5-17-16: First Day in Mumbai

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Our first day in Mumbai was a success—full of resting, planning for the next week, a trip to the mall, and a delicious dinner of dosas.

Our current hotel does not have many shops or restaurants nearby, so I had lunch in the hotel today. I ate with Udit (grad student TA), Prabodh and Manoj (two Chariot India guides for our trip). It was very nice to catch up with them after two years of only online communication. We had some great chicken biryani and talked a lot about India’s politics. I am really excited to continue having chances to talk with them during the next few weeks.

After our morning/afternoon of recovering from jetlag, we took a trip to a nearby mall. The highlight of this outing was definitely a cricket batting cage (see picture below). The balls used in the cage were similar to tennis balls and were not coming too fast. I kept swinging too early and hitting the ball up into the top of the cage. I had 3 overs (18 balls) to bat. Scoring was as such: ball hits the wicket = lose all your runs; ball does not hit the wicket = 1 run; ball hits the far wall of the cage on a bounce = 4 runs; ball hits the far wall of the cage on the fly = 6 runs. I scored 22 in my 3 overs; I accidentally hit the wicket with my bat at the end of my first over which artificially reset my score to 0…

After visiting the mall, we drove to an area of Powai (district of Mumbai) where I stayed in 2014. I had a masala dosa (50 Rupees = $0.80) for dinner and it was even better than I remember! Dosa is a thin crispy rice pancake/crepe-like bread. The masala filling is a mixture of potatoes, onions, and other spices. I had an excellent mango milkshake—which cost more than twice as much as the dosa—for dessert. I then ordered what looked like a fried potato ball. The guy preparing the food asked if I wanted the sauce on top. I of course said yes, then watched as he put approximately 10 different items on top of the potato. The result was a mixture of sweet tastes and crunchy salty toppings. It was not my favorite meal, but definitely worth trying.


Tomorrow we visit the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay and have our first academic session.

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