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
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