Things to do in PS

Hello. It's been 2 weeks in Bengaluru, and there's so much to talk about. I mean, as I am getting pushed and shoved in the bus, I think of a blog post, as I am helplessly swindled out of 100 bucks by these bloody rickshaw drivers, I wonder how I'm going to put the experience to words.

Office has been good, got my cubicle and desk y'day. Office people are really awesome and cool. And no, I am not trying to suck up... not so soon at least :)

However that's for later. First things first. I see a lot of status messages, saying PS sucks, or rocks(same guy actually) or giving links about what they're doing and stuff like that. Now how much does your PS rock, is a difficult thing to measure. I am sure, you'll all agree, no PS could possibly agree like mine (if you disagree go piss on yourself), so as a goodwill gesture I'll be listing some of the things that I did during my PS-2 and you can judge for yourself how well you compare. (PS stands for Practice School, and its a 6 month paid internship during the final year at BITS-Pilani) My PS was in Singapore at Infineon (no no, the list hasn't begun, I'm not so brutal :)) It was my first trip abroad, I left with an empty passport and returned with no pages to spare.

So here goes(in no particular order, all equally awesome)

1. Attended a Coldplay Concert - best band in the world I'd reckon
2. Cycled 40km for a cycling marathon
3. Ran a full marathon - and fell in love with running
4. Went to Arab Street for an authentic belly dancing show, and danced with the dancer (no I wasn't drunk, not until then and I do have pics to prove it)
5. Attended the Malaysian Grand Prix

...if you're already green with envy, you had better stop, I am just starting
6. Saw a stunt biking event, back flips and stuff, in front of my eyes
7. Called friends over for a week to Singapore(Rushi and Dhruv... you guys rock)
8. Brought my family over for their first foreign trip to Singapore and Malaysia.
9. Went to Malaysia 4 times.(most Singaporeans haven't :) and its just an hours drive from anywhere in Singapore)
10. Saw Disneyland and fell in love with Snow White (HAHA, over these 6 months, I fell in love many tims over :))
11. Went to Macau and Hong Kong, for bunjy jumping(world's highest), gambling in the world's awesomest casinos, Lantau island to see the Buddha(here too fell in love with the persona of the Buddha), an awesome show that left me crazy and happy, drank Russian vodka at -22 degrees.
12. Tried more cuisines that I like count. More sea food than exists in the Arabian Sea
13. Went to LAOS, an authentic back-packers destination(I have been to places, even google maps has no info about :))
14. ohh before I forget, I did get to do a cool project at Infineon, which I finished and my mentor was impressed.
15. Had a pic taken with a prominent film actress ('twas Sameera Reddy folks, and regardless of what passers by tell you, it was she who asked, no insisted on a pic)
16. Oh, how could I forget the Madame Tussaud's Wax museum in Hong Kong. We almost molested most of the figures there :)
17. Made some really really awesome friends at CHYK (Chinmaya Yuva Kendra), who made the stay so much more awesomer.
18. Went to a Indian pub for a cricket match, and came out happy and awesome, despite not even knowing who won the match... this may not sound so great, but for some things, you just have to be there to know. :)
19. Drove a car at about 190kmph on Malaysian highways (why didn't I cross 200, you ask, it was the speed limit I say, and before you can smirk, I say again, the speed limit is of the car not the road- that was 130 :))
20. Kayak'ed down river Mekong for over 50 km, this was in Laos.
21. Tried Lao Lao, thats a drink where they politely insert whole anima parts in a rice based alcoholic drink, the ones we tries were, sea horse, millipede and bear's feet (close your mouth, yeah its true, and yeah I have pics again)
22. Jumped into the river about 6 times, mostly from a circus bar-about 3-4 m, and once from a gorge, about 8-10 m high. No pics here, but the video is on youtube :)
23. Learnt the guitar and swimming... well I haven't lied and don't intend to start. Both I couldn't realllly get a hang of but desperately want to continue here in Bengaluru.
24. Blogged a lot and also launched my website... blog is still active, as you can figuere, website ke liye, wait a little, I promise I won't disappoint. Will update not too far from today.
25. There are a lot more things that come to mind, but I can't mention for this is a public forum :), there are children reading this :) and I fear for my safety :).

I am now both tired from typing, and nostalgic from remembering all those fun times. I had a wonderful wonderful time there. 6 unforgettable life-altering months. I am sure, I am forgetting some stuff, so until I am reminded of them, you can go on feeling depressed about your life. :)

All the pics are in my album(the link is to the right) and you're free to comment.

Errata: Stuff I initially forgot

26. Brewed our own beer at home, seriously we did man! And it was wheat beer, not the ubiquitous lager beer.

Malaysia Road Trip- Epidose 2

Life is getting funner day by day, and I am obliged to blog ever so often so that I may share my joy with the rest of the world... though the feeling that most of you are probably experiencing right now, hearing our exploits, could be more aptly described as misery!!! (c'mon guys admit it, you are jealous. It happens la, "Life's unfair, deal with it"). Okay okay, enough with it.

What's struck me the last few days is the irony of life and the brilliance of its unpredictability. Being an Indian, cricket runs in my arteries... or is it capillaries, or wait... isn't it veins, oh screw it, let's just say blood shall we, I have never gone to a stadium to watch a match, and on the other hand, if there's one sport whose world following and economic power, baffles me its F1, and on the third front, during our last visit to Malaysia, while we were leaving Kuala Lampur, we kept looking back at the Petronas Towers thinking, "Pata nahin abhi kab mauka milega, vaapis dekhne ka". It's hardly been 3 weeks now, we're going back to Malaysia again on a road trip and to watch the Malaysian Grand Prix. Awesome right? Fine, so if green stands for envy, you must right now be preparing your own food.. you know, green..uhh. photosynthesis. Yeah, really bad joke, but lite.

Last time, we were driving out of Malacca, on our way to Kuala Lampur. There wasn't a lot of getting lost this time, as the roads were pretty much our guide. One thing that strikes you in Malaysia, is the scale of things. Everything is just 10-15 times bigger than in Singapore. The housing areas, the forested areas, the cities and even the hills. The speed limit was 90kmph, and everyone, in every lane, obediently stayed above it. When you keep moving for so long at such speeds, your frame of reference gets altered. So when you do eventually get down, you half expect every bus, to whizz past you.

The thing about a road trip to a foreign country is that, when you arrive, you spend hours and days trying to get to know the roads, and just when you get the hang of it, it's time to leave, and the point is lost.

But I can tell you this for sure, there's no joy, like driving around in circles in a foreign country, where no two passers-by seem to agree on the right road to take to a landmark(Petronas Towers) that can be seen from everywhere, where no turn is right(as in wrong, for those of you who are slow and didn't get the intended pun), where you get so hopelessly lost-you start to get what that guy meant by, "It's the journey, not the destination" with a digicam having full battery and a carton full of pringles!! We did eventually find the place, and predictably, it was a street that we had passed half a dozen times.

About the Petronas Towers and KL tower, we went, we got lost, we reached, we climbed(or rather were 'lift'ed), we clicked.. boy did we click, we got dazzled, mystified and amazed, we lazed around(it was raining), we ate, we went to the loo, we got tired, we clicked some more, got lost some more, and finally reached our accommodation.

Later into the night, we walked along Petaling Street, Little India and Chinatown Street, all within walking distance of each other and our acco. At night, we went to the Beach Club Cafe and we ....this part of the post has been censored for the continuance of innocencen of our younger viewers ..... it was awesome, you just had to be there.

And there ends day2.

PS: There is no PS.