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!
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
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!
Saturday, February 10, 2007
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!
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!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
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!
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!
Friday, January 26, 2007
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!
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!
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