Downtown Skylines

Left : Cincinnati, Right : Chicago
Was quite impressed by the dazzling Trump Tower & Hotel in downtown Chicago ... downtown Cincinnati is staid in comparison ...

From Russia with Love

                  

Moscow is a surprisingly beautiful city ( even beyond the Red Square ) with a distinctive architecture ... specially the skyscrapers commissioned by Stalin ... you see them and you know you are in Moscow. 

Then there is the Moscow metro famous for its exquisite beauty ... apparently the communists created them as the underground "people's palaces" and did not spare any extravagance, quite in contrast with the spartan quarters they allocated to the people to live in.

Just returned from a business trip to Moscow ... managed to check out some of the major landmarks in the evenings ...

Cabbages & Condoms, Sukhumvit Soi12, Bangkok

Before your thoughts go astray ... Cabbages & Condoms is a restaurant ... and there is nothing sleazy about this place !!! 

For folks more trivia inclined ... the name was coined by owner Mechai Viravidya who envisioned condoms to become as ubiquitous as cabbages ( ! ) ... and they are, at least in this establishment. Apart from being on display all over ... you are also presented with free condoms along with your dinner bill instead of the usual mint :-)

 

 

 

The restaurant has a great ambience with both indoor and outdoor seating. The food is delectable and the calamari we ordered was not at all rubbery :-))

Dining here helps you contribute to a social cause ... all proceeds go to the Population and Community Development Association dedicated to AIDS prevention, promotion of safe-sex and family planning in Thailand. 

Directions : If you are taking the Sky Train get down at Asok and walk to Soi 12, Sukhumvit. The restaurant is about 500m into the lane to your right.

Would a concept like this work in India ( that is if our myriad fundamentalist groups allowed the restaurant to survive in the first place ) ??? What do you think ???

Mumbai international airport transformed !!!

 

 

Last time I was at the international airport it was a mess ... However all indications were that things would finally change for the better.

It has happened ... The interior décor, ambience, duty-free shopping, dining options et al are all world class !!! 

Though the economy has lost some of its sheen our airport is definitely shining !!!

Slugfest @ Indian domestic airlines : Kingfisher, Jet and Indigo fight it out

 

Soft drink brands are infamous for advertisements which focus on spoofing the rival brand's copy ( think Pepsi vs Coke, Mirinda vs Fanta, 7Up vs Sprite ) ... hence the term "Cola Wars". Understandably, with sugared water its difficult to create meaningful new USPs ... so this is probably the easiest way to ensure sustained recall and interest  in the target consumer's mind.

With increasing competition in the Indian domestic airline sector here are a couple of intersting "Cola War" type of ads I've noticed recently :

1) Kingfisher takes on Jet ( before they decided to work together for synergy savings earlier this month ) : Jet put up the first hoardings announcing changes in their branding graphics, crew uniforms, in flight entertainment etc. Within a few days Kingfisher had hoardings erected right above the Jet hoardings claiming that Jet's change was actually forced by Kingfisher's superior services.

2) Indigo takes on Kingfisher :  Kingfisher's brand tagline is "Fly the good times". Of course with the economy in doldrums, rising oil prices, high operating costs the times are not really good. Jet and Kingfisher decided to put their rivalry on the backburner and save some money by synergizing operating costs, laying off personnel,  rationalizing the routes / # of flights between city-pairs and jacking up airfares. 

Indigo one of the leading "low cost" domestic carriers, capitalizing on the situation announced that they continued to exceed consumer expectations in terms of service quality and pricing both in "good times and bad". Just to really rub it in they captioned the ad "Let the bad times roll" !!! 

Both these counter-ads, though confrontational are factually correct. Jet was forced to transform a number of their services in order to stay competitive post the launch of Kingfisher. Also with the price hikes across the domestic airlines Indigo continues to offer the best deals ... at least in the Mumbai-Kolkata sector ... I speak from personal experience coz I just bought Indigo tickets for our mini-vacation in Kolkata this November :-)

Bombay to Goa !!!

Spent 3 days in Goa last week ... a welcome and refreshing break from the routine of Mumbai life !!!




Taj Exotica is a fabulous resort ... the views are breathtaking !!! Here are some snaps I clicked all within the resort.

Bangalore store visit

Was in Bangalore oops ... Bengaluru ( when will the new moniker catch on ??? ). Logistically a very painful trip ... The new airport is in the middle of nowhere ... 2hrs drive from to/from the city ... Same time as the mumbai-bangalore flight !!!

The choice of location was clearly driven by greedy politicians who have conveniently grabbed acres of adjoining land for peanuts. The airport is surprisingly small - was expecting it to be significantly bigger than the existing one.

One of the agenda items in Bangalore was to check out some traditional retail grocer / chemist outlets.

There was this store where the owner was nowhere to be seen ... looked like he'd entrusted his business to a cat which was cheerfully perched on the weighing machine grooming itself.

Singapore Changi Airport

The Singapore Changi would be a good benchmark for the Mumbai International airport in its end-state !!!

Mumbai International Airport Revamp

Mumbai int airport used to be a godforesaken, paint-peeled, brick-exposed, badly-lit, almost un-airconditioned semicircular two-storied building [ departure on the top / arrivals below ] ... Unless you were travelling biz class and got access to the lounges it was difficult to even buy a sandwich or a coke while waiting for your flight. If your flight arrived late you could be thankful if you got a cab to the city and then if the cabbie did not fleece you or worse.

The aerobridges worked once in a while and you got your luggage back after a flight if you were lucky or Amitabh Bachchan [ though he just got the bags minus the designer stuff inside ] - do read the big man's blog on bigadda.

Well guess what - times they're a changing ... Today morning I got a glimpse of the facelift @ mumbai airport. Swanky snack joints, coffee shops, hey even a bar. The aircon worked, the loos were clean - with functional flushing and glitzy duty-free shops.

The airport is the FMOT [ first moment of truth for the uninitiated ] for any foreign traveller so we owe it to ourselves to give them a soft landing (pun not intended). What the govt airport agency couldn't do in decades is being accomplished in a few months. GVK is doing a super job though there is some way yet to go - but I liked the sneak preview so check out the pictures attached below :