A Taste of Kolkata: Our Exploration of Park Street.

We decided to venture out further than we did yesterday (which consisted only of a one mile walk on the street we are living on.) We decided to go to Park Street today to do some shopping, eating and try to get ourselves oriented with our surroundings - we still haven't made it very far but we did make it back to the BMS so, I felt that we were successful. These are pictures from our excursion; they should give you a good taste of what Kolkata has to offer:

Architecture:

I'm not sure of the names of any of these buildings but it is very interesting to see the mix of modern with the colonial and possibly older architecture.

This building's porch seems to have been enclosed
and converted to a semi-outdoor street market.

Scaffolding... I would be extremely nervous
if I had to use that...

Their power lines are literally everywhere in mass amounts.

More bamboo used for building; this time
it appears to be holding up concrete.

 Hopefully these next few pictures will give you an idea of what the streets are like. It's unlike any place I have ever been and probably will ever go. I don't think these pictures will do it justice but hopefully, they will give you some vaguely picture of what it's really like.

There's older posters/ads covering most of the surfaces in the city. Not all are paper, there are a lot of painted ads too.

The taxis are uncountable there are so many! And they drive even crazier  than you would expect them too. This should give a glimpse of the constant motion and commotion that takes place in the city.

I had been warned about the beggars that we would see here but it is everywhere you turn and very much in your face. People literally sleep out in the middle of the sidewalks and children will jump up and down beside you and pull on your arm asking for anything from money to food to water.

 People bath and wash clothes on the sides of the street.

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We finally found food we liked! In the form of Indo-Chinese at a place called Bar-B-Q "Flavours of China"

 The sauces. We only tried the soy sauce type sauce, we may be brave enough to try another the next time we go... we'll see

First Indian Diet Coke, so good!

 Our "Screamin' Chicken" and fried vegetable rice.

 My plate with the pan fried noodles that we also ordered.

 The spoils from the day: 

All in all it was really good day. It rained and I almost go run over by a rickshaw but we got to explore a little of our surroundings and we are all feeling a bit more comfortable here.