Bukhara Diwali 2008

Bukhara Diwali 2008
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan

The fireworks never seemed to stop. We all had a neck sprain from
watching all the fireworks (mostly airborne ones ).

Bukhara Diwali tradition has become a mainstay amongst shangjai who's
who.

Diwali 2008 - Simply Euphoric

Euphoria set the floor ablaze right from the word go and held the audience captive for nearly three hours. Being a band, their medleys and impromptu jamming were more refreshing than listening to playback singers.

Palash was surprised to note that his songs had made it to the indian crowds in china. He belted out nearly 40+ songs and seemed to have more energy than the audience members.

An enjoyable evening...Wishing all a very Happy Diwali

Street food

Very popular among the locals, street food can be found in some important crossings, after 7 pm. It's fascinating just seeing the range of delicacies on offer.

Shanghai Adda "Puja"

The Indian Bengali group "adda" in shanghai has been organising puja since last couple of years at Indian kitchen on minsheng lu.

The cultural program on navami is one of the highlights where toddlers to semi pros (of sur shanghai) showcase their talent.

Don't miss it next time.

Olympic soccer game @ shanghai stadium

It was fun to watch with kids. Womens soccer has come a long way . Result brazil won 4-¹against Germany.

Bindra wins Gold @ Beijing 2008

Cool guy Bindra ( with steely nerves ) won the first ever individual olympic gold by an Indian. Abhinav won with an overall score of 700.5. He and Zhu Qinan ( china ) were both tied till the last shot. Abhinav's last shot of 10.8 was his best shot of the day and helped him tip the scales. For the cricket fans, its like hitting a six in the last ball of the match for a win. Zhu had to contend with a silver. Now, the indian media will start shooting all over bindra..poor AB :-)

Canara Bank opens branch in Shanghai

Canara Bank's Shanghai branch was inaugurated by MS Gill and Vishnu Prakash on 6th Aug. Gill ( Sports Minister ) was on his way to Beijing to take part in the Olympics opening ceremony. Hope he learns something about sports development and organisation from the chinese. The event was held in Shangrila hotel Lonyang ball room. The view of Bund from its Balcony is breath taking.

Thermax Plant Inaugurated in Jiaxin, China

Thermax China Ltd (TCL), started operations in jiaxin (Zhejiang), china yesterday. The plant setup at a cost of about USD 12 m is the only plant in china which uses "absorption technology" in chillers. It was good to see some young company heads ( Meher Padumjee), taking risk and investing in a highly competitive market like china, which is also the largest market for chillers in the world . This thermax's first foreign venture. Other Indian companies in Jiaxin are Sundaram Fasteners & Elgi. Proximity to Shanghai and familiarity with the local processes combined with genial attitude of the Jiaxin govt official is an incentive to invest in jiaxin.

Kudos to Ashish Vaishnav and the thermax team in erecting the plant in a record time of 18 months. The game begins now ( quest for sales ..not Olympics). Wishing TCL all the best!

Kebabs on the Grille

Shanghai is a gourmet's delight. You can find best of any cuisine here. Top class Indian restaurants are also springing up. The new kid on the block is "Kebabs on the Grill" and the man himself (promoter ) is Arun Bahirwani. Located at 479, Zhongshan nan lu, "Cool Docks" promises to be the next xintiandi on the bunds within 6 months. The spanky new rectangular square houses new restaurants like Starbucks, banni, fusion restaurants ( & some whose names i am not familiar, yet!).

KOTG is a theme restaurant focusing on the famous northwestern frontier kind of kebabs. The tables have small central cutout where a small grille inserted with carcoal will be kept for the guests to give the finishing touches to kebabs.

The kebabs were succulent and tasty. The menu has usual complement of Nan, black dal, paneer etc. While the name suggests non-veg focus for the joint, veggies should also find something to cheer about.

Interiors are well done and functional. Spread over 2 floors, it has a seating arrangement for 80 people including a bar area.

Dont't forget to notice the "Ganesha" (boy-elephant as per Times) as you enter KOTG and while you are exiting lookout for the imported paki mouth freshners.

Sunil Gavaskar in Shanghai

Cricket is a religion in India and for Indians outside India. In the last couple of months, we had Kapil and now Sunil Gavaskar dinner events in Shanghai. The smooth talking Sunny fielded questions from the crowd with a finesse and impressed everyone with the depth of his knowledge on the subject. Who's next - Srikanth?

China's Creative Imperative

Sometime's its little difficult to notice stars when you are too close to them. One of them is Kunal (Sinha) who stayed in Kingswell Garden, Shanghai for over 4 years. We knew Kunal was different and had many avocations (music , photography etc) but unfortunately we had not witnessed it first hand. His most recent book "China's Creative Imperative" has received rave reviews from within and outside China. Congratulations to Apna own "kunal"! for the book and for the new member in his family.

Teppenyaki on hongmei lu food street

Tried out the new tepornyaki joint on the food street. The english speaking Japanese waitress helps in deciding the order with some choice recommendation.

Earthquake in China

The earthquake in wenchuan (Sichuan County) has taken a great toll. Every day the newspaper’s report larger fatality figures. TV channels are on an overdrive in documenting the relief work. Many companies and individuals have donated large sums towards rehabilitation and restoration work. One of my Chinese colleague thanked me when I donated some amount for charity. Was pleasantly surprised since I thought it was natural on part of every person to contribute something. Or was it because I was a lao wai.

 

The shanghai red cross charity collects donations through credit card and as soon as someone makes a payment, the donor’s name is listed on the website which can be used in case there are some tax breaks etc which the govt may announce.

Indian kitchen Hangzhou

While haveli is the more popular Indian joint in Hangzhou, IK on 77 nanshanlu near west lake is also a treat.

Tunnels

We crossed 11 tunnels on our way to qiandao hu. The tunnels are top class, well lit and maintained nicely. The standardization of design is quite apparent.

Qian dao hu

Thousand island lake is located 140kms south west of Hangzhou. This huge lake was formed due to the construction of a dam. The place is scenic and good for a short trip. The city is developing and after 10 years this may become a hot destination. Sheraton is opening here next year. Being only foreigners in a predominant Chinese groups had its ups and downs. We missed our boat and group on one of the island.

Carrefour and olympics

Marketing professors will be citing examples of this case in the
coming years. Was surprised to get an empty checkout aisle free today
on a Sunday evening.

Indian golfers in shanghai

Shanghai tournaments have become regular ones for the indian pros. DD's fascination with golf ensures that there is at least one Bukhara dinner with the golfers. Bmw china open saw a couple of Indians making the cut, however, it was digvijay Singh who was leading the Indian pack
with 3 under going into the final Sunday.

Teahouse in Beijing - china classical teaclub

A unique experience if you are in Beijing. A very chic teahouse with live soothing music and a collecttion of private antique pieces displayed nicely, this is the place to come to after an early Chinese dinner if you have some important business discussion or to get your thoughts straight.

Outback in Beijing

Located at workers stadium in Beijing, Outback is one of the best and most authentic Australian restaurants in Beijing to have a steak.

New Beijing airport

The Beijing airport new terminal is swanky but not without its design flaws. The toilets near exit gate do not have enough space to keep the baggage trolley. The ceilings are quite high and modular.

A1 and karthikeyan in Shanghai

The fastest indian on road was in shanhai last week. A few race afficianados were invited to a close chat session at bukhara. First look - karthikeyan's humilty and candor was a surprise. Most of us stayed back late chatting about new race developments. K handed out free passes for all present ( and not) as a result of which a big group of indians turned for the final race and cheered K, who had a honorable finish at 6th position.

Incredible India in shanghai

Indian torism deptt organized a major show at shanghai centre staging
a grand show covering various dance styles of India supported by a
crew of 65 members. The show was compered by kabir bedi and well
covered by Chinese media. Frequent such exchanges will be useful to
increase the tourism traffic between the two countries. Indian tourism
deptt also opened its first office in Beijing to facilitate such
cultural exchanges.

Dalian

Possibly one of the best city to live in and work in china. The town
architecture and planning is quite modern and futuristic. The tourist
locations are nothing interesting but be aware of the ticket touts.
Dalian us also the fashion capital of china and to witness this you
should go underground (market).Zhongshan hotel downtown has an Indian
restaurant.

Pizza hut @ dalian

Lots of Russian influence, even at pizza hut

Sign at pudong airport

Twitter in Shanghai

Twitter is a new social messaging network which is becoming quite popular
these. Chinese twitter clones have also cropped up ( Fanfou, jiade). So what
is twitter?

Its a microblogging service which you can update using your mobile phone.
How can it be used? And is being used to..

- Subscribe reuters
- Updates from restaurants
- Cricket scores
- Ask a question ( which movie to see?)
- Make a recommendation
- What are you doing?
- Olympics medals update
Etc..

The updates are sent to people you are following. Can be sent from PC/Mac
but twittering is popular on mobile devices ( psp,mobile phone, itouch etc).

Twittering from mobile via SMS from China will be a bit more than domestic
sms charge as the twitter SMS intl number is in UK. Receiving updates should
be free. If you have an iphone or smartphone, you can use one of the many
twitter web applications ( pocketweet, itweet etc) and twitter using your
edge or wifi service.

Happy twittering!

Turning ten

Party at bastian with close friends, games, perfect cake and yum food.

ERA

It is touted as a must see show if you are in shanghai. A 2 hour show
of acrobatic skills and motorcycle dare devilry, worth seeing.

Attica - Bollywood Event

A bollywood DJ on the same day as holi celebrations in Shanghai promised to keep up the spirits. Attica is touted as a hip place and supposedly a large crowd was going to turnout for the event. When we reached, we saw a long line of people queuing to get in..mostly foreigners. As we entered the place, we hardly saw or heard anything Bolly like. After a while, we discovered that the Indian-do was happening at another corner of attica. It was quite dark and could barley make out a large mass convulsing. Exited in 20 mins after a few customary ‘hellos’.

 

 

Jinmao lobby shanghai

Jinmao lobby shanghai
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan

One if the best hotel lobbies in the world.

Part time

We r missing Jyothi and Aditi !

Taboo

Taboo
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan

A very nice game which can be played in a party.

Breaking News

Breaking News
Originally uploaded by Ek Chin Tan

We had our first casualty of shanghai snow. wishing a speedy recovery for lshaan.

Snow

I was watching Al Gore's " the inconvenient truth' last night and went to sleep thinking about all the grim effects of global warming. Waking up in the morning, and seeing snow outside in the garden and all around was quite a relief.

59th Republic Day Celebration

This year the program was held in the lobby of the Consulate building as it
was raining outside. Sur Shanghai and Kids band presented one song each. The
consulate may be getting its own building soon. Gathering was less due to
inclement weather. The following Bukhara brunch was also skipped by many. It
started snowing towards 11 am .. you could a smile on everyone's face.

Masala Art & Good times

Masala Art & Good times are the new Indian eateriers on 397 Dagu Lu. While Masala Art caters to fine dining clientele, Good times fills in the chat-papri Indie fast food niche. Their reputation is growing as can be seen from the packed weekends.

Decks cleared for Jet flights to San Francisco via Shangha

clipped from www.zeenews.com Decks cleared for Jet flights to San Francisco via Shanghai Beijing, Jan 14: Decks appeared to have been cleared for private airliner Jet Airways to start operating flights to the eastern Chinese city of shanghai in return of India allowing a Chinese cargo carrier to fly to Chennai and Mumbai. Jet has submitted a proposal for rights to operate Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco flights as part of bilateral civil aviation agreement that allows 42 flights between the two countries. India has availed only four while China has utilised 18. Nath said India has cleared the proposal of Chinese cargo carrier great wall to operate flights to Chennai and Mumbai. New Delhi`s move is expected to encourage Beijing to grant long-pending clearance to state-run Air India and Jet Airways to launch flights to Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Shanghai respectively.

Happy New Year 2008

The sudden drop in temperature and lack of child friendly parties was a
dampener for this NY eve. This is the time of the year when expats take off
in droves and Shanghai bar and restaurant attendance drops drastically. The
chinese govt has changed the holiday schedules bringing cutting off the may
golden week and adding 3 more holidays. This time we were fortunate to have
3 hols (30/31 and 1st with Sat as a working day ;-)

Normally, god fearing people start their new year with a visit to temple,
seeking almighty's blessing. We also thought of doing so and went to
Shanghai's oldest Buddha temple..the Longhua temple. We were surprised to
find many chinese standing in serpentine queue with incense stick in their
folded hands.The place was littered with some remnants of a makeshift stage
which had been constructed for the new years celebration, however, it did
not affect the sanctity of the surroundings. 2008 is a lucky year for the
chinese ( pa!) and major targets have been set for this year, notable being
the beijing olympics. Here's wishing success and universal peace..

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year in 2008.