Lights in the dark

Saturday started bit slow for me, well slow as in I was sleeping way past the decent time and woke up bit earlier when we left for shopping trip to bazaars. Amrit, friend of ours came with us as local and guided us around the bazaars. We found this and that and came back to hotel for brief brake and storing all the things we bought.

And later, in the evening, me and other student Severi went to see Golden Temple that was all light up for Diwali celebration. I'm making the post short so I can put even more pictures, enjoy!

Short update

First of all, Happy Halloween! But that's not my point, but to tell you about another holiday that's being celebrated here as we speak, Diwali.

"For Hindus, Diwali or the "festival of lights" is one of the most important festivals of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes.  Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil. These lamps are kept on during the night and one's house is cleaned, both done in order to make the goddess Lakshmi feel welcome. Firecrackers are burst because it is believed that it drives away evil spirits. During Diwali, all the celebrants wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends." - Wikipedia 

We've been invited to celebrate in Mr. Jollys house on Sunday when the festival is held. Other than that, we've been planning to visit Golden Temple again because they cover it with lights for this festival. I'm mildly excited and nervous!

Other than that, there's been lot more traffic lately, probably for the holiday season. Also traffic with new teachers coming in. Pilvi, teacher from our school just stopped by for week and Leena from other school is staying with us until we leave back to Finland. Also most of the students write blogs to keep their teachers updated, including me. Well I think that's all I have for today, we're gonna head for bazaars later so see you and don't let the ghosts scare you.

Ingredible India

Sunday, day of rest. Starting the day with quite fitting meal, a pizza. Yes shame on us but it was good pizza.

After that I visited to movie shooting place with my friend and we met a man who was producer to my knowledge. The movie is about the founder of the Pingalwara, or so I understood it. They are at the beginning of the filming now but it'll come out somewhere around next year.

After leaving the beautiful site, which was in medical college area by the way, I was ready to spend rest of my day in peace in my own hotel room. But India had one more surprise for me...

... AN ELEPHANT!

Saturday night fever

I'm not sick! That's just a saying.
Yes but Saturdays seem to be feverish, but our were just hot and adventurous. We had made arrangements to visit Hall Bazaar, near Golden temple for shopping. And I even managed to find me and my friends some souvenirs.

We were strolling down the small streets of Amritsar and seeing the small stores and what they had to offer. Also we made quick stop at outside Golden temple and I bought myself the sikh bracelet called Kara, symbol of eternity. After that we took rickshaw back to our hotel for quick brake before leaving again for long waited Wagah border ceremony.

Quick drive to the scene and we soon noticed large groups of other spectators swarming in and heard a distant sound of loud music. Walking to the auditorium that was broke in half, Indian and Pakistan side, we saw many and many Indians dancing and waving flags in rhythm of music. 

Indian soldier

After such spectate we packed our things and head back to the hotel for longed rest.

No rest for the wicked

"There ain't no rest for the wicked
Money don't grow on trees"

CAGE THE ELEPHANT : Ain't no rest for the wicked

It's been quite a week in the office. Our task was to design itinerary for the area we chose, I chose the Kashmir and Jammu area. It needed bit fixing and tweeking it should be alright, I'm quite happy about it. The others have been good too, no major illnesses and the week has gone on nicely.
Today we are going to see movie at the mall, true Bollywood movie I hope. The weekend will also be interesting, since the plans are shopping trip to the bazaars and Wagah border ceremony at the India-Pakistan border. I'll be sure to take photos and post them for you to see.

And I'm terrible sorry for lack of pictures and updates for the whole week but there hasn't been much of things happening around here.

For curious

I had few requests and lot of questions about my task in India. Well like I have mentioned, I'm here as exchange student but working in the Jeet travel company. There's also Severi who's male student from same school and we both study same subject, that is audiovisual studies. He's in audio and pictures side, when I'm in graphical studies only. The other students are from I think marketing and health care studies.
So far I've only modified few photos for Severi but it's still early to tell what's here up for me. Our teacher will join us this week and we'll discuss these matters more thoroughly.
What I'm studying is creating layouts for leaflets or web-pages, or just simply take photos and modify them, create illustrations etc. So everything graphical is my speciality and audiovisual parts are for Severi.

It's been slow start of week but it'll kick up from here once we get started! Yesterday I contacted my parents trough Skype and we exchanged some news. The time difference from India to Finland is 2,5 hours, so when I wake up at 8 am they'll still get to sleep 2 hours, lucky. Oh yea! I work from 10 am to 6 pm with one hour lunch break, even though here they tend to work even longer.

Also I was thinking of doing some info about India posts? Something I learned about clothing, food and habits and such. What do you think? Comment or message me!

Behold me and my fabulous coconut!

Slow day

Well here we are. I'm sick. Nothing serious, I got cold from spending too much time on room with air conditioner and now I've been resting to get myself better. Seems to be working, I'm feeling better at least. It's been sunny and nice day again.

We did actually visit nearby park with two other students but I was too tired to take photos. There was locals spending time in park and asked us to sit down with them. We chatted for a bit and continued, I bought coconut to drink from when heading back and had to get back to resting as we arrived to hotel.

High hopes for me to be in full shape tomorrow!