Went to Jaipur on the weekend, On Friday and the days before that it was raining like anything here in Delhi, so had almost cancelled the trip. Finally in the end decided that will check weather on sat morning at 5 AM and if it’s good, we will go. As it was still raining in the morning we cancelled the trip and went to sleep. Around 7 AM my friend calls up and tells me that the sun is out and we should go...

I woke up checked that weather had improved. Then figured that my mother had left for her school, and we don’t have any contact number for her. Finally we were able to find someone who stays close to her school, to give her the message that we are going to jaipur. Packed everything, when we were about to leave it started raining lightly again, but now it was tooo late.

The Mehrauli gurgaon road had big pot holes in it right at the entry into gurgaon. There were also potholes on the highway, maybe coz of the rains, but overall the jaipur highway is quite OK. I had to drive slowly and take bigger breaks to let my friend catch up with me, who was in his Zen on full load. After taking brunch break at haldiram gurgaon and tea break at Midway behror, we reached jaipur market at 5.30 PM. My mother wanted to go and see the jaipur market even though she had to buy almost nothing, Left the market around 7:30 -8:00 to reach Chokhi Dhani. We missed the earlier gate and entered from the resort gate their. When I entered in, I found it all deserted and so got shocked,,,,I had seen some workers protesting outside the gate so assumed that Chokhi Dhani is not working as it shud. I asked one bearer there and he pointed me to the village section where all the activities go on. We had camel rides and saw the puppet show, folk dance etc and had a lovely time. When we got tired and hungry we went in for the dinner, the dinner was tasty but I was disappointed to not get dal, bati and churma...the speciality of rajasthan...they said they make it only on sunday.

My friend had booked a nice and good hotel for us; we had a good nite sleep. Saw the jaipur Zoo, Albert hall and Amer fort on Sunday before returning to Delhi.

Returning to Delhi from midway behror onwards I was able to catch the tail of a fast Mercedes driver and so was able to drive fast and safely and reach Delhi in good time. The merc driver was clearing the road for me. Also there was one reckless Alto driver who overtook us all, and was driving at 120 km/hr, I hope he did not get in a tight situation as alto does not have disc brakes, so wont stop fast in case of an emergency and maruti cars also are not very good at crash tests.

Pictures are flickr

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Newport town sqaure and river side walk - a photoset on Flickr

Here are some amazing pics i took from my camera, the day before leaving for back home. had got used to the lovely boats and river side view  Check out the Manhattan , new york in the pics. Manhattan looks so pretty from only across the river 

 

Manhattan to me appears to be a slight bigger better version of delhi and bombay combined. Same markets and similar attitude of people. Very expensive also.

Adding few pics here, more on FlickR

Taking flight to Delhi on 30 aug. Saying bye to NYC for now. I still have not been up the empire state building, gone on a cruise or anything else. But also got no enthu to do all this.

From Charles de Gaulle (Paris airport) will buy some drink in the bottle of Eiffel tower, it looked so good, and maybe some souvenirs of Paris :-D Once back in Delhi office will be working on my proj all alone,,,Me only person. My boss and My worker. Have to sort out some appraisal shit also.

Half the office of my client here is moving to San Fran. Now shud i answer Y san Fran is better than NYC???I am making requirement flows for the client...second time doing it in my career, both the time initiated the thing in the companies. Got almost nil credit for it in the first company, lets c what i get here.

My Laptop had wireless internet and the crappy IT back home had not installed the driver for it,,till now i was assuming that I don’t have wireless internet. Anyways went to IBM site yesterday and updated all the software and drivers. even updated my BIOS and embedded controller. Cud have blown my laptop doin it,,,but miraculously it went fine...and now my wireless works tooo. Office here  also has wireless net,,so no crappy wire connection from  now on :-)

Also loaded loads of firefox addins,,now get the "blog this" utility on firefox,,changed the skin, installed sage for reading RSS (prefer sharpreader though) get custom weather, block all ads...Control over when to open more tabs or not..

Took some pics of New York and uploaded them on yahoo photos,,find link on right of the page.

yesterday saw times square,,and its worth what all is said abt it,,so beautiful,,all tall buildings and so much lighting,,,awesome.

Another is i have got appreciation for work i have done here,,and i thought i was doing nothing,,,,,well the key to success is to do nothing...all r happy :-D   kidding folks

I went to see Stanford univ. over the weekend. My cousin is doctor there. There Met her husband for the first time. Google gave a very good map to her place and we reached without any hiccups, though I expected some. Took some pictures of a nice church there and the PF change restaurant that we went. Had lettuce wraps... It was fun to make those wraps and have em. PF changs was quite full owing to Fathers day, but as we had prior booking we were able to get a seat fast.

There is no system of MRP here, every store and shop sells every item at the price it wants to. So u don’t know if that store is charging u OK or overcharging u.

After checking in my baggage for airlines when I turn back I see a colleague of my previous company standing 2 ppl behind me. She has just immigrated to Australia last yr and it was sure a comfort seeing someone u know on ur first flight. But it all was  a simple procedure and worked without any hitches..I tried connecting to broadband internet at airport but the site wont open,,,don’t know y???

Came to Singapore where the flight changeover was to take place. Changi is a big beautiful airport with all the facilities and the maintenance required. They have made the procedure so simple that I did not have any issues figuring out what to do,,they have reasonable amount of helpdesk people and water/internet kiosks. U can work on net for 15 mins for free at any kiosk. I tried connecting to wireless broadband at change, but then figured out it was paid and rate was abt 6$ for 30 mins.. Anyways tried to see if my mobile works (hutch prepaid), and to my wonder it worked. This was a nice surprise. I sent message to my family that things r going smooth. Delhi to Singapore was abt 5 hrs. Then a 2 hr break to the next flight.

The next flight made a stopover at Seoul. We were made to go out of the plane there and then get security clearance again and come back and sit on my seat..wierd,,I must say. Seoul airport was also very pretty and had mountains very close by. Was on a vast expanse and obviously was not crowded :-D\

Finally reach San Francisco, the flight reaches abt 40 mins early.The customs and immigration etc was a breeze, people were scaring so much abt food items and stuff,,and I did not face any issue et all. Infact when I came out then I realized all is over and I am in US..The feeling was amazing when flight was about to land in SF, seeing the roads and the houses,,something till now I only saw in filmsJ

Used toll free number to call my contacts here. The toll free information was timely provided to me by a good frnd,,even though it was also contained in the papers given to me,,I wud have ignored that info..

Till now seeing all the information, the office seems to be located close to some very good places and also has good reachabilty.

3 international cities in a span of 24 hrs—atleast the airports of 2…seems to be a nice experience. Singapore Airlines has quite good inflight entertainment system and I watched abt 3-4 movies in the entire journey. Food was OK. In drinks, had a taste of white and red wines, absolute vodka, red label and black label..With all the drinks and little sleep I was trying my best to keep myself hydrated and sleep in a manner so that I don’t get much jet lag. The strategy seems to be have worked,,feel quite OK hereJ, I had booked the aisle seat (internet checkin) on the flight from spore, which was long..so I had the freedom to walk in the long flight and go frequently for water/toilet.

Tips from my brother and my frnd sure did help a lot and obviously god seems to be on my side J

Had my visa interview on Tuesday and now waiting for passport to arrive. My finger prints have a unique problem and generally do not give a fine print. So in embassy they faced problems taking the prints. I told them, in my office i face the similar problem as we have fingerprint identification at doors :-)

Leaving for San Francisco for about a month and have got the plane tickets done. Will see how Singapore airlines is ...

Am apprehensive about to take any food items or not..this time i will discover that :-) what to take to us and what not to...