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
Thursday, August 9, 2007
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
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