The Last Day

Well, I've made it back safely from Hyderabad now and I am definitely glad to be back, although I did enjoy the trip quite a bit. Even though I did have quite a bit of fun on the trip I also experienced some of the most culture shock I have experienced since I have been here (well, I guess ever, actually). The two main things that will take some getting used to while I'm here in India (which I probably only have to worry about on trips) are the lack of toilet paper and the Indian concept of lines.

First of all, the toilet paper - I did not see a single roll of toilet paper the whole time we were in Hyderabad (4 days). Fortunately, I was half expecting this, so I took to collecting napkins at meal times (although those weren't available at most meals because when one uses his hands to eat, he doesn't usually seem to care too much about napkins).

Second of all, the lines - there is no real concept of a line. I had heard that this was true of different places in the world, but I was kind of hoping India was not one of them. Basically, if a person wants to get somewhere, he has to stick his elbows out, put his head down, and go head first into the crowd. This would not be much of a problem except that I usually don't have a problem with letting other people go first. Therefore, I will let other people go first, but then different Indian people in our group will say stuff like, "Come on Steve, get on the bus - what are you waiting for?" I just generally have a problem with fighting to get in somewhere. Ever since I was a little kid I've been taught to not be the "me-first, me-first" type of person so I guess it just goes against my nature.

Regardless of the culture shock I experience, I was still quite able to thoroughly enjoy my last day in Hyderabad. In the morning we headed first for Charminar which is a structure in the center of Hyderabad which apparently was erected to celebrate the eradication of the plague in Hyderabad. It was really cool and made for some great pictures. After that we headed for Snow World :O . We were originally going to go to the Hyderabad zoo, but apparently people around here don't see snow very often so they wanted to go to this place. As I expected, it was kind of lame. It was a room that was much smaller than I had imagined, which was, indeed, very cold, and had nasty looking snow lying on the floor. It also had some slides with really bumpy ice on them, which were used with toboggans (it was as painful as it looked). So we spent about an hour at this Snow World, which was alright - the cold actually got me thinking about winters back in Michigan.

After we headed for lunch at the Seventh-day Adventist Union office in Hyderabad there were two options - a waterpark or shopping. I decided to go shopping (because I've been to a waterpark before and I didn't have my swimming trunks). Shopping turned out to be a lot of fun. We went to a very crowded street market. I decided to go looking for books in book shops. First, I had to find the book shops so I asked someone in our group where the book shops were and he directed me to the next intersection and to the right where he said the whole street was all book shops. I went to where he pointed out and sure enough, there were all the book shops. I started exploring, but quickly found out that almost every book shop consisted mostly of textbooks (physics, computer science, business, etc.). I was looking for some computer books so this wasn't all bad, but I had little success finding what I was looking for at first. At one point, I was walking between shops when a kid came up to me and said, "Are you looking for books?"

"Yes, I'm looking for books."

"Come here, follow me, book shop." And he pointed across the street.

Needless to say, I was skeptical, but I saw a sign for a bookshop across the street, so I decided to follow him. I was actually glad to have him for crossing the street because he would step out in front of the cars and auto rickshaws and then I would follow. When we got across the street, we went down a short drive and came to a large building which said something about books on it. I followed him in and he took me to a particular stall (I'm sure he was paid to do this). They asked me what books I wanted, I told them, and it took a while but they finally decided that they did not have them. They then asked me where I was from, what I was doing in India, etc. After that, I went back across the street, which was a much scarier experience than the first time (I got honked at a lot). After looking at bookshops for quite a while, I finally found a book I wanted. I told the owner that I wanted it and the bartering started. He said, looking at the price tag, "The price is 399, but you can have for 350."

"200?" I said. Just like that I said it, no "I think it's only worth 200" or anything like that. I really wasn't too confident about how this worked, but I was going to try it.

"200?" the shopkeeper said, "no no, we don't give 50% discounts, this is a new book."

Suddenly I had an inspiration, "This isn't a new book," I said, "it doesn't look new." Then a little while later after examining the book further, "Yeah, see, look, it's been covered." All of this was true - there's no way it was new and it had been covered with a clear cover.

"Well, we can get you a fresh copy."

"OK," I said. If I was going to pay 350 for this book, I would much rather it be a new copy. So I was waiting for one of the assistants to get a fresh copy when...

"Or you can have this copy for 300," the shopkeeper said. Oh snap, this whole bartering thing is kind of cool I was thinking, but then I thought that I had better jump on this price (I don't know why I though this, I guess because the whole bartering thing was kind of stressful).

"OK," I said.

"OK?"

"OK," I repeated, and reached for my wallet. The shopkeeper yelled something at his assistant and accepted my payment. I was pretty happy with myself. It was a rather good deal actually - $6.50 for a book that's over $20.00 on Amazon.

After shopping, we packed up our stuff and headed for home via the train. Altogether, the trip was a great deal of fun. If all of the choices of the places we visited would have been up to me, I would have gone to many more historical sites and skipped stuff like Ramoji Film City and Snow World, but hey, that's just because it's the type of stuff I could do if I were in America. All things considered, it was a great trip and I'm looking forward to my next outing.

Ramoji Film City unt NTR Gardens

Today was destined to be another eventful day in my Indian saga. We went to visit Ramoji film city. It tried its very hardest to be a westernized type theme-park, but there were a few things that I had a bit of a laugh at and a few things that I thought were just weird. The day actually started on a couple of weird notes. When we first got there, we went through what I thought was the entrance to the park, but it wasn't. It was the entrance to the studio property I guess, but then we had to take a bus from that gate to the actual park itself. That wasn't incredibly odd in itself, but the thing that was odd was that we passed through a small village on the way to the park (I am rather certain it was an actual village and not a film set or anything like that). The next weird thing was that once we got to the entrance to the park we had to wait another 45 minutes or so before it officially opened. After that, one of the amusing things happened. They had their whole opening ceremony with lots of dancing and stuff, and then they introduced the different themes of the park. They had their normal Indian stuff, and then the amusing part - when they announced the western theme, a bunch of teenagers came out dressed in pretty normal-looking clothes except for fake-looking vests and cowboy hats and they were all, ALL, sauntering along spinning a fake gun on their index fingers. It was quite amusing to watch. Especially after seeing all of this Indian stuff which was much better done because they know the Indian stuff better.

Shortly after the opening ceremony, the next amusing thing happened - I saw someone dressed up as batman. There were several things that made this particular batman character comical. First of all, he was the smallest, scrawniest batman I have ever seen. Then, there was his costume. It seemed to consist of black trash bags, and to top the whole thing off (or bottom it off I guess) he was wearing rubber muck-boots which looked much to large for him. It took me a couple seconds after I walked past him to register all the things which were hilarious about him, and then a couple more seconds to realize I had to get a picture with him. By that time he had walked off, but fortunately I tracked him down later in the day and got a couple of shots with him. This provided for further amusement because I was going to try to put my arm around him to take the picture, but as I reached for his opposite shoulder, he pushed me away with one hand and then posed like he was about to punch me for the picture. I could hardly contain my laughter, it was great. You can see the pictures here.

Shortly after my first batman sighting, I realized that almost completely everyone was going to one small area of the park so I decided to go check out some other stuff. Seriously, the rest of the park was pretty much completely empty - the funny thing I found out about Indian theme parks, however, is that even though the attractions do not have advertised times that they are closed or open, they almost all have only certain times that they are open. This particular day, I guess just about everything was closed in the morning except for a couple of rides (which was where everyone had congregated) and a tour of the 'film city' (the film city consists of a bunch of sets, gardens, and stuff spread out over a large land area and then there is the more parkish type area which is where a lot of the theme park attractions are). Because of this unadvertised timing stuff, I got to wander the empty streets of the park.

I think one of the best examples of the level of quality of this park was the fact that I was one of the attractions. I got asked at least twice if people could take their picture with me. Of course, I had no problem with it, but I did find it quite amusing. One of these times was when I was wandering the streets alone. I saw a group of fellow crowd-avoiders and they immediately came up to me and asked if they could get one picture with me - this was actually the second time, the first being just before the opening ceremony.

Fortunately, I didn't really miss anything due to my wandering, but I did learn a great deal that even simple things like how a theme park runs can be vastly different from country to country. As it turns out the ride that everyone was thronging to immediately after the opening ceremonies was a roller-coaster simulator. It was pretty cool, but I've always thought of roller coasters as a sort of simulator of airplanes themselves, so I found it quite amusing that one of the main attractions would be a simulation of what, in my mind, was already a simulation. I mean seriously, what's next? A simulation of a person experiencing a simulation of a roller-coaster?

After spending almost all day at the theme park, we headed to NTR Gardens. This was quite refreshing after the hectic day at the film city. I suppose I have been mostly desensitized to 'modern attractions' such as theme parks and shows and the like, but I do enjoy walking quietly and appreciating God's creation. Even at NTR gardens, to my dismay, there was still the fair-type rides and a haunted house, but there was also a 'desert garden' and a collection of bonzai trees which caught my interest. I think it must be my personality-type that mostly leads me to appreciate peace and quiet. Never before had I been reminded so strongly of Tolkien's words when speaking of hobbits, "Their heart really lay in peace, quiet, and the joy of fresh, tilled earth" (I'm sure I completely slaughtered that, but it gets the basic idea across (Edit: this is the original quote: "But where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet, and good tilled earth; for all Hobbits share a love of things that grow." - wow, I was really close :P)). While I was at the gardens I decided that if I ever have a library or a home office or something, I want a bonzai tree in it, so I decided to take pictures of some of my favorites (for those of the readership who look at my pictures and think, 'What's up with all the trees?'). After the gardens, we headed home for a spicy supper and bed. I felt like I should've gotten a round of applause when I finished my plate of food (except for some curd and chilis), oh well, I guess I'll just have to pat myself on the back...

Hyderabad

One of the most anticipated trips of my life and it all started with a stomach ache. When I woke up from my nap on Saturday afternoon, I was feeling a wee bit under the weather in the gutular region. I lay there on my stomach thinking, 'Ugh, not this again.' For the reader to understand this exclamation, he must first know the circumstances of my last couple of trips (OK, technically it has only been two of the last three trips, but that is not the point). I have a tendency to get sick just before I leave on a trip. This first started when I headed out from Michigan for Montana, Oregon, and finally Washington. Just a day or two before I was supposed to leave, my stomach became quite upset. I felt pretty terrible. I think I actually just sat around watching TV the last couple of days at home as a matter of fact. The problem was that I really didn't do anything to counteract the sickness, I just kind of accepted it. I was sick for probably the first half of the trip or so (due to the fact that I just kept on eating like I had been). The next time I got sick was a day or two before I was to leave for India. It was the same type of stomach ailment, but this time I decided to starve it. I didn't eat anything for a day, and then when I did start eating again it was strictly rice, honey, soy milk, and bananas. This seemed to work because I was pretty much at 100% when I set foot on the plane.

So, again the stomach ailment was upon me. This time a trip to Hyderabad, India loomed in the very near future. I decided to starve it again (after eating supper Saturday night, which turned out to be a bad idea as it made the whole condition worse). So, the next day I ate nothing - this was also the day that we were to leave at 2:30 p.m. In the morning I had to pack, but I was feeling bad enough that I would get up from bed, pack for 5-10 minutes, and then have to lie down for 10 minutes. There was no way I was going to miss this trip, though, and, fortunately, by the time we were ready to leave, I was already feeling a great deal better. We all mounted up in the bus and headed for Bangalore train station, which would be where we would catch our train to Hyderabad. This was going to be my first trip by train in India and, needless to say, I was quite excited. When we got to the train station, I found out that we had an hour and a half to wait for the train to leave, so we all found our seats and I started into my book (The Princess Bride - William Goldman abridgement, which, although I am thankful for some of the stuff he cuts out (from his explanations these particular parts sound quite boring) whenever he comes to a suspenseful part, he always, without fail, spoils it for the reader by telling him what is going to happen next - it is quite frustrating and in order to understand fully, one would probably have to read it for himself (Edit: since I wrote this, I have learned a great deal about William Goldman and S. Morgenstern that has completely changed my views of William Goldman - if you know what I'm talking about, go ahead, laugh at me - if you don't, read The Princess Bride and then come talk to me about it)).

Shortly after finding out that we had to wait for an hour and a half for the train, I found out that once we were done waiting for the train, we would be waiting to arrive in Hyderabad until 5:30 a.m. the next morning! I had looked at a map and seen how far away Hyderabad is from Hosur, but I hadn't thought it would take anywhere near that long to get there by train. Now it all makes sense, since the train probably travels 40 mph tops and it stops at every station for a few minutes (I'm still not sure exactly what the mileage (or kilometerage) is, but I maintain that it doesn't look that far on a map). Fortunately, the train is not a very unpleasant way to travel. The main two complaints that can be had with it are that it smells like body odor (this is mitigated by familiarity) and that one is cooped up in it for however long the journey is (which is true of any mode of transportation). Unfortunately for me, the whole body odor smell was a little more difficult due to current affairs in my gut's realm, but it was by no means unbearable. After the train ride (most of which I slept through), we arrived in Hyderabad and headed to our quarters for this 4-day trip.

We reached our residence around 6 a.m. or so and began to settle in. Our residence for this trip was a Catholic dormitory. I was hoping to take a shower when we got there (because I was rather certain I had begun to contribute to the overall body-odor smell of the train towards the end of the trip), but to my dismay I found out they did not have showers, but rather taps and buckets (which are the traditional Indian implements of bathing, I believe). So, instead of completely foregoing all hygiene, I decided to rinse down my upper body and put on a new shirt. This accomplished, I headed for breakfast. Breakfast this first morning at our new place of living was dosas and coconut chutney (dosas are fermented rice tortillas and I'm not sure what coconut chutney is exactly but I'm guessing it has coconut in it, it looks kind of like baby vomit, and it is a tad bit spicy). This certainly wouldn't have been my first choice for my first meal after attempting to cure my stomach ailment, but it had to do - fortunately, it did not seem to have a negative effect as I felt quite a bit better most of the day.

After breaking the fast, we headed out for what turned out to be the highlight of my day that particularly fine Monday. We headed for Golkonda fort. At this point I was planning on writing about some of the historical background of the fort, but upon thinking about it and realizing that the data I actually remembered was spotty to the point that it would be almost incoherent and furthermore realizing that since the reader is reading this blog on the internet, he must have access to the internet so therefore he should be able to easily look up information about the fort on wikipedia or some such site (which would probably be much more accurate than anything I would write) I decided to forego any explanation of the fort and simply say that it was the awesomest fort I've ever been in. Of course, topping the list of cool forts Steven Oxley has been in is not difficult considering it is about two items long now (the other one being the fort at Camp Au Sable). However, I will direct the reader to the many pictures I took at the fort to help convince him that it is rather awe-inspiring.

I would also like to mention that our guide who took us through the fort was quite comical. He spoke very broken English (which the Indian kids were actually making fun of him for - repeating some of the stuff he would say and laughing). He also took up an amusing habit of repeating everything directly to me after he had given his little presentation to the rest of the group. It was amusing because he would say, "You understand?" and before I could say "Yes," which would have been my answer in every case, he would repeat, verbatim, what he had just said to the rest of the group. Also, at the end of the tour, he mentioned something about "If you enjoy, than maybe you give tips," or something like that, and, of course, he singled me out since I was the only white person in the group and I just happened to have a nice looking camera hanging around my neck (which little did he know I acquired for free). The second time he came up to me specifically, I felt bad, so I gave him the change in my pocket and mumbled something about being the poorest person in the group - I guess I know now what it feels like to be stereotyped.

This brings up another interesting thought. While I've been in India (especially while we've been sight-seeing in Hyderabad) random people will come up to me and ask me where I'm from. I think the most amusing example of this would have to be after the laser show we went to (which I should relate later), I was sitting in the bus with the window open and a guy in a bus next to us leaned out the and window and said, "Excuse me, where is it you are from."

"United States of America," I replied.

"Ah, United States, did you enjoy the show?" he asked.

I gave him a thumbs-up and said, "Yeah, it was great." Not much of a conversation, but when I think about what an American would do if he saw an Indian in an adjoining bus it becomes rather amusing.

After we left the fort, I experienced some real Indian food at the Seventh-day Adventist Union office in Hyderabad. This was the food I had been expecting when I found out I was coming to India. The menu consisted of fried rice, white rice, dahl, chicken, fish, curd, bananas, cake, and vegetable chutney (I passed on the fish and chicken). It is the vegetable chutney I wish to dwell on. In complete honesty, I'm not sure if this was, indeed, vegetable chutney. That is what the lady serving the food told me it was. Furthermore, if I had asked her where it was brewed, she probably would have pointed me to the person who made it and even showed me the ingredients, but I don't think I trust her. If you ask me, the only explanation for the nature of this particular chutney was that it was stewed in the boiling cauldron of the Devil's kitchen, heated by the fiery fires of the deepest depths of the furnace that is hell. It should not have been called vegetable chutney, it should have been called napalm chutney or atomic chutney or sear-the-skin-off-your-tongue chutney, but not vegetable chutney. Needless to say, I found this chutney to be just a tad bit spicy. Even the Indians around me were blowing their noses throughout the meal, so I didn't feel so bad, but this was definitely the spiciest meal I've had while in India. I even had to start scraping the food off my spoon with my teeth so that my lips wouldn't touch the spiciness (and for those of you who know about how I have to eat sandwiches you know what desperate straights I must have been in to attempt to do anything useful with my teeth). I was actually pretty proud of myself because I almost finished the chutney. The ironic part was that the other part of my meal that I didn't finish was the curd, which is supposed to have a tremendous cooling effect. The problem with curd is that I find it to be absolutely disgusting to the point that it almost makes me sick (especially on a weakened stomach), but I am trying to get used to it so I ate a bit here and there.

After lunch, we headed out for Salar Jun museum. This museum is the collection of one man (well, started by one man anyway) and I easily could have spent an entire day there, but we only had a couple of hours, so I only got to see a fraction of it. Fortunately, I believe I did see the most impressive piece in there (I am rather confident since I think it is the most impressive sculpture I've ever seen). This particular sculpture is called Veiled Rebecca I believe and I am completely blanking on the name of the artist, but I definitely suggest the reader check it out on the internet (I may give a link once I get a connection myself - I'm writing this offline (Edit: apparently there are a few different copies of the sculpture, all done by Benzoni - you can see a picture of one of the other ones here).

After the museum, we headed for a laser show. Before the laser show started, there was a park nearby which is on a lake. We went into the park (which had a small admission fee) and hung out there for a while. I went out on the lake on a speedboat with one of the guys from our group and two girls we met there (the speedboats take groups of four or less at a flat rate so this was the most economical). The speedboat (outboard) was quite small so we had to sit as close to the front as possible to reduce drag. It was still pretty fun and we got to see the standing buddha in the middle of the lake close up, which was definitely worth the boat ride price of Rs. 180 (total, for all 4 of us). After the boat ride, we headed over to the laser show, which was quite impressive and intriguing since it featured some information about Hyderabad's history (Golkonda fort even made an appearance). After the laser show, we headed back to the dormitory for food and bed (oh, and I took a manual shower - by manual I mean pouring the water over my head myself). And now we have reached the present time in which I am lying in bed, sleepily trying to summarize the last of my day (if you didn't notice, I lost a little inspiration after the chutney description).

The Price of Wandering

I saw a guy on a motorcycle get hit by a BUS!! It was pretty much amazing and the only actual accident I've witnessed. Before anyone gets all worked up - no one was hurt. It was actually quite amusing. I'll start the story from the beginning.

I needed soap. It seems like such a natural and easy thing to come by (which turns out to be true, but I'll get to that later), but when the only place that you know you can buy soap is over a mile away and you don't have a car things become a little more difficult. I knew that this store which I had gotten soap at before was no more than a mile and a half away because I had ran to it in a little over ten minutes on one of my morning runs. I decided that I would take off from work a little early and walk to the store. So, I grabbed my wallet and headed for the door.

As I was walking along the road, listening to my iPod, I saw a motorcycle with two Indian men on it pull out into traffic. At this particular time there was a bus approaching, going the same direction that the motorcyclist intended to go. Fortunately, both of them were moving very slowly, but as I watched I thought to myself, "I wonder if that guy even sees that the bus is there." I don't know how a gigantic vehicle like a bus can sneak up on someone, but that's exactly what was happening. As the motorcyclist finally pulled into the lane, the bus hit him and he and his passenger fell over onto the ground - the motorcycle was pushed a couple of feet after it hit the ground and left white marks on the asphalt from where the pegs had dragged. I couldn't believe it.

In the aftermath of the accident, a crowd started to gather around and the owner of the motorcycle checked himself and his bike out to make sure it was ok. The bus was empty except for the driver and one other guy, but neither of them came out for quite a while. Finally, they both came out and the driver started talking rather heatedly in Tamil. I couldn't tell what he was saying, but I like to think it was something like, "Hey Bill, how are the wife and kids? It's kind of sad that I have to hit you with a bus in order for us to have a good talk nowadays." Actually, I think the bus driver thought it was not his fault because he was going so slow (seriously crawling) although he did just keep on going even though he could clearly see that the motorcyclist was pulling out. I also believe the motorcyclist thought the bus was stopped. Regardless, after the driver came out, a crowd really started to develop (people coming from across the street and whatnot), but I wanted to get my soap before supper so I sneaked away.

When I finally arrived at the store, it was closed. I knew it was usually open later because I went there after dark once, so I figured I'd stay until around 6 to see if it opened then. The train station is right nearby so I figured I'd take a look around. Turns out the train here is really cheap - you can take a ride from Hosur (where I am) to Bangalore for only about Rs10 ($0.25). It is kind of funny because Gerald (Dr. Christo's son) said he had to pay more for the auto-rickshaw from the train station to the compound (Rs40 and a little over a mile) than from Bangalore to Hosur (Rs10 and 60 miles I think). So yeah, I'll have to go to Bangalore one of these days.

After I explored the train station, I headed back towards the store, but it was still closed. I figured I'd just head home. As I started to get near to the compound, I started checking out all the little shops beside the road. As I got to the last couple of stands, I found soap! I bought 2 bars (one was the same brand as the kind I got at the other store previously). So the irony of the story is that I walked three miles only to find out that there was soap probably less than 100 yards from the compound... *sigh* oh well - I got to see a guy get hit by a bus!

Churchill and Fleming

Have you heard the story of Alexander Fleming twice saving Winston Churchill's life (in some variations Fleming's father saves him the first time)? Apparently it's a rather popular e-mail forward because I've heard it several times. After hearing the third variation of it in worship the other day (this particular version involved a pool instead of a lake or swamp which I had heard before) I figured there was something fishy about it. As I suspected, the story turns out to be entirely false. I checked it with a couple of different internet sources, but I believe the Churchill Centre website is the most authoritative. You can see the explanation for yourself here.

It makes me a little upset about what can get out there and be accepted as truth. I guess it is just a lesson to us all to always check your sources. And to think, I have even talked about this myth in the past, as if it were truth...

Oh yeah, and e-mail forwards are teh gayzorzz.

MOUTH OF STEEL! raaaaaaargh!

I ate (almost) an entire chili pepper!! I didn't cry, my head didn't explode, and fire didn't emit from any of my orifices. Granted, I ate it a little bit at a time, and with other food, but other than my nose running a bit and my mouth still feeling a bit warm 15 minutes later, I think it went pretty well. In fact, I even enjoyed the taste some. I figure, at this rate, I'll be able to eat all of the chilis that are served with my dal within the next decade or so. I just need to keep training...

The walk to work

I've put up a new album on my Picasa page. You can check it out here. It's basically a little slide show of my walk from my guest room (still haven't moved into my apartment yet) to work at the division office building.

I went to Hosur the other day. It's a really crowded town. It also did not help that a festival was going on at the time we were there. Basically all we did was go to a grocery, an ATM, and a fruit stand. I didn't really need anything, I just went along for the ride (the auditors who are here from America needed to pick up some stuff). I really saw how crowded it was when we were in the grocery store. It was very difficult to navigate because the store was so small and there were so many people. The traffic here in India is also much worse than in Bangkok. At least in Bangkok people will slow down for you when you cross the road. Here, it was quite scary crossing the road because the lanes don't really tell you anything about whether people will be coming from the left or right and once when we were crossing a moped came tearing down the road and went right in between two parts of our group, laying on the horn the whole time. It was quite an experience. I think it would probably take me a little while to get adjusted to driving here :P I was glad I got to see part of the town that we're so close to. It's like a different world living on the division campus.

Storytime!

So, as promised, here is the "manuscript" for the children's story I did yesterday:

I was SO EXCITED! We were going to Canada! I had never been to Canada before and our whole family was going to be going. I had been looking forward to it for weeks. I told all of my friends about all the different places we were going to go and things we were going to see. And then the day finally came. I had all of my stuff packed up and was ready to go. The only thing that still needed to be done was to fill up the van with gas - then we would be on our way.

While my dad went to fill up the van, my grandpa watched my brother and me. We had just found a new climbing tree and we wanted our grandpa to watch us climb it. "Papa, papa," we called him. "Watch us climb this tree." My brother and I were very safety conscious (either that or we thought we looked cool with helmets on), so we put our helmets on and buckled them up nice and tight. Then I watched as Rob climbed the tree first. Higher and higher he went, climbing up into the tree, "Wow, that's cool," I thought to myself as I watched him. So, of course I wanted to show my grandpa my awesome climbing skills, and I started climbing. Now, the trick with this tree was that there was only one branch that could be reached from the ground, and this particular branch just so happened to be dead. I wasn't worried at all, though, because I had climbed the tree many times before. So I hoisted myself up on the branch. Then I brought my foot up and put it on the branch, and "SNAP!!" The branch which had held me so many times before broke! As I fell, I put my hand out to catch myself and "SNAP!!" As my arm hit the ground, it broke.

As soon as my dad got back, he rushed me to the hospital. The doctors put a cast on my arm and said that I couldn't travel until it healed. I wasn't going to be able to go to Canada! I was devastated. "Why? Why can't I go?" I cried. But you know what? A few months later, after my arm had healed, I did get to go to Canada. And that trip was even better than the other would have been because I got to go to the Canadian expo (a huge fair that has rides and food and all kinds of other attractions).

Moses was SO EXCITED! He was going to Canaan, the land promised by God! He had been looking forward to it for years. Moses and the children of Israel were getting very close to the Promised Land. Unfortunately, the children of Israel liked to complain a lot, and one day they all started complaining because they didn't have any water. "Why did you bring us all the way out of Egypt just to die of thirst in the desert?" they said to Moses. In response to the Israelites complaints, God spoke to Moses and told him to speak to a rock and then water would flow out of the rock for the Israelites.

Moses gathered all the children of Israel together to the rock, but, instead of speaking to the rock as God had commanded him, Moses started speaking angrily to the people. "Why do you always gripe and complain?" Moses said. "I brought you out of slavery to take you to the promised land and all you can do is whine!" and with that, "SNAP!!" Moses struck the rock with his staff.

Just as God had said, water did pour forth from the rock. However, because Moses had disobeyed God by striking the rock and taking credit for bringing the people out of Egypt, God told Moses that he would not be able to enter Canaan. Moses was devastated. "Why God? Why can't I enter with the people?" Moses cried. God never did let Moses enter the Promised Land, but you know what? After Moses died, God did something much better for Moses. God came down and rose Moses from the grave and took Moses to heaven to be with Him.

Things don't always turn out they way we think they should. In my case, I was not able to go to Canada because my arm was broken. In Moses's case, he was not able to enter the Promised Land because he messed up and disobeyed God. Sometimes we may even pray for something and the prayer may not be answered the way we think it should have been. But you know what? God always has a plan. In my case and in Moses's case, God's plan was even better than we could have foreseen. Sometimes the plan that God has is better and sometimes it's just different, but the important thing to remember is that it is always for our good.

So yeah, that was the story I told for Sabbath School (with many alterations of course due to the spontaneous nature of story telling). I felt pretty good about it - it seemed that at least the kids in the center of the front row were paying attention, so that's a start. In other news, there are some auditors here from the U.S. One of them just so happens to be Robin Willis who apparently grew up with my mom (whom she says "hi" to). Talk about a small world (especially in Adventist circles).

MONKEEEEEEYS!!!1!!111!! :O

I was sitting there, in Sabbath School, staring out the window and not paying as much attention as I should have been, when suddenly I saw a monkey scurry accross the grass between the fence and a garden and start getting some of the fruit from the garden! I couldn't believe it. I even pointed it out to the guy sitting beside me who half-smiled at me and then showed very clearly that he was completely disinterested by turning back to the Sabbath School leader (who happened to be Dr. Christo). I continued to watch the monkey eat the fruit, fighting the urge to pull my camera out of my backpack, walk over to the window and start snapping pictures in the middle of Sabbath School. As I continued to watch, several other monkeys climbed over the wall (which actually has some nasty looking barbed wire at the top). There were probably 4 or 5 adult monkeys and 1 or 2 baby monkeys. One of the baby monkeys rode on its mothers back while she climbed down the wall (which looked rather difficult considering it was a stone wall). Then I watched as the other baby monkey leaped from the top of the wall and plummeted downwards. I thought at the time that it leaped all the way to the ground, but I lost sight of it behind some plants. I think now that it must have grabbed hold of one of the branches of the palm tree by the garden before it reached the ground. Whatever it did, it certainly looked quite comical. I couldn't believe that I got to see the monkeys so soon - I had been told that there were monkeys around, but I thought that they came by rarely. Hopefully I will get to take some pictures of them sometime. Apparently there is also some other interesting animal life in the area, including cobras. I kind of hope I get to see one, but at a safe distance of course. Another interesting note is that there are many bird calls that I have never heard before, but yet I have not seen any particularly interesting-looking birds. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

Before the adult Sabbath School where I saw the monkeys I told a story for kindergarten Sabbath School. It was pretty fun. I'll get a "manuscript" of the story up when I get a chance (I though it was pretty creative). The interesting thing about telling the story was that, before I actually got up to do it, the girl who had asked me to tell the story said, "When you get up there, make sure you talk nice and loud because you have a really heavy accent and they might have trouble understanding you otherwise." I guess I've just never thought about me having an accent before. When I thought about it a little more, though, I realized she had a very valid point. I am most definitely a minority here. I am one of three white people in a church whose membership is probably at least 300 (I've never been very good with crowd size estimations). Looking around and seeing that everyone looks very much different than me is a very good way to remind myself that I am not at home anymore :P It's actually kind of cool, I guess.

One thing that I don't think I have related in my blog yet is that there are scheduled power cuts here. Every day at noon, 8 p.m. and some other times that I don't remember, the power is shut down from the electricity provider. Fortunately, the school has generators which they fire up every time the power is cut (well, when it's scheduled to be cut anyway), but they usually take a couple of minutes before the electricity comes back on line so everyone will be without electricity for a couple of minutes. Last night at vespers, a group of ladies was right in the middle of one of the special musics when suddenly the lights went out and the power to the mics was cut. I found this quite comical and I'm glad it was pitch black because I was sitting there in the dark stifling laughter. Apparently the keyboard had battery power because the keyboardist kept on playing. Which brings me to another point which I find quite comical. You know those cheesy, synthesized drum beat/bass tracks that come on most keyboards? Well, they use those here - A LOT - for every special music I've heard, in fact (except for when our choir sang - we had the piano for accompaniment).

Well, that's all I can think that I wanted to relate in this post (except for the "manuscript" - I think I'll get that out tomorrow). I'm getting involved in some stuff which makes things more fun and everyone is still extremely friendly. I feel kind of bad because everyone knows my name and I don't know most people's names, but I guess that should change down the road.

The Beginning

I got through my first day. Everyone is very nice and the food so far has been great. They have me put up in a guest room at the campus, but apparently I will be getting my own apartment in a week or so (they haven't gotten everything prepared for it yet). The website I'll be working on looks like a pretty interesting project. I haven't been able to look at any of the code or anything, but I can already tell it could use some work (it's very much not finished, but I do not agree with some of the design choices that have already been made). You can take a look at it here if you wish.

Dr. Christo, his family, and I went to one of the supermarkets in the town here to pick up some stuff (I needed toiletries). On the way we saw quite a few people out on the streets. Apparently it is the last day of the festival worshiping their elephant god (Vishnu? - I'll have to look that up). He said something about them taking their gods to the river. We could see a couple of their gods from the road - they looked really elaborate (not to mention large).

I am not sure exactly what I will be doing over the next couple of days since they have not gotten a place set up for me to do anything and they do not have the information I need to administrate the website, but I am rather eager to find out. I have already been asked to tell a story for Kindergarten sabbath school and to join the choir so I can see that I will be involved with church stuff. Altogether, I would have to say that I am quite excited.

As I suspected, it's not at all like I expected. I landed in Bangalore, got off the airplane, and got through the passport check and customs with no problems. Then I spent a good 40 minutes to an hour waiting for someone to pick me up. When the clock struck 12:00 a.m. I decided to give Dr. Christo (my contact in India) a call. It took me a little while to be able to use the pay phone since I had to get change and have the lady at the information desk tell me how to dial phone numbers in India (apparently you have to dial 0 when there is a +91 in front of the number? - still doesn't make any sense to me). Once I finally did get the call through, however, Dr. Christo picked up and said in what I now realize was probably a sleepy voice, "Hello?"

"Hi, is this Dr. Christo?" I replied.

"Yes."

"Hey, this is Steven Oxley, I'm at the airport."

"Has the driver picked you up?"

"No."

"OK, if you go outside there will be a person standing there with your name on a sign."

Outside - of course, it was so simple; why hadn't I thought of it before instead of deciding to call up someone who was obviously enjoying sleeping at this late hour? "Oh great, thanks, bye," I said to the sound of the click on the other end of the line.

So, now that I had completely humiliated myself, I stepped outside and about the third sign I saw had my name on it. The driver (Joyle - spelling? (edit: I think it's actually Joel now, he just pronounced it weird)) packed up my stuff and then I found out that there was supposed to be one Dr. Bob Robinson coming in as well who we were supposed to pick up when his plane came in at 12:40 a.m. So, we waited outside the airport. When 2:40 a.m. rolled around and there was still no Bob Robinson, I said to Joyle, "I don't think he's coming." To which Joyle replied by insisting that I go to sleep in the vehicle. I'm not sure exactly what happened after that as I was in and out of slumber, but I don't think we stayed at the airport for too much longer before we headed out to the Division office. This was probably the main surprise for me: the division office isn't in Bangalore. It is not even in the same state as Bangalore. It is a good one and a half hour drive to get to the division office in Hosur from the airport.

On the way to the division office I got my first taste of Indian road etiquette - the main principle I believe must be called "beep it and blast it" or something similar because the horn is a very highly used driving tool in this country. It is used for passing, for going around blind corners, for telling pedestrians to get out of the way - even in place of stop signs. Oh, and there are also speed bumps everywhere - which may or may not be slowed down for (depending on whether or not a pass is in the process). Two of the scariest experiences were when we threaded the needle between two large trucks (one was about to pass the other, but before it could pull up alongside the other one we squeezed through) and when we blasted through an intersection after blasting the horn, cutting off a very large truck. Another peculiar road habit is that apparently any driver can act as a taxi. We picked up some random guy who was walking along the road and when we dropped him off, he reached into his pocket and pulled out some rupees to give to Doyle (I didn't see how much). I thought this was quite interesting indeed.

Fortunately, I escaped the hands of certain doom which gripped the steering wheel of the vehicle and made it to the division office at about 6:30 a.m. I was quite tired as I had not slept very much (we stopped for tea at one point so that could have something to do with it - also, tea with milk and sugar is pretty rockin'). I was really expecting to be in the city, but I guess that's not what is going down (although I still haven't talked to anyone to find out exactly what is happening). The division office campus looks really nice and the guest room they put me up in is decent as well. I guess I will find out more today.

Bangkok State of Emergency

Yeah, so, THIS is kind of scary. Apparently the Thai schools are being closed down because of this and the water is going to be shut down so everyone here is supposed to stock up... Apparently everything is happening to the northwest of here. I'm supposed to fly out tonight - I hope I don't have any trouble...

Compute This!

Today was a great day for computers. Went to the school with Mike after eating a light breakfast. Spent most of the morning and a bit of the afternoon on the computer. Did a lot of organizing e-mail and whatnot and worked on a programming project which I started helping out with this summer. I probably spent about an hour writing some new code and when I proceeded to try it out, I of course ran into some problems. As always, it turned out to be something completely simple and stupid. In my code I had called a function that set a couple of variables to what I wanted them to be, then, like the idiot that I am, I had placed my initializers after the function so that the variables I needed were empty. So, instead of this:

$this->helps = array();
$this->numHelps = 0;
$this->load($filename); //Sets $this->helps and $this->numHelps to useful values

I had this:

$this->load($filename); //Sets $this->helps and $this->numHelps to useful values
$this->helps = array();
$this->numHelps = 0;

It took me a while to figure out why the variables I needed were empty...

So, fortunately, I figured all that out just in time for going to Pantip. Pantip, as I am sure most if not all of the readers of this fantastic blog will not know, is one of the awesomest places in Bangkok. It is a 6-story building packed full of computer hardware, computer software, mp3 players and accessories, and any other sort of electronic item one could possibly want. Also, since it is in Thailand, the prices are good as marked and on top of that, if the price doesn't seem right, it's always an option to barter. Also, since it is a huge conglomerate of little shops there is plenty of competition and selection at the different shops. In summary, it is pretty much a computer-geek's heaven, but I am getting ahead of myself.

To get to Pantip we took a songtaew to the river taxi. While we were waiting on the dock for the river taxi, we decided to get drinks from a street vendor there (which were very well priced at 10 baht for about a 20oz glass bottle of Fanta). Mike got his and the vendor put it in a bag with ice (as in poured the bottle into a plastic bag with ice). This is a popular way to drink stuff in Bangkok apparently. When I was about to pay for mine, the river taxi pulled up so I wanted to hurry and tried to communicate to her (the vendor) that I did not want it in a bag with ice - I would simply drink it out of the bottle. She seemed to understand at first, but then kept saying something in Thai and gesturing at the bags and the ice. I had no idea what she was saying and both Mike and I tried to get her to understand that I just wanted the bottle. Finally, after some laughter on both sides and still having no idea why she wanted to pour my drink into a bag so badly, I gave in and let her do it. However, she did not put any ice in the bag which left me completely confused... After this whole ordeal we had missed the river taxi, but at least I had something cool and refreshing to sip on while we waited for the next one.

When we got to the stop that people at the school had told Mike to get off at, we were fortunate to find Pantip with almost no difficulty at all (since neither of us really knew where we were going). The main reason we were going there is that Mike's laptop power supply completely died yesterday and he needed a new one. We were doubtful whether or not we would be able to find a replacement, but in the second shop we walked into we found some power supplies, so that upped our spirits. When the shopkeeper came up, trying to help us, I told her we needed a 19.5V power supply and she just said "950 baht." I thought she was talking about the ones that we were looking at and had not understood me at all, but a little while later she handed Mike a 19.5V Dell power supply which had 950 baht written on the wrapping. She even let him try it out with his computer right there in the shop before he bought it. We found out later that the current was different than his old one, but looking online, the power supply he got is listed as being compatible with his computer. Also, he was able to get the shop keeper to sell it to him for 900 baht (I think he could've gotten it for less but there was some confusion because of the language barrier). After that, we simply looked around for a while - I was pretty much geeking out. I'm hoping there are some plazas like this one in Bangalore.

After returning from our journey to electronics paradise, we got together with some of the teachers and went to an awesome soup place called MK's (awesome name, I know - it's a chain). The format for food is that each table gets a pot with broth and then different things are ordered to go into the broth (we got vegetables, tofu, and an egg). Then, you put the ingredients in the soup yourself, cook it, and serve. It was pretty tasty indeed.

For a complete gallery of pictures from this episode, simply check out my picasa web album.