discovering the new

A day of "discovery" today, as I ventured out of the School grounds for the first time to buy my own veg biryani from Frys, the local takeaway ("parcel") eatery nearby. A short walk but a big step in terms of gaining a sense of place. The next walk from the School must be to Spencers, the local supermarket, to get my bearings further grounded (Ria suggested she walked up and back on a fairly regular basis while she was here so, if nothing else, it will give me a chance for some exercise).

Again, I had spent much of the day working on aspects associated with the launch (centred on identifying an appropriate set of colleges to visit on the roadshow - Jeena had been particularly helpful with a "top colleges" list she had found on the net). The end of the day became something of a revelation, as Ajith, Raju and I sat together in my office and chatted through a number of issues related to the School, as well as some arrangements for the apartment and such. We have a new driver, Jayaraj, who will come to pick me up this morning at 9.00am.

And so we left about 6.45pm to head off to the apartment via Spencers and some fruit and snacks shopping. We also took a detour to a back street, where I joined the queue of a rather furtive looking bunch of characters who were at this shop to buy their weekly (daily?) ration of hard liquor, to purchase a bottle of the local Grovers cabernet shiraz (12%, "manufactured" on 25 July 07!) for 431 rupees (about $AUS12). I've had the Grovers before and it's a not unpleasant drop (read into that what you will), but when I think about the wine I can get at the bottle shop at Carlingford for the same price ...well! Anyway, it's now in the apartment and I may well drink it at some stage, although I didn't do so last night.

It was on the way to buy the wine we discovered that the Imperial was closed yet again! Ajith suggested that the roadworks captured in the photos on my facebook album were probably the reason (and we will not know then, when the reopening date will be). This proved a boon as we went to Gokul (according to Ajith, and with some justification as I was to discover, the best vegetarian restaurant in Kochi!), where I came away with a "parcel" of roti, chilli gobi and a mushroom fry. I washed this down with my usual water (I now have a 20 litre water dispenser in the kitchen, courtesy of Ajith and Raju) and a few more clicks on the computer. A good day!