Feeling Festive!

So Lockey and I have a tradition of celebrating American Thanksgiving. It's a fun time of year, and it really kicks off the holiday season, which I love! Also since the first 2 years of our marriage were spent in Beeville, TX it was only natural to celebrate. And now we are lucky enough to spend time at Robert and Loni's cabin in MT so we feel like it's still legit to celebrate American Thanksgiving... And if I still haven't convinced you then I'll just throw it out there.... Lockey is an American citizen... (Dual... but for our purposes of celebrating American Thanksgiving we'll just say he's American). So I went to work and made a splendid (if I may say so myself) Thanksgivining dinner on Friday night. I can do magic w/ my hotplate!

We had Turkey pillows, w/ corn on the cob, cooked carrots, sweet potato casserole (although the sweet potatoes weren't orange, but they still tasted delish!), cheesy mashed potatoes, stuffing and cranberries!

During dinner we watched one of my favorite movies, (I love Christmas movies!) Serendipity. It was lovely this year, just like every other year!

After dinner and a movie, we walked down to the harbour, and I showed Lockey the lights on the ferry terminal high rises. There were also buildings across the harbour covered in lights. It was a bit nippy out, but we kept walking, until we found ourselves in a shopping area, w/ Christmas music, and Christmas trees.

I was feeling festive, and then we saw Starbucks. One of Lockey and I's pasttimes at Christmas is that we like to go to the Chapters, Starbucks and get a Peppermint White Hot Cocolate, and read little kid Christmas books to eachother in the little teacup. (We are very grown up...) Although there wasn't a bookstore around, we were still able to enjoy some Christmas cheer in a cup of gingerbread hot chocolate!

(They don't have our usual Christmas beverage, but I quite enjoyed my gingerbread hot chocolate!)

 

And to end our Thanksgiving evening we had some Pumpkin Cheesecake w/ white chocolate covered walnuts. It was a great evening and a good break from studying for finals for Locklyn. (Which I think he was thankful for....) And I am thankful for my husband studying so hard so that we can have a bright future!

Slumdog Millionaire Mumbai

When you land in Mumbai, this is what you see... Slums all the way up to the tarmac.  If you really want to see it then watch Slumdog Millionaire, we saw basically all of the landmarks in that movie.  More than half of the population of over 40 million people live in slums in Mumbai.  

This was the security booth for ladies

This is the New Prince of Wales Museum.  The architecture and gardens were beautiful.

The Flora Fountain, which we used as a landmark to find "safe" restaurants... you just turn to the left!

We're Greasy and scruffy we're bugs and buster bunny!  

Walking down Marine Drive (It was DANG hot!)

Chowpatty Beach... you wouldn't want to get in the water here that's for sure! (also in the movie Slumdog Millionaire)

The inside of our taxi... you can see by how blurry it is how smooth the roads are... also every taxi had the same type of interior from the 70s it was funny to see all the different patterns...

View of the Harbour 

This shoe was in one of the parks on Malabar hill, it definitely said no climbing on the outside of the boot... which is obviously an invite to do the opposite.

View of Chowpatty beach from Malabar Hill (Malabar Hill is the "Ritzy" area of Mumbai)

The Hanging Gardens... Also called the "senior" gardens, a good place to sit in the shade.  (Like senior citizens!)

Lockey at the gate of India.  It's right on the Harbour and where the spice trade was. 

Where's Cami?  Checking out the gate of India... only female in shorts... did you find me? 

Lockey in front of Gate of India, also check out the two fellows cuddling on the right side of the picture... Super normal.  

The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.  Very grand, and actually had really expensive stores and such like Dior on the first level. 

We saw a few of these really fabulously decorated horses and carriages... not exactly what you picture as a romantic carriage ride is it?  

And this was outside of the Mumbai stock exchange, behind this there were police officers sitting at a table playing cards I think... but another officer saw us and started yelling at us to get away... Also the same day there was a protest, or a demonstration going on by the Flora fountain, they had a big pile of books that they were burning or something?  And there was security people and the Indian people were keeping their distance from it, but still watching, but the security people wouldn't let us even try to see what was going on, they just told us to keep moving, it was bizarre... 

Lockey tried to get in on this game of cricket, but he didn't catch the ball... better luck next time!  

Rajabai tower

Watching Tin Tin at the theatres... The theatre was kind of cool, we were in the balcony seats, and there was an intermission... 

Lockey in his cool new hat... he's got a hat hat, a hat hat, he's got a hat hat, a hat hat! (Gate of India on a different day, it was right by the restaurant "Le Pain Quotedien" that we always went to.  It was actually the same chain that we had gone to for brunch by Central Park in NYC last year, and they have all these delicious preserves and spreads, and I bought the "brunette"  which is a praline hazelnut spread, and it cost me $16, and I didn't even care.... It tastes like Christmas in a jar!)

This is what you would see in an ad for India

This is the reality...

We thought that it was funny how many antacids we were taking... and don't worry, we still bought 3 packs more! 

We saw the UNESCO world heritage site of Chaatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (used to be Victoria Terminus) Their main train station, also in Slumdog Millionaire. 

It's really quite ornate and beautiful!

Inside of the station, I have never seen such old and scary looking trains as public transit... It's a good thing cabs were so cheap, we payed less than 10CAD for over an hour ride to the airport.

All of the women wore Saris and tunics and they were all so ornate.  there were so many really bright ones, and really sparkly ones they were beautiful!  

This was one of their fresh food markets.  In the background there is a huge pile of garbage, and then they are selling their melons and pineapple on the ground... 

In the same market they had little puppies and birds and ducks and pet shops.  The puppies were pretty cute!  They also had meat... but I wasn't up to seeing it... I could already smell it! 

The outside of the market 

A street market or bazaar, these were all over the place, and hard to get around in b/c they don't generally close the streets to vehicles, so you are always fighting the crowds and dodging cars that won't try to avoid you

Lockey was interested in Cricket and had the guys at the place where he forgot his bag, teach him a bit about it, to we watched for a few minutes at the cricket field.  There were several games and all ages and abilities playing.  

You always have to check out the differences in McDonalds.  No beef was served at any McDonalds in India, b/c Hindu people don't eat beef and they are the majority of the population in India. 

Lockey trying to Smeyes... (smile w/ his eyes for those of you who don't watch America's Next Top Model)... he looks more like Freddy Kreuger though... 

It was so hot that an actual droplet of sweat just appeared on my leg.... We were there for the hottest day in Novemeber in 7 years... It was 36.7 degrees Celsius.. I read it in the paper. 

It is so polluted in Mumbai that even though there isn't fog, it looks like there is, so you can barely see the Bandra Worli Sea Link that we are about to drive across.

Slums across from the Bandra Worli Sea Link

On the Sea Link, It's a very long and cool bridge, w/out all of the loud honking and traffic.

As a summary of India, we are both glad that we had the opportunity to see India.  We are glad that we had the experience.  India is a completely different type of place to visit, and although we think we are pretty weathered travellers if we had to do it again we would definitely go on a tour of India where everything was planned out, and they knew the safe places to eat, and we could have delved into the desert living more.  I would definitely recommend to anyone who feels the need to go to India that they  go w/ a tour group, or a guide.  

Trustworthy Taj Mahal

After spending two long nights in the hotel, never changing clothes (Gross I know), and it taking way to long to get the release documents from the hospital, we were off to the Taj Mahal.  

The Taj is only 200kms, but as we couldn't leave until 9:30ish traffic was pretty bad and it took almost four hours.  Cami and I were mostly just glad to get out of the hospital.  

Finally out of the Hospital - Looking pretty good for a sick couple

So, the drive was somewhat eventful and it was nice to see some of the countryside although it wasn't quite as rural as I was hoping.  All along the road you would pass a collection of colourfully decorated transport trucks, tractors, oxen drawn wagons, unhelmetted motorcyclists, and crammed tuk tuks - all of which I tried to take pictures of.  (There were also fresh veggie carts w/ beautiful vegetables, next to still water puddles and garbage piles and the veggies had flies.... this was normal...)

Small town with a market and a picture of a tractor - we saw lots like this one

These are the colourfully decorated transport trucks.

One thing to notice on the truck is the Horn Please sign.  There is a constant honking of horns while you are driving in India and signs like these are on every truck and car encouraging Indians to keep up the noise pollution.  

Cows hanging out on the side of the road, with transport trucks and tractors in the background 

I liked this guy's truck, it looks like he built it himself.  

Welcome to Agra 

So this is a Tuk Tuk crammed with probably >10 people.  4 on the back 

Same Tuk Tuk- my count is probably three or four in the back seat, 3 in the middle and at least three in the front.  This was the norm.  

And when there is no room in the bus, you ride on the roof 

Cami and I rode with Y.P. only stopping a couple of times along the way.  He was a great driver.  

First story was when we were crossing the border into another state.  At the border crossing they have all of these beggars and entertainerish people.  The first one that approached our car was a guy with a talented monkey.  He was asking for money and such and he wanted us to get out of the car to take pictures with him and his monkey, but that wasn't happening.  So I took out the camera and took a couple of pictures of him and his monkey.  He seemed ok with it at first, his monkey even did backflips on command which I had never seen a monkey do.  It was pretty cool, but I wasn't about to roll down my window and give him money.  Then the monkey pimp came over.  He was an angry man and while he didn't speak english I got the impression that he was pretty pissed that I took pictures of the monkey without paying the guy.  He tried to open the door, but I had locked it.  He was all yelling at me and I just took the camera and showed him that I deleted the photos.  That seem to pacify him a bit, but I'm pretty sure he threatened me or said something fairly threatening. Not really cool, but I wasn't about to open the door or window for these guys.  Not Happening.  There was also this transvestite looking person that tried to solicit something from our driver and a couple of beggars that persistently begged on Cami's side of the car. Not fun.  There were a couple of times that I gave some beggars money, like this one time where this guy came up to my Tuk Tuk when I was on my way back to the Hospital and his foot looked like it was going to have to be amputated.  It was all twisted and broken, and there was a gaping bleeding wound in the top of it that was probably 6 inches long and an inch wide.  It was really sad.  It's so hard when there is so much poverty and YP said that most of the money will go to fuel drug addictions.  

Anyway, second story.  

We had stopped at this place to eat and while we weren't feeling up to much we grabbed some crackers, cookies, water and some MINT CHOCOLATE GUM!!! (The same gum you get at Target, it was really expensive for India). That gum was delicious.  YP also wanted to grab some tea and some food, but he sat in a different section than we did.  So we sat down, I put my bag on the back of the seat and ate some crackers.  When YP was done we grabbed our crackers and cookies and such and were off to Agra again.  It wasn't until we were getting out of the car to go to the Taj that I realized that I had left my bag on the back of the seat.  This bag is our lifeline.  It has everything.  It has the I Pad, with all of my school work, and our flight/hotel itineraries, it has our passports, our money, EVERYTHING!!!  I started flipping out.  I couldn't believe that I had been so stupid.  I wouldn't do something like that in Canada, let alone India.  We were ready to turn around and go back to see if it was there, when YP asked if I had the receipt for the food that we had bought.  I found it, but it didn't have a phone number on it.  Luckily his friend had the number to the place and he called them.  I was praying my little heart out hoping that someone would be good and kind and honest, even if they took the money if they just left the I Pad and the passports... When they answered they said that they had looked through my stuff to try and find a phone number for us, but they had kept everything for us, without taking a thing.  I was so relieved and practically didn't believe that they would do that.  

So, after a bit of a regroup and with our emotions still messed up from everything, including this latest fiasco we got into a rickshaw and started towards the Taj Mahal.  YP suggested that we be back at the car in an hour and a half, so we made a deal to be at the meeting place in that time.  So we went off in our Rickshaw.  

In our Rickshaw.  The scruff on my face would turn into a magnificent beard, but we didn't take a picture of it.  Also notice Cami's "smile", this was her I'm not feeling well but I'm going to smile anyways face. 

This is the meeting place - our rickshaw is behind the guy on the scooter

So after we left the rickshaw, we went and got tickets after fighting off all of the hawkers and the tour guides.  (We were standing in the male and female lines and there were men who wanted to be our tour guides bothering me and I was trying to be polite and say that we didn't need a guide, but thanks anyways, we didn't have a lot of time, but they didn't go away, and Cami wasn't feeling well so she turned around from her line and yelled, "Lockey just tell them NO", and they scampered off.)  Tickets are 750(15CAD) rupees for tourists and 20(0.40 CAD) rupees for indians, but 15 bucks is still a good deal to see the Taj.  There was also a crazy long line up that we had to wait in for a half hour, which plus the time to take the rickshaw and get tickets we had all of 20 minutes at the Taj Mahal.  Kind of sad that we only had that limited time, but it is what it is.  

This is the first gate before you get in the the actual Taj Mahal courtyard.  Cami is visiting with some other Canadians (Indians) on the left.  

The Taj Mahal.  

Another Taj Mahal pic 

Sick Kids at the Taj

Us at the Taj!!! (Notice we are both wearing closed toed shoes). 

Yup here's another one!

And a kiss at the Taj Mahal 

I wasn't above doing the classic pose 

This was the line up to get past security.  If we would have waited another half hour, we wouldn't have had time to even get through this line. (Everyone wanted to see it at sunset)

Cami with our Rickshaw driver 

SO, after seeing the Taj Mahal we met up with our Rickshaw and he took us back to YP and we were off to collect our bag.  I slept a bit and Cami tried to as well, but unsuccessfully.  

When we got back to the restaurant where we had dinner all of these guys were waiting around to meet us and I was so thankful and we got some rice off of them and they wanted to chat and and see pictures of our families.  I showed them how to use the iPad and they gave us all of their contact information so that we could be Facebook friends.  I am really grateful that there are honest and kind people in the world.  I really don't know what I would have done without that bag.  So grateful for good people and answered prayers.  

Me and the guys who took care of my bag.  

This was our last day in Delhi so after the long ride home and after grabbing some prescription drugs (antibiotics) without a prescription, for 2 CAD, we had a good nights rest at the hotel - I even got a pillow- and we were off to Mumbai in the morning.