Sing-land Trip Part 1: Singapore

sorry for the delay (read the previous post for more on that) but here is the first half-ish of our awesome trip to Singapore and Thailand.

on thursday we left mysore immediately after our big comprehensive test that marked the end of our training, more or less (we managed to talk to the right people, who let us blow off a couple of days of our worthless 'soft skills' training crap). our flight out of india was scheduled for midnight, so after the 4-hour bus ride to the Bairport, 4-hour flight to Bangkok, and 2.5-hour flight to Singapore, we woke up to find ourselves in Singapore (funny how that works out). there were 10 of us on the trip: Jon, Ryan, Steve, Paul, Sean (who is from perdue, gross; he also just left the company), Rafal (who is Polish with a Green Card, which lead to a whole other set of fun little problems), Compton, Tom, Gagen, and myself.

we checked into the Oxford Hotel, a pretty crappy, expensive little hotel in the city (which i think is fun to say, because it implies that the country of Singapore is more than a true city-state). my first impression of the city: it's pretty freaking awesome. after coming from india, where people literally relieve themselves (in whatever way necessary) on the side of the road, not to mention their great affinity for littering whenever and wherever possible, Singapore struck us all as being quite possibly the cleanest city any of us has ever seen. this is possibly because of the severe laws of the land (which include the death penalty, no exception, for smuggling drugs, and canings for littering; chewing gum is also illegal and one of the guys had his eclipse confiscated by customs). after that, we wandered around downtown for a bit.

we did some shopping at a couple of malls and the massive open-air market near our hotel, then ate some delicious duck for lunch. we also saw a true Asian arcade, which was pretty impressive. it was also such a novel experience being in a country where people not only had the ability to make change, but did so without complaining or trying to refuse our business (again, india is stupid).

for dinner we went to a nice little sushi bar, which had a computer screen at every table. customers sit down, look at the menu, then order their food on the computers. after an incredibly short period of time, the food is brought out and the reciepts for the most recent batch of food are placed in a box at the table; at the end, you request a cashier come over to your table so you can pay. the whole experience was incredibly efficient. finally, we wandered over to a local tourist spot and had a few really expensive drinks ('expensive' as in 'close to american prices'). end day 1.

for day 2, we kind of slept in a lot; the sleep was nice, and quite necessary after the traveling nightmare of the day(s) before, but it's still a bummer to sleep that late on a sight-seeing trip like this one was. anywho, we spent most of the day on the little (man-made) tourist island resort thingy called Sentosa Island, just south of 'mainland' Singapore. we took a cable car ride to the island, went up in a fake little tower thing, saw that almost half of the island is under construction for a big new resort / casino / universal studios monstrosity, saw the aquarium, and got to see a dolphin show (with pink dolphins, which was pretty cool).

while we were in the aquarium, Rafal had to go visit the polish embassy and get a temporary passport, because his passport expired before his indian visa did, and apparently Singapore had a problem with that. none of us were surprised in the least to discover that India had no problem with this whatsoever, or that Indian officials did not even notice this.

after feeling like tourists for a while, we went back to the open-air street market and bought some more souvineers. then, for dinner, we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe (quite possibly my favorite franchise ever, now). i had a bacon cheeseburger, just like every other time i have gone to a Hard Rock in a foreign country. there was a really cool band there doing covers of all sorts of songs for charity (a big breast cancer thing, i think) . . . . like bon jovi, deep purple, nickelback, and a dozen others. end day 2.

day 3 started with us visiting the Fountain of Wealth, which is apparently the biggest fountain in the world (too bad it wasn't on when we went, but it was still pretty neat). this was on our way to the airport for our flight back to Bangkok, Thailand.

the second half of the trip will follow shortly.

Chennai and [Dreams of] America

good news, everyone!

after one of the best weekends ever and a couple of truly hellish weeks, i finally have the chance to blag at you again. first, the important stuff:
pictures here [http://picasaweb.google.co.in/shadedaemon/Singapore]
and here [http://picasaweb.google.co.in/shadedaemon/Bangkok]

so the big reason for why it took so long for me to post this is because, almost immediately after returning from my big trip, i was moved off to the lovely city of Chennai for some cubicle-sitting, document-reading, and dream-crushing. to make a long story short, the internet access which we were promised was all set up for us (and subsequently were promised every day for the past week that it would be set up by the end of the day, tomorrow morning at the absoulte latest) finally appeared. this was one big issue i found after moving, the other was the fact that my two main reasons for coming to this company (international exposure and opportunity for quick advancement / movement throughout the company) were not only false but direct lies told to me by the recruitors, interviewer, and generally almost everyone else with whom i interacted before / during my training period.

basically, that means i no longer have any reason to subject myself to the miseries of this worthless company any more. so unlike the other 60 or so americans in my batch, i am quitting 2 months ahead of schedule; i believe each and every other american in this batch is planning on quitting within a month of setting foot on american soil again.

i announced my resignation from the company on wednesday and it is currently sunday evening; i was told they 'needed a day to figure out the protocol for dealing with an american-based employee living in india who wants to quit'. i haven't heard from them since, so who knows how long this will take.

my plans for the future: i am hoping i will be able to get into a good graduate school program, preferably something revolving around computer graphics (3d simulation, virtual reality, The Matrix . . . . that sort of thing) or possibly networking as a second choice (then i can be That Guy in all those spy movies, sitting in the dark of the van shouting 'i just need another minute, i am almost into the system, just buy me one more minute!' into my earpiece as the other guys get shot at).

Trip: Wednesday-ish Through Sunday

so a handful of us have finally bullied HR into letting us take a couple of days off for a trip (after all, october is basically a holiday in india). some other US/UK folks here are still not allowed to leave (now that we have been split into a bunch of different 'stream batches', everything is all messed up and most of us are probably never going to see each other again from here on out . . . . sad), so they are meeting us for the second half of the trip.

we are going to singapore and bangkok for the weekend. basically, the most awesome trip ever (so far).

quick geography refresher, check it out:
down in malaysia you should be able to see singapore. more or less straight north from there, in thailand, is bangkok. west, across the bay of bengal, you can see india. mysore is more or less south of bangalore.


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details of my trip to follow shortly after i get back.

Things I Shall No Longer Take For Granted

• drinkable water


• beef


• toilet paper


• silverware


• napkins


• reliable electricity


• refrigerators


• microwaves


• bulk-size products


• the english language


• the ability to walk outside without being swarmed by mosquitoes


• changing seasons (i.e. winter)


• american tv


• pasteurized milk


• the concept of being on time


• the concept of being in a hurry


• edible fruit / vegetables


• driving on the right side of the road


• traffic rules


• freeways / highways


• mexican food


• having a room with more than 3 outlets


• being able to walk on grass


• a shower with reliable temperature and / or water pressure


• wireless internet

Long Overdue, I Know

sorry for the long interval between posts; we started our 'POST' project thingy about 2 weeks ago and that has been eating up almost all of my time and energy until recently. it is the Project on Organizational Standards in Training, or some other BS name like that ('what does POST stand for?' was a question in at least one of our daily tests last week, and i don't think a single person knew / knows what it actually is, still). basically, POST is a horribly organized (go figure) attempt at providing us with some 'hands-on' project time. the first 5 days were spent trying to fill out paperwork (more or less what we will be doing for the rest of our careers with this company . . . . Indians love their beaurocracy). now that we are finally done with the stupid paperwork phase, we can actually start coding the project. we spent one day getting ready, creating the skeletons and trying to integrate our project with some absolutely horrible, worthless software, as we were instructed to do. the 'integration' with this horrivle versioning software took almost 6 hours in itself, but now that we have it done, my group is expecting to finish our coding all on monday and have the majority of our remaining 3 days to relax and not go to work. hooray for being salaried!

anyway, i think i actually learned something this weekend. needing to do laundry, i have been wearing my ND Shirt (the green one from my junior year) all weekend . . . . for the second weekend since i got here.
the last time i wore it was the weekend Notre Dame played MSU.
both times i have worn this shirt since coming to india, we have lost; therefore, i think this Shirt is cursed.

from one of the past few weekends, i don't really remember which, i have posted pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/shadedaemon/ChamundiHill
we went to Chamundi Hill, which is basically a thousand or so steps up this hill to a temple / market area. more or less unremarkable, and the only reason to climb the stairs is just to say 'i climbed a thousand stairs, in the sun, with incredible humidity and 90 degree weather'.

i also remembered to post a quick little video i took with my camera when i went to the tibetan monastary:
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/shadedaemon/CoorgTrip (very last thing in the album).

"Weekend" Trip to Coorg: Life Goal Accomplished Before Breakfast!

good news, everyone!
this past weekend a bunch of us decided to wake up early and take a scenic trip to Coorg, which is apparently a town in india. we still don't know quite where it is, and we can't find it on Google Maps / Earth. anywho, we went, and it was almost fun.
oh yeah, by "weekend" i mean "sunday" because this stupid company made us work on saturday. something about mysore having too many holidays earlier in the year or some crap like that. it was mandatory.

so i celebrated my one day off by waking up at 5 am to catch the taxi to coorg. the first stop along the way was the Golden Temple, which is a Tibetan Buddhist Monastary. kind of a big deal, apparently. we made it there just after they opened up for visitors in the morning (7 am), and we got to see some of the morning prayers. it was pretty freaking sweet.

List Of Things To Do Before I Die:
#12 visit a Tibetan Buddhist Monastary - - - - - check!

after hanging around the monastary for a while, we crammed back into the taxi and went to a sketchy little diner thing for breakfast. i had a masala dosa, which is basically a giant deep-fried pancake thing with some really spicy onion-potato stuff inside of it. then we drove off to a little park thing, where we spent most of the rest of the day. not much to talk about there; they had rabbits, deer, and poisonous-looking spiders that were quite literally the size of my hand. think cosmo-sized . . . . there was also a gross, dirty-looking river and a whole lot of bamboo.

after the foresty-place we went to Abbi Falls, which is (surprise) a waterfall. yep, they have those over here in india, too. i got a couple of pictures of the waterfall before my camera battery died. good thing we did the monastary first, eh?

our final stop included a hotel in a small town for lunch and a "scenic hike" around the hill right next to the hotel. the view was nice, but nothing to write home about, so i won't.

here are those pictures: http://picasaweb.google.co.in/shadedaemon/CoorgTrip

well, it took me about 10 minutes to write this up. which means the shower should be getting warmed up soon, which in turn means its time for me to take my leave.

SCARY

as an american living inside this little westernized-bubble that is our campus, its sometimes easy to forget just where i really am. then something like this happens to remind me. while i feel as though i came well-prepared and with an open mind for the radically unknown, to say a lot of my experiences here are eye-opening is still probably an understatement.

don't worry, all the messy nastiness is happening up north, and i am way down south.

its still a little disconcerting, though.

check it out: you can see New Delhi (bombings) and Agra (Taj Mahal) up in central-north india.
way down south-central is Bengalore ('Bengaluru' - i am in Mysore, which is just southwest a couple of hours) and just east of that is Chennai (where i will be living come november).


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