The reason we were going was to visit Cherise’s brother, Lucky, who was one of something like 20 accepted from around the country for the freshman class of University of the Arts.

This is not his dorm. But it is one of the dorms. And it’s of note, because it used to be an insane asylum. I kind of wonder how students feel about this dorm, especially as they’re passing a row of foreboding bare trees to enter the place.

We checked out a place called Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens. The pictures will tell the story better than I can describe it, but this place is insane. Basically, a few decades ago an artist bought a block of buildings, and has spent the time since turning it into an extremely intricate, highly decorated mosaic. Imagine if a pile of glass, tile, wood, mechanical and metal rubbish exploded over freshly plastered church ruins, and you start to have an idea of what this place looks like. Not an inch is spared- allow me to show you.

The artist community in the area is thriving, to say the least. We walked around town at night and saw galleries all over the place, with some unique window décor. We also enjoyed some excellent pizza. Everyone says that New York has the best pizza in the world. I’ve had it, and it is excellent, but frankly, I found Philadelphia’s to be even better, especially at those cheap by the slice places.

Yes, those are various cooked fowl over the faces of those portraits.

After a day and a half in Philly, we made a day trip over to New York City. We got up a little late and took a good amount of time taking the train. When we arrived, we enjoyed some fine vegetarian dim sum. It sounds weird. In fact, it probably is a little weird. But it’s damn good.

It was quite late by the time we were done, and we went to see Times Square since Cherise and Lucky hadn’t seen it. I’m not a fan… frankly, it’s gaudy and ridiculously overpriced versions of stores you can find anywhere else.

But I guess it does have fun lit up trinkets.

There’s a few more pictures in the gallery. Click on the picture of me to have a look.

We cruised around town for a bit afterwards. I got this fairly glamourous shot of her.

I decided that I was going to bring Cherise back some kind of black pearl jewellery as a gift from India. Hyderabad is something of a world center in pearl commerce: around 90% of the world’s pearls pass through Hyderabad at some point. You might find this odd for a city that’s nowhere near the ocean, and you’d be correct. It’s pretty damn weird. From what I understand, it has little to do with geography and more to do with historically cheap pearl processing labour. That’s right. Hundreds of years ago, pearl processing was outsourced to India.

So Hyderabad became the the world’s place to buy pearls. If you happen to be in Hyderabad, the Laad Bazaar is the place to haggle for them. It’s a large shopping area in historic Charminar, the area’s ‘Old City’.

Having a girlfriend, I have some minuscule amount of solo jewellery purchasing experience. When you want to surprise her with jewellery, you can’t exactly bring her along, but pearls were something I’d never done before. I usually keep it simple- either gold or silver. No diamonds (I’ve been anti-DeBeers since well before Blood Diamond, thank you), and really no gems at all. They’re shiny, pretty, and extremely confusing. Rubies? Sapphire? Just what the hell is Moonstone? Just give me some of what they keep at Fort Knox. If the US has a whole division around it, it’s gotta be pretty valuable.

However, Cherise really likes pearls, and I happened to be in pearl capitol. Pearls it had to be, and it came with a host of new challenges. I had to check the luster and general feel of the pearls to gauge their quality. Looking specifically for black pearls only compounded these difficulties, as there are many fake black pearls which are merely dyed rather than cultured. After doing some research, I found that in general, the best way of testing the ‘authenticity’ of a black pearl was to gently rub it against your teeth. A dyed pearl would be extremely smooth from the layer of dye surrounding it, whereas an authentic black pearl would have a harsh, gritty texture.

At once, the question surfaced: what’s the polite way of asking a vendor if you can rub their expensive wares against the inside of your mouth? It also posed the problem that if it did indeed have that authentic grit, I was basically compelled to buy it. If there’s a ‘you break it, you buy it’ rule, I’m fairly certain that somewhere there’s a ‘if you get saliva on our jewellery, you really should buy it’ rule.

Perfume dealers in Laad Bazaar. I was almost tempted to take this as an easy way out.

Once at the bazaar, I was completely overwhelmed. There really were pearl dealers everywhere, basically as little shops crammed into tiny nooks and crannies in the streets. I stopped inside a couple of them, and was presented with various items when I asked to see the black pearls. It was then I realised that I had no idea what I was doing. I couldn’t bring myself to rub them against my teeth. I tried rubbing my fingernails gently over them, but that proved to be completely ineffective. At some point, one of the dealers handed me a knife. I assume it was to test the pearls. I still don’t know. Maybe it was an extremely passive threat.

Most of the dealers were honest people though. When I asked, they usually admitted that the pearls they had were dyed rather than cultured. It seemed like this could be a long search, so in the end, I caved. I left the bazaar and headed to a very official looking dealer.

Krishna Jewellery Mart was a pretty classy place. It felt a little weird to be walking in there with a floppy hemp Tilly hat. The stuff they had was very nice though, and we were served some excellent chai tea in small, delicate cups. I ended up buying Cherise a black pearl necklace with a little white gold clasp. Which, er, I don’t have a picture of. I’ll post it later.

Krishna Jewellery Mart. For the confused shopper’s black pearl needs.

I’ll wrap this entry up with one last shot from Laad Bazaar.

I’ll be leaving for India this Saturday… leaving India on the 21st for Hong Kong, and leaving Hong Kong on the 24th, back to good ol’ Sunny So Cal.

Smoke makes for good photos, but don’t do it. It’s bad for you.
Joseph grapples with his Persona.

Lucky and Joseph stare Through a Glass Darkly.

Cherise and the Virgin Mary.