My great Arventure

Technology doing more

Huzzaa, a new gadget for lazy people. Well, maybe not just yet. But let's hope between now and then it'll help a few ppl.

posted by Arvind @ 6:50 AM 6 comments

Off to Phuket

So tmrw morning (at 7:30 no less) I and several friends are taking off to the beautiful resort/beach island of Phuket. Now some of you may recall that name from the Tsunami of last December. It was an island that got hit really badly by the tsunami and alot of foreigners and locals alike lost their lives. But have no fear my friends and I will be safe, and there is a warning/evacuation system in place now to prevent such a tragedy from occuring again. See you all on Sunday when I get back :)

posted by Arvind @ 6:16 AM 0 comments

Funny Conversation

This "conversation" was just too funny not to post. I'm still laughing about it. Sorry Aasthaa, you know I still love you ;)


Arvind: "So yah, Rohit's nickname is pandit"
Camilla: "Why is that?"
A: "Cuz he's a Sharma, which means he's part of the Brahman class.
And his nickname for me is Old Macdonald."
C: "Why is that?"
A: "Cuz I'm a jat and we are farmers!!!!"

To which Rohit replies

R: ho ho ho! well, at least your nickname beats Aasthaa's.
A: puthar?
R: no yaar, "Wal-Mart"
A: why?
R: she's from the merchant class

posted by Arvind @ 5:56 AM 1 comments

Bintan Day 2

If you remember I went to the island of Bintan during the Chinese New Year, which was in the beginning of February. I was there for 3days. I have reported on Day 1 already so here is Day 2.

We were told by the "manager" at our resort that there is a nice Chinese temple in a village that we could check out to see some Chinese New Year celebrations. So we (again it was Kiran, Mark, Niche and myself) decided to go.

It was actually kind of dissapointing. When we went there wasn't anything going on, and it wasn't much of a temple. There were some altar praying areas, but nothing really exciting or interesting. But here are some photos.



One of the praying areas




Pictures of some of the statues are below




This was funny because there was this group of women (who were travelling) that got so excited when they saw Mark and Niche. They ALL wanted to take pictures with them. It was kind of funny though that they didn't really approach Kiran or I even though we were both dressed relatively western like.




I think this is how the Chinese celebrate the New Year :P




Afterwards we walked around the village and just took some shots of the "houses". They are pretty cool actually cuz like Trikora the are built on stilts on the sand.





At night we headed to a seafood restaurant that was about 10mins away from the resort. Well the drive was. We had to walk out what seemed like a kilometer (ok it was probably only 500m) to get to this place on this rickety, decrepit and shaky walkway built over the water!!! Well, it was pretty cool and felt like a mini-arventure. But we definately treaded carefully.




So all in all Da 2 was quite quiet and not very eventful. But Day 3 was funtastic!!! You'll have to wait for that though ;)

posted by Arvind @ 12:11 AM 0 comments

Holi Mubaruk

This weekend was the always popular and colourful festival of Holi. Even though I was travelling earlier in the week I managed to make it back to Singapore in time to celebrate Holi with a few friends. Basically we all went to the venue wearing our scrubbiest and least fav. clothes where we proceeded to get as dirty as possible. The way I look at Holi: the one day where brown people don't want to be brown :P

Anyways here are some photos courtesy of my friend Kavitha.

The field which would soon turn into our battle ground


Before.... (you can't see it very well, but we are all quite clean)


During... Ok, it took us like 5 minutes to look like this


Jason and Kavitha


Hmm... this was like an hour later and we still look the same


After!!!


When I got home I took a shower for over half an hour!!! But I still had colour in places you don't want to know about ;)

posted by Arvind @ 12:27 AM 1 comments

Hip Hop started in 1971

Well I'm sure many musical historians would argue different dates. But according to DJ Grandmaster Flash hip hop started in 1971. How do I know this? Cuz I saw him last night!!!! Imagine that, seeing a living legend perform at one of Singapore's most well known night clubs, Zouks. And let me say he didn't dissapoint. I can honestly say I have never seen or experienced a better DJ performance than last night. He played a good mix of old school hip-hop songs(rapper's delight, it takes 2, Run DMC, MJ) along with alot of current club anthems (ie In da club, Love like this (Crooklyn Clan Rmx), Yeah!). So it's not like he played songs that nobody had heard. What I loved though was the way he worked the crowd. I think that's what makes the difference between a good DJ and a LEGEND. He just did a great job of getting everybody hyped up and continously dancing. It was a great night and in the words of his trademark phrase, "I was there"!!! Here are some photos that my friend snapped.








Below isn't DJ G-F, but his apprentice DJ Demo, who is pretty good in his own right. A couple of my friends (Ira and Gaya) actually managed to meet him after the show!!!

posted by Arvind @ 1:28 AM 3 comments

Start of my GQ Career!!!

A few wks ago in the middle of the afternoon after class I got a call from Julia on the cell phone asking if I was busy and could spare a few hours. Turns out the Business School was doing a photo shoot for a publication they are releasing in a few months and needed some brown people :P So I thought to myself, "Self, you are a brown person and your life long ambition is to be GQ Male Model of the Year. Do you really have to think about this??" Just a side comment it is interesting to note that both Jules and I are in Engineering :P

So the photo shoot was pretty long but kind of fun as well. It took about 3hrs, but I'm sure GQ photo shoots take longer!!! Anyways, just today they emailed us the photos.

So I've posted 1 shot from each location that we did shots. But blogs are so much more entertaining when they are interactive, so let's play a game: Where's Arvind? See if you can spot me in the photos:















So if you know anybody at GQ lemme know cuz i'd love to fire off my new portfolio :P

posted by Arvind @ 4:37 AM 2 comments

Chinese New Year

Near the beginning of February is the Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year) which is celebrated through many parts of Asia. However most of the city shuts down for a couple of days, including the university, so we decided to go to an "resort" island called Bintan. But based on what some other friends who had been there had said we thought it would be more fun and rewarding if we stayed away from the main resort area. Plus it would have been too expensive :P. We heard about a resort called Trikora Beach Resort, which was basically a resort that was being developed on Trikora Beach but the developers had an argument and abandoned their plans. So basically right beside this rural fishing village is a wonderful (and cheap) fully furnished resort with all the amneties that one would need right along the beach but is completely empty most of the time. It is frequented mainly by a bunch of expats in Singapore that go for the kite surfing.

So we headed to one of Singapore's harbours where we got aboard our vessel.



After a quick 45min boat ride we arrived at the main Bintan pier.


Of course when entering any new country one has to go through customs. Unfortunately I couldn't bring in a few of the items that I had brought with me :P




Our friend Mark (from Iowa) was waiting for us (cuz he came on the boat that arrived one hour earlier) with a taxi ready to take us to Trikora resort. After the hour long trek we finally arrived. This place was splendid :) The place was COMPLETELY isolated and the complete polar opposite of a tourist destination. Really glad we went. Here is the view from our room.



(Portrait of a Brown Man in Trikora beach resort hotel room)

So on the first day we basically just walked around the beach. The sand was a little course, and wasn't that well manicured but saw some cool things nonetheless.





This was part of the nearby fishing village. It is very common to see houses built on stilts in the water. The reason for this is because of the high tide and low tide cycle.








Some local fishing methods and delicacies.






(Portrait of a Brown Man somewhere)

This photo was cool cuz it kind of looked like the fish was out of the water.




(Portrait of a Brown Man in the sun)

This was the main road.



Later on I'll add day 2 & 3. Take care everybody :)

posted by Arvind @ 10:33 PM 1 comments

Photo of February

Just to prove to the world that I am a meatatarian.

posted by Arvind @ 10:20 PM 3 comments

With new arventures comes new friends

One of the many things I was most excited about before I came on my exchange was the chance to meet some new people, and so far I haven't been let down. I believe there are aprox. 500 exchange students at NUS right now from all over the world. There are students from Germany, Sweden, UK, China, USA, Canada, Spain... everywhere :D I haven't met all of them but I've probably met ALOT of them at least once. Unfortunately I am TERRIBLE with names so I don't remember everybody's name right off the bat but I am getting better. Anyways, so I thought I would post some photos of some of the people that I have met here and that I usually hang out with.



(From L-R) Tim (Australia), Kiran, Ira, Meera and Gaya (all 3 from Canada). Funny story about Gaya. My friend Haran is in Sri Lanka right now making the world a better place. Before Gaya came over to Singapore she headed to Sri Lanka to help out in some communities where she happened to meet Haran. Haran told her that I am in Singapore and gave her my contact and website. So one day she runs into me in the library and introduces herself. Haran had already told me about her so I wasn't completely surprised. Then she just happens to mentions her full name, Gayanthini. The name sounded familiar to me. All of a sudden I realize that I am talking to the same girl that Kiran saw one day and thought she recognized as a girl from her old high school!!! Small world 'eh.



(L-R) Sheldon, Sonia, Shan, Lok (all 4 from Canada) and Carol (Germany)


Jeanine from Penn State


(L-R) Jas(sp??) from NY, Robin (from McGill), Ira, Gaya, Meera, Sonia and Kiran


Brown Man from Canada


Nathan (from North Carolina) and Julia


Shirley, Kiran, Tristan and Aruni. The 3 of them are from Australia.

I've met alot more people, all of whom are great, but this is just a sample of some of the people I see on a more regular basis. What I really like about all the exchange students is the fact that all of them are pretty sociable people who are quite willing to try new things and are always looking for a fun time. After all isn't that the definition of an exchange :)

posted by Arvind @ 8:43 PM 2 comments