I have arrived...

D-Day
October 10, 2008

My flight arrived a bit later than scheduled… but airport immigration was quite efficient and I didn’t really have to wait in line too long. It seemed as if the immigration officer didn’t even check for a visa. Hmm, I wonder why. I had to wait for quite a bit before I got my luggage. I went to check the exchange rates at Travellex (just for reference) and it seemed quite reasonable at INR46.06 for US$ notes. Upon exiting the terminal, I homed in on the driver with “Indian School of Business, Jovilyn Cotio” on his placard and we went ahead to the parking area to get going. He estimated that it would take around 45 minutes for us to reach ISB from the airport.

11:15pm (1:45am Manila, Taipei & Singapore time)
The journey from the airport began. There were a lot of ads of different colors along the two-lane “highway” and the red Airtel signboards just kept on coming, but the further we got from the airport, the less ads there were… must be the target market. About twenty minutes from the airport, we turned into a side road and soon, Hyderabad gave me a distinct impression of being a “two-lane” city. No matter where we turned, it would be another two-lane street waiting for us.

My driver kept rubbing his eyes and appeared to be sleepy. He would occasionally drive in the middle of the two lane road but I was glad that we were travelling at a leisurely pace of 40-60 kph even if there weren’t any cars ahead of us… it pays to be safe than sorry. Contrary to what I’ve heard about Ahmedabahd, I didn’t see a lot of people until 40 minutes into the trip, when a ‘road runner’ person came out of nowhere to cross the road. We had to do a sudden break. Other than that… it was quite an uneventful ride.

We arrived at ISB at the late hour of 12:10am. My driver asked for directions to Student Village 1 and the man at the guard post showed him a map and gave him instruction on how to get there (in a language I couldn’t understand). It was great that he drew out the path on the map while he was talking to the driver because they had a misunderstanding. My driver stopped his car at another student village, which was quite far from mine if I had to drag my bags along… and I was in doubt. Luckily, a man came out of the building and I immediately asked him whether the building was SV1. We were told that it wasn’t and he gave more instructions on how we could get to SV1. 12:10amGlad to be safely at ISB, I checked in. For those who knew me back from HK, some may remember me saying that my room (C626) was in the New Territories, while others were in Kowloon or Hong Kong Island. Well, housing here at SV1 is comprised of small buildings with a few flats that have separate rooms in them; I’m assuming 3 flats on each building as each building had three floors. My flat is on the H block, which is “Shenzhen” if the check-in area was used as an indication. Luckily, I live on the first floor! My staying in shared accommodations meant that I shared a common area with four other persons and had one of the four rooms in the flat. I should say that in comparison with the “dorms” I’ve previously stayed in (4 different dorms in 3 countries), the fifth is the charm… I am staying in a “SINGLE” room that is quite spacious and has a real bed! After cleaning up for a bit, I realized that it was already 4am Singapore time… I’m exhausted! Have to catch some shut eye and make sure I’m not late for the exchange student orientation.