The 'Hood

Andi started work on Thursday, and so I started to explore "our" neighborhood (for now, this is the neighborhood of our temporary housing, but it's also the neighborhood of our first choice apartment).  I wanted to present a photo tour, but I was much too self-conscious for that kind of being a tourist.  Everyone is already staring at me everywhere I go.

 Look at the really tall white guy!

We are staying right across the street from Cubbon Park.  According to the Wikipedia, the park was created in 1870, and covers about 300 acres. The park was first named as “Meade’s Park” after Sir John Meade, the acting Commissioner of Mysore in 1870 and subsequently renamed as Cubbon Park after the longest serving commissioner of the time, Sir Mark Cubbon. As the Wikipedia so wonderfully describes it “the landscaping in the park creatively integrates natural rock outcrops with thickets of trees, massive bamboos, with grassy expanse and flowerbeds and many monuments within its limits… The predominantly green area of the park has many motorable roads, and the well laid out walking paths running through the park are frequented by early morning walkers and the naturalists who study plants in the tranquil natural environment.” 

 Part of the tranquil natural environment

The difficulty is that to get to the park from our current apartment requires crossing the street. 

A typical Bangalore intersection 

The other side of the street at a typical Bangalore intersection

All the other expats are so proud that I was able to cross the street by myself our first week here!  After crossing the street on Thursday, I spent most of Thursday and Friday wandering around the neighborhood, crossing streets with the reckless abandon of a local.  Our neighborhood – MG Road – is a mix of restaurants, shopping, and residential, with a few corporations mixed in, which is actually a fairly generic description that would seem to apply to most Bangalore neighborhoods – an eclectic mix of everything in every kind of condition.  Anyway, here is a brief tour of our 'hood:  

I need a dollar, dollar...

You don't see too many Harley's on the road, 

but if you want one, here they are 

Tex-mex is so last year

A typical block

Maybe this is why the power goes out at least once a day

 The parking is as orderly as the driving

That’s our neighborhood.  We are really starting to like it, hoping that the apartment search has a happier ending this time around so that this actually becomes our neighborhood.