Street scenes.

I've been neglecting my blog lately. I have a bunch of pictures from around my neighborhood for a theme post I've been toying with however I don't have all the shots I need yet (and it might be a while before I'm done). In the meantime here are some random street shots from near my apartment.



Not much too report, other than that the rain has started. Looks like the monsoon is right around the corner. It has rained briefly almost every evening for the last week. And tonight it was absolutely pouring when I left work - I didn't think my auto-rickshaw was going to make it through the current a couple times on the way home.

Pictures from Mysore.

I finally got around to picking out some pictures from my trip to Mysore last weekend.

Rather than taking a bus or train to get to Mysore on Saturday we rented a car and driver which provided an opportunity to stop at some out-of-the-way sites on the way. The first stop at Shivanaputnam wasn't so great; the sites were over touristed and rather uninteresting. After we left there I convinced the driver to take us out of the way to see the temple at Somnapur which ended up being well worth the extra time and expense. In fact I'd have to place it as one of my 2 or 3 favorite of the numberless temples I've seen in India.



After Somnapur we went straight to Mysore, checked into a hotel, and sent the driver on his way. We relaxed for an hour or so then walked over to the train station to buy or tickets back for the next day. The finish to the day was a simply amazing meal at a restaurant I had thought was only so-so on my previous trip.

On Sunday we saw a couple sites in Mysore. We didn't go anywhere I hadn't visited before but it was nice to be back. All three of the remaining pictures are from the top of Chamundi hill. I was particularly glad to get a good shot of this ugly demon statue. When I was there in 2003 it was the afternoon and the sun was directly behind his head.



For a while we were the center of attention (see the first picture below). This group of Indian tourists were visiting from Gulbarga and wanted to have their pictures taken with us. In addition to a few group shots, every one of them had to have individual pictures taken with us. I've seen this kind of thing before although not on this scale and never with the women in the group taking part. Thurman got a big kick out of it. After that we wandered around the temple for a while before walking back down the hill and heading back into town.

Catching up.

I finally got the chance to go through my pictures from the wedding two weekends ago. Unfortunately not a single picture of the ceremony itself is good enough to post - without exception they are all either out of focus or capture such fascinating items as the back of assorted people's heads.

The one picture that did come out OK was this group shot. Most of the people in this picture are from work, however there are only a few that I actually interact with. The bride and groom are the two standing up right in the middle. Hopefully no-one will mind me posting this.



I also took a few pictures in downtown Pune on Saturday afternoon (my camera always seems to do better with outdoor shots). I liked the building in the shot below a lot. It seems to have a little bit of everything wrapped up in one neat little package. Although you can't make it out in this shot it even has a Barista (insert obligatory chocolate cake comment here).



In other news, I enjoyed the trip to Mysore this past weekend. It was kind of nice to travel in style for a change. I'll post some picture in the next couple of days (stop rolling your eyes!)

Falling behind.

I'm off to Mysore for the weekend and I still haven't posted any of my pictures from last weekend's trip to Pune :O.

More photobloggy goodness.

I found another India photo blog linked from the one I posted last week. This one is even better.

Quick update before I pass out on my keyboard.

I had a great time in Pune this past weekend. The wedding was a lot of fun and I enjoyed hanging out with the other people from work who went up. Unfortunately most of my pictures from the ceremony itself didn't come out so great, but there are a few I can salvage. I'm too tired to give a thorough write-up or mess around with pictures right now though.

It was nice to get on the road again. Even the bus ride back last night wasn't too bad - much better than the last one I took in India. I got a reasonable amount of sleep so I felt good enough to go into work instead of taking the day off as I'd originally planned. All that travel time finally caught up with me about 5:30 though and right now I can barely keep my eyes open.