Chennaiiii....

My hometown, then called Madras, was a seedha-saadha yet another metro city of India until I lived there. Ippo, already hot, hot Chennai is orey the super mega hot Chennaiii-thaan featuring in one of the top 10 cities to visit in 2015! Nowadays I introduce myself as from the land of the Chennai super kings(Dhoni tweeting in Tamil!!) to non-Tamils and some Pakis even surprised me that they knew Chennai because of Chennai Express!!

Spent the summer vacation visiting a lot of places in India this time experiencing almost all kinds of weather - sweltering heat, monsoon, cool and chilly. Traffic, crowd and an upcoming metro rail is the common factor in all cities. The highlight of the trip was celebrating anniversary, birthday, rakhi and friendship day with kith and kin!

More malls and multi storied chains stores in Chennai now but our traditional trip to Landmark book store was a big flop. First got disappointed to find the Nungambakkam branch closed and the branches in Spencer plaza and City central malls had hardly any collection. Surprisingly the Kotturpuram library has been well maintained facility-wise though next time I should consider volunteering at the children's department to organize the books.

Lulu Mall

God's own counrty's newest attraction Lulu mall is so fantastic that A2 commented "I don't know if I am in India or US, Amma!" Fresh and extra green from all the monsoon rains, the scenery of Kerala from a moving train is awesome-o-awesome! Namooru Bengaluru's Cantonment station poratti pottu-fied me this time. Missed a train(did not know that that train won't stop there!), sat waiting 20 mins in a train that was supposed to stop only 2 mins there unable to get down since the pick up person was waiting at the next station!

Mysore Palace

Brindavan Gardens

Musical fountains

And as always tried to eat as much good food as I could to sustain until the next trip. Cream center in Chennai got our vote as it satisfied both the kids and grown ups. Lakshmi Shankar Mess in Coimbatore with its local and organic food scored big. Didn't have enough energy or enthu' or room to try out all that at Eat street in Bangalore, After all that extravagant food, back home, the cereal boxes mocked at me, 'hehe... welcome back!" :-(