Places visited: Aurora Hindu Temple, Patel Brothers Naperville, Dublin (Ohio).
Date: 1/9/2018 to 2/9/2018
Persons: Harshal, Juilee, Radhika
We wanted to buy a Ganapati idol made of Shadu chi Mati (clay), so we inquired at the Patel Brother's store. It was available. So we decided the weekend trip to Chicago. Juilee's brotherVinayak Parvate lives in Ohio near Cleveland, so we planned to combine these two places.
1/9/2018:
We spent Friday night to pack the bags. It was a lazy Saturday morning not well planned. We managed to start from home at around 9:30 AM. We first went to the Aurora Hindu Temple. There was ample parking space available despite of the crowd. We kept our shoes in the shoe rack downstairs. We went inside then took the darshan. The statues are beautiful. Some people were doing Abhishek and Pooja. We then went downstairs where there are lockers and shoe racks available. There we met Nama and his family.
We ate in the cafeteria of the temple. The food - dosa, medu wada, idli - all was awesome. We also drank lassi. Later we took some photos near the fountain outside of the temple.
It was around 3:30 PM. We reached the Patel Brother's shop in Naperville at 4:30. It is closer to this temple.
The shop is really big and has good parking spaces. We see some indiscipline like shopping carts are kept at wrong places by the people who come there for shopping, etc. Juilee went crazy by seeing all the Indian items in such a big quantity after long time. We shopped for almost $200. We did get the Ganapati idol packed in a very good shock-proof box for $21. I also went back inside again and bought the Dal Makhani and Batatewada for our dinner.
We filled the car trunk with all this stuff and headed towards Dublin city in Ohio. On the way we stopped for petrol and we also did our dinner over the bread and Dal Makhani in their parking area. We
were sure that we were not reaching to Dublin before midnight, so we decided to halt in Indiana. We did not do any online booking. We took an exit where Comfort Inn was closer. But we found out that it was house full due to some blueberry festival and graduation parties. Most of the hotels in that area were full. Radhika was asleep. Near to these nice hotels, we found a motel (run by a gujju family). It had just one room left.So we booked it. The reception (gujju) lady was nice and quick. We took our bags upstairs (no elevator in the motels). The room was big but not well maintains. The microwave was full off small cockroaches. It was 12 in the midnight, so we did not complain about it, but just slept right away.
2/9/2018:
In the morning, Juilee and Radhika took the breakfast in the reception area with that gujju lady. (The motel really needs improvement).
I managed to cook my ready to eat pohe in that cockroach filled microwave without letting a single cockroach in. We started towards Dublin at 9:00 AM. The journey was smooth. We also did call to our relatives back in India (Laxman Mama and Juilee che Baba). The Dublin is similar to Quad Cities. We reached to Vinayak's home at around 12:00 noon. Juilee's kaku and kaka were at home. They felt happy to see us. After some time, Vinayak, Girija and Mohini came home (Their elder son is in California). We had a nice chit chat and nice lunch. They were asking us to stay with them for a night, but as I had to join back on work on Monday, we had to leave by 3:00 PM. So they first took us to a nearby ice-cream shop. After that we came back to their home and then we started the return journey. Vinayak's family were sad that we could not stay there. They gave the Frozen doll as a gift to Radhika, which Radhika loved so much.
The return journey was quite longer than expected, I think, because the Garmin showed us a little longer route to avoid tolls. Juilee drove for half way, then I took over till we reached home. After we reached home at night, we found that all the fresh vegetables that we bought from Patel Brothers were almost dead, especially the Alu. So our dream of Alu chi Bhaji did not come true at this time. But we certainly got other good stuff like spices, khakra, methi, etc.
And yes, we were all excited to see the Ganapti in USA.
Details:
Aurora Hindu Temple (Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple): https://svsbalaji.secure.force.com/
1145 Sullivan Rd, Aurora, IL 60506
Patel Brother's: http://www.patelbros.com/
1568 Ogden Ave, Naperville, IL 60540
Hotel: Deluxe Inn Warsaw, Indiana: 2575 E Center St, Warsaw, IN 46580
Date: 1/9/2018 to 2/9/2018
Persons: Harshal, Juilee, Radhika
We wanted to buy a Ganapati idol made of Shadu chi Mati (clay), so we inquired at the Patel Brother's store. It was available. So we decided the weekend trip to Chicago. Juilee's brotherVinayak Parvate lives in Ohio near Cleveland, so we planned to combine these two places.
1/9/2018:
We spent Friday night to pack the bags. It was a lazy Saturday morning not well planned. We managed to start from home at around 9:30 AM. We first went to the Aurora Hindu Temple. There was ample parking space available despite of the crowd. We kept our shoes in the shoe rack downstairs. We went inside then took the darshan. The statues are beautiful. Some people were doing Abhishek and Pooja. We then went downstairs where there are lockers and shoe racks available. There we met Nama and his family.
It was around 3:30 PM. We reached the Patel Brother's shop in Naperville at 4:30. It is closer to this temple.
The shop is really big and has good parking spaces. We see some indiscipline like shopping carts are kept at wrong places by the people who come there for shopping, etc. Juilee went crazy by seeing all the Indian items in such a big quantity after long time. We shopped for almost $200. We did get the Ganapati idol packed in a very good shock-proof box for $21. I also went back inside again and bought the Dal Makhani and Batatewada for our dinner.
We filled the car trunk with all this stuff and headed towards Dublin city in Ohio. On the way we stopped for petrol and we also did our dinner over the bread and Dal Makhani in their parking area. We were sure that we were not reaching to Dublin before midnight, so we decided to halt in Indiana. We did not do any online booking. We took an exit where Comfort Inn was closer. But we found out that it was house full due to some blueberry festival and graduation parties. Most of the hotels in that area were full. Radhika was asleep. Near to these nice hotels, we found a motel (run by a gujju family). It had just one room left.So we booked it. The reception (gujju) lady was nice and quick. We took our bags upstairs (no elevator in the motels). The room was big but not well maintains. The microwave was full off small cockroaches. It was 12 in the midnight, so we did not complain about it, but just slept right away.
2/9/2018:
In the morning, Juilee and Radhika took the breakfast in the reception area with that gujju lady. (The motel really needs improvement).
The return journey was quite longer than expected, I think, because the Garmin showed us a little longer route to avoid tolls. Juilee drove for half way, then I took over till we reached home. After we reached home at night, we found that all the fresh vegetables that we bought from Patel Brothers were almost dead, especially the Alu. So our dream of Alu chi Bhaji did not come true at this time. But we certainly got other good stuff like spices, khakra, methi, etc.And yes, we were all excited to see the Ganapti in USA.
Details:
Aurora Hindu Temple (Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple): https://svsbalaji.secure.force.com/
1145 Sullivan Rd, Aurora, IL 60506
Patel Brother's: http://www.patelbros.com/
1568 Ogden Ave, Naperville, IL 60540
Hotel: Deluxe Inn Warsaw, Indiana: 2575 E Center St, Warsaw, IN 46580
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