I'm pulling the old switcheroo... moving to WordPress. Follow me here:
http://narrowroadtotheexterior.com/
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Back
Yeah... I'm a terrible poster. From now on I'm trying to drop at least one post down a week. Its sort of ridiculous... I have no blog readers, and I need some sweet life-posts make this interesting... but I need readers to make me feel like I need to write some posts. So I'm just going to roll with it. Hopefully I can get cool and keep up with this. Its not only fun to recall what consumes my days, but I feel cathartic joy in dishing my deepest, darkest secrets to the teeming masses on the internet.
My life has been pretty crazy in the last... year... month... week... day?
Last weekend I made the trip up to Troy, NY (my college town) for a big dancefest drink-off we call "The Formal". Many gentlemen and ladies were in attendance, dressed to the nines, ready to get intense. We had a lot of campaign, a long bus ride, some fine cheeses, a quick nap, and another bus ride, more cheeses, a rowdy fest and some Either-Or, and everyone was still alive at 5am.
I've been trying to not be a fatty. Sadly (or amazingly), my partner in crime, or the Lady as she will now be know as is a professional pastry cook at a 4 star in the Meat-Packing district. She's cute, fun, and has been keeping my from getting in shape for a while. But I've been Phelpsing in the pool for over a month. I swim over a mile on weekdays, a few miles on weekend, with fun drills mixed in. But this week I slacked on swimming and started biking, in preparation for moving to Brooklyn, which is so beautiful it deserves some nice riding.
Tonight, we celebrate the birthday of Varge the Barbarian Slayer, a great Viking from the Island, at Ivo & Lulu in the West Village. Its BYOB, and we have a party of 12 fine people in attendance, so shenanigans are expected (required). I'm planning on easing my way back into eating seafood, so tonight will either be wonderful or horrendous, depending on how my body reacts. But expect a full report on the meal, restaurant, wine, Easter with the Lady's family, and any spontaneous adventures/knife fights that transpire come next week.
Peace and Gold Teeth
My life has been pretty crazy in the last... year... month... week... day?
Last weekend I made the trip up to Troy, NY (my college town) for a big dancefest drink-off we call "The Formal". Many gentlemen and ladies were in attendance, dressed to the nines, ready to get intense. We had a lot of campaign, a long bus ride, some fine cheeses, a quick nap, and another bus ride, more cheeses, a rowdy fest and some Either-Or, and everyone was still alive at 5am.I've been trying to not be a fatty. Sadly (or amazingly), my partner in crime, or the Lady as she will now be know as is a professional pastry cook at a 4 star in the Meat-Packing district. She's cute, fun, and has been keeping my from getting in shape for a while. But I've been Phelpsing in the pool for over a month. I swim over a mile on weekdays, a few miles on weekend, with fun drills mixed in. But this week I slacked on swimming and started biking, in preparation for moving to Brooklyn, which is so beautiful it deserves some nice riding.
Tonight, we celebrate the birthday of Varge the Barbarian Slayer, a great Viking from the Island, at Ivo & Lulu in the West Village. Its BYOB, and we have a party of 12 fine people in attendance, so shenanigans are expected (required). I'm planning on easing my way back into eating seafood, so tonight will either be wonderful or horrendous, depending on how my body reacts. But expect a full report on the meal, restaurant, wine, Easter with the Lady's family, and any spontaneous adventures/knife fights that transpire come next week.Peace and Gold Teeth
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
New Direction
While this blog has served me well, as a way to inform friends and family of my activities in India, I think its time I take it in a new direction. I plan on continuing to write about my life, but I want to expand the focus a my life expands. A few things I plan to write about are:
Not that I have any readers, this is more for me than it is for anyone else. So self, stay tuned. And keep writing!
- Baking
- Meditation
- Literature
- Exercise
- Humanism
- Technology
- Political rambling
- New York City
Not that I have any readers, this is more for me than it is for anyone else. So self, stay tuned. And keep writing!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Goa and Scravanbelagola
Last weekend I took a day trip with some friends (in a tightly packed SUV) to a few sites outside India. The most interesting thing we saw was Scravanbelagola temple, about 3 hours south of Mysore. Its the main Jain pilgrimage site in India, and was recently voted in the India Times as the #1 wonder of India. We took our shoes off, and journeyed up the few hundred steps to the temple, and took it in. One silly thing we laughed at was the naked priest walking around. Its culturally insensitive, but hell, a naked guy running around is always funny. We also check out a few more temples that day, but none could compare to Scravanbelagola.
This weekend I took an impromptu trip to Goa. My friend Oliver was going with some Indian guys from the area, and I hopped on the trip, along with a few friends. We took a cab to the bus station, and walked around in the rain until we found our bus. It was a chartered sleeper bus, where there are only a few seats and mostly little cubbies to sleep in. It was a little tight, but only because we snuck one friend on the bus. That was the good part of the ride. We got to Manipal early in the morning, had breakfast with Mohinish, who works at Infosys, his friends Unkur, and Adi, and his brother Mahinish. That must have been hard to grow up with... Well we took a big van to Goa, and the 3 hour ride turned into a 14 hour ride, it was long, cramped, but it was a good time. We watched Goldfinger, and one scene I loved was this:
I laughed, because at one point this normal in society, and now (in Western culture at least) it would be viewed as being so backward, abrasive and offensive that it's taboo to even joke about. Ha.
We also stopped at a gigantic statue of Shiva overlooking the west coast of India, which was simply amazing. So it took 27 hours to go to Goa. We spent the rest of the night in a bar called Tito's, till about 5am. In the morning we sat on the beach a Coco Joe's beach shack, on Villa Goesha beach, and we spent the day drinking Kingfisher and enjoying the sun. And Coco Joe's sister gives an amazing massage. Best I've ever had. Minus the sand.
That night we went back out to a bar and to a club, and ended the night sitting on the beach, then walking back home. In the morning we booked a plan home, which was about $100 USD, on Kingfisher air (no beer on board, but beautiful stewardesses and really good food) for an hour flight back.
I had a test the day after, so I slept some and woke up around 2am to study. I passed by the way! And I'm about to call it a night. Check out the new pictures I posted of Scravanbelagola and Goa.
All my friends and family everyone in the family: please email me! And I will get back to you all. Also, if you send me your phone number I will try to give you a call as I have Skype now.
This weekend I took an impromptu trip to Goa. My friend Oliver was going with some Indian guys from the area, and I hopped on the trip, along with a few friends. We took a cab to the bus station, and walked around in the rain until we found our bus. It was a chartered sleeper bus, where there are only a few seats and mostly little cubbies to sleep in. It was a little tight, but only because we snuck one friend on the bus. That was the good part of the ride. We got to Manipal early in the morning, had breakfast with Mohinish, who works at Infosys, his friends Unkur, and Adi, and his brother Mahinish. That must have been hard to grow up with... Well we took a big van to Goa, and the 3 hour ride turned into a 14 hour ride, it was long, cramped, but it was a good time. We watched Goldfinger, and one scene I loved was this:
I laughed, because at one point this normal in society, and now (in Western culture at least) it would be viewed as being so backward, abrasive and offensive that it's taboo to even joke about. Ha.
We also stopped at a gigantic statue of Shiva overlooking the west coast of India, which was simply amazing. So it took 27 hours to go to Goa. We spent the rest of the night in a bar called Tito's, till about 5am. In the morning we sat on the beach a Coco Joe's beach shack, on Villa Goesha beach, and we spent the day drinking Kingfisher and enjoying the sun. And Coco Joe's sister gives an amazing massage. Best I've ever had. Minus the sand.
That night we went back out to a bar and to a club, and ended the night sitting on the beach, then walking back home. In the morning we booked a plan home, which was about $100 USD, on Kingfisher air (no beer on board, but beautiful stewardesses and really good food) for an hour flight back.
I had a test the day after, so I slept some and woke up around 2am to study. I passed by the way! And I'm about to call it a night. Check out the new pictures I posted of Scravanbelagola and Goa.
All my friends and family everyone in the family: please email me! And I will get back to you all. Also, if you send me your phone number I will try to give you a call as I have Skype now.
 |
| Scravanbel |
 |
| Goa 8/24/07 |
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Hassles in India
I've had an interesting few days recently. Some people in Mysore Human Resources got work from the Commissioner of Police in Mysore that some people might be in danger in certain areas. Its to be expected, every place in the world has some bad spots, and we all avoid them. But Infosys decided to hit us with some really unfair policies. We already have a curfew, 11 on weekdays and 12 on weekends, which isnt really bad as everything is closed. But then they decreed that we shall not use cabs (which are approved by infosys and the police, and all the drivers require interviews). Instead we needed to take buses, which is such a hassle because we're all going to different corners of the city. I was fuming mad when they told us this, and since I'm in the SGT and sort of help get stuff done for my group, I told the guy flat out that it was unacceptable, and that it was a really bad decision. I and a few other member of the SGT worked with this great woman from HR, Preet, to work out a plan, which involved people coordinating buses 3 times a day on weekdays, and 5 times on weekends. It was a real mess, but at least I was in a position to do something about it.
After 5 days of this nonsense I finally got a break. Narayana Murthy, former CEO, former Chairman, and current head mentor of Infosys came and addressed the new recruits, and after personally spoke to the US batch. He spoke about Infosys's values, and how they've guided the company into practicing very high moral standards for business, and on how the US presence of Infosys will grow. When it came time for questions, I eloquently explained the current situation, and how it negatively effects both our group and Infosys. To all of our delight, he turned to the HR people with a "Are you kidding me?" expression and had them change it back immediately. I felt so relieved, and everyone has been really happy ever since.
On a side note, the night before N. Murthy spoke to us he gave a speech, handed out awards for certain staff, and there was a dance afterwards. Because I'm Preet's go to guy she called me, and myself and my friend Miho got to do a small part in a dance rehearsal in front of a few hundred people. We danced along side an Indian flag and danced with the group during the dance which symbolized cultural openness in India. It was a lot of fun.
Me and Miho were also on the front page of the Mysore intranet, here is the article:
The 3rd batch of 86 US trainees with diverse educational background joined Mysore DC on 23 July-07. An induction program spread over 2 days was conducted for the trainees during which a number of speakers from different teams interacted with them. An India presentation in which SGT members spoke about the culture, history & other aspects of India, fascinated the US folks. Most of them expressed great interest in learning more about India, Infosys and were seen all around the campus, exploring things, making friends, settling in for the stay ahead…..find out below what 2 of the US trainees think about India and Infosys:
Question: How has your experience been so far in India & Infy?
Jeffrey: My experiences so far have been great…Infosys has been even better. India is so culturally different from America. I haven’t had any problems making friends, finding interesting things to do, or traveling. There has been a lot to get used to, but it’s really been fun. All of the staff and my colleagues are so friendly. The culture feels really open. Our program is fast paced and challenging, but I’m learning a lot.
Miho: India and Infosys has been an interesting experience so far. The campus is beautiful and very accommodating. I really enjoy the ECC as there are so many sport amenities available for us and it has been a great factor to making new friends with the Indian Trainees. I can not think of any other company with such an ECC as Infosys has. India of what I have seen so far has been so rich in culture. The food is really great and the vast amount of green all over Mysore is very beautiful. This is a sight I could never catch in the city of Chicago where I came from.
Question: What made you decide to come to India & take up the training in Infosys?
Jeffrey: Infosys wasn’t my only choice in companies to work for after college. But what is unique about Infosys was its global reach, corporate values, and the adventure possible when moving to another country. As an Information Technology major I had heard a lot about Infosys, and I was really impressed. When I got the chance to come to India and work, I couldn’t pass it up.
Miho: The idea of spending 6 whole months in India seemed such an amazing opportunity for a recent college graduate. Most of my friends out of college went on to further education or went straight to the city to find a job. I wanted to do something different, something unusual. Naturally joining Infosys and training in Mysore sounded like the perfect fit. I also wanted to continue to challenge myself post graduation by branching out to different areas of study. Coming from a Psychology and Biology background, computer science is a very different field. I have always had interested in IT and thought this was my opportunity to continue further education, challenge myself, gain work experience and explore India all at the same time.
Question: Please share with us your experience of the induction program?
Jeffrey: I think the induction program is alright, a lot of what we learned was very general, or that we already knew, but learning about Infosys’s cultural, history, and how it operates was very interesting. Most US student have “soft skills” drilled into their heads from the beginning of school, and colleges are increasingly focusing on team skills and working in groups, so I don’t think we need much of that. But I do appreciate the hard work that the HR team put into it.
Miho: The induction program was a great transition into Infosys and India. The programs gave me a better idea of what kind of structure Infosys worked on, and where we fit as software engineers in that structure. I do wish that the program had more chances for our batch to work with the Indian batches. What was great about the induction program was that during that week, we were able to take everything step by step.
There were a few pictures of us, but I didn't add them.
After 5 days of this nonsense I finally got a break. Narayana Murthy, former CEO, former Chairman, and current head mentor of Infosys came and addressed the new recruits, and after personally spoke to the US batch. He spoke about Infosys's values, and how they've guided the company into practicing very high moral standards for business, and on how the US presence of Infosys will grow. When it came time for questions, I eloquently explained the current situation, and how it negatively effects both our group and Infosys. To all of our delight, he turned to the HR people with a "Are you kidding me?" expression and had them change it back immediately. I felt so relieved, and everyone has been really happy ever since.
On a side note, the night before N. Murthy spoke to us he gave a speech, handed out awards for certain staff, and there was a dance afterwards. Because I'm Preet's go to guy she called me, and myself and my friend Miho got to do a small part in a dance rehearsal in front of a few hundred people. We danced along side an Indian flag and danced with the group during the dance which symbolized cultural openness in India. It was a lot of fun.
Me and Miho were also on the front page of the Mysore intranet, here is the article:
The 3rd batch of 86 US trainees with diverse educational background joined Mysore DC on 23 July-07. An induction program spread over 2 days was conducted for the trainees during which a number of speakers from different teams interacted with them. An India presentation in which SGT members spoke about the culture, history & other aspects of India, fascinated the US folks. Most of them expressed great interest in learning more about India, Infosys and were seen all around the campus, exploring things, making friends, settling in for the stay ahead…..find out below what 2 of the US trainees think about India and Infosys:
Question: How has your experience been so far in India & Infy?
Jeffrey: My experiences so far have been great…Infosys has been even better. India is so culturally different from America. I haven’t had any problems making friends, finding interesting things to do, or traveling. There has been a lot to get used to, but it’s really been fun. All of the staff and my colleagues are so friendly. The culture feels really open. Our program is fast paced and challenging, but I’m learning a lot.
Miho: India and Infosys has been an interesting experience so far. The campus is beautiful and very accommodating. I really enjoy the ECC as there are so many sport amenities available for us and it has been a great factor to making new friends with the Indian Trainees. I can not think of any other company with such an ECC as Infosys has. India of what I have seen so far has been so rich in culture. The food is really great and the vast amount of green all over Mysore is very beautiful. This is a sight I could never catch in the city of Chicago where I came from.
Question: What made you decide to come to India & take up the training in Infosys?
Jeffrey: Infosys wasn’t my only choice in companies to work for after college. But what is unique about Infosys was its global reach, corporate values, and the adventure possible when moving to another country. As an Information Technology major I had heard a lot about Infosys, and I was really impressed. When I got the chance to come to India and work, I couldn’t pass it up.
Miho: The idea of spending 6 whole months in India seemed such an amazing opportunity for a recent college graduate. Most of my friends out of college went on to further education or went straight to the city to find a job. I wanted to do something different, something unusual. Naturally joining Infosys and training in Mysore sounded like the perfect fit. I also wanted to continue to challenge myself post graduation by branching out to different areas of study. Coming from a Psychology and Biology background, computer science is a very different field. I have always had interested in IT and thought this was my opportunity to continue further education, challenge myself, gain work experience and explore India all at the same time.
Question: Please share with us your experience of the induction program?
Jeffrey: I think the induction program is alright, a lot of what we learned was very general, or that we already knew, but learning about Infosys’s cultural, history, and how it operates was very interesting. Most US student have “soft skills” drilled into their heads from the beginning of school, and colleges are increasingly focusing on team skills and working in groups, so I don’t think we need much of that. But I do appreciate the hard work that the HR team put into it.
Miho: The induction program was a great transition into Infosys and India. The programs gave me a better idea of what kind of structure Infosys worked on, and where we fit as software engineers in that structure. I do wish that the program had more chances for our batch to work with the Indian batches. What was great about the induction program was that during that week, we were able to take everything step by step.
There were a few pictures of us, but I didn't add them.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
India so far...
Wow so it has been too long since I made a new post!
A lot has happened. We got through the preliminary part of our training, and I found out that I'm place in the fast track, which is only a little bit shorter and contains more programming, since I've done quite a lot of that in college. I'm going to be working with .NET (the new Visual Basic) once I get through the generic part. I think I would rather J2EE (Java), but whatever, its a skill that I can use in the future. And I probably won't have to code at all after training.
Every weekend groups of us go out. Planet X is once place a lot of us go to, it has an arcade, restaurant, go carts and a club, and the club is one of the two cool places to go at night in Mysore. The other is High Octane, and its a swanky bar / club with good music, a live DJ and some nice areas to sit if you're not into dancing. And by dancing, I mean being surrounded by Indian guys who want to grind on other guys. That one cultural thing I haven't really gone past. Guys hold each others hands and shoulders, walk in group with their arms locked, but you're not supposed to hold hands with a girl in public. Weird.
I finally got a salary advance, so I have some rupees to spend. I luckily found "Laughing Cow" cheese in the Loyal World market on campus, and I've been enjoying that. Apart from friends and family (and I miss you all) I really miss the food (and the quality of service) in America. I'm dying for some quality pasta, and a selection of cheeses, and good wine. And Frank's Red Hot. Dear lord do I miss Frank. If anyone comes to visit me I need at least 3 pounds of cheese. And Frank. And some tasty Ah-mur-ah-kin ketchup. They have ketchup here, but its too sweet for me.
One weekend I spend walking around Mysore with some friends from my batch. On the first day we got a hired taxi to bring us around to all the shops we wanted to see. I got a very high quality buttoned shirt for 400 rupees, or 10 dollars. I'm going to get a few more tailored for me, which is actually about the same price, and you can pick out all the fabric yourself. We went to a store that specialized in clothing for yoga, and I got some "yoga pants", or as we call them in the US, pajamas, made for me. I still need to pick them up. Then we went to a high quality Government store called CIE. They had a lot of guys in nice clothing showing us around. In the album below you can see me in payama, or a typical man's formal moo-moo type garb. It also has pants of the same fabric. I might actually buy that one, but we'll see. When the girls started buying jewelry they brought us potato chips and beer. Very nice! I got to look at some scarves, which I will bring home for gifts, and some incredibly nice carpets. They ranged from 400 USD to 20000 USD depending on the material. I walking on a silk carpet worth 20000 barefoot, and it felt like walking on a cloud. It took 7 years to make, and it was all by hand. Then the guy too out scissors, and ran them over the carpet to show how strong they were. It was really amazing. Check out the pictures below. Those I am not bringing home as presents. Sorry. Maybe after I make my second million.
They next day me and a few other guys took the bus in. It was quite an experience, it costs 7.5 rupees a person, less than a Quarter in the states, and on the way there it wasn't crowded. On the way back it put NYC subways during rush hour to shame. Guys literally hang outside the bus. But women can kick anyone out of their seats. When we got into town we just wandered around. We went to the big market, with people hawking their wares, yelling, haggling, and trying to get us white folk to buy something. I either tell people I'm from Canada or I speak Spanish with a Madrid accent. They don't see you as piles of money when they think you're not America. Their were rows of flower garlands, used to decorate gods and homes, and thousands of bananas, and many little trinkets. But the most amazing was the powders, which are used for coloring hair, clothing, painting, body art and making bindhis (the red, orange, gold or white dots on the forehead). We also found a guy who sells infused oils. They have so many different kinds, I'll have to bring some back as gifts. There were about 25 different ones, like Rose, Lotus, Water Lilly, etc. I'll take some requests and bring some back home. Here are some pics of the market:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffreyrand/MysoreExploration2
Aunt T had asked about the cows. They own the land. They go where ever they want, and as long as they don't hurt anyone they are never tied up. I guess someone owns them, because I see them being milked every once in a while, but they roam around. They eat garbage, news papers, flowers, basically whatever they want. Its really surprising, I never thought there were as many as there are. Most people don't eat the cows, or even meat. I love it, most menus are at least half veggie. And sorry meat eaters, Will especially, the animals aren't pumped full of steroids like they are in the states. So chickens are normal sized, which is about 2/3rds the size of the ones in the states, with much less breast meat.
Last weekend I had to go to Bangalore to get registered as a foreigner in India. They woman, Rupashree, who was probably only a little older than me, was completely disorganized. It was supposed to take a day, but it really took two, and we had to stay overnight in a hotel without any sort of extra clothing or toiletries. Half of it was her managers fault because they didn't really know what to do, but a lot of people we pissed. I tried to do my best to calm everyone down and keep the spirits up, and being an SGT member I'm at least going to help people get reimbursed for the money we spent, but it was a huge waste of time. We left on Friday at 7:15am and got back on Saturday at 6:30pm. It ruined some peoples weekend plans too. It was a mess. But at least we get to say in the country!
Every Sunday they light up the palace, it was pretty cool, and the picture basically explain it all. Check it out:
This weekend was pretty cool as well. Friday we went to Planet X and I did a lot of dancing. Unfortunately our curfew as trainees is midnight on weekends and 11 on weekdays, but we make the best of it. Saturday I just hung out because I had the Delhi Belly again, but at night we went out to dinner at a great veg place and then to High Octane, after trying for an hour to find this one place that no longer existed. And our cab driver just took us to Opium to start, which is that lame Linkin Park bar. We had him play some Indian pop music on the ride, and its actually pretty good. Theres a lot of English mixed it, sometimes its pretty funny.
Today (Sunday) myself, Mohamed, Rudy, Sloan and Kevin went to Chamundi Hill again. We wanted to walk all the way up, but the bus didn't stop where we wanted to. So we walked around the top, paid to get into the temple on the fast line, went thought, got bindhis, cleansed ourselves with blessed water and incense, walked around some more and then walked down the 1000 steps to the bottom. It was quite a day. We also saw the sacred bull Nandi, a statue of the bull that Shiva rides. One funny thing, people touch parts of the bull with colored powders for good luck and blessing, and one of the parts were its huge stone balls. They were orange and yellow from all the people touching em. Lucky Nandi.
Here are some pics from that:
I'm putting some videos of crazy things in India up on youtube as we speak, so expect some videos soon!
Update: Here are 4 videos I took on Sunday, and at the bottom is a link to my Youtube channel. Those 4 videos are all I've posted... so far.
And my channel: http://youtube.com/profile?user=crazyjeff0
A lot has happened. We got through the preliminary part of our training, and I found out that I'm place in the fast track, which is only a little bit shorter and contains more programming, since I've done quite a lot of that in college. I'm going to be working with .NET (the new Visual Basic) once I get through the generic part. I think I would rather J2EE (Java), but whatever, its a skill that I can use in the future. And I probably won't have to code at all after training.
Every weekend groups of us go out. Planet X is once place a lot of us go to, it has an arcade, restaurant, go carts and a club, and the club is one of the two cool places to go at night in Mysore. The other is High Octane, and its a swanky bar / club with good music, a live DJ and some nice areas to sit if you're not into dancing. And by dancing, I mean being surrounded by Indian guys who want to grind on other guys. That one cultural thing I haven't really gone past. Guys hold each others hands and shoulders, walk in group with their arms locked, but you're not supposed to hold hands with a girl in public. Weird.
I finally got a salary advance, so I have some rupees to spend. I luckily found "Laughing Cow" cheese in the Loyal World market on campus, and I've been enjoying that. Apart from friends and family (and I miss you all) I really miss the food (and the quality of service) in America. I'm dying for some quality pasta, and a selection of cheeses, and good wine. And Frank's Red Hot. Dear lord do I miss Frank. If anyone comes to visit me I need at least 3 pounds of cheese. And Frank. And some tasty Ah-mur-ah-kin ketchup. They have ketchup here, but its too sweet for me.
One weekend I spend walking around Mysore with some friends from my batch. On the first day we got a hired taxi to bring us around to all the shops we wanted to see. I got a very high quality buttoned shirt for 400 rupees, or 10 dollars. I'm going to get a few more tailored for me, which is actually about the same price, and you can pick out all the fabric yourself. We went to a store that specialized in clothing for yoga, and I got some "yoga pants", or as we call them in the US, pajamas, made for me. I still need to pick them up. Then we went to a high quality Government store called CIE. They had a lot of guys in nice clothing showing us around. In the album below you can see me in payama, or a typical man's formal moo-moo type garb. It also has pants of the same fabric. I might actually buy that one, but we'll see. When the girls started buying jewelry they brought us potato chips and beer. Very nice! I got to look at some scarves, which I will bring home for gifts, and some incredibly nice carpets. They ranged from 400 USD to 20000 USD depending on the material. I walking on a silk carpet worth 20000 barefoot, and it felt like walking on a cloud. It took 7 years to make, and it was all by hand. Then the guy too out scissors, and ran them over the carpet to show how strong they were. It was really amazing. Check out the pictures below. Those I am not bringing home as presents. Sorry. Maybe after I make my second million.
 |
| Mysore Exploratio |
They next day me and a few other guys took the bus in. It was quite an experience, it costs 7.5 rupees a person, less than a Quarter in the states, and on the way there it wasn't crowded. On the way back it put NYC subways during rush hour to shame. Guys literally hang outside the bus. But women can kick anyone out of their seats. When we got into town we just wandered around. We went to the big market, with people hawking their wares, yelling, haggling, and trying to get us white folk to buy something. I either tell people I'm from Canada or I speak Spanish with a Madrid accent. They don't see you as piles of money when they think you're not America. Their were rows of flower garlands, used to decorate gods and homes, and thousands of bananas, and many little trinkets. But the most amazing was the powders, which are used for coloring hair, clothing, painting, body art and making bindhis (the red, orange, gold or white dots on the forehead). We also found a guy who sells infused oils. They have so many different kinds, I'll have to bring some back as gifts. There were about 25 different ones, like Rose, Lotus, Water Lilly, etc. I'll take some requests and bring some back home. Here are some pics of the market:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffreyrand/MysoreExploration2
Aunt T had asked about the cows. They own the land. They go where ever they want, and as long as they don't hurt anyone they are never tied up. I guess someone owns them, because I see them being milked every once in a while, but they roam around. They eat garbage, news papers, flowers, basically whatever they want. Its really surprising, I never thought there were as many as there are. Most people don't eat the cows, or even meat. I love it, most menus are at least half veggie. And sorry meat eaters, Will especially, the animals aren't pumped full of steroids like they are in the states. So chickens are normal sized, which is about 2/3rds the size of the ones in the states, with much less breast meat.
Last weekend I had to go to Bangalore to get registered as a foreigner in India. They woman, Rupashree, who was probably only a little older than me, was completely disorganized. It was supposed to take a day, but it really took two, and we had to stay overnight in a hotel without any sort of extra clothing or toiletries. Half of it was her managers fault because they didn't really know what to do, but a lot of people we pissed. I tried to do my best to calm everyone down and keep the spirits up, and being an SGT member I'm at least going to help people get reimbursed for the money we spent, but it was a huge waste of time. We left on Friday at 7:15am and got back on Saturday at 6:30pm. It ruined some peoples weekend plans too. It was a mess. But at least we get to say in the country!
Every Sunday they light up the palace, it was pretty cool, and the picture basically explain it all. Check it out:
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| Mysore Palace |
This weekend was pretty cool as well. Friday we went to Planet X and I did a lot of dancing. Unfortunately our curfew as trainees is midnight on weekends and 11 on weekdays, but we make the best of it. Saturday I just hung out because I had the Delhi Belly again, but at night we went out to dinner at a great veg place and then to High Octane, after trying for an hour to find this one place that no longer existed. And our cab driver just took us to Opium to start, which is that lame Linkin Park bar. We had him play some Indian pop music on the ride, and its actually pretty good. Theres a lot of English mixed it, sometimes its pretty funny.
Today (Sunday) myself, Mohamed, Rudy, Sloan and Kevin went to Chamundi Hill again. We wanted to walk all the way up, but the bus didn't stop where we wanted to. So we walked around the top, paid to get into the temple on the fast line, went thought, got bindhis, cleansed ourselves with blessed water and incense, walked around some more and then walked down the 1000 steps to the bottom. It was quite a day. We also saw the sacred bull Nandi, a statue of the bull that Shiva rides. One funny thing, people touch parts of the bull with colored powders for good luck and blessing, and one of the parts were its huge stone balls. They were orange and yellow from all the people touching em. Lucky Nandi.
Here are some pics from that:
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| Chamundi Hill |
I'm putting some videos of crazy things in India up on youtube as we speak, so expect some videos soon!
Update: Here are 4 videos I took on Sunday, and at the bottom is a link to my Youtube channel. Those 4 videos are all I've posted... so far.
And my channel: http://youtube.com/profile?user=crazyjeff0
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
From Mysore, with Love
So this first week has been such a rush! Saturday, I slept 14 hours. Nice.
Sunday we woke up at 6am and met in front of reception to go to Mysore. Our first stop was Chamundeshwari Temple atop Chamundi Hill. It is a temple celebrating the vitory of Shiva over the demon Nandi. Chamundeshwari is the name of that incarnation of Shiva.
It was beautiful, the central temple part was very elaborate, and there were about 50 monkeys climbing all over it and running around. I have to say, those monkeys might have been cooler than the temple. It was quite a mob scene, tho, because there were a great deal of people trying to get money from us Americans. People selling statues, flower garlands, books, music, but most of them were trying to sell post-cards. I actually did end up buying the post cards, but from a little kid, and I haggled him down from 50 rupees to 10 rupees, which is about 25 cents.
Next we hopped back on the bus and went to Mysore Palace, which was built in 1912. It was so beautiful, and had a strange marriage of English construction, Scotish metal work, Swiss Clocks, French Glass and Tiles, Italian Paintings and of course plenty of Indian design, color, gods, and murals. Our tour guide was great, albeit a little slow, and we learned a lot. A few groups of people even sneaked on to our tour. One great part was that there were no shoes allowed inside, ever, so we got to slide around the floors on our bare feet.
I didn't take any pictures, because my camera was out of batteries, but I will post some as soon as I take some.
Class has been pretty boring, but its normal for all of the joining formalities, paper work, etc. But everyone is pretty cool, except of course for the few odd balls, which there aren't too many of.
I was recently elected as one of five of the class representatives. I was happy to win, and I wouldn't have been upset had I not, but I'm a great communicator, I know a good amount of people in the administration already, and I think I can really help people.
Tuesday night all of the girls were going out to dinner, so me and 7 other guys got a cab and went out. We had dinner in this amazing restaurant that was decorated like a cave, and all of the wait-staff were dressed like old English explorers. We all got beers, which none of us had had in too long, and a lot of amazingly good and exceedingly cheap food. For apps, 2 big beers and an entre it was 360 rupees, which is about 9 dollars. We all paid 400, and went to the bar in the restaurant which was named "Opium". But there were no ancient Chinese men smoking pipes. It was 90's rock and present pop music (but way too much Linkin' Park). The girls showed up, along with more people from our class, and we had a great time. But we have an 11pm curfew so we had to leave early. But it was an awesome time.
Last night I took a yoga class. Mysore is one of the birthplaces of modern yoga, and the instructor is amazing. I've never met anyone as accomplished as he is. It is more like a class than any yoga I've done in the states. He instructed all of the Americans on the first sequence, how to breath, when to breath, the motions, etc., then had us do it 5 times and again do it on our own. Tonight we might learn an asana, but for now I know how to properly do a "Sun Salutation" which is a fundamental practice, and from there everything builds.
So we got out early, and I'm writing before I go to lunch. My stomach is grumbling so I have to go. Bye all!
Sunday we woke up at 6am and met in front of reception to go to Mysore. Our first stop was Chamundeshwari Temple atop Chamundi Hill. It is a temple celebrating the vitory of Shiva over the demon Nandi. Chamundeshwari is the name of that incarnation of Shiva.
It was beautiful, the central temple part was very elaborate, and there were about 50 monkeys climbing all over it and running around. I have to say, those monkeys might have been cooler than the temple. It was quite a mob scene, tho, because there were a great deal of people trying to get money from us Americans. People selling statues, flower garlands, books, music, but most of them were trying to sell post-cards. I actually did end up buying the post cards, but from a little kid, and I haggled him down from 50 rupees to 10 rupees, which is about 25 cents.
Next we hopped back on the bus and went to Mysore Palace, which was built in 1912. It was so beautiful, and had a strange marriage of English construction, Scotish metal work, Swiss Clocks, French Glass and Tiles, Italian Paintings and of course plenty of Indian design, color, gods, and murals. Our tour guide was great, albeit a little slow, and we learned a lot. A few groups of people even sneaked on to our tour. One great part was that there were no shoes allowed inside, ever, so we got to slide around the floors on our bare feet.
I didn't take any pictures, because my camera was out of batteries, but I will post some as soon as I take some.
Class has been pretty boring, but its normal for all of the joining formalities, paper work, etc. But everyone is pretty cool, except of course for the few odd balls, which there aren't too many of.
I was recently elected as one of five of the class representatives. I was happy to win, and I wouldn't have been upset had I not, but I'm a great communicator, I know a good amount of people in the administration already, and I think I can really help people.
Tuesday night all of the girls were going out to dinner, so me and 7 other guys got a cab and went out. We had dinner in this amazing restaurant that was decorated like a cave, and all of the wait-staff were dressed like old English explorers. We all got beers, which none of us had had in too long, and a lot of amazingly good and exceedingly cheap food. For apps, 2 big beers and an entre it was 360 rupees, which is about 9 dollars. We all paid 400, and went to the bar in the restaurant which was named "Opium". But there were no ancient Chinese men smoking pipes. It was 90's rock and present pop music (but way too much Linkin' Park). The girls showed up, along with more people from our class, and we had a great time. But we have an 11pm curfew so we had to leave early. But it was an awesome time.
Last night I took a yoga class. Mysore is one of the birthplaces of modern yoga, and the instructor is amazing. I've never met anyone as accomplished as he is. It is more like a class than any yoga I've done in the states. He instructed all of the Americans on the first sequence, how to breath, when to breath, the motions, etc., then had us do it 5 times and again do it on our own. Tonight we might learn an asana, but for now I know how to properly do a "Sun Salutation" which is a fundamental practice, and from there everything builds.
So we got out early, and I'm writing before I go to lunch. My stomach is grumbling so I have to go. Bye all!
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