That's a wrap

Well the day has finally come to end my journey and return back to the US. I have had a great time but I am definitely ready to come home. We had our last visit the Tata today and it was fortunately a short one. We spent some time looking at things they were working on and they seemed very eager to prove to us the quality and complexity of work they can accomplish. India was an eye opening experience for me and I have a new appreciation for life in the US. Life can be hard for people in India and the poverty here was very shocking. After you get over the culture shock I have learned that Indian people are very kind and you couldn't ask for better hosts. There were 2 guys in particular, Depal and Vishwas, who were constantly by our sides making sure we had everything that we needed. They provided cars and drivers for anything that we wanted to do and I really don't know how we could have made it without them. The streets here are so crazy I can't imagine if I had to get behind he wheel and brave it on my own. Indian people are much more observant and all you had to do was mention somewhere you wanted to go and before you know it they would make arrangement for you to go there. Sometimes you even felt a little bad because maybe you were just making conversation. They would notice little things like if you looked at your watch they would believe you were ready to leave or maybe if you yawned during dinner they would suggest you go to your room to rest. They were very concerned that you had a good time and all your needs were met.

I discovered that India is a place of extremes. You are either very wealthy or very poor and there isn't much in the middle. Last night I asked them what kind of wage you could expect starting out in the CG business here and I was a little shocked to learn that the average starting salary is 12000 rupees per month. That comes down to about $75 per week in US dollars. We spent a lot of time in the resort hotels around the airport and it is a place that most Indians could never afford to go.

We asked many questions about life in India. There are no grocery stores here like Safeway or Raleys. You buys most of your day to day goods at stores that are outdoor on the streets. If you need fruit you go to the fruit stand. They told us that many things are delivered door to door. So once a week the milk guy comes around and that is how you get your milk. Many of the goods are sold at the train stations. It is easy for the sellers to take the train and then they set up shop on the street near the stations. Things like clothes are expensive for Indians, at least the quality stuff.

One of the guys we met was getting married soon so we learned a lot about that too. The Indian wedding ceremony lasts much longer than the ones in the US. The minimum seems to be an entire day and some stretch out over several days. If you want to get married you must do it on a holy day and there is a specific time too. The window of time for the vows can be as short as 15 minutes. Here they exchange rings for the engagement but during the wedding ceremony you exchange a ring of flowers much like a Hawaiian Lei. The men wear a very ornate crown and every dresses in very brightly colored clothes.

Family is very important here. Most families have several generations sharing the same home and you don't leave until you get married. If you are a man you don't leave at all and you have your wife move in with your family.

Ironically housing is very expensive here because there are so many people there is a shortage of space. A typical one bedroom apartment costs about $400 per month which doesn't sound so expensive until you consider that the average person might only earn $400 per month. We know 1 guy who left ILM to move to India to become the president of a visual effects company here. He was unhappy to discover that to buy the kind of house you are used to living in the US is 1 to 2 million dollars.

It has been a great experience coming here but I have to be honest that it is hard to imagine coming back here for anything other than business. The people here are wonderful but out on he streets things are very different. They told me that they were very proud of something they called the 'spirit of Mumbai'. The spirit of Mumbai is that everyone feels like one big family here and people care about each other. He told me a story that one day there was a big power outage here and the trains were forced to stop running. A lot of people can't afford cars here and millions use the train everyday. He said the result was gridlock on the highways and it took people 10 or 12 hours to go a very short distance to their homes in a cab or a 3 wheeled rickshaw. He said the people would come out of their houses to offer tea or food to the motorists who were going no where.

So in the end I learned a lot about the people that we are doing business with here in India and I think it will go along way toward creating a good business partnership. It will be much nicer having a face to put to the person on the other end of the phone calls and the emails. We have the afternoon off to pack and get ready for the long trip home. We leave at 12:30 am on Thursday morning. We have 2 stops, one in Singapore and one in Seoul, Korea. It will take somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 hours and I am not really looking forward to it. I do want to get home though so if I am lucky I will be able to sleep a lot. I should arrive in SF around 12:30 in the afternoon on Thursday and I am sure it will take a couple of days to get over the jet lag. It was great coming here but it will be just as great getting home.

Last night in Bombay

Today was pretty busy so I don't have much time to write. We had a big dinner with the clients and I learned the Indians are rather fond of Tequila. These pictures pretty much sum it up.;)

India Day 2

Today was our first day for business. After breakfast the company we are visiting sent several cars to pick us up. A couple of days ago in Singapore half our group went to China to meet with some other companies and today they caught up to us in India. We are one big group again and some people leave tomorrow to go to Bangalore India to meet with a different part of the Indian company called Tata. Anyway, it took 3 cars to fit us all.

I didn't think traffic could get any crazier than it was yesterday but to my surprise Monday morning was even worse. It is so congested it can take 30 or 45 minutes just to travel 2 miles. We went first to visit the main office of Tata. After seeing the shape of most of the buildings here I was very curious to see what a high tech company looked like. After going through a typical ramshackle neighborhood we came to a big iron gate. On the other side was the main office and the building was actually very nice from the outside. The inside was very modern and looked much like what a normal computer graphics company would look like outside of India. We were greeted by the Creative Director which is basically the head guy in this company. We were led into a big conference room and we were served water and coffee. I experienced my first Asian business custom, the business card exchange. During the business card exchange you usually offer the card holding it with both hands. When you accept their card you are supposed to place it on the table in front of you and leave it for the duration of the meeting. If you put it directly into your pocket it is considered poor form. They proceeded to give us a video presentation of the kinds of work they have done and talked about the direction their business wanted to go. It was all very business like but they were very approachable and I didn't feel as uncomfortable in that situation as I expected. They gave us a tour of the facility and they really bent over backwards to make us feel welcome. You could tell they felt we were really important to them.

Next we went to their second facility where most of the work they do for ILM is completed. They had several other video presentations where they talked about work they were proud of. Most of it was on 'Bollywood' movies which are a particular genre of movies they only make in India. Bollywood movies generally involve some sort of singing and dancing and the actors wear brightly colored costumes. They had some pretty interesting work where they were taking a very famous Indian actress who was in her 40's and digitally changed her appearance to look 20 years younger for some flashback scenes. We visited several artists where they showed us what they were working on. After that we went to another big conference room and they presented us each with a gift which is a common business practice here in India. You aren't supposed to open your gifts until you leave. Mine was a nice picture frame that was decorated Indian style. We then went back to our hotel and had lunch with several of their managers and supervisors. It was a great chance to have some more casual conversation and I really liked the people. They are very nice and easy to talk to. After lunch business was done.

They realy wanted to show us around Mumbai but since we already had a tour the ladies in the group steered us toward shopping. They arranged for some cars and one of the guys from Tata named Adi acted as our guide. We visited several different stores and I saw a different side of Mumbai. Many places are still a little run down on the outside but you are often surprised to find out that once you go inside the buildings they are really pretty nice. I guess you just have to know where to go.

We went to a department store that was much like a US store like a Macy's or a Mervyn's. It was much smaller and it was broken up into different departments. The store was clean and modern on the inside. One things that is really irritating about shopping in India is that all the people are like used car salesmen and it is difficult to just browse around. For example, if you go by the jewelry department they are very insistent that you go in and they want to show you things. Much like the people selling stuff on the street they have a problem taking no for an answer. The women in the group were much more into the shopping and the guys tried our best to avoid anyone who worked there. Since we had 2 cars me and the other 2 guys talked our way into separating and had one car take us back to the hotel. We are going to meet up for dinner but I have some down time to hang out in my room. I am not really sure what is going on tomorrow but I am pretty sure I will have to spend some time with the actual artists showing them how we do things at ILM.

I added a couple of pictures. You will notice an entire family riding on one motorcycle. You see this all over the place. It is crazy to see the women sitting side saddled on the back of a motorcycle holding a baby while they weave in and out of heavy traffic. I have no idea how they don't fall off.

My India adventure begins

Wow, what a day. It is going to be hard for me to write about everything I saw today because we saw so much. I will upload some pictures but if you want to see all 100 or so pictures I took today check out this link to the photobucket website where I uploaded all of them.

http://s138.photobucket.com/albums/q257/mvaneps/India/

India is like no place I have ever seen before. I don't want to sound too negative but if I had to sum it up in 3 words it would be old, dirty, and crowded. There are people everywhere. India is a place of extremes, you are either extremely rich and the place you live are extremely nice or you are extremely poor and you live in the worst conditions you could imagine by US standards. There is a middle class but I think it is small. India's predominant religion is Hindu and the traditional Hindu believe in the caste system where you are born into a class and you have to live your entire life there. This isn't strictly the case today but I think when you start out that way it takes a long time to evolve to be anywhere near the western nations are.

All the buildings look really old on the outside and I doubt many of them have had a fresh coat of paint in my lifetime. Once inside many of the buildings things are nice and the exterior seems deceptive. There are poor people everywhere. Our hotel is outside of the city by about an hour and driving to the city I was immediately shocked at the site of some of the shanty towns that had grown as high as 5 stories. They looked a lot like a house of cards and it seemed like they were primed for disaster.

People often go to a new city in the US and say "you wouldn't believe the drivers there, they are the worst I have ever seen". All I have to say is you haven't seen nothing until you have ridden in a car in Mumbai. There are lines in the road to seperate the lanes but it doesn't appear that anyone really cares about them. I mentioned before that everyone honks their horns all the time. You felt like your life was at risk every time you tried to cross a busy intersection. I am sooooooo glad we hired a driver because I don't know how we would have done it if we tried to drive a car on our own.

The first place we visited was called dhobi ghat. Dhobi ghat is an outdoor laundry place where men have these stone pits of water and they take your clothes and beat the living daylights out of them in the water to clean them. They hang them up on lines to dry. Our guide said it was amazing that despite the way the water looks your clothes would come back clean as a whistle. The men pick the clothes up at your house and return them a week later. She said they most they make is about .25 cents per item and usually less. At dhobi ghat we had our first taste of the street people. They seem to be everywhere and when they realize you are a tourist you are their prime target. Many try to sell you trinkets or postcards and they don't seem to understand the word no. One indian girl, who was quite beautiful, kept asking me to buy some postcards. She just kept asking over and over and over until I finally got into the car to leave. Our guide gave us our first lesson on dealing with them and that message is just to ignore them at all costs. It seems very rude and is a little hard to do because you feel bad but even acknowledging them by saying no will keep them coming at you. The sad part is the kids. They come up to your car when you are at a stoplight and knock on the window. It is hard seeing them.

We also visited an outdoor market that was called the Crawford market. It was huge and there were several different sections. There was a section with fabric, a section with fruit and veggies, a section with birds, and a section with spices. It was the first place we really were immersed in the people. The streets were dirty and really crowded. A lot of the pictures I took were from the market because there were so many extraordinary things to see there. Most of the stuff there was really low quality kind of the like the flea market in the US. Many people stared at us because a group of white people really stood out in the crowd. They all wanted us to buy things from them. There was one lady in our group and I saw and older man pass by and intentionally touch her with his hand. In the middle of all these people cabs and other cars would try to make their way down the streets constantly honking their horns. There were lots of poor people looking through the trash and begging for change. I am not even sure why they had dumpsters because there was trash everywhere on the ground.

We visited other places too but I am running out of time and this is probably going to turn into a novel. We went to large monument called The Gateway of India. I think it was the eastern most point of Mumbai and right on the ocean. Mumbai started out as a fishing village so we also went to an authentic fishing village. We visited the Afghan Church which was built by the english to commemorate a battle they had with Afghanistan. All the seats in the church had a place to put your gun. We went to a really old and luxurious hotel called the Taj Mahal hotel. We visited Ghandi's house in Mumbai, a Museum with some ancient artifacts from thousands of years ago, we went to a man made garden on the top of a hill called The Hanging Gardens because it looks like it is just hanging on the top of the hill, we visited the central train stations which millions of passenger pass through every day. Our guide told us the trains are built for 1500 people but often carry as many as 4000 pack inside like sardines. We also drove by many other things.

All in all today was a once in a lifetime experience for me. I ended the day really appreciating life in the US. I will write more tomorrow but I have to head out to dinner and drinks with a couple of people from the company we are visiting in Mumbai.

Saturday heading to India

Since it was Saturday we got to sleep in a bit at our hotel. I am not all that great at sleeping in anymore so I was still up around 8am. I used the morning to chat with the family and pack up for the trip to India. We met for lunch and walked to a local mall with a pizza place. Pizza was just what the doctor ordered. It wasn't as good as Mary's but it was really pretty good all things considered. Our flight to India didn't leave until 8pm so me and another guy decided to go and visit the Singapore Museum. It was mostly about the history of Singapore and the tour was really well done. It was self guided but they provided a pretty nifty little box with headphones that played a recording for each area you visited and it also had a little video screen to give you more information about the different things that we saw. We all met back at the hotel to catch a van to the airport.

When we entered Singapore they gave us a little form to fill out on the plane. The form had all the basic information about you and where you were staying but it also had a startling section where you had to sign acknowledging that if you were caught with drugs you would be put to death. They collected it when we went through customs. Why am I telling you this? Well, when they took the form they tore off a small section and gave it to you as if it were a receipt. I didn't really get the impression the receipt had any importance. So after we checked in at the airport to leave today you had to go through another immigration area to get to the international terminal. And surprise, they wanted that little receipt. I didn't have mine and I am pretty sure I threw it away at the hotel. A moment of panic definitely set in when I was turned away and sent to another counter. Fortunately ,it turned out that it wasn't really a big deal. I just had to fill out another form and they checked to confirm when and how I entered the country. There was about 5 minutes though where I had to keep from having a little panic attack. We got onto the plane for the 5 hour flight to Mumbai without any problem.

Once again business class was awesome. Lots of food, little cloth tablecloths for our tray table, real silverware and a whole selection of movies and TV shows to watch. When we arrived in India the first thing I noticed when exiting the plane was that the airport felt a little old and well used. I went through a variety of unusual and not so good odors on the way to pass through customs. They seem very fond of incense here. Going through customs is kind of like going through a police checkpoint. Even though you know you don't have anything you shouldn't have and you know you haven't done anything wrong you still feel a little nervous while they are reviewing your passport and travel documents. I made it through without a problem. The airport was pretty crowded and from the minute I left the plane until I was safely inside my hotel room it felt like organized chaos. The hotel had arranged for a driver and a van to pick us up from the airport and to take us to the hotel. We were supposed to look for one of those guys you see at every airport holding a sign with our name on it. After we collected our bags we made our way to the door to exit the airport. When we hit the door there was a VERY crazy scene with a huge crowd of people all holding up signs with different names on them. I bet there were 100 signs within the large crowd of people. It seemed like everyone was talking at once too. We finally found the sign with our name on it and made our way around the crowd to meet the driver. As we headed to the van there were 2 other guys that seemed to appear out of nowhere. They kept trying to take my suitcase out of my hand and I couldn't understand what they were saying. The guy realized my apprehension and offered some sort of identification. After he asked several times I finally relented and let him take one of my bags. I still wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do so I stayed really close to him. He followed us to the car without incident and I think he must have worked for the airport. He definitely wanted a tip so I am guessing that is why he was so insistent on helping. We all piled into the car but the chaos didn't stop there. The hotel was very close to the airport but it seemed like there was a traffic jam the entire way. Indian drivers seem rather fond of honking because every other car was honking. It was dark but I could see that sides of the road were filled with what looked like cheap homemade houses. I also saw big group of people just sitting on the ground, I am guessing they were homeless. Our hotel seemed like an oasis. It has big iron gates you drive through which I presume is to keep the less fortunate out. It will be interesting to see what everything looks like in the daylight. We have hired a driver, a tour guide and a van to show us around Mumbai tomorrow. Hopefully they will speak a little better english than our driver tonight because we could hardly understand him. I need to get some sleep but I am sure I will have lots of pictures and stuff to write about tomorrow night.

Friday

Today was our last day at the offices in Singapore. It was a pretty quiet day. I spent a little time helping some people but for the most part there wasn't too much accomplished. They had a catered luncheon for the entire company. Near the end of the day we took a big group picture and then said our good byes. We went out for Thai food tonight with some of the Americans that had transferred over from ILM and an Australian lady from Singapore.

I have to say that it is official, I am tired of eating the food here. At home going out for Chinese or Indian is more of a special occasion and after eating it 2 meals a day for a week it's not so special any more. What I wouldn't give for a nice big carne asada burrito and some chips and salsa right now. We saw a pizza place in the mall not to far from our hotel so we are going have lunch there tomorrow. Even it is even half decent it will be a refreshing change of pace.

Singapore has been great but I am ready to move on. We are heading to India tomorrow and I am excited about moving to a new place. We found a tour company in Mumbai on the internet and we have booked it for Sunday. It is 1500 rupee per person, which is about $63 for a big air conditioned van, a driver, and a guide for the day. I think it will be money well spent not worrying about how to get around or trying to find out what to see.

Our flight to Mumbai is 5 hours and we leave tomorrow night around 8. With the time change we will get in around 11pm. It has been really hot here, around 90 degrees, but it is supposed to be even hotter in India. I am not really looking forward to that part. I have been reading up on the internet about how to avoid getting sick in Mumbai and I think it is going to be difficult. It seems that most people can't avoid it. You can't drink the water which is obvious but there are lots of other things you aren't supposed to eat. One thing I read said to avoid all meats but I feel like that will be a little hard. The malaria medicine I am taking is also an antibiotic so I am hoping that helps.

I have been really lucky with the internet in Singapore. I am able to use someone else's wireless internet in my hotel room. I am guessing I won't be so lucky in India. With all the travel and the uncertainty of an internet connection, I don't know if I will be able to add anything to the blog. I guess we will see tomorrow.

Thursday in Little India

Today was a pretty mellow day at work. There weren't really any meetings planned so I spent my time teaching some people individually. I started the day feeling like the newness of Singapore was starting to wear off. I was getting pretty comfortable with all the different things on the island.

This feeling didn't last long. It started out when I went into the bathrooms at work and noticed that one of the stalls was a little different than the others. This stall had a little squat style toilet. I guess these are pretty common in some Asian countries. I find it a little strange and I wasn't about to try it out.

At lunch time we all went for a little walk to go to a restaurant that was in another building in the business park. We came upon a big fairly generic looking office building. It's name was written in Chinese (I think). What was interesting about this building was it had some sort of religious shrine right out in the parking lot. It suspect it was a Buddhist shrine because it had a Buddha in the middle and it was surrounded by candles and incense. When I approached it to take a picture a man who worked there came out to refresh the incense. He seemed to say a little prayer on all 4 sides of the shrine. I talked to him briefly and he told me it was ok to take a picture.

After work we decided to go to a section of town called little India for dinner. It was quite an experience. We went to a great Indian restaurant where you order all the food family style. One of the local specialties is something called fish head curry soup. We have been told that the eyeballs are delicious. We decided that we must give a it try and it really wasn't as bad as it sounds. I expected some soup with a bunch of little fish heads but it actually came with one really big fish head. The head actually had lots of meat on it. Nobody was brave enough to eat the eyeballs.

After dinner we went for a walk down the streets of little India. The Indian New Year is in November and it is called Depa Valli (sp?), the festival of lights. So all he streets were decorated with these bright lights in preparation for the celebration. There were big, lighted banners that went across the streets overhead. There were probably more than 100 of them. There was a certain energy to the place that you might call frenetic. There were lots of people and stores packed to gills with very cheap and low quality stuff. We ended up passing this temple that was maybe Hindu or something like that. We noticed a tent in the back with an older gentleman with a long beard sitting on the floor with people sitting around him. He must have been some sort of spiritual holy man. We decided to go into the temple and it was quite an experience. We had to take off our shoes and socks and go in barefoot. Insise it was packed with decorations all over the walls. There were several large statues that must have represented various gods. Some of them had people praying in front of them. It wasn't like most churches I have been to because it had loud music being played by a small band and people were moving around everywhere. There were a number of men without shirts wearing a white sort of dress that appeared to be priests. They allowed me take pictures and we walked through the temples. One Indian lady stopped me and offered me some sort of sweet yellow bread. She told me it was her birthday. I really felt like the temple had a kind of energy to it that I had never experienced before. It had a very lively atmosphere and I really enjoyed being there. For me it was one of the best nights that we have had here. After seeing little India I have a feeling that big India is going to be quite an experience.

Wednesday

It was kind of a slow day today, another full day at work. I spent a little time this morning with 2 guys showing them how to use the software that people use in my group at work. They had access to it but really didn't know how to use it. They seemed very happy that I could clear up some of the roadblocks they had been having trying to learn the program on their own.

For lunch today we ate like the locals. There is a big food court in the first floor of the office building that lots of companies in the area use for lunch. It was pretty crowded but you kind of got the flavor of the average office workers here. Seemed like about 50/50 between the Indian and the Asian people and there were only a few white people mixed in. Pretty much all the office workers here dress the same, dark slacks and a short sleeve dress shirt. The elevators get pretty crowded and I have noticed that not everyone in the world practices the same sort of personal hygiene that people in the US do. The food court was nothing like the ones you see at the mall. No chick-fil-a, no hot dog on a stick, no cybelle's pizza. They had Indian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese food stands. I had some Indian food that was both good and cheap.

After work several of the people I am traveling with met for dinner at a really nice Asian restaurant called Indochine. It was right on the Singapore river and we sat out side. It was a nice night and the view was great. I am feeling a little tired tonight so we wrapped up the night pretty early.

The battery in my camera ran out today and I left my extra on at the hotel so I didn't take very many pictures, but I do have a couple. I took the picture of the yellow balloon from our cab. This is a popular tourist attraction here. It is a large hot air balloon that is tethered. So you can take a ride and it goes straight up in the air and it is supposed to provide some nice views of the city. The part that is a little unusual is that the balloon is pretty much right downtown.

The Hot Stone

Another day at work. The unfortunate thing about this trip is that I spend all day at work and there really isn't time for site seeing. Most of the things we see revolve around eating because we go out for both lunch and dinner. I am not complaining though, I am being paid to be here and that is awesome. I am still figuring out how to upload pictures to this site so sorry they aren't in order.

This morning we all headed into work and while everyone was gone I snapped a picture of the cubicles that everyone works in. It really is very similar to what we have back in SF. I think they probably ordered the exact same furniture here.

As I mentioned before, the offices are in a larger building and we only occupy one floor out of 7. When we went to lunch I noticed a small grove of trees near the building. It found it interesting that a big group of Indian workers would go and sit under the trees to eat their lunch. It isn't an area set up for people to eat or anything.

Today was one of the days were I had a presentation. Me and one of the other supervisors had to lead a 2 hour forum on making the transition from being an artist to supervising other artists. I think it went pretty well. One of the things you fear most about a meeting like this is that you run out of things to say and there is uncomfortable silence. We had lots to say and the group seemed interested and asked lots of questions. I feel like it was a success.

After the meeting we headed out for lunch. Today we split up and there was a guys lunch and a girls lunch. We went to a fairly unique place that was called something like the Hot Stone. Now the interesting thing about this place is that you cook your own meat. What they do is bring out this really hot stone, it was something like 800 degrees, with a slab of raw meat on it. You cut off little bite size pieces a couple at a time and actually cook them on the stone. If your pieces weren't too big it would only take a minute or so to cook. It was kind of like when you order fajitas and they bring them out sizzling in the skillet but MUCH hotter. So hot in fact, that it really made you start to sweat when there were 8 of them at the table. By the time I was done eating I was dying for the waiter to come take them away because I was really sweating. It was already about 80 degrees inside the restaurant and the stone didn't help. I found the food quite good overall.

After we left we walked past an older area on the street where there were lots of places to eat. I snapped the picture of the lady in the kitchen when I was walking past. You would see lots of unusual things like whole, plucked chickens hanging up ready to be cooked. Looking at most of these places didn't really give you a sense of confidence in their sanitary practices but the locals didn't seem to care because they were very busy.

Back to work for another afternoon of meetings. They have a great cappuccino machine which I became very friendly with after all of these big lunches.

On the way home it started to rain. The clouds got very dark and a thunderstorm moved in. This is pretty common, I guess it happens just about everyday. The storm only lasted a couple of hours and it moved right along. Traveling on the highway to and from work I have noticed many flatbed type of trucks. They are work trucks that are probably heading to a construction site somewhere. What I found interesting about them is most of the time they had several workers just sitting in the back. Even when they were cruising at 70 mph, they would sometimes have 5 or 6 people just hanging out in the back. No seat belt or any kind of safety feature to be found. Often they were crammed in between tools or stuff that they needed to carry to and from where they were working. When it rained these guys would just grin and bear it. In this picture this resourceful fellow brought his umbrella but I bet it was hard to hold onto when they truck hit the highway. Safety doesn't seem to be a big concern.

We wrapped up the day by going to a big group dinner hosted by the managers of the company here in Singapore. The place was in the Grand Hyatt which is one of the nicest hotels I have seen around here. It was an excellent restaurant called the Straits Kitchen. It was a pretty upscale type of place but everything was buffet style. Usually upscale and buffet don't go together in the same sentence but I am learning that many things here in Singapore don't seem to make sense. The food was outstanding. The idea of this place was to combine all of the different types of Asian cuisine that you find here into one spot. They had Indian and lots of Chinese food. I am not quite sure what everything was but it was delicious. They didn't have anything too far out of the norm there. There were lots of chicken and fish dishes but I didn't seem any mysterious fish parts or anything like that. I did try some durian ice cream which was interesting. Durian is a fruit that smells really bad, kind of like it is spoiled. It doesn't really taste much better than it smells so I really just took a taste and moved on. The locals here love it though.

My first day at work...

Today was my first day at work here in Singapore. After a little breakfast at the hotel, everyone from my company met in the hotel lobby to load into some vans they rented to drive us to the office. It is about a 30 minute ride from the hotel. It is always interesting to go for a ride here and see how the people live outside of the downtown area where our hotel is. There are lots of high rise apartment buildings were people live. Many of them are government owned buildings but they aren't like the government housing in the US. When we arrived that the office it was located in a large business park and our company occupied 1 floor of a larger building. It was very nice and modern. It had a lot of similarities to the offices we have in SF. All the furniture and stuff was new and exactly like the furniture I had in my office at home. After a few introductions the head guy gave a tour of the facility. We have a couple of different groups working here. There are around 100 people and 1/3 of them work for our video game company working on hand held games like for the PSP, 1/3 of them also work for our video game company but on normal video games and the other 1/3 work with ILM on our film work. You could tell most people were excited to see us, even a little nervous. We then had a thing called dailies where we entered a small theater and viewed the work that people were doing for one of the movies we are working on. Next we were each shown to an office that was set up for each of the 12 people that I am traveling with. After that we went to another meeting in a larger theater that involved all of the people in the company. We got to see a video with all the different things that people were working on. We had a few minutes on our own and then they took us all out to lunch. Oddly enough we went to an Italian restaurant. It was pretty good but something I ate didn't really agree with me all that well. I seem to have gotten a little bit of a stomach ache. Once we got back we headed directly into another smaller meeting to discuss some of the issues that ILM has working with a company so far away and we discussed ways to try on overcome them. Communication and the fact they are on an entirely different schedule seemed like the biggest issue but I won't bore you too much with the details of the meeting. After that I had some time to mingle a bit with some of the artists and I quickly discovered that they need some training in the areas that my department does. They asked me to teach a class on Tuesday which I agreed to (what was I gonna do say no;). I am a little nervous about it since I haven't prepared for it but I guess I will just wing it. Tomorrow me and another guy from ILM have to give a little talk on making the transition from being an artist to supervising people who were recently your peers. We have to fill 2 hours and I think we are both hoping there are lots of questions or it might be over pretty quickly. Anyway, after mingling with the people I noticed one guy using the software my department uses and he started to ask some questions. Everyone was starting to leave to go back to the hotel but I felt kind of bad leaving the guy so I stuck around for another hour trying to show him the correct way to use the software. He seemed to really appreciate it so it made me feel pretty good that I could help him out. All in all it was a pretty good day and everyone I have met here has been really nice. Everyone is going out to dinner tonight to a place that has a local specialty called 'peppered crab'. I am still feeling a little under the weather so I am going to stay in my hotel and hang out for a bit. TV kind of sucks here, they have ESPN but is the international version so it mostly has soccer or rugby on it. They did play the Red Sox game live on Sunday and for some reason they replayed last weeks Monday Night Football. Other than that you have CNN, National Geographic, and a couple of channels that seem filled with Seinfeld or Cheers. There is also a channel that plays the Amazing Race from a couple of years ago. Other than that it is all asian channels. I am thinking I might just jump into bed early and watch a DVD on my laptop. Jet Lag sucks.

I have added a picture of the receptionist area in our offices, a picture from lunch, and then 2 pictures I took from the area around the restaurant. The big plant is was really huge and you see this kind of lush vegetation everywhere. There is plenty of buildings and concrete but Singapore is still basically a big jungle and some of the people I have talked to said you see all kinds of snakes and lizards roaming freely if you get a little bit out of the city. I guess there used to be lots of monkeys but there aren't too many left.

Interesting things about Singapore

My first little learning experience came when I first got into my room. I first came into my room and tried to turn on the light and nothing. I figured the light was burned out and I tried another with no success. I then tried the bathroom light, the tv and still nothing. I was starting to think something was wrong with my room so I called the front desk. It turns out that in order to save energy here they have this little thing by the door of each room. You have to slide your room key into it to activate the power for your room. Not only that but you have to leave a key in it at all times in order for the AC to run while you are gone. Luckily I have 2 keys so I just leave one in the slot all the time or when I came back to my room it would be really hot and stuffy. You can't open the windows either which I guess is for the same reason. I would be nice to get some fresh air once in a while.

Another intersting thing about Singapore is that most people don't have cars. There are a couple of million people here so it is heavily populated but there aren't as many roads as back in the US. They don't want things to get overly congested here so they place a heavy tax on cars. If a car normally cost 30k in the US they add a 150% tax. So that car would cost you 75k grand to buy and after 10 years they add on some other hefty tax. Most families only own 1 car. When I say family I don't mean a husband, wife, and their kids, I mean the entire family. I guess it makes some sense because most families have several generations living in the same household. Women do not leave home until they get married and then they move into the house that their husband has with his family. Housing here is actually very expensive so people generally can't afford to live on their own. Because of all this public transportation is very good here. Lots of buses, a bart like train, and cabs everywhere. We have been taking cabs a lot and they are really pretty cheap so it is nice. Overall I haven't found it to be cheap here at all. Things are really about the same as in the US. A lot of people I have talked to frequently travel to other contries that are close like Vietnam and Thailand. They are supposed to be really cheap. Some of the guys I met today said you can go to Thailand for the weekend and after the flight you can have a very nice weekend and only spend $70 US for food, hotel, and everything. In Singapore it seems a lot more modern than what I picture many of the smaller Asian countries to be. This is the week of some big Indian religious holiday so I am hoping we can get to a part of town called little india. We drove by today in a cab and it was very brightly decorated. It is supposed to be called the festival of the lights and I hear that it looks pretty neat at night.

There seems to be one main freeway type of road that runs down the middle of Singapore. Is very much like the freeways at home and 3 lanes each way. Much like in the US, there is a divider running down the middle with lots of plants and trees. In the middle of one long stretch all the plants and bushes are in these large plastic pots rather then planted in the ground. The reason for this is so they can be moved if needed to convert in the freeway into a big military landing strip. Hopefully that doesn't happen while I am here.;)

All the cab drivers we have had so far seem to listen to American music. It is that easy listening kind of music that you hear at the dentists office. The odd thing is that none of the music seems to be sung by the original artists. I don't know why but they are all cover songs that are done by artists that kinda sound like the original artist.

All the cab drivers are men and usually older men. The people here refer to them as uncle. It is considered a sign of respect. They also call the older women you see in stores or in housekeeping aunt for the same reason.

Almost everyone I have encountered here speaks english, some of the not very good but at least you can communicate with them. I have heard that this isn't the case in most of the other asian countries.

The Night Safari

Sunday night we visited one of the big tourist attractions here called the night safari. I was held at the zoo and the idea is the animals are most animals are more active at night. It was pretty amazing. It had a Disneyland like quality because it was very crowded for a Sunday night. You right on tram that had open cars like the ones you ride on at Universal Studios with a tour guide. NONE of the animal cages had fences. The man eating animals like the lions and tigers had these big ditches so presumably they couldn't get to the tram but for many animals is was just like you were riding through their cages. Things like the zebras, giraffes and elephants were a good distance away but it seemed that if they really wanted you they could get you. Some animals like the various types of deer, goats and these crazy looking tapers were literally right next to the car. It was really interesting. There was a bunch of things you could walk around and see but jet lag has hit in for most of us and we just took the 45 minute tram ride and then went back to the hotel. The zoo was actually located in a small piece of the rain forest. I think I heard somewhere that Singapore was only one or 2 cities in the world that actually has a rain forest inside the city limits. Oh yeah, did I mention that is was REALLY hot and humid here? I was sweating just sitting on the tram ride because it doesn't really cool down at night. It goes from really hot during the day to pretty hot at night. You couldn't take any flash pictures during the tram ride because I guess that would ruin the experience but I did take a couple of pictures leading up to the tram.

pictures

8440 miles...

8440 miles…


Eight thousand four hundred and forty miles. That is how far I traveled to today. I have to say that flying business class is worth it’s weight in gold. The first time I realized this was when we got to SFO. I jumped in the back of a really long line to check in. Fortunately, before I waited too long I saw a tiny little line marked ‘business class’. The seats in business class are awesome. You can recline all the way to a laying postion which makes sleeping much easier. There is a TV with tons of movies and tv shows that are free and on demand, so you can watch them whenever you want. The food is great too and they give you lots of it. I was one of the lucky ones and I was able to sleep for a long time which made the flight a breeze. I ended up sitting next to a lady who was heading to Singapore and Hong Kong for business. She was very friendly and that helped a lot too. We had about an hour lay over in Hong Kong where we left the plane and went out into the main terminal. It looked like just about every other large airport but all the store names and signs were written in bothJapanese and English. Free wifi all over the airport was great too. So right now I am in the middle of the flight between Hong Kong and Singapore and I really feel much better than expected. A shower will be very welcome but I got about 9 hours of sleep (thanks to a little Nyquil nighttime cold medicine) and I feel pretty good. Time is a little screwed up for me but I am sure I will make the adjustment somehow. It is a 10am on Sunday here and back home it is 7pm on Saturday.

I just met up with my coworkers and we went out for a little lunch. Pretty hot here and definitely muggy. I found myself without any Singapore money so I had to venture out to find an ATM. They aren't on every corner here like in the US. There is a mall close by so I finally found on there. Hopefully the exchange rate isn't too bad through the ATM. We are going to meet up again for dinner and then go on a night safari at the Singapore zoo. Not quite sure what to expect but I guess the animals are more active at night.

I included a couple of pictures but since this is my first post I am not sure how they will work. There is a Burger King everywhere. This picture is from the Hong Kong airport. The picture of the buildings is from my hotel room. The other picture is me and a couple of my coworkers. The guy in the middle is John Knoll won an Oscar last year for Pirates of the Carribean 2. The guy on the right is my travel buddy, Pat Tubach. I will try to post more tomorrow and let you know how the night safari went.

-Mike