July 15 6:50 AM Monday

Yesterday we went with Neha, our tour guide from Global Adjustments on a tour of Delhi. Her function is to give you sources of places to go for things and activities you want or need while you are here. And to help you adjust to the culture. This was a great help. She took us to various malls and markets. (Christmas shopping has begun!) I know this is a DUH statement but having someone around who speaks Hindi as well as English helps the day flow. Great for negotiation as well.
The Markets and shops we went to were less persistent than the Lotus Mall. There were certainly some persistent sales folks, but it was easier to move on if you weren’t interested.

She helped me buy a more “Indian” tea to try. I purchased a tulsi and tulsi and ginger tea. Tulsi is the Hindi word for basil. Good for the throat and tummy.

We learned why we couldn’t find spinach – both looking for the English word and it looks different here. And other helpful/interesting things like that.
She lived in America, China and other places as well. She said the hardest thing moving her, her husband and 2 children back to India is that her Husband works 14 hour days all the time and spends NO times with the kids. She said they have even stopped missing them. A definite challenge in this culture as a whole it seems.

We learned Subways here are walking paths across or under roads. They don’t have these in many places that I have seen besides one part of Delhi. For instance in or near Gurgaon there is a 5 lane BUSY highway. The housing is on one side. The industrial park is on the other side. There are no breaks or stoplights so, people just dash across the highway. YIKES! We drove this pass on a Saturday afternoon and saw maybe.. 5-7 people at various places cross. I can only imagine what 10-11 am and 7-9 pm are like when we have our walking and driving rush hours here.

She said much of the food that you find in Indian restaurants is not served in homes. First of all they don’t have the brick ovens for Nan, good point I forgot about. (PANZY EXCUSE REALLY!) And the cooking is pretty simple. A veggie dish, Lentils/chick peas, and a more whole wheat version of Nan that you can make on stove top.

She also mentioned that Bollywood, though it is a larger industry then Hollywood, this is the first year that here in India, Hollywood films are doing better then their own. She says this is because Hollywood is putting much more effort in to overdubbing them in to various Indian languages. So, for instance we saw the English Harry Potter playing in Delhi, and in a theater across town we saw the Hindi version playing.

In our travels we stopped outside the Presidents residence.

(Say that thre times fast.... )

We drive by the Prime Minister’s as well. Meha said that in India the President is just a figure but the Prime Minister is the one who takes on the active roll.

We visited the India Gate.

And the outside of the Lotus Temple

One plac we WILL visit again to go inside and also hopefully at night as it is lit up beautifully then from the pictures we have seen.