Feelin' fine
I'm finally over my cold, so this weekend was quite a bit more eventful than last weekend. My trip is unfortunately almost over (one week left) so I need to finish up all the things that I knew I had plenty of time to do.
Saturday, Alec and I got together with some people from work to go shopping near the office, in a neighborhood called T. Nagar, which is a very popular place for shopping on the weekends. Alec was shopping for his parents, while I was primarily shopping for Debbie. Much of the experience was a lot like you would find in a US shopping mall. I commented a few weeks ago that Spencer's Plaza, a shopping mall here, was similar to shopping malls in the US. We went to another mall on Saturday called City Center, which again made me feel right at home. There were far fewer stores in City Center, but it was newer, better lit, and cleaner. One of the stores took up about 4 floors (the majority of the mall) and could have easily passed for a department store in the US--and a nice one at that! It was not quite the experience I was looking for while shopping in a foreign country, though, (where's the fun in that?) so we moved on.
What I found far more interesting than shopping in stores was shopping on the street. Street vendors must be more successful here than they are in the states because they're so popular. In this particular area of Chennai, there are storefronts on the side of the sidewalk opposite the street and also little mobile shops on the curb side, creating a sort of tunnel affect. The prices were much lower in the street shops but it's probably largely because I had someone from Chennai with me. One vendor quoted me 250 rupees for an item but when Madhavan stepped in, he requoted 170 rupees, and eventually 160 (even while Madhavan insisted that it was not worth more than 150). The street vendors didn't have quite the selection that the stores had, but it was a great experience and had the added convenience of sugarcane juice stands on every corner (click to see a video). I didn't have any this trip; I figured twice in a lifetime was just begging for some kind of illness.
Once we were satisfied with our purchases, it was off to Chennai's beach. The beach is a nice place to be at night, though it apparently is far too hot in the daytime to be enjoyable and thus is almost entirely empty before sundown. It was just hitting dusk by the time we got there and was very comfortable. There's tons of beach in a small area, as the distance from the boardwalk to the shore is at least twice as far as any beach I've ever seen in the US. The extra room meant there was space for lots of people and lot's of food vendors. One that I found particularly interesting was the guy cooking corn over an open flame. Not only did I take time to take a short video, but I also joined in the good eats. It was okay, but I probably wouldn't eat it again. Imagine biting into charcoal covered with lemon. It was sort of like sweet & sour corn, except the sweet was bitter and the corn was burnt. It was mostly for the experience, though, so it was worth it!
That was the end of our fun on Saturday but Sunday still held some excitement. Catey (my sister) emailed me about a guy from Chennai, named Bro. J. Jerome, who has been in contact with the church about possibly starting a branch here. He said his church, the Living Stone Ministries, has a pretty large youth group so I decided to go out Sunday and see what the service was like. I got the address to the church off the email, along with his phone number, and decided to head out there around church time. Unfortunately when I got to the address (about 45 minutes north of my apartment), there was no church. There were some kids playing cricket, some people standing around, but no church. The driver was getting a little frustrated so I decided to call the number on the email, only to find out that I had not arrived at the man's church, but the man's home! And he was as surprised as I was.
Bro. Jerome hadn't gone to church because of a fever, but even while there was no church service, it was a worthwhile trip. Bro. Jerome very kindly invited me in to meet his mom, wife, and two daughters. We talked for a little over an hour and they were even nice enough to feed me Idly with Tomato Chutney, which is one of my favorite Indian dishes. As anyone who knows me knows, I'm pretty easily put out of my comfort zone and felt a little uncomfortable, but I'm very glad I went to see him! It turned out to be a great experience and one I will not forget. Bro. Jerome is a very interesting person with a kind family and an admirable motivation for spreading the Word of God through Chennai. While meeting new people is not always the most comfortable thing for me, this was something that I'll never be able to experience again so I'm very glad I went.
So we packed quite a bit into the weekend. It's a good thing, too, as time is running out. I have one weekend left, which I'm not entirely sure what to do with. Anyone have any suggestions? Tomorrow is already planned out. Before work, we're finally going to see the Tamil film, Sivaji. I am looking forward to it, even though I don't speak Tamil. There is more buzz about this movie than there was for Star Wars, The Matrix, Playstation 3 and the Segue combined! It's sold out for a month but luckily someone at the office was able to get some kind of insider deal. The fact that I don't speak Tamil will apparently not be a factor, as the crowd will be too loud to hear anything anyway. One girl at the office even bought a new whistle for the event. I guess turning off your cell phone isn't really a consideration here.
Comments
Yeah and the Communist party isn't nearly as big a force here as it is in Kolkata. I'm not sure how crazy China is but this place is pretty crazy.
I really want to go back to India now... it's got all the craziness of China, but less of the totalitarian police state vibe.