Harrowed Halls

Wednesday 2-27-13

My day started at 4am…again. This time I got ready early for breakfast and had a very relaxing morning. I can’t recommend the Taj West End enough. It’s an oasis in the middle of Bangalore (no, I’m not being compensated). :)

I brought my very nice SLR camera so , after I ate, I walked around the rest of the grounds that I had not been on yet. I found some REALLY super spots. The grounds are kind of set up with all these little sitting areas around these beautiful trees.

Ravi picked me up early and as we left the hotel the traffic was the worst I’d seen yet. Apparently Tuesdays and Wednesdays are really bad (which is saying something considering what I’d seen so far). Ravi pointed out some stores I might want to try and then we finally made it to the office.

I had a very good day at the office, although for lunch I tried some Chinese and it wasn’t too good…I ate the egg rolls though, they were pretty good. After my last meeting for the day with some folks on VIDUR team, Utkarsh took me out to go shopping. He knew of a parking spot that was 3 or 4 blocks from the stores I wanted to go to so we hoofed it there.

So I thought driving in the traffic was bad…walking is like Frogger. Pedestrians do not have the right of way, so you take your life into your hands crossing traffic (or sometimes even walking with traffic!

The first place had some very nice Sandalwood working so I picked up something for my mom, friends, kids and myself at that merchant. Then I found some items for Dawn and my Mother In Law at another coupe of merchants. At this store, there are merchants that have certain amount of space, you pick your items, give them to the merchant, then they give you a bill of sale. They take the items to the front and after you’ve made all your selections you go up to pay and get your stuff from the next window.

The next store, we had seen on the way to the first, so we went in. It was a rug store but they had other things. One thing I was looking for was Marble chess pieces. And what do you know, they had a LARGE chess set! So I picked it up and they provide shipping for a fee so, Dawn, you should see a package arriving some time next week. And Shawn, I should have taken a picture…but I think you’ll like it. I went over the budget because of the shipping, but I’d rather not take a chance with the big board and soft marble on the plane.

Next we were pretty thirsty so Utkarsh took me to the 13th floor…it’s a bar/lounge on the top of a building and has an open air view of the city. I had a Ciroc and Pineapple and we relaxed and talked about lots of things, some work, some not. Here are pictures in late evening and night time. Oh curses…my WiFi is down because I’ve checked out. I’ll add them later.

Here they are:

We wound up eating at nearby Ruby Tuesday’s called Ruby’s. It was reasonable food, but I wasn’t very hungry. Turns out, I think the pineapple juice might have been a bad choice. After we ate Utkarsh brought me back to the hotel and he went home to get back to work and so did I.