Week of August 22nd!

I woke up one morning this week and these guys were out mowing the lawn. I found it to be a very unusual way to mow a lawn. The two guys in front pulled the mower while I guess the guy in back steered.


So below are the pictures of the modern buildings and then things going on surrounding the modern buildings. These pictures are from Gurgaon on the drive to work.

Can't tell to much from the picture below but there is some type of funky part to the building (to the right in this picture) - not sure if it is functional or just for looks.

As soon as I took the two pictures above the guy below was making his way down the same road.

You can see the modern building in the back ground of this picture of mom and her babies! I hope their not all hers!!

The modern building in the background of the picture above.


Me trying on a Sari. A lot of the SMEs have bought Sari's - I'm not sure that I'll get one because they are expensive and I really won't get to wear it any where. The one below would be way to dressy for work. I did buy some Indian clothes - I'll try and take pictures when I wear the outfits to work! I was all excited to wear them to work when I was shopping but now that I have them I keep putting off wearing them. I feel a little silly in them because they are so different from what I usually wear. And I keep thinking people are going to be laughing at this white girl wearing Indian clothes! :o)


The SMEs who had bought Indian clothes wanted a chance to wear them so we had a formal dinner at an Indian restaurant call Bukhara. The restaurant is in the Sheraton hotel and is very popular with American's because this is where Bill Clinton eats when he comes to India. I'm not a big fan of India food but this restaurant was AWESOME!! Now I'm going to try a few more Indian restaurants to see if I really like Indian food or if this place just does something different! Below is Amritha (Orlando), Abbas (Lincolnshire), and Beth (Atlanta).


View of all the awesome meat!!


After dinner we drove up to the northern suburbs of Delhi to go to a club called Elevate. The drive up there was a very different site from everything else I had seen in India so far. We got on a highway and the highway was very much like one you would find in the US - in fact it made me feel like I was in Miami or something like that. Obviously not as nice as Miami but similar views from the highway. The club was in the top of a mall. The mall was amazing - it was about 6 or 7 floors and it was very modern - again like something you'd see in the US. Unfortunately we couldn't bring cameras into the club because I would have loved to have taken pictures. The club was amazing - it was just like a club you'd find in New York or some big city like that. It was very stylish and expensive. And I don't just mean expensive for India. To get in it was 500 rupees (almost $12) and that was only if you were a couple. If you were by yourself it was 1000 rupees. Drinks ranged from 300 - 500 rupees - or at least the ones I had. It just amazes me how you can go shopping and eat food that is so cheap in one place but you go to another place or a club like this and it is so expensive. Someone told me that this club was ranked the number one club in Asia - it got my vote! We had a really good time. They played mostly top 40, hip-hop, and Indian songs. There are some Indian songs that I'm really starting to like!

Flowers I got in my room. All the other SMEs were getting flowers in their room so I asked for some too!!


Some other interesting stories from this past week...

The SMEs are split up at two different hotels. The word is that the Grand has better food and bathrooms and the Taj has better service. I learned just how good our service is!! The hotel ask to have a preference meeting with us so they can find out what we like or don't like so they can better service us. In the meeting I mentioned that I would like to have a clock in my room. It was driving me crazy not having anything to glance at to find out the time - especially at night. I told them it didn't have to be an alarm clock because we could get wake up calls. So the meeting was in the morning, by the time I got home from work I had a big wall clock on my wall. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting but I was pretty impressed they had it there that quickly. So then the next day I was down in the gym working out - I looked over to see what time it was and guess what... no clock. They took the clock from the gym and put it in my room because I had made the request. I was very grateful but I had to laugh. A little more than a week later they finally got a new clock for the gym!

Another thing that I've learned is pretty constant is people using the bathroom on the side of the road. I had seen this a bunch on my trip to Agra but now that I have been driving to the office for a couple weeks I realize it is common place. A guy will just pull his car off the road get out, go to the bathroom, get back in his car and take off. And again they don't take much effort to conceal themselves. One drive home I saw 3 people using the bathroom - one girl we drive with said that is her record - 3 in one day! Can you imagine driving down Peachtree Road and seeing this!!

August 19th - August 22nd - Singapore

We left Friday night for Singapore and arrived Saturday morning! It was about a 6 hour flight, but completely worth it!! I LOVE Singapore. If I could live any where outside the US it would be Singapore. It is warm, clean, beautiful, more shopping than you can imagine, friendly people, relatively inexpensive, water all around - since it is an island, and the most amazing fruit in the world - what more could you ask for!! This was my second trip there this year. I have friends that live in Singapore. Below is me trying to get a picture of the trees - they are so beautiful - they look like huge bonsai trees.


As soon as I got in my friend picked me up from the airport. We went back to their place and had breakfast and then headed for Malaysia. There is a city right across the bridge called Johor Bahru. It isn't anything special but it has some good shopping. We just ran over there for about an hour to hit some spots that I hit last time I was there. Below is a picture of a stop light in Malaysia - all through out Asia they have count downs until the light will turn green - I think it is great! They even have them at a few lights in India.


Picture of Orchard Road - the Peachtree of Singapore! Notice how clean the streets are and how nicely manicured the trees are - clean Singapore!! It was definitely hard to come back to India after being here for the weekend.


All the girls from India in Singapore - Beth, me, Erica, Emily, Minal, Neysha, and Folake! We are at the hotel bar where they stayed.


Theo, Michelle, and me - my friends that live here!


Pineapple rice we had at dinner - it came in an actual pineapple! Umm Umm!


View from table at dinner!


Club we went to after dinner!


Sunday my friend and I went windsurfing on this beach below. The sand castle was neat but all the tankers in the back ground took away from it a little! The water wasn't the cleanest but it wasn't all that bad either.


Newton Circus Hawker center. It is just an area with a ton of different food stalls. I stopped by to pick up some of my favorite fruits and had a glass of freshly squeezed (well not squeezed but you get the idea) Pineapple Juice - it was the best I've ever had!! I could live in Singapore just for the Pineapple!

Week of Tuesday, August 16th
I am starting my first day of work in India and I feel like I'm starting at a brand new company. I'm nervous for what I will experience today. We met in the lobby at 11:30am to take the car to work in Gurgaon. My hours are 12:15pm to 8:45pm. It takes about 45 minutes to get to work in the morning and any where from an hour to an hour and a half to get home at night. It makes for a long day! The drive to work takes us through the southern part of Delhi. Each morning there are certain spots that are slower than others - this usually occurs in Delhi where people are trying to catch buses to work, school, or where ever they are going. Once we get to Gurgaon the traffic isn't to bad. The roads in Delhi as a whole are in much better condition than they are in Gurgaon. Even though there are more modern buildings in Gurgaon the roads are in much worse condition. Not sure if it is because they have not been able to keep up with the progress, they just don't have the money to fix the roads, or if the resources are being used to build all the buildings around Gurgaon. It is funny how modern the buildings are - I would just expect them to build a plain building but instead they make it at odd angles with interesting architectural work. I wasn't able to get any good examples of this but hopefully I can take some later. Below is a view from the front side of the building - this is the road we come in on.


Below is a picture of moth balls in the bathroom sink at work. The only other place I've seen this is in the bathrooms at the airport. Not exactly sure why and it doesn't make for a pleasant smell but I think it is to keep bugs from coming up the sink.


View from my desk. It is hard to see in this picture but the first cube you can see has a picture of a little girl. She is a little white girl so you know it isn't the daughter or sister of the girl at the desk. By the end of this week I started noticing a lot of other cubes that had similar pictures of the same little girl. I was thinking it was very strange - I finally asked why everyone had this picture up. An e-mail got passed around the office with the little girls picture and it was saying how she was the highest paid model in the US - not sure if she is the highest child model or model in general but I guess they liked the idea and the picture so much that they hung it up in their cube.


My desk.


This is just to the right of our building.



They are building another building next to ours. I read a book called Shantaram - in this book the main character lives in the slums for awhile. The book made it seem like the slums where there because of the construction of this large office building. The workers that work on building the building live in the slums with their families and other people that join them to live in the slums. I'm thinking this might be the reason there are slums right next to our building. They probably lived there while our building was going up and they are just staying as they work on the next building. It is just such a contrast - modern building and slums - right next to each other.


The front of our building.


Entrance to our building.


Condo looking buildings not to far from work.


My first few days at work I mostly got settled and helped a little bit with coaching other regions SCAs. All of my SCA's are in training until the 24th. It was funny - I didn't necessarily plan to help coach other regions but I overheard an SCA asking questions of Jamie - who was teaching the training class. I knew she was busy with that so I offered to help out. Once I helped this one girl, people just starting coming to my desk asking for help. They were so nice and polite when they came to ask questions. I had no clue what their names were but they knew mine.

The food that we get at work is vegetarian Indian food only. I ate the food twice this week. It is not something that I enjoy but it is lunch. I don't like spicy food so that narrows things down for me even further. I usually have rice, some type of potato dish, and roti - these things can usually fill me up enough to get by for awhile. I do put other things on my plate and at least try a bite or two but that is usually all I can eat of it. Wednesday I went out for lunch. We went to a mall called DT's food court. The food court was much like one you'd find in the US. It had a Mc Donalds, Subway, and several Indian restaurants. Of course I had the Subway! I got a Subway Melt - which is the same sandwich I usually get in the states but it was very different. The sandwich is suppose to have ham, turkey, and bacon. I think the sandwich had the same meats but when they were making the sandwich I couldn't tell the difference between the ham and turkey. The bread was actually better in India than it is in the US - it seemed fresher. Friday I missed lunch because of training. Since they have associates that work all kinds of hours they have this vendor that comes in and sells food. They sell sandwiches, chips, sodas, and other snacks. It is very cheap compared to American standards. I got a veggie sandwich that was 18 rupees - which is less than 50 cents. The sandwich wasn't much but for the price you can get two sandwiches! Everyone says the cheese sandwich is the best but they were out of them on Friday.




Thursday night we went to a dinner with all the SMEs. There were 21 of us here - I think we were missing only one or two SMEs. The resturant we went to was called 360 - it is in the Oberoi hotel. The hotel was awesome - it is a 5 star just like the Taj but it seemed a little nicer. Much more modern than the Taj.





I taught my first training class on Friday. I did a BF Query exercise - I think everyone really enjoyed it because it was a hands on exercise and they were sick of CBTs at this point. One cultural difference from the US that I found interesting was when you were helping someone work on a query someone else would come right up to you and interrupt and start asking you questions - almost as if you weren't helping anyone else. At first it was hard to get use to but then I realized you just have to tell then you'd be over in a second to help them.

Monday, August 15th Independence Day!! Today we went shopping at a place called Dilli Haat. We took a cab from the hotel and where we got out this elephant was on the corner waiting to give people rides. We arranged with our cab driver to wait for us. It is suppose to cost about 20 rupees an hour for the cab driver to wait around - that is a little less than 50 cents.


We had to pay 15 rupees to get into the shopping area. It was a crafts type shopping area with things such as scarves, pillow covers, bed covers, clothes, purses, some leather goods, and jewelry. Everything was pretty cheap. I got five scarves and a necklace. All for less than $35 dollars.

The picture below might be hard to see but it is a picture of a long string of kites. The big thing to do on Independence Day in India is to fly kites. They put this string of multiple kites into the air, then they were letting kids hold onto the string w/ a little adult supervision!


This is a view of the market - they decorated it up nice for the celebration. They had a band playing some type of music and they were handing out Indian flags.

After we left this market we took our cab to another shopping are called Connaught Place. This area is a huge shopping district. There is both indoor shops and an open air market. We went to one of the shops where Erica and Beth had some Indian clothes made. I looked around at some of the pre-made stuff but I wanted to wait a little bit before I started buying to much stuff. I wanted to get a better idea of the type of Indian clothes I like before I started buying.

We took our cab back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had 8:30pm reservations at a place called Olive. It was an Italian restaurant. Jamie joined us for dinner and we had our same driver take us to the restaurant. The restaurant was very good and reminded me a lot of the type of place you could find in Atlanta - it was almost hard to believe we were in India.


Once we were done with dinner we took the cab back to the restaurant. I wanted to get to bed early so I wasn't tired for my first day at work!! The real reason I came to India!! :o)

We had ended up using the driver for about 8 hours - the total came to 850 rupees! This is about $20 and from what the other girls were saying he over charged us a little bit! If only cabs were half this cheap in the states!!

Sunday, August 14th left hotel at 7am for Agra where the Taj Mahal is located. I was not feeling all that well this morning but there was a group going to see the Taj Mahal and I didn't want to miss out. I think it is about 126 miles from New Delhi but it ended up taking 4 1/2 hours to get there.

There were so many interesting sites along the way! As you can see in the first picture below one of the things you see a lot on the side of the road are cows. Sometimes they are even in the middle of the road!!

All through out the trip - in New Delhi and even in the smaller towns in between you saw people living on the side of the road and I don't mean like in the picture below. The people below actually have a house that looks some what normal. Mostly what you see are people literally living on the side of the road. They just lie on the ground right beside the road - some lay on mats, some right on the dirt. I will try and get a picture of this eventually. Not only are they sleeping on the side of the road they do everything else on the side of the road. I saw one guy shaving, people eating, and even people going to the bathroom (mostly men - although I did see one little girl). The bathroom thing you see a lot - they do face away from you but what I don't understand is why they don't walk 10 more feet to go behind the bush or tree. Same w/ sleeping. You would think they would go 100 feet off the road so it would be more quite and less dusty but nope!


As you see above these people have their cows tied up! This picture was right along the road - we just pulled right over and took a picture.


Here is another typical view right along the road. This is some type of market where they are selling all kinds of things. There was always so much going on right along the road.

There have been so many things that I wish I took pictures of! First, we were about half way through our trip and the driver started pulling over. As he was pulling over we spotted some monkeys and then even a bear! At first we thought they were so cute and we pulled out our cameras - as we were doing this our driver was saying something - there were all kinds of things going on at this point so I didn't really catch what he was saying but I think he was saying something about them wanting money if we took pictures. At first we thought it was okay b/c we wanted to get pictures of the animals. Just as that was going on our driver got out of the car and disappeared. The other people in the car took a few pictures - I ended up not taking any b/c as I looked closer it was kind of sad. They monkey and bear were there so these men could make money and they were very aggressive about it. Just as Beth was done taking a couple pictures the guy was demanding 500 (just over $10) rupees - which was a lot of money for India. She ended up giving him 50 rupees but the guy kept hassling her. They were getting real aggressive wanting her to pay more and I kept trying to role up the window. At this point we just wanted to get out of there. We all started looking around for our driver but he was no where in site. We finally got all our windows up and we were really getting mad our driver disappeared on us! More people came up to the car trying to sell us all kind of things - jewelry, wooden chess sets, etc. They just push them right up to the glass on the window. Then a guy w/ a Cobra snake came up and started trying to make his snake dance for us. It was the most disgusting snake I'd ever seen. It was flat like - not round like most snakes and it had its cobra like head. It looked like it wasn't taken very good care of!! When I saw that I really started to freak out! Finally after another 5 min our driver showed up! We tried asking him where he was but he played like he didn't understand the question - when previously he had been talking w/ Bruce in the front seat - answering all his questions along the way. It was a very strange and a little to convenient!

A second thing that I found very bizarre was when we got to Agra we hit this train crossing. The arms for the crossing gate were down - we happen to be about the second car in line. There are all these mopeds, motorcycles, etc that are always on the road. Well a majority of these people were leaning their bikes down to go under the rail and crossing the tracks (the rail isn't like in the state where you could go around if you wanted - it stretches across the whole road). This was going on for over 5 min - it was crazy - and none of them even hesitated looking for a train coming. I don't know if it was a common thing for them to put the crossing arm down well in advance so everyone is use to it or what but I just kept waiting for the train to come and wipe all these people out. I'd say at least 30 - 40 people crossed under the arms - both ways!


St. Johns College - made of red sandstone - one of Agra's most prestigious colleges and apparently there are a lot of colleges in Agra. Agra is the city where Taj Mahal is located and it has about 1.5 million people in the city.


Entry way into the Taj Mahal. As you can see from the picture there were a ton of people there that day. It was the day before Independence Day so it was probably a high tourist time. I was really surprised at the crowd - I don't know why but I expected more 'white' tourist from the US and Europe but it was probably about 98% - 99% Indian. It was also VERY hot!! Our guide said it was 120 degrees - I don't think it was that hot but definitely somewhere b/w 100 and 110.



Below is a closer view of the North gate into the Taj. The flower design you see on the building is made with precious stones built into the white marble. It was really beautiful. The small domes on the top of the entry way represent the number of years it took to build the Taj - there are 11 that you can see in this picture and another 11 on the back side of the entry way.

Here is the Taj - it was amazing! It was build by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife (note the favorite wife bit - which means he had several), Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631.

Again, notice all the people!



Below is Myself, Beth Moore, Jamie, and Bruce Williams. All are Hewitt Associates.

This was a famous pose that everyone was doing. They wanted me to lay on the bench - kind of like a model pose but I refused to do that one - it felt silly and the bench was about 150 degrees to sit on.


Here is a closer view of the Taj Mahal. The tomb of Mumtaz Mahal and her husband are inside. We went in there to see it but one there wasn't much to see and two getting inside was one of the most miserable experiences of my life! You walk into the entry way where everyone is waiting to go through this doorway. There was no breeze - and I guess marble doesn't hold coolness like stone b/c it was probably around 95 - 100 degrees in there and people were packed in very closely - I don't think I've EVER sweated so much in my life! We were really debating about going in to the tomb part - I wish we hadn't!! We made our way to the doorway and you literally had to fight your way through the door. People are going both in and out. The men have NO regard for the women and just push themselves through - it was the most bizarre thing I've experienced. Once we go in - like I said there really wasn't much to see. It wasn't as crowded once you got in but it was pretty warm - so we didn't stay long. Getting out was worse. Bruce tried to be nice and hold the crowd back a little so the girls could go through but the Indian men did not like that at ALL. There was some words - none of which we understood and some definite looks - and they weren't nice looks! It was surreal!!





The writing in black on the side actually gets bigger as it goes up so that it looks the same size as the bottom when you are looking up from the ground.


This is a monument to the West of the Taj Mahal - it is all part of the whole thing.





Me sitting on the Taj - this gives you an idea of how big it is!


This is the view as we were leaving. It isn't a really good picture to show you but this is where you give your ticket to get in. There were long lines w/ me standing as close to each other as you could possibly stand. We got lucky and didn't have to wait in this line - b/c we had a guide he told us to go to the very front and just go in. He talked to one of the guys taking tickets and they let us in. I was really surprised that people waiting in the line didn't complain or even say anything. To get into the Taj we couldn't bring food or electronics (except we could bring a camera). By electronics they clarified that they meant a phone or calculator - not sure why they would say calculator but it was said many times!! When you go through the entrance they search your bag and then as you walk by they feel you up to make sure you don't have anything on you - it was again a very strange experience!!

Also I was just talking to a co-worker and she told me that when she went to visit the Taj she went with some Indian people. We had to pay 750 rupees (~$17 US dollars) to get in and the Indians only have to pay 40 rupees (~ 50 cents). It is like that in a lot of places - especially on air fare around India.



This is a picture of the Red Fort - we had kind of had enough w/ the Taj so we decided just to do a drive by!!


This is a view of the Taj Mahal from the Red Fort.


The back of the truck says Blow Horn - you see that or Honk Please on all the trucks. Basically if you are driving down the road and the car in front of you is going to slow you just honk your horn until they move over. I've learned that some drivers are more horn happy than others - sometimes they will just do a little beep - others will lay on it until the car moves over. Another thing about driving here that is funny is the lanes. There are usually about 2 lanes on most roads we go on, but in India they make 2 lanes at least 3 lanes - so basically there are no lines - you just go where you can to get by other cars. Also at some intersections if there is a light and it is red and you feel you can go - cars just go through the red light - kind of like stop signs in the US - sometimes they become rolling stop signs if no cars are near by.


I was use to seeing cows in the road but they said these were Water Buffalo!

As you can see they have the right of way!!


The Water Buffalo where heading to water!


This guy was just walking down the middle of the street w/ his goods! The veggies looked very good but that would probably end badly if I were to try and eat any of it - especially since it looked like it was peeled w/ a knife.


This was a camel in the road as we were heading back to Delhi - this is a major highway! Not something you see often!


Here is some more of the sights on the road back to Delhi from Agra! Notice the huts in the back ground.


These are some women we saw on the trip back. They were carrying water back to their house. She had to cross the highway so her face wasn't covered but as soon as she saw us pull over and try to take a picture she covered her face - not really sure what the custom is here!


This was a house that was next to the picture below. This is Lord Shiva, I believe it is one of the Hindu Gods.



Here is a picture of the Auto Rickshaws. There are a lot of people in this one!!


Interesting sign along the highway - we were stuck in traffic waiting to pay a toll.

From what I've heard the police often take bribes - the guy in all brown is a police officer and he was taking money form these guys so I can only assume it was a bribe.