Its been a week since I came here, how time flies.
Interesting Aspect 1 - Skating on thin ice
As the title says, walking on the roads is quite a challenging task. The snow has hardened on the road, sidewalk and by continous pressure, it has become a thin sheet of ice. One wrong step, you will end up like a character straight out of Tom & Jerry.
Interesting Aspect 2 - Taxis
You can flag down any car, actual taxis or private cars, negotiate the rate and simply get a lift. So you can travel from anywhere to anywhere in a mercedes benz, toyota or even a porsche if your lucky.
Interesting Aspect 3 - Address
All addresses are mentioned as a combination of 2 streets. As the roads are at right angle intersections, you have to mention both the road names to get anywhere.
Interesting Aspect 4 - Raj Kapoor / Mithunda
People see Indians, once the greetings are over and enquire about Raj Kapoor (Mere Jootha hai Japani) and Mithunda (Jimmy Jimmy). Am still scratching my brains as to how these 2 got popular when others are there.
Interesting Aspect 5 - Namaste
There is this awesome restaurant called Namaste where you can get proper North / South Indian dishes. You name it, they have it. Taste is awesome too. The ambience is so much Indian that hindi item number play in the background, the waitresses are in salwar kameez , they understand hindi too..so on & so forth.
DasVidanyah
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Monday, January 08, 2007
Weekend @ Kazakhstan
Usually weekends are fun, but when your with colleagues in a new place, you really need to muster all the enthusiam possible to venture out at -10 degrees.
I woke up at around 10 am, had a amazing bath, water was just short of scalding. As the guest house is fully furnished, we prefer cooking ourselves. The entire range of MTR's ready to mix and eat is here with us, not to mention the various podi's (powder's). Apart from that, we get vegetables from the local supermarket.
The lesser task of cutting vegetables and washing the utensils was assigned to me. Atleast I knew the food would be better considering my colleagues are cooking. It was a sumptous lunch by all standards. Idlis and sambar are good to eat anywhere in the world.
We then went shopping (as usual in our multi layered clothing), shoes, leather garments, and clothing. Walking is a daunting task, a wrong step can make u fall easily, as there is a thin layer of ice sheet on the road. Even cars spin, wheels refuse to turn as easily.
Making a reference to my earlier point, the women here seem to look likes cats without whiskers, except all of them can be called snow white.
A curious fact : Women outnumber men 3:1 here
There is a strong emphasis in fashion and PETA would have a field day here. Leather jackets with fur lining or hats made of fur, u can find them all. The women, as usual the culprits, despite the cold wear skirts as short as they can come with a variety of stockings. Even men follow fashion in their shoes, jackets. All of them seem to prefer the long pointed shoes.
Came back in the evening at 6, spent time watching the only Indian Channel which runs the same songs again and again. Played NFSU2 on my laptop, helped with the cooking and crashed.
I woke up at around 10 am, had a amazing bath, water was just short of scalding. As the guest house is fully furnished, we prefer cooking ourselves. The entire range of MTR's ready to mix and eat is here with us, not to mention the various podi's (powder's). Apart from that, we get vegetables from the local supermarket.
The lesser task of cutting vegetables and washing the utensils was assigned to me. Atleast I knew the food would be better considering my colleagues are cooking. It was a sumptous lunch by all standards. Idlis and sambar are good to eat anywhere in the world.
We then went shopping (as usual in our multi layered clothing), shoes, leather garments, and clothing. Walking is a daunting task, a wrong step can make u fall easily, as there is a thin layer of ice sheet on the road. Even cars spin, wheels refuse to turn as easily.
Making a reference to my earlier point, the women here seem to look likes cats without whiskers, except all of them can be called snow white.
A curious fact : Women outnumber men 3:1 here
There is a strong emphasis in fashion and PETA would have a field day here. Leather jackets with fur lining or hats made of fur, u can find them all. The women, as usual the culprits, despite the cold wear skirts as short as they can come with a variety of stockings. Even men follow fashion in their shoes, jackets. All of them seem to prefer the long pointed shoes.
Came back in the evening at 6, spent time watching the only Indian Channel which runs the same songs again and again. Played NFSU2 on my laptop, helped with the cooking and crashed.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Journey to Kazakhstan
It was quite interesting travelling abroad for the 2nd time.
The 1st time was a paid picnic (from my dad's pocket), this one should be easy on the pockets as it was company paid.
I somehow felt my way through baggage check in, check in and immigration (the person looked at my 2001 photo atleast 5 times..wonder wat he was thinking) and finally security check. The wait in the lounge was quite boring, I managed to while it away calling parents & well wishers..not to forget looking around at people.
I now know why Emirates is called the best airways in the world, the ambience and the service was out of the world..not to mention the inflight entertainment. I spent the entire journey watching MI-III. The only irritating factor was all announcements were made in 3 languages(Eng, Urdu, Hindi) which sort of dragged things and interrupted my movie viewing.
The Dubai airport was a sight to behold, (I had only seen Changi before this) so that was the only comparison. At check in, I was told I had excess baggage (Dubai - Kazak) and was told to pay a fine of 50 USD. It was suprising considering I was not charged from Mumbai - Dubai. The ticketing person directed me to a counter where I was to pay the fine. I stood there for 45 mins watching the counter person indulge in all sorts of activities other than attend to the queue.
Due to my excellent knowledge of time zones (I mistook the 12 o' clock written in the ticket to be 12 o' clock Dubai time), it turned out to be 12 'o clock IST. I suddenly heard the call for boarding the flight to Almaty, Kazakhstan via Air Astana (Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan). I bolted from the queue, rushed to the check-in counter who asked me to proceed to the gate directly. The Air Astana people were very helpful, they re-opened ticketing, traced my luggage, put it in the flight (I would have frozen without the clothes in the luggage).Ultimately I never paid the excess baggage fine :)
Anna, the air hostess abroad Air Asthana, was breathtaking, somehow reminded me of a cat without whiskers. In that memory, I fell asleep and woke up only for landing.
The cold really hits you on the face once a person steps of the plane, despite it being a closed ramp. There was a baggage delay for an hour at the airport.but it came eventually, there was a taxi waiting for me with a placard...I saw cars covered in snow. First glimpse of snow in 26yrs
I came home (guest house) and crashed, woke up at around 11am (half an hour ahead of IST), went to office, got work assigned and read through documents. In the evening, we went looking around, walked lots, ended up getting our bones frozen despite wearing 3 layers of warm clothing, ate in a restaurant named Govinda's (wud u believe it), its run by ISKCON, had Dal, Poori and Chaval, took a taxi, came home , had a round of vodka and crashed.
Eventful journey...
For Info :
1) Almaty, Kazakhstan is exactly 30 mins ahead of IST.
2) Refer Kazakhstan @ Wiki
The 1st time was a paid picnic (from my dad's pocket), this one should be easy on the pockets as it was company paid.
I somehow felt my way through baggage check in, check in and immigration (the person looked at my 2001 photo atleast 5 times..wonder wat he was thinking) and finally security check. The wait in the lounge was quite boring, I managed to while it away calling parents & well wishers..not to forget looking around at people.
I now know why Emirates is called the best airways in the world, the ambience and the service was out of the world..not to mention the inflight entertainment. I spent the entire journey watching MI-III. The only irritating factor was all announcements were made in 3 languages(Eng, Urdu, Hindi) which sort of dragged things and interrupted my movie viewing.
The Dubai airport was a sight to behold, (I had only seen Changi before this) so that was the only comparison. At check in, I was told I had excess baggage (Dubai - Kazak) and was told to pay a fine of 50 USD. It was suprising considering I was not charged from Mumbai - Dubai. The ticketing person directed me to a counter where I was to pay the fine. I stood there for 45 mins watching the counter person indulge in all sorts of activities other than attend to the queue.
Due to my excellent knowledge of time zones (I mistook the 12 o' clock written in the ticket to be 12 o' clock Dubai time), it turned out to be 12 'o clock IST. I suddenly heard the call for boarding the flight to Almaty, Kazakhstan via Air Astana (Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan). I bolted from the queue, rushed to the check-in counter who asked me to proceed to the gate directly. The Air Astana people were very helpful, they re-opened ticketing, traced my luggage, put it in the flight (I would have frozen without the clothes in the luggage).Ultimately I never paid the excess baggage fine :)
Anna, the air hostess abroad Air Asthana, was breathtaking, somehow reminded me of a cat without whiskers. In that memory, I fell asleep and woke up only for landing.
The cold really hits you on the face once a person steps of the plane, despite it being a closed ramp. There was a baggage delay for an hour at the airport.but it came eventually, there was a taxi waiting for me with a placard...I saw cars covered in snow. First glimpse of snow in 26yrs
I came home (guest house) and crashed, woke up at around 11am (half an hour ahead of IST), went to office, got work assigned and read through documents. In the evening, we went looking around, walked lots, ended up getting our bones frozen despite wearing 3 layers of warm clothing, ate in a restaurant named Govinda's (wud u believe it), its run by ISKCON, had Dal, Poori and Chaval, took a taxi, came home , had a round of vodka and crashed.
Eventful journey...
For Info :
1) Almaty, Kazakhstan is exactly 30 mins ahead of IST.
2) Refer Kazakhstan @ Wiki
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