Paparazzi and Baby-back Veg

Today was a fun exploration day of our city. We hired a taxi for a few hours to take us to a historical fort in our city called Shaniwar-wada. I'm not sure about all the history of it, I'll have to Wikipedia it later. It was quite a warm day so we took the brief tour, or at least tried to. We kept getting stopped every few minutes to be asked to join a photo, or have our photo taken, or have just the boys photo taken. And my kids thought I was bad at hassling them to say "cheese"! We felt a bit like celebrities at first, but it got old quickly. The boys draw so much attention and sometimes they like it, sometimes they don't. So for those that ask for a picture, we tell them to ask the boys and they are free to say yes or no. Although some don't ask and just scoop them up real quickly. They seem to take it well, being that they are so outgoing. I'm still thinking they got my dad's personality in that department.

The front gate.

Exploring the arrow holes in the wall. Daddy tried to explain what they were used for but I stopped him when he got a little over descriptive. 

View from the back of the fort-looking at the inside of the grounds.

View of the outside of the fort wall.

The celebrities and their onlookers in the background.

Hanging out at the top look-out

Remains of the inside of the fort.

We had lots of hand-holding and carrying of the kids on this field trip. The lack of wall on the left side leads to a pretty good size drop-off.

Jackson conquering the GIANT steps by himself.

Taking a break from the heat and paparazzi (or so we tried)

Speaking of my dad, the second part of our tour landed us at his favorite restaurant, Chili's! Yes, that's right, we have a Chili's here! Crazy huh? We're glad that we have it, but also glad that it is clear across town (about 40 minutes away in "light" traffic) so the temptation to go (and the cost to go) will only be given in to once in a blue moon. The mall it is in is unbelievable! Seriously...two malls I've seen here are bigger/nicer than most in the States. And I'm not talking the Lubbock Mall, I'm talking Dallas' Galleria type malls. I can't believe that there are enough people who can afford to shop at these places, living in our city. Jackson cracked us up when he zoned into the tv and exclaimed, "those guys are naked!?" They were playing WWF wrestling (for some reason they like it a lot here) and we had to explain that no, they were wearing wrestling costumes and "fake-fighting." He said they were "not being nice to each other!" Such a preciously confused look on his face. I told him I didn't understand it either :)

They only down side to Chili's here...the big mouth burger (and all other burgers) are Veggie patties. No baby back ribs either. They do offer mushroom fajitas and fried paneer for appetizers, both of  which looked pretty tempting. Everything else appeared to be the same.

Our trip today gave us a feel for how big our city really is. 5.5 million is hard to imagine in small town America. It has the feel/look for a compactly crowded village, not an urban city center. Although that all depends on your individual perspective and where you're coming from. We witnessed a funeral processession parading the deceased in a glass box (held up by 6 men) right down the middle of a busy road. Sights like that are just surreal and hard to connect with the ritzy-pristine shopping malls. A land of contradictions for sure.

*******UPDATE!!!*********Our chili's now offers burgers that "moo"...it's not on the menu, but they do offer them quietly!