Visit to Bangalore

This past weekend me and four other guys from the US batch. It was our first time in Bangalore so we were all pretty excited. We left campus around 6 a.m. on saturday (august 18th) and headed out in a taxi. Normally we would've taken a bus because it's a hell of a lot cheaper, but this taxi stays with us the whole weekend and takes us wherever we want to go in town.

The highway between Mysore and Bangalore is actually pretty smooth. There were a few bumps here and there but overall it was a lot nicer than any other roads i've been on in India in the past. People here drive around 80 Kms on the highway, that's not even 60 miles per hour, I think that's why it takes so long to get to Bangalore from here.

Once we got into town you could definitely tell. The traffic just packed on and everything got really congested really quick. We were all pretty hungry so the first stop was food. We went to a place called "The Only Place". It's aptly named as it is the only place in Bangalore that serves steak. While I'm a vegetarian myself, the other guys were pretty excited about eating steak since it's such a rare thing. From what they said the steak was apparently really good, so I'd recommend it for any beef lovers that ever go to Bangalore.

Afterwards we went to a mall. It's called the Forum. There are a lot of malls in Bangalore and they're all pretty big. The malls look just like the ones back home and have a lot of the same stores. We went to this store called "The Landmark". It's kind of like a barnes & Nobles mixed with a Target. They sell books and stuff on the bottom floor and on the top floor is pretty much everything else you could want. I got a black t-shirt that says "This t-shirt was outsourced in Bangalore" in white text. I plan on wearing it on casual friday, it should be a good time. Afterwards we went to the nike store and the reebok store to check out shoes. I bought some dress shoes from a store there since the ones I had didn't really fit well.

Once we finished with the mall we thought it was time to check in to the hotel. There were 5 of us but we booked a room for two people, so we had to sneak the other three guys in. We didn't successfully, the room was pretty nice so we all fit pretty comfortably.

After dropping off our stuff we went to Mahatma Gandhi Road (M.G. road). That's apparently the happening street in Bangalore. They have all kinds of stores there and it's all packed onto one street. That's also where a lot of the good restaurants are and the clubs and stuff. We walked around for a bit, some of the guys bought some Old Navy clothes from this store there. Messay bought roses from a girl that was selling them and tried to get the girl to give the roses to these two Indian girls on the other side of the street. That didn't work out too well, the girl just refused to do it haha.

We went to this store called Spencer's. It's not like the Spencer's back home at all. It's a grocery store and a pretty nice one at that. We walked around there for a while, got haggled by the street vendors as usual, and then left to go out for the night.

We went to this place called Fuzion. It was a nice place, the DJ was awesome too. It was hip-hop night so it was a good escape from the rock and bollywood music they played at other places. The only thing is, you can't get on the dance floor or to the other side of the place unless you're a couple. So unless you bring a girl with you, you can't go on the dance floor. That was kind of whack but at least the place was nice so it redeemed it a bit.

Afterwards we just went back and slept for a good amount. The next day we woke up and had lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. I was so happy to finally eat an enchilada. I've never been so happy to eat one before haha. It was pretty delicious. The food there was kinda pricey by indian standards but I would say it was worth it.

We also tried to go to the Bangalore palace. From the outside it didn't look all that impressive so we figured we'd just go in and ask how much it was to see it. If it was free we would've done it. The lady said it was 200 rupees for the other guys and 100 rupees for me. Apparently it's only 100 rupees for Indian people, sweet. We decided it was too much money for a not so impressive palace (especially when compared to the Mysore palace).

Finally we went to this garden place where they had a rose garden, a really really big tree, fountains, and more flowers. It was a pretty nice place, Messay took some great pictures of the place. I forgot my camera back in Mysore so all I had was my cell phone.

Afterwards we decided to head back to Mysore. It was a pretty fun trip though. I ended up having to translate and talk to the driver in Hindi, he understood english but it wasn't all that great of an understanding, so Hindi definitely helped.

I wouldn't mind being relocated to Bangalore after our training is done here, it's a big city and there's tons to do there. I could eat enchiladas everyday.....