At a nearby roadside kirana shop....

....slurping cold pop.....and "J" giving his "thumbs up" to "Thums Up"!

Seen outside the Hyderabad Airport...

Who knew guns and airports could mix so recreationally?

Heard inside the Hyderabad Airport....

.....the sweet, familiar strains of Christmas hymns played throughout the airport intercom.  "Silent Night"....."O Come All Ye Faithful"...."Hark the Herald Angels Sing".  And likely not to be heard inside any US airport on any New Year's Eve.

*** Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year from India! ***

Riding a fast tail wind!

It's not often that I check an airliner's onboard air-flight status. So when I did, I was surprised to see us riding a rather speedy tail wind....

Now maybe I'm just not up-to-snuff about weather patterns at 39,000 feet, but isn't this hurricane-force winds? Is this normal at these altitudes? I'll have to consult my pilot and Boeing friends about this....

At any rate, it was nice to know it was a TAIL-wind rather than a HEAD-wind, pushing our overall speed near 700 mph....

Apparently, at 39,000, that put our plane past Mach 1.0 (i.e. the speed of sound)! Didn't realize passenger planes had that capability....

Seen on the way from London to Hyderabad.....

Kuwaiti gas flares. Individually, they illuminate up the night sky below many times brighter than any city light. Apparently, this is well-known to space satellites.

Dubai at night. 

Red arrow = Burj Khalifa. 

Green arrow = Palm Jumeirah.

Back to India!

Well, it's been almost 4 years since our last trip there.  And now it's official once again....we're all going back to India in a couple of weeks.  "A"'s visa to India just came in....our last obstacle overcome.  This will be "A"'s 1st trip there....and "J"'s 2nd....and "B"'s 3rd....and "S"'s 4th.....and "L"'s ?-th).

And of course, Mom and Dad think "A" has the cutest visa photo in the world!

"Kids" day off.  My cousins and our kids went for a day ride by taxi to Charminar. We got a charter taxi and since it was based on time and a fixed rate - i think he ripped us off.  He went the long way...argh!  Unfortunately it's a holiday, so Charminar was closed.  Double argh!  Soooo...went to McDees and got a Rs.10 cone.  It's like getting an ice cream cone for $0.10.  Remember those days?!  Proceeded on to the connecting mall, but since it was too early in the day, it was pretty empty.  Only thing that seemed available to participate in was a fish pedicure.  (REF: S. entry)

Once our feet were all dead-skin-free, we checked out GVK - the "largest" mall in S.India.  My favourite part was the GIANT aquarium right as you walk in.  

Next stop - General Bazaar, then home for a movie marathon.  Watched the Scarlet Pimpernel while eating Indian Chinese (YUMMO!)  Then some ice cream (Mango and Lychee flavours).  Continued with UP for the little ones and then 1/2 of Counte of Monte Cristo...

Fun, but long day...forgot what it's like to be a young "adult" with no kiddos...

Tuesday
Day of rest
kids woke up late
started packing
dad went out of town
Walked around colony

Bus ride and sugarcane juice and bouncy house...Oh my!!!

Wow - it's hard to believe that it's our last week here.  This time next week, we'll be boarding our flight back to Seattle.  Better not think about it too much - makes me sad.

We took a bus ride today - just to take a bus ride.  We were hoping to catch the bus that comes right in front of our colony (subdivision), but it arrived a few minutes early, so we missed it.  (No, it doesn't wait till the right time).  My dad took us to another bus stop that is on a main road, but we had to wait there quite a while before the next bus came.  We skipped that one because it was too crowded.  Caught the bus right behind it, though...  B. was pretty excited about being on the bus.  I think J was too, but he couldn't enjoy the sights from the bus as much, since he was too short to look out the windows.  Eventually, the kids started wilting in the heat...this was not an air-conditioned bus.

Once we got to the station, also the bus depot, we decided to look around a bit before heading back.  We encountered quite a variety of goods on our little walk: sunglasses, watches, snacks, shoes and even score a couple pajama "suits" for B.  It was a hot day and i don't think the kids were able to handle too much more of it...so we took an auto back. 

Good thing too, by the time we got home, it was past 1:00 p.m. and we still needed to grab lunch and get a nap in before we headed out again at 5:00 p.m.  We had another dinner invitation this evening.  While Dad was filling up the car, mum and i were able to grab some sugarcane juice.  Man!  I can drink this stuff all day!  So can the kids!  Our hosts showed us a little park/playground behind their flats - with a bouncy house.  The kids couldn't get enough and didn't want to go in for dinner.  Fortunately, it was getting dark and the mosquitoes can be quite persuasive.

Yummy dinner!  Got home around 11:30...it's been a long day

Seen in our neighborhood....

One thing's for sure....they've got more covering their car than we do on ours back in the USA!