The month that was..

The last few weeks have been really eventful! Starting from the trip to Beijing, to the snow-boarding trips (or should I say, attempts to snow-board?), the trip to Tokyo and then making important decisions to move ahead... the mood could best be described as romantic and rebellious - non-conforming.. Time has just whizzed by!

(Dancing on the tables after dinner - Its gotto be China!)

The hectic week in Beijing ended with a grand celebration at a Mongolian ethnic restaurant where artists performed while we savoured the delicacies. We had our P&G group, comprising people from Belgium , Mexico, Japan, India, China and US (as diverse as it could get!). The artists displayed unique dance styles - some seemed influenced by European dance styles... there was a judo-based dance and a snake dance where a beautiful lady draped in a snake came scaringly close to the audience!

The restaurant is known for the unconventional ways it uses to entertain. They involved all the people in several games and at the end they asked everyone to get on the tables and dance! So there we were, inebriated with whatever that we drank.... It was crazy!

I came back at around 9:00 pm and made myself some snack.. surfed the net a bit, went to sleep, got up at 3:30 am got ready for the snow-boarding trip that my friends had already organized. We had rented a 8 seater Nissan van for this to trip to Dianaland in Gifu. When we were just about 45 minutes from the destination we met with an accident - GP had smased the car at 80 km/hr into another car in front of us! That car in turn smashed into a bus.... we went blank for a while. And there was blood splattered all over!

(Puneet's watch stopped and later we found that the glass cover had shattered)

Neither of us could speak fluent Japanese. Soon the police was there asking us questions the meaning of which could only be surmised. The damage seemed in total seemed to be in millions of Yen. We wondered what the insurance would cover and how much would we have to shell out! We started planning deportation :)) The good part of the whole incident was that neither of us was depressed... we were in our own way relishing the experience!

We planned to somehow reach the destination, however, the car had to be returned and the insurance company needed to be informed in person. So we all set back to Kobe.. disspointed, but already planning the next adventure - for the very next day! The plan was for Biwako and this time we wisely opted to use the trustworthy JR train.

The next day was not a really pleasant one.. it was drizzling and the chances of making it to the top were bleak. But we pressed on. On reaching the venue we found that the resort was closed! We gaped at each other confused and surprised that this was actually happening to us! Anyways, we didn't wish to go back - so we planned to go for an Onsen - relax in the hot spring amidst the mountains, have a traditional Japanese lunch and then return by evening. Tell you what - it turned out fabulous!

(Zuber Puneet, Varun, Aatif, GP and me)

(Prateek, Roopak, Vinit and me)

Next on the list was the trip to Tokyo - those 3 days had enough in them - including a surprise B'day celebration in Roppongi with my insti-people: Prateek, Roopak, Vinit. The last month flew by so fast - and many changes that I had not even thought of before were planned and I am hopeful would be executed.