California Dreams - Part 2

On Thursday, the much awaited dinner at Kuleto's Trattoria turned out to be a shabby affair (for me). What they served as Italian food didn't look food at all to me. The only acceptable part of Italian cuisine to me is Pizza, and they did not offer it!

I had taken a Hyderabadi kurta for my "Around the world buddy" at the San Bruno office, Colin Whitlow. He loved it and wore it to work the next day.

On Friday, the conference was meatier. Our International Community who look into the editorial and content part of YouTube talked to us, and it was really interesting. I bunked the closing ceremony and took off to the Google Headquarters at Mountainview. Bus shuttle was available from the YT office to the Google office.

Googleplex (our campus) is nothing less than a Disneyland. I am so glad I visited the place opting out of other sight seeing options on a beautiful Friday evening. We were on time to reach the campus towards the end of TGIF. 'Thank God Its Friday' is our weekly gathering on Fridays at 4.30 pm to usher in an early weekend. In our Mountainvew campus, none less than Larry and Sergey conduct this at our Charlie's Cafe! They closed TGIF and came out, and lo! We were there just in time to take a snap. Yes, I actually met Larry and Sergey and I still can't get over it.

Post Googleplexing, a friend from there took three of us for a drive to San Francisco. The evening was beautiful and the drive through the city was even more lovely with the blissful weather. We almost saw the entire city including Fishermans Wharf, Pier 33 - 39, Lombard Street , Union Square, Financial District, and much more. Most importantly, the first time after we reached US, I had Indian (rather Pakistani, whatever) food! The bottom line is it was spicy and I so loved it. It was a restaurant called Shalimar in SFO.

The next day was entirely SFO again. Around 11 am, we started from the hotel to take the "bart train" to Powell station. From Powell station, we walked to China Town where there was a lot of scope for shopping. From there, we headed to Ghirardelli Square to catch out city tour bus for which I paid a whopping $47! The guide was amazing though and he showed us the entire SFO which includes:

* Golden Gate Bridge - Humengous hanging bridge painted in tinted orange. A must visit for any human being during his lifetime.

*Golden Gate Park and museum complex - A beautiful park adorned with dry sycamores and a couple of museums in the same area.

*Twin Peak - A peak point from where the entire SFO is visible like a beautifully laid out map.

After the tour, we took the bart back to San Bruno. We had some time left still; so went to Target, Sears and other retailers for the last round of shopping. The same night, we boarded Singapore Airlines and left SFO. :(

First stop on the way back was at Hong Kong. We had a couple of hours there, but everyone was too tired to venture on anything interesting. The next stop though was too tempting.. Singapore!

We had 8 hours there and I made full use of Singapore hospitality. I was amazed by the airport services to uphold their stature as a nation thriving on tourism. The offer free city tours and free city shuttles for transit tourists. I utilized the latter and went to Suntech Mall, the happening place in Singapore. It was just another shopping mall though, not at all anything new for me who was dazed by the thousand malls at Dubai.

From there, we walked to see the famous Singapore Merlion and saw it from a distance. Then, we went to see the famous street shopping paradise, Bugi's Street. I bought nothing except fridge magnets considering Singapore is far more expensive than US. :D

Then followed the tedious other half of the return journey from Singapore to Bangalore to Hyderabad. Finally, we reached back on Tuesday morning at 6 am at the new Shamshabad International airport at Hyderabad.

I am overwhelmed by the experience this trip has given in every sense of that word. It is so true that the experience a journey gives is worth a thousand books. Considering I don't read at all, I guess I need to travel a lot more! :P

California Dreams - Part 1

The journey to this side of the world was pretty hectic. Four airports and 28 hours... Hyderabad, Singapore, Seoul, San Francisco... It has been two days in the US and no jet lag has happened to me yet. That's super good as I have been able to utilise all the little time I have to see around.

I checked into Hilton, around 1pm on Monday, 28th April. Without even taking any time to rest, three girls and two guys in our group sneaked away to a place called Gilroy. We used public transport to get to the place, and it was a 1.25 hours drive. The bus reminded me of the ones I saw in Dubai.

It is a place full of cheap shopping stores - the outlet stores as they say. I bought nothing much, ended up converting all the time, and the rest you know.

The conference for which I traveled started on Tuesday. Lectures at a stretch are boring, but manageable. In the afternoon, we bunked one such session and went for a walk to downtown, San Jose. It was beautiful. San Jose is a serene place with very less (or absolutely none) skyscrapers. Flat buildings, empty roads, less traffic, beautiful trams.. We saw a church in one of the lanes.

The evening was pretty busy with the Google Idol competition and the Google party. I was kinda bored because of the music that I could not relate to. Can rock music be called music at all?

Wednesday was pretty happening considering I bunked the whole of afternoon from the conference! We visited Walmart and Kohls stores and did shopping for some petty stuff (spent quite some dollars though)! By the time I walked and covered those two huge stores, I was tired to the core. Without even having dinner, I sunk into bed.

Thursday morning, we checked out of Hilton and started off to San Bruno. That is the home of YouTube where Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have set up a beautiful office for the online video sharing monster. Though under the ownership of Google, YT is pretty much on its own here in Cherry Avenue. Google headquarters in Mountainview is an hour away from here.

Right now, I am done with half a day of our global YouTube conference which YouTubers from across the globe (Japan, Korea, Ireland, Argentina) are attending. Today evening, we have an official team dinner at Kuleto's Trattoria, Burlingame.

We have another day of conference on Friday, sigh! On Friday evening and Saturday, we are planning to cover San Francisco, the happening city. And late night Saturday, we are off back to Hyderabad. There is a halt at Singapore for about 8 hours, and will see some of that city too! :)