Home

We arrived home last weekend. Thanks to my parents and Kevin's parents for picking all of us and our luggage up from the airport and getting us home! We are happy to be able to drink the water that comes out of the tap, have hot water whenever we want, have the independence that comes with having our own car, shop at a grocery store with plenty of choices, and not have to concentrate so hard to understand what people are saying. We definitely miss the warm weather, the million smiles we got from complete strangers everyday, the food we got when eating out at restaurants, Binod (the staff member at the hotel who taught the kids some Hindi words), and all the other staff at all the places we stayed who made our time as carefree and enjoyable as possible. If I ever get the opportunity to see Bangalore or Goa again I will definitely take it! I know that is true for Kevin and the kids as well.

London

We took advantage of our 27 hours in London to do a little sightseeing. The boys were so thrilled to see Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. We walked long the Thames even though it was lightly sprinkling. Such a change from our previous 6 weeks with only one rain shower that lasted 10 minutes! The pictures below are of Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Wellington Arch (in the corner of Hyde Park), and Buckingham Palace.

Exhibition at Freedom Park

Freedom Park in Bangalore is an open space generally used for political or social or demonstrations. I took the kids to see an exhibition that had set up there for a week on the garbage problem in Bangalore. I had been reading The Time of India newspaper everyday and there were lots of articles on the growing problem of garbage in Bangalore. Not only are they producing a massive volume of waste, not much of it is being separated out to compost or recycle what they can. Local parks and green spaces are being used to hold the overwhelming volume of garbage. The exhibition was trying to educate Bangaloreans to separate compost and recyclables. Soon there will be 3 stations around the city to receive recyclables. Compost is hopefully going to be dealt with by individuals...I'm not sure what that is suppose to look like for the many people who live in tiny cement buildings all in a row with a road hard up on one side and an alley on the other. Check out the picture that has the comparison of waste usage in Vancouver and Bangalore. Also, the picture below with the garbage in the dirt was taken less than 100 metres from the exhibition, in a corner of Freedom Park. There is a lot of work to be done to change things in Bangalore.

Mysore

Mysore is a city south of Bangalore known for it's sandalwood, silk and the Mysore Palace. The palace was built in 1912. It is massive and every square inch is carved, painted or decorated in some way. I wish I had pictures of the inside to show you but no one is allowed to take pictures inside the palace. The current Maharaja (King) for the region resides in this palace or in his palace in Bangalore.
It took us only 2 hours to get to Mysore on the train. We went down on Sat morning and returned Sun afternoon. In Mysore we had enough time to see the palace (including about an hour of walking through the interior in bare feet - no shoes allowed), visit the zoo (where we walked another 5km), go up Chamundi Hill to see a Hindu temple and get a view of the city, and see Devaraja market where locals sell vegetables, fruit and household items.

Paparazzi

The boys and I were at the Information & Technology Museum on Wednesday. As usual the boys approached by a group of strangers who wanted to take some pictures of themselves with the boys. Also, as usual, it was not just one or two pictures. All the guys in this group wanted a turn to be in a picture with the boys. The whole thing lasted a good 10 - 15 minutes so I decided to join in and take some pictures with my camera as well. These guys were so happy to interact with the boys, find out their names and where we were from. It is really amazing how young Indian guys are not afraid to show affection towards children. Here are a few of the pictures I took...

Pictures from a tuktuk ride

The other day me and the boys grabbed a tuktuk after playing in a park next to Ulsoor Lake. I described where I wanted to go using a landmark and the names of the streets. The driver indicated he knew what I meant so we hopped in and away we went. We went down a whole lot of streets I didn't recognize but that was nothing new because every driver seems to take a different way to get around the city. I did know that we were heading in the right direction generally so I didn't question him. After about 20 minutes, when I thought I should be able to recognize something, I reiterated where I wanted to go to the driver and again he said "yes, yes". This was not  very reassuring because when other people here have said "yes, yes" it usually means "don't worry, we will figure it out in time". After another 10 minutes he brings me to a temple which has the same name as one of the road names I had given him. When I try to explain where I want to go again, I got the same "yes, yes". He brings me a couple of blocks down the road and stops. It is not where I wanted to go. The driver finally concedes he doesn't know where he is going. He brings me to another tuktuk driver and after another 25 minutes of driving we get to our destination. The whole thing was much longer than I wanted but I used the time to snap some pictures and William used the time to have a nap :)