Birthday weekend

Saturday was my birthday. Since Arind and I came back from Thanjore very early morning, we slept in. We had a late lunch and went out for shopping. We could not get anything we wanted, but it was nice just being in the city. For dinner, we decided to go to a Lebanese/Mediterranean restaurant called Cedars and it was great! The service was unfortunately very slow (and it felt like that especially because we were both starving) but the food was great :) I think this restaurant will be one of our 'hang-out' places in Chennai.

Today (Sunday), I went to play tennis for the first time in Chennai! My mother gave me her tennis racquet when I went back to Japan and so I had all the gears necessary to play tennis again. Arvind's uncle took me to one of his tennis clubs to 'evaluate' my tennis skills (to find out whether I was good enough to join his group!). I played with a Marker there; Marker is a person who takes care of the courts and supervises ball boys - yes, there are ball boys at tennis clubs! All the Markers were playing tennis with no shoes! Who would have every thought of playing tennis with no tennis shoes?! Very Indian. Anyway, this Marker was very good. He was being very 'nice' in the beginning and was hitting the balls to me in the beginning but once we got over the first introductions, he started to hit the balls from side to side making me run everywhere! Anyway, fortunately, I seemed to have passed Arvind's uncle's 'test' and he told me that if I want to play around the time he plays, he will let me play with him :) I am planning on taking tennis lessons once a week and additionally playing two or three times per week :) I am very excited to get back to tennis and very very happy to be a part of Chennai tennis scene! Arvind will give me this club's membership for my birthday gift!

This weekend is definitely the best weekend I've ever had in Chennai so far :)