After we had the business of the wedding behind us, we went on John and Kingkini's honeymoon. They insisted that it wasn't their honeymoon, but a trip around northern India to see the sites with all the rest of the white people. First stop, Dehli. We visited the beautiful Baha'i temple that is shaped like a Lotus flower. Interesting thing about lotus flowers is that the stem on them grows so the water never touches the flower. The lotus flower is a symbol of purity. It was a beautiful and very spiritual site. And also, unlike everything else we saw, it wasn't carved and it was built in the last 30 years. Our friend and architec, Dan, is working on the Chicago Baha'i temple's welcome center.
Indians really don't know what cold is. This is their winter and it was probably 62 degrees F. But that is pretty cold over there so they bundled up their babies in snowsuits and gloves. Even our Indian, Kingkini, was all wrapped up in a fleece and scarf during the trip. The rest of us just wore long sleeve shirts. Lightweight Indians.
This is a pretty popular place to visit as evidence by all the other people walking up the pathway. There were lots of school children on field trips. This was our first real taste of manicured greens in India and we were soaking it in. Probably a throwback to the traditional English Gardens. Thanks Brits. We also have the Brits to thank for the awesome tradition of bed tea. That's where someone brings you tea and biscuits before you get up out of bed. Outstanding. I need bed tea in Indiana, but the only Brit I know probably doesn't deliver.
We were all wandering around and checking things out when Aunt Becky disappeared. We found her talking to some girls. They were teaching her swear words in Hindi. They were super cute and wanted to talk English with us.
John, the groom, minus his fancy clothes, and his mom, Mary. We had lots of fun with Aunt Mary. I think she had fun too.
Like I said before, fair people with light hair are rare in India and people would want to talk to us. These school girls all wanted to shake hands and say hello. Unfortunately, their English was very limited and we couldn't speak and Hindi, so there was just a lot of smiling and shaking hands. If you shook one hand, you had to shake everyone's hands. I'm around a lot of school children and I know what kind of germ factories they could be so I refrained from hand shaking and just took pictures. Then I made everyone use hand sanitizer. No telling which one just had a finger up their nose.
More coconuts. A tradition at Hindi weddings is to steal the groom's shoes and then he has to pay a penalty. We negotiated with John for a sari for Christina and Kingkini's cousin and then coconuts for all of us. This was the day that John had to pay up.
We visited the India Gate which is like a war memorial to those fallen in the line of duty. It was shortly after Republic day so there were still lots of flowers and military around.
Then it was on to a historical site, the Qubar Minar. It was built in 1192 AD and serves the purpose of calling people to prayer in the mosque. It was beautiful and amazing that it was standing and the polution hadn't affected it too badly in the 800+ years.
Another tower near the first was started but never finished. It was set to be twice as tall as the first, but budget shortfalls caused the building to stop.
Aunt Becky and Dan took lots of artist pictures at this site, but after a while, they were just starting to wonder where their next butter chicken and gulab jamun was coming from.
Keep an eye on Becky's blog www.turnerfive.blogspot.com for more picture of our amazing trip. We are both only part way through our pictures.
India isn't the only place the over bundle up kids....when we went to visit Nacho's parents in Mexico the first time it was April...I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt one morning when we went to the market and there were kids in snowsuits...my MIL thought I was abusive with Alex when he was a baby because I didn't keep him always bundled.
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