We woke up the next morning with windows open and horns honking outside. (The honking horns is a normal thing to hear from the apartment since the apartment is in town and honking is the thing to do in India!) We got a chance to take in the view from the ninth floor and have bacon, eggs, and toast for breakfast before we were headed out to go to the tailor!
Craig has had quite a few pieces of clothing made at Grasim's because (a) it's quite awesome to have tailored clothes that are made to fit you and (b) the clothes are much, much, much cheaper than having something similar done in the US. ($10 or less to have a long-sleeve button-up shirt made.) Since Chris has an incredibly hard time getting any clothes to fit, this was the perfect opportunity for him - he decided to get 3 long-sleeve shirts, a suit, a black pair of pants, and a sport jacket.
We had fun picking out the material for everyone's clothes - Chris, his grandpa, and his dad were all getting clothes made. It was a little overwhelming to have to pick from all of the fabric (you can see how many there were to choose from in our pics), but we got the hang of it soon enough. The shirts were first and then we moved to the even nicer fabrics to pick out the material for the suits and slacks.
After that was all decided, it was time to get measured from head to toe! They were very detailed about everything, which is a really good thing, and they wrote down everything from your neck measurement to how many pockets you wanted on your pants. A sample of the material was also stapled to each person's paper of instructions/details.
It was neat to have that experience and be there to have clothes made especially for the guys! I just really enjoyed it and seeing Chris get some clothes that actually really fit him :)
After a couple hours at the tailor, we headed back to the apartment to chill out for the afternoon. Shortly after getting back, some of us decided to take a walk around the block (the rather big block) that Craig's apartment is on. We stopped in at Big Bazaar to get some Sprite for Rachelle. It was quite interesting because Big Bazaar is a chain of the biggest grocery stores in India - it's pretty comparable to Walmart, but India style of course. It's still smaller than our Walmart's but it has a large variety of merchandise and has lots of cashiers/check out lines.
We also made a stop at a local produce stand. It was a little unnerving when the guy offered for us to try an orange - mind you he peeled it for us and we didn't know where his hands had been...we politely ate the inside of it :) (For those of you who don't know, the rule with foreigners and fruit in India is to only eat fruit that has been skinned since you don't know where the fruit with skin has been or how it was washed.) So that was neat to get a little touch with the locals. After walking around the rest of the block, we made it back to the apartment after Chris had some fun with some stray dogs wanting our fruit...they were jumping up on his back with muddy paws to try and get the food from him! (They weren't aggressive, just persistent :)
A little while later, we all headed out to go to the Cummins office. Craig wanted to take us all there to see where he spends a lot of his time. We also got to meet Prabha, Craig's secretary. It was a little strange to be walking around to the different areas, especially while people were trying to work in their cubicles. (And everyone really noticed us too because we were the only Americans in the building...therefore, they knew we had to be with Craig :) But it was cool to see the place - they were even putting in an area for playing ping pong (for their "thinking" breaks)!
There are a few distinct differences from work here that I noticed:
- Cummins provides free meals for their employees while they're at work. I thought this was really nice!
- some people come in as late as 10-11am in the morning and sometimes work until 10pm at night - their work schedule starts and ends much later than ours
Before we knew it, we were back at the apartment and it was time to head out for our dinner at the new Hyatt in Pune. The owner/manager at the Hyatt had invited Craig and all of his family to come to dinner for free! They did this because they want Craig to recommend their hotel to people that he knows. Craig does a lot of business with hotels in India because he stays at them frequently (when away from Pune), other Cummins' people stay at them when they visit, and they sometimes need a location for work functions.
So we got to eat at their Italian restaurant and it was delicious! We had pizzas as appetizers, our main course, and then a sampler of desserts. Everyone got a different main course and they were all really good. I just remember that Chris got a leg of lamb with potatoes and looked great when it came out :) For the desserts, the waiter brought out 3 different kinds of sorbets, 3 different kinds of ice cream, tiramisu, and a chocolate/fudgy/ice cream combination. It was all so good. We were stuffed after all of that. Our waiter was really nice (Craig actually knew him from another restaurant that he's frequented a lot and he missed this waiter when he was no longer there) - he made a lot of good suggestions on the food. Only a few of us picked our own main course and he recommended the rest! This waiter definitely knew his stuff and we enjoyed being at his table.
After our lengthy dinner, it was time to walk off some of the food by having a tour of the hotel. We got to look at about every nook and crany of the place - several different types of rooms, the spa, swimming pool, the gym, the other restaurant, and the conference rooms and ballrooms. We enjoyed this a lot. That hotel is so beautiful - definitely one of the nicest hotels (if not the nicest) I've ever been in! In the nicer hotels in India, it just seems like they really know how to put in that "wow" factor - the architecture is so nice and it doesn't hurt that they have an abundance of marble (because it's fairly readily available for a cheap price over there).
It was time to call it a day (a really good day) after leaving the Hyatt.
Craig has had quite a few pieces of clothing made at Grasim's because (a) it's quite awesome to have tailored clothes that are made to fit you and (b) the clothes are much, much, much cheaper than having something similar done in the US. ($10 or less to have a long-sleeve button-up shirt made.) Since Chris has an incredibly hard time getting any clothes to fit, this was the perfect opportunity for him - he decided to get 3 long-sleeve shirts, a suit, a black pair of pants, and a sport jacket.
We had fun picking out the material for everyone's clothes - Chris, his grandpa, and his dad were all getting clothes made. It was a little overwhelming to have to pick from all of the fabric (you can see how many there were to choose from in our pics), but we got the hang of it soon enough. The shirts were first and then we moved to the even nicer fabrics to pick out the material for the suits and slacks.
After that was all decided, it was time to get measured from head to toe! They were very detailed about everything, which is a really good thing, and they wrote down everything from your neck measurement to how many pockets you wanted on your pants. A sample of the material was also stapled to each person's paper of instructions/details.
It was neat to have that experience and be there to have clothes made especially for the guys! I just really enjoyed it and seeing Chris get some clothes that actually really fit him :)
After a couple hours at the tailor, we headed back to the apartment to chill out for the afternoon. Shortly after getting back, some of us decided to take a walk around the block (the rather big block) that Craig's apartment is on. We stopped in at Big Bazaar to get some Sprite for Rachelle. It was quite interesting because Big Bazaar is a chain of the biggest grocery stores in India - it's pretty comparable to Walmart, but India style of course. It's still smaller than our Walmart's but it has a large variety of merchandise and has lots of cashiers/check out lines.
We also made a stop at a local produce stand. It was a little unnerving when the guy offered for us to try an orange - mind you he peeled it for us and we didn't know where his hands had been...we politely ate the inside of it :) (For those of you who don't know, the rule with foreigners and fruit in India is to only eat fruit that has been skinned since you don't know where the fruit with skin has been or how it was washed.) So that was neat to get a little touch with the locals. After walking around the rest of the block, we made it back to the apartment after Chris had some fun with some stray dogs wanting our fruit...they were jumping up on his back with muddy paws to try and get the food from him! (They weren't aggressive, just persistent :)
A little while later, we all headed out to go to the Cummins office. Craig wanted to take us all there to see where he spends a lot of his time. We also got to meet Prabha, Craig's secretary. It was a little strange to be walking around to the different areas, especially while people were trying to work in their cubicles. (And everyone really noticed us too because we were the only Americans in the building...therefore, they knew we had to be with Craig :) But it was cool to see the place - they were even putting in an area for playing ping pong (for their "thinking" breaks)!
There are a few distinct differences from work here that I noticed:
- Cummins provides free meals for their employees while they're at work. I thought this was really nice!
- some people come in as late as 10-11am in the morning and sometimes work until 10pm at night - their work schedule starts and ends much later than ours
Before we knew it, we were back at the apartment and it was time to head out for our dinner at the new Hyatt in Pune. The owner/manager at the Hyatt had invited Craig and all of his family to come to dinner for free! They did this because they want Craig to recommend their hotel to people that he knows. Craig does a lot of business with hotels in India because he stays at them frequently (when away from Pune), other Cummins' people stay at them when they visit, and they sometimes need a location for work functions.
So we got to eat at their Italian restaurant and it was delicious! We had pizzas as appetizers, our main course, and then a sampler of desserts. Everyone got a different main course and they were all really good. I just remember that Chris got a leg of lamb with potatoes and looked great when it came out :) For the desserts, the waiter brought out 3 different kinds of sorbets, 3 different kinds of ice cream, tiramisu, and a chocolate/fudgy/ice cream combination. It was all so good. We were stuffed after all of that. Our waiter was really nice (Craig actually knew him from another restaurant that he's frequented a lot and he missed this waiter when he was no longer there) - he made a lot of good suggestions on the food. Only a few of us picked our own main course and he recommended the rest! This waiter definitely knew his stuff and we enjoyed being at his table.
After our lengthy dinner, it was time to walk off some of the food by having a tour of the hotel. We got to look at about every nook and crany of the place - several different types of rooms, the spa, swimming pool, the gym, the other restaurant, and the conference rooms and ballrooms. We enjoyed this a lot. That hotel is so beautiful - definitely one of the nicest hotels (if not the nicest) I've ever been in! In the nicer hotels in India, it just seems like they really know how to put in that "wow" factor - the architecture is so nice and it doesn't hurt that they have an abundance of marble (because it's fairly readily available for a cheap price over there).
It was time to call it a day (a really good day) after leaving the Hyatt.
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