Our Gurgaon Apartment

So today we moved into our apartment. We are in a southern suburb of Delhi known as Gurgaon; it is an interesting neighbourhood to say the least. Our apartment is on the 6th floor of an older block; the block is high walled and has a 24 hour security guard manning the gate. The apartment itself has three bedrooms, two bathrooms a simple kitchen, a large living area and several balconies. The floors are all marble and keep the place very cool..not that its hot at the moment...jeans and T-shirt weather and we don't leave home without a jacket as it gets cold at night. 

The guys at Dia Vikas (Opportunity's Indian office) have been fantastic... the Internet was on, the phone connected and they supplied us with a few basic essentials. After dropping off our luggage our driver took us to Ambiance Mall which is a large western style shopping centre with shops such as Marks & Spencer's, Debenham's and the usual clothing brands. The security at the shopping centre was heightened due to the Mumbai incident, with our car checked. We were also checked as we entered the shopping centre through metal detectors. Our bags were also checked.  The main purpose of the trip was lunch and power adaptors. The food hall was not unlike what you would find at Westfield's with the usual outlets... KFC, Subway, Mexican, Thai and of course Indian. The kids opted for a Subway kids pack but then I had to consider the salad as we were advised not to touch it... I rationalised that the tomato and cucumber would be ok as there is not much of outside surface area but I gave the lettuce a miss. Ray and I had Indian which was of course great... I couldn't resist the ice tea... bit risky but it tasted soooo good.

We took the kids for a play in a timezone like set up were Hunter showed us her driving skills or lack thereof. In the timezone there was a Charlie Chaplin clown interacting with the patrons...Hunter was petrified. 

We had no luck with the power adaptor so our driver took us to our local shopping district known as South City. I was expecting a small arcade type set up but it was a dusty street with pigs and dogs roaming about and a row of shops of all varieties. The electrical store had multiple types of adaptors - we bought just one to see if it would work at the huge cost of about 90 cents... I think I will stock up for future travels...

Late in the afternoon we headed to the Dia Vikas office to meet Stephen and the rest of the team. They were just wonderful - so helpful and inclusive. It is nice to know we have someone we can call that is local if we need anything. While we were there they organised a maid for us, as that is the done thing... so we will have a lady come to the house each day for an hour or so to clean etc for the grand price of about $40 a month...By this stage the kids were exhausted as it was 11pm Sydney time so we dropped Stephen back to the hotel and said goodbye as he was heading back to Sydney early the next morning. So then what to do for dinner and food for breakfast? We went to a smaller shopping centre and found a crowded grocery store and bought milk and cereal and a few other bits and pieces. Dinner we ate in an Indian food hall. The dishes were far too spicy for Hunter so she just ate naan, the kids were fighting to stay awake by this stage so we headed home and they crashed immediately (8.30 local time) 

Until tomorrow goodnight!