Our 11th Wedding Anniversary November 7 2009

We celebrated our 11th Wedding Anniversary by having dinner at the Taj Malabar Hotel at Wilington Island, India which is near to Fort Cochin. It was a very nice evening. Our anniversary trip was really in September when we went to the Maldives.

An anniversary is a time to celebrate the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow. ~Author Unknown.

Munnar, India Oct 2-4 2009

Munnar, India Oct 2-4 2009

Steven's Birthday September 21 2009

I thought I would surprise Steven for his birthday this year. I never know what to get him, well I do know but it's electronics and he has to pick them out. So, I called a travel company we deal with at times and hired a private boat to take us out for a sunset cruise out in the Cochin inlet in the Arabian Sea. It wasn't what I had planned and then it rained but we still had a nice time. After our boat ride we had reservations across onto the Island of Fort Cochin at the Malabar House.

Maldives Holiday September 2-6 2009

Our 6 month having to leave the country was coming up in October and we found that Steven had a couple days off from work for a holiday here called Onam, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onam. I then looked online and found a half way decent price (compared to other times) for a 5 day holiday package to the Maldives, so we decided to take advantage it of all other right situations and leave on September 2. Though, when looking at the packages, we found that the shortest and cheapest flights were all on Air India. After having said to each other that we don’t want to fly Air India anymore due to their recent mechanical errors, fatality rates and the uncleanliness. We decided to take a chance and go Air India anyway.

The taxi picked us up at 6:00 A.M. to go on our 8:00 flight, stopping in Thiruvananthapuram which take us 1 hour and then 1 more hour to Male. We got on the plane and Steven sat in what looked like baby puke, which was not only on the seat but all over the seat in front of us and the tables. Yuck! We found another seat but couldn’t get over all of the seats that were broken and TAPED up. OMG!!!

When we arrived in Male, http://.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldives, we got our luggage, walked out of the airport right to the Port and in our hotel Sheraton’s boat!

We arrived to our hotel no more than 15 minutes, with a warm reception from some of the staff.
We found that our hotel was on a small island by itself. It was just so beautiful. We were going to upgrade to a water bungalow but found our room just as nice if maybe even better. While there we went on 2 dive trips, Sunset Dolphin Cruise, Island Hopping/Snorkle all day trip and a trip to the main island of Male.
I think the main excitement of the trip was on our last dive we saw manta rays with 9 foot wingspan. We sat on the bottom and watched 3 of them for about 45 minutes. We were taken to this place where they feed on top of a rock and it was one of the most awesome things I've ever seen. A lot of people sat on the bottom of the rock and watched in awe as well.

It was one of those once in a life time trips to do since we are so close because it is so expensive. We won't go again unless we win the lottery!

Our Trip to Goa August 14-17 2009

Steven had a day off from work so we decided we wanted to go to Goa. Goa is only about 248 miles from Kochi. We found out that there are no more direct flights from Kochi to Goa. We looked in to going by train and it took twice as long. So we decided to go anyway by plane. Our flight left at 9:30 at night getting us in to Mumbai at 11:00. We walked around and tried to get in to the comfy area known as the Crown Club at home but they were closed. There were no places to sit, it was unbelievable! We finally found a small area next to a snack counter and we tried to make ourselves more comfortable along with all of the roaches crawling around our feet!
Our place left at 5:00 AM for Goa which was a 1 hour flight. We arrived in Goa at 6:00 A.M. and our hotel was not there to pick us up. We talked with a airport hostess which called our hotel and said they would be there in 1 1/2 hours. We paid Rs. 500 for a taxi. Our hotel was pretty nice. We were so tired and slept until late afternoon and had a wonderful dinner at one of the restaurants at the hotel. The next day we had our tours
which were Dona Paul Cliff, Basilica of Bom Jesus Church, The Shiva Temple of Shri Mangesh Shiva Temple
and Fort Aquada & Lighthouse. We tried to find the Hash House Harrier's supposedly local hang the owner said they were there once. I guess the Goa HHH doesn't update their website. However, we did make 3 new friends there at Harry's Bar. Flying back to Kochi was easier, making it about a 4 hour trip. The plane made 2 stops but we didn't get off the plane. It was a short and sweet trip. We really like Goa and want to go back however on a different flight getting there.


Here is a link to the rest of our Goa pictures: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9IcsmjVy1aJ4

Advice to SB

Below is some advice for SB that I wrote in an email. SB is considering moving to Kochi. It probably isn't particularly useful for you in your present situation, but it does give some insight into daily life here in Kochi.

I find that India is rather xenophobic. In addition to outright staring at foreigners, every Indian state I’ve visited so far always seems prejudiced against whatever state’s immigrants have “invaded.” It’s not much different than the Cypriots who hate Turks, the Greeks who hate Macedonians, the Singaporeans who hate Indonesians, the Spanish who hate Moroccans, the Texans that hate Mexicans, the Koreans who hate Japanese, the Vancouverites who hate Torontons, etc, etc, etc. In other words, I haven’t ever been anywhere where the local majority didn’t dislike some other group. I think nature has inbuilt these prejudices and they can’t be avoided. If you put two different fish in a tank, they’ll swim around together as a pair. If you put in more of the same two types of fish, they’ll suddenly split into little schools of like and like fish.

I haven’t figured out the gay thing here in India. Most Indians, men and women, seem rather androgynous to me. Women and men are usually segrated so all the guys go around hanging all over each over. Yet no one talks about who’s gay or who is not. Are all the guys on the down low? Or just some of them? Recently, the papers made a big deal about reform of the anti-gay laws. Regardless of all the celebrations in other cities that were shown in the Kochi papers, I didn’t see much acknowledgement of the change here in Kochi. Maybe we don’t go to the right bars…

One of our past times in the U.S. would be to go hang out at a neighborhood bar and drink with our friends. Drinking doesn’t seem to be such a past time here. Supposedly, Kochi has one of the highest per capita drinking rates. If this is true, then everyone must be drinking alone. We’ve learned how to buy beer and liquor at the government run outlets. (They have wine too but it’s all pretty nasty to me even though Angela seems to tolerate it.) We’ve learned how to tell which bars we might be welcome at and which ones are off limits. (Yes, I really have been personally recommended to leave several.) There are even fewer where we actually *feel* welcome. And at those, we feel like Norm from Cheers because everyone knows who we are. I assume the bartenders and servers think, “Here come the rich Americans who leave us tips.” Of course we’re not rich, but who says you can’t buy your friends?

One thing about Kochi is how fast it is changing. I’m talking about big radical changes. When we first moved here, there were 2 state run radio stations babbling in Malayalam. Now, there are many private and state run stations playing a variety of American top 40 hits from the 70’s and 80’s with ads and all. Somebody decides, and “BOOM!” it happens. I just wish I knew who the somebody was. As another example, a year and half ago, everyone just tossed their garbage out in the street and either burnt it every now and then or let the rains wash it away. Now, we have semi-organized city-paid collectors who put all the garbage in a big pile on the outskirts of town and burn it every now and then or let the rains wash it away. Another example is the upcoming “transportation hub.” Within two months of its publicity, a huge 100 acre site was declared as the new terminal for local city, intrastate, and interstate busses, city taxies, and a proposed system of water taxis. According to the planners, the complex will be completed by next April and they haven’t even broken ground yet!

We find it hard to go anywhere from Kochi. There just aren’t enough flights between Kochi and interesting places. Every time we want to go someplace, we end up having to take crappy flights that take 4 times as long as they should. Our last trip to Goa, a mere 400 miles away, took us 14 hours (door to door) going and 7 hours returning. The other issue you need to check is working days. Most companies here in Kochi work 6 days per week. The usual hours are 9 to 5:30 Monday – Saturday. On the plus side, many people seem to only work half day on Saturdays. I have suggested it several times, but no one seems to believe me, that we could be more productive by only working from 8:30 to 5:30 Monday – Friday. People who are paid to think need more time off to not think.

Playground Fun

I occasionally read trade journals online and have a favorite columnist or two that I follow. Dr. Howard Johnson is one of them. He has a knack for explaining complex phenomena in ways that make the relationships intuitive. In a recent column, Dangerous Games, he decried the “lawyers and politically correct parents” who have ruined kids’ playgrounds. (Yes, Dr. Johnson often gets a little off topic for an electrical engineering design magazine, but that’s one of the things that makes his column interesting.) He ended with a quote I found funny enough to pass along:

People who spend their formative years huddled in the library searching for loopholes in the physical-education requirements for junior-high graduation should not design playgrounds.

Here's hoping that the PC wimpification of the world doesn't get too much worse.