Saturday

During our first full weekend in Bangalore, we decided to check out some of the local shopping districts. Two of the managers on our team, Narendra and Vinayak, kindly joined us in order to have some locals with us to haggle with the merchants.

We met them on Brigade Road at noon for lunch to start the day, and ate at this fantastic restaurant called In China. They began serving us all sorts of food such as crispy chili chicken, Chinese dumplings, crispy fried vegetables, and some kind of crispy potato cakes. Little did I know that these were only the starters. With that said, when we walked into the other room for the buffet, I was pretty full already. But, I had to at least try some of the cuisine, so I ended up grabbing some fried rice, some Hong Kong noodles, and Thai curry chicken over steamed rice. Overall, this was some of the best Asian food I've ever had!

After lunch we began our adventure through the massive crowds of people down Brigade Road. To paint the best picture, I would compare it to a combined China Town and Times Square in NYC. Since my colleague is only here for another two weeks, this trip was primarily for him to make some purchases. I just window shopped making notes of items I will probably return to purchase at a later time. With that said, he was specifically looking for handicraft items and sarees, so we literally went in just about every shop that offered these items. Needless to say, it made for a VERY long day! As previously mentioned, we met for lunch at noon, and we did not return to our residence until a little after 10pm.

What intrigued me the most (aside from the awesome handicraft items) was the fact that all of these stores have marble steps leading into them as well as throughout the store.

After we exhausted all the stores on Brigade Road, we made our way over to Bangalore Central Mall. This mall was the first of its kind in Bangalore, and has only been around for about five years. Next stop-Garuda Mall. Garuda is one of the 'most happening' malls in Bangalore. After a few hours of shopping at various stores on some of the side streets in the area, we finally made our was over to Commercial Street. Commercial Street is one of the main shopping complexes in Bangalore, which also makes it one of the busiest areas. Saturday was no exception.

On a side note, there was a Reebok store in one of the malls, and on one of the side walls in the store was a huge picture of a certain NFL Star. Any idea who it was? None other than Ronnie Brown. WDE!

On another side note, I saw three people, count them-three, get hit with a motorcycle/scooter while crossing the street. No major injuries or anything, but it is just crazy how it doesn't matter if the traffic is stopped or not, there are still motorcycles/scooters making their way through traffic.

This is a pic down Brigade Road.



Bangalore Central Mall.



Garuda Mall.



Here I am checking out some sarees. That's Narendra with me.



Again with Narendra, and Reggie, my colleague from the U.S.



And finally, here is a pic down Commerical Street.