Here you go. I am bandaged with a dressing on my right foot – due to an injury and my left foot is sprained and hence they gave me an ankle brace. What a terrible month I have had!

I have wanted to go to buy some shirts and decided that this 3 day weekend I should go in to Men’s Studio and see what shirts they have in my size. But first I wanted to have lunch since all I had in the morning was a half bowl of cornflakes. So I was thinking of which place I would choose to go and the craving for a real beef burger hit me hard so I picked The Burger Junction.

I was there by 12:30 pm and ordered a nice juicy burger with a fried egg and I added bacon as an optional topping. I picked a peanut butter & mocha smoothie and for an appetizer I had these wonderful fried calamari rings with jalapenos and a tartar sauce on the side. They were great. And the burger was awesome. I stayed there for a while and then went to Men’s Studio.

I tried out several shirts before picking these four that you see above in the pic. Its’ a shame that for big fat guys like me they seem to have a dearth of darker coloured shirts. It’s always white, or white with stripes or lighter shades of blue or ash/gray. Anyways, I do like these ones that I selected today. One, the white on the extreme left is a casual one and the others are more formal or semi-formal shirts. After that I went to Milanos for a quick gelato and came back home.

I was overdue for a haircut. My hair was long and curling at the end and falling all over my head especially my balding top of the head. And plus it’s been hot & muggy since the beginning of February (yep, that’s what you get for living in a tropical climate like the one that Kerala has) and it’s become steadily worse since then. And April, the hottest month usually, is only beginning tomorrow! Then we got May and I hope the rains start early.

Anyways, balding on the top or not I hadn’t cut my hair in months and I needed a chop chop really badly. But first, after a day of rest on Saturday, I wanted to go out for some coffee. I went to Cafe Coffee Day for some cold coffee but found that they had a newish item called the Belgian Cold Chocolate with whipped cream and ice cream and I was all for it. I ordered me one of them and a tandoori chicken sandwich on multigrain bread and relaxed for an hour. Then I went to get my hair cut.

And how good it feels once the cutting started. I only had to wait 5 minutes before the barber was free. And he cut my hair, so much of it that if I could have taken all the hair that fell and stuck it to my face, I could audition for ZZ Top! That done I went to Ravipuram and found an ATM and then went to Center Mall. Before I shopped for groceries and toiletries in Big Bazaar I first went into a bathroom stall to cool down and washed my face and neck. Freshened up a bit I bough the stuff I needed and then went to get some wings at Pizza Hut.

After that I came back home tired and covered in sweat and crashed on the bed after another quick wash. It was about 3:30 pm and I spent some of the later afternoon watching Seinfeld from my bed.

All good things must come to an end. Unfortunately, that old saying rings true. My little holiday of 3 days in a nice hotel with absolutely nothing to do and enjoying it came to and end. I woke up by 5 am for some reason and went back to sleep till almost 7 am. I got outta bed and brushed my teeth and washed my face. I then went down by 7:50 am for my final breakfast at the hotel buffet. Today’s breakfast was really good.

I had small pieces of pineapple & banana, my usual two slices of toast with butter & jam, 2 mini vadas and 1 mini muffin and an omelette (which was better than the other two mornings) with onions, tomatoes and chilies and washed it down with a cold strawberry flavoured milk. I then went back to my room and relaxed for a bit before I had to visit the loo and then take a shower. By 9 am I was ready and called down to the reception for them to get my bill ready. I checked out by 9:30 am, payed the bill (which was mostly the food, coffee, bottles of water and beverages I had) and booked an Uber to come back home.

At home it’s as usual a Sunday as it can be. I listened to music videos for a long time, had lunch, watched the two episodes from the weekend that I had missed – one from The Orville & Star Trek Discovery each – and then watched a movie. I then took a nap for an hour as I was feeling sleepy and the afternoon was hot & humid. This evening is more relaxing until later in the night when I plan to watch another movie. Tomorrow it’s back to work.

This is my third and final full day at the hotel and I am gonna miss this little holiday. Today I woke up after a long 7.5 hours of sleep and feeling like I could sleep for another 3 or 4 if I just shut my eyes. However, I got up and brushed my teeth. I went down to the buffet to have breakfast and had tiny french toast, toast with butter & jam, an omelette and a grape juice to wash that down. Back in my room I had a coffee before I took a shower and shaved.

By 11:30 am my cousin Sujith dropped by as we planned to have a few drinks in the afternoon. We sat and talked for almost 90 minutes and then went down to the bar and had a couple of vodkas and a beer each. We munched on deep fried beef, French Fries, egg burgi and fish fingers as we sipped our drinks. The bar was a bit of a let down in that it was very basic and bland.

After that we went back to my room to relax and chill. We talked some more and I suggested that he too remove his shoes and relax on the large bed. We chatted until both of us were falling asleep so Sujith left as he wanted to go home. I said goodbye and took a nap. By 6 pm I woke up and plugged the laptop back in to watch the draw between Tottenham and Arsenal. Very disappointing in the end as we could have sealed a win had the penalty not been saved. 

Well there end my little sojourn away from work and home. I still have all of Sunday to rest and enjoy at home and I will be working on a 6:30 pm to 3:30 am shift for the next week. I will be online for the rest of the evening and then go to bed. I don’t think I will want any dinner but I would love some more ice cream as dessert. Ordering room service has been fun. I also slept a lot during these three days, with my cousin implicating that it must be a combination of sleep deprivation and tiredness rather than just a nice, comfy bed that is making me sleep a lot more. I have been averaging 8 hours plus 1 or 2 hours of naps during my stay here. Maybe that is what I needed and I will try and do this more often. Cheers!

Well, I am still in the hotel and trying to enjoy my stay. The only drawback of my stay is the tv. In that they have cable but only the shitty channels. None of the ones that I want to watch. It’s a nice enough Samsung tv and 32 inches which is lovely. But they have all the stupid Hindi channels, some Tamil and some Malayalam and a bunch of dumb religious channels, the odd English channel like Discovery and stuff and a few sports channels. But when I checked yesterday and today, only one seems to have football and the others are all showing the same stupid cricket match live! And some of them are all part of the same network!!

And so I haven’t been able to binge watch on movies like I wanted to. I could watch some movies on my laptop but I just checked and all the movies that I have lined up, I would prefer to watch them on my own 32 smart tv and that can wait until Sunday afternoon and I am back home. Last night I ordered two beers and watched some Youtube as I ate my dinner (sorry no pic of the dinner but I will have a video up later) and then watched a few episodes of Friends (season 8 ). Before I went to bed I had a banana split and then went to sleep by midnight.

This morning I was awake up 7 am but couldn’t get outta bed until 8 am for some reason. I was a little hung over from the 3 beers I had yesterday (1 in the afternoon) I guess. I waited till 9 and got some coffee and then went down to their buffet for breakfast. I had two slices of toast with butter & jam, some potato stuff, an omelette (which was almost tasteless with hardly any salt or pepper) & cold milk. Then I went back to my room and got a little depressed. For some reason I couldn’t do anything and I left my laptop and went back to bed till noon. I forced myself to get back to watching Youtube and listening to some songs.

Post lunch, which was the crumb fried chicken breasts you see in this post, with boiled veggies and French Fries, I took a long nap, interrupted by housekeeping asking if I wanted the room cleaned. I was pretty neat so I said, no thank you, but asked them if they had a comb in their complementary toiletries and one of them ran to get me one. I went back to napping and then woke up sweating as I had forgotten to increase the temperature of the ac. It was 4:45 pm by then and I walked into the bathroom and took a dump and then a long shower, which made me feel so great. I love that huge rain shower head. I had coffee and feel so much better now and by 7 pm I want to go to check out their bar.

So, as mentioned before, I am now on Day 1 of my 3 day and 3 night stay in a hotel. The hotel that I choose is a 4 star boutique hotel. It’s not very big but then that’s how I like it. Anyways, I needed a break; a break away from work and from home. So I have 5 days off including my weekend but I have booked myself a room in Abaam for 3 days and 3 nights. I could use the time to just relax and chill in a hotel and enjoy myself.

The only thing I don’t like about the place is the actual bed. It’s not the kind that I like. It seems to dip in the wrong places and the edges are much harder. As I hadn’t slept all night I took a nap after a lunch of chicken biryani and a beer.

Everything else seems to be good. Food is good. Beer is priced heavily which is something that I don’t like but that is the case for all mid to high end bars & hotels. So far I have only ordered in room service. Tomorrow I want to check out their bar and coffee shop and maybe on Saturday I will visit their main restaurant.

Enjoy the pics as I enjoy my beer and my dinner, which is chicken noodles and garlic chicken.