Cruisin around Bangalore with Lawrence

Today, Lawrence took me around Bangalore to see some sights and do some shopping. We had a great time even though the traffic was just as bad as any other day. I got to see a lot more of Bangalore than I usually see and I was able to pick up some gifts for the family. Oh yeah, I was also finally able to get some chapstick. I took a ton of stuff that I will never use and forgot the one thing that I would need, lip balm. It only cost 20 rupees so I am not complaining because that is a little more than 50 cents.

A funny story on that. I went to the concierge desk to ask if they had chapstick or if they knew where I could get some. I was talking to the lady there and when I asked her she seemed like she didn't understand what I was talking about so I started to go into the whole thing about my lips are in pain, and dry and crusty. She let me go on for awhile like an idiot and then she finally said, "Sir, I do know what lip balm is." I thought it was pretty funny because I looked like a typical foreigner but you probably had to be there.

Back to the story at hand. So Lawrence took me to get some gift shopping done. He took to a store that sells stuff for the home and miscellaneous stuff like rugs, bed covers, scarves, carvings, jewelry, tea and spices. The shopkeeper was great and he showed me all kinds of wonderful things. The rugs are beautiful and so are the scarves and carvings. I wanted to pretty much buy everything so I had keep putting stuff to the side so we could discuss the price when I was done.

Once I was done looking at everything it was time to figure out the price. Right off the bat, 800 bucks. I almost fell over. Things aren't as cheap here as I would like them to be so we had to start taking things away. I could tell he was getting frustrated with me because I just plain refused to pay the price that he wanted me to pay. What can I do? I am a cheapskate and I just couldn't imagine paying the price that he wanted me to pay plus I knew that if I did Michelle would give me a swift kick in rear for paying that much so we continued to haggle and work on the price.

No matter what I told him that I was willing to pay he kept quoting me a higher price. I understand that he needs to make money too but I argue just to argue and I wanted to see if I could get everything I liked for a cheaper price. I had to laugh because at one point he had to tell me that the price I wanted to pay was just not going to happen. I had fun with him anyway but was still unable to get all the things I wanted for the price I wanted to pay so I had to leave without some items that I wanted. Oh well, maybe I can come back here again one day and get them.

After that, Lawrence wanted to take me to more places like the last one for shopping. I kept telling that shopping only irritates me and I don't enjoy at all but he insisted I just go in and look. I obliged and every store I walked into I just told them I wasn't going to buy anything so I was in and out quickly.

Once we got past that he took me to the local shopping so I could buy and idly stand to take home. An idly stand is used to make these little rice cakes. They taste so good and I wanted to be able to make them home so I was happy to be able to pick one up. The store wanted to sell me the biggest one they had but I kept telling them there was no way I could take it home and I needed a smaller one. Luckily they found me one and we were on our way.

The last thing I wanted to get was a Cricket jersey for the Indian National Cricket team. So we walked up and down the street while Lawrence kept asking everyone where we could find one. Nobody knew so I thought I was going to go home empty handed and I was fine with that. We hopped in the car and started to head back to the hotel.

I was telling the fellas that I work with that I wanted to get a jersey and they said I could probably only get it at a Nike store since Nike is licensed to make the jerseys. Lawrence and I had decided that we would try and find one before or after work next week. Luckily, out of the blue I saw a Nike store. Lawrence stopped the car, I ran in and walked out with my jersey.

The last thing I have is a video clip of us driving around. I tried to get Lawrence in the video but I didn't do a good job of it but you can still see him and hear him talking. The guy is great and I really enjoy talking to him and listening to everything he has to say about India.

As Ice Cube once said, "Today was a good day."

Watching TV in India

Well, TV in India is lot like TV back home, a lot of channels but nothing on. I think I have about 100 channels in my hotel room but I swear there are some duplicates in there plus a few that are just static. Aside from that, there are plenty of movie channels to watch but some of them are in a language I don't understand so I usually just click on through. There are plenty of news channels to watch as well.

I am of the opinion that the people here love the news. Everyone is always reading the paper and like I said, it seems that every few channels is a news channel. The next kind of station that I see all the time is music video stations like MTV and VH1 (they have those as well). The difference is that there is actually music videos on their music channels.

And lastly, the sports channels. They have ESPN but it is not like ESPN back home. Most of the coverage is on Cricket and Soccer. When flipping through the channels, I can usually find and cricket match to watch so I don't mind. I only get frustrated when there is nothing on but soccer because, to me, soccer is just too boring to watch.

So, to end this post, I am going to link or embed some of my favorite commercials that I see on TV here. People that know me know I can't stand commercials but these crack me up for some reason. Especially the coke commercial with the guy driving the car. I love it when she screams and then he screams. That makes me bust a gut.




Well, I will keep looking because I am having trouble finding the commercials on youtube. Just keep checking back and maybe I will have added some of my other favorites. Oh yeah, they sell crap on the TV here just like back home.

Driving to Work

I said that I would get some video uploaded of the drive to work but that seems harder than I thought so I am posting a few pictures.

So the distance the office building is about 10 miles from my hotel but the drive can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an 1 hour and 15 minutes depending on the traffic we encounter. Luckily for me Lawrence, the driver, is great to talk to and he tells me all about Bangalore and India in general.

These pictures don't truly show how backed up the traffic can get. Sometimes the traffic is so far backed up that we just sit wait for about 10-15 minutes. Lawrence and I just chat and he asks a lot of questions about America. I in turn ask him a lot about India and what goes on. The guy is pretty amazing because he speaks about 5 languages. He definitely makes the time pass and I am glad to have him as a driver.


Of course, I have to the obligatory picture of a bull pulling a wagon and yes , there are plenty of cows on the street as well and they tend to back up the traffic.


Watching the people drive here is plain amazing because the roads are pure chaos. Motorcycles weave in and out and all of the cars are jockeying for position like a Nascar race. I laugh all of the time because it seems to me that the drivers are actually communicating with each other using their horns. At least here when someone honks their horn the other person will usually get out of their way.

A little taste

Finally! Thanks to Donn I was finally able to upload this small video of the drive to work.

I promised I would get some footage of the drive into work. The drive usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour for me to get to work but today traffic was light so I think it only took about 40 minutes. Here is a quick clip of the traffic. I will get some other clips when the traffic gets really backed up. Enjoy!

Cricket? Yeah, I am addicted

Okay, I am a cricket fan. The more I watch this game and learn about it the more I love it. Once I realized that I couldn't keep comparing the game to baseball I really started to understand what is going on. So here is small overview of the batter position for those of you who may want to learn a little about cricket.

Like baseball, the batter is trying to score runs but he is also trying to protect the stumps. The stumps? Yes, the stumps. The stumps are 3 vertical sticks behind the batter that have 2 bails, small pieces of wood, lying on top of the stumps that form the wicket. The bowler, or pitcher, is trying to hit the stumps and knock the bails off to get the batter out. The batter is actually trying to use the bat to keep the bowler from hitting the stumps.

And finally a quick update. Even though India lost on Sunday to Australia, they have chance to move on to the finals if they beat Sri Lanka today. As of now, Sri Lanka has finished batting and now India is due up. India's defense was outstanding they were able to get 10 wickets before 50 overs. If you want to know what that means I suggest doing a little reading and then try watching part of a game. I will try to keep adding some information about cricket as I continue to learn what is going on.

I am a Zombie

I am pretty much a zombie now. I don't know what the problem is but I cannot sleep at night. I might have slept a total of 6 hours over the past 2 nights and I think I might go insane. I try to go to sleep and all I do is lie there in the dark. When I finally fall asleep I pretty much toss and turn all night. The past 2 nights I have fallen asleep about midnight, slept on and off and then I am wide awake at 4:30am. This wouldn't be a problem if I could just get up and go to work but unfortunately, I don't go to work until 11am and leave work at 8pm. This makes for a long day. I am not one to take any type of sleeping pills so I guess I am just going to suffer through it.

Part of the problem might be the coffee here. The coffee is like rocket fuel with a boost of nitro.

Things I have learned about India

No pictures in the post, just an overview of some things that I learned about India. Feel free to ask questions in the comment section and I will try to answer them if I can. So here we go.

Cricket
Cricket is huge here. Cricket is loved here like we love baseball, football and basketball. Today was a big game for India. They were playing the Australians in the Quarter Finals and needed to win to move on. Unfortunately, India did not win but I did watch most of the game in the lounge while to talking to one of the employees of the hotel. I already spent some time reading about the game but he helped me understand it a little bit better. Cricket is like baseball where each side has a chance to bat but only once per side. So basically there is only one inning in Cricket even though the game goes on about the same length as a baseball game. I won't try to explain the game here because I don't fully understand it yet, I understand about 75% but I am sure I will have it down before I leave.

The Local Paper
Anyone who knows me knows that I have stay up with current events. Since I got the morning paper in my room I decided to read it front to back. This is what I learned.

Large Numbers
In India, large numbers aren't written out like we write them out and they don't use millions or billions. When describing large numbers, Indians use the word Lakh. A Lakh is basically 100,000 so when they are talking about 3 million they would say 30 Lakhs. When written out, which I understand is not common, it would be written as 30,00,000 instead of 3,000,000. You can read more about this here.

Celebrities
Celebrity news is just as big here is it is at home. Not only is there plenty of news about the celebrities here, the newspapers thoroughly cover the Oscars. I even spotted a small article in the paper about Brittney Spears being able to visit her children. That is all I have to say on that.

Drinking and Driving
Drinking is not big here in India, at least people here don't partake in it like a lot of us do back in the US but India still has its problems with it. I have read a few articles about people being killed in drunk driving accidents and the Government is even trying to rollback the "Last Call" time from 11:30pm to 10pm. Of course the hotels are pushing for a "Last Call" time of 12:30am. I can't even imagine getting behind the wheel of a car drunk and trying to drive in the traffic here. That in itself deserves a big fat label of "STUPID". I will get some video footage and post it within the week.

Yoga
I spotted daily yoga tips in the paper and I am not ashamed to admit that I tried a couple of the exercises. I am not sure if I got much benefit but I am here for awhile so I will report back on that.

Corruption in the Government
Yup, across all levels just like home.

Strikes
India has those too. Right now the Lorry (Truck) drivers and cab drivers are on strike. From my understanding and from I can gather this has to do with putting speed governors on the cabs and trucks. One driver told me that they wanted to govern the speed of cabs to 36 mph and the speed of trucks to 50 mph. I am not sure how true that is but I am sure that all of our cab drivers and truck drivers would probably strike too.

Funnies (Comic Strips)
They got 'em in the paper too. The same ones we read at home plus some local flavor.

Cell Phones
I thought we Americans overused cell phones. Guess what? We can't touch the itizens of India on the use of cell phones. You can SMS (text message) for just about anything here. SMS is advertised everywhere and for everything; I even think that one could open a bank account with a cell phone, just kidding. It does seem that everyone has a cell phone here. I asked a person how much cell phones cost and monthly plan rates so here it is, get ready to be jealous. From what I got one could purchase a cell phone for about Rs 1000 ($25). From there, per minute use for outgoing calls is Rs 1, yes that is 1 rupee and too small to convert to dollars. Every month after that the cell phone is recharged for about Rs 300 ($7.50). We pay a lot more at home and use the phone far less.

That is it for now. Feel free to ask me questions and I will try and find the answer. Until then, I am attempting to learn how to speak the local language, Kannada, from the nice gentleman, Lawrence, that takes me to work everyday.