The year is one fourth done

Already! Hot dang. It's really gone by quite fast. Tomorrow I have parent/teacher conferences in the morning which should be fun. I'll write something a tad more reflective later this week when I'm not so tired. What you really want is pictures and I happen to have a few of those.

So, each quarter we have a break. Fall and spring breaks are relatively short; days off plus a weekend. A group of us decided to go down to Delhi. I was originally planning on going camping but decided that I would give Delhi a second chance after the nightmare it was when I first got here. My buddy, Saahil, has a house there and offered to take us and let us stay there since his parents are in London.

We took the train down right after school and got in around 11. A friend of ours, Kapil, picked us up and we ended up crashing as soon as we got to Saahil's place. The next morning we got up bright and early and headed to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.

Part of the Taj. This is the main gate to get to the main part. It's full of symbolism. The king built the Taj for his wife who died in childbirth with their fourteenth child. The eleven bulb-like things on top represent the eleven years it took to build. The designs around the archway are actually Arabic script for the first fourteen books of the Quran, for the kids. The tiny things are people.

Just a more direct shot of the gate.

Up the gate.

First view of the Taj.

Majesty...

Group Shot.
(Front Row: Me, Jennie, & Megan
Second Row: Saahil, Megan, & Nan)
We were supposed to be cheesing it up, but, apparently, I'm the only one who got the memo.

This is the mosque that is to the east of the actual mausoleum. There's an identical building on the other side that they kept referring to as a guest house. Kinda creepy to have a guest house if you ask me.

Heading into the Taj. No photography inside so this is as far as you get. You can't go down to the actual tombs but the builder (a Turkish guy) had the sense to build a replica above. The walls are all inlaid with precious and semi-precious gems. It's a pretty stellar sight to see.

One of the four towers. They're actually built with a ~2 degree tilt outside so that in the event of a natural disaster they'll fall outward rather than on the Taj.

The Red Fort. The king who built the Taj was almost immediately overthrown by his son as soon as the Taj was finished. He was then imprisoned here where he could just see the Taj. We didn't get to go here because we ran out of time. When dad and Cindy come in December I think we'll hit this first and then go to the Taj at sunset.

Close up of the script.

Tourists lounging. Almost immediately after taking the photo two guys came up to me and asked for my picture. You get that a lot around here, "OOOO a white person! Let's get their picture!" It's even worse for Megan since she's a redhead.

A view of the gate and gardens standing in front of the Taj.

The gate to Akbar's tomb. He was a Muslim emperor. We went here since we couldn't get to see the fort. Indians are really fond of these huge tombs. Delhi is covered with them.

Akbar's actual tomb. This place wasn't quite as touristy. In fact, it was rather dead.

After the first day we just relaxed and actually slept in for a bit. We went to one of the markets and met up with Kapil and Teeran who had been doing there own thing. We had lunch with them and then spent the evening at Kapil's. He lives outside of Delhi and has his own factory making gaskets. Without going into too much detail, there was lots of fun there. Finally, on Saturday we just lounged until the afternoon. We were heading in to the city to go to another market when Kapil's engine literally dropped out of the car. It was a rather interesting experience to go through being stranded on the side of an Indian highway and all. The last thing we did was go to a place called Dillihaat. It's a huge outdoor market with booths clustered together from all parts of India. It was cool to see the stuff but really too touristy for me. We all got up early this morning to catch our train back up and we had a relatively uneventful trip up. I've just been unpacking, going through emails, etc.

Guess I should do something productive before it is actually Monday and not Sunday anymore.

About a month's worth of pictures

Ok, so it has been a while since there was a substantial blog post. Give me a break. I'm on my first job, we're just wrapping up the quarter and I have better things to do than attend to the every little of people half a world away. You know there was a reason I moved so far away.


Ok, so this week I spent most of my time writing comments. We have to write a substantial, at least three line comment about each kid. That would be great if I knew all my kids yet. Granted, I know most of them but some of the Koreans I just can't get. Hopefully by the end of the year.

What else have I done? I'm getting boots cobbled. I got two new pants made. These ones are even more swank than the others. The button on the fly has Mickey Mouse on them. Awesome.

Things are getting colder and colder around here. Monsoon came back this week too. It rained for about 30 hours from Wednesday to Thursday and it still comes and goes. I busted out the sweaters this week. Went to the local watering hole last night wearing a cardigan and one of the older staff members that came with us told me he thought I was 30 or 35 this entire time. I just felt distinguished, like an intellectual.

So anywho, what you really want is pictures.

Some of my advisees over at my place for some dinner and games. "Oh, Mr J, (They call me Mr J) you're so full of shenanigans!"

The other half of my advisor group.

Playing charades, can you guess who?

More of the bazaar.

One of the numerous textile shops. This isn't the one I go to though.

Some playground/hangout place. No one can tell me who the bust is of there in the center (centre?).

The hillside from the middle of the bazaar.

Clocktower. Thusly named because there is a clocktower there.

Ram Chander, my grocer.

Fruit carts out in the street. The guy gave me a really dirty look for taking his picture.

The Woodstockmobile.

Just a couple of chums playing cards.

Birthday dinner at the Tavern.

The other half of the party. The guy in pink is Prakash. He's the second biggest metrosexual I know. Can you guess the first?

Birthday libations. Indian vodka tastes like CH3CH2CH2OH.
(For reference, the stuff you're supposed to drink is CH3CH2OH.)

Dinner. The stuffed chicken sizzler! Sounds kind of like an amusement park ride.

Hockey game. These kids were running around trying to scare people with the mask. This guy put them in their place.

The WS boys' teams waiting to play. We had three guys' teams and three girls'. I think they won one game all day between the six of them. Granted, they only formed the teams three days before.

Spectators.

The temple next to the hockey rink.

The statue in front of the temple.

Inner school cross country. The kids in front of Kellogg Church. My house (the Merlins) won the day's events.

Cheering on the runners as they pass by.

Staff being boring and waiting around for someone to break their leg or get run over by a car. We ran in the streets and had no way to stop traffic so it was a real danger.

I've been skyping beautiful, young women and men with large proboscides.

The group of kids and visiting teachers we took on a hike up to Benog Tibba last weekend.

Pics of the old pump house. How the hell they got these huge things down the mountain is beyond me. There's people living here now.

Taking a break part way through the day at the wheelhouse. The guy puffing out his chest on the left is Darab, our outdoors guru.

Break time by a valley stream.

The hike's final destination. There's a shrine at the top of Benog Tibba.

A kind of natural shrine just below the real shrine.

Darab and Niranjan (the physics teacher) walking up to the shrine.

You're supposed to ring this bell to help drive away evil spirits. Darab was telling me how there has been studies that show the vibrations actually kill some harmful micro-organisms.

The visiting teachers perched on the observation tower. It was foggy as all get out so there wasn't a darned thing to see.

Grubby Caterpillar.