Table Mountain

Cape Town sits in a valley surrounded by a small. yet beautiful mountain range. The center piece of this range is Table Mountain (some others include the 12 Apostles, and the Lion's Head).

To get up there you have to take a cable car. Unlike the small 6 seater in Gulmarg, Kashmir, this one held 60 and it rotated as you climbed, giving you a full panoramic view during the ride.

The vistas from the top of the mountain were majestic. And the strong winds and chilling cold actually added to the experience.

Good times were had. :-)

Chris working the queue

Way to the top

The cable car - kinda scary to think you are just being held by a wire

Valhalla...I mean the top station

Panorama

View of Robben Island

Bombay is -> that way->

CPT Pics - Part 1

The photo-essay of my Cape Town jaunt will begin with the home grounds.

The hood we are staying at. Around the most expensive real estate in the African Continent.

The inside digs - Totally Fab! Many Thanks to Mark Kirkland for renting it to us.

View from the apt

FINALLY Re-united with Chris and Dave - Thought it would never happen.

I've missed them heaps.Camps Bay - Primo Real Estate - View of the 12 Apostles range

And that was day 1 :-)

South African Beauty

Time in Cape Town seems to fly by, and the sad part is that it's not like life is that hectic. I can't believe that I have been here almost 5 days already, and only 2 more to go. How tragic!

Cape Town is absolutely gorgeous. To me it has the feel of the love child of Miami and San Francisco. Without the pretentiousness. So far my travels within Africa include a few cities in Ghana, a couple in Uganda, some in Egypt, and Zanzibar, Tanzania. Cape Town does not feel like Africa in comparison. The other places did fit into the stereotypes somewhat. Maybe it's because I'm staying close to the most expensive real estate in the African continent. Or the sumptuous gourmet meals and endlessly flowing wine (I think we've drank half a vineyard at this point - and that's not counting the tour of the wine country we did yesterday).

The odd part is that I think I have seen more black people in India than I have seen in this city. Not quite sure what is going on and I would hate to venture a guess in this medium.

In any case, an amusing anecdote that highlights my need to be less cynical:

On Monday night, the boys and I went to "The Bronx", one of the local watering holes, for some adult beverages. While there I was making eye-contact an eventually small talk, which led to flirting with a guy who introduced himself as Marco. He said he was a movie director and was here filming a TV commercial for German ice cream. I smiled and nodded (he was uber-cute after all), but wasn't sure if to believe him once he said that he's next movie stars Kevin Kline and is coming out in August. I was like, sure if you say so. Then I IMDB'ed him - and OMG he was for real! Oops! He turned out to be a super sweet guy. Wish we could have hung out more, but he was strapped to work. Maybe our paths will cross again some day. Who knows maybe I can get invited to the premier of "Trade". He showed me the preview and played me some of the songs of the soundtrack. It looks really good. Definitely worth checking out. Keep your eyes out for it in August.

Cape Town Bound

Yey! The much awaited and fought for trip is finally here!! South African Airways Flight 251 FINALLY took me to Cape Town, South Africa.

I landed on Sunday at 12:30PM, after a 9 hour flight from BOM-JNB, with a 3 hour lay-over in JNB. The rest of the day was spent chilling with Chris and Dave and the rest of their posse. Meeting new people that came, and catching up with others I hadn't seen in a long time.

Capetown is such a beautiful place. Up to know I have visited Ghana in West Africa, Uganda and Tanzania in East Africa, and Egypt in North Africa. And Cape Town DOES NOT feel like Africa. I was warned about it before I got here, but it truly did take seeing for believing.

Now that I know where I can get a net connection I'll try to post some pics in the coming days.

~~~~~~

PS: Being the control queen that he is Anthony decided to hoard all of the Kashmir pics and post them on his blog (personally i think he's jealous that I get more traffic that he does and he wanted to boost his numbers).

So anyway to see pics of the Srinagar weekend go to: http://ionlyflyfirst.blogspot.com/

Mission Kashmir

So my dear, dear friend Anthony was visiting me during his forced holiday (don't you just hate people who earned so much leave that they are forced to take a vacation or loose the time) and we decided to take a weekend trip to Srinagar, Kashmir (I had won a free ticket on Go Air, and we've both been wanting to go).

Kashmir, turned out to be more beautiful than we expected. The scenic beauty of the mountain range which surrounds the Kashmir valley cannot be done justice with mere words. Alas, I do not have any pictures because Anthony refused to give me copies, much like the pictures from Spain that he took that I am eagerly awaiting.

Our getaway also took us to Gulmarg, the epicenter of India's skying industry (who the fuck new India had a skying industry!?).

Between the warm and beautiful people, the meat-heavy food (there was this one meatball dish, which is 1-part meat to 2-parts fat, boiled, fried in butter, and then covered in a cream sauce - you can actually hear your arteries clogging) a wonderful time was spent.

All I can say at this point, is that I HIGHLY recommend a jaunt to extreme north of India. Maybe someday, when Anthony deems it worthy to share the pictures I can write more.

When your life is mocked by comic strips

Sigh. Thanks to Chris for pointing it out.

Technical Difficulties

To continue my never ending streak of bad luck since I have moved to Mumbai, every piece of technology that I own or am associated with has died, malfunction, or just plainly crapped out.

For my move to India, my father arranged for a laptop for me. Though, it's a bit on the older side, it did everything I needed. It was a savior for me in being able to work from home. In Kolkata, there was no office space, so with out my own laptop I couldn't have worked. In, Mumbai, it's just easier to work from home. However, in January the motherboard died. Sigh.

Right before moving to India, I bought myself a new digital camera as a birthday present to myself. I kinda splurged. It wasn't exactly top of the line, but it was really good and I loved it. I really didn't use it much since I moved to Mumbai. I became a bit photo-lazy. A few months ago, the motherboard died. Sigh.

As a graduation present from Grad School in 2005, the ever lovable Chris and Dave (the sponsors of my trip to Capetown in March) gifted me an iPod. This simple device is a godsend (for those of you who do not own one yet - come it's 2007 already, get one!) when you are stuck in traffic, on flights or at the airport, at the gym, everywhere really. It's like your own little escape. Mine decided to stop working six months after moving to Mumbai, right after the warranty expired. Since India does not have an Apple Service Center, I gave it to Anthony to send it to the shop in London. I recently found out that the motherboard died. It would cost more to fix it than to buy a new one. Sigh.

I didn't even know iPods and cameras had motherboards!

Since I've moved to Mumbai I've gone through 2 different pen drives. I didn't even know they could break. My office computer needs to be services every other week. The office Internet doesn't work for more than 3 days at a time. And for the past 2 weeks the net at home and office decided it didn't want to work anymore. Double Sigh.

So now. As I sit at the net cafe trying to catch-up with email and other online business. I wonder what kinda of rite/ritual/ceremony can I do. To get rid of this technological black cloud that is plaguing my existence.


PS: Anthony in a rare act of compassion decided to give me an early birthday present and gifted me a new iPod. Thank You Anthony! Let's see how long it lasts.

Gyming

In India, or Mumbai at least, the act of going to the gym for what one hopes is some sort of productive physical activity has its own verb - Gyming (I think Indians love making up words in English - maybe it's their personal way of getting back at the British for two hundred years of colonial rule).

I know that I'm never going to be "third-world thin", but since I will be back stateside in 3 months I have to make sure that I don't look "industrial-nation fat" either.

Yes, the subtle encouragements of Asif did have something to do with dragging my sagging ass to the gym again. But it was more when fat people starting commenting on how much weight I've put on that I started to get worried.

The thing is that I don't think I'm fat. Out of all the issues I may have, body dysmorphic disorder is not one of them. No I'm not buff or toned, but at 5'11" (180 cm) and 172 lbs (78 kg), that is a BMI of 24 - technically on the normal side (if even if it's in the shadow of overweight).

But still conform it's hard to be judgemental on others if you ain't looking so hot yourself.

~~~~

Ameet - I think this one beats the vanity of the previous one :-)

On Male Models

Has everyone out there seen Zoolander? Well, My life has became part of that movie :-( or maybe :-) depending on perspective.

In November, my friend Asif needed a place to crash temporarily.

In December, he started paying rent.

Keep in mind that I have a 1 bedroom apartment and he's a straight single male.

Sweet as pie, adorable as a teddy bear, hot as fuck, not the brightest bulb in the box.

Now the living room belongs to him. We share a bathroom. And I have to put up with comments like "You know Andy, you could be really hot if you worked out" or my current favorite "Have you gained weight, you look kinda fat." Sigh. The sad part is he really doesn't mean anything by it. He's just being friendly.

Here I am trying to work on my self-esteem issues and I have this guy walking around in his underwear.

The cool part is that I get to go to all the fun parties in Bombay. But to be honest that gets really old, really fast, and I just don't have the energy for it anymore.

So for now, I just smile and nod, help him with his English. Teach him how to do laundry and wash dishes on your own (unlike most Indian households we don't have help). And for the most part enjoy the company.

He's a nice guy even if he doesn't have any body fat, but I guess they can't all be perfect.

Indian Racist Hypocrasy

Shilpa Shetty, an Indian Bollywood actress, has been getting a lot of attention due to racist "bullying" she was subjected to as a contestant in the British show "Celebrity Big Brother".

The Times of India, had an interesting commentary on racism in India. And as an outside observer I would have to agree with the author.

I don't think any Indian would deny that in India looking east Asian or "African" is not really a good thing.

The blatant discrimination against black people may possibly only be surpassed by the discrimination against women.

But still Indians were up-in-arms when they were the victims of stupid racial slurs.

Don't you love the fact that we as people can "dish it out, but we can't take it." Sigh.

It Could Have Been Worse!

The ever bubbly Erin pointed out that whatever happened to my lip "hey it could have been worse." Which I guess it's true. But I just don't really feel it when I look at the mirror and see a giant scar splitting my lip in two (it looks like a have a mini-butt on my bottom lip).

Then Erin sends me this article:
http://dlisted.com/2007/01/25/pete-burns-sue-for-botched-lips/

And I said, yep it could have been worse. At least I still have lips!

Anthony had mentioned Pete Burn's botched lip job, but I really had no clue what he was talking about. I just smiled and nodded.

So, now a week a way from the date the docs said I would be fully healed, it does not look like my lip will be back to normal. It honestly doesn't look that bad. But my vanity prevails as I remember what my lip USED to look like. Sigh.

Visited Countries

The fabulous people at World 66 have created a fun tool that lets you map out how many countries you have visited and which percentage of the world is that. I have visited 23 countries, which is 10% (actually I will actually be visiting South Africa in March, but I figured it would be OK to add it now - hope its not cheating). More than some, less than others. But still not bad considering I'm a puertorican from an average family.


create your own visited country map

In this day and age of globalization, I think we forget sometimes just how big the world has a:

Surface area:	510,065,600 km²
Land area:	148,939,100 km² (29.2 %)
Water area:	361,126,400 km² (70.8 %)

That it is composed of:

• 202 sovereign states:
  • 193 states with general international recognition:
    • 192 member states of the United Nations (UN).
    • 1 state with general international recognition but not UN membership, governed by the Holy See (a UN permanent observer), the Vatican City.
  • 9 states lacking general international recognition, none of which are UN members, that are nonetheless defined as states in the body of customary international law, drawing on the precedent of the Montevideo Convention:
    • 1 state, no longer a UN member since late 1971, recognized by 23 UN member states and the Holy See (Vatican City), and currently with de facto international relations with many others, the Republic of China (commonly referred to as Taiwan).
    • 1 state, recognized by 43 UN member states but never admitted to the UN itself, with most of its claimed territory under Moroccan de facto administration, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Western Sahara.
    • 1 state, member of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, recognized by Arab states and some other UN members though never itself a UN member, with no sovereignty over its claimed territories, the State of Palestine in the Palestinian territories.^[2]
    • 6 de facto independent states lacking any significant measure of diplomatic recognition from other states:
      • 1 de facto independent state, diplomatically recognized by no UN member states except Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.^[3]
      • 5 de facto independent states, namely Abkhazia,^[4] Nagorno-Karabakh,^[5] Pridnestrovie,^[6] Somaliland,^[7] and South Ossetia,^[8] none recognized by any UN member states.
• 36 inhabited dependent territories:
  • 3 external territories of Australia (Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Norfolk Island).
  • 2 overseas countries in the Kingdom of Denmark (Greenland and Faroe Islands).
  • 5 overseas territories of France:^[9]
    • 1 sui generis (unique) community (New Caledonia).
    • 4 overseas communities:
      • 1 territorial community (Saint Pierre and Miquelon)
      • 1 territory (Wallis and Futuna)
      • 1 overseas country (French Polynesia)
      • 1 departmental community (Mayotte)
  • 2 overseas countries in the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Aruba and Netherlands Antilles).
  • 3 dependent territories of New Zealand:
    • 2 states in free association with New Zealand (Cook Islands and Niue).
    • 1 overseas territory (Tokelau).
  • 16 dependent territories of the United Kingdom:
    • 3 Crown dependencies (Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man).
    • 13 overseas territories (Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena (and its dependencies Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha), Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia).
  • 5 unincorporated territories of the United States:
    • 2 commonwealths (Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico).
    • 2 organized territories (Guam and U.S. Virgin Islands).
    • 1 de facto organized territory lacking an Organic Act (American Samoa).
• 5 areas of special sovereignty:
  • 4 special entities recognized by international treaty or agreement (Åland in Finland, Svalbard in Norway, as well as the 2 special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China - Hong Kong and Macau).
  • 1 UN-administered territory inside the de jure territory of a sovereign state and under de jure sovereignty of that sovereign state (Kosovo in Serbia under UN interim civilian administration).

As of late 2006, the world population reached 6.5 billion.^[1]. These are grouped into racial and ethnic groups often classified along linguistic lines:

• Indo-European peoples
  • Balto-Slavic peoples
    • Baltic peoples
    • Slavic peoples
      • East Slavs
      • West Slavs
      • South Slavs
  • Indo-Iranian peoples
    • Indo-Aryan peoples
    • Iranian peoples
    • Nuristani peoples
    • Dardic peoples
  • Germanic peoples
  • Celtic peoples
  • Romance peoples
  • Other Indo-European peoples (including Albanians, Greeks, and Armenians)
• Caucasian peoples
  • South Caucasian peoples
  • North Caucasian peoples
    • Northwest Caucasian peoples
    • Nakh peoples
    • Northeast Caucasian peoples
• Uralic peoples
  • Samoyedic peoples
  • Finno-Ugric peoples
    • Finnic peoples
    • Ugric peoples
• Altaic peoples
  • Turkic peoples
  • Mongolian peoples
  • Tungusic peoples
• Chukotko-Kamchatkan peoples
• Afro-Asiatic peoples
  • Semitic peoples
  • Kushitic peoples
  • Chadic peoples
  • Berber peoples
  • Omotic peoples
  • Egyptian peoples
• Niger-Kordofan peoples
  • Niger-Congo peoples
    • Benue-Congo peoples (including Bantu)
    • Kwa peoples
    • Gur peoples
    • Western Atlantic peoples
    • Mande peoples
    • Adamawa-Eastern peoples
  • Kordofan peoples
• Nilo-Saharan peoples
• Khoisan peoples
• Dravidian peoples
• Sino-Tibetan peoples
  • Chinese peoples
  • Tibeto-Burman peoples
• Hmong-Mien peoples
• Tai peoples
• Austro-Asiatic peoples
• Austronesian peoples
  • Formosans
  • Malay peoples
    • Malaysian Malay peoples
  • Chamic peoples
  • East Timorese peoples
  • Filipino peoples
  • Indonesian peoples
    • Malagasy peoples
  • Pacific Islanders
    • Melanesians
    • Micronesians
    • Polynesians
• Papuan peoples
• Australian peoples
• Eskimo-Aleut peoples
• Na-Dene peoples
• Amerind peoples (several thousand ethnic and linguistic groups)
• Other peoples (including Japanese, Koreans, Basque, Burusho, Ainu, Nivkhs, Andamanese, Ket, Yukaghir, Nihals, Mbugu, Tasmanian Aborigines)

Ethnologue lists about 7,330 main languages in its language name index and distinguishes about 39,491 alternate language names and dialects.

So where does globalization fit into this picture. I for one, just want to try to explore it all, see it all, experience it all before I run out of time. It's a big world outhere.

Back-Blog: Lakme Fashion Week Spring/Summer

I've been meaning to post these pics forever, but I always found some excuse. So FINALLY...

Last Oct/Nov my friends Dev r Nil showcased their S/S '07 collection during Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai to much acclaim (they even got nominated to have a runaway show in Sydney Fashion week!). I wasn't able to be there all of the time, but Ankur was and he took some great behindthe scenes pics.