Indian Adventures: Saturday 3/7

My friends threw a surprise Chola birthday party for my friend Jen so I was able to facetime in and talk to them! Had breakfast with Ellie, Daniel (before he left for Goa), Grace and Ryan. Poor Ryan wasn't feeling well after having a milkshake and tomorrow is his birthday so I hope he feels better. I found out they have coconut water that they literally get straight from a coconut. It would be better chilled but it's still really good. Needed to work a little bit to make up for not working on Friday for Holi. I'm still working on getting the color off of me, but I wouldn't change it for anything- such an amazing experience. Grace and I caught a care over to the Hyatt to meet up with Ellie to go exploring (she had reserved a car for the day). We also met Robia who was with her. Almost I've every one I've met over here has been wonderful and really up for anything. Ellie had heard about this craft fair called Llamakan so we headed over to go see it. All the directions here are "near such and such a place" off "road 1." Literally there isn't a solid address to anything that I've seen. I'm not sure how that works out but I guess people just find places more easily. I also find it interesting that I feel they start their days a little later than the US. Streets start to get packed around 11-12 with people out doing errands and going about their business. We finally arrived at the craft fair and met up with Ellie's staff Nikki. She's an Indian national who helped show us around for part of the day. We got to meet her mom who had driven her. She was the sweetest and gave us all hugs! She just happens to be an author who got her start by compiling a ton of information on a God I've forgotten the name of and writing it all down. Her friend gave it to a publisher and now she's on her third and fourth books...WHAT?! So amazing and she was so humble. The craft fair ended up being MUCH smaller than expected, but it was for charity so we all got a little something. When it's too hot outside, they close down temples so we had some time to kill before heading over. We had lunch at the city center mall at Sahib Sindh Sultan which was train themed. Literally you can sit in a train car and they served Indian food. It was trippy but super fun at the same time. I'm still not used to the spicy food, but the flavors are delicious. After lunch we headed to Birla Mandir temple. You can't wear shoes and the whole temple is marble. It was incredibly beautiful and there were different temples designated to Gods and some had "dots" to put on your head while you prayed. One God even had holy water that a man scooped out for you after you prayed. Sat on some steps for awhile and just took in the views of the lake. There is a buddha statue in the middle of the lake but I heard its pretty dirty. On our way back to the hotel we stopped by a salon with Nikki because she was getting waxed. Grace and my hands are still pretty colored from Holi so we thought we'd get manicures there but there was no one there to do them. We returned to the hotel, I worked a bit and then went to Paradise for dinner with Ellie. Crispy corn is seriously the best food I've found out here. That and beer and I think I could make a fortune in the US. We also had their chicken Biryani  which is a famous Hyderabad dish apparently. It was nice to have a substantial amount of protein- except that it came with a TON of rice! After that I watched some movies and relaxed after a busy day!