Today our group ventured to Southall. This part of London is the Indian section. I had just recently watched "Eat, Pray, Love" and so I felt like I was embracing my inner Julia Roberts traveling to 'India'.
When I first got off the train and took a breath outside all I could smell was curry. It smelt fantastic. I love Indian food. Our group had an assignment to go to one of the Sikh temples and look around there. So we walked over to the temple and went into the side room where you remove your shoes. We all did that and then the girls had to cover their heads with a head scarf to be respectful of their religion. After that we ventured up into their main room where people go to pray. We all sat down, indian style, and observed what was going on. Throughout the whole time there were 3 men at the front chanting and playing the drums. It was a really nice place to meditate and just sit there and think about how glad I am to be in London. After about 20 minutes of sitting there meditating we got up and left.
The group I was with decided to start heading to where the entire group would be eating dinner. As we walked over there we probably had about 10 people (usually men) say, "Did you see all those white girls?!?!". Yeah we were definitely a minority. We even had a group of guys count us as we walked past them. It was a very different experience. On the way to the restaurant I stopped at this shoe store that sells really cool, and highly decorated shoes. They were beautiful. So I bought a pair. The cool thing about these shoes is that there is no right and left. You can wear the shoes on either foot and it's just fine. Pretty awesome!
After the shoes we went to the restaurant (the thing that I was most excited for!). We were greeted by the owner and he came out to shake all of our hands. Giftos was seriously good. Just imagine: Chicken Tikka Masala, unlimited Naan bread, curry up the wazoo and this awesome stir fry. Not to mention I got to try this crazy cool Mango pop. Seriously, so good! The food was super spicy (at least for me, I am kinda sensitive, though). But it was super delicious!
Overall my adventure to Southall was a successful one :)
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| In front of the Sikh temple. |
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| At giftos... enjoying the wonderful Indian food. Yum! |
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