Hindu Temple Site

Preview of Philspencer31's blog at TravelPod. Read the full blog here: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/philspencer31/1/1290099234/tpod.html This blog preview was made by TravelPod using the TripAdvisor™ TripWow slideshow creator. Entry from: Bangalore, India Entry Title: "Bangalore...." Entry: "So my time in Bangalore is over, it's been short but very sweet! Each day I have been in the office writing stories for the children's sponsorship website, it's fun for a little bit reading about these children, but quite monotonous after 5 or 6 hours of it. Some of the children's stories so far a quite funny, I get bullet point information on them, and then I have to right their story. One bullet point of a girl said: 'Geetha is a very intelligent young girl, after school she likes to cook her food with sand'- Little stories like that made me chuckle and kept me going. Especially when some of these children's stories are so sad, it's nice when you get a story more about the character of a child and not about their life so far. So at times you get a little depressed reading about all their problems, but at HOPE they say to edit most of the sad stuff out, then thing I like about HOPE foundation is they focus on the positives and the future, not on the bad things in the past! The place I've been staying at was very nice; it is a CSI (church of South India) womens hostel and retreat. I was well in their good books and the sister there loved me! All I did was turn up for the evening prayer on the first night, and I was well in their good books. Apparently none of the guests, even if they are Christians don't usually come to prayer, and they accepted I was too lazy to come to the 6am prayer. But after that I was always invited to sit at the sisters table, unlike any other guest, and they would give me a little bit of meat with each meal and give me extra fruit and stuff. Surprisingly as well, they had a wicked sense of humour, and believe it or not they would make me laugh quite often, they were very funny. The eldest sister must be close to knocking of heaven's door soon- she is very old. She has a few wires lose inside her head as well because at any random moment she would burst into song glorifying Jesus, this included when she had a mouthful of food! But she and the other sisters were very nice and good to me. On Friday evening Antony (who does web design for HOPE foundation as well as many other jobs) took me to the headquarters of an IT company called Trellisys. Once again it was a world away to what I see in Chennai- this was the new India growing with young computer professionals who had nice clothes on, and the latest phone and were working on computer programming. All the guys there were very nice and I spent a bit of time there talking to them. They specialise in facebook and iphone apps, and they were showing their current projects, and they have two big successful apps that are very popular all other the world... and I've seen all the codes and complicated IT stuff for them on the very computer where they were made! On Saturday morning after a half day at the office I took the bus back to the retreat (even though there are a lot more white people in Bangalore, everyone would stare at me when I would go on the buses, then one of the staff explained its only Indians who use the bus here, so they stare at me because I must be Indian!) On Saturday afternoon Antony took me to the ISKON temple, which is a famous Hare Krishna temple in Bangalore. Not going to lie, I thought it was a Buddhist temple until I got there, then I thought Hare Krishna's were some sort of sect of Buddhism, but there were a mix of Buddhist looking and Hindu style shrines. There were both people wearing Hindu spots and people who looked like Buddhists worshipping there, so I was thoroughly confused. They take you around the temple, where everyone had to do the strange ritual things, Antony makes a point no of not being a part of any religion, so he refused to join in which was quite funny! In the temple I saw a Hare Krishna monk do his rituals in front of the main shrine, and lots of people meditating and stuff, it was all very strange! Before I always thought of these sort of religions as quite exotic and glamorous, but seeing them, really it is just a little crazy! On Sunday I went to Cubbon Park which was very close to me ..." Read and see more at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/philspencer31/1/1290099234/tpod.html Photos from this trip: 1. "Cubbon Park" 2. "Karnataka High Court" 3. "ISKON temple" 4. "Hindu temple" 5. "Karnataka Gov't assembly" 6. "Mahatma Gandhi road" 7. "St. Mary's cathedral" 8. "Bangalore slum" See this TripWow and more at http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/tripwow/ta-00dc-659c-a085?ytv4=1