Holi festival

So we were invited to celebrate the Holi festival, which includes the throwing of pigments at each other in fun. The festival marks the beginning of Spring, and the triumph of good over evil. It was at a couple of the guys' at work's home. I'll post their names again here later. I just don't know how to spell them. They had celebrated it last year here, and I guess it got more elaborate this year. We had drinks and prepared food. Most of the guests were from the FX dept I believe. This was just an amazing experience and so much fun. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Downtown Bangalore II

So Michael and I went into downtown Bangalore today so we could purchase cheap shirts for tonights Holi festival at a couple of the guy's from work's house (more on this in next post).
So we had a new driver, Arun, who was my driver from the airport to hotel. He was great. Most shops were either closed or opening late due to the holiday and today being Sunday. So Arun mentioned going to Shiva temple, since Michael hadn't seen it we went.
We drove by Cubbon park which is 300 acres in middle of downtown. We went by the government buildings again. Arun mentioned an art museum so we went in there to kill time. It had nice ancient sculptures, arms, musical instruments, and paintings. We left early because it lost power and didn't seem like it was going back on at any time soon.
Next we went to a shop where Michael got first hand knowledge of how persistent the shop keepers can be. Even after we bought something and we were pulling out of driveway the salesman came out to try one more deal.
We ate at this great restaurant, Tandoor. The food was excellent.
Next a quick stop off at the Bangalore palace for Michael.
Commercial street was being dug up so we couldn't shop there. It's one of the major roads with shops. We found a side alley store that sold us two white shirts for 2 dollars. Afterwards we went back to hotel to decompress.

Mysore area and Palace

So today I was joined by our art director, Michael, for a trip out of Bangalore into Mysore. Our driver, Ravikiran (Ravi for short), picked us up at 9am. It was a 3 hour drive of very scenic landscapes. It was great to get out of the city limits and enjoy the open landscape. The first photo was of this little stand but I noticed a pay phone attached to the tree that I thought was funny.
We started off with a visit to a smaller section of palace grounds. Then we stopped off for Lunch at this great palace now converted into a hotel. After lunch we made our way to nice temple. Here Michael and I were surrounded by random people selling various jewerly, postcards, etc. Many didn't take no for an answer and kept saying "buy buy". Michael made a quick friend with this young boy who was selling postcards. He began asking us to quiz him on capitols around the world. Michael tried to see if he could stump him, but the boy was surprisingly very good and had a pretty wide knowledge of them. When he tried quizzing us, we didn't fair as well. Lots of cattle were around here, along with cute little monkeys.
Next we stopped off to see a large statue of a bull, which is associated with god, Shiva. There was a priest inside whole was giving people a blessing with a coconut water. Michael and I went to the upper part to take photos. While we were a man on lower portion lifted his little boy up to us in order for his boy to shake our hands. For some reason the local people like to shake vistor's hands it seems. This happened to me in the park last weekend. A few minutes later he had his little girl come over and shake our hand as well.
Now we headed over to the main attraction the Mysore Palace. This was a spectacular part. It put the Bangalore palace to shame. It was in much better condition and was more vast. It's amazing the level of detail in the ornateness of every portion. We had to take our shoes off and leave them behind to go through. We didn't do this at the temple since it looked a little shady where we would have left our shoes.
It was getting later in day and we had seen enough. Ravi took us on the long trek back to our hotel. The drive back ended up taking much longer because of congested traffic and a muslim procession in the center of Bangalore. It was fine, but I was getting hungry towards the end. Ravi was really apologetic about the added time it was taking. Michael and I were in no rush and it was one more experience to take in.

Random post

Random thoughts by Eric.
So I'm planning my next weekend trip which is coming soon, but I wanted to post a couple things.
This may sound lame, but I sent some of my clothes to the hotel laundry during workday. When I got back from work I found all the clothes in these neat plastic wrappers. The clothes were folded nice, but the kicker was each piece was pressed, had a band around it to keep it folded and cardboard backing. It looked like I had just bought a brand new shirt. Very impressive.
The other photo is a random dessert. So not everyday but randomly I'll come back from work in evening and I'll have one of these designer looking desserts. Very elegant.
The little car in last photo (which you've seen in other photos) is a tata taxi (also called Auto). It's a 3 wheel like golfcart like cab. This is the common public taxi car people take. It is really cheap, but beware the drivers are really bad.
Ah, I've been using Indian Rupees now when paying for items. I'm trying to be careful paying in exact change, because since the currency is so high in denominations no one wants to give change. A couple of the guys warned me and have said that at least in our business court when they don't have real change they just give you little candies. Can you believe getting your change back from a store in candy? I thought that was really funny.
The brown outs in power happen quite often as I'm starting to notice. I'll be eating dinner when poof the lights go out and the backup generator kicks on after a few seconds.
Oh, I went with a co-worker to nearby mall called Cosmos to get a haircut. It cost me grand total of 110 rupees, which went converted whole total of $2.25 about. Crazy.

Downtown Bangalore--Weekend 1 part III

So on Sunday, two of the guys in Matte Painting, Prasad and Yash, were going out to shoot photos. I asked if I could come along. They had started a photography club at work. This days shoot was on theme of rust. I met them at the Lal Bagh park (so twice now I visited). My driver, Mohan, had a hard time finding which gate Prasad meant. We waited at wrong gate for awhile till Prasad called and said, "where are you?". It's hard relying on a driver and also trying to explain subtle things, but I guess I will get used to it all. I also feel bad because what happens is he picks me up and drops me off wherever I need to go, but he ends up waiting somewhere in car nearby till I need him again. How it works is he is booked for 1/2 day or all day and since traffic is too crazy he can't easily leave the area, nor come back quickly if does so. This is a little uncomfortable but the other Americans (expats as they call them) say you will get used to it, it's just how it works here. So we were joined with another India Dreamworks guy, Vimal, and his wife. We went around shooting photos and reference (I won't bore you with reference photos). It was great being shown around by the guys since they've been here for 6 mos to a year now. Afterwards Prasad, Yash and myself went for lunch at a place near work. We tried unsuccessfully eating at two other restaurants but since the time was between normal breakfast and lunch hours we had to keep trying different options. We ate an indian meal, and I was able to eat non-veg here. It was all very good, and they were impressed that I didn't find the food too spicy. Ah, now something that came up earlier in week too. So you eat Naan with your hands and you're supposed to rip it about only using one hand (according to custom) and it makes you hands oily and slightly dirty. At the end of the meal they give you a bowl of water with lemon in it. It almost looks like you are being served soup, but what it is that you rinse you hands in the bowl and rub the lemon on your fingers to get rid of dirt and oil. It works really well. We all talked for awhile and eventually it was time to go. I called Mohan to pick me up again and it was back to the hotel for me so I could finally update the blog and download my photos. Another thing happened that I was able to take a photo. Just one more thing about the contrasts that exist here. Even in the middle of busy streets where you would never expect to see it, random cows and bulls roam the streets all on there own. They are just strays. I got a photo of some of them.

Downtown Bangalore--Weekend 1 Part II

So I'm not entirely used to blogspot and it's organizing of photos so you'll have to bear with me on how randomly it places photos. So my driver, Mohan, came at 10am. His English was a little hard to understand at first and I'm sure my English was the same to him. He's a very nice man and was very helpful. During the hour long drive into Bangalore downtown (which is only 15 kilometers, I don't know the miles equivalent so you can see that traffic is really slow. Sometimes it can take two hours). Along the way it was amazing to see all the contrasting images. Modern buildings mixed with stucco type old hut like houses. The traffic was amazing and still is to me. Its this organic flow of motorbikes, cars, three wheel cars, bikes, and people. Somehow it all works. But it can feel pretty scary at first. Everyone honks to warn that they are near. Its not a loud obnoxious horn but a little hey I'm hear kinda honk.
So I visited a small little temple with a large statue of I believe Shiva. My driver recommended we leave our shoes in the car, so we walked bare footed from parking lot through this long maze of hallways through little puddles, cobblestones, etc. It was neat to see though. After, I went to Lal Bagh Park. This was great and the park is huge. It was refreshing to have so much green amongst such a dense city. I took a little golf cart tour. A man from Japan sat next to me, it was his first week in India also. We all toured around for 45 minutes. The park was very nice. At the end there was a high rock area with a shrine like structure. From here it was great to see the city spread around me. I went to see some of there government buildings in downtown too. They are called Vidhana Soudha and Vikasa Soudha (please forgive the quick Photoshop job on this picture). Afterward I went to the Bangalore Palace. This is a Tudor reconstruction that was just outstanding. Inside is where the King of this region lived (if I remember correctly). It was a long lineage of 26 generations. The last king is only a title, and he is a fashion designer. During the very beginning of my tour I experienced what happens often here, a brown out. We lost power for about 5 minutes. Some of the guys in Office were telling me it happened to them a lot in there places. So far my hotel is free of that, fingers crossed that continues. Unfortunately Mohan misinformed me when I exited the castle. He said I could take photos outside but not inside. I snapped one photo when a guard came running over to me saying no photos. I walked back to car and asked Mohan again and he said from here you can take photo outside the gate. So once again I snapped a photo, and a guard came running. Mohan then said time to go. Lesson learned, snap and go. He dropped my off for lunch at this nearby hotel and told me that it had vegetarian and non-veg, along with different cuisines. I went inside and found out it was only indian vegetarian food. It was good and fine but I wasn't sure exactly I ate. Next we were off to the local markets and shops. Here I quickly found out that the stores really expect Americans to buy lots of stuff. The salesman kept showing me more and more pieces, and wouldn't take my "I'm just looking" response. I am not a shopper in the first place and this quickly wore thin. I wanted to see the different items but not with the guy trying to make me a deal on everything. The next shop he took me too was exactly the same thing. I ended up looking at about 20 different types of jewelry until I had to force him to let me look at some of the other floors of stuff. Even then he was which two do you really like, I will give you a great deal. After this I lost most of my energy for shopping. Mohan took me to the Brigade and Commercial roads which have tons and tons of shops. I quickly told Mohan thanks for showing me but I would not be getting out and it was time to head back to hotel for me.