Cheap Vegetables (one really good thing about India)

I have recently found a place that delivers produce to my door. And it is good-looking produce, and it is cheap. This is an order I got that looked particularly good. Notice how red the carrots are! And how white the mushrooms are! Doesn't it all look good??! And this from a woman who really prefers her vegetables to have a Green Giant logo on the bag :) You CAN buy frozen vegetables here, but they are really gross, and by that I mean not edible. And there is really no such thing as canned anything here. If you see it, it is imported and therefore stupidly expensive. So I am actually buying and cooking fresh. That doesn't mean the kids like it, but that is what I am beginning to do. (Can you tell what everything is? Peas, sweet potatoes, baby potatoes, carrots, beans, cabbage, mushrooms, lemons, coconut, cucumber, peppers) For interest's sake, I will give you some prices. I think they are incredible. (I think this order was about $4.00)

(all you Yankees, keep in mind that a kg is 2.2 lbs)

Baby potatoes 8 rupees or 20 cents/kg

Mushrooms 15 rupees or 38 cents a pkg (pkg is about 200 g)

Carrots 9 rupees or 23 cents/kg

Peas in the pod 18 rupees or45 cents/kg

Red onion (the only kind I ever see) 9 rupees/kg

Peppers - green 18 rupees/kg yellow and red 130 rupees or $3.25/kg

Cucumber 14 rupees or 35 cents/kg

Sweet potatoe 12 rupees or 30 cents/kg These are not like at home - they are white inside, very starchy and dry and I won't buy them again. Very sad, because I LOVE sweet potatoes.

Tomatoes 8 rupees or 20 cents/kg

Eggs are 2.5 rupees each, order how ever many you want.

There are lots of strange things available here - long white radishes, tiny little lemons, weird bumpy gourds, coconuts (25 cents each), herbs, etc etc. One funny thing is the ordering list - I often have to read it out loud to figure out what it is because they just spell phonetically how they say it with their thick accent. For example, sallery or sttawarry or fuzi apple. Say them out loud and you can maybe get it. Ordering over the phone is always a fun 20 minutes.

One other thing to note - the tied-up bag in the front is a freebie they always send. I have no idea what it is (and I always send it home with the maid), some herb with chilies. Once Alex was messing with it, just checking it out, then she touched her eyes and they were burning! So then we realized we wanted nothing to do with it! Way too hot.

"well, I AM 14 now, you know." (Sam's birthday)

Sam's birthday was on Saturday this year, and it saved Isaac and Miranda from school! They were supposed to have some sort of exhibition that day but they didn't go since we were having a "family event". She decided she wanted to go see the movie "Enchanted". We had a bit of trouble finding the theatre, so we missed the first few minutes. The guy took the kids in before I had finished paying, I think maybe he remembered me from the last time I was there and had to throw a big hissy fit because they took away my imported chocolate (which I evidently should have hidden), their full-body searches made us miss the first part of that movie too (the Bourne Ultimatum) and they were not at all sorry or apologetic for the whole debaucle (ooh, $10 word). I swore I would never go back (and told the manager that too) but there I was. Anyway, it is a GREAT movie - very cute. Even Randy loved it. (hahahaha ok not really) But it is very cute. Then we went to our favorite French bakery for a cake. We ordered it with writing on top, then went to the bookstore so Sam could read some comic book novel thing she had started last time we were at the bookstore. When we went to pick up the cake, they had put "Happy 14th SUN" on it! I laughed. Sam not so much. Turns out they gave me back the paper I had written on, so they were winging it! They fixed it. Then we went home to have lasagne (real, with BEEF!) and cake and presents. If you want to, you can listen to us sing and watch Sam blow out her candle in the video. It is good stuff :) Anyway, for presents, in addition to the blanket Grandma Brooks gave her at Christmas time)Sam got a Lego Star Wars watch from her siblings (it is cute and came with a storm trooper Lego figure), books, chocolate and a singing card from Christelle, and a Disney MixMax from us. The MixMax is pretty cool - it is an MP3 player and a video player too. It even came with Pirates of the Carribean on SD card! (yep, the whole movie). As Alex was being envious of her cool new toy ("how come SHE gets that?), Sam said, "well, I AM 14 now you know". And a catch-phrase was born. We have used it many times already, to explain away all sorts of injustices!
So, she had a good day, nobody had to go to school, and she loved her presents.





HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!!

The National Railway Museum

You may notice that we are trying to see something of consequence on the weekends. It doesn't always happen, but usually I insist that the kids tear themselves away from the Wii and see something. I am nervous because I well remember the visit to the Zoo in August - soon it will be too bloody hot to go out of the house! So we are trying to pack it all in now, while we are freezing! This weekend in January we opted for the National Railway Museum. A grand title. It does house the oldest working steam engine in the world, the Fairy Queen, but we didn't see it because it actually operates a route part of the year!

Anyway, we entered the museum and went into the building to see the displays. They had some neat models of special engines, some dishes, uniforms, furniture from the elaborate days of rail travel, and some old equipment to see, but once again, so poorly maintained. This photo is of a hole in the window. I mean, really. In the NATIONAL Rail Museum. And all the display cases are filthy, inside and out. Baffling and sad, because the stuff inside is pretty interesting! There was also the skull of an elephant killed by a train about 100 years ago. Is that cool or creepy? I can't decide.

After the building, we rode the little train around the perimeter. Of course that was fun. Who doesn't like a little train?? There is even a tunnel to go thru. Overtop of the tunnel is a display of the smallest steam engine ever used, from a coal mine.

Then we walked around to see all the train cars and engines. They have ALOT of cars and engines. I know I have mentioned before one major difference between Indian museums and sites and Western ones (besides the maintainance) is the part where you can climb on anything you want here. So we did!

This is the interior of a traincar that was used by some royal person. Sorry, I didn't make note of which one :) But the cars were very opulent and deluxe, with a sitting room, bedroom and bathroom. The kids thought the mannequins were creepy.

Help! Help! Save us Big John! (am I really old if I remember that song??)

This is how you move a locomotive in India. You get a come-along and a chain, and one, maybe two guys work while 8 or 9 stand around and watch. This shot shows 2 guys working, but most of the time I saw one guy sweating it out alone.

This last photo is a cross-section of a engine. What a great idea! It shows all the valves and channels and where the steam built up pressure. It sure esplained why there is so much room in the front of one of those things.

The Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary - look Mom, no people!

In January we set out to find the Bird Sanctuary that I had read about in the paper several times. The directions and addresses here are always so vague, so if you don't know where it is, you can really be lost. The newspaper said 15km out of Gurgaon, but if that is right, they were some really long kms! At any rate, Ajay could read the signs in Hindi (suprise! there were signs!) and we did eventually get there.
I am not sure if I have mentioned before that there are two sets of entrance fees - one for Indians and one for foreigners. We have registered as residents of India so we are supposed to get the Indian rate (if we can prove it by carrying around the paperwork, which is not a card, but full size papers).
The difference is HUGE - like 10 rupees vs. 250. Sometimes the sign says "Indian National" and not "Resident" but we always push for the local price. Randy tells them he pays plenty of taxes here! At the bird sanctuary, the guy wasn't going to but after arguing for a minute, he gave in. I think it was 85 rupees total - 25 each for Randy and I and 5 for each kid plus 15 to park. :)
So in we went. This sign was just inside, and it shows the number of birds seen there. There was an interpretive centre, but like so many things here, the idea is good and it may even be set up well, but it isn't maintained and so none of the interactive exhibits work and you just get to look. They had cool maps of the migratory patterns of each bird with buttons to push to light them up.....yeah, no worky. Oh well.
The park is large (359 acres) with a big swamp and some wooded areas too. There is a path that goes around the perimeter. I wish I knew how long it was - maybe some math head out there can figure that out, based on the acres...? Anyway, right away we climbed a watchtower to get an overall view. WOW! no buildings, no garbage, no people.

There are many deer in the park too, of several varieties. They are kind of blue in colour and a bit beefy. The national animal of India is a small, dainty deer. This is not it.



Here is Sam and Alex poking their heads out of the tower. We were surprised how safe it felt. No handrails or anything crazy like that, but it was solid. Isaac didn't go to the top - I think he is not nuts about heights. Miranda did, and with all the running and climbing and jumping around, I decided I am not nuts about her up on heights!

The path is raised and paved with bricks. It is pretty smooth but I wouldn't want to have to bring a stroller or anything. There were little offshoots of the path so you could get closer to the swamp and thus the birds. Sam took lots of photos. Of course, my camera batteries were almost dead and my extras were in the car and Ajay left to get lunch, so I didn't take as many as I wanted.

CHECK THIS OUT!!! This guy is PICKING UP GARBAGE!!! We have never seen this, in 5 months in India. Not anywhere. Ever. It was worthy of a photo. Of course, the park is supposed to be closed to food, and it is a national park, but like that matters. There was still garbage. And despite his efforts, there was still quite a bit in the grass along the paths.

This is what we loved - no cars, no noise (other than birds of course) no smells, no filth, NO PEOPLE! we have never been anywhere that you could look in any direction and not see ANYONE. It just doesn't happen here. It was a strange and wonderful feeling.

Lots of birds, none of which we could identify. We did see some large prey birds, and some heron types, but that is as specific as it gets, folks!

Four kids, getting tired from all the walking. We didn't really realize how far it would be - there was no sign indicating the path went all the way around the swamp. I had only one tiny chocolate bar for their sustainance. Harsh. But they did survive.

A pretty field of... mustard? don't know, but it's still pretty! These labourers were building this brick fence, and I was trying to be subtle about taking their photo, so I missed the best shot - a lady (wearing a sari, which always seems so wrong to me) with a HUGE load of bricks on her head, taking them 30 feet and then dumping them. I suspect productivity would go WAY up here if someone invented the wheelbarrow.

I finally got the video to work! yay! here is a 360 degree view I took when the fact that we were ALL ALONE sunk in. There were other people in the park, but only early on - they never came in as far as us.