Snippets..

Shirts vs Skins: In California, soccer is played with one team wearing shirts and the other no shirts. Whenver I join the soccer match, I'm usually made a skin. Surprisingly, it is me that has the most hair on my chest of all the men there. I usually get a lot of weird looks, but I have become immune to that. My pants unfortunately are also usually falling off - the price to pay for starvation in an alien land.

Unusually, the men hesitate to take off their shirts when the women don't seem to have any problem doing so. It's the exact opposite of India. Of course, most of the men playing are Mexican. There is some exceptional South American talent on display with passing and movement of the highest calibre. However, understanding their language is quite tough. Shouts of "Middle" were misunderstood by me to be "Mero" which means Mere in Spanish. I further mistook this to be "Slow" so I kept slowing the pace of the game rather than whipping in a cross to the middle of the field. It didn't take me long to stop playing, quite predictably.

Wine Tasting: Robert Mondavi Winery (Yountville, CA) offers conducted tours of the establishment. The philosophy they use to market their wine is as follows: they do not sell in the open market. However, when visitors come to their establishment, they are allowed to buy them here. The exclusivity of these wines adds to the hype and their price. (Eric Cartman would have been proud) For this reason, it is considered a very good wine. Quality of wine depends on many factors. Hype is a very important one.

The tour however, excellently showcased the facilities, culminating in a round of wine tasting. Three wines were brought to us. A Fume Blanc, Pinot Noir and a Cabernet Sauvignon were allowed out of the vault and a crash course in how to taste a wine was delivered. Abstract terms like body of the wine and some others I've conveniently forgotten were discussed. So each wine was swirled in the glass, smelt and tasted. It might have looked bad if I gargled it or spat it back in the glass, so I had to swallow mine.

Later, we retired to an exclusive tasting room for a taste of some desert wines, the Muscat wine being a hit. Other wines such as the Sirrah and Zinfandel also went down well. The ladies seemed to particularly like the desert wines because they were fruitier and sweeter. After all the wine tasting, I still preferred the 2001 Cabernet we had with lunch from the Silverado wineyard across the street at Oakville.

Halloween: This is the occasion where most women take the opportunity to dress like a slut. It is accepted at this time of the year. Trick or treat and such customs are lost in university towns. DP is the most crowded this time of year. It is packed with people with barely place to move. Usually the most vibrant street in IV, DP lives up to it's reputation, providing a great place to party every Friday. Being next to the ocean, the location is perfect for all the parties. Usually podiums are erected on front yards, allowing aspiring rock bands a place to showcase their music. Music is all over the street as are also the smell of stale beer and weed. Shoes tied to electricity lines are more common here than in all of IV.

It is estimated that every day, five people get charged in IV for alcohol related transgressions, four are in DP. On Halloween, this number is scaled by a factor of at least twenty. Police are all over DP, trying to keep hooligans in check. A lot of people from out of town come in to DP on Halloween night or the weekend before to party. The men have a field day at Halloween. Social pleasantry breaks down to such an extent that shouts of "Did you grab my ass?" rent the air with alarming frequency. Slaps are doled out at a similar rate too. A lot of men wear cardboard boxes on the head with signs such as "Kissing Booth, 1$ a pop". Considering such a bold and desperate move, it's a surprise that they do get a few kisses, with most of the women being in an inebriated state anyway. Most men come to DP for Halloween to "hook up". The others, like me, just go for curiosity as a first-timer. If you're around at Halloween, don't miss DP at any cost.

Flight...

LAX to TPE: 15.5 hours over Kamchatka Peninsula, Okhotsk Sea.

I was sandwiched between a Chinese man and his daughter. They barely exchanged two words, the daughter content to play Nintendo games on the screen in front of her, while her father was watching Pirates of the Caribbean with Chinese subtitles. Only when the food came, was there communication between them. The father took his daughter's chicken with his fork. It was surprising, because the daughter had a strong American accent, and it didn't seem that the father could read English. In fact when my Indian Vegetarian meal arrived, he pointed at the Chinese menu asking what I was eating. It took fifteen hours for the daughter to talk to her father. A shrill "Papppaaa" shattered my belief that she was mute. When we finally got to Taipei and they were about to leave, I found out that they were from Virginia.

I was fairly content with my "Indian Vegetarian" meal. Singapore Airlines, I must say is the best airline I've ever flown, in terms of inflight entertainment and food. The order of hierarchy would be Singapore Airlines > British Airways > Air France > Thai Airways > American Airlines.

I watched four episodes of Two and a Half Men, I've become addicted to it. Also watched Million Dollar Baby and Omkara, snatching some sleep in-between. Singapore Airlines also has this new interactive language learning service. They attempt to teach you a new language by showing you pictures and giving the word in that language. I tried Hindi and Tamil. Karandi means spoon in Tamil. That was the extent of my learning.

TPE to SIN: 4.25 hours

At Taipei, I found myself sandwiched between two large Chinese women in Burkhas going to Mecca for Haj. I felt like an Oreo cookie (credit: Lisa Lampanelli). Dreading the situation, I luckily was able to convince them to switch so that I could get an aisle seat. During the flight, they refused headphones and had their purses with them all the time. When the lady at the window had to use the bathroom, it was a big pain. I went out followed by the lady in the middle seat and finally the lady at the window. The lady in the middle wanted to go too, but she stayed behind casting a watchful glance at their purses and at me (potential purloiner of women's hand-baggage). I took in "You, Me and Dupree" on the flight. The lady was constantly watching my monitor. Luckily heavy turbulence forced her to re-occupy her seat and I had to get up again to make way. A few minutes later, window lady comes along and we have to do the whole thing again! I decided not to watch any more movies or shows because I was constantly interrupted. Turned on some music in the new 80G iPod, which unfortunately I have to give away.

SIN airport : 8 hour layover

Took the free Singapore tour offered at the airport. Officially, I never entered Singapore. My passport was not endorsed. In fact it was impounded for the time I was in Singapore. Free boat ride from the quay ensued, taking in Mer-Lion statues and the skyline of Singapore's central business district. The four of us were quite tired at this point, happy to return to the airport for Singapore's most famous cocktail - the Singapore Sling and some Indian food at Kaveri. Browsed the shops for a while, toyed with the idea of getting a massage (S$10) or having a shower (S$8) or watching a free movie but did neither.

SIN to BLR: 4.25 hours

It's good to be home.

Party..

So there was this really fancy party at this fancy beachside downtown Hotel Radisson. The cocktails weren't free; champagne, beer and wine were. And there we were, two lost souls making no conversation with the rest of the table. The first aperitif was a glass of sparkling champagne. White Russians were abundant at six dollars a pop.

In the meanwhile, the next course was being readied. It consisted almost entirely of cheese. I believe the different varieties were Provolone, Swiss, Feta and Blue Cheese. There were some crackers too. Gulping down the champagne, we moved to red and white wine respectively. Considering we had paid a pittance (ten bucks) for this party, we had to make do with cheap chardonnay.

As in James Bond movies, uniformed waiters came around - serving hors d'oeuvres, sushi cakes, fried balsa fish and spinach puffs. My vegetarian friend and I sample the hors d'oeuvres, before later realizing the mushrooms had sausages on them. My friend goes to spit it out in the trash, while I urbanely swallow it with a gulp of cheap red wine.

Dinner was served. The main attraction was the ciabatta bread with olive oil and vinegar. A dish of beans in white sauce with fried onions didn't go down too badly either. An excellent cheesecake completed the evening for me as I struggled to finish my wine glass. Interestingly, the bar-man had filled my wine-glass to the brim, a social no-no.

After dinner, came the ballroom dancing. In name, at least. The fancy hardwood floor remained unoccupied for much of the evening. Only when popular songs such as "Mambo No. 5" (when my slightly inebriated friend suggested it had been performed by Amitabh Bacchhan) came on, was the crowd enthused to a degree. "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt evoked a mixed response from the crowd. The women in their black cocktail dresses danced in place, not so subtly hinting to their partners that they wanted to be on the dance floor. The men in their black ties, were having none of it. The young men, who had come stag denounced the song. For some strange reason, it was compared to Smallville, where the conversation moved on to Superman's age (apparently he looks 30 even though he's supposed to be in high school in that particular show).

I must devote a paragraph to inebriation and sobriety. The former seems like an excellent excuse to do absolutely anything you like. My friend almost asked a girl to take her stockings off (which might have been fairly pleasant, but not quite the right circumstances to do it, one felt). Luckily, sobriety prevailed and I was able to attract his attention for long enough in order to make him forget. In another case, he felt inclined to do Bhangra on the hardwood floor when soft romantic music was being played.

Christmas spirit was in the air. Gaily decorated trees were the rage all over the hotel. Sadly, mistletoe was absent throughout the establishment. As expected, most ladies were able to "persuade" their partners to join them on the dance floor. This unfortunately prevented most men from heading back to the bar to grab an after-dinner beer. Only the most resourceful men were able to do so.

It was time to head back. The revelry was over. Tales of drunken misdeeds were related, followed by vows never to drink again. To that, I say hah!