India: Day 10-12 - part 2

 Saturday morning we spent walking around the area. It was so much fun to soak in what we saw around us. Cows in the middle of the sidewalk, trash everywhere, people playing cricket, auto rickshaws everywhere, avoiding large holes in the sidewalk. We stopped at a grocery store for snacks. We realized pretty quickly that you have to be offensive when it comes to waiting in line – if you don’t stay close enough to the person in front of you someone will cut. We stopped by a small park (don’t think any US park) to have some soda and after about 15 minutes the sprinklers came on and were actually strong enough to get all of the benches wet. It was funny but we saw that as our cue to leave. We the decided to head for the mall. There are a few in Bangalore and we were curious what it would be like. It was nice, 5 stores, but not huge. There was a McDonald’s and it was fun to look at the menu – no beef items and basically nothing the same as in the US or Thailand. But you can get a Masala Chicken burger if you want! We spent most of our time at a bookstore. The kids each got a CD of a movie soundtrack (Orin got Star Wars and Micaiah got The Lion King). We got a lot of chocolate because you can get Cadbury here and it is really cheap and really yummy! We tried some Indian food at the food court. It wasn’t bad but tasted like Food Court food. We stopped at a candy store on our way out. Damien wasn't feeling well so we ate dinner in our room. I ordered two club sandwiches off of the hotel menu ($4 each) and they were so good and big enough for all of us. The next morning Damien spent most of the time watching the Saints/Lions game. We had Chinese food for lunch. It’s funny because the few Chinese restaurants we've found in Thailand taste too much like Thai food – and the Chinese food in India tastes a lot like Indian food. After lunch we found this great Ice Cream shop and I had the best mango ice cream I've ever had. The hotel got us a taxi to go back to the center, but it ended up that the guy had no idea where he was going – we were so far out in the middle of nowhere. He must have stopped about 10 times to ask for directions. And remember that bridge that was out? Instead of dropping us off on the side where we picked up the bus initially, he drove the LONG way which was about 45 minutes longer and brought us to the other side. Then, he tried to charge us $20 more than he was supposed to. Our Indian friend spent about 20 minutes talking to his boss and thankfully got them to remove some of the ridiculous charges. But then he just left and we were sort of stuck. Our Indian friend found us another taxi (I use the term “Taxi” liberally since it’s always just a man in a car or jeep of some type) and we finally made it back. It was an adventure for sure. We’re so thankful for our friend B who helped us so much – we never could have done it without him.

The boys had their favorite ice cream - blueberry!

Waiting patiently at the taxi as we try to get the payment figured out.

Since the taxi just sort of left us, we got the kids some snacks to keep them buys while we looked for someone else to drive us back to the center.

The street that our hotel was on was really pretty - at least compared to everything else we had seen so far!

We have these in Thailand but I was sort of surprised to see it in India. I thought it was just a Thai store. Plus it's Sora's middle name which is fun.

A man wearing a skirt while he worked. A lot of people were dressed like this.

We sat for a while and watched some men play Cricket. The boys thought it was cool.

Just some cows laying in the middle of the sidewalk. Nope, not strange at all.

A temple that we walked past. I wish we had had more time to go in.

Drinking our sodas in the park.

We found a used book store - HEAVEN! (at least for my 3 boys)

The outside of the bookstore. :)

Indian Barbie!