Shopping Round 1 - May 3rd

              My aunt took me shopping in Coimbatore so that I could pick up clothes that I need for the month that I'm here and so I could get a few of the things that people asked me to pick up for them. I didn't really think it was going to take more than a few hours, four tops but boy was I wrong. We left the house at 1pm and didn't get back until 8pm. Given that it takes about 30-45 minutes to get to the street of shops we still spent a lot more time than I thought we were going to.

             First stop after picking up some blouse material for my mom and aunt was The Chennai Silks to pick up a kurti top for Alex, a sari for Emily and salwars for myself. Shopping in India is a completely different experience from the States. No matter how many times I go shopping in India, it's still weird to be waited on. I'd much rather wander around the store trying to find clothes that I like. I'm not too big on having people show me clothes. It takes much longer in my opinion and I feel guilty having them unwrap all the clothes just to have me say, "Nope, not it." But it is fun trying to figure out what kind of clothes others will like. I'm happy to say my aunt and I did a good job and picking out Alex's top and Emily's sari since both of them have already told me that they love our choices.

The blue sari is for Emily and the red kurti top is for Alex

Next after getting these two things it was time to get a few salwars for me to wear since the weather is getting hotter everyday and most of the salwars I have right now are kind of fancy and not suited for the hot weather. I hadn't planned on getting anything else but I couldn't resist getting these two salwars when I saw them. I also ended up getting five other cotton salwars that will be nice to wear in the hot weather. 

The purple one is for my sister and the red one is mine. 

So many clothes everywhere and so little time to look at them all

          Once we got all our clothes we decided to grab something to eat since they were all being tailored and we had some time to kill. We come to the same restaurant/hotel every single time we go shopping in Coimbatore no matter who is with us. I decided to switch it up a bit and get a mushroom paratha as opposed to the plain paratha that my sister and I almost always order. It was surprisingly good and filling. I barely ate half of mine before I was full. 

It looks small but it was a lot of food. 

The last stop on the agenda for the day was to get some jewelry to bring back with me and give to people. Jewelry shopping is probably one of my favorite things to do in India. There's just SOOO MUCH and I LOVE IT! Those of you that know me pretty well know just how much I love jewelry. Didn't end up getting to much stuff for myself, just a few bangles but I did pretty well with getting stuff for others :-)

   

   

 

This isn't the best way to show you what I bought but it was easy.

The bracelets in the first picture (top left) were an awesome find because I bought the exact same ones in the States for about 3 times the price in India. Jewelry shopping ended the long day. We came back home and I spent the rest of the night packing so that I would be ready to leave for Gudalur in the morning. 

Shopping Round Two will happen once I come back from Gudalur :-D