North India and Random Pearls

4 Days until we head home to Illinois for Sarah's wedding! (Can you tell we're excited?)

Well, unfortunately, things here haven't slowed down here at all. Kate has been working hard to get the school's yearbook out the door for graduation and to coordinate the ground-breaking of the new campus!

Adam has been getting ready for some important meetings back home, training customers in Singapore, and just got called to India for a quick, two-day whirlwind trip to support important meeting there and interview some new engineering candidates. So that sets the stage for what brought Adam to the city of Chandigarh in North India. Chandigarh is the capital of two Indian states, Punjab and Haryana (translated as God's country). It is also India's first and ONLY planned city. In other words, it has a grid of streets separated by enough distance for wide lanes for growing traffic patterns etc. by contrast, every other city in India is a random collection of alleys, roads, buildings, and urban sprawl overlapping rivers, buildings, and millions of people. (compare the even grid of Chandigarh to the bowl of noodles that are New Delhi's winding roads.)



However, in addition to being well laid out, Chandigarh sits at the foothills of the Himalayan mountains (you can just see them in the distance in the image below). This region of India is much greener than any other I've seen before and is covered by fertile farm land. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, so I've snagged the pictures from other blogs and google.



Adam's trip to Chandigarh was only for a day, but he could not use the company car to get back to Delhi. So he took a bus with one of his business partners for the 5 hour journey back to Delhi! Once back in the city, they took a rickshaw (auto) for another 30 or 40 minutes in the 100+ degree Delhi heat. Business as usual in India.


After all that, Adam was really glad to get back to Kate in Singapore. Kate and Bella were happy to have him home too. On Saturday we walked the dog and then explored some malls and ran some errands. As we're approaching the hottest part of the year in Singapore, we are also entering "The Great Singapore Sale" which is a country-wide promotion to boost tourism. Its a great time to buy things when you live here!

So after Kate bought a new pair of shoes, she received a coupon for a free Pearl with her purchase. So we went to check it out. Surprisingly, it looked like we had walked into a seafood shop. There in the department store, they had an Oyster-shucking stall where they would take your coupon, shuck an oyster, and give you the pearl from inside.

They even had a jeweler sitting next to it so you could buy a setting for your new "free" pearl as a necklace, ring or other piece. (Clever sales strategy). But it was such an interesting experience, we had to give it a try.


So that wraps up our last post before we're home for a bit of family and wedding planning. Can't wait to see you soon!