Finland --- An Experience.

Well... 'One more country ', these were my first thoughts when , i learnt about my trip to finland. As usual after getting the Visa processed and done with all the usual chores associated with a trip, i set off on ma journey to Helsinki , finland.
Longest flight i had ever taken ,Uff... khuda , (how much i dread flights now!!), and smhow , God's grace , i landed in Amsterdam , and after a bit of adventure , boarded my connecting flight. was to almost miss it , as the boarding pass had a diferent gate number , and i was waiting there , just lost in my own thoughts , hardly bothered about the surroundings , and with no clue about the time!! hmm.. well wat were those thoughts of mine ;) , not to be disclosed here my friends :).
Then , somehow, i was back to our normal world, and boarded the flight.

Now, as we were just to land in helsinki, the first sight was of moon!! , baffled , i checked the time, ohh it was 2 pm.. ahem.. so now i know i am close to arctic :) , where day n nite are at their own terms. and i was prepared for more sights of the kind.

My First Short Beijing Trip.

Aha FarEast Again!!! I always used to say , i wannu go to forest-For-Est ... But the Good Lord and me had a bit of communication gap and it was misunderstood as Far-East!
And i was off on my journey to FarEast again!! This time to MainLand China.
As such i was working with few chinese off late , so am quite used to seeing all those chinese faces.
Reached Beijing city(Peking is how chinese call it),on 15th Jan evening. We were aware that it was damn cold there , and were all set with our own ways to beat the cold .. but Alas!! It was just horrifying, the instance we stepped out of the Airport, we had to stand in a line , to take the taxi , and that few minutes left me frozen. Yes, I was wearing Jacket, Gloves,Cap,shoes evrything to cover evry inch of my skin , still !!! Once we were in the taxi, it felt soo good and warm, and that was my first encounter with climate less than 0 (somewhere around -5 degree C)and It was great.
We were on our journey to the hotel,this time, we made a wise (may /may not be) choice to stay in a service apartment,so that our survival becomes less painful. LeGarden was a wonderful place to stay , and i loved my room. It was a cozy 1 BHK flate, with a nice kitchen and bath.
we were a group of 5,and we all planned to cook and eat together and my place was where all the activity is to happen! And our routine started that sunday evening. i dont exactly remember , what we made that day , i think just some ready to eats and all that , which needs just microwave.
and then it was monday morning and (U know wat!!!) it was time for work again!!!! :(
but its a bit exciting to go to a new office, just for the difference may be. But to step out to go wasn't that welcuming!!(Hey i told u its biting cold out there).
We had to , and it didnot feel that bad , aha we are humans , above that indians , can get accustomed to anything even before we know. Office was like any other site, not much organised, no big comfort zone for ur work. somehow we have to manage.
and unlike my expectations, there was not much work, and it was not hectic.
There were some delays and that was the reason , we came back the next weekend. we went to a chinese restaurant near by , for lunch , and took a chinese couleague along, to order for us. and he ordered some Vegetarian dishes and to my dismay they all tasted good !!! and we even placed a second order for one of the dishes. :-).
and Life went on for a week.
Many things happened in between though. visited few places, and most of the markets. That was one good experience shopping in china..
One can learn how Language can play a vital role in one's life , in China. Its hard to communicate with anybody , unless u are an expert in picking up new languages nad start learning chinese , with the right accent(Very important). as none of us were such crackerjack, we had a hard time.
About the shopping, there are few markets one should never miss, but be aware , if u cant bargain, its beter , u just be an onlooker , n not buy anything. we packed up early one day from the office ,and went to a place called Xidan, the taxi fellow dropped us near a big mall, and told us that it was xidan , me and pankaj , went in, n it was no less than the duty free shop of any big Airport. That was ofcourse not wat we were expecting, and i asked a lady there , if it was XiDan, and she confirmed in positive. Oh!!! we cudn't make out why evryone were insisting on visiting XiDan!!! Anyway , we decided not to waste any more of our time and took a taxi to silk Market.on the way, we see that there were many shops on the street, and many 'Sale' boards.. n Then we realised , Xidan is the name of the area ,and not the name of the mall. n it was a Communication Gap again!!!!
Anyways , we were off to silkMarket , and were prepared for many shocks! this taxi fellow dropped us near some mall , but we were beter learnt this time, and not ready to take a chance, enquired with few ppl , (ofcourse using all our miming skills), n again it was not the place we had to be!!!! We decided not to giveup n not to trust any more taxi fellows ,and started walking taking directions from anybody who could tell us, after some 2KM walk we finally reached that place , some 15 mins before closing :-). It was a kind of grey market , one thing , i can never forget is the Bargaining that happens there. Thumbrule to follow is quote 10 to 20 times lesser than the given price. Am not joking. First time in my life , i saw bargaining at such high scale, and bargained myself that way!! bout things prized at round 800 yuan for 40 yuan.. no Jokes!! Amazing part was that the guls selling the goods there , speak English, good enuf to deal with all the foreigners.
One more market , was Pearl market, which we visted on weekend, almost similar to Silk market. and near this, therz one Toy Market,the place i loved the most !! :-)
that was about the markets , and there are many shops here and there , just keep an eye , u will surely end up filling all ur bags.
Over the weekend, we been to Forbidden City (a Royal Palace of qing dynasty),and Tianmen Square , Places of historical importance. I will post some pics of the palace here soon.
so that was my short trip to Beijing , and am flying again this weekend.
hope to post a big blog about the Great Wall this time..

Keep Visiting.. :-)

siagad picnic

Siagad, also called Sinhagad,is a place in the outskirts of Pune, it has huge historical importance, as Shivaji Maharaj once had his Fort there. This weekend we went to this place for picnic. we planned to leave home by 9, but u know, saturday morning, waking up early , how it is... so as usual we got up late, but somehow, managed to get out of our house by 10 or so.. Had to go till swargate n take a jeep to the place. evderything was well n good until we reached the siagad village, then we had to go to the top of the mountain, the worst thing was the road , it was sooo horrible, n good God, sooo steep, i really had butterflies in my belly!!! Anyway, finally we were on the top(Of the World!!). The view from there was nice, though i cant call it amazing, Only thing we kept wondering was , how come the fort was built there , at such a height in those days!!!
Our Jeep dropped us at a place from where we had to go all by ourselves , to wherever we wanted. we took off from there , n started roaming around n clicking photos, my sis was a bit concerned, n was persuading not to go here n there, but to no use. Aman (my jiju) n me kept goin on and my sis had to follow! after sometime we got soo tired!! Started feeling the heat then, it wasnt easy!! but it was Fun. Though u cant find any fort, there are just few traces of the remains left , u can see. After all the roaming around episode, we finally found a spot where we can just sit, under some trees, then a lady approached us asking if we would like to have something, Lassi, Dahi, Kanda bhajis(Onion Pakodas) etc..we ordered some n ate them sitting there. we set off on our way bak, got down n down n down all the way through the disastrous road. From there we went to Khadak-Wasla Dam, relaxed for some time on the shore, there were many people there, did not feel like staying for long. Just played for sometime clicked some snaps n were bak to the abode quite tired , but feeling good!. ByeBye..
(shall upload the pics soon)

Taipei visit.

Hi, i have recently come bak from taipei, Capital city of Taiwan ,Republic of China. Now i feel like writing about my one month's experience of the place.

Basically, i went to the client side there. Being on the client's side was quite an experience. Writing about the office , work n all is quite a boring story. Its not like my office in india , hifi,hip-hop n all, so therz no point writing much about it. I prefer saying about other things like weekends, hotel, place, people, colleagues etc. I stayed in a hotel called Four Points sheraton, as the brand says, a sheraton hotel always has a quality, better than many other places, and definetely best one i have ever stayed.Its in Chung Hwa , not in the city , but was quite close to my work place. very few friends of mine were in this place,the others were in Fullerton. we had a global community in our team, there were people from India, NRIs of Cyprus, Cypriots, romanians, Israelis, Taiwanese -- uuh imagine howz it working. Actually it was soo great, i always had fun , even in such pressure. Ok lets talk about leisure, whenever we came back early , we used to sit and hang out in the bar of hotel, it was a place where we can meet people from quite many places.

View From My Room.
My first weekend wasnt dat great, to say it was quite boring, then the next one, me and Ashish, we felt we had had enuf, so packed our bags n set out to go somewhere, enquired at the reception, about a place called WuLai, its a river somewhere near by , we didnt know where it is then, took a taxi till a MRT station(Xan shu r something), from there we boarded a bus to WuLai, the journey was so nice, we met a chinese family,a couple n their daughter(very cute one), the lady could manage to speak english, and she helped us regarding the bus to board. They were quite friendly, thats the best part about the people of Taipei, they are nice and friendly,i think this is the case in almost all the asian countries, there is a kind of warmth and hospitality in the people.

Chinese Lady and her Daughter who helped us..
On our way we had our first glimpses of WuLai, flowing freely between the mountains and the forests, it was a treat to eyes, Ashish was soo excited imagining how beautiful the place shall be...all his excitment was worth.
Finaaly we reached WuLai(Wooo Lai, right way to pronounce!!),we got down the bus, started walking towards the river, there were quite many shops on the way, like in India, but mostly of Food n beverages,after walking for some time we finally reached the river , haaaa,it was sooo clean free flowing, u know just amazing...we got into the water, ashish knew to swim n he set off , i was just playing n warning him,the current of the water was high, n it looked quite dangerous..


we stayed there for long.Ashish was very curious about the cable cars, we were able to see them at a distance , but had no clue regarding where to board them n all.. Finally we went searching for them. This river starts from a big waterfall,coming from somewhere in the dense forest,and the cable car takes u close to the waterfall.


We found the way to go there, boarded a toytrain, which took us through the jungle to the mountain, from there we had to climb many steps, then we boarded the cablecar finally. Ya, forgot to add, we met a couple of chinese at the train station, elderly ones, they were sort of excited to talk to us, n a lady kept asking me hell lot of questions, thou i understood none of them!!

It was the first time i was ever on a cable car, it was quite exciting.. we were on the other side of the river now, close to the waterfalls,it was all soo great.. i could never imagine that it would all be soo sophisticated, n exceptionally well planned. there was a park, resort, sports , boating n all there in a place,which can be reached only by cable car!!!
we met an indian couple there, they were quite happy to see us, so were we!! we climbed many steps, n the scene there was fabulous!! ,


therz a small bridge kind of thing on the water fall, which makes the water stay , in a small pool.. n in that pool, were many fishes, plants, boats n all!!
best part were the fishes, it was like a very big aquarium, with all those colourful fishes visible!! great treat to eyes! dont think i will ever see something like this anyother time..



we both wanted to go boating, but , we were late , and it closes by 5pm, it was just sometime past 5, still we did not get the tickets!!
anyways we spent sometime there, n went further inside, where , we found a resort, quite beautiful, we passed over few places, then we reached another small pool, n there were, ducks n swans n fishes, it was all soo cute. there were many ducks n ducklings, apart from them there were 2 swans even!! a white one and a black one!



------Will finish this sooon-----------