A Lazy Sunday

My weekends, to me, feel as though they should be an open opportunity to go and shop, photograph, explore and travel, and they are, they definitely are, but sometimes it's a lazy day or two. It's been one of those lazy days today. It's rained the last few days and today is no different. It started out as a somewhat gray morning but cool and fresh, too, at the same time. We slept in an hour later than our usual 8 am time to wake up. We took our time prepping breakfast and doing a few chores around the house. Then we decided to take the car to The Leela Hotel here in Bangalore, for brunch. It has been one of the best eating out choices yet that we've had. It's also the top of my list of places in the world that I would love to return any time I'm nearby.

http://www.kempinski.com/en/bangalore/Pages/Welcome.aspx

http://www.theleela.com/

The restaurant we ate at there is called, Citrus. It's a mix of different cuisines such as Thai, Indian (of course) and more. They have a grilled meats area, including seafood like shrimp and curried salmon. My favorite was the shrimp. I was so hungry and in awe of the beautiful place that once we arrived, I didn't even think of taking photos of the food. I did take photos of parts of The Leela itself, and I did take some photos of Citrus and the food stations. After our samples of food, including some fantastic deserts, we headed back home. Vikas needed his nap. He hasn't had one in a while (except he did yesterday). He usually works during the day and the evening, every week day, and I know that there are plenty of other days we can explore more of the city. No reason to rush it all. We'll just enjoy a little every day that we can.

 Vikas is checking us in. We had a reservation. Sunday brunches can get kind of busy.

This is where many of the main dishes are located. Things such as shrimp biryani, paneer dishes, pad thai, szechuan rice, yoghurts of all kinds, chutneys, steamed basmati rice, lamb gosht, and much much more.  

There are SO many desserts to choose from!

This bar has salads, cheeses, and meat selections. Also there is a grill and the chef will prepare different meat dishes for you such as grilled shrimp, curried grilled salmon, grilled chicken, chicken with a curried palak glaze and sausages. I'm sure there's more but that is what was on the sample plate they brought me. The shrimp was the best to me and the chicken was second in line. The salmon was good but a bit too much spice for me and a little too much curry, but still really good. 

Bread, soup and samber station. 

Once again, fresh flowers on every table. The flowering plants here in Bangalore are so easy to come by that just about any place you go will have fresh beautiful flowers placed out on tables, beds and wherever they can put them to make the place or room more lovely. This is one of my favorites, a Dahlia (daisy). 

There are many places to sit and relax along the beautiful corridors of the Leela Palace.

So there will be a lot more to come from what The Leela has to show and offer. There is a shopping area in the hotel (yes, a mall). More to come on that. I just wanted to share some lovely images and tell you about another wonderful place we've experienced.

This coming weekend, we plan to go to Mysore. It's a city very close to Bangalore. It's supposed to be a very beautiful city as well. We will be staying at The Royal Orchid hotel. You can see their website here, http://www.royalorchidhotels.com/royal-orchid-metropole-mysore/overview.asp. I hope to take plenty of photos so that I can share them with all of you. Thanks for reading! :)

Just Take a Deep Breath and Reeelaaax

So we knew we were happy with our house choice from the beginning. Different things throughout our stay has let us know each time that we've definitely made the right choice in home and community. It's a quiet community. The people who live here so far have seemed respectful and not nosy. It feels safe and it's an absolutely beautiful, well kept place. The club seems nice too though we've not explored it much yet. The club house is a combination of many things such as yoga classes, swimming pool, amazing gym, steam room, sauna, and my favorite place of all, the Angsana Oasis Spa. This spa is the true purpose of this blog. I finally had enough appointments and took photos to where I can write about it and give you a good presentation of how soothing for the soul it is.

http://www.angsana.prestigeconstructions.com/spa/overview.html

So often, I take a lovely stroll from our house over to the gate near the pool and park area and the beautiful location for the Angsana Spa. When you first walk up there is an intoxicating and yet soothing scent permeating  the air. You walk up to the front desk where a lovely woman is standing there in her beautiful sari. You confirm you are there for your appointment at whatever time and she asks you to sit.

If you get there early enough, you will be asked if you would like cold or hot tea (cold meaning it has ice which to be on the safe side, I would, sadly, avoid) or bottle water. While you wait for your room to be prepped you can enjoy your hot tea or water, the view of the walkway to the different massage rooms or the view to the Oasis Clubhouse, the kitties that are family at the spa or even read any of the periodicals left on the table near the chairs.

Tea

Cute kitty that hangs out around spa.

Looking out from spa towards club house. 

Once your room is prepped, your masseuse comes out and asks you to follow her to your oasis of a room. You go down the walkway, with it's stone steps and large marble pebbles. My masseuse, Wanapom (that's Thai), escorts me to the door that leads to another small walkway and you can see the room hidden slightly by bamboo curtains. She opens the door and the smell of oils and flowers hit you but more like a light feather. It's such a peaceful smell and feeling. You go in and there are fresh flowers on every table in the room, including the massage table. I'm led over to where two chairs are to sit down and put on these little white slippers. Wanapom asks me if there are any areas that need extra work and if there are any areas that are sensitive or need to be treated with extra care. We talk for a moment then she leaves the room, while I get on the table. At Angsana they do draping with a sheet. It's important to ask at places if they do this, if you prefer discretion. If you don't, you may find yourself with a small towel covering your bottom or nothing at all. It's always good to ask up front.

Massage table

Seating area near massage tables.

Selection of hot oils.

Incense laid out with hibiscus flower.

Hibiscus laid out on towel.

Sidebar: Now, this is a recollection of my third visit to the spa. I've had Wanapom work on me twice now and plan to stick with her because she's amazing and speaks English well. We can understand each other and that is important when you want someone to know whether you need stronger pressure or softer pressure. The first masseuse I had, was not as good. She wasn't bad, but it was difficult when I couldn't express the pressure I needed and the fact that it was TOO much pressure on my back.

I get the "Dreams" massage. "The massage is created specifically for tired worn out bodies. The calming massage smoothes tensed muscles, aids to synchronize your body clock, mind and soul." For specific reasons, I need soft to medium pressure and it's the only one that offers that. Don't get me wrong, there are no complaints. It's more the masseuse and how over time she/he knows how to work on your body the way you prefer. At Angsana, you will only find female masseuses. In India, you will mostly find only female masseuses but if you prefer a male, some places with have one who can do that or they will find one who can. It will depend on how upscale the place is as well.

After the wonderful massage, which is either 90 mins. (2050 Rs. / $41) or 120 mins. (2500 Rs. / $53), you get to take a hot shower which is part of your room. It tops off the whole relaxation experience. No, wait, the following additional 30 minutes of alone time and relaxation in the chair, sitting back, listening to the wind rustling the palm trees and the birds chirping, THAT, is the true cherry on top of the whole spa experience at Angsana. It's worth every penny and is as amazing as it sounds.

The Shower

That's the spa experience. Any of you that visit, must try it out. They have duets (for couples) and they also do massages that will allow you to keep clothes on, such as Thai massages, head and shoulders, leg massages and foot massages. The also do hand and foot paraffins too that include massages and nail buffing and painting.

Leave comments, if you would like. I would love to know what you think or what you might want to see more of or know more about. 

A beautiful and ground soaked morning.

***Note: This blog was written yesterday and was meant to be posted yesterday, but somewhere along the way, it did not end up being posted.*** 

Well last night was interesting. Pretty much by nightfall, there came a torrential downpour of rain. It went on for hours and hours.. and hours and hours and so on. I think you get the idea. There was even loud rumbles of thunder. Honestly it was such an amazing sound to hear since it's been so long that I've heard such sounds. It was lovely and I slept soundly. Woke up this morning to a cool morning with lush green outside, dripping with droplets of water and a soaked sloshy ground. You see, it's monsoon season here. Hence the torrential downpour.

Monsoon season lasts from about June to September. It is necessary and depended on by farmers and India's agriculture but it can also be a nuisance to traffic and even cause flooding, especially in the poorer areas. You can read more about monsoons in India and other countries here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsoon and here, http://goindia.about.com/od/planningyourtrip/a/indiamonsoon.htm.

Here is a beautiful photo that you can find on the wiki page. It's a black and white photo of heavy clouds over the Salt Lake in Calcutta. You can find the photo online here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Heavy_clouds_over_Salt_Lake,_Calcutta.JPG.

Once there is more time for traveling, I will have photos like this to show you. :) For now, here are a few photos I took the other day as we drove to a few places around the city.

Fruit and vegetable stands are all around the city. You can find familiar fruits like apples, pineapple and guava, but then you'll find there are some fruits that are not as familiar to you. Even the guava here can be as small and round as a large lemon. At least, I, myself, have not seen a guava like that in the states.

 

You'll find construction is constantly going on here and in much of India's larger cities. I see it as progress. Some find it a nuisance. 

Temples can be found everywhere in the city. It's quite common and I find them beautiful, ornate and so creatively well done.  I plan to visit, in the next year, some of the other areas where there are some amazing statues and architecture.

A sign hangs just to the right of the of the temple (in the photo above). It has the virgin Mary on it and it advertises a local church in the city, St. Mary's.

 

People walk by, ride their bicycles and other transportation as a cow eats some food that has been left their for it. Cattle are seen often roaming, sleeping, walking and lazing about along the streets of Bangalore. It's kind of nice to see. With all the chaos of the traffic and busseling people, the cattle seem to not be bothered one bit and people are constantly aware of them and careful around them. What a comfy life.

I mentioned in a previous blog how Bangalore has a strong military presence here. This is a photo of a sign for the Institute of Aerospace Medicine. There are many institutes of learning here too. It gives the city a sense of safety. At least that's how I feel.  I loved how the image turned out with the guy walking by and his bright red messenger bag standing out amongst the greens and blues.

You can click on any of the images to see a larger more close up version. That way you can see the details better.

So my blog today, as usual, is going to explain a bit more about India, the do's and don'ts and some of the differences between living here and living in the U.S. I'm sure most of you know that the outlets here are not like ours. You can see photos below of what the sockets here look like.

The switch next to the outlet is to turn the outlet on and off.

The electrical switches here function a bit differently. Now, please bear with me here because the explanation behind the switches is a long one. In the U.S., we switch the lights on by flipping them upwards (unless you have one of those double switches that you can turn a light on uptairs and go downstairs and flip the switch to turn it off, that's different). Well, in India, you flip the switch down to turn something on. Yes, I said something, because everything here is on a switch. Even the outlets themselves have a switch to turn them on and off, as you can see in the photo above. Since there are billions of people here in India and millions here in Bangalore alone, it's even more important to conserve energy. Having switches for everything is easier than trying to go around unplugging everything which is basically what we, in the U.S., would need to do if we wanted to conserve more energy (and we should if we are not using those items very much). So for every outlet and every light and every item that needs electricity, there will be a switch to control the power going to it. It's extremely necessary to only have on what you need on. For example, I'm not using the microwave, so the switch is off. When we go to bed, we turn off the switches that power the TV and satellite box. So right now, the only switches that are on in the entire house are, the TV, the satellite box, the A/C in the TV room, the outlet where my laptop is plugged in and that's it. There is enough light during the day to rarely need a light on in the house.

I just open the shades and leave the sheer shade down to have privacy. It may not seem like much light but it lets in quite a bit and I open the shades like this in every room.

Keeping less on is also helping when there is a blackout. These happen all the time, especially on nights like last night when there is so much rain and boy oh boy does it get insanely dark. We realized last night, we really need to invest in the flash lights. If you're reading this Vikas, add it to your list too. Hehe! :)

There are constant black outs here. I haven't learned the full significance of it to where I can explain it thoroughly, but a lot of it is either because there is too much energy being used at once (which is probably the case most often) or because it's a way to conserve energy (such as rolling black outs). Rolling black outs are when different areas have to do without electricity for a certain amount of time to cut down on overall energy use when energy levels are low. Just before leaving Texas, there were talks of Austin having rolling black outs. Since it was so hot, everyone was staying in as much as possible and the A/C's were running full blast, all the time. We were using up energy faster than we could create it. Even now as I am typing this, the electricity switched off for a moment. The lucky thing is that here at the community (Prestige Ozone) where I live there is a generator for the whole community. It kicks on and you would never know that currently, there is no electricity elsewhere, in the area, for those that don't have a generator. There is a catch though. When the generator is on here, you can not turn on a geyser (water heater) and you can only have one A/C on. You can have lights on but the less you use the better. If you use too many items that use electricity, then it will blow the breaker and everything will shut off until you turn the breaker back on.

Okay, a geyser is basically a mini water heater here. There is one in each bathroom and in the kitchen. In the bathrooms, it's normally located above the toilet, mounted on the wall. You can find a photo (which is also below this paragraph) and an interesting article about it here, http://the-diplomat.com/indian-decade/2011/01/20/india-in-hot-water/.  Often there is one also in the utility room. I think, here in this house, there is only one in the kitchen meant for both the kitchen and the utility. There is a switch to turn them on. You turn on the switch when you need hot water but you have to switch it on with enough time to wait for the water to heat up, which is about 20 minutes. More than that and pressure can sometimes build and cause it to leak a bit (if that happens it needs maintenance) and too less of time, well you could be enjoying the end of your shower by rushing to beat the cold incoming feel of ice cold water.

Now a lot of you don't know but I grew up basically on a farm (large area of land). We had a water well and we had drinking water brought to us from my grandmother's house which was in the city. Where we lived, there was not an option yet for city water because there were no pipes laid down at that time for it. Today, my parents get water from a city source. Back then though, when we had the well and when the electricity went out, it did not come on for a while usually. The city would get to us when they could and since we were outside the city limits, that meant we were basically somewhere at the bottom of the list. My grandmother and dad knew enough people in the city that usually they could make enough calls and get the electricity back on sooner than later, but other than that, we had to do without until it came back. We didn't have generators back then or at least we couldn't afford them even if they did have them. So to me, living here, isn't much different from how a few things were for me growing up. Except I did grow up in America. The estate was ours and it was safe to roam any time as much as we wanted and do whatever we wanted and it was a hop, skip and a jump away from the town. Most of all, the population was small and not crowded. In a way, I wish America would conserve as much as India when it comes to electricity. Just because we have lots of it to use doesn't mean we should use it without a conscience.

Many people have asked me from time to time "if I'd be okay", "if I'm doing alright", "what will I do" and I'm sure most of it has been out of curiosity and concern which is kind and nice and even much appreciated. It's just I feel many people think because of my nature and how quiet I can seem to be at times that I might not be okay here. It is different here, mostly because there is a slight language barrier. Even those who do speak English have such a strong accent that I can't understand them at times and some can't understand me due to the English I do speak. Not pronunciation but choice of words when speaking.  The Queens English is spoken here, not American English and there is a difference. There are other things too to get used to, but that's all it is, adapting. Adapting takes time, sometimes more than a year, but I will enjoy it as much as I can. I will adapt at the speed I can and no matter what, I'll have seen and learned something. Do I miss my home, my friends, and what I'm used to? Of course! Who wouldn't? I'm excited though, even when I feel slightly homesick for something familiar, I am excited about the new things I'll see. We'll travel from time to time and that's when I'll take many of my photos. When I'm home, I'm taking the opportunity of being able to relax, take naps, catch up on much needed work that I have had no time to do, especially for my photography business back home. That way, when I am back, I can hit the ground running on making that business even better and more profitable. So, please feel free to keep asking how I am because it lets me know you care, but don't worry, I was raised with a strong mind and strong will so I'm going to be great here. I also know that at any time, I have the ability to go back to my home in Austin. I think all will be quite well though. :)

Husna, our cook/housekeeper, is downstairs preparing lunch/dinner. It smells amazing! The aroma of the onion, garlic and spices are intoxicating. She's making Rajma (which is like an Indian, vegetarian chilli) and Subji (in this case it's bell peppers and potatos with spices). Subji is the name for basically any dish with vegetables (and never any meat). Tomorrow she will make a chicken curry for me to have. I'm excited to try it! I'll try to take some photos of the food soon and post them for you all to see.