A bold step at KFC Mall Road Lahore

A guest-post from a friend (Ahsan Saleem):

Out of the blue, instead of going to relatively cheaper AFC (Mall road) I went to neighboring relatively expensive KFC. I haven't been to a KFC recently but the crispy chicken KFC ads have been tempting me for a while. With a watering mouth, and ready to go air wallet I entered KFC. Unlike its main branch (Barket market walee), the restaurant was almost empty with only a few tables filled, which I thought was an achievement of AFC. I hate rushy places so that came as a plus. The counter line was all empty and a girl with hijab was standing there.

Without wasting any time, I picked a menu and went off; I want this .. I want that upsize .. I want breast piece etc etc etc .. when suddenly the attendant at counter stopped me with a silent signal of her hand, and pointed to her ears with a negation. I was a little embarrassed or not.. I cant remember, but I surely felt surprised. I mean thats not common, I haven't seen that anywhere before. I spent some time in Beijing china some couple of years back and had developed a pretty pathetic sign language. It brought back old memories but the attendant was pretty quick and on the spot.

I started to realize that all of the walls were filled with posters teaching sign language and the menu appetizing me had sign language on it also. With in 10 minutes I was able to find a holding describing that KFC as a special branch being run by special ppl. I was happy to see someone in mainstream taking such a step. I had fun eating crispy chicken [ :) ] and practicing original and authentic sign language. Do try the KFC mall road.

My first encounter with French language

Recently we decided to visit a French city near German border. It is called Strasbourg and is located at a three hours train ride from my city. We traveled on the "Happy Weekend train ticket" (a ticket that allows you to travel anywhere in Germany within one day) to a German city (Kehl) on the border of France. Where here, Strasbourg was lying over the river. We thought we should cross the bridge into France and then purchase a "full day ticket" in Strasbourg to make use of local transport. But the ticket office near the border was closed. The bus stops had no ticket machine and the bus drivers didn't sell "full day tickets". Worse, the drivers didn't speak either English or German. People at the border also didn't speak anything but French. So we used our natural instincts to ask for directions. We took the bus to the center of the city and climbed the highest cathedral in France there. It had more than 300 steps and induced hunger when we climbed down. We asked for a Turkish restaurant and ate a Halal Döner (shawarma) from there.


Then we set out to see the chocolate museum boasting to show chocolate manufacturing process and offering free chocolate. We took the tram to outskirts of the city till a bus station and asked a waiting passenger for further directions. He told us in broken English to take bus nr 50 after half an hour. The sun by this time was starting to burn. When the bus came, we showed the map and location of museum at which the driver asked us to take bus nr 2 with hand signals. We again waited and then got to the driver of bus nr 2. After showing him 3 maps of the region, he pondered for about 10 min and identified the place where we were standing on the map. Exhausted, we asked him about the museum and he began again searching the map and his brain. After about 10 more minutes he explained the directions in French to which he also didn't seem confident about. So we decided to head back to the city and took a boat tour around the city. The one hour tour showed us the European Parliament there. Then we took our dinner from a Bengali restaurant and headed back to Kehl with bus. The bus stopped in the middle for tne minutes to make us miss our train and wait for an hour for the next train. Once in Kehl we had to wait another hour for the next train. So we went inside the city coincidentally finding a loud festival there. We reached back at 2:30 am instead of 12:30 am. Pictures of the trip can be seen at Picasa.

Celebrating Labour day in Germany

1st May was a public holiday in Germany on account of Labour day. The graduate students union arranged a trip to a local garden-show including numerous dinosaur statues, ranked among the uniques in Europe. We gathered in the city center at 10 am, noticing that the police was stopping cars from going towards the city center. Soon a rally emerged from a side walking towards the city center. There were hundreds of people carrying slogans to increase the pays. Many of them were whistling and some were beating drums. There were also children carrying banners reading "increase the pay of my papa". But it was a very peaceful rally. I heard there was trouble at the rallies in biggest cities like Berling and Hamburg. We joined the rally for fun and walked with them to reach the Garden-Show. They scattered inside the garden where speeches were held on a stage. We left them to wander off in the garden.

The garden was publicising 1 million tulips from the start of April. This was a replica of the famous tulip show in the Netherlands. Half of the tulips had withered at this time. Then there were dozens of very big and very small dinosaur models. In the evening, we played cricket as on every holiday.

Trip to Switzerland

Soon came the Easter holidays. Four free days demanded some outing to get out of boredom. A friend had earlier proposed of going to Switzerland. That seemed a good option. So off we went on Saturday morning to Zurich, the biggest city of Switzerland. We arrived just in time to catch a city bus tour which guided us in and around the city for four hours. The city lies around the mouth of a lake and goes up the surrounding hills. We also took a cable car up the hill to get a bird eye view of the city. The bus then boarded a ferry alongwith 15 other cars to cross the lake. Zurich has the best living standard in the world. The guide showed us the most expensive area of the city. He also showed us the place where Churchill raised the slogan "Rise Europe" to pave the way for making the European Union, of which Switzerland is ironically not a member. We then headed to search for a cheap hotel, not having booked one in advance. After about two hours of searching, we found a hotel offering 30 Euros per person lying on the lake-shore close to the train station. Zurich was surprisingly clean with staff collecting junk in trains at regular intervals. There was even a steward in train selling eatables and collectibles. Most of the train journey to the next city was underground.



The next morning, we abandoned the plan to go the third largest city Basel and instead set out for Luzern, upon recommendation from tourism people. The coutry was covered in clouds which were expected to clear in the afternoon. We took a trip in Luzern to a very high mountain through cable cars. The cable car journey itself took more than half an hour with two interchanges to take us to a beauty i had never seen before. We crossed the clouds to reach the top of the mountain, called Mount Pilatus (dragon). It was a rocky mountain covered by snow on its flat areas and naked on steep slopes. There were two tops guarding a small flat strip over which people lied on berths under the furious sun. The mountain crows made it their backyard playground accepting food from tourists with their yellow beaks. Two hotels bordered the strip with a restaurant serving hot meals. A radar and a communications antenna watched over the surroundings from two different peaks. A 500 meter slippery cave lined one of the tops supposedly housing the fire-breathing dragon. Not wanting to leave that scene we came back to find the city bathing in bright sunlight.

After touring the city on the high city walls and eating from the train station, we headed home on the last train, a big risk in Germany. And the feared happened, the train stopped at one point to load us into a bus to reach the next train station. The ticket-checker although assured us that the next train will not leave until she has boarded us in it and thus that train waited 5 minutes for us 5 persons. Thank God we reached home that night.

Trip to Paris

This month, we unexpectedly got a chance to visit Paris. A Pakistani student had earlier come from Sweden to our city to do his masters project. He was leaving this month so he urged us to make a trip to Paris. We conceded. He planned a one day trip with a tourism bus service So off we went, we five guys, early in the morning to a nearby city from where we were to catch the bus. The bus journey took about 4 hours, excluding a half hour stay we did on a highway filling station. The driver drove us through the city telling us significance of different buildings there. He finally stopped near the base of the Eiffel Tower and asked us to wander around and come back to the bus till 9 pm. he also gave us a map of the city telling about important locations and also which train station shoots the train to Germany in case...

We had already heard of the long lines at the tower and were puzzled whether to climb up. The line didn't seem that big, although it was one the three lines at the four base pillars (one elevator was out of order). We also had to wait there for a resident Pakistani who had lived in our city and was supposed to show us around. So we got into the line which was moving in quick steps. The straight line was not so long, but when we got near the counter, the line was twisted in a zig zag form with about 10 turns. We finally got the tickets and went into a big elevator that took us up to the first platform of the tower. It waited for a couple of minutes and went up again, diagonally this time, to the second platform. There we got off and stood in a line to get into a small elevator taking us to the top. The view was magnificant. We couldn't find the boundaries of the city. Seine river was flowing next to the tower.

Then we came down and took a very long walk along the river, passing by Les Invalides museum and (one of the World's biggest) Louvre Museum, to reach the Notre Dame. Then we passed through the Royal palace, coming to the Concorde and walking back through Champs-Élysées (famous shopping street of Europe) to reach the Arc de Triomphe. On the way we saw offices of PIA and National Bank of Pakistan on this street. Eating fish burgers from a Macdonald there, we came back to the tower, took its night pictures and caught the bus. The driver again took us through the city and finally headed home.

Btw, the city Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan is the partner city of Paris.

Trip to Nuernberg and Rothenberg, Germany

The university (of Kaiserslautern) arranged a trip to the South-Eastern cities of Nürnberg and a smaller city Rothenberg. We moved in a group of about 40 people changing trains to complete a journey of more than five hours. Such a long distance required that they arrange a night stay. We were to stay at a youth hostel in Nürnberg which was located inside a castle. It was historically inpsiring from the outside and modernally beautiful from the inside. We went to a bunker of world war but couldn't go inside. Then we went to an hour long trip in the tunnels under the city. That was a huge network of tunnels with the guide offering us another trip to cover the rest of the tunnels in another hour or so. It was a very important city during world war and even after the war, the trials of german generals etc were held here.


Photos from Asif Shahab
The next day we went to a small city in the South, called Rothenberg. After seeing Nurnberg we were wondering what better had this city to offer. Ignorant had been our thoughts untill we climbed the city wall. Tracing the wall we walked on and on and the wall never seemed to end. We walked for about an hour to cover only one third of it and then climbed down to see the city. It was surprising that this wall was intact after the world wars. The city also boasted an "investigation museum" which was more of a torture museum. It had about a hundred different tools for torture or shame for the criminals. A high-rise tower in the heart of the city provided a nice view of the city and the surroundings, among very high winds. Exhausted, we finally went to see the river and climbed down dozens of steps to get to it, only to find out that we have to go up all those steps to get to the train station.


Photos from Asif Shahab

Experiencing extreme climate change in Germany

This winter was unbelievable. It was like there was no winter at all. There was no snow. It just snowed on two occasions, but only for the night. The next day the sun rose high, and the snow was gone. That is pretty strange for a city that used to spend a couple of winter months under the snow. Some regions in north and south were a little more (un)lucky, as they got some heavy snow; but that too didn't live its usual life. It makes life easy but it also takes away the pleasure of walking in the snow. A colleague also told me that snow kills different germs and so it is necessary to have.

Similar was the effect back in Pakistan. We weren't used to seeing negative temperatures in my city Lahore. But this winter we saw -2; and a good number of times. Seems like in a couple of years, the snow that fell in Kaiserslautern would instead start falling in Lahore. Global warming is taking its toll too early than predicted. Good to know that Pakistan Government has waived custom duty on all solar power equipment. Germany is the largest generator of solar power in the world.