Monday, April 13, 2009

Photo Essay: Crowne Plaza Hotel, Gurgaon

I had a one night stay at Delhi and didn’t manage to get a place at my usual hotel at the Trident, so had to stay at the Crowne Plaza for the first time.

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Rooms are good and big, nice comfortable rooms.

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As you can see, I am already starting to make it like home with stuff all over the place. Nice couch.

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the desk was a bit weird, glass and a bit cold, didnt like it that much.


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but the glass wall between the bedroom and the bathroom was funny, lol.

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I like my bathrooms, they should be big, clean, nicely apportioned with good thick towels and the like. Then you can really get ready for the day :)

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Good facilities as well, with a nice shaving mirror, dont know why people hate putting them in, it helps so much to give you a nice shave. Plus given the hard beard I have, i need to do surgery more than doing shaving, so the lighted mirror definitely helps.

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and here’s the reverse shot, you can have a nice bath as well as watch tv while you are at it, gobsmacking!

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early morning view from the room, nice park?

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east view into the sun, pretty much standard dusty Gurgaon…

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West view, and more of the same…

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breakfast was very good and had it sitting in the garden :)

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Lovely view with running water features and the stuff. Pretty good hotel, but would still say that the trident was much better, I am afraid.

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Monday, April 06, 2009

Photo Essay, Ellaa Suites in Hyderabad

We were taken out for a bite to eat last week while I was in Hyderabad and they took us to this Ellaa Suites place. Nice place, I have to admit. So while waiting for the food, I nipped over to the open air kitchen and snapped some photographs.

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some fish kebabs in preparation

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the kebabs in question.

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some more kebabs being fried

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this is the stock being prepared…

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some of the raw materials for the kebabs

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the kebabs waiting to be cooked

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more in the waiting…

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piping hot roti’s

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butter chicken

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one of the doughty waiters waiting to get his stuff


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and the cooks handing the stuff over to the waiter

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the important place, the bar…

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you lie back and think of England while having a nice kebab :)

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Photo Essay: Trip to Birmingham

Had to nip over to Birmingham to do a lecture and stuff so took some pics from my new iPhone. Which I love, its just brilliant :) 


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I love being at Euston, used to come down here so frequently while i was studying at Manchester, happy hunting days…Here’s the departures lounge at the train station. 


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nice train.

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leaving Euston

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wastelands of London…

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There’s your Harlequin Centre in Watford.

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Approaching Watford Junction. As you can see, I am busy preparing the damn presentation which I completely forgot…

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Here’s the Coventry station.

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Nice advert, get cloud 9 on the ground.

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a car factory lot, thousands of cars on the lot, waiting to be sold…

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here’s Birmingham…
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Here’s the entrance to the university.
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Waiting for my host to come collect me at the reception.
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Here’s my old friend from Manchester (we studied together), Professor Pawan Budhwar, a brilliant chap, his new book was released on People Management in India. Pretty nifty cover, eh? And take a look at his cv, the man is brilliant, even though he works in HR. It just winds me up, but there you go.

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The bunch of speakers at the seminar. I am sure you can make out my ugly mug on the right. The lady in the middle is the Counsel General of India in Birmingham.

Nice trip, will be going up there every year now, I guess.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Photo Essay of a Chapel of Ease: St. Peter's Church

While haring off to do a meeting at Diageo, I found myself 5 minutes early. And just as I turned off Oxford Street into Vere Street, my eyes fell on this roman looking church on the right

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Very blocky, no? But this put me in mind of the buildings which you would see in the forum in Rome.

 

See the artist’s impression, its sort of the same form of building, with the front pillars and elevation. Anyway, this church was previously called as Marylebone Chapel, and was constructed in 1724 by James Gibbs. Mind you, it is no longer a functioning church and now the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity lives there.


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James Gibbs, as it happens, was one of the big chaps in the architecture area in the UK, and was trained in Rome. See the connection?


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Now the clock was very puzzling at first sight. I simply could not figure out what on earth was on the dial. So just took a photograph and then zoomed in later on. As it so happens, the dial numbers are given in Roman Numerals with some very heavy gilt lettering. No wonder one could not make out what it was showing. What also confused me was the fact that the two clock faces were showing different times, the one on the right shows 11:27 while on the left shows 11:57. Curious, the actual time was 7:50 AM. Must have stopped or something.

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Here’s the notice board. Not very sure what this was supposed to stand for. Better one who sounds the trumpet than one hundred prepared to blow the whistle. What does that mean? Its website was down so I could not investigate further.

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Here’s the blurb on the wall.

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A notice board which talks about the history. Interesting concept of a Chapel of Ease.

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Despite it being a chapel of ease, you can see the stone steps very heavily worn down due to the foot traffic of the parishioners of the past 300 odd years. Just imagine how many feet would have crossed the threshold, the desire to be one with God, to pray to Jesus and St. Peter, to beg for mercy or just to soothe one’s soul. Makes one think, no?

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The railing was curious, I have never seen a railing with spikes pointing both ways in a curved fashion. But definitely look old enough to be some kind of historical artefact. But the blocky walls were a bit disappointing. 

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That’s the rear end of the building. Again, a strange juxtaposition of windows and doors, a central big large stained glass window with two white stone fronted and prominent lintel doors on each side.

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The stained glass windows in the wall are supposed to be quite good. Here are some examples. I was not able to get inside the church because of lack of time, but here are two examples:



Well, now was running out of time so turned around to head into the Diageo Building and just burst out laughing at the incongruous sight of a Carlsberg Truck being in front of the Diageo building. 

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I worked for some time in this building, it has the most amazing work environment ever, can you imagine sitting around in an office surrounded with bottles of beer, vodka, stout, liqueurs and the like? Very difficult to work, I tell you, but despite the fact that it is perhaps the biggest drinks firm in the world, its not Carlsberg, which is perhaps the best beer in the world. Now that’s a Chapel of Ease :)

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