Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Wine? [Whine...]

Question:  is it easy to find decent bottles of red wine in Hyderabad for reasonable prices?

Um...quick answer, is no. and No.   Hypercity sells wine, beer and some alcohol.  Their wine selection has improved, but its not great.  The best Indian wine you can find is the Sula Brut sparkling wine.  It's not amazing, but it's the best available.

The best place to buy wine or alcohol:  Duty Free shops.  Dubai is especially good.  Unfortunately we don't have many other options.  :(

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Grumbles and Grudges: Hypercity is at it again!

Hypercity may find itself permanently in the Grumbles and Grudges place of dishonor.  Today while shopping there I had 3 yes 3 people approach me to ask if I had a Hypercity card.  Yes, I have that useless piece of plastic clogging up my wallet.  When I got to the checkouts (at 12:20pm on a Thursday), there were only 2 cash registers open and each had lines 6+ people deep.   I am strongly opposed to waiting in lines, so I left my cart and headed over to the Customer Service to demand ask that they open up more registers because this (wave of hand) "is unacceptable".  Their reply "5 minutes, Madame, we will find the manager."   Long story short...25 minutes later I was in my car.  They opened up one more register while I was nearly at the front of my line (watching in silent disbelief at the absurd purchase of 15+ bottles of Thums Up, 15+ bottles of Coke, and countless individual chocolate bars and candies, only then to watch the guy pay with food vouchers).

Dear Hypercity, too little too late.  You are back at the top of the Grumbles and Grudges list. 

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Escape Route

Sometimes I find myself in a shop with overly enthusiastic salespeople, who eagerly await my decision to spend money, when all I want to do is LEAVE.  How to make a speedy and graceful exit?  Easy!  I just have to use the magic words.   What could these magic words possibly be that will save face and be fully understood and accepted by all salespeople?  Brace yourselves.  The magic words are:  "I need to check with my husband."  Would Gloria Steinham scowl at those words?  Yup.  Do they always work?  Oh yeah!  :)

Monday, January 2, 2012

New Year, New Shop to try: Readers

A friend told me about a new stationery store in Gachibowli and I had to try it out.  It's called Readers, has a big red sign and is located on the left as you are approaching the ORR (Outer Ring Road) from Kondapur.  Wow.  A proper office supply store...HERE!  Amazing.  It was clean, with lots of stock:  Notebooks, pens, pencils, binders, dry erase boards, desk organizers, staplers, hole punches, clips, post-its, poster board, and more.  They also sell printer cartridges and do copy and printing services.  To top it off, they even have a website:  http://readers.in  It was like a Staples or an Office Depot here in Hyderabad.

Happy New Year indeed.

Readers Gachibowli Store:
Flat #202, Plot #59 & 60
Gachibowli 'X' Roads, Near ORR
Hyderabad, 500032
Tel: 040 2300 0450  or 98484 22282
Fax: 040-2755 6368