Thursday in India

Today was an experience that truely taught the difference between American and Indian culture. We started the daywith breakfast and preparing to leave the hotel at 0900. That went exactly as planned, but the rest of the day did not go as planned at all. As we left teh hotel for our first stop of the Lotus Tmple we discussed the days events. It was planned to stop so people could purchase punjabi's if they would like. Someone mentioned to try an outdoor market vs. the indoor mall that was planned. Following good indian culture, our guide decided that we would be able to accomplish everything in our time and still get to our meeting with UnitedHealth Group by 1500. Our plan definately did not come together well. We visited the Lotus Temple today. That is a temple which was constructed by the Baha'i religion. The one in Dehli is the latest of seven in the world. The idea is to create these temples around the world with the idea that any and all religions can worship in the temple at anytime. All religions are welcome and it is believed that these temples will bring teh world together to worship the one creator God. This builiding is archetecturally magnificant and protected in India. There are guards with metal detection as you enter. There is security around the whole facility. Upon entering the temple, shoes must be removed. There is no speaking or photograhy within the temple. The accustics are unbelievable. The birds within could be heard singing louder that if they were right next to you. Well, we spent a lot of time there. partialy due to not setting a time limit. Also due to keeping a group of 12 people from all generations on one schedule. Some were back at the bus pretty early, some were taking there time, and others decided to take a quick trip back to the information center. Because of this, we began to run late in our schedule. It also took more time than planned to get there through the traffic. It was decided we would still go to both the open market and the enclosed mall before making our meeting at 1500. Both locations took longer than planned so we realized we would be late to the 1500 meeting at UnitedHealth Group. We discussed skipping the stop at the hotel to change into business dress, but our Indian guide stated it would be better to be late and look well dressed than to be on time and not dressed correctly. Hence we stopped at the hotel. On the way to the meeting, our driver got lost looking for the address we had given him. We had only confirmed the meeting last night so gave the driver the address this morning. We were 45 minutes late to our 1500 meeting.