13 posts tagged “travel”
The dogs just wander between people and around town scrounging for food.
The second photo shows a fruit-stand on the side of the road, as well as the front part of a tuk-tuk scooter.
The last photo shows a tuk-tuk with 8 people in it! We were trying to figure out who actually was the driver. I think it's the second from their right (our left).
Here are some videos of New Delhi so far.
The second video from New Delhi: on our way to the office we notice this corner where there are a bunch of cows that congregate to rummage through trash for food.
The cows are holy in Hinduism. So we're guessing that people drop scraps of food at this corner for the cows. From what I've heard, the cows are sacred so no one dares to touch them. The cows can go wherever they please. As as result, the cows sometimes gather together where there is food. Sometimes a bunch of them will lay down in the middle of a highway and cause huge traffic jams.
In this video, it's a relatively uncrowded street. But as you can see, the cows are standing in the middle of the intersection and even start to run towards the car at the end.
The third video shows part of the drive to work on some streets through a smallish part of town. Part of the way is on the highway, but that's relatively boring. The side streets are more interesting, showing "tuk-tuk" 3-wheeled scooter carts, cows, bicycles, street vendors, and LOTS of people.
We were walking to dinner and walked by a street-side market. It was several blocks long and had all kinds of things.
You can see they have some dresses. But they also have various jewelry, necklaces, rings, shoes, statues, shawls, etc...
I didn't buy anything, but will probably buy some later.
You can see two of the ladies I work with Pennee from Thailand (on the left) and Minema from Inda (on the right).
There are a bunch of rickshaw bicycle taxis around New Delhi. There are a bunch of normal taxis as well, but I was surprised how many bicycle-taxis there were.
Most of the streets are pretty dusty/dirty/littered, except for the small areas around the parliament and Presidential mansion/palace.
Here's the NSN office in India that we're working out of for the next two weeks.
It's pretty boring, but nicely decorated I guess. Nothing out of the ordinary.
There are some ok water fountains and 'attempts at greenery'.
Hi all,
Just a small update. I just landed in Munich, Germany last night for the 'last leg' of the trip. It's been a week so far. This will be my longest business trip so far. I kind of expected that I would miss Christina and the kids, but didn't realize how homesick I am.
Of course, it would have been better to have them along. But the flight tickets were over $4200 for economy tickets... so obviously we can't afford that.
Anyway, here's a stock photo of Munich. I'll try to take some later if I have a chance to sight-see. It's a holiday today (Monday) in Germany, but I still need to do some work... so will be working out of the hotel most of the day.
Today is my last day in China. I'm flying to Munich, Germany in a few hours. Still packing at the moment.
Here's today's shot of the skyline as viewed from my hotel room. As you can see, visibility is QUITE limited, maybe a quarter-mile, or half-mile at most. Again, it's not fog, or misty-rain... just plain air pollution.
Here's a quick update of the current trip:
I'm still in Beijing. It's ok.
The language-issue is of course apparent, since I don't speak a bit of Chinese. One of my colleagues from work was with us most of the time. She's from Thailand, but speaks some pretty workable Chinese. So I haven't had to learn/use any but a few phrases.
The pollution is horrible. The ground/streets/others are surprisingly clean... but the air is pretty bad most of the time. It's like the city and surrounding area are under a constant haze. No it's NOT FOG. It's air pollution. Here's an example, of a shot from the Great Wall of China... which the closest section is about 1.5 hours by taxi North of Beijing. Even there, the air is quite bad.
Otherwise, the food is ok, but nothing astounding. Apparently, northern chinese food is relatively bland, oily, and salty... compared to southern chinese. It's still good, but not the best Chinese food I've ever had.
I'm surprised by how little jet lag I've had. Even so, I'm quite tired at the end of the day. With work quite hectic from Sunday through Wednesday... including working at night... it's been draining.
Today was the first day off. Even then, we just went to the Great Wall. It was impressive, but mostly reconstructed/restored. There were some areas with VERY steep inclines/declines. So it was quite a tough walk. The walk down was a bit harder... not so much the muscle-pain, but the knee-pain. I guess I'm getting 'old'.
Then I went to do a bit of shopping for gifts for the kids. Sorry 'adults', but I have limited time/budget, and I don't want to spend all my time haggling.... which by the way is EXHAUSTING. I MUCH prefer fixed-prices. It's just easier.
We are here in the Beijing, China office. I am giving training today, through Wednesday. During class, they ordered-in lunch for the class from Pizza Hut. At first I was just expecting typical Pizza Hut.
But I was pleasantly surprised by something different. They had a bunch of different options/toppings that I had never seen or even imagined on pizza. It was still the same Pizza Hut crust/dough, but the toppings were different.
One notable pizza had the following ingredients/toppings:
- Shrimp
- Squid/calamari (not fried)
- Broccoli
- Red Peppers
- Wasabi sauce (green sauce, but not very spicy)
ABOVE: Christina & Marcia in sleeping bags; Walking down a highway for treasure-hunting; George trying to help his bent-back toenail (after trying to walk across the river).
BELOW: (3) videos of everyone climbing around; video of George walking across a water-pipe for a $5 bet; video of George walking across the river; video of George trying to fix his bent-back toenail after slipping while walking across the river.
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