Saturday, January 30, 2010

Me and Nic Cage

Just booked a whirlwind trip to Bangkok.  Leaving Kolkata at 1:55 am on Saturday 2/13, getting into Thailand at 6 am, spending Saturday and Sunday there and then flying back to Kolkata at 11:30 pm Sunday night.

Anybody have travel tips for Bangkok?

If you're curious this is the reference made in the title of the post.

Salmon sounds good

We met yesterday with one of the managers at the hotel.  He wanted to meet us since we are going to be here for so long.  We took the opportunity to complain a bit about the high price of laundry, but other than that it was a pleasant little discussion.  The one thing that caught me off guard was when he told us that he was going to set up a meeting for us with the head chef.  The purpose of the meeting is to allow us to tell the chef our specific culinary/dietary desires/requirements.  I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to tell him.

To put this in perspective our hotel has 5 different restaurants including a 24 hour buffet/diner that servers burgers, salads, pasta and a whole array of Indian food, a Japanese place with a sushi bar, a western style bar and grill, a Pakistani place, and an Indian restaurant.  I could easily go for a month without eating the same item for dinner twice.  Pretty much the only cuisines missing that I really enjoy are Mexican and Mediterranean, but I can't imagine sitting down with the head chef and saying, yeah, I really like all you have to offer, but you know what would make it even better? Burritos.

Here are a few pictures (taken from the car) of Kolkata's Birla Temple.

Friday, January 29, 2010

At least it slowed down due to my advanced age

I got on the treadmill this morning and it asked me three questions:  how long I wanted to jog for, how fast I wanted to jog and my age.  The first and second questions had easy answers (as short a time as possible and very slowly respectively), but the last question was tricky.  I entered 29, stopped, shed a tear, found the delete key, and officially ended my twenties by entering 30.

The team here was nice enough to buy me not one, but two birthday cakes today.  About 25 people crammed into my office and sang happy birthday.  I made a bit of a mess of the whole thing as in India you apparently kick of the singing of Happy Birthday by blowing out the candles, while I, having celebrated most of my birthdays not in India, was waiting for them to start singing so I could blow out the candles at the end.  Eventually they started singing, but when I didn't blow out the candle fast enough half of the people stopped.  Once I finally figured out what I was supposed to do and blew it out there were about 3 different groups at different points in the song.  I explained afterward how the traditions differ lest they think me a complete moron.

Another tradition I learned about is for each person present to feed the birthday boy a bit of cake and then smear a smaller (hopefully) bit of the cake on the birthday boy's face.  Luckily not everybody participated, but as you can see in the picture below more than a couple of people did.

 

The third and final tradition is for everybody present to kick to birthday boy in the butt.  I'll leave you all to decide for yourselves if this tradition was followed.

I've included a few photos of the last couple of weeks below.

Victoria Memorial

 
Victoria Memorial

New Market

We were out looking for a laundromat so we didn't have to pay $3 per pair of socks at the hotel.

This is a shot of the office party that we had here last Friday.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Ramblings

I was just haivng a conversation about my how my expectations for India have lined up with my experiences so far.  I figured I might as well share it with all of you while it is still fresh in my mind.  I'm not sure if what I'm saying makes any sense at all, so feel free to completely ignore this if you so desire.

India has been much less a shock than I expected it to be.  Talking to people in the States I got the impression that I was going to step off of the plane and feel like I had stepped into a different world.  That, for the most part, has not been true.  I have seen things here that I would never see in the US.  I've seen people picking through trash dumps on the side of the road.  I've seen people bathing in the river.  I've seen cows walking down the street.  I've seen barefoot (young) teenagers working on a construction site. 

At the same time I've seen and done any number of things that were no different from what I've seen and done at home.  I've seen an office full of white collar workers come into the office everyday and do the exact same work that I do in San Francisco.  I've been to a suburban mall and walked past the Subway in the food court.  I've eaten lunch at a nice Chinese restaurant.  I've drank (very bad) coffee at a coffee shop.  I've slept in an enormously comfortable bed at a 5 star hotel.

The thing about India that has really struck me is not the poverty, it's the sense that half of the country is in the 21st century and half of the country is in the 19th.  There is poverty in the States.  Anybody that has walked the streets in San Francisco or Seattle know that, but somehow it is different than the poverty here.  I'm not sure how to describe the difference other than to say in the States it feels like a portion of society just couldn't keep up to the pace of the race, here it feels like they were never even told that there is a race.

I'm still here

Sorry for the lack of updates.  We worked all day both Saturday and Sunday last weekend so there hasn't been a whole lot to say.  Unfortunately it's looking like we'll be doing the same this weekend so the prospects for interesting, blog worthy, non-work experiences are looking bleak in the near term.  I was particularly disappointed to have to work last weekend as we had a tee time to play 9 holes on Sunday afternoon.  I'm hoping that when everything slows down a bit in February we'll be able to golf at least once.

This past Tuesday was Republic Day in India.  It's fairly similar to the 4th of July, but with fewer fireworks.  This was the first time I've ever been in a foreign country for a meaningful local holiday.  It was odd to have absolutely no concept of the holiday that was being celebrated.  I felt a bit left out, although it was nice that there was no traffic.  I was talking to some of my colleagues here who have been to the States and they mentioned having a similar reaction to Thanksgiving.

The office we are in has a cafeteria.  The cafeteria has three different vendors that come in each day and serve lunch.  One vendor is vegetarian and the other two serve meat dishes.  The food is very simple, homemade dishes.  Lots of lentils, potatoes, cabbage, paneer (cheese), green onions and rice.  There is also generally one or two Chinese dishes as Chinese food is extremely popular in Kolkata. 

All of the vendors also server nan or roti with their meals.  Nan and roti are types of flat bread.  Nan is generally a bit fluffier than roti and roti is usually, if not always, made with whole wheat flour.  I don't think I've had a lunch or dinner here yet that didn't include nan and/or roti.  We've actually picked a different vendor at times based on the fact that our favorite vendor was out of roti.  Partly this is because the bread is also used as a utensil by most folks.  I'm getting to be an expert at corralling paneer with roti.

The lunches are extraordinarily cheap.  You buys a book of twenty tickets for 500 rupees.  Each ticket is good for one all you can eat meal which means that each meal costs 25 rupees or roughly 55 cents.  Contrast this with the cost of laundry in our hotel where I'm paying $3 to wash a pair of socks and $7 to wash a pair of jeans.  Luckily that cost is covered by work.

Just found out I get to fly business class on the way home.  That is going to make the flight a heck of a lot nicer.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Random Thoughts

I am very used to the idea of a one or two week trip.  Even when I was in Seattle for most of 2009 it was more like a series of one week trips as opposed to a 10 month trip.  Every Friday I would check out of the hotel and head to either Ken and Jamie's or San Francisco.  As a result of that my mind keeps telling me that it is time to check out of the hotel over here and head home.  I'm curious to see how long this lasts.  I can't imagine it will go on for the next 10 weeks, but I suppose I can't be certain.

The hotel I'm staying at is apparently one of the two or three best places to stay in Kolkata.  I only know this because my traveling companion is constantly pointing out celebrities.  We've already seen a couple of members of parliament, the most famous actor in India and Kolkata's entire cricket team.  For perspective that would be like checking into a hotel in Seattle and seeing Patty Murry, Brad Pitt and the entire Seattle Seahawk's roster.  I've been less than enthused by this as I have no idea who these people are, but my colleague has been thrilled.  I'm trying to convince him to get one of those autograph books from Disneyland that you use to get all of the characters signatures shipped over here so he can get autographs from everybody in it.  He doesn't seem thrilled with this plan, but I'm going to keep trying.

One of the most famous politicians in the history of Kolkata passed away yesterday.  He was 95 or 96 years old and served as the Chief Minister of West Bengal (the state containing the city of Kolkata) for over 30 years.  The entire city is shut down today as a result.  Then entire city that is other than our office.  We still managed to fill up most of the building.

Yesterday (Sunday) we visited a Catholic church.  It looked pretty much like a Catholic church in the states.

My stomach spent the second half of last week informing me in no uncertain terms that it had had its fill of intensely flavorful spicy foods.  I ended up not eating a whole lot for a couple of days.  If was an odd sensation.  The closest approximation I can come to for it is when I've had too much to drink and the thought of another beer (or bourbon) makes me flat out nauseous.  It was like that except for with Indian food.  I'm doing better now.  Last night we had a Bengali dinner and for lunch today we had Indian.  In both cases I was able to eat the food with only a mild fight from my stomach.  I figure by later this week my stomach will have given up completely and I'll be eating whole peppers by the handful. 

Bengali food was a lot like Indian, but with more mustard.  We had an appetizer of cauliflower cutlets with mustard sauce that was awesome.

I haven't been in any more traffic accidents, although we did pass another one this morning.  A motorcycle was hit by a car, but at very low speed.  The driver of the motorcycle was standing in the middle of the street screaming at the driver of the car.  I can't imagine driving a motorcycle on the streets here, although tons of people do.  I guess everything moves so slow due to congestion that most accidents involving motorcycles end up like the one we passed rather than like one on I-5 or the 101.

Everybody in the office here is shocked that I'm not eating meat.  I've gotten more of a reaction to that than to anything else in my time here.  I think they are secretly expecting to walk in on me in my office scarfing down a great big steak.

I know I owe a bunch of people phone calls and emails.  I will do my best to catch up this week.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

First Weekend

My first weekend was interesting.  I woke up on Friday with a cold.  I went into the office, but by the time I got back to the hotel that evening I was feeling pretty miserable.  I tried sleeping, but my body was still working on Pacific time so I woke up feeling wide awake (yet miserable) at 2 am on Saturday.  Starting from there and going for the next 24 or so hours I was in bed sleeping occasionally and spending the rest of the time catching up on my Indian television.  Turns out I am way behind on my Indian shows.  Guess I'll have to update my TiVo when I get home.

I woke up on Sunday morning for the last time at about 3:30 am.  Obviously miserably early, but I felt pretty good.  I watched a few more hours of TV and then went down for breakfast.  The hotel I'm staying at has a breakfast buffet that is included in the package my company put together.  There is a wide variety of Indian food as well as quite a few American dishes to choose from.  Based on the fact that I was still recovering from the cold I decided to avoid the more interesting options available and stick with fruit and cereal.

The other person from the San Francisco office that is traveling with me arrived in Kolkata late on Saturday night.  He is from India and speaks Hindi so he is doing a lot of speaking for me.  We decided to visit the Victoria Memorial on Sunday afternoon.  I'll post pictures and some more details on that trip later.  Sufficed to say it was an interesting experience.

This morning (Monday) I woke up feeling almost completely healthy.  I also managed to sleep through the night, which was almost a better treat than my cold being gone.  One the way into the office my car was rear ended by a rickshaw.  Nobody was hurt, but there was a good bit of yelling.  I'll post in a bit more detail on the traffic here later.  I want to figure out how to post video before I do so you can get the real experience.

Overall the first weekend was good if for no other reason than I think the jet lag is behind me.  I'll try to get a couple of more posts up here soon with pictures and video soon.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The journey

I am writing this post on Thursday morning from Kolkata.  I arrived in India yesterday (Wednesday) at about 8am local time.  Kolkata is 13.5 hours ahead of Pacific time (when I'm doing to the conversion I just add 1.5 hours to Pacific time and flip the am/pm).

I'll post pictures of my hotel and Kolkata later, for now I'm going to focus on my travel experience.

Flight #1 - SFO to Dubai
As I've mentioned before I took off from the San Francisco airport (SFO) at 3:45pm local time on Monday on a 15 hour flight to Dubai on Emirates airline.  The flight plan took us northeast over Canada and Greenland and then southeast over Iceland, Western Europe and finally into Dubai.  I've created a very rough picture of the flight path below.


First flight in red (I think), second flight in yellow (almost positive)

During the course of the flight I did the following in something similar to the order listed:
  1. Prayed fervently that the empty seat next to me would not be filled.
  2. Celebrated when the empty seat next to me was not filled.
  3. Played New Super Mario on Nate's DS and beat World 3.
  4. Watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine
  5. Ate penne pasta with what could generously be called red sauce, and more accurately could be called red water.  The folks on the plane eating meat were treated to a lamb curry over rice.  I can't say for certain what the lamb curry tasted like, but I can say with absolute certainty is smelled a heck of a lot better than my dish tasted.
  6. Watched Hurt Locker.  In retrospect, not a good choice on a flight to the Middle East.
  7. Watched four episodes of Better Off Ted while working.
  8. Ate a mini tuna wrap.  Not bad.  Ate a second mini tuna wrap.
  9. Cleaned tuna off of my shirt.
  10. More Super Mario.  World 5 goes down.
  11. Watched two episodes of Chuck.
  12. Watched 500 Days of Summer.  No international relations repercussions with this movie.
  13. Super Mario.  World 6 is done.
  14. Watched two episodes of Pushing Up Daisies while trying to sleep.  Failed pretty miserably at sleeping, managed to see a lot of Pushing Up Daisies.
  15. Turned down breakfast.
  16. Landed in Dubai.
Overall the flight went much better than I expected.

Intermission - Layover in Dubai

The Dubai airport seemed very large and modern.


This was the terminal that my second flight was initially supposed to take off from.  It ended up getting switched to a terminal that, based on the amount of time it took to walk there, was in Los Angeles.


Every time I walked by this I was gripped by a desire to rake swirling patterns into the sand. Seemed like it would be very relaxing.


This is the English breakfast I ate at 9pm local time.  In my defense my body was convinced that it was 9am.  On plate we've got two eggs, fried mushrooms, baked beans, a roasted tomato and two hashbrown patties.  All in all, quite a good meal.

World 7 was defeated at some point in Dubai.  I also managed to email off some work and hold up the other end of an IM conversation.

My layover in Dubai was about 7 hours.  I took off at 3:30am local time bound for Kolkata.

Flight #2 - Dubai to Kolkata

This was my "short" flight at slightly less than four hours.  Frankly I'm not even sure this flight happened as the whole thing seems like a dream.  I sat next to a very nice lady who was on her way to Kolkata to visit her 98 year old mother.  They airline decided to upgrade me from the vegetarian meal I requested to a vegan meal.  Turns out vegans eat a pupu platter of beans for breakfast.  If I had actually be coherent while eating I would have been very disappointed in the vegan meal, as it was I just tried to avoid getting a bean stain next to the tuna stain on my shirt.  After eating I briefly lost consciousness and then we landed.

Epilogue - The Kolkata Airport

The Kolkata airport was much older than the Dubai airport.  I got off the plane and followed the crowd to the H1N1 interview area.  I had to fill out a questionnaire asking if I was sick, or had been sick recently.  They helpfully suggested that if I was sick I might want to think about canceling my trip.  There were a lot of people here.  I didn't notice anybody who decided to cancel their trip.  I guess everybody was completely healthy.


Lots of healthy people
I picked up my baggage (thanks Isaac and Tien!) from baggage claim and headed outside to find my driver. 
 

Outside the airport
 
Thankfully I was able to find my driver almost immediately and he took me from the airport to the hotel.  I'll talk about the drivers here later.

Summary

It took me about 31 hours to get from my apartment door to my hotel room in Kolkata.  I left San Francisco on Monday afternoon and arrived in India on Wednesday morning.  It was actually much less painful than I had imagined it would be, but still not an experience I'm looking forward to repeating. 

Monday, January 4, 2010

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Packing

I'm not quite sure how to pack for this trip.



Is this enough?  Too much?

Eagle eyed folks in Camano Island will notice a Don't be Crabby tee-shirt in the front row.  I figure that humor will translate well to India.  The Seahawks blanket will not be making the trip, however based on their current performance I may be bringing back a Cricket team (club?) blanket to take its place.