All About India (from a guest blogger)!

Hi All, it's Noah this time.  Recently, I took a week-long trip to India for work, but had a few moments to tour around.  Here's some shots from my time, with a few shots of "Meanwhile, back at the house..."

For long flights we get to fly business class.  Emirates treats you very well!

Can you see it?  The Burj Khalifa.  We flew into Dubai (UAE) for a layover before completing our flight to Hyderabad.

From my hotel window.  Didn't have to walk far to get to work :)

From the hotel lobby

Our camera software team in India, on a lunch outing to great Indian buffet!  Can you guess which of the three of us came from the U.S.?

A shawl vendor that we patronized

The entrance to an area of several street vendors

Me outside the entrance

One of the billion auto-rickshaws driving the streets that the three of us squeezed into to get back to the hotel on our shopping night

The entrance to the Golkonda fort that we visited on Saturday while we were waiting for our late-night flight

One of the many ornate entrances

Kodak, er, Canon moment

The interior of the fort.  My colleague on the left and boss in the middle. 

Countless doors and passageways

First-level panorama of the fort

Second-level panorama of the fort

A shrine

Picturesque hole-in-the-wall, with some of Hyderabad seen through it

The harem, for 360 wives

Impressive for being built in the 16th century 

Looking west over the land that still belongs to the fort and Hyderabad beyond

Looking south 

There is a 6-7 mile wall around the whole thing!

It was pitch black until...FLASH!  Thousands of bats and cockroaches.

Coming down a different way and looking up

The stables for the horses and ELEPHANTS!

It takes up pretty much the entire hill

One of the inner walls.  A moat used to be at the bottom of it.

Our tour guide who has been guiding tours there for 37 years.

The landmark of Hyderabad: The Charminar (and surrounding street vendors)

Underneath the Charminar.  All foreigners paid 20x what residents paid!  100 INR vs 5 INR!  (2 USD vs 10 cents :))

Up inside the archways, look in

Just a little bit of traffic

We also visited the Salar Jung museum, but no cameras were allowed.  This is the Chowmahalla Palace, where cameras had a separate admission fee.

Hand-carved ceilings from long ago

The throne room

Some children's garb, from the time period the palace was used

They had a little room to invite people over for dinner

More of the palace grounds

Then off to the airport.  The End.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Keira and I did various things to keep ourselves busy while Daddy was gone. One day we went to the beach with our MOPS friends and came home with a car full of sand. Keira was a great worker and loved helping me wash the car inside and out!

We did the Summer Reading Program at the library and here she is displaying her list of 10 books that we read (notice the battle wounds on her lip & chin; more on that below).

Ooh, a blue bubble wand--a great prize!

So, about the battle wound...Keira took a tumble off a friend's couch and landed face-first on a hardwood floor. She bumped her two front teeth & bit the inside of her lip, which resulted in lots of blood and some crying and a very frazzled mama. Thankfully, the injury wasn't serious and she bounced back pretty quickly. A few days later, we took a trip to the dentist to check out the damage.

Here she is all ready to get an x-ray! 

,

Such a cooperative patient! 

Holding very still

Is this really the dentist's office??
Lounge pillow, shades, and headphones?!

Watching "Ice Age" on the TV built in to the ceiling!

Actually, she really did not like the headphones and didn't seem to understand that the sound in the headphones went along with the TV.

Nevertheless, she did great during the exam & x-rays! The dentist said she fractured the roots of her two front teeth, but they would heal on their own and her teeth would probably end up falling out earlier than usual because of the trauma. 

Hurt mouth or not, more fun was to be had!

Here we are at Briana's new house for a housewarming/popsicle party!

The lunch menu was delicious!

 It's fun to run around in the big backyard!

Matching popsicle girls!

Friends!

What's a popsicle party without popsicles?!

Summer fun is the best!!!

Shortly after we left the popsicle party, Noah made it safely back home from India (phew!), except that he got a sprained ankle on his last day while touring around. :(
When he returned, he brought back some fun souvenirs. Keira was so excited to get an Indian sari and handmade Indian bracelet, while I got a trinket box and some genuine Chai tea! Thanks, Daddy, for the goodies and we're so glad you are back home!