Tim and the boys and I walked around the neighborhood expecting to see something amazing but we found that most of the vendors from the day before had left and those that were still there had almost nothing left to sell.
People were really friendly and we were invited into the temple where we received new bindis (I'd washed my earlier one off), the traditional flame-based blessing, some camphor-flavored water, and a flower. During the ceremony the priests chanted to invite Ganesh to come to Mantri Greens ("Mantri Greens" was the only part of the chant that I could understand) and offered food to Ganesha, then everyone sang songs (they gave us a song sheet but I am so worthless with Kannada and Hindi that I couldn't even find my place on the sheet, at least not until we got to the Hare Krishna line, then I was lost again), then they blew a conch shell and ended the ceremony. At some point in this, Ganesha had given the food given to him back to us and people passed out plates of honey-soaked sweets and cooked green lentils and everyone went up to have a serving of the food (prasad) which was, by that time, blessed by Ganesha. We learned that the Ganesh ceremony is celebrated for 5 days here at Mantri Greens. On the first day (Wednesday) Ganesha is asked into our homes, they continue to have daily events until Sunday evening when they will return Ganesha to the earth by bringing him to Sankey Tank (a couple km away) and immersing him in the water. People from the apartments were encouraged to bring their own Ganesha idols down to the stage and accompany them to Sankey Tank on Sunday. We have been invited to attend the daily events. Before knowing about this, I bought train tickets to Mysore for Friday - Sunday, but we might be back in time to see him off on Sunday.