: notes to self :

georgia on my mind

Atlanta. The dirty South. Home to Ludacris, Martin Luther King Jr, CNN, and fried chicken. The infamous host city of the Summer Olympics, still boasts a wealth of tourist spots, and hums along on a solid history of birthing bluegrass and jazz greats. and now, ATL can proudly add to its must-see attractions, the soon-to-be (well, not really) minted Ph.D in bioengineering, Mr KS aka the King of Bollywood Georgia Tech.



The hearts of the bioengineering world are a-flutter! imagine, a real life member of Bollywood royalty in our midst!

And it was for exactly that thrilling experience of visiting Atlanta and being able to observe Mr Bollywood himself in his newly adopted habitat that Kathy and I ventured into the deep South. "Area codes!"

After a really poorly executed surprise on my part, I arrived in Atlanta, groggy from the small amount of sleep acquired the week before, but excited to set foot in the warm spring weather that awaited me in ATL. goodbye snowstorm, hello skirt weather! I took the MARTA (which is unfortunately, not a large Slavic stagecoach but the ATL transit system) to Midtown station on the advice of a friendly Georgian and four very terse text messages from Kartik, and stepped out into...


rain and cold winds.


WHAT????????

Apparently the weather network lies. note to self: check barometric pressure and the advection variances yourSELF using the tin can and eyedropper left in the backyard. hmph.


kathy and i quickly tag-teamed and happily discovered the softer side of kartik through various experiments. We present you with some of your findings:

hypothesis: if alpha male A is coerced into injesting cute foodstuffs, said alpha male will be more inclined to reveal latent metrosexual behaviour.

materials:
1. alpha male of Bollywood Georgia Tech (BGT)
2. calamari wrapped in adorable napkin packet
3. retail outlets

observations:

1. alpha male BGT showed initial signs of reluctance, but was soon open to injestion of Cute Foodstuff sample 1. In this trial, calamari wrapped in a napkin packet was used as the bait.



Please observe the metal ornamentation already present on alpha male BGT's right pinky finger which is obviously a sign of prediliction towards metrosexuality.

2. after further trials, the most significant behaviour occurred off-site at an outlet mall. However, this reaction is quite extreme, and thus is an outlier and cannot be considered in the final conclusions. Please avert your eyes if needed, as the iridescence of the chosen fabric is quite shocking:



Conclusions and applications:

further tests need to be conducted, preferably at a higher intensity and the alpha male must be confined to a certain area for observation. However, it is safe to say that alpha male BGT has most definitely shown evidence of latent metrosexual tendencies, as evidenced by his fashion, houseware and eating habits.





the top of the Westin, or better known as the ghetto 360 restaurant





and what would be a travel log without pics of food? french toast from The Flying Biscuit, which had amaaaaazing cranberry apple butter and biscuits. yum!



and guess what this is? uh-HUH! GRITS Y'ALL!!! woohooooooooo! they were really weird! but i ate 'em!! and we also ordered fried green tomatoes the next day, but those were disappointing.



Stone Mountain! gosh guys, it looks really nice from AFAR. geeeeeez!



kathy and i cooked for mr bollywood and his friends tuesday night. so while we were shopping we came across Grapples. We shrieked in delight, thinking we had found possibly one of the greatest products to come out of genetic engineering. However to our utter disappointment, Grapples aren't really a hybrid between grapes and apples. The stinks just bathe the apple in grape juice to give it that grape smell. how rude!!!



the palace



this is not a pic from house and home. he really lives here (with 2 cool roomies).



doesn't this sight make you want to start crying like Lucy?



and so being in ATL, one of the main attractions is the world of Coke. if you ever need directions to this place, pls forward all queries to Kathy Tam who will be more than happy to ignore you and shake her fist at imaginary ATL street-naming people instead.









atlanta's driver licensing system is strange. we saw so many cars with what appeared to be handwritten lettering on a standard card of some sort detailing the future date of when their real license plate would be ready. pretty weird eh? but the funniest example of this system was this car. it's hard to read, but that white part is actually a plain old sheet of paper with "Tags applied for " in MARKER. puahahhahah!



where kartik lives



that chair is giving him electric shocks.



the big wall o'math.


so ATL was pretty fun. the trip soundtrack was pretty kicking. It includes the Eagles, Carole King, Damien Rice, Michael Buble, the Bee Gees and Kelly Clarkson. Thanks for having us kartik! and we're glad to see you back in the saddle again =)