Rashtrapati Bhavan

Rashtrapati Bhavan
Originally uploaded by kden604.

This morning the first thing that I did was head to the delhi railway ticket reservation office to book my monday ticket to Agra... it's really crazy busy there and it turns out I don't have to even go there. So I was standing in line waiting to get my ticket when this guy behind me says, "why are you waiting here?" my typical canadian answer is something to the effect of "eh? huh?"

All foreiners and non-resident Indias can go directly to the new delhi railway station, go up on the first floor of the building to the tourist ticket office and enjoy a much more comfortable atmosphere with fully english speaking staff and comfortable chairs. sweet.

So I've booked for Monday 12 Feb 07 to Agra at 0600 HRS on the 2002 Shatabdi Express at a cost of 375 Rupees. The train takes approx 2-2.5 hours. Schweet. (don't forget your passport when going to this office)

So with my grubby little hands happily on my freshly printed ticket I decided to head down towards Rashtrapati Bhavan aka the Presidential House. I saw it from far away when I went to India Gate and the National Museum the other day but I wanted to head back and check it out further.

The presidential house, north/south secretariat blocks, and parks with fountains all around that area are just beautiful... they are well manicured and I really enjoyed walking around snapping pictures. I was there around lunch time and all the locals who work in the buildings sleep, relax, and chat with friends on the lawns and it seems like a really cool atmosphere.

After indulging myself in enough photos for the day I headed back to Connaught Place where I decided to check out the Palika Bazar... Its this cool underground bazar that twists and turns in circles all over the place. There are some really neat shops, lots of great deals and people who will bargin hard to get your business. Leather products, CDs/DVD/XXX/Video Games are a major portion of this bazar... Most are probably illegal copies so don't pay too much (officially piracy is bad, don't do it...) I also found a few really cheap book stores, brand new main stream books selling for between 70-250 Rupees.

So that pretty much brings me to now, I headed back to the hotel, found some food, took some pictures of rupees, and am blogging. Tonight there is a jackie chan movie on TV that I want to watch at 9pm so that is pretty much the plan tonight.

Tomorrow starts the big masonic events so I'm not sure if I will be posting tomorrow or not... Should be quite busy for the next couple days, then travel to Agra so I might be offline.

I also need to wish my Grand Mother (Grams) a happy birthday! It was actually on the 8th, but I was pretty sick and wasn't really able to call or e-mail my parents.