Hey all,
Right now I'm sitting in the Portland airport, playing around on their wireless because my flight isn't leaving until 3.5 hours later than I wanted :-P. This is going to be my last post, now that I'm back in the US.
So, what has been happening the last few days? I left off late Wednesday evening. There isn't too much to say about Thursday. I got to work fairly early in the morning and after spending a last little bit of time doing creative work, I started collating and summarizing everything that I've done this summer. Silly me, I didn't really do this *at all* as I went along, so it was quite a chore. I also played a whole bunch of ping pong with Rob (I'm getting pretty good ^_^. I hope to keep up playing some with the table in the LAC at Mudd), and Tracy and I took a trip to the UPS store to ship books. It turns out that this was a really good idea, because I had 16 kilos worth of books to ship back (OK, so I went a little nuts at the cheap bookstores....) and my luggage is packed pretty tight as is. The people at the UPS store were *really* nice, and did basically everything for us. All we had to do was sit around and chat, which was really really nice ^_^.
Thursday night I went to my last dinner at New Shanti Sagar with Rob and Tracy, which was a really nice last dinner to have with my friends (Friday night was a dinner with just the Crypto group). After dinner I ended up staying up till about 3:30AM working on finishing up documenting some parts of what I did.
Despite staying up late on Thursday night, I woke up early enough on Friday morning (last day of work!) to make it in by 9AM, when I was supposed to meet with Satya. This meeting, as usual, got pushed back a bit, but I had a good meeting with him and put together some final (or at least summarizing/progress report ) thoughts on my work. The afternoon was spent in a 5 hour marathon LaTeXing session (interrupted by only 1 ping-pong game), writing up the theoretical work that I had done this summer. This ended up being a 13 page long document, which made me feel a little better about the amount of work I had done. I finished this up just in time to say goodbye to all of my friends at work who weren't in my group, and head out to dinner at "Tai Tai" (a Thai place) with the crypto group.
It took us about 45 minutes to reach Tai Tai (partially because of a long delay caused by Abishek... ^_^). The starters were delicious (and I reminded myself that margaritas are *wonderful*!), but the meal was a little bit of a disappointment. The really fun part was when Vijay asked me what I had ordered and I (like always) couldn't remember. He noticed my (empty) margarita and started making fun of me, and asking for drunk stories from college ^_^. I didn't give him any drunk stories, but I did tell the "Doom" story, which is the source of the "Evil Jason" nickname freshman year :-) (something I have to tell in person. Certainly not something I would commit to text and be able to do justice to). I also told the story of me getting assaulted on the street by the random dude that wanted to know "Country!".
After dinner I said goodbye to the crypto group and headed back home to make sure, one last time, that I had everything packed. I spent my last few hours in India just hanging out at Tejus Nest with Tracy, chatting. An excellent way to end the trip ^_^. The cab showed up at 10:20PM, and I headed for the airport! There were basically *no* lines for the baggage check, which was weird (and two guys tried to pay them like 100Rs. each for helping me with my bags. I gave them 10, told them I'd been around for a while and that they should go away. Definitely a difference from my first experience at the airport). I got through security and passport control fine, then spent a while making international calls to wipe out the last of my Hutch cell phone minutes.
Not too much else to report about the flights. I spent basically all of my time in Frankfurt in lines and almost immediately got on the plane (20 hours of nearly unbroken time on planes gets a little bit old...). I sat next to a really nice interesting lady from Oakland, CA on the Frankfurt -> Portland flight. Apparently she had been doing traditional Greek dance classes and northern Greece for the past two weeks!
I've fed myself with a turkey sandwich and fries (first American meal in 3 months!) here in Portland, and am just waiting for my flight. I think that really is all folks! Thanks for reading my blog and I hope that you've enjoyed it! I know that I've enjoyed my experiences in India, and have been glad to share them!
Cheers,
Jason
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Not working as hard as I should...
Hey all,
Today is Indian Independence Day! This day marks the 60th anniversary of India's independence from England, but it also marks the beginning of the Partition (which was the separation of India and Pakistan into separate countries, was very violent, and is a large part of the reason that India and Pakistan don't get along so well today). This combination of things means that today is a fairly quiet day. It is mostly a day of quiet and contemplation, though there are some parades and celebrations, and *lots* of people have Indian flags out!
Anyway, we were told to take the day off of work because it is Independence Day, but I had enough to do that I came in anyway. I didn't get much work done though. Christian came into the office just a little bit after me (wearning an I <3 India t-shirt and brandishing an Indian flag. I told him he looked like an American...). Soon after he arrived, he received a call from Prasad, about a mandala (the things I've taken pictures of that are in front of most houses) competition in Cubbon Park. Christian and I caught a rickshaw down to check it out, and *boy* am I glad we did! The mandala were *spectacular* and there were *thousands* of them! Basically all of the roads in Cubbon park (which is a fairly large amount of road) had been blocked off, and both sides of the road were divided into a bunch of square meter squares, which is was the space each person had to draw their mandala in (these are created out of chalk dust and colored chalk, by the way, and *incredibly* ornate). I took about 150 pictures before I even knew it! I'll try to post them soon.
After admiring the mandalas we caught a rickshaw over to the Bull Temple to meed Prasad, Rob, and Apu (who is a temporary researcher who just started last week). The auto driver seemed rather lost on the way, and we drove through a concert! Literally! There was a stage with musicians on the right, there were people in seats on the left, and we just drove through the space in between them! I don't think they were to happy with us...
We eventually arrived at the Bull Temple, which is basically a small temple with a large stone bull (supposedly a wild bull that terrified villagers in the 8th century, then was subdued sort of and turned to stone, but kept growing until somebody hit it in the head with a trident, which stopped again... so yeah). I was not really impressed with temple, or the people there who were trying to pump money out of me and Christian :-P. And this is one of Bangalore's major tourist attractions...
After the Bull Temple the 5 of us walked to a restaurant that Prasad knew about, and had lunch on the top floor. The draw of this resturant is that the top floor serves authentic Northern Karnataka food (eaten on a banana leaf with only your hands ^_^). We had to wait like 45 minutes to get seated (during which I was *really* grouchy and ready to come home), but it wasn't too bad because they had live music from an Indian band (which I got some video of!), playing traditional instruments. Once we got the food I was much happier because it was delicious and all-you-can-eat (for only 100Rs.!).
Christian and I parted ways with the others after lunch and headed over to MG road to do some shopping. I made my final shopping trip and finally have the last of the souvenirs that I want (including a model auto-rickshaw and a carpet! ^_^). We came back to the office after that, and then I came home because I couldn't concentrate. Since then I've just been hanging out here and trying to pack (I *might* be able to fit everything without shipping stuff, but it will be tight...).
Thats all for now! Only two days here left! I am getting *really* excited to be back home. All the little annoyances here are so much harder to bear when I know that I only have to deal with them for a couple more days. See you all soon!
Cheers,
Jason
Today is Indian Independence Day! This day marks the 60th anniversary of India's independence from England, but it also marks the beginning of the Partition (which was the separation of India and Pakistan into separate countries, was very violent, and is a large part of the reason that India and Pakistan don't get along so well today). This combination of things means that today is a fairly quiet day. It is mostly a day of quiet and contemplation, though there are some parades and celebrations, and *lots* of people have Indian flags out!
Anyway, we were told to take the day off of work because it is Independence Day, but I had enough to do that I came in anyway. I didn't get much work done though. Christian came into the office just a little bit after me (wearning an I <3 India t-shirt and brandishing an Indian flag. I told him he looked like an American...). Soon after he arrived, he received a call from Prasad, about a mandala (the things I've taken pictures of that are in front of most houses) competition in Cubbon Park. Christian and I caught a rickshaw down to check it out, and *boy* am I glad we did! The mandala were *spectacular* and there were *thousands* of them! Basically all of the roads in Cubbon park (which is a fairly large amount of road) had been blocked off, and both sides of the road were divided into a bunch of square meter squares, which is was the space each person had to draw their mandala in (these are created out of chalk dust and colored chalk, by the way, and *incredibly* ornate). I took about 150 pictures before I even knew it! I'll try to post them soon.
After admiring the mandalas we caught a rickshaw over to the Bull Temple to meed Prasad, Rob, and Apu (who is a temporary researcher who just started last week). The auto driver seemed rather lost on the way, and we drove through a concert! Literally! There was a stage with musicians on the right, there were people in seats on the left, and we just drove through the space in between them! I don't think they were to happy with us...
We eventually arrived at the Bull Temple, which is basically a small temple with a large stone bull (supposedly a wild bull that terrified villagers in the 8th century, then was subdued sort of and turned to stone, but kept growing until somebody hit it in the head with a trident, which stopped again... so yeah). I was not really impressed with temple, or the people there who were trying to pump money out of me and Christian :-P. And this is one of Bangalore's major tourist attractions...
After the Bull Temple the 5 of us walked to a restaurant that Prasad knew about, and had lunch on the top floor. The draw of this resturant is that the top floor serves authentic Northern Karnataka food (eaten on a banana leaf with only your hands ^_^). We had to wait like 45 minutes to get seated (during which I was *really* grouchy and ready to come home), but it wasn't too bad because they had live music from an Indian band (which I got some video of!), playing traditional instruments. Once we got the food I was much happier because it was delicious and all-you-can-eat (for only 100Rs.!).
Christian and I parted ways with the others after lunch and headed over to MG road to do some shopping. I made my final shopping trip and finally have the last of the souvenirs that I want (including a model auto-rickshaw and a carpet! ^_^). We came back to the office after that, and then I came home because I couldn't concentrate. Since then I've just been hanging out here and trying to pack (I *might* be able to fit everything without shipping stuff, but it will be tight...).
Thats all for now! Only two days here left! I am getting *really* excited to be back home. All the little annoyances here are so much harder to bear when I know that I only have to deal with them for a couple more days. See you all soon!
Cheers,
Jason
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Fewer and fewer days left...
Hey all,
I only have three days left in Bangalore! Can you believe it? I certainly can't... I have *far* to many things left to do before Friday ends to really believe it.
So, what have I been up to since the last post? I believe the last post was between 2 and 3AM Sunday morning, in the midst of a Harry Potter book (possibly right after or right before a several hour power outage!). Well, I finished Harry Potter at about 7:15AM, not having slept in the meantime (oops... I barely slept at all this week!). After playing on the computer a bit I got about 5 hours of sleep and woke up around noon. I don't really remember what I else I did on Sunday. I know that I went in to work for a little while, and other than that I remember next to nothing! Maybe Rob or someone has some idea... I guess sleep deprivation really does effect your memory. On the plus side, though, I did get sleep Sunday night!
Monday was actually, finally, a good day at work. I spent basically the entire morning speaking to Satya about the pseudorandom number generator (we even forgot about the Lab Sabha and just made it down in time to have the cake [for celebrating August birthdays]). The afternoon was spent in fruitful pursuit of the things we had spoken of in the morning, and then at about 7:15PM Rob, Revi, Udai, and I went with another Microsoft employee named Mike (Redmond based, but visits India a lot and knows Revi) to the paratha place. The parathas were delicious, and we got to listen to Mike and Revi talk about what it was like to work for the actual Microsoft in Redmond through the 90's and early 2000's. It sounded like a completely different place from Microsoft Research in present day. I do a fairly good job of maintaining work/life balance at MSRI, whereas it didn't even sound like that was possible at Microsoft. There were all sort of other, slightly horrifying, stories they had that I don't think I will share here. Despite the stories probably being very biased toward horrifying, it really made me feel like I wouldn't have wanted to work there at all.
After parathas I made a quick (and maybe final!) trip into commercial street to pick up a small gift, then headed home (and again got a decent amount of sleep).
Today has pretty much been all work. I spent from 8:30AM to 10:00PM in the office, but I feel like I got a lot of stuff done and my PRNG implementation is in fairly good shape (and even has an interface now!), and I got to talk to Deba about Imagliazzo and Naor (they have a rather *cool* paper). There were some breaks from work. I played a whole bunch of games of ping-pong today, mostly with Rob, but some with Christian and Ranjita. I'm definitely getting better, and the game is oodles of fun ^_^. A bunch of people also went to New Shanti Sagar for a late lunch / goodbye lunch for interns in the Emerging Markets group (even though some, like Revi, aren't leaving till next week).
I guess thats all for now. Sorry that this has been a somewhat boring blog post, but I'm buckling down and just trying to get work done before my internship is over. Tomorrow is the day of Indian independence from the UK, which is apparently a fairly quiet day of contemplation (it also marks the anniversary of the very bloody and violent partition between India and Pakistan). We aren't supposed to go into work, but I'm going to have to in order to get things done.
Cheers,
Jason
I only have three days left in Bangalore! Can you believe it? I certainly can't... I have *far* to many things left to do before Friday ends to really believe it.
So, what have I been up to since the last post? I believe the last post was between 2 and 3AM Sunday morning, in the midst of a Harry Potter book (possibly right after or right before a several hour power outage!). Well, I finished Harry Potter at about 7:15AM, not having slept in the meantime (oops... I barely slept at all this week!). After playing on the computer a bit I got about 5 hours of sleep and woke up around noon. I don't really remember what I else I did on Sunday. I know that I went in to work for a little while, and other than that I remember next to nothing! Maybe Rob or someone has some idea... I guess sleep deprivation really does effect your memory. On the plus side, though, I did get sleep Sunday night!
Monday was actually, finally, a good day at work. I spent basically the entire morning speaking to Satya about the pseudorandom number generator (we even forgot about the Lab Sabha and just made it down in time to have the cake [for celebrating August birthdays]). The afternoon was spent in fruitful pursuit of the things we had spoken of in the morning, and then at about 7:15PM Rob, Revi, Udai, and I went with another Microsoft employee named Mike (Redmond based, but visits India a lot and knows Revi) to the paratha place. The parathas were delicious, and we got to listen to Mike and Revi talk about what it was like to work for the actual Microsoft in Redmond through the 90's and early 2000's. It sounded like a completely different place from Microsoft Research in present day. I do a fairly good job of maintaining work/life balance at MSRI, whereas it didn't even sound like that was possible at Microsoft. There were all sort of other, slightly horrifying, stories they had that I don't think I will share here. Despite the stories probably being very biased toward horrifying, it really made me feel like I wouldn't have wanted to work there at all.
After parathas I made a quick (and maybe final!) trip into commercial street to pick up a small gift, then headed home (and again got a decent amount of sleep).
Today has pretty much been all work. I spent from 8:30AM to 10:00PM in the office, but I feel like I got a lot of stuff done and my PRNG implementation is in fairly good shape (and even has an interface now!), and I got to talk to Deba about Imagliazzo and Naor (they have a rather *cool* paper). There were some breaks from work. I played a whole bunch of games of ping-pong today, mostly with Rob, but some with Christian and Ranjita. I'm definitely getting better, and the game is oodles of fun ^_^. A bunch of people also went to New Shanti Sagar for a late lunch / goodbye lunch for interns in the Emerging Markets group (even though some, like Revi, aren't leaving till next week).
I guess thats all for now. Sorry that this has been a somewhat boring blog post, but I'm buckling down and just trying to get work done before my internship is over. Tomorrow is the day of Indian independence from the UK, which is apparently a fairly quiet day of contemplation (it also marks the anniversary of the very bloody and violent partition between India and Pakistan). We aren't supposed to go into work, but I'm going to have to in order to get things done.
Cheers,
Jason
Saturday, August 11, 2007
My last Saturday
Hey all,
Its hard to believe, but I only have a week left in Bangalore! My flight leaves at 2AM next Saturday, so this was my last one! It wasn't terribly eventful, but it was fun. I woke up at about 10AM, after staying up till 5AM (Nels, Rob, and I played ping-pong from 11:30PM to 2:00AM, then Nels and I hung out in the suite till he left [:-(], and then I stayed up futzing a bit).
I went into work soon after waking up, but didn't stay for very long as Satya wasn't there and I really need to meet with him. I came back home and read "Song of Solomon" for a few hours and finished it (a *very* good book ^_^), had some lunch, then tromped down to the IISc bookstore and bought some of the books on the (very long) list that Vijay had given me of good textbooks to have. I bought about 10 different texts, for a total cost of $100, including all three of Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" books (they were less than $30 ^_^). I walked both to and from the IISc, which is a few kilometers away, and on the way back I *finally* tried a savory coconut for the first time. There are guys all over that sell these large green coconuts. When you buy one they chop off the top with a machete type thing and you can use a straw to drink the coconut milk out. Its a very refreshing drink, even if I'm not the biggest fan of coconut milk. This whole thing is 12Rs (about a quarter), and sometimes (I didn't do this) you can have the guy chop up the coconut more after you are done with the milk, so you can eat the inside, which can be really yummy!
After I got back home I went into work again to check for Satya, planned a trip to commercial street with Rob, then finally got a haircut! It turns out that there is a haircut place only a block away from my apartment, which is very nicely convenient ^_^. I brought them some photos and I think they did a decent, if not superb, job of the haircut. I may even post pictures before I get back. We shall see :-).
It rained hard off and on through the afternoon, delaying our trip to commercial street (Rob was walking, and I was going to meet him there), and giving me time to start on Harry Potter 7! (part of the reason I'm still conscious at this hour). The trip to commercial street was fun and very succesful. I found a present for Brandon, and I also bought myself some lychee honey! (sounds intriguing). We also visited a shop where I had been last week with Elaine to buy some souvenirs, and I bought a whole bunch of things there as gifts for the South freshman and some others. The really cool part about this shop is that they guy there recognized me from when I came in with Elaine. He was really excited to see me, shook my hand when I came in, and ran out to buy Rob and I coffee while we were looking! It was pretty cool chatting with him and the other guys in the shop and feeling like I could actually be open and friendly (oh, and he gave us discounts with out me asking because "You're my friend" ^_^). I got a chance to ask about a few traditional pieces of Indian artwork that I've been wondering about. There is a very distinctive style of carving animals that are mostly hollow with lots of stylized holes on the outside (it looks *far* prettier than my description) which I learned is from northern India (particularly Kashmir, as that is where this store gets its goods). Also, I have frequently seen a carving/statue of 4 lions back-to-back in a circle facing outwards (this is a symbol that is on government buildings, and is also on every form of Indian currency!). It is a called "Ashoka" or a "Column of Ashoka", and is named for a great Indian emperor/king named Ashoka who lived a few centuries back and was very fond of lions. I also learned that a certain flower-like pattern I've seen before is a "chakra", and that the flowers I've been seeing on Ganesh statues and statues of other gods are "typical[traditional maybe?] Indian flowers" and not lotuses as I have been assuming (apparently lotuses have only 7 petals and are more stylized).
As you can tell, we had a good time at the shop (Rob also got some ortaments, and there ere some small wall hanging/pocket things that we both purchased), and afterwards we walked to the paratha place that Revi exclaims over so much and I've been trying to get to all summer. The parathas were not as spectacular as I was hoping, but they were solidly "good".
After the parathas we caught a rickshaw back home, who got lost on the way and caused the drive to be rather more expensive than it should have been :-P. I've basically just been reading Harry Potter since I got home, though I took a break for a while when Elaine called (yay!) to chat with her and her father for a while, both of whom seem to be doing quite well.
Thats all for now folks. I'm planning a pretty boring Sunday tomorrow, after having spent so much money on gifts and books today. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get back to Harry Potter ^_^.
Cheers,
Jason
Its hard to believe, but I only have a week left in Bangalore! My flight leaves at 2AM next Saturday, so this was my last one! It wasn't terribly eventful, but it was fun. I woke up at about 10AM, after staying up till 5AM (Nels, Rob, and I played ping-pong from 11:30PM to 2:00AM, then Nels and I hung out in the suite till he left [:-(], and then I stayed up futzing a bit).
I went into work soon after waking up, but didn't stay for very long as Satya wasn't there and I really need to meet with him. I came back home and read "Song of Solomon" for a few hours and finished it (a *very* good book ^_^), had some lunch, then tromped down to the IISc bookstore and bought some of the books on the (very long) list that Vijay had given me of good textbooks to have. I bought about 10 different texts, for a total cost of $100, including all three of Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" books (they were less than $30 ^_^). I walked both to and from the IISc, which is a few kilometers away, and on the way back I *finally* tried a savory coconut for the first time. There are guys all over that sell these large green coconuts. When you buy one they chop off the top with a machete type thing and you can use a straw to drink the coconut milk out. Its a very refreshing drink, even if I'm not the biggest fan of coconut milk. This whole thing is 12Rs (about a quarter), and sometimes (I didn't do this) you can have the guy chop up the coconut more after you are done with the milk, so you can eat the inside, which can be really yummy!
After I got back home I went into work again to check for Satya, planned a trip to commercial street with Rob, then finally got a haircut! It turns out that there is a haircut place only a block away from my apartment, which is very nicely convenient ^_^. I brought them some photos and I think they did a decent, if not superb, job of the haircut. I may even post pictures before I get back. We shall see :-).
It rained hard off and on through the afternoon, delaying our trip to commercial street (Rob was walking, and I was going to meet him there), and giving me time to start on Harry Potter 7! (part of the reason I'm still conscious at this hour). The trip to commercial street was fun and very succesful. I found a present for Brandon, and I also bought myself some lychee honey! (sounds intriguing). We also visited a shop where I had been last week with Elaine to buy some souvenirs, and I bought a whole bunch of things there as gifts for the South freshman and some others. The really cool part about this shop is that they guy there recognized me from when I came in with Elaine. He was really excited to see me, shook my hand when I came in, and ran out to buy Rob and I coffee while we were looking! It was pretty cool chatting with him and the other guys in the shop and feeling like I could actually be open and friendly (oh, and he gave us discounts with out me asking because "You're my friend" ^_^). I got a chance to ask about a few traditional pieces of Indian artwork that I've been wondering about. There is a very distinctive style of carving animals that are mostly hollow with lots of stylized holes on the outside (it looks *far* prettier than my description) which I learned is from northern India (particularly Kashmir, as that is where this store gets its goods). Also, I have frequently seen a carving/statue of 4 lions back-to-back in a circle facing outwards (this is a symbol that is on government buildings, and is also on every form of Indian currency!). It is a called "Ashoka" or a "Column of Ashoka", and is named for a great Indian emperor/king named Ashoka who lived a few centuries back and was very fond of lions. I also learned that a certain flower-like pattern I've seen before is a "chakra", and that the flowers I've been seeing on Ganesh statues and statues of other gods are "typical[traditional maybe?] Indian flowers" and not lotuses as I have been assuming (apparently lotuses have only 7 petals and are more stylized).
As you can tell, we had a good time at the shop (Rob also got some ortaments, and there ere some small wall hanging/pocket things that we both purchased), and afterwards we walked to the paratha place that Revi exclaims over so much and I've been trying to get to all summer. The parathas were not as spectacular as I was hoping, but they were solidly "good".
After the parathas we caught a rickshaw back home, who got lost on the way and caused the drive to be rather more expensive than it should have been :-P. I've basically just been reading Harry Potter since I got home, though I took a break for a while when Elaine called (yay!) to chat with her and her father for a while, both of whom seem to be doing quite well.
Thats all for now folks. I'm planning a pretty boring Sunday tomorrow, after having spent so much money on gifts and books today. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get back to Harry Potter ^_^.
Cheers,
Jason
Friday, August 10, 2007
Farewell party at Amoeba
Hey all,
I left off on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, staying up late after Elaine left. I got to work at 9AM on Wednesday after about 5 hours of sleep and got cracking trying to catch up on all the stuff I've put off because Elaine was here. A basic summary of my projects from the last few days is that they just aren't going anywhere, and I'm really quite frustrated with them, and I'm not going to say any more on that. I was completely zapped by 6PM, so I came home from work and basically spent 5 or 6 hours uploading pictures, emailing people, and blogging (all catch-up). I skipped out of a dinner at a place called "Grasshopper" that most of my friends went to that sounded pretty cool, but I was really glad to get all of that stuff done!
Thursday was another frustrating day at work, but at 7PM a whole bunch of people from the office went downtown to say farewell to all of the interns leaving this week (one of whom is my apartment-mate Nels :-( ). We went to "Amoeba", which is a bowling alley/video game arcade. I didn't bowl at all, but a few of us went into the arcade and played dance dance revolution, which I ended up doing really well at (I'm still not sure if I'm proud or ashamed of that ^_^). After that we just chilled, chatted, and watched bowling (incidentally, this is the only bowling alley in Bangalore, and probably anywhere near here), and in general had fun. After bowling we went to dinner (with ~40 people total!) at the nearby "Mainland China" and had immense quantities of fairly good "Chinese" (Indian take on Chinese) food and again chatted. All in all a good time, and a nice way to hang out with lots of friends that I have no idea when I will ever get a chance to see again :-).
Work today was again fairly frustrating, but at 6PM Nels, Tracy, Rob, and I headed down to Commercial street (I had to pick up sari blouses for Elaine, and Tracy had one as well), then we walked over to MG road and had dinner at Emgees, a nice place that I had lunch at while Dad was here (and this was Nels last meal for this India trip! His flight is leaving at 6AM tomorrow morning and he is packing as I type!). Tracy left us after dinner to take a rickshaw to the train station. She is going to be in Maduri visiting her host family this weekend, so the apartment is going to be really really empty (going from 3 residents and a visitor for the last few weeks to just me :'-( ). Nels, Rob, and I really really had to fight to get a rickshaw back home, and even after agreeing to 100Rs. for the fee (which is still a ripoff, but about the best you can get from MG road at night) the guy tried to charge us 100Rs. *per person*, which *really* pissed off Rob :-(.
That is about all for now. I have *finally* caught up to present time with the blog, and will try not to let it get into such bad shape again in the remaining week I have here (SO LITTLE TIME!!). I may stay up fairly late tonight with Nels, who is going to try to stay up until his flight leaves (possibly a marathon ping pong session at work). We shall see!
Cheers,
Jason
I left off on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, staying up late after Elaine left. I got to work at 9AM on Wednesday after about 5 hours of sleep and got cracking trying to catch up on all the stuff I've put off because Elaine was here. A basic summary of my projects from the last few days is that they just aren't going anywhere, and I'm really quite frustrated with them, and I'm not going to say any more on that. I was completely zapped by 6PM, so I came home from work and basically spent 5 or 6 hours uploading pictures, emailing people, and blogging (all catch-up). I skipped out of a dinner at a place called "Grasshopper" that most of my friends went to that sounded pretty cool, but I was really glad to get all of that stuff done!
Thursday was another frustrating day at work, but at 7PM a whole bunch of people from the office went downtown to say farewell to all of the interns leaving this week (one of whom is my apartment-mate Nels :-( ). We went to "Amoeba", which is a bowling alley/video game arcade. I didn't bowl at all, but a few of us went into the arcade and played dance dance revolution, which I ended up doing really well at (I'm still not sure if I'm proud or ashamed of that ^_^). After that we just chilled, chatted, and watched bowling (incidentally, this is the only bowling alley in Bangalore, and probably anywhere near here), and in general had fun. After bowling we went to dinner (with ~40 people total!) at the nearby "Mainland China" and had immense quantities of fairly good "Chinese" (Indian take on Chinese) food and again chatted. All in all a good time, and a nice way to hang out with lots of friends that I have no idea when I will ever get a chance to see again :-).
Work today was again fairly frustrating, but at 6PM Nels, Tracy, Rob, and I headed down to Commercial street (I had to pick up sari blouses for Elaine, and Tracy had one as well), then we walked over to MG road and had dinner at Emgees, a nice place that I had lunch at while Dad was here (and this was Nels last meal for this India trip! His flight is leaving at 6AM tomorrow morning and he is packing as I type!). Tracy left us after dinner to take a rickshaw to the train station. She is going to be in Maduri visiting her host family this weekend, so the apartment is going to be really really empty (going from 3 residents and a visitor for the last few weeks to just me :'-( ). Nels, Rob, and I really really had to fight to get a rickshaw back home, and even after agreeing to 100Rs. for the fee (which is still a ripoff, but about the best you can get from MG road at night) the guy tried to charge us 100Rs. *per person*, which *really* pissed off Rob :-(.
That is about all for now. I have *finally* caught up to present time with the blog, and will try not to let it get into such bad shape again in the remaining week I have here (SO LITTLE TIME!!). I may stay up fairly late tonight with Nels, who is going to try to stay up until his flight leaves (possibly a marathon ping pong session at work). We shall see!
Cheers,
Jason
Pictures update
This is just a quick post to give you all the links to pictures that I've taken recently and forgot to put the links to in the right posts (there may be some links here that I've already posted):
Elaine's last day and random pictures
Delhi and the TAJ!!!
A week in Bangalore and Pondicherry with Elaine
Random weekend pictures
Nels Birthday and Karaoke
A week with Dad
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Jason
Elaine's last day and random pictures
Delhi and the TAJ!!!
A week in Bangalore and Pondicherry with Elaine
Random weekend pictures
Nels Birthday and Karaoke
A week with Dad
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Jason
Elaine's last day in India
Hey all,
This Tuesday was the the last day Elaine had in India. Since I had been gone for a 4 day weekend I worked for a few hours in the morning, then Elaine, Tracy, and I all tromped down to commercial street with two objectives: Get Elaine a nose piercing (!!!) and get Elaine a sari. We succeeded in both fronts. The really nice jewelry store where we initially wasn't available for appointments, but after wandering about for a bit (and me buying myself a small emerald earring that looks pretty cool ^_^) we found a street full of jewelers, one of whom pierced Elaine's nose. It was a rather *brutal* process to watch, and I'm glad Elaine couldn't see it or she probably would have freaked out (they had to push some widening stuff through the hole after it was made by the gun) and *both* of us were lightheaded afterwards. She and Tracy also bought several really cool nose piercings.
After the piercing we went shopping for sarees at the Mysore silk emporium, and Elaine and Tracy both found some *beautiful* sarees. Definitely check out the pictures (from this whole day) here. Tracy headed back to the office to get some work done while Elaine and I had her last meal here at The Paradise Club on MG road (Palak Paneer ^_^), then met up with Nels and went to the same shop that I had gone to previously with Dad. I'm getting the guy there a *ton* of business, and he gave me some really large (like 30%) discounts without me even asking ^_^.
We all went back to my apartment at this point, finished packing up and everything, then Elaine and I watched "Muriels Wedding" and finished just before the cab came to take us to the airport. It was a zoo at the airport, but I have learned to deal with lines in India (shove your way in wherever you can, keep doing that, and feel no guilt) and we got through the line pretty quickly. I went around to the visitors area, and saw her off nicely. I was *really* sad to see her go, but her visit has been a lot of fun ^_^.
I took a prepaid rickshaw back to the apartment, and then stayed up till 3AM doing random futzing on the computer and finally went to sleep.
Thats all for now. I'm getting closer to actually being caught up on this blog!
Cheers,
Jason
This Tuesday was the the last day Elaine had in India. Since I had been gone for a 4 day weekend I worked for a few hours in the morning, then Elaine, Tracy, and I all tromped down to commercial street with two objectives: Get Elaine a nose piercing (!!!) and get Elaine a sari. We succeeded in both fronts. The really nice jewelry store where we initially wasn't available for appointments, but after wandering about for a bit (and me buying myself a small emerald earring that looks pretty cool ^_^) we found a street full of jewelers, one of whom pierced Elaine's nose. It was a rather *brutal* process to watch, and I'm glad Elaine couldn't see it or she probably would have freaked out (they had to push some widening stuff through the hole after it was made by the gun) and *both* of us were lightheaded afterwards. She and Tracy also bought several really cool nose piercings.
After the piercing we went shopping for sarees at the Mysore silk emporium, and Elaine and Tracy both found some *beautiful* sarees. Definitely check out the pictures (from this whole day) here. Tracy headed back to the office to get some work done while Elaine and I had her last meal here at The Paradise Club on MG road (Palak Paneer ^_^), then met up with Nels and went to the same shop that I had gone to previously with Dad. I'm getting the guy there a *ton* of business, and he gave me some really large (like 30%) discounts without me even asking ^_^.
We all went back to my apartment at this point, finished packing up and everything, then Elaine and I watched "Muriels Wedding" and finished just before the cab came to take us to the airport. It was a zoo at the airport, but I have learned to deal with lines in India (shove your way in wherever you can, keep doing that, and feel no guilt) and we got through the line pretty quickly. I went around to the visitors area, and saw her off nicely. I was *really* sad to see her go, but her visit has been a lot of fun ^_^.
I took a prepaid rickshaw back to the apartment, and then stayed up till 3AM doing random futzing on the computer and finally went to sleep.
Thats all for now. I'm getting closer to actually being caught up on this blog!
Cheers,
Jason
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Delhi Trip
Hey all,
As promised this is a description of the trip that Tracy, Elaine, and I took to Delhi this past weekend. Summary: AMAZING!!!
Our flight from Bangalore left around noon, so we got up fairly early in the morning. We were all disappointed by the flight out because it was cloudy the *entire* way. I had been hoping to actually get to see Bangalore and India from the sky :-P. We got through the airport without any complications, and had a *much* better taxi experience than coming into Bangalore (though it took the guy forever to find Anu's family's house, and then he tried to charge up extra [Anu's brother Sachit took care of that though ^_^]). Anu's family is *amazingly* nice and took incredibly good care of us the entire time we were there (I'm taking mental notes every time I experience India hospitality. It is the best I've ever seen and I hope to mimic it myself). Though we had never met them before and Anu wasn't even there for most of the time we stayed with them, they were incredibly friendly and hospitable. We were always *bursting* from the most delicious Indian food I have had here (which *really* is saying something), and never felt weird or awkward.
When we first got there we all sat in the living room and chatted with the whole family for a while, while they served us 'lunch' (lots and lots of snacks that filled us to bursting at ~5PM). The family is Anu's mom and dad, plus her older sister Poojan and younger brother Sachit. They also had Anu's 5 year old cousin staying with them while we were there. His name is Divanchu (I probably spelled that wrong), and he is *incredibly* cute and *incredibly*...spirited... He had the tendency to go around pointing at things and claiming them as his. At one point Poojan was trying to leave to drive somewhere and ended up taking her parents car instead of hers because Divanchu had taken the keys and wouldn't give them back (he wanted to drive the pink car!). At one point he claimed an entire blender assembly as his (he loves to cook) and pretended to make us juice from rags that he would very carefully put in the blender (he had the process all worked out). The most amusing thing he did was after we got back from Agra and were sitting around the living room. I was sitting down and leaning forward so my head was only a little above his level. He walked up to me and started feeling my goatee with his hand and just sort of staring at me. He must have spent 30seconds to a minute feeling my goatee, rubbing my cheek, and feeling my goatee again. Then he said something in Hindi and everyone (who spoke Hindi) started laughing. Apparently he had told me to shave it off because it hurts! He apparently also tells Sachit to shave ^_^. CUTE!
Ok, so after 'lunch' Poojan took the Elaine, Tracy, Sachit, and I out in her car. We drove around Delhi a bit (the traffic and infrastructure is much better here. Everything is much farther apart, but it still takes about as long to get to things as in the much smaller Bangalore). This trip took us to two places: Jun Path (said "Pat" with emphasis on the t) and India Gate. Jun Path is a fairly large and dense, really cool market. We wandered about and bought some cool stuff, saving a lot of money in the process because Poojan is an *incredible* bargainer. Elaine & Tracy both got some Indian hangy things and skirts, and Elaine bought a novelty pipe from a hawker (I've seen hundreds of this identical pipe. Its a very popular item). I found some really neat kurtas for myself ^_^. Once we finished in Jun Path, we took the scenic route to India gate, going through Cannard Circle which is a really really nice shopping area (the most expensive in Delhi) with a nice park called Central Park in the middle. India Gate reminds me of the Arc de Triumph if it was set down in the middle of the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. Its very nice, and it also has a forever-burning flame to commemorate fallen soldiers. While we were there Tracy, Elaine, and I all got henna (me on my upper arms, them on hands + an arm) which looked *really* cool. Unfortunately the stuff wasn't very good quality so it didn't leave very much of an impression. Once we got back we had an *amazing* dinner and then greatfully went to sleep...
...but not for too long because we woke up at 4:30AM to catch our train to Agra! Anu's parents got up at that time to drive us to the station (*so* nice!) where we met Tracy's friend Rebecca (who is going to be at Mudd next year) and hopped aboard the 2 hour express train to Agra. We arrived and got to our hotel by way of a prepaid auto (4 people in it ^_^) without much hassle except the driver trying to get hired as a guide. I cannot do justice to our day, so I won't really try (see my pictures for more justice). The Taj Mahal is *amazing* and I cannot believe I was there. It was like something from a fairytale. We first saw it from the roof of our hotel and I was just blown away... We also went to Agra Fort which was similarly amazing and had a very cool view of the Taj. After a long (and hot & humid. Both Delhi and Agra are *very* hot and humid) day of touring, we just collapsed in our hotel room for the late afternoon and had dinner on the roof of our hotel, with a view of the Taj and all the kites that kids on rooftops were flying as the sun set. It was awesome.
We woke up at 4:30AM again to catch another 6AM train back to Delhi (unfortunately not express, so it took 4 hours to get back) and we took a cab back to Anu's house. We were all fairly exhausted, but sat down and chatted for a while and then were served *delicious* pourri for breakfast!!! (at noon). After breakfast we ''took our rest' which basically meant we just sat about the house and enjoyed delicious relaxation for a few hours. At one point Anu's mom even made Tracy lie down because she didn't seem like she was comfortable/relaxed enough ^_^. We also found out that Sunday was "Friendship Day", which is like Mothers Day or Valentines Day, but instead you celebrate your friends! It is a really cool idea, and we ended up going out to a bar at about 4:30 with Poojan and a bunch of her friends. It was really cool hanging out with them, and I got to chat with one of them about the differences between the US and India (chatting about arranged marriages, how households change after marriage, parties, jobs, etc.). It was also fun drinking and dancing in the middle of the afternoon ^_^.
After hanging out at the bar we came back to the house, relaxed for a while longer and had some food to eat, then Tracy, Elaine, and I went to Akshardham Temple. I don't quite understand the story behind the temple. I think that the 5th incarnation of some very wise Hindu man caused it to be built, and it is a modern temple built with ancient techniques and in ancient styles. The entire main temple was built without using steel at all. Imagine a truly beautiful ancient church or temple that you have seen, then think about what that place would be like if you could have seen it in its prime, just after it had been constructed. That is what Akshardham is like. It actually felt like a far classier and religiously themed Disney Land. It was filled to the brim with visitors, and you had to go through a bunch of security and leave all electronic devices like cameras and cell phones before you could get in. I don't even know how to start describing the intricacy. The main temple has something like 1000 elephants carved into its base, all of which appear almost alive because they are so well crafted. You can walk around the main part, looking at these elephants, and reading about the stories and wise sayings that they depict. Even their eyes seem to have expression!
The main temple itself was breathtaking. The stonework was at a level of detail that I have never seen, and it all was incredibly beautiful. It was like the intracacy of the Tibetan Buddhist temples that I have seen, except all done in marble! It was also very peaceful and reverent inside, encouraged by the fact that you weren't supposed to talk.
After the main temple we went to see the musical fountain they had there. I've heard of these before, always hearing that they weren't too impressive, but this one was promoted as the best in India and *boy* was it spectacular. There must have been three or four thousand people in the crowd around the fountains, and even before the music, lights, and water started it was really cool. The fountains are in this slight depression, that is down a few very large steps from the level of the rest of the temple. Everything is done in beautiful redstone, and there is a massive gold statue illuminated by a spotlight and backed by an enormous redstone building at one end of this area. All three of us agreed that it felt very mystical and surreal. I felt like I was in one of the crazy settings from an Indiana Jones movie ^_^. Dorky as that may sound, it is probably the best way to describe how I felt. Then the show started. The light and water show runs along with music, and the music was a beautiful Indian piece. It sounded like a subtle blend of western classical music and traditional Indian ^_^. Then the light and water show was fantastic. I can't even really describe it, but the fountain and lights perfectly captured and enhanced the feeling of the music, and all of this went along perfectly with the surreal feeling of this place. My favorite thing the fountain did was a sort of peacock-tail type of effect, where water was blown out in a mist in a fan shape, and illuminated by lights in such a way that it seemed to ripple and undulate in the air. It looked like something that I would have thought would be impossible to create outside of a computer animation. All in all: incredible.
After the musical fountain we got out of Akshardham as fast as we could. Basically all of those thousands of other watchers of the fountain were also leaving, and we wanted to get our stuff out of the coat check before things got too bad. I did get stuck in a long line at the coat check, but for some reason one of the guys that worked there and had a shorter line came over and pulled me into his line and I got my stuff quickly. I was really confused and initially distrustful of this because I didn't want to lose my spot in line for no reason, but he was just being really cool, and didn't even want money for it, which is a nice change ^_^. As we were walking back to our taxi it started raining, and a *massive* downpour started just as we got into the taxi (just in time!). It was *incredible* to watch the rain come down like that. It soaked anyone who was out in it in seconds, and there was water *covering* the roads. It is really hard to describe well, but basically it rained *hard*.
On the cab drive back we drove by the "Lotus Temple" which is a really cool meditation area (that was unfortunately closed that late) that looks like a massive lotus flower. We were at least able to see it. We also stopped on the way back to buy some friendship bracelets that were being sold because it was friendship day ^_^.
And Anu arrived just a little while after we got back!!! It was really cool to see another Mudder there, and it was neat seeing Anu with her whole family. We all sat and chatted for a while and had nice appetizers and a delicious dinner and then got some well deserved sleep!
We woke up decently early in the morning so that we could go with Anu, Sachit, Poojan, and Divianchu to a Sikh Temple that was in Delhi. It is one of the most important temples to Sikhs, and it was really cool. We had some sort of holy food, some holy water, and saw an artificial lake full of holy water off to the side of the temple. One cool thing about this temple is it is the only place in Delhi that has a sweetwater spring, and I think that is what the holy water was.
While we were coming back to Anu's house from the temple I got a series of text messages informing me that our flight was being delayed. We got back to the house and had our last (and of course, delicious) meal with Anu's family. I was really sad to say goodbye. The weekend we had there was really amazing, and it was all because of their kindness and generosity ^_^.
We took a cab from their house, and because of the delays we tried to go to a cool place called Delhi Haat (a big market with food and shops from all of Indias different states!!! It sounds so cool and I really am sad not to have seen it), but didn't think we would be able to make it and had our cab change course to the airport in mid drive. We got there far faster than we expected (which was somewhat upsetting because it would have been nice to go to Delhi Haat) and got through security and everything just fine (even carrying all our toiletries on the flight with us this time instead of checking a bag for them). The only problem was that I had a pair of small scissors in my toiletries bag that they found and made me throw away (sad because they had served me well, but I have now replaced them with an even nicer pair, and they were only 12Rs. originally anyway). It was nice that the airport had a small ice cream/sandwhich stall and and a water purifier, but it was not so nice that our flight was (in total) delayed by 3 hours and we were all dead tired (myself less so than Elaine and Tracy, so basically fell asleep every time they sat down ^_^).
We made it back to Bangalore without too many problems, though we again missed the view in the plane, this time because of closed windows and it getting dark because of the huge delay. When we got back to Bangalore we celebrated our weekend by going out to dinner at Ebony, then came back home and *dropped* off into sleep.
Wow, that was a long post, but it was a long and fantastic weekend ^_^.
Cheers,
Jason
As promised this is a description of the trip that Tracy, Elaine, and I took to Delhi this past weekend. Summary: AMAZING!!!
Our flight from Bangalore left around noon, so we got up fairly early in the morning. We were all disappointed by the flight out because it was cloudy the *entire* way. I had been hoping to actually get to see Bangalore and India from the sky :-P. We got through the airport without any complications, and had a *much* better taxi experience than coming into Bangalore (though it took the guy forever to find Anu's family's house, and then he tried to charge up extra [Anu's brother Sachit took care of that though ^_^]). Anu's family is *amazingly* nice and took incredibly good care of us the entire time we were there (I'm taking mental notes every time I experience India hospitality. It is the best I've ever seen and I hope to mimic it myself). Though we had never met them before and Anu wasn't even there for most of the time we stayed with them, they were incredibly friendly and hospitable. We were always *bursting* from the most delicious Indian food I have had here (which *really* is saying something), and never felt weird or awkward.
When we first got there we all sat in the living room and chatted with the whole family for a while, while they served us 'lunch' (lots and lots of snacks that filled us to bursting at ~5PM). The family is Anu's mom and dad, plus her older sister Poojan and younger brother Sachit. They also had Anu's 5 year old cousin staying with them while we were there. His name is Divanchu (I probably spelled that wrong), and he is *incredibly* cute and *incredibly*...spirited... He had the tendency to go around pointing at things and claiming them as his. At one point Poojan was trying to leave to drive somewhere and ended up taking her parents car instead of hers because Divanchu had taken the keys and wouldn't give them back (he wanted to drive the pink car!). At one point he claimed an entire blender assembly as his (he loves to cook) and pretended to make us juice from rags that he would very carefully put in the blender (he had the process all worked out). The most amusing thing he did was after we got back from Agra and were sitting around the living room. I was sitting down and leaning forward so my head was only a little above his level. He walked up to me and started feeling my goatee with his hand and just sort of staring at me. He must have spent 30seconds to a minute feeling my goatee, rubbing my cheek, and feeling my goatee again. Then he said something in Hindi and everyone (who spoke Hindi) started laughing. Apparently he had told me to shave it off because it hurts! He apparently also tells Sachit to shave ^_^. CUTE!
Ok, so after 'lunch' Poojan took the Elaine, Tracy, Sachit, and I out in her car. We drove around Delhi a bit (the traffic and infrastructure is much better here. Everything is much farther apart, but it still takes about as long to get to things as in the much smaller Bangalore). This trip took us to two places: Jun Path (said "Pat" with emphasis on the t) and India Gate. Jun Path is a fairly large and dense, really cool market. We wandered about and bought some cool stuff, saving a lot of money in the process because Poojan is an *incredible* bargainer. Elaine & Tracy both got some Indian hangy things and skirts, and Elaine bought a novelty pipe from a hawker (I've seen hundreds of this identical pipe. Its a very popular item). I found some really neat kurtas for myself ^_^. Once we finished in Jun Path, we took the scenic route to India gate, going through Cannard Circle which is a really really nice shopping area (the most expensive in Delhi) with a nice park called Central Park in the middle. India Gate reminds me of the Arc de Triumph if it was set down in the middle of the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. Its very nice, and it also has a forever-burning flame to commemorate fallen soldiers. While we were there Tracy, Elaine, and I all got henna (me on my upper arms, them on hands + an arm) which looked *really* cool. Unfortunately the stuff wasn't very good quality so it didn't leave very much of an impression. Once we got back we had an *amazing* dinner and then greatfully went to sleep...
...but not for too long because we woke up at 4:30AM to catch our train to Agra! Anu's parents got up at that time to drive us to the station (*so* nice!) where we met Tracy's friend Rebecca (who is going to be at Mudd next year) and hopped aboard the 2 hour express train to Agra. We arrived and got to our hotel by way of a prepaid auto (4 people in it ^_^) without much hassle except the driver trying to get hired as a guide. I cannot do justice to our day, so I won't really try (see my pictures for more justice). The Taj Mahal is *amazing* and I cannot believe I was there. It was like something from a fairytale. We first saw it from the roof of our hotel and I was just blown away... We also went to Agra Fort which was similarly amazing and had a very cool view of the Taj. After a long (and hot & humid. Both Delhi and Agra are *very* hot and humid) day of touring, we just collapsed in our hotel room for the late afternoon and had dinner on the roof of our hotel, with a view of the Taj and all the kites that kids on rooftops were flying as the sun set. It was awesome.
We woke up at 4:30AM again to catch another 6AM train back to Delhi (unfortunately not express, so it took 4 hours to get back) and we took a cab back to Anu's house. We were all fairly exhausted, but sat down and chatted for a while and then were served *delicious* pourri for breakfast!!! (at noon). After breakfast we ''took our rest' which basically meant we just sat about the house and enjoyed delicious relaxation for a few hours. At one point Anu's mom even made Tracy lie down because she didn't seem like she was comfortable/relaxed enough ^_^. We also found out that Sunday was "Friendship Day", which is like Mothers Day or Valentines Day, but instead you celebrate your friends! It is a really cool idea, and we ended up going out to a bar at about 4:30 with Poojan and a bunch of her friends. It was really cool hanging out with them, and I got to chat with one of them about the differences between the US and India (chatting about arranged marriages, how households change after marriage, parties, jobs, etc.). It was also fun drinking and dancing in the middle of the afternoon ^_^.
After hanging out at the bar we came back to the house, relaxed for a while longer and had some food to eat, then Tracy, Elaine, and I went to Akshardham Temple. I don't quite understand the story behind the temple. I think that the 5th incarnation of some very wise Hindu man caused it to be built, and it is a modern temple built with ancient techniques and in ancient styles. The entire main temple was built without using steel at all. Imagine a truly beautiful ancient church or temple that you have seen, then think about what that place would be like if you could have seen it in its prime, just after it had been constructed. That is what Akshardham is like. It actually felt like a far classier and religiously themed Disney Land. It was filled to the brim with visitors, and you had to go through a bunch of security and leave all electronic devices like cameras and cell phones before you could get in. I don't even know how to start describing the intricacy. The main temple has something like 1000 elephants carved into its base, all of which appear almost alive because they are so well crafted. You can walk around the main part, looking at these elephants, and reading about the stories and wise sayings that they depict. Even their eyes seem to have expression!
The main temple itself was breathtaking. The stonework was at a level of detail that I have never seen, and it all was incredibly beautiful. It was like the intracacy of the Tibetan Buddhist temples that I have seen, except all done in marble! It was also very peaceful and reverent inside, encouraged by the fact that you weren't supposed to talk.
After the main temple we went to see the musical fountain they had there. I've heard of these before, always hearing that they weren't too impressive, but this one was promoted as the best in India and *boy* was it spectacular. There must have been three or four thousand people in the crowd around the fountains, and even before the music, lights, and water started it was really cool. The fountains are in this slight depression, that is down a few very large steps from the level of the rest of the temple. Everything is done in beautiful redstone, and there is a massive gold statue illuminated by a spotlight and backed by an enormous redstone building at one end of this area. All three of us agreed that it felt very mystical and surreal. I felt like I was in one of the crazy settings from an Indiana Jones movie ^_^. Dorky as that may sound, it is probably the best way to describe how I felt. Then the show started. The light and water show runs along with music, and the music was a beautiful Indian piece. It sounded like a subtle blend of western classical music and traditional Indian ^_^. Then the light and water show was fantastic. I can't even really describe it, but the fountain and lights perfectly captured and enhanced the feeling of the music, and all of this went along perfectly with the surreal feeling of this place. My favorite thing the fountain did was a sort of peacock-tail type of effect, where water was blown out in a mist in a fan shape, and illuminated by lights in such a way that it seemed to ripple and undulate in the air. It looked like something that I would have thought would be impossible to create outside of a computer animation. All in all: incredible.
After the musical fountain we got out of Akshardham as fast as we could. Basically all of those thousands of other watchers of the fountain were also leaving, and we wanted to get our stuff out of the coat check before things got too bad. I did get stuck in a long line at the coat check, but for some reason one of the guys that worked there and had a shorter line came over and pulled me into his line and I got my stuff quickly. I was really confused and initially distrustful of this because I didn't want to lose my spot in line for no reason, but he was just being really cool, and didn't even want money for it, which is a nice change ^_^. As we were walking back to our taxi it started raining, and a *massive* downpour started just as we got into the taxi (just in time!). It was *incredible* to watch the rain come down like that. It soaked anyone who was out in it in seconds, and there was water *covering* the roads. It is really hard to describe well, but basically it rained *hard*.
On the cab drive back we drove by the "Lotus Temple" which is a really cool meditation area (that was unfortunately closed that late) that looks like a massive lotus flower. We were at least able to see it. We also stopped on the way back to buy some friendship bracelets that were being sold because it was friendship day ^_^.
And Anu arrived just a little while after we got back!!! It was really cool to see another Mudder there, and it was neat seeing Anu with her whole family. We all sat and chatted for a while and had nice appetizers and a delicious dinner and then got some well deserved sleep!
We woke up decently early in the morning so that we could go with Anu, Sachit, Poojan, and Divianchu to a Sikh Temple that was in Delhi. It is one of the most important temples to Sikhs, and it was really cool. We had some sort of holy food, some holy water, and saw an artificial lake full of holy water off to the side of the temple. One cool thing about this temple is it is the only place in Delhi that has a sweetwater spring, and I think that is what the holy water was.
While we were coming back to Anu's house from the temple I got a series of text messages informing me that our flight was being delayed. We got back to the house and had our last (and of course, delicious) meal with Anu's family. I was really sad to say goodbye. The weekend we had there was really amazing, and it was all because of their kindness and generosity ^_^.
We took a cab from their house, and because of the delays we tried to go to a cool place called Delhi Haat (a big market with food and shops from all of Indias different states!!! It sounds so cool and I really am sad not to have seen it), but didn't think we would be able to make it and had our cab change course to the airport in mid drive. We got there far faster than we expected (which was somewhat upsetting because it would have been nice to go to Delhi Haat) and got through security and everything just fine (even carrying all our toiletries on the flight with us this time instead of checking a bag for them). The only problem was that I had a pair of small scissors in my toiletries bag that they found and made me throw away (sad because they had served me well, but I have now replaced them with an even nicer pair, and they were only 12Rs. originally anyway). It was nice that the airport had a small ice cream/sandwhich stall and and a water purifier, but it was not so nice that our flight was (in total) delayed by 3 hours and we were all dead tired (myself less so than Elaine and Tracy, so basically fell asleep every time they sat down ^_^).
We made it back to Bangalore without too many problems, though we again missed the view in the plane, this time because of closed windows and it getting dark because of the huge delay. When we got back to Bangalore we celebrated our weekend by going out to dinner at Ebony, then came back home and *dropped* off into sleep.
Wow, that was a long post, but it was a long and fantastic weekend ^_^.
Cheers,
Jason
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Assaulted...
Hey all,
As I mentioned in the last post, when Elaine and I were walking between City Markety and Cubbon Park this past Thurday, I had a slightly more violent than usual encounter on the streets of Bangalore. Here is the story:
From City Market we walked to Cubbon Park, and on the was I was essentially ASSAULTED. At this point in the summer I'm pretty much completely used to beggars and salespeople on the street and know how to deal with them. This is that I initially thought this guy who came up to me, saying some unintelligible word over and over was, and I brushed him off. This is when he *grabbed* me. Let me be clear: beggars on the street will touch you and paw at your arms to get your attention, but they don't grab you this. This guy actually was using force, and kept saying the same thing over and over, which I couldn't parse. I managed to push him off of me, and tried to walk away quickly, and he followed me just as quickly. At this point Elaine hadn't noticed what was going on and was getting ahead of me in the crowd. I couldn't get away from this guy by going forward, and he was blocking my path backwards, so I literally jumped over the rail on the side of the sidewalk into the street and ran down the street to catch up with Elaine, and when I caught her I had her walk fast (hoping that the guy would stop pursuing me). He *ran* after me on the sidewalk and caught up to me just after I caught up to Elaine. He grabbed me again and turned me around, still saying the same thing. It was at this point that I realized he was saying "Country! Country! Country!" over and over. I said "U.S." and tried to turn and break away from his grip. I managed to turn, but he grabbed my arm with one hand and actually *grabbed the skin on my back* with the other (you know those lumps that you have on either side of your spine? Yes, he grabbed that) and turned me around. At this point I just looked him in the eyes (he had now somehow gotten hold of both my arms and we were standing face to face, grappling) and got him to pause. He calmed down a bit (he started saying "Country" more slowly and quietly), and I started saying "America", "US", "United States", until he finally said "America? US?", and I said "Yes, America". At this point he let go of my arms with one hand (still holding on with the other), shook my free hand with his free hand, let go with the other hand, patted me on the shoulder (while kind of keeling forward like he was out of breath), and said "Sorry, Sorry." And that was the end of it. He just walked away. I heard another Indian guy on the street mutter "Oh my God...". It is one of the most bizarre experiences that I've had here, and I sat down to calm down for a while afterwards. He was a fairly small and old guy, so I think that I could have taken care of myself if he had gotten more aggressive, but I don't really want to think about what would happen to me if I decked an Indian guy in the middle of a crowded street....
As I mentioned in the last post, when Elaine and I were walking between City Markety and Cubbon Park this past Thurday, I had a slightly more violent than usual encounter on the streets of Bangalore. Here is the story:
From City Market we walked to Cubbon Park, and on the was I was essentially ASSAULTED. At this point in the summer I'm pretty much completely used to beggars and salespeople on the street and know how to deal with them. This is that I initially thought this guy who came up to me, saying some unintelligible word over and over was, and I brushed him off. This is when he *grabbed* me. Let me be clear: beggars on the street will touch you and paw at your arms to get your attention, but they don't grab you this. This guy actually was using force, and kept saying the same thing over and over, which I couldn't parse. I managed to push him off of me, and tried to walk away quickly, and he followed me just as quickly. At this point Elaine hadn't noticed what was going on and was getting ahead of me in the crowd. I couldn't get away from this guy by going forward, and he was blocking my path backwards, so I literally jumped over the rail on the side of the sidewalk into the street and ran down the street to catch up with Elaine, and when I caught her I had her walk fast (hoping that the guy would stop pursuing me). He *ran* after me on the sidewalk and caught up to me just after I caught up to Elaine. He grabbed me again and turned me around, still saying the same thing. It was at this point that I realized he was saying "Country! Country! Country!" over and over. I said "U.S." and tried to turn and break away from his grip. I managed to turn, but he grabbed my arm with one hand and actually *grabbed the skin on my back* with the other (you know those lumps that you have on either side of your spine? Yes, he grabbed that) and turned me around. At this point I just looked him in the eyes (he had now somehow gotten hold of both my arms and we were standing face to face, grappling) and got him to pause. He calmed down a bit (he started saying "Country" more slowly and quietly), and I started saying "America", "US", "United States", until he finally said "America? US?", and I said "Yes, America". At this point he let go of my arms with one hand (still holding on with the other), shook my free hand with his free hand, let go with the other hand, patted me on the shoulder (while kind of keeling forward like he was out of breath), and said "Sorry, Sorry." And that was the end of it. He just walked away. I heard another Indian guy on the street mutter "Oh my God...". It is one of the most bizarre experiences that I've had here, and I sat down to calm down for a while afterwards. He was a fairly small and old guy, so I think that I could have taken care of myself if he had gotten more aggressive, but I don't really want to think about what would happen to me if I decked an Indian guy in the middle of a crowded street....
Elaine in Bangalore!
Hey all,
I've been doing a miserable job of updating this blog since Elaine got here, but I'm going to try to catch up all in one big push. As a result I'm going to try to keep the entries a little more terse than usual (we shall see if I have any luck on that front).
OK, so we left off last Sunday the 29th of July with a wonderful day wandering around Bangalore. Well, on Monday Elaine and I headed down to City Market to see the flower market down there that we had heard so much about from Tracy and Rebecca. After some initial wandering around in the wrong direction and in some sketchy areas (and having a kid throw a stick at Elaine! >:-( ) we managed to find our way to the right area. It was fantastic. There is a huge building that is completely surrounded by vegetable sellers and all sorts of other colorful goods. Inside this building is the flower market. The entire building is filled with small stalls, each of which is *overflowing* with all sorts of beautiful flowers. It was amazing. There were two particularly remarkable things to me. First was the smell. This is definitely not as well off of an area of town, and the smell would fluctuate from *wonderful* when you were in the midst of flowers to sewage-ish when you walked in certain areas farther from the flowers. I've never before experience a mixture of flower fragrances and raw sewage smells.
The other really cool things was how *nice* people were. I'm used to very aggressive merchants that I cannot trust. In the flower market we had every other person asking us where we were from and trying to engage us in friendly banter. There was a random guy there, I think he was another shopper, that took the time to tell us how to get around, then took a video of us saying our names using his cell phone (lots of people wanted pictures). The main indication of this incredible niceness was that no fewer than *6* different people reached out as we walked back to hand a free red rose to Elaine. She had a whole gaggle of them by the time we left! (We walked all the way to Cubbon Park and a little beyond on the way back and found "The Sports Authority of India" which has a *huge* climbing wall!).
After City Market we ate dinner at the flat and then watched the movie "Princess Mononke", which is by the same people as "My Neighbor Totoro" and was really quite good ^_^.
All, right Tuesday. It was basically a long expedition though Commercial Street (and lots of stimulation of the local economy). We got earrings, earrings, silk pillows, and a few other goodies. We ended up far too tired to go downtown for dinner like we had planned so just indulged ourself in Pizza Hut (so tempting and easy. It was fantastic) for dinner and then watched "School of Rock" ^_^.
Wow, that was a quick one. Wednesday is going to be a little more detailed. There were actually two parts to the day. We woke up early in the morning to walk to Malleshwaram with Tracy & Nels to meet Prasad and Pavol. We then went to one of the best idly stands in the city (I've hated the idly [little rice cakes] that I've had at the flat to the point that I refuse to eat any more of them, but these were hot, had butter, and were *amazing*. My mouth is watering just thinking of them.), then walked a little farther and went to a *fantastic* dosa place. A good morning ^_^. I went to work for a few hours and Elaine took a nap.
In the afternoon we went to Tipu Sultan's summer palace, which is a really pretty, and fairly small, palace in the middle of Bangalore. We took some fun pictures there and admired what we could see of a beautiful temple next door (unfortunately we were unable to get into the temple because it was closed). From there walked over to a nearby castle-looking fort, which was unfortunately closed :-(. We tried to walk around it a little ways to see if there was another entrance and we ended up in City Market!
From there we walked to Cubbon Park, which I was attacked by a random person on the street! I'll tell the whole story in a separate blog post, but it was a bizarre and somewhat scary experience. Cubbon Park was really nice, and while we were there we noticed some really big and pretty buildings in the distance. We headed toward them and ended up walking down a road with tons of massive, beautiful capital buildings (the courthouse, and what looked like a several *very* central government buildings). From there we ended up walking back to the house, as we found ourselves part of the way along the route back from MG road.
Now Thursday, which was the last day in Bangalore before Tracy, Elaine, and I left for Delhi. Elaine and I didn't do too much, just went down to the "Musical Foutain" park we had seen on the way to MG road, and played in its 'solar energy' playground. There was a slide with an endless conveyor belt to generate energy for light up a sign in front of the slide and make it play music. There was a similar hamster-wheel like thing, but it was jammed so we couldn't get it to generate anything. We looked at the fountain, but shows are at night so we didn't see anything special. The park was about worth the 5Rs. entrance ^_^.
We then went across street to Nehru planetarium and payed 25Rs. to see a show in the planetarium about the Hubble space telescope and saw lots of pictures from Hubble (it was nice but, unfortunately not full resolution on the pictures :-(). After the show we played in the science playground outside. All the signs list the wavelenghts of the colors of the equipment, which we thought was really cute (for instance, the whisper dishes we painted blue and the sign that explained how they worked also mentioned that blue light is 430-470nm). The playground had whisper dishes (parabolic dishes that allowed you to whisper and still be heard 50 meters away, provided you were int he right spot), a cool mirrors/kaleidescope thing, lots of spinning things like you would see in any playground (Elaine likes these, but even watching someone on one can make me nauseated), and resonant swings which would cause each other to swing more energetically. We were actually fairly tired after these places, so we came back to the flat, were lazy and had Pizza Hut again, and then packed for the Delhi trip and went to bed!!!
Ok, that was last week up until Delhi. I think I'm going to post the details of the story of my assault by the random guy on the street, and the Delhi trip in new posts.
Cheers,
Jason
I've been doing a miserable job of updating this blog since Elaine got here, but I'm going to try to catch up all in one big push. As a result I'm going to try to keep the entries a little more terse than usual (we shall see if I have any luck on that front).
OK, so we left off last Sunday the 29th of July with a wonderful day wandering around Bangalore. Well, on Monday Elaine and I headed down to City Market to see the flower market down there that we had heard so much about from Tracy and Rebecca. After some initial wandering around in the wrong direction and in some sketchy areas (and having a kid throw a stick at Elaine! >:-( ) we managed to find our way to the right area. It was fantastic. There is a huge building that is completely surrounded by vegetable sellers and all sorts of other colorful goods. Inside this building is the flower market. The entire building is filled with small stalls, each of which is *overflowing* with all sorts of beautiful flowers. It was amazing. There were two particularly remarkable things to me. First was the smell. This is definitely not as well off of an area of town, and the smell would fluctuate from *wonderful* when you were in the midst of flowers to sewage-ish when you walked in certain areas farther from the flowers. I've never before experience a mixture of flower fragrances and raw sewage smells.
The other really cool things was how *nice* people were. I'm used to very aggressive merchants that I cannot trust. In the flower market we had every other person asking us where we were from and trying to engage us in friendly banter. There was a random guy there, I think he was another shopper, that took the time to tell us how to get around, then took a video of us saying our names using his cell phone (lots of people wanted pictures). The main indication of this incredible niceness was that no fewer than *6* different people reached out as we walked back to hand a free red rose to Elaine. She had a whole gaggle of them by the time we left! (We walked all the way to Cubbon Park and a little beyond on the way back and found "The Sports Authority of India" which has a *huge* climbing wall!).
After City Market we ate dinner at the flat and then watched the movie "Princess Mononke", which is by the same people as "My Neighbor Totoro" and was really quite good ^_^.
All, right Tuesday. It was basically a long expedition though Commercial Street (and lots of stimulation of the local economy). We got earrings, earrings, silk pillows, and a few other goodies. We ended up far too tired to go downtown for dinner like we had planned so just indulged ourself in Pizza Hut (so tempting and easy. It was fantastic) for dinner and then watched "School of Rock" ^_^.
Wow, that was a quick one. Wednesday is going to be a little more detailed. There were actually two parts to the day. We woke up early in the morning to walk to Malleshwaram with Tracy & Nels to meet Prasad and Pavol. We then went to one of the best idly stands in the city (I've hated the idly [little rice cakes] that I've had at the flat to the point that I refuse to eat any more of them, but these were hot, had butter, and were *amazing*. My mouth is watering just thinking of them.), then walked a little farther and went to a *fantastic* dosa place. A good morning ^_^. I went to work for a few hours and Elaine took a nap.
In the afternoon we went to Tipu Sultan's summer palace, which is a really pretty, and fairly small, palace in the middle of Bangalore. We took some fun pictures there and admired what we could see of a beautiful temple next door (unfortunately we were unable to get into the temple because it was closed). From there walked over to a nearby castle-looking fort, which was unfortunately closed :-(. We tried to walk around it a little ways to see if there was another entrance and we ended up in City Market!
From there we walked to Cubbon Park, which I was attacked by a random person on the street! I'll tell the whole story in a separate blog post, but it was a bizarre and somewhat scary experience. Cubbon Park was really nice, and while we were there we noticed some really big and pretty buildings in the distance. We headed toward them and ended up walking down a road with tons of massive, beautiful capital buildings (the courthouse, and what looked like a several *very* central government buildings). From there we ended up walking back to the house, as we found ourselves part of the way along the route back from MG road.
Now Thursday, which was the last day in Bangalore before Tracy, Elaine, and I left for Delhi. Elaine and I didn't do too much, just went down to the "Musical Foutain" park we had seen on the way to MG road, and played in its 'solar energy' playground. There was a slide with an endless conveyor belt to generate energy for light up a sign in front of the slide and make it play music. There was a similar hamster-wheel like thing, but it was jammed so we couldn't get it to generate anything. We looked at the fountain, but shows are at night so we didn't see anything special. The park was about worth the 5Rs. entrance ^_^.
We then went across street to Nehru planetarium and payed 25Rs. to see a show in the planetarium about the Hubble space telescope and saw lots of pictures from Hubble (it was nice but, unfortunately not full resolution on the pictures :-(). After the show we played in the science playground outside. All the signs list the wavelenghts of the colors of the equipment, which we thought was really cute (for instance, the whisper dishes we painted blue and the sign that explained how they worked also mentioned that blue light is 430-470nm). The playground had whisper dishes (parabolic dishes that allowed you to whisper and still be heard 50 meters away, provided you were int he right spot), a cool mirrors/kaleidescope thing, lots of spinning things like you would see in any playground (Elaine likes these, but even watching someone on one can make me nauseated), and resonant swings which would cause each other to swing more energetically. We were actually fairly tired after these places, so we came back to the flat, were lazy and had Pizza Hut again, and then packed for the Delhi trip and went to bed!!!
Ok, that was last week up until Delhi. I think I'm going to post the details of the story of my assault by the random guy on the street, and the Delhi trip in new posts.
Cheers,
Jason
Sunday, July 29, 2007
A weekend in Pondicherry... sort of
Hey all!
Well, the original plan for this weekend was that it was going to be spent in Pondicherry. Elaine and I left on Friday afternoon and, after an obscenely long drive, arrived there at about 9PM and paid way more than we wanted in order to stay the night in a hotel rather nicer than we were planning on. Dinner and the buffet were very nice, though food has not been sitting on Elaine's stomach very well :-(. Sleep was wonderful after that long drive!
The next morning we got a slow start and didn't really get out of the hotel until a little before noon, at which point we headed over near the water (Pondicherry is on the sea) and tried to find a room for the next night. We failed completely. After an hour of trying the only room we could find was for 5000Rs. a night :-P. We decided to cut our losses, wandered about near the water for a while (saw the Ghandi statue, went to a great little bookstore "Book Cafe", and a wonderful restaurant called "Rendezvous" [This was a French colony for many years]) then headed home for Bangalore :-(. After a *long* drive we made ourselves a makeshift dinner of toast and nutella, then went to sleep. All in all, a few nice bits in Pondicherry, but it has proved to be a lesson in the necessity of planning well ahead for things.
Today proved to be *much* better ^_^. We woke up fairly early and decided to tour around Bangalore. We had the yellow flavored rice that they serve us at the flat for breakfast, then after some further futzing headed downtown to Geruda Mall, which is right by MG road. I really wanted to show Elaine the spectacle of a Bangalore mall. We wandered up its 6 stories, stopping at a store to buy Elaine some *fantastic* Indian tops, which gave the mall time to get bustling and busy and a true show of how happening of a place it is.
After the mall we walked to Brigade road and had lunch at the Paradise club, where Dad and I had gone twice for beers while he was here. Elaine had some *truly amazing* Palak Paneer, "the best food she has ever had in her life", which is a high compliment from someone with such a developed and diverse palate! We even got the recipe from the waiter, then stopped by a supermarket to pick up the spices that we will need to cook it!!! Hopefully we will be able to recreate this taste sensation!
We continued our *fantastic* day by stopping by the cat/magazine store after lunch, and spending a while there watching the cute cats and reading through a few of the magazines. It was so much fun getting to bring Elaine to all of these places that I've wanted to show her for two months (holy moly, I've been in India for two months!).
After the cat store we stopped by Blossom for several hours, Elaine flipped upon seeing the collection ^_^, and we bought a whole bunch of fantastic books. I'm going to have reading material for a *long* time. After Blossom we decided we wanted a bit of exercise, so we walked the 6km from MG road to my flat! We only stopped to admire a nice park in my neighborhood (incidentally, the weather today was fantastic!).
The last major thing for the day was dinner. Tracy and her visiting friend Rebecca decided to make pasta and sauce for dinner, and Elaine and I went to the Food Mart to buy food for a fruit salad (our [Elaine's] contribution), and matches to start our stove. Dinner was *delicious* (bow-tie pasta, tomato sauce full of zuchini, squash, and other good veggies, and a delicious fruit salad of pineapple, apple, mango, and bananna [:-)], with mango juice to drink) and we had Gelatto from Daily Bread and a Chocolate with Almonds Cadburry Bar (reminds me of New Zealand!) for dessert.
All in all a fantastic day! I don't really want to go back and do work tomorrow :-P.
Cheers,
Jason
Well, the original plan for this weekend was that it was going to be spent in Pondicherry. Elaine and I left on Friday afternoon and, after an obscenely long drive, arrived there at about 9PM and paid way more than we wanted in order to stay the night in a hotel rather nicer than we were planning on. Dinner and the buffet were very nice, though food has not been sitting on Elaine's stomach very well :-(. Sleep was wonderful after that long drive!
The next morning we got a slow start and didn't really get out of the hotel until a little before noon, at which point we headed over near the water (Pondicherry is on the sea) and tried to find a room for the next night. We failed completely. After an hour of trying the only room we could find was for 5000Rs. a night :-P. We decided to cut our losses, wandered about near the water for a while (saw the Ghandi statue, went to a great little bookstore "Book Cafe", and a wonderful restaurant called "Rendezvous" [This was a French colony for many years]) then headed home for Bangalore :-(. After a *long* drive we made ourselves a makeshift dinner of toast and nutella, then went to sleep. All in all, a few nice bits in Pondicherry, but it has proved to be a lesson in the necessity of planning well ahead for things.
Today proved to be *much* better ^_^. We woke up fairly early and decided to tour around Bangalore. We had the yellow flavored rice that they serve us at the flat for breakfast, then after some further futzing headed downtown to Geruda Mall, which is right by MG road. I really wanted to show Elaine the spectacle of a Bangalore mall. We wandered up its 6 stories, stopping at a store to buy Elaine some *fantastic* Indian tops, which gave the mall time to get bustling and busy and a true show of how happening of a place it is.
After the mall we walked to Brigade road and had lunch at the Paradise club, where Dad and I had gone twice for beers while he was here. Elaine had some *truly amazing* Palak Paneer, "the best food she has ever had in her life", which is a high compliment from someone with such a developed and diverse palate! We even got the recipe from the waiter, then stopped by a supermarket to pick up the spices that we will need to cook it!!! Hopefully we will be able to recreate this taste sensation!
We continued our *fantastic* day by stopping by the cat/magazine store after lunch, and spending a while there watching the cute cats and reading through a few of the magazines. It was so much fun getting to bring Elaine to all of these places that I've wanted to show her for two months (holy moly, I've been in India for two months!).
After the cat store we stopped by Blossom for several hours, Elaine flipped upon seeing the collection ^_^, and we bought a whole bunch of fantastic books. I'm going to have reading material for a *long* time. After Blossom we decided we wanted a bit of exercise, so we walked the 6km from MG road to my flat! We only stopped to admire a nice park in my neighborhood (incidentally, the weather today was fantastic!).
The last major thing for the day was dinner. Tracy and her visiting friend Rebecca decided to make pasta and sauce for dinner, and Elaine and I went to the Food Mart to buy food for a fruit salad (our [Elaine's] contribution), and matches to start our stove. Dinner was *delicious* (bow-tie pasta, tomato sauce full of zuchini, squash, and other good veggies, and a delicious fruit salad of pineapple, apple, mango, and bananna [:-)], with mango juice to drink) and we had Gelatto from Daily Bread and a Chocolate with Almonds Cadburry Bar (reminds me of New Zealand!) for dessert.
All in all a fantastic day! I don't really want to go back and do work tomorrow :-P.
Cheers,
Jason
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Elaine is here!
Hey all!
Guess what! Elaine arrived Wednesday night (or really, Thursday morning)! I met her at the airport dressed in my full Indian suit, which I have been keeping pictures of offline for the last month to keep from spoiling the surprise! It is fantastic that she is here and, as much fun as I'm having in India, I'm going to be really really glad when this whole long distance thing is over for a while!
We didn't do too much on Thursday. Elaine has been sleeping a lot, catching up from a horrifically long 36 hour trip to India. We did go out to wander about the neighborhood around my house, down as far as "Orange", where I had dinner with Dad and Tracy last week, and wandering back through some residential areas on the way back. Last night we went to Opus and, while we didn't participate in quiz night we at least watched the spectacle and had some delicious food (blueberry 'cheesecake' that seemed to be made from whipped cream ^_^) in the process. On the way back we, completely by chance, ran into Revi and Udai on their way to dinner and while we were talking to them saw Rob walking by! Crazy meetings! The rest of the night passed largely by looking at pictures and reading.
Today we woke up late, and it looks like I'm going to be able to bring Elaine in to work with me today! Then, around 2PM, we're going to take a private car and head out to Pondicherry for the weekend! Pondicherry is part of the formerly French part of India, and we're really eager to see what happens when French and Indian cultures meet!
Lets see, quick notes on the rest of the week before Elaine got here... Lots of thinking about Elaine coming and preparing for the event (bought a massive flower wreath). At work the PRNG actually is working (probably turned out to be a dumb mistake with file output), Monday night we watched a Bollywood movie in our flat with lots of people, and Wednesday before I went to the airport we went to Zero-G for Bollywood night, and got dinner at an 'open late' place after that.
I should probably be off to work now!
Cheers,
Jason
Guess what! Elaine arrived Wednesday night (or really, Thursday morning)! I met her at the airport dressed in my full Indian suit, which I have been keeping pictures of offline for the last month to keep from spoiling the surprise! It is fantastic that she is here and, as much fun as I'm having in India, I'm going to be really really glad when this whole long distance thing is over for a while!
We didn't do too much on Thursday. Elaine has been sleeping a lot, catching up from a horrifically long 36 hour trip to India. We did go out to wander about the neighborhood around my house, down as far as "Orange", where I had dinner with Dad and Tracy last week, and wandering back through some residential areas on the way back. Last night we went to Opus and, while we didn't participate in quiz night we at least watched the spectacle and had some delicious food (blueberry 'cheesecake' that seemed to be made from whipped cream ^_^) in the process. On the way back we, completely by chance, ran into Revi and Udai on their way to dinner and while we were talking to them saw Rob walking by! Crazy meetings! The rest of the night passed largely by looking at pictures and reading.
Today we woke up late, and it looks like I'm going to be able to bring Elaine in to work with me today! Then, around 2PM, we're going to take a private car and head out to Pondicherry for the weekend! Pondicherry is part of the formerly French part of India, and we're really eager to see what happens when French and Indian cultures meet!
Lets see, quick notes on the rest of the week before Elaine got here... Lots of thinking about Elaine coming and preparing for the event (bought a massive flower wreath). At work the PRNG actually is working (probably turned out to be a dumb mistake with file output), Monday night we watched a Bollywood movie in our flat with lots of people, and Wednesday before I went to the airport we went to Zero-G for Bollywood night, and got dinner at an 'open late' place after that.
I should probably be off to work now!
Cheers,
Jason
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Dinner with Nate
Hey all,
Its been a fairly nice and relaxing Sunday today. I slept in a bit this morning after staying up late last night, and I finally gave up on the sketchy and thing facial hair and shaved away everything but my goatee.
At about 10:00 Tracy and I met Rob and Revi at the dosa place, and the group of us ventured over to commercial street. I found some very cool things there (not for myself ^_^), and I think that we all had a fun time. Revi had to leave a bit early to go do an interview for one of her projects, and Rob, Tracy, and I had lunch in that area before heading back to the office in Sadashivanagar. Mainly just checked email and such at the office, though I had several excellent games of ping-pong with Rob (and I actually won the second one!).
I went home, putzed about, and wrote email to a bunch of people through the afternoon, then started to upload my pictures from the last week and a half to facebook. Around this time Nate Pinkney emailed me, reminding me that he (and Prof. Harris) were also in Bangalore! We met at 7PM and the three of us (Tracy joined Nate and I) headed down to the Cohiba club on MG road for dinner. It was really cool chatting about what he is up to (helping Prof. Harris with stuff for the next edition of his book) and how he likes India. The number of random Mudders in India is becoming ridiculous, and will be even more so after Elaine and Greg get here (which is soon!!! ^_^_^).
Since dinner I've just been working to get all of my pictures uploaded, commented, and tagged on Facebook. That process is now complete, and here are the links to all the new albums! Enjoy!
Bylakuppe
A week with Dad
Nels Birthday
Random Weekend Pictures
Cheers,
Jason
Its been a fairly nice and relaxing Sunday today. I slept in a bit this morning after staying up late last night, and I finally gave up on the sketchy and thing facial hair and shaved away everything but my goatee.
At about 10:00 Tracy and I met Rob and Revi at the dosa place, and the group of us ventured over to commercial street. I found some very cool things there (not for myself ^_^), and I think that we all had a fun time. Revi had to leave a bit early to go do an interview for one of her projects, and Rob, Tracy, and I had lunch in that area before heading back to the office in Sadashivanagar. Mainly just checked email and such at the office, though I had several excellent games of ping-pong with Rob (and I actually won the second one!).
I went home, putzed about, and wrote email to a bunch of people through the afternoon, then started to upload my pictures from the last week and a half to facebook. Around this time Nate Pinkney emailed me, reminding me that he (and Prof. Harris) were also in Bangalore! We met at 7PM and the three of us (Tracy joined Nate and I) headed down to the Cohiba club on MG road for dinner. It was really cool chatting about what he is up to (helping Prof. Harris with stuff for the next edition of his book) and how he likes India. The number of random Mudders in India is becoming ridiculous, and will be even more so after Elaine and Greg get here (which is soon!!! ^_^_^).
Since dinner I've just been working to get all of my pictures uploaded, commented, and tagged on Facebook. That process is now complete, and here are the links to all the new albums! Enjoy!
Bylakuppe
A week with Dad
Nels Birthday
Random Weekend Pictures
Cheers,
Jason
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The week with Dad
Hey all,
I'm starting to fall behind on this blog, so I'm going to skim at a higher level than usual over the last week (especially since Dad has been keeping a very detailed journal too). I'll start off with this past Sunday. Dad and I headed over to Lal Bagh Gardens, which is a botanical garden on the far side of Bangalore. The garden has a few nice features: a great view of the skyline of the city, a couple of really nice lakes (with lotus flowers!), a silk tree, and some kooky topiary. Overall, however, it was not particularly taken care of. There was trash everywhere, their 'glass house' display area was completely empty, and the 'Japanese Garden" looked like an angry mob had taken axes and flame to it. I guess the lesson is that European-style tourist spots in India don't live up to their European counterparts (duh!). Dad and I were going to go to a tiffin place near the gardens for lunch, but there was a line spilling out on to the street so we caught a rickshaw and went to a place near MG road called "Pub World". It was supposed to have 4 different sections designed like pubs from different parts of the world, but they were so similar I could barely tell where one section started and the next began (for instance, the only distinguishing feature of the "wild west" style pub was the swinging, saloon style, doors).
I worked a bit that afternoon, and for Sunday evening we went with Nels, Tracy, Rob, and Pavol to the dosa place near home. It turns out they have a *huge* selection of delicious meals, and I think we ate there 3 or 4 more times this week!
On Monday Dad and I went down to the MG road area to get Dad tickets for a bus tour into Mysore for Wednesday. We were hungry, so we ended up walking along a part of the MG road area that I haven't been to before (actually along MG road) and grabbing a wonderful lunch at a slightly swanky place called 'Emgees' (say it out loud if you don't get it). Cubbon Park was between us and the bus ticket office, so we decided to wander through. We got slightly lost and ended up in a part that was *much* prettier and better maintained than the parts that I had been through before, and made the place look better than Lal Bagh. We eventually made it to the ticket office and got Dad a ticket for Wednesday!
There was a big sign at the end of Lal Bagh that had a listing of traffic violations and fines that I thought was amusing and took a picture of. I was just looking at the picture and reading through the fines such as "Racing/Trial of Speed - 300Rs.", "Jumping Traffic Signal - 100Rs.", "Using musical/Shrill Horn - 100Rs.", and "Cutting Yellow Line - 100Rs." (all of which I have observed frequently, especially the horn one) when I noticed "Ladies seat occupying by male person - 100Rs.". I don't know which seat is the "Ladies", but I thought that its an interesting thing to have a traffic fine for.
For dinner this Monday Tracy, Dad, and I tried to find "Daily Bread", which we had been told was a really good sandwich shop. We ended up going about 2km farther than the store (we found it on the way back) and having dinner at the *very* sketchy (but delicious!) "Orange".
On Tuesday, Dad and I stayed closer to home and explored the area. We wandered about a small park near the office that is the best maintained of the parks I have seen (no trash piles!), then headed down the road to a "Tuberculosis Hospital" (Dad is a lung doctor, with a sort-of sub-specialty in tuberculosis). We wandered inside and (after Dad gave his credentials) were able to chat with one of the doctors there for about 20 minutes. It turns out the place doesn't treat patients, but is the central place in India for training of doctors to care for tuberculosis and for research into processes to eliminate the disease from India. After we left Dad explained all the medical details I hadn't understood, and described the details of the disease to me. All very interesting.
We then tried to get into Palace Grounds, which is a really huge open area where concerts are held, to try to see the Bangalore Palace which occupies a small corner of the grounds and is supposed to be a copy of Windsor Palace! On the way I bought some "Jackfruit" from a street vendor. It is a *huge* [larger than watermelon] spikey fruit that has a bunch of smaller yellow pieces inside that you eat individually. I had one and it was delicious, but my mouth started itching so we decided to throw the rest of the pieces I had bought away :-(. I haven't been able to find any in a supermarket, but hopefully I will have more luck in the future.
Anyway, after walking several km we found an entrance to Palace Grounds and wandered in. It was, unfortunately, partitioned so that we couldn't get to the side that has the palace, but we did spot what looked like a large amusement park, and we found an abandoned go-kart course where we sat and enjoyed the breeze for a while. That was the lowest population density that I have experienced in a month and a half!
After we tired of Palace Grounds we took a rickshaw to Daily Bread (we knew where it was now!), had fairly good sandwiches and delicious gelatto for lunch, then I went to work. We had dinner again at the dosa place, and it was again delicious!
On Wednesday I woke up at 5:30AM and grabbed a quick shower before helping Dad get an auto-rickshaw down to the bus place for his tour, for which the bus left at 7AM and returned at 11PM! He had a great time, though the day was rather long!. As for me, I went in to work at 6AM and worked till 8PM, trying to catch on all the time I had been spending out of work. However, Wednesday was Nelses 25th birthday (and Thursday was Christian's 31st), so a *huge* contingent of people from the office went over to Opus for karaoke night. Some highlights of the evening: talking with a new intern, Camillo, from Columbia and getting the inside scoop from him on traveling to Columbia (sounds like it would be fantastic! And it is quite feasible to do without being kidnapped/killed!), along with Christan and Udai sang "Under the Bridge" (we had a stage act and everything. We sang badly, but had fun ^_^), and had tequila shots with Nels and Christian because it was their birthday (then found out that each shot cost 450Rs.!!!!! That is more than $10 for each shot!).
Thursday was Dad's last Day in Bangalore :-(. I worked in the morning (as had become routine), then we had lunch at the dosa place and headed over to commercial street to do some shopping. The shopping was really a lot of fun and Dad found a whole bunch of cool things, such as a *beautiful* figure of Krishna. We also bought a pair of kurtas (traditional Indian shirts) together, and I (finally) found a couple of cool earrings for myself.
After lots of shopping we headed over to MG road to sit down and relax for a while over a couple beers, after which we did a little more shopping on MG road for some positively *beautiful* scarves. I tried to get an auto-rickshaw in a slightly different spot than usual to get back home, and it ended up causing us to have to walk and extra km to find one (though we got meter!).
Back home it had gotten dark and the power was out, so Dad had to finish up his packing in the dark. We went to dinner (again) at the delicious dosa place, then I called a cab to pick us up for the airport. Just getting the cab to the house proved to be an adventure as it was hard for me to get ahold of the guy on my cellphone, and it took him *an hour* of roving around Sadashivanagar to actually find the place! Even once we were in the cab the adventure was not over, as the cab had a broken horn, the driver was constantly on his cellphone, and when he wasn't on the cellphone drove more recklessly than any other person I have yet seen here!
The airport was a zoo, but I think that it always is. I flashed my passport at the guards and managed to get into what turned out to be the passengers only area and helped Dad get all checked in and said goodbye. Then I tried to leave, and almost got arrested! I tried to just cooly walk out the door, but there were security guards on both sides and one of them stopped me. I tried some BS story about having to say goodbye to someone, but he just told me to go back inside (apparently once inside, you are only supposed to leave on a plane!). At this point I told him that I had just gone inside to help my Dad, and that I wasn't a passenger. He was *not* happy with this and asked, somewhat angrily, how I got in. I said that I just showed my passport, which he then took from me and stared *balefully* at. All through this exchange Dad was inside the airport and watching, getting ready to bail me out (though I don't know what he could have done). After a couple of minutes of staring at the passport, the guard handed it to me and just looked away, like I had disappeared. This was all the sign I needed, so I (quickly) waved goodbye to dad and *booked* it away from the guard and headed back home via the waiting taxi driver!
I would like to end the post on that high note, but I have just a couple of other things to mention. Once home I ended up staying up for several hours with Nels and Tracy, listening to music and generally putzing around. We also went outside and danced around on our roof in the *deluge* of rain that hit right after I got home (which marks the first, and probably only, time that I have had my shirt off while being outside in India :-0).
Not too much happened on Friday. Mostly just me working all day (after a year I understand why the CRF probability distribution is convex! I'm sorry to all my readers, but it was a triumphant moment and I had to put it in here). I was expecting to do something that evening, but neither Nels or Tracy came home, so I ended up just futzing on the computer (downloaded all the PhD comics ^_^) and reading my book [it turns out Tracy went to an office party that I forgot about, and Nels is off traveling]. I ended sitting in bed reading for a while, and all the sleep deprivation I've gone through in the last week (working and hanging out with Dad doesn't leave much free time, and I haven't really managed more than 5 or 6 hours in a while) caught up to me. I managed to turn out the light in my room, but I didn't even push the book I was reading out of bed (let alone change or close the door!) before sleep took me (apparently Tracy couldn't figure out what was up, because all the lights were on and my door was open when she got home at 2AM, but I didn't come out of my room or anything).
I woke up fairly early today, but have not done all that much. I finished "Pride and Pregidous" (reading in a nice little park near the flat), which was actually quite good, far better than I expected, and have talked with Elaine, Mike, and Dad (who got home safely, though his bags were soaked in the above mentioned deluge [and apparently my copy of Dummit & Foote that I shipped back with him looks like someone took a sledgehammer to it :'-( ). I'm really enjoying having a nice, relaxing day at home for the first time in weeks ^_^.
Thats all for now! I will post pictures from Dads visit sometime today.
Cheers,
Jason
I'm starting to fall behind on this blog, so I'm going to skim at a higher level than usual over the last week (especially since Dad has been keeping a very detailed journal too). I'll start off with this past Sunday. Dad and I headed over to Lal Bagh Gardens, which is a botanical garden on the far side of Bangalore. The garden has a few nice features: a great view of the skyline of the city, a couple of really nice lakes (with lotus flowers!), a silk tree, and some kooky topiary. Overall, however, it was not particularly taken care of. There was trash everywhere, their 'glass house' display area was completely empty, and the 'Japanese Garden" looked like an angry mob had taken axes and flame to it. I guess the lesson is that European-style tourist spots in India don't live up to their European counterparts (duh!). Dad and I were going to go to a tiffin place near the gardens for lunch, but there was a line spilling out on to the street so we caught a rickshaw and went to a place near MG road called "Pub World". It was supposed to have 4 different sections designed like pubs from different parts of the world, but they were so similar I could barely tell where one section started and the next began (for instance, the only distinguishing feature of the "wild west" style pub was the swinging, saloon style, doors).
I worked a bit that afternoon, and for Sunday evening we went with Nels, Tracy, Rob, and Pavol to the dosa place near home. It turns out they have a *huge* selection of delicious meals, and I think we ate there 3 or 4 more times this week!
On Monday Dad and I went down to the MG road area to get Dad tickets for a bus tour into Mysore for Wednesday. We were hungry, so we ended up walking along a part of the MG road area that I haven't been to before (actually along MG road) and grabbing a wonderful lunch at a slightly swanky place called 'Emgees' (say it out loud if you don't get it). Cubbon Park was between us and the bus ticket office, so we decided to wander through. We got slightly lost and ended up in a part that was *much* prettier and better maintained than the parts that I had been through before, and made the place look better than Lal Bagh. We eventually made it to the ticket office and got Dad a ticket for Wednesday!
There was a big sign at the end of Lal Bagh that had a listing of traffic violations and fines that I thought was amusing and took a picture of. I was just looking at the picture and reading through the fines such as "Racing/Trial of Speed - 300Rs.", "Jumping Traffic Signal - 100Rs.", "Using musical/Shrill Horn - 100Rs.", and "Cutting Yellow Line - 100Rs." (all of which I have observed frequently, especially the horn one) when I noticed "Ladies seat occupying by male person - 100Rs.". I don't know which seat is the "Ladies", but I thought that its an interesting thing to have a traffic fine for.
For dinner this Monday Tracy, Dad, and I tried to find "Daily Bread", which we had been told was a really good sandwich shop. We ended up going about 2km farther than the store (we found it on the way back) and having dinner at the *very* sketchy (but delicious!) "Orange".
On Tuesday, Dad and I stayed closer to home and explored the area. We wandered about a small park near the office that is the best maintained of the parks I have seen (no trash piles!), then headed down the road to a "Tuberculosis Hospital" (Dad is a lung doctor, with a sort-of sub-specialty in tuberculosis). We wandered inside and (after Dad gave his credentials) were able to chat with one of the doctors there for about 20 minutes. It turns out the place doesn't treat patients, but is the central place in India for training of doctors to care for tuberculosis and for research into processes to eliminate the disease from India. After we left Dad explained all the medical details I hadn't understood, and described the details of the disease to me. All very interesting.
We then tried to get into Palace Grounds, which is a really huge open area where concerts are held, to try to see the Bangalore Palace which occupies a small corner of the grounds and is supposed to be a copy of Windsor Palace! On the way I bought some "Jackfruit" from a street vendor. It is a *huge* [larger than watermelon] spikey fruit that has a bunch of smaller yellow pieces inside that you eat individually. I had one and it was delicious, but my mouth started itching so we decided to throw the rest of the pieces I had bought away :-(. I haven't been able to find any in a supermarket, but hopefully I will have more luck in the future.
Anyway, after walking several km we found an entrance to Palace Grounds and wandered in. It was, unfortunately, partitioned so that we couldn't get to the side that has the palace, but we did spot what looked like a large amusement park, and we found an abandoned go-kart course where we sat and enjoyed the breeze for a while. That was the lowest population density that I have experienced in a month and a half!
After we tired of Palace Grounds we took a rickshaw to Daily Bread (we knew where it was now!), had fairly good sandwiches and delicious gelatto for lunch, then I went to work. We had dinner again at the dosa place, and it was again delicious!
On Wednesday I woke up at 5:30AM and grabbed a quick shower before helping Dad get an auto-rickshaw down to the bus place for his tour, for which the bus left at 7AM and returned at 11PM! He had a great time, though the day was rather long!. As for me, I went in to work at 6AM and worked till 8PM, trying to catch on all the time I had been spending out of work. However, Wednesday was Nelses 25th birthday (and Thursday was Christian's 31st), so a *huge* contingent of people from the office went over to Opus for karaoke night. Some highlights of the evening: talking with a new intern, Camillo, from Columbia and getting the inside scoop from him on traveling to Columbia (sounds like it would be fantastic! And it is quite feasible to do without being kidnapped/killed!), along with Christan and Udai sang "Under the Bridge" (we had a stage act and everything. We sang badly, but had fun ^_^), and had tequila shots with Nels and Christian because it was their birthday (then found out that each shot cost 450Rs.!!!!! That is more than $10 for each shot!).
Thursday was Dad's last Day in Bangalore :-(. I worked in the morning (as had become routine), then we had lunch at the dosa place and headed over to commercial street to do some shopping. The shopping was really a lot of fun and Dad found a whole bunch of cool things, such as a *beautiful* figure of Krishna. We also bought a pair of kurtas (traditional Indian shirts) together, and I (finally) found a couple of cool earrings for myself.
After lots of shopping we headed over to MG road to sit down and relax for a while over a couple beers, after which we did a little more shopping on MG road for some positively *beautiful* scarves. I tried to get an auto-rickshaw in a slightly different spot than usual to get back home, and it ended up causing us to have to walk and extra km to find one (though we got meter!).
Back home it had gotten dark and the power was out, so Dad had to finish up his packing in the dark. We went to dinner (again) at the delicious dosa place, then I called a cab to pick us up for the airport. Just getting the cab to the house proved to be an adventure as it was hard for me to get ahold of the guy on my cellphone, and it took him *an hour* of roving around Sadashivanagar to actually find the place! Even once we were in the cab the adventure was not over, as the cab had a broken horn, the driver was constantly on his cellphone, and when he wasn't on the cellphone drove more recklessly than any other person I have yet seen here!
The airport was a zoo, but I think that it always is. I flashed my passport at the guards and managed to get into what turned out to be the passengers only area and helped Dad get all checked in and said goodbye. Then I tried to leave, and almost got arrested! I tried to just cooly walk out the door, but there were security guards on both sides and one of them stopped me. I tried some BS story about having to say goodbye to someone, but he just told me to go back inside (apparently once inside, you are only supposed to leave on a plane!). At this point I told him that I had just gone inside to help my Dad, and that I wasn't a passenger. He was *not* happy with this and asked, somewhat angrily, how I got in. I said that I just showed my passport, which he then took from me and stared *balefully* at. All through this exchange Dad was inside the airport and watching, getting ready to bail me out (though I don't know what he could have done). After a couple of minutes of staring at the passport, the guard handed it to me and just looked away, like I had disappeared. This was all the sign I needed, so I (quickly) waved goodbye to dad and *booked* it away from the guard and headed back home via the waiting taxi driver!
I would like to end the post on that high note, but I have just a couple of other things to mention. Once home I ended up staying up for several hours with Nels and Tracy, listening to music and generally putzing around. We also went outside and danced around on our roof in the *deluge* of rain that hit right after I got home (which marks the first, and probably only, time that I have had my shirt off while being outside in India :-0).
Not too much happened on Friday. Mostly just me working all day (after a year I understand why the CRF probability distribution is convex! I'm sorry to all my readers, but it was a triumphant moment and I had to put it in here). I was expecting to do something that evening, but neither Nels or Tracy came home, so I ended up just futzing on the computer (downloaded all the PhD comics ^_^) and reading my book [it turns out Tracy went to an office party that I forgot about, and Nels is off traveling]. I ended sitting in bed reading for a while, and all the sleep deprivation I've gone through in the last week (working and hanging out with Dad doesn't leave much free time, and I haven't really managed more than 5 or 6 hours in a while) caught up to me. I managed to turn out the light in my room, but I didn't even push the book I was reading out of bed (let alone change or close the door!) before sleep took me (apparently Tracy couldn't figure out what was up, because all the lights were on and my door was open when she got home at 2AM, but I didn't come out of my room or anything).
I woke up fairly early today, but have not done all that much. I finished "Pride and Pregidous" (reading in a nice little park near the flat), which was actually quite good, far better than I expected, and have talked with Elaine, Mike, and Dad (who got home safely, though his bags were soaked in the above mentioned deluge [and apparently my copy of Dummit & Foote that I shipped back with him looks like someone took a sledgehammer to it :'-( ). I'm really enjoying having a nice, relaxing day at home for the first time in weeks ^_^.
Thats all for now! I will post pictures from Dads visit sometime today.
Cheers,
Jason
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Bylakuppe!
Hey all,
So, this past Saturday Dad and I woke up at 7AM and wandered about Kushalnagar until we found a place to eat (our hotel doesn't do breakfast) and had delicious porri for breakfast. We checked out of the hotel at 9AM, right when Chosang and Rinzin showed up to take us around Bylakuppe (Chosang also went into the hotel and recovered some money because they had overcharged us by about 300Rs. for the room [so the room cost 450Rs ~ $10 for two people for a night ^_^]).
We then entered Bylakuppe and began touring around temple, starting with a stop down the hill from the "Golden Temple" which is the one mentioned in guidebooks that talk about Bylakuppe. It was a spectacular view over a field of corn and a road lined with trees that all had huge prayer flags on them. From here we proceeded on into the actual temple complex.
Just walking up to the Golden Temple was amazing. The place is ornately decorated and brimming with color. While Dad and I took pictures and chatted with Rinzin, Chosang wandered off to find a monk to open the temple for us. It consisted of 4 stories, of which I believe only the bottom is normally open to the public. A monk let us in and we started on the 2nd story of the temple, which contained a massive golden statue (which I don't understand the religious significance of) and the walls were totally covered with paintings that had intricate details down to the size of my thumbnail (this is a constant through all the temples. Massive, colorful rooms with mindblowingly detailed decorations covering every inch of the walls. Beautiful.). At every temple, when you enter there is a small ritual: putting your hands together, touching your forehead, lips, and chest, then getting on your knees and touching your forehead to the floor. This is repeated three times, then you only do the touching of the hands to forehead, lips, and head and you are finished. It is the most active sign of religious devotion I have ever engaged in, though I can't say that I ever felt particularly moved.
The 3rd and 4th story were designed similarly to the 2nd (and, it turns out later, the 1st) in that they contained a massive golden statue in the center (the statue on the 4th floor is of Buddha).
We always moved through the rooms clockwise (down for you physicists), which is something common to both Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist temples. (Later, when we were being really formal, we also stepped out of the temple walking backwards and being careful not to actually step on the threshold of the temple). To understate things completely, this temple and all of the ones we saw were *astoundingly* beautiful (like a certain person I know who's name starts with an E ^_^).
We saw a huge amount in Bylakuppe, so I will compress it down quite a bit. It was a really wonderful experience ^_^. After floors 2-4 of the golden temple we came down and saw some exhibits, around the 2nd floor, of the Tibetan Buddhist depictions of an equivalent to hell ("were sinners go")! I didn't know such a thing existed, and it was pretty incredible to see. We then continued on to the temple next door that was again huge and beautiful and contained 3 massive (at least 5 meters tall) golden statues of Buddhist sages and Buddha. We then continued on to the very pretty neighboring garden, and went to see Thubrig's son. Thubrig is the brother-in-law of Chosang and the friend of another Tibetan that is a good friend of my Dad's. Thubrig's son is about 10 years old and came to India a couple of years ago to become a monk at the Golden Temple. He was fairly shy, but Dad got some good pictures of him to take to Thubrig.
After visiting Thubrig's son we saw a *massive* (~2-3 meter tall) prayer wheel (massive barrel filled with the various mantra's and prayer's from the Darma, the Buddhist holy book. When the wheel is spun the prayers go up to heaven, or at least that is the general idea), then proceeded to the outside wall of the temple complex. The *entire* wall around this massive complex consists of smaller (~.5 meter tall) prayer wheels, occasionally interspersed with rooms that contain half a dozen more massive prayer wheels. We walked around a good portion of the outside wall spinning the wheels, which was a really cool experience. We then walked up and down a line of 16 monoliths just inside the wall that represent 16 great Buddhist teachers, followed by walking 3 times around another monolith that was somehow (I didn't understand how) special and had lots of other people walking around it (clockwise, of course).
Incidentally, when I seem to sound knowledgeable about things, then switch to saying that I don't understand, it is usually because I wasn't able to understand an explanation of things offered by Chosang or Rinzin or they couldn't understand my question. However, despite the language barrier we managed to have very nice conversations with them, either chatting about Rinzin's schooling or the family life, or being informed about the significance of the things we were seeing. Speaking of Chosang and Rinzin, I would like to underscore how incredibly generous and kind they were to us. They took a day that they had off of various work commitments to take two people that they had never met around their community. This next story illustrates this aptly. As we were leaving golden temple complex (after having seen the 1st floor of the main temple), Dad asked about the "Medicine Buddha", which he is interested in. This didn't translate all that well, but just after he asked Rinzin disappeared for a while. She came back as we were exiting the complex with a small plastic bag filled with what looked kind of like coffee beans. Apparently they are the Rempoche's (overseer of the temple) special medicine to help to recover from illness, and are not very easy to come by! This was something that we were offered just because Dad mentioned something about medicine!
The final cool thing that I will mention about the Golden Temple complex was that there was a moss-covered rock outside the Golden Temple that was carved into a miniature version of another temple complex: the one in Tibet that the Golden Temple was based on. The tragedy here is that the temple in Tibet no longer exists: it was destroyed by the Chinese, probably during the Cultural Revolution.
After the Golden Temple we had lunch (Tibetan putta [a soup] and cowmein [I wanted to try momo, but they didn't have any]), bought some prayer flags (if you write your name, or really the name of any person or group on them then that person/group will be helped at every step in their future), then visited Ngagyur Nyingma (yay for taking pictures of signs) Nunnery, which was much smaller, but still *spectacular*. Also, being a nunnery, there were nuns instead of monks here, which was something I did not know was endorsed by Buddhists (I think there are probably differences between different groups). After this we proceeded to the Sera Jey Monastic University which was again massive and spectacular. I am running out of words to describe these places, so I will simply say where we went, note some interesting facts, and post the pictures as soon as possible (though a lot of my pictures failed to come out :-(, I'll get some from Dad). The cool fact about Sera Jey was that about *four _thousand_* monks were there. And this is only one of 8 temples, and not the largest! This gives you some idea of the size of this community of exiled Tibetans (this is one of two areas given to them by India when the Dali Lama first fled Tibet).
The next temple on our route was Sermey Dratsang Cultural Society, which had *unbelievable* wall hangings and weavings hung everywhere. The common theme in the artwork here is *incredible* detail, lots of color and gold. This temple also had 16 paintings (8 on either side wall) depicting 16 great Buddhist sages, the same 16 that were represented by the monoliths at the Golden Temple. Finally, one of the main statues in this temple was of the Medicine Buddha, and there was also a mandala for the Medicine Buddha (a small scale house, completely made out of gold that depicts (as do all mandala when the word is used in this sense) the world according to the Darma of the Medicine Buddha.
The next monastery, Nalanda, was the newest that we saw. There were several beehives on the front of the temple, which apparently show that the temple will grow and prosper. The other cool thing in this temple was that Chosang had helped to install some of the stones in the goldwork around the central idol in the temple.
At the next monastery we actually saw a bunch of monks in the middle of prayer and meditation! They were chanting in the main temple and we still went in and looked around! (This was the place where we were a little more formal about what we did). I took a short video of them chanting and will see if I can post it. This monastery also had a really big school out back (all of the monasteries had an attached school), and there was also a guy who would pray for things you asked him to (with the length of the prayer proportional to the amount you paid him).
The next monastery only had a single monk that was praying (and would later lead others in prayer) in a back room and beating a drum. From the sound of it Dad and I though that there was a whole group of monks back there, and were really surprised when there was only one! He had quite the resonating voice!
The next temple was the final one. It had incredibly ornate weavings draped everywhere and was, as expected, spectacular. At this point it was 3:30PM and we had been touring around for 6 and a half hours! If we had stayed till 8 we could have had dinner with Chosang and Rinzin and the rest of the family, but given that it was a 5 hour drive back to Bangalore we decided that wouldn't be the best option. Chosang gave Dad and I white silk scarves that he got at this last temple and are apparently blessings ^_^. We had our driver take some group pictures of us in front of the temple, then there were some kids outside the temple that asked Dad to take pictures of them and got *really* excited by when they saw themselves on the LCD screen ^_^. He also got a couple of good pictures of 10 year old monks that were watching the proceedings and seemed to feel to formal to join in until Dad asked to take their picture.
We said goodbye to Chosang and Rinzin at the entrance of Bylakuppe, where we had originally met them. It was really sad saying goodbye to such incredible and kind people, and we made sure to get their mailing address so that Dad could send them pictures and some other thank yous for all they had done for us. I feel like I made two friends that day, especially with Rinzin who was very fun to chat with about plans for schooling and things like that. ^_^
There is one last observation I would like to make. At every temple that we vistited, there was a picture of the Rempoche (the head of the temple), and Chosang and Rinzin would say something about them being the 14th or 17th Rempoche (or some other title). There was generally also a picture of their predecessor. It was not until late in the day or maybe the drive back that I realized that they were not 14th in line in presiding over the temple, but the 14th *incarnation* of a Buddhist that had become enlightened and decided to return to our world to help others find the way to nirvana. It made much more sense when I realized this. Along the same lines, there were pictures of the Dali Lama in most every temple, and many pictures of a small boy who was named to be the next incarnation of the sage that China put in to rule Tibet when the Dali Lama fled. However, the kid in the pictures is the incarnation named by the Dali Lama when the previous died, whereas China named a different incarnation and put this child and his family in "protective custody." Conclude from this what you will, but the exiled Tibetans certainly aren't buying it. I saw several "Boycott Chinese goods" sings in Bylakuppe.
The drive back was, as before, beautiful. The main even on the way back (other than contending with *horrific* [worst I've seen] traffic in Bangalore [did I mention that our driver was awesome?]) was seeing a bunch of Indian men walking down the road, butt naked!!! Considering how not OK anything publicly sexual is here, I couldn't believe what I saw! There were about 6 guys, just walking along the side of the highway with no clothes on, perfectly unconcerned. There were also other men, clothed, walking with them (pushing a pair of them on a cart) and also not alarmed. The only theory I have so far is from Tracy, guessing that these men are Jains (a fairly small but influential religious group here) of a sect that does not wear clothes! Considering the uproar I would expect at seeing a naked woman out on the street, I was shocked to see all these naked men. I think two sayings are particularly appropriate for this:
India is a nation of contradictions.
-lots of people
Anything you can think of might be [is?] true in India.
-Prasad
When we got back, around 8:30PM, we went out with Nels, Rob, Tracy, and Pavol to the dosa place near my house, which turns out to be a *fantastic* restaurant for dinner ^_^. After getting back I decided (as I have for many nights in a row ^_^) that I didn't have the energy to write this blog post and collapsed gratefully into bed.
I think that is *more* than enough for now. Next is Sunday's turn... We shall see if that happens tonight.
Cheers,
Jason
So, this past Saturday Dad and I woke up at 7AM and wandered about Kushalnagar until we found a place to eat (our hotel doesn't do breakfast) and had delicious porri for breakfast. We checked out of the hotel at 9AM, right when Chosang and Rinzin showed up to take us around Bylakuppe (Chosang also went into the hotel and recovered some money because they had overcharged us by about 300Rs. for the room [so the room cost 450Rs ~ $10 for two people for a night ^_^]).
We then entered Bylakuppe and began touring around temple, starting with a stop down the hill from the "Golden Temple" which is the one mentioned in guidebooks that talk about Bylakuppe. It was a spectacular view over a field of corn and a road lined with trees that all had huge prayer flags on them. From here we proceeded on into the actual temple complex.
Just walking up to the Golden Temple was amazing. The place is ornately decorated and brimming with color. While Dad and I took pictures and chatted with Rinzin, Chosang wandered off to find a monk to open the temple for us. It consisted of 4 stories, of which I believe only the bottom is normally open to the public. A monk let us in and we started on the 2nd story of the temple, which contained a massive golden statue (which I don't understand the religious significance of) and the walls were totally covered with paintings that had intricate details down to the size of my thumbnail (this is a constant through all the temples. Massive, colorful rooms with mindblowingly detailed decorations covering every inch of the walls. Beautiful.). At every temple, when you enter there is a small ritual: putting your hands together, touching your forehead, lips, and chest, then getting on your knees and touching your forehead to the floor. This is repeated three times, then you only do the touching of the hands to forehead, lips, and head and you are finished. It is the most active sign of religious devotion I have ever engaged in, though I can't say that I ever felt particularly moved.
The 3rd and 4th story were designed similarly to the 2nd (and, it turns out later, the 1st) in that they contained a massive golden statue in the center (the statue on the 4th floor is of Buddha).
We always moved through the rooms clockwise (down for you physicists), which is something common to both Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist temples. (Later, when we were being really formal, we also stepped out of the temple walking backwards and being careful not to actually step on the threshold of the temple). To understate things completely, this temple and all of the ones we saw were *astoundingly* beautiful (like a certain person I know who's name starts with an E ^_^).
We saw a huge amount in Bylakuppe, so I will compress it down quite a bit. It was a really wonderful experience ^_^. After floors 2-4 of the golden temple we came down and saw some exhibits, around the 2nd floor, of the Tibetan Buddhist depictions of an equivalent to hell ("were sinners go")! I didn't know such a thing existed, and it was pretty incredible to see. We then continued on to the temple next door that was again huge and beautiful and contained 3 massive (at least 5 meters tall) golden statues of Buddhist sages and Buddha. We then continued on to the very pretty neighboring garden, and went to see Thubrig's son. Thubrig is the brother-in-law of Chosang and the friend of another Tibetan that is a good friend of my Dad's. Thubrig's son is about 10 years old and came to India a couple of years ago to become a monk at the Golden Temple. He was fairly shy, but Dad got some good pictures of him to take to Thubrig.
After visiting Thubrig's son we saw a *massive* (~2-3 meter tall) prayer wheel (massive barrel filled with the various mantra's and prayer's from the Darma, the Buddhist holy book. When the wheel is spun the prayers go up to heaven, or at least that is the general idea), then proceeded to the outside wall of the temple complex. The *entire* wall around this massive complex consists of smaller (~.5 meter tall) prayer wheels, occasionally interspersed with rooms that contain half a dozen more massive prayer wheels. We walked around a good portion of the outside wall spinning the wheels, which was a really cool experience. We then walked up and down a line of 16 monoliths just inside the wall that represent 16 great Buddhist teachers, followed by walking 3 times around another monolith that was somehow (I didn't understand how) special and had lots of other people walking around it (clockwise, of course).
Incidentally, when I seem to sound knowledgeable about things, then switch to saying that I don't understand, it is usually because I wasn't able to understand an explanation of things offered by Chosang or Rinzin or they couldn't understand my question. However, despite the language barrier we managed to have very nice conversations with them, either chatting about Rinzin's schooling or the family life, or being informed about the significance of the things we were seeing. Speaking of Chosang and Rinzin, I would like to underscore how incredibly generous and kind they were to us. They took a day that they had off of various work commitments to take two people that they had never met around their community. This next story illustrates this aptly. As we were leaving golden temple complex (after having seen the 1st floor of the main temple), Dad asked about the "Medicine Buddha", which he is interested in. This didn't translate all that well, but just after he asked Rinzin disappeared for a while. She came back as we were exiting the complex with a small plastic bag filled with what looked kind of like coffee beans. Apparently they are the Rempoche's (overseer of the temple) special medicine to help to recover from illness, and are not very easy to come by! This was something that we were offered just because Dad mentioned something about medicine!
The final cool thing that I will mention about the Golden Temple complex was that there was a moss-covered rock outside the Golden Temple that was carved into a miniature version of another temple complex: the one in Tibet that the Golden Temple was based on. The tragedy here is that the temple in Tibet no longer exists: it was destroyed by the Chinese, probably during the Cultural Revolution.
After the Golden Temple we had lunch (Tibetan putta [a soup] and cowmein [I wanted to try momo, but they didn't have any]), bought some prayer flags (if you write your name, or really the name of any person or group on them then that person/group will be helped at every step in their future), then visited Ngagyur Nyingma (yay for taking pictures of signs) Nunnery, which was much smaller, but still *spectacular*. Also, being a nunnery, there were nuns instead of monks here, which was something I did not know was endorsed by Buddhists (I think there are probably differences between different groups). After this we proceeded to the Sera Jey Monastic University which was again massive and spectacular. I am running out of words to describe these places, so I will simply say where we went, note some interesting facts, and post the pictures as soon as possible (though a lot of my pictures failed to come out :-(, I'll get some from Dad). The cool fact about Sera Jey was that about *four _thousand_* monks were there. And this is only one of 8 temples, and not the largest! This gives you some idea of the size of this community of exiled Tibetans (this is one of two areas given to them by India when the Dali Lama first fled Tibet).
The next temple on our route was Sermey Dratsang Cultural Society, which had *unbelievable* wall hangings and weavings hung everywhere. The common theme in the artwork here is *incredible* detail, lots of color and gold. This temple also had 16 paintings (8 on either side wall) depicting 16 great Buddhist sages, the same 16 that were represented by the monoliths at the Golden Temple. Finally, one of the main statues in this temple was of the Medicine Buddha, and there was also a mandala for the Medicine Buddha (a small scale house, completely made out of gold that depicts (as do all mandala when the word is used in this sense) the world according to the Darma of the Medicine Buddha.
The next monastery, Nalanda, was the newest that we saw. There were several beehives on the front of the temple, which apparently show that the temple will grow and prosper. The other cool thing in this temple was that Chosang had helped to install some of the stones in the goldwork around the central idol in the temple.
At the next monastery we actually saw a bunch of monks in the middle of prayer and meditation! They were chanting in the main temple and we still went in and looked around! (This was the place where we were a little more formal about what we did). I took a short video of them chanting and will see if I can post it. This monastery also had a really big school out back (all of the monasteries had an attached school), and there was also a guy who would pray for things you asked him to (with the length of the prayer proportional to the amount you paid him).
The next monastery only had a single monk that was praying (and would later lead others in prayer) in a back room and beating a drum. From the sound of it Dad and I though that there was a whole group of monks back there, and were really surprised when there was only one! He had quite the resonating voice!
The next temple was the final one. It had incredibly ornate weavings draped everywhere and was, as expected, spectacular. At this point it was 3:30PM and we had been touring around for 6 and a half hours! If we had stayed till 8 we could have had dinner with Chosang and Rinzin and the rest of the family, but given that it was a 5 hour drive back to Bangalore we decided that wouldn't be the best option. Chosang gave Dad and I white silk scarves that he got at this last temple and are apparently blessings ^_^. We had our driver take some group pictures of us in front of the temple, then there were some kids outside the temple that asked Dad to take pictures of them and got *really* excited by when they saw themselves on the LCD screen ^_^. He also got a couple of good pictures of 10 year old monks that were watching the proceedings and seemed to feel to formal to join in until Dad asked to take their picture.
We said goodbye to Chosang and Rinzin at the entrance of Bylakuppe, where we had originally met them. It was really sad saying goodbye to such incredible and kind people, and we made sure to get their mailing address so that Dad could send them pictures and some other thank yous for all they had done for us. I feel like I made two friends that day, especially with Rinzin who was very fun to chat with about plans for schooling and things like that. ^_^
There is one last observation I would like to make. At every temple that we vistited, there was a picture of the Rempoche (the head of the temple), and Chosang and Rinzin would say something about them being the 14th or 17th Rempoche (or some other title). There was generally also a picture of their predecessor. It was not until late in the day or maybe the drive back that I realized that they were not 14th in line in presiding over the temple, but the 14th *incarnation* of a Buddhist that had become enlightened and decided to return to our world to help others find the way to nirvana. It made much more sense when I realized this. Along the same lines, there were pictures of the Dali Lama in most every temple, and many pictures of a small boy who was named to be the next incarnation of the sage that China put in to rule Tibet when the Dali Lama fled. However, the kid in the pictures is the incarnation named by the Dali Lama when the previous died, whereas China named a different incarnation and put this child and his family in "protective custody." Conclude from this what you will, but the exiled Tibetans certainly aren't buying it. I saw several "Boycott Chinese goods" sings in Bylakuppe.
The drive back was, as before, beautiful. The main even on the way back (other than contending with *horrific* [worst I've seen] traffic in Bangalore [did I mention that our driver was awesome?]) was seeing a bunch of Indian men walking down the road, butt naked!!! Considering how not OK anything publicly sexual is here, I couldn't believe what I saw! There were about 6 guys, just walking along the side of the highway with no clothes on, perfectly unconcerned. There were also other men, clothed, walking with them (pushing a pair of them on a cart) and also not alarmed. The only theory I have so far is from Tracy, guessing that these men are Jains (a fairly small but influential religious group here) of a sect that does not wear clothes! Considering the uproar I would expect at seeing a naked woman out on the street, I was shocked to see all these naked men. I think two sayings are particularly appropriate for this:
India is a nation of contradictions.
-lots of people
Anything you can think of might be [is?] true in India.
-Prasad
When we got back, around 8:30PM, we went out with Nels, Rob, Tracy, and Pavol to the dosa place near my house, which turns out to be a *fantastic* restaurant for dinner ^_^. After getting back I decided (as I have for many nights in a row ^_^) that I didn't have the energy to write this blog post and collapsed gratefully into bed.
I think that is *more* than enough for now. Next is Sunday's turn... We shall see if that happens tonight.
Cheers,
Jason
Journey to Bylakuppe and random observations
Hey all,
I haven't posted for a while because 1) I've gotten busy and 2) there is *so* much to talk about. However, I'm just going to buckle down and write this all down! Dad and I went to a Tibetan refugee camp called Bylakuppe this past weekend (though it has been there since the Dali Lama fled Tebet, so its not what I would typically think of as a refugee camp). The trip was *fantastic*, and I'll try to capture some of the highlights here.
Dad and I left Bangalore on Friday at about noon, taking a private taxi (it was fantastic having a private driver for the weekend!) that I hired through work. It was about a 4 hour drive down past Mysore to a town called Hunsore where I was to call Chosang (our contact at Bylakuppe, who is the brother-in-law of a friend of a friend of Dad's! Seems like a tenuous relationship, but we were treated almost like family while we were there, as you will see) for directions to Bylakuppe. The drive itself was amazing. We both brought books but didn't read at all, just marveled at the spectacle when we went through towns and at the beautiful landscape when we left them again. What was especially interesting about the drive was watching the land become more lush and verdant and the houses change in architecture and begin to look to be in better repair as we approached Bylakuppe. Another favorite for me was all the gigantic advertisements for cellphone companies and "The Fun Fort" on small and somewhat broken down houses.
After a stop at Hunsore to call Chosang and handing the phone off to our driver we quickly make it to the entrance to Bylakuppe where Chosang and his daughter Rinzin (who is in 9th grade) were waiting for us. After greeting us Chosang led our driver through the camp on his motorcycle to a Indian town called Kushalnagar on the other side of the camp. The camp itself is very large and it took us 20 or 30 minutes to drive through. It is also beautiful and has an incredible sense of peace, very different from the hectic frenzy of the Indian areas bordering the camp. Everyone was wearing western clothes (even the women, who were also out on the street and wandering around). When our driver make normal (for Bangalore) use of the horn our car received looks of disgust and incredulity. And there were monks, wearing robes colored a deep red, all over the place (it was neat seeing that monks are not necessarily solemn and stuffy. I saw groups of monks running about, playfully roughhousing and the like. Also, I saw monks on motorcycles!! This was extremely exiting to me, but unfortunately I didn't ever manage to get a picture :-( ). I don't know if the feeling of peace is some sort of personal bias, or some sort of more western feeling, but my Dad was also conscious of a greater sense of peace as we drove through the camp.
In Kushalnagar Chosang and Rinzin had arranged a hotel for us (we couldn't stay in the camp without risking arrest by the Indian police and 5 years in jail, as it is officially a refugee camp). After chatting with them for a while (they both speak OK English, but Rinzin's is much better. It is also the easiest to understand of any English that I have heard while in India, as Rinzin has a very very clean American accent) Dad and I wandered about Kushalnagar. Though it was not as peaceful as Bylakuppe it is certainly more peaceful than Bangalore and I felt like I received fewer and more friendly stares than I ever have in Bangalore. We also weren't hassled at all by shopkeepers, then came back to the hotel and had a nice dinner there. In conclusion, I really enjoyed it there.
After dinner Dad and I sat out on our 2nd floor balcony, read, watched people, and played around doing nighttime photography with our cameras which was really a lot of fun (all the while listening to beautiful music lilting from the distance). While sitting on the balcony I had a number of observations. I noticed a teenage/early-20s Tibetan woman walking around with a "Fuck on the first date" T-shirt that I thought would be fairly risky in the US, let along a traditional Indian town! I've also noticed that balding seems to be a very common thing for older Indian men, and wonder if that is an accurate statement. I also marvel at how deeply western clothing has penetrated into India, at least for men (apparently there is a definite perception that women who wear western clothes are, shall we say, "looser"). You still see lots of men wearing the traditional pants/skirt thing, but western button up shirts are pretty much the only thing you see guys wearing (younger people will wear T-shirts). I don't know why the clothing seems to be so viral, but I would be interested in seeing a country like China to see if such things have happened there as well. One final note along this line is that all school uniforms are very western, even for girls (though their uniform has a skirt, not pants).
India also seems to have a very strong culture of being outside. I could look out from my balcony and see at least half a dozen small groups of men hanging out in front of shops and chatting or buying things from a shopkeeper. This is in direct contrast to the US where you have to go inside to do almost anything (or bring 'inside' with you, like going to the drive-through of a fast food place in your car). Its not like the weather encourages people to be outside, especially in this rainy monsoon season, so I wonder why this tradition seems to be so strong.
Just a few more things I've noticed. Mustaches are *very* popular in Bangalore (I've heard 'you aren't a real man' if you don't have a mustache in the next state over, and that has some influence here too). Also, peeing on the side of the road seems to be completely accepted here (usually just by guys, but I did see a father holding up his 1-year-old daughter's skirt so that she so relieve herself by the side of the road while we were sitting on our balcony). Finally, I've noticed that while there is a huge variation in the skin tone of Indians (from very dark to essentially Caucasian), there is almost zero variation in hair color (though there are a few people who look like they have gotten red highlights in their hair, but other than that the only variation I see is when old people get gray in their hair!).
One last amusing anecdote about the hotel room we were staying: The bathroom did not have any towels, soap, or toilet paper (normal here, which is why I carry TP on trips with me now) so we requested towels and soap from the hotel. A guy brought up a single towel and a bar of soap to me, so I asked for another towel, to which he replied "No sir, only one towel per room." Dad and I got a good chuckle out of that one!
Ok, thats enough about Friday! The next post will be on Saturday and touring around Bylakuppe!
Cheers,
Jason
I haven't posted for a while because 1) I've gotten busy and 2) there is *so* much to talk about. However, I'm just going to buckle down and write this all down! Dad and I went to a Tibetan refugee camp called Bylakuppe this past weekend (though it has been there since the Dali Lama fled Tebet, so its not what I would typically think of as a refugee camp). The trip was *fantastic*, and I'll try to capture some of the highlights here.
Dad and I left Bangalore on Friday at about noon, taking a private taxi (it was fantastic having a private driver for the weekend!) that I hired through work. It was about a 4 hour drive down past Mysore to a town called Hunsore where I was to call Chosang (our contact at Bylakuppe, who is the brother-in-law of a friend of a friend of Dad's! Seems like a tenuous relationship, but we were treated almost like family while we were there, as you will see) for directions to Bylakuppe. The drive itself was amazing. We both brought books but didn't read at all, just marveled at the spectacle when we went through towns and at the beautiful landscape when we left them again. What was especially interesting about the drive was watching the land become more lush and verdant and the houses change in architecture and begin to look to be in better repair as we approached Bylakuppe. Another favorite for me was all the gigantic advertisements for cellphone companies and "The Fun Fort" on small and somewhat broken down houses.
After a stop at Hunsore to call Chosang and handing the phone off to our driver we quickly make it to the entrance to Bylakuppe where Chosang and his daughter Rinzin (who is in 9th grade) were waiting for us. After greeting us Chosang led our driver through the camp on his motorcycle to a Indian town called Kushalnagar on the other side of the camp. The camp itself is very large and it took us 20 or 30 minutes to drive through. It is also beautiful and has an incredible sense of peace, very different from the hectic frenzy of the Indian areas bordering the camp. Everyone was wearing western clothes (even the women, who were also out on the street and wandering around). When our driver make normal (for Bangalore) use of the horn our car received looks of disgust and incredulity. And there were monks, wearing robes colored a deep red, all over the place (it was neat seeing that monks are not necessarily solemn and stuffy. I saw groups of monks running about, playfully roughhousing and the like. Also, I saw monks on motorcycles!! This was extremely exiting to me, but unfortunately I didn't ever manage to get a picture :-( ). I don't know if the feeling of peace is some sort of personal bias, or some sort of more western feeling, but my Dad was also conscious of a greater sense of peace as we drove through the camp.
In Kushalnagar Chosang and Rinzin had arranged a hotel for us (we couldn't stay in the camp without risking arrest by the Indian police and 5 years in jail, as it is officially a refugee camp). After chatting with them for a while (they both speak OK English, but Rinzin's is much better. It is also the easiest to understand of any English that I have heard while in India, as Rinzin has a very very clean American accent) Dad and I wandered about Kushalnagar. Though it was not as peaceful as Bylakuppe it is certainly more peaceful than Bangalore and I felt like I received fewer and more friendly stares than I ever have in Bangalore. We also weren't hassled at all by shopkeepers, then came back to the hotel and had a nice dinner there. In conclusion, I really enjoyed it there.
After dinner Dad and I sat out on our 2nd floor balcony, read, watched people, and played around doing nighttime photography with our cameras which was really a lot of fun (all the while listening to beautiful music lilting from the distance). While sitting on the balcony I had a number of observations. I noticed a teenage/early-20s Tibetan woman walking around with a "Fuck on the first date" T-shirt that I thought would be fairly risky in the US, let along a traditional Indian town! I've also noticed that balding seems to be a very common thing for older Indian men, and wonder if that is an accurate statement. I also marvel at how deeply western clothing has penetrated into India, at least for men (apparently there is a definite perception that women who wear western clothes are, shall we say, "looser"). You still see lots of men wearing the traditional pants/skirt thing, but western button up shirts are pretty much the only thing you see guys wearing (younger people will wear T-shirts). I don't know why the clothing seems to be so viral, but I would be interested in seeing a country like China to see if such things have happened there as well. One final note along this line is that all school uniforms are very western, even for girls (though their uniform has a skirt, not pants).
India also seems to have a very strong culture of being outside. I could look out from my balcony and see at least half a dozen small groups of men hanging out in front of shops and chatting or buying things from a shopkeeper. This is in direct contrast to the US where you have to go inside to do almost anything (or bring 'inside' with you, like going to the drive-through of a fast food place in your car). Its not like the weather encourages people to be outside, especially in this rainy monsoon season, so I wonder why this tradition seems to be so strong.
Just a few more things I've noticed. Mustaches are *very* popular in Bangalore (I've heard 'you aren't a real man' if you don't have a mustache in the next state over, and that has some influence here too). Also, peeing on the side of the road seems to be completely accepted here (usually just by guys, but I did see a father holding up his 1-year-old daughter's skirt so that she so relieve herself by the side of the road while we were sitting on our balcony). Finally, I've noticed that while there is a huge variation in the skin tone of Indians (from very dark to essentially Caucasian), there is almost zero variation in hair color (though there are a few people who look like they have gotten red highlights in their hair, but other than that the only variation I see is when old people get gray in their hair!).
One last amusing anecdote about the hotel room we were staying: The bathroom did not have any towels, soap, or toilet paper (normal here, which is why I carry TP on trips with me now) so we requested towels and soap from the hotel. A guy brought up a single towel and a bar of soap to me, so I asked for another towel, to which he replied "No sir, only one towel per room." Dad and I got a good chuckle out of that one!
Ok, thats enough about Friday! The next post will be on Saturday and touring around Bylakuppe!
Cheers,
Jason
Thursday, July 12, 2007
A trip to MG road with Dad
Hey all,
After that last, massive, post I'm going to try to make this one a bit shorter. Not too much happened this morning. I slept in a bit till 8:00. Revi came by in the morning because someone at work had decided it was sari (formal wear for the Indian female) day today and Revi and Tracy dressed up in their saries. I got to chat with the two of them, in the full formal wear, while wearing a towel, which was amusing.
I had a very productive morning at work, writing up some thoughts in a new area I'm working on a bit (adversarial learning on CRFs). I was going to meet Dad at noon, but at about 11:30 Venkie IMed me asking how things were going. This eventually resulted in me staying an extra hour trying to code in a change that he had suggested to the pseudo-random number generator. Probably the most irksome part of all of this was after I sent him the first copy of the writeup on the algorithms, to which he replied "I can't read this. Have you ever heard of pseudo-code? Its this thing called 'pseudo-code' " which was a bit of slap in the face and very hard to swallow. However, I had no choice but to rewrite the file to his satisfaction and then try to make the changes he suggested. Anyways, around 1:00 I finally got out and Dad and I went to pizza hut and tried again to set up his cell phone (in vain). After the *delicious* meal at pizza hut we came back to the office, arranged transportation down to the Tibetan camp Bylakuppe for tomorrow, grabbed Tracy, and headed down to MG road!
It was definitely a fun afternoon. This was Dad's first trip in an auto-rickshaw, which is certainly a new experience, and one really impossible to describe (especially in heavy Bangalore traffic). Once we got to MG road we toured around a few places, the cat (really magazine) store, my favorite bookshop, the Planet M music store, and a couple of stores selling neat Indian goods (I bought a few gifts ^_^). After all that shopping we took a break at a resturant on the 3rd story of a building overlooking the milling masses of Brigade Road, sat, and chatted. After that nice break we attempted to find Gerudo mall, which I had been to about 5 weeks ago, but were unable to find our way there and were fairly tired so we hopped in an rickshaw back to Sadashivanagar(where I live).
Funny story from the drive back: our rickshaw was stopped in traffic and there was a bus diagonally in front of it with some space behind (right next to our rickshaw). A guy on a motorcycle drove into that space, and while he was still slowly drifting forward started staring at us. This guy had his neck cranked around 90 degrees! However, while he was staring at us, he kept drifting forward on the motorcycle and smacked the front of the bike right into the back of the bus! He wasn't hurt at all, just startled, and all of us and the rickshaw driver had a good chuckle at him. He was too distracted by all the white people to notice where he was going!
Dad went home for a while and I worked for a bit (after we tried to get his phone worked out again and the people asked for an additional *two days* to get his phone unlocked :-P), then we walked down to Opus with Nels and Rob. Rob split off to go home once we got there, but Dad, Nels, and I had a really nice time at Opus (good music, good drinks, good food, good people ^_^). We did not participate in Booze & Brains (quiz night) this week, but the main waiter actually recognized us as Thursday night regulars! :-). I guess we've established quite the tradition.
After Opus we headed home, and Dad and I will meet tomorrow at about 11:30AM to get picked up by a cab and drive ~250km to Bylakuppe! Should be a cool trip! Since I've been home I've just been futzing on the blog (and talking to Elaine! Yay! She gets here in14 days, and I *cannot wait*!). Now I should *really* get to sleep, so thats all for now!
Cheers,
Jason
After that last, massive, post I'm going to try to make this one a bit shorter. Not too much happened this morning. I slept in a bit till 8:00. Revi came by in the morning because someone at work had decided it was sari (formal wear for the Indian female) day today and Revi and Tracy dressed up in their saries. I got to chat with the two of them, in the full formal wear, while wearing a towel, which was amusing.
I had a very productive morning at work, writing up some thoughts in a new area I'm working on a bit (adversarial learning on CRFs). I was going to meet Dad at noon, but at about 11:30 Venkie IMed me asking how things were going. This eventually resulted in me staying an extra hour trying to code in a change that he had suggested to the pseudo-random number generator. Probably the most irksome part of all of this was after I sent him the first copy of the writeup on the algorithms, to which he replied "I can't read this. Have you ever heard of pseudo-code? Its this thing called 'pseudo-code' " which was a bit of slap in the face and very hard to swallow. However, I had no choice but to rewrite the file to his satisfaction and then try to make the changes he suggested. Anyways, around 1:00 I finally got out and Dad and I went to pizza hut and tried again to set up his cell phone (in vain). After the *delicious* meal at pizza hut we came back to the office, arranged transportation down to the Tibetan camp Bylakuppe for tomorrow, grabbed Tracy, and headed down to MG road!
It was definitely a fun afternoon. This was Dad's first trip in an auto-rickshaw, which is certainly a new experience, and one really impossible to describe (especially in heavy Bangalore traffic). Once we got to MG road we toured around a few places, the cat (really magazine) store, my favorite bookshop, the Planet M music store, and a couple of stores selling neat Indian goods (I bought a few gifts ^_^). After all that shopping we took a break at a resturant on the 3rd story of a building overlooking the milling masses of Brigade Road, sat, and chatted. After that nice break we attempted to find Gerudo mall, which I had been to about 5 weeks ago, but were unable to find our way there and were fairly tired so we hopped in an rickshaw back to Sadashivanagar(where I live).
Funny story from the drive back: our rickshaw was stopped in traffic and there was a bus diagonally in front of it with some space behind (right next to our rickshaw). A guy on a motorcycle drove into that space, and while he was still slowly drifting forward started staring at us. This guy had his neck cranked around 90 degrees! However, while he was staring at us, he kept drifting forward on the motorcycle and smacked the front of the bike right into the back of the bus! He wasn't hurt at all, just startled, and all of us and the rickshaw driver had a good chuckle at him. He was too distracted by all the white people to notice where he was going!
Dad went home for a while and I worked for a bit (after we tried to get his phone worked out again and the people asked for an additional *two days* to get his phone unlocked :-P), then we walked down to Opus with Nels and Rob. Rob split off to go home once we got there, but Dad, Nels, and I had a really nice time at Opus (good music, good drinks, good food, good people ^_^). We did not participate in Booze & Brains (quiz night) this week, but the main waiter actually recognized us as Thursday night regulars! :-). I guess we've established quite the tradition.
After Opus we headed home, and Dad and I will meet tomorrow at about 11:30AM to get picked up by a cab and drive ~250km to Bylakuppe! Should be a cool trip! Since I've been home I've just been futzing on the blog (and talking to Elaine! Yay! She gets here in14 days, and I *cannot wait*!). Now I should *really* get to sleep, so thats all for now!
Cheers,
Jason
Dad is here!
Hey all,
The past two days have been pretty busy! Tuesday night I headed over to the airport at about 11:15PM and waited there for about an hour and a half to pick up dad. Fortunately the taxi ride back from the airport was significantly less eventful (and much cheaper) than the last one. We got to my place around 2AM and went to sleep soon afterwards.
The next morning I woke up before Dad (he slept in a bit). Once he woke up and while he was getting ready I made a slight breakthrough in part of my research (saw a new way of looking at a problem I was working on the previous day) ^_^. Once we were all ready we wondered around the neighborhood a bit, I showed him Basham circle (again, "circles" in Bangalore are more often just intersections), and we went to the dosa place that is near my flat. I'm not sure why, but the people at the dosa place treated me more like a tourist than usual: even after I told them what we wanted they tried to give me food advice, which was rather irksome (I totally related to Elaine getting upset when people thought she was a tourist in Martinique).
After breakfast we checked out a guest house just a block from my flat and checked Dad in there after looking at a few rooms (and I canceled the reservation I had already made for him in another place in Malleshwarm). Once we brought his bags over and got him settled in I went to work and put in a few hours of work and grabbed a light lunch before leaving work again at 1PM to take Dad around. We wandered a little south of Basham circle, had lunch and a nice chat a Chinese place I've been to before with Nels. After lunch we wandered back, attempted to get a cellphone set up for Dad (it is proving to be very difficult to unlock his phone to use other SIM cards, and I think we have given up now. We have the Hutch SIM card, but they already took his phone for a day and wanted two more! I think we're cutting our losses and giving up [note: this is from the perspective of 'now', which is Thursday, breaking from the rest of this post which is on 'Wednesday'], and stopped by the nice bookstore that I found in our neighborhood.
After that full afternoon Dad went back to his hotel and I worked for about an hour, then we were picked up by Ravi (a researcher in my group) to head over to the wedding reception (which comes before the wedding here, as an announcement of the impending [the next day] marrage to the world)of a Nikhil (another guy in my group, who sits next to me). The reception was all the way across town, and on the way there we picked up another guy in my group, Deba, who was buying some gifts fro Nikhil and his bride. It took about an hour to get across town and it was very nice chatting with Ravi and Deba on the way.
The reception itself was rather incredible. The entire building was covered in lights and there was a massive and colorful sign announcing it outside. There were literally several *hundred* people there with all sorts of colorful saris and nice clothing. We initially looked around the huge (and again, colorfully decorated) room, than sat down and relaxed in one of the many chairs facing a stage in the front of the room that had a pair of (I kid you not) *thrones*. I mostly listened to Ravi and Deba discuss the similarities and differences of Indian wedding traditions (though I did learn something about red dots on the forehead. A bindi is the dot that women wear on their forheads and it is really just a style and fashion thing, when a woman is married they start putting a certain coloring on the place they part their hair and do so till their husband dies, and finally a tika is the red powder I've had on my forehead in Hampi and it means "god's grace"). Nihil and his bride eventually came in, had a small ceremony for either the bride's or the bride's mother's birthday (complete with the really weird, slightly mutated Indian version of "Happy Birthday"), then they started greeting guests. Every single one of the people came up in small groups, greeted the bride and groom, and had their picture taken (another major feature of the wedding reception is that the bride and groom stage a bunch of pictures for the photographers... who seem to really be the ones that control weddings nowadays...), which makes me feel bad for the bride and groom who have to keep smiling for pictures! Fortunately we got through the line early and went to have some of the *delicious* food, of which their were copious amounts of!
After we had eaten we headed out (receiving an exit gift of a coconut ^_^) and took Ravi's car back across town. The chatting was even more interesting on the way back. Deba is from eastern India and his family is originally from Bangladesh but migrated during "The Partition" when India and Pakistan became separate countries. We got to hear some about the partition, about east & west Pakistan (which were one country until east Pakistan succeeded and became Bangladesh), and some interesting and relatively unknown bits of history (the eastern side of the partition is less well known and less well studied). The ethnic group of Deba's grandparents apparently has a language and a script all of their own, but it is now really dieing out (pretty much all of the people left Bangladesh, either for England or for India [there are many Indian stores in England run by people of this group whose name I can't remember]). Anyway, lots of other intersting things were discussed, research, the state of some institutions in India, transportiation (Deba had the priceless quote about autorickshaws, "They're the fastest way around because that guy [the driver] doesn't care about his safety or yours!"). In conclusion, the ride back was a lot of fun ^_^.
Once we got back Dad came over to my place for a little bit and met Tracy (Nels still wasn't back!). After he left I got to talk to Mom and Brandon for a while (Brandon just got back from a month-long, spectacular-sounding trip to Spain and France!), which was really nice. After I got off the phone with them I called Elaine, which was also *really* nice! ^_^
Wow, and that was only Wednesday! I think I'm going to do another post for Thurday!
Cheers,
Jason
The past two days have been pretty busy! Tuesday night I headed over to the airport at about 11:15PM and waited there for about an hour and a half to pick up dad. Fortunately the taxi ride back from the airport was significantly less eventful (and much cheaper) than the last one. We got to my place around 2AM and went to sleep soon afterwards.
The next morning I woke up before Dad (he slept in a bit). Once he woke up and while he was getting ready I made a slight breakthrough in part of my research (saw a new way of looking at a problem I was working on the previous day) ^_^. Once we were all ready we wondered around the neighborhood a bit, I showed him Basham circle (again, "circles" in Bangalore are more often just intersections), and we went to the dosa place that is near my flat. I'm not sure why, but the people at the dosa place treated me more like a tourist than usual: even after I told them what we wanted they tried to give me food advice, which was rather irksome (I totally related to Elaine getting upset when people thought she was a tourist in Martinique).
After breakfast we checked out a guest house just a block from my flat and checked Dad in there after looking at a few rooms (and I canceled the reservation I had already made for him in another place in Malleshwarm). Once we brought his bags over and got him settled in I went to work and put in a few hours of work and grabbed a light lunch before leaving work again at 1PM to take Dad around. We wandered a little south of Basham circle, had lunch and a nice chat a Chinese place I've been to before with Nels. After lunch we wandered back, attempted to get a cellphone set up for Dad (it is proving to be very difficult to unlock his phone to use other SIM cards, and I think we have given up now. We have the Hutch SIM card, but they already took his phone for a day and wanted two more! I think we're cutting our losses and giving up [note: this is from the perspective of 'now', which is Thursday, breaking from the rest of this post which is on 'Wednesday'], and stopped by the nice bookstore that I found in our neighborhood.
After that full afternoon Dad went back to his hotel and I worked for about an hour, then we were picked up by Ravi (a researcher in my group) to head over to the wedding reception (which comes before the wedding here, as an announcement of the impending [the next day] marrage to the world)of a Nikhil (another guy in my group, who sits next to me). The reception was all the way across town, and on the way there we picked up another guy in my group, Deba, who was buying some gifts fro Nikhil and his bride. It took about an hour to get across town and it was very nice chatting with Ravi and Deba on the way.
The reception itself was rather incredible. The entire building was covered in lights and there was a massive and colorful sign announcing it outside. There were literally several *hundred* people there with all sorts of colorful saris and nice clothing. We initially looked around the huge (and again, colorfully decorated) room, than sat down and relaxed in one of the many chairs facing a stage in the front of the room that had a pair of (I kid you not) *thrones*. I mostly listened to Ravi and Deba discuss the similarities and differences of Indian wedding traditions (though I did learn something about red dots on the forehead. A bindi is the dot that women wear on their forheads and it is really just a style and fashion thing, when a woman is married they start putting a certain coloring on the place they part their hair and do so till their husband dies, and finally a tika is the red powder I've had on my forehead in Hampi and it means "god's grace"). Nihil and his bride eventually came in, had a small ceremony for either the bride's or the bride's mother's birthday (complete with the really weird, slightly mutated Indian version of "Happy Birthday"), then they started greeting guests. Every single one of the people came up in small groups, greeted the bride and groom, and had their picture taken (another major feature of the wedding reception is that the bride and groom stage a bunch of pictures for the photographers... who seem to really be the ones that control weddings nowadays...), which makes me feel bad for the bride and groom who have to keep smiling for pictures! Fortunately we got through the line early and went to have some of the *delicious* food, of which their were copious amounts of!
After we had eaten we headed out (receiving an exit gift of a coconut ^_^) and took Ravi's car back across town. The chatting was even more interesting on the way back. Deba is from eastern India and his family is originally from Bangladesh but migrated during "The Partition" when India and Pakistan became separate countries. We got to hear some about the partition, about east & west Pakistan (which were one country until east Pakistan succeeded and became Bangladesh), and some interesting and relatively unknown bits of history (the eastern side of the partition is less well known and less well studied). The ethnic group of Deba's grandparents apparently has a language and a script all of their own, but it is now really dieing out (pretty much all of the people left Bangladesh, either for England or for India [there are many Indian stores in England run by people of this group whose name I can't remember]). Anyway, lots of other intersting things were discussed, research, the state of some institutions in India, transportiation (Deba had the priceless quote about autorickshaws, "They're the fastest way around because that guy [the driver] doesn't care about his safety or yours!"). In conclusion, the ride back was a lot of fun ^_^.
Once we got back Dad came over to my place for a little bit and met Tracy (Nels still wasn't back!). After he left I got to talk to Mom and Brandon for a while (Brandon just got back from a month-long, spectacular-sounding trip to Spain and France!), which was really nice. After I got off the phone with them I called Elaine, which was also *really* nice! ^_^
Wow, and that was only Wednesday! I think I'm going to do another post for Thurday!
Cheers,
Jason
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