This is my last blog about my India experience. Thanks for those who have been reading my blog and I hope you have enjoyed the experiences I have shared with you.
On this final note I would like to say that I’m very glad that I traveled to India with the most amazing people I will ever meet. The business experience I had on this trip helped me to learn a lot more about Indian companies than I ever will get from books. This trip was definitely a lifetime experience and what I really took away from this trip is not something I could put into words for.
Lastly but not least, a BIG thank you to Rajiv and Al, you guys have been great leaders and I really appreciated for what both of you have done for the group.
Now, it is time to think about my next travel destination…
Any suggestions?
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
NO MORE AIR INDIA!
I tried not to remember how terrible the flight experience I had with Air India, but I figure this count as part of the adventure and could be a heads-up for those who are planning to go to India. I’m not going to describe every little details of what happened with Air India, but PLEASE take my advice it is not worth it for you to fly even the airfare is $1000 cheaper.
We got stuck at the Bangalore Airport for about 10 hours because our plane could not land due to fog. I understand that whether related delay is nothing that the airline company can do about, but at least they should keep us updated with the ACCURATE current information. I specify on “accurate” because they kept giving us wrong information. Whenever they said the plane is going be here at 10am, guess what, the plane did not landed until 1pm.
Once we got boarded to go to Mumbai, we missed our flight to Frankfurt. Yep, that means, we get to stay in Mumbai for a night. We got up early, around 5am, to go to the airport. Gladly the flight departed on time.
Somehow we ended to be an hour and a half late when we got to Frankfurt. Long story short, we landed in Chicago about 2 hours later than our expecting arrival time. While we were waiting for the luggage, the baggage door on the plane froze. So while the airport staff worked to deice the door, we missed our connection flight to Minneapolis.
By the time we all got our luggage and tried to catch another flight to Minneapolis, they told us that there were no more flights going to Minneapolis, and that means, again, we need to stay in Chicago for a night. Oh, that’s just great. We all waited with the greatest patience we had left after all these great adventures while the Air India agents behind the counter writing our hotel and meal vouchers on carbon papers one by one for our entire group. We stood in line for 2 more hours and there’s nothing to eat, drink, or even a bathroom for us to use. I felt like I’m stuck again even I’m back in U.S. now, but you know what, that’s because I’m still with Air India.
With all that been said, I finally made home and I just can’t stress enough how much I miss all the conveniences I have in U.S. I do miss home!
We got stuck at the Bangalore Airport for about 10 hours because our plane could not land due to fog. I understand that whether related delay is nothing that the airline company can do about, but at least they should keep us updated with the ACCURATE current information. I specify on “accurate” because they kept giving us wrong information. Whenever they said the plane is going be here at 10am, guess what, the plane did not landed until 1pm.
Once we got boarded to go to Mumbai, we missed our flight to Frankfurt. Yep, that means, we get to stay in Mumbai for a night. We got up early, around 5am, to go to the airport. Gladly the flight departed on time.
Somehow we ended to be an hour and a half late when we got to Frankfurt. Long story short, we landed in Chicago about 2 hours later than our expecting arrival time. While we were waiting for the luggage, the baggage door on the plane froze. So while the airport staff worked to deice the door, we missed our connection flight to Minneapolis.
By the time we all got our luggage and tried to catch another flight to Minneapolis, they told us that there were no more flights going to Minneapolis, and that means, again, we need to stay in Chicago for a night. Oh, that’s just great. We all waited with the greatest patience we had left after all these great adventures while the Air India agents behind the counter writing our hotel and meal vouchers on carbon papers one by one for our entire group. We stood in line for 2 more hours and there’s nothing to eat, drink, or even a bathroom for us to use. I felt like I’m stuck again even I’m back in U.S. now, but you know what, that’s because I’m still with Air India.
With all that been said, I finally made home and I just can’t stress enough how much I miss all the conveniences I have in U.S. I do miss home!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Last Day of Lecture: E Governance
When I first learned the topic of the day is e governance I was thinking how could India manage government services online given the slow internet speed and the high cost of internet access (given our experience at the Ginger Hotel) in the country? Professor Padmanabhan covered a lot of different areas on e governance but I think what he had mostly talked about were future plans and may not be carry out as action now.
One of the future plans is to provide wireless internet service to villages of smaller population. My next concern for the plan is if the locals have not been expose to computers or internet before, how will they be able to access the information they need? This is far away from what Friedman would expect the flat world would be. Friedman mentioned in Flattener 3 the workflow of software will allow one to stay connected all the time. If these villages does not know how to access the internet, how well of this plan will be when it carries out? And just want to insert a personal opinion here that I do think India needs to work on their infrastructure first before worrying about e governance.
One of the future plans is to provide wireless internet service to villages of smaller population. My next concern for the plan is if the locals have not been expose to computers or internet before, how will they be able to access the information they need? This is far away from what Friedman would expect the flat world would be. Friedman mentioned in Flattener 3 the workflow of software will allow one to stay connected all the time. If these villages does not know how to access the internet, how well of this plan will be when it carries out? And just want to insert a personal opinion here that I do think India needs to work on their infrastructure first before worrying about e governance.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Branding in India
Given this is our last week of class in Mysore I felt like time has slow down for me. Anyhow, the lecture today was given by Professor Balakrishnan on the topic of branding. One thing that I found very interesting is the difference between branding in U.S. and India. He said that India branding is lots of brands diversify into other products. In other words, to give an example, Company XYZ has numerous products like shampoos, food, office supplies, etc. The company does not need to have different brands for each category of the products they had. Because in India, the company does not have to worry about how a consumer differentiates a shampoo brand from a food brand as long as that they are all Company XYZ products. Whereas in the U.S., it would be hard to imagine if Johnson & Johnson has a food product in the grocery section of the supermarket. I think this is a very interesting thing to learn as a business student, even as this world is becoming flatter, there’s still a difference between consumer behaviors between different regions of the world due their unique preferences and culture.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Temple Visit Plus More Day 2
Our first stop of the day, again, is a temple. We took off our shoes, again, and went into the Kesava temple. According to AR, this temple was a cursed temple. One of the goddesses back when put a curse on the temple stating that every other generation of king will not have his own descendent and for those who are in politics will loose their power. So the very first question occurred to me was why are we even visiting this temple? AR said that since none of us is in politics, the curse will not affect us. How interesting!
The second stop of the day, surprise, surprise, is not a temple. We stopped at a beach looking place and got a boat ride on the river. It was the most relaxing thing I’ve done in the past week or so. 
Right after the boat ride, we had our lunch outside of a worshipping temple, and left for waterfall right after lunch. The waterfall is used for a power generation plant and it was considered as a big project when it was built. 
Today was a lot of lighter day compare to yesterday, what a relief!
The second stop of the day, surprise, surprise, is not a temple. We stopped at a beach looking place and got a boat ride on the river. It was the most relaxing thing I’ve done in the past week or so. Right after the boat ride, we had our lunch outside of a worshipping temple, and left for waterfall right after lunch. The waterfall is used for a power generation plant and it was considered as a big project when it was built. Today was a lot of lighter day compare to yesterday, what a relief!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Happy Birthday Gene!
A manager at Ginger Hotel find out about Gene's birthday. She's been waiting until we got back today and presented the cake and flowers to Gene. How special!
Temple Visit Day 1
We started the day with the visit to Gomateshvara statue on top of Vindhyagiri Hill. It is located on the way to Halebid and Belur. AR intentionally made this the first stop of the day so we will have enough energy to climb the 614 steps that Vindhyagiri Hill offers. (If I would know this the day before, I think I will be more mentally prepared for it.) So up I climbed.
All right, it is another challenge to walk down the 614 steps given that their consistency is not all that even. Oh well, I made it to the bottom of the hill and got mob by several vendors again. (Pretty much every tourist site we visited, there will always be some beggars tried to ask for money and some of them were very annoying.)
Our next stop for the day is the Belur temple. We got a tour guide waiting for us at the temple and before we entered, AR told us that we should pay great attention listening to the tour guide. The tour guide went through series of different goddesses’ positions, instruments they were holding in their hands, and the symmetrical significance of their poses. Supposedly, they were all significant to the culture, but I was thinking to myself, if there are 10 billion gods and/or goddesses in Indian culture, how many could people remember who’s from whom? With that we ended our second temple visit of the day.
Once we reached the TOP of the hill, the view it offered was fantastic. And when we entered the temple, this 60 feet statue stands in the middle of the temple is a view that I would not want to miss.
All right, it is another challenge to walk down the 614 steps given that their consistency is not all that even. Oh well, I made it to the bottom of the hill and got mob by several vendors again. (Pretty much every tourist site we visited, there will always be some beggars tried to ask for money and some of them were very annoying.)Our next stop for the day is the Belur temple. We got a tour guide waiting for us at the temple and before we entered, AR told us that we should pay great attention listening to the tour guide. The tour guide went through series of different goddesses’ positions, instruments they were holding in their hands, and the symmetrical significance of their poses. Supposedly, they were all significant to the culture, but I was thinking to myself, if there are 10 billion gods and/or goddesses in Indian culture, how many could people remember who’s from whom? With that we ended our second temple visit of the day.
Surprise, surprise! Our final stop of the day is yet another temple. And of course, for every temple we been to we had to take our shoes off. I did not go into this one. My interest for the temples kept going downhill that I could not push myself into this temple. The greatest similarity between the temples we visited during the day were they are all stone carved and no colors to them at all. (This is really different from what I expect a temple to be.) And the greatest difference between them is that they have no differences because I could not tell one temple from another.
With that I ended my journey of the day, feel exhausted, we rode the bus back to Mysore in about 2 hours.
With that I ended my journey of the day, feel exhausted, we rode the bus back to Mysore in about 2 hours.
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