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Having realized that we had hardly seen anything of Bangalore, Ryan and I spent Friday and Saturday exploring Bangalore. Our first stop was obviously MG Road and Brigade, one of the biggest commercial areas in Bangalore. We roamed around, from store to store, checking out all the merchandise. On MG Road, we found street vendors selling pirated books. I picked up “Five Point Someone,” a bestseller about a group of friends at the Indian Institute of Technology who joined forces in an attempt beat the system the crushes creativity and only encourages grade grubbing. In the end the graduated with 5-point something GPAs (on a 10 point scale) but a lot of amazing stories… Maybe the book is saying something about the pressure kids go through to succeed in the education system here.
After waiting for an hour, Shubham, one of our co-workers, finally made his way to Barista Café. He informed us that his cousin was coming in a bit and we could go with him to a bar where some friends were hanging. We obvi took him up on his offer. After near-death street crossing experiences and asking for directions, we found Purple Haze. There were 5
Ananjapura Road
this is the road we take to get to work IT guys already there and we joined them for some snacks and drinks. I noticed that I was one of two girls in a bar filled with several dozen men… it didn’t phase me too much, but I think they were a little surprised to interact with a very direct American girl. They all turned out to be super nice and a lot of fun. Ryan and I showed them what’s up on the dance floor. In Bangalore there is a law that says all bars and clubs must shut down by 11:30 so the party ended pretty early. They suggested we go to Royal Orchid Hotel for a midnight buffet. So our festivities continued a little longer.
Ryan and I went into the city again on Saturday, but this time to hang out with Vikash and Nalini, the HR manager at Grameen Koota and my new roommate. We went in early and go dinner at Soul, a health food restaurant. I ate my first bagel and cream cheese in over a month and it was heavenly. Also an hour late, Vikash and Nalini eventually showed up and we headed to Taika. The super cool trendy hip happening bar
Sunset at Nandi Gardens
The view from my apartment's roof at 6:45pm. thought it was cooler than it actually is and wouldn’t let Vikash in wearing sandals…. But they said socks with sandals were okay. I asked them why and they said “to maintain a profile.” Um, last time I checked, socks with sandals are a lot less cool than just sandals. Nonetheless, we went to buy him socks at Puma and came back. Taika turned out to be a lot of fun. The place is on the top floor of a desolate mall and has a restaurant, a bar, a lounge and dance club, each with its own vibe and music. We headed for the dance floor. By 10:00pm is was packed and we stayed until 11:30. Ryan and I rememberd that Arti was at the Aerosmith concert in Bangalore that night so we texted her to come over and hang out.
Ryan left early the next morning and I moved in to a new apartment the next day. I am now living with 6 or 7 other women who work at Grameen Koota. It’s not bad. I just cant really communicate with them, seeing that all but one (Nalini) hardly speak English. Occasionally, the ten words I know in
Poor Bicycle
A wee little man piled on all of this on his bike to go delivery it. Hindi come in handy but I’m basically out of the loop at all times. Especially when they watch ridiculously loud and annoying TV shows in Kannada (the regional language in Bangalore/Karnataka). Imagine Bollywood on crack and sung in even higher-toned voices than the standard Hindi. Nalini took me to get a gym membership at the club and to go shopping in Jayanagar, a pretty happening neighborhood in Bangalore. It has all the same crap as MG Road, just less international brand names. It has a local feel.
During the week I worked a ton to finalize our report and hung out in Avalahalli, our neighborhood here. This past weekend I went to a local market, just north of Cubbon Park, that is very similar. Tons of people selling all sorts of foods and snacks from carts on the street, people making flower hair decorations that women in Southern India pin on to their braids. The market was based around the outerwalls of a stadium. One section of the wall was covered by people selling shoes and sandals. Another section was entirely meant for clothing. They had everything imaginable. I noticed a temple across the street from the market and
View from the Dosa Shack
Gates to Nandi Gardens Apartment Colony, huge water tanks and a rickshaw. went inside to take a look. It was pretty small and had your standard statues but I was surprised by how many flower necklaces that adorned the statues with. There is a huge labyrinth of streets behind the temple. The streets reminded me of the old part of a European city, where cars can barely get through and little stores specialized in the most random things. I saw one store that only sold stick on Bindis. Another sold tyres (the Indian spelling for tire) for motorbikes. Another sold security guard shirts… I was tempted to buy one for Halloween this year. And the coolest one sold bamboo chairs that hang from a ceiling (like the ones at Continental Midtown in Philly).
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