Lal Bagh

During my last visit, I went to Lal Bagh. While not Kew or Longwood Gardens, I decided to go back as it was nice to walk around before working the late shift.

350 year old silk cotton tree

I think he is from the the same family I saw last visit.

Take me home country roads...

John Denver's signature song has been a part of my life for a long time. Originally released in 1971, this song was the Fay Family travel anthem for many years. It woke us up many an early morning as we prepared for family road trips. Recently, it has become a favorite travel song for Labor Day trips to Snowshoe, West Virginia.

While I don't live in West Virginia, nor will I be traveling through it, it does remind me of home.

"Country roads, take me home

To the place I belong

West Virginia, mountain momma

Take me home, country roads"

Masala Dosa

Need I say more....the ultimate breakfast food! Served with Sambar, and tomato and coriander chutneys. Yummm!

Random Pics - II

I can't believe it's Friday and my trip is almost over. It has been a great trip, but I do miss Rose and Sean. We have been connected by phone, e-mails and the blog, but it isn't the same as being there in person.

Here are some pics from the last couple of days (notice many are food related!)

View from my hotel window


View of one of the shopping malls from the back of the hotel


View of the pool deck in back of hotel



Calamari Indian style (notice the sweat from the heat!)



Breakfast at the hotel


This outside the Hard Rock Cafe - Bengalaru (Bangalore as pronounced in Kannada). I'm with Allison, Monika (was here last time I was here, and is in town for Jason and Allisons leaving party) and Jason.

What's going on at work....

This is the office in Bangalore. There are a number of buildings in this complex, surrounding this plaza. The ground level has restaurants, bars, shopping and a food court. They have done a nice job fixing this up since last time I was here.

I have been really impressed with the team during the past week and a half. They are well prepared to assume the additional responsibilities I am here to teach them about. They are asking great questions about the scripts and about the results they are seeing. They have found a couple of things we have passed on to the technical team to look at.

The second set of sessions I have held with the teams has been to answer questions that they have, or that they get on a regular basis, and wanted to ensure they were addressing correctly. Again, they asked great questions, and luckily I knew them ahead of time so that I could prepare (don't want the "expert" looking stupid and not knowing the answers!). Going through their questions and walking them through some of recent enhancements to the system really gave us an opportunity to look at some of the more complex stuff going on, and to share with them some examples of how the system was being used by our engagement teams. The initial set of test scripts they are looking at are basic functionality, we will be phasing additional, more complex scripts over the next couple of months. That is where they will really learn a lot about the system and what it can do, which will then allow them to share advice and answer questions from the people who contact them better than they do today.

This is the Australia Shift team

(l-r Kirthi, Smita, Noor, Nisha, Narendra, Mai)

The UK Shift Team

(l-r Shwetha, Philia, Sailo, Mumpy, Navya, Khizer)

and the US Shift Team (daBoyz!)

(l-r Jerin, Fahad, Chandan, Digvijay, Sujay, Avaiz, Joseph, Weibert)

Cheryl and Dilini

Brunch at Oberoi Hotel

Sunday brunch is great here. The hotels and some of the restaurants do a set price menu with champagne, drinks and great food buffets. The spreads are very impressive. I forgot to take a pictures of the buffet, but here were the deserts I sampled.

The grounds of the hotel are awesome.

Ali and Ragu organized the brunch. Ragu knows everyone! Ragu's friend Brandon joined us, as did work associates of Ali; Ann, Maria and Ian. They were working/travelling together for a couple of weeks in India and had a day to spend in Bangalore. It was fun getting to meet new people, in a very different environment.

(l-r Brandon, Ali, Ragu, Ian, Ann, Maria)

The Demonstration

So basic rules of travel, stay away from rowdy groups of people, especially those demonstrating something you don't know what it is. If they are carrying an effigy and have a police escort, double the stay away factor. So I tried to do it, really. I was taking pics at the government buildings Saturday, when I heard the noise, saw the press with camera's, the police, etc. I was on the other side of the street and managed to take some pictures, out in front of them.

I got pretty far ahead of them, but then with the traffic, and crossing the street, they caught up. I was never that close, but got to see them burn the effigy.


and then the police put out the fire.


All in all pretty peaceful, but I suppose, I was closer than I should have been. It was interesting that along the route, there were a number of these water jet truck, meant for the group, if they got out of control.