The Delicious Dosa

Dosa's are delicious southern Indian breakfast food, though I think you can find them all day long. The crepe like vessel ( or the tepee in the photo below) is made from rice batter and black lentils. Normally, the crepe is served folded over, but they made this one into a cone shape.

Underneath the cone was a delicious mixture of potato, chili leaf, mustard seed, coriander and onion. It's served with a variety of condiments, mine included coconut, tomato and coriander. I don't remember what that soup was, but earlier they gave me a rice cake which could be dipped into it.

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Sky Bar and UB City

King Fisher is a company in India known for their beer, but also owns a airline and is big in the IT space here. They have built an area in Bangalore called UB City, named after the UB Group (United Brewery). This bar was recommended as it has the best view in the city... And that it did.

Enjoying a King Fisher Ultra, their lightest beer :)

Trendy bar decor

Bangalore skyline

The main UB building, off to the left you can see the very impressive Parliament Building

The stunning sunset (which took all of 10 minutes to set)

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Shopping in Bangalore

On Saturday our driver took us to Commercial street for some proper local shopping. I bought a Churidaar Kurta which is a traditional Indian Outfit made up of a tunic and leggings (I'll include a photo when I have one).

Luckily for us tourists, there was a Muslim holiday yesterday which made the streets about 1/3 as crowded as what they are normally supposed to be on a Saturday. Above is a picture of one of the streets at the end of the shopping area (I was so distracted by the saris, pashminas, carved goods and clothing that I didn't take many photos).

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Amazing Hotels & Service

The hotel we checked into this weekend is unbelievable. It's called the ITC Gardenia and it is absolutely stunning. You get a butler with your room who will cater to all requests.

The view from my balcony of UB City

Panoramic Room Photo

The pavilion, notice the "green" roof

Even the metal detectors are fancy

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Sacred Cows

One of the unusual sightings I've experienced here has been cows wandering around the crowded streets. Cows are sacred in the Hindu religion and I was told that majority of this cows are kept for their milk.

These cows were actually tied up, but it seems that the majority of the cows are allowed to roam as they please, even into a crowded road of traffic.

 

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Hotel Security

One thing that took a few days to get used to was the hotel security. Every time we come back from work theft search the car, X-ray our bags and have us walk through metal detectors.

Photo of the security at the TAJ hotel.

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Humbling experiences

Today at work we were inviting to a "community service" meeting. This was not your typical painting, working at the food pantry community service but more of a display of appreciation for the housekeeping staff at the office. The team had collected thousands of rupees to buy "prizes" for the housekeeping staff.

The event started with a senior leader explaining how important the housekeeping jobs are and how they are the face of the company. They proceeded to play a "game". This consisted of a bucket and a tennis ball, the housekeeping team then lined up and had three chances to get the ball into the bucket while we all watched. The 5 people who got the highest scores received extra gifts. The gift was a small bag of basmati rice. We were then told by our team that this rice was so far out of the housekeeping team's budget that this was a very special present. The business teams hold events like this for the housekeeping team every 2-3 months. It was very special and humbling to be included in this event.

Here's a photo from the beginning of the event where the senior leader is addressing the staff:

 

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