Travel Experience

Kerala: first impressions

2006-12-28T14:23:00.000-08:00

Flying from Delhi to Trivandrum took about 3 hours, with a short stop in Chennai (Madras).
India is pretty damn big (it is the 7th biggest country, after all), and after a few hours of pretty sad-looking scenery over the Deccan plateau, the plane got to south of India and the scenery changes drastically.
PALM TREES!!!! All you need to describe Kerala: lush and green. Palm trees everywhere. Palm trees as far as the eye can see.
While landing, it seemed that the landing strip was just a clearing among the palm trees - everything else was just a sea of green, melting into the sea of blue where Kerala runs into the Arabian Sea.
Getting out of the plane was magical - I was transported from dusty cold Delhi to magical warm Kerala, with palm trees all around and air that was actually clean and breathable. I like Kerala.

I was later told that because of all the coconut palm trees, there is actually a higher percentage of people in the South who become paraplegic from coconuts falling on them than from traffic accidents. Not sure if it's true or how good of a thing it is, but I'm glad Newton didn't live in Kerala.

Air Deccan Experience

2006-12-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

Every country has its discount airlines. US has Southwest, England has Jet2, and India has Air Deccan.
I needed to fly from Delhi to Trivandrum for my friend's wedding, and Air Deccan was the cheapest.
I was sufficiently warned that flying Air Deccan would be adventurous - it's a full-on discount airline, where you even have to pay for the tea on board. But i figured that having flown Southwest and grown up in former Soviet Union I'd be prepared.
The first fun surprise came when I learned that Delhi has a lot of fog in late December, and that a lot of times planes don't take off during the fog, either because the planes or the pilots or the airport are not equipped to fly during the fog. And, of course, Air Deccan is one of the airlines that isn't allowed to take off during the fog, and I would be flying out right in the middle of it.

I decided to take my chances - the night before my flight was reasonably clear, the airline hot line said there were no delays so I went to the airport. And that's where the real fun started.

Just like the US, India takes its airport security seriously. Just like the US, the goal is great, the execution is poor - in order to get into the airport, you have to get past a security guard. However, instead of checking for your ID, he just makes sure you are coming in with an e-ticket printout. Which, as we all know, is easier to fake than a passport. I wonder what the equivalent of "Kip Hawley is an Idiot" is in Hindi?

I knew that Delhi airport was supposed to be disorganized, but the check-in counter for Air Deccan was pure mayhem. It was purely Darwinian - with only two check in counters, and with a good one-and-a-half hour to go, there was a mad rush to check in. As if everyone's life depended on it. Everyone had a trolley laden with suitcases, and everyone was jockeying for a position to ram the cart into someone else to get closer to the counter. Unlike airports everywhere else, there was no organized line - there was just a sea of people, each trying to get to the counter faster than the next guy. Just as I was thinking that it reminded me of getting on a train in Russia, I saw a couple other white people in line who looked distinctly like my former compatriots - and started laughing. I made a joke to them saying that "it was just like getting on a train in Moscow" and they looked at me like I was a caveman - apparently, Russia has progressed to "civilized boarding" in the past decade that I was gone.

Thankfully, I spend the first half of my life training for this day, waiting in various lines in Belarus - so I was ready. Coupled with my vast experience playing basketball, I was able to box out while maintaining pleasant demeanor and eventually made it to the counter with my toes intact and without letting too many people go ahead of me.

Which is where the best part started. I give my ticket to the agent, she asks me to place my bag on scale. There's a guy to my right blocking access to the scale, trying to shove his own ticket into the agent's face. She tells him to let me through, he won't budge and insists that she needs to check him in first before he'll let me through. I laughed. It's a classic situation - everyone's out for themselves, not realizing that if they cooperate things would move a lot faster and smoother. After spending a few minutes to explain that to a guy next to me, he finally decided to give it a try, let me through, I checked in, he did right after me, and I was off to the next round - the security line.

To my amazement, there was no stampede to the security line - after checking in, everybody was very happy to stand in an orderly line to get past security.

Very strange... Why would there be total chaos to check in followed by total order to get through security? Wonder if people with guns standing around had anything to do with it...

The rest of the flight was very uneventful compared to the check-in process. There was no mad rush to get seats, no wheels falling-off during takeoff, nothing. Also, instead of an old-school Russian Tupolev the plane itself was a new Airbus - so the rest of the flight was very civilized. And, of course, landing in Trivandrum was a blast - fields of coconut palms everywhere, everything is green, warm, welcoming. Kerala seemed very promising.

Qutb Minar

2006-12-26T23:58:00.000-08:00

My second day in Delhi was a whirlwind sightseeing tour. After seeing Humayun Tomb (think of it as a practice run for the Taj Mahal) and the B'hai Temple I went to see Qutb Minar which is the highest minaret in the world. And since I am easily impressed by tall structures, I had a great day!

Needless to say, it was quite spectacular. You can no longer go up to the top of it, but it's still very majestic.
I managed to catch it around sunset, and it was really pretty. Looks like i'm running out of superlatives to describe it - but really, i think it was my favorite site around Delhi.

The entire time I was walking around the complex I was wishing that I had my rock climbing shoes with me. There were tons of abandoned structures, with beautiful crumbling holds and nicely protruding bricks. Naturally, it'd be beyond disrespectful, but since nobody is actually watching the monuments, it was really tempting. Thankfully, I was wearing sandals, so the temptation didn't get me very far.

National Geographic Pictures

2006-12-26T23:53:00.000-08:00

Everybody comes back from "third-world countries" with their set of "national geographic" pictures, full of interesting foods, bright colors and "exotic"-looking people.

For example, everything in the markets is sold in bulk - you walk up to the giant sacks of what you need, and get a baggie of what you choose.

Everywhere you go, there are "dhabas" - street stands with street food sold on them. Looks good, smells good, but to tell you the truth I was afraid to eat it. Did drink a lot of tea at the roadside stands while driving through India through.

Naturally, the funniest moments are when you see something on the street that makes you laugh. I'm glad the English language is getting popular all around the world.

Delhi Subway

2006-12-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of public transportation, especially of trains and other things that go on rails.
As such, I was completely blown away by the Delhi subway - it's probably one of the more modern underground systems in the world.

Naturally, at least for me, it'll never compare to the beauty of the Moscow Metro or the complexity or awesomeness of the New York subway or London Underground.

The one word that always came to mind when I was in the Delhi subway was "dichotomy", probably the most overused word in my freshman "cultures-ideas-and-values" class. Yet it was perfectly applicable to the Delhi Subway: there may be crumbling buildings, dirt, poverty and destitution above ground, especially in the Chowry Bazaar/Chandni Chowk stations in the center of town, while down below you have perfectly modern trains running on schedule in immaculately clean stations.

Another funny moment was that everyone coming into the station had to go through a metal detector and a bag search to prevent terrorism. I wonder how well that'd scale during rush hour in New York, or even Delhi for that matter.

Riding the subway in Delhi is also incredibly cheap - it's only 8 rupees to go from Rajiv Chowk (center of Connaught Place) to Chandni Chowk (near the Red Fort in the center of Old Delhi). Highly recommend the experience!

Local Hardware Store

2006-12-26T09:16:00.000-08:00

After Jama Masjid I walked around the marketplace directly in front of the mosque.
Unlike the tourist trap markets I visited later, this was an actual market for the locals.
The picture on the left is that of a "hardware store" - all the power tools like drills and saws were hanging from the top of the shed, with a vast array of totally random engine parts strewn about nearby.

The market had all kinds of random stuff, including heaps of nuts, fabrics, goats and street food, along with all kinds of random "made in India" jeans/shirts/etc. Reminded me a bit of the local Komarovka market in Minsk.

First Day in Delhi - Jama Masjid

2006-12-26T08:23:00.000-08:00

Delhi is enormous. Naturally, the first thing that overwhelms the senses is the noise - traveling on a road is always accompanied by a cacophony of sound, with everyone honking, yelling, beeping, etc. The next is the smell: to paraphrase a famous quote, I love the smell of fresh pollution in the morning. Even though all the buses and auto-rickshaws in Delhi have been converted to CNG - an impressive feat in itself - there's still a lot of pollution around. In fact, the next day I started coughing and haven't stopped since, even after coming back to San Francisco.

My first stop in Delhi was Jama Masjid - an incredibly beautiful mosque, the largest in India, with a capacity to hold around 25,000 people.
Tourists are allowed to climb the minaret on the right, and since I am a sucker for city views I went up. However, w0men are not allowed to go by themselves - when I went up to the entrance, there were two hapless Turkish girls waiting for a "male tourist" to escort them up to the top.

I found that rather ironic - they were wearing scarves, they spoke Arabic and were coming from a Muslim country - yet they needed a Jew to escort them to the top of a mosque. Go figure.
Before making it to the top we had to pass another hurdle - a 5-year old "shoe keeper" girl that was extorting extra money for passage. It's not that I care about the extra 10 rupees (roughly 20 cents), but I really don't like to be the "dumb tourist" that others can take advantage of.
After paying our ransom, we made it to the top to see pretty spectacular views of Delhi in the rain.

You can see more pictures of Delhi at the gallery.

Arrival in Delhi

2006-12-25T14:56:00.000-08:00

Lucky for me, my freshman roommate A. from college lives in Delhi, and was gracious enough to let me stay at his house. So my arrival to Delhi was fairly seamless - I didn't have to fight the taxi-wallahs for a cab ride and didn't have to worry about getting scammed the moment i got off the plane.
It's always nice when you can stay with someone you know in a foreign country. I felt like a VIP - A's driver waited for me with a sign outside, and transported me directly to my friend's apartment.

Now, I had been to Nepal before, so I was a little prepared for Delhi. Stepping off the plane and smelling the fresh pollution in the air, I knew I was back to South Asia. Tasty exhaust and burning garbage smell! I, however, was not at all prepared for the roads. Driving home felt like being in a video game - the car weaves in and out, nobody really follows the traffic laws, there are no lanes, and everybody jockeys for position to be the first one to cross the intersection. Now, I'm used to my friends being scared when they are in a car with me, but this time I got to taste my own medicine, so to speak. It was still fun though, especially once i found the seat belts in the back and put all my faith into the driver. Oh, and did I mention the constant honking? I felt like I was back in New York!

Flight to India

2006-12-24T16:18:00.000-08:00

I'm taking the longest non-stop flight of my life to get to Delhi: American flight #292, Chicago O'Hare to Delhi, India. 14.5 hours of non-stop flying goodness.

Luckily, my super-Gold American Airlines status allowed me to get an exit row seat - which was an added bonus, since i sure do like to stretch when i sleep.

Before I left my friends and I had long discussions on whether the flight would be over Pacific or Atlantic ocean - most thought Pacific. The flight route turned out a lot cooler. We keep forgetting that the world is not a flat map, but a round globe - so instead of flying in a "straight line" from Chicago over Atlantic through Mediterranean to India like you'd imagine by looking on a map, we instead flew essentially up-and-0ver Greenland, over the White Sea, Sweden, Estonia, Russia and then end up in India:

Naturally, the shortest distance between 2 points is still a line, but on a globe it's not that straight. I, of course, expected to just fly over the Atlantic, maybe Africa, and on to India. I always forget the world isn't really flat.
Flying over Sweden was awesome - it was dawn, and i could see all the snow-and-ice covered land below jutting out into the ocean. Really majestic. Not sure if these were true fjords, but very pretty.
Then we flew over Baltic Sea and between Riga and Tallinn. I'll admit I almost teared up, since my hometown Minsk was only about 200km south but I didn't get to see it. We then continued over more of my "motherland" by flying over Russia - which looked pretty snowed-in and cold.
Still, it was a little weird to see the names of all the long-forgotten Russian/Central Asian towns light up on the flight map, names I haven't thought about in years.
At some point I fell asleep, and woke up when approaching Delhi. The crazy thing there was that I looked at the flight map on the screen and realized that about an hour prior we flew right over Kabul! Would've been interesting to see that, but oh well.

Going to India

2006-12-24T16:06:00.000-08:00

I'm lucky enough to be invited to go to India for my friend's wedding: Akash and Anu from Stanford are getting married in Trivandrum, which is in Kerala in South India.
To forestall the obvious question - no, it's not an arranged marriage, they've known each other since college, they are both American, but they have a lot of family still in India so it's a lot easier to have wedding there than to fly all the relatives to the States.
Why am I going? Well, if anybody ever invites you to an authentic wedding in an authentic India, the answer is always "Yes!".

Naturally, a ton of people from San Francisco are coming, including my roommate, so it should be a blast.

The wedding festivities are supposed to take a few days, after which all the "americans" are going on a 5-day tour of Kerala. After that I'm taking another week to travel to Mumbai, Jaipur, Agra (Taj Mahal) and Delhi.

Ruminations for the King – flight cancellations in Pokhara

2006-03-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

The first weekend in Nepal I went to Kathmandu with my friend N. We were supposed to meet her friend S. there, who came in a day early to paraglide. Pokhara valley is renowned for paragliding, so that was going to be our plan – go up with an instructor and fly. I was looking forward to it very much.

Friday night we hung out in beautiful Pokhara – it’s situated on a lake, watching the sunset from Mike’s Café with the sun illuminating the hills is spectacular, add your other superlatives, and you get the idea. Very cool. The nightlife was rather sad – there weren’t many tourists (see the Maoists note), so the disco at Club Paradiso that we went to was mostly populated by locals. Let’s say we outdanced them on the dance floor. Those of you who’ve seen me dance will draw a parallel to the sad state of night life in that town.

Saturday morning! Paragliding! Giddy Up! We went to the office of “Blue Sky Paragliding”, met our instructor, had a tea (every major business transaction is always accompanied by tea) and waited to see what the wind was doing. After 30 minutes of waiting and watching the mountain skyline, we learned that the wind was doing fine, but the king was not. We knew the king was visiting Pokhara at the time (knowledge reinforced by a literal army of troops everywhere, checking all vehicles and searching all locals), and apparently he was not a fan of paragliders. The reason was that of the gliders landed ‘too close to the palace’ the day before, and as a result there was a unilateral ban on any paragliding flights for the next two weeks.

And that was it. Absolutely no way around it. The news was greeted with minimum of surprise/apprehension from the operators of the business – apparently, the “king’s whims” are fairly common, and manifest themselves differently all the time. Now, I realize kings are allowed a certain degree of eccentrics – they are “absolute rulers” after all. But this is 21st century. I’m not upset because as a result I never got a chance to go paragliding – that’s OK, I can pay the same $70 and do it somewhere else later. But what about the business operators? There are two paragliding businesses in Pokhara, and they are both out of their jobs for the next two weeks. And with the tourist trade in the gutter to begin with (thanks to other actions both by the King and the Maoists), these guys don’t have much in terms of savings or “we’ll make it up next month” to fall back on.

Sure, I understand that “national security” means something – but the “paragliding closure” is very emblematic of the pattern of behaviour of king and other senior officials in Nepal. In the country so dependent on tourism, I think some thought needs to be given to the business needs of the tourist trade first before proclaiming decrees that put citizens already struggling for business further into the whole. Maybe I’ve spent too much time in the US, but it seems that what’s bad for business, is bad for Nepal.

Doha: worst airport ever

2006-03-27T17:58:00.000-08:00

Short Version:

Doha is probably the worst airport ever. I flew Qatar Airways (a very fine airline once you are inside the plane) toand from Kathmandu and had a 5-6 hour layover each way in Doha. It’s impossibly overcrowded, so couple the delirium of changing time zones, sleepiness, slight apprehension of going to Nepal for the first time and inability to find a place to sit/rest, multiply by 5 hours, and you get the idea.

Longer Version:

For those that don’t know, Doha is in Qatar, on the Arabian Peninsula. I landed and took off in the dark, so I can’t say much about the scenery. At the risk of being close-minded, I’d venture to say that they have a lot of sand and oil pumps.

The airline is pretty cool – the staff is multi-ethnic, they hire from all the countries they fly to, and they boast that they have 55 ethnicities working for them. That translates into a lot of people from South East Asia and, surprisingly, a clearly Russian attendant that I spotted in Doha. How she ended up there, no idea (actually, I have a couple. Probably by plane).

Back to the gripes about the airport – it’s just way too small to support the amount of traffic going through it. First, when you get off the airplane, you stand in a long 30-minute line to go through the security to get into the airport. That was my first sighting of men wearing traditional Arab dress. Pretty cool, and a little surreal.

Once you are past the security check, you have 3 options: go into the giant “duty free” shopping area that takes up most of the airport building, or walk around aimlessly in circles trying to find a place to sit. Alternatively, you can go upstairs, show your transit ticket to the next place, get a meal voucher and wait in line for a fairly mediocre “dinner” in a crowded fast-food type place, followed by jostling for a place to sit in their overcrowded café. And that’s the only dining option.

Once you are done with this so-called dinner, you go back to option #2: cruise the tiny waiting area trying to find a seat. At this point you are fighting against an army of people from the Asian continent who’ve been dealing with overcrowding and lack of personal space their entire life, so you stand no chance. If you try to be clever and pay your way into a first-class lounge (hey, it’s only $25!) you’d be disappointed. Apparently, “paid peasant access” is only available after 11:30pm – which in my case translated into 2 hours of waiting to get in. So no such luck. Only other option is to try and find a place to sit on the floor, as far away from the not-so-hermetically sealed smoking lounge as possible, and read a book.

So what’s the point of this rant? Ah yes, Doha (and Qatar airways) should triple the size of the airport, and put more chairs in. Another point? Don’t fly through Doha. Or get rip-roaring drunk on the first leg of your flight – I think that’s what the Nepalis coming from Kathmdandu on the way back were trying to accomplish

Going to Nepal in a few hours

2006-02-28T16:13:00.000-08:00

Very excited. this will be fun.

Current question: Shave or not shave before flying Qatar "We are Arab" Airways?
Try to blend in (not shave) or look respectable (shave)?
The "Should i wear a giant bling star of david" got answered - the answer is no...

Staying with a friend whose house is right across from the russian embassy. gave a 'very scary oath' not to cross the street and talk to them. apparently, not allowed to cause an international incident.

I don't speak English

2006-02-26T08:52:00.000-08:00

There've been a few times during this trip when I realized that I actually don't speak English. Or at least don't understand English. Or maybe it's just that I don't understand Yorkshire English, aka "northern"

Case in point today: Walking down the "shopping" street, buying some stuff for the trip to Nepal. Walk past a parked white van with a guy and a girl sitting in it. Motions me to come over - I figure he's lost and wants to ask for directions
guy: blah blah chit-chat, where are you from?
me: from the states
guy: mumble mumble want mumble mumble?
me: huh?
guy: would you mumble buy mumble (gun??) mumble camcorder mumble mumble?

The girl in the passenger seat is starting to laugh

me (incredulous): you want me to buy a gun and a camcorder?
guy (very defensive): no mate, I don't sell guns
me: well, dude, I don't buy camcorders....
Meanwhile, the chick is laughing out loud, I say good bye and walk away.

I still don't know what that was all about. Guess I don't really speak English.

Toli does Amsterdam

2006-02-20T17:36:00.000-08:00

Second trip to Amsterdam: first one was right after college with all the imaginable stereotypes: flea-bag hostel, coffee shop visits and a fellow traveler mostly strung out on drugs (not rama).

Second-time around, very different. A lot colder, a lot less coffee-shops and a lot less gawking at "hookers" and "freaks". Turns out living in SF, going to burning man and passing hookers on the way back from work every night in Leeds really opens your horizons.

Anyway, lessons learned: don't travel to Europe when it's cold. It's just not fun. No matter how picturesque or beautiful or interesting the architecture is, you don't really want to walk around in the blithering cold (esp. if you are a moron that forgot his scarf and a hat at home).

And since i wasn't into "doing the coffee shop thing" or buying hard drugs off the street, and was too museumed-out to see a row of Van Goughs or other Renaissance painters, I think that this trip to Amsterdam may have been "wasted" on me. It was really nice to walk around though and gawk at tourists, have a drink at the original Supperclub and leave w/out having a friend being chased by little green men b/c he ate the wrong shrooms.

Adventure in London

2006-02-14T15:14:00.000-08:00

Went to London again this weekend to escape Leeds.
Jeremy was kind enough to let me stay at his apt while he was away, so it worked out well - I got to wake up in a real apt instead of a hotel room. It's hard to describe the feeling of waking up in an apt instead of a hotel - if you've never spent a month living in a hotel, you won't understand. It was awesome.

I had a great time hanging out with Anchal - we saw a flamenco show at Saddler Theatre, and I had my first dinner with her and her sister. good times.

I then met up with Rick and Tamara (friends from Stanford) - haven't seen them in a while, it was great to catch up. Took a double-decker bus home, went up to Jeremy's apt and tried to open the door.

Which brings me to the "adventure" part: the door wouldn't open. My thought process:
- am i in the right building?
- check
- right apt?
- check.

Turns out the real-estate lady that was showing the apt (since jeremy's moving out) did the "sensible" thing and locked the deadbolt at the bottom of the door, to which i (naturally) didn't have a key.

so pop quiz: it's 1:30am in the morning in London, what do you do?
Naturally, i tried to break in - there was a ladder going up to the roof but the roof was locked. Scaling up/down a few stories wasn't very appealing anyway, it started to rain and the windows were locked. Not that i didn't try, though. scouted the backard, tried goign up, but since i'm not a real rock climber and don't have good insurance, that wasn't really an option. nor did i want to end up in jail. I called up the # on the Faron Sutaria real estate agency sign outside, left a pleading voicemail and wrote it off - they weren't going to call back in forseeable future.

Faced with a night of walking around london, sleeping on the stairs (or gutter), i took the "grown-up approach" and got a room in a b&b across the street. so the short-term problem was solved.

Naturally, real estate offices are closed on Sundays - so i'm still faced with the fact that all my stuff is in Jeremy's place, i have to catch a train back to Leeds in the evening but i can't go to work w/out my laptop. And jeremy's out of the country for a week. Fun fun fun.
Thankfully, i got a hold of Marjorie - jeremy's neighbour, who lent me some much needed emotional support and let me hang out in her apt while i sorted things out.

Went up to the "letting office" - naturally, it's closed. Went next door to Foxton's which was open, severely disappointed the agents there since they thought i was going to rent something. Unfortunately, they don't hang out with the neighbouring real estate agents, so they couldn't help. very nice though, they tried.

All i really needed was a "hook" - a way to get to any Faron Sutaria agent that could get me the lady that had the keys and locked the apt. You could see the desks from the street windows - but none of them had any visible business cards on them. I've seen enough spy movies, but takign a picture of the barely-vsiible card and enhancing it requires either a photo lab, or at least a laptop. which i had, but it was in jeremy's apt. catch-22.

Long story shorter - I got "on the horn" and called up both Anchal and Tamara, the only other people i knew in London. Tamara was awesome - loooked up a list of all the #s for Faron Sutaria she could find.

From there, it was just a matter of luck and good old social engineering. After a few misses, a call to "corporate services" resulted in some random person (possibly even a janitor) picking up a phone, getting me a # of some real estate agent that dealt with Jeremy's apt.
Naturally, she was out of town, but she got through tosomeone else (in the middle of her brunch with parents) that eventually drove down to the office and got the keys and unlocked the deadbolt.

So, halfway into sunday problem was solved, and i'm now eternally grateful to the unknown Faron Sutaria people, along with Marjorie, Tamara and Anchal.

So afterwards i went sightseeing and straddled the meredian in Greenwhich.

One-Month anniversary

2006-02-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

Today was my one-month anniversary of staying at the Hilton.
Maybe i'll get a commemorative pen or something...

Magic Roundabout

2006-02-07T16:52:00.000-08:00

As you probably know, Brits have roundabouts instead of stop signs and stop lights. Rather confusing, especially coupled with the whole "drive on other side of the road", but fairly efficient.

Unless, of course, you go crazy and have 5 roundabouts in one: the "Magic Roundabout" in Swindon.

I went through it last weekend on the way to Bath, and let's just say it was definitely confusing and i'm glad i wasn't driving.
You should see more pics on the site, but here's the "very useful" sign on approach.

Anal business traveler: Hotel room review

2006-02-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

Ordinarily, i think i don't complain much (or maybe i do?). And i like to think that i deal with limitations and little annoying problems well.

However, when you are on the road for 1.5 months living in a hotel room, all the little things start adding up.

So here's my list of gripes about the Hilton I'm staying at. Damn that design class I took at Stanford!

For the record, i'm lazy, the hotel is only 3 minutes from work, i'm getting the "hilton points" so i'm not moving. but i can still complain.

Quick Summary: whoever designed the room was a total idiot, moron, and never stayed in the room or took a shower in the bathroom. There, I'm done.

There are 2 sets of rooms - the "remodeled" and "old". Old is dingy, but at least better designed.

Moving on:

Each room has only 1 spare plug. you use that for your laptop, cell phone charger and tea kettle. Eh, hello? Have these people not discovered electricity yet?
In "remodeled" rooms, the tea kettle takes up 2 out of 4 drawers. what a waste.
the wardrobe near the door is tiny and shallow, the hanging rod is positioned facing you so you can at most hang 4-5 items.
Breakfast buffet is 18GBP!! That's the best $33 toast i've ever had
Internet is 15GBP/day. That's about $10/hour, since i'd only maybe use it for 2 hours..
The pool is L-shaped. But the sauna is nice.
Sheets have weird stains on them. Good thing i take out my contacts before i go to sleep so i can't see anything.
Staff: not very attentive to details. I'd check out and leave my luggage with concierge when i traveled around on weekends, and every time i came back on sunday they assured me my suitcase was waiting for me in the room but it never happened. I have no problems getting it myself, but why promise that it'd be there?
Ligthing in the "remodeld" rooms is retarded - the overhead "room light" is only at the front entrance, you have to walk to the end of the room to turn on an additional lamp.
Bathroom counter is "designer shaped", which looks nice but cuts down on useful amount of counter space. Where do i put my 12 kinds of moisturizer?
Faucet is really strange - you have to turn the hot/cold water knobs 3-4 complete rotations until any water comes out. But at least it's better than the usual british sink which has 2 separate faucets for hot/cold water. In new houses!
Interestingly, the tub doesn't have any convenient place to put the long cylindrical shampoo/gel/conditioner that they give you.
And my favourite: Shower curtains are very light and always cling to you when you take a shower. That way, you won't have to put "please place curtain in tub" stickers all over the place - if it didn't stick to my ass, i wouldn't take it out!

There, i'm done.

Overall, it seems that whoever designed the bathroom never actually took a shower in it - none of these poor design decisions are a big deal, but they are so obvious to notice and add up to a fairly frustrating experience overall.

Toli takes a Bath

2006-02-06T04:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend a coworker was very gracious to offer me to stay with him and show me around Bath.

Bath is beautiful. The entire city dates back to when the Romans hiked around Europe - Bath has been around since at least 4 AD!

Aside from the magnificent abbey, there are plenty of examples of beautiful Georgian architecture - the Royal Crescent, various buildings, etc. This is exactly what I expected a 'proper' English town to look like - small cobblestone streets, old buildings, pubs, fishmongers, the usual.

Of course, no proper english weekend is complete without watching a game of rugby in a pub. This was a an opening weekend for the "Six Nations Tour" - England vs. Wales. Great game, England one, celebrations ensued. Unlike soccer though, no cars or people were harmed during the celebrations. I watched the game in my "russian vodka room" bar (it's a big UK chain) Revolution, which is now sporting a "2 russian brides for £6" sign.

The weekend was rounded out nicely by driving through the misty rolling hills of the bucolic English countryside and seeing Lacock. Insert your own dirty joke here, while you are at it.

While Bath is where the "city" scenes are filmed for the Jane Austen-period movies, Lacock is the "pastoral countryside". Apparently, that's where photography was invented as well.

Which brings me to architecture: apparently the reason why Tudor houses have a slightly wider and overhanging 2nd storey is to allow people to dump their "chamber pots" on the ground from the windows. Good thing they've retrofitted the houses with real toilets by the time i showed up.
Overall, very pretty weekend.

Oh, and I finally know where the stereotype of "english food sucks" comes from - try the "english breakfast". not pretty.

London!

2006-02-01T16:11:00.000-08:00

Last weekend i went to London - Jeremy was gracious enough to let me crash on his couch for the weekend.
London is definitely awesome. Definitely cosmopolitan - I think more than San Francisco, and possibly even more than New York.
I had a whirlwind tour - I arrived friday night, met up with Jeremy and an old friend Anchal who used to work in San Francisco. After dinner Jeremy took me on a walking tour of all the major attractions: Piccadilly Circus, Chinatown, (real) Soho, etc.

The next day was more of the same - Camden Market which reminded me a lot of the Haight Street in San Francisco, but with much better shopping . In fact, if i had an infinite amount of money, that's exactly where i'd shop for Burnign Man outfits - the Cyberdog store rocks.

I saw a lot, but i feel that i spent more time riding the tube than seeing the city. We would jump in the tube, surface somewhere, look around, jump back in, go somewhere else, look around, repeat. So my knowledge of London is fairly spotty - i have no idea wher ethings are in relationship to each other, but i know how to get there by tube!

Saturday night, of course, we had the ultimate "london experience": go eat (very) expensive (and bad) food at Meza (never eat there. their paella is basically rice-a-roni with meat thrown on top. i cook better than that), with an evening capped off at a "members-only" club.
Ironically, all the bars in UK used to close at 11pm, and it's only recently that they relaxed the liquor laws to allow places to serve alcohol later. So London has a ton of "private" clubs where you pay a huge annual fee, and can sit at the bar and drink expensive drinks later than usual. Naturally, Jeremy is well-connected so we went to one - it was entertaining.
Truthfully, the menu itself was a work of art - every drink had a little back story to it, with a history of a drink and who created it - very cool. And of course, the dance club downstairs was entertaining - we kept playing the "guess which girl is an escort" game. Which really is only a slight variation on the game i played at a Leeds bar the night before, where I chatted with some girls that ended up beign strippers. And who says that Leeds is a boring town?

anyway, london rocks. very pretty architecture, nice people, and beautfiul parks. if you visit in the winter, bring a warm coat and a hat. it's damn cold.

Naturally, both Jeremy and I took pictures.

I love Edinburgh

2006-01-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

There, I said it. Leeds sucks. Edinburgh rocks.

Last weekend I went up to Edinburgh to visit my old roommate Chris from San Francisco.
My friend Jeremy came up from London - his company sent him to UK for work for a few months as well, so we decided to check out Edinburgh together. He came up to Leeds on friday night, we hung around the infamous Corn Exchange, and took the train the next morning.

aside: Trains rock. I understand US is big and we like our cars, but it'd be sooooo nice to have train service. Fast. Reliable. Read while someone else drives. Convenient. I could go on.
And you get to meet nice English girls on the train that tell you stories about "houses" in their public school "just like Harry Potter, really" and comment on their pastry: "Lovely, isn't it"?

Anyway, Edinburgh is awesome. As Chris put it, it has "interesting topology" - it's multilevel, there are a lot of sub-basement apartments, bridges and streest are intersecting. Very much a multi-level city.

Reminds me a lot of San Francisco. All the houses are Edwardian, bay windows, water, hills.
All around good times.

Oh, and of course, i had "haggis" - the traditional Scottish meal of "chopped sheep intesting wrapped in sheep stomach". Delicious and a lot less disgusting than it sounds.

I took lots of pictures, and so did Jeremy.

Drink the Plank

2006-01-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't call Leeds a student town, but it definitely is a bar town.
So naturally, being "russian" and all, i found mysefl a nice neighbourhood vodka bar - Revolution.
It's actually a chain, which makes it less cool, but I doubt it'd be visiting other locations.

They even serve vodka nad pickles! almost "russian-style".

And now to break some stereotypes: i'd say brits drink more than russian. Without naming any names, let's say I have a friend that participated in the following:
This would be a 30-shot plank of vodka, with 5 different flavors. I'll do the math for you - that'd be 8.5 shots per person when you have 4 people.
Yep. Tasty. Naturally, with flavors like "vanilla" and "strawberry", that was "too sissy", so we had a few more to chase it. Like "chili" flavor. If you ever have indigestion or problem with vomiting on demand - that's the vodka to drink. Goes well with napkins, since the taste in your mouth is so rank you end up eating a few just to try to get rid of it. That sure was entertaining to us and the others at the bar...

I have to give it to them - everybody showed up at work bright and early the next day, w/out incident. I guess one can train for anything...

Would you like some business?

2006-01-25T15:00:00.000-08:00

Walking the 100 yards from the office to the hotel at night is always fun. One night 2 reasonably dressed women (it really is cold outside) approached me and asked whether i "wanted some business".
Huh? what business? i'm just getting out of work, you want me to work again? no way dude, i'm getting my drink!
So i was polite and just ignored them. Turn to my friend P. with a silent "what's wrong with these crazy british people?" look on my face, at which point he just starts laughing. Conversation ensues:
P: these are hookers
Me: no way dude
P: want to bet?
Me: ah, no thanks, i don't want to go to jail, i'm on a tourist visa

Turns out that my office is right in the middle of the "red light district". Or more like it's on the one block that's all there is to the red light district of Leeds.
Naturally, i didn't know that.
However, i was later told that the record was some guy getting propositions 8 times (!) on the 2-block walk it takes to get from the hotel to the office.

Corn Exchange

2006-01-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

So i'm now in Leeds, located in West Yorkshire. It's about 2.5 hours from London, in the middle of the country. I'd say it's exactly what you'd expect in a "small provincial English town" (someone's definitely going to flame for this).

Leeds has a storied history of a manufacturing town, a great University of Leeds, fabulous shopping and so on. It's known as "gateway to the Dales" - a big national park. Sounds great, doesn't it? I may be biased, but coming from both San Francisco and most recently New York it appears a little small and boring. It's the same as the kiss of death when you are describing a guy to a potential date: "he has a nice personality". Just like St. Louis Mo, which is "gateway to the west", Leeds is a great place to live if you are already married, or are a college student set on spending more time drinking than studying.

So, first impressions of Leeds - very cute. Old buildings. Cars driving on "wrong side" of the road. Giant double-decker buses hugging the curb (I bought emergency insurance. One of these things is bound to run me over some day).

Since I don't have a car, I walk around for transportation. The city centre is fairly small, it's about a 10x6 block. You can get walk the entire "downtown" in about half an hour.

Which, of course, brings us to the "Corn Exchange".
It's a giant building (shopping mall) on one side of town where most of the bars and clubs are.
Anywhere you go, you end up at the Corn Exchange. For the first few days, my coworkers and I walked around in circles, trying to find a particular bar, and would always end up at the Corn Exchange.
The hilarity would be that no matter where we went, it would always be near the Corn Exchange. Anything. All directions began with "go to the Corn Exchange and turn X...".
Naturally, all the streets are crooked, so it worked out well - i live about 2 blocks from it, work another block from it, and all the bars really are next to it.

So yeah, Corn Exchange. I'll never forget you....

Jet-Setting lifestyle

2006-01-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

I needed to get to Leeds on Monday Jan 9th.
The weekend before, i had to be in St. Louis for my grandfather's 85th birthday party. Naturally, there are no direct flights from St. Louis to Leeds, so imagine my lovely itinerary:
friday night: JFK-->STL
sunday morning: STL-->Newark.
Take the train from Newark to Penn Station, come home for 2 hours, have some tea, get a new set of bags and take the train to JFK.
Which brings us to next section:
JFK-->London Heathrow, at which point it's 7am Monday morning in UK but still only 1am in NY.

Here's the upside of the jet-setting life: an acquintance I met while traveling in Russia 2 years ago was flying out of Heathrow to St. Petersburg at the same time.

We met up, had some tea, and parted ways - she took a flight to St. Petersburg and I went to Leeds.

I love elaborate plans. Arranging this was fun.

Going to Leeds for work

2006-01-18T13:14:00.000-08:00

Well, after a short and exciting stint in NY where my job didn't pan out, i got a short-term project in Leeds, UK.
This becomes an second annual British Commonwealth country work-visit. Perhaps I should make this a habit. Maybe next year I can go to Australia or British Virgin Islands.

Anyway, i'll do my best to post the entertaining stories that always seem to happen to me during such trips.

Christchurch

2005-02-05T20:19:00.000-08:00

I flew down to Christchurch yesterday. Due to some international law/foreign policy mishap, Rama will be joining me later. In fact, at this stage i still don't know when he's flying into Christchurch, so it'll be a bit of an adventure.

Anyway, i get 1 day to explore Christchurch on my own. It's a nice English town, fashioned to be a replica of a nice English town. There's a river - Avon - and English-looking buildings. Very quaint. In fact, i had a nice romantic walk by myself down the river yesterday - it was very nice. Truthfully, other than "nice" and "quaint" i can't think of any other way to describe X-church.
Oh, they have a tram - that's the scenic attraction. Since i've taken trams since I was a kid in Minsk, that didn't particularly appeal to me. And the churches are nice too - but i think i've seen enough in my lifetime.

BUT! Christchurch is right next to the Banks Peninsula - and that's where i went today. Took the Gondola up to the top of a mountain (same as a Heavenly gondola, even same Doppelmayer company makes it) so the ride itself wasn't much. The scenery, however, was astounding.

I rented a mountain bike at the top and wanted to take a leisure road down. small note - just like cars, bikes are reversed too - the brakes are swapped. that accounted for one of the first falls.

New Zealanders take their mountain biking seriously. What i thought would be a leisurely stroll turned out to be a fun experience. Somehow i ended up in the section for downhill riding - and it's marked just like ski slopes - blue/black/double-black diamond. I kid you not - i came up to one of them, laughed and turned around. Thankfully, i met a local who took me down an "easier" route, which resulted in only a few falls and tumbles and shaved off a couple years off my life.

Absinthe

2005-02-04T09:47:00.000-08:00

Well, some call it "the green fairy", others (Poe/Van Gogh/Hemingway) refer to it as "inspirational". So hen I saw "absinthe drinks" on cocktail menu at a restaurant last night I was rather excited.
I was a little skeptical at first, but the waitress showed us the bottle - sure enough, made in France, looks green, smells of cough syrup, 60% alcohol. Just like the real thing.
We had a "fruit juice with absinthe" concoction - good, but too many papaya seeds. So the next one was "ask the bartender to mix it with some chocolate liqueur" (to hide the smell/taste). That was a little better. 2 drinks down, and still no green men showing up.

Such a find was to good to pass up, so after dinner we went to a nearby bar that had absinthe. There, the bartender offered us 3 options:

Absinthe cocktail
absinthe from Czech, 75% alcohol-by-volume
absinthe from UK (?) 89% a-b-v

The answer was clear - a little green bottle was presented to us, 2 shots of 178 proof absinthe poured.

Well, boys and girls - turns out absinthe is not exactly a "shooter". It's more of a "sipping" drink, illustrated by the painting above. Here's what I learned:

Singes your throat on the way in
Hits you with a shovel once it reaches your stomach
that's about it.

Can't say that I enjoyed my shot of absinthe, but the experience was educational. I did feel pretty drunk after one shot, but I'm sure everclear would have the same effect. And I didn't write any poetry. Or paint anything

Guess I'll need to find a store that sells it and experiment later.

Meat on a Stick

2005-02-03T02:49:00.001-08:00

Since it's one of my last nights as an "expense account" tourist in NZ and I'll be eating "backpacker food" for the next week, I decided to front-load on meat and go to a Brazilian churrascaria, aka "meat on a stick" restaurant.

What a wonderful idea! Continuing my quest for "help with NZ sheep overpopulation problem", I had some lamb-on-a-stick. And other random food-on-a-stick (beef/chicken/pork). Unfortunately, no fish-on-a-stick - that is relegated to fish sticks, the staple of graduate student food.

well, isn't this post rather inane? Anyway, I re-affirmed the "stupid ugly obnoxious American" stereotype quite a bit today, asking for everything possible "on a stick". You figure that if you go to a fancy restaurant whose gimmick is "food on a stick" they'd serve everything that way, but they don't. No dessert on a stick - rather disappointing, actually. And the best part of eating in NZ? No tipping. It's already included. sweeeet.

Rotorua

2005-02-02T03:43:00.000-08:00

My attempts at enlisting someone to drive me around failed, so I overcame my fear of driving on the "wrong" side of the road, got off my ass and rented a car. I wanted to go to Rotorua, to check out Maori culture "stuff" and (if there was time) to do some adventurous activitity.

On the way to Rotorua i drove through Hobbiton and a few other random towns.
North island isn't particular spectacular from the road (at least not central part). Looks like generic (but pretty) farmland.

Rotorua is famous for 3 things

it's north island adventure capital
geysers and other smelly thermal phenomena
Maori culture

Since I only had a day and I'll be doing adventure stuff on the south island for a week, I wanted to mostly see the Maori stuff.

I chose to go to the Tamaki Maori Village cultural experience show- it was billed as the best one, and it came in a form of "show and a dinner". My ticket there came with a "free trip" to a Hell's Gate thermal park- so i checked that out.
Hell's Gate was cool - but mostly a tourist trap. It's fun to walk through a bunch of sulphur lakes, smell the rotten eggs and watch little sulphurous lakes bubble up. I think i've seen thermal springs before, but it was still pretty awesome - the thermal park area is quite large.
The site used to be sacred to Maori, and there are a few legends (mostly unhappy maidens jumping into pools of boiling water) associated with the place.
I especially liked the clever signage.

The Tamaki Village tour was very interesting. You take a bus to the village (completely recreated), pick a "chief" and enter the village. You are greeted by a Maori warrior who challenges all visitors, exchange pleasantries (rub noses) and go inside.

The village is a "living museum" - it's completely recreated, it is run by a company (2 Maori brothers started it) that employs young Maori that "work" by acting like the ancestors. You arrive by bus, they do the "welcome dance", then you walk through the village where you see them perform "daily routine tasks", then go into a "meeting house" for another round of "song and dance", followed by a traditionally cooked feast (hangi), and a short visit to the "museum shop".

I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. The experience is both fairly educational - and at the same time extremely contrived. Definitely a tourist trap, but a really well made one. Most importantly, it didn't feel patronizing towards the performers. So of course, i didn't see the "true" Maori life - just recreation. It felt a little funny to see people perform their natives customs for you, then sit down next to you and answer any questions.
As is said, though, it wasn't particularly patronizing - the performers (or employees?) seemed like they were having fun. Most importantly, although contrived, it's a great way for Maori to recreate/preserve (although possibly rewrite) their own culture - all the "villagers" were young Maori who looked liked they wanted to learn more about their culture.

Anyway, overall it was fun. Aside from welcoming us with a 'warrior challenge', they showed us a few traditional games and dances - all targeted to make people better warriors. Interestingly, the whole practice of spinning poi was not just ritualistic dance, but was also an exercise to strengthen arms/wrists. Maori men would spin poi made of rocks, instead of the soft balls modern hippies use at burning man :)

We saw a haka - a dance Maori do to psyche themselves up before battle, or to celebrate afterwards. Mostly it involves stomping around, making scary faces and chanting. Pretty mezmerizing, actually. The coolest thing is that one such 'haka' has been adopted as the fight song for NZ national rugby team. The one thing i've noticed is the fierce association of Maori (at least the ones on the tour) to NZ. Seems like a much better deal than tthe disenfranchised Native Americans got in US. So that's really cool.

Anyway, at the end there was a "hangi" feast - cooked in the traditional Maori way, in the whole in the ground, on the rocks under some sand. Not a bad way of cooking, really - dig a hole, put some hot rocks there, throw your food in, cover with sand and walk away for 3-4 hours. And, as they say, if it comes out undercooked - just throw it in the microwave. for a few minutes.

so that's my Maori experience. keep in mind that all the punditry is not meant to belittle or patronize anyone, i'm just trying to sort out my thoughts.

more pictures and videos of the haka are here

RamaRama

2005-02-02T03:27:00.000-08:00

Apparently, some people are a lot more famous than others.
There's a whole town named after you-know-who 50km south of Auckland

Driving (for real)

2005-02-02T03:02:00.000-08:00

I got over my fear of driving and rented a car to go to Rotorua (more in a separate post)

Turns out the key to driving a right-hand drive car is simple: get an automatic.
I got a Nissan Pulsar (tiny 4-door compact car). Thankfully the signals/wipers were on the same side as my Integra, so that really wasn't a problem.
So really, driving is a non-issue, aside for these few things:

You always invariably approach the wrong side of the car the first time
You always grab the non-existing seat belt on your left
I kept trying to rest my left hand on the "window"
You keep drifting to the lane on your left. Good thing they have sound strips that alert you when you do that

Other than that, it's all cake. I ended up doing about 600km in one day (arguably, i didn't take the shortest road) and it was fun.
Roads in New Zealand are fairly slow, the "highways" are just 2 lane roads (one way each way) but they are fairly empty (at least at night).
Oh, and they don't believe in stop signs - there are roundabouts everywhere. Since I didn't know the exact rules of "right-of-way" i always had the right-of-way.

Hobbiton!

2005-02-01T05:18:00.000-08:00

So I actually didn't see any hobbits. But i did drive through Makamata (which for a brief period was renamed to Hobbiton). There's a tour that takes you to the movie set where the "city of hobbits" was filmed.
However, the tour takes about 2.5 hours, i'd have to wait for another hour until the next tour would start, and i didn't have that kind of time.
Since i don't particular care about LOTR lore, i just had a gratuituous picture taken by some retired russsian tourists from SF (coincidence?) and moved on to Rotorua.

For the record, this is my obligatory homage to hobbits and LOTR stuff. I think i'll concentrate on adventure/scenery from now on.

Zorbonaut!

2005-02-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

This wekeend i made it to Rotorua, both the "adventure" and Maori culture capitol of North Island.
So of course i went zorbing.
It's a rather ridiculous experience - you climb inside a giant ball and roll downhill. The zorb is a "dual" ball - there's a big bouncy outside ball and a smaller ball inside where you hang out.
My particular flavor of adventure was a "hydro zorb" - that's where you get in a zorb ball that has about a bucket of water inside, and you are not strapped in. As a result, when the ball rolls down you feel like you are in a giant washing machine. It's quite hilairious, the ball rolls down the hill in a zigzag so you slide all over the place.
The best "zorbing"experience, apparently, is when you are in the same ball with someone else. I tried convincing the 3 college freshman from University of Delaware that were "next" to climb in the ball with me, but somehow i didn't succeed.
Anyway, this is arguably the most ridiculous and stupid thing i've ever done, and of course, i loved every second (out of about 45) of it.

And Graham, this one was for you!

Russians everywhere

2005-01-29T06:29:00.000-08:00

My grand plans for Saturday (either drive around the country or go kayaking in the bay) never really materialized, so i just wanted to take it easy, have dinner at some cafe, read my lonely planet and plan for the drive to Rotorua on Sunday. Another side plan was to go to the sun office and drop off some interoffice mail.

The evening turned out to be a lot more entertaining, as usual. All the cafes mentioned in "lonely planet" were closed, so i made my way to the Viaduct (where the office was) thinking I'll get dinner there, since Viaduct is also party central and places there are open late.

As i was walking into a restaurant, I heard people talking Russian at one of the tables by the entrance. so naturally, i turned around and met the two girls sitting at the table. Interestingly, when you travel alone your level of shyness goes down - eating dinner by yourself is not fun, so one tries to meet people.

I invited myself to join them, and we talked for a while. Being from San Francisco goes a long way in meeting people - even if they don't like America, everybody loves SF.
The funniest thing in talking with Russians (and they are real Russian, as in not "Jew from Soviet Union Russian") is waiting for the "jew" question. Since I obviously look Jewish, at some point the "real Russians" have to ask me (in a very polite and humble tone) if I'm Jewish. That always cracks me up. My stock answer to that is "hell's yeah I'm Jewish. and don't be ashamed to ask if i am - the whole reason i left Russia was not to be ashamed of being a Jew". This happens every time - and i love it. Feels like the ultimate f-u to the "collective Russian antisemitism" to proudly declare that I'm Jewish.

Anway, side observations aside, it was a jolly good time. They immediately invited themselves over to come check out SF, i politely offered my "tour guide" services but implied that they have to buy their own plan tickets. The other funny (and mostly true) stereotype about Russian girls is that they are gold-diggers (динамистки) - so i acquired the "rich American uncle" status fast. I'm quite aware of this favourite national pastime (getting others to buy stuff for them), so i quickly assumed the "cheap Jew" character. Anyway, i obviously did buy them a few drinks ($20 won't break me, and it beats sitting around alone).
Ironically, the other stereotype that Russians can drink a lot didn't hold true with one of the girls. After two glasses of wine she was out - it was quite hilarious to watch her on the dance floor, she kept dancing with an imaginary pole and trying to take off her dress. (Side note - it is summer, so a lot of women wear skirts or dresses. I've actually forgotten that women do that, since nowhere enough girls in SF ever wear dresses. Turns out that looks quite nice. and pretty. I'm becoming a big skirt fan).

Long story short - one of the other girls was at the bar and somehow managed to pick a fight with some random girl that was totally wasted. So the bouncers kicked both of them out of the bar, and we had to leave as well. Bouncers here are actually quite polite, unlike the usual power-tripping jackasses in NY. There has only been one instance of a bouncer being rude to someone when i was going into a bar here.

so that was it. the Russian girls (there were 3 now, another friend of theirs showed up) had to take the "drunk"one back to her place. they invited me to "take a cab over there and back to party more" with them, but i politely refused. Perhaps I'm cheap, but ferrying some drunk girls around and paying for cab fare while listening to them talk about their ex-husbands or boyfriends is not my idea of fun. Hugs and promises of visits to SF all around, and we parted.

And now the funniest thing - I still wanted to drop off my mail at the Sun office, so I went there. The office is at the Viaduct (same party central), and all my way to the office i kept hearing party music. Sounded like there was a huge party at the office!!!
Turns out the office building is across the street from some giant club, and here i thought Sun people in NZ knew how to party. Ironically, my ID didn't seem to work so no sending interoffice mail for me.

Clever marketing

2005-01-29T06:19:00.000-08:00

So at home i drive an integra. "Acura" integra. Except for really, i it's only an Acura in the US. and i've always joked that i drive a Honda (since acura is just an upscale division), but it only sunk in here.

Since NZ is right-hand drive, there are a ton of "authentic" Japanese cars out here. For example, there are a ton of Nissan Skylines (which you can't get in US), it's a sporty Integra equivalent; and all the Lexus IS300s here go under the Altezza brand.

Anyway, there are a ton of integra's here, but since they don't have to be retrofitted to be left-hand drive and can be shipped directly from Japan, here they are just Hondas. Turns out "Acura" is just a clever marketing gimmick to sell cars in US. I've seen quite a few RSX/TSXs here, they all have a nice Honda sticker on them. Same with a Honda Legend. Rustan would be very very disappointed.
Nice to know that US is such a big consumer society that companies create separate brands just for us.

Shochi

2005-01-28T20:37:00.000-08:00

went to dinner with coworkers after work to a japanese yakitori place. Turns out yakitori is "meat on a stick" - what a novel and convenient concept. Tasty, easy to eat. sort of a miniauturized kebab. What a lovely concept!

Anyway, after dinner we were going to get dessert so J. ordered "shochi". we all nodded, figuring it'd be some sort of ice cream or similar. he stressed "shochi with ice". we nodded. in a few minutes the waitress shows up, bringing 6 glasses of water with ice. We look around thinking "hmm, who ordered water? shouldn't you have brought water at the beginning?".
I grab a glass, take a sip and bam! learn a new japanese word. Turns out "shochi" is just a clever way of saying "vodka with ice". nothing more.

After the yakitori place we popped into another bar called "viper room" around the corner, where we were supposed to meet a few people i had met at Globe the night before.
Viper room was a nicely decorated bar, totally empty (maybe it gets going at 2am?) with very tasty cocktails. I have a drink, remark at the design, and J. says "have you been to the bathroom yet"? Intrigued, i check out the bathroom, realize there's nothing fancy there, but on the way back notice a row of small room with couches off to the side of the corridor on the way to the bathroom. with little "viper room #n" signs. hmmmmmmm.
think about it.
think some more....

So really, I don't know what the club was all about, but we got a little confused and left. maybe there was nothing sketchy about the "private" rooms, but we didn't want to stay and find out. so we left, effectively emptying out the entire bar - there was noone else there but us.
so i guess i had my introduction to K. road, the "underbelly" of Auckland.

Globe bar

2005-01-28T20:26:00.000-08:00

I finally realized that I haven't hung out with other fellow travellers yet. Figuring that i should get used to the "hostel" mindset, i went to the "biggest" hostel bar in Auckland called Globe bar. It's attached to some large backpacker hostel.
So thursday night i went there after dinner. I brought a few postcards figuring that i'd sit there quietly, have a drink, write some postcards (those of you that got beer-smelling postcards now know why) and go home.

Ha! Turns out Globe on thursday is the location for the "gay chicken" contest. While watching dudes pretend to kiss each other is not particularly exciting, watching the girls go at it for a $100 bartab prize was rather entertaining. I met some girls from scotland while writing postcards, and one of them "made it" to the "finals". So much for the stereotype of British girls being "prudes".
Oh, and I met two jamaican girls, one of them turned out to be a nurse. Seems like i'm destined to meet nurses wherever I go.

Skype

2005-01-25T20:19:00.000-08:00

I've been using Skype to talk to my parents and coworkers and friends while i'm in NZ.
At work, there are us from Sun and another team from Openwave working on the same project. We are all sitting in the same large room at the client site. And there's nothing funnier than watching a bunch of people in headphones talk into their laptops like some crazies. Me included.
it is pretty sweet though to be able to call up Jesse when i have a work problem and talk it through. For free. From another part of the world. from 21 hours into the future.

Tongariro Crossing

2005-01-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

For the rest of the weekend, i decided to go to hike the Tongariro Crossing. It's billed as the "finest one-day hike" in the world (or at least New Zealand).

This presented a few logistical challenges - i'm in Auckland, and Tongariro is 5 hours south in the center of North Island. And i'm a little afraid of driving, plus i didn't feel like driving back after just having hiked a challenging mountain for 9 hours.

So of course i took the bus. This is a true testament to my love of resource optimization. Here's the rough plan:
1. take 8pm bus on Saturday to Taupo (near Tongariro), arrives at 1am
2. wake up at 6:30am to catch a shuttle to trailhead
3. hike 7-8 miles
4. hang out in Taupo, waiting for the bus back
5. take the 2am bus back to Auckland
6. arrive in Auckland at 7am Monday
7. shave/shower and go to work.

A little crazy, but that's how I like it.

Anyway, the bus ride was fairly ordinary. Not particularly comfortable, i was really afraid it'd sleep through my stop but thankfully i didn't. Took me a while to find the hostel i booked (it turned out to be a shithole, but i only had 5 hours to stay there so i didn't care).

I was initially a little intimidated by the hike - it was supposed to be reasonably "hard", and i wanted to do a side trip to the summit of a Mt. Ngauruhoe and it didn't look like i'd have enough time since we didn't get to the trailhead till 8:30am and the shuttle was supposed to pick us up at 4:30

The scenery really was out-of-this-world. I'm not going to try and rehash the excellent description found here, so i'll just add my observations.

I was actually a little disappointed by the whole hike. Maybe it's b/c it was the first solitary hiking experience and i'm not used to that. I really wanted to hike up to one of the side mountain summits, but when i got to the trailhead for mt. ngauruhoe it was 11am and the marker said it's a 3-hour round trip. I looked at the map's suggested hiking times, did the math and figured that I wouldn't make it in time for the bus back. So i chickened out and kept walking on the main trail.
The trail is in a few sections - some climbs into the old craters, walk through the craters, climb some more. Turned out not to be too challenging after all, except for this little section of hell:

This little vertical climb up was a pain-in-the-ass. literally.

So here's the sad part - turns out i'm a lot faster than the average hiker, so as soon as i finished that climb section i realized that i was half-way done and it wasn't even noon yet. which meant i could have done the side trip. I briefly thought of going back to do it, but then figured that i wasn't up to climbing 2000m on rocks again.

The trail was packed with people - mostly german tourists. But I managed to find quite a few former Eastern block "comrades" from Czech Republic who are working in NZ as seasonal workers on a farm and paying for travel that way. We had a jolly good time trading war stories about growing up in a communist state.

Btw, the hike itself really was scenic, magnificent and the usual superlatives. Apparently, that's where Mordor was filmed for LOTR. The coolest part was the Red Crater:

You can insert your own clever freudian comment. Meanwhile, check the usual gallery for the rest of pictures.

I met some really nice french people on the bus ride back, and some Israelis.
I got back to Taupo around 6. Turns out there's a big lake in Taupo (similar to Tahoe). Since i dind't have a hostel reservation anymore, i "showered" in Lake Taupo (pretty chilly) after the hike, got a big fat dinner at a restaurant near the lake and watched the sunset. And tehn spent the next 5 hours killing time waiting for the bus ride back - taking the 2am bus back turned out to be a silly idea.

Sailing on America's cup yacht

2005-01-22T04:11:00.000-08:00

John Stanford and I went sailing on the former America's cup yacht in the bay.

Beautiful day, great weather. The trip is about 2 hours, you get to man the winches (toughest part is hoisting the sail up) and skipper for a little bit.
A good description of this trip is here

We sailed around the bay, then under the harbour bridge. That part was trippy, the boat is about 2 meters shorter than bridge so it felt like we'd get caught. In addition, the bridge is home to a bungy-jumping station, so the whole time we were sailing someone kept falling off the bridge.

There were about 30+ people on the boat so it was a bit crowded. We didn't do any particularly hard maneuvers, so i didn't get the full "racing" experience, but it was defintely nice enough to just be on the bay and haull ass. That boat can really move!

The mechanices of the boat controls are pretty awesome too. There are 2 sets of cranks, with 2 people manning each one. They are tied to a set of winches, and there is a complex gearing system so that you can go from a 1-1 to 32-1 rotation ratio. Apparently, the "real crew" can hoist a guy up to the top of the mast using a winch just in a few seconds.

Then agian, these things are at least $7mil to just build, with about $60mil you have to pour into research.

Update on driving

2005-01-20T04:01:00.000-08:00

My friend Marina (in montreal) introduced me to her friend Amanda who lives south of Auckland.
She was kind enough to meet up, so we had a fun dinner and went to a local bar called Lenin.
Their gimmick is a bit of Communist imagery (some "переходящее кразное знамя" gratuituos red flags), and their logo is a red flag with a martini glass and an olive instead of a hammer and cicle. In addition, it's right next to the "Minus 5" bar, which is an "ice bar" - you pay $20 to get in for 20 mins, the bar is made interely of ice and you drink from ice glasses. Great idea, but since Lenin has the windows into the ice bar, there really was no need to pay $20 for a drink to try it out.

Anyway, Amanda was a lot of fun, and after a few of my "must be hard to drive on the wrong side" jokes offered me to try and drive her car.
Well, turns out it was standard (ie stick-shift) transmission. So not only did i have to deal with driving on "wrong" side of the road, I had to remember to shift with my left hand. Let's not forget that i'm not so good with driving stick to begin with!
The funniest part is that noone ever tells you that blinkers and windshield wiper controls are also switched - so all the time instead of turning on the signal i'd turn on the wipers! Needless to say, Amanda almost had a heart attack!

so there it is - i've driven on the wrong side of the road (for about 10 minutes). it was fun, but i'm pretty sure i'll be getting an automatic transmission when i rent a car for when Rama and I travel in south island.

Work routine

2005-01-19T03:51:00.001-08:00

So, it seems that i've settled into a nice work routine.
The customer site is about 15 minutes walk from the hotel. Turns out Auckland is rather hilly (and hot), so for the past couple days my coworker and I have been trying to optimize the walk to work for "shortness and flatness". This involves walking through a park, jaywalking and cutting through a few sketchy alleys. But it's worth it.

A few side notes on Auckland and New Zealand:

Cars are right-hand-drive. That means crossing a street is a challenge, since instinctively you always look left instead of right. Makes for a lot of funny moments.
It's hot here. And the ozone hole is right above you. As a result, you burn. I need to learn how to use sunscreen.
Customer is not king. I'm staying at a fancy Hyatt. However, either people here are too laid-back, or not so keen on service and IT. It took them 4 days to get my broken Internet connection fixed (ie get a new modem. instead, they offered me a new cable, a power transformer, and some chocolates). Then it took them about 5 days to fix my toilet (it was 2-time use. after 2 flushes you had to call housekeeping to get it fixed again). I'm still waiting for my "you have new message" voicemail indicator to be reset (i'm pretty certain there are no voicemails)
Food and drinks are expensive. When you translate it to $US, you get SF-like prices. For example, cocktails at a reasonable bar are about $10-15NZ each (that's $7-12US)
Nobody jaywalks. very inefficient

Anyway, these are potentially biased - i'm staying in a fancy hotel, i'm hanging out with older out-of-town coworkers. Perhaps once i discover non-fancy local places things will be different.

So my daily routine:

go to work
come back, jog around town (sun sets really late, around 9pm). Auckland has a ton of parks, and the big one (Auckland Domain) is very close to the hotel
Have dinner with coworkers
Drink with same coworkers

So far, it's been fun.

Waiheke Island

2005-01-17T03:35:00.000-08:00

Waiheke island feels very much like Marin Headlands. Warm, sunny, with a great veiw of the city.
On the ferry I met a few other fellow travelers, so we explored the island together. The initial agenda was to "find a closest pub and hang out", but after taking a few shortcuts we ended up doing about a 5-7 mile hike around the island.

All the pics from the hike are here.

Since i am in new zealand to work on sheep deployment software, i figured i'll get an early jump on work by interviewing the end customers. Here's a pastoral scene from a customer interview.

At some point i tried kayaking, but it was low tide and we didn't get too far:

Instead, we participated in the national pastime with a few locals:

And then we rode the ferry into the sunset:

First day in Auckland

2005-01-16T03:14:00.000-08:00

You can see all the pics from Auckland

Landed and found all the bags!

We landed around 6am, so my new friend Jen and I decided to explore Auckland together.
After dropping the bags off at my hotel (turned out her hostel was right next door) we walked down to the harbour. Auckland is called the "city of sails" - so yes, it's surrounded by water.
First impression - Auckland was a ghosttown. Noone was up. It really was only 8am, so I guess Aucklanders to love their sleep.

My hotel (hyatt) is right next to Albert park (there are tons of parks in Auckland). Right next to it is this statue:

At some point I found the Sun office. It's right next to the harbour, and i'm sure the views there are spectaculuar. However, i won't be working there - i'll be at the clientside which is a bit more uptown.

In the end, we just got on a ferry and went to Waiheke Island. It's 45 minutes away and very picturesque. Here's a view of the city from the bay:

Takeoff

2005-01-16T03:03:00.000-08:00

So i am finally flying to New Zealand. It started out as a joke at work - "if you work really hard and won't quit, we'll send you to New Zealand"; but suprisingly materialized. I now love my job again.

The flight itself proves to be fairly enjoyable - I have a direct flight from LAX to Auckland on Qantas. Big-a@@ plane, i get an isle seat, and meal is very acceptable. Score!
You get an option of watching about 5 movies (anchorman, huckabees, vanit fair, etc) but instead i spend the whole time reading the lonely planet book preparing for the trip.

Oh, and on the flight I met Jen - who's also traveling in NZ for a few weeks before starting grad school in Brisbane Australia. Since both of us have a free day in Auckland we decide to hang out together.