A sunset on sundays

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That's Christ the Redeemer on the left side of the picture, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

A filthy rat at the restaurant

This was the first (and probably the last) time I tried Harima, a Japanese restaurant recommended by a friend here in Bangalore.

The place was organized, had a good variety, and tasty food. It was not the best Japanese I've been to but I was satisfied with my friend's tip... Until the very last minute.

We were waiting inside the restaurant for the cab when we saw a really NASTY, DIRTY, VILE, AND FILTHY RAT coming out of the kitchen running though glasses and bottles at the bar. What is worse, the waiters didn't seem to care about the ongoing episode. They simply looked at the rat as if it was the place's mascot or something...

It really puts the whole "nice restaurant experience" into perspective, right?

In the news: Obama and Saraswati Puja

This is a cut picture of today's newspaper Times of India. First of all, try to look for the price in the red box: It's 3 rupees or 4.50 along with the Economic Times. 3 rupees is less then US$ 0.08 for a colored newspaper with 40 pages!!

About the headlines, Obama is in it, of course, after winning three states in a row (plus Maine now which was still going on when the journal came out).

More interesting, however, is the small mention to the Saraswati Puja in the green box. According to Wikipedia, "Saraswati has been regarded as a river goddess and in recent times a goddess of knowledge, music and the arts. She is the daughter of Brahma, the Hindu god of creation." Puja is a religious ritual performed by Hindus for all kinds of reasons and for all kinds of gods. The purpose, as I understood it, is usually to offer something (fruits, mostly) or an acknowledgment in exchange for the god's blessings.

A sunset on sundays

Kuusamo, northeast of Finland.

To fish or not to fish

My father likes to fish. These days he doesn’t do it with the same intensity but that deep feeling of struggling with the fish when it bites the bait and try in vain to escape will probably always exist. I never had the same feeling. For me it was mostly boring to fish or to see my dad meticulously preparing the fishing rod, the hook, and the bait, for only then throw the line in the water and wait for hours before a first bite. “I’m an angler and anglers have patience!” he proudly used to say after I got too bored and started to complain. He was, of course, referring to the practice of angling, that is, catching the fish with an angle or a hook which indeed can take hours if the sea decides not to be helpful.

Sometimes we went to open sea with my dad’s friend. He had a motor yacht with all kinds of weird and technological stuff to “enhance the experience of angling”: An equipment to measure the tension of the line, artificial lures of all sorts and colors, chairs attached to the yacht, designed to facilitate the fight with the fish, and electric fishing reels to reduce the work of pulling the rod. I never had any excitement for any of those things. Sure it was fun to fight with the fish but all the preparation and the wait weren’t worthy enough for me. I enjoyed going to open sea for the ride and to swim and to dive when we were near a coral reef.

But these boat trips were rare. Most of the times we were at beaches or platforms built along them to increase our reach of the sea. One day, after one week going to the same place without catching any fish, I lost the patience and asked my dad: “Why the hell do we keep coming to this place if we don’t get any fish anyway?!”. Of course, after this, I knew something had to happen. My dad had to say something but he didn’t. He patiently prepared everything in the same routine of the days before. And throwing the line, he waited and I couldn’t do anything but to wait with him.

I guess he really wanted to get at least one fish that day. He probably had a whole speech prepared for that. But we left the beach with empty hands again. And in the car he looked at me and said: “If you don’t try, how do you know you will succeed one day?” Then he started the engine but before leaving, looked at me again: “Besides, these are good moments to spend with you, my son...” I never again complained about fishing with my dad.

Next week: more about fishing techniques around the world.

PS: I know it has been more than 4 months since my last post. Sorry for that but at that time I had lost the control of my activities so I had to give up this blog. Now I’m back and I will try to keep this a weekly exercise for me.