Blogs from Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Asia - page 10

I'm posting this six days late, but below is my experience registering with the Foreign Regional Registration Office: Good day comrades! I am sitting in a cafe, "The French Loaf" in Indiranagar as I write this. I've just ordered myself a coffee and a donut (quiet, gays!). No one here seems to know what a black coffee is, and no matter what you order, it's a cappuccino. Le sigh. I arrived at the FRRO this morning at 8:35; twenty minutes late. My assistants (yes, plural) from ISO were already waiting for me. They saved me a spot in line and had all of my documents completed. My only job, as explained by Lohith, was to stand in line and get my token. After that, I was to promptly report back to him for further instruction. To ... read more

This post might be a bit shorter than the others as I am pretty tired and my A/C has decided to go on the fritz. I talked to the front desk and they sent someone up, but unfortunately he and I couldn't communicate. It's terribly frustrating, since I was talking to some of the guys from India on the bus perfectly fine, yet I just couldn't grasp the what this man was trying to say. He did say something about it being cool for 5 minutes, or something, but i just could not understand what he wanted from me. And I think he was frustrated that I didn't understand him. So I have no idea if/when they'll fix my A/C. :( The day started out a bit earlier than I expected: my 7:30am wake-up call came ... read more

Today was another solid day in my Bangalore trip. It started out quite early, around 4:30am or so, because my body still hasn't quite adjusted and decided that it had had enough sleep, thank you very much. I actually wasn't tired because my brain had gotten into the habit of sinking straight into deep REM the instant I fell asleep (thanks to excessive sleep dep.) so even though I only slept for less than 5 hours I was awake. Around 4:40 or so the islamic prayer came over the outside loudspeakers--a man's voice in a wailing, ululating cry that echoed a bit eerily around outside. Not that I really heard it over the howling dogs. Yes, that's right. People who have been here for a couple days inform me that every morning around that time the ... read more

Whew! So much has happened already on this trip to Bangalore (or Bengaluru if you prefer) that I've decided to write a blog about it. This way my mom can keep careful track of me, my friends can see what hijinks I get up to, and maybe other people can benefit from the experiences I had traveling from North Carolina, USA to Bangalore, Karnataka, India. My flight schedule was: 2-hour flight from NC to JFK (Friay afternoon), 7-hour flight to BRU (arrive Saturday morning), 8-hour flight to Delhi (arrive Saturday night), then (next Sunday morning) a 2-hour flight to Bangalore. Since I did not book my own tickets--they are courtesy of my Smart Structures program--I didn't even notice that I was overnighting in Delhi for about 7 hours. Luckily I was traveling with two other participants ... read more

I just came back from a trip to Divine Euphoria, one of the most attractive vacation properties near Bangalore. Whenever we travel to any vacation places or picnic spots around Bangalore, I take down a lot of notes hoping to blog about it, but I hardly get time once I get back home. Even though we have visited most of the popular weekend destinations around Bangalore and have taken hundreds of photos, I have published only a few so far. I am hoping to write about them all in the coming few months, once our kids start going to school after the vacation. Divine Euphoria is our favourite weekend destination and picnic location near Bangalore. Yesterday was our third visit to this amazing farmland picnic place after I purchased a small plot there to build our ... read more