Sabarish

No I don’t mean the TV show! This past weekend was filled with tons of friends from the past! :)

Thanks to some sudden work at office, on Thursday and Friday, I was unable to go on the Rameshwaram trip :( Many of my cousins went and are having a great time. They should return tomorrow morning.

On Saturday called up Anshu and Kannan and Prakash and we met up for Anshu’s belated birthday treat! I wanted to go for the Air Supply India tour concert at Bangalore but ended up going to coffee day and then to Star City for a great close game of bowling. Prakash, Anshu and I were tied at the same score at one point but I managed to beat Anshu by 1 point in the end and win the game! We then went to some salad bar and had a whole lot of vegetables (mom will murder me if she gets to know about this, since I hardly eat any vegetables at home!). After this the guys had to go back home, but the night was still young and I still had to have dinner.

I then called the usual movie gang (Sunil, Sharath, Ranganath, Ghana and Raghavan) and fixed up dinner (at Bobby da Dhaba) and a late night movie plan (Tom, Dick and Harry at Innovative Multiplex), although in the end only Raghavan and Sharath could come. The movie was ok and had a lot lacking and the comedy was just about ok. The actors could have been utilised in a better manner and the villain could have been a lot less silly. Sharath stayed back at my house that night and left by about 9 AM on Sunday. 

Sunday was no different and I met more friends once again. Through orkut – we organised a reunion of sorts for students from my class of 10C at Bishop Cotton Boys’ School. We (Neeraj, Rohan, Angad, Gautham, Deepak and myself) met up at Barista near Koshy’s and waited for long while without power due for our orders. We used the time to talk about a lot of old memories. About incidents that happened in class and also about our other classmates. It was nice and all of use were very nostalgic about the good old school days. The power had still not returned so we cancelled our orders and we (minus Gautham – who had to leave) headed to Corner House. After ice creams and more nostalgic moments Angad and Neeraj left and Deepak, Rohan and myself lazed for a while at Amoeba hoping to get a bowling lane, but to no avail. We then had dinner at Empire and headed home. I’ve uploaded some photos of the reunion here.

A great weekend for me – and incidentally I managed to meet friends from almost all spheres of my life, including School, PUC College, Engineering College and the Microsoft student champ program. Only office friends and some others were left out! I guess they are for another weekend now! 

The coming weekend is a rather long one, with Monday (May 1st) being a holiday…so some of us (Sunil, Sharath, Raghavan, Ghanashyam, Rishabh and myself) are planning on going to Kerala (God’s and my own country!) this weekend for a holiday. We all met up (except for Sharath who had got a new job as a driver!!) today at Garuda Mall to discuss more about the trip.

Ghana, Rags, Rishabh and me at Garuda mall
(Also in the pic – Sunil’s S2 IS and the all important diary with all the trip details)

After a lot of talking of every other topic and a little brain-storming about the trip over lunch and some awesomely yummy dessert we came to some conclusion and if all goes according to plan we will be leaving on Friday (28th April) evening to Munnar and Alleppey and return on Tuesday (2nd May) morning!

The next three weekends of mine are now booked for trips and incidently in three different states! This weekend being the Kerala trip. Next weekend to Coorg (in Karnataka) for a colleagues’ wedding and the weekend after that to Rameshwaram (in Tamil Nadu) for a religious trip as conclusion to my earlier Kashi trip.

Now I just can’t wait for this week to end and for Friday to come. Monday morning blues already! Sigh!

After creating several draft posts, I am finally getting around to complete and publish the post about my visit to Wonder La on 12th February.

Sharath had stayed back at my place on 11th (Saturday) night and we had a great time watching various Coupling episodes and movies through the night. We had earlier been to a dhaba for dinner. Sunil was supposed to join us, but got held up someplace with his dad.

On Sunday (12th Feb) as part of the (so-called) Microsoft student champ “reunion“, Sunil, Sharath, Ghana, Raghavan and myself went to Wonder La amusement park! The park was simply amazing and we had loads of fun on the various land rides and later in the water rides!

On Sunday morning, Sharath left my place around 9:45 AM to go home and get ready and I was to pick him and the rest after a while. After some laziness and delays (as usual), I finally managed to pick everyone up by 11:15 AM or so and head off towards Bidadi on Mysore Road, where Wonder La is situated. The drive was great, since the roads were recently laid and were very smooth and there wasn’t much traffic!

We reached the park by around 12:15 PM [the park timings are 11 AM to 8 PM] and headed for the ticket counter. We all paid Rs. 480 for the entrance and though Sharath had his college id card, they said the student discount applies only if we come in groups of 20 or more with a letter from the insitution…!

Wonder La entrance – somehow we didn’t miss Ranga!

Anyway once inside we took a look at the park map and decided to go on all the rides marked as ‘High Thrill Rides’, but before we got to them we first checked out the crazy cars

Wonder La has some of the best land rides I have ever been on, including ‘Wonder La Bamba’, ‘Drop Zone’, ‘Insanity’, ‘Hurricane’, the highly enjoyable ‘Y-Scream’ and the mother of all rides – ‘Maverick’!

Y-Scream [above] and Maverick! [below]

We spent all afternoon on the land rides and had a great time. We wanted to go on them some more, but we were too exhausted and hungry. So finally around 4 we went for lunch at one of the restaurants in the park. After lunch we went back to the changing rooms and got ready for round two of the action – the water rides!

View of the water attractions

There were a whole lot to check out in the water park – from small slides and buckets over turning on your head to the wave-generator and the high thrill water slides that twisted and turned and some just dropped straight down and deposited you in the pool at the bottom. We had a great time in the (warm!!) water, but somehow felt the rides weren’t quite up to the mark. They were thrilling, no doubt, but not smooth. We felt the rides were a bit rough and not that fine tuned, especially when compared to the water park at Mangalore, which (pretty much) the same group visited (except for Rags) last year. Nonetheless we had a great time splashing about and made it a point to go on all the water rides. Finally around 6:30 PM we concluded the water rides with the same ‘Wonder Splash’ that we started off with and headed back to the changing rooms.

Wonder La Tower and Sky Wheel

Before we left we wanted to to check out the ‘Sky Wheel’, which is this huge 30 metre giant wheel on top of a 50 metre clock tower! We reached the top in time to see a beautiful sun set. The ride itself was slow but the view was simply great. We could see the whole park (and all the solar panels on top of every building, which is what the park uses to keep the water at room temperature) and we could also see for miles around! It was the perfect way to end a great day.

The sun sets [above] and we pose [below]

The park is not 100% complete and we saw lots of construction work still going on and many ries still being assembled, so it is only going to get better! The only ride the park is missing is a great roller coaster. I loved the place and have started recommending the place for all get togethers with various friends and colleagues! I would love to visit the park again (and again), especially for the awesome and high thrill land rides.

Check out the photos taken at the park here