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Monday, July 1, 2013

Road Trip 2013 - Bangalore Times

The road from Chitradurga to Bangalore was smooth. We stopped for tea at Kamath Tourist I think. The place was good although service was slow.

After that as we entered Bangalore - it started pouring ! We missed the turning to Outer Ring road and ended up going around in circles just getting to Jayanagar 3rd block ! Phew ! We were to meet friends but we postponed it to the next day which was a good thing since we finally ended up at the hotel around 8:30 pm. Ordered room service - and started to watch the IPL match. :)

Our stay in Bangalore was interspersed with visits to friends and relatives so most of the time we were rushing from one place to another or making people rush to us ! :) Couple of them came from office and one friend drove from Chennai to meet us. All in all - it was fun !

We did not have much expectations of doing sightseeing in Bangalore so we thought that on working days - we could do some sightseeing and meet friends in the evening. As it turned out - we ended up meeting relatives instead.  So minimal touristy activities - we went to the Nehru Planetarium, Cubbon Park, Rode on the metro, saw Vidhana Soudha from outside, which surprised me .. I remember the days when we used to sit on its steps !!! How times change ! :)

Nehru Planetarium : This was a fun outing. The science park outside the planetarium was good. We went to the Solar System show and I felt it could have been better. The show needs to be updated and made more attractive.

The show is not expensive and parking in the planetarium is available. The watchmen do need to watch themselves. They come across as obnoxious whereas the actual people who answered my call and were in the office were very polite and interested in talking about the topic !

All the devices in the science park were functional and our kid had a wonderful time with them. She was especially fascinated by the parabolic dish - where she could whisper and we could hear it across the park while standing near a similar blue dish ... :) Fun .....

Tips : Go the the dancing fountains just opposite the planetarium. Since that starts in the evening , can plan a show here and then move on to the fountains.

Metro : Riding the metro was fun. We entered the metro from MG Road - went all the way to Byappanahalli, purchased return tickets there and came back. The stations are clean - no spit of tobacco thank goodness ! The guards do urge you to move faster ! For now - this is the single route in Bangalore. Other routes are being built for the metro.

Cubbon Park : What is there to say of this place ? :) It is a good place to chill out. Verdant when we went there since there had been rains. Take a picnic basket ( which our friends got for us ), couple of frisbees, cricket bat or football and have fun. We also enjoyed making bubbles - typical picnic activity. After food and some games - we headed to the toy train area. Sat in the toy train and then my kid went on the other rides. There is park there for kids. Luckily met no beggars. I remember the last time I had been here and the place seemed filled with beggars and hawkers. Not that hawkers were not there but they were not intrusive.

Vidhana Soudha 


Verdant Cubbon Park


Cherry blossoms :)


Cubbon park ride



Science park outside Nehru Planetarium


One of the experiments