1 more day in Bangalore

Wahoo! One more day in Bangalore and I will be on my back to the USA. My Vice President has been in Bangalore this week and I just found out today that he is taking the exact same flight as me back to the US. Joy! I haven't had that much interaction with him, but we will be at least sharing a 1 1/2 hour taxi drive to the airport. He will also be sitting in business class and I will be in coach.
My route back home will be Bangalore -> Delhi -> Chicago -> Austin.
It will be good to be home....
I might post a couple more posts before I end this blog...we shall see...

As promised

As promised....some of the scenery of Bangalore taken from my car on the way and from work

Cows just chillin on the side of the road

a house

getting a ride!

All women ride the motorcycles like this

A temple

Guy going the bathroom on the side of the road. Gross, and this is not the 1st time I saw this

Another temple

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will be taking pics to and from the office in the car because you guys have got to see this! Words can't describe some of the stuff I have seen. Some funny and some gross!

Stay tuned...

My hotel

Here are some pics of my hotel. Service is the #1 priority in Bangalore. I have yet to open a door in the hotel (except my room) or pushed a button the elevator. Everyone is pretty much on hand and knee wanting to assist you or make sure your stay is as pleasant as possible. I've never had this kind of service anywhere before.

Hallway that has 4 restaurants to choose from

looking out from the hallway....a guy was cleaning it this morning when I took the pic

Pool, pretty nice pool too!

All the hotel rooms balconies that face the pool

Bangalore buildings

Where Dell is located there is a ton of IT buildings. Bangalore is a huge hub for IT facilities. Here are a few pics of the buildings. Some of the architecture is pretty cool.

Where the Dell campus is

Driving in Bangalore

I took some pics on my ride back to the hotel and wanted to share. There are really not rules of the road for people driving, but somehow it works. Streets are paved in some parts (very poorly) and dirt in others. Definitely different than in the US.

Painted walls

Some parts of the drive are nice with trees overlapping the roads

Look what I found...the Bell!!

Yep...cows just roam the streets

In the afternoon, it poured rain! It is monsoon season now. Can we get some of this in Texas?

Botanical Garden

I woke up at bright and early 7am today and went with one of the managers at Dell to the botanical garden in Bangalore. The garden was huge....however the botanical garden is different than what you think. For the most part it was open fields, and meadows. There were some places that had flowers, different cool looking trees, and monkeys! It was nice though because it was quiet without all the honking of cars that you hear in the city.

Monkeys that people actually fed...I stayed away from them

Entrance to garden

At the beginning of the entrance

Weird looking leaves from a tree

The manager and his family that I went out with

Dinner

The hotel that I am staying at is great. The service (might be the culture) is awesome. The food is also really good too. They have 4 restaurants that you can eat at.....Last night I ate at the 'Western' restaurant. I had a Caesar salad and grilled chicken. The salad was probably the best Caesar salad I have ever had.

Made it to Bangalore

I made it to my final work stop, Bangalore. The weather is actually pretty nice here (low 80's). I am pretty much over the shock factor now. What's the shock factor you ask? EVERYONE honks their horns....all the time. It is crazy loud. The drive from the airport to the hotel was around 45 minutes. Bangalore looks like one big city to me. No skyscrapers.
And everyone always talks about the nasty smell. Hmmm, I wouldn't say it is a nasty smell....more like a distinctive smell that only India could have :)  haha. It isn't too too bad though.
It is dinner time so I will have more to update later on!

my driver from the airport to the hotel

he put a hat on...he's fancy now!

Rickshaws are everywhere! (and pretty funny looking)

my room

view from the back of the room on the balcony

View from the front door

Bangalore flight

Well that was a rough flight! The captain came on before we took off and said that there would be storms and the seat belt light would be on the whole time. He sure was right. That was a 4 1/2 hour plane ride from Penang to Bangalore in turbulence...booo. At least he gave us the warning though.

1 more day in Penang

Today is Friday morning and my last day in Penang. Tomorrow morning I travel to Bangalore India. I have never been there so get ready for lots of pictures!
Yesterday, wasn't too exciting. We went to a very local place for lunch and had noodle dishes and I went to bed pretty early to catch up on the sleep. It was a good idea because today I feel awesome. No more jet lag! :)
I'm not really sure what is in store for this evening, but I will let you know on this AWESOME blog :)

BTW....I have seen the news in the US...I am glad I am not there because it is much hotter in the US than Malaysia. It is around the mid 90's in Malaysia and in India the high will be in the lower 80's.

Da Jet lag Da Jet lag!

Well, call me Nostradamus! I predicted that either the 3rd or 4th day I was here, I would be hit with jet lag. This prediction was due to my superior knowledge and past experience of being here 2 other times. This is the 4th day and this morning I woke up and it hit me.
If you have never had jet lag from being in a totally opposite time zone, it feels like a bus hit you and you feel drained. Your eyes burn, nose runs, body aches....just kidding. Really you just feel like you need 10 more hours of sleep and it feels like you have a head cold.
I shall go to bed early tonight!

Random pictures

A few pictures and comments while in Malaysia

This was a tea drink that started as a ball in the bottom and sprouted a flower in the glass as you drank it

lunch market that we went to today

I brought my napkins with me since restaurants don't have them

Random biker...what a stud

Our taxi driver :)

Angry Birds

The mobile game Angry Birds is very popular here. They have tshirts, stuffed animals, and food dedicated to the game. Below is cupcakes and cake that was in the mall and a guy selling it kept yelling "Don't make the birds angry!!"  ....weird

My Room

I must say, it is very awkward to have my bed in the middle of the room. We do have a menu of pillow choices...literally...a menu that lists each and a brief description. Which one did I choose? Heck, I don't know! I stayed with the pillows that the room came with. Here are the choices:

• Polyester Pillow
• Natural Response Countour Pillow
• Microfibre Pillow
• Latex Solutions Natural Latex Pillow

Yep, bed in the middle of the room. Notice the wood border around the bottom of the bed

A view from the room

Food

Since people always enjoy looking at pictures and hearing stories of the food I have eaten, here's a summary.
Breakfast is at the hotel. We are on the 'executive lounge' which offers us a breakfast buffet so I have that every morning. For lunch, co workers take us out. Yesterday we went to the mall and had food there, and today for lunch we went to one of my favorite places. Don't ask me what it is called, but they have duck. Hanging from the grill. You choose a duck, they cook it...slice it up and put it on a plate for you to eat. It sounds gross, but it is very good :)
For dinner last night we went to a Japanese restaurant that I was familiar with in the mall next to our hotel and tonight some co workers are taking us out. Not sure where we are going, but it will probably be good.

I haven't done the best of jobs taking pictures, because I have been here 3 times, but I am working on it. Expect lots of pictures when I am in Bangalore this weekend and next week!

Penang

It is now Tuesday evening and have been in Penang for the last 2 days. I must say that I feel much more comfortable here than the past times...I know where to go, what to eat, etc. so I am having a pretty good time. AND...I am still sleeping pretty good too throughout the night. Can't complain about that yet. I am still waiting for my 3rd or 4th night as that is when jetleg and the differences in time zones happen.
I was talking to a girl at work today who has been to Bangalore....it did not feed my desire of going anymore...she said that there is great food, but it is very noisy...a ton of traffic...and power outages that last for 5-10 seconds daily. GREAT! Ha....It will be an interesting trip to Bangalore when it happens...

Trip from Hong Kong to Penang

After the 14 1/2 hour flight from LAX to Hong Kong, I had about 6-7 hours to wait for my flight to Penang. I booked a hotel room at the airport hotel which was great because I got to take a shower and took about a 3 hour nap.
The Hong Kong airport is huge! It has 4 levels and was very confusing. I am glad there were English signs. I got stopped by a security officer and was told to remove my baseball cap I was wearing. Interesting huh? I guess I can't wear a cap in the airport....even though other people were wearing them. DISCRIMINATION! haha.
I have come to the conclusion I need to take a vacation to Hong Kong as it does look really beautiful surrounded by mountains and water and looks to be a cool city.....
Here are some pics I took while in Hong Kong:

the airport hotel room, just your basic room

view from hotel

other view from hotel

that is a lot of airport taxi's!

Sleep

Last night went pretty well. I woke up at 2:15am, 3:30am, and 4:50am....rolled around for a little while and was able to go back to sleep. Jet lag has not hit me yet thankfully...I'll give it about 2 days before I start popping the ambien to sleep throughout the night :)

Made it to Penang

Well I finally made it to Penang Sunday night. It is late here and I'm beat so I'll update this blog later to tell you about the trip from Hong Kong. Time for bed....

Airport and Airplane Pictures

There is my flight, 4th from the bottom

The power to do more ads in LAX...nice! They were everywhere

Dinner....chicken, shrimp salad, ice cream!

mmmmmmmmm

The crappy seats

Crappy seats...they don't recline! The seat (ass) of the seat just moves forward. Not comfortable