An Unexpected Treat
When the day starts with some good news it surely does boost your mood for the rest of the day, helping you be more eager to tackle and to take on certain challenges. We need such moments, such days where we get a little recharge, mood lifters of some sorts, to get ourselves motivated and back on the grind.
A catchy little quote that I heard just recently went something like this...
"Inspiration perishes quick, and no one is built with an unlimited source of motivation, so even motivation and inspiration needs to be recharged." - Anonymous
And this day was just that an example of that little quote I'd say, a slight recharge, but not entirely for me; the man under the limelight was actually a dear friend, a brother, who has recently acquired a spot for an internship at the Renaissance Hotel, a brand of Marriott International, located at Gulshan, Dhaka.
This man has been waiting to seal a deal at one of the best hotels in the country for quite a while now, and he has finally managed to secure a spot for himself, all thanks to his owns efforts.
He has been bugging me to pull some strings from my side for quite a while now, and I have contacted a few friends and acquaintances who are currently working at some of the best hotels in the city, but non of it really worked out so far. Even though he still has Sheraton Dhaka at the top of his list and he always did, so we will still be working on that.
Yet, so far the man himself has done it all; somehow he secured an interview with the Renaissance Hotel's head chef, and then sealed the deal on his first little interview and test.
Then, on that very day he called me up in the afternoon and said that he was on his way towards my place, just after finishing the interview; saying that he has secured the position and was going take me and my wife out for lunch.
Now, even though this little "success story" doesn't have anything to do with me, I still am just as happy as he is, and proud too. I know this guy for close to a decade now, and no matter what he does he always has the drive, the appetitive, that is required to get things done. The love he has for the food and beverage production sector and hotel management sector just shows. You really have to love and respect a person who follows their passion and dreams, while also avidly working and investing towards it.
To succeed in this field in a country like ours, where we all are pressured and given the options to become a doctor or an engineer from the day we are born; a small list of fields and sectors gets handed to us, where if you don't succeed in passing, then you simply don't/won't matter to society.
In a country and society that holds such views, he put his hands over his ears, and maintained, stayed very true to his craft throughout.
Let's get started with our day, shall we?
It was the prettiest day I've seen and experienced so far in this year, no other day comes close in terms of beauty, in the middle of city at least. A lot of blue and green, and a fresh little breeze embracing you from every direction. What more could one ask for?
At first we had a little chat at home, deciding where to go for our little celebration, and as always, Tabaq was the first name that popped up haha. All three of us are Tabaq addicts, and we are not ashamed to say it, nor show it. Yet, I said it was getting a bit too repetitive with Tabaq, so we decided to go with Burger King instead, and since it was just a rickshaw ride away it was quite a convenient option actually.
We set out at around 3PM, which was close to our very "personal" lunch time, so we surely weren't in a hurry lol. After a short walk we reached a check point from where we took two rickshaws and were headed towards our destination.
This exact branch of Burger King surely is one of the "fanciest" in town, but in terms of service it was always quite "sloppy" and slow. The quality of food was also quite inconsistent, but I'm someone who barely complains; yet, this time the scenario was different, because I wasn't dining alone.
Since we had our very own and "personal" chef in the house, I just knew things were about to get serious. The man you see above is the man of the hour, with a fresh new buzz cut and fit, all ready for his new journey, and he sure as hell wasn't in the mood for some sub-par service and food.
Him and I ordered the same double patty beef burger combo with fries and coke, and an order of nuggets for my wife, since she wasn't that hungry.
The food did take quite a while to be prepared, it usually doesn't take this much time, and by the time the food reached our table it was way past our lunch time. So, we surely were expecting some hot and fresh top of the line food, but when our order ended up being quite a disappointing.
The burgers were somewhat "squished" and were missing the usual gherkin toppings, we even had to check if it had two patties or not haha. The fries were cold and mushy, so were the nuggets; yet, we didn't complain at first and tried the food instead. Soon enough my friend over here called the waiter and asked for a fresh and hot serving of fries, the rest we could deal with(we were too hungry at that point lol) since we were already halfway with the rest of our food.
While we munched on our burgers and nuggets, a fresh batch of fries were served, and this time they got it right, hot and crispy, just how we like it. So, after a process that took us an hour, from ordering to finishing our food, we were on our way out soon enough. Surprisingly, just when we were heading out, the manager came out and asked us how the food and whole experience was. And my friend over here surely didn't shy away from sharing his thoughts, he's quite used to it by now, quite blunt too.
After a little chat, the manager then and there offered us another one of the same exact order for free, but we declined, since we were full and would probably end up wasting the food. But the man wouldn't let us go empty handed, so he gave us an offer we couldn't refuse, which was a serving of ice-cream each, for us three, all on the house. We agreed, said thanks and were on our way downstairs.
I guess this is one of the benefits of eating at such big chain restaurants; you can rest assured that they will try their best to please their customers, which mostly results towards returning customers.
After we got downstairs we took our time with our ice-cream, I finished mine first and got a few nice pictures of our surroundings. A lot of blue and green, and not a lot of sound pollution either(sound pollution being something which is very common in this part of the city).
Then we headed towards the Unimart building for a little window shopping(unfortunately we did end up buying quite a lot of stuff haha).
When we reached the building we met this kind man with the flute, quite an experienced flautist who goes around playing in such areas, while also selling different kinds of flutes. I stood there and took a few pictures and a video too, we even had a little conversation about the different types of flutes he had in his inventory.
There's just something about the flute that I absolutely love, thanks to Eluveitie and their hardcore tunes; the same goes for the saxophones as well, both of them being instruments that are somewhat related and of the same category.
There's just something about both these instruments that I absolutely love, probably the flute more than the sax, because the flute and I go way back.
I've attached some links to some of my favorite flute covers and tunes, all of these being from the band Eluveitie. They're quite hardcore, not for the faint of heart, I must warn you haha. Yet, I'd say Isara by Eluveitie is just something else and almost anyone will fall in love with the tune; Inis Mona is quite hardcore though, it's still quite a popular song, especially in my country.
After I was done with my little chat about the flutes with the kind man, us three walked right in and noticed that there was a new Miniso branch right in front of us. Now, Miniso doesn't really have anything in store for me, never did, but my wife surely is a fan. So, you may have already guessed what happens next haha.
As she carried on with her little adventure and shopping spree at Miniso, me and my friend went downstairs to Unimart for a little grocery shopping, stacking up on the the usual stock of junk food you can say, that's something we both were more interested in.
Soon after we were done with our little junk food hunt, we joined my wife upstairs, and by then she still wasn't done with her little shopping session. So, to speed things up we decided to give her a hand, helping her browse and to make up her mind twice as fast, if not, then we'd probably be there for an hour more or so lol.
Well, that was probably the endnote for our beautiful little day. I just wish more days were like this, a bearer of good news and pretty as well.
I thank you all for sticking with me till the end and for the support, I really do appreciate it.
Cheers 🥃🍔
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