We flew in to Tel Aviv, Israel on Friday the 2nd. Tel Aviv is a relatively new city. It is pretty well developed with some high rises and such, but does not feel really feel like a city from the US nor a city from Europe (at least like any of the cities that I have visited). Tel Aviv sits on the Mediterranean Sea. Below is a picture from outside our hotel:
Tel Aviv is a very vibrant and safe city. It has a decent night life and lots of active and friendly people.
On Saturday Jason and I drove out to Jerusalem to see the sights. Jerusalem sits on the border between the Muslim West Bank and the (generally Jewish) Israel. The "old city" which contains the majority of the major historic locations literally sits on the border. Despite this, it is generally a very safe place, where the only thing you really have to be concerned about is pickpocketting. The old city is a very interesting place. It contains 4 major "Quarters" -- the Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Armenian. Lots of people still live in the "old city", and it contains a series of markets -- some of which target tourists and some of which do not. Below is a picture from the roof tops. As you can see -- it is covered with antennas and such (not exactly what you would expect).
We started out in the Jewish quarter, wandering around and visiting the Western Wall (aka Wailing Wall). Sorry ... no pictures are allowed there ... so you will have to visit it yourself. This was one of the highlights of my entire trip. After this we tried to go to the Muslim section to see the beautiful Temple Mount and the site of Soloman's Temple. However, we were stopped by a bunch of guys with machine guns. Sadly ... this area is off limits to non-muslims on both Fridays and Saturdays (and other days after 12:30pm). So ... we moved on to the Christian section. We got a bit lost and found ourselves in a market that reminded us of the Amazing Race. We saw sheep heads, entire sides of beef, camel heads, tounges, bins full of intestines, etc. It was really cool. Eventually we got our bearings and made our way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is a church that is built on the site where Jesus died on the cross. This was really amazing. You can actually touch the "Stone of Unction" which, according to tradition, is where the body of Jesus was anointed and prepared for burial. You also get to see (and touch) the stone where Jesus's body was laid to rest. Below is a (bad) picture of the small chapel that surrounds the tomb.
After leaving the Christian Quarter, we made our way to the Armenian Quarter where we had lunch. Jerusalem was definitely one of the most interesting places I have ever had the privilege of visiting. I would highly recommend a trip.
After leaving Jerusalem, we headed on up to Haifa. Haifa is a beautiful city perched on a small mountain on the Mediterranean. Not much to say about our time here though ... lots of work :). Below is a picture from my hotel room overlooking the bay.
After finishing up work in Haifa, we headed back to Tel Aviv and flew to Bangalore, India. You can see all my pictures from Israel here.
We arrived in India on Thursday at ~2am (after being up for over a day). Mark's cousin picked us up from the airport and drove us to our service apartment only to discover that it was already inhabited by other people. Doh. Instead of staying in regular hotels in India, our group generally stays in these things called "service apartments". They are basically regular apartments inside of regular apartment complex (mostly filled with regular inhabitants) that you can rent out. A couple of guys then clean up after you, cook breakfast for you, do you laundry, etc. However, unlike regular hotels which are very expensive in India ($300 - $500 / night), these are really cheap. We paid ~$140/night for a three bedroom, three bathroom apartment. Anyway, Mark's cousin then brought us to another apartment (conveniently much closer to our Intel building). We finally arrived there after 3am only to find one of the apartments inhabited. We just stayed there anyway and Jason slept on the couch :P.
The next couple of days we worked. Not much excitement here. Below is a picture of the Intel building. You will notice the palm trees. Bangalore has really nice weather -- especially in the winter. It was ~80 most of the time that we were there.
We had Saturday off and planned to go to Mysore, a town about 3 hours from Bangalore that has a nice palace and some other sights. We woke up in the morning and none of us really wanted to make the trip, so we just had our driver take us around to see the sites in Bangalore. Nothing all that exciting, but you can see all the pictures here.
We had to work on Sunday because there was a gigantic protest planned for Monday in Bangalore and the entire city was being shutdown (except for hospitals). Apparently there is some big water dispute going on right now, and the Supreme Court of India recently ruled against Bangalore's state -- so the people decided to hold a (generally) peaceful protest.
Monday we had to stay in because of the protest. We met some people from S. Africa in our apartment complex ... so we had a big BBQ (and a good amount of alcohol) with them. It was nice to have some non-Indian food :).
We worked Tuesday and then flew up to Delhi in the evening. One of Mark's cousins was getting married, so we flew up to scope out Delhi and to attend the "Sangeet" which is the party the night before the wedding. Jason and I flew back the night of the wedding.
While in Delhi we saw drove around the day of the Sangeet and saw a lot of sights. Here is a picture of the Bahai temple:
Here are a couple of pictures of markets in Delhi:
After wandering around Delhi during the day, we went to the house inhabited by four families related to Mark (his wife grew up across the street). Here we celebrated the Sangeet with the bride's side of the family. This is a party that is generally just for family ... so Jason and I felt very honored to be invited. This party is generally rather girl-centric :). The girls all get henna tatoos and then proceed to dance to Hindi music. Here is a picture of the bride-to-be getting her henna tatoos. She got them all up her arms and on her feet (and it took forever):
Here is a picture of everyone dancing:
After all the dancing, we all had dinner and then went home for the night.
The next day I got sick about 4 hours before our flight back to Bangalore. This was not fun. Luckily I was able to get some antibiotic. One of the family members is a doctor and suggested some medicine for me. We just had to swing by the local store (no prescription necessary) to grab the medicine.
The rest of the trip home was long but pretty uneventful. You can see all our pictures from India here.
All in all it was a good but really long trip. I don't think I will be making any other 2 week business trips again in the near future :).
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