Songjoo's going away party

Our group is now down by two. Songjoo left for Korea on Saturday and Nawaf left today. It was sad to see them go, but neither of them could keep the grins off of their faces. Nawaf has been here for six months and Songjoo for two. They were both ready to go.

We had dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town. So the bill for all seven of us was somewhere in the range of about eighty dollars. That's bahut expensive for India. 

But the food was excellent.

Me, Beamish, and Matthew

Osamu, Songjoo, and Nawaf

After dinner we walked over to this temple thing. It was Gnesh's wedding or something. I'm still not really sure. And I didn't take pictures of the actual ceremony thing because I always feel so intrusive when I do that. I mean, how would I feel if someone walked into the back of my church and started taking pictures? 

But the Christmas lights they had strung up were quite pretty.

Saturday we took Songjoo to the train station and said goodbye.

I love Nawaf's expression here. He's super annoyed we're making him look at the camera.

And my last picture with Songjoo... at least for a couple of weeks. See you soon, friend!

Oh but I forgot to mention, Saturday morning, since Songjoo and other other English students had class, Matthew and I decided to head to an ATM and then a scooter repair place to get the mirror put back on my scooter (and no, I don't know why the previous owner took it off).  So we headed south, but couldn't find the ICIC ATM I thought I'd seen a couple of days ago and instead ended up heading off into the outskirts of Dehradun where we met this little guy.

This is some sort of dry riverbed, or flood plane, or something. But it was cool. I wish you could see the mountains more clearly, but the haze often keeps them obscure.