15.3.08

president's gardens

Today we went to the equivalent of the White House here in the capital. There are some really pretty gardens at the President's house that are only open to the public in February and March, so we went today. I tried to find something interesting about the gardens online, but I couldn't. It does have 250 different types of roses (including the Okla Homa Rose...not Oklahoma, mind you). It was designed in the mughal and English garden design by a Britisher, and from my quick 2 minute research, I think that was in 1929. But that's all I know. :)

I do know it's really pretty though! The circular garden was the prettiest. Husband remarked that it is a glimpse of perfection, and that we can't even imagine how beautiful the place prepared for us will be.

They don't allow cameras in, so I had to settle for googled images. It looks basically exactly like this, except with swarms of people. When we walked up to the entrance, there were two separate metal detector and security lines for us to go through - ladies and 'gents'. This is very common, since the culture is so modest. It would be inappropriate for a man to lightly frisk a woman. Side note: with all our recent airport trips, we've carried baby in her sling through the security checks. Each time I've gone through, the women have told me to leave my bag on the conveyor belt, to which I've shown a peek of baby. Every single time, the woman has exclaimed, "OH! So sweet!" and has nudged all her coworkers to look at the baby, and they've all exclaimed as well. It's pretty fun to surprise them.

I had baby and her bag, and a man on a microphone and loudspeaker called out to me, "Madam, you must leave your bag!" We walked over to him to show him it was just baby's bottle and diapers. We were right next to him, but he continued to address us, eye to eye, on the microphone. "You can take the baby bottle and nappies, but you must leave the bag." We thought that was pretty funny.

I think baby was more of a spectacle than the flowers, and I'm not just saying that because I'm her mother. South Asians love babies, especially blue eyed light-skinned ones. It was like every where we went, we could hear such remarks as, "Look at the baby!" "Oh it's a baby!" "She looks like a doll!" etc. It's fun to have a celebrity baby. :)

In the gardens, there were some flowers that we have in our front "yard". So I thought I'd post them so it would be semi-authentic pictures from today's family outing.

4 comments:

SouthAsiaRocks said...

Cool flowers :) We went there last year and were dissappointed about the no-camera thing :( I like the flowers you guys planted at your house - fun ;)

Sarah said...

I just got caught up on your blogs. Did someone really ask if baby speaks Hindi? Heeheeheeheeheehee!

Anonymous said...

How pretty! You guys have gotten to see the neatest stuff...such a blessing! :)

Deanna said...

Looks beautiful!!! Glad to see you guys getting out and about. What will you do with your last few months?