Krishna's Birthday.

I'm really behind on blogs, but hopefully I'll get everyone caught up in the next couple days.
On September 2nd, India celebrated Janmashtami aka Lord Krishna's birthday, a popular Hindu holiday. One of the host mothers in our group talked to her driver and he took us out at night to see some temples. On the drive there we could see lights and colors all around the temples in the city.
The road leading to the first temple we went to had lights strung all above us.

The temple itself was full of bright lights and colors. We went in one entrance and waited in a line that was lined with statues of various gods/goddesses. Each of which was extravagant and colorful, decorated with flowers and colorful material. To the right in another room was a bunch of people sitting on the floor watching performances that children were putting on in celebration. When we got up to the front we were given food in honor of breaking the fast and we got to look at a huge Krishna statue.
We went upstairs where there was music playing and a couple men giving out more food and they tied red strings around our wrists and gave a couple people in our group garlands to put around their neck made of potent orange flowers.

The next temple we went to was a little different. There were a lot more lights and colors. The colors at this one reminded me of Easter colors. We went into a room with a Krishna statue, and there were various people around (mostly children) around that were dressed in fancy clothes as different gods. There was another stage area, much bigger than the first, where other performances were going on. We went upstairs to another area where there was a statue of baby Krishna is some sort of swing. We were again given more food, this time we got handed these sticky balls of goodness. Some people got little pots of butter ghee (clarified butter), I'm not sure why. But Lauren ate it.

The next day, Andrews parents took us to Old Delhi in the search for saree's and other fancy clothes to wear to the Taj. We all decided to get dressed up in fancy Indian garb for the event. They took us to non-touristy parts. We were in these back alleys. Each road had designated shopping areas. We went down a road of sarees, one with a bunch of different beads, decorative home stuff, etc. It was really interesting. The alleys were crowded and small. We are going back for a class field trip this weekend, so I'll write more about it then. :)