Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Taj Mahal
Went to the Taj Mahal at about 5:30 am. To get to the Taj, you walk through a forested park for about a km. At 5:30 am, the park was absolutely packed with people playing badminton, most without nets. I have no explanation for why this is. The Taj Mahal has two reddish buildings, one on either side, and an entrance building to the gardens surrounding the Taj that is also reddish. The red building to the right of the Taj is called the "guest house", and the one to the left is a mosque. Once you get past the gardens and the reflecting pools, you have to take your shoes off to walk around. The gardens surrounding the Taj are teaming with life, with the cackle of monkeys and birds constantly surrounding you. There are "guides" that latch onto you and drag you around the area showing you places to take pictures from. My kept jammering on about "this good American Camel cigarette shot!" As apparently the Taj Mahal is on the Camel cigarette box? After dragging me around for 20 minutes or so he asked for $20 US dollars. Now, apparently the Taj Mahal is the the first day of an India holiday for a LOT of tourists, and some of those tourists must think that is a fair wage for his services. $20 US, or 1000 INR, is a fortune for this dude. If a tourist pays that, he could take a month off of work. At least. I gave him 100, which is still a lot of money for him, and went on my way.
Inside the Taj is is fairly dark and very echo'y. The echos get trapped up in the dome and bounce around so there is a constant ambient hum. Photography isn't allowed inside the Taj, but its just a big mausoleum, and the inner circle inside contains a sarcophagus surrounded by a huge cage all made from intricately carved marble.
It should also be noted that photography doesn't seem to capture the size of the Taj Mahal well. Its friggin huge.
ENTRANCE HALL
Inside the Taj is is fairly dark and very echo'y. The echos get trapped up in the dome and bounce around so there is a constant ambient hum. Photography isn't allowed inside the Taj, but its just a big mausoleum, and the inner circle inside contains a sarcophagus surrounded by a huge cage all made from intricately carved marble.
It should also be noted that photography doesn't seem to capture the size of the Taj Mahal well. Its friggin huge.
ENTRANCE HALL
Delhi Dogs
Started the trek to the Taj Mahal with a packed economy flight from Bangalore to Delhi. Took a rickshaw to a "travel agent", which is a little shop that rents cars and drivers. Got a car and a driver for the weekend and started the long drive to Agra. Here are the dogs hanging out outside the travel agency.
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Thursday, May 21, 2009
Spoiler Alert
As defined by wikipedia.org:
Does that make sense to you google fucking news? Reread the "dramatic tension" part one more time just to make sure.
So, youtube here goes to youtube.co.in and you can watch videos of people in sarees and hindu religious ceremonies to your hearts content. Google.com even goes to google india, and you can read all 1,360,000 recipes for veg biriyani. But I go to news.google.com, and what do I see:
I should have suspected this might happen when I read a few days ago that poor little deformed girl won Dancing with the Stars. I mean, thank god, it might keep her out of circus side show for a while longer, but I didn't really care. But now..
Listen news.google.com, maybe you don't understand what it takes to get American Idol to me in Bangalore. Let me try to explain. It all starts with a digital recording, then a person to playback the digital recording while a dvd recorder burns it into ones and zeros onto a laser read physical media, then said physical media needs to be packaged and driven to a facility that specializes in transporting such packages to literally the other side of the world. Upon arrival on the other side of the world, local custom agents must make a gigantic pile of similar packages in an almost indescribably hot airport hanger that is as filthy as any place you've ever been. After such pile is made, the aforementioned local customs agents must then stand around in a semi-circle and, while intermittently staring at the pile of packages and swatting at mosquitoes, they must as subtly as possible attempt to extort bribes from one another to allow this huge pile of packages to leave this hell-like hanger. After all bribes have been accomplished cyclically (well, semi-cyclically - the guy on one end of the semi-circle has to walk to the other end of the semi-circle to complete his transaction) and all local customs agents have the exact same number of rupees that they started with, but also a fairly significant feeling of accomplishment, the pile of similar packages is sorted into smaller piles. Now, since there aren't really street addresses in said local country, these packages must somehow reach their intended destinations based solely on general landmarks, the tenacity of the delivery agent, the truthful and honest response from the cow eating garbage on the corner when asked if she knows where Waterwoods is, and the very difficult decision by the driver that completing this delivery and getting a paycheck is probably worth more to him than just taking the package for his very own. After all of this has happened, and a final bounty has been extorted from the intended recipient for "additional duty fees", this recipient can than unwrap the package, take out the physical media, place it in a US dvd player plugged into a plug adapter which is then plugged into a 220/110 200W voltage step down converter which is then plugged into a local UPS (somewhat futilely as the power is often out and the battery in the UPS can play about 10 minutes or so of the physical media before conking out until the next wild spurt of electricity from the high voltage transformer placed 3 or so feet above the ground outside on the street with uncovered bare high voltage wires jammed every direction into it) which is then plugged into a wall socket which is driven by a switch placed somewhere randomly on another wall. All of this, dear news.google.com, takes slightly longer than the THREE GODDAMN HOURS it has been since AI finished.
Spoiler (media)
(Redirected from Spoiler Alert)
Spoiler is Genex slang for any element of any summary or description of any piece of fiction that reveals any plot element which will give away the outcome of a dramatic episode within the work of fiction, or the conclusion of the entire work. Because enjoyment of fiction sometimes depends upon the dramatic tension and suspense which arising within it, the external revelation of such plot elements can "spoil" the enjoyment that some consumers of the narrative would otherwise have experienced.
Does that make sense to you google fucking news? Reread the "dramatic tension" part one more time just to make sure.
So, youtube here goes to youtube.co.in and you can watch videos of people in sarees and hindu religious ceremonies to your hearts content. Google.com even goes to google india, and you can read all 1,360,000 recipes for veg biriyani. But I go to news.google.com, and what do I see:
I should have suspected this might happen when I read a few days ago that poor little deformed girl won Dancing with the Stars. I mean, thank god, it might keep her out of circus side show for a while longer, but I didn't really care. But now..
Listen news.google.com, maybe you don't understand what it takes to get American Idol to me in Bangalore. Let me try to explain. It all starts with a digital recording, then a person to playback the digital recording while a dvd recorder burns it into ones and zeros onto a laser read physical media, then said physical media needs to be packaged and driven to a facility that specializes in transporting such packages to literally the other side of the world. Upon arrival on the other side of the world, local custom agents must make a gigantic pile of similar packages in an almost indescribably hot airport hanger that is as filthy as any place you've ever been. After such pile is made, the aforementioned local customs agents must then stand around in a semi-circle and, while intermittently staring at the pile of packages and swatting at mosquitoes, they must as subtly as possible attempt to extort bribes from one another to allow this huge pile of packages to leave this hell-like hanger. After all bribes have been accomplished cyclically (well, semi-cyclically - the guy on one end of the semi-circle has to walk to the other end of the semi-circle to complete his transaction) and all local customs agents have the exact same number of rupees that they started with, but also a fairly significant feeling of accomplishment, the pile of similar packages is sorted into smaller piles. Now, since there aren't really street addresses in said local country, these packages must somehow reach their intended destinations based solely on general landmarks, the tenacity of the delivery agent, the truthful and honest response from the cow eating garbage on the corner when asked if she knows where Waterwoods is, and the very difficult decision by the driver that completing this delivery and getting a paycheck is probably worth more to him than just taking the package for his very own. After all of this has happened, and a final bounty has been extorted from the intended recipient for "additional duty fees", this recipient can than unwrap the package, take out the physical media, place it in a US dvd player plugged into a plug adapter which is then plugged into a 220/110 200W voltage step down converter which is then plugged into a local UPS (somewhat futilely as the power is often out and the battery in the UPS can play about 10 minutes or so of the physical media before conking out until the next wild spurt of electricity from the high voltage transformer placed 3 or so feet above the ground outside on the street with uncovered bare high voltage wires jammed every direction into it) which is then plugged into a wall socket which is driven by a switch placed somewhere randomly on another wall. All of this, dear news.google.com, takes slightly longer than the THREE GODDAMN HOURS it has been since AI finished.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Time for a vacation
To celebrate a completed, uninterrupted month in India I've booked travel to visit Delhi and Agra next weekend. Agra is where the Taj Mahal is. Flying up to Delhi on Jet, the same airline I flew to Chennai in, then taking a train from Delhi to Agra (it better be exactly like in the Darjeeling Express...). Its forecasted to be 45° (113° Fahrenheit). There is also an ancient Mohgul fort and a "deserted dream city" within reach of Agra so plan to visit those too.
Shogun will be on his own. I'll leave the backdoor open, and leave him the number for the chinese delivery place and the fire department. I think he'll be fine. He just better not throw any wild parties.
* J/K, of course. There aren't any chinese delivery restaurants or fire departments!
Shogun will be on his own. I'll leave the backdoor open, and leave him the number for the chinese delivery place and the fire department. I think he'll be fine. He just better not throw any wild parties.
* J/K, of course. There aren't any chinese delivery restaurants or fire departments!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Bags! Bags! We got your bags here!
All three ads on the front page of the blog right now are advertising plastic bags. Presumably from my mention of the desperate need for resealable packaging in a post a few days ago. I appreciate google's attempt to help with the bag shortage problem in Bangalore, but I suspect you dear readers are not really in the market for online purchased plastic bags as you have that crazy western fad called supermarkets on every corner. Of course now that I have another post about bags its all google is going to try to sell forever as all it does is scan the blog and pick keywords that match ads people have paid to have displayed. How will I ever make millions of dollars off of this blog if all the readers can buy is plastic bags? See, I make money when people click through the ads on the page. No one will click these ads!
In completely unrelated news... One day I was walking in my Nike brand shoes and listening to my Apple iPod when I saw a sign for ebay and for amazon.com, but just across the BestBuy parking lot there was a sign for Free Porn just click here. Free Porn the sign said. Free Porn! How terribly inappropriate, I thought as I sipped my Pepsi and ate my Quiznos Toasted submarine sandwich (so toasty!), for that sign to say Free Porn like that. Free Porn.
FYI, the ad in the pic for Zipline bags that says no order too small clicks through to a single page website that has one link to email the New Bag Company in Marietta, Georgia. I have sent them a request for a price quote for one single sandwich sized zipline bag. I'll let you know what I find out.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Backyard critters
I've been tasked with photographing the grumpy grey monkey that enjoys the shade of the cabana in my backyard. Its not an easy task as now when he's there and I open the backdoor he darts like lighting across the top of the fence and into the palm trees high above the building. But I'll get him. Didn't today though. But guess what critters were in my backyard? Wild kittens! I got the one pic and then tried to get a little closer and they saw me and dashed away. There were 3 and they were adorable!
Fun Facts; Indian construction
Chatting with a local guy today. Indian construction projects don't use skilled laborers. They don't care how long the construction takes and they don't care how many people it takes to do it, as two commodities in vast supply are time (they have this intrinsic belief that time is cyclical so whatever you don't get done today gets done tomorrow, whatever you don't get done this lifetime gets done in the next...) and people. So, its cheaper to just hire unskilled labor, even for large scale construction projects. Here's a pic of a large tech building that they are digging the foundation for next to my office building. The silver thing in the foreground is the corrugated tin shed that has been erected to house the workers for the years that it will take to build this building. Can you imagine how hot that windowless tin shed is in the 38-40 degree heat? Crazy.
Indian food part 1; Mirchi Ka Salan
Mirchi Ka Salan, meaning "Peppers in Sauce". Its like an anaheim pepper, similar to what you might make a Chili Relleno from, in a thick brown sauce made from peanuts and sesame. Its traditionally served with a Biryani (which is a rice dish). It originates from Hyderabad, about 500 km north of here.
We need to establish a scale to rate this stuff on. 1 to 15 sounds like a good place to start. Here are some examples from each level to set a standard:
1 - The free dessert served at the Tandoor restaurant at the Taj two days ago. Some kind of slimy white chocolate flower petal flavored like flowers (supposedly) and covered in slimy brown coconut paste. A terrible story was told over lunch today about some indigenous people in the Himalayas that still eat dog. One of their dishes is dog rice, which is rice that is fed to the dog prior to slaughter that is then eaten out of the stomach in its partially digested form. It was unanimously decided that the coconut topping on the "chocolate" was created in some very similar fashion and should be referred to as dog coconut. Anyway 1 from 1 to 15 is this dessert.
2 - real, literal poison. something God or chemists made violently bitter or sour to alert you to the fact that you are soon to die from ingesting it.
3 - dog rice.
4 - Lufthansa food
5 - MREs (meals ready to eat). foil packaged highly dense highly caloric food with decades long shelf life made for the military. The modern day K-ration like you used to pick up for extra health in the 1985 Data East arcade game Commando.
6 - Fast food
7 - 3am diner food (IHOP, Denny's, etc). Must be eaten drunk.
8 - chain pizza - Pizza Hut, Dominos, etc.
9 - most casual dining
10 - good sushi
11 - most fine dining
12 - Wolfgang Puck in his heyday. The early/mid 90's before all his casual dining cafes and his canned soup and his shit in the freezer section. When he was still re-inventing fine dining in LA at Spagos. The first time you had his smoked salmon pizza! His daring seafood dishes at Granita's in the Malibu colony. For a few years there he was a God.
13 - Reserved for something awesome I haven't had yet.
14 - A pitcher of ice cold hefeweissen, some garlic cheese bread, and a tuna sandwich (made the old way on an italian roll and baked,, like from the early 90's not the new way like from '97 on) from Oregano's in Scottsdale, AZ
15 - The first meal I have when I get back to the states.
Anyway, Mirchi Ka Salan. It was not a hit in my book. The peppers were sour not hot, and as they are fried before put in the sauce they are very slightly crunchy which doesn't taste right. The nut sauce is way too strong, its like heating up peanut butter till it was runny, and then completely changing its chemical makeup so that it tasted like sesame seeds and not peanuts. And I'm not a fan of sesame.
It would be a tough call for me if given the choice of Mirchi Ka Salan or Lufthansa food, so, I'm going with
4/15
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Spar
Went to Spar in Koramangala today. Koramangala is south of city center, has a few pretty nice retail centers. Spar is a big supermarket with lots of imported foods (read: brands you've heard of). They have imported cheeses, a wine room (with some decent Australian stuff but mostly Indian), a pretty good high end liquor section (I picked up a 12 year single malt scotch for Rs.3000), and a bunch of fresh produce. One of the women in my relocation sessions scared me off fresh produce, though, as she described how you need to soak it in bleach for a few minutes as it is stored in areas with lots of bugs and rodents. Yuck.
I went to four different appliance type places looking for a floor standing room cooler but they were all sold out. Its supposed to be 40° on Monday. Yikes. (That's like 104° F ) And its been very humid so that is going to be a rough combo.
View Koramangala in a larger map
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