The weekend went by quite smoothly. K/G and I went to Devon Street on Saturday to buy all the Indian supplies like rotis and frozen curries. These are good when you don’t feel like cooking, which is half the time lol … We went to the well known Patel Brothers, which stocks anything and everything Indian with regard to food. I saw some stuff there that I have not even seen in India, especially Gujarati pickles and snacks. We picked up quite an armload. It’s quite easy to get there using the Red Line train, which drops us three fourths of the way. We catch a 154 bus and about four to five stops away we get down right in front of Patel Brothers.
Sunday we went to China Town, which was again by Red Line but this time just three or four stops by train only. That was a nice place, with lots of Chinese restaurants, but again I didn’t see any of the typical menus that I saw in China. I did find some of the soupy noodles but none of the typical dishes that I encountered on menus in China.
Speaking of food, it is quite normal here for people to pack up leftover food. Except that here it’s called a doggy bag. And when you are ordering you specify whether it’s “to have here” or “to go,” which means in Indian terms “parcel.” Considering the portion sizes here it’s good that the doggy bag concept is followed. Nothing comes in small sizes. Yesterday the last of my colleagues, Dazz, landed here and we went out along with K/G for dinner to a Mexican restaurant named LaBamba. Dazz and I ordered a mini burrito and that was about five feet in length stuffed with bean paste and vegetables. Quite tasty and extremely filling too. If you look at the site they go by the slogan, “burritos as big as your head” so you can imagine how the super size would be. For that matter, it’s difficult to buy things in singles. Especially if you go to a supermarket you need to buy packs of everything. And when you do get a single bottle of something, especially shampoos or moisturizers, it’s as big as your hand.
Food here is quite a temptation because there are 450 varieties even if you want to just buy bread. So I try to go running at least four times a week. Although my gym routine has been back home has been interrupted I try to keep up my running practice to burn off all those cheeses and doughnuts. And running is a pleasure here since most people take to the roads at all times for exercise. At any point during the day, even at 1.30 in the afternoon, I can see people in shorts and a tee with a pedometer strapped to their arm, running along the road. The pavements are well built and wide so nothing hampers your running except for signals, which are placed at the end of almost every block.
Signing off from the nation of supersize everything.
