldn't resist.The aroma of fermented grapes was just irresistible it felt like a heavenly scent Ahaaa!!!! we already felt intoxicated lol.

We were charged a minimal fee of Rs.100/head and were taken on a tour around the winery by our friend from Sula (seen in the pic) he gave us a lil history lesson about Sula and how it was founded, he talked about the Vineyard and the variety of grapes used we were shown the different stages involved in wine making like the Crushing, Adding of Yeast, Fermentation, bottling etc.

Our wait was finally over and we were taken to the tasting room so we could drown ourselves in this heavenly drink

We were given 5 varieties of wines for tasting since we were all novices wrt wine tasting none of us knew the intricacies involved,



we needed to swirl the wine in the glass and then smell and try and tell the different flavours which was very difficult for someone who loves drinking and so this was the most boring part what on earth will you get by trying to tell what flavours are there in the wine when you can taste it lol but it was a good learning experience nevertheless, we then needed to take a sip and once again swirl the wine in our mouth before gulping it down,the best of the lot for me was the Sula Late Harvest Chenin Blanc 2007 and the Sula Zinfandel 2007 i wanted to pick the Dindori Reserve which is the most expensive of the lot but unfortunately it was out of stock.

We were also very lucky as they had also setup barrels for the grape crushing/stomping, the traditional way of crushing grapes Reagan,Lolita,Natasha and Nicole (Bertron) decided to do the crushing, we were charged Rs.400/couple we had a great time watching them do the crushing while we sipped on some excellent wine.Check out the pix to catchup on the fun!

PS: After crushing the grapes and juice was discarded so don't worry about sipping wine made from those dirty feet :).

We spent a good 3-4 hours at the vineyard and then headed back to the city for lunch we stopped over at the tried and tested Kaka Ka Dhaba and had a sumptuous meal and then got back to the hotel for a much needed nap since most of us had come over after our night shifts.

After a really quick nap thanks to the irritating Nicole we began our night shift, we had some trusted rum to keep us warm thru the nite while Brian and Pakya chose to have Beer, the singing and dancing continued till 3:30 AM even after complaints from our neighbors :) we needed to catch some sleep as we had to leave for Bhandardhara early.

The fact that we slept late didn't help as our eyes could barely open up but we managed to wake up by 5:30 AM after getting ready we managed to leave at 7 AM.

Until now we had only heard about the beauty of Arthur Lake but upon reaching there we were in awe it seemed like paradise i don't think there could have been a better time to visit the place check out the pix.

We reached the place at around 9AM and went down to the lake in search of the boats we had to wait a while before the locals got hold of the people who would take us boating there were 4 boats two paddle boats and two row boats we chose a paddle and a row boat, the charges for the same were Rs.50/head, this was the first time i have gone rowing so it was real fun trying to maneuver the boat. The lake is said to have a depth of 200 ft. The boating lasted a good 30-40 mins. After the boating we headed to Anandvan and MTDC which are popular resorts there, in fact we were planning to spend the night at MTDC but canceled the plan.

On all our trips we have eaten at hotels and the food we ate was getting monotonous so i wanted this trip to be different, while driving to Bhandardara we saw many villages on the way and i was thinking to my self what kind of food do these locals eat i had only heard of the Bhakri's and Rotis till then i just told the guys "It would be great if we could request some locals to prepare food for us", while boating we had a person accompany us and so we asked him if there was anyone that could provide us with home cooked food, the answer was yes this got our taste buds tickling, he sent along one of the boys helping with the boating and we struck a deal we would be getting a thali which included Dal, Rice, 2 Vegetables, a chicken curry ,Bajra Rotis and मिर्ची चा ठेचा (this is a typical Maharashtrian dish and is prepared using chillies and spices) Yummmm! sounds tasty rite, Natasha was very impatient to have the ठेचा she also got our taste buds tickling, we had to go to the village which was located behind the MTDC resort to have the food, we were accommodated in a small room having cow dung flooring, the typical village setting the food was awesome but unfortunately they couldn't prepare the ठेचा , we were all disappointed and our Tigress (Amruta) really got pissed off and almost had a fight with them.





After having our fill we left beautiful Bhandhardhara for Bombay with lots of wonderful memories of this beautiful place!

Nasik Feast 08

Its the new year and to start it off with our first trip theres no better place than Nasik, i don't need to remind any of the guys bout the Devlali trip it was like a new beginning and this will be our 3rd trip to Nasik, the temperatures had dropped to new lows and we were hoping it stayed the same when we reach Nasik.

The people who have confirmed are :-
Natasha
Amruta
Lolita
Edlin
Reagan
Bertron
Brian
Elton (Pakya)
Neil
Delbert

The plan for the trip is as follows, we leave from Kurla at 5:30 AM and expect to reach Nasik at 10 we then check in to our hotel and go to the Infant Jesus shrine for a visit, we will then go to the Sula Vineyards and spend the noon there then head back to the hotel and take some rest and chill out there. The next morning we leave for Bhandhardhara at 5:30 AM and spend the day there before leaving for Bombay.

DO keep checking the blog to see the fun we have and hoping this is another safe and enjoyable trip.

Phew!

Cant believe it but there have not been any updates since September 07, someones got really lazy :) i'm gonna try and change so watch out for some regular updates.

Delbert