A couple things to note:

1. I love Singapore Airlines. It was just as nice as my Emirates flight, without the 16 plane ride from SFO to DXB. However, the layover for an hour in Seoul/Hong Kong extended the journey to a similar length. If only it was one of those A380s. I really want to try one of those out.

2. Bad movies make the journey even longer. I watched so many crappy movies on the flight: Green Lantern, Transformers 2, Thor. If there’s one way to make you even more antsy, it’s watching a bad movie and sitting through it because well, there’s nothing else to do.

3. Singapore is hot! I had no idea it was so close to the equator. I really had ambitions at one point of working abroad for a year and Singapore was a top choice. Now, I’m not so sure…

4. Despite hot weather, great food:

Like, Din Tai Fung!

From Singapore

Duck with Rice:

From Singapore

5. I also went to my first F1 Race. After a bunch of standing around, we got to see some incredibly fast (and expensive) cars, drive around the streets of Singapore. The cars are so loud, we had to get ear plugs to protect our hearing. They were really close and apparently where we were standing there was one of the car crashes later that night. $250K worth of damage for hitting the front of the fender. Ridiculous!

From Singapore

6. We also saw the skyline of Singapore. This is from atop the Marina Bay Sands Hotel at night. Gorgeous city:

From Singapore

We also went to the Singapore Zoo for their Night Safari, which was pretty awesome. Hope to be back soon!

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Hyd and Sin

For some reason, I did extremely well with the jetlag here. Last November I was completely wrecked when I flew out here for a week – couldn’t sleep, woke up at 3 or 4am, and was just exhausted the whole time. This time, I’ve been sleeping around 10PM – 1AM and up at 7 – 8AM. I don’t have any good ideas on why I’ve done better; I have read up on how to minimize the effects of jetlag, so I guess I’m convinced flying out to Singapore at night from SFO is better than the afternoon, plus being able to sleep on the flight made it possible. The 8 hour layover in Singapore probably helped too, although I’m not sure I’d do it again, since it made a 24 hour journey take around 34 hours. Not really worth it.

Being back has been a blast though. Plenty of work accomplished and I’ve had a chance to revisit all of my favorite restaurants: Sahib Sindh Sultan, 4 Seasons, F Cafe (well not a favorite, but it’s close by) as well as trying Khaan Saab at the GVK One mall. Didn’t get to Angeethi’s or Our Place but there’s always next year :)

I didn’t take a lot of photos since I’m getting increasingly lazy. Hopefully I’ll be better in Singapore!

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Brief notes on Hyderabad

From Hyderabad 2010

A burlap sack of tea. Tea in India is SUPER CHEAP and on previous trips I’ve brought it home and then ended up not drinking any of it. I’m not a big tea drinker and it’s actually very time consuming to even drink 100 grams of tea (which costs like $1 if you get a less expensive brand). So, no more tea bringing back for me!

From Hyderabad 2010

Since Mohith went to grad school in Texas, there was a football around the office. Albert spent some time showing the guys how to properly throw a football, which was harder to grasp since they were so used to cricket-style throwing. The entertainment also proved interesting to the workers behind the office who were dangerously constructing some steel overhang/thingy for some generators.

From Hyderabad 2010

Why I was in India.

Well, that was a lot less detail than I probably would have written a few weeks ago, but a lot has happened since I went to India so I don’t remember much. Thanks again to the guys for taking me out. I finally was able to go to Ten Downing and see what the deal was with karaoke night there. I also go to finally go to Creamstone and have some pretty delicious ice cream. And of course the food was excellent. I’m still missing the food. Hope to be back sometime in 2011!

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Hyderabad 2010

Also, check out their Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/mumfordandsons

This was taken with a Nikon D90 camera and with an 18-200mm VR lens. I realized quickly that if you try and zoom while recording, the focus gets completely off. In the future, I might shoot video exclusively with my 50mm lens.

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Mumford and Sons – Live in Mumbai!

From Mumbai

Here’s a video of them:

As we walked down the rest of the drive, this turned out to be a common theme – a colorful band banging on some drums and playing some horns in a celebratory fashion.

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Wedding Band in Mumbai

These signs and colors (green/white/yellow) were everywhere from Bagdagra to Darjeeling. After spending two weeks relatively untouched by the surrounding protests and demonstrations for the creation of Telangana in Hyderabad, I found myself smack-dab in the center of an aggressive campaign for statehood in West Bengal. Or more appropriately – trying to avoid getting caught in the middle of it.

Joshua, Sailusha and I had spent a magnificent weekend in Darjeeling and needed to get back to Bagdagra for a 2PM flight to Kolkata on Monday. There was talk throughout the weekend about upcoming strikes and demonstrations on Monday. As we embarked on a full-day of sightseeing on Sunday, we ran across a small group of demonstrators holding some signs, a fair amount of people wearing traditional clothes, and one car driving around to rally members to meet-up at a particular point the next day. But, nothing major. As we pulled into our hotel (or rather the bottom of the steep hill leading to it because the car couldn’t make it up the hill), our driver kindly informed us that there was going to be a 24 hour strike in one of the cities between Darjeeling and Bagdagra. In other words, nothing would go between the city from 6AM Monday to 6AM Tuesday.

The solution? Get to Bagdagra before 6AM. And since our driver needed to get back to Darjeeling before he got stuck in Bagdagra himself, this meant leaving at 2:30AM. We didn’t really have a choice here – leaving later in the morning meant we risked missing the flight. I was utterly useless while Josh and Sailusha coordinated the details in Hindi with the driver – there are times in your life when you’re 100% dependent on other people – this was one of them.

So, after another cold night in our hotel room, we were off at 2:30AM. One thing about the roads around Darjeeling are that they are tiny. They are bumpy. There are also no lights. Our driver was pretty impressive at navigating the roads so we were literally flying down the mountains with only the headlights to guide us. I was too tired to really be scared and after awhile everything became a blur. We made it to Bagdagra around 5AM.

Unfortunately, the airport wasn’t open. Our driver found some drivers on the street and asked about hotels – there was a small one close by but after knocking on the door it turned out that all the smart people had booked rooms that morning for a place to sleep before the impending strike, so we were out of luck. Thankfully our driver didn’t just dump us on the street for the next 5 hours. He found another driver, who, for the price of 500 INR, let us sleep in the back of his cab. He drove us to the airport parking lot, which was almost deserted, parked, locked the car, and strode off to kill time with some other people awake (that’s another thing about India – there are always people up at weird times — why?). I somehow slept soundly for a few hours and awoke to Joshua’s snoring and a stiff neck after leaning against the plastic window of the cab.

This was our shelter for a few hours.

This was one of those situations where it was too ridiculous to be angry about, and something you could almost call sort of an adventure, particularly after a full day of sightseeing and sitting in a car that took us around Darjeeling. And I have got to hand it to the drivers in India – they may drive like maniacs, but they’re good people. We trusted our driver to take us in the middle of the night down some terrifying roads to the airport and he helped us find some shelter for a few hours. Remember how I said there are times in your life when you’re 100% dependent on other people? This was the second time it happened in 12 hours.

As we left the airport parking lot, sore from sleeping in the car, we saw other families that had gone through the same ordeal, some in smaller spaces than us. The airport was crawling with people by 10AM, even though flights weren’t leaving for 3 more hours. I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to be stuck back in Darjeeling. I also feel for the people who arrived today only to find that they can’t go anywhere for the whole day.

Despite this, the trip was incredibly worth it. Atop Tiger Hill at 6AM, we saw Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world:

So that’s the scoop on my Monday in Darjeeling (or mostly Bagdagra, Koklata and Hyderabad). I’m in Hyderabad for a few more hours before flying off to Dubai and then to California! In the coming weeks I hope to finally sit down and write more about my trip(s) and share all my photos.

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Escape from Darjeeling

- Sunday brunch at the Novotel with Dan and Andrew

- Biryani at the world famous Paradise Restaurant

- Spicy black pepper chicken and butter chicken at Our Place

- Familiar chicken tikka masala at F Cafe

Well hmm, most of everything is food related. This list would have probably been longer, but there have been riots and demonstrations around Andra Pradesh by supporters of the Jai Telangana Party which has been pushing for a new state in India. Their political leader went on a hunger strike before I got here, and fell very ill since he wasn’t very healthy to begin with, which exacerbated the agitation. Apparently in some parts of Hyderabad there have been demonstrations and cars lit on fire, and apparently 25 people have committed suicide for the cause. Work-wise, this meant local coworkers had to leave earlier due to police check-points around the city. But for me, since I walk to the office, there really wasn’t any difference.

Luckily the demonstrations were called off today since the government has agreed to create Telangana. Guess that means I went to sleep in Andra Pradesh and woke up in Telangana. Can’t say that happens everyday.

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Jai Telangana!

From Hyderabad Dec

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Guesthouse Fail

Getting to India is pretty easy these days – you can take a 16 hour flight from SFO to Dubai. And yes, it’s as cringing as it sounds. The plane is a 3 by 4 by 3, and I sat in the window seat next to two elderly people, who never got up. I’m too much of a nice guy and never bothered to kick them out so I could go to the bathroom. So, I got up twice during the whole flight – maybe that was a bad idea. But, at least Emirates has an incredibly awesome entertainment system. The screen is huge and I watched 4 movies: Transformers 2 (bad), Angels and Demons (decent), Duplicity (good), and Push (horrible). I was also able to sleep for around 6 hours and I still had time to kill.

21A!

I landed around 4AM but had to wait for three other folks on my flight who were also visiting from our Mountain View office. They took forever – a 45 minute difference between when I got out of the baggage claim. So, I got to my flat around 6AM and ended up not being able to sleep. Since this was a Wednesday, I ended up working a full day and even managed to go the gym. At least that tired me out a whole bunch and I slept well.

Other things:

- December is an amazing time to come to India. The weather is magnificent.

- Someone is always getting married, so I need to remember to bring a collared shirt and slacks everytime when I come. My flatmate from the Nairobi (!) office saved me by letting me borrow a shirt for Swetha’s wedding.

- The food is great. I’m not sure what they put in the biryani to make it taste so good, but it’s awesome. It’s going to be really hard to not gain weight during my trip.

- Jay Sean count is currently at 0. I would assume he’s popular here, but I haven’t gone to any clubs so maybe that’s why.

- Internet was broken for a bit yesterday, apparently because the wireless bill wasn’t paid. Oops.

Hmm, ran out of steam with this post. More later, once I upload some pictures!

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India Part III

Paramore:

This concert was originally scheduled October, but was postponed since the leader singer got laryngitis. The wait, in my opinion was well worth it. This group, who I only have come to know from Guitar Hero and Rock Band, played a high energy show to a mixed group of punks, hipsters, and middle-aged rockers. And to quote the most recent episode of Glee, Hayley Williams has great hairography.

Reduced Shakespeare Company:

Kolina has already recapped what a great performance this was, but I’ll say it again – these guys are even funnier in person. If they’re ever in your area, buy tickets! Walnut Creek also impressed me – Va de Vi Bistro & Wine Bar had some excellent wines and the Pyramid Brewing Company has some tasty beers.

Las Vegas:

Spent Saturday – Tuesday here. Stayed at the Palazzo. Saw O. Enjoyed the acrobatics and music (cello solo what up). Walked parts of the strip a few times. Won money playing craps, my new favorite game. Ate at the following:

• The Buffet (Wynn) – 5+ stars again for great food. This time, we didn’t see any people puke in the dessert area.
• Aquaknox (Venetian) – Strong martinis. Rude waitress – she took our candle at the end of the night!
• Oyster Bar at the Panazzi (Harrah’s) – excellent oysters. The Rockefellar oysters are so rich. Hope you have good cholestral.
• Yellowtail (Bellagio) – service was horribly slow (even though the restaurant was practically empty). Decent sushi. Sushi samba is better though.
• Sushi Samba (Palazzo) – pretty good sushi, even better drinks, although the wine is overpriced. The bartender will also cheer you on as you do aeriel cartwheels around the empty mall.
• Mararitaville – For inexplicable reasons, we came here twice. Good margaritas. My “Perfect Margarita” was practically all alcohol, hence its name ;) Eric and I also took the volcano nacho challenge and failed miserably. Bad choice:

From Las Vegas Nov 2009

More food:

Since I’m in India for almost all of December, I hit up as many food places as I could before going. 99 Chicken, Panda Express (twice!), Carl’s Jr, and VIP. Also spend a day in San Francisco and checked out Andalu (okay breakfast) and Bar Tartine (not very impressed, sadly enough).

St. Louis:

Visited my family along with Kolina for Thanksgiving. Again, Kolina beat me to the blog post, so you can read about it there. Highlights include visiting my old favorite restaurants like The Posh Nosh, Steak n Shake, and Ted Drewes Frozen Custard and deep frying out turkey. We successfully cooked Spinach Gratin with yams and a delicious pumpkin pie.

So that was that. Since I am falling asleep while finishing up this post, you can check out all my pictures here:

1. St. Louis Thanksgiving
2. San Francisco
3. Las Vegas

Whew, long and busy month. December shapes to be very similar, which keeps me happy even though I’m away in India right now. More later once I recover from jetlag!

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November Recap