Shopping and Staring in Downtown Chennai

1/04: Right now I am laying on my bed smelling the sweet aroma of the jasmine flowers above my head, and listening to the tropical birds outside my window. Haha just kidding-- but seriously I am :) Today was our first day exploring the city of Chennai, it was mainly our day to buy our authentic Indian clothing that we will be wearing for the majority of the next three weeks. Me and Sara started out by waking up around six India time, so we had tons of time to get ready this morning, after a restful three hours of sleep! We were prepared a traditional Indian breakfast of dosa's with a potato-onion curry mixture and three types of sauces to dip it into. There was a coconut chutney, a lentil chutney, and something else which i cant remember now. A dosa is like a fried crepe and the filling was inside. It was delicious! I could eat that filling in a bowl it was so good. And we washed it down with fresh squeezed Sweet Lime Juice which I love. Then we got in our van and drove to meet Vidya's mom, and then we went to our first clothing store to buy our traditional outfits. For some reason I thought this would be easy, but there were too many choices! The store was packed with kurta's; all different sizes, all different sleeve lengths, and they were all folded up so you couldn't really tell what they looked like. I'll put a pic down below. So you had to dig through the perfectly stacked kurta's and I'm sure we messed up their whole store. The store attendants in India are very attentive to customers, partly because they have to and partly because we are westerners and like to spend money, and they will silently stand next to you and help you with anything they can. At that store I ended up getting a bright turquoise kurta with navy pants, and a purple kurta with olive green pants. Too bad you people in the states don't get to dress this colorful and comfortably! Then the shop owner named Geneche? took us downstairs and showed us a handcrafted items shop and the sari shop.
After we got done shopping we went out to lunch. We ended up going to a hotel restaurant that was at the top of a bakery/ice cream shop, and a little boy was our elevator hop. When we got to the top we all walked into the restaurant all eyes were on us again. We ate a vegetable curry with rice and some fry bread with another curry. Good thing I love curry! Then we chewed some fennel to freshen our breath! We hit a couple more shops afterwards, an expensive mall shop, and another shop. To get to the last shop we stopped at, we had to climb up stairs through a parking garage, but it was a pretty nice store. I got a reddish orange kurta with black and white patterned pants, and a fuchsia kurta. Have you looked up what a kurta was yet? You should! On our way back to Niketana, we drove past the beach and the Bay of Bengal and "The Slums of India", which really put into perspective what poverty is. When I first got here I passed by apartments that I figured were the slums but I had no idea. No matter how these people live though, they try their best to maintain their clothing and appearances, and I saw lots of happy children and tons and tons of baby goats. Among other things, today I watched a man pee on the sidewalk, and lady wash her clothes on the sidewalk, and another guy knead bread on the sidewalk. Its really amazing how so many different things can be happening at once, and everyone can live with one another so easily. I know there are a lot of conflicts, but in the US poverty and wealth don't intermingle like this. I also saw my first cows in the street today! I also crossed through crazy India traffic on foot. Oh and our group was stranded for a few minutes on the sidewalk without our professor, and you won't believe how many people can stare and you at once in such a short amount of time. And Indians are not shy to hold their gazes, you just have to look away. We also encountered our first street beggar today, two actually, and that's hard to deal with too because you have to force yourself to ignore them. For dinner we had homemade fried tortillas with rice, a yellow curry, coconut vegetables and a spicy tamarind soup, with papaya for dessert. This fresh food is delicious, but I'm sure I am going to have to start breaking into my stomach medicine soon! :( Sorry I started rambling, but I keep forgetting things that happened today! And since this is like my personal travel journal I need to get it all down! That's all for tonight!