Well, we've officially been in Bangalore for a week now and have used our down time productively. We've found a reasonably priced and clean hotel with wi-fi to allow us to stay connected with the world and make the second round of our flight plans.
The MG Road area in Bangalore is the most western area that we've seen so far, with a McDonalds, KFC, and tons of pubs, glorious pubs. They also sell beer in the grocery stores for a way better price than you can find at even the best happy hour here in town.
This down time has also allowed us to read a bunch of books, mainly tour guides, for Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo, but I also got a chance to read a book by the author of the Tipping Point, Malcom Gladwell. This book is called Blink and it's about that ever-so-telling feeling you get within 2 seconds of experiencing something.
Being that I often act based on the intuition that I get within the first 2 seconds of a new situation, I found this book especially apropos. It talks about the part of the brain that is used to process a situation, and how it effectively "thin slices" every situation to take visual clues that we aren't even consciously aware of. It's the reason why, when playing Beruit, you know the second the ping pong ball leaves your hand that it's going to land in a cup. A very interesting read...
Now I'm onto another book called The Power of Persuasion, by Robert Levine. It's aim is to talk about how we're affected by the incessant barrage of advertising in our world. It also talks about how the smoothest salesmen (or women) gain our trust and then swindle us further. I'm curious to see how many of the things he talks about in this book are tactics used by the touts that we've faced around the world... "Hello Friend"
~S
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment