Apparently, Chandni Chowk (चाँदनी चौक) is closed Fridays in observance of the Islamic Sabbath. The formal shopping center, anyway. I'm willing to bet the actual street and neighborhood of the same name remained open this afternoon, but I could not convince my auto-rickshaw driver to take me there. I couldn't seem to break the language and cultural barriers separating him from an understanding that I just wanted to walk around without actually going in anywhere. In fact, I spent a lot of time this afternoon trying to convince people—mostly taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers, surprise—that my entire purpose was to walk around in Delhi without a fixed destination.
So, I let the guy take me to a carpet shop, and after spending a couple of minutes getting hard-sell from the salespeople inside I left. Wouldn't you know, the driver thoughtfully waited for me outside, and followed me down the street suggesting all manner of temples and shops he would happily take me to.
At some point he gave up, and let me take photos in peace. Here follows a quorum:
In New York people say you can get anything you want, any time of day. New York hasn't got anything on Delhi's entrepreneurs:
Continuing the walk:
One out of two isn't bad:
This I can't quite interpret. I think it means, put your green and red garbage in the green can, and put your blue garbage in the blue can. This leaves me curious where the yellow, teal, and chartreuse garbage goes:
Our residency ends tomorrow afternoon, and with the exception of the post-residency party and the trip out to the airport (Sunday morning at 4:30), I may not have another opportunity to leave the hotel. That's too bad. I hope we have a more open schedule when we go to Shanghai in April.
I will make it a priority to return to India in the next few years. Next time I'll do more of the tourist stuff.
Our team scored a coup, which I'll keep under wraps for now. In the meantime, I'm going to make my own way over to Chandni Chowk. I just have to see it again.
More, with photos, later today.
We're about to go out on our culture dash exercise, back to Chodni Chowk and other places in Delhi.
I expect to have the photos shortly after we get back. We don't have the volume of work tonight that we've had the last few nights, so I'll have the time. I would like to give you this marvelous quote from our statistics class today: "A model I can understand is a model I can sleep with at night." Imagine this with the professor's Italian accent and it's even better.
I have about another hour to complete a statistics quiz, which requires reading the materials for it, but I did promise photos of the Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3 construction site. Here they are:
The departure/retail area between the domestic and international arms:
The arrivals concourse:
More later.
A group of us went on a tour of Indira Gandhi International Airport today, including the unfinished Terminal 3 building. Sadly, the art and description will have to wait for a bit. My work has piled up (as happens mid-residency) and I have two items due tonight.
One thought, though: if the sun hasn't peeked through the clouds all day in Punxsutawney, how is it possible Phil saw his shadow? I think they're putting words in the groundhog's mouth over there.
Only day 3? Yikes.
Of note today were the 6 hours of classes, the guest speaker, and the six power failures that seemed only to affect the lights and not any of the other electrical gear. In the next five hours or so I have about four hours of class prep to do, plus reviewing the team project due tomorrow. Somewhere in there I hope to eat and breathe. There may be a beer or two as well.
More photos from Saturday's trip to the Red Fort. First, Chandni Chowk:
After a short distance past that, we disappeared into the back-streets of Old Delhi, down Dariba Kalan Road. The street food looked tempting:
I might have tried some had we stopped before reaching the mosque at the end of the street. We might go back into Old Delhi on Friday when we do the Culture Dash project. I'm looking forward to it.