Day 3 - Dinner at Tiffanys

Tuesday 16th October 2007

This morning is my first day back at work. I set the alarm for 2.45am as I start work at 3.30am. I got to bed pretty late the night before so I was making extra sure I set the alarm correctly because I didn't want to sleep in.

Getting up at 2.45 am didn't go as planned... I was woken up by a phone call at 3.15am by the supervisor asking if I will be at work at 3.30am for a phone conference. I pretended I was all ready and said it was no problem. Of course there was a problem. I don't think i've ever showered/dressed/got to work so fast in my life, but I made it. Thankfully Robin and Praveen showed up as I was about to walk to work, so that saved some time.

The security is pretty tough, you go through a security check to get in the car park and then they check your bags before you enter the building. Once inside you kind of forget you're in Bangalore!

Had lunch (at 8.30am) at the canteen in the office. The food wasn't bad, I had an indian rice dish called "Pulav" (kind of like a fried rice but much tastier and a little spicey) and a Vada (which they described is like a donut, but its not really its not sweet and is made from potato)
The whole lot came to 15 rupees which is less than 50 cents. Crazy.

Work went really fast... Finished at 12pm and it was nice to have the rest of the afternoon to look around. I had been limping all over the office because I have completely destroyed my feet by walking in not-so-good shoes. You really need good shoes here because of all the broken concrete, you're constantly walking on rocks and urine. Unfortunately they have no drainage system in place so when it rains the water remains for days and causes the pot holes.

So Robin showed me a mall which usually does bargains on shoes. Today was not a lucky day for me as all of the shoes were $100 AUD + - so I figured I'd try again somewhere else another time. We caught an auto back near work and had Dinner at a restaurant called Tiffany's

Tiffany's was the best place I've eaten at by far. We actually went there for the steak, they have quite a huge menu of all things indian plus they actually sell steak (which is uncommon in India due to nobody selling beef) Somehow, this place gets away with selling beef. (I didn't want to try and work out where they got the beef from)

Anyway my intentions were to get the steak, but today they had a buffet on for just a few aussie bucks. So I decided to do that as I can have good steak at home (well not for $4 anyway)
The buffet was so good, they had my favourite dish - Rogan Josh! and it was surprisingly just like the rogan josh I have at home. I also tried manchuri gobi which is kind of like honey chicken but it is all veg! Instead of chicken they use cauliflower, and you wouldn't even know. I tell you, India is a vegetarians paradise....

Had some other curries (cant remember the names) but the Rogan Josh and Manchuri Gobi were definately the best. I also had a dosa which all the locals rave about, but I wasn't too fussed on the dosa. I had a 2nd helping (worrying about how I'll suffer tomorrow) and then they brought out desert! I will definately be going there again (it is just near where I am staying too)

Now at time of writing it is tomorrow, and yes, I did suffer a little. I think I'll have subway tonight for dinner. But we'll get to that in tomorrows entry (in detail and with photos)

So we finished up there, Robin went home and I went back to the apartment to get changed and unwind. After a couple of hours I decided to go to the pub. There is a pub near theh apartment called Purple Haze which play only rock and roll! I was looking forward to this as my mp3 player is broken and was starting to crave a bit of good music.

I found the pub, it was pretty cool. Unfortunately again being a foreigner I was getting all sorts of stares. I went to the bar and their staff were actually very friendly. I spoke to one guy for a few minutes about where I'm from, what I do, etc etc.

Unfortunately the music doesn't get switched on until 6.30pm. I got there at about 5.30pm so I sat there in silence for an hour staring at the tribue poster of Ozzy Osbourne. One of the patrons was obviously as unhappy as I was about this news and flipped out! He started shoving the bar staff and yelling. The barstaff did what every responsible night club should do and sat him at the bar to give him another drink to cool down.

At 6.30 the music cranked up and the stereo system there sounded awesome!! It was in surround sound and to be honest was much better than a lot of clubs audio systems in Brisbane. I had planned to be back home by 7.00 as I didn't want to be tired for tomorrow, so left the pub around then and went home.

I was annoyed at the staff when they tried to rip me off, They must have figured I wouldn't realise after a few drinks - but again the problem with this place is not the safety - just being ripped off pretty much wherever you go so I'm always over cautious about that. I fixed up the "error" - paid the correct amount and I was on my way.

That's pretty much my day, pretty boring compared to yesterday... but I guess that was a hard act to follow