AB's Tour

I saw Amitabh and the gang (Aishwarya, Preety and Madhuri to be exact) along with the B crew of Abhishek and others in Oakland last night - and had a good time. Unfortunately I was up in the peanut gallery - and this wasn't a show quite designed for large audiences. But the overall effect of being with 1000 plus other Indians that grew up seeing Big A movies and humming those songs in the shower was great. It was also interesting to see the size of the Indian-American population all in one place at one time in this part of the world. And I took my mother with me who is visiting from India, and is an avid follower of Indian movies, since my wife was traveling (and who doesn't care much for Indian movies) - and that in itself was nice since it was a great mother son outing. The takeaway is this though - need to get more plugged in - and find some smaller size more private Bollywood events next time, this could be a lot more fun in the right setting.

Weekend in Santa Cruz

Sand. Its the ultimate sport. For my sons anyway. They can roll in it, play in it, throw it, sift it, form things with it, mix water with it that they get over hundreds of bucket runs to the crashing waves - its amazing to see just how long pure simple sand can hold their attention. Particularly given the number of sports, games, shows, computer programs and toys they get exposed to. We were in Santa Cruz this weekend - and they sure got their fill of it. I am happy they are growing up on the Coast.

Japanese dining in Singapore

I was in Singapore this week. As if in response to the comments I had made on this very blog earlier, my colleagues took me to Cherry Garden at the Mandarin Oriental. In turn, allow me to formally retract my earlier comment about Japanese dining in Singapore being no good. The Cherry Garden was really nice. And of the four meals we did, including the grilled seafood at the outdoor Newton Circus Hawkers Market, upscale American at Desire at the Scarlet Hotel, and hip Indonesian at Indochine next to the Asian Museum, this was by far the best. If you are looking for a nice Japanese meal, sans the additional flight to Japan, this is the place to go to in SIN. Incidentally the photograph above is from our offices in Singapore - the Fullerton can be seen in the foreground close to the mouth of the Singapore river.

Hong Kong in July

Hong Kong is always the best in the post shower early mornings. The day isn't hot yet, the nights humidity just released in a downpour, the rain appears to have freshly cleaned out the streets, and the cloudy morning soothingly lures you into the noise of yet another productive day. This photograph was taken at Kai Tak on a comfortably warm but fresh July morning.