Kokrokoo is a site designed for everyone looking for a bit of something. It is geared towards to geek, traveller, events in Ghana, Photography and advice in general; to mention a few.
My work for today took me to Lloyds TSB not far from Piccadilly Tube station. Out of the station, and a left turn with 10 minutes walk down the road brought me in front of where I would be working for the day 8-10 Waterloo Place.At lunch time, i decided to take a stroll. The area looked impressive. I remember driving through a couple of times, but have never taken the opportunity to admire the scenary. So below I have some pictures I took.
Now this is something all you Hip Hop music overs should go out and buy. This CD is phat. I got my copy from the producer himself, Wayne.
Check this Uptown Record's website out for ordering and prices. As I said, get a copy, you definately will not be disappointed.
Yesterday I walked into The Carphone Warehouse Shop just outside Baker Street Tube Station and got myself a Blackberry 8800. I am now finally fed up with looking for a phone that can do everything. I have come to the conclusion that getting the perfect phone that can perform as a camera, phone, PDA et..etc...is many light years away. After careful thought, I decided to go in for the BB8800. I am actually surprised by what it packs. Anyway, here is a question that someone might like to answer. I have noticed that you can activate the GPS on the Blackberry and get a map of you location, or even get directions [I havent looked into this properly]. But my question is, are the maps stored on the Blackberry or are they downloaded in realtime to the device.
So after about an hour fiddling about with it, i managed to set it up to download my emails from my POP3 account [joseph@djamasi.com] and also from my gmail account [joseph.djamasi@gmail.com]. I am becoming increasingly reliant on emails, and getting that instant access to email is becoming more of a necessity. The Blackberry solves this issue beautifully.
I have also baught a 2GB memory card for it. What I will be doing with that will become evident soon.
Today, I did some work for Lloyds TSB on Gresham Street. All these major banks have loads of money and have a few million to spend on their offices. anyway I just could not resist taking out my Sony Ericsson to take the pictures below.
This harvest festival is celebrated by the Ga people from the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. It begins with the sowing of millet by the traditional priests in May. After this, thirty-day ban on drumming is imposed on the land by the priests. The festival is highlighted at varying times by different quarters of the Ga tribe. The Ga-mashie group of the tribe will celebrate theirs' a little earlier than the La group.
Homowo recounts the migration of the Gas and reveals their agricultural success in their new settlement. According to Ga oral tradition, a severe famine broke out among the people during their migration to present day Accra. They were inspired by the famine to embark on massive food production exercises which eventually yielded them bumper harvest.
Their hunger ended and with great joy they "hooted at hunger" this is the meaning of the word HOMOWO.
Two years ago, I happened to be in Acrra just around the time of the Homowo Festival. I was taken to the James Town Mantse's Palace and had some of the festival food there. Below are some pictures I took.
I must have been upstairs in my study, because when I opened my front door to have a quick look outside, I suddenly saw the ice cream van right infront of my house. I normally here these things as they drive down the road. Anyway, I said to myself, why not, I havent had one of these for a while.
Well I have managed to get a copy of Microsoft's Web Design Tool. I am currently playing about with it. So far, I am quite impressed by what it packs.
What I will do is copy my website files to my windows 2003 enterprise server and run the copy off the site from there. There is a lot of mention about ASP.NET 2.0, which I simple do not have a clue about. So I guess I will need to do a lot of reading on that. I will be back to update you on my findings.
They say that being an IT contractor isnt easy, and they are right. I am constantly having to "upgrade" myself, by buying books, attending course, or self tutoring. The picture below, shows a fraction of the collection of books I have.
...how observant some banks can be. About a year ago, I went into the Moorgate Branch of The Nationwide Bnak to pay my mortgage with a cheque. However, I got the cheque and a nasty letter in the post a week later from the nationwide Bank. The letter started off with "your bank has returned the enclosed cheque to us marked "Refer To Drawer"; and that Nationwide was going to charge me £27.50 for thier troubles. I read the letter, looked at the cheque and read the letter again. I then looked at the cheque again and noticed that I had forgotten to fill i the "pay" section of the cheque. Well I said to myself, facny the bank charging me for a mistake they have made. Afterall it was the responsibility of the cashier to make sure that the cheque was filled out properly before accepting it.
I marched over to the bank [Nationwide] this afternoon, explained things to them, and to my surprise got a cheque of £30 for the mistake they had made...
Result....
I am currently working on this bank charges thing. I have sent off my payment for my 6 years recods and waiting for a reply.
This Saturday, I will be signing up for a days course on oprating the Fork Lift reach Truck..Please dont ask me what the plan is. It will all be revealed soon.
If you need more information on Wireless Technology, why dont you check out the BBC Technology website. Here is the link
Gosh its friday again, and the weekend is with me....yet again. Hmm I feel my week has been somewhat unproductive, but fairly productive....Please dont ask me what that mean..:). I am down in Billingsgate Market in the early hours of Saturday morning, the cutting across London to Harewood Avenue to do some some at BNP Paribas. After that, iI will be making tracks to North Finchley to visit my best friend. I have'nt seen her for a while. She will probably drown me with curses before giving me a brotherly hug :). Hmmm seems i have left out a task for the weekend. Ah better check my tasks in Outlook. Then there is Sunday. My Niece is heading back to Ghana after spending almost two months with her sister. Time fly's doesn't it? Her check in is at 8.00 AM, so we are looking at leave the place for Gatwick around 3.00AM. Don't be surprised about the early start. I plan of going down the M1, and with the current state of play regarding road works, I certainly do not want to be caught in any surprises.
Everytime its the same old story. I wake up one morning telling myself that:1)...I am going to exercise and lose some weight. 2)...I am going to watch [with eagle eyes] what i eat. 3)...I am going to hit my target in say 3 months. Then what happens? everything is thrown right out the window. you find out that you are back to square one. Well this time its not going to be that way. I am really going for gold this time.
what am I eating?: well in the mornings I have oatmeal. I am currently working at BAT in Corby. They provide free lunch everyday for the staff. The menu isnt fabulous, but it's good. On most days they serve some form of meat [grilled]. i am Talking about grilled chicken, roast turkey and roast ham. Vegetables are served everyday with lunch, then there is potatoes, fried chips and some other starchy food. What I am going in for is just meat/chicken and vegetables. then in the evening i have salad with steamed fish.
Exercise wise, I either go for an hours power walk or 40 minutes of cycling on my mountain bike. Three times in a week, I lift weights and do some skipping. I hope this is enough to get me back on the road of being super fit.
Reachout Community Church is Christ-centred and purpose-driven. Avoiding traditional religious structures, our lively, inspirational worship services and weekly small group format are designed to help God's people experience the best He has for them. This website provides information about our church, details the many programmes on offer within the church and the community and offers a wealth of resources. If you are interested in becoming a Christian, please click Here
The death was annouced last week friday of my Uncle, Mr Adjin Tawiah Lartey. He died at the age of 70 years. He had previously been ill, and on friday morning, Our lord called him to rest. Arrangements are being made for his burial. The funeral will be in September. The month of August is when the Ga's celebrate the Homowo. By traditional law, no funerals are held within this period. Apparently, there will be a wake on the 31st of August, and burial at the family burial grounds in Akramaman on the 1st of September. Church service will be on the 2nd of September. I will miss him very much. such a talented man who come from having nothing to running a succesfull import export company IPACOL.
I am now currently working for British American Tobacco at thier Corby and Cambridge sites. With all my other contracts, they have been in London, so all I have had to do was buy a weekly rail card and hop on the train to London. Now [fortunately] its different. I have had to hhire a car, because its just not practical to get a train from where I live to corby or Cambridge for 9.00AM.
The railway system is absolutely killing. Now wonder why we have too many cars on our roads. The public transport system is just not reliable. I went to the national railway site and tried finding out if a train ride from my home location to Cambridge was possible and also how long it would take. Check my findings in the picture below.
So, its possible, but for someone who needs to start work at 9.00AM each morning, its not a good idea to catch the train. Anyway, I am currently working between two sites; Corby and Cambridge.
The next day found Ola and I in the offices of Enterprise Logic on Residency Cross Road. Fortunately for us their offices are just a 15 minute walk from Maya Hotel where we are staying. We were met by Meenu our buddy for the period of tuition at Enterprise Logic. After introducing ourselves, we paid our course fees of 30,000.00 Indian Rupees each and arranged a date when we could start classes. We spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing and checking out the local scenery. There was so much to soak in. We spent next couple of days enjoying ourselves, as we concluded that once the course started, we wouldn't have the time enjoy the city.
SAP HR classes kicked off on the 13th of February. Monday the 12th was a strike day, something to do with the water situation in the city. Our SAP tutor, Suman [for short] was our tutor for the period of our course.
There was so much to learn in SAP HR. One thing I can say for sure is that our tutor is a clever chap. No notes, books or anything of that sort to refer to. He would come into class and then it was all from memory to the white board. I liked the setup they had at Enterprise Logic. There are about 11 small classrooms for teaching, and there is one huge lab with computers to training.
Bangalore is a "funny" place. "Funny" in terms of the fact that shops are open at around 10am in the mornings, and are shut by 12 midnight. Absolutely everything shuts down at 12 midnight. Even the clubs; they knock off at 11.30pm latest, amazing but true. Further inquires as to why this is so revealed that the police were cracking down on western culture.
One thing we didn't miss out on was the opportunity to have suits sewn for us. I was in a Forex shop getting some pound sterling changed to Indian Rupees when I glanced up to see Ola in another shop checking out suit materials. What on earth is this geezer doing there I asked myself. Anyway after my business at the Forex shop, I quickly went to meet Ola and asked what was up. He said he had inquired about having a couple suits sewn and had be given a price that was too good to be true. I instantly selected 3 different suit materials, and had myself measured up for them.
There is so much to see in Bangalore. The best way of moving about in this city depends on the time of the day. I personally think that the best time to explore the city is in the morning, between the hours of 8 am and 11 am. Almost all the shops do not open until 10am or 10.30am in the morning. From 10am onwards, the city turns into a "war zone". The amount of traffic that suddenly builds up within that short space of time is unbelievable. You suddenly find people everywhere, cars honking their horns and bicycles telling you to get out the way with their bicycle bells.
After about 3 weeks, Ola and I asked Meenu if she could arrange an elephant ride for us. She confirmed that it wouldn't be a problem and we fixed a date for our trip. So early Saturday morning, Meenu, Meetul, Ola and I, drove to Bangalore National Park. The drive was about an hour, and took us through that part of the city where a lot of multinational IT firms had their offices. The architecture of these offices is amazing. Accenture has a Helipad on the top of the building. Oracle, Microsoft and IBM have impressive offices too.
On our way to the National Park, we got a running commentary from Meetul which helped a lot. The architecture of the buildings in Bangalore is very impressive. One reason I got for the presence of all these multinational IT companies in Bangalore was due to the massive tax breaks the Indian government have given to these companies. Well we got to the national park around 11 am and bought our tickets for our "safari" ride. I didn't know what to expect. Were these animals going to be caged up or would they be wondering around in the forest reserve. Patience, I said to myself, patience. It didn't take long for our bus to arrive. We all climbed in at it soon took of on our journey. After about 30 minutes of driving, we suddenly came upon some antelopes grazing. It was difficult to get any good pictures of them from where I was sitting. Also with the presence of safety netting around the bus, it was easy to take a picture without have the wire mesh in your view. I suppose there wasn't much that could be done about it, and we had to put up with it. As we navigated our way further into the national park, we came across bears, white tigers, tigers, some more antelopes and lions. The white tigers were absolutely beautiful.
Now the best part of the day at the national park was the elephant ride. I was a bit apprehensive about the ride, but my strong spirit got the best of my fears. The ride lasted about 20 minutes. Four people climbed into a sitting area that had been adapted onto the back of the elephant, and we were taken on a short trip.
As you gents and ladies know, where ever one goes, there is always something funny at the location where you are. For me, it was these bizarre signs that I came across. Personally I think you have to be in Bangalore to appreciate the funny side of things; especially the road signs. Here are a couple of street signs I took pictures of.
And who said you had to be in Paris to enjoy your clothes shopping. The shops are absolutely amazing. You can get anything from your "made in India" stuff to all the locally made goods. I suppose there was nothing that couldn't be found in the shops of Bangalore. Ola couldn't resist the urge to buy as many linen shirts as he could. Being an expert in linen shirts, he persuaded me to get a couple myself. "you cannot beat these prices in the UK he said. Why wait". And he was right to. I got two linen shirts straight away.
The Indians has a very acute eye for fashion, but obviously its not everyone who can afford these nice clothes that are displayed in the shops. For the tourist or foreign employee from another country, there is no reason why you should not invest some money in these quality clothing.
One cannot go to Bangalore and come back without making mention of the food. What didn't we have? We sampled as much Indian food as we could. Personally I couldn't keep track of their names. I would say that between Ola and I we would spend about £8 on an evening meal. This included a maximum of 2 bottles of beer each [yes Kingfisher brand too] and tips.
We mostly skipped breakfast and would have a light snack in the middle of the day. Our main meals were in the evenings, and they were mostly Indian meals [why not?]. Well below I have some pictures of typical meal we would have in the evening. The restaurant we mostly ate in was called Sea Shells. The food there is absolutely fantastic. To be honest, there were some crappy places that we went to eat in. but on the whole the majority of them were very good.
There was no end to the number of friends we were making each week. The chap in the above picture is called Richard and he currently lives in Malaysia. I think he lives out there permanently. Well I hope so, because I am planning of going out there for a visit one of these days.
Breakfast at the Maya Hotel is nothing to get all excited about. However they do try to give you a good morning's breakfast. Of course, you have the option of having your breakfast in your room, but I personally made it habit of going up the hotel restaurant to have my breakfast. During our stay there, we had breakfast only on a few occasions.
An experience worth noting was when I asked Ramud to take me to the local barber for a simple hair cut. My initial attempts to illustrate to the barber how I wanted my cut proved futile. So out of desperation, I opted for the shaved look. I will never forget this. After shaving my hair, the barber proceeded to oil my scalp with ointment which I assumed was local. The feeling felt very good, and I said to myself, at least I will be getting my money's worth. Then all of a sudden he started beating my scalp with the tips of his fingers. It wasn't painful, but his sudden action threw me completely. After that came the back massage. I had to lift my T Shirt up and bend over forwards. Some more ointment was applied to my back, and he then started giving a one good back massage. This cannot be bad at all. I came for a haircut, and I was getting the full treatment. I felt like a completely new person after he had finished. All this, for about £2.
Well a trip to Bangalore wouldn't be a trip if one didn't make mention of the traffic there. OMG…its absolutely mayhem. Yes, there are traffic lights but even that is completely different to what I am used to. The lights don't change from red to amber then finally to green. When the lights are red, a timer starts counting down from 100 to 0. When it hits 0 then it switches to green and all hell breaks loose. As for using the zebra crossing, forget it. You really have to watch out when crossing the road on a zebra crossing. A car will not slow down or even stop for you the pedestrian on a zebra crossing. And oh there are the street signs, absolutely hilarious. Here are a few.
Well that's it for now. There are loads to tell about my trip to Bangalore. I even have news for you about our weekend trip to Cochin. I promise to blog that too soon.
I met up with my friend Ola in Bedford, UK and from there we hired a cab to London Heathrow Airport. Our flight finally took off from Heathrow airport at around 10.20pm. Our flight with Sri Lanka Airlines took us on a 9 hour flight to Male for a brief stop and then to Colombo in Sri Lanka. We stopped in Sri Lanka for 2 hours before continuing our journey to Bangalore. We got to Bangalore around 8.30pm. By the time we picked up our suitcase and gone through customs, it was around 9.10pm. I was totally taken back by what i saw. There were motor bikes and cars ALL over the place. Making our way to find the taxi rank was like finding a mine i a mine field... very dangerous. We finally got called to one side by a cab driver who after our much difficulty in telling him where we wanted to go; he took us to a hotel to spend the night. However, before we managed to get a room in the Hotel, we had to bargain really hard with the agent who was organizing the hotel room for us. For a period of 4 weeks, he wanted to charge us £1000. Little did he know that we also knew how to play his game? Finally we got to an agreement of £400 for a room with air conditioning, room service, and breakfast.
The hotel, Maya Hotel is situated right in the city centre, and only 5 minutes walk away from Enterprise Logic.
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