Saturday October 2nd

I think I'm starting to get my barring around here. Since I slept in today (7am!) I was well rested and ready for a day of wandering my new city. Julie and I went to grab a coffee (you have to order an Americano since coffee gets you a cappuccino) before we set out to go sari shopping. Alas, the sari shop was closed so we went to Esprit (yes, the same one we have in America). Unfortunately for my wallet, they had a lot of things I would buy. I should have pulled out the camera at this point because it's so odd to see these very nice buildings spaced out between streets that are in desperate need of a repair, trash, a dead pigeon and anything else third world you can think of. We walked by the Hard Rock Bangalore and Sean Kingston will be playing a concert tomorrow night and they have an American menu! Alas, the opening ceremonies of the Commonwealth games are tomorrow so I'll have to miss that concert (more on the games tomorrow).    During the daytime Brigade Rd (where the fruit stand is located) is just as busy but with less beggars. Julie showed me a bookstore that appears to be India's version of Barnes & Noble-very refreshing and all books are in English.
My goal for this week is to take more pictures of non-food items. I obviously already look like a tourist so I don't think I'll be drawing anymore attention to myself by pulling out a camera. I realize that I've only been taking pictures of food, but food doesn't look at me like I'm an alien (the white-skin thing I guess is different to people over here) so for more food pictures...

Veggie pizza from Fireflies

The beautiful and fragrant bouquet the Bangalore office gave me on my first day. 

View of our apartment from the front entryway.

View from our apartment window.

Thursday September 30th

And the verdict was...split the land into thirds? I think. There were no riots or demonstrations or burning of any kind. The only noise I heard outside my window was a group of kids playing cricket. ha. Julie and I watch CNN (India's version) hoping that we would be more informed, however the news is a mess. When they went "live" to the courthouse, all the reporters were shouting at the same time and everyone was on top of each other. Pretty chaotic and rather anticlimactic (although this is probably a good thing).
At work, they had a birthday celebration for the birthdays in September. We used to do the same thing at work in LA. There was no signing but each person with a September birthday took turns cutting the cake and we clapped when they took their turns. I'm not sure if that's how it normally goes or not. The cake was pineapple flavored and was really good (if you like pineapple flavoring, which I normally do not, however I was starving). Lunch at Caperberry was amazing.

Julie and I finally ventured outside of our half mile comfort zone to Caperberry. I definitely wasn't expecting this type of food in India...

This is my deconstruction of a caprese salad. The salmon colored thing on the left is a tomato sorbet and the white things in the spoon are mozzarella (but very thin). Put together it taste just like a caprese salad.

Julie got a watermelon salad with some kind of cheese and tapanade. 

My penne puttanesca. So good!

Julie's lamb shanks with risotto. 

Wednesday September 29th (additional)

So last night Gopi took Julie and I to go get some fruit. The area he took us to was much more populated and looked to be Bangalore's 3rd Street Promenade (with mostly brands we have in America). We went to a fruit stand to get the fruit and you have to tell the person working there what you want and how much you want (in kilos), not a self service stand. We got some bananas, kiwis (which are from New Zealand not India), passion fruit, lemons the size of a peach seed, and a couple other things. However, the fruit stand was not the memorable event of the evening, the kids pedaling for money were. As soon as we parked, there was a little boy, skinny and looked to be no more than 5 year old, tapping on Gopi's window. Gopi told us just to ignore them and to not make eye contact. When I got out of the car, the little boy came around and poked me on the arm. It was so sad not to even look at him. Amelia, you would have the hardest time in this area because you can't give any of them money. Remember in "Slumdog Millionaire" when the boy's eyes were burned out with acid to make him look more helpless? Well there was a boy sitting on the ground by the fruit stand who had his left arm missing and I can only imagine what happened to him. There were a couple little girls walking around (and one came up and tapped me on the arm) that were carrying babies (just like in "Slumdog"). It was so sad and I hope to never go back there, even though it appears that that area is the place to get fresh fruit and groceries.

Part of the trip home from they gym...

Wednesday September 29th

Gopi, JBA's second in command, has been a lifesaver in Bangalore. He picked me up from the airport and immediately called the airline to find out where my bags were, he's been Julie and my driver so far this week, he's given us detailed itineraries are where to go on our weekends, he's helped us find restaurants that aren't too spicy and are on the healthier side and this morning, he brought us to spinning! The instructor was a South African native who had a very thick accent so it was hard to understand her some times so I'm curious if the Indians in the class could understand what she was saying. Also, it appears that India has a love for boy bands. The spinning instructor played all boy bands and some other pop songs from 1999 (Shania Twain and Pink). At the office, everyone has songs for their ringtones and I guess it's OK for them to keep them on ring all day long. My favorite is the man who has Britney Spears "Hit Me Baby One More Time".
For lunch, Julie and I went to UB City which is a high rise across the street from our apartment that looks very out of place in Bangalore. It's a couple years old and has a mall with high end stores like Louis Vuitton and Burberry and a really nice restaurant selection. We decided to splurge and we went to a Japanese place that looked like it would fit in with the LA restaurant scene. The food was ok. After lunch my luggage arrived!! Amazing! Also causing some excitement at work was that there is going to be a verdict tomorrow on a case about land involving muslims and hindus. I guess it's become a very political issue and the people can get very passionate about their opinions, thus we have to go into work early and leave work early to be back before 3 PM when the verdict is announced. Worst case scenario, people burn stores. So, stores are closed tomorrow afternoon. School has been canceled for tomorrow and Friday in preparation. I guess they don't get snow days so this is the next best thing?