Saturday Shopping

Today, I decided, was finally the day to buy Arthur a real baby bed. Poor boy has been sleeping in his travel bed since June. Dorian, wanting to come with me, and I hopped in yet another unairconditioned taxi and took off for the other side of town. It is always an adventure to go for a drive in New Delhi. You never know what you will see.


Our taxi driver pretending to wear his seatbelt...at least he has one, there's nothing in the back set.


We all need a little extra help sometimes and so does this tree.



We finally get to other side of town and to an absolutely huge mall. It's so strange to see a such a modern and clean thing in the midst of the chaos that surrounds it. But, luckily for us, it is here and we could easily pick out a nice bed for Arthur. Dorian got a special treat, his first ice cream cone in India and his favorite flavor, vanilla.
Side note: buying food at the food court was quite an experience. For lunch, we chose, among the many fast food restaurants, a pasta place. But, when we tried to order at the counter, the cashier told us we had to pay beforehand. Okay, we walked all the way back to the entrance to tell the cashier what we wanted to eat. I paid and he handed me a card like a credit card. We went back to the pasta stand, placed our order again and I gave him my food card and it's great. Then, he said they have no water bottles so I asked for juice and he said no, there's soft drinks and I said no, juice please. So he said okay but two bottles of water equals only one juice. Dorian chose pineapple. We ate and left but just past the exit we saw an ice cream place. We ordered and the guy asked for our food credit card again. Silly me, I thought we'd left the food court! I gave it too him, then he told me I needed 50 more rupees. So we went back to the food court cashier, got the guy to put 50 rupees on the card and went back for our ice cream. While we were enjoying our ice cream, I was trying to think of why this system of food card was in place. Maybe to keep money and food separate, so food handlers are not touching dirty money? Not a bad thing. Luckily, I was also reading the back of my new credit card because I discovered that I was supposed to return the card. I did and the cashier gave me 35 rupees back. Wow, that was a complicated lunch and it took longer to do all that than to buy bed.


On our way home, after lunch, we passed these guys lounging in the park.


And, back home with our own little trash monkey waiting for us. I'm not sure what the trash bag is doing there. But it's nestled between those two guard huts. The yellow one is slowly being dismantled and taken away while the white one was just delivered as we now have a guard outside our building. It is an odd thing to have someone(s) there twenty-four hours a day. I don't feel like it's completely necessary, but it is, at times, reassuring. And, yes, the new white one is a "portacabin".