Snow in Chennai!

Hah, did my title make you sit up and rub your eyes in disbelief ?

Nope, this is not a piece of fiction. It’s all true, read on ….

As usual, went home (Chennai) for Diwali. I have been going regularly for the past 3 years and I am rapidly running out of ideas regarding things to do there.

This year, we tried something new. We went to Abirami mall (this is Abirami Cinema hall that is now converted into a mall). This is probably one of the strangest malls that I have ever seen. The owners did not bother to tear down the existing structure, but just included a bunch of down-market shops and “fun attractions” wherever they could find space. Even a stranger with no knowledge of the existence of Abirami Cinema would guess that it once was a cinema hall.

Anyway, one of the cinema halls has now been converted into an attraction called “Snow-World”- advertised as Switzerland in Chennai :). For Rs.105 per person, you get to experience sub-zero temperatures for about 20 minutes.

Well, we all paid up and once we received our “Passports”, we were all set to go. Of course, we first had to gear up in the jacket, gloves, and gumboots provided by them. For the finicky, this can be a real downer. The gear is not very clean, and the gumboots are extremely yucky ! When I tried to protest, I was told that gear is a must to protect us from frostbite.

Below are a couple of shots of the passport and the visa:

Once you get into Snow-world, you can see the following attractions :

• Snowman
• Shivalingam in ice
• Sledge
• Slide
• Igloo
• Stuffed Penguin

The place was not as cold as I expected it to be. The velcro in my coat would not fasten, and kept opening, but still I did not feel that cold. Even my daughter who kept removing her gloves did not seem to feel very cold.

However, there is a slight snowfall, and a lot of ice. Some places can be really slippery and you have to be very careful. Not fun to fall on hard ice !

The best part is that there is a photographer who will take your photos against the snowy backdrop. Below is a shot of all of us in the igloo:

Note: Jahnavi is saying “Cheese” in below photo, which accounts for the expression she has 🙂

After the snow-world experience, we were entitled to hot MTR Badam milk, or coffee, but really we were just not that cold to crave this. I suspect that might be toning down the cooling every now and then for energy-saving purposes. Can’t say I blame them.

All-in-all, a very coool experience 🙂