Sunday 3-3-12
I spent the morning with a mild relapse, so I took the medicine the travel place gave me and voila…all better. Pradeep M and Hema both called to check on me, and we decided to try some more site seeing around 4pm, after the heat of the day had passed. I watched some TV, checked some email, and took a nap around 1pm. At 4pm I was ready to go!
Pradeep M showed up with Kumaran, a PM that I used to work with when I just took over Program Management from Marty Shellhammer. Kumaran has moved off the account but wanted to see me and volunteered to show me around with Pradeep. We went back to the Shiva temple because there are several stores there that we didn’t stop at on Saturday. I bought several more souvenirs and Kumaran bought me a tie! I don’t often wear ties, but I promised to wear it when I go downtown Indy to meet Bruce next week. :)
We then went to the Cathedral of St. Thomas here in Chennai. I was amazed to learn, that St. Thomas is actually buried here and this is only one of three church’s built on the tomb of an apostle. The other two are St. Peter in Rome and St. James in Spain. I took a lot of pictures but not with my iPhone so, you’ll have to wait until/if I upload them to FB or something. :)
We then went to a botanical gardens near the US Embassy. It was evening and the shots look very dramatic to me. Again, not iPhone. Sorry. We finished up the evening at a South Indian restaurant where they ordered some food for me. I don’t think they were too hungry as they eat much later in the evening, around 10pm or later. But I had not had anything since breakfast so I was hungry. We had a great meal, and Kumaran and Pradeep were wonderful hosts, I thank them so much for taking time out of their weekend. It means a lot! Here are some pics of the dinner.
Pradeep is on the left and Kumaran on the right. The green leaves on the plates are from a banana tree, I think, at either rate, I learned that they use almost every bit of the banana tree for food and now the bark for clothing. They serve their food on the leaves. Kumaran explained that they use their hand to eat with because it’s easier to gather up the gravy and rice with the bread. The naan was delicious, as good as any I’ve had here.
I got home and watched a little TV (Johnny English sequel…which I enjoyed very much) but couldn’t keep my eyes opened through the very end and just fell asleep. It was a good day! :)