Monday, October 29, 2007

The house, streets, bakery ect...

Alrighy, I now have some pics to offer you of the appartment, the bakery storefront, Our street and the stret the Bakery is on. I'll obviously tell you which is which though. I appologise for not doing this yesterday as I said I would, I was rather ill with a common thing called Delhi Belly that one is bound to get within their wirst week apperently. Marc seems to be fine thus far though. Ok, here we go. This is the view of our street from the balcony. Standing at the front door looking to the right toward the dining area. Standing just to the right of the front door, looking to the left at the office space. David and Anna's room. Our room.
Bathroom. Kitchen.
Living room. Hangin' out, enjoying the AC :) Ok, this is the street the Bakery is on. It is on the ground floor of the grey building you see on the right. The fella in the foreground is Rakesh, he is their Opperations manager type guy. He oversees he construction workers, and a bunch of other stuff. He also kinda acts as a translator when Anna (who's Hindi is very good) can't seem to get the point accross, mostly due to the other person not stopping talking. Rakesh, although softspoken, is also a very good nagotiator. Here is the Bakery's storefront. Quite cute I think! I have no pictures of the inside as of yet, I did a walk through video, but I'm still having issues posting them. I'll take a few next time we go in. This is a Vehicle we went to check out. It would be the delivery vehicle of baked goods to a grocery store in another state. Sounds far away, but it's about a half hour to 45 minute drive form the bakery. Could be worse! :P
This was rather amusing. The one guy on the motorcycle was giving the guy on the scooter a push. We followed them for quite some time, passing cows, goats, dogs and the like.

So there you go! We'll see what happens today. I'll probably stay home cuz I'm still running to the washroom every half hour :S Ok, too much information... See ya!

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Humayans Tomb.


We decided today to go do something touristy that none of us had seen. This was easy for us because, well, we haven't really seen anything, but Dave and Anna hadn't seen this Humayan's tomb place yet either, so we went there. This is within the grounds, but is not the tomb itself. It is beside a monument for someone else I beleive. This is a Mosque beside the other tomb.








Dave and Anna on top of the other tomb with the mosque in the background...












Marc found a precarious precipice to sit on, and so did I so I took a pic of him.














This is the real thing. They make very large buldings to mark these famous peoples tombs. There are older ones elsewhere around the city, but they are smaller and no where near as kept-up. We even had to pay 250 rupees each to get in! (equivalent of $5.50 CAN)










This is inside, under the large dome in the massive building, the marker of the tomb which is in the ground far below.













This is the view from the top, looking toward the gate we came through. The grounds were really big, and quite nice! Green grass, trees, little canals, Bollywood stars.... yes, you heard me right.




We walked around the side because we could hear music coming from there. Right after we rounded the corner and started walking toward the other set of stairs, we heard "CUT!!" And a guy all in black (who must have been absolutely roasting,) shooed us off to the side. The music then commensed again, and they shot the clip again. So obviously ammused by this, we went down to the grass set up our little blanket and played frizbie (which the locals loved) and watched the filming of a Bollywood movie called "Sunday" appropriately being filmed on a Sunday.




We went straight from there to Church, which starts at 4:30. My kinda Church. And all young prople too! Lets just say that Dave and Anna were among the oldest there aside fromt the pastors parents. So I think it'll be easy to make friends there quick.

I'll post a few more pics tomorrow of the house and general life in the streets of Delhi.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Some pictured for your hungry eyes!


So we've been here for three and a half days already, but it doesn't seem like it at all. We went shopping the other day, mostly because we didn't really bring any clothes, and got a bunch of cool stuff. The market is called Laj Path Nagar, and there are hundreds of shops. Here's a shot of it. Yes, that fella on the rolling cart is a beggar. Most likely a birth defect. I think he was parapolegic, cuz his legs didn't work. It was wall to wall people, like the mall at 6:00 on Christmas eve, but way worse. I went to a shoe store where I had to fight to even be able to see the shoes on the shelves. It was pure insanity.

I shall post more in a bit, we're going out sightseeing and to church. Lots more pictures to come! I just have run out of time for this morning.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Holy Cow! Litterally!!

Alright, so first off, the very best time to fly is at night. Both of our flights ended up being over nighters, and therefore we were able to sleep for most of them. Gravol realy helps with that too! :P After two 8 1/2 hour flights, one from Vancouver to London, England, and the other from the latter to New Delhi, we hooked up with Dave and Anna, who were convinced they had totally missed us in the airport and lost us already. Thanks to their patience we found them after waiting nearly half an hour for our luggage to come around. Apperently the secerity is pretty tight and they scan everything before putting it on the moving round about thingy... I know it has a proper name, but forgive me my brain feels like jello at the moment. We made our way to the car, fending off the porter guys who take the liberty to just take your bags right out of your hands and expect you to yeild to let them carry them for you. Then they of course want money. But really, I'm pretty sure we had it under control, there were four of us and only two large suitcases. yikes. Anyhow, Jumping in the car was our first introduction, and subsequent culture shock to life in India. Since they were once a Brittish Colony, the cars are right hand drive, and one drives on the left hand side of the road, when one feels like it. Seriously. Unless there is a barrier in the center of the road dividing it, anywhere is pretty much fair game. Let's just say the rules are loose. There are lane lines, kinda like home, but not quite so even... Mostly everyone sticks to the left, but definately mot always. You'll inevitably have a couple motorcycles, rickshaws or cars driving straight at you in a five minute period. But hey, given that there are over 15 000 000 people living in this city alone, and that a lot of them are walking, all over the place, or riding a motorcycle, or rickshaw, or bike, and that mixed up with all of the above are a bunch of cars, your top speed on a smaller street, if you are lucky will reach 30km/hr. Oh yeah, and there are cows, goats and dogs, EVERYWHERE. On the larger roads, there are less people randomly driving the wrong way, but the mayhem is pretty much the same. No one, and I shall emphasise NO ONE staqys within the lanes. It is unheard of, and simply stupid to do because you will get nowhere. You have to squeese in wherever you possibly can, and unlike home, where the horn is used as something for admonishing bad drivers, it is used in series of short bursts just to let other drivers know where you are on the road. However if you really lay on it for a good few seconds, that is the equivalent to swearing your head off at the idiot driver who nearly just took off your mirror. Shockingly, though we drove around to various places nearly all day, we saw no accidents. Partially because they don't stop for the small ones. if nobody is injured, and nothing is falling of the car and it still runs, meh, good to go. Almost al cars have some sort of dent somewhere on them. It's a wonder really, that there are not more bad ones. I guess that although for our standards they are all positively atrotious drivers, they are keenly aware of what's going on around them, and they look out for eachothers back halfs. your job as a driver apperently is to make sure the front half of your car doesn't hit anything, and the back half is other drivers around you's responsability. It's madness I tell you, pure madness. Thank Heaven that Dave does it well, and that Marc and I are laid back. Otherwise I think my nberves would be shot completely.

Anyway, enough about the driving. We went to see the Bakery thus far, to check on the Project manager dude, and see how things were progressing.... or in the case we found, digressing. SOme shelves had been made wrong, so they were re-doing them. For no real apparent reason the air conditioners had been moved up and over a few inches exposing nasty holes in the drywall. Why? no clue. Whatever, could be worse. Still don't have power, so they are working with whay light the widows bring, and there are no such things as power tools. It's all hand saws and chissles boy and girls, but that's probably for the best, cuz I'm not convinces I'd let any of those fellas opperate power tools... I could be mistaken, but probably not. Heck, they wear flipflops doing construction. There are no safety codes anywhere to speak of, and that's just normal. This place is going to take some getting used to.

Before we went to the Bakery we dropped our stuff off at home here, (very nice little place, quaint i dare say :) then grabbed some bread and eggs from the local grocer. (a 10 x 12 foot room with shelves lining all walls, and a large window where you tell the fella inside what you want. Kinda cute, I like it, and it's right around the corner. Has nearly everyhting too! Not fresh vegies or meat though. you buy that from venders on the side of the road. Breakfast was toast and eggs, cheers to Anna and her cooking skills for that! We then proceeded to their friends house for their usual thursday morning prayer meeting. We sang a bunch of songs, almost all familliar, and met some wonderful people. We'll see them around a bunch while wer're here.

After the Bakery, we went to another city in another state, called Noida (the city, don't know the name of the state) to inspect a bunch of stainless steel stuff they had fabricated. Counters, work surfaces, sinks and such. They were all up to specs, so we went from there to the local gigantic, no, freakin' HUGE mall. Still under construction too. I dare say it's as big as metrotown or bigger. And there is another just as big being built accross the street, and another beside that one. It's crazy I tell you. They've caught the consumerism bug almost worse than North Americans. After Dinner at a noodleish type place that had good food, but the hotness scale was higher than even Dave and Anna are used to. Oy.

Now we're back home. I passed out on the couch for an hour or more, and now want to go back to dreamland. I'm exhausted. So over and out for now, I may write tomorrow, but it looks as though it will mostly be spent getting me some clothes. :D So I may just wait till Saturday.

See ya!

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Count down

So we're nearly down to the last two weeks already. I hope we remember to pack everything! If any of you readers happen to think of anything we may have not thought of, then feel free to let us know! Just a short post for today, mainly because I'm tired, and my brain is on vacation. Hey, it's a long weekend, I'm allowed to not think for bit right? Not much has happened since I wrote last, Marc has gotten our paperwork to the consolate general to India, and we should have our visa's within a week. I think that's all the news for now!

Happy Thanksgiving!