pune | a380 review

I think this would be a fitting wrap-up to my India series, and to cap everything off, I had the opportunity to check out the new (well relatively new) Airbus A380. Now, I’m not as much of an airliner nut as LynnKai, but I do like planes and ships, and I will admit getting excited over a chance to fly on an a380 from Frankfurt to SFO (LH454). In case you aren’t familiar, this Airbus is the world’s largest passenger airliner, and can seat over 500 people in a typical 3-class arrangement, or up to 853 people in an all economy configuration. Basically, this plane is a beast.

three bridges to load passengers

another a380 taking off

My first impressions of the plane were that it was pretty cool. Everything was new (I don’t really know what a new plane smell would be, but I’m sure it had it) and it seemed like the equipment was well cared for. I took to exploring the plane a bit, as I heard there were things on this plane that are pretty unique. Sadly, I was unable to explore the other deck, as the stairs were blocked off (supposedly to prevent passengers from drinking too much and falling down the stairs during flight – I don’t buy it).

the other a380

takeoff!!

bird's eye view

I was quickly able to find a few things that piqued my interest. The first was the exterior cameras. There are three cameras on the outside of the plane that showed what was going on. It was pretty cool being able to watch things like takeoffs, landings, and the bird-eye view was cool for watching the ground. Of course, in midflight all three camera showed the same thing: clouds.

The second thing that was pretty neat was the fact that one of the bathrooms had a freaking window! I know, this may not be interesting to most people I meet, but it was pretty cool. I was able to look down at clouds as I used the facilities. It was quite pleasant. It also made the bathroom feel a lot less claustrophobic as just a little bit of natural lighting helped make it feel roomier. Of course, it was still an airplane bathroom, so you never really wanna stay in there too long.

While the plane was pretty cool, there were some really perplexing things about the plane (or more specifically, what Lufthansa did). So, Lufthansa got the new planes in 2010, and overhauled their terminals in Frankfurt (as well as other airports) to accommodate the sheer size of the new planes. The weird thing was, even though they designed new gates to accommodate the height of the 2nd deck, they built the a380 gates too high. Even for the 2nd deck, you end up going down a flight of escalators to get there. There aren’t any plans to build any planes even bigger than this, so what exactly was the point of that?

The next odd and fairly disappointing thing was the fact that Lufthansa went through the trouble of procuring a fleet of new a380’s, but they then put their old design seats in them, even though they had a new design in production. Now, only 3 years in, they’re going through the hassle of retrofitting the planes with the new seats. I don’t understand why they don’t just put the new seats in there in the first place.

I was kind of hoping to be able to walk around the plane more and be able to check out the other floor, the flight attendants somehow frown upon you walking about the plane. Also, apparently there’s an FAA regulation saying you can’t congregate anywhere (only applies to US-bound or flights out of the US), which makes sense from a safety point of view, but I wonder how that would work for Emirates or Korean Air A380’s that have a bar at the back of the plane?

Overall, the A380 was a pretty fun experience. Again, it would’ve been fun to be able to walk about the plane a bit more, but it’s ok…I’m sure the other floor looks pretty much the same. Next on my airliner bucket-list is the boeing 787, which recently had battery issues (but hey…the risk adds to the excitement right?), and the boeing 747-8, which was apparently built to compete with the A380. I also hear British Airways is supposed to have a great A380 when it is available in October…mm maybe next year when I get more vacation days.

pune | the last weekend

do not get into a staring contest with this guy...you will lose.

For my last weekend in Pune, I hit up some suggested sights in the old-town. The office was nice enough to extend one of their drivers through the weekend so I could do some last minute shopping, sightseeing, and get to the airport in Mumbai. Of course, since my luggage space was limited, I ended up just doing a bit of sightseeing and wandering around the old-town part of Pune.

There was a museum that everyone recommended called the Raja Kelkar museum, which was the private collection of some guy that spent his life accumulating random artifacts from india and parts of asia. The museum was pretty cool, and had an eclectic collection of random things. There were lots of random idols, wooden artifacts, foot scrubbers (I know…it was weird), and household items.

weird collection of foot-scrubbers

There were some museum items that were pretty odd. One of the was a scale model of the taj mahal. It was damaged around the edges, and some of the towers were damaged as well. I remember seeing it and thinking it was built around the time the real taj was built, and I thought “oh it’s in pretty good shape for being a few hundred years old”. Then I looked at the sign: circa late 20th century. So basically somebody built it back in the 80’s or 90’s. In that case it’s in surprisingly horrible shape for being only 20-30 years old. Another odd thing was the collection of foot scrubbers. Apparently this guy had a huge collection of foot scrubbers for the callous on the bottom of your feet. Who collects stuff like that?!

The museum was situated in an old house, and upon getting there, I was reminded of my home in Shanghai. It was a weird feeling, because the museum doesn’t look anything like my home, but at the same time, I knew that eventually where I was living would be turned into a museum in a few years (I live on a cultural street, and all the homes were getting bought out by the city to turn into museums). I dunno…just an odd feeling as I walked in.

apparently chess is from india...

After the museum, I headed over to Laxmi road to see where locals go for shopping. At this point the driver just dropped me off since I didn’t want him to wait and I figured I could easily get a rickshaw back to the hotel. I was looking to buy some souvenirs for my folks, but soon I realized this is where real locals come to do shopping…and real locals don’t buy souvenirs. Apparently the shops were for pots, pans, household items and home-improvement stuff (i.e. sinks and pipes). Yeaaa…good luck finding scarves and elephant paperweights.

Of course at this point it started raining. And by raining I mean it was more like a torrential downpour. This is also the point where I learned that rickshaw drivers don’t like to drive in the rain. Every driver I approached turned me down. Finally I was able to flag one down that was willing to take me back to the hotel. Of course by now I was drenched…he wasn’t too happy about me dripping in his backseat =/

The rain didn’t stop the next day (apparently during monsoon, it can go on for weeks at a time). The original plan was for the driver to take me sightseeing in Mumbai for a bit before heading over to the airport. We ended up leaving the hotel at noon for a 2am flight since I figured I could go around Mumbai for a bit. Of course…the rain didn’t let up, and at this point parts of Mumbai were starting to flood so the sightseeing plan was pretty much scrapped.

awesome.

Since the airport doesn’t allow people to check in until 3 hours before the flight, I ended up getting dropped off at the ITC Muratha, a hotel near the airport, to wait it out and have lunch/dinner. The hotel was pretty cool, but the prices for food were ridiculous. I mean…at other hotels like the JW Marriott the Grand Hyatt, food prices were relatively reasonable (it is india afterall). But here the prices were roughly 4x as much (seriously?? USD15 for a bottle of kingfisher??). Oh well…still cheaper than getting a room for 8 hours I guess. I ended up just bumming around the hotel until it was time to check-in.

**the next post will be the last in this series…**

pune | getting out of town for the weekend pt. 2 – Agra

Sunday morning was my scheduled trip to Agra – a trip that didn't go completely without hiccups. Delhi (well, Noida), where I was staying, is around 190km from Agra, where the Taj Mahal is located. So, in order to get to Agra, you pretty much had to take a train or get a car. So, since I was a foreigner, one of the guys at work, Rakshit, was arranging transportation for me from Delhi to Agra for the day.

As it turns out, his friend's car agency didn't have any available drivers. Of course, since everything was done last minute, I found this out saturday night while at the hotel. No worries...maybe the hotel can arrange for a car – apparently it'd cost 3x as much. Well, since the main reason for going to Delhi in the first place was so I could see the Taj Mahal, I figured I might as well bite the bullet and give it a go. I was all set to book when Rakshit (yes...it's his real name...) called me again. Apparently there were no drivers, but the guy that ran the car agency could take me, which was cool, except for one minor detail: he doesn't speak english. Hmm...I guess that could work, so we confirmed it.

He came around to the hotel at 7:30am and we set off to the Taj! So, within a few minutes of leaving the hotel, we tried to chat a little about random things, and yes, his english really was very limited. We ended up working out a communication system where we would point, laugh, and use facial expressions, which if you think about it...isn't ideal when you want your driver to be looking at the road. oh well.. =) He did have one subject in which he was well versed in english: the road. Apparently since he runs a car business, he can talk in english about roads, so he gave me a 20 minute spiel on the pros/cons of asphalt vs. cement freeways...in near perfect english. Then when I asked him about the weather...nada. Go figure.

Most of the journey was quite uneventful, except we saw a monkey crossing on the Delhi-Agra freeway. Sadly one of the younger ones didn't make it across in time.. =( The odd thing about driving to Agra, is that there is really nothing on the road. It's straight for miles at a time, and the landscape is quite desolate...kinda like the drive down to LA.

Once we got to Agra, it was kinda disappointing. I had envisioned a decent mid-sized town with buildings and stuff kinda like Pune. Well, let's just say it was like driving down Main St. in Dixon. It was fairly quaint...a few cows, some guys pulling an ox-cart...nothing really going on. Then all of a sudden, boom...taj mahal on the left...then your look ahead and it's like 500 tour buses showed up out of nowhere. And then tourists. And then hawkers. wow...that took me by surprise. I was beginning to think the taj was just a photographer's optical illusion...where it looks huge in pics but in real life it was the size of a kid's sand castle. Well, suffice it to say, I definitely felt validated.

one of the gates in

Of course actually visiting the taj was a very frustrating experience for me. I mean, it was amazing, but I'm one of those guys that doesn't like large crowds of people, and I quite enjoy my personal space. The second I left the car all the way to the gate is roughly 0.5km...which is not very far to go, but try walking that distance with 50 people trying to slow you down by getting you to buy stuff. The kids were quite organized too...one or two will walk in front of you to slow you down while a 3rd, 4th, and 5th will try to sell you fridge magnets for usd20 each. It was very annoying because not only are you trying to tune out the kids yelling at you, you're also trying to keep from getting pick-pocketed too.

Finally I got to the gate and was able to go in. One thing I noticed in India, is that the government likes to charge indians different price than the foreigners. For indians, the Taj ticket is Rs20. For foreigners? Rs750. Quite the price hike. Oh well, I'm here. Once I got in, it was amazing. The kids had to stay outside, and you're now among the company of tourists – not that much better but at least they're not trying to get you to buy stuff. Oh, and there was the Taj.

The mausoleum was huge, and require booties to get in...which was cool. It was ridiculously hot that day: 45C (113F) and quite humid. Don't even get me started on the smells. Anyways, every once in a while you have to take a water break, and one of the more memorable ones I've had was actually sitting in one of the inlets on the side of the mausoleum. It was 10 degrees cooler in the shade and actually quite nice to just hang out there and look at the stone detail-work on the side of the mausoleum.

On the inside it was quite nice, except for the fact that there are attendants with whistles making sure you're not loitering, and that once you've seen it for 5 seconds it was someone else's turn. Once back outside, it was time to walk around the courtyard and head back out.

After the Taj, we headed over to Agra Fort to have a look. This was a pretty cool place, and had been around at the same time as the taj mahal. It was situated on a hill, so you can easily see the taj from the fort. The fort itself was huge...16 sections and large open courtyards. It was a pretty cool place to check out.

On the drive back home, we stopped by a roadside stand for some quick food, and made the 3hr trek back to Delhi. The driver was a big fan of bollywood movie music, so most of his music selections were film soundtracks. About 30min into the return drive, he points at my phone and asks "music?" I looked at my phone, and remembered that since I only used it for music when boarding flights, and so I had very limited selection of music on my phone, as everything else was on my ipad at the hotel. I took a quick peek at the playlist: Pitch Perfect soundtrack (don't judge me), B.o.B., and Far East Movement. I plugged my phone in, and we went through all three albums. Even though it was a Tata car, that thing had a really good sub. So there we were, two guys who could only communicate back and forth with facial expressions and pointing, driving back to delhi with far east movement blasting over the speakers...quite a fitting end to an odd once-in-a-lifetime day.

pune | getting out of town for the weekend pt. 1 – Delhi

Ok...so this post isn't actually about Pune. The third weekend I was here, I decided to get out of Pune and make a trip out to Delhi and Agra. The trip started with a flight out of Pune airport, which was quite the experience. Pune airport is a military airport that has opened itself up to limited commercial flights a few times a day. It's a tiny airport that is still very utilitarian at best, as evidenced by the fact that there are 4 shops today, and 6 gates. It was like a midwest airport, but surprisingly with a few long haul flights. Aside from going to other cities in India, they fly nonstop flights to Singapore, Dubai, and Frankfurt out of Pune.

Pune airport...there are all of 4 gates...

My flight started right after work on Saturday morning. I got to the airport, and immediately was lost. Apparently you're not allowed in the airport without a paper itinerary, which I didn't have. Jet Airways will print one out for you for Rs. 100, which is kinda dumb. Once you get inside, your itinerary gets replaced by a boarding pass anyways. The food in the airport left a lot to be desired... the samosa was microwaved and handed to me on a greasy sheet, which wasn't all that good. Of course, I didn't realize that there was actually a meal service on the flight, which is pretty good considering the whole flight was 2 hrs.

Delhi airport...pretty impressive

The minute I got off the aircraft…the humidity and heat hit me. OMG what did I get myself into?? I absolutely did not prepare myself for what was to come. By the time I got to the hotel (even with an airport transfer) I was sweating bullets. The forecast was 45C (115F) and at least 50-70% humidity…it was going to be a heated 2 days.

ISKON Temple

I had one day in Delhi, so I figured I’d make the most of it. Half an hour after checking in and a quick shower later, I was on my way to see the old city. The first stop was a temple of course (one of many). While there are quite a few, the temples here are always quite impressive in terms of design and size. The first temple was the ISKON temple…the home of the Hare Krishnas. It was quite a sight. I had to get used to taking off my shoes, which was not something I was used to (especially given that a good chunk of it was outdoors and it was freakin hot. Good thing I learned to walk fast and the bottoms of my feet weren’t really burned that badly.

Gandhi Memorial

India Gate

There was a succession of places where shoes were required to be set aside. After this was the Gandhi Memorial, which also require shoes to be taken off. After that I headed over to the government center. There was India Gate, the parliament building, and also the president’s house. None of these buildings actually gave access, so it was a lot of standing outside taking pictures.

paratha with different kinds of side-curries

parantha wada

After that I headed over to old Delhi, which is closed off to cars and auto-rickshaws. I ended up getting a bicycle rickshaw to give me a tour of the old town. I stopped by the parantha alley, where some of these parantha places have been there for over 100 years. Quite possibly the best vegetarian meal I've ever had, it featured the parantha (a sort of fried or baked pancake filled with stuff like spinach or cheese) along with a bunch of side-curries like a pumpkin or potato curry.

After that was a detour through the old Delhi spice market, where the scent of all the different kinds of spices filled the humid air. A quick glance around, and you can see why this place is iconic. There are so many different people from housewives to cooks here shopping for spices for their curries (or masalas or biryanis or other stuff).

Humayun's Tomb...the architectural inspiration for the taj mahal

My last stop of the day was Humayun's Tomb. This place was the architectural inspiration for the Taj Mahal, as Humayun was the great grandfather of Shah Jahan, the Indian Mughal Emperor that built the Taj Mahal. This place was incredible – you can see so many of the architectural features that  the Taj Mahal have, and it's cool to see in person the day before heading out to Agra to see the Taj. I was able to walk around the courtyard and see the labyrinth of waterways and fountains that wind around the gardens around the tomb. The actual mausoleum had a few people buried there, I'm assuming the family of Humayun as well. It was quite the place to visit to cap off a journey through New and Old Delhi. Tomorrow, Agra!

pune | the food

As a person who's self-professed preferred foods are "anything but indian", this trip has certainly been interesting to my palate. I've had a chance to experience the good, the bad, and the downright weird food. I can say that I have found something I almost can't live without, and I've found many things I'd be perfectly find with never tasting again. But for the most part, it's been a positive experience.

Of course, having such a weird working schedule (5pm-4am), it's been challenging finding a place where I can settle down and get some good food that doesn't involve room service. Of course, since I sleep during the day, the majority of my culinary experiences have been here at the hotel. Breakfast is usually my favorite meal of the day, and here is no exception. I enjoy a masala omelette every morning, and it is basically eggs and salsa, which is always a good combo, and that would be followed up with some fresh juice and fruit (and maybe a pastry or two). Lunch/dinner (depending on when I wake up) has generally been room service (depending on my mood, it could be anything from lamb lasagna to garlic butter naan). Then a midnight meal would be at the work cafeteria, where they have a bajillion types of curry and usually naan or rice to eat with.

And of course, the other foods at work have been quite interesting. There was the mystery food that was handed to me on greasy re-purposed printer paper. There was samosas served in newspaper from one of the street vendors outside. I distinctly recall the first day at the office, having to do the initiation of as many fried green chilis as I could handle. That was quite the experience. While I found a technique for getting them down, it was not exactly pleasant on the outbound.

On the weekends, the culinary adventure begins. I've had the benefit of being able to venture out on the weekends and sample some of the local cuisine while also being able to sight-see a bit. Some of the food I've had have been quite interesting. I'm starting to get used to the fennel-seed taste (though I still don't prefer it), but I absolutely love garlic butter naan. omg that stuff is amazing...basically thin bread with butter and a liberal dosage of garlic, which is then baked. How could I resist??

Then there was the other amazing food item...the chicken tikka pizza. omg tandoori chicken with some cheese on a thin crust...it was awesome. How do you say no to something like that?!