As the title suggests, this is fair warning of a longer post than usual. I did so much the last two days and have so much to share. So let's begin at the beginning. We were having the whole extended family (the ones in Mumbai) over for lunch on Sunday so Mama brought out the big guns. Those of you familiar with south indian food know of idlis (steamed rice cakes). In Mangalore, we have a yeast version of it that is not sour and is generally eaten with meats, particularly spicy pork dishes which Mama had obviously prepared. It's made in this enormous steamer thing called a tondor. Picture below. Since I had only 3 days in Mumbai, it was combined with some Indochinese food which I love, love, love. [gallery ids="625,621,624" type="rectangular"]I still remember how excited I was the first time I went to a Chinese restaurant in the US and how horrible I thought it tasted. It wasn't until a year later that I realized that neither Indian Chinese nor Orange chicken is remotely similar to Chinese food. To be fair, it doesn't make them less tasty and I will always be a lifelong fan 😊. Now that I have the food covered, I do want to say that I had loads of fun catching up with family. My uncle and cousin took me to see the Ghanteshwar Hanuman Temple. Legend goes that people seek the blessing of Lord Hanuman here.  When their wish is fulfilled, they return to the temple and offer Hanuman a bell (thus “Ghanteshwar” which literally means lord of bells). Therefore, thousands of densely packed brass bells of various sizes hang above and around the temple, which in and of itself is a modest sized place, no more than a large verandah.  A few of the bells shine like they have been recently hung, while many more are crusted and darkened with time. On the walk back, I walked past a park I played in when I was little, the library my older sister went to, and the bookstore where my school books came from. [gallery ids="650,651,652" type="columns"]Back home, I found out more about the famed P language. It was a language my dad and his sisters spoke as kids where every word is filled with P's. My dad says that they used it so they could talk in a language their parents couldn't understand. My aunt claims that the parents had languages they spoke so the kids wanted their own language too. Over the years I can now understand it but still find it hard to speak. It was super useful though to trick my little niece who kept quizzing me from a book while my aunt standing behind her gave me all the answers in P language. After a late night, Monday came around and I went out for some Bonda (tender coconut water) and copra (the soft coconut once the water is gone). I also had some fried Bajias with tea and got myself a Tinkle for old times sake. By the end of it we were so full that we stuck to fruit for dinner. My mom took me by my old school (St. Teresa's - I used to wear a blue version of the polka dotted uniforms in the picture below), my dad's school (Sacred Heart) and the train station near my Granny's house. [gallery ids="631,632,655" type="rectangular"][gallery ids="634,633,630" type="rectangular"]I have a lot of memories of this train station. One summer, when I was on vacation in India, I took some computer classes at a local institute called NIIT. Not being a Bombay pro, I got on a wrong bus and went too far. I remember how terrified I was being lost and how glad I was to spot this station (after help from some kind strangers) and know I was close to home. It was also here where my grandma would give me sugarcane juice after vegetable shopping and before pulling a lottery ticket. It's the little things that come back to you 😊. To top off my Monday, I had a moment of realization on how spoilt I am by convenience. I was trying to find a mini display port to HDMI cable/adaptor in a last ditch event to fix my parents macbook pro since their new surface laptop has a hardware defect and needs to be exchanged. I can't do the exchange of the Surface in India since the laptop isn't launched here and needs to be taken back to the US. As such I was hoping to recover their Macbook Pro so they had something to use for the next month. We went to 6 different stores before we managed to find an adaptor. Opened it at home and saw it was broken. On going back to the shop an hour later, we were told that there is no guarantee on physical damage. We obviously argued and got a swapped out low quality adaptor. I will never take my cables for granted again 😉. If you managed to get this far, congratulations and thanks for staying interested. I'm off to bed now with an early morning flight to catch to my North Indian adventure. We are heading to Uttarakhand - hill stations and national parks. I get to catch a glimpse of my in laws at the airport before a long drive which I am excited about. Until my next post from there, good night!!!