Shop 'til You Drop
I didn't really drop, though your feet get a little tired. The streets and sidewalks are uneven (at best), and often I pick my way through puddles, dirt, mud, and poop (lots of cattle and dogs wander around). It sounds worse than it really is. You get used to it, and you take your shoes off before you go into a lot of places. I also use the bathroom sprayer to wash my feet when I get home.
I try to figure out what is "Expensive" and what is reasonable. My conclusion: if it's good quality and I want it enough: buy it. I don't have good points of reference (though if there's haggling involved, I try to spy on locals). I can't really use "what does a loaf a bread go for?" because food prices vary wildly. I spent 15 Rs on a thali for lunch, but going out with some ex-pats the same night night cost me 2500 Rs because I drank and snacked at fancy hotel bars where a lot of ex-pats (and their corporate accounts) cluster. So, I try to compare prices, cross my fingers, and hope I'm not paying too much of a foreigner price. [Side note: TP costs A DOLLAR A ROLL.]
What's Kannada for "Where's the Big and Tall Section?"
On Sunday, I went to the City Market, a big, fancy department store, and had a series of annoying auto-driver experiences exacerbated by low blood sugar and diesel fumes. Other than the last bit, the city market was interesting and fun to wander around in. I saw a dog so ugly, I didn't have the heart to photograph it.
Shopping at the department store was a little like shopping in high school, where I was bigger than most girls and couldn't find clothes that fit right. I tried on t-shirts, pants, and blouses--all of which were too small, but the next size up was Huge. I looked at bras, but they had nothing larger than a 32, which would never make it around my rib cage, let alone anything else. Underwear seemed like a possibility, but I have plenty here. Jeans are almost as expensive as they are at home, and the quality isn't as good. So, I'll
The departments stores are multi-story, air-conditioned, pop music-filled, and generally about the same as a US department store. The difference is that one or two clerks hover and suggest things for me. And the they watch closely while I pick up shirts. And maybe suggest the same shirt. Or another shirt completely unlike anything I had picked up. Or the same shirt that I had been looking at and hadn't picked up because it was clearly too small and I would have split the arms. And then the second clerk will do the same. And maybe a third.
Even though the hovering makes sense (when labor is cheap, you can hire a lot of staff, and that staff is eager to please so as to not lose the job), it's still off-putting (you can probably read 3000 blog entries across the interwebs about this very phenomenon).
Fried Starch-Stuffed Starch? Genius!
I finally (after failed attempts to eat at smaller, less fancy places)lunched at an Indian Chinese restaurant in a hotel near MG Road (possibly my last trip there. Too many damned tourists). I had some sort of fried potato in sweet chili sauce. The potatoes were mashed with garlic and spices, wrapped in something that may have been another sheet of potato and then fried. I could do a whole blog entry on Indian Chinese food, but the key points are: a) TASTY, b) waaaaaaaay better than American Chinese food, 3)distinct from Chinese-Chinese food, and 4) TASTY!
