My apartment, Part 2:
More things I like:
- Taking the trash out only involves putting the bag outside my front door. Any morning of the week.
- I can often see fireworks out my window (12th-floor view + weddings with fireworks + lots of weddings)
- 24-hour maintenance!
More things I don’t like:
- Ants. There aren’t tons and there aren’t lines of them, but they are there. Little ones in the kitchen that will get into ANY foodlike substance I leave out. Black ones in the bathroom that are pretty harmless.
- My air conditioner plays a LOUD little tune when it is turned on. Normally would not be a big deal except when there are power outages in the middle of the night. Then I get to be woken up over and over.
- Construction dust
Finally got gas stove hooked up.
This increases my menu to include omelettes and spaghetti,
not just Stuff That Can Be Put in the Rice Cooker Veggie Steamer Whether Or Not It Was Intended To.
So today, my coworker took me to the mall in Saket, which is big enough to have its own Wiki page. Fancy mall. Expensive mall. Increasingly crowded mall. We did more eating than shopping, though. Then braved the 100+ heat to take some photos.
Hanging out at the million+ sq. ft mall
The armored Buddha? Practices non-violence and violence.
And the Hard Rock Cafe guitar! (No beef in those burgers.)
The guy we were with told a story about how when he and his uncle were overseas, they had some kind of delicious, juicy meat roll they assumed was lamb. Later, he found out it was beef. But he never told his uncle!
At a DVD store (that also sold smartphones and, oddly, Barbies), I saw a whole bunch of movies that I want to see. Mainly Oscar nominees. The standard price for a new release appeared to be just under $12. Need to buy a DVD player first. I wonder what region these are?
Also stopped in a nice bookstore hoping to find a Hindi-English, English-Hindi dictionary. Only saw the latter despite that there was an English-German, German-English dictionary in the same section. I’m trying to translate “Tum hi ho,” the Hindi love song that plays in every shop, restaurant, radio station, TV music show, everywhere, all the time right now. Yes, I found translations online. And yes, I tried Google Translate. But the translations only translate a line at a time (and are not necessarily consistent with each other). And Google seems confused when I input Hindi.
Then, my favorite part…
Just minutes – minutes – after I was thinking to myself, “I wonder if Delhi has a Haagen Dazs,” one appeared! I had to go. It was about the Fanciest Haagen Dazs Ever with restaurant-style seating, waiters, and an elaborate – and artistic – menu that included a fondue dish. It was also extremely expensive.
Something called the “chocoholic”? Don’t mind if I do. Nomnomnom.
Yum. And the two-and-a-half scoops or so cost ten bucks! Sheesh! Worth it, though. The people I was with tried really hard to pay for it, even though they didn’t have any. I only managed to put my 500-rupee bill in the waiter’s hand after the credit card didn’t swipe properly.
After our mall excursion, we drove by this place where the sign said “Old Fort” and they had a lake you could rent a paddle boat. Lots of non-Western tourists were there. I got more than a few glances.
We were just coming upon the end of the day, though, and there were about fifty people in front of us in line. And I was surprised to find out my co-worker “didn’t like crowds.” I thought anyone who grew up in urban India would almost be more comfortable in a crowd. I guess not! We decided to skip the boat ride, even if we could have made it. Quite crowded for a hot Sunday. (Talking to my co-workers the next day, most of them stayed at home in the cool air conditioning watching movies, rather that then venture out into the weekend heat.) Glad the metro has air conditioning.