Sivakumar's Journey

Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 1 (Kolkata)

2010-04-11T08:15:00.004+05:30

It is summer vacation for schools in our region; I have long pending commitment to take the family on a long trip. About a month back self and wify decided this year will visit North East India as we have never been there before and we know the places are exotic on the travelers list.

My family with my parents and my niece are 7 members who claimed to be as part of the trip, so the decision of grand summer vacation tour plotted.

After making all the necessary arrangements by phone, along with the help of Indian Jeep Guru Mr.UBS and another friend Mr.Ken in Darjeeling I have concluded that this trip will be happening soon. Thanks to IRCTC of Indian Railways as the ticket booking is that easy, only thing I need to book the tickets in 25 days in advance.

It was on a Friday 9th April, we started our journey from Chennai Central Railway station on Howrah Mail, and we travelled in a Second Class Sleeper couch just to enjoy the window view of the train. Choosing an A/C compartment denies the access to fresh air and we need to be contained in the dark glass.

It was fun all the way travelling from Chennai to Kolkata by train, It took us around 28hours to reach Kolkata and the trip was fine expect one incident where we got cheated by cheap passage seller who sold cashew nuts to us in the train. The cashew was packed in a neat and hi-class packing with a small window to see the content inside. The pack claimed PAWAN and after carefully looking at the nuts through the window we picked up 5 packs of 500gm each. The seller left the place quietly and later when we opened it, we found it that the pack had complete junk and only the window area they have put clean cashews.

Howrah station was like Chennai central station and looks like built during British time, outside the station yellow colored taxis are seen in huge number. I couldn't take picture today, but sure will post them when I return from the northeast side.

I met Mr.UBS at Howrah station with a warm welcome coming straight down from his humble smile. He was great person with his newly acquired MM540 jeep with A/C we travelled to the hotel. The tour continues…

Kodai kalakkal at Kodaikanal

2010-03-24T12:10:00.009+05:30

Last weekend turned to be one of the memorable weekends I ever had. A bunch of funky looking IT geeks joined together to make the team closer, the outing made it as success.

Living in the thick forest of computers and sound of binary algorithm is our lifestyle; we often talk to a lady of assumption, robot chat with no flush but lights and colors a complete virtual flora and fauna.

This time for a change we had to pierce off our work area to look outside the window for a blooming flowers, corkscrew roads, tree covered hills often mistaken for green carpet, freshly brewed air with no emission and the real mountain dew mineral water are few reason for us to feel lost in the heaven.

When we reached the Princess of Hill stations “Kodaikanal”(in Tamil language KOdai means Summer, Kanal means ‘to see’, hence a place to see in summer or a place to visit in summer), she welcome us with the warmth comfort. After firm landing our foot in the kodai hills, we had a short break at the cottage, just to regain the energy lost during the past 12 hours of bus travel.

It was great indeed to be part of the tour; all I had in my mind during the trip is a kind of rhythm reminding me of missing nature linked lifestyle in the urban life.

The Geeks crawled down to the park outside the accommodation to play off the stress inside the soul. We played some games like Volley ball, War of hand towel, Antakshari, Dance, Singing and Individual talent tamasha in the grounds of Chettiar Park, it was filling and we were laughed it off, Noon time we applied brake to the non-stop fun and poured some fuel to our hungry stomach.

Sub twenty temperatures in the middle of hot summer is something we chennaities never experienced but last weekend it was un-usual for many of us. Kodaikanal grabbed all the awards for making us feel hiding inside the blanket in the hot summer.

Camp-fire in the dusk with performance of playmate was great, a few bottles of beer and liquor propelled us even more and the stage was flying out in the air.

Horse riding, boating, shopping and sight seeing what else one can afford to not miss in a single day, we enjoyed them all. The height of the fun to me came when I got a chance to travel in a Jeep in Kodaikanal to visit handmade chocolate bazaar. A short ride with jam packed jeep on the coiled mountain road is a fun for sure trip, we enjoyed it.

The chocolates and spices of mountain are mouth watering and delicious is not enough to describe the yummy taste.

Once again it is a re-test resulted with the same output which says clearly that we stand united after all we were in Team outing right ;-)

Shooting practice

2010-03-07T17:51:00.004+05:30

Off late I wanted to start shooting again, since the Nikon/Canon prices have gone up I'm using a Air Rifle to shoot these days :)

I was introduced to the Olympic fame Shooting sports by a friend of mine, in fact I got hooked to the sports after holding the gun he had for a second. Thats where I decided to lay my hands on a air rifle. After couple of search on the internet I found Indian Hume Pipes is a company that produces quality air rifles in India.

The internet is a window to the world, I found all the details to buy the IHP rifle. Sadly I also realized the Chennai based Armory are always on the higher side for the rifles / any weapon. With great regret I spend extra two thousands a premium buying an Air Rifle for my practices.

The rifle I purchased is IHP/National 35 5.5mm(.22) caliber with couple of pellets. the picture as below:

After purchasing I had to find 2 things now, where to practice ? because the Chennai Rifle Club needs and accepts entries only by back door and demanding over a lakh as donation to get admitted. Hmmm this is bad and very sorry state of our state for encouraging sports activities. These people restrict everything as rich people game, if only I have the power to change such things...

I didn't stop my hunger to practice hence I started doing my own target stand to fix the paper target models downloaded from Internet (thanks to google, indiansforgun.com and thegungeek.com). My Do it Yourself preparation of target stand is still half way but I'm very positive and will complete the setup in a day or two.

After landing in the following page, I decided to make myself one target stand.

http://accurateshooter.wordpress.com/20 ... get-stand/

As a first step I bought a 3 meter length FinOlex 50mm (outer dia) 1 1/2" (inner dia)PVC pipe with 4mm thick wall pipe and brought it home.

The 3 meter length pipe got cut into various sizes as mentioned in the above link

20" x 2 end leg pipe
16" x 4 side leg pipe
24" x 2 upright pipe

Other pipe accessories used:
TEE x 2 (1 1/2" size)
Elbow x 4 (1 1/2" size)

Then I started assembling them into the way as explained and got the following half stand,

I wish to slightly modify the top model to make it even more sturdy and easy usable with available materials. Will post picture after I get the top portion completed.

Meanwhile I also gathered few guys to accompany my practice time, hence asked a friend of mine to buy a air gun too. Hurray now we have two and few more from other part of the state. Yesterday we visited a friend's farm in Kancheepuram to try out few tricks that we learned from Internet and yes it was a first successful trip for me in terms of the new sports shooting arena.

We had lots of time in firing plenty of pellets, learned lots of things and of course the team is growing.

Rich man’s dream – Harley Davidson

2010-01-20T11:36:00.004+05:30

I had a dream of owning a bike not the one mentioned in title but an Indian freaky idea, the Rajdoot GTS. That dream took almost 22years for me to come to reality. I named my Rajdoot GTS as "china paiyan" which means small boy in Tamil language. Keeping that dream and my small boy aside, I found myself in love with a Fat Boy yesterday but this time I doubt if my dream will come to reality in any point of my life. The simplest reason to state is that the bike which is costlier than all my collection of vehicles, but who cares I can dream right.

Yesterday I got to live few seconds on the Rich Man’s dream the Harley Davidson bike. Man the Harley Davidson Fat Boy model was real stunner and instantly took my attention. What a beauty and what a muscular bike it was? I didn’t think twice to jump on it for a photo pose.

The Fat Boy is equipped with 1600CC V twin engine under the tank; he is real a fat boy.

The stunning chrome parts and full cast alloys were too good; looking at the detailing of stickers on the body, I said to myself, man I should live this dream of a Rich Man. I got to know the price of Fat Boy being 20ish (not thousands but lakhs, may be I should have expressed it like 2million rupees) and half fainted.

Anyway I was assured by my friend who owns this HD and another custom build HD with a similar engine capacity that he will lend his bike for a long ride. Hurray I can now really dream of living ah no no riding richman’s dream.

Farm House

2009-12-14T10:48:00.004+05:30

Finally I will have a shelter in my farm to take rest. Yes, last weekend we conducted a bhoomi pooja to built a simple Asbestos cement sheet house in the farm to take rest whenever I visit the farm.
The shelter will also provide room to park as much as 4 of my four wheelers. hmmm good now more vehicles could be purchased.

I basically need place to store my farm outcomes and the equipments. Hence this small house in the farm. Another 20 days we will have house ready in the farm. Hurray Farm House is exciting!

I'm gonna have a small children gymnasium, BBQ facility and personal offroad ground in the farm very soon.

A perfect Gift - Bow

2009-12-11T16:02:00.001+05:30

While I was offroading at Jawadhu forest range last week I met a hunter or villager at forest, He had a real bow after a hour long chat with the guy, He turned to me a friend and gifted his Bow to me.

The trip to Jawadhu is always impressing and lots of water in the Bheema Falls, we had good offroad fun too.

On the way back I touched base with my farm at the bottom of the hills and to my surprise the well in my farm was filled with water and near to overflow condition.

1178 kilometer long trip to Kerala

2009-12-07T14:32:00.004+05:30

It was excellent experience a 4 day long self driven journey to Kerala state head quarters(Trivandrum) from Tamil nadu state headquarters(Chennai).

I was selling my Yamaha RD350 legendary bike to a keralite as my bike beard the KL number plate. At the same time I promised my friend Shibu that I will handover his Jeep restored by me at his home town. Hence I was in a situation to drive both the vehicles from Chennai to Trivandrum.

There was another purpose on this trip to drop my kids at my hometown hence with the help of my Jeep/RD350 mechanic Bharani I started my longest journey.

The entire trip was covered above 2400kms including return but the 1178kms is the best experience as I was riding the bike or driving the Jeep continually.

Good experience of Bike failures and fix, Jeep thrill and what else met all my good friends one among was Mr.Muthukumar from Coimbatore who restored and possesses huge sum of vintage beauties.

Also met Sajeev, Shinoy and Shibu from Kerala

There was a horrible accident before my eyes in Kerala made my day bit sad as the driver was kill instantly on that incident. It was a Maruti Swift which had to face to fate with road divider and rolled couple of times before landed upside down on the opposite track last lane.

A Team outing for Dummies – Yercaud trip

2009-09-17T08:07:00.004+05:30

Preface

For any company or work place with more than 2 employees requires greater amount of co-operation among each other to produce extraordinary outputs. Hence a team with 100+ people and all of them are professionals, hmmm a major reason to look at team building activities as source of people integration technique. There is no patriotic song that we sing together, there is no color that unites us, there is no religion that we share, there are no common skills among us but we all are part of an entity called Team.

Year after year I get an opportunity to bring all the members of our team together to educate the importance of team work.(Task that I always like so much) But who likes advices, suggestions, trainings and commands? I know it is impossible to make every one to listen to someone’s ideas, but there is still a way to achieve the goal – Team Outing. I’m going to write about the last team outing organizing experience that I had here in HCL, We call it Catalyst program (The very first constraint is Budget).

The goals I set myself are

1. Bring all the people together and make them understand they form a entity called Team and every individual is a stake holder.

2. Educate their responsibility while they don't feel like some one is commanding

3. Help them relaxing and reducing their stress

4. Integrate the dis-integrated or hierarchical work team. "Freshers and Senior" barriers needs a break here.

5. Maintain utmost safety while handling the tasks assigned, as each one's security and safety are my priority.

Come on readers join with me for the world of team-building, I'm proud I had done couple of these exercises.

Behind the scenes of Yercaud, the poor man's Ooty trip.

It all started in a weekly meeting that our team had. As it was almost an year since we had our team outing to Jawadhu, everyone wanted to go for an outing.Lots of suggestions for places came; but we had many constraints. As our team do diverse set of technology support for 24/7 support requirements to the clients the major constraint is the Time and operational support. I needed to find any place that is close by Chennai city so our entire team could travel and return with minimal disruptions to the support functionality. I was aiming at no disturbance, I must say we had minimal support staff plan at the very first day of the tour discussion.

Then came my next constraint, money. The moment we think of any tourist location the accommodation cost shot up to sky level. I needed to organize accommodation, food, and travel plan necessary for taking a huge bunch of people (~ 150). I started working on approximate number of headcounts excluding minimal support staffs, people who cannot travel for personal commitments, customer schedules for few guys, last minute drop outs on illness and unplanned events dropouts. So I had a ball back figure of 75~95 guys on the trip plan sheet.Another major concern is that of what kind of entertainment need to be arranged for chunk of people with diverse interests and hobbies while not forgetting “THE MOTTO” of team outing, that is to build a bonding among the team members. Our discussions went on with the team leaders in planning the minimal operational support staff and area of interest for the team visit. Munnar, Pondicherry and Yercaud are the places we rounded off finally. Munnar being far away we need to work on multiple travel mode which led me to strike off Munnar from the list. The Pondicherry plan also was dropped out as there will not be any major difference between Pondicherry and our home city Chennai. Hmmm so the only left out option is the poor man's Ooty that is Yercaud.

I was caught with lots of stress and tension to make the trip a success one, as the total numbers planned was huge and there will be many people with many different expectations. Fulfilling everyone's wishes may not be possible but I wanted to achieve an optimum level of success story. Over all I was looking at every individual for their interest towards the arrangements, except very few in whom I really didn't see any major interest. In fact I was under impression that people are willing to visit as they were compelled by their team leads but I must accept that my assumptions were wrong. I witnessed the trend changing slowly towards the plans after I finalized the place and tentative schedule. The white board in my cabin got filled with list of people who volunteer to participate in the event planned, sooner it was touching 96 number in head count.Looking at the number and overwhelming responses, my tension level was increasing as to find how to make the trip a grand success.

Initial search for lodging in Yercaud posted me a threat on the cost as most of the very good resorts were on the really higher side tariff and I really couldnt afford their tariff for accommodation as my budget for individual is not even half of their quote. I had found 3 places which are still higher but closer to my estimates, that is the day I came to know one of our colleague is in Salem which is the nearest city to Yercaud. I called and requested him to help me visiting Yercaud to see how the three places I spotted are. He returned the call with not so good kind of response. This is not a good sign, but I still had some hope and finally landed in Yercaud International resort's website, the pictures of their cottages were interesting to me. I called the manager Mr.Shanmugam he said accommodation for these many people are going to be a trouble as many of the rooms were already booked. This is a week before my proposed schedule, so I requested him if he can move his guests to another accommodation and block the entire resort for us. He gently agreed and instantly I transferred the advance money through internet banking. I felt bit easy as the accommodation was set.

Parallely I had requested couple of my friends at office to get me quotes from various bus operators for the Yercaud plan, the cost of transport was somewhat close to my estimation and the Just dial (directory)service in Chennai came in first hand help providing me so many number of contacts from different bus operators. The Wheels Tours and Travels company agreed to take up our tour requirement and another fund transfer over the internet, second story of success in the team outing plan.We had still few issues on fixing the start time and return time so the order process of food was put on hold. But I had communicated the resort guys that I will confirm number of meals and people a day before our travel plan.

Since I was given a responsibility to organize a tour for a huge team of professionals; the travel comfort, hygiene food, neat accommodation, hospitality, water, alcohol plans, medical kits, sight seeing options and fun activities were all in queue to be worked out. I had already started working on individual items and started sending all my findings and ideas on email to all the stake holders of the proposed tour plan. Slowly the plans were on progress and the check list I prepared earlier growing on a satisfactory level.

I have tried my level best to include as many people as possible so that issues with single handed failures could be avoided. There were freshers in our team, my solid ideas to include them into the activities worked really good their involvement was phenomenal level and hats off to them.

Date with Rolls Royce only for Rs.5000

2009-08-09T22:18:00.004+05:30

A Date with Rolls Royce only for Rs. 5000 - This is what I felt seeing a beautiful and dream only Rolls Royce standing outside a mobile handset selling shop in Chennai. The retail mobile outlet is a branch of country wide chain store that only sells the mobile handsets.

For the past few days I didn't miss to spot the Rolls Roys chassed by cyclist, motorist and even the autorickshaw drivers here in Velachery. I was always in an impression that the RR was bought by "Mobile Store" owner and he visits this shop. But today I wanted to go closer and take few snaps of the car.

I was surprised to hear from the "Mobile Store" guys this car is for our esteemed customer, !!!?. He said if anyone purchases above Rs.5000 worth stuffs from the shop they will be taken for a joy ride in the ultra super Rolls Royce. Huh Rs.5000 purchase will let me take a RR ride, Why not?

After seeing this car and hearing the reason behind the car standing outside the "Mobile Store", I went and searched internet and found few westerner's post about this RR(http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/12/25/rolls-royce-converted-into-mobile-cellphone-store-in-india/). They are mad and it shows their attitute looking at Indian secne at a wrong view point.

They must realize the fact that the Indian entrepreneurs treat their customers 5STAR category ;-)

Mitsubishi Cedia Great Driving Challenge - Surprise

2009-07-31T23:22:00.002+05:30

While many of you are aware and supported me for the TGDC by your votes and testimonials, we were lost at the 2nd round and couldn't make it to the top12.

To be honest I was really not sure what is the selection criteria, but I really appreciate the organizers of the even for a successful handling of the TGDC.

After I came to know that our names were not included in the TGDC top12 list, disappointment was too high on my mind and after few days I really accepted the reality that only 3 people can drive in the challenge. Me and My wify was talking about this for 2 days after seeing top12, the slowly got into our business.
Today when I came back from office, kids showed me 2 parcels and I didn't know what was inside parcel as there was no information about the orgination. I slowly opended the parcel and found a beautify ladies watch, and the second parcel contained a smart Timex gents watch.
Both the watch boxes had TGDC logo and hurray now we are bit happy. Thanks to TGDC.

Thailand Tourism - Endorsed

2009-07-26T20:14:00.008+05:30

Today is another baby's day out. Me and the kiddos at home have paid visit to the Chennai Trade center.
You must be asking me what was there? yes, the Chennai trade center is largest exhibition infrastructure in Chennai.
Today it was Tourism related exhibition by Thailand Tourism board. What a beautiful country it is, I have decided to visit Thailand very soon.The people of that country is beautiful. I like their buildings, dance and people. What more is required to get attracted for a country. I'm for game, Thailand is in my top list for country to be visited.
The special Thailand cultural dance program organized in the exhibition attracted many people. What a pretty girls the Thailand females.
Kids got replica of reptiles such as crocodile and snake. They looked almost realistic and many at the exhibition hall wondered how the kids carried such a deadly reptiles.
There were couple of other stalls, one of such stall demonstrated how to add the flowers into string in a nice way to the visitors.
outside the exhibition hall, the sponsers installed the kids play area and yeah it was sure a blast for my kids.Alongside the Thailand exhibition, the Indian Tourism Industry also put up stalls for various Indian states and their regional attraction. This part of the trade center was more colorful with the stalls organized with replicas of their special building architectures.
Also, the creative designing of the few hotel resorts and holiday clubs proved it to attract kids.

2009-07-21T13:34:00.003+05:30

Yesss! We have made it to the TOP 100 winner's list on the Mitsubishi-Cedia Great Driving Challenge.

It was great day today after I saw the www.greatdrivingchallenge.com site. Our names were listed as part of the top 100 selection list that was announced. Yaaahooooo! It was a great way of presenting the topper list, the organizers arranged selection list hidden behind the announcement (each letter to hide one couple on the announcement), I thought I will be in the last few letters if at all we were selected, hence started to looking at all the pictures from bottom to top. To my surprise our profile was hidden behind the letter "E" in the first line itself.

I must thank you for all your support. We're too much excited to Drive the 3000 kilometer challenge. I'm hoping our application get selected for the top 3 so we get the chance. Anyway we still have one more stage to cross. Keep supporting us, till we complete the drive challenge.

Please come and visit us on the winner's gallery
http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/top100

Visiting scrap yard

2009-07-20T16:26:00.005+05:30

After a short break at the newly opened McDonald outlet in Anna Nagar along with my son here in Chennai I was visiting the local Army scrap yard last weekend with my friends and my son searching for few Jeep parts.In fact the parts we searched are for a Ex-Army (scrapped) Mahindra MM 550XDB Jeep.

What a sight on the scrap yard, we have witnessed a wide range of military vehicles scraped in the yard.My friend Shibu from Dubai had a very interesting visit as the scrap yard offered a wide range of military application exhibition.
I was impressed to see a tank like armored vehicle with huge tires. If I have chance I would like to at least sit inside the vehicle and feel how the army personal drive the giant tank.
The complete Army recovery vehicles are impressive with the Power Take Off winch to operate the recovery gears. Shibu took a quick picture infront of the recovery vehicle.

The sakthiman truck's gearbox gave a feast, we got to see the close look of the sakthiman truck's gearbox with 3 drive shafts and 1 sproket to drive PTO unit. One of the drive shaft powered the gearbox from engine and two were used for front and rear wheel movements.

After a brief time we extended our farewell to the open Army Scrap Yard.

Cast your vote for us to The Great Driving Challenge !!

2009-06-24T15:15:00.013+05:30

We are Planning to participate into the Great Driving Challenge even organized by Mitsubishi. The trick is that I need to gather votes and testimonials in order to get my chances on the higher side. Unfortunately I know none other than you my blog readers to support me.

Hence I'm requesting all the blog readers to find your time to cast your vote for me and my wife for the challenge.

Click on the link below to support your friends for the driveaway.

http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/application/Sivakumar/

Once you see the page, record your vote and testimonial. Let me see if I'm progressing on the vote rank. Thanks for voting!

If at all we qualify for the Mitsubishi Cedia Great Driving Challenge, we will opt to drive the following route to cover the challenged 3000 kms stretch. See the Google Map for reference here:

View Larger Map
WoW looking at the route I have planned shows me the joy drive that we are going to have. I'm thinking of the Chennai-Bangalore-Mysore highway drive, Bangalore Traffic Drive which is going to put sure stress on my arms, Mysore-Wayanad-Mangalore Forestry safari, Mangalore-GOA Coastal and Congan cruise, Most adventures curves of Goa-Pune road while we set our self into the Spicy food fiesta travel in the lands of Andra Pradesh.

Overall we are ahead of whole of South India states tour and our path covers Tamilnadu (Chennai), Karnataka (Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore),Kerala (Wayanad) and Andhra Pradesh (Hydrabad). I can't really resist to show my excitement, this is really going to be break to our work life.

I have changed the above plans to suite TGDC team's specification and now the start and end of my trip needs to be in Mumbai, so the new map with route here:

View Mitsubishi Cedia - Driving plan in a larger map

Organic farming ! What exactly is it ?

2009-05-20T19:36:00.004+05:30

My recent venture into farming provided me a great learning experience about the food that we consume every day. It also gave me an insight of what comes free with the food items from the farms that produce fruits and vegetables that we consume. Oh yeah they are good for health only if they didn't come from chemical processed cultivation. What does it mean ? I was saying if the cultivation is not done in organic method, sure it is going to create trouble by giving lots of unwanted chemicals along with the food items.

So, I decided to venture the organic way of producing the fruits in my farm, the first thing is the mangos. Now the organic farm outputs are really tasty and they are healthy mangos. I spent almost all weekends in the farm harvesting the organic mangos as the summer turned out to be Mango season at my farm. If I remember there was no single instance of fertilizers usage in this farm for the past one and half year.
I strictly say no for the ripening process with Calcium Carbide, hence the natural way of ripening method is been used. I use the paddy grass with the mangos in a dark air tight room for about 3-4 days for the tasty and healthy output.
Just to make the entire process neat and to produce the mangos in a hygenic way, the mangos were handpicked personally and loaded them on my Jeep to transport to Chennai.
In fact it was too tiring work as much as most body muscles needs to work climbing on the mango trees and picking them down. I took couple of breaks in while harvesting the mangos from tree, again the Jeep worked me as my shelter.
The jeep was loaded with dry paddy grass and mango bags to transport back to Chennai. Earlier week I used my Jeep with trailer as the quantity was more.
Last week, The farm produced around 800kilograms of fully organic grown and rippend mangos and this week around 400kilograms. Not that the quantity is reduced, but the farm contains couple of mango varieties and they will be harvested in a time difference.

Hurray! I'm supplying the organic mangos to anyone who really like natural comodities at the same price of dangerous fruits available on the market. Now I'm really proud to be a farmer.

BEWARE of Calcium Carbide ripened fruits (Just for the information sake):

the Calcium Carbide ripening .. which is too dangerous and toxic. If anyone who reads this thread please understand not a single mango that are sold in Chennai's open market is organic and the ripening process is mainly using Calcium Carbide stones. Calcium Carbide when mixed with water produces acetylene which is highly combustible substance and when mixed with oxygen can be used for welding and cutting metals.

Rather said that besides acetylene, ethylene which is also a plant hormone regulator is also produced and this characteristic helps in ripening of fruits. As the science says, Calcium Carbide is carsogenic in nature and it is not in purified form and contains traces of arsenic which too is toxic.

Roaring Roadking

2009-05-20T19:11:00.000+05:30

Finally the Yezdi Roadking CDI model bike has got its original beat. The bike has been transferred to Chennai from Tiruvannmalai after failing to get a lathe in my hometown to machine down the bike's cylinder. In spite of my efforts in finding all the required parts I couldnt rebore it in my hometown.This resulted me to ask my mechanic to drive down the bike to my home in chennai and do all the work in here. Oh yeah complete 2 days of work in chennai let the bike to be pucca.As usual our last minute was in the dark and the mechanic stayed at my house to complete the required work.
Here is the completed bike's picture. The bike got few cosmtics such as seat plate, form, foot rests and lighting set right. The major parts was worked out on the engine.

Passport process - UGLY

2009-05-10T22:46:00.005+05:30

Last week was a successful week for me in the process of my passport renewal. I have been running behind the idiots working in regional passport office at chennai for more than 3 months now.

Many would have read the news about the corruption scandals about this office in the latest past weeks. I did witness lots of malfunction as the whole office is pushing people to the greatest trouble by not giving proper information and making people to come back again and again so the crowd will go for Passport Agents (brokers?) help.

I was visiting atleast 8 times to make my success story, every other time either for some issue which are not related to us or their unannounced rules. For an example if you have to get tatkal passport (fresh/renewal) the govt. website claims one can pay the fee by Demand Draft or by Cash. If you opt for cash and stand on the queue on appointment day, after 2-3 hours of standing on the quoue you will be asked to reappear in the queue from begining just because you dont have a DD. Though their website still claims they accept cash... my very first visit to the passport office on 12th January 2009 is for the same reason rejected. Inspite of my fights with the entire crew (even after the Regional Passport Officer who is not behind the bars) with written enquiry I was rejected on the counter.The entire office is made of anti public policies and What turned out be the final and interesting part of this passport renwal process is introduction of lots of new friends.
One among was Rajvee of Sun News.. oh yeah.. I recall my family calling him with a nick name "spring neck". I didn't expect me to be on his mobile contacts... it was great to be meeting with this chap.

UPDATE: Finally I got my passport renewed last weekend.

Yezdi items

2009-04-20T20:58:00.000+05:30

I have collected few items over the weekend, which are intend to be sold. I'm obviously added a small margin for my restoration work. Hence let me know if someone is interested in the following items

Yezdi Roadking tank with dual fuel partition (Petrol and Kerosene)

Yezdi D250 Classic type petrol tank
I still have brand new rear mudguard, engine gear components for Jawa, Yezdi and Roadking bikes and other assorted items.
Front mudguard for Model B
Cylinder for JAWA and CDI for Road king with few pistons of IPL make.
My kids got attracted by the Roadking's seat plate. Hmmm it took sometimes for me to get it out of their hands.

The other JAWA/Roadking/YEZDI items that I own:

Yezdi rear mudguard [1]
Yezdi front mudguard [1]
Yezdi magnetto and coil assy (used) [2]
Yezdi classic tank [1]
Yezdi Roadking dual fuel tank [1]
JAWA seat lock screw [10]
Yezdi/JAWA clutch adjuster screw [3]
JAWA/Yezdi kicker shaft [3]
JAWA/Yezdi kicker/gear lever [1]
JAWA break shoe [1]
JAWA bore piston kit (IPL piston) std size brand new [1]
JAWA Clutch rods [7]
Roadking clutch rods [10]
JAWA/Yezdi cam [6]
JAWA/Yezdi kicker spring [20]
Yezdi rear foot rest [5]
Roadking 4th oversize MAHLE piston [1]
JAWA/Yezdi kicker rachet [2]
Roadking kicker rachet [2]
JAWA/Yezdi gears [assorted]
JAWA/Yezdi gear rod (small/long) [1]
JAWA yezdi nail key (only key not the ignition assy) [3]
JAWA front footrest rod [2]
Yezdi CLII gasket kits [5]
Yezdi Classic handle bar (yoke attached) [1]
JAWA / Yezdi clutch bell (brand new) [1]
JAWA / Yezdi auto clutch lever [3]
Yezdi quarter chain cover [1]
JAWA air filter (jony walker make) [1]
Diamond sproket set (no chain) [1]
Craftman sproket set (no chain) [1]
JAWA carburator airfilter rubber [3]
JAWA 2nd oversize IPL Piston set [1]
JAWA 2nd oversize PMC piston set [1]
JAWA 3rd oversize PMC piston set [1]
JAWA/Yezdi pinston rings [assorted]
Yezdi D250 Classic - Monogram set [1]
Yezdi Roadking side shield monograms [1]
Roadking CDI [2]
JAWA/Yezdi speedo cable [5]
Yezdi tail lamp holder plate [1]
JAWA/Yezdi/Roadking front hub steel plate [1]
JAWA/Yezdi/Roadking silencer muffler end cup [10]
JAWA rear foot rest= yezdi style [2]

Operation Yezdi Roadking

2009-04-20T09:40:00.000+05:30

The Roadking which was posted for sale has been withdrawn from deal and undergoing major service including engine work.
This bike was converted to run on duel fuel (Petrol and Kerosene) by the previous owner, so they have partitioned the older tank internally to contain both the fuels. The partitioned tank now removed from the bike and replaced with a original tank.
As a attempt to correct the slapping noise in the bike's cylinders, the engine has been dismantled and getting serviced.

The initial investigations proved the bike requires change of the cylinder as it is already running on 1mm size. Hence no further reboring is possible. Otherwise the complete engine parts have been sourced and crank has been reset by a professional lathe workshop.
I'm also looking out for a Roadking seat plate as the current one in the bike seems to be bit damaged.

Hindu or Non-Hindu

2009-03-25T11:02:00.003+05:30

I have been reading about the Dravidian culture for a long time now. As I’m part of the single largest and native Indian society, I started digging the roots of Hindu religion in India.

Indus (Sindu), Hindu, Hindustan, India and Indo are all words referring a river, religion and region or the country in Asia. While all of the above sounds similar, I doubt the nativity of these words as authentic Indian words. The reason being the ones

Hinduism itself a religion brought to India by Aryans (People who travelled from Middle Asia and Europe). I assume this is correct because I found through the old testimonial of Judeo-Christianity about Moses who brought down ten commandments from God in the Mount Sinai and when he got down from Mount Sinai with the commandments, he found his followers were worshiping idols looked like animals, birds and so on. With the same context reading the 2nd commandment which was brought in by Moses says “"Do not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..." This prohibits the construction or fashioning of "idols" in the likeness of created things (beasts, fish, birds, people) and worshipping them.” Taking this into consideration, I believe the religion followed by the people on the foot hills of Mount Sinai is none other than Hinduism. As the same people moved towards Indus valley during the later term formed the same religion with the name attached to the valley they stayed. The Ten Commandments itself made for people the religion that followed worshiping animals, birds and people etc which is common in Hinduism.
Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are the oldest modern civilization found in ancient India when Pakistan was part of India. This community was called Aryan which was again peoples who inhabited parts of what are now Germany, Iran and Afghanistan. This sets a clear path for my first point that the Hinduism itself a religion brought into India from middle Asia and Europe. As the Aryan community in India dominates the northern region and got lots of similarities in their body color and physiques.
Dravidian is the people who were the original people of the region now called India. Once India was a part of Gondwanaland (which is a combined land mass of Africa, Antarctica, India, Austarlia, South America).According to continental drift theory India broke away from Africa(part of gondwanaland) in permian period of geological time scale and drifted northwards and joined asia(part of Laurasia)....Himalayas are formed on the boundary between India and the Laurasia.(***Plate Tectonics theory also supports this hypothesis), Hence the Dravidian people now who are living in the south of India called Tamilians, Malayales, Kannadika and Telugu people. These people share the same color as Africans; India got almost similar animals like Lions, Tigers, Peacock, and Elephants and so on. Hence this proves that Dravidian people are the original Indians

With the above three theories, looking at Hinduism and its domination in India is only seems like alien religion. If then, what was the religion in India before Aryan’s invasion?

Undoubtedly, it was the nature and king worship. This is proven as even today the south sides of India have many non-Hindu related Gods are worshiped. As per Hinduism the worship of God has been extended by a community of people called Brahmins. Where in the non Hinduism based God worshiping in South India requires no Brahmin community for their God worship. Such Gods are called

Karuppu Sami (also known as Sangili karuppan ) - one of the regional Tamil male deities
Munishswaran
Ayyanar
Kaathavarayan Mythological God figure also known as a Warrior Deity
Ellai amman
Maari
Kaateri amman
Sudalai Madan or Madan, is a regional non-Vedic Tamil male deity who is popular amongst the least Sanskritized social groups of South India, particularly Tamil Nadu. This deity is very ancient. He seems to have originated in some ancestral guardian spirit of the villages or communities in Tamil Nadu, in a similar manner as Ayyanar.
Madurai Veeran (lit.:Warrior of Madurai) is a regional Tamil folk male deity popular in some areas of Tamil Nadu, India. His name suggests an association with the city of Madurai and a warrior past. The deity is also popular amongst certain segments of the Tamil diaspora in Réunion and the French overseas territories in the Caribbean Sea. He is known as the son of 'Amman' amongst the South African Tamils.

This states the true side of ancient Indian religion as non idol worships and followed the warriors of various time periods.

I recalled all my collection of data after visiting a Ayyanar temple last weekend ;-)

Kids day out - Pre-School annual day

2009-03-24T22:40:00.005+05:30

It was my younger son's pre-school annual day a weekend before the last week. The kid was always saying something about the annual day celebration with his language.

I got a call from the pre-school principal saying that my ward is participating in an annual day event, I was surprised and excited to know what can be a possible event a two and half year old boy can participate ? The incharge of the school also told me to drop him a day before to the annual day for reharsals for the event. hmmm that was an addition cup of tea for my excitement.

The day has come I went to the school with my son four hours before the event and even that time the school people didn't tell me what is the event my son was participating. I went back to home and got my family along to attend the annual day celebrations.

The very first program in the event was the pre-school kids dance, I should say it was ramp walk. The small little cuties lined up one by one with green colored dress and big fruits softtoys attached to the dress. I first noticed a kid with tomato looked like my ward, started clicking the pic and found I was wrong ;-)I saw another kid with banana toy .. oh yeah it is my son Adhava for sure... I followed him to click few pics.It was really happy day for all of us, and my elder son had a great day too as the school was his ex-school and he did know all of the people around.
Just a quick video from my still camera here:

Cultural Dressing and Nature Shopping

2009-02-23T00:03:00.005+05:30

It's a new found passion for me to spend time in the form and shopping at the nature's green mall. Oh yeah, last weekend also turned out to be a Cultural Weekend so I wore Traditional Tamilian Wear, the Silk Veistee.

Yet another family get away is what I call the last week’s trip to my home town Tiruvannamalai. Our initial plan is to attend a religious function at the sleepy small town in the north of Tamilnadu and return back to Chennai.

I had to wear the traditional Silk Veistee and Silky with cotton made shirt, I really like and love the dress. Since the function had happen inside the temple, I can’t wear foot wears. In Hinduism foot wears are not allowed inside the temple and one need to walk bare foot in the temple.

As a part of honoring the special people in the temple, they put the string of flowers in to people’s neck like large sized necklace. This time my kids were the VVIPs in the temple, which is actually our family temple.
The plan we made has a flaw as I really didn’t consider adding up visit to my farm, eventually that had happen as in the farm we were harvesting sugar cane. Oh yeah, the name suggest that it is a crop used for producing Sugar, Jaggery, Molasses, ethanol and also for Rum production. We have given the sugar cane to Jaggery makers. As this is my second harvest on the cold winter surrounded past, the yield was not as expected.
Trip to the farm, made me happy as usual, I got to see the budding Jack fruits in one of the tree. Jack fruit is the largest tree grown fruit in the world. Both Jack Fruit and Sugar canes are native Indian plants. They both are cultivated in Warm Tropical lands. I also witnessed the mango in this year going to give very good output, the mango flowers are occupying entire tree and it looked great.
Tamarind, Mangos, String beans, Tender Coconut and few Sugar canes for raw consumption have been plugged out directly from the respective crops. Hence the visit to the farm filled my shopping bag turning the trip as a Nature Shopping Trip.
Opps, the start from the farm showed me the tires of the car got punctured. I got it replaced with the spare wheel and had enough tender coconut to stay away from dehydration issue.

Roadking 1994 model sale

2009-02-22T23:28:00.000+05:30

I'm selling my recently acquired RoadKing.

This bike got registered in 1994, 3rd ownership is stamped on the RC book. The bike got CDI ignition. Paper wise all clean and it got Life Tax, FC till Aug 2009. Insurance is pending and I leave it to the buyer to take care of it. The bike is Black in color, Running vehicle but few may wanted to consider working on cylinders as little bit of slapping noice is present. it is registered in Tamilnadu. I wish to entertain only people who are genuinly interested in the "For Ever Bike" hence only genuinly interested people please leave your contact number (must) and email id in this comment section.

The pictures of this bike is as shown below:I will for sure contact you guys to discuss further on this deal. I'm Selling this bike due to space constraint at my garage for my latest Trailer that I acquired for the Jeep.

Bangalore - A short trip

2009-02-15T01:17:00.003+05:30

Though I had a good experience in Bangalore the IT capital of India, where I used to stay few years back. Infact my first son Aditya was born in Bangalore.

I used to travel a lot from and to Bangalore, most of my visits to Bangalore was in Train or in personal transport either by car or bike or jeep. Very rarely I travel by the bus service hence it was rarest incident to see myself in the bus terminus. My last visit to bangalore was to meet few of my friends and I missed my train while returning back to chennai. So I rushed to the bus terminus and got a bus back to Chennai.

Though Bangalore bus terminus is very famous as some one saying it was a lake converted into bus terminus and the place is called Majestic. I never expected a surprise in the terminus but last time it happened.

There was a beautiful old age bus parked in the terminus, it was half lorry (truck) and half bus. I did go close by and clicked few pics of it.
The vintage show piece reminded me of Singapore travel, as I spotted very similar colored old Singapore bust parked near Indian Embassy in Singapore. I think it was a place which head quartered for the Singapore bus service.

Submerged JAWA

2009-02-08T19:21:00.000+05:30

It was how the last flood in chennai affected my JAWA. Luckily nothing went wrong in the bike after the water drained.
I took the bike and washed it, opened the clutch case and drained 2 liter of water and atleast half liter from the cylinder.

The magnetto side is no exception, 1 liter of water to minimum measurement. I had to clean both the side of the engine with force water and sprayed excessive amount of petrol on it. Not to forgot I also used the hair dryer to dry the water before applying the petrol.

Removal of exhaust pipes showed little more water from the bike and cleaned it too. After inputting fresh transmission lubricant oil I also cleaned the carburetor and air filter. Thats it with hundreds of kicks with fresh petrol on the tank allowed the bike to start and the rest is known story as the bike runs smoother than before ;-)

Vedanthankal - Bird Sanctuary

2009-02-08T18:51:00.003+05:30

This is not an experience happened last weekend but 2 months back, I visited one of the largest Bird sanctuary in Tamilnadu called Vedanthangal. Basically it is a natural lake taken over by foreign birds for nesting during their hatching season.
The birds fly all the way from other side of the world such as America to Vendanthangal for nesting, I also wondered why do we call these birds foreign birds as the birth place for all these birds are here right in front of my eyes.

The Wikipedia gives good information about Vedanthangal here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedanthangal_Bird_Sanctuary
I took the kiddies in my family for bird watching, you know what the place was populated with Pelicans, Painted strokes, Variuos Herons and so on.Though shooting of these birds with point and shoot cameraI is almost impossible and atleast one needs 500mm zoom camera. Since I had my Nikon Binocular I could manage the bird watching with it. Kids enjoyed them too, my 2 and half year old Adhava took full possesion of the binocular during the trip ;-)The sanctuary had few watching towers for the viewers comfort and it was in the middle of a village, hence the full landscape was looking beautiful and green, Yeah the water was no exception for the green color.This place is located very closed the Tamilnadu state capital Chennai and an hour drive will show you the sanctuary. I recommend who ever visit to this place to carry a binocular however if you don't have one for yourself you can hire them outside the sanctuary.

Gemini Circus

2009-01-28T10:10:00.002+05:30

It was a call made by the family buds to go to the Circus. I knew that my 1st son watches advertisements in the TV and News paper, but he also started grabbing what is happening in the city.

As the last four days was holiday due to weekend and Chinese New Year (working for Asia Pacific operations of a Pharma client) I decided to take them to the Circus. It is almost after two decades after my last visit to a circus, incidentally this is again to the same Gemini Circus whom I visited last.
I remember my childhood seeing the sky where one can see the halogen focus light beam being flashed in the clouds from the circus tents to draw attention from the public. We used to go as a group lead by our teachers in the school. The main attraction in the circus was always the animals. As I my home town had no Zoological park, at that time circus is the only platform to witness the wildlife under human supervision.

Though the recent legal notes are banning such animals in circus, still elephants, parrots and dogs are allowed to show off.

I felt expect the ban on animals nothing changed, I told myself after seeing the tents and the sign boards Gemini Circus had near the venue. In fact, for my best I could even recognize few of the circus artist faces (believe me I told this to my wife in the event when I saw them).

It was great feeling when entering to the circus tent; it was like entering into the past days in the time craft. Oh man… how fast I have grown to become older. The entire day was recalling me to the old days reminding all my childhood circus visits.
The auditorium made on cloth tent also was amazing and reminds the same old model, nothing changed expect me. I was trying to capture those circus moment but even before my camera was put on, there was an announcement not to click pictures of the circus.

Holidays and Time - best combination

2009-01-19T13:01:00.006+05:30

Seasons Greetings! I hope every one had a party time during the festivals.

I had fun filled holiday time celebrating Deepam, New Year and Pongal festivals. As the festivals brings holidays, I took at most privilege to use the festival to enjoy myself in the way I like.

Had lots of time to start my Old moped, It was really chilling experience to drive the 30 years old moped on the road. It was not in starting condition initially and the holidays really came first hand help to do the mechanical service. This moped is called “Suvega” and manufactured in India y India Mopeds limited.

For those who don’t know what is pongal festival? It is a festival for harvesting formers in Tamilnadu. This is the most celebrated festival among Indians. As I’m being half former (?), as matter of fact we did harvest the rice and celebrated the pongal festival in the farm fields. My juniors were enjoyed their time in the farm, here is the picture of them carrying sugar cane.
One can never forget his school life, isn’t? I’m no exception, last week my elder son wanted me to show him the schools I studied during my childhood. What else I want; having a good reason to visit the schools, I geared up with in my Yamaha RX100 along with my son to the schools.

I was really unforgettable half a day to spend in the recent past, I recalled nearly 12 years of my life in the span of few hours. The primary school below here is where I studied from 1st standard to 10th standard; it was called Danish Mission Hr. Sec. School. It was built around 110 years back by Denmark missionaries and the red building behind me is a land mark in my hometown.
The colorful school here below is where I did my Higher Secondary level (+1 and +2 or 11 th and 12th Standards) schooling. Though it was a government school I really can’t forget the two years I studied in here, I thank to my son for giving me this opportunity to visit my schools after a long interval.
With my Jeep friend and three jeeps, We have visited Jawadhu Hills for Off the Road trip. We met near Chengam where my farm is located and proceed to move towards the incline route of Jamunamaruthur from Paramananthal Village.
We encountered to see a Haina just few foots from my Jeep, before I click any picture the creature escaped into the dark jungle.

I'm sure my friends had nice time driving through the forest land, we had a water crossing sport entertained with the Jeep.

Out of the three jeeps, my friend Utkarsh's jeep won the Jeep of the day title by flying on the air in one of the incline from the water front. I literelly seen the girl sitting in the rear seat fly on the air.

JAWA 50 CC moped

2009-01-08T08:27:00.000+05:30

Some one here could you please help me identify the exact model of this moped. It could be a JAWA 50 or JAWA JET or JAWA Pony'r

Yezdi D250 Classic

2009-01-05T11:05:00.000+05:30

My old bike, never restored but still with original paint and drives well. Pictures of this bike for your eyes only.
This is also from the JAWA line production and called Yezdi D250 Classic.
I was keeping this bike in a concrete room for more than 3 years now and it has seen the sun yesterday after a long hibernation.

I'm a ROARING RIDER

2009-01-05T10:27:00.000+05:30

Yeah, you got it right. I drive the classic bike JAWA 250, it roars even after 35 years of it's birth, elder than my age.

First I got admired to the dual thumb out of the twin silencers that came out from single cylinder, then fell in adamant to own one.

I remember in my school days, one of my Physical Education master used to drive the JAWA bike which was iconic for the sound next to the Royal Enfield Standard bullet driven by my head master.

My dream was fulfilled only when I reached 30years of age, not that JAWA 250 affordability issue in fact they are economically cheaper to own but finding one in great shape is the issue. Also I was not keen in restoring this bike considering my previous experiences in restoring Jeeps and Yamaha Rd350, I know the pain involved in sourcing the parts.
So, the decision of opting a fully restored genuine JAWA 250. My search for this bike enlighten me of many yezdi model B bikes being faked and sold as JAWA 250. Luckily my little automobile knowledge helped me getting out of the fake market.

Early in the year 2008, I landed a photo album of Orkut site with a beautiful JAWA bike's picture posted in there. I did know that it was my future JAWA bike, as I set my goal to make that mine.
Today, that JAWA is standing on my Orkut album carrying ownership name as mine. ;-) This bike is not part of my primary automobiles parked at my home and I drive it very often.
The garage picture above shows my JAWA 250 parked along side my Mahindra Classic, Yamaha RD350 and Suzuki Estilo, many of my previous JAWA 250 visits were blogged in my Travel Blog (you may wish to visit)

This is my bike, I call it as "RIDER" ofcourse it roars well. But the ""ROARING RIDER" is a name of our local JAWA/YEZDI club, it is a coinsident. Apart from my RIDER aka. JAWA 250, I do own a Yezdi D250 Classic model. More information about the Yezdi also will feature in this blog.

JAWA ride to JAWADHU - failure

2008-12-29T13:02:00.003+05:30

After my long hibernation with Roaring Riders club (a local JAWA/Yezdi biker’s club), I participated one of the meetings organized by the club for discussing a long drive. Since the JAWA and Yezdi bikes were no more manufactured in India, now these bikes are part of classic bike category.
Also they are unique in many ways as their kicker and gear lever are same and pressing the gearlever further enables the auto clutch so we can drive the bike even without the clutch lever functioning.

These bikes were above 250cc and two stocks with single cylinder specification, the cylinders were come without reed value unlike the later 2 stroke models.
The meeting was fine as we had it in the beach with like minded guys participated with their beauties and we discussed a lot about the bikes.

During the meeting we decided that we will drive our bikes to Jawadhu Hills (hope many of you have seen my previous posts about this place). The plan was set and the meeting got over, I took the charge for booking the accommodation and food.
As planned we started on the planned 20th December to Jawadhu with 27 people and 21 bikes geared up early in the morning at Tambaran the suburban of Chennai city. The trip was really enjoyable until 11:30am that day; we reached the downhill side of Jawadhu a place called Polur in Tiruvannamalai Dt.

The route we took was from Tambaram to Uttiramerur to Vandavasi to Chetpet to Devigapuram to Polur. We crossed this little distance nearly 180kms in 5 hours as the group was slow driving due to the old nature of the vehicles.When we about the hit Polur about 200meters before the town, it was actually a 1 kilo meter straight line road. We found a moped rider driving ahead of us on a wrong direction on the shoulders of country road. We were watching him from long distance hence the speeds of our bikes were gone below 50-60kms.
When none of us expected only before 4-5 foot before us the moped rider all of sudden started entering into our path without any signal to get on to his right direction. Since the distance between us and him was almost nothing and no time for even thinking of break one of our fellow Yezdi biker crashed the villager to fatal. It was unexpected and accident caused the moped driver loss of life. Though the entire fault was with the moped driver none of us could take it easy as it really affected our entire mind. We took him to hospitals and the doctors declared as dead.

So as to complete the legal formalities our guys spilt into two groups, one group to go to the police station and complete the legal formalities and other group to lead towards Chennai cancelling the entire program. I took leading position for the 2nd group and lead the team to Chennai via. Tiruvannamalai and Gingee.Guys traveled with me didn't even had time or mood to even look at the beautiful monument on our way back at Gingee due to the same incident early in that day.The drive was so pathetic as the accident came again and again in our mind like virtual reality. So we opted to drive even slower than the normal speed, since it was 240+kms driving we reached back at home around 11:30PM in the night. Finally my first ever JAWA club trip ended with a sad note. We pray for the villager's soul to Rest In Eternal Peace.

Best Weekend

2008-11-03T22:05:00.008+05:30

Almost all my weekends are fully utilized, the last weekend turned to be a best weekend ever. First thing is about my farm activities.Entering into wholly new industry really thrilling and exciting exercise. My recent possession of the farmland made me to enter into the agriculture activities.

After the Sugarcane, Mango, Coconut now I’m experimenting with Rice and Chilly.

The entire free lands have been made ready for the cultivation.
Last weekend was a good day for the chilly plantation, after preparing the land with plough; the villagers extended their help in planting the chilly saplings.Since the monsoon is started, the well in the farm is filled with water I’m hoping to see overflow of water in couple of weeks.

Hmmm my JEEP also had enough offroad opportunities in the farm
The paddy bed in the farm looked like a green carpet.

Now I'm only acting supervisor of the activities and learning the agriculture work. I hope one day I will have skills to do hands on cultivation.

Last weekend also turned out to be a good weekend as I have visited one of the school and shelter of HIV infected children, orphans and poor kids. they got some hundred and fifty kids staying at the school.

My team in my office contributed some amount for doing some charity work, hence my visit to the school.

We could manage to provide 2 meal sessions to the children at the school, My sincere thanks to the contributors of my team for the great cause. A part of the amount has also been given as donation to another charity that runs a home for Phycically and Mentally disabled children.

Multi Utility Vehicle

2008-10-25T13:51:00.001+05:30

This is what I would like to call as mechanical wonder. I’ve already developed a greater level of belief that the Tractors are the true utility vehicles. In fact multi utility vehicle term is best suited for the tractor.

The tractors can pull the aircraft, work in farm, tow huge trailers loaded with tons of goods, generate air compression for bore well equipment and so on. Today due to the heavy rainfall in the dry Chennai city, most of the streets and localities are flooded. You know what, tractors were in action pumping out the water from residential areas.WoW… I didn’t know really how the PTO like attachment in the differential could rotate the pump when the tractor was stationed in a static location but it was pumping out huge amount of water.

Sailing in Bay of Bengal

2008-10-21T08:51:00.003+05:30

It was an unforgettable day yesterday, around noon I got a call from my Jeep Thrills club friend (Mr.Patrick) inviting me to join with him for the coaching session for his son, who incidentally a national champion in sailing competition. Pat is professionally a petroleum rig engineer and also got handful of adventure sport experiences.

I couldn’t say no to this opportunity; hence I promised him that I would join after my work hours. After noon around 3PM I visited the Chennai Port Trust campus, which is one of the largest harbors of India. Pat had organized all my entry procedure well before my arrival so I didn’t have much hassle in getting into the harbor. From the time Pat invited me, I was thinking I will be sitting in a compound wall on the shore watching the sailing of kids but my assumption was wrong, I realized it after meeting Pat.

Pat received me with smile at his face, and asked me if I have shorts and chapels to wear, as I was from office I wasn't prepared. Then we deposited all my stuffs in the clock room and Pat took my mobile phone with him in a polythene cover. After wearing life jacket we straight moved to the boat jetty that is directly on the harbor front. So many varieties of sailor’s boats were on the jetty. I never knew till I saw them that Chennai got such a facility for the sailing practice.Pat’s elder son is a champion in under 15years old category; hence yesterday was coach time for under 15 year old kids, along with 2 more champions too. ohhhh there were around 6 kids floating on the harbor water in a small sailing boats while the massive ships were crossing here and there. I heard the towing ships honk at them for asking way for exiting ships.We gathered in a motorboat and towed the sailors(kids) to the sea, while Pat measured the wind direction and speed with his instruments. I had nice chat with him to know about the nautical miles and measurement sitting next to him.

It was amazing to see those kids performing at the sea, WoW! What a physical and mental exercise to be on the boat the kids needs to concentrate on the wind direction, compete with fellow sailor, tide, sail, boat, the direction and remove the water which got into the boats. I have listed very few here, as my knowledge in sailing is ZERO. The kids raced themselves on the sea and they beat each other with many techniques thought to them by the coach. They are simply awesome and I envy not to be with them in their generation.

While the kids in coaching session, I observed my first every sailing experience on the sea watching the scenery around me. I didn’t carry my camera, but couldn’t resist asking Pat to give my camera mobile from the polythene cover and clicked few pictures. It seemed the massive ship which passed us some time back had traveled to the end of horizon touching the rainbow edge. Unfortunately my mobile got a tiny camera, which couldn’t capture it that well as I noticed. Since yesterday was rainy day we had some shower at the boat but that didn’t stop the kids practicing the adventure sport.
All my life, I was seeing the Bay of Bengal with black color water, but yesterday after crossing a little distance first time I witnessed bluish water in the sea.

Around 2 and half hours of floating we returned to the shore and had some snacks. I took farewell from Patrick who is also a member of Tamilnadu Sailing Association. During my discussion with Pat, I was informed that the association also organizes corporate trips to have sailing experience. hmmm added into my list of team outing plans.Thanks to Patrick for giving me the opportunity for the first time sailing experience on the sea.

Touring at Trivandrum

2008-10-06T18:59:00.007+05:30

It was first time trip to my kids to Trivandrum, though they are half malayalees, they never had chance to visit. My RD350 RTO work made a perfect chance for my family to visit Trivandrum, Kerala.It was a brief trip and not much of tour plans as I was filled up my schedule for RTO work. However, found little space to visit the Zoo with my family. I always liked Trivandrum Zoo due its green nature. Unlike Chennai’s Anna Zoological Park, which is vast and dry, which makes people to get dehydrated, the Trivandrum zoo was maintained very well with lots of trees and it is small.There few varieties of monkeys and caged lion, cheetah, tiger and giraffe are my attracted animals for my kids.The Rynosaurus really took my eyes out and it was freed in its place along with elephant, mongoose and some deer.

The zoo got really lots of hippopotamus; I think they were zoo breaded. There was 2 cute baby hippo with 4 or 5 bigger ones.
This trip also gave us opportunity to see the flower drawings done by Malayalee ladies as part of their onam celebrations.

Though the onam was over 10 days back, the celebrations didn’t get over yet.
Trivandrum was once capital of Travancore kingdom hence lots of palaces in kerala’s own style। These buildings are owned by some govt. bodies for office space and also some are under Archeological department.

Trivandrum also famous for Padmanaba swamy temple, Travancore kingdom's fort, Kovalam beach, Kochu veli beach etc.

But we really had little time to spent in there, so just wound our trip without seeing all of these places. However in the forth coming days we will visit again to explore the places we missed in this trip.

Anyway this trip also turned out to be the first Train trip to my kids, hence they had a real good time in the train for longer journey. I found many times my kids were hanging on the window grill or in the sleeper berth.

Trivandrum is around 910kms from Chennai where we stay hence it is 15hours of trip filled with kids fun.

Get Tired in TADA

2008-09-29T10:37:00.013+05:30

It was another photo trip organised by Chennai Photography Club, the place choosen was TADA, It is a place in bordering state(Andra) with Chennai, TADA is full of rocky terrain covered with thick forest. The trip started from a discussion in CPC yahoo groups and made its way to get materialized as photo trip. We were geared up with our plans expecting to feed greater pictures to our hungry cameras. Yesterday around 4AM in the early morning I woke up after my alarm’s continues wake up calls. As we were planned to go TADA in my jeep and 2 more cars, we had around 13 people in the tour. So we set our target for 5AM to getting out of the city. Early in the morning, we witness the city is already awake before us on a Sunday. The roads were already busy and traffic signals put us behind 15minutes in the schedule. Though we could manage to start around 5:30, and I have seen few guys in the team back footed to sit in my Jeep thinking that the trip may not be as good as they thought in a jeep. We reached TADA after an hour of travel which is around 70kms from Chennai bus terminus, and had our break fast in the village. After our break fast, I quickly removed the Jeep’s top and folded the windshield down. Hurray… now people started noticing some difference in the jeep, that’s were the Jeep show off and actions started. We were again started going toward the TADA water falls also known as Ubbalamdugu Falls or Komba Falls which falls around 15kms from the village we had break fast and the place provides full fun for hillocks and hiking.

On the way to the forest I showcased some extreme offroad stunts with my jeep, after the stunt, man… I noticed all are almost became Jeep fans.

After brief offroading the jeep had issues with the clutch and we had to correct over selves as in the deep forest with no one to help. Then the group started moving towards the falls which is on the top of the hills, I thought the trip will have lots of walking but wrong, It was too much of hiking. One can really burn the fat much faster than they can do in a modern gymnasium. I have started feeling muscles pain and sweat everywhere in the body. But the ambition to reach the top kept me going, we crossed the water ways couple of times during the ascending path, Discussion with many visitors in the uphill path proved most are from Chennai. The running water was too clean and it was crystal clear and we could see the small fishes in large counts. The moment we put our foot in the water, the small fishes start biting us, many of those people climbing upwards took rest near the water ponds and started taking fish kissing therapy.

Finally we reached the top and man… it was a disappointment as not much of water in the falls, a lean water flows from the hills like water leaking from the tap. Though the ponds created by surrounding rocks had a good swim-mable water stagnation and I enjoyed it to my best.

With few clicks of butterflies, water bodies and the forest we started descending towards the car park area. In general the trip was too good with lots of physical work to the totally stalled information technology person’s body, but I felt real tired and exhausted. The return trip to Chennai was in open jeep with my hair flying on the air... this is the one think always bonds with my passion for opentop jeep. Now it is time for others to realize the fun traveling in jeep and couple of them tried to drive the jeep for short distances.

South India Tour - Jawadhu Hills

2008-09-15T16:46:00.009+05:30

The envying effect on my team outing on September 1st weekend to Jawadhu hills reflected in my family too, hence no escape but to visit again to a hill station.

This time not in mini bus but in my Suzuki Zen Estilo car filled with four adults and two kids. Actually I thought I will take them to Yelagiri ,another hill station next to Jawadhu hills, hence we geared up our plans and started early in the morning to Yelagiri. The trip to Yelagiri included a lunch stopover at Ambur for the famous Ambur Dhum Briyani.

We started our trip after lunch from Ambur to Yelagiri & after a short drive we were already climbing on the Yelagiri hills. But I did not see any dark forest instead saw plains below the mountain. The hill route provided a panoramic view of downhill villages.
The hills route got couple of hairpin bends and we have seen lots of families sitting on the compound wall posing for our cameras. Look at the monkey family, they seems to be enjoying their weekend too.
Soon after reaching the top, I decided to go back as there was nothing much to attract us in Yelagiri, hence U turn to down hills. You know what, the car was accelerating towards Jawadhu hills. I took an alternate way to Jamunamathur. Now the route from Vaniyambadi to Alankayam then proceeded forward to Kavalur. Remember the observatory I was mentioning in my previous visit's blog.

We reached bit later than the last time, but now for my surprise the guards posted in the security poll of Vainu Pappu Observatory allowed us to see the Giant 93” world’s second largest telescope. Hmmm… bad luck, I didn’t carry a mobile camera and the security personnel already asked me to leave the digital camera behind before entering into the facility (Security concerns!!!).

Lucky my family!! we got into the largest telescope tower and the lab attender demonstrated its operations. Though we didn’t see any objects from the sky as it was not in the evening, but we have seen the telescope operational procedures.

Bits about the Vainu Pappu Observatory:

Asia’s largest telescope is called Vainu Pappu Telescope and the optical used in the telescope is 93”(Ninety Three Inches) in size.
The whole setup is indigenously developed including the optical lens, the observatory staffs claimed it took one and half year for them to make the lens.
The observatory was estabilished in 1986
The second largest telescope in this facility is 40” in size and Carl-Zeiss of Germany made the lens. The staff claimed the second size telescope provides around 98% accuracy.
There are totally six Telescopes installed in the facility, from 93” to 6” (I have already posted the pictures of 6” telescope while my teammates looking over it in my last visit)

There is an optical coating plant inside the observatory where the 93” telescope was made, now I found they are making another 24” lens to commission another telescope tower.

After spending fair amount of time in the observatory, we moved out approaching towards the guesthouse in Jamunamaruthur village. Remember I explained about route to the guesthouse from Kavalur.
With similar expectation to meet our wild friends I was driving on the grove, I have spotted a chameleon crossing the road… WoW the first feast to my camera in Jawadhu hills was too colorful this time.After taking couple of pictures, I again set myself into the car driving on the jungle roads. I heard my father calling me to look at the right side of the car window; if someone was taking my video would have realized the amazement in my eyes, We found a skull of Bison lying on the road side. Next moment everyone heard click! click! click!
Though I didn’t see the Bison, but I have seen the skull of bison. We were thinking it was going to be a Zoo trip but it became Museum trip after seeing the skull.
The day already vanished and my family was set into the guesthouse, since there is no crowd I didn’t take opportunity to set camp fire. Almost every one was tired and we did sleep early on the date.

Next morning was planned as usual with a trip to the Waterfalls. My younger son Adhava was all set to walk on the forest trekking path, he he he he was so amused to the no mans land filled with lots of things he had never seen ;-)
My kids were enjoying their forest visit and butterflies in the forest heard my shutterbugs.
A dip in the waterfalls, hmmmm good good second time in a fortnight. This time my kids have also joined with me. Blue sky and Green backdrop a unique combination for the day.
With some time on the Village for food and sight seeing we were already wound our trip back to Chennai.

Team Safari - Jawadhu Hills

2008-09-08T10:48:00.012+05:30

We used be a scattered team working for the same project. I remember most of us don't even interact thinking that each other is from different planet (?). May be it was that we were from different geographical and technical background. Probably that is how everyone felt. The whole attitude changed with our Jungle journey to Jawadhu hills. We travelled to a reserved forest which is fenced by forest department where one can truly experience nature's nirvana. Since the day we planned the trip, I was overwhelmed by the excitement from team members and their support to make the trip alive. Pretty soon, I picked up the catalyst position to make the plan into action. Myself(Siva,Web team), Tamil(Service Delivery Manager), Gopi (GAM team) all started looking for list of to-dos as we had 100+ team members to be invited. However due to the service model and team members personal commitments the 100+ members made way for the 40+ people team outing.

Before I took the execution, Internet came into picture by providing first hand information about organizing a corporate tour, that was an eye-opener towards the possibilities. There I got to list Food, Accommodation, Transport, Activities, Locations, Safety, Route and Location guide into a checklist format. As we have chosen Jawadhu hills among three other proposals for team outing, the immediate attention was to organize accommodation and food, because the place we choose got not much of facilities, even though it was a beautiful place with lots of opportunities for fun. The first call to the Block Development Office at Jamunamarathur in Jawadhu hills for guest house booking was a success announcing our first action plan with right symbol in the checklist. The BDO's office got newly build guest houses with very attractive accommodation tariff. Since it is not a major tourist location, there is no restaurant.

So, with some influence of known people in the village I got a local villager to prepare food for our team. We had worries about the quality of the food even though we have placed the order for preparing food for us. People realized later in the trip that the food prepared by villagers are much better and changed our perceptions drastically.
Keeping few of my previous team-outing lessons in mind, I routinely started communicating people with what and what not to be expected in the village. In fact that’s one thing created a greater influence in teammate’s mind to join the trip. Mr. Tamil’s voice (I should call yard stick) drove the whole team to come out with a positive appearance to the trip. That’s when the transport arrangement had got kick started. Next to Accomodation, Food and Transport it was time to grab some articles for memento and prizes for the team games and activities.,, hmmmm "Saravana Stores" thats the magic. On the 6th September, early in the morning, my mobile started screaming at me to wake-up...opps 30mins to go, before I reach office as per my schedule. I really remember the 30mins time how I spent to make myself fit into the car to rush towards office. The trip was scheduled to start at 5:30am from my office building with two mini buses which can accommodate 20 adults each.
Though the plan was to take 40+ people, few had to stop due to various reasons hence we had 39people boarded on the bus in various pickup points. By the time the bus crossed the borders of Chennai we have already reaching 8:30am in the morning, I heard my soul saying I was behind schedule and for my fate we totally delayed 4 hours when we reached the top of the hill.

Leaving the highway drive back, each of the trip mates got full fun in spite of their hungry stomach for the lunch. We saw the mountains covered with a green carpet (should I say bed sheet?). The clouds passing the hills with mild cool atmosphere continued to become cooler and cooler as we started climbing upwards. After multiple delays we reached the top with little more than a smile at everyone's face. That was positive sign to me that the trip is going to make every one into a single circle. Obviously at the end of the trip the result was evident, the team outing made the team really bonded.
Quickly we served the food prepared by the villager. Much longer before we arrived at the top, the villager was punctual enough to bring in the food at right time. The empty stomachs of our folks made the food to taste more than delicious. You know what, I got a pass mark from the team about food arrangement. That was clearing all my worries about how the food going to taste like?
Our first challenge with the trip was food as it got cleared, the next one to take the fully tired team to the world 2nd largest observatory. A 91" telescope installed in Vainu Pappu Observatory in Kalavalur village of Jawadhu hills, it was around 10kms distance from the guest house we stated. The trip from guest house to observatory was fun as we were guided by a local person who explained couple of paths where the machine and wild life meet each other. Yes, he said many times the Bisons and Elephants cross couple of places we were driving. We got another reason for excitement, some started even praying that the animals should cross our path so we could encounter the all new experience of meeting the wilder animals at their court.

Driving in an unknown territory with full of hope to meet the wild without getting hurt, hmmm too much of expectations. Taking such a big numbers into the jungle was no joke. Many things could go wrong, bad road, nature’s mood, no prior experience, high possibility of breakdown, etc. In spite of all, we got very excited about driving down in an Jungle. After couple of minutes driving we reached the VPO at Kavalur. The gate was closed for security checks before allowing anyone into the facility.
The guys had real experience in seeing the largest telescope from outside as the day we visited got clear sky with lots of scientific observation happening, so we lost the opportunity to go inside the largest telescope. The largest telescope was in the height of 8 story building and the dome was designed to facilitate 180 degree rotational view for the telescope.
We were allowed to the 6" telescope for star watching, though we were shown the Jupiter and moon. My collogues from HCL were looking at the telescope with their eyes wide open. Tell me who wants to miss out such an opportunity to see a planet which is much far away from our home?

Now it was time to return to the guest house through the same jungle, hmmm there you go. The experience now is to drive the buses into dark jungle with same hopes of encountering our wild friends. Oh Boy! same bad luck, none of them were ready to show their faces, but we were not really disappointed as all of us were looking forward to the forth coming fun in the camp fire.Quickly the attender in the guest house built the infrastructure for camp fire, few bottles of cold drinks and of course the safety measures to ensure that we create no wild fire ;-). We finally gathered again to lit the light, the temperature in the hill top was already cooling down and the campfire added a unique weather around us. We also achieved the attention of passer by crowd.
Nothing worried any of us and the party began with added joy of hill station visit. It was really great to see highly trained IT professionals to perform the tribal dance. The time was ripe and all of us jointed our hands together creating a huge success to the trip and team. We played few team games with music to add some background fun.
After the team enlighten with real team spirit infront of fire god again, Now it was time for food, our dinner session. This time we were ran out of food to fill everyone's hungry stomach. But I received no negative feedback and everyone started smiling back with their support and cheers for making this trip in a right time. After camp fire was put out, we rolled over the sleeping bags to get back with the scheduled activities.

In the next morning with freezing cold weather, we woke up each other by increasing the ceiling fan's speed. ha ha ha I still remember how people expressed their reactions. hmmm but as per our plan we were about to reach the water falls to enjoy the morning bath. Quickly after few minutes the whole team was set into trekking mode towards the waterfalls in the jungle. We started marching on the village road which directed us to the jungle path.The trekking added more excitements to the team, they were started creating new fun by lifting stones, capturing the villagers and the nature in their tiny little digi cams.
We had even clicked a beautiful tribal kid wearing birth day suite who was doing cultivation :-).
The village was scenic with mountain cultivation and tribals. We had terrific experience of 360 degree filled with camera friendly landscape.
Guys in our team couldn't control themselves posing for pictures too... I remember hearing again and again "take my picture here please".
Now it is man who made the green out of nature. Green Green Green every where the color Green with lots of Green shades.
Hey forgot to tell that the professionals had already forgotten their computer screens and started acting like Tarzans. Wow.. the creepers and hanging folks Yaaahoooooooooo my camera had full fun too.We finally reached the water falls, setting a chorus “WOW” into every ones mouth while the eyes wide opened with load of excitement.
“God! Where in the earth you got so much of ideas to create such a wonderful facilities?” A rocky terrain with white broader line passing towards the earth that is called water falls. We observed many of us already lost our most of dresses and started moving forward to the water falls to take a dip. I too immediately rushed forward and waved the team and started loosing the clothes. The water fall was too chilled creating a wholly new experience, the nature's water massage and stone therapy all good for health.
The area was filled with lots of herbal aroma creating a fresh mood. I think this is going to create a envying effect to the people who read this article. Ladies and Gentleman that’s the nature's effect we can't help.
By this time, I had to push everyone to wind-up as we need to rush for our break fast. It was too difficult for me and Mr. Tamil to bring people out from the falls as no one seemed to be moving out. Later we got to extend our farewell to the waterfalls and walked in the very straight and deserted stretches of the forest. I also took the opportunity to share the information about Jawadhu hills to the team while we were walking on the narrow stretches. The walk was thrilled with the wild birds saying cookoo cookoo and green party shadow effect from leaves.Already we were behind the break fast schedule, but who cares as already the nature filled our mind with so much of happiness. After some time we filled our internal vessels with food. That is the point where we started moving towards boat club and cricket ground. Hence few guys joined with me for boating and rest of them pulled into the cricket pitch. That was a pedal boat with four seater arrangement, but I had six people to push in the water. Hence two boats with three member in each pedaling all the way around the lake.
End of Boating and Cricket was set for lunch session, Though some of us didn't miss the opportunity to play in the kinder's park at the lake side.

I realized our team is full of childish adults... he he he beer and bear seems to be always attracting the grown kids.
Wow.. we had experiences that is beyond our countable range. Everyone's contribution was excellent. The lunch was served with few veg and non-veg dishes. It was time for ringing bell for winding up our trip itself.
The prizes and mementos were distributed and already everyone was pushed into the buses, it is now down hill trip but I hear no sound from anyone. All of us looked some what sad face, as we were leaving the natures protected place.

After a while, a serious rain looked imminent. so we closed the side windows, and drivers were pushing the accelerator pedal high. Since we are driving forward, we wanted to reach home before late in the night. Otherwise transport the individuals to reach their home may become an issue. But for our luck, all were under control and I started receiving pager from everyone about their early reach at home.

It was a real good experience and fun for those who attended. Cheers!

Bangalore to Chennai - JAWA 250cc

2008-09-02T14:06:00.005+05:30

It was fun driving a 1971 model JAWA 250cc bike from Bangalore to Chennai, guess what the bike did well in nearly 400kms stretch with only 2 stops.

I had terrific day driving a 38yrs old bike in monsoon rain for more than 200kms, however I really enjoyed the ride like hot and sweet. I was not expecting the rain hence didn’t carry a rain coat which is hot, same time stealing all the passer by eyes on the bike is sweet.

I also lost the path once and had to increase the distance by 75kms extra, the pretty thing after I reach home I got a good remark from the family saying WoW kool bike. Even at one stage during the drive, one of the fellow biker in the highway asked me if JAWA re-introduced in India by looking at my shining JAWA 250. Actually this is not a CZ imported JAWA but the first ever produced bike in the Ideal JAWA factory in Mysore, Karnataka, India. The factory was closed during 1996 due to labour and finance issues. Only this model bike came with the name JAWA from this factory, rest of the models produced in mysore factory was branded as Yezdi.

I covered the whole distance in 7 hours, the bike gave around 35kmpl. I think it is still economic to have a classic bike with this sort of running mileage.
Route traveled: Shivaji Nagar (Bangalore) -> Electronic city(Bangalore) -> Hosur -> Krishnagiri -> Vaniyambadi -> Ambur -> Vellore -> Ranipettai -> Sriperumbudur -> Poonamallee -> Porur(Chennai) -> Guindy(Chennai) -> Velachery(Chennai)

Making me SWEET

2008-07-18T09:43:00.004+05:30

There are lots of ideas to have a sweet people appearance. Though I didn't come out with a single solution that could be followed. Afternoon time yesterday, the office boy walked into the cabin and called everyone for a birth day party. We all jumped with joy to grab our piece of cake, me a sweet lover got closed all the work off way and run to the breakout area for the b'day party. Normally people who got birthday will know it is for them so they can either excited to celebrate and scared get attacked by birthday bumps.
It was my official birthday ;-) yesterday (as my records says 17/July as birthday), hmm as it is not my real birthday I often do anything to make that day special. Hence I really forgot 17/07, I only realized when the whole team asked me to cut the cake. This is not a surprise but for sure kind of scary event I know what is going to happen next.

I wondered some times how to appear sweet to people I face, but I realized the easy way after cutting the cake yesterday. It also make sense to think this way, probably I have many people in the team who really waiting for chances to attack me like this.

Hummer H3 finds path in India.

2008-06-05T10:18:00.004+05:30

India shining and Indians Rocking, of course this applies to all possible industries while not to leave Automobile segment.

I remember we had only HM Ambassador cars on Indian roads, Also heard my grand father saying some Maharaja’s were denied procuring a Rolls Roys. But today the seens are changing in Automobile industry. The most talked TATA NANO is an Indian born car, most prestigious Europe brands like Landrover and US icon JAGUAR is now Indians owned brand. Is that stops all, no not really. The world war famous jeeps are even in action today in here, not to loose the thrill with offroad fun.

This trend is keep growing and today I witnessed a Hummer H3 brand new Tamilnadu registered vehicle infront my office at Old Mahabalipuram Road.

I was chasing the offroader in my bike to take couple of first shots of Hummer H3 in Indian roads. (Fun watching Hummer H3 competing with Auto rickshaws)It was amazing to see the world’s path on automobile is targeting in here, we have no infrastructure to compare to any other developed nation, But ….

At one point I have to go infront of the Hummvy to take picture. Guess what it wasn’t only me starring at the offroader but all of the passing crowd. Look at this picture here, motorist attention goes towards Hummer, I envy the owner now. I will also hope no one should come forward asking for banning this machine as it distracts the fellow motorists. My travel today in the usual road turned out to be a great tour by spotting this Hummer H3.

It is not known, why Indian roads are so poor. Ha ha ha ha it is Hummer way... We didn't make roads poor but we make roads for off roading!

Indian Returns

2008-05-28T21:05:00.003+05:30

Folks, its been long time ever since I wrote in here. Actually I was writing blogs but not in this space. As I have chosen to restore my Mahindra Classic last few months I was totally busy in my restoration project (visit http://mahindraclassic.blogspot.com).

Now back to my travel. Last week I got a chance to visit my hometown in my newly renovated Jeep. Here is the video. Look the way we over take the bus in highway. A typical indian road with formers, animals, cyclist and many more interesting stuffs.

I hope this video is enjoyable. I will get back to you people with lot more travel information.

Family Fiesta - Singapore

2007-10-28T20:47:00.000+05:30

Yesterday we had a Family Fiesta organized by the company where I'm working now. Kind of corporate get together, The event turned with full of fun. One of the attraction in the event was to assume and dance with house cleaning items as musical instruments. You know what, some senior employees got excited and the show went on to it's peak. Look at the video clip, which will show you the fun I had. ;-)

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Singapore Deepavali Celebrations

2007-10-28T20:31:00.000+05:30

Singapore, a perfect blend of multi culture society. The seven percent Tamilians in Singapore (South Indian descendants) celebrate Deepavali (referred as Diwali in North India) in a grand way. Though fire crackers are banned in Singapore,as everyone knows Singapore stands for Shopping hence any festival that gathers peoples attraction is a key for traders to make their business live. Here in Singapore Deepavali also one of the important festival for the people and traders.

The Tamilians in Singapore gather in a place called Little India (Will write more about this are in the future)every weekend to meet their friends and Relatives & Of course for shopping too. This is the place is covered by a road Serangoon road. Look at the pictures, The whole of Serangoon road is decorated. But this is not all, while I roam around the area, Found all most the entire area is decorated as well.

The Singapore Indian Association also has launched a special Deepavali shopping village to offer the traditional Deepavali items. In fact this is been supported by many other organizations, they are also the sponsors for the decorations in this area.

Both the sides of Serangoon road, we can find so many shops lined up to offer discounts and variety of Indian origin cosmetics, jewelery and dress materials. All the decorations seen in here are done by the traders around the area to welcome the Deepavali festival.
Last year I was in Japan celebrating my Deepavali all alone. This year I'm alone now but on Deepavali it will be more fun as I'm joining with my family in India for the celebration. Probably thats why the whole singapore is looking colorful to my eyes.

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Rental Guidelines - Singapore

2007-09-02T08:36:00.001+05:30

The below guidelines are drafted in making a better living place for innocents in Singapore. These are only guidelines, make appropriate addition and modifications on case to case basis. Don't be a looser in any case.

Always go for approved HDB flats or private condominium.
Never pay more than 1 month rental deposit and 1 month advance rental when u sign a new contract. Agents commission is half month's rent for housing contract, as the rentals are now sky rocking we should press for 2year contract with half month's agent commission.
Avoid taking houses where the owner is letting out flat for 1st time.
Avoid taking houses which are unoccupied previously.
If a tenant is staying there take feedback from him regarding the owner, house, why he is leaving the house, etc. It is likely that the tenant may tell u something which the owner or agent won't tell you.
If the house is approved, always go for a Utility account in your name or else get the original bill from the owner. PUB sometimes gives away discounts on the utility bill which the owner may not pass on to us
Do not believe the owner if he says he is going out of country (for work/business) and won't come for 1 year or so. It can so be that he will be in Singapore. Also do not fully trust the agent. He might be involved with the owner in luring you to take the house.
I have learnt from reliable sources that there is/are a group of agents who look for owners having money problems. They assure the owners that they can get tenants who are ready to pay advance rents (4/5 months) but in return the owner has to pay them a premium amount above the agent commission. This way the agents earn good money in a single deal. In this case follow point 2 above.
Deal only with registered Agents , ask them for their registration number etc.
Demand and get your receipts for Agent commission with GST paid, make sure that the receipt hold registration number of the agent. collect the Agent's IC/PR copies as well.
Do never trust the owner/agent if they say the rentals are gone high so you need to double to current rental price. Ask the current Tenant how much they pay, if rent quoted looks really high increase, immediately walk out and don't deal with the agent/owner any more. We don't really need to encourage abnormal increment on the rental. After all it's our hard earned money.
Never agree for 6month diplomatic clauses saying if you leave before 6 months you need to pay the whole 6 months rent plus deposit etc.
While discussing with the police I understood, bank transfer of money could be treated as friendly loan and the owner/agent can escape with this point when there is a problem. Hence even if you do a bank transfer make sure you are getting a receipt for the money you transfer.
Do not do a single money transaction without a valid proof/receipt.
Never sign a contract in hurry, you may not notice the catch in it. There are plenty of houses, even if you loose one there is always another house awaits for you.
Try not to accept visiting a house for inspection with another prospect who is also interested on the house through the same agent. Because some times the Agents are organizing such dirty tricks to make the rentals/bargain high. So, always make sure you are the person only visiting on that time slot. If you happen to visit with many other treat it as high risk in loosing money every month.
Never speak to anybody saying the rents are going high, this habit encourages the owners/agents to hike the rents without any limit because we are acting as free advertisement media for them.
Trust me there are good amount of Houses are available from JTC for us and approach them for getting the house of your need. Where there is no hassles and truly safe.
You can also verify the ownership of the house owner with HDB for the house you are proposed to rent. By doing this you will come to know whether you are dealing with a genuine owner.
While getting a furnished house, take the inventory carefully if you have a digital camera take pictures of damages in the house. It may be useful while you leaving the house. Make sure to get the inventory list signed from the Owner/Agency.
Make sure the electrical equipments are inspected throughly, if you don't do it then you may have to pay for the problem it had previously.
Make sure that you writing on the agreement about the owner's responsibility of repair/maintenance of any goods in the house if the charges/expense going to be above $50.
Please for your own interest, take extra caution while dealing with real estate. Also never accept if the above points are not met. Because we all have heard of numerous incidents people loosing money because of their ignorance. It cost a lot!

I really hope and wish you all have a good living experience in Singapore, after all we are here to stay in Uniquely Singapore. I found most of the Singaporean neighbors are friendly with each other, so enjoy your stay!

Your critics are welcome, please find time to fill up some comments here!

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Beware of Housing Frauds in Singapore

2007-09-02T07:57:00.000+05:30

It was a very bad experience for my friend who lost huge amount of money ($4600) on a Housing scam in Singapore. The actual experience is that my friend who is also a new comer to Singapore like me wanted to find an accommodation, The housing agents came handy in searching for a house.

In Singapore a general term is that the housing agent gets half a month of commission for finding a house. However they say they help you in dealing with the agreement etc., I found there is no registration etc. for the agreement. It's just a bit of paper written with some rules, also the agreements differs agent to agent. Some times you can find an agent registered and some work with a real estate company to assist.

So, My friend did approach an agent who was referred by one of his friend. The went and a saw a house in Balam road in Block 23. The house owner and the agent both were presented on that day my friend visit the house. The house owner quoted $1200 as monthly rent so the agent commission must by $600. Later on after fixing the rent, the agent and house owner went on a discussion and the agent came back to my friend and told him that if my friend pays 5 months advance rental(never heard of such deal) and 1 month security deposit (it's normal across the island) the owner will let the house for $1000.

Since the offer was attractive to my friend who felt he can save upto $1000 in five months time, he opt for the same and chosen it. He paid $2000 on the day he visited the house, and later on he paid $2000 through bank transfer and promised the owner of the house when he gets the key he will pay the remaining $2000. The agent was also prompt in taking his piece of cake $600 on the spot. The house owner committed he will hand over the house on 20th of August as some one else is already staying the apartment. You know what, after a weeks time, the Agent stopped picking up my friend's calls and the owner totally switched off his hand phone. My friend was in a impression he could get the key before August 20th, The time passed and the day has also came but the situation never changed.

I have joined with my friend to visit the place on August 20th to check if the owner or his representatives stays in the apartment. We got a shock as the tenant is still there on August 20th night 8:00pm. So I rushed to the nearby NPP and asked their assistance, the police called the agent he didn't pickup the call. Luckyly we had his friend's number hence the police called his friend and asked him tell his friend'd to call back. The agent promptly called, and told the police that he had an appointment with us by 9:00pm on the same day. We swear we didn't have any information like that before. So, we agreed to meet him at the location, and he came about 9:45pm saying he will help us raising a complaint, I know he was trying to escape from the situation like an approver however he was so adamant he didn't return the $600 commission as saying that is his service charges for showing the house (????)

We had tough time in getting the complaint report from the police as they said as per rules this needs to be handled with Small Claims court and directed us to the small claims court, however they gave us an incident number, finally we had pushed them to issue us a case report and successfully got it. But I should accept that the police is very friendly in Singapore however they have got some limitations handling such cases. Because of this, it's public's responsibility to be careful to avoid such experiences.

Now, my friend went to the court and they say that the agreement should hold the address of the house owner otherwise they can help and we need to approach the police. You know what my friend finally gave up and gone to his country embassy and asked they intervention in handling the case. He is also planning to approach local news papers to publish his bitter experience so that fellow Singaporean citizens and innocent foreigners will be notified for such acts.

So, guys please be aware Singapore is still low crime country and doesn't mean no crime, however this kind of cheating is treated here are civil case and cannot be counted in crime. I advice everybody to take extra caution before committing any money transactions. There are lots of cases discussed on Housing scams in here, so Beware of housing frauds in Singapore.

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Singapore night

2007-08-31T16:59:00.000+05:30

Warning: Don't expect me writing about Gaylang or Orchard tower stories in the space

Actually I wanted to capture the National Day function held in Marina Bay on 9th August 2007, unfortunately I was bit late so I could reach the location only after the function got over. That is how the Singapore night has been found in this blog.
Singapore is a truly colorful country, for whatever function that the nation call for; you can see the Singaporeans wearing red colored t-shirts and dresses. You know what I too have joined with them wearing Singaporean national colored red dress on that day.

My destination to visit in Singapore was primarily the Merlion statue(Lion head and Fish body), and I could do that in the national day of Singapore rather i would say national night of Singapore ;-) Look at the picture below here, this is a baby Merlion statue behind the taller one, you can see the taller back view also from this picture. Between the baby and taller spot the floating stage organised for the national day festival, when I took the picture the function just had completed situation.

The whole country (city) was so excited to celebrate their city's birth anniversary. The story of Singapore known to almost everyone so I'm not gonna repeat once again. Here are some pictures that describes my Singapore night roam.

Marina bay is one of the hi-fi commercial area of Singapore, the most taller building clusters are found here, I still remember seeing this building's pictures in my school notebook covers in India those days. Today I'm here in front of them.

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Singapore Cycle - Disc brakes

2007-08-31T16:49:00.000+05:30

The attractive thing about Singapore cycles are the disc brakes(!!). Yeah the Singaporeans are not as interested as Japanese to pedal the cycle but fascinated by their fancy cycles.

There is no parking for cycles also in Singapore, hence most of the places you can see cycles tied with the road side electrical posts or barriers etc. Look at one of the cycle tied in my office wall.

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Team lunch - Singapore

2007-08-31T16:23:00.000+05:30

My first team lunch session in Singapore had happen a fortnight before, Indian, Filipinos, Singaporean Chinese, Malay Chinese and Indians were part of the lunch. We have chosen a Filipinos restaurant for our taste buds. Much of us had already experienced Chinese, South and North Indian, Korean, Japanese, Mexican and Junk American food but not that of Filipino's hence the choice.The hotel was located in Marina Square in Singapore, the hotel atmosphere was good and pleasing. You know what the hostess in the hotel was so friendly to ask us about our girl friends (???). Most of the food items were prepared with Pork and that is a reason for my Indian colleague to feel uncomfortable. Actually he is a vegetarian and you know what he had finished his lunch with appetizers.

The next team lunch was in Park Royal hotel, this time it is grand team lunch due to our manager visit from US. It was a buffet lunch and we had more than 100 variety of dishes to eat. I couldn't resist to control my diet, so much of items and so good.I'm thinking what if my manager comes weekly once, ;-) ha ha ha...

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Jungle made of Concrete - Singapore

2007-07-14T09:38:00.001+05:30

Singara Singapore (Beautiful Singapore) is here, welcome to Singapore blog tour. A multi culture, colourful modern Asia not far from this blog post ;-). Almost I have completed 1 and half months life in Singapore a place where you can see Chinese, Malay, Tamil languages spoken widely and a true cosmopolitan city. One can go to a Hindu temple or Masque or Chinese temple or celebrate the festivals of any religion together with other friend.
Go out for shopping? Don't forget Singapore shoppers have discounts and cushion bargain attached to their tags. International warranties, expo, shopping festival are the widely known mantra to the marketing plans. You will get to see one or other exhibition or festival throughout the year (though I have not completed even a quarter year in Singapore, but heard by word of mouth). Low crime (I can see taxi's stick bills with words like "low crime doesn't mean no crime"), beautiful Asian girls, clean roads are always attractions too.

There are many things to share with you, Singapore looks alike great jungle made of concrete with rivers like tar roads taking ups and downs while turning left and right curves, the cars and automobiles are fishes in the tar rivers. I stay in the center spot of Singapore called Toa Payoh and you know one of the largest tar river in Singapore concrete jungle right next to my apartment. They call it as PIE (Pan Island Expressway), this one connect Singapore's west to east vice versa and runs for maximum of 42.8kms long. Have a look at day and night pictures of this scenic PIE river's pictures here.

I could see in many aspects Japanese and Singaporeans lifestyle are matching very closely. First they both have very small land particularly Singapore has a land lesser than Chennai (South Indian Metro City), hence many times i get confused how to address Singapore as a city or country. Hey guys no harm, just expression of my thought.

Fun rides, zoos, bird and animal watching, cheap electronic items, theme parks, fun rides, balloon ride what else; of course movies are most preferred way of entertainment in here. If anybody talks about Singapore i don't think they will forget to talk about their hawker shops (Petti kadai in Tamil) which are serving authentic Indian, Chinese, Western and Malay foods all the time. They are cheap and taste good.. Really!

Not to forget, Singapore's most criticised objects are the govt fine $$$ boards." You do this you will end up paying this", "you do that you may have to pay so much","if you have this much you can try doing it" are some examples. Keep watching great fun ahead! Uniquely Singapore is here with you.

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Explorer's Jeep (Willys CJ2A)

2007-06-09T07:37:00.000+05:30

Hi Surfers, I'm back again after tooooooo long interval. But this is unavoidable for me.

My Tiger (Willy CJ2A 1946) is now standing on his foot with full power. I have to change the top portion of the jeep to a flexible one for folding, removal etc. Also minor tinkering and painting job to make it look better.
The Jeep had also gone for a Engine transplantation with more powerful Peoguot engine. Yes the jeep is fully ready and doing great. There couple of modification I was doing with it, as I have mentioned earlier I thought that I would take this jeep for Indian explorer program.
You know some times our plans may be doomed by the time, this happen to me. I will not be able to keep up my plan as Indian explorer for another 3-5 years. Because I'm now relocated to Singapore the Lion City.

But I did visit palani as a part of my plan and made my smaller article for you people. It was nice experience however I had to choose a bad weather (43degree celcious) and we have almosted boiled.

Look at this space for my detailed blog about the palani visit, I hope I would do it today or tomorrow. I'm still collecting information for singapore blog because I myself new here and not started to explore anything yet.

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Indian Explorer

2007-04-11T19:36:00.000+05:30

I made my mind up to write my travel experiences in India, that a good news for myself. You know why? I have enough to cover under this blog now. To kick start my exploration in India, now I’m building my Willys Jeep back to action.

After coming back from Japan, I couldn’t even have time to visit my native Tiruvannamalai (A city in Tamilnadu state of India). As of now I could only plan for the future trips the list grows like infinite loop. This is a formal announcement for all the readers of this blog that do expect more here in the near future. Keep coming back and raise all your doubts and queries on your India tour plans.

Have a great day.
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Thou Arikatho Gosaimasu!

2007-04-11T19:33:00.000+05:30

I wish to extent my heartiest thanks to all of the Nipponians who helped and interacted with me during my visit in Japan. I really enjoyed and appreciate your service capability and guest honoring culture.

It was wonderful and colorful days for me in Japan. Thanks to all of you!

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Dream of Underwater – Tokyo Sea Life Park

2007-03-18T16:54:00.000+05:30

It’s kind of dream ever since I landed in Tokyo to visit Tokyo Sea Life park. Fortunately I could make it atleast in the last weekend here. The donut shaped structure that is located on the shore of Tokyo bay. This aquarium is actually located inside Kasai Rinkai Koen, I could say this is the largest Aquarium in Japan.
The aquarium hosts many ocean animals like hammer head sharks, fishes and penguins. I can say this is a well organized aquarium, I felt much more than expected inside the aquarium. You can see in the photo below, I’m standing in front of the bluefin tuna fishes that were kept in a tallest tank in this setup.
This place is kids paradise and travelers underwater dream. Huge glass walls, behind the glass wall you can see all sort of sea life. The Giant crab (nearly 3 ft. in size) is most attractive; I never imagined such a big crab existed before.
The Jelly fish, Leafy sea-dragon and Nemo are crowd grabbers too. I could manage to take many pictures even in the dark environment. The Nemo fish section is another most wanted environment for the kids; I guess it could be due the popularity given by the cartoon movie “Finding Nemo”. Actually the flash photography is prohibited; hence I had real difficult time in getting the pictures.

Seeing live star fishes, Squids and multi color fishes are life time chance for me. It would have been even more interesting if the aquarium also organize to host seals and dolphins. This is one minus point to this aquarium. I almost took 3 hours to complete the round. There are guided shows in every section of the aquarium in a specific time. While entering at the aquarium we can take the English information sheet for browsing the park. It will cost 800 for adult to enter in to this aquarium; I felt it is most reasonable for this kind of attraction.

The aquarium not only hosts fishes but the ocean bird penguins. Its beautiful seeing them underwater. They fly under the water with their wings.
Later in this day, I came out of the Tokyo Sea Life Park and entered to the Kasai Rinkai Park for a short walk, the Ferris wheel in this park claims the largest one in Japan. With this visit I’m closing my roaming schedule in Japan. I hope to write atleast one more blog before leaving out of Japan.

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Japan party fever – Part III

2007-03-17T19:17:00.000+05:30

Almost I’m reaching the final days in Japan, while looking at my calendar it is filled with party schedule. All of them are about farewell to me.
When I came to Japan it was tough time creating relations with people here, but once you form your community around then the situation is smooth. For me the final days are precious days. I got many cool people turn to extend their hands for friendship. Unfortunately the day has come, I have to return back. I do love to go back as my kids and family are there in India.
Yesterday there was a party (This party is a Japanese party to this Indian) sponsored by team of operations department from the company I’m working in Japan. The chief of the operations is the person whom I always remember as smiley, he has a unique smiling face. I and operations chief and team of five more people from his department were in the party yesterday. These people are the first people outside system department to talk to me in the company. The party was real fun as we were discussing about sports and entertainment. During that time I came to know from one among that they have watched Super Star Rajinikanth’s “Muthu” feature film when it was screened in Japan. At the end of this party they presented me with a beautiful Japanese “sensu” (the folding fan). Sensu is one of the important cultural symbols and popular tourist souvenir here.

In other party that I hosted to my friends from the company in my apartment, there were two guys one of them stays in the Tozai line. On the party day I told them that I would wait in the Baraki Nakayama station to receive them. Mr. Mitadera came sharp at the time fixed, the next person Mr. Ogashira was delayed for few minutes, for our surprise he came in bicycle.

That party was an Indian party to Japanese. I made Chicken curry, Chapati and Green dhal masala as main course. We had few more items on our table on that day. Those guys were really cool and enjoyed our traditional food. It was Mr. Ogashira who learned how to say taste good in Tamil and pronounced with Japanese accent.

Today my lunch was with an Indian couple in Japan at their apartment. They are my good friends in here; we had our friendship started via. this blog. As the person happen to read this blog turn to me as a friend in later days and today I had lunch with them at their apartment.

Mt. Naeba rob way and Ski experience in Japan

2007-03-11T07:40:00.000+05:30

It was nice experience visiting Naeba the mountain town of Niigata prefecture in Japan. I traveled to Naeba with my friends in a car, after about two and half hours journey we landed in a place with cluster of mountains covered with silver blanket. White white everywhere, the fingers felt freezing cold what an amazing landscape we spotted in the morning. (Formula: Water + cold weather = Snowflakes.)

Naeba is famous ski spot to host world cup tournaments for skiing, hence it attracts more people. This town is filled with rental shops of Skii equipment. I had a chat with the local rental shop owner (Looked in the age of 80s), he stated almost 6 months in a year Naeba has snow. Later I also came to know he is a champion in the sport long time back. He also visited Himalayas for training Indians on snow surfing sports. One can rent (daily) the ski equipment from 1000 yens to 3000 yens. As I had no experience in snow sports, I had to spend nearly 2 hours to learn how to stand, start and stop the ski. Believe me I had felt carrying 10kg on my foot while wearing the ski equipments. The Mt. Naeba skiers aged from 3 years old to any upper age.

Mt. Naeba has good facilities for accommodation, food and health. Often I could see the snow bikes of patrol people driving around. The food court near Naeba has Italian and Japanese food varieties. In fact inside the same food court there is an onsen (Japanese hot spring bath) for after ski experience. I had real fun having Japanese curry rice food, it was good.

The Mountain was very steep and you can literally see the skiers every part of the mountain skating down towards. There are many cableway facilities that take the skiers to the top of several ski spots and they start skiing down from those areas. Since I had no experience I was not really confident on skiing from such a steep spots but I never missed to go on top of the Mt. Naeba, about 1789m summit I had traveled on the cable way, there was no words to express the feeling of my cable car experience. In simple words Fear, Thrill, Sad, Surprise and Glad are the various expressions I had during the cableway travel. While climbing upwards I had encountered many sceneries and landscapes of Niigata prefecture.

I took the cable way bit late in the evening; hence I had only 3 mins to spend time on the summit. You know what I would have done with that short time span, clicked few photographs.

Japan Tour - Party Time!

2007-03-03T08:26:00.000+05:30

It’s been long time since I wrote in here; I think I’m in my final days in Japan. Just wanted to cover some skiing experience before leaving from here, most probably it will happen next week.

My boss had hosted a farewell party for me; the picture shown above is from that party. There is a video uploaded to youtube, will do some more interesting videos very soon.

Yesterday it happens to me to eat Sushi, sesame with raw whale and many other Japanese sea foods like Octopus, Squid and Fishes. Here is the raw fish consuming video from my yesterday’s party ;-)

Actually if you look at the hotel, we were sitting on the ground a typical Japanese style hotel. For people with baloon type belly :-) it's a task to be noted.

I'm an Alien in Japan

2007-01-16T14:43:00.000+05:30

Today successfully I became an alien in Japan by receiving the Alien registration card ;-)

The process was simple, When I came to Japan the immigration officer taken my Certificate of Eligibility and gave me a yellow slip directing me to register myself to the near by Local government administration office. The slip was carrying instructions stating the mandatory registration of Alien with in 90days of arrival at the airport. If anybody lives in Japan even with a work permit lesser than 90 days need not to be registered.

But to be noted, without Alien registration one cannot really open a Bank Account or Acquire a Japan driving license or even any other property trade in Japan. While you have your alien card, it makes more convenient of not to carry the passport everywhere but alien card.

The process of obtain this card is that, visit the local office and take a token from the vending machine installed in front of the officer’s desk. The Govt. offices in Japan are just like a private company’s corporate office, so clean. The foreigner registration cell who entertains this registration will call you for filling up an application for the registration. During your application writing they verify your passport for the VISA and expiry information. There is a requirement for 2 numbers of passport size photographs; this information was already found in the yellow slip issued by the immigration officer at the Narita Airport. They are really clamming and helpful till you complete the application form. After receiving the filled in application the officer provided me an acknowledgement paper. It was indicating the date on which I should return to the collect the Alien card. Along with it, I have also received couple of papers and a book explaining activities of the administrative office. The papers included a judicial area map of that office with all the major locations and routes found. Throughout my visit in the local administration office in Gyotoku I really felt the humble handling of people by the government officials in there. This is a branch office for the Ichikawa city administration.

I went to the same office today 16/01/2007 to collect the card, to my surprise instantly after getting my acknowledgement paper they issued the card without wasting either of our time. The card was having my photograph embedded with colorful hologram on top in a typical credit card size. The card was in white color with all the information about me and my passport alongside the expiry information about the card. I really appreciate the patient and kindness of the people in Japan’s government offices.

These local administration offices also provides cultural exchange programs, guide to woman, foreigners and local information. This offices are basically all in one sort, they register the vehicles, register the new person on the area, take care of garbage work, hanko (authorized stamp of individual, in Japan the signature is not accepted as authenticity) and even other civil works around the political limitations. Whenever somebody moves out of an area or enters to another are the person should register them in the local administration area of the respective location.

I have spotted a flyer in the office today stating 500JPY for one day Japanese class, the cultural exchange programs encourages foreigner learning and sharing cultural and cooking information with the local people.

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Japan’s disastrous mobile bills

2007-01-16T14:00:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I had the most shocking experience in my life looking at a bill sent to me by the mobile phone operator (au by KDDI). The bill was generated for 16days of time from 12/12/2006 to 31/12/2006 and carried the outstanding amount as 39,693JPY. I wouldn’t have seen any other service provider charging such a huge amount for no international calls and no domestic multi city call option. In fact nearly 28,500JPY charged for just for the WAP service.

This makes me even more affraid for using the same service in the last 10days in January, I may probably expect one more such a bill in the first week of February now.

First of all the mobile doesn’t have enough memory for downloading huge content, which means there is a limitation for downloading. Secondly typing through mobile phone is always considered as pain hence that rules out the effective use of internet via. mobile phone. Additionally no WAP site is been classified into image rich site that is another fact getting away from heavy data transfer. Also the tiny screen can only show a small piece of data at one stretch which are technically called decks in WAP technology and consumes more time for browsing even a text based site, now you know what would have been a average WAP usage.

In spite of these entire things, I got my moderatively used mobile WAP service charge for 15days is about 28,500JPY plus 11,000 for making local calls. I’m now wondering if such a facility in a tiny mobile cost a fortune then why should we call it as value added service. The technology should be made available to public in an affordable way not destructive manner. This made me to call all the readers of this blog to ignore au by KDDI mobile operator to all possible extent wherever possible. If you know, in India which is a developing nation provides mobile internet connectivity with unlimited usage for just as low as 400INR equal to 1000JPY. Are my Japanese friends are so ignorant to raise their voice against such unjustified pricing policy of a service providers? It’s one of the very bad day I have ever came in while visiting Japan.

Here by I request you guys please take extra caution while using mobile phone in Japan.

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Pongal Festival - browsing my memory in Japan

2007-01-14T10:28:00.000+05:30

It’s my second time missing one of the most important festival that is been celebrated in the southern part of India in my stay in Japan. In fact this is the festival which really ties me with my relation not only with humans but nature. I pledge to give some information bits(forgotton truth) that I know behind this festival for you.

Paying homage to our mother nature is the key element made the ancient Indians grows faster and safer in terms of all the aspects of life. Dravidians (I call the native Indians as Dravidians, other branch are the Aryans who came from European continent) who were black in color, who had no Hinduism, who never lived in the Indus valley, who are never restricted them with caste systems but divisions with their work systems are called Dravidians. (Parayar – Announcer, Kuyavar – Potter, Vannan – Laundry person, Udayaar – Landlord, Mudaliar – Accountant and Arasar - Ruler are some examples of divisions used in the ancient India before Aryans)In the modern days these people are compressed into southern part of India where the Information technology is booming to fuel the countries GDP growth.

Even before Aryans invasion into India, The Dravidians lived with a supreme civilization. Those were there in the stone sculptures as ancient scripts but nothing to prove or show to the world like Indus valley. However if you rotate the time in backwards it’s a scientific proof that India was once part of African continent where the human life believed to be originated. Looking at the Indian animals Lion, Tiger and Elephant will tell you that this concept is truth these were the same animals spotted in African forests. Focusing at the people skin color one can easily point out similarities found in Africans and Dravidians (South Indians) and they are brothers for millions years ago.

I remember recently watching a movie called “God must be crazy” where shows the footage of tribal community who lives in the African forest alongside the wildest animals and without ground level water for about 20000 years. They have no god, no religious but they believed the Nature. This provided the place, food and the entire thing needed for living and mutual share of land with all the creatures of the world.

I’m recalling all of these historical and scientific truths here to point nothing but a festival the Dravidians celebrate even now called “Pongal”. This is a festival to honor the great nature for providing light, water and land for cultivation of food. This is a festival that comes in series of three consecutive days. The first day of this festival is to burst those of unwanted things from us which states the cleanliness followed in the ancient days, followed by that comes the harvesting day which is the most important among all the festivals for the Dravidians to thank the nature (Sun, Earth, Water, Sky and Air). The third day of festival is for the friends of human, who helped through out the cultivation process and transportation for the human. In this day the people decorate their domestic and pet animals with colorful things and feed them along with paying respect to those animals.

This festival is not for any Hindu God its for the nature, here we see the undisturbed culture that Dravidians followed for millions of years even after the invasion of Dravidian land by Aryans who brought several things that today’s mankind if proud of like invention of zero, the art of love Kama sutra and many other. However there were several mis-concept popularly spread across the world thinking that Sanskrit is the oldest language of the world, but the truth is different even before that the language Tamil is been used in the world. An inscription says “Kal thondri man thondra kalathe mun thondri mutha kudi thamizh kudi”, this means even before the formation of rock or sand the Dravidian civilization had founded in the earth. In the recent history India has been ruled by majority by the northern state people who were believed to be Aryan decedents and spread the world with much untruth information. However, they had the inventions which showed the way for today’s modern world.

Some information I thought the world should know altheas to a brief is here, however it is every single word in this blog has branches to several micro and macro levels. This is just information for greeting the world for the Worlds only festival common for anybody from any religion “Wish you a very happy and prosperous Pongal festival”

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Finding (Information of) a Geisha!

2007-01-05T08:08:00.000+05:30

The moment anybody outside this tiny country Japan is thinking about Japan will immediately find an image of a colorful female in their mind. Though Japan is famously known for its electronics, efficient cars and earth quakes what comes in ones thought is the female who is elegantly dressed with costlier kimonos and painted her exposed body parts like face, hands and neck with various colors.

Who is she? and where is she? are the questions raised to me when I heard of my trip to Japan initially from India. I found the females referred as Geisha (‘Gei’ means art and ‘Sha’ means person in Japanese, in a simple form an Artist). Often, we can notice at least one of the souvenirs purchased on the foreigner's return to their home country from Japan will be a ‘Geisha’ doll. An immensely represented figures of Japan the Geisha.

In the beginning my idea of Geisha is a rich woman or a woman from the imperial family is who the Geishas are, but later I found a different view about them. These are the people who entertain their customers with dance, music, story telling and communication (probably drama) expressing the illusion of a female. Their dressing needs aid from a professional as it involves lots of difficulties. In the ancient days Geisha are not females instead males. Later the term has transformed to females, as no entertainment ends without the spice of a woman. The Geishas are trained from their young age, some times from childhood. They have a special training for how to entertain their customers, when they were matured or learned to become Geisha these young people will go on an apprentice period during that time they will be referred as Maiko.

All these information were an original Geisha related, but what is their stand in the modern society of Japan where the western influence is more than their culture. That leads the answer pointing the sex workers, now the majority of Geishas are referred or meant as prostitutes. Though Geishas are not originally sex workers they were the people to entertain their customer no in the form of sex but various arts.

I wanted to meet the today’s Geisha, got information of their locations primarily Kyoto the old capital of Japan. But having limitations with the work schedule I’m really unable to visit that far. Next place came to me as an option is Asakusa of Tokyo (Refer my previous blog Auspicious Asakusa). Finding Geisha out from Asakusa is a real challenging task; finally I met a Maiko(Trainee Geisha) on the road. She was beautiful with the pink colored makeup all over her body with a black Maiko’s kimono. As a matter of fact, I never missed the opportunity to ask her to pose with me for the camera my friend carried along with me for the trial. She accepted my request with a beautiful smile (look at the picture). She was accompanied by two men dressed in a colorful form, but I still have no idea of who to refer them as this is the time I have seen a person like them. Some of the points stated here are the output of my discussion from the Maiko and the two men along with her. They stated couple of tea houses in the area hosts the shows of Geisha.

As the Geisha culture is turned very costly because of their traditional training process of ages and dressing. The modern community (though preferred but) is not really making their visit to tea houses of Geisha. As the bars and hotels entertain their customers in Japan with hostesses on the western costume which are economical for many. What ever reason, the population of Geishas are in extinct in Japan leading a faded future of Geisha.

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Silent atmosphere of Samyoji temple – Japan

2007-01-04T08:41:00.000+05:30

Samyoji temple, Kannonji temple, Entsuji temple and Okura Jinja shrine are the religious establishments of Mashiko which falls under the Tsukuba - a mountain. Apart from the temples, Mashiko local government also had developed several museums of pottery and the collections. Some of this museums charge a fee for public access. As our plan for Mashiko is restricted with one day trip, we could not enter into all the listed spots but Samyoji Temple.

Samyoji temple is on the little elevated but not in a highest mountain with aged about 600 year old. It is located on the Tsukuba mountain belt. The temple is not crowded; it’s a clam environment residing in a peaceful location on the green hands of nature. After driving the car in a single hairpin bend the samsoji temple parking area has been reached. The parking area has the food stalls selling squid, octopus and fish varieties.

There are two stone lanterns installed on the stone made stairs which leads to the temple. There were about or lesser than 100 steps to reach the temple from the stone lantern installed. In front of the lantern the temple authorities has a shop to sell some religious items. I have no clear idea about the names of those items but those seem to be a wrist bands, fortune tellers and some memorandums. Also on the parallel side of the 2 stone made lanterns I have also seen a Buddha statue with kids playing, some people had also left some soft toys near to the statue as a religious belief I guess. The stone made steps are neat and divided with a steal pipe climbing and returning people support.

This temple has a 3 storied wooden pagoda, an Entrance and two temples. The primary temple is larger and taller in sized. The temples are erected with statues in it, those were larger in size. As a custom this temple also had the water pot where people wash their hands before entering to the temple. The small sized temple had a giant sized angriest God with two other subordinates in it. Except the main temple, including the entrance had the roof with a sort of grass topping. The entire temple has shown no sign of cement or concrete, everything was made with wood. But it was elegant and had a speciality of Japanese style architecture.

After spending about an hour in the temple, we were rushed towards Tokyo on the car, our visit to Mashiko had turned really interesting as we had chance to see the country side of Japan.

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Visit to Pottery Paradise, Mashiko – Japan

2007-01-04T08:35:00.000+05:30

After a month time interval I had an opportunity to go outings in Japan, This time the idea to know the ancient Japanese pottery making has been sparked by Mr.Uchida (Our Guarantor). Hence we have chosen to visit a place about 100kms away from Tokyo called Mashiko.

The 2nd day of 2007 morning 10:00AM our team has set ready for the tour to Mashiko. Mr.Uchida also had never been to this place; hence our tracking of route on the car was solely depended on the GPS system installed. The in car navigator has been set starting point Nishi Funabashi and destination as Mashiko Information center the community building. It quickly recognised the starting and destination points and showed the entire travel distance as 106kms and 2:37mins has driving time.

We had chosen to travel the local roads in stead of the Highway as everybody requested to see the scenic country side of Japan. The car started its journey with 6 people on board. It was a pleasant trip to us to experience the relaxed life outside Tokyo. The villages on the way to Mashiko had full of Salvage yards and used car dealers’ show casing numerous cars that were used in the roads of Japan. In a short while after an hour and half drive we stop at Seven Eleven a convenio store on the roadside for our meal.

Mashiko is a famous country town during Nara Era (A.D. 710-784) for manufacturing pottery goods. Due to several political changes in Japan the Mashiko had to loose its glory and blurred the pottery business. The current Mashiko contributes to Japan as tourism attraction exhibiting the classical age pottery manufacturing techniques. There are several schools teaches the pottery manufacturing art. There visitors can pay as low as 1000yen for a guided pottery manufacturing tour during which they can make their own pottery, there will be a additional charge for boiling the visitor made pottery and shipping it to the visitors address in Japan after 2-3 days of the whole process.

There were many pottery shops in the area to attract visitors, but majority of the shops sells the ceramic owl dolls and Japanese style bear dolls. I have spotted these bear dolls in many Isakaya (small Japanese style hotel) establishments in Tokyo earlier. There is a Giant sized bear statue is also seen on the Mashiko central area as a landmark. Many of the information boards in this area are written in English as an exception but several letters in those boards were missing due to lack of maintenance. But it doesn’t stop us reading that partial information seen on the board.

The area information office provides detailed map and information flyers to those who visit Mashiko. There is plenty of car parking available around the attractions in Mashiko. The Mashiko area is filled with pottery makers and shrines of ancient Japanese Nara Era.　

After a while we have moved towards Samyoji temple in Mashiko from that point our travel has started towards Tokyo. Apart from the salvage yards and used car dealers the way to Mashiko also had several villages with rice fields. I have a plan to visit one of their villages soon to discover the farmer’s life in Japan and the techniques they use in the cultivations.

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Welcome to the great future - 2007

2007-01-04T08:11:00.000+05:30

First time in my life ever celebrating the New Year outside my home land, filled with expectation, happiness and doubt. Surprisingly nothing has materialised on the 31st December 2007 night to welcome the New Year.

I used to roam around with friends in India during the New Year night with some beer and celebrations. I always had feeling of greater New Year celebrations in Japan but it was in vain, as the night turned to me lonely at the apartment without transport facility to go out. I was calling the friends to find out the places to go and celebrate the New Year event, some indicated Shibuya, Odaiba and Roppongi. But the Tokyo Metro train schedule indicated no trains after 12:00AM in the mid-night. With the temperature running 1-4degree celsius passing the whole night in the roads are ruled out. That laid the path for demolishing my new year celebrations, my apartment sharing friend had already left to his friend’s place which added more worries on the final movements of 2006. Finally with few larges of Jamaican Rum I had to end welcoming the New Year at the apartment and went on sleeping. As usual I decided to start the New Year with going to a temple; hence my travel towards Asakusa had been ignited. I had to call my friend Anwar、as he had procured a new Canon DSLR in the recent past he wanted to go for a photographic session during the festival time.

Another disappointment had waited in Asakusa; earlier couple of my Japanese friends understated that during the New Year day the Japanese wear Kimonos in large number and visit Asakusa but the situation was totally against as I had not seen anybody with the cultural dress in there. Instead the ultra modern western dresses were attracted our eyes.

Asakusa looked like the busiest Chennai streets as the place was filled with lots of police patrol to prevent any illegal things on the crowded day. The place was also hosted several food stalls around the temple, I can say without those food courts no temple could be visited in Japan. There is a custom of eating Squid, Octopus and fish in the compound of the temple in Japan is seen. Look at the picture which tells a story of what I was meaning in here.

Later few hours of walking around Asakusa we had moved towards Akihabara to probe any electronic gadgets under discount sale is available for our photography needs. But not much to state, all the prices were under the same ceiling of pre-festival rates. There was a minimal discount as low as 5% of the original good. Hence we decided not to buy on the New Year day. Our search had also prompted us to visit Shinjuku area for the similar reason but the result was same. We entered to Yodobashi, Bic Camera, Map camera and Laox stores in these areas but as mentioned no much attractions. I’m only writing this for the future to keep reference of what you can expect on the New year’s day in these areas. I was told by somebody to expect 30% discount but later understood that it was biased information.

I also spoken to my family members on the New Year day and shared the celebrations with that I end my New Year celebration of 2007. Now its time to Plan, Frame and track the year to favour us throughout the 365 days of time. Probably this year will bring us new attractions, life style, career growth and increment in the bank account. I may get lot more to share with you people on forth coming days, I strongly hope that the year 2007 will make another milestone in my and your life.

Let us all link our hands to chain and lay a beautiful path to welcome the New Year 2007. I wish you all a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2007

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Closing the account of 2006 in Japan

2007-01-04T08:08:00.000+05:30

Very few take an opportunity to thank the year which brought us a fruitful of memories, growth, wealth and promotions in life and career.

Frankly speaking I’m an opportunistic person who takes things favourably for my sake. The year 2006 had given me a great gift “Adhava” my second son, helped me fly to Japan to learn new people, culture and work environment. Yet another milestone in the life passed age plus one in an increment manner.

I got several new friends, new comments on my site, new photographs from my tiny little camera kit and offcourse this blog. Every think had happen in the very few 365 days circle.

Last year also set goals in my life to achieve new targets and a new lifestyle along side the year also brought some sad thinks to compensate and balance the life. The year also made me to Loss my cousin, missing the life to stay with family and friend in India.

Unacceptable manner of execution of former Iraq President Saddam Hussein made the year 2006 recorded in the black book. Though Saddam Hussein seemed cruel and brutal ruler in my view Saddam is another mankind to commit mistakes, unfortunately that had caused loss of thousands of life along with his life in the end. However killing is not the punishment for killing, committing crime against another crime. I had an opportunity to see the Saddams final movements on the web; it was real horrible, the comments passed to him before his death when he was standing on the gallows was unacceptable by any human. More than punishment the event looked like political revenge in my eyes, if he is punished by law then the punishment would have been involved a lot of differences.

With all the above lines in the books of 2006 with much other unforgettable history I’m closing the book of 2006.

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X-Mas celebrations in Japan

2006-12-25T11:14:00.000+05:30

With just 1% population of Christianity, Japanese seems really excited with the celebrations of Christmas Eve. My recent visit to Yokohoma has showed me how best Japanese to take up festivals for celebrations.

Promptly all the people here adopted western style food, culture, dressing and even the celebrations. I recalling the words by my mentor in the recent past meeting, he was stated that the Japanese are the people who accept all the religions so easily. We have religions for finding reasons to celebrate; otherwise religions are here for the funeral ceremony he said. Now I understand how much truth it is, as everyone is set their mood for festival time.

Shopping malls are filled with x-mas trees, some places looks like a forest with full of lighted x-mas trees. To make the customer happy, some shopping malls organized Santa like dressed people to give chocolates and small gifts to the kids visiting their complex. These people also do some performance to enlighten the people with joyful evenings.

Another reason for Christmas getting so popular in Japan and other nations are that this festival falls slightly before Georgian calendar New Year’s Day. That is again a universally adopted celebration, hence having Christmas almost on the same week makes it a grand success. But to consider the Japanese holiday calendar I wonder the Christmas is not mentioned as holiday.

Neither the people nor the Government is interested in taking or announcing leave on that day (In fact today is Christmas as I’m writing this blog from my office desk). I’m watching the television in the past very frequently as my new apartment’s DSL connection is having some trouble, I see almost all the programs are to show their festive mood towards Christmas. Every single person appeared on the TV programs seems to pronounce Merry Christmas!

Airlines that I flew from/to Japan

2006-12-15T10:12:00.000+05:30

Sri Lankan Airlines:
My trip to India was in Sri Lankan Airlines carrier, it was 14hours air time with 8hours stop over in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Actually the flight I took flew to Male then to Colombo. The experience in Colombo is really pathetic as the immigration process to get transit visa took nearly an hour and half. Then waiting time to get the Airlines arranged taxi to the hotel eaten up another 45minutes. In spite of all the waiting I had to travel 45kms to the hotel from Airport crossing several Army check posts in Colombo. I had reached the hotel by 1:45AM in the early morning and took rest for only 3hours later rushed back to the airport again to catch my flight to Chennai, India.

Most of the airlines crew members were elderly and rude in behavior, after seeing the Japanese way of treating customers it were un-justified to see them in service sector. In addition due to the WAR bound situation in Sri Lanka my advice to all my readers not to engage in flying Sri Lankan Airlines. I feel cost wise the Thai Airlines can match Sri Lankan Airline fares.

Malaysian Airlines:
My visit back to Japan was in Malaysian Airlines. A young crew awaits in the plane to make you feel comfortable. They are kind and pleasing personalities. The Boing 777 aircraft with Malaysian Airlines has plenty of leg room and seats are really good to provide travel time comfort.

The trip had 6 hours stop over at Kualalumpur (Capital city, Malaysia) but the pathetic thing is that I had to reach KL around 4:20AM and till 11:00AM have to wait at the airport chairs, the Airlines has a waiting lounge only for business class travelers and not for Economy class people.

After a long wait in KL airport my flight to Narita had to swing its wings towards Japan. There was another thing happen during my flight to Japan that is an announcement from the captain of the flight saying a failure in aircraft made some electronics to non-working state. Following that announcement all the lights were switched off and also asked the passengers to shutdown all kind of electronic devices for emergency landing. We were really scared and finally landed safely at Narita Airport.

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Back in Japan

2006-12-15T10:08:00.000+05:30

Day before yesterday I have made my second entry with Immigration Department of Japan.

After long holidays in India today I’m back, here is some information on my trip to India. Now I got my new apartment in Baraki-Nakayama. This extends my trip daily to Tennoz Airu with change of trains in 3 lines (Tozai Line, Asakusa Line and Tokyo Monorail)

I felt very cold compare to my previous stay in here; however I still have to bare lower temperature in the forthcoming days in Japan.

Days in India

There is no were in the world can match the place Home. I really enjoyed my whole holidays spending time with Aditya, Adhava (My kids), my wife and my parents. I couldn’t really go to the locations I planned as got up into really tight schedule organizing the pending works.
My 1946 Willys CJ2A gave me a real good time in off road events during my holidays; it is a sturdy piece of machine American ever produced. With its short chassis and low bonnet I could literally travel in any terrain in India.

There was some thing bad has also happen during my visit. We lost my cousin (Younger to me) as result of his depression due to failure in his studies.

My work visa got stamped in India to visit Japan in just 3 days time. I got a new tenant to my house behind Chennai Airport (MAA) who is working in a ship as chef.

Getting NRI account in India is gone much simpler with Nationalized banks rather the modern private banks. It was just 20 minutes process with State Bank of India to create a NRI account with 0 balance facility. All you have to do is to visit a SBI branch with your Passport with long duration Visa stamped, Employment order from foreign country, 2 passport sized photographs and a local resident proof (Ration card, Telephone bill, Bank passbook and Company certificate). The International debit card will be dispatched to your door step in India/Abroad based on your application option with in 15days time. However the Internet ID and Passbook for your account will be issued at the desk during the account creation process.

Many of the Indians visiting abroad first time in work permit may not know why they need a NRI account. Actually the NRI account provides you nothing other than the tax exemption from Indian government. Even without NRI account you can transfer fund from abroad to your local bank account but the money transferred to normal bank account attracts Income tax from Indian Government, if it is NRI account the tax is waived as it is a proof for your income outside India.

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Sayonara Japan ...

2006-11-13T12:15:00.000+05:30

Ah, the time has come. I have to leave Japan this week Thursday. As I came to Japan for client meet and product demonstration purposes on a business visa, now to work here I’m undergoing the Work permit process.

Actually got the Certificate of Eligibility (COE) from the Japan government, but wanting to apply the work visa from India. I would have been applied the work visa from Japan itself, but this is a reason for me to visit India. I feel home sick now, anyway for another 15 to 20 days I will be out of Japan.

This is the primary reason for not been able to update the blog for couple of days. Lots of purchase and preparation for the visit back to home country made me really tired. Also in the work place I had to type lots of documentations made my fingers go red.

In fact I also had plans to visit Tokyo Sea Life Park last Saturday; unfortunately the baggage preparation took my whole week end. I’m pretty sure now I won’t be able to post anymore blog in this trip in Japan. Hence making this Bye Bye Bye to Japan as last blog in this trip.

I hope to spend my holidays in some places in Karnataka or Kerala states of India during my holiday out there with my family. I will try updating this blog at least once during my stay in India.

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Thou matha! (See you soon) Thou Arikathou gosaimasu (Thank you verymuch)

Essential application tools – Japan visitor

2006-11-13T12:06:00.000+05:30

Japanese to English and English to Japanese translation tools – Initially I used Babelfish, Yahoo and Google translation tools to run my life with minimal communication to my colleagues in the work place. Later our company provided Atlas 2006 a translation tool from Fujitsu, a must have stuff it converts web pages and inbox content automatically in a single click. For those who cannot afford the tool can still use the online translation tools mentioned above, what you need to copy and paste regularly. However both the online and software based translation tools are not 100% good but its better know something. The online tools could be reached from the below URLs:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr
http://honyaku.yahoo.co.jp/
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

World Clock – It’s again useful for a foreigner visiting Japan. It makes life easy and makes you aware of your home country time to enable you calling and chatting etc.

Meebo.com – A website that makes you to login to many chat application online without being the messenger software installed in the computer. Many companies here are not allowing people to install the messenger applications. This makes really a handicap feeling as our only communication is the messengers which enable us to chat with our friends when you can’t able to speak to a person next to you.

Weather indicator – You can obtain one of the many available weather tickers to your computer to know the outside weather. These tools can even help you deciding on your dress for the next day and to carry the umbrella etc.

Currency converter – You can probably depend on xe.com to know the current or conversion rates for the currencies of your nation and Japan vice versa

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Most heard Japanese words in Japan

2006-11-13T11:48:00.004+05:30

arikato, arikato gosaimasu and Thou arikato gosaimasu are Thanks, Thank you and Thank you very respectively in English are Japanese words most pronounced among Japanese people.

Sumi masen means excuse me; you need to know this to get japanese attention during the busy hours train journey to get way for you. Not only that for many places like asking for a path or information from a station master you can use sumi masen as sorry or excuse me.
Thou chou means Sorry; you can use this instead sumi masen too. Based on location you can change between sumimasen and Thou chou.

‘Hai’ and ‘So’ in Japanese means yes in English. Some times when a person next to me says hi to somebody takes my attention as I used hi for different purpose don’t we?

‘iie’ in Japanese means no in English, the pronunciation of nei is similar to saying nai in Hindi language.

‘Ah So’ means Is it what sounds to me.

‘Mush mushi’ is another word used very commonly while attending a phone call, this means hello in English.

Adding ‘ne’ in the end of conversation soften the phrase, hence you can hear sentences ending with the sound ‘ne’ very frequently.

Rey, ichi, ni, san , shi, go are zero, one, two, three, four and five in English

Sore wa - this is

Kore wa - that is
(These were corrected spellings by anonymous person, the original comment could be found in the comments section.)

Sayonara is used to say Good bye in Japanese

Othskare Samidesu is widely used to say work has finished, leaving for the day etc. You can see people saying this while coming out of toilet, after smoke, after work leaving home and even after food or tea.

Ohaio Gosaimasu says Good morning, if you look at some of the phrases the Gosaimasu will be prefixed. It is nothing but a word for wish.

Konnichiwa means Good day

Kombawa or Konbawa means Good evening

Othachiwa means I am when you wanted to say I’m Siva(replace with your name), you need to say Othachiwa Siva desu. Looking at this you would have found desu is prefixed to make the proper form of saying I’m Siva in Japanese.

Yoi sumatsuwo ne; the sentence says that Happy weekend to you. Sumatsu means week and sumantsuwo means weekend. Yoi should be happy and ne to soften the phrase.

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Building your community in Japan (for Indians)

2006-11-13T11:16:00.000+05:30

I like to get the attention of most lonely and depressed Indians who live in Japan. As mentioned in my blog many times the language stands as a barricade between us and the Japanese. It’s very rare Indians having good friend circle from Japanese crowd. However finding a right Indian friend also not that easy as everybody is programmed to run in the morning and return to the apartment after work hour. In free hours our guys are really busy in preparing food and cleaning stuffs. If life is made to just do some programmed manner, I don’t think it’s worth earning the money. So what is the alternate, I found a way of finding Indian friends over the Internet, many of our fellow Indian Citizens are tech saavy people who knows or rules the Internet. Hence my search and findings were through Internet.

There are lots of Yahoo groups hosted for Indian living in Japan. Some of these groups were active and really doing good progress while some are just name sake acting as group in the Yahoo servers. However looking at their past message history and statistics on the home page you can decide whether to join or not. After careful watch for few days I have choose to join japanindians group of Yahoo! Groups network. They could be found on this url: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/japanindians/

But the group is not very active buy the number of members attracted me. After posting a initial introduction message, I really got good response from various people. I made my intro clear on my interest etc, hence got similar interested people buzzing me on my mail. Not only have those who are already staying in Japan also those who plan to visit Japan in the near future. The only different is that with the person who is having planned to visit will get query you for some information and a person who is already living here will get queries from you :–)

Another option is to go and start read/post blog and answer in various forums and bloggers like what I’m doing now. You will get good response and friends. I think this is the second option to you next to making friends with your colleagues. While attempting to make a friendship with Japanese, I recommend you don’t expect them to start the conversation. Most of those guys/girls want your friendship but never open-up. Initially it may be very hard to live in here, but later you will mix and match with the life. After all we are Indian who takes everything easy.

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What will you get for 100 yens?

2006-11-13T10:33:00.000+05:30

Actually you can get more for every 100 yens you spent on a 100 yen chain shops in Tokyo. There are 3 different categories of these 100 yen shops. The first category is the common one that sells utility items like vessels, bags, umbrellas, bottles, gardening items and stationary etc. Not only that even tea sets, couple of chopsticks and make up kit are also part of their product lines available for sale.

I was always a great fan of 100 yen shops as it provides some value for money. In 100 yen shop one can even take personal clothing and foot wear also. The most attractive stuffs in the 100 yen shops are the hardware tools. I always wanted to carry as much as them with me while going back to India. Unfortunately the baggage weight may jump double if I do that, hence couldn’t buy most of them.

The second category is the shop 99, this is also a kind of 100 yen shop but for food articles. Like a normal grocery shop. Many of the items are with in 100yens, but they do sell some items above 100 yens you can find the price tag for those items listed in the racks. This is where I used to buy thing to run my life in Japan. If you are worried about staying in Japan with cost effectiveness find a place where you can get all these 100 yen shops nearby.

The third category is not so popular and finding them may turn puzzle game played experience to you. These are the shops which are not available in many places but if you search for it in major shopping areas, you may find these shops inside another shop. They normally share the space with another shop I guess, to provide you the best rate for the items. I prefer to buy the souvenirs from this 100 gift shops. They have plenty of options for souvenirs like Japanese stone lanterns, laughing Buddha, Japanese ceramic items, the traditional masks, small dolls, Lucky cats and so on. Don’t worry they do provide minimal electronic and electrical items for 100 yens like Torches, Cigarette lighters, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, clocks and calculators. One of the 100 Gift shop I found is near the Electronic town exit of Akihabara. I could purchase some articles from this shop for 100 yens which was tagged more than 1,200 yens in Tokyo tower and Asakusa shopping areas.

If you are a person who is not a brand specific shopper, then the 100 yen shops are the digest you are looking for.

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Japan work visa process

2006-11-13T10:19:00.001+05:30

The work visa process includes 2 major tasks, one is to get Certificate of Eligibility and other one is to get Work Visa and Alien card. Carry minimal 2 photographs for the COE application along with the sponcership details and the employer details, normally you will be instructed to bring lots of paper along with the COE application. The work visa needs another 4 or more photographs. Hence if you plan to apply work visa from Japan while visiting in business or other short term visa status, carry the couple of passport size photographs handy with you.

Need to have the sponsorship from the company who is employing you in Japan

You will have to provide all your Education and Service background proofs to apply for COE. While applying for COE you will also need to produce your original Academic certificate along with the application, the same will be return to you after verification during the application submission day.

The COE process takes about 1 month to 2 months due various reason, hence it’s advised consider making the COE plans earlier if you are planning to work in Japan.

Once getting the COE then the process of Work Visa starts, the work VISA could be obtained for a maximum period of 3 years. However it depends on your employer and kind of employment you are obtaining. No one can work in Japan without a proper work visa. Once the work visa is obtained the you can enter in to Japan as a long term migrant.

During the entry to Japan with work permit, you will be obtaining the Alien card. That will be used for your identity purposes. When you stay in Japan in a short term visa you need to carry the passport all the time. Where after obtaining the Alien card you can carry only the Alien card for the proof of your stay in Japan. The Alien card helps getting your Tax sheet, Drivers License and Insurance.

If you are in Japan on a short term visa and during your visit if you find a job in a Japanese company, you will be required to apply for work permit/visa. If some reason, your short term visa is nearing or expiring before you get the certificate of eligibility, you will be asked to leave the country and apply the work permit from your home country.

Suppose if you get the COE before the expiry of your short term visa status, then you can apply for work permit from Japan itself. In this case after applying to the work permit/visa before getting the long term visa status in your hand if the current short term visa expires; you can still stay in Japan provided you should hold the proof for the current work permit application process.

Feel free to get in touch with me, if you want more information on this regard.

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Trekking on Mt. Takao – Japan

2006-11-06T07:11:00.000+05:30

Vipin (an Indian friend) and me had plan to have a trekking experience in Japan; for a long time we have been thinking of Mt. Fuji but we could never make it. After a long search on the internet we found the mountains in Kanto region, filtered the results with a constraint for easy reach from Tokyo that gave the target Mount Takaosan. I also read about the autumn season and the maple leaves of the Takaosan Temple. I was really impressed by many articles on the internet about other's experience with the Mt. Takao.

Last Saturday morning we took the train from Shinjuku station in Keio line which operates trains to Takaosanguchi station. The Keio line starts in Shinjuku as a subway and soon after one or two minutes it comes out of the subway tunnel and runs on the open rails. Hence I liked the train which showcase me the Tokyo suburbs. Takaosanguchi station is just below the Mt. Takao. The trekking trial starts exactly from the station entrance. There is a large size red colored dori (Traditional Japanese arch seen on the temple entrance) erected outside the station in Takaosanguchi.

Mount Takao is not a tall mountain. But walking on the trekking route provides lots of fun as we moved in to the wild and steep path.　There were three different mountain climb routes started immediately after the station entrance. There were two more routes that are braches for the main route. I got to know these information from the broachers put outside the station. It has lot of information about the attractions but you should know Japanese to understand. I used my intelligence to find the important things by looking at the pictures provided. There are totally six different routes which takes us to the top of the mountain. After carefully reading and seeing the broachers (most of them were in Japanese, hence I was requiring help from others to understand the route) we have selected the route which goes with thickest nature way touching the Takaosan temple. Actually it doesn’t go via. the temple but a few meters away from the temple the path takes a wild route. We can enjoy the core of the nature, the dark green forests while your wet breath fills the air. Another main reason to select this route is that I have seen a rob bridge (hanging bridge) shown on the broachers on this route, which attracted me largely.

The route which we have selected seems to be bit steeper than of other routes, however for the convenient of elderly and fun lovers the local authorities have arranged a Cable car and Chair car provisions to go up to Takaosan Temple. The cost for one way travel is 470yens and for two way its 900yens per person. I liked the Chair car stuff a lot, 2 people in a chair that hang and move on a cable assisted with giant winches to climb the mountain halfway. As we decided to trek on the mountain, we didn’t choose the cable stuffs. The trekking experience in the wild forest was a thrilling experience, many places you can see the path goes very narrow. One side of the path slides deep into the mountain with thickest forest. The path was bit slippery due to the moisture and really a dangerous movement in couple of places. But to my surprise lots of Japanese with kids have came on the same trekking route which we have selected.

I have seen even the elderly women and men eagerly trekking alongside with us. During our walk we reached the hanging Bridge and took some pictures over there, looking at the surrounding of the bride gave us fun as it built on top of a wild water canal. Though it connecting a valley and on top of a canal but the season is autumn and there was not much of water in it. A thin line of natural mineral water flows in the canal with chal chal chal sound. I think this is the same canal which ends in the bottom of the mountain as small water falls; it was just before the chair car station bottom of the mountain.

In some areas of the path, we could get beautiful Ariel view of Tokyo, I didn’t forget to bring my binocular it helped me in this trip. In many places the local body has installed information boards about the animals, birds and insects found on the particular area of trekking path. Unfortunately it was not useful to me as every single letter was in Japanese. It would have been better if they put some English information to promote and encourage tourism and tourist respectively. While walking over the wildest mountain we met couple of people, importantly an old Japanese group of ladies who offered us chocolate candies. They discussed with us in minimal English about our work etc. I have not missed to take a picture with them : -) After a while we have reached an area which turns intersection with three more other paths, from there the travel to the mountain peak is joined and mixed with all the people. I also noticed during my walk that every 50 meters of the routes were installed with some statues of local gods and Buddha. Also I noticed the Japanese have some holy tree and stuffs like that inside the forest.

Later about 4:00pm we have reached the mountain top, as expected nothing was there on the top, but it was crowded. The west side of the top was getting ready for observatory I guess. There was a machine which does some civil construction work to provide barricade. I forget to tell, till the mountain top the automobile are able to reach, but not those of general public but of the local authority’s vehicles. We have seen the sun set from the mountain top and started getting down. While going down our aim to visit the Takaosan Temple. Hence we moved towards the route on our target Takaosan Temple. Soon after few minutes walk we have reached the first level of the Takaosan temple. I think it has four levels, each level is having a temple for different god/goddess. From the top, the first level temple is relatively small and going down you will see bigger sized temples. Actually now the sky became too dark stopping me to take pictures, as I have not carrying my tripod I was really felt too much disappointed. During my trails taking pictures in the 1st level I met a Brazilian lady who was so kind and chat with us for few minutes. I didn’t forget to give her my email id and website address to invite her to my site and friendship.

The temple in second level is really good one with lots of wooden sculpture and pain work. All of these temples were painted with red color and the carvings with multi color paintings. This temple is a must see spot in the Mt. Takao; unfortunately I lost the light before reaching the temple. I wish the temple authorities provide good lighting in the evening to highlight the temple.　Finally I reached the main Takaosan temple which is in giant size and brown in color, the entrance facing towards downwards of my trekking path had two god statues with angry face. I have seen similar stuffs in Asakusa and other temple visits in Japan. When I was trying to use the tiny flash to take pictures of the temple, there was guy who came near to me asking me not to take pictures. It was strange to me, as he stopped only me but others.

Now the entire environment turned dark and moon on straight line of my eyes. It was good walking on the pavement towards downside of the hill, in some locations I heard the wild monkey fighting sound and some ku ku ku ku.. Kiiiirriichhh Kiiiirrrrich noise. After a little walk we reached the cable car mountain station,　As it turned dark I decided not to walk anymore and decided opted to take he cable chair facility. So I could hang on the chair while moving down top of the forest in sitting position. Unfortunate awaited to disappoint me again, the cable car staff has conveyed me that the cable chair facility ends before 5:00pm, when he said that piece of information to me the time was already 5:30pm. Hence we had left with no option to choose only the cable car. It was nice too traveling on the step modeled cable car. It reached real quick to the bottom of the mountain.

We walked towards the Takao station and had 20mins time before the Rapid train departure,　so decided to walk on the local roads to see anything interesting to us. Luckily we found a Trick Art Museum which exhibits lots of art work that trick to fool you of thinking the images are original people. Those were really cool to enjoy, they charge a minimal of 200yen as entrance fee to get in but lots of the pictures are visible from the road itself.

After few minutes of watching, I have ended my trekking day on Mt. Takao and railed on Keio back to Shinjuku. From where I took my subway Oedo Line back to my Apartment.
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River Valley - Japan

2006-11-04T08:38:00.000+05:30

During the Barbeque party on Friday, after one of my friend told me about the river valley next to the park. He also hinted to see me the activities around the river valley and stated that this is how most of the river side valleys in Japan have been used. I was excited and took my camera and walked away from the party place.

Actually the river was in the other side of the road, where the road was constructed in an elevated place in between the park and river. Hence I climbed up on the steps to catch the road and crossed it to go down in to the river bank valley. The river was bit away from the road but the valley was filled with lots of games and sports by people. I think that was a internet school base ball tournament, colorful uniforms wear children playing the baseball and their coaches around boosting them on the game. We in India do not have the game Baseball but Cricket the one which is most famous and crowd grabber sports in India. However for me except the bat nothing seems to be different as I don’t know either Baseball or Cricket.

In the other side of valley I could see some youngsters playing saucer the foot ball game, in between these to activity area in the plains a person with a Golf hitting the rough ball, unfortunately he didn’t have anybody to collect and return his balls. I went near to him to take some pictures of Golf but after seeing me, he stopped his play and started staring at me.
I don’t know why but seems he didn’t like photographed I guess, however I had many other opportunity on the ground hence moved after quickly.　I was looking at each sports by small kid to an old man and passing on the valley area. Finally I reached the destination river where couple of people using their fishing rods with reels fitted awaiting for their collection of fishes from the river.　Since the sun was bit harsh on the day, I couldn’t click much or better pictures of the fishing stuffs but my disappointment was not lasted for long time. The river banks also had a yellowish followers with lots of Honey Bee flew on it for honey extracts, one of the Bee has reacted well while I clicked him on my camera with Super Macro enabled.

At the river I saw some jet skiis ahead, it was a Friday morning and I really enjoyed looking the jet skii sport is fun on the river parting my daily rush hour commute in the subway trains. After clicking some of their adventure on my digital black box, my foot urged me to walk back to the BBQ area. My return path also pushed me to the circle of surprise as I have seen the first remote controlled miniature flight squeezing the air on top of my head.

It reminded me of my childhood days, I had always wanted to become a pilot :-), and it never happened. I could only fly as a traveler in many flights. My memory shadow traveled on the same miniature flight to catch those undeleted sweet days on my brain cells. I ran and rushed near to the person who operated the remote control, the flight was brought into the valley of the river on a bicycle by a person, I tried to learn the operational instructions from the person, but my unfortunate he couldn’t speak English but managed to get his pose along with the flight. For my request to take picture with him and his flight he landed the flight from the sky, my travel back to the past also landed to the reality along when he landed the flight. My hunger stomach urged me to go the BBQ.

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Barbeque party - Japan

2006-11-04T08:03:00.000+05:30

"Almost we go out on a Barbeque party at least once in three month” quoted by Mr.Uchida who is also a well wisher and friend of mine in Japan. Almost all our travel schedule in Japan has been drafted by Uchida san. I remember a weeks back he was discussing with me about the BBQ party, I said I was interested in participating. You know as a result he came out with a BBQ party announcement to all of our friends living in Japan.

Till that time I was not sure about the BBQ part of Japanese. The party was organized in a park called Shinozaki kouen in Tokyo. We reached little early in the morning about 8:00am because we were the ones carried the BBQ equipments like BBQ oven, grill, stove and some out door accommodation arrangement. As soon as reaching the park my eyes once again in Japan got stretched to express the surprise that I have seen. Initially I was thinking that the BBQ etc are western countries culture and Japan would have not into it. But to my surprise when we reached the park I found that park’s BBQ party area is divided into 27 boundaries, each hosting a group of people to conduct their BBQ party. And the important thing is that the days when we went, none of the boundaries were free and lots of people everywhere preparing the BBQ. The party place is free but needs to be booked in advance.

The aged people, middle aged person and kids were all part of the BBQ parties here; everybody enjoys cooking and eating etc. Since we reached little early before everybody I started putting the chairs and the oven etc in its places to make the BBQ stuffs ready before others reach in here. Even after we prepared the setup it was not time for other to participate, because as per the announcement the BBQ starts by 11:00 am, so I decide to walk around the park outside area to explore some photography opportunity. Another Japanese friend of mine told me that there is a river next to the park after crossing the Highway. In my next blog the details of my River valley walk will be discussed for your reading. Later spending some time on the valley I started running toward the party location, this time I could see a bunch of people were carrying bag of chips and a can of warm beer with the sun roasting hides. They were waiting for me, actually there were equal amount of Indians and Japanese were found on the party and for the Japanese and Indian we setup two BBQ stove and oven to make dishes from the two Asian countries. Uchida san have harvested fishes, meat and some vegetables for the party and brought those stuffs in his car. The Japanese friends started making their Fish and meat grills and some of my Indian friends demanded me to start the Great Indian Recipes to attract the Japanese around (I know the Indian recipes to an extent), decided to prepare Ginger Chicken to server with the Bread and Buns, actually it was good combination. In fact my cooking tuned to become crowd puller, as we were the only Indo-Japanese BBQ party people on the venue. Initially I told there were about 27 boundaries each hosting lots of people.

The park become fun filled and lots of out door activities happening everywhere around, kids playing with flying saucers, cycling and some people on the baseball practice with their family members and so on. I actually forget to customize my preparation for Japanese, some of them looked really sweat after tasting my food; you know they said it’s hot. I know the Japanese eating habit is not spicy and they liked moderate spicy taste. So I promised to that I will prepare my next item with less spicy and salt, This time I took Kerala Chicken malsala as my recipe and the pan started boiling with me on the hot sun. Oh, I forget to mention I did carry some Indian Spice to make the BBQ with Indian Style, those were brought from Indian during my travel here, I run my daily food with these spices brought from India. My friends were really enjoying the party as many of these folks from India had no experience in BBQ party. There was a guy in the group called Anwar click some best photographs of mine during my food preparations, Being a photographer in many occasions I have made good photos of others when It came to me for my own self portrait picture I always failed but this guy Anwar made few good pictures of mine. By the time I cooked the Kerala Chicken masala there were some kids demanding the food to them to be tasted. We offered my Kerala Chicken masala prepared with coconut milk in a soba paper bowl, you know in return to the single bowl the other BBQ party guys presented about eight number of tin beer and two cups of Japanese fried noodles LOL.

The party was happening with it fully swing and later we were jumped in to the ocean of Alcohol and started swimming, sailing and rowing on the few bottles of Sochu a Japanese made alcohol.

We almost reached the end of day and started packing those stuffs to the car, after the run set we had taken a ride towards Noguchi san apartment who brought man of the equipment. Actually we planned to go his house to drop that equipment, after reaching he invited to his apartment hence we accepted the offer to discover the Japanese house culture treating the guests. Actually it was a good experience and Noguchi san and His wife treated us nicely, we have offered with Japanese Tea, Cake and some snacks. They had a pet dog at their house and named the dog Rokhe. Initially it was scared of seeing me :-) (color problem) but later became my friend. After about an hour stay in their house we said bye and taken the road towards Shin-Egota.

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Yahoo Messenger Attacked? I have a solution...

2006-11-02T17:57:00.000+05:30

My yahoo messenger is one of the unique stuff with longest buddy list, as I always keep all my contact on in Yahoo, I will be the first person to notify the issues that occurs with Yahoo messenger and its users.

Issue/Problem:

The recent Virus / Spy attack in yahoo messenger is a pain to most of us. It is one of the most powerful Trojan /virus I have ever seen.. If your computer is infected with this virus " It will sends the nsl-school.org url to all of your friend list in yahoo messenger using your ID . So with in few hours many of your friends will get infected with it.

Symptoms:

Internet Explorer homepage is getting disabled, you cannot change the homepage in Internet Explorer

Your Yahoo messenger keeps sending junk IMs to all your contacts when you are online

Your yahoo messenger status automatically changes to some nasty website url and asking your buddies to visit that url

Solution and Removal Instruction:

Attention: Do the following steps with your own Risc, I'm not responsible for any damage that could occur during the removal instructions. If you are not sure please skip this post and call a System specialist for assistance.

The following solution works for Windows XP only....

This is a very bad virus attack on Yahoo Messenger where it will take control of your messenger and without your knowledge sends some messages with a website links which contains the virus, to your friends list, remind you without YOUR KNOWLEDGE so be careful, try to do the following things to remove if your are effected.

Start Menu -> Run

copy & paste in run & press enter (The below line should be a single line)

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableRegistryTools /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Once again Start Menu --> Run

copy & paste in run & press enter(The below line should be a single line)

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Press Ctrl + Alt + Del and Select Task Manager

Click on the process called svhost32.exe and press the button kill process

if you find more than one process with the same filename keep killing all the processes with this name. Remember you shouldn’t kill svchost.exe but svchost32.exe

Search you entire computer for svhost32.exe, and delete the files svhost32.exe from your comp & temp folder

Once completely killed follwo the below steps to ensure you are safe

Logout of your Yahoo Messenger
Exit Yahoo messenger from the Task Bar

Open Internet Explorer

Click

Tools --> Internet Options

Change the Home Page to some of your favorite website, I wish to put http://camera-friendly.blogspot.com/ if you wish to help promoting your friend please put this url

Then clean completely your Temporary Internet Files, Cache, Offline files and Cookies from the same window

once done close the IE.

Open Yahoo Messenger and Login back, you will be free from the Virus Attack.

I suggest you always keep a different status message in your messenger to prevent from the attack again.

If it helps you please promote this URL to as much as friends you have, let our community free from the nasty attack.

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Pagoda Facts

2006-10-31T06:12:00.001+05:30

Actually I was wondering about the many Japanese cultural activities which are looked similar to me with those of Indians. In a way that is truth too, because of the Buddhism which spread to the world from the origin India. Other examples which proves my theory of understanding are the Sanskrit word usage in Buddhism even in Japan, The pagodas of various countries and the portable shrines etc. While I visited the Asakusa of Tokyo and Ueno park in the recent past, I have decided to learn more about the Pagodas hence this blog got its shape.

A pagoda is one part of a temple's structure, and we can trace the origin of pagodas back to Great United India. A pagoda has its origin in old Indian culture. The Indians made pagodas as tombs called stupa, before Buddhism began, but the shape of it was completely different from a Japanese or Chinese one. "Stupa" is from a word which means "to accumulate" in Sanskrit, which is the ancient language in India. Its shape was like a dome, and most of them were made from soil or stone. Pagoda was a modification of the stupa

The wooden pagodas are the building with scientific ideas, each story [floor] of pagoda helps to prevent the rainwater falls away from the base of the tower, In addition the cascading of pagoda conical roofs helps preventing the rain water force from top to bottom which may cause earth slides.

A pagoda structure is running down the centre is a giant pillar of tree wood. Around this wooden pillar, the conical roofs are loosely packed, resulting in a highly flexible structure able to withstand earth tremors. This could be a main reason for the countries like Japan, Thailand, China are built many pagoda structure for the religious temples, where the earth quake are common.

The Pagodas also considered as the examples for ancient day’s carpentry techniques

The oldest and tallest wooden pagoda in the world is located in China and it is celebrating its 950th anniversary. This pagoda is called as Sakyamuni Pagoda in Yingxian in north China's Shanxi Province built in 1056.

Pagoda style buildings are not only by Buddhist also Hindus and Shinto religions were build for the temple structures.

It is pertinent to explain the terms “pagoda” “Zedi or Ceti” and “Stupa” all of which refer generally to a Buddhist monument of a solid type. Pagoda is a transportation of the original Pali word “dagaba” (dhatu-gabha) meaning a sacred mound containing the mortal remains of the Buddha or saints.

The oldest pagoda which still retains its original size, shape and design is one of the three at Sre Kestra, an old Pyu City State (1st to 9th century A.D) near the modern town of Pyay about 180 miles to the north of Yangon, Myanmer(Burma). The three Pagodas are the Baw Baw Gyi, the Phayamar and the Phayagyi, all in cylindrical shape, simple, plain and entirely undecorated. The last named, Phayagyi is believed to be the oldest of the three. Oral history and old chronicles claim that they are the surviving ones of nine stupas which king Duttabaung the founder of Pyay dynasty built in his kingdom.

I sincerely thank all the original contributors of most of the Pagoda related content seen here. Visit me at: http://www.camera-friendly.com

Auspicious Asakusa

2006-10-29T15:43:00.000+05:30

As usual the weekend excited me to roam around the near by places to discover some new things about the Japan. I like to visit some long distance in the Shinkansen unfortunately the train fare is really high stopping me to think about it. Hence finally declared my visit to Asakusa a old Tokyo entertainment and auspicious location hosting a Kannon [Goddess of Mercy] which is also the oldest temple in Tokyo. It said to be build around year 628 and also known as Sensoji Temple.

I have reached the Asakusa through Asakusa line subway, As soon as reached the A4 exit I could easily identify the difference of Asakusa from rest of Tokyo. The first attraction came in to my sight was the rickshaw. Man powered hire vehicle which is a common thing some times back in India. These rickshaws are replaced with the three wheeled auto rickshaws in India. However today there are no such rickshaws found in my country, very long time back those man powered rickshaws were replaced with cycle rickshaw to reduce the human efforts with gears and chains in the rickshaws of India. There are plenty of these man powered rickshaws [Let me call as man cart] were in Asakusa, these rickshaws could accommodate 2 adult with a child on board while a person pulls them to show around the Asakusa area. These rickshaw had huge two wheels in the back and a bulling road in the front where the person who pulls the rickshaw to roam around. The word "rickshaw" originates from the Japanese word jinrikisha (jin = human, riki = force, sha = vehicle), which literally means "human-powered vehicle." They looked slavery to my eyes pulling the vehicle, however I hate people allowing or encouraging such vehicles even in the modern world, because for no reason we need to making a man acts like a buffalo in a cart.

I headed towards the direction which stated the Sensoji Temple and found the main entrance gate called Kaminarimon Gate, The gate they actually hang a red paper lantern. Actually the Kaminarimon Gate was build during 1651 and got damaged in the B29 air raids of United States of America during the World War II; later the Japanese re-constructed the gate with the same Edo style in 1958 post World War II. Before the entrance I have seen the Information center which provides lots of English information flyers. Both the sides of this gate have God of thunder and God of wind crafted in netted rooms. Once entered into the main gate looking at the other side of this gate was pushed me back to very old days, and seems to be I was in an ancient time of Japan. The shops selling souvenirs, sweets and other arms are all about the old days. There were one or two modern toys shops otherwise all of the hundred of shops selling those of old days. However as I read from the internet the souvenirs and other articles are not cheap in Asakusa, Hence visitors please don’t expect a lower price in the Asakusa rather look around the small shops in Akihabara selling much cheaper of the same souvenirs. A small key chain sized paper lantern may cost you 500yens in Asakusa where in a slightly larger sized one could be purchased in 100yen gift shop near Akihabara electronic exit for just 100yens.

After crossing the shopping street I found some Buddha statues in the right side along with some other statues of human kind a woman with a kid etc. Along side of the street there were several Japanese style temples, some were closed for public visit. The straight shopping street landed exactly in front of the actual Kannon Temple, just opposite to the temple there was a large sized incense burner were many people lit incense stick as part of their devotional activity. I was surprised by the Japanese cultural attraction almost it looked to me like an Indian Hindu way of devotional activities with minimal changes. In the left hand side there was a five storied pagoda gives a greater look to the tourist.

Slowly I moved towards to step into the temple; there was a prayer happening inside the temple, some people were sitting and one priest heading them all. The ceiling of Sensoji temple was having some colorful drawing and had three directional outlets to the temple. After spending couple of minutes looking at their devotional activities I have moved in the left side gate, there are lots smaller and bigger sized temple everywhere near the Sensoji temple. Lots of good landscaping was done for each temple in a different way. Some of the Japanese were come to the temple wearing their traditional Kimono costume; I couldn’t control myself not taking photos of those people. Some of them greatly accepted my wish to take their picture and pose to my camera with a smile. Almost the whole day I was in Asakusa enjoying the old Japan life in the modern days. There was also a river runs along side of the the Asakusa temple area called Sumida River, the other side of the river had the Asahi Building, which is the beer company corporate office and has also considered as a landmark in the area due to the golden flame design of the building top. In some places I really felt the change as if I was in a time craft visiting back to the age.

Asakusa is best place for a tourist the see the old age Japan but strictly not good for shopping as it extracts money.

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Heavenly Roppongi

2006-10-29T08:39:00.000+05:30

This is the title suggested by an American whom I met with in the Roppongi. There is a greater attraction for the foreigners in Roppongi out in Tokyo. Roppongi is a place falls near the Tokyo Tower; this place starts its activities in the Night rather in a day.

There are variety of Bars, Clubs, Shops and Cousins to choose from, unlike other Japanese establishment the Roppongi hosts every thing for a foreigner. Here the Japanese accept the culture of western region intact without any change, there is a pickup point where the mix of Japanese and Westerner happens. My visit to Roppongi was to investigate and experience some of the attractions, as described by many of those who have visited. I have landed to Roppongi from Daimon after office on a Thursday. There was a reason for choosing that day for visiting Roppongi. As I have told, there are many bars and clubs in Roppongi providing variety of entertainment activities from bars to strip bars. However I restricted myself only to visit a reputable dance club. My search ended in results saying “Gas Panic” a club with a decent dance floor in Roppongi. Many of those visited have given a positive ranking about that club. The Gas panic club celebrated gas panic day every week Thursday, hence on that particular day of week all the drinks served will be costing 400yen per consumption. Now you know why I have decided to go on this day, otherwise the club serves the drinks in the range of 500-1200yens.

Roppongi has a skyscraper building called Roppongi Hills; it’s a landmark for this area hosting many entertainment and office facilities. Since I visited this area after my office and in the evening I couldn’t carry my camera so have taken few tiny snaps using the camera in my mobile. While I landed in Roppongi and started walking on the pedestrian path towards left from the station searching for the Gas panic club, however it was too early to visit a dance club. I had reached about 7:20pm in the evening hence decided to walk around to see what Roppongi is. Immediately after few meters I have seen the Roppongi hills building and on the entrance a small building with information states that there is a Tokyo International Film Festival. I didn’t try getting on to the Roppongi hills because my priority was different on that day, however added it to my must see locations for future visits.

Then I almost crossed the entire area in a direction so, decided to walk back after reaching back to near the station, I asked a cop how to go to Gas panic he humbly showed me the path takes me to club. I have to “walk straight and take a right” that’s the instruction given to me. After noting the same into my cells of brain I have reached a corner that splits in all the directions with a traffic signal. That’s where the pickup point of Roppongi under the almond coffee shop in pink color. Near to the intersection you can see many people waiting with cigarettes, cell phones or some other stuff in their hands. I earlier was under an impression that this is where the foreigner come and wait for some Japanese to select them for company to get into the bar, but that was wrong as I have experienced to see that this is the place where friends meet before getting in to a Roppongi establishment. Unless other places in Tokyo Roppongi also a bit dangerous area to visit, due to the drunken fights on the road often. Also some of the bars in the area try to fool the customer by giving a overpriced bill, additionally to get customers they use some pretty girls to speak to them and make them like a friend then take them into the hunting net of these bars. However being read so many stories online I was bit careful in Roppongi.

I moved on to the right direction after carefully watching some of the happening in the pickup point, in a short walk I have reached the club where I was intend to visit, normally all of the clubs in the area works all night long. There are many of them are here in the roads, lanes and all the buildings. Some of the clubs are charging some money for entrance and some are not. While walking I found many of these bars post a staff on the road to bring the customer in, some times they follow talking to you even if you don’t like to. However the Gas panic doesn’t have an entrance fee but a condition is that, as soon as you enter in you need to buy at least a bottle of beer. The club had an electronic sign board on the road side with some gas reaction in the liquid sort decorated colorfully. And the club was in the 2nd floor but there was a broad step directly from the pedestrian path takes it to the club main door. While I try to open to the door for a second I got just scared because a person dressed in a black dress and with a skull mask on his face screamed to welcome me that was due to their Halloween celebrations. All the staffs inside the club dressed like a Ghost or Evil. I found the entire club had the theme Halloween.

I order the bar tender to offer me some of the available brands of rum, he said only Bacardi. In addition he said today all the drinks are only 400yens. I smiled and said ok let me start with a large. Initially he didn’t understand what is large, then I manage to explain him the measurement what is large quantity in the bars in India.

The club had not packed with people; in fact I was one of the 3-4 customers inside. Actually I have entered very early about 8:30pm. The DJ was playing some rock song and nothing seems to be boosting the 4 customers and we were just drinking our glass of liquor. The bar tender was so kind to volunteer to speak with me in English, also I found him very helpful on the discussions of Roppongi and other clubs in the area. At the end of our discussion he offered me a white paper and a pen to write my wish list of songs to play, I greatly accepted it and Wrote “It’s my life”, ”Who lets the dog out”, ” Rythm Divine”, ”Hotel California”, ”Shaggy” in the paper. The time moved except the Enrique and Eagles the DJ played my requests. The bar had some crowd to dance now, couple of glass of liquor already found its way to my stomach, however for each glass you need to pay immediately along with the order. The world was started rotating in the opposite direction, everything went like a hell and I enjoyed the show for some times, since the last subway train to my place is 00:00 hrs I decided to pack off by 11:30pm.

After I said bye to the staffs there, and stepped down on the roads of Roppongi with a non-steady movements. There was a black American interrupted my walk and said, “sir we are from Gentleman’s club lots of people are there waiting for you, it’s with full of fun I’m sure you gonna enjoy”. I replied him saying oh, my quota over sorry buddy and take care. My walk reached to the subway Toei Oedo line and got the train back to the apartment. I was now walking on the roads of Shin-Egota where my apartment is located, it was half clear sight to me my ears heard the sound of mobile ring, hands went inside the pocket to pickup the mobile, nothing were under control of my own brain everything was happening on its own and suddenly I returned to the normal life after hearing “Hey Siva, This is me, where are you?” [It was my wife from India]

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Japanese a closer view – Work & Culture

2006-10-28T05:07:00.000+05:30

Work
Run run run catch the train start the work. This is how Japanese are programmed. They are real hard workers [Mainly physical work] but have lots of dedication and by nature they adhere all the rules and regulations. No hurry and no messy work culture, very professional in their approach to work. The work hours normally starts around 9am in the morning most of the Japanese will be present sharp at the opening hours. Then their scheduled work starts. During the lunch break about an hour time they spent time on eating and sleeping. You can spot many of them sleep in the office during lunch break and resume operations exactly after the break hour.

However, their secret of success with Quality is that they just programmed to do what they suppose to do. Each person in the organization has a particular work programmed and he will know and do only that part of work. The Japanese work men never try doing some thing new. They will just follow those lined by somebody. I also doubt after their inventions during 1945-1967, things are slowed down and not much of improvements or inventions with Japanese products. But they still enjoy those created post World War II like Trains, Electronics and Infrastructure. Their foundations to the work in the initial days are clean and planned with long term view, which helps the new generation of Japanese people shine in their work. However their skills in Information Technology are really not upto the mark.

Culture
Though many of the cultural habits have come from China to Japan, the Japanese behavior towards culture is distinctive. Let it be a culture of past or the today’s modern society, The Japanese follow things in a unique way. As I have discussed in the previous blogs the Family and Love the Japanese have already bound themselves in a controlled circle. But they have a passion to look western style. I said passion to outlook of Japanese. If Armani introduce a fashion dress I think Japanese are the first people to dare to wear whatever pattern that is designed. The shy natured Japanese girls towards communication have always seems to be ignoring their shy while it comes for dress, you can see any kind of dress code in Japan from lingerie to a denim jean. Japan hosts people with a wide choice of interest in their dressing, from western style to Kimonos. They both could be spotted simultaneously in the roads, trains and work places.
The Japanese culture have always had a greater feeling of respectfulness, they give more respect to an elderly person everywhere. Surprisingly the younger crowds in the jam packed trains have started forgetting those respectful images. Even in the seat allotted for Patient/Elderly/Pregnant Women/People with infant find it hard to secure their seats from people of other age and category.

In an hand I’m carefully looking at them celebrating and following their ancient way of cultural activities like Obon festival, Family crest, Sumo wrestling, Kimonos, temples and funerals the Japanese also have taken their cultural mix with western society heavily like dance club, ultra modern dresses, divorce, festivals and other sorts. Except in the case of Westerners of Japanese ancestry, Japanese names appear in their proper order, with the surname preceding the given name

Though Shinto religion [followers of Sun Goddess] is their original religious in the early days of Japan history, about 600AD onwards Buddhism created a strong impact on the soil of Japan. Shinto is a tolerant religion which accepts the validity of other religions. It is common for a believer to pay respects to other religions, their practices and objects of worship. However the Japanese emperor is believed to be a descendant of Sun goddess [a God in Shinto religion]. The Japanese Imperial family is the oldest hereditary monarchy in the world. The family's lineage dates back to the sixth century BC, though the title of Tenno (emperor) or Sumera-Mikoto (heavenly sovereign) was assumed by rulers in the sixth or seventh century and has been used since. And the imperial family used to be controlling the entire nation and its invaded areas. The complete separation of Japanese religion from politics did not occur until just after World War II. The Emperor was forced by the American army to renounce his divinity at that time. Shinto and Buddhism are followed by about 84% of Japanese today and Christianity is been accepted by a minority 1% of the total Japanese.

Though all the above information is a share from some of my elderly Japanese friends and Internet, I have also assumed a grater important that Japanese have given from very old days those are Entertainment, Arts and Sports. The Geishas [traditional Japanese artist-entertainers] those who does a wide variety of arts, including Japanese musical instruments (particularly the samisen) and traditional forms of singing, traditional dance, tea ceremony, flower arranging (ikebana), poetry and literature. These people are the examples for the Japanese entertainment nature from very long time. Of course the today’s modern Entertainments like Theme park, Cinemas and club activities are also very much popular in Japan. In other hand I also seen peggers in Japan Railway station, they are neatly dressed unless other peggers of Asian countries. The picutre here in the right side has been taken in Shinjuku Railway station, He is a pegger. Japan culture today stands a mixed mode giving room to the ancient and western force together.

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Japanese a closer view – Food & Leisure

2006-10-27T15:40:00.000+05:30

Food
Rice, Sea food, meat and noodles are their primary food. However Japanese are highly attracted by western culture and their habitants. The whole of Tokyo is spread with Mc. Donalds, Subway, Lottortila and burger shops. This will give an Idea how much of the Japanese are interested in the western type food items. Not only are the burgers also the Italian foods like pasta and pizza famous too.

But the majority people are still eats the traditional Japanese foods like raw fish puffed in boiled rice [Sushi], Noodles mixed with some Japanese masala [Soba] and number of grilled meat items are also consumed. For an Indian most of the Japanese food tastes sweet. Their food items are not so spicy and hot. Not like Indian/Pakistan or Thai rice the Japanese rice is kind of sticky one. Fish broth is mixed in all sort of Japanese foods, as mentioned Fish is their major intake. The Japanese physical look is slim and no obesity this could be due to their high-protein and low fat food preparations. Their meat intake also most of the time grilled ones and not the fried ones. Except the foreign restaurants all the Japanese hotels also provide less fat food items but all of them will have enough Soya sauce content.

The Japanese drink a lot of Tea not those of Indian Nair shop type Japanese tea are the Green tea and without sugar or cream [milk]. Also the fruit juices are available everywhere and those of fruit juice and plain water are in the same price range. He he he I only choose fruit juice for that matter.

One can eat sea foods like Crab, Fish, octopus and prawns along with Chicken, Mutton, Pork and Beef in almost all the food courts. It’s a difficult place for non vegetarians as they will be finding it really hard to get other foods except salads.

Leisure
This is where Japanese stands apart; their spending on Leisure is really high. Most of the Japanese enjoy their holidays spending on various leisure activities like travel, sports and hobbies.

For me in the initial days at my office looked every other day people say that they take leave, not even a single day with 100% attendance, however later I assumed it is due to their habit of traveling and leisure experiments. To my surprise my mentor in the company where I work here in Japan used to ask me “Siva, don’t you feel bored of not traveling to India for 2 consecutive months, if you want take leave for 10-15 days and go home enjoy then come back”. These words are really unexpected one for me. As I never seen any employer suggesting the employee to go for holiday. This also gives me an Idea of how they keep them self stress free in most of the time. Actually sleeping after lunch in the afternoon, planning for holidays, celebrating all the festivals and the daily visit to the bar or club makes their mind bit free from over stress. Once they are free from stress I think they make quality output in their work. However in the IT scenario due to their awareness issue and Mathematical knowledge they fail in their quality for sure.

Most of their leisure activities are covered in theme parks, Traveling, Barbeque, Trekking and swimming activities. Once can see the most number of Ferris wheel installed in Japan, also the most number of people travel also from Japan. The life in night club also kind of common here in Japan, the Japanese girls are easy going type in the night/dance clubs. In fact Roppongi [a place in Tokyo] is a well know club area for foreigner to have start with a Japanese person.

As stated barbeque is their common attraction too, most of the Japanese show lots of interest on BBQ and they love cooking. Many Japanese leisure activities are family oriented and they interest will be taking the leisure activity with family to an extent. These are could be a reason for Japan to attract more visitors. As the local crowd requirements for leisure activities are boosting the Japanese to create more infrastructures for their needs which also attracts the foreigners. Relatively Japan is a place for culture and modern lovers to enjoy variety of thing during stay in Japan.

to be continued[Work & Culture]...

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