Chennai

Chennai a.k.a Madras is actually a pretty cool city. I decided to get off my ass and explore the town a little. The most comfortable way to get into town from Infosys campus is by booking a cab. It's also an expensive way to get to and from town. I decided to fore go comfort and take the public buses into town. My destination was the biggest mall in Chennai, called Spencers plaza. I also heard that the best movie theater in town, Sathyam Cinemas, was close to the mall so I decided to try and find that as well.

I walked to the closes bus station (not too far from campus luckily) and caught a bus. Of course I got on the wrong bus. The route I was supposed to take **Big unpronouncable foreign words ahead** was Sholinganallur -> Adyar Bus Dept -> TVS bus stop in front of Spencers plaza. Instead I got on a bus from Sholinganallur -> Thiruvanmiyur. So from Thiruvanmiyur I had to catch a bus to Adyar Depot and then to TVS. It took me about 2.5 hours to get from campus to the mall with traffic included. The buses there weren't too bad, they did get crowded from time to time and of course the Chennai heat only makes things worse. But it's also 50 cents to take the bus compared to 10 dollars (yeah, I know 10 dollars isn't much but 10 dollars goes a long way here!).

I finally got to the mall and when I walked in I didn't really know where to begin. I didn't really need to buy anything, I had just come to check it out. That place is massive though, there's so many stores and the layout isn't very logical so I found myself making circles in a lot of areas. I'm sure for the experienced mall rat it's not a big deal, but for the first time it was like a big maze. I found a store I had been to at the Forum mall in Bangalore, the store is called Landmark. It's pretty much a book store plus wal-mart put into one. I picked up this book called "Life of Pi" from there. I had heard a lot about it from people back home and decided it would help me stave off the boredom in my room from time to time. I also looked for Chamillionaire's new album "Ultimate Victory". It was definitely a little awkward asking for it. "Excuse me, do you have....Chamillionaire?". The guy didn't know what I was looking for so I spelled it out for him as he typed it into the computer. Apparently they had it but it was out of stock.

After walking around that huge place for a while I got hungry. There was a subway that caught my eye so I decided to go in and check it out. It was great, just like subway back home. I was eating subway and on the radio they were playing Timbaland's The Way I Are. If I closed my eyes I could've sworn I was back in America, strange.

Then I decided to find this Sathyam place. The person I had talked to at work said I could walk from the mall to the theater so I decided to try that. I got some directions at the information desk and started walking. Walking out in the heat and humidity that's only magnified by the pollution is no fun task as I found out. The distance wasn't too bad but it was still a chore in the heat. I got there and decided to buy a ticket for this hindi movie "Bool Bhulaiyan". As I was waiting around for the movie to start I realized I had nothing better to do after the movie. There was another hindi movie, "Chak de India" playing right as this first movie ended so I went ahead and bought a ticket for that as well. Hindi movies usually play for about 3 hours or so, so I was in the theater from 3:30 p.m. until about 10 at night, it was a great way to kill time though. The movies were actually pretty good too so that was a plus. I did chicken out on the way back and took a cab. I decided the bus was too much of a hassle to deal with at night.

That was saturday, sunday it was raining all day so I just sat in and read the book and messed around online. The book is ok, it hasn't caught my interest enough yet so I'm hoping it does soon.