Incredible India

For a while I had nursed the idea of visiting India, but had never successfully followed it through until this one time when an opportunity came through and I found myself heading to Delhi for a 2 weeks stay.

I did not know what to expect once I got to Delhi but like a true adventurer I was excited that I was already in Delhi, the weather was hot as summer was fast approaching. The people were in very high spirits and very friendly, murmuring a word or two in English in the streets when they saw me.

There is a lot to see in Delhi, many monuments and landmarks that anyone I think should not leave Delhi without visiting.  One thing to note before visiting mostly the temples is to ensure that its not a worshiping day because if it is, the temple will be busy with lots of people and getting around maybe tricky too, this happened to me at the Lotus Temple (its also closed some months of the year so be sure to check when its open before you visit) Another temple worth visiting is the Laxminarayan Temple this was built out of marble and Cameras are not allowed in.

Other places of interest include the  India Gate, President residence (Rashtrapati Bhavan),  Humayun’s Tomb,  India Tower (Qutb Minar) and several other places. Please note visiting some places is chargeable with fees ranging anywhere between 200 - 400 Rupees

Tourists and locals at the India Gate

When you are done with sightseeing and want to spend some money, you can head out to the malls notable malls I visited included the Select city walk mall, Metro walk mall, Moments mall and many others, if you are into computer related products you can visit Nehru place there is a huge computer market selling lots of computers and related accessories.  Another very huge market worth visiting is the  karol bagh market here you can find lots of stuff ranging from Sarees, Gold shops, knock off designer clothes, electronics, foodstuff  and so many other things, it is so big that during my visit I was not able to walk round it and see everything in there.

Getting around is easy one can take the famous Tuk tuk (some are metered), or jump into the metro (crowded most of the times) to any of the listed places above or you can hire a taxi, but generally I preferred the Tuk tuk as they were quiet swift and fast in the traffic.

Delhi is a nice place to visit with very friendly people and lots of landmarks to see and if you are interested in Indian food you will have plenty of it in the streets and at very low prices, I would really recommend a visit to Delhi for anyone interested.

In and Around Shenzhen

Living in Shenzhen

For over three months, Shenzhen was my home. Shenzhen is a modern city and true it lived up to its expectations. It is a nice place to see the modern China with sky scrapers competing for space and very lush green gardens around the city.  There are hardly any old buildings noticeable in Shenzhen as I was told it is a new city however there is lots of construction was taking place almost on every other street.

Just like China, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone as it is commonly known  is really populated that you have to brace yourself for the crowded streets, metro and railway stations, especially during the rush hour, weekends and holidays if you want to experience the real Shenzhen.

However not to discourage anyone there are couple of places I identified as a must visit while in Shenzhen and these include

Seg Market

This is like the Electronics street of world, with a  number of malls on each side of the street all selling electronic from capacitors and mobile phones to play stations, digital cameras and mobile phones generally you can find any electronic equipment on this area. This area is commonly referred to as Huaqiang Bei I guess driving its name from the Street Huaqiang North

The famous SEG Market in Huaqiang North, Shenzhen Futian District.

Dongmen / Eastgate

This is a concentration of small boutiques and some big brand name shops selling shoes and garments, It is a relatively cheap market but care should be taken when buying items from here as some if not most are brand names knock offs or copies as they are commonly referred to in China. Dongmen can very be crowded over the weekends as seen in the photo below the day I visited there was hardly any room for one to walk comfortably.

Shoppers in at a crowded square in Dongmen during a weekend 

Louhu Commercial City

This is at the border of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Just like in Dongmen the shops here sell similar stuff like copy designer Garments , shoes, watches, bags, perfumes however one has to really be careful if they want to buy genuine stuff to look closely at the product  and don’t forget to bargain as you can get a good deal.

Window of the World

This is a recreation area with different dedicated areas showing miniature statues like the Elf Tower, the Egyptians Pyramids, the Taj Mah in India among many other areas of the world, it is quite a large area divided into Asia, Europe, North America, South America areas all displaying tourist attractions that would take you to those parts of the world, you can take time and go explore it.  

Parks

There are quite a number of parks in Shenzhen, and I cannot say I went to all of them however I managed to get to some like Xianhu Botanical Park there is a big Buddist temple here worth visiting, also there are a number of other parks around Shenzhen worth visiting. It is best to visit them during the weekdays if you are not busy because on the weekend there are usually crowded and lots of activities taking place in the parks.

Well if you happen to visit China soon, and Shenzhen most especially I hope this can help point you where  to go when you have some time to spare.

Speed Train to Changsha

I had to visit Changsha (长沙) in Hunan (湖南) province for a Kylin software project for one week and thought what better way was there for me to travel other than speed train as it commonly knows here.

Coming from Shenzhen (深圳), I took a train from Guangzhou North Railway Station to Changsha South, this ride took 3 hours however one noticeable thing was that the train top speeds reached 345kph on my trip. This train stops at particular railway stations along the route for some passengers to get on and off usually for 2-5 minutes brief stops.

Train LCD displays moving speed

Prior to the stops, there are announcements through the speakers informing you about the next stop and warn you to be quick while disembarking. These are both in English and Chinese. The display screens also in the cabins are worth looking at as they display the same information in both Chinese and English.

The speed trains also have first class and second class coaches all fitted with toilets and smoking is not allowed on board, a restaurant is available on board just in case one needs a  coffee or a coke.

I got to Changsha early and saved a couple of hours that I channeled to looking around the city and also managed to taste some hot Hunan food. The speed train is highly recommended for anyone who would like to experience the high speeds and also save some money as it is cheaper than air travel.

Deciphering QR codes

Lately I have been seeing lots these small black and white like barcodes on many sites and in different places, so today I chosen to decipher these codes.

If you do a lot of your browsing on a mobile device I can guess you have already seen the thousands and thousands of the small squared boxes on many of the mobile sites. And most recently seen them on T-shirts, posters and also banners in many places including hangout joints!

These small boxes known as Quick response (Qr) codes are taking over the mobile world, almost all technology bloggers have them on their sites and even the established websites like Wikipedia, BBC, Google are all using them for their mobile sites.

The technique behind these Qr codes is that one has a Qr reader installed on their mobile device which then decodes the information in the Qr code, which could be a url, plain text or any other alpha numeric information stored in the code!

                                                           

So if you have a device running android any version or the Iphone OS go straight to the respective App markets and download a Qr reader / scanner, there are lots of them install one on your device and your good to go. Try this....

There is this site (http://tinyurl.com/5dd59g) where you can have your Qr code created, visit and make your own Qr code then go ahead and share it with others!

Well so next time you see a Qr code don't freak just pull out your phone and scan or read the Qr code and enjoy the benefit of accessing information in a supper fast way. 

Peace

Friday 29th, April 2011 while the rest of the world (At least 2 billion viewers) were watching the British royal wedding back home, Kampala was in a state of lock down, life seemed to have stopped for a while and the streets were littered with debris, burnt tires and were akin to those on the  war front.

Peace for us all

But If you had been following the events on the news over the last couple of weeks over the #walktowork protests, the arrest of Dr. KB, the governments' response to all that was happening then this would not be surprising at all.

Given the brutal action movie like arrest of #Besigye and his aides for the oba what time.

Ugandans of all walks of life took to the streets to protest this, remember in physics, we learnt that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, the police forgot this and went ahead and brutally used tear gas, sprayed pepper, fired at fellow Ugandans in the name of dispersing the rioters!

The police was joined by the army and military police and the clashes were horrible, however what was most noticeable was how these police chaps were really trained to spank fellow Ugandans!!

Because the Ugandan media had no balls to broadcast what was going on in their country but instead opted for the Royal wedding, twitter today became my companion from the different tweets I was able to know what was happening around me! And since today I couldn't do much or influence any of the happenings which I wish I could, all I can do is rant here and hope that people can know that the only constant is life is change!

Good night...