Growing a Christmas Tree

I am so excited to show you my Christmas Tree that I grew yesterday! 

My Christmas tree grown out of cardboard and food addictives

My friend was so right to say that she knew this would keep me self entertained because I was taking hourly pictures of it. Too bad the 'blooms' have started disappearing overnight before I had a chance to decorate it.

In case you are thinking if I need a reminder if Christmas is over, that reminder should go to the post office who just delivered this on 19-Jan. Seriously, I wonder if there are more post Christmas mail coming. Anyway, this is how it looked before growing it:

Gymming at Ozone Fitness

Going to the gym is one of the key social activity to my life here and I have been wanting to share what the gym here is like but as usual had no motivation to write this until now because I have a story to tell!

Saturday is when the gym is more crowded and I see different faces as compared to the usual ones on weekdays.

I was on the treadmill as usual, watching HBO with my earphones as I try finishing my usual run. Just so you know, I absolutely hate running on the treadmill but this is the only way I can get any running done here. So, I am very focused on finishing it up and get off the moving rubber.

At the corner of the room, I have my favourite treadmill machine as the television screen is the clearest. It is almost perfect except for that huge MacDonald's banner across the road telling me that I need to eat McNuggets. Trust me, that banner works.

Back to story. So that day, as I was looking at the distance tracker moving ever so slowly, someone came to use the treadmill beside me. I turned and glanced upon this lanky guy who picked this machine when all the other ones were available. In my head, I knew either that this so happened to be his favourite machine or this guy is out to impress. Come on, isn't there like a unspoken rule in the gym to try to space out?

But this guy provided me with more amusement for the next 10-15 mins than the television did. Firstly, from the corner of my eye, I saw him starting to do warm ups on the treadmill! I was so tickled that I tried very hard to not let the corner of my mouths twitch upwards.

Next, he started running and was trying to look at my monitor! This is another pet peeve of mine in gym. Why does anyone need to do this? My answer: Competitive or Show Off. Ok, I admit sometimes I have the urge to do so too but its quite hard for me because I don't have height advantage.

Anyway, my live entertainment ended in about 15 mins when he got off the treadmill. I decided to give him the benefit of doubt that he was just warming up.

So, what do I do at gym for almost half the afternoon if you are curious?
I work out in the weights/ training room with the trainer for about 30-45 mins, running for another 45mins and 20 mins using the steam room (my fav part!). Too bad they do not have a massage service.

Before I signed up, I was justifying to myself the membership price and now I think it was money well spent. The place is clean, personal trainers are with you each time you visit and they will change your exercise routine every 4-6 weeks, not crowded, near to my place, etc.

Here are some pics to share:

Reception Area on the ground floor

Machines in the Cardio Area

The McNugget advert that tempts my mind



More Cardio Machines



Shower Room

Movie Date

Our first movie experience in India!


I had been wanting to watch Inception before leaving Singapore because everyone was talking about it. So, since we had a bit of time this afternoon, it was movie time!


Vidul, our new found friend had told us to go to multi-cineplexes and not the individual stand alone ones. So, we headed off to the INOX at GVK1 mall.


We had not known how to prebook tickets so we checked out show times from today's newspapers and went a couple of hours earlier to get the tickets. Like the good old times of queuing at box office before the era of phone/ online ticket booking.


Tickets are cheap here as compared to Singapore. We paid Rs300 for 2 regular tickets which is about SGD$4.50 per ticket. They also have the premium tickets that goes for Rs250/ SGD$7.50 each. In my mind, I was going, "Oh no! $4.50 only per ticket. What was the cinema going to be like? Was the stale air in the cinema going to suffocate me or have dinghy seats or have creepies crawling around?" No idea and can't wait to find out!


Going into the theatre, there were strict checks on our bags again especially for cameras. Guess they didn't want any sort of illegal recordings.


Act II popcorn is a big thing here. Yes, its the same brand of microwave popcorn that we get back home except that at the cinemas here, they are freshly popped and of course I had to get some of that butter smelling popcorn.


First thing that came to mind when we entered is that this place reminds me of GV Grand! Where the popcorn counters are placed, the colours and the feel. So yes, the place was not bad. The cinema surprised us further with a screen larger than what we are used to and the seats could even be reclined slightly. What made my day was that they got the incline of the cinema right. Even with 2 tall guys sitting in front of me, they did not block my view very much. Two thumbs up! I was all ready to watch Inception!


There was a surprise halfway through the movie when the lights came on. I thought it was a mistake and the lights would be off in no time. This happened when Cobb and the team was going into the 2nd level of the dream. But no, people started moving and I saw the word "Intermission" flashed. What???? This is not a musical or theatre! A break at this exciting part... when they had just transported Robert Fisher to the hotel bar? :(


Anyway, from the intermission break, I saw how the male queue for the toilets were longer than the ladies (I have no idea why) and that the crowd really stock up on a second round of snacks and drinks!


Movie ended and I told the hubby that we could be in a dream of our own and that we were actually sleeping on our bed in Thomson waiting to be kicked. Maybe Hyderabad is not real. Only way to find out - where is the totem?