Prologue

India vacation was a much awaited vacation. In the past I had visited home (home has become a rather overloaded term. Here I mean where I grew up) every 6 months or every year if not more often. This time it had been 1.5 years since my wedding & the last visit home and so the yearning to visit folks had grown. Phone calls saying that this was too long a gap and I was too far … and the usual stuff that nri daughters hear their parents say were coming in. Ofcourse the timing was intentional, I wanted to go to Cochin in the winter and the only choices we had with Roshan’s vacations were between summer & winter break.

The Vacation

My port of entry in India was Mumbai and the airport looked better & bigger than I remembered. My first reaction everywhere I went was why there were so many people. And why the rush. People never respected lines and queues, whether it was to pay a bill or get into a shuttle or board a plane. Not like the plane would take off without somebody or the next shuttle won’t show if this one got full. This wasn’t anything new, I see it everytime I go and I get annoyed each time. I started sampling food at airport and was extremely pleased. Next few days in Cochin I was thoroughly pampered with lots of delicious food.

Cochin has the same roads but many many more cars and so the traffic is painful. I wasn’t driving but even being driven around was stressful. After a day or 2 I got used to the honking; towards the end of my trip if I didn’t hear enough honking I’d wonder if I was still on the main road. Cochin had 1 mall the last time I visited and this time when I visited, the city was suddenly springing with malls. Apparently, India’s (or was it Asia’s?) largest mall ‘Lulu’ is coming up close to where we live in Edapally. It was still in the works when I was there. I visited Oberon mall which is relatively a new mall in Edapally, it was impressive considering its predecessors - Bay Pride, Penta menaka and GCDA. Despite 3 or 4 floors of basement parking, in the evenings parking lot is full and vehicles park outside the mall on the road many times blocking the traffic. Talk about lack of entertainment options… its like the whole city is in the mall. All this when Oberon doesn’t have a multiplex, my brain explodes when I try to imagine the crowd when it has its multiplex up & running. In the past, the only entertainment I could think of in Cochin was to watch movies.

I was impressed with the changes the city has had. I saw restaurants (in Bangalore & Chennai too) that had menu items with diet icons indicating that they were healthy options (still no calorie count – I am happy about that), restaurants that had child seats and malls with a dedicated play area. Oh and also a decorated xmas tree with fake snow. Where was all this when I was growing up!?!

While many of the hoardings there still are of gold jewellery, I saw a lot of new ads mostly related to cell phone providers or homes for sale. GCDA shops make me wonder what they did before cell phones came around. Talking about cellphones, I was quite happy with cell phone plans in India – the ease and low cost are a huge plus. With high GPRS costs, a lot of the folk don’t have data plans. SMS is pretty big, 15 min after Roshan got a new SIM he started getting spam sms-es. My siblings and even my dad text a lot more than I do.

India is a lot more expensive than it used to be a few years ago. Prices of food, clothing, and groceries are 4 times the cost they were. I was quite appalled at the costs. There were several instances when I thought US was cheaper.

After 4 or 5 days in Cochin, Roshan and I headed to Bangalore for a few days. Bangalore looked completely different from what I remembered, the last time I was there was in 2004. I couldn’t recognize MG Road at all. All the outskirts were now a part of the city and were apparently more “happening” than the “happening” parts in the past. There were new flyovers and some cool looking public transport buses that were air conditioned. Metro rail construction was in the works. More coffee shops and more restaurants and more chain stores had opened up. All super pricey which makes me believe that people’s earnings in India have also multiplied many fold in the last few years. Going from Cochin, the driving sense felt a lot better. I had some really good food in Bangalore … oh Bengaluru.

From Bangalore we left for Chennai for 2 days. Chennai city looked extremely good – very clean, wide roads, huge flyovers etc. Marina beach looked much much cleaner and well maintained than it did a few years back. We had some amazing food in Chennai. We heard about a hole in the wall authentic Sushi place in Chennai and decided to check that out. It was pretty good, while we were there we didn’t see any other Indians. The weather in Chennai & Bangalore was just perfect. Only if we had that all year round in Seattle

We got back to Cochin in time for a friend’s wedding. I have been to only 2 or 3 weddings in Kerala and 3 or 4 weddings outside Kerala. For a person my age that is an extremely low count of wedding attendance. I probably just don’t remember how it used to be, but I was a little shocked to see people rushing to get food even at the wedding. Of course they wouldn’t run out of food, it’s an Indian wedding after all . My sister said that it was pretty normal as everybody wanted to leave soon once the wedding was done.

Next day, I visited Thodupuzha and Karimanoor with Roshan and his family. Apparently after you get married the newlyweds need to meet everybody in the family. Besides my parents, my relatives are mostly in Rajasthan and northern parts of India, I am guessing we’ll visit some of them during our next trip to India. This trip we tried to cover Roshan’s side of the family. The drive through the country side is beautiful. Away from the traffic, noises and crowds I could see why I loved Kerala growing up. The lush greenery, lakes and mountains even after all these years continue to mesmerize me. Each visit during this trip left my stomach fuller and fuller. I have not eaten so much meat in such a short span of time before. (Remember I grew up in a vegetarian family). I can’t complain, everything tasted so good

We got back to Cochin and 2 days later left for Wayanad. This was a family trip. We visited Bandipur National Park in Karnataka and Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary in Wayanad. Both are good forests, we just had the wrong expectation that we would see some wild animals on the safari tour. We saw monkeys, deer, peacocks and chickens. Elephants too but they were chained close to the entrance and hence not exactly in the wild. Wayanad may be a good place for non-Keralites to visit but for somebody who’s grown up there, I was quite underwhelmed. Pookot lake, Sulthan Bathery Jain Temple, Sita devi Tears lake, Luv Kush temple etc were nothing out of the ordinary. The walk to Edakkal Caves and Soochipara waterfalls was fun. The caves themselves were quite good too. We ended our trip at the falls where students kept coming in batches and leaving. It looked like a popular excursion spot.

We got back to Cochin in time to celebrate New Year’s eve with friends and family. We spent the next few days eating and shopping. And before I knew the trip was over. All the plans of sitting down with my folks and having long conversations and playing the silly indoor games etc didn’t materialize. Oh well. Next time eh?

Epilogue

(Like a wise friend said) "The thing about getting married is that the no. of people you meet double, the no. of ceremionies and functions you need to attend double up but your time stays the same". I hadn't factored this in in my planning. So, I didn't end up visiting or calling people I normally would. On the brighter side I did travel within India, I did go back to Mullapanthal for the spicy food (and this time I had 2 glasses of the repulsive toddy), I did try a lot of food and many new restaurants and I travelled by air, train, bus, auto, scooter and car within India. Yay!

[This entry was written soon after the vacation, but I didnt put it up hoping to get access to photos taken during the trip. Moral: Dont count on the spouse doing things on time]

Of all the places I have visited, Japan has been the most different culturally. Most places, I could read signs or communicate in English. Even though people in Italy and France did not speak english fluently, we could read words and tell if a place was a restaurant or not for example. People in Japan are very friendly and respectful. As a foreigner you get away with a lot of not-knowing-the-protocol thing.
 
The western toilets in Japan are awesome, my house is getting a toilet from Japan. It lets you control the temperature and pressure of water, some of them play music, have heated seats and there are other features that I'll refrain from writing here. The airport carts are designed such that you can take them down a staircase escalator. Pretty cool eh? The subway stations require you to enter a ticket to get in. Ticket kiosks are close to the entrance and some of the ones I saw had an option to choose english and some others didn't. An american guy asked a guy in uniform about tickets and that guy held this dude's hands, walked him to a kiosk and helped him buy a ticket. Sweet. You can throw in all your change and choose an amount, it will print a ticket of the amount and return the difference. Very smart. When you are leaving you re-insert your ticket, if the amount is right, the machine eats your ticket (ah, part of the no trash secret) and you walk out. If not, you take the ticket to the counter close by and you can settle the difference at no penalty. Again, very helpful for foreigners.

In all the cities we went to, we noticed that people were happy to get their pictures taken. Kids in armor practising kendo, girls dressed in kimonos, guy making sushi rolls, guy cutting fish - all agreed to pics being taken. Their favorite pose is making a V (for peace?) with the fingers. Most of them, after we took a pic with our camera, would hand us their camera and request a pic to be taken with us in the picture. I guess they are just as fascinated getting pictures of them with the foreigners . The girls cant stop giggling especially when they are in a group and one of them tries to speak in English to you. Its the same with some boys. It sometimes has a rippling effect, they giggle, I laugh, they giggle more ...

One of the chefs was trying to communicate with us via the waitress who knew very little english. Roshan had a few iphone apps that translated commonly used phrases and I had a dictionary that I used occasionally. We were sitting by the bar and he asked if we had a camera. We hadnt taken our cameras, but we had our phones. So we pointed at the phone and he asked Roshan to go into the kitchen - They stood together and then I was beckoned and finally the waitress clicked a pic. Everything happened in installments slowly, it was funny.

The english translations in many places are hilarious and sometimes just inappropriate. I am certain that most of those have no clue what it means. There are t-shirts that men and children wear with probably literal translations that end up sounding non-sensical. There are signs that crack you up - "publice toilet", "don't shoe" and this. Yeah we still dont know what it is, Roshan think its something you eat and lose weight, I think its like a topical cream or something. This was handed out as complimentary gift to all the women staying in this particular hotel in Nara. You can imagine Roshan's jokes I had to endure following the fact that I was given one of these. Just to be clear all women are given these!

A cab driver didnt know the right route to the station and kept apologizing and asked us if he could make a call. I think he called somebody to ask which entrance he could drop us off so that we could catch the train to the airport (We had a lot of luggage). After he kept the phone he kept bowing and saying 'Moushiwake arimasen deshita' (Sorry) and we kept saying its ok. He showed the meter and crossed his arms to indicate ignore the meter. A lot of the japanese cross their arms to indicate no, no entry, closed etc. Signs sometimes communicate a lot more than words . After a 15 min detour when he dropped us we paid him close to the amount on the meter and he kept refusing to take in japanese, apologizing and bowing, we kept saying it was ok (People there understand OK if nothing else) in english. He finally bowed like a million times saying thank you and sorry in japanese. If I powers to vanish, I would have definitely used it then.

Onsens or public baths are a neat concept. Its a great way to relax and refresh. People in Japan (just like many other parts of the world) believe that the water from the springs with all its chemicals cures ailments and is good for your body. They belive that the real onsens have water channeled directly from the hot springs and do not store/reheat or mix normal water. We tried two of these after long days of walking. One of our japanese guides said that a lot of the touristy onsens reheat the water and mix it. We think we tried some of the non-touristy ones. Ryokans are traditional japanese guesthouses. The true ryokans are expensive to stay in and some dont allow foreigners as they dont know all the protocols. Most of the touristy ryokans are a hybrid model with western toilets and not-so-strict on rules and more affordable prices.

Roshan loved Tokyo enough to think that he wouldn't mind living there for a few years. He especially wants to try all their food/drinks. We tried lots of japanese food, before I went to Japan I knew of sushi only. There is a lot of varierty and the food is surprisingly both tasty and healthy. The Japanese have an amazing skill of making things look pretty. We saw the most aesthetically arranged aquariums, flowers, lights, gardens, parks, food, dessert and even sand! OCD indeed! A lot of the eateries have plastic models of their menu items that they put on display outside, and boy, is it tempting or what! The best part is that if you order the dish, it is an exact replica of the model.

After several attempts in various ATMs, we discovered that seven-11 ATMS are the only one's that have english menus and work with foreign cards. Something for you to keep in mind if withdrawing money there.

Next time if I go, I am making sure I take some japanese lessons. It will be so much more fun when you can talk to the people and understand the train announcements and the museum audio tours. Even better if you can read, but after hearing how complex their script is, I am not even going to try. With konichiwa, sayonara, Sumimasen, dohmo arigato gozaimasu, oshi - I managed to communicate enough to get by on this vacation trip

One of the early mornings here, we took a walk to the fish market. Its the biggest fish market I have ever seen, Pike's place market looks like a tiny sample before this . The people moved around stuff within the market on these cool little vehicle thingies, quite innovative I must admit. We saw a lot of the sea creatures, many alive, some frozen, some being sliced ... pretty much all the phases it goes through after it is caught and before it reaches our plates. There was a guy cutting huge blocks of ice and sending up this machinery where it would go in and come out crushed. People would come on their vehicle thingies to buy crushed ice. I was staring at these shrimps moving in the little tank they were in, when the seller smiled and in what seemed like a gesture to help me see/photograph, pulled a shrimp out of the water and pointed at me. My knee jerk reaction was not appreciation but a loud scream seeing the shrimp wriggle for its life. He ofcourse immediately put the shrimp back into water and stepped back. Oh well :-(

We had japanese breakfast outside the market. The fish doesn't get much fresher. And bingo, I tried raw fish for the first time!! Just so randomly, just like that. I am also trying to eat with chopsticks. So far so good.
 
I often struggle finding  petite sections in stores in the US when buying clothes. Ever been in a situation where you love the clothes but they are almost always a larger size? Here while trying slippers on, my feet felt most comfortable in the LL size which is probably a double large or extra large equivalent. I am guessing that buying clothes here may be a fun experience. The japanese girls are so petite. I may be a large after all
 
I love all the expressions and the giggles. People are very friendly. Many go out of their way to help. I asked this girl which train I needed to take to go some place and she stared at the map for a few seconds, asked me to wait, ran and came back with somebody who spoke a little english. Similarly Roshan asked some guy if he knew of a laundromat close by, after some communication struggle the guy called his friend on his phone and Rosh talked to the guy on phone.
 
We visited Akihabara, the elctronic city which besides electronics has lots of japanese porn, comics, dvds etc. Women dressed in kimonos and school girl clothese were handing out flyers on the sidewalk. We also visited Shinjuku (sort of like Times square) and Ginza - they have huge shopping areas and a variety of pubs and restaurants. Lots of people. I noticed very few couples though. Most were by themselves or few guys togther and few girls together. I proably have seen 3 young couples holding hands (and no PDA) and walking so far. People in Tokyo are probably too busy to date. There is a vending machine for almost everything - drinks, food, cigarrette, dvds, posters, t-shirts ... Rosh and I wanted to watch sumo wrestling in Japan, but its not happening in Tokyo at the time we are here :-(. I hope we get to catch a geisha performance in Kyoto. I got to see Kendo, it was pretty cool.

Pachinko is some game that a lot of the middle aged men seem completely engrossed in. I have seen 3 pachinko places so far and people are so intently playing, I have no idea how its played and why its so interesting. The only equivalent I know is how some of the older people spend hours on slot machines in Vegas. If I knew the game, I probably would only play and do nothing else while in Japan (I get hooked on to games easily), so may be I wont find out.
 
I love Tokyo! (Few pics on http://www.flickr.com/photos/dolly/sets/72157621763892903/)

Roshan's internship gave Rosh the choice of doing it in New York and part of it in Tokyo/London. Rosh picked Tokyo. After his internship we thought we could take some time off and tour Japan. So here I am, in Tokyo, the start of my 2 week vacation this summer.I flew in from Seattle to Japan last night, it was a 9 hour flight - not so long international flight for somebody who's been flying internationally between US & India mostly

Unlike my other flights, where the advise it to sleep as much as possible on the flight, this time I didn't sleep at all on the flight. That helped coz after dinner I could fall asleep like other folk here. So jetlag has been gracefully handled.

The first thought when I got off the flight was 'whoa this is warm'. People starting taking layers of clothing off on the walkway. When I finally stepped out on the street to get some food, it was after sunset and still super-warm. Very much like Indian summers.

I am quite puzzled about how the subway stations, roads, sidewalks etc are so clean. There is no trace of trash, paper, wrappers nothing... And there are no trash cans or bins visible. I am hoping in the next 5 days of stay here I can figure out how this is possible.

I am staying in Central Tokyo (Shimbashi) and the view from our room (on the 34th floor) is breathtaking. I think I may have brought some of the Seattle rain here. It rained today and the forecast shows temperatures as 30C (~80F) with showers/clouds rest of the week. Hopefully it will not interfere too much with the sightseeing & exploring plans.

The plan is that after this week in Tokyo, Roshan and I will leave this saturday for Nikko. 2 days in Nikko, 2 days in Kyoto, 2 days in Nara and 2 days in Hakone. Then ofcourse fly back to seattle.

Stay tuned.

Seattle doesn’t get a lot of snow, when it does get some snow like for ½ a day or 1 day, most people work from home, kids skip school, shops close early, ... you get the picture. This year Seattle saw quite a bit of continuous snow. Enough that the governor had to declare statewide weather emergency.  I worked from home for a week. I drove around only for a bit and quite carefully. My car is a front wheel drive and I had been meaning to get snow chains. All stores in Seattle area were out of chains – apparently my tyre model is the most common. One evening on my way back from a grocery store, I tried driving down this small stretch of steep downgrade road to my parking garage, over what looked like packed snow. As it turned out it was ice and my car skid by 180 degrees on a 1 way street. Braking, steering, mumbling etc didn’t change the course of the car, A few pedestrians did run frantically though. That incident was scary, I parked the car by the street side. Either the snow had to melt or I had to get snow chains to be able to move around again. Next 2 days neither happened, I stayed home mostly and travelled on foot to get food & basic supplies (that includes ice cream). A day later, due to circumstances, I decided to drive to San Francisco. When I went to my car, I saw this. People do have a sense of humor. At least it didn’t say “Wash Me” like some other cars I saw. With all my inexperience I tried to shovel the snow away from the front tyres to get the car out. With help from some strangers, the car was out on the road again. I had to stand in line to get chains at a store, some of the gas stations in Redmond were out of gas and so I had to drive around a couple to finally get premium gas only at one distant gas station. When I went to get some food at a 7-11,  I thought that the staff there was unusually nice & friendly ... and then I noticed Fox News crew with the camera focused on the staff. I should have checked the news that evening to see if I was caught on camera buying ice cream.

Next day early morning, I started the much dreaded road trip. Had the skidding accident not happened 2 days ago, I probably wouldn’t have dreaded it as much.

A 11.5 hours drive took 18 hours, but thankfully there were no incidents. Some season to remember. I have never seen so many driving rules being broken; you could pretty much park anywhere not fearing getting towed/ticketed, you could drive in any lane, some went up the wrong way on a 1-way road, Cars/Trucks took any lane on the interstate, pulled over anywhere with/without emergency lights flashing, … While some of this was amusing, most of the stuff I saw around made me strongly wish that everything would return to normal. There were several accidents, tons of vehicles getting towed probably coz they got stuck in snow, ambulances & paramedics all around, cop cars all over, people crying … Quite sad that this was happening to many of them just before Christmas. Fortunately for me, I got to San Francisco on Christmas eve and got to spend the vacation with Roshan as planned. Except the whole order of places had to be changed/re-done with all reservations going for a toss because of the timings.

We spent time in parts of California and drove back via Nevada. I got to see pretty much all terrains on the road trip. It was quite beautiful. US has vast amounts of land with pretty much nothing. It was all quite pretty. When we got back to Seattle, it was drizzling and it was grey. Sigh, what a beautiful city and what crappy weather. Most of the year, Seattle is cold & grey & wet – and you are seeing it out of your window from a closed office, apartment or car  like watching a movie.

And with this trip the longest road trip for me has been 4150 miles. I will upload some pictures here.

I drove down from Vancouver to Seattle early this week with the bags leftover after the movers took my other stuff. I am put up in Seattle downtown temporarily until I find myself an apartment. Seattle downtown is fun, much better than my previous stay in Bellevue downtown though not as good as Vancouver city. The best part to being back though is the face to face meetings with people I work with. And that I can walk into people's offices instead of typing a formal email, making a call or using IM. Just the pleasure of being able to get an issue addressed right then is awesome.

I am thinking of making frequent visits to Bloomington in the next year. Something along the lines of spend  a few days every month and work from Bloomington. It will be interesting to make real world use of all the technology we build for remote scenarios.

We use Office Communicator internally at Microsoft for all our internal IM converstaions, audio/video calls/conferences, file transfer etc. In the past when I worked in IDC, Hyderabad, we used email and VTC for communication with the Redmond team. The last 3 months I have been working remotely from Vancouver with the Redmond team. Things would have been definitely tough without communicator. And I am not saying that just because I work in the Communicator team. The round table is pretty awesome too.

I visited Victoria last weekend, it is a small quaint town and the capital of British Columbia state. It has a nice English town feel to it. I visited the museum which had a section dedicated to the rich cultural heritage of the state. One of the exhibits was a couple, mannequins in Indian/Punjabi clothes. Another was a grocery store setup with various items that included naan, ghee, basmati rice, etc. The museum is pretty elaborate entailing lot of detail to procure the right ambience. I could only spend only 2 hours, if you happen to go, plan to spend a few hours just there.

I think that completes list of places to go to near Vancouver in the state.

I went on the “Sins of Vancouver” walking tour last week. This is a 2 hour guided walk along some of the shady parts of town mostly talking about the history of crime in the city and pointing out some of the landmarks left today.  As we walked along those few blocks, I saw several  homeless people, probably living on the streets off a cart most likely stolen from a grocery store. Noticed at least a few stolen bikes on some of the carts. I saw some people completely zoned out, men & women pushing syringes into their wrists etc.  Prostitution & drugs apparently have been to date some of the biggest concerns in the city.

Nothing much to add, except that I saw some of this, a part of the system.

... is good!

I had the best idlys, dosas and mini-south-indian-thalis after leaving India in Vancouver. There is a Saravana Bhavan here!! Yeah! Not the best service; but hey, the food is great. I hope they start one in Seattle. The Indian food here tastes considerably better than the Indian food in Seattle area.

In fact, you feel a lot closer to India in Vancouver. Surrey which is close to Vancouver is supposed to be like a mini-India with a huge Indian population. I haven't been there yet, even then you see or hear random things in Vancouver that make you feel like you are not far from India. I guess England may me part of the reason for the sense of commonality in the two countries. The other day I was flipping channels when I stumbled upon a punjab channel, apparently this is included in the standard cable package. I guess that speaks for the Indian population here. Its awesome seeing *curries*, tandoori chicken, samosas etc in any food court.

And the Indian dvd stores sell/rent pirated dvds. I have been trying hard to find a Indian dvd store that will rent good quality dvds; no success yet.

Oh and they have hindi movies playing in more than 1 theatre

It is the first time I guess I am living in a real downtown. Seattle downtown looks pale in comparison to Vancouver downtown. I am loving being here. The best part is that as soon as I step out of my apartment, there are tons of small & big cafes, resaurants, bars, clubs, shops etc. Loads of stuff happening, people walking all the time, and high levels of energy around. I have stopped driving when in downtown as finding a parking spot is painful and pricey. Instead I have started walking to most places. The weather is great, we have long sunny bright days so I have no complaints about walking. There are several activities/events happening all the time in the area which keeps life interesting even for a newbie. Ofcourse all this comes at a price, a pretty high one when you want to live in downtown. As a temporary setup I am fine with this, but I think I would need more breathing space and more room to live in especially if I have visitors & guests.

I work in Richmond which takes me roughly about 45 min by car. I am trying to get myself to take the office shuttle. The drive is annoying with a lot of construction going on and several detours and the traffic in the area. Apparently the city is getting ready for the olympics in 2010. Already? That is what I thought too.

I landed in Vancouver, Canada yesterday and have started work at Microsoft, Canada from today. I hope to be back to Redmond in the beginning of October. Haven't seen much of the city yet so not much to say there.

After a series of events celebrating a certain wedding in India, I am back from the so called *vacation*. Ofcourse the bride never has a real vacation, as I have come to experience. In all fairness, I did have a great time. Its just that so much happened in such a short time, I am still recovering. The only annoyance that kept growing on me was the photographers interfering and asking us to repeat actions so they could capture it. Oh and the fact that I had to smile through all of it. For a few hours I thought I would not smile for a whole year after that.

Nothing much changes in life as Rosh and I continue to live in different cities/states ... for that matter even different countries now. The only change I see is that we now cannot ignore the spouse section in the visa, insurance, bank etc application forms. And a ring on my finger. And people saying "your husband"

I also visited Agatti island in Lakshadweep in India last week. The blue-green sea is beautiful. I would love to go back there, next time hopefully in a non-monsoon period.

My flight from US to India was pleasant & timely. Phew, finally a change

I am loving these few days here, I cannot fathom how I will go back to the old life. Its the food that makes all the difference. This is how life is to be lived. Sleep & food, lots of it 

I am flying to India next week and am having to do a million things before the trip. Since I will fly to Canada from India I need to pack carefully. Things to take to India and then to Canada and everything else to be packed up and left somewhere. I am having to vacate my apartment which is the biggest pain of all things. I will worry about finding a place to stay when I come back to US in Oct.

For now, the one thing that keeps me excited is the thought of getting good food. I miss home food and Kerala food. Yummm.

Just 1 week

I may be working in Richmond, Canada for a few months because of some visa issues. While normally I would have been very excited about working for a short while in a new country, right now I am not too happy about it. Bad timing.

From what I hear there are good Indian food choices. We shall find out in a few months and see how true that is.

Looking at the Indian restaurants in the area, I have a half baked idea about a new business idea. (I have a few of those). Of course this is for when I hit the jackpot and am like 50 years old and ready to move away from computers. Not very soon

So the new business idea is to start a Kerala food restaurant. The closest I know of, is a few thousand miles away. The restaurant will be started as a social service and not as a *business*, as in making profits will not be a concern. As long as no losses are incurred, I would think of this as a successful venture. Of course I have worked out some aspects in detail in my head and not thought about several other details.

Going back to moving to Canada, I am thinking how different things are going to be from the US. I have only been to Vancouver & Whistler in winter for snowboarding and had seen a lot of international crowd and heard a lot of British English. I doubt that is typical though.

I am also toying with the idea of staying some place where I can bike to work everyday. After all its going to be summer. Its funny how summer sounds so appealing to me in US & around. Making a trip to India in summer has the opposite effect. I will be making a trip to Kerala in June, in the thick of the monsoon. May be then I'll stop complaining about Seattle showers? Nah!

I got back from Bloomington today. I carried two small bags with me to Bloomington with the intention of checking in one & carrying the other with me. However, before entering the aircraft the officials claimed to have a full flight & so checked in what was to be my cabin baggage.

So I reached Indianapolis airport with just a purse. Yeah, both my bags didnt arrive :-(

(If you are wondering what the big deal is, you don't know my history with travel & bag loss)

So no gloves, hat, maps, directions, ... and the weather was just perfect. Snow, rain, ice :- all but the sun decided to welcome me in Bloomington.

On my way back to Seattle, I got both my bags, flight was on time etc. Too smooth & simple to be true? Yes, a friend who was supposed to give me a ride form the airport didn't show up & didnt answer his phone.

I am beginning to believe that I may be jinxed with respect to flight journeys.

On the bright side, both my missing bags were delivered on the same day to Bloomington, my vacation was fabulous (I just kept wishing I had made the trip earlier, sigh!) and I did get back home 3 hours after landing in Seattle. Oh and its a sunny day here.

I finally bought tickets to Bloomington. The idea of visiting Bloomington has been brewing for a while, and now I am going back finally. I miss several small things about Bloomington - esp being in downtown. I guess if I was living in seattle downtown, I wouldn't miss it as much. I miss biking & walking to a lot of places, I miss the small town feel & I miss wearing trackpants. But given a choice between living in Bloomington and here, I would pick here anytime :)

I am in Bloomington during the last but one week of February. I am going to freeze but driving in snow is a lot better experience in Indiana as opposed to Seattle area.

Next weekend some of us girls are driving to portland. It is supposed to be a book club retreat which reminds me I haven't read the book yet. Initially we were going to take a train & I was all excited about going on a train for the first time in US. However some girls wanted the comfort of being in a car and avoiding walks....sniff...and so a car it is.

I also may be driving to Vancouver for a weekend trip sometime this month. I am liking this. I am thinking of getting a GPS though that would mean the end of some adventure :). In my case I think it will also save time & increase potential places to go to.