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The Urbanista Diaries Update from Bangalore
Ok, as usual, I have all these plans to blog tons and tons and tons when traveling, but jet lag and the warring desire between blogging and sleeping are foiling my plans...
Here is what I have been up to so far in my Urbanista Diaries adventure in a brief sketch:
Urbanista Day -2 : Wed. Feb 6, 2008 : Fly from LAX to LHR (aka Los Angeles to London).
Urbanista Day -1 : Thurs. Feb 7, 2008 : Arrive in London, lunch with Siobhan, Donna, and Colin from WOM World. Four hour nap, and then meet the WOM World folk plus Richard for a glass of wine at Gordon's Wine Bar on the Embankment. Dinner. Attempt to sleep.
Urbanista Day 0 : Fri. Feb 8, 2008 : Fly from London to Chennai, India. Don't sleep on plane in an attempt to get on the Indian time right. Arrive at 1am.
Urbanista Day 1 : Sat. Feb 9, 2008 : Pop up at 5:30am after 2.5 hours of sleep. WIDE AWAKE. Fear that I will miss the Chennai Photowalk. Distressed that Hotel is too far out of town and in a neighborhood that is unwalkable. Talk to Urbanista Jay around 7:30am, find that he is in a nice hotel in the downtown area, ask him to inquire if there is room in the inn for me. There is. Relieved. Gather self & belongings to transfer to the Ramada Raj Park.
Text Chandrachoodan, the Chennai Photowalk organizer, telling him I will be late. Take a taxi to new & better hotel. Arrive, feel greatly relieved as the hotel and neighborhood are comfortable & walkable. Text C. again to apologize for being late & tell him will try and meet the photowalk later. C. texts me back to tell me that the photowalk is on Sunday. Jet lag brain is horrified at the confusion and texting C early on a Saturday morning. Oops!
Jay and I go to lunch, then back to the hotel to use the wifi to get things organized. Jay and I catch a auto rickshaw to the Sam Thome Cathedral/Basilica. Walk around. Service going on so walk down to the beach. Get besieged by beggars. Go back to Cathedral, go inside, walk around look at it. Go visit Saint Thomas' tomb under the Cathedral. Walk a bit. Take lots of photos. Jet lag catches up to me something fierce. Jay & I go back to the hotel and discuss life, the world, and the mobile universer before he departed for the airport to fly back to the UK. Goodbye, Jay. End of day 1. Well, except I couldn't fall asleep until 3:30am...
Urbanista Day 2 : Sun. Feb 10, 2008 : The Day of the big Chennai Photowalk dawned bright and clear with me up just before dawn... Yes, once again, less than 4 hours sleep. I will write a whole separate post about the Chennai Photowalk, but it will suffice to say: It was Excellent. Excellent in the Bill & Ted fashion. I had a blast. 3 hours, 4.25 miles of meandering up & around Mount Rd, 87F degrees or more, sunny, 75% humidity, great photographers, even better conversation. Basically a ton of fun. I was sad when we parted at 11am, summer camp departure sad - wait! these are my new best friends - we can't leave - so moo & biz cards were procured. Now I have a bunch of great blogs to read and new flickr friends.
I got back to the hotel just in time for it to pour rain all afternoon and for the jet lag to smack me upside the head. Can go out and be a photo tourist when it is pouring, so I napped instead... Only to wake up many hours later just in time for a late dinner at the hotel and a night of NoSleep.
Urbanista Day 3 : Mon. Feb 11, 2008 :
Monday dawned bright and clear. Off to the Chennai airport it was after breakfast and a bit of interwebs to fly off to Bangalore. The traffic on the way to the airport was bad, but I still arrived too early and got to cool my heels by surreptitiously taking photos in the waiting lounge and on the bus to the plane. Must give Jet Airways India all props (literally) for their 60 some odd person propeller plane flight from Chennai to Bangalore as being a much nicer experience than British Airways flight from London to Chennai. More on my unimpressed with British Airways later.
The truth of the matter is that I like flying in propeller aircraft much much much better than large jet craft. Why? I grew up being a passenger in a four seater Cessna, as my dad was big on flying little planes. I like the organic feel of flying in a prop plane. I have a hard time really suspending my disbelief that a 747 or 777 can actually really and truly stay up, the big jets seem to ponderously lumber through the air, but the smaller prop planes seem to happily float along.
To see Chennai from the air during the day... well, wow! It is like LA or London - a sprawling beast. Quickly the landscape below got incementally drier until it started to look like Great Basin after a few good rains (pretty darned dry with some grass and scrubs), this made me feel more at home. Tropical lushness makes me a little nervous, a bit of aridity feels like home.
Arrive at Bangalore, encounter 20 mins. of confusion trying to find the driver for the Casa Piccolo folks. Drive to Richmond Town district, am happily pleased by the wide tree lined streets, 5 degrees or more cooler and the lack of serious humidity. Yay! Arrive at Casa Piccolo to find that I am in an apartment share on Alexandria Road with Mohan, a lawyer from NJ/NYC who has spent the last ten years in Tokyo. Mohan is ultra-cool and bright and has been in Bangalore for a week already, so he kindly helps me find my way around.
Lunch at Ulla's Refreshments on MG Road, then a walk down Brigade & Richmond Roads. Somehow it is already 6pm. Catch up on blogging for Ms. Jen. Around 8:30pm, Mohan and I venture out to Residency Road to see if Harima Japanese Restaurant is as good as the guide book says. I happily eat tseukemono and Oyaka Donburi. Mr. Tokyo pronounces Harima worthy. We walk back to Casa Piccolo. Tummies happy, we discuss life, the world, and the universe until 1am when I am ready to pass out. Jet lag the evil strikes at 5:30am when I pop back up! Up! Awake! ugh...
Urbanista Day 4 : Tues. Feb 12, 2008 : Cooler weather continues in Bangalore. Ms. Jen very happy. Breakfast at the great patio at Casa Piccolo cottage. Mohan helps me arrange for an auto rickshaw down to the Bull Temple on Bull Temple Road. It takes about 20 minutes to get there. The Bull Temple has two banners on the temple, one at the front entrance and the other on the sanctuary, letting the world know that Bull Temple is sponsored by Spectra Printing! Religion brought to you by...
After the Bull Temple I went back up to the apartment to meet up with Mohan to go to lunch at an Andhra Pradesh restaurant just off of Brigade Road next to the big red Levi's Store. The food was hot and excellent, we got the unlimited vegetarian meal (just kept coming) and the Fish Apollo (yum!). After lunch, we decided to photowalk (Mohan brought his Canon DSLR) down MG Road towards Cubbins Park and the Technology Museum. It was a very good photo afternoon and the Technology museum, while a bit dated, had great physical exhibits of engines, turbines, and electronic devices. The only downside to this whole afternoon was the terrible and intense cloud of pollution that just kept coming. More LGN auto rickshaws would be a big boon to Bangalore-ian lungs.
A quiet evening of blogging and photo sending only to crash out at 10pm and wake up, yes again at 3:30am! I gave up trying to sleep and wrote this blog post instead.
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Glad to know you survived Chennai. And YAY, it was fun too, the PhotoWalk.
Nice Work Jen, love your pics so far, great work/
The jetlag was a major issue for me too, sometimes you want to blog or go out but the sleep just kicks in.
And even now I'm still feeling the effects but it's getting better.