9:52am
I have a quick break from work so I decided to focus my attention away from the office. Sunday was a pretty nice, relaxing day. I slept past 9am for the first time since I've been in India, and it was excellent. I ate some breakfast and did some schoolwork for a couple of hours then we decided to take a trip to one of the local malls called R City Mall.
On our way to the mall, we had our worst experience using autos thus far. As we got into the two autos, we saw our drivers talking to each other, looking at us, then laughing. It was pretty clear that they were conspiring to rip off the American kids. And sure enough, we left the hotel going in the exact opposite direction from where the mall is located. I already knew the mall was between 7 and 8 kilometers from the apartments so I watched the meter to see if the distance would go above 8km. And of course, it did. When we had gone 11.5km and I knew we still weren't very close. I then started using my best combination of hand signals and speaking in an Indian accent to let the driver know I wasn't happy. It was clear that the driver knew what I was upset about. His response was in Hindi so I don't know what his exact words were, but it looked as if he was saying something like "Hold on, its just around the corner, I swear!" About 4 or 5 kilometers later, we reached the mall. The other driver who seemed to be orchestrating the scam had a big grin on his face while he was anticipating a big pay. Evan and I were pretty heated so we quickly wiped the smile off of his face by giving the two drivers 8km worth of the fare which was about half of what they were expecting. When they reacted in anger, I simply said in a stern voice, "8 kilometers. You took the long way. We are not stupid." Lucky for us, there are plenty of policemen stationed around the mall so the drivers accepted defeat and drove away instead of trying to cause a commotion.
We put our frustrations behind us and had a good time exploring another huge mall. This one was even bigger than the Express Avenue in Chennai. In Mumbai, the stores and restaurants are a lot more westernized. There's Starbucks, TGIFriday's, Chili's, etc. These places are generally much more expensive than the Indian places so we've been staying away from them. We ate lunch at a place called Manchester United Café Bar. For anyone who doesn't know, Manchester United is one of the best soccer teams in the world and also my favorite team. They definitely don't have restaurants entirely devoted to soccer teams in the U.S. so this was pretty cool to see. It didn't hurt that the food was excellent as well.
After a few hours of wandering around the mall, we headed back to the apartment. The ride back was much less frustrating. Jeevan and I walked about a kilometer away from the apartments and found a gym. We're planning on getting a cheap membership here since the facilities at our apartment are inadequate to say the least. I'm almost certain that some of the gym equipment at our apartment complex is currently on display in museums somewhere.
That's about all of the procrastinating that I have time for this morning. Time to be productive again.
I have a quick break from work so I decided to focus my attention away from the office. Sunday was a pretty nice, relaxing day. I slept past 9am for the first time since I've been in India, and it was excellent. I ate some breakfast and did some schoolwork for a couple of hours then we decided to take a trip to one of the local malls called R City Mall.
On our way to the mall, we had our worst experience using autos thus far. As we got into the two autos, we saw our drivers talking to each other, looking at us, then laughing. It was pretty clear that they were conspiring to rip off the American kids. And sure enough, we left the hotel going in the exact opposite direction from where the mall is located. I already knew the mall was between 7 and 8 kilometers from the apartments so I watched the meter to see if the distance would go above 8km. And of course, it did. When we had gone 11.5km and I knew we still weren't very close. I then started using my best combination of hand signals and speaking in an Indian accent to let the driver know I wasn't happy. It was clear that the driver knew what I was upset about. His response was in Hindi so I don't know what his exact words were, but it looked as if he was saying something like "Hold on, its just around the corner, I swear!" About 4 or 5 kilometers later, we reached the mall. The other driver who seemed to be orchestrating the scam had a big grin on his face while he was anticipating a big pay. Evan and I were pretty heated so we quickly wiped the smile off of his face by giving the two drivers 8km worth of the fare which was about half of what they were expecting. When they reacted in anger, I simply said in a stern voice, "8 kilometers. You took the long way. We are not stupid." Lucky for us, there are plenty of policemen stationed around the mall so the drivers accepted defeat and drove away instead of trying to cause a commotion.
We put our frustrations behind us and had a good time exploring another huge mall. This one was even bigger than the Express Avenue in Chennai. In Mumbai, the stores and restaurants are a lot more westernized. There's Starbucks, TGIFriday's, Chili's, etc. These places are generally much more expensive than the Indian places so we've been staying away from them. We ate lunch at a place called Manchester United Café Bar. For anyone who doesn't know, Manchester United is one of the best soccer teams in the world and also my favorite team. They definitely don't have restaurants entirely devoted to soccer teams in the U.S. so this was pretty cool to see. It didn't hurt that the food was excellent as well.
After a few hours of wandering around the mall, we headed back to the apartment. The ride back was much less frustrating. Jeevan and I walked about a kilometer away from the apartments and found a gym. We're planning on getting a cheap membership here since the facilities at our apartment are inadequate to say the least. I'm almost certain that some of the gym equipment at our apartment complex is currently on display in museums somewhere.
That's about all of the procrastinating that I have time for this morning. Time to be productive again.
Look closely and you will see a handsome man in the reflection of these picture frames
From our train ride on Saturday
The courtyard at R City Mall
No comments:
Post a Comment