M was a sweetheart this evening and called up our driver, Jafar (I was like, “Like Aladdin’s Jafar?” and then giggled to myself) to take us to the nearest shopping mall. He knew I was bored and restless from being stuck in the apartment all day and grouchy from being sick.
It was definitely the first time I’ve ever been hand-wanded by a security guard as protocol before being set free to shop.
Verdict? Mall was big, bright, super clean, and nice. I would equate it to Stonestown Galleria back in San Francisco.
We walked around some, I browsed tunics and snapped a quick photo only to be stopped by the store salesperson who told me no pictures. I’m usually not an argumentative person, at least with salespeople, but I just kept asking why. It’s my first time in an Indian department store shopping tunics and I wanted to take pictures, damn it! He didn’t have an answer for me, but I was respectful and only kept the one picture that I had taken already.
One thing I noticed was that all the female mannequins were dressed pretty “normal,” as in not very conservative, which is strange to me because I don’t think I’ll find any Indian girl or woman wearing one of the short dresses I saw on the dummy without leggings underneath and something to cover up the revealing top.
Dinner was served food court style. I saw KFC, Subway, McDonald’s, and Baskin Robbins, but of course turned up my nose at dining at any one of those chains. I can get a $5 foot-long back in the States thank you very much. Since I have no idea what any of the entree names meant other than paneer means “cheese,” I just pointed at the Veg section and asked the server which one I should get. Blank stares were exchanged, a lot of “uhmms…”, finally I just picked the Mixed Veg Chettinad.
It turned out to be some sort of curry with vegetables in it and lots of greasy pancake roti things. 
It was fine, but really heavy. Google’s food is much better.
Guess what M got? He went to Mickey D’s. He would. The McSpicy caught his eye and he had to try it.
It looked terrible and disgusting. As M bit in, I asked,
“Is that a face of sadness or regret? Or both?”
He winced and looked at me sadly as he nodded. I told you so.
xoxo,
Jenn
