Virtual Tour of Abuja

Dear Friends, Thanks for being patient and reading through my blogs. Today, I would like to take you all on a virtual tour of Abuja. Hope you will enjoy :)

1. Roads of Abuja - Abuja is a well planned city in Africa. Most of the roads are wide and neatly maintained. Most of the roads have more than 3 lanes.

Wide roads of Abuja

Roads view

2. National Church - This is a huge structure and attrarts visitors. the architecture is good and is a must see attraction.

National Church

National Church - Side view

3. National Mosque - This is a structure which attracts me the most in Abuja. This huge structure is visible far from different districts of Abuja and is a visible landmark in the city.

National Mosque

4. Aso Rock - this rock is meant to be the Victory rock of Abuja. Visitors are not allowed, as military has its base on top of this rock.

Aso Rock

Aso Rock - another close view

5. Millennium Park - This is a big park in the middle of the city. People come here to relax in a pleasant environment. You get to see different kinds of birds and alligators.

6. FCT Crafts and Arts village - This is the place which all of us visited the most. You have a plenty of shops to purchase your gifts. Only thing is that, you have to bargain a lot here. Start bargaining at half the price and you will get 40-50% discount usually.

7. Sheraton and Hilton - These hotels have lounges and restaurants where you can hang out and enjoy a nice ambiance. Sheraton has a lot of options for food and my favorite is the Pizza place.

Sheraton

Hilton

8. Zuma Rock - This rock is not in FCT, but very near to Abuja and on the way to Niger state. This is a huge monolith and worth seeing.

Roads merging on to Zuma Rock

Close view of Zuma rock

9. Gurara Falls - this is a beautiful falls and you can spend hours just looking at the falls. This falls in in Gurara national park and on the way to Niger state.

Gurara Falls

10. City Gate - This is the entrance to Abuja.

11. National Stadia - Abuja has beautiful Nation Indoor and Outdoor stadium.

Outdoor Stadium - view

Indoor Stadium

#IBMCSC NIGERIA

Successful presentation at NPHCDA

Dr. Pate, Exec. Director  in the center

  I am happy to say that our final presentation at NPHCDA was      very well received and the agency was happy. They thanked and appreciated us for coming up with their strengths, gap analysis and the recommendations. Ann and Lawrence from CDC were present at the presentation.

Board of Directors

Board of Directors

I am feeling light as we completed our assignment successfully and I am satisfied with the assignment. Now all my focus is on packing and get ready to get home :)

Tonight, we are planning for team supper at Chase in Dunes and tomorrow, as our media event is canceled, we are planning for a long team lunch. This would be our last gathering together... Most of us are leaving on Friday evening, Saturday noon. One or two by Saturday night.

Over all I would like to highlight that this was a good experience at Abuja and I will remember it for ever.

#IBMCSC NIGERIA

Final presentation at the client place

Yes, today is our final presentation day. Me & Brad have our presentation with NPHCDA Executive Director and tomorrow to a larger audience. Glyn & Pradip are presenting at 12:30 PM and Kim & Brajesh have at 2:30 PM. We hope for the best today. Most probably Ann from CDC and Remi from IBM are joining us for the presentation. Sometimes me and Brad feel that 4 weeks of time is too short to study an organization like NPHCDA and come up with recommendations. But with in the given time, we have put our best efforts to understand and recommend. We wish to see IBM getting into NPHCDA IT, as we have a great scope in this organization. If we do good, there would be a lot more opportunities in Nigeria.
Best of Luck to the teams for their presentations :)


Last night, we wanted to celebrate and share our thoughts. Kim came up with the idea of partying. We ended up sharing all of our photos too. Here is the glimpse....

Kim at her best laugh

Pradip making faces

Ke Xing with his smile

Glyn with his serious look

Brad missing his wife

Niki with her wine

Kim & Asha - Suite 405 & 406

Kate, Brad & Niki

Malabika, Asha, Anick & Pradip

Malabika with her wine and sw

#IBMCSC NIGERIA

My last CSC weekend in Abuja

#ibmcsc nigeria

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! This is my last weekend of this assignment and I have mixed feelings. I am getting tensed as I have to complete my presentation and at the same time, it is just 5 more days to get back home! I am missing my family so much :(

On Saturday, we went to a local market in Garki district.

The local market view

It is a huge market and all the shops are very neatly maintained. There is food market, general market, fabric shops and I would say you will get anything and everything here. Here are few pictures.

Kim, Brad and Glyn @ local market

Colorful Aligator

Fried poor Aligator!!!

AT the food market, you get o see different kinds of food items - fish, chicken, goat, huge snails and aligators!!! Yes, colorful alligators would be fried to satisfy the hunger for taste! Pathetic.....

From there, we went on to see the Nation stadium, Abuja. It is a huge stadium and well maintained. All the soccer matches are played here. It is a majestic view. We ventured the indoor stadium also. here are the few pictures.

National Outdoor Stadium, Abuja	Panoramic view of Outdoor stadium
National Indoor Stadium, Abuja	Panoramic view of Indoor stadium

 Finally, I was able to capture both National Mosque and National Church in a single photo. It is a bit blur, still I made it!!!

We also visited the Millennium Park and a lake in Gwarimpa district. Park is a good place to relax. 
#IBMCSC Nigeria

Asha in Millennium Park #IBMCSC Nigeria

Asha, Ken and Malabika in Millennium Park

A visit to IBM office in Abuja

Hello Friends...

Its long that I scribbled on my blog. This week being the third week of our CSC assignment, we are all experiencing the heat of coming up with presentation and last moment tasks. As part of our project work, we were planned to have a discussion with IBM Canada architect regarding a solution which would help our customers. So we went to IBM Abuja office to take our call. 

IBM Office in Abuja @ Oakland Center

IBM Abuja office is in Oakland Center. It is 3rd floor and Suit 319 in Chase center. It is a small conference room with 4-5 LAN ports and a small office space. Georgia, Isah and other sales team work from here. I am sure that we will have a big IBM building in Abuja after 2-3 years and I would want to visit IBM office again then. I have uploaded few pictures of Abuja IBM.

Suite 319 in Chase Center

Georgia, Asha and Brad in IBM Abuja Georgia and Brad in IBM Abuja office

29jun was Brajesh's B'day. In the evening we went to a Lebanese restaurant to celebrate and has a goo dinner.

Brajesh celebrating his B'day

#IBMCSC NIGERIA