Time for the next one from Bini - Journal Part II

It came this morning, which was the second part of the journal by Bini after they left for US for the onsite assignment. Nothing much to say because I already have given an introduction prior to the previous one from her, which was the post just below. Go on reading…

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Hi All,

Hope all are fine…J

We are doing good here!. As we all see online every day, I know there is no relevance to send mails. J Still I want to share it with you all…

Boise - really a quiet and clean city.  Some days snow falls heavily and some days not at all.  In the evening it is a bit colder, but still affordable. When there is snow fall,  the entire roads, vehicles and trees will be covered with snow and is really beautiful.  We have 8 mts walk from the apartment to office. The most surprising thing is the politeness of car drivers…Unlike India, drivers always give priority to those who walk.. Now we are almost familiar with the nearby streets and roads and we always use online maps to locate the direction of places and buildings. Thanks to online maps!

Balihoo office - is pretty nice and it looks raw as if the construction is still going on. (that is the style I think J). All employees other than managers or head persons, are sitting in the same big hall. It is really funny to work, as the hall is always noisy as marketing and sales people also sit in the same hall. They always get calls from customers and the office is always filled with laughs and conversations. The entire hall is divided as 3 sections, Developers, Account Management People and Creative people.  My seat is in a corner near to Jinye and Opposite to Jibin.

Apartment – is really very nice and fully furnished. The normal office time is 8-9 to 5-6 and is  flexible. We usually try to reach office earlier , so that we can reach apartment before heavy cold. I’ve attached the photo of the outside view of our apartment and office. 

Kelly was the person who did take care of us during the first days here.  First day itself we  went for shopping with and bought all the necessary things for the apartment. The first week, one day we had lunch with Kevin and went to a nearby restaurant. It’s really hard to live with American food.  The first Friday, we had lunch with dev people (Jinye,  Tim, Paul and Dave) and were supposed to go to an Indian restaurant nearby. But when we reached there, that was closed. So we went to a Chinese restaurant near to that, and according to Jinye’s suggestion, selected some item which was fortunately not that bad :). Last Friday the turn was with account management people (those who handles the buyer side of CCA). Hope we would be having lunch with the creative team next Friday.:)

We got 2 weekends right now here. First weekend, on Saturday we went to Paul’s house for dinner, with Vince’s family. I hope u all have seen the photo in Jibin’s orkut which was taken with them. We really had a nice time there with the two families..Especially with the 5 kids(Vince’s two boys and Paul’s 3 girls. Paul’s house is having basement for kids to play. The great fun is that the kids are not at all allowed to make noise or play in the upstairs. That basement is really their own world and they are making use of it maximum. :)

We could meet Mike and wife the next Tuesday. They came to apartment to pick us and went to an Indian restaurant for dinner. That was really  nice food  and we enjoyed having it. After the dinner we went to Mike’s house and spent around half an hour there with them and their dogs. J (It is really surprising that here we can’t find a single home without at least one dog).

Last Saturday we went for Ice Skating with Jinye and kid. It was really amazing and we really had lot of fun. Sunday we went to some shopping malls with Jinye.

That’s all till now.

Keep in touch,

Regards,

Bini.

Kochi to Boise – The first one directly from Bini

I think this is the first time I am making a post in this blog and this may be the right time to write something about Naico family or about some of the team members.

Two of our colleagues at Naico (Bini & Jibin) took off from India for US (Boise, ID) last week (8/1/2009) for a two months onsite assignment. Personally, I feel a little sad at times to realize that they are far away from us and they don’t have anyone to help them other than our counterparts at the client side. Really I feel sad when I talked to them a few minutes back, chatting for the first time after they left for US. It may be because, they were used to be here the whole day with us in our office, but for two months their seats would be empty without them.

Anyway, this must be a wonderful opportunity for both them from a professional as well as a personal aspect and I wish both of them a nice time. Following is the first email we received from one of them after they landed in US. I hope the reader can visualize everything as they read through the following email from her. We are expecting more and more travel journals from them time to time as they get time to write. Interesting events must be awaiting them… lets hope so… and now start reading…

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Hi all,

First of all, sorry for the delay in sending  this mail…The reason is that as we reached here on weekend, we  got laptop only today.

If I start from the very beginning, everything went fine in Nedumbassery airport and we reached Mumbai around 11 PM, Thursday.  We had to wait in the airport till next day morning, as our next flight to Chicago was at 8 AM in the morning.  Anyway that was not a big deal as we got some nice seats to sit and sleep for a while.

Air India, as always, departure from Mumbai was late by  2.5 hours. In the flight, we were a little bit tensed about the next flight even though the time gap between the two flights  was around 4 hours. As we feared, it reached Chicago only at 7.45 PM, where our flight to Boise was exactly at 8.05. We were sure that we will miss the flight. Still, after collecting the luggage  and completing other procedures, we ran to the next US Airways’s terminal without losing the hope(that was the first and the most worst mistake we did during our journey).  If we were alone without luggage, that would have been  fine. But taking all the luggage and moving from terminal to terminal was really a difficult task. Finally we reached US airwyas terminal, but nobody was there, as their last flight has already been taken off.

Then somebody told us to go back to Air India’s terminal and they would be arranging the next trip and accommodation.  We are still not sure how many times we entered into lift and train in Chicago airport.  Finally we could reach  Air India’s arriving terminal when one person came out through the door.

When we entered inside, one or two persons were in the queue for the same reason. We just relaxed then for a moment, and suddenly thought that Kelly would be waiting for us in the Boise airport. The next issue was informing  naazim or Kelly about the delay. In the airport, we could see only coin boxes where only local calls are allowed, ie only in the state. Finally someone told us to take a phone card, but every shops were closed  by that time. (it was around 10 PM then.).

For God’s sake, one of the persons in the queue, who was near to our seat in the flight, allowed me to have a call from his mobile to US number. I thought of calling Kelly then, but I didn’t get her then. I called Vince then told him that we will be reaching there next day only. That was a moment of relaxing after a long time.:)

Then we got the tickets and hotel details by 11 PM and waited near the entrance, for the hotel cab to come. Like us, there were around 30 people and by the time we reached the entrance, we were only just 4.  We couldn’t get into the first cab as  that already had several luggage inside. And they told we four to wait for 10 more minutes. But we had to wait around 1 hour there. That place was full of snow and as we were a little bit relaxed, we could take some photos while waiting for the hotel’s cab.:)

So finally we reached the hotel at 12.30 and the dinner time was already over. So we missed Air India’s allowance for dinner.(Anyway we managed it by having a nice breakfast there). Then had a nice sleep and went to airport in the morning  to get into the Boise flight at 10.00 AM. We called Vince and informed him that we will be reaching there at 12.30. Catching the terminal or flight was not a big deal for us then, as we were already familiar with Chicago airport’s each and every floors, trains, lifts and terminals. :D

We reached Boise at 1.00 PM and Kelly was there to receive us. I was expecting her with a placard saying  ‘Jibin and Bini’. But she was able to identify us at a glance. Later when I asked her how could u identify us so soon, she told me that just before leaving house, she checked my skype profile photo.

Then the final issue(not that big issue as naazim had told us about it in advance) was missing one of the bugs of mine. Kelly went to the baggage claim counter and gave her address to reach the luggage at her door.

This was all about the journey and I’ll definitely update u with the other details including Boise, apartment and Balihoo office.

Wait till then and Keep in touch,

Bini.

Its been 3 years now...

Alhamdulillah! You know, its been 3 years since Naico was started. Really, it is a wonderful and different day for many in Naico especially because by ALLAH's grace it was 3 years back on 22 August that our MD started the company. I am happy that I could join him on the same day.