Work/ LIfe Balance | existabovethenoise

Not all websites are created equal. I talked to some people yesterday who told me that they spent weeks trying to get a passport in India, because the website only functioned for appointment scheduling from 5:59pm to 6:00pm. I am not making this up. Having a whack ass website can really kill interest in a product or service, and – frankly – having a great website can convince a consumer that poo-poo paste is foie gras. This is the nature of web-appeal, defined as the Babyface approach to internet usage (P.S. You can’t really snap your fingers with gloves on. P.P.S. *watch the video*).

Easy to use, giving loads of bang for their – mainly free – buck, here are five websites that have me wow-ed:

Everybody knows I’m a http://www.mint.com slave, but now I’ve become just as addicted to award wallet. Every credit card, store, hotel, airline has some kind of reward program and, really, who can keep up? But these entities pray that you never keep up, so that the benefits expire and dissolve into thin air. You, my friend, have no reason to be a victim of reward expiration ever again. There is a rub though – the major airlines do not allow http://www.awardwallet.com to link to their sites, so you have to manually load your point balance and periodically update it. It’s a little bit of pain for a lot of free gain. It’s simple to add programs. And once you get everything loaded you’re more likely to keep track of your earnings rather than lament all the miles and hotel stays laying in wait in your spam.

Akanksha is a great a charity and social-service program based in the Mumbai-Pune area. Using a charitable teaching platform, college students or grads can volunteer to teach students in any particular field. Further, the organization raises funds though art projects and sales, corporate giving, charitable donation, and paid summer workshops. The stores to buy student produced merchandise are apparently just in the Mumbai area, but hopefully they’ll expand to other places and an online store (fingers crossed). Either way, the site is well-organized, easy to navigate, and clear to understand – a huge boon to donor confidence.

This site is no hidden gem – it’s already been out there for a long, long time. Actually, it was about five years ago when I discovered it and thought “Urban Outfitters, the Salvation Army, and ebay had a web baby!” This site is a clearing house for hand-made and antique items. Selling is as cheap and easy as on ebay. And if you’re a buyer, you can practically find anything you could ever dream of. This year alone I bought custom rubber stamps, a Taj Mahal wall decal, and a bearded baby cap. And I’ve been eyeing a cast iron oven roaster pan. Who said being a hippie consumer was over rated?

I have to admit that I’m not in love with the email newsletters from http://www.flavorpill.com. That may have something to do with the fact that I signed up for four cities at once, and right now I don’t live in any of them (I bet you can’t guess which four!). Let’s just say it’s information overload about cool events I can’t go to. But, if http://www.meetup.com and Yelp are sites you already frequent, flavorpill.com is in the natural progression of your city search. They always have interesting event listings and off kilter articles about books and culture. Word to the wise, http://www.flavorpill.com’s culture blog is flavorwire.com. And http://www.flavorwire.com is where I learned that I’ve read two of the 15 books they say you should NOT read in your 20s. I already read one in high school and have another on my shelf right now – just ripe for the reading. Thirty is, in fact, NOT the new twenty.

To bring out the inner linguist in you, I suggest you bookmark the BBC’s world news language service. I’ve never found a more useful website for getting your bi-lingual on! The BBC offers their world coverage in many different languages (and variations of languages). Now the trick is that you should have at least a basic understanding of the newly acquired language, as well as some basic knowledge of current events in the country/region being covered. Hence, you actually should read some articles in English before listening to (or reading) story in the language of your choice. So after your Rosetta Stone courses are done, give the BBC a whirl to see just how much you’ve retained!

Don’t take my word for it. Try these sites for yourself and tell me what you think. I’m not getting paid (or gaining rewards points) for getting you to test them out. But, if you like ’em I gain bragging rights and e-street cred – what more could a blogger ask for?

P1040884

Visions of Shimla were the most mesmerizing images I had of India before actually coming here to live. I’d watched a bloody awful film that was British-produced and blasted boring about a bloke retracing Mark Twain’s train travels. I recall that the toy train was traveling so slowly that people would get off, walk alongside it for a while, buy a samosa and a chai from a train-side stall and hop back on the train to munch. I was fascinated by the train, not the movie.

I was very motivated to take the toy train, but very unmotivated to take the real train that would get me from Delhi to Kalka to meet the Kalka to Shimla toy train. I’ve heard lots of yucky things about Indian trains. I’ve read the Namesake. And being trapped in a moving vehicle with no sanitary bathroom is not how I like to begin my vacations. Suffice it to say that watching this is the closest I came to actually taking the toy train. I went by car.

In my head Shimla was a mountain oasis, peaceful, quiet = very un-Delhi like. I’d associated peace and quiet with a sense of simplicity. I expected Shimla to have less. Less people, less cars, less traffic, less telephone poles, less stray dogs, less – all around. I was shocked to find that in this case less was actually more. At some point when we were able to drive at night and the roads were visible and passable, it clicked. The British were here!

It was in Shimla that the British spent summers away from the heat of the capital. Relocating the capital meant that whatever functions were possible in Delhi had to be possible in Shimla. And Shimla certainly appears to reflect all those possibilities. The technology seems on par, the access to stuff and things appears similar. But, I can only speak for the tourist experience. (I’ve heard from people who live in Himachal Pradesh that living in those mountains doesn’t offer much by way of upward mobility for the average citizen.)

Life thrives around Mall Road and the tourist experience lived there. There’s a lift (elevator) that takes you up and down the mountain for 10 rupees each way. Tickets can not be purchased in advance (I’m not sure why). It is possible to walk the stairs, but not many choose that route for obvious reasons. Mall Road’s pedestrian walkways were a welcomed break from Delhi’s daredevil traffic. I forgot how much I like to walk. Aside from the products at the Honey Hut and local fruit wines, I wouldn’t say that there’s much on Mall Road that can’t be bought in any other north Indian city. But it was certainly pleasant to give a gander. The food isn’t much to write home about, but it is cheaper than I expected for a tourist haunt. After all though, no one heads north for cheap eats or less traffic. They go because the people are nice, and certainly less aggressive than what I’ve become accustomed to. The views are amazing and the greenery is simply gorgeous.

I may have been just another of the over 2 million tourists who travel to Shimla each year, but the three day trip was two years in the making and well worth the nine hour drive. While I didn’t actually get my arse on the bloody train, I am really happy that I finally did make it to the city of Shimla. It is there that I was able to celebrate how far I’d come since those initial days in Washington when I found out that I was destined for Delhi living. To mark the occasion, I downed three bottles of fruit wine while doing this: