Keep it Simple!

For more complex things in life.....

The Japanese would not like what I just did - DELAYED blogging about the 3rd part not by an hour or a day but an entire month! But before you sentence me Yūzai , let me tell you life is not easy for a lazy person like me 😐


Before I begin, let's pray (*closes eyes*) - O God, please give me the strength to recollect and remember the names of Japanese cities, places, food, names we encountered. We are your big eyed children who ventured into land of your tiny eyed children. Amen! (*opens eyes*)


The 3rd day was a day of migration from the uptown Tokyo to a sea facing district called Fujisawa with an adjoining island named Enoshima. We identified this place based on recommendations by some travellers & AI engines. However we finalized this placed based on its location on Google - "Sea facing place with a connecting island". That's it, no further research needed. The entire gang was sold out to this idea :D


After our long train ride from Ochiai to Fujisawa, we were super hungry and planned to have lunch near the station itself before taking a connecting train towards Enoshima. Google maps to the rescue - we found *wait for it* *drum rolls* Namaste restaurant serving Indian food! The restaurant itself was 2 buildings away from station building in a basement. We were expecting that the owner of the restaurant would be some turban clad Punjabi and the restaurant would be filled with hungry Indians like us. This is what we saw - restaurant was run by a Nepali family and was filled with Japanese people, some of them local school children happily eating Kulcha and Paneer butter masala. The only things Indian in that restaurant was the food (was yum! to be honest) and the Bollywood songs they played for Indian vibes. The place was definitely an unexpected treasure trove serving amazing Indian food and I definitely left a part of my soul there. At the end of the meal, all I wanted was a bed to drop and faint and sleep.


A few of our carnivore gang members had gone to Kugean to have Japanese food (remember - when in Japan, do the Japanese). So we again met at the Fujisawa station to proceed towards Enoshima. 


Now I have to mention the Enoshima line, it is one of the most beautiful routes in Japan. The train is a mini electric toy train and people take a ride just to experience the.. well.. ride :)

The train runs on dedicated tracks which also coincide with the road like a Tram. A must have experience!


I noticed a very fascinating sign on the train. Scary and fascinating at the same time. This felt like we had to expect a Tsunami once we were there. I wonder how a person sitting inside a train will patiently read these instructions if there is a 50 feet wave approaching him.


Our Airbnb was at walking distance from the station in the middle of some random alley. It was a blue building covered with some flowers and creepers. We checked in and read all the rules - the house had rules written all over the places. E.g. Remove shoes before entering, don't open the balcony, take shower when you come from the beach, maintain peace as it is a residential area, run if you see Tsunami etc. (just kidding).


We settled in and stepped out to explore the must visit places there. Err, we didn't know anything about this place except that it is a sea facing area with a connecting island (remember?). Hence we started walking in some direction (that felt good). While the entire gang stuck together, no one really knew where we were headed to so your truly took it upon him to do a status check if anyone knew where we were going. (Fun fact - No one knew).


Voila! We saw the Enoshima island! and decided to walk there. We walked and walked and took the Enoshima - Ohashi bridge to enter the island. This is when a brilliant thought struck all of us! Where do we go now?!


Spotted a lane where all the people were going so we decided to follow them (remember - when in Japan, follow the Japanese). The route led us to a famous temple entrance which we decided to completely avoid and instead followed a signboard taking us to some caves at the top of the island. Was a long climb and we were all pumped up to explore the caves that we were about to encounter. When we reached the top, we found *wait for it* *drumrolls* A garden with a light house! Will explain what happened to the caves later.


So we bought some entry tickets and sat near the lighthouse for a long time. It was 5PM and suddenly the entire place transformed to a winter wonderland! (it gets dark by 5PM). The entire place was decorated with lights and seemed like a dream. Worth mentioning the hot whiskey we had there, it did give us the warmth and the depth required to dream in those illuminated vibes!


(funfact - we never bothered to check if the caves existed). 


We got down to the mainland, back to our Airbnb and scouted the area for dinner. We found a very famous ramen place and let me tell you that was the only time we used Google translate so extensively. The waiter had a tough time understanding our vegetarian requirements and we had a tough time understanding his understanding of our requirements 😅 . Finally we gave up and decided to look for some other suitable place serving vegetarian food and guess what! We found *wait for it* *drumrolls* "Khushi Curry"! Serving Indian food (run by Nepali people again). This was the only day when we had Indian food in Japan and that too for lunch as well as dinner! Overstuffed Indian food day I must say! 


We grabbed Sake and headed back to our room and decided to plan a place to visit on Day 4 (instead of roaming aimless shameless). So we decided to go to a place called Hakone (a few of us decided and others agreed). It looked exciting on Google maps and we were all pumped up for another day in Japan and of course another night of discussions around world politics, tech and life in general :)  

   

Ladies and Gentlemen, after a long week (full of 7 days), here I am to write about life changing, reality altering, heart thumping, inception inducing, belly wobbling (ok am running out of these adjectives now) - trip to Japan! *drumrolls*

By the way did I mention our Noodles adventure on our 1st day in Japan? Ahhhh! Old age has just started to catch-up I guess. We visited this place on 3rd floor of a random building in Shinjuku and ordered vegan noodles (Fun fact - It was a Halal place serving vegan food. Animals would be ROFLing in heaven). Now we decided to order 2 normal noodles and 1 with a customized spice level of 4. I have decided to use some pictorial liberties to give you some feels and chills about what we experienced to become the most experienced Japanese Indians to ever come out of Japan. Some of us even championed the art of using chopsticks :D


Back to the above image, the confidence of conquering spice level 4 comes from our Indian DNA (after all we belong to the land of spices & Kamasutra *ahem*). So one of our dear friends took the lead in sacrificing himself. He burnt to ashes and even after a round of resurrection he could spit fire from his mouth and smoke from his @$$. I wonder what spice level 10 would do to humankind.


Moving on, after a good night's sleep, it was time to plan or at least try to plan our Day 2 *tadaaaa*
We decided to head to Asakusa. That is the maximum we could plan for the day as it covers the immediate 3-4 hours of our life, anything beyond this would be far fetched planning. So Asakusa is a beautiful district famous for its shrine named Senso-ji and the surrounding area of this shrine is full of walkways for eating and shopping. As I mentioned earlier, Tokyo has the most extensive and multi connected network of metro trains so it is very easy to commute provided we understand from where to enter the stations, which way to go, what line to catch and where to get down. God bless the creator of Google maps and google translate - if these were not there, we would be required to do a 3 month crash course of Japanese language and fail miserably even after that!
Back to Asakusa experience - we had our pit stop at one of the restaurants serving vegan food. The name of the restaurant is 'Okonomiyaki/monja shiraiwa Asakusa' *rolls his eyes*. The only reason I am able to write all these names is because of my kind friends who made a note of these places (and they eat Chyawanprash too for good memory). We had one of the most delicious and soul touching meal and sochu oolang (Japanese tea) at this place (highly recommended). With a satisfied stomach and a calm mind, we literally experienced the zen state of mind and realized why all of such stuff originates from Japan - maybe the food :) 


We did lots of walking (I literally mean lots - we clocked almost 20k steps walking in Japan everyday). I was always curious how come the Japanese were not obese in general and I realized this at the end of each day we spent there. We reached the shrine area, took some photos and were curious to see who the Japanese worship. Had not seen any religious shops, prayers, clothes etc. unlike India where we are heavily dominated by our religions. There were no preachers, no monks - we saw a fountain (maybe with some holy water) where everyone was drinking water and taking pics while drinking water. Then there was a 'luck game' (at least that's what I would call it) where you need to put 100 yen, pick a random stick from a stack of sticks, check the random number on the selected stick and then open one out of the hundreds of drawers with that specific number. Take a paper from the drawer and it has a prediction for your life. If you find that the prediction is not good, don't worry - you can fold the paper and tie it around the pipes and try your luck again. Japanese people like gamification of everything they do - they have done that in their shrines too.

We had a very fascinating time here and still don't know who they worship :D


After all of this, we decided to plan another 3-4 hours of the day and the question was what next. The natural answer was we head back to our rooms and sleep (still recovering from jet lags). However Pikachu almighty had some other plans - as soon as we were about to reach the station entrance, one of our friends saw a beautiful pier by the river (Azumabashi Pier) and my dear friends this is how our heart conquers our mind and body. We instantly decided that this was the place of our calm in the storm, our redemption, our water in the coconut (ok am running out of adjectives again). It was indeed a beautiful walk and one of my biggest learning from such experiences in the times of google, planning, AI itineraries etc. is to keep our eyes and mind open - you never know when you would stumble upon a place you never expected to visit. This is the place where we realized one more fact about Japan - there is no dust - either on the roads, or on walkways. Such AQI can be dangerous to health if your lungs are not used to such levels of pure oxygen. 


Finally, we decided that we will visit the Akihabara Electric town for the evening. This is the holy grail for all the game loving, anime loving, electronics loving people. There are muti storey shops on anime movies, games, souvenir & porn *ahem*. This area looks straight out of an anime movie too - tall buildings, bright neon lights, large billboards and people walking their way away from obesity. 


Another fun fact about Japan - Due to limited real estate, they have constructed stores, cafes, restaurants all in tall vertical buildings. So there is a chance that there would exist an awesome bar on the 12th floor of a building. There is no way to even know about these places apart from the boards (often in Japanese) at the entrance of each building and of course Google map listings. 

There are many Cosplay bars too in this area where girls dress up in some themes like anime, outer space etc. and engage with guests in a role playing manner. We did not visit these - not our cup of tea (or sake). Instead we hit a jackpot with a bar on 5th floor of some building - the Beer pong bar grove. Due to a weekday, we had the entire place to us and this bar had karaoke, jenga and dart games. What more would the boys need than all of these with drinks. We sang our heart out and played dart like the great Dart Vader! 

Happy and tipsy, we navigated the metro trains again (like a magic maze) and reached our Airbnb with a mandatory stopover at seven eleven. Every day, we would visit seven eleven, or family mart at least 5-6 times - there was an odd satisfaction of just being there and checking out all the stuff they sold. Back to our rooms, we continued with our sessions about politics, world and life in general and then we called it a day.  

That's the end of day 2. Damn! I thought I would finish this in 2 parts but I may have to make it like an entire season with 6 parts. Will be back soon *hold your Sake*



When life gives you trips, make it trippy! 

Such awesome and random thoughts have inspired me to get back to writing just when 2025 is about to end (that fulfills my 2025 resolution and 2026 resolution both)

What better way to bring in our visionary 40s than to visit a nation of tiny eyed people! We zeroed in on Japan since it was in the middle (of nowhere) and equidistant (far enough) for everyone so not one person feels that they din't get to travel much (so much of travel justice & equality). 

Before every such trip, there is a planning phase - what do we carry, day to day plans, places to visit, places to eat, things to do etc. We completely skipped this phase! 
Me carrying some Indian snacks for everyone was the biggest trip planning 'feels' to have happened to everyone on Whatsapp. 
Fun fact: Out of 8 people expected to visit, only 6 could make it since the other 2 did not get a visa on time. Just FYI - The primary reason for selecting Japan was their easy visa process :D

Another Fun fact: Out of the 6 people who finally made it, 2 'almost' got cancelled at the last minute since Indigo decided to get grounded during that time. But I guess God almighty (would have been Pikachu instead of God if we had been in Japan) had some different plans for all of us :)

Now comes the most interesting part, especially for those who plan to visit Japan and also for those who want to read this article instead of visiting Japan and save some money (just kidding! you got to visit Japan!)
We did a 6 night trip in December 2025 when Japan is cold, windy, Christmasy, Earth quaky and Tsunami like.

3 out of the 6 Avengers assembled in Mumbai as we have booked ANA tickets to Tokyo. Now the baggage allowance is 46 kg and carrying anything less than the allowed limit would be a crime as per my wired brain. So here I was carrying 2 suitcases for the trip - 1 with food (for the hungry and needy people) and 1 with clothes (for the cold and shivery people). Pulling over these 2 big bags, I met my 2 friends at the Airport and was looking out for their big suitcases - they were backpacking and did not even have a check-in bag (facepalm moment)!

So after an 8 hour movie binging and sleepy flight, we landed in Narita airport near Tokyo. Airports are our first impression about a place or a country; but for Japan its not their Airports - Its their Toilets. You read that right! The country seems to have spent a majority of its technology & innovation budget in building the most comfortable Toilets in the world (and I am not exaggerating). As soon as we landed, we walked in to one of these on the Airport and I was instantly in love with what I experienced. The toilets have a controller with multiple buttons and each button has its own magical spell. From warm seats to lights to music to 'surgical strike' like jet sprays to sanitizers, it has it all. (Phew!) This fascination was a good enough reason for us to lose count of time to an extent that only my bag was left on the conveyor belt and all other passengers had moved on in life :)

Immigration took some time as there were multiple tiny eyed people entering Japan along with us (not enough eye diversity I must say). There is one interesting thing that the immigration experience prepared us for days to come - standing in queue. People of Japan are taught to stand in queue even before they are born and they have queues everywhere - a queue to get in a queue too! (evil laughs from Indians :D)

Now the best part about the boys trip is randomness that comes with planning. We were aimless once we were past the immigration since none of us had planned anything. And since the other 3 Avengers were supposed to join us after 5 hours or so, we decided to proceed to our Airbnb in Shinjuku. Commuting in Japan is a breeze once you make peace with their metro train network, Google maps and google translate. We got the Suica travel card and hopped onto one of the trains going towards Shinjuku (changed the line at Nihombashi). 
Fun Fact - Standard checkin time in Japan is 4PM and checkout is 10AM. They need 6 hours to cleanup the rooms (maybe they would be renovating and painting too before each checkin). You can request to drop in your luggage before checkin or store the luggage in any of the lockers available across multiple locations in Japan - we chose the former option and proceeded to see Shinjuku city especially the area near Shinjuku station. 

Shinjuku has one of the best night vibes in Tokyo and it is mesmerizing enough to just stand and watch the crossings and 3D billboards. The rest of the gang united here and thus marked the official beginning of the Hood trip 2025. After randomly roaming the streets of Shinjuku, we decided to visit Golden-gai for drinks and it was unlike any area we had seen before. Think of an area with 200-300 bars and each bar is the size of a 100 square feet room equipped to accommodate a bar tender and 6-7 people. Had never seen or experienced cozy bar setups at such a scale before. So we picked one and had a great time since the bar lady was playing our favourite rock songs. 
Must appreciate her inter personal skills since she gave all kinds of facial expressions and even laughed at our jokes when we were talking among us. Fun fact - We were talking in Hindi and she did not understand a word :)

End of the day we brought the party to our room. Now the funny thing about that and the rest of the days on this trip was that the sunset was at 4.45PM everyday and it used to become dark immediately so our end of the day plans were pretty elongated. Back to the room, we had a lot to catch-up and talk about and also time for me to get the rabbit out of the hat (**drumrolls**) - Had got a customized hoodie for all of us for this trip. Plan was to print a word 'Konnichiva' (meaning good day) printed on the front and 'Hood' on the back. My brilliant brain decided to consult Perplexity AI to create a Japanese translation of these words too so that the hoodie would have a Japanese feel to it. And unlike any AI, this one did not hallucinate normally but did so very creatively and gave a completely random Japanese text that did not have anything to do with what I intended to print. Fun Fact - I blindly printed what AI gave me (as it looked nice visually) and realized the hallucinated Japanese text after the hoodie was distributed to everyone in the room.

We had deep conversations around AI, world, health, philosophy and life and of course one important topic - this trip was all the more exciting for all of us as one of our friends was getting married (yes he has had a peaceful life for so long) and we were all pumped up for the grand bachelors that we have been waiting for 100 years now!  

That brings us to the end of Day 1. More on this trip soon. Stay tuned.

Disclaimer: No living beings were hurt during making of this post. This post is not meant to scare the people living outside Mumbai; (Thinkometer: that is Na..) and I am not talking about Navi Mumbai here!


Mumbai local or the local trains of Mumbai are known to be the lifeline of the city. The reason for this is that more people travel in locals than the combined total population of Mumbai and Pune. Those who have traveled in these trains can bet their life on this fact.. literally. The trains have been equally crowded 10 years back as they are today (Thinkometer: and they say outsider population has increased in Mumbai!)

However, there is a difference in which the crowd conducts themselves (Thinkometer: did you say conduct?!) ahh well ahem.. Let me take you to one of the crowded locals and list down the categories of people who share the same seat in harmony:
  1. The Warriors - This is the breed that has evolved over the years by travelling in locals. They get on and out of the train with the energy and expression of Lionidas (Thinkometer: 300!). Their expression is that of revenge while you keep wondering whose revenge!
    Anyone who comes across their way is cut into pieces in cold blood! 
  2. The Confused - This is the breed who got semi evolved but got stuck somewhere in between. Once into the train, these people do not know where they want to go and what they want to do. In one moment they will push you around to get to the left and in another they will want to go to the right.
    These people usually go with the flow in their hard attempts to get evolved
  3. The Illuminated - This breed is named so since their faces are always glowing with the light of their 'Smart' phones. Be it an empty train or a life scaring super crowded train, their face never fails to glow. This breed is increasing day by day (Thinkometer: blame it on Candy crush).
    The growing size of the phones Illuminates people around them too.
  4. The Peepers - This breed has evolved on the cost of The Illuminated! During their entire journey the Peepers will know what the 8 people surrounding them are up to with their glowing faces. They know what you are watching, playing, listening, chatting. They know everything. And they will come for you everyday in the same train, in the same coach, and the same time. Watch out!
  5. The Touch-me-not - This is a rare breed but not completely non-existent. These people get some kind of DNA transformation if they get touched by someone. The DNA then transforms them to shout at people around them.
  6. The Adjustables - This breed is the most adaptive of all the breeds. There is no place in the train, they will make some. You cannot reach out to the shelf for your bag, they will get it for you. You are running for the train (Thinkometer: like DDLJ) they will be your SRK and ensure you get onto the train. They will be indifferent to the crowd in the train.
    You cannot get out of the train due to crowd, they will push you to ensure that you get out. You do not want to get out, they will still push you to ensure that you get out (Thinkometer: What?!)
Indian Railways wish you a pleasant and Safe journey :)


As conveyed in the previous post, here I am with a thunderbolt thought! Yes, I call this a thunderbolt thought because of the sheer awesomeness by which it struck my mind and made me jump and crawl and leap and sleep (Thinkometer: Sleep?) Okay! No sleep! I just wanted to make it rhyme :P

This time I will make complete sense out of this post. I promise. (Thinkometer: And I trust you?!) Err… yes, whatever

In the time when world economy is going ‘Jack and Jill went down the hill’, when disasters strike nations left right and center, when PM’s are getting arrested for being extra lusty, when hackers are sparing no organizations to steal data, when CEO’s are going behind the fences for scandals (Thinkometer: MMS scandals?), when entire nations are going bankrupt, I ask one question “Where has sanity gone?” (Thinkometer: How lame!)

It may sound lame but think about it. Is it just everyone else or are we going crazy too? For example let me start with a list of things that are the stepping stones towards insanity

  1. Realizing you are already insane before reading below
  2. Feeling that the world will end in 2012 and planning to pursue a trip to Hollywood to check if Pamela Anderson has real implants
  3. Still hoping that Obama will bring change
  4. Joining every possible social network out there thinking we might still find new friends. The truth is that it’s the same set of people that keep bumping everywhere
  5. Gifting your wife a barrel of crude oil as the most precious gift on your 25th anniversary
  6. Seriously thinking of hacking as a career option
  7. Believing that Apple with bail out the US economy
  8. Listening to Justin Bieber on full volume
  9. Organizing a slut walk in Bangkok
  10. Considering a Rs.1000 cr. scam to be too small and pity the culprit
  11. Travelling in Air India without praying
  12. Travelling in Air India after praying
  13. Asking your employer to sign a ‘No firing’ agreement
  14. Banging into railway platform pillars to reach Hogwarts
  15. Disagreeing to any of the above point

(Thinkometer: I object my lord!) Objection over ruled :)



Yes! After a billion light years I am back! (Thinkometer: Yes right! And I have been waiting for you like your abandoned loyal wife) I know I know. Agreed that I was a bit caught up with something called 'Life', but I couldn't stay away from this blog especially when the world is becoming so complex. Thats the reason I have named this blog 'Keep it Simple' coz this is how aha aha we like it ;) (Thinkometer: Thats so thoughtful and smart of you)
Totally!
And the heavy downpour for the entire day made sure I got double inspired to start blogging again (Thinkometer: Thats because you have nothing else to do) Duh! I was just being sarcastic.

With this comeback speech may I welcome myself to my creative best (Thinkometer: Was this a comeback speech? The crappiest one ever!) Well.. ummm.. thank you :)
Will be back with some story soon. Hook on :P


With the new year setting in soon, and seeing the super excitement of 31st december, here comes a post on humans eternal love for socializing.

P.S. Thinkometer is on Christmas and New year leave.
I have always failed to understand as to how a person can happily spend Rs.5000/night to go and dance and booze at a place jam packed with thousands of other "yea! Its 31st!" people; just to say goodbye to a year full of recession and economic crisis! And even more, how we all love 31st December unanimously. :)

But I am not going to write about parties now. Lets consider the other side of new year.
Speaking about new year, family gatherings cannot be ignored. 'We are family, lets have fun together' is the mantra! My observation on big family gatherings are rather funny. And the analysis goes like this - All the people will meet at a gathering special family house. The gatherings are then divided into 4 sections, the children's, the aunties, the uncles, and the grandfather only section. Now there are various stages of these gatherings. The initial stage involves everybody sitting together i.e. all the 4 sections have a combined meet. After some time, the sections split apart with mutual unspoken understanding. The uncles get busy discussing business, outings, and share market (If you are a gujju that is). The aunties get busy with discussing children, food and observing each others accessories (Applicable to all ladies). The children get busy with tv, mobile phones and games. And last but not the least the grandfather section observes all the above 3 sections.
Not to forget the occasional overlapping of uncle,aunty and aunty,children section. Next comes the food time where again all the 4 sections come together.

The second last stage is the most amazing part. The stage that gives chance to demonstrate the skills of best photographer in the family. Yea! The Photo session!
What amuses me most is the obsession of people with family photo's. The camera with rolls were better coz then you just had limited photographs and we used each photo carefully. But now with digicams, the photo session stretches from day to night. And the photographs are taken in all combinations - all the sections separately (including the grandfather section :) ), all possible arithmetic and logical combinations of all the people inside each section, each family, different combo's of different couples etc. And I would highlight here is out of 50 pics taken, background of 49 pics would be same. (The grandfather section pic has a chair background)

The last stage is called "Goodbye stage" which lasts for another hour. The ladies of the family preserve 50% of their total conversation quota for saying bye. If this part was to be skipped, the gents would be relieved of waiting and ladies would faint due to non talking frustration.
And thus we all return happily with memories of one awesome family gathering.
Enough analysis for now. Got to go for a family gathering ;)
Cheers and Happy new year! :)

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