Was shifting cities , to be more accurate... countries!
Here i am now , in a new country where only 1 in a million speaks my language , and 1 in about 100 speaks the universal language (English!) ... Now i might be wrong as far as these numbers go ...but thats what i have gathered till now.
This is the first time , I am staying out of my own country (and to think , i don't even know for how long!!!). Sure I have visited other countries in the past but this is the first time i have come to a country to work and stay on a NOT temporary basis. Clearly , the way of looking at things (different & similar to your country) changes when you are there to stay as against when you are only visiting for a few days. Everything that i notice now comes with the realisation , that i have to adapt myself to it ...and this discovery of something different is not just a "did you know" bit that i would narrate to my friends when i go back after my visit. (Sure i would tell my friends anyway ....but i would still have to be ok with all these things becoming a part of my life!)
Ok , so in the chapter of "Did you know" ...here are the first few things that struck me...
City of the dead : There is this place in the city where there are houses built over graves. Of course no one stays in them . They are just there to stand as the houses of those who are buried there, in their honour ...or maybe its just to provide them shelter even after they are dead. And its not just houses , its a full fledged replica of any residential area ...with road crossings , direction signals , street lights etc . And this extends to the entire stretch of a very long road (am refraining from numbers here ...so i don't know how many kms , but fairly long!). Spooky , eh?NO red lights : I come from a city where you encounter a red light every two minutes , so imagine my surprise when i found no red light on a 50 minute drive in the city . And that was no highway!! It was city driving. No red lights.........woo hoo! But no crossings either :( One has to go a long distance to take a U turn and then come to the other side . To be accurate , there are some red lights as i was told but people believe that following them would only lead to accidents!
Excellent Roads - No rains hence fantastic roads. Pity i wouldn't be driving my own car here (I have decided against it as its too much effort trying to get a local driving license , paper work for the car , loan etc ,.,....and then the worry of reselling when i have to come back later sometime) .Maybe , i would change my mind later . But left hand driving? Hope its not too much of a confusion converting to this system if i do change my mind. But given that i have a very poor sense of "left-right"...wonder if i would be able to cope up with this additional left hand driving thing too. And add to that my boss' comment - Good drive but bad drivers.
Water anyone? : I was taken for dinner at an Indian restaurant by my boss along with 2 of my peers (Yes almost negligible % of Indians here , but then isn't Indian food loved across the globe? So inspite of almost no india population here, there are a few indian restaurants). During the meal, I told them that they had forgotten to serve us water. Thats when i discovered that no water is served by default (like in our good old India) and you have to order for it! Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
Pretty girls everywhere - Sure most of them put a lot of makeup on ..but I am sure beneath all that they are naturally beautiful too.(I so wish that a partcular friend of mine should come and see what "a lot of makeup" is all about , who had once commented that i put a lot of make up. And for the record i just use an eye liner & lipstick) . Another point about these women - they aren't slim...and this doesn't take away anything from the fact that they are immensely attractive. So fat is not bad after all!! Thank you god for blessing me with millions of walking proofs for this around me :P
No Tubelights - No culture of having tubelights in homes . At least not in any of the ones i have been looking at for renting. Fancy lighting , all yellow , chandelier, the works...but absolutely no tubelights.I like the flouroscent white light from that long tube and am no big fan of yellow fancy (read decorative) lights. Guess i will have to make do with CFLs
to be continued.............
2 comments:
hey really liked this new bit thing...and the best part is no where have you mentioned which city you lived in and where have you shifted...so with everyline i was trying to guess...by the time i finished reading i have been all over the world myself :)
@Suchi - I am glad i could give you a world tour..even if it was in your head :)
Hope to see you here more often!
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