It has been an interesting start to the travels of 2015!
First trip of the year.. boarded a plane to Asia. We all sat down and within a few seconds after buckling my seat belts, the lady behind me let out a loud sneeze that sent wind rushing through the gap between my seat and my neighbor. It was gusty enough to compete with the directed air flow from the nozzle thingy above our heads!
Being the nice courteous dude, I said "Bless you!' and she mumbled a "Thanks!" A few minutes later she did the same thing and we went though the subroutine again that brought back memories of GOSUB and GOTO 10 from high school BASIC class..
By the time they made us watch the seat belt video and we were waiting in line to take off the GOTO 10 thingy had been executed more than 6 times at which point I was tempted to change the subroutine from "Bless you!" to "#u%k you!". If she was that sick and sneezing away, why was she on a plane?! Doesn't she know that I have to deal with critical meetings, watch my food everytime for allergic things in carnivorous countries where even an order of plain rice comes with a few black sesame seeds as garnish! There are enough death traps that one has to watch out for, without having to deal with "flu or flu like symptoms". Does she not care?!
After take off she fell asleep which was good. Soon the good folks at United cooled the plane down so much that we all went into Cryogenic freeze. I think United is learning too much from Star Trek and other Sci-Fi movies. Pretty soon we will be submerged in some blue fluid and put in capsules before take off. It is only a question of time and you heard it here first! Their real idea is to probably force everyone (even those 6'4" viking looking guys whose thighs are as thick as my waistline) to sleep by dropping the plane temperature and that way they don't have to serve more folks those pesky drinks and snacks between meal services.
Things went well till the hotel was reached and after a good nights sleep, woke up to find out... you guessed it.. "flu like symptoms". It was not that bad. A slightly runny nose, spitting some blood into the sink aka sore throat and the best part ? Come back and see blood on my pillow. Was trying to think.. "maybe I was drooling and this blood came from my mouth? or maybe my nose is bleeding because the hotel air is dry?" etc. Later found that the blood was from my ears!
Three things went through my mind in a split second. In sequence they were:
1. I was in a foreign country
2. Have never had to go through healthcare options in said foreign country
3. Blood from ears invariably means some death sentence thanks to zillions of Sivaji and Kamal movies where blood dripping from various orifices in face is promptly followed by a bald doctor (same doctor in all those zillion movies) checking patient with just his stetoscope, rummaging from his medical bag for some other thing and promptly declaring "you have lymposarcoma of the ear/nose/throat and you have only a few months to live!"
Did a "cut cut cut" to the thought process and decided to ask my colleagues for help. One of them came up with some Amoxycililn (we will not go into the details here) which cost by the way the equivalent fo 4 USD for a box of 24 tablets.. except it was twice the dose. Given that 90% of my visits to the doctor over the last 20 years have ended with a prescription for Amoxycillin, decided it was a safe bet to start myself on yet another course in case the ears were infected.
Turned out it was a wise move! Things got better and all symptoms are gone. Now I have my hands on the US dose of Amoxycillin and some antibiotic ear drops and things are getting to feel normal.
They say "when it rains, it pours!". So while all this recovery was being attempted, my SVTC Jacket which has pretty much been like a school uniform for the last 8 years gave in. The zipper broke. Had to trash it and go jacket shopping.
It has been my observation that in East Asia, they have a lot more variety for outdoor winter jackets. The women have really pretty jackets in a multitude of colors and designs that walking through busy streets will be a photographers dream for catching some "color". Even the men seem to have a lot of options when it comes to jackets that actually fit them in various colors!
Contrast that with Cupertino where the entire populations jacket supply comes from probably 4 sources.
a. Costco Jackets where the guy's position inside the oversized jacket is similar to an electron in a cloud.
b. Target Jackets that make guys look like they are about to empty their bowels with one wrong sneeze thanks to the tightness in the chest and waist
c. The ubiquitous gray NorthFace fleece or
d. A Columbia jacket that takes the puny desi or Chinese guy look like a polar bear cub
It is also important to remember that the average Cupertino resident is probably a desi or chinese dude who is 5'4" to 5'8" height and is a size "Medium". The only jackets that will be left on any local stores will be things with 3 or more "X's" in front of them. One would think that given the demographic the local stores would wisen up and stock more medium.. but no!
Where were we? Yes, Jacket shopping!
We went to a local market ten minutes from the hotel and there were a dozen jacket stores all reminding me of Burma bazaar in Madras in the late eighties (not sure if that place is still there!). Every small 8x10 store had sales people literally pulling us into the store.
Then we went into a discussion of what is the best brand in this part of the world that is a "copy" of the Nike's of the western world?
My friends were obviously shocked by the US dude who wanted to go bargain shopping for local brands. Explained to them that most of my cloth shopping was done during India trips and the brand name shirt that I am wearing is purchased from a dude who is allowed to sell "rejects" from an export only unit that makes it in India for 8$ when the shirt costs 44$ in the US. They asked me what was the "reject" in the shirt and my response was "it failed a quality inspection from the US inspector. Instead of two spare buttons stitched on the inside bottom of the shirt, there was only one! The discussion turned to "quality" and we went back to more store hopping.
After watching me haggle with the local store keepers they said "Li-Ning" is like the Nike here to which my counter was "then what is the New Balance here?" and the response was "361 degrees".
We found a nice jacket made by this wonderful company!
This jacket will give all the above jackets in sections a through d, a run for their money. For that material, stitching quality, attention to detail and price point, it simply cannot be beat!
So from that stand point, this has been a good trip so far. The guys I work with are very thoughtful and understanding. They let me have enough rest between antibiotics to survive the week!
One more week to go in Jan and we will see if Feb turns out to be better!
With all this going on, my dream of finishing a 60 day Bikram Yoga challenge was pretty much dashed. So this year, I get to watch everyone else finish it and that is not an easy thing for me to do. Watching people put up their stars and cheering them on knowing I won't will be my yoga challenge for this year.
One has to learn to let go, no?!
