Sunday at home.

Home -- with friends. As if I weren’t spoiled enough alreadddddddyyyy! I was treated to an absolutely incredible lunch at the home of my new friend Shalini. Lovely home, complete with a housekeeper that works 7-4 each day for the US-equivalent of $50/month, pictured here preparing lunch. (Don’t worry Mom, I’ll move you and Dad with me should the need arise.) We had a fabulous meal of chicken briyani, vegetable kurma, some amazingly spiced pork fry, the best sambar I’ve eaten (ever!) in India, various roti and dal and rice pappads. OMG – heaven with spice. We spent the afternoon just hanging out – we watched some cricket, I heard India news’ take on the impacts of the presidential choice on Tuesday (they believe it will be all the same for India whether we elect Obama or McCain), mused over a story on the end of “Black October” in the financial markets… and played with Shalini’s "boys" (one a mutt – Simba, the “country dog”, and the other a long-haired rambunctious German Shepherd, Bariga, with even more energy than my friend, Michelle).

Following an afternoon of laziness, we were prepped for another shopping excursion. The math just doesn’t add up: Michelle and Shalini aren’t “double-trouble” – they’re something on the magnitude of 1E+20! So first we were good girls, going to mass at one of my favorite churches anywhere: Francis Xavier Cathedral (Michelle’s home church). I got to see her parents again – they’re just such sweethearts. Then Deepak drove “the girls” (my gracious, his patience is endless) to Commercial Street where I bought lots of stuff. The only thing you need to read about is my gulab jamoons – Heaven in a sponge-cake! Oh, how I love India.

W.O.

[Yes, Denise – that one’s for you!] So – along my travels yesterday, I made friends with a local (political) celebrity. While having some masala dosa in an outdoor garden restaurant ("truck stop") on our way to Halebid & Belur, my travelling companions’ eyes opened wide and they smiled and nodded as if the Pope were approaching. Well, the man was wearing white – but not quite the pontiff robes. He disappeared into the “special people zone” (i.e., where the tea is hot and the bathrooms are clean) and they excitedly told me that he was Deve Gowda [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._D._Deve_Gowda] – a political figure that was the 12th Prime Minister of India and the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, is still head of the Janta Dal (Secular) political party, and reportedly owns more than half the acreage in the State of Karnataka.

So you know what happened, folks: I was on a mission!

We finished our breakfast snack and didn’t know whether he was napping back there in the Special People Zone or what?! Next thing you know, he appears through the underbrush and my friend’s fiancé makes a run for him. Cameras get tossed, “handlers” clear for the shot, and I’m making a photo stop with local royalty. :-) God, I love this country! My friends swear he was smiling (??? maybe on the inside?). They told me it was fortunate he agreed to the photo because most higher level politicos (him included) are well known for “snobbing” the people they serve and walking away without even an acknowledgement. I can never vote for him… I cannot contribute to his causes or campaigns… and my friends say it’s just amazing he agreed to a shot with “the American girl”… and he’s smiling!

Death by pothole.

The trip to Halebid and Belur were an eye-opener. Not so much for the beautiful temples (and they were!)… but for the amazingly terrible road conditions. This woke me up to the fact that if India had decent infrastructure (we already know electrical load is an issue – but roads weren’t so much in my visibility) that the global footprint of business in India would be exponentially increased.
Much of the time was on the road with Michelle (my energy-ball friend from work), her fiance’ Deepak (not Chopra), and her cousin’s wife (but could be a sister) Shalini. We stopped a few times before the temples – Café Coffee (one of only two places in the world good enough for tea for Michelle), a stop for breakfast break @ Maurya Hotel (complete with celebrity sighting), another stop for a “proper lunch” in Hassan (OMG – I paid. Lunch for four - bigggggg lunch: 150RMB = $3USD.) And I knew I loved this town -- middle of the town square is a statue commemorating a cow.

Once reached, the temples were truly amazing. Halebid (Hale=Old; Bid=Ruins; Halebid = "Old Ruins”) was built in 1117AD. The temple took 103 years to build and was designed in honor of the god named Vishnu. Vishnu took many forms, but only once took the form of a female – to slay a demon. The temple is named “Chenna Keshwara” – or ‘Beautiful Vishnu.’ There are 10,000 carvings around this temple – of which 92 were stolen or destroyed when the temple was attacked by Muslims. (When will these guys ever learn just to let people follow their own way?)
The second temple (Belur) was older and a little more worse-for-wear, as would be expected. Now, I’m not complaining – these temples were built prior to 1200 A.D. Last time I looked, nothing in my home country that still stands was built until at least five centuries after that!

Tomorrow -- NOT just another day at the office!

So – my first “real” weekend… and the spoiling continues! My friend who last year took me to Iskon – the fabulous contemporary Hindu temple here in Bangalore… she and her fiancé are taking me temple hopping to ancient temples 130 miles north of Bangalore. We’ll climb, we’ll gawk, and…. there will be SNAPS! You got it, folks! The return of something interesting and photographic to this blog! Stay tuned – tomorrow should be worth the wait!

India -- where you can have your cake... and WEAR it, too!

I will never visit India on my birthday -- not after today. Today the staff invited me to come for the presentation of the monthly birthday cakes… Most offices/teams do something similar – end of month mini-celebrations to commemorate the birthdays of various team members… definitely NOT the place I was expecting a surprise. Lovely cakes. Smiling faces. And then the “event coordinator” (we always know our own kind!) cuts a corner off the cake and approaches the birthday boy. What I thought was going to be a sweet offering to him of his birthday cake completely took me by surprise: she smashed it all over his face! And then the melee began – all three birthday boys had their cakes smeared all over their faces by their teammates! Apparently this was no surprise – it’s LOCAL CUSTOM! Some tried to turn away, but clearly all knew this was part of the deal. It’s painful enough to add another year – but I think these guys experienced some physical pain. I know the moisturizing properties of a smeared-in blueberry cheesecake must be good for the skin, but these guys had to scrub to get that stuff off their faces! Just another day of living, learning, and loving… India.

A stitch in time...

Saves none, actually, but where in the States could I get such one-of-a-kind pieces?

I’ve been getting a little restless. Being in the office from 8:30am to 10pm most days, the proverbial walls are starting to close in on me. I’m due a “field trip” (i.e., stress break) and one of my friends here took me back to the boutique where I had a couple of skirts “stitched” after the BritishAir luggage fiasco of last October. What better souvenir could there be? I have two skirts on the way – due next Tuesday. The fabrics are lusssssh. I can't wait to see them!

Closets are made for filling and I just completed a strategic Goodwill re-stocking exercise. Goodness knows I have to fill in the newly created gaps – so why not get a couple of kirtas as well?! So in addition to two skirts, I’ll also add two distinctive blouses to the bored-robe. The kirtas are both to be made of raw silk – one in my 'signature color' [black :-)] and the other in a very distinctive teal fabric with a red thread running through it that almost makes the fabric change color depending on the angle you see it from. The black one will have golden-copper beading along the neckline and sleeves. Oh – and get this! I’ll have matching purses made for each of them (along with a contrasting black stole that mirrors the beaded edging). Am I spoiled or what?! Have I said lately how much I love India?

P.S. And I got my two-stroke engine Auto-Rickshaw rides in. Yes, plural. I’ve traded in my traditional smells of autumn (wood fires and chili) for the smell of burning diesel and coconut water (very popular here - they chop the top off of the green coconut and you drink the liquid inside via straw).

Home is where you hang your hat.

I develop routines on these long-haul trips. I open my balcony door while I’m getting ready for work every morning. It’s perfect fall weather here (as opposed to Tennessee where it has been down in the frigid 30-degree range several mornings this week). Once you learn to breathe through all the gunpowder residue left over from the prior evening’s “crackers”… you can really enjoy talking to the pigeons that land on the balcony and cluck at you. Then I take breakfast outside by the pool – where the locals think the mid-60s temp is freezing and beg me to wear a coat so I don’t catch a cold! As with the last visit to Bangalore, I make fast friends with the hotel staff who introduce me to cool off-menu items they think I’ll coooo over (and cooo, I do….).

The office was closed on Monday for the official “work holiday” of Divali, so (God forbid) I got to go shopping. A friend of mine here was gracious enough to take me to all my favorite places – lunch at InfiniTea where I buy the most incredible loose tea to bring home (basil is my favorite), two close encounters with more rugs that my home in Tennessee is just “incomplete” without (they were very close encounters – but my wallet was spared), drive-by shootings (digital, guys!) of local landmarks, and an end of day treat walking through lush water gardens at a local resort that would rival anything Vegas offers (complete with fountains filled with floating rose petals – I LOVE India!).

And now, a word from our sponsors.

This is, of course, a work trip. And I avoid talking too much about work (as I’ve said – what idiot would want to hear THOSE stories)? But there’s one I just have to share… So Sunday (after my 3am flight arrival), I went into the office around noon and worked well through the evening. While hammering away at emails, I heard men yelling and carrying on. Due to the holiday celebrations, it was complete chaos outside in the streets. Fireworks – big booming fireworks, people running and yelling… I tried to ignore what seemed to be a mounting coup just outside my door. And then one of the staff came to get me – and told me to bring my camera. Heaven forbid, what COULD this be?

So – to back up a bit… my “Martha Stewart + Toolbelt 2008 World Tour” has been extended: I packed up my power drill and caulk gun and moved them from China to India! We’ve been working on a major lab expansion for several months now and my visit here coincides with the completion of our new lab construction. It’s like building any house – two weeks before final walk-through the place is a disaster… nails and wood chunks everywhere, cabling bundles hanging from the ceilings, exposed wires and “discarded” saw blades and such.

Still interested in the screaming gaggle of ganders? Well… software company labs are filled with hardware and electricity. And it takes big equipment to make those things cooperate – from the electrical panels that control the balance of the power load to huge wall-sized AC units that keep the heat output from frying the sensitive electronics in the equipment. The coup forming outside my office… was the sound of human effort required to move that heavy equipment into place. Up three flights of stairs! Yep – you heard it… The screaming represented a group effort of about 20 wiry men (half my size!) all hoisting those ton-sized units up three flights of stairs and then through the floor of an office building to our newly constructed lab site. Another shocker – most all of them were barefoot. (Although I had a recent tetanus shot, all the spent/bent nails on that lab floor made my toenails curl!) My local colleague who told me to bring my camera assured me that those guys had “natural shoe leather”… but the sight of 20 men lifting and moving over a ton of equipment by jute ropes and sheer willpower was something I will not soon forget.

Where do you begin when you're this far behind?

Haven’t really updated you since I arrived in India… I have been working a LOT of hours here and there hasn’t been much room for ‘play’ yet. Lucky me, though, I get to celebrate the holidays three times this year! First, I hit the Chinese New Year celebrations back in February. Now, I’ve hit Divali (aka Deepavali) here in India. And with any luck, I’ll get my very own Christmas @ home. Three “big” holidays in one year!

So – Divali (the Festival of Lights) is the primo holiday in India. Depending on your religious affiliation, it could be one of three different days that occurred this week. Not inclined to leave anyone out, seems everyone in Bangalore is celebrating ALL THREE DAYS. So, what does this really mean for me? Fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks. I wake to them every day… and I am lulled to sleep by their snap-crackle-pop. [ Well, either that... or the 14-16hr workdays. :-) ]

My Passage to India.

The three sweetest words in the Traveller’s Language:

• All
• Luggage
• Arrived

Life is good as I sit here beside the pool enjoying breakfast. This is no ordinary weekend – it's the weekend before Divali, the Festival of Lights (equivalent to Christmas in the US). Visiting families have changed the once-quiet pool into a puddle of giggles and squeals. I had an epiphany sitting here eating breakfast – drinking my watermelon juice (they don’t have that at Fresh Market!) and my South Indian coffee… I like the food here so much because (with a touch more spice variety), it’s very much like southern food in America: fried and heavy on the potatoes. Of course I love it! Just took me a return trip to figure it out.

So backing up a couple of days… everything in China went great (after my remodeling meltdown). The Grand Opening ceremony was beautifully delivered by our Marketing teams and the Support Center looked fantastic for its official debut. I couldn’t adore the team more – what a cute bunch they are! All of them are very different – and each of them are just lovely, sweet people. They’re going to be fantastic!

We had a wonderful celebration dinner at “the most famous” restaurant in Dalian. Now don’t dismiss that… Dalian is a large cosmopolitan city with 3 million residents in the city limits and another 3 million in the outlying areas. Everywhere I turned I was greeted with shop storefronts I see in San Francisco, LA, and other world-class cities. So – back to the dining… :-) WanBao Seafood. 5 stories tall and looks like Vegas – inside and out! We had a table for 28, and I didn’t know whatttt to expect. So turns out this is a huge (“gi-normous”) round table – maybe 7 meters (21’) in diameter – with a huge mound of flowers in the middle of the table with a big chandelier, and then… reachable from the diners’ seats… an inside ring that rotated so that dishes placed on the ring were in constant rotation around the guests’ seating. Pretty nifty. I’m thinking about converting at home!

Tracy (my godsend for the week – what a trooper! there’s nothing she couldn’t coordinate!) and I, accompanied by a couple of ‘curious georges’ from our group, toured through the “market” on the first floor to choose the meal. Here was another learning experience in China… I entertain. I cook Southern (nice, fancy Southern – but still, typically, for Southern appetites and behaviors). I know that everybody wants to try everything and have learned over the years that if you prepare 20 dishes, people will want to try all 20. You wind up cooking a WHOLE LOT MORE – and a whole lot more goes to waste. I’ve learned it’s more effective to prepare larger quantities of really neat dishes than to spread it thin and dilute things with a bunch of normal to boring dishes. So that was my mindset – pick 7-8 dishes and get 4-5 “batches” of each. Tracy knew better. She and I kept having this tug-of-war, because I’d point at something and order four, and she’d want to adjust it to two… Competing philosophies… Well, when we got upstairs (I hadn’t seen our room and the gi-normous rotating tabletop yet), then I understood why. Tapas (‘small bites’) have become very popular in America recently. Although these dishes were prepared family style, everyone got just a bite or two onto their plates as a dish circled by. We could’ve had 4 dishes or 40 – and everyone still would have tried a bite or two of each and been done. As it was, it was perfect (thanks to Tracy). Variety IS the spice of life… And I have another cultural lesson under my proverbial belt for the next time I (try to) entertain in China.

So – on a personal note (if you’re reading this, you must be F&F – friends & family – so you get the whole deal…): I now have a new trend – but it’s a story to share, so here goes. On my last trip to China I had my first flare up of gout. OMG. My Mom has had gout over the years, so has my brother… so why was I surprised when it hit me? :-) In July, I hobbled all over the place on my visit to China and wore Crocs sandals the entire time. This time, it hit the last day (of course, the biggggg day….). So for those of you who don’t know what gout is – they call it a “rich man’s disease”… caused by rich foods, rich wine, etc. (ME?!?! ha.) It’s a chemical thing and something crystallizes in your joints – usually it settles in on a particular joint/joints, mine happens to be my left inside ankle. So these crystallized “things” in your joints cause sharp jabbing pains – horrible pain, intense swelling, etc. Cures are varied (as are intensity levels of “flare-ups”), but the worst is cured by medicine that breaks up the crystals and enables them to disperse through and be absorbed by the body (until the next flare-up).

So – Friday mid-day I realize what’s happening when my left ankle is double the size of my right ankle. Friday night I take the first round of meds (thank you, Mama). Saturday I fly. I had a longgggg layover in Hong Kong on my way to Bangalore and spent my time shopping in the airport, etc. On the way to my gate, there was a “Chinese Herbal Healing” massage shop. What the heck, I’ll try anything at this point. OMG*4. Having had pedicures for years and years, my feet aren’t terribly sensitive (comparatively, my Mom is a relative newcomer to the pedicure scene and it’s hysterical to watch her jump around when someone’s trying to work on her feet… sorry, Mama :-) ). So this woman @ the Hong Kong airport had me in tears. I yelped, I “ouched,” I gritted my teeth and squirmed. She was actually rubbing those crystals (harrrrrrd!) out of my ankle. She worked it and worked it – I swear, I thought she was gonna break them through the skin! It was amazing…. I could feel them (painfully) being pushed out of my ankle tissue and then she was running them up my leg (where there’s plenty of room for them to get lost – ha!). Just amazing. This morning, the swelling is significantly reduced and I think the pain is pretty much gone. I’m sure the meds got it started – but wow, was I impressed by that painful Chinese Foot Massage and a woman who spoke almost no English but saw my swollen ankle, knew what was wrong, and went straight to work.

Flights went fine, again. Lucky fortunate me. I arrived at the hotel around 3:30am and now am sitting by the pool enjoying breakfast, a breeze, and a lovely waiter who – true to my past stories – warms up when he realizes I’m interested in the food of his culture. By the time breakfast ended, two Indian hosts had adopted me and I have two other breakfast dishes I have to try (both typed into my Blackberry since my adopted hosts are on “Christmas vacation” tomorrow). Life is good.

I'm here...

Yes, I really am.

My nickname of “Martha (Stewart) with a toolbelt” has never been more true. But I’m jumping ahead… It has, after all, been four days since I lost contact with “my world” and a status update is in order. Flights were fine (if you call 20+hrs strapped in a steel cylinder at 30,000ft… “fine”). My planes landed where they were supposed to, when they were supposed to, and - for those who know the story - ALL my luggage arrived with me. (Say it with me, folks: Hallelujah!)

Coming to Dalian is like visiting my old college town or somewhere I used to live for a short time. After all, I’ve been here 3x more than my beloved San Jose this year (no comments from the Dining Divas, please!). There’s great comfort in being able to point your way to the office in a town where none – not one – of the taxi drivers speaks your language.

Work has been – well… absolutely frantic. Doing business in this environment is so much different than I have ever experienced. You can’t OVER-anticipate enough, and yet there are still things you just never imagined to consider. It has been a tough two days – one of my buddies who is here from our Bangalore office wrote another colleague in the States and said “Tonya’s not happy…” Made me laugh when I heard it, because the majority of you know that popular phrase: “When mama ain’t happy – ain't nobody happy!” Well, just call me MAMA! :-)

So my worldwide outreach on Martha (Stewart)’s behalf continues. I nearly ripped the drill out a Chinese tradesman’s hands, doled out instructions on toggle bolts through a translator, licked my finger and smoothed uneven caulk edges – all just part of my global goodwill campaign to teach the finer details of home craftsmanship to the masses. [wink!] I haven’t done thisssss much micro-managing in 15 years. Well, truth be told, it’s hard to micro-manage when the folks doing the work are so much smarter than you – so I guess the last 15yrs don’t count because I’ve been surrounded by mental giants who tolerate me romping through their technical forests.

So – meltdowns have been contained, the Dragon Lady is retreating to her campfire (“Long” = “Dragon” in China – but I swear they only call me the Dragon Lady out of affection!) I’ve washed the drywall dust out of my hair and tomorrow is the big day. From February to now, this has been on my “to do” list. I’m a little sad to see it get checked off the list, but am definitely thankful to have worked on this project. I’ll have far more uninterrupted nights (i.e., fewer 3am conference calls) – but sad that since my work here will be completed I won’t have as many opportunities to visit in-person and work face-to-face with the people I’ve grown to adore over here. Well, I suppose that’s what IM is for.

Enough rambling. Here’s your special-interest headline of the day: “Smiles are a universally accepted language.” Cheesy? You bet! But so so true in the majority of cases. I’m still amused at how a few (appropriate) hand gestures and a smile will get you through the ordering process in a restaurant where no one speaks your language, or for a taxi driver to wait (just a minute) while you grab money out of an ATM. I’m not insane – we all know there are GRUMPS out there. (And I’m talking real grumps – not you, WB.) But the majority of humans respond to a smile (sometimes accompanied by a small dose of patience). I now know this to be true because in China there’s no “Southern Factor” attached to me. They hear my accent as just some eager chick from the States, so no one decides I’m slow/harmless/”sweet” because I sound like a George Peach (with razor blades buried under the skin – tee-hee). So try it – bite your tongue or you cheek or whatever it takes to exercise an extra dose of “happy” this week and see if it makes a difference. Heck, we could make this a global experiment and who knows how much more livable the world might be… one smile at a time. (Cheese-filter now removed and tucked away. Back to work - the US should be waking up now!)

Off to ChIndia!

“ChIndia,” you say? Well, yes. I’m headed to China and then India for the next three weeks.

My trek to China begins early Monday morning, flying through Chicago and on to Shanghai before reaching my destination in Dalian. There’ll be no dilly-dallying in Dalian – I’m only on the ground for three PACKED days of work. This will be my third visit in the People’s Republic this year – and likely my last visit for a bit. My work here will be done with this trip, as we will have successfully opened a new branch of our company’s business with 14 vibrant happy “launch team” staff to take care of our growing customer base in the region. From China I’ll head over to India (lovely 16hr flight it is) to spend time with my work friends in Bangalore for the following two weeks.

This blog is likely to be a little different. I don’t know – we’ll have to see… I don’t write about the specifics of work (and for goodness sake, who would want to read about that?!), but usually I am able to make time to go see some pretty interesting things either before, after, or during weekends in the middle. This time, it just wasn’t possible to work in extra days – and I’ll be travelling one of the two weekends. So who knows what I’ll find to write about? I guess that’s part of the adventure! Perhaps you can live without seeing pix of the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the bullet trains of Tokyo, and Hindu temples with more gold than Fort Knox? We shall see. I take this as a challenge – a test – of my creativity and writing skills. (But I’m a geek like that – all of you know it!)

So from here I’ll likely “pick up the pen” middle of next week. For the reasons I listed above, it’s likely I won’t write as often. But, as always, I invite you to join me on the journey and hear the stories that help my family sleep well at night knowing I’m alive, well, and happy to be experiencing new things.

T.