..SouthAsiaRocks..

We went to the Archeological Park that is behind the Minar. We had fun taking pictures with it :) It was hot this day! During the week my parents were here it was 115 or so during the day.... Luckily it has "cooled down" and is only around 105 or so right now. This one is my favorite :)

Here's more of the oldest city of the Capital. This part is much newer than some of the other parts I talked about in the last post. In the picture below is the Jamali Kamali Mosque and Tomb. The mosque was built much later - in 1528 in honor of a sufi saint. It's crazy that I never knew this existed until this past week! I live in such a cool city!!! As we started to walk towards it, a man told us it was locked up. We were a little sad until he said he had the key and would let us in :) We were so glad he did! When he first let us in, this was the first thing I saw... do you see that big be hive?? Crazy! They use white marble, black marble and sandstone in this mosque. It looks really neat! There were a lot of interesting designs and window areas in this mosque. The outside wall was really neat too. This is the inside of the mosque. I love all the old blue tile. It's so neat! It's over 500 years old! crazy! This is inside the tomb of Jamali Kamali. Some of ...

When my parents were in town we saw some fun "old stuff" :) I love learning about the history of our city. It's such a cool city! It is said that there were 7 old cities of the Capital city. We went to the first city on this day. It's REALLY old! The original fort wall was built in AD 731!!! Crazy hunh? It was expanded later in the 11th century... so, needless to say, it's OLD!! It was so cool to go to because it wasn't like most of the other ruins here that are out in the open and the sun, these were in the jungle (that's what they call it here). It felt like we were in the movie Tomb Raider.... Here's one of the really old mosques. It's so cool! I'm not sure how old this part is, but they wouldn't have built it with a tree right in the front, so it's at least older than that tree... :) I'm going to try to find out more info on it :) It's cool because throughout all of the old city ruins people still live their li...

Two of our friends got married while my parents were here. We had never gone to a Christian wedding here before and ended up going to 2 in one week! The first pictures are of my friend Preeti. It was such a fun wedding :) The other wedding we went to was my friend Julianne's wedding. She asked me to take pictures at her wedding and it was so fun to do!! Here's Julianne with her sisters before the wedding. It was such a fun wedding!! I love feet pictures - look at her fun feet!! If you want to see more pictures from Julianne's wedding, click here . I started another blog in case anyone's interested, to post pictures I've taken so that I can learn to be a better photographer :) (www.SouthAsiaRocksPhotography.blogspot.com) Weddings are so fun!! I love going to weddings in South Asia!!!

My parents are here for a visit :) We've been having a lot of fun :) I haven't had much time to blog about their trip (more posts to come) but here are a few pictures... Taking Aashini to school... Having some fun in Old Delhi! My Aunt Melinda is an awesome seamstress (who totally needs to apply for Project Runway!) and wanted a few things that are perfect to find in the Old Part of the City, so we went out to get them :) This is what the roads look like in this area - SUPER tight!!! Here's mom standing in the middle of one those crazy roads! Dad even got to "drive" a rickshaw :) We've been to a couple of weddings of some friends while they've been here (I'll post more about those later)... here's a pic of Aashini having fun with some of the flowers from the wedding :) And one more for fun :)

There are definitely some funny toys here! Some make me laugh a lot! Here's a toy car that is at Aashini's school. It's a HANDA (which makes me laugh) and it also has Rainbow Brite on it :) haha! (ok, it made me laugh) :) We saw these at the toy store the other day. They're Lego-type blocks... but the brand is what cracks me up - "Tourist Blocks" :) haha! Not quite sure why they picked that name, but it sure is funny!!! And, for your viewing pleasure (in case you're interested), here's a video of a funny doll we saw the other day. It's a Barbie-type doll, but it sings Bollywood songs :) haha! I thought it was funny :)

The other day we were at "Store 99" and found some really funny toys! This one we just had to buy to test it out. It was called the "Baby and Milk Game" :) If you look at the back of the box you can see why we just had to check it out :) So basically it's a train track with a baby (thats the train) that pulls another smaller baby from behind (weird!) while chasing a bottle that has a magnet in it so the baby basically pushes (repels) the bottle around the track. It was quite funny to me :) It made us laugh a lot! Here's a video in case you're interested :)

You ever wonder what to do with these weird veggies? I never ate beets growing up. The only time I ever saw them was on a salad bar. I would always try them (they looked so cool and colorful) but never liked them. Even now when I see them in the market they kinda gross me out. The long part looks like a rat's tail to me! When my sister was in town she taught me a fun recipe with beets that I love, so I'm going to share it with you :) I actually eat this for fun!! I have no actual recipe. But basically I pealed and cut in half 5 beets. (if you don't want your nice cutting board to be permanently pink, cut them on a plate or something else :)) Then I steamed them (you could boil them too if you wanted). Then I got out my mini food-processor. I put a little less than 2 of the beets in the food processor with a small handful of cashews, a tablespoon of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and blend it up. I repeated that until all the beets were beat :) h...

We always have people going up and down our street selling things. This is one of my favorite things. This guy bikes down our street almost daily. He holds onto the handlebar with his little fingers and plays the drum with the rest of his hand so that you know that he's there. If you stop him, you can pay him some money to watch his monkeys dance and take pictures with them. I love that they hop on the back of his bicycle and ride along ;) Most monkeys are a little scary, but I think this is cute :) (at least from a distance) :)