Jesse’s Blog

On Taeber’s last weekend we headed on a road trip down to Jaipur to see some more of India. I have never been to Jaipur, but it turned out to be one of my favorite places. After a 6 hour drive (I was driving) including stops at places like McDonald’s and Cafe Coffee Day, we arrived and attempted to quickly locate a hotel for the night.

After calling some friends we ended up staying at Hotel Arya Niwas. We had a bit of trouble finding it, mostly because I was relying on Google Maps for my Blackberry (search results are a little whack in India). Once we found it, everything turned out to be really great! Not only were the rooms reasonably priced, but the food from the restaurant (a mix of Indian and Continental) was fantastic! The three of us watched a few episodes of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia before heading off to sleep.

The next morning we took a half-day government-run city tour. We saw a lot of nice forts and even got a bit lost in one of them, racing against the clock to return to our tour group waiting for us in the parking lot. I hear we missed out on some of the cooler things in Jaipur that are only on the full day tour, but I’m fine with saving stuff for next time. The Jantar Mantar observatory more than made up for it!

We ended the day with some Rajasthani Thali at Hotel LMB’s restaurant. The serving staff was very friendly and explained every dish to us. Thanks to Nicole, Taeber and I experienced some new Indian food that we liked a lot. I have already had a second serving since I have been back in Delhi.

We would have loved to stay longer but it was already getting late and we had a long drive ahead of us back to Noida. Entertained by USB sticks full of Taeber’s music and Nicole’s road games, everything went smoothly. Except for the part where we dashed across the highway and I nearly twisted my ankle on the metal railing and fell into the gutter in an effort to get to Cafe Coffee Day. That wasn’t so smooth.

This weekend Taeber and I went up to Rishikesh and Shivpuri to get out of Delhi for a few days. The air was clean and fresh, the water amazing, and we were a bit surprised by the fun we had. We went rafting and even explored the Beatles’ ashram (which I wasn’t able to find on my last trip). Thanks, BlackBerry GPS with Google Maps!

Taeber has all of the rafting pics on his camera. We’ll get them posted soon!

Following our company grand opening celebration, the rest of the week was a blur of working by day and partying by night. Part of the reason for this was that my visit happened to coincide with ChinaJoy, a game industry trade show aimed at developers in China.  We met up with friends and colleagues for more than a few drinks, discovered some awesome new places to hang, and even tried the Chinese version of some American hangouts. Who would have thought that singing and dancing in a conga line at Hooters would ever happen, let alone be so much fun??

Achievements this trip:

• Found awesome unlimited food and drink Japanese restaurant near our office:

大渔铁板烧(百联中环店)
上海市普陀区真光路1288号百联中环购物中心4楼

Da4 Yu2 Tie3 Ban3 Shao1
4F, No.1288, Zhen Guang Rd., Putuo District, Shanghai

• Checked out MUSE, a popular night club in Shanghai. It was huge, packed, and pulsating with some great mashups mixed by a badass DJ. They make a mean mojito.

• Battled my addiction to bubble tea. I’m down to one serving per day.

• Met cool new friends!

• Got even better deals on cheap knock-off merchandise than I did last time - from the same merchant!

Check out the pics!

Exigent Shanghai is officially open for business! We just threw our grand opening celebration at the new studio (don’t miss all the pics; Facebook no worky through the Great Firewall of China). People came from far and wide to celebrate with us, including Garland’s entire family.  I miss them so much and it was great to see his wife and all the kids.

We started with a studio open house with snacks and drinks, and then had a ceremonial unveiling of our brushed-steel logo in the lobby after some speeches by Garland and our primary outside investor. The mood was very excited and upbeat as we laid out our plans for global domination.

After some more mingling we moved on to dinner at a nice hotel. Paul talked a little more about the company and the people while George and Sarah continued to translate everything into Chinese (they had been doing this all day). We ate and schmoozed until about 8 PM and then called it a night!

Well, except for Paul and I. This IS Shanghai, afterall.

Finally. So it turns out my flight yesterday was cancelled without my knowledge. And I don’t mean simply cancelled at the last minute; I mean HELLA cancelled like 2 weeks ago. I found this out at the airport at 2AM, of course. TII.

So I rushed home and booked another ticket on Air India/Dragonair for the evening so I wouldn’t miss our Shanghai office grand opening party on Sunday afternoon. I promptly slept all day long, went to the gym, and then headed to the airport.

Everything was going smoothly until I got to security check and realized I had my nice black Swiss Army Knife with me. I’m not checking any bags so this was a problem; fortunately the security personnel worked with me to get the airline to check it for me, receipt slip and all. Score one for improved service at IGI Airport.

Every time I come to IGI things are getting nicer and running more smoothly. They’re even covering up a lot of the garish marble with nice faux wood flooring. Oddly, however, for the first time ever at IGI I had to ride a bus out to the tarmac to board the plane.

Speaking of which, I feel like I’m flying straight back in to the 1970’s, here. This Air India plane is VINTAGE, complete with gaudy color scheme and ash trays in the arm rests, presumably unused for decades. Will report back on the service later. Zai4 jian4!!

UPDATE: My Air India flight was late, so I missed my connecting flight. Fortunately the next flight is only 1.5 hours later. Any more set-backs and I’m going to miss our company celebration!