Scot C
Scot Corrigan Joined: December 12th 2005
Logged in: October 30th 2007
Logged in: October 30th 2007
For those of you not familiar with Bangalore, here is a URL to the city: http://www.bangalorenet.com/index.asp
I am both excited and nervous about this opportunity as this is a new opportunity for me to visit a county I have never been to, however I will be many thousands of miles from home with virtually no support system of friends or family, so it is also a daunting adventure.
I plan on updating this page with photos and a blog of my trip, so check in periodically to see how my trip is going.
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Travel Blog Posts
Starbucks
HOME!!! I made it home finally. After what seems like a week of traveling, I have made it home. My friend Bob was kind enough to meet me at the airport with a pack of Camel Wides, my favorite cigs. He met me at the Starbucks. Picked up the luggage, and on the way home, stopped at Lefty’s Chicago Pizza for Italian Beef Sandwiches. If you don’t know what those are, then you are really missing out. Got home, ate, played with the dogs for a while, and started some laundry. Going to take a shower, possibly shave, and go to bed. I hope to post again tomorrow with some thoughts on Bangalore and possibly with some answers to the questions I got. Good to be home, can’t wait to sleep in my king size bed ... read more
Ok, so I am sitting on the floor at gate in SFO waiting for the United flight to take me home to SD. Please note, the above does not say business lounge. Why you ask? Well just when I thought that things couldn’t get worse, they did. I blame my sister actually. She sent me a very nice send off message and commented that after Bangalore the trip home will be a breeze…yea, Jane, it was real easy. Ok, so when I last left you I had not eaten in 14 hours, and I was waiting to board my plane in Frankfurt. Apparently, Jan 8th is Germany’s National Mushroom and Shrimp Holiday. My menu selections on the trip from Frankfurt to SFO consisted of a number of mushroom and shrimp dishes. The air hostess was very ... read more
Final Dinner
I am sitting in the Frankfurt airport waiting for my flight to San Francisco and thought I would post a final blog before returning home. Well my final day in Bangalore has come and gone and I spent it much like I spent most of my days here, hanging out with friends. My day started off early as some co-workers were coming by to drop off a thank you gift. The staff here was super nice and sent me off with a number of gifts and numerous well-wishes last evening. It was very hard to say good bye as all of the folks in the office were great to me and I feel like they have been working with me forever. (OK, actually it was two evenings ago, but feels like yesterday since I have been ... read more
Naughty boys
For first few weeks I was India, I kept thinking my company had sent me to San Francisco, CA instead of Bangalore, India in error. It s no wonder I fell in love with Bangalore. As I first got acclimated to the city, I was stuck by the similarities between San Francisco and Bangalore. Let me explain some of the things in common: First and foremost, both cities are overcrowded and facing a housing shortage. There are numerous buildings being built in both cities to match the demand of its citizens. Like SF, everywhere you look there is construction going on and if they aren’t building a new apartment complex they are remodeling an old one. Both SF and Bangalore are IT hubs. Tons of people in both cities, mostly young highly educated, work in the ... read more
Well faithful readers, I apologize for the long delay in a subsequent posting. I have not had internet access in some time. As a matter of fact I lost my microwave, towels, and much of the food stocked in my cupboards. For those of you that know me, you know that I am quite well anal retentive when it comes to planning and I pack early. Now the place I am staying is well aware that I do not leave until Sunday morning at 2:30 AM, but apparently the fact that I began packing on Monday was a signal that I was leaving early. So my flat was cleaned thoroughly. When I say thoroughly cleaned I am not referring to the floors scrubbed etc, I am referring to the microwave they brought for my use on ... read more
3 on a 2-wheeler
One of things I have done here to keep myself entertained is to create games for myself while I pass the time. This started out while in the car on the way to work, since I initially was a bit bored with not actually driving. Most of the games involve counting of some sort, and I have since discovered that other foreigners also play similar games here. The first game I came up with for myself was count the number of people on a 2-wheeler or the variation how many times can you see four people on a 2-wheeler. This may sound odd, but it is amazing how many people can actually fit on a motorcycle or bicycle. I am not talking about bikes with sidecars. These are actual two wheelers. I have actually seen 3 ... read more
So I realize I already posted a blog today, but something kind of funny/embarrassing happened to me at work today which I wanted to share having to do with grocery shopping. In order to appreciate the situation, I need to explain the whole concept of supermarkets in India. They are relatively new to Bangalore and actually aren’t really that super. They all have kind of weird names like Fab Foods or Food Mall. Well actually if you think of it the names of their stores are kind of better than ours, at least it has food in the title, I mean we have places like Jewel or Safeway. Why name your store Safeway? What does that mean? It is safer buying groceries at Safeway than what? Picking them out of the garbage? Ok, but I digress, ... read more
Bangalore Tower
As you will notice, I have been writing a lot about the contrasting aspects of Bangalore. This weekend I experienced two very different sides to Bangalore. On Friday, I went back to Chickpet for the full experience and then on Saturday I went to the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. I wanted to talk about the Gardens first even though I did it after Chickpet. I was told that Bangalore was the “Garden City” before I got here, but I have to admit that up until Saturday, I thought the name was a bit misleading (kind of like New Jersey) but when I visited the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens I see why now. This place is incredible. The grounds are huge, with a lake in the middle. Unfortunately they were preparing for the annual flower show and some of ... read more
Koshy's
So I am finding that there are three things you can count on in Bangalore: 1. The electricity will go out at least 3 times everyday. 2. Traffic is horrible. 3. The service at a restaurant will either be the best you have ever had or the worst. Today I had incredible service. I went to a place called Koshy’s. It is, as my friend reported, “the quessential Bangalore eating place”. The original place we had intended to eat at was having a private party, so we walked a few blocks to the old part of town at my friend Sriram’s suggestion. As we walked over the bags of garbage and dodged traffic, he explained to me that this place has been around for many years, and actually has two parts to it, one side is ... read more
My new glasses
There are a number of things I am going to miss when I leave India in a couple of weeks. I will definitely miss the people and the service you get anywhere. I will miss the food of course, and I will miss having somebody drive me around. I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to shaving when I get home though. I think this is number two of things I am looking forward to (#1 being my friends and family in the States). Let me tell you shaving in India is one of the most difficult tasks to do here (other than shipping packages) and I never realized how much I took the luxuries I have in the States for granted. See hot water is a luxury here. Everybody has a water ... read more
