Buenos Aires, Buenos Dias

Soo, it´s been embarrassingly long since the last post. I thought an amazing trip to Argentina was worthy of reviving this thing!

We have successfully arrived in Buenos Aires. Well minus our luggage, that was lost by LAN airlines. But after our fabulous day today, I say success, because I don´t think we thought about it for 1 minute. After arriving at the hotel, alas- no bags for them to hold, we checked in and then took off for the day. Started out in Palermo having a yummy and very euro-ish breakfast of coffee and toast, with jams and cheese on a cobblestone patio. The service was lethargically slow and rightly so, with the right hint of South American casualness and it being so early on Sunday morning. I think we started to see people emerging from their double caged front doors at around noon.

Breakfast was followed by a stroll through the Palermo neighbourhood, some window shopping, some more strolling, a snack of a deliciously savoury carne empanada. Eventually we decided to take the subway to San Telmo, about 20 minutes away. It was exciting and busy. It was a nice warm day, people swarmed everywhere. There were antique stores, street performers, artists, and little cafes everywhere. We had a really great lunch at this pretty mediocre looking cafe, it´s give-away was that it was busy busy! We feasted on our first bites of Argentinean beef, it lives up to everything wonderful that is said about it. Some wine, garlicky potatos and the most amazing chorizo sausages, at just 4 pesos each, we think that might be our daily snackum, wait that was the empanada, oh hell, we´ll have both!

In any case, we plodded back to our hotel, trying to race against the sunset, it gets dark here really early (5 pm). No luggage, and therefore nothing nice to change into meant we were eating in! Ordered from a Chinese restaurant around the corner, it was yumm! Veggies spring rolls (5 for 6 pesos), spicy beef stirfry and mixed fried rice were all really good in that greasy Chinese food way.

Definitely a successful day. We saw a lot, smelled a lot, most importantly ate a lot!

Hopefully our bags will show up tomorrow. We won´t think about it though. Now is time for bed- hours of travelling and 12 hours of walking the streets of Buenos Aires is just the night cap we needed.

Rain boots go with everything.

So it seems that winter has officially begun in Vancouver. The last 6 out of 7 days have been rainy.

On day 1 I wore my rain boots. On day 2 I wore my rain boots. On day 3 I was sick of wearing my rain boots, so I wore sneakers-- and my socks got wet. On day 4 I wore my rain boots.

It is now day 7, I sit in my office, with my legs tucked under my desk, wearing rain boots. I have decided that rain boots go with everything. Not because it's true, but because I have no choice. I have noticed that there are not nearly enough people in Vancouver wearing rain boots. I have further decided, that people in Vancouver don't complain about the rain nearly as much as they should. In fact light rain is considered a nice day....a nice day!??? B*llsh*t. Rain sucks. I would rather take a snowy day, with some frost bite on my nose just to see the sun. What's wrong with these people?

I should elaborate on why I think the rain sucks: For one, you can never style your hair properly. You have to buy a new umbrella every time you leave one behind, because it's just not cool to take someone else's. When I walk Bonsai, I have to wring him out like a towel when we get home, getting him to stand still means bribing him with treats, and now he's wet and fat. And lastly, no matter how much you try, no matter how many layers you wear, when it rains you always feel cold.

(Soggy) Case closed.

Can you turn a Frosty upside down?

We've officially joined the "weekend getaway" club. And we're hooked.

Our two night stay in Brentwood Bay was probably the best prize I've won...ever. Though the $100 gift certificate for Sears that I won when I was in grade 4 comes pretty close. (With inflation it would be worth like $50K today!)

Of course there were some down sides. The anxiety of leaving Bonsai for the weekend. The anxiety of waiting for the ferry and not knowing which sailing you'll be on. These are my personal anxieties of course, Raymond couldn't care less.

There was no need to worry as we arrived 3:30, got on the 4 o'clock ferry, and Bonsai was in good hands.

We arrived at Brentwood Bay Lodge & Spa at around 6:30pm on Friday. We were escorted to our gigantic room with our own private balcony which overlooked the pool and marina. There was not one single detail over looked. We had a fresh Lilly in our room, plush bathrobes, slippers, our own fireplace, and complimentary champagne! All to be enjoyed later.

We hurried off to dinner in Victoria at a great seafood restaurant called Nautical Nellies. We dined on Pan-fried oysters, crab truffle filet and a seafood trio. We saved exploring Victoria for the Sunday and headed back to our 5-star room!

Saturday morning we had kayaks booked for 10am. The day got off to a great start when the marina attendant showed us the ENORMOUS star fish that was hanging out under the dock. I know I'm a big fan of superlatives, but really, it was the biggest star fish you've ever seen. We headed off across the bay to an inlet that's surrounded by protected parks.


The bay was very calm, much calmer than Deep Cove, and the weather was so good we were tempted to just sit in the middle of the water and bask in the sun. We eventually made it to the inlet, where we were surrounded by schools of jelly fish,
hundreds of purple and speckled star fish and the occasional eagle fly-by. After kayaking, We had a quick lunch at the Lodge's pub and then headed out for our two hour wilderness boat trip with our Captain Rob. He knew more details about that bay area than I knew about all geography combined, so it was fun to listen. We relaxed the rest of the day, and ordered room service instead of going to the restaurant. We never ordered room service as a kid, so this was a huge treat for me. Ray and I shared a sushi platter and some ribs on the side, of course the ribs were "on the side".
We fell asleep watching Rain Man (have you ever noticed the cheesy 80's montage music that plays during the driving scenes??)

Sunday morning I had a deep tissue massage, which I'm sure we could rename the "so deep i hit bone massage" but I took it like any massage glut does!
We headed over to Victoria for lunch and shopping. We discovered this awesome fish & chips place right on the wharf, called Red Fish Blue Fish, it's like a kitchen built into an overturned pop can. The fish & chips, chowder and fish tacos were out of this world. I would highly recommend this place to anyone visiting Victoria.

We made a reservation for the 6pm ferry, so no anxiety this time. I treated myself to a Frosty on the way home from Wendy's and tried to convince Ray it was just like a Blizzard, you can flip the cup upside down and it won't drip.

Turns out, you can't.

Happy Birthday Kelly!

I know that you think at the ripe old age of 24 you no longer need to celebrate because you are now on the "old" side of age instead of the "young" side. But besides the knitting and the sipping hot water, you are the most youthful person I know!! So I hope you have a wonderfully carefree and YOUTHFUL day, and I hope you enjoy your imported Birthday treats. You don't know how many people's hands I had to slap to make sure they reached you safely.

A little birthday quote I have dedicated to you from Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

LOVE YOU!

Stolen doesn't feel as good as in Toronto

Yesterday two bad things happened.

First the scooter was towed away while I was at work. Something about parking it on a sidewalk... I mean it was a wide sidewalk, what's their freakin problem!?

Second, Ray's back tire was stolen off his bike. Right in front of our building, with all the security "presence", and video cameras, it was just jacked. The other two bikes had all of their tires. It's just not fair.

Of course I was the last person to drive either of the two-wheelers.

This created a series of emotions, disbelief, anger, a sense of violation...aaand back to anger. Anger at the crack addicts for needing to steal things to get money to buy more crack, at the security guards who are really nice, but provided absolutely no security, and for all the rich people who live around us who probably wouldn't even care that their $300 bike was damaged and violated because they can just drive their BMW X6's over to the bike store and buy a new one tomorrow.

But most of all it made me miss Toronto. Because even when your stuff gets stolen or towed, you at least have a drunk sister to laugh about it with, or more people to complain about it to. And someone willing to give you a ride around Scarborough when all your wheels are gone.

Driving...Vancouver...Crazy

At last...we have a car.

Bad news for so many reasons-- #1 reason: $1.45/L for gas.

Good news for Bonsai who now gets to go with us everywhere, since we could not get him to fit, as hard as we tried, on the scooter.

Ultimately having a car gives you freedom, the freedom to spend more money. Our excursion on Sunday to buy car wash detergent quickly turned into a Costco run, and grocery shopping. No detergent was bought, no car was washed, and over $100 was spent. Another good thing about having a car in Vancouver, you get to do a lot more out of town trips, i.e. hiking in North Van or canoeing in Deep Cove. If you don't enjoy outdoor things, then, well you're screwed. You have to pay for parking everywhere, even at the grocery store. And often times when you drive somewhere, your 2003 Corolla looks like a piece of pooh next to the 2008 Audis, Mercedes and Maserati's that are parked next to you. But at least you know that when your car gets dinged in the $1/hr Safeway parking lot, it costs the Benz next to you a lot more to get fixed!

Our beautiful non-long July 1st weekend

What could be more disappointing than July 1st falling on a Tuesday? It throws off our national flow. There really is no point to being Canadian if you don’t get your mandatory 4 LONG weekends in summer to enjoy the beautiful outdoors.
So we were short-changed this one-- I forgive you Gregorian calendar for this injustice. And will take my month of three pay cheques (October 2008 is the next one) in place of a true July 1 long weekend.

This technically wasn’t my first long weekend in Vancouver, but again, it wasn’t a long weekend! The weather was hot and sunny, totally unlike Vancouver, but totally welcomed. On Friday evening Ray and I kicked off our non-long weekend with a trip to Costco…yes you heard right. But we quickly redeemed ourselves with a sunset stroll to Jericho beach. We saw wild bunny rabbits, kids getting caught drinking in public. It was a riot. We capped the night off passing out in front of the TV.

Saturday morning Ray went to his highly anticipated ping-pong tournament. I took Bonsai for a 2 hour walk to the doggy beach, he has become quite the seasoned swimmer! The hot sun was too much for him to bare, so I finally took him home to pass out in the cool condo. The ping pong tournament was a success, Ray made it past 8 round robin games to the playoffs, but lost to a little Chinese boy, a little Chinese girl and an old Chinese lady. Needless to say we took our non-Chinese behinds far away from there. Afternoon naps. Yummy dinner at Memphis Blues BBQ House, the best pulled pork I’ve ever had. Next we scootered off to the Grand daddy of gelato places. Over 200 flavours! I sampled garlic, and balsamic, both exactly what you would expect them to taste like, but finally decided on Bailey’s Chocolate cheesecake. Again, we capped the night off passed out in front of the TV.

Sunday morning, bright and early we headed off to Squamish to hike the Stawamus Chief. It was perfect weather for the hike, 2 hours later we arrived at Third peak, for a panoramic view of the Sunshine coast and the surrounding mountains. After 2 PB & J sandwiches and Ray finally calmed down from being chased by a chipmunk we began the nasty descent. It was actually harder to climb downhill than up. Had a yummy home cooked dinner of Szechuan fish stir fry and then went to the Jazz festival. A musician who had extensively studied, get this-- Cuban music of Romania and Bulgaria???--was performing, he was amazing. Who knew?! And guess what? We capped the night off passed out in front of the TV!

Happy Canada Day!

My first 48 hours in Vancouver

So it's official: I'm never moving again! It has to be the most exhausting thing on earth.

Our flight left on Monday evening without a hitch. Of course we were the only two people on the flight who had 2 suit cases each, with "heavy" tags on them! We arrived in Vancouver at around midnight, took a cab to Ray's old place and began packing. We went to bed at 3:30 a.m. and woke up at 7 a.m. to finish packing. Went to our new place to do the move-in inspection. Our real estate agent was over half an hour late, and Ray started to freak out that he was a fake agent and he took his money and there was no condo to rent. It was really funny. I just played with all the dogs that walked by, I think that more than half the tenants in our building have dogs...very exciting!

After the inspection, we went to the Uhaul rental office to pick up the truck. We discovered these cool Balkan snacks called "Smoki" which were like peanut butter flavoured Cheetos...of course Ray found them. We had to wait till 12:30 to use the elevator, so we packed a few last minute things. This is the point where I ran down to go grab a couple of boxes and...wait for it... LOCKED THE TRUCK KEYS IN THE TRUCK! I know what you're all thinking, what a Raymond thing to do. But it was all me. So basically we had to wait an hour for the stupid towing company to come open the door for us, which pushed our whole day back by one hour. In typical Danila and Ray fashion, we were late for everything.

Other than that, the move went off without any problems. Our first meal in our new place was two meat lover pizzas from Domino's, yummmm.

Ray had to go to work this morning. I called the Vancouver Province/Sun supervisor who had asked me to come in as soon as I was in town. So at 1:30 I had my interview, and at about 2:30 I was offered the job. So Danila is now officially employed in Vancouver!! I start on Monday. The walk is only a half hour, and the office is right on the harbour to North Vancouver, it's stunning.

Tonight I cooked my first meal in our new place, tofu stir-fry, at Raymond's request!! We went on a half hour scooter ride to play indoor soccer with his rec league, and now we're back home, unpacking some more.

48 fabulous hours, and now all I want is to sleep!

Memoirs of a first walk

Yesterday was Bonsai's first official walk around the neighbourhood. Because he hasn't had all his vaccinations yet, I had to be swift and scoop him up in case we encountered any other 4-legged canines with sniffing my Bonsai's bum on their mind. The walk began with Bonsai going beserk the minute we stepped off my front lawn, he was in sensory overload! A few meters down the street, and he started chasing the leaves down the street, so cute! After realizing he they weren't alive or tasty, he resorted to dragging an old soggy newspaper around. He had some difficulty walking in a straight line (I stepped on his toe by accident). He also kept getting tangled in his leash and looked like he was doing a 3-legged race. He tried to chase some kids who were walking home from school, i'm always amazed that anyone, even kids, could be scared of a puppy!! Halfway through our walk, we also encountered our first fire hydrant, which Bonsai was terrified of. He wouldn't go near it. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before my Bonsai pees his heart out all over it!

Fry the fish, hold the sunblock

Danika and I returned to Bangalore yesterday after 6 glorious days at the Mangalore beach. My Uncle Gerard celebrated his 50th birthday in style by inviting everyone he knew to the Mangalore coast for a two day weekend celebration (we over-stayed our welcome I think). Neeks and I only landed up on the second day because we had to finish our crazy tour of Northern India. The whole weekend was made that much better because we had almost all of our family together in one place. Even my grandparents had a ball, donning their beachwear and joining in the festivities. A few noteworthy hilights: Having coconut juice and vodka cocktails IN tender coconuts! Going swimming in the ocean after breakfast, lunch and dinner (who says you have to wait 1 hour?). Listening to my tone deaf Aunt Monica and Uncle Gerard wail to music they don't know the lyrics to. Having fried fish for breakfast everyday!
Of course my impending return to Toronto's freezing weather made me a complete sun monger. I have turned a new shade of brown, and will probably pay heavily with premature wrinkles one day. But for the time being it was well worth it! We listened to the waves crashing as we fell asleep, we watched orange, pink and red sunsets, and feasted on seafood that was caught fresh every day, it was true paradise. Thank you Gerard for an awesome party, one shouldn't turn 50 any other way!

I (heart) Calcutta

After a tumultuous couple of days once our Darjeeling leg was cancelled, Danika and I wound up with one whole day to spend in Calcutta. To make matters worse, our train was late getting into Howrah station by 4 hours. Our initially pleasant impression of the Indian Railway has since faded to disappointment, much like our impression of air travel and bus travel-- but that's a cynical road I don't want to venture onto right now. We fortunately had a private taxi to take us around Calcutta, so we could make the most of our day. Where Delhi is challenging to navigate because of it's great area, Calcutta has the most incredible traffic you have ever seen. And considering things in Bangalore and Delhi are bad, just try to imagine what could be worse than bad?! We began our adventure at the highly recommended Victoria Memorial. It's a beautiful marble building surrounded by manicured gardens and canals. The memorial was built as a tribute to Queen Victoria who was the first Empress of British India. Besides the giant marble statues and standard floral gardens often found at these memorials, the Victoria memorial also housed an impressive collection of oil paintings depicting the days when the British East India Trading Company were in charge. There is an adjacent gallery that maps the timeline of Calcutta from the days of the British East India Company to the present day. It was probably the most informative thing i've read while travelling up north. The gallery explained in great detail the legacy of Calcutta, the stigmas that the rest of the world has about them and the various reasons for it's notorious poverty. Among all the cities I visited up north, Calcutta was my favourite. Maybe it had to do with all the old yellow cabs driving around, circa New York City in the 1970's (no autos anywhere!) but whatever it was, it had a certain je ne c'est quoi about it.
After the Victoria Memorial we visited the Marble Palace, which is an old abandoned mansion with beautiful marble structures among it's garden and zoo. Like a lot of places recommended it the Lonely Planet, you expect that as a tourist some information will be offered to you about what you are seeing, but this seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
We drove by BBD Bagh, aka Dalhousie Square which was the headquarters of the British East India Administration. There is a lot of colonial architecture in Calcutta, especially in this area, you can always sense Calcutta's British past in this way.
For lunch we stopped off on Park St. for the legendary Kathi Rolls, which is simply a paratha with egg, chicken, onions and some chilli sauce. It's divine, and the paper napkin they wrap it in turns transluscent instantly, which is always an indicator of GOOD street food! We also had a lemon tart at the famous Flury's bakery, which has been around for over 40 years.
Among our other stops was St.Paul's Cathedral, NOT even close to as impressive as our Notre Dame, and Motherhouse, the final resting place of Mother Theresa. Considering how famous she was, her tomb is a humble white marble stone, covered with flowers. And the sisters of the Mission of Charity are very warm and welcoming, any one of them is pleased to sit down and talk to you about the life of Mother and the work they do at the mission. They take volunteers into their missions on a daily basis even. If you are ever visiting Calcutta, you can drop in for a day and help them in their orphanage or infirmary homes, they welcome all helping hands.

Our last stop in Calcutta was an authentic Hakka Chinese dinner at the Tangra district of Calcutta. It's where the original Hakka Chinese population in India immigrated to. My father's family once lived here, and we were lucky to have one of his friends in the Hakka community bring us here for a true Hakka meal. The area was once full of leather tanneries, and since the tannery business hasn't been doing well over the past few years, many of the tanneries have been converted into huge Chinese restuarants. We had the BEST Hakka Chinese meal, the food was so much better than the stuff you get in Toronto, or in the Indian/Chinese restaurants in Bangalore. It's sort of hard to describe, but it still has that basic character of spicy Chinese food, but more authentic because we had it in Calcutta!

Our flight from Calcutta back to Bangalore was delayed by 4 hours (thus the comment above), but the prospect of not having to take another train in this country made the hours fly by!

The Jaipur Conspiracy

In the early stages of planning our trip to the North of India, our list of cities included, Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Lucknow, Darjeeling and Calcutta. For lack of time, and the vast distances between these cities, we eliminated Jaipur and Lucknow with the intention of visiting these places the next time we returned to India of course. Darjeeling was a bit of a stretch since it is in a remote area of West Bengal and would require about 40 hours of trains and taxis to get there from Delhi. But the thought of waking up to sights of Everest and the three other tallest mountains in the world, was too good to pass up.
Unfortunately, our luck ran out the other night, when we arrived at the Old Delhi train station to catch our 11pm train to Darjeeling, only to find out that it had been delayed by 9 hours. Which meant that we would miss the toy train that takes us to the heart of Darjeeling city, which only runs once a day. Which would also mean that we would end up travelling for 3 days and only get 1 night in Darjeeling. In the end we decided we would be nuts to travel all that way and only get a few hours to enjoy the place. So we cancelled all our connecting trains and our hostel bookings to Darjeeling and decided instead to visit Jaipur. It's like we were meant to come here or something! To make things worse, we wanted to leave Jaipur on Jan 30th so we could get to Calcutta by Feb 1st and spend 2 whole days there. Calcutta is much larger than Jaipur and therefore would warrant more time spent seeing all the sights. But when we went to the train station, there were absolutely no trains available to Calcutta until the 31st. Which meant we would spend not 2, but three days in Jaipur, the city we didn't even plan to visit! In the end, I think Jaipur had us in her sights, even though we didn't have her. And the "pink city" has offered much more than we anticipated. Neeks and I have officially found the best katchories in India, and got to hang out with a cool New Brunswick couple who were staying at our hostel-- our first interaction with fluent English speakers in a long while!
Jaipur has a lot of sights and relics from the days of the early Mughal Empire. There are many beautiful forts which sit atop the hilly areas around Jaipur that garner a gorgeous view of the sprawling city below. As well as the characteristic rose coloured facades within the old city walls, which is what makes Jaipur knows as the "pink city". The roads are always crowded, but at least you can opt for a more eco-friendly cycle rickshaw as they are everywhere. And I mentioned earlier our discovery of the best katchories we've ever tasted-- well we've decided they alone were worth the trip!

Kelly's post

I promised you a shout out! Wish that You, Trace and Amunder had joined us here. It would be so much better travelling in a big group of girls instead of our two man show! And at least with you, the people here might have believed we were actually Indian, eventhough you are the least Indian Indian I know! Miss our all night chats! See you in 3 weeks kiddo!

Agra et al.

After a very fun and busy 2 days in Delhi. Danika and I are now safely in Agra, India. Our two days Delhi began at the Colonial inspired Connaught Place, which is at the heart of Delhi proper. It is an extravagant traffic circle, consisting of 7 roads that spoke out from the centre (much like the Arche de Triomphe in Paris). The traffic is absolute madness regardless of the time of day. The building facades are reminiscent of the days of British Colonial rule, as they all have soaring pillars and are all painted a uniform white (now somewhat blackened by all the pollution). It's apparently the "uspscale" area of Delhi, in that all the boutique stores have their flagships here. But of course you still have your basic Indian sewage smell, tonnes of garbage and beggars. The food in Delhi has not disappointed, as Danika and I have fulfilled our desire for biryani, chaat and Mughali curries on a daily basis, I hope all your mouths are watering! We also visited the Palike bazar, an underground shopping area right under the Connaught traffic circle, and visited a unique outdoor observatory, built in the 1600's, and with large concrete and marble instruments that you can climb. Day two in Delhi consisted of visiting the famous Red Fort, it's really cool. And even cooler that we only paid 11 rupees each to get in (compared to the tourist rate of 100 rupees), because we convinced the ticket agent we were Indian, and flashed the "born in Bangalore" portion of our Canadian passports! We also ventured into Chandi Chowk and the spice market, which is a crazy, crowded, dirty, market area. But we quickly ventured out when we realized that there were only men everywhere, and of course that lovely sewage smell. After Chandi Chowk we went to the Jama Masjid, India's largest Mosque, which is gorgeous and very crowded. We weren't allowed to go inside as we arrived just in time for evening prayers, but still managed a few good snaps. And then lastly to the Gandhi Darshan, where India's beloved Mahatma Gandhi was cremated. It's a beautifully maintained garden area, and the place of his cremation is marked with a simple black marble stone. I felt very touched being there, and found myself wondering what the Great man would think of the state of India today. It is interesting that there exists such a pristine tribute to a man, who cared little for personal glory and more for the common people. It would seem the money spent for the perfectly pruned bushes would be better served on the poor and uneducated, as he might have wanted.
Today-- Friday, is Republic Day, and basically all of Delhi was on holiday. Neeks and I spent a relaxing morning waking up late, watching the Republic Day parade on tv, and then going to our Aunt's house for lunch. We caught a 6 pm train to Agra, and arrived safely at our hotel a few short hours ago. Tomorrow morning we see the Taj Mahal at sunrise, which I think I can speak for Danika and I and say is the highlight of our trip. Will definitely be posting pics of that. Only 3 weeks left in India, how time flies!

Delhi is how far away!!!???

36 hours. Yes folks, you read it correctly. It takes 36 hours by TRAIN to get to Delhi from Bangalore. For you clever people who thoroughly research your travels, you probably already knew that. But Danika and I were under the distinct impression that you could get anywhere in India in like 6 hours. Inspite of knowing this we booked a train to Delhi anyways (we're leaving tomorrow night!) they've promised us an A/C sleeper, but we'll see about the A/C and we'll see about the sleep. I've learned among other things, that things are never quite how they are described by the Indians. "Luxury", "delux" and "fancy" have all taken on completely alternative meanings for me since i've been here. Hence my cynicism about this train ride. In any case, we have decided to visit Delhi, Agra, Darjeeling and Calcutta (I refuse to use the new Indianized names because they just sound bad). And out of the 10 days we will be away from Bangalore, 5 of those days will be spent on trains and buses just getting from one place to another. Flying around India is incredibly expensive, which is both surprising and annoying since the quality of airline service is dismal and the demand is really high. And apparently the rail system in India is one of the best, minus the fact the toilets empty onto the tracks. They also say the mailpost system is top notch, but out of the 10 letters I have mailed to Toronto, only 3 have arrived, and one of them was torn in half and placed in a plastic bag saying "we regret the incovenience", so we'll just have to wait and see. But I will say that the trains are very smooth, and it's a no-brainer compared to taking chartered buses with crazy drivers. It's definitely safer to travel by train.
What will we do for 36 hours? Well, Danika and I are HUGE fans of playing war (so is Paul, he just doesn't know it yet!). I was also gifted a very apt book called "Chindia", about the growth of the Chinese and Indian economies, from my capitalist-loving boyfriend, (thank you Ray). And if all else fails I have a healthy stash of sleeping pills to snore the time away!

I'm tired of writing

Okay, that's not true, I'm not tired of writing, I don't think I ever could be. But, I realized that India is better enjoyed with all the senses. And since ya'll can't be here to smell it (not missing much), taste it (too bad!), feel it, or hear it (I hear stray dogs barking right now) I could at least help you see it! Enjoy.

Things you can't get used to...

It has been almost 3 months since I have arrived in Bangalore. I think I have been very good at adapting to the way of life here. But inspite of all things I have gotten used to, there are still some things that I just don't understand.

1. Indian people do not understand the concept of a queue. They see you standing there, they know you were there before they were, but still, it makes sense to stand in front of you and demand they get served first.

2. There are signs everywhere literally begging people not to spit and urinate in public spaces. And onto the sign, they spit and urinate, as if the street is their private bathroom.

3. NO ONE, is EVER on time, NOT EVER. It's playfully been nicknamed IST=Indian Standard Time, but it is so frustrating. When someone invites you over for dinner at 8pm, they only serve you food at 11pm. When they tell you that they'll be serving dinner "early" they mean it will be served at 10:45 instead of 11. I remember one New Year's when they served us dinner after midnight--who does that!??

4. The autorickshaw drivers are like communist dictators. You don't tell them where you want to go, they tell you where they are going. You don't pay them what the meter says, you pay them what they tell you to pay them. In the middle of the day, it is impossible to get a rickshaw anywhere. If only the government had that kind of power, there wouldn't be people spitting and urinating on walls, because they could actually find an autoricksaw to take them to a toilet.

5. All bars and clubs close at 11pm. No joke.

6. As Paul pointed out, no where else in the world can you spend rs-8 on a full breakfast and then turn around and buy a rs-20,000 cellphone on the same day. The discrepancy in what things cost here is bizarre.

7. Where have all the women gone? On any given street, as far as you can see, the ratio of women to men is usually about 1:100. Which I guess has normalized the behaviour of men holding hands as they walk down the street. There are guys holding hands everywhere. If there are three guys walking, two hold hands, and the other holds their shoulders.

8. When you try to jaywalk through traffic you get honked at and berated by the drivers, but when a cow stands in the middle of the road and stops traffic, everyone sits and waits patiently for it to move.

It's Better in Goa

I had this t-shirt when I was a child of a neon green, pink and orange sunset of Goa, and the caption was "It's better in Goa". I have always thought of Goa exactly like that t-shirt-- exotic, balmy, a calm paradise destination. Our New Year's trip to Goa was like that nice simple t-shirt spray painted with a tag that said "Daytona is better"! As you near the beach (we went to Baga beach), the traffic becomes menacing, there are no sidwalks for people to walk, it's dirty, there are open sewage drains, and the Goa police just block off random streets as they please. The main attraction of course is the beach, the sand was packed down, there were boats moored about 20 feet from the shore so you had to be careful not to get caught in someone's propeller, and the sand was littered with beer bottles and garbage from tourists and locals. Oh, and the most traumatizing part were the select Indian men who decided that white chuddies would make suitable swimming trunks and would come out of the water dripping wet and stand right infront of your beach chair. It gives a whole new meaning to "beach balls"! Needless to say, the whole experience was very disappointing, especially since it was so perfect in my imagination. But there were some things worth noting. For one, you can get served anything but the kitchen sink while lounging on the beach. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, beer, tattoos, massages, coconuts, sarongs, you can even get your ears cleaned as you lie there soaking up the sun! And the sunset, although marred by dozens of rows of beach chairs and umbrellas, is certainly worth waiting all day for. Ken liked them so much he kept hoping for two sunsets in one day! Another pleasant memory of Goa is that we got to spend time with Ryan who should be re-named the Australian Party Animal! We had the pleasure of meeting all of his cousins and it made our time there so much more fun. The hilight of the trip was New Year's Eve and in Goa you either go hard or go home it seemed. So we started the evening at Ryan's guesthouse, having drinks on the terrace. We laughed so hard we almost peed our pants! We had dinner and then ventured to the beach. I can't even describe how crowded it was. The beach itself was huge, and there were people on every square inch of it! The creepy part was they were mostly men, and the girls had to literally have the guys make a fence around them when we walked just so we wouldn't get groped. (Relevant the end of my last blog). We, in typical Indian Standard Time, only arrived at the beach at like 11:30. So we had to scramble to get drinks and decided to just stay on the beach for New Year's. With so many shacks around, and blasting music, there was no really definitive countdown, so we just created our own. I really believe the only way to spend New Year's is with lots of people in a really loud place, it's the best feeling. All of the beach shacks had fireworks shows, so we watched fireworks for about 20 minutes. After fireworks we had to join the mobs of people that seemed to be just roaming around aimlessly to find some outdoor club that Ryan's cousin had found. We had to pay a whopping Rs-1000 per person, but it was all-you-could-drink-and-eat. Needless to say I didn't really take advantage what with my 3 drink limit. But it was really fun. We all took over the stage and jammed to house music, which I always say you can only tolerate when you've had a few. The deejay was really annoying and wouldn't shut up. It's funny hearing these guys try to sound cool when they speak English with a really thick Indian accent. It would have been better if he just spoke Hindi or something. Kudos to Ken for outlasting us all on New Year's (he didn't get home til 10am). New Year's in Goa was certainly worth the experience. Though I will say the Goa beaches don't even deserve a mention compared to the white sand beaches of Mangalore or Thailand. I guess you could call me a beach snob.

A Sidrigavi Christmas

I have always thought that I am so lucky to have as much family in Canada as I do in India. This Christmas I escaped to Sidrigavi, to my Uncle Lalu's coffee estate, with his family, to spend some quality time in the mountains. The air is fresher, the sky is bluer, the stars are brighter, and I honestly think your food digests faster up there too! I had the wonderfully talented Erica, stuffing me with all kinds of yummy food, every three hours on the hour. So in order to earn these delicious meals, I had to walk and walk and walk just so I wouldn't look as blobbish as I felt! We went out to the forest on the 23rd to cut our own Christmas tree, we ended up chopping off the top of a fir tree, but i'm sure it will grow back by next year! It's amazing to see how the labourers climb trees that are like 50 ft tall with only their bare feet, and chop off limbs while clinging to the trunk! It's like extreme sports Indian style.
The 5 days I spent there just flew by. I went on hikes with my cousins Aaron and
Lauren almost every day. I also went coffee picking with Lauren and the coolie children (picked a wopping 9 kgs!), and hunting with Aaron and Lalu. In total we only shot one green pigeon and it was too cute to eat, so I didn't. I returned to Bangalore on the 27th of December. And at midnight Paul, Ken and Danika landed with their gigantic haul of luggage and I know Danika will hate me for mentioning this, but she cried like a little baby when she saw me! I think this is the longest we've ever been apart (2 months) without seeing each other.
It's funny, but as much as I am warming up to the way of life here, I am beginning to miss home just as much. There are so many things that we don't realize about our own lives until we are submerged into another culture or lifestyle. I am sure anyone who comes here will marvel at the richness of the culture and the vitality of the people here. But regardless of how many times I have visited India, the poverty, the inequalities, the apparent lack of any kind of modernization persists visit after visit. And if there is one thing I have learnt from my 2 short months here, it is that we are lucky to be women living in a country like Canada. There are inequalities everywhere I know, but the ones here you can see every single day, with your own eyes, and they are egregiously destructive to any woman's freedom.

Hong Kong & Shanghai

I am guilty of neglecting this blog over the past few weeks, so to all those who actually read it faithfully (Linds!) I am sorry.

HONG KONG:

To recap my trip to Hong Kong, all I can say is holy overcrowded! I try to think of the places I have visited, and what struck me the most about them. And for Hong Kong the most prominent thing is the sheer number of people that live there. I should also mention that when I first left the aiport on their fabulous express train into the city I was struck by the beautiful mountains that stand in the backdrop to the soaring cityscape. I was also struck by the many islands that surround Hong Kong's main island. I have always thought that it was just one big island, but the majority of Hong Kong proper lies outside the main island where the financial district is. I was very lucky in Hong Kong to have my old teacher Chris Coates and my Auntie Colleen to show me around. I also took one of those one day city tours that takes you to all the most popular tourist haunts. On the tour we visted the Man Mo Temple which is a very old Taoist Temple found in the antique district of Hong Kong and also near the spot where the British first put down the Union Jack and took possession of Hong Kong. "Man" means literature or words and "Mo" means war or weapons, so it is the temple of literature and war. The temple is a beautiful old building, hidden in a bustling commercial area of town. When you walk in, there is a huge ornamental door that is only opened on very special occasions. It is said that it is opened for all the bad spirits to leave. The temple houses the statues of both the Gods of Man and Mo, and in the middle is a huge section where you burn offerings to the heavens. The offerings are these huge coiled incense cages, you write down your prayers and intentions and tie them underneath the cage and then you light it and it burns for a whole month. As the smoke rises it carries your prayers to the heavens and to the Gods.
After the Man Mo temple we visited the famous Victoria Peak. We got to take the tram, which sits on a 45 degree slope and carries you up from the base of the hill to the top which is 1800 ft. above sea level. Unfortunately, the air pollution over Hong Kong is really bad and so you cannot see very well past the harbour. But from the pictures taken in the past, it's supposed to have an amazing view.
After the Peak, we drove to Aberdeen Harbour which used to be home to a huge fishing village. It has since been reduced to only about 100 families and has been been pushed further offshore into a large canal. This is due to the fact that waterfront real estate demands have made it much more profitable to have the Royal Yacht Club there instead. In Aberdeen Harbour is also the famous floating restaurant which I think has been in some Jackie Chan movie or something. We took a ride on a fishing boat through the floating village, which has larger sea bound ships and then smaller ones where the fishing families live. There is a floating community centre and a shower/bathroom area, it is really interesting to see a lifestyle like that being sustained in this day. It seems that most of the families dont' make a living from fishing, but rather the tourists that come to see them, go figure.
From Aberdeen Harbour, we drove through Repulse Bay which is a popular beach for swimming in the summertime. The tour guide told us an interesting fact, that they used to have a problem with shark attacks about 10 years ago and so the government was forced to install these giant shark nets to protect the local swimmers at the beach.
Our last stop was to Stanley Market which was a nice shopping area on Hong Kong's North side. None of their prices could even compare to the stuff you get in Thailand and India, but lo and behold, I bought a pair of shoes anyways!
On the last night I was in Hong Kong, I went out with Chris and his friends to the trendy Lan Kwai Fong area of town. This place puts all the other partying towns i've seen to shame. On Fridays and Saturdays (I went on a Saturday) the street is blocked off for pedestrian traffic only. In Hong Kong, 2 very cool things are allowed to happen: 1) You can buy a drink from a 7 Eleven or any bar and take it with you on the street or into another bar and 2) The bars are opened all night! So between walking around with your drinks and having no last call, it gets pretty wild in Lan Kwai Fong. It's also one of the few places in the city where you find the local Hong Kong Chinese and the "Gwai Los" (foreigners) mixing together. It's pretty amazing to see the number of ex-pats that live in Hong Kong, and I think it really tells you something about the cosmopolitan and liberal atmosphere of the place. After Lan Kwai Fong we headed over to Wan Chai which is also knows the Red Light District. It's not as bad as you might think, but walk into any bar and you automatically know who the working girls are. To put it truthfully, these places exhibit a certain bit of hedonism, and you can see that in the way some of the men who live here get caught up in the culture. One good feature about all these places is that they all have live bands that play all the latest music.

SHANGHAI:

Shanghai was really amazing because it was completely unlike anything I expected. I have always tended to think of China in much the same way I see India, heavily populated, very rich or very poor, modern, but still behind the times and it was NONE of these things! Shangai is really something to see. The roads are clean, and well organized. There are lots of new cars, lots of new shopping malls, beautiful skyscrapers, and wherever there is greenspace in the city, it is well manicured and always clean. It was also very, very cold, and I think colder climates tends to make a culture more subdued. Ray was saying that in Toronto when it's cold, the whole place looks dead, and people just run from their heated cars to their heated offices to their heated houses. And in China its somewhat like this, there aren't as many people on the streets, as you would find in Bangalore or Bangkok.
I visited the famous Bund River, which has the Pearl Tower and a lot of pretty skyscrapers along it's shores.
If there is one thing that struck me about Shanghai it's the bad drivers. In India, the roads are completely chaotic, there are no lanes, often you can't tell where the road ends and the sidewalk begins. But in China there are very clean lines, and traffic signals, and yet people do not observe any right of way, sometimes they ignore the lights, and I swear on the drive from the airport to my Aunt's house I saw 4 accidents alone. I guess some stereotypes do exist for a reason!!
I also visited a small canal town, called Zhujiajiao, just outside of metropolitan Shanghai It had cobblestone streets running next to small canals, both of which are used to get around the city. There were tonnes of antique and curiousity shops, and often you could bargain them down to one tenth of their asking price. But still, the prices weren't as good as in Thailand or India. Besides the cold weather, Shanghai was full of pleasant surprises. My Aunt took me for many delicious meals, and I was pleased to see that a lot of the food that the locals ate is available in Toronto, and is almost as good.
On the last night we were there my aunt took me to a cute area of town which also had cobblestone streets, a starbucks, jazzbars and lots trendy stores. I was shocked to see a place like this in the heart of Shanghai, it looked like a scene out of trendy Manhattan or something.

At the end of the 7 days, I was exhausted, and a little glad to be returning to Bangalore. I realized with each new place that I visited that there may be different cultures and languages, but in the end we are all people who are trying to survive. And I think the best sights in all the places were the local people, the way they exuded the life of the place more than any of the sites or cliches that we have come to recognize as outsiders.