I'm back... to get ready!

Yes! I'm back!
The flight was on schedule from Singapore and the place touched down at 5:18PM. I stopped by my office and I was still astonished to see the university student kidnapping incident in Iran was resovled, as the pictures was just arriving from Tehran.
My 41 day trip is over and now I must concentrate to get ready for my next mission... to become a foreign correspondent!

My first meal back in Japan...

yeap, it's always junk!
it's uncomparably tasty than the ones I ate in India!

PS
I'll update my diary next weekend! I'm too busy this week!
I've written everyday while I was in India, so it won't take long!
And... I miss the Euro 2008!

39 days

Since I arrived in India on the night of May 6th, it will be 39 full days that I'd spend as I was leaving late at night today.

I went to bed quite early, but I didn't have a good sleep as I had some nightmares and I woke up plenty of times before the sun rose.
When I finally woke up at 8:30 and turned on the TV, the noon news of Japan was filled with the M7.0 earthquake that hit the Tohoku Area with two cities observing the trembling scale of 6 plus leaving a couple of people dead. I hope the death toll won't rise...

After going on location for the last time, at least for me, I parted with my colleagues and had my free time until my flight at 11:10PM.
So to get some souvenirs, I went to the latest mall in Gurgaon, the Ambience Mall, which is quite close to the IGI Airport.



the mall... so modernistic!



and many places to play for kids! enjoyable!

I bought some souvenirs for my colleagues and friends at Big Bazaar...


the big store again...

stopping at the candy corner with so many imported ones!

but my choice was the "Made in India" ones!

I arrived at the airport at around 6:30PM, only to find out that I could not enter! The security stopped me saying I only can enter 2 hours before the flight! Ugg...

oh, so that's why there's so many waiting outside!

I finally sneaked in at around 8PM, but I hade to wait an hour and a half outside sweating enough to make me quite thirsty!


so I had my last coffee at the last Coffee Day I'll see in quite a while!

Looking for souvenirs at the duty free shop...
I couldn't find anything I'd like to buy...

especially these Indian Barbie dolls!?

The flight was on schedule, and when I called my office in Tokyo, I found out that the college boy backpacker kidnapped in Iran about 8 months ago was freed! Oh, what a bad timing... or was it a good timing!?

Last day...

It's my last "full" day in India. I will be leaving tomorrow at 11PM, so I still have about 24 hours to go, but it'll be my last overnight stay here!

I needed a new bag to carry a lot of tapes back to Tokyo and we decided to go shopping in the morning!

After taking a stroll through Connaught Place and not satisfied with the high prices of brand-name bags, we went underground...


first around the Connaught Place...

and then into the Palika Bazaar...

With many stores, it's jsut easy to say we would go to another store, so they try to pull you into the store and not let go of you until you make a decision to buy! The bag I bought in the end started with a price of 750Rs and then to 600 and finally to 400. I made a face of unsatisfaction and strolled off into the front of another shop about 30 feet away. Then a boy ran towards us saying 250Rs is fine! Of course I asked for a price of 200Rs and they agreed!
I bet the bag is worth less than 100Rs, but who cares...

200Rs for this! it would be about 1000 yen at Daiei in Japan... not bad...

thanks for the bargain... but I think it's only worth less than 100Rs in reality!

We stopped by the nearby Emporium




with multiple floors! much much bigger than the one in Bangalore!

I just bought some Darjeeling Tea packed in beautiful boxes...

We were filming at the ministerial area of New Delhi...

view of the city filled with green!

We finished our filming and it was time for me to talk about Tehran... each time I hear new things, it just makes me worried about how I could go through the hardship there... Maybe I just have to work like crazy and forget about my private life!

last dinner? I chose to eat some Thai green curry rather than Indian or Chinese food which I had so much of this month and Japanese food can wait until Sunday night!

Farewell...

Back to a raining Mumbai. I'll just remember this city as the wet and humid, even dark place!


rainy till the end!

We said a farewell to our partner and our team headed to New Delhi. My eighth and final flight inside India.


my last flight!?

where's all this steam coming from!?

this snack was not bad!

but another delay before landing... boo...

everybody rushed to the front at the baggage claim... because of the power cut!
a common happening in India...

It wasn't raining in New Delhi, but it was quite hot as expected. It could be worse earlier in the afternoon...


sunny? cloudy?

Two more nights to go in India... I better enjoy it, though there's filming to do in both of my last days here!

a pizza for dinner! yummy!

A brief interruption!

The rain did stop just a bit today as the forecast had the sunny and cloudy mark... but there were some precipitations and it got worse near the evening...

some sun at last!!

back to the streets... where there are goats!!

We had some coffee when the rain started again at a mall...

where there were bowling lanes!

the last dinner in Mumbai... we have to say a farewell tomorrow so we did have some pleasant talks tonight together...

can't miss the beer!

and the continental cuisine!

Monsoon...

Rain, rain, rain!
We went out to film around the central part of the mega city with a bunch of construction going on the way and where thousands of people interact at markets...
It was very irritating with so much rain, especially with the traffic being its worst to make it take hours to go anywhere!

heavy rain! this is the monsoon!!

a Muslim area in Mumbai...

all wet...

the market...

and the mosque

We had lunch at the "largest" mall in the city...

having a noodle bowl! not so tasty...

It never stopped raining today and we expect it to be raining forever this week, maybe a temporary halt on Wednesday... that's when we have to film!

My dinner at night...

some seafood!

and a Mango smoothie!

Flying and flying...

We decided to move to Mumbai, but before that I had to go to New Delhi to get some help from our bureau. We had to ask them to let us use their camera and I volunteered to go there myself.

I took the morning flight from Bangalore to Delhi, which was late as always, but thanks to the Sunday traffic it took only 50 minutes to the Bengaluru International Airport, instead of an hour and 45 minutes on weekday traffic, and less than 30 minutes from Indira Gandhi International Airport to central New Delhi.

starting at the new airport at the suburbs of Bangalore...

When I returned to the airport again, I even had enough time to have a chicken burger!

of course at McDonald's!

many parts of the airport in New Delhi was still on construction!

Reaching Mumbai at night, it was raining... quite hard...
I did see the newspaper writing that the monsoon season has started here too, but it sure seems to be a steady one!

some nice pasta at night! it was quite tasty!

at a nearby store...

an Asahi!

the Ganesha at the hotel lobby