Electronic City, Bangalore

Same as yesterday, again (if these start to sound too much the same, posts are going to slow down a bit for sure...) - up at 6:30am, back home by 7pm. Getting the hang of this bus business now, starting to get to know the regulars on my route. Had a nice conversation with some guys who sat behind me this time. I also brought a novel along - wish I had thought to bring my Persian language book, since this would have made a good time to just study vocabulary if the bouncing around would just be a little bit less.

Since I skipped dinner, I was *really* hungry when arriving at the office! Worked a bit with Vinya in the lab in the AM, then Jagadish and Abha took me to lunch in a mess that was in a different section of the campus: traditional south indian food served on a banana leaf plate - selection of veggies and gravies was very good including eggplant, yellow split peas, some dal, pappadams, rotis, and rice. Plus a dessert sweet and a drink made of masala-spiced curd and water - I did not try the drink, unfortunately, because I am still not drinking the water directly from the filter machines. Sticking only with bottled stuff for now - but that was sure tempting!

Long bus ride home today - 7:10 arrival, nearly 2 hours from the time I left my desk.

Out to dinner late at Golkonda Chimney - an outdoor, open air restaurant in a really nice setting. The butter chicken (as recommended by most websites and the “food guide to Bangalore”) was okay, but we also tried a stuffed capsicum dish: Wow! That was really good! A stuffed green pepper (a bit hotter than the usual domestic green peppers in the US) was stuffed with cubes of paneer and lots of other veggies in gravy around it. Very, very good! I’m glad we tried something a bit different than the usual subjees we are familiar with. Mehnoush approved the restaurant too, which made me feel pretty good! Thanks to Jagadish for the loan of the Indian Times restaurant guide to Bangalore!!