Kakuro

Click on the figure to see it properly...

My recent fixation is Kakuro. It is the second most popular newspaper game after Sudoku in Japan (I read it somewhere. Don’t quote me on it :) and is published in many newspapers and magazines around the globe. TOI also publishes it every day along with ‘Sudoku’ and ‘Loop the Loop’.

I chanced upon ‘Loop the loop’ while I was idling away my time at home. I found it interesting but unfortunately it is very easy to solve. Another interesting puzzle published alongside was Kakuro. I was bought.

I find it more interesting than Sudoku (not that I am good at sudoku).

As you can see, the numbers mentioned indicate the sum total of the numbers below (or to right/left) them. A number can’t be repeated for a particular sum. For ex, 16 can not be equal to 8+8. It should either be 9+7 or 7+9.

Yours truly at Besant Nagar beach

A short trip to Germany

Last month, i went to Germany on a short work assignment. I flew from Bangalore to Frankfurt and return journey from Frankfurt to Delhi. I stayed in Delhi for over a week to fly back to Bangalore.

While I was in Germany, it was snowing and raining making it too cold out there. Bus number 41 ceased to exist and so one morning I had to walk in snow to office. Thankfully, it was not snowing too much and so the walk from Guesthouse Scheurmann to office was all the more enjoyable.

In fact, number and timings of all the buses from Heidelberg to Walldorf have also changed. I had to take a train from Heidelberg Hauptbanhof (main railway station) to Wiesloch Walldorf. Incidentally, there was a bus service from Wiesloch Walldorf to Hauptstrasse (main street) even at night.

One night before I had to leave, four of us (myself, Sesh, Rampi and Suresh) enjoyed dinner and drinks in a Spanish restaurant named ‘La Tortuga’. We ordered Sekt (Sparkling wine) and Tequila. For food, we ordered something called Tapas. It was very delecious and it consisted of Garlic bread with a mixture of different kinds of dry vegetables and salad like olive, cheese etc.

When the plane landed in Delhi after midnight, it was around twenty seven degrees outside. That one week at home, as always, was relaxing and laid-back. I didn’t feel like coming to Bangalore…Work, though, brought me back here :)