Light Up the Night

On our way home from our visit to friends in Bangalore at the end of last year, we really did the "tourist thing.” We stopped in a town named Mysore (yes, pronounced the way it looks) to see a famous palace.

The palace isn’t really all that old. It was rebuilt with much help from the British, during the time of the maharajas, after the old palace burnt down in the 1890s. But it was quite a home at one time. The really spectacular thing is that, for one hour (7:00 – 8:00 PM Sundays), it is lit up with 97,000 light bulbs! Quite an incredible display.

Going to see it lit up reminded me somewhat of going to a concert-in-the-park back in Canton, Ohio--probably because it was just a low-key, unhurried thing to do on a pleasant evening. Entry was free, though we did have to stand in line for a while at the gate, and people of many colors and backgrounds just wandered around the grounds between the palace and its gates, exclaiming over the beauty of the lights and looking for the best vantage points for pictures.

The next morning we paid to take a tour of the inside of the palace. It was quite impressive—especially the gorgeous ceilings, stained-glass windows, and carved wooden doors. There were two things we were not allowed to take with us on the tour: cameras (actually had to pay to leave them at a little camera-check spot ) and shoes (no charge to hold those for us). Hence, the only pictures you’ll see below are from outside. But if you’re curious, I’m sure you can find more on official Internet sites.

If any post needed pictures, this one does.

Front of palace, lit:Side of palace, lit:
Front gate, from inside, lit:

Palace from distance, with models (hostess Joyce):Novelty--taking picture in mirror: Unlit, still impressive: And through the front gate:

Happy New Year!

I know it’s a little late, but maybe I can slip in under the wire and wish you a Happy New Year before you get used to replacing 2007 with 2008 on your checks. I hope the first week of the year has been a pleasure and not a disappointment for each of you. Either way, I hope that you are looking forward to the rest of this new year with anticipation and trust, because we know Who is in control and we know that He is love.

You might be interested in how I celebrated the coming of the new year. Well, you might if I had done anything interesting. Actually, Mary, Steve, and I spent about seven pleasant hours coming the other direction on that express train (it was a longer trip because we had traveled further away from Chennai—another thing I need to tell you more about later) then were pleased to find a reasonably priced cab for the trip home from the train station. (The cab made a noise that none of us had heard an engine make before, but it made the 20 to 30 minute trip with no evident difficulties.) We arrived home slightly after 10:00 PM on New Year’s Eve, with no desire to do anything but get settled back in and have a good night’s rest. However, I’m never quite comfortable with letting an old year slip away and a new one slide in without being awake to see it happen. So, after Skype chats with my mom and a friend, I found an Internet site that was counting down the seconds to the new year in India time. Nothing dramatic—when it got to zero, it started counting up the seconds in the new year. But I was there to see it happen. And I did hear lots of fireworks going off right after midnight. They sounded impressive, but I didn’t want to go wandering around at that time of night, and could see almost nothing from the house due to trees and buildings. After that I called another friend, which is a lot safer to do when you know it’s mid-afternoon in her time zone. That’s it. Well, except for fighting off the mosquitoes once I did try to turn in. They ended up winning our first battle of the new year, but they won’t win them all!

It would probably be more interesting to you to hear about how the Christians here in India celebrate New Year’s. When a friend back home expressed surprise that January 1st was a holiday here—in fact, the office was closed on the 31st, also—I replied that New Year’s is a secular, rather than Christian, holiday, so why wouldn’t they? However, I’m not sure how accurate my statement was. My landlady told me that the Christians do more to celebrate it than those of other common religions here. She left for a service at her church shortly after I arrived home that evening, and didn’t get back in until around 2:30 AM. Their celebration consisted of a time of worship, prayer, and testimonies, followed by a light snack. A young woman that I work with spent that extended weekend with her family in a more southern part of India. Their service extended from 10:00 PM to 5:30 AM. I guess I was too impressed or in shock to inquire about the details of that one! Apparently some other churches have services at more reasonable hours on the 1st. So, it varies, but a worship service is an important part of seeing the old year out and the new year in.

In all of this, I was well aware that 2007 was a slightly shorter year for me. Since I started it in the eastern time zone of the US and ended it where the time is ten and one-half hours earlier, I lost those ten and a half hours. But I have great expectations for 2008, since I should gain them back!

You may think that my New Year’s resolution was to write fewer blog entries, in which case I’ve done a splendid job of keeping it. No, I bypassed the resolution-making, and have just had a busy first week: getting settled back at home, washing most of my clothes, and picking up our systems project where I left off. I know there’s a lot I still haven’t told you about my surroundings and activities here; if you’re willing to keep reading, I’m willing to jump back in and tell you more about what continues to be a fascinating adventure for me.