...the risk it took to blossom...

"South Africa isn't just beautiful, it is achingly beautiful." -Bill Clinton (Part 1)

2010-06-27T21:17:00.019+08:00

Given Bill Clinton's recent high profile appearances at the US's World Cup soccer games, and the nature of this post, I thought that this was the perfect quote to sum up how Beth and I felt about South Africa as we explored the country on our vacation.

From the bush in Kruger to downtown and suburbs of Cape Town to the wine farms in Stellenbosch, South Africa provided some of the most beautiful vistas I have ever seen. And it wasn't just one place... just driving around, no matter where you are, you could look up and swear that you were in the middle of a post card.

This post focuses mostly on the first couple of days in Cape Town when we visited Table Mountain, Signal Hill, Boulder's Beach, Cape Point, and The Cape of Good Hope.

As in the last post, there's a link at the bottom that will take you to the original quality photos.

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Day 1:
After finishing up our last game drive at Jock Lodge, we gathered up our things, had a quick breakfast, and got on the road back to the airport. It was another 1.5 hour drive out of the park and to the airport and sure enough, we saw some more wildlife on the way out. Here is one good shot that Beth was able to get:

We managed to spot a few other animals as well, but were in a little bit of a hurry since we got a late start from the lodge so we didn't stop to take many photos.

We arrived at Nelspruit ~30 mins before our flight, got through security in literally 60 seconds and were soon on our way to Cape Town.

Our first night in Cape Town was pretty low key. We checked into our hotel and, since the weather was pretty bad the first night, decided to stay close to home and just visit the restaurant next door for some dinner. My brother, Rishi, is studying abroad in South Africa right now, so we called him up and he came down and met us from some dinner and drinks and we just caught up and re-connected. A perfect end to the day.

The next day, we decided to get into action and tackle Table Mountain. Table Mountain is a massive mountain that sits right smack dab in the middle of Cape Town. It is 3563 ft high and has an awe-inspiring level plateau almost 2 miles wide. It looks like a giant flat table right in the middle of the city, hence the name Table Mountain. Here is what it looks like from pretty much everywhere in Cape Town:

This picture was taken from Signal Hill (which I'll cover in a little more detail later on) and shows Table Mountain, Devil's Peak just to the left., and Cape Town below. This is some of Beth's handiwork with the camera.

One of the "touristy" things to do in Cape Town is to go to the top of Table Mountain and check out the views of the city, the coast and the mountains. There are two ways to get to the top: you can either take the Table Mountain Cableway sky tram or you can walk. The walk is a strenuous 3.5 hour hike up hill and the sky tram is a relaxing 2 minute ride in a cabin that spins 360 degrees to allow you to see all parts of the city during your ascent. Can you guess which one we opted for?

View from the Lower Cableway Station.

View on the way up...in the Cableway Sky Tram

We were warned that the visibility at the top was "not very good" but we thought...ehh.. how bad can it really be? We found out. When we got to the top, the fog was so thick, you could feel it. You couldn't see more than 10-15 feet in front of you, which was actually kind of cool since it made it seem like we were walking inside of a cloud, but it didn't make for very good views of Cape Town. We didn't really get any pictures of this since they would have basically just been a completely white frame...not very interesting.

We decided to wait it out and see if we could get lucky with a break in the fog. To kill some time, we grabbed some lunch at the restaurant on top of Table Mountain. We were just finishing up our meal when a women rushes in and frantically shouts "Hurry! You can see!" Beth and I looked at each other, and I said "Go! I'll take care of all this!"

For the next hour, we walked around Table Mountain and got a chance to see some amazing views. Below are some of the ones we were able to capture on film:

A break in the clouds!

Cape Town from Table Mountain. If you look closely, you can see the soccer stadium.

Pictures of Lions Head from Table Mountain

After finishing up at Table Mountain, we took the short drive over to Signal Hill. Signal Hill is a flat top hill (yes, another one) just beyond Lion's Head. You can't really see it from the pictures above because it extends straight back from this angle towards the coast. It's called Signal Hill because in the 1800's the signal flags were used from this point to communicate with ships as they were coming into Cape Town's harbor. One of the coolest things about Signal Hill is that it offers really cool views of the new Greenpoint Stadium that was built for the World Cup. This is where we eventually wound up to watch the match that we went to. Here are some of the pictures we got from Signal Hill:

To see the photos in their original quality, you can click the link below:
Table Mountain and Signal Hill on Picasa (http://picasaweb.google.com/101833804019051744981/TableMountainAndSignalHill?feat=directlink)

Part 2/Day 2 will be coming shortly!

"Everything in Africa bites, but the safari bug is worst of all." -Brian Jackman

2010-06-21T19:48:00.009+08:00

Post by: Raja
*Note: There's a link at the bottom that will take you to the original quality photos -- much better!

While Zurich was fun and it was great to spend a little time taking in the European summer weather, we couldn't wait to see what South Africa had in store for us. We left Zurich around 11PM local time and before we knew it, it was 9AM and we were at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. We deplaned, went through customs, and made the seamless 1hour connecting flight to the Nelspruit airport. Nelspruit is a small city about 45 minutes outside of Kruger National Park and provides a convenient place to fly into, especially if you plan to start your adventure in the southern part of the park.

Once we landed in Nelspruit, it didn’t take long for Beth and I to get our first taste of excitement. We had our first “sighting” inside the airport and amazingly, it was a Hawk…Tony Hawk!

Mr. Hawk was in South Africa to speak at a conference and he just happened to be on our flight. It was actually kind of funny. Beth and I were standing at the baggage carousel and I heard someone behind me say “Mr. Hawk, I trust your flight was OK.” Just out of habit (I’m nosy), I turned around, had myself a look, and whipped back around to Beth and whispered “I think that’s Tony Hawk!” She asked me if I was sure, I said I wasn’t so we were going to drop it. But then we both looked at the baggage carousel and, sure enough, gliding towards us was an upside down skateboard. I looked at Beth and said “Now I’m sure.” Beth then went to work asking if he was Tony Hawk and if he would mind taking a picture.

He was a super nice guy, really friendly, and even stopped to sign some autographs for some of the other people on our flight as well. Not a bad start.

After rubbing elbows with Tony, we made our way over to Avis, picked up our car and began our drive to our home in the bush for the next couple of days: Jock Safari Lodge.3:30 and not a moment too soon. Our first game drive was going out at 4 and we desperately wanted to shower up and change after traveling for the past 36+ hours. Here is what we saw as we pulled up to the gate:

Beth will make another post at some point down the road and tell you all about this place and its history. It's pretty cool so make sure you check it out.

One of the first things that we saw was a smattering of deer, impala, and waterbok. The rangers call this "general game" and they are everywhere in Kruger. Here are a couple photos that we snapped along the way.

On our first outing, we definitely got an eyeful of some great wildlife. We started off with a couple elephants in the bush, then saw a few hyena, and just missed seeing a leopard. We were kind of bummed about the leopard, but forgot all about it when we spotted this guy a bit later on.

This was by far the coolest thing we saw that day (sorry, Tony). There were actually three male lions together, walking along, marking territory. Our ranger, James, told us that the male lions do this occasionally, especially after it rains, and we were lucky enough to get a chance to catch them up close and personal. After we saw the lions, we pulled up ahead of them and Beth took this photo as one of them walked right by our vehicle. James promptly told us to make sure we kept our hands, arms, and cameras inside the vehicle as the lions were only about 5 ft away. He was nice to give us the warning, but Beth and I were not even close to tempting fate.

You might not be able to tell from the photo, but it was starting to get pretty dark, so after this sighting we headed back to the lodge. It was a great first drive and really got us psyched up for the three that we had left.

The next morning started early, beginning with a 5:30AM wake-up call. The morning Safaris start early as most of the wildlife use the cool mornings to hunt for food, make their way to watering holes, etc, and generally relax during the heat of the day.

We started our drive this morning with a sighting of a black rhino. There are generally two types of rhino, black rhino and white rhino. We saw a few white rhino on our drives and were lucky to catch this black rhino as they are much more rare. He was pretty far away (+/- 100 yds) so the photo isn't the best.
Right after spotting this guy, we got a call on the radio and James whipped the Land Cruiser around and began gunning it to another part of the park. We didn't really know what was going on until about half way there, we spotted a giraffe and James yelled back (without even slowing down) "Do you want to see a giraffe or a leopard?" He knew the answer, especially after the previous afternoon, so onward we went.

When we got to the spot, we were able to see the leopard up in a tree, again a pretty decent distance away. We also just caught another lion stalking around and heard a hyena in the distance. What's up with all these predators in the same place, you ask? Well, we asked also and James told us what was going on. Apparently, the leopard had just made a kill and soon afterward, the lion had sniffed it out and stolen it from him. To get safely away, the leopard made his way up into a tree. As the lion was busy with the leopard, a hyena had stealthily moved in and stole the kill from the lion. The scene we were witnessing was the hyena running away with what he could carry, the lion trying to find him/ keep him away from the rest, and the leopard up in the tree watching it all, waiting for his chance to get down and get some of the food he had worked for in the first place.
We stayed around in this area for about 45 minutes to see if we could catch some of the tail end of the action, but it wasn't to be. The hyena didn't come back, the lion stayed with the kill, and the leopard stayed in the tree. It was time to move on.

Over the course of the rest of the game drives we some amazing sights. To keep this post from becoming a book, I'll post some of the pictures and give just a short commentary on what we saw.
These are two buffalo that were having a sparring match.

These two pictures are of a couple cheetah that we saw on one of our afternoon game drives. It was really amazing. James first spotted the cheetah when they were pretty far away, stalking through the bush and marking territory. The first picture is one I was able to capture as one cheetah was on the move. Somehow James knew exactly what the cheetah were going to do and took us up the road about 300 yds. We waited for about 10 minutes and sure enough the two cheetah cut across the road right in front of our vehicle. It was amazing that James knew exactly where they would go and he was able to get us so close to them. Definitely one of the coolest things of the whole trip.

One of the animals we didn't really get a great view of very readily was an elephant. You would think that with an animal so big that they'd be easy to spot but they are surprisingly good at camouflaging themselves in the bush. On the last day we were lucky to get up close and personal with these two guys. We caught the first photo while one of the elephants was stretching up into a tree to pull down branches to eat. The second photo we got as we saw an elephant coming out of the bush right at our vehicle. It was pretty nerve-racking for a moment as the elephant apparently registered us as a threat and flared its ears at us and began to charge the vehicle. James knew what he was doing though and didn't hesitate in getting us out of harm's way.

A "stretch" of giraffes that we saw one afternoon.

Two male waterbok sparring.

A couple of zebra grazing in the bush.

One of three wild dogs that we were lucky to see on the last game drives. These little guys are some of the best hunters in the bush and work extremely efficiently as a pack. We actually caught these three as they were in hot pursuit of an impala in the bush. We followed along with them for about 30 minutes, but unfortunately we lost them as they ventured deep into the bush after their prey.
This is a picture of our wonderful guide, James. A truly amazing individual who knew an incredible amount about the park and the wildlife that we saw. The experience wouldn't have been the same without him.

The vehicle we cruised around Kruger park in for 3 days.

One of the cool things about the game drives was that in each drive, James would find some cool spot to take us, in the middle of the wilderness and we'd stop the truck, get out, and take in the scenery while we enjoyed a drink and some snacks. In the mornings it was coffee, tea, and hot chocolate accompanied by some biscotti or cookies and in the evenings, we'd have a beer, wine, or a cocktail while snacking on some crackers, chips, etc. It was a great to have a chance to actually get out of the vehicle at these points and soak up the wilderness unimpeded.

A view of the sunset over the African bush at one of the afternoon game drive stops.

I apologize for the length of the post and ALL the pictures, but we just experienced so much that it was hard to pick and choose what to blog about. If you didn't get enough, I've also uploaded an extended view of some of our best safari photos at the link below. There are additional photos of the cheetahs, elephants, hyenas, and more and the pictures are also much higher quality. Here's the link to the web album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/101833804019051744981/SouthAfricanWildlifeSafari?feat=directlink

In the next post I'll cover our trip to Cape Town and some of the things that we saw and did while on the other coast of South Africa!

“There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.” – Charles Dudley Warner

2010-06-15T08:21:00.011+08:00

Post by: Beth

Hi everyone! Life has been so busy, but we recently took 10 days to do a bit of traveling. It was our first big vacation since we moved back to the States!
We planned an excursion to South Africa to take advantage of the World Cup games, and to finally go on the safari we'd been wanting to go on for a while.

We planned and planned, packed up our stuff, and caught our flight from JFK. We worked in the option to have a 12-hour stopover in Zurich on the way, so we flew overnight to Switzerland, and arrived in Zurich around 9am.

During a quick 20-minute train ride from Zurich International Airport to the city center of Zurich, we "read" a newspaper in German and studied the train timetable to plan out what time we should head back to the airport at the end of the day.

We arrived after the morning rush hour, so the train station wasn't overcrowded, which meant better pictures!

As you can see, not a lot of English going on here... We bumbled about a bit trying to figure out our best exit to get where we wanted to be, but we had nothing but time. No worries! :)

We finally found our way out, and right away, we saw one of the trolleys! We spent most of our day just wandering around the city by foot, but we did take one of these trams all the way around the city so we could see the outlying areas without having to walk for TOO many miles or getting too lost.

It didn't take long to realize that Zurich is an absolutely beautiful city. Our stroll started near the River Limmat, where we slowly worked our way closer to some of Zurich's most recognized landmarks: Munster Bridge, the blue spire of Fraumunster (the Church of Our Lady), and St. Peter's church, sporting the largest clock face in Europe.

We wound up and down the streets, just exploring and popping into shops here and there. The streets and buildings are so pretty, and it was so nice to turn the corner and be excited to discover a cute little boutique, a tiny garden plot, a cheerful windowbox of flowers, or a tucked away bookstore.

We stopped at a fondue restaurant for lunch... Adler's Swiss Chuchi. It's well-known for its fondue options (of course) and raclette. With outdoor seating on a gorgeous day, we knew this was the spot for us.

It was SO good! This was absolutely the way to kick off our holiday cuisine tour... Look how great it looks, even in pictures! We tried our hardest, but couldn't even finish it all.

After our lunch, we continued walking about, crossing the bridge to the other side of the river. This side was busier, packed with stores and shops, and each street was teeming with people, both visitors and tourists alike. Each building was different and unique, and we had a great time taking photographs, stopping in chocolate shoppes and bookstores, and enjoying the scenery.

We walked up the other side of the river bank, where we had a great view of the Grossmunster church. Many visitors walk up the 187 stairs in the towers to get a great view of Zurich. We opted out of that activity, content to enjoy the views from the ground.

After a few more pictures from the bridge over The Limmat, it was time to head back to the train station, and take our train back to the airport to catch our flight to Johannesburg, South Africa so we could make our transfer to Nelspruit for our safari. Our day in Zurich was so relaxing and fun, and such a great way to start our vacation. We were sad to leave after only 12 hours, but still so excited about all that was still ahead!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

2010-03-15T03:47:00.012+08:00

Post by: Beth

We've decided to create another new 'section' for the blog, if you will. Since most of our traveling days are behind us for now, our foci (yes, it's a real word!) have shifted a bit. These days it's less about trying to understand foreign languages, seeking out expat friends, and generally bumbling about lost, but excited, in new lands. Our days now are much more routine, with most of our time spent working to achieve that balance between our work lives and home lives. One hobby that I picked up overseas has stuck with us, and goes a long way towards achieving that elusive balance... learning to cook! We've spent about a year now learning the basics, trying new recipes, and figuring out what we like. Since so much of our time after work and on weekends is spent in the kitchen, we thought it'd be fun to share some of the recipes we like. Some will be old favorites of ours by now, others will be brand new... and the hope is that one or two of these will appeal to a reader every now and then and you'll find something you want to try, too.

First up.. a new one for us: Stuffed Bell Peppers! We gave this a shot last night, with the inspiration coming from an Emeril Lagasse recipe. He stuffed the peppers with beef and pork, but we went for lean turkey for a tiny bit healthier option.

Ingredients:
7 green bell peppers
1 yellow onion
1 bunch parsley leaves
3 cloves garlic
1 cup uncooked rice (white, brown, whole grain.. all ok options)
1 lb lean ground turkey
8 oz tomato sauce
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 pinch red pepper (or red chili) flakes
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
water

Here's how we did it:

First, we took 6 bell peppers, cut off the tops, and removed the seeds.

Next, we went ahead and put on a big pot of water on high heat to get it to start boiling. Don't add the peppers in yet.. Just turn on the heat and let it go.

We also started the rice, since we'll be needing that pretty quickly in this recipe. (I do it the same way every time: I just put 1 cup of rice, 2 cups of water, and about a tsp of kosher salt in a medium saucepan. I stir the rice quickly once, set it on the stove covered on high heat, give it a few minutes to start boiling, then drop the heat to low immediately after the boiling starts. I set the timer for 16 minutes, leave it covered, don't check it, and let it simmer for those full 16 minutes. Then I take it off the heat and let it rest for a couple of minutes, then fluff with a fork. Works every time.)

While you're at it, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. You'll be needing that before too long, too!

We continued on with the prep work after this, so we wouldn't be scrambling around trying to chop, measure, and cook all at the same time.

We chopped up 1 yellow onion, 1 bell pepper, 3 cloves of garlic, and 1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves.

See? Just chop, chop, chop with a chef's knife. Raja loves chopping stuff -- It's my least favorite part so it works out perfectly. :)

By the time we were done chop, chopping, our big pot of water had started to boil. The recipe calls for the 6 topless peppers to be 'parboiled,' which apparently just means to boil it to the 'halfway done' point. We dropped our peppers in and let them do their fancy-schmancy 'parboiling' for 2 or 3 minutes, until they were just the tiniest bit tender.

Then we fished them out with a slotted spoon and laid them on some folded paper towels to dry.

Next, it was time for Raja's third love: the cast iron skillet. (It goes #1 - me, #2 - UNC basketball, and #3 - his cast iron skillet. I indignantly maintain my stance as #1, no matter how many of you are thinking that I'm, at best, running a close 2nd to the Tarheels. ;) )

This is where we're going to cook up the yummy stuffing for those fancy parboiled peppers. Splash 2 tbsp vegetable oil in there and set it over medium-high heat. Let it heat up, then toss in your chopped onions and bell peppers.

Cook those over the same medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until soft (about 3 minutes).

Next up, we added in 1 lb lean ground turkey, our chopped garlic and parsley leaves from earlier, 3/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Chop the meat up with your spatula (we use a wooden one to avoid scratching the cast iron skillet), stir around to break up any lumps, and keep stirring and shifting it about until the turkey is browned... It took about 7 minutes for us.

Once the meat is browned, add your cooked rice to the skillet. (I'm hoping that 1 cup uncooked rice yielded about 2 cups cooked rice, since that's what the recipe called for... It was a haphazard guess, but it seemed to work out pretty well in terms of ratio.) Dump in an 8oz can of tomato sauce and stir well.

After it's all mixed together well and heated through, remove from the heat, and taste it... I had to add in a lot more salt to make it taste right.

(I know how unappetizing that concoction above looks.. Bear with me -- It gets prettier!)

For your last step, take a baking dish (any size, shape, etc. will work okay as long as the peppers all fit in comfortably) and pour in just enough water to barely cover the bottom. (This is to avoid drying out the peppers, or worse, burning the bottoms.) Stuff those 6 bell peppers (There they are!- Still sitting pretty on the paper towels you laid them on to dry earlier.) with this less-than-beautiful rice/turkey/spice mixture and place them all in the baking dish.

Pop them into the pre-heated oven, and in about 25-30 minutes, they'll be very tender and the filling will be heated through! Remove them, set them on your oven or trivet, and let them rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Plate them up, and you're ready to eat!

They were so yummy! There are a couple of things I'll probably do differently next time: for one, I'll probably use 1/2 lb turkey and 1/2 lb sausage to give it a little more spice. I also made JUST these as our entire dinner since it's pretty well-rounded between the turkey, rice, and vegetables. I think next time, I'll put together a side salad of fresh cucumbers, onion slices, and tomatoes with lemon juice as a light dressing. Overall though, we really liked this recipe and it will definitely make another showing at our dinner table within the next few weeks. And since there's only 2 of us and we made 6 peppers, we have leftovers!

If anyone has a similar recipe or any suggestion, or if you try this recipe out for yourself, leave us a comment and let us know! Happy Eating! :)

“Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it.” -Eileen Caddy

2009-12-14T01:23:00.006+08:00

Post by: Beth

Hi everyone! Long time, no post... No real surprise since we're doing much less traveling and much more working here in New York, but I did want to share some photos from the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade that marched its way through Times Square on the way to Macy's at 34th Street! Since it was our first Thanksgiving here and Mom was visiting, we decided to go see the parade in person. I hope you enjoy seeing the in-person pictures of what we all love to watch on TV each Thanksgiving (the parade.. not football.. just in case anyone needed any clarification...) :) It was so great to take a break from the work and chaos that has been our moving/settling in process, and just relax and have a fun holiday weekend!

"In waking a tiger, use a long stick." -Mao Tse-Tung

2009-11-10T02:18:00.010+08:00

Post by: Beth

So at long last, we have returned to the States, settled into an apartment in New York City, and are back into what can only be called 'the daily grind.' :) As our life settles down into a bit more normalcy, I'm sure we'll have a bit fewer blog posts, but I still want to post holidays, big events, vacations, and some special occasions every once in a while.

Before we launch into this new 'less traveled' phase of our lives and our blog, I wanted to wrap up our Asia posts with one of the coolest adventures we experienced during our overseas travels. While visiting Thailand, we traveled about 3 hours driving distance from Bangkok, to the province of Kanchanaburi. The "Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampanno Forest Monastery" temple was founded in 1994 , and since its opening Wat Pa Luangta Bua has gained a reputation as a wildlife sanctuary. It started with an injured wild fowl given to the monk by the villagers, and soon after, peacocks followed, then an injured wild boar brought his family of 10 boar for shelter after being cared for by the monks. Then four species of deer moved in, followed by buffalo, cow, horses, wild goat and gibbons. All these animals are roaming the grounds of the monastery freely.

In 1999, the temple received the first tiger cub. When she was only a few months old her mother was killed by poachers near the Thai-Burma border. The cub was sold and the new owner ordered her stuffed. A local was hired to do the job, which fortunately he did not finish. Although he injected her in the neck with the preservative formalin, the cub survived. When she arrived to the to the monastery she was frail and terrified of a slightest sound. The story goes that several tiger cubs were later given to the temple over time, typically when the mothers had been killed by poachers. As of 2007, over 21 cubs have been born at the temple and the total number of tigers is about 12 adult tigers and 4 cubs. Used to human contact, and fed a diet of cat food and boiled chicken or beef (to avoid giving the tigers the taste for blood), these tigers are raised and cared for by the monks... and tourists can now visit the monastery and interact with these animals!

Here are some of the pictures from our adventure. We played with the tiger cubs (my favorite part!), walked some of the larger tigers (not my favorite part.. they are very strong!), bathed the furry fellows, hand-fed them boiled chicken meat, and watched them play and exercise in a huge canyon. The day was amazing, and we walked away with a strange surreal feeling of just gentle and loving these huge cats were, and how happy they were to play with us as we spent time with them. It was a great way to complete our year-long tour of Asia.

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can...” -Sarah Caldwell

2009-08-31T10:50:00.017+08:00

Post by: Beth
*Note: Gear up.. It's a long one..

Our time here in Hong Kong is wrapping up shortly, and there's still so much we want to see and do! We are doing our best to cram as much in as possible, in hopes we won't leave behind too many experiences undiscovered. One of the things on my list of "must do's" was to visit Hong Kong Correctional Services Museum, located in the town of Stanley. The museum is closed during some weekends, so 2 friends and I hopped on a bus on a Tuesday, intent on enjoying the ride to Stanley and our visit to the museum facilities.

The bus ride to the peninsula of Stanley is honestly one of my favorite parts of visiting Stanley. Double decker buses present the chance to sit up really high and look over all the traffic, offering views you can't get from street level.

Bear with me a bit on the photo quality.. We're in a moving, top-heavy vehicle, with a thick pane of glass between us and the sights. :) Here is the view as we start our ascent out of the city, into the hills and mountains of residential areas, followed by the bays and beaches of Hong Kong's southeastern portion of the island.

After about 35-40 minutes, the landscape and waterfront views let us know we've arrived in Stanley:

We'd decided to take a stroll along Stanley Main Street... Megha had never been to Stanley before (she's even newer to HK than I!), so I was eager for her to see the area, and it'd be a great place for us to grab lunch at one of the waterfront restaurants before our museum tour began:

We picked a restaurant called Spiaggia, which was mostly Italian fare. At the end, the nice owner helped us get a cab, spoke in Cantonese to give directions to the taxi driver, and sent us on our way with a nice "Come back and see us!"

After lunch and an uneventful, brief cab ride, we got to the whole reason behind the trip: The Correctional Museum, which is located next to the Staff Training Institute (Stanley Prison is a maximum security prison and employs over 800 staff and offices).

We stepped inside, and one of the first we laid eyes on was THIS monstrosity:

Jay-zus!!, right?? Not the smoothest transition ever from the bright, carefree outside world of a breezy Stanley beach day, but sometimes Asia just isn't known for playing around. This lovely device is an apparatus known as a "flogging stand," and was used for corporal punishment in the old days. For a century, flogging was used as a form of discipline in China's jails, with other popular disciplines including turning a very heavy crank for 12 hours straight, and beatings with a whip called "cat-of-nine tails." Pleasant, yes?

I'd read of and was very excited about the mock cells featured on the 2nd story of the museum. Sure enough, a quick climb up the stairs awarded us with two replicated cells, one even housing a life-size prisoner statue to give a sense of the proportions of the tiny cell.

Many cells are equipped with sinks and toilets, but if you're one of the unlucky inmates not afforded these luxuries, you may end up with a room like this 2nd one, shown below. The red and yellow buckets in the bottom picture? The yellow one is for your drinking water. The red one is where you must go to the bathroom if you wake up in the middle of the night and have to go. In the morning, when the full staff of guards is back and activities begin, you empty your bathroom bucket, and refill your water bucket.

Equally exciting was the chance to see a mock gallows- the wooden frame used for execution by hanging. Legal execution was never very common in Hong Kong, but it was a regular sentence passed down by the courts for murder, kidnapping leading to death, and piracy. Executions usually took place at dawn, and prisoners in the six cells of the "H" block (Condemned block) knew what was coming. They requested a final meal, which was cooked and delivered to their cells. Visits from chaplains were common to the condemned men, offering counseling during their final hours. The final moments came quickly; into the cell came the hangman, to shackle the prisoner with leather thongs. He would then be helped the few final steps into the execution chamber, where the knotted noose was placed around his neck and a canvas hood slipped over his head. The chaplain murmured a few (hopefully) consoling words, the hangman pulled the lever, the trapdoor clanged open, and the criminal dropped 8 to 10 feet. The knot of the noose behind his ear was pulled sharply by the prisoner's weight at the end of the drop, breaking the neck and causing instant death. A few minutes later, the prison doctor would examine the body and pronounce life extinct.

The last executions at the prison took place in 1966 (2 prisoners hanged), and in 1996, the condemned block and execution chamber were demolished to make way for the new Stanley Prison hospital.

So this is history and was really interesting for me to learn about, but of course, that explanation of the inner workings of the execution chamber was a bit harsh, so it wasn't long after this section towards the end of the tour that we were more than happy to get back outside to the lighthearted world we'd deserted upon entering the museum. We still had a fun bus ride back to the city center after all, and I wasted no time in whipping out the camera and capturing the views on the way back. Just look how pretty... (Again, excuse the photo quality. :) )

I even spied this cool graveyard on the way back, and luckily the bus stopped at a red light at the perfect moment, so I could snap some photos from the top deck of the bus.

Neat, huh? :) I liked it. So all in all, a really good day.. We laughed, learned, and took lots of photos. One more thing off the list of my "must do's." Hopefully we'll have some more to share with you soon! Thanks for reading!

"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men." -Willy Wonka

2009-08-23T21:47:00.003+08:00

Post by: Beth

Earlier this week, we received an email with an invitation to a party featuring the fruits of a so called "miracle berry plant," Synsepalum dulcificum. It sounded pretty strange, but Raja actually remembered reading an article about this berry in The New York Times while we were in Manhattan. Fuzzy on the details, we did some research to figure out what this was all about, and read that this strange fruit contains an 'active glycoprotein molecule' called miraculin. When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing sour and bitter foods to taste sweet.

The berry, hailing from West Africa, has been the subject of many studies concerning hopeful solutions to obesity, 'sweet' alternatives for diabetics, and possible advances in the areas of artificial sweetening products. Outside of the health & diet industry, this tiny fruit has set off a string of "flavour tripping parties" in major cities throughout Asia, the UK, and the US.

Sure enough, limes, lemons, and grapefruits all tasted like they've been coated in sugar! We chomped through acidic lemon slices as if they were sweet, ripe orange slices... Grapefruit and limes tasted like candy!

Spoonfulls of regular, unflavored yoghurt tasted like they were loaded with sugary goodness, and even pickles were remiscient of a sweet dessert! We popped cherry tomatoes like sugar drops, and even drinking a tablespoon of vinegar tasted almost yummy!

And for some Nishi-recommended (thank you!) all-important "people shots," here are Nishi, Chris, Raja, & myself, having a great time trying all the different foods.

Definitely a fun experience! :) If you ever get the chance to try out this "miracle berry," go for it... It's interesting, fun, and who knows... Maybe one day it will be widely available and thriving in the diet industry, healthcare sector, or some other capacity. Then you can say you tried it when it was still "just for fun!"

Thanks for stopping by and reading. :)

"A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in." -Robert Orben

2009-08-17T11:04:00.005+08:00

Post by: Beth

Two weekends ago, we got the opportunity to take a long weekend and we decided to spend it in the Philippines. We'd never traveled to the Philippines before, so armed with 3 days and a desire to relax on an island, we planned our flights to Mactan Island, located a few kilometers from the island of Cebu.

We planned to spend the days on Mactan Island, and the evenings across the bridge in Cebu, so our days were spent relaxing and the evenings were centered around the nightlife Cebu offers. Our pictures pretty much reflect that, so best to just put those up and let that be that. :)

We spent a LOT of time just laying out and reading.. very relaxing. :)

The first night, we went to a restaurant called "Abaca" for dinner.

The next night, we went back into Cebu to eat at a restaurant called "Olio," and we stopped into "Maya" first for a drink. We ended up with a tequila tasting.. We had no idea these even existed so we saw it on the menu and jumped on it. Lots of fun! :)

All in all, a great weekend for relaxing, fun nights out, and letting Raja have a break from work. We hope you enjoyed the pictures... Thanks for reading! :)

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate." - Oprah

2009-08-16T11:24:00.007+08:00

Post by: Raja

As promised, here I am to follow up on Beth's birthday post. Dinner at Isola was wonderful: good food, good friends, good conversation covering everything from Indian/American/Latino cultures to our views on Barbie dolls.

There was even a surprise Tiramisu in honor of Beth's birthday at the end!

Azure was also very fun.. Lots of laughing, dancing, and lively chatter. We did manage to sit down all together long enough for one photo, at least.

You don't get a sense of the great views from Isola and Azure from these pictures, so that is a shame, but at least you DO get a sense of how great a time we had with our friends that night! Thanks to all our friends in other parts of the world that sent Beth birthday wishes... It helped make her birthday this year one to remember.

"There was a star danced, and under that was {she} born." - William Shakespeare

2009-07-25T09:02:00.011+08:00

Post by: Raja
Surprise - I am back for another blog post! Today is Beth's birthday so I thought I'd post a little something on the blog to 1) give her a little break from all the blogging she's done lately 2) wish her a happy birthday via the interweb (I already did it in person...two is better than one, right?) and 3) update all of our (her) readers about what we have planned for this weekend. Also, this post better prompt some comments to wish Beth a Happy Birthday...I've been disappointed with the lack of comments from our readers....although... I've also been disappointed with my lack of posts for our readers. Let's just all make a clean start today, ok?

First, the birthday celebrations. We were planning to go away to the Philippines for the weekend, but some last minute work stuff came up and we weren't able to go (hopefully we can still plan the trip for another weekend). In lieu of a fun-filled weekend at the beach, Beth decided that she'd like to take advantage of some of the great restaurants and nightlife that HK has to offer and share the experience with some of our close friends here in HK. We're going to go to a restaurant called Isola first which is located in the IFC building in Central. It is an Itallian restaurant and is supposed to be reeaally good and have some stunning views of the HK harbour. You can check it out here. I'll post some pics and some comments about the place tomorrow (I know...it's the gift that keeps on giving!).

After dinner, Beth's Birthday Entourage will be heading to Lan Kwai Fong to go to...you guessed it... Hotel LKF (for our less astute readers: LKF = Lan Kwai Fong)! Specifically, we'll be going to the rooftop bar, Azure. We came here once before and Beth really liked it - it has good music, places to dance and places to sit, and best of all (for her) they serve Chocolate Martinis just like we used to get from our good friend Andrea at Pepper Lounge in STL (side note...If you ever go to STL, you should visit Pepper Lounge in downtown - great place). You can check out Azure here.

Sunday brings us to maybe the most exciting part of the birthday weekend. For Beth's birthday, she decided that she wanted to get a new handbag. Who am I to stand in the way? She's been looking for a handbag for quite a while, and unfortunately, she just hasn't been able to find one that she absolutely loved. Actually, I take that back. She did find one she loved, but the price tag and my Visa card weren't playing nice so we had to leave one behind...the handbag got the boot. Instead of continuing to look for the perfect handbag, we decided to make the perfect handbag come to us! There is a little store that we ran across a while back called "Zee's Leather" in TST that makes custom handbags and shoes, so we're going to pay them a visit and see if they can make Beth's dream bag. I bet they can and I bet that will make Beth very happy. Score one for Husbands who find and deliver the perfect gift!

Well, those are the big things happening this weekend for Beth's birthday. I hope she likes it and I hope all of you enjoyed hearing about it. Like I said, I'll make some follow-up posts so you can see exactly how the food was at Isola, what kind of place Azure really is, and whether Mr. Zee is actually able to put together the perfect handbag. I know...it's a cliffhanger.

P.S. Since this post is largely a preview of the weekend's activities, I don't have any great pictures to post. Instead, and in an attempt not to make this post boring and just all text, you get random pictures of things the Beth and I like. Enjoy!

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings." -John Muir

2009-07-19T20:17:00.004+08:00

Post by: Beth

I'm sometimes amazed by what Hong Kong offers in the way of sights. Even looking out a window here can sometimes introduce me to views unmatched by any I've seen before, and I have yet to decide if this city is prettier by day or by night. A trip to The Peak almost clinched a victory in favor of "day," but I held strong and am reserving judgment until I've seen the view from the top of this highest mountain on the island proper (1,810 ft) during the evening hours. It's just not fair to "night"...

"There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them." -Federico Garcia Lorca

2009-07-16T20:13:00.006+08:00

Post by: Beth

It's unsurprising that one of the best things about Hong Kong is the skyline. An uninterrupted view of the skyline yields views of mountains, sea, peninsulas, islands, and countless skyscrapers.... all at the same time. It's this crazy clash of city and nature that's beautiful both at night and day.

To showcase the architectural development of the city, the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau puts on a show on a nightly basis, billed as the largest permanent light and sound show worldwide. "A Symphony of Lights" is a synchronized building exterior decorative light and laser multimedia display, featuring 44 buildings on both sides of the Victoria Harbour of Hong Kong accompanied by symphonic music.

To view the show, there are several spots available that offer unobstructed views of the city, or you can take a ferry ride through Victoria Harbour while the light and sound show is being conducted. During Mom's visit, we chose to do just that, and it was well worth it. It's easily one of the experiences I've enjoyed most during our stay here.

Despite the fact that the boat was REALLY rocky, and constantly sailing back and forth in the harbour, Mom actually got some clear photos! A few of them are a bit crooked, but I'm not kidding when I say that the boat was rocking so much it was impossible to walk in a straight line at all. Thanks to Mom, here are some of the sights from our first "Symphony of Lights" show.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” - Marcel Proust

2009-07-15T21:07:00.006+08:00

Post by: Beth

Short post today, since I'm supposed to be out the door in 10 minutes, so it's pretty much just pic heavy this time. That's okay.. I don't think there are words that would do these pictures justice anyway, and it's best to let the pictures speak for themselves. These are some of our favorite photographs from our trip to Lantau Island to see the Tian Tan Buddha, otherwise known as the Big Buddha. This large bronze statue symbolizes the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and religion. Located near Po Lin Monastery, the statue and its surroundings are truly awe-inspiring to view.

"So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it." -Willy Wonka

2009-07-08T15:41:00.015+08:00

Post by: Beth

During both my mom's visit and Raja's family's visit, we made trips to Macau, the other "Special Administrative Region" of the People's Republic of China. Largely developed by the Portugese in the 16th century, it's now a very busy city, boasting a large trade industry and plenty of tourism! There's much to see and do in the area, and between the two family visits, we hit both the tourism and historical highlights.

For a historical highlight, the best part was the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral, which is one of Macau's most famous landmarks. Built from 1582 to 1602 by the Jesuit priesthood, the Cathedral was the largest Christian church in Asia at the time. In 1835, it was largely destroyed by a fire caused by a typhoon, and all the remained was the southern facade of the cathedral along with the grand staircase of 66 stairs leading to the facade. Restoration and conservation work has since taken place, and visitors to Macau can walk the remains and visit the crypt underground.

We also took a look around what's known as the "Old Protestant Cemetery." Established by the British East India Company in 1821, this cemetery was created in response to a lack of burial sites for Protestants in the Roman Catholic Portuguese colony. It is the last resting place of the artist George Chinnery, missionaries Robert Morrison and Rev. Samuel Dyer, Royal Navy Captain Henry John Spencer-Churchill (son of the 5th Duke of Marlborough and great-great-grand-uncle of Winston Churchill) and US Naval Lieutenant Joseph Harod Adams (grandson of the second president of the United States, John Adams, and nephew of the sixth, John Quincy Adams).

Much of Macau's tourism is driven by the casinos that dominate the skylines of several islands in the Macau region. Even if you don't love gambling, the casinos are impressive to look at. Mom really wanted to see the Venetian casino and hotel, which is HUGE. Full of shops, restaurants, food courts, candy stores, and plenty of casino games, it's easy to get lost in the endless supply of things to see and do in this one building!

Inside the Venetian:

One of my favorite parts of each trip to Macau was "The Bubble Show." There's a 30-meter dome in one of the casinos on Cotai Island, and inside it, a show described as a "10-minute immersive multimedia experience combining high-definition video content, a sweeping musical score by Klaus Badelt, over 29,000 theatrical LED lights, and a variety of sensory effects to create a stirring multimedia extravaganza." It follows the story of the Dragon Pearl and its mysterious powers as experienced by each of the four Dragon Kings. It's really hard to describe in words, but it's a bit awe-inspiring, and one of the coolest experiences. Smoke, water, lights, fog, and various other elements are used to create these cool sensory effects and make it feel like you are falling into a hole, swimming towards the surface of water, or being breathed on by dragons. Very cool! The show is REALLY fast-paced, so it's almost impossible to capture many pictures during the dragons' chase of the pearl, but between me and Mom, we caught a few that are at least publish-able. :)

These lamps emerge from the ceiling of the dome, dip down into the audience, and use a combination of water and lights to make neat illusions and shapes:

All of the "streamer-like" things you see coming from the lamp are actually lines of water that circle down from the lamps!

Through laser lights, the show creates constant images and illusions... You feel like something is right in front of you and you can touch it, and then it changes shape or colors right before your eyes:

Here is one of the four dragons that race around after the Pearl of Wisdom. It was REALLY hard to get shots of these because they move incredibly quickly around the dome, but Mom managed to capture this one:

Their chase takes them through beautiful underwater scenes:

From the historical sites, to "The Bubble Show," to the casinos, Macau follows suit and really does offer something for everyone. Combine all this with a fun ferry ride from island to island, and it's a great way to spend the day! :)

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” - Miriam Beard

2009-07-08T14:08:00.008+08:00

*Note: Two new posts today.. Don't forget to keep scrolling after this first post. :)

Post by: Beth

To finish up the Beijing posts, I wanted to share some pictures from our trip to the Forbidden City, which was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

We all decided to take advantage of the self-guided tour, which meant we'd have a headset that automatically stopped and started, providing historical information, based on our location within the palace walls. That turned out not to work so well as Ada's headset broke in the middle, Raja's started talking about random buildings at random times, and mine was too big to stay on my ear. Stefano fared better than the rest of us, but we all ended up just aimlessly milling about this huge complex, looking at all of the architecture and bright colors. With plenty of photo opportunities, there are lots of pictures to share from our day around the Forbidden City.

Here we are in Tiananmen Square:

When in Beijing....

2009-07-08T13:37:00.008+08:00

Post by: Beth

So if we still have any readers left, I'll apologize to you now for my absence of posts.. We've had visitors for the last solid month, so we've been busy exploring the city, TAKING pictures instead of just posting them. :)

I'm pretty far behind.. like.. Beijing-behind, but I still have a few things from that trip I wanted to share. One of the best things we did was go to an authentic Peking duck restaurant. Stefano's dad apparently has been eating at this place for a while on his visits to Beijing, and passed along the suggestion to his son, who's also eaten there a couple of times. Fortunately, he took us with him this time, and we got to experience Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant.

The alleyways to get to this hidden restaurant are so small cars can't fit through. We swapped from the taxi to this rickshaw-type vehicle that carried us from the main road to the restaurant.

Here's my and Raja's driver, pedaling along:

Ada & Stefano, in their rickshaw:

Here we are arriving at the restaurant, ready to eat! :)

(Sorry about the flash-no idea why it does this to my face.. in every photo.. ever taken... ;) )

Inside the entrance of the restaurant, you can see the ducks hanging up, being roasted:The restaurant is packed every single night, and reservations are required. That still means you may have to wait up to an hour!Here's a waiter, carving up one of our birds:We ordered a ton of food. Two ducks, all the trimmings, and plenty of sides:

I'd never eaten duck before, and of course never Peking duck in the traditional style. Stefano taught us what to do: You take a very thin pancake-type wrap, fill it with duck, plum sauce, onions, and cucumber strips; wrap all that up and eat! It looks like this:

So yummy, and so fun! We had a great time and this restaurant was a definite must-do adventure for us. :)

Ahhhh.....

2009-06-04T10:06:00.012+08:00

Post by: Beth

Okay, so as referenced before, I'm here to tell you about the bathtub. ;) Just playing.. sort of.

No, really, one of the things I love most about traveling is staying in different hotels. One would think after all this moving around and living out of bags, that I would simply want to stay home and not have to pack for a while, but I love the process of reading hotel reviews, looking at hotel locations, and helping pick out the best hotel for our travel situation for that particular trip.

We planned Beijing pretty quickly, and there are lots of logistical details that had to be taken care of, since we'd technically be entering another country. We needed a Visa to enter China, which can be a daunting process in a large city where your native language is no longer THE native language. Raja worked out a bunch of details and filled in tons of paperwork, and while he was at work, I ran around all over the place distributing the paperwork where it needed to go, standing in lines, collecting necessary pieces of information, and generally making a fool of myself by not being able to read or understand Chinese, yet insisting that I wanted to spend 5 days IN China and I needed to make that possible within 4 days.

Since that left me with no time to help with the virtual selection of hotel accommodations, I missed out on the entire process, and it was all left solely to Raja. When we left for Beijing 4 days later, I didn't know our flight number, had no idea about our hotel's location, was clueless as to how long we'd be in the air, but I DID know that we had secured the proper visas and documents to pass through China's immigration center without worry.

Sure enough, my papers and information got us through the airport authority's staunch line of questioning and many fever-checking temperature readings, and Raja's part came into play once we stepped onto solid ground. We navigated safely to the hotel, and upon entering our room, I promptly decided that I was letting Raja do ALL of the accommodation selection from now on. The cause for my excitement? Please feast your eyes.... on the bathtub....

Biggest. Bathtub. EVER. WITH a TV suspended above it! I could fit three of me in there! All this AND bath salts! Can you see why Raja told me not to even TRY to fake sick so I could stay in this thing all day? I jumped in hastily, with clothes, without water, and grinned like the Cheshire cat. If you know me well, you know there's rarely a day that passes where I'm NOT in the bathtub reading for at least an hour, usually more. (Except for India where bathtubs didn't exist for us.. Thank goodness that's over.) I was BEYOND excited, and I tentatively ventured just staying at home that night and relaxing, since we'd had "such a long travel day." (I was shut down.) I know some of you don't care about bathtubs the way I do, and I'm sorry for you that Raja isn't here to micromanage and ensure that 40% of this post isn't devoted to this wonderful bathtub, but ... I could not help posting pictures!

For your sake, I will graciously move on to some other photos of our room and the hotel, though. In all seriousness, this was a WONDERFUL stay, and if you ever travel to Beijing, we can pass on some recommendations. Service was wonderful, lots of attention to detail, and the whole thing is just so pretty. Ada & I fawned over the lobby each and every morning after breakfast, like the excited little girls that we are. Sorry for a post that may be meaningless to some of you, but as I said, hotels really are one of the highlights of traveling for me, so it becomes another way to share our experience. :)

bedroom area:

sitting room/dining area in the suite:

shower... again.. enormous!:

bathroom:

bedroom (from a different angle):

lobby of the hotel:

Aren't these candles just so big and pretty?:

In true Asian style, we have birdcages in the lobby!:

breakfast area, where Raja ate an un-Godly amount of food each morning:

So we can safely say that the bathtub was my favorite part, and the breakfast area was Raja's. Traveling and living all over obviously hasn't changed us one bit! :)

“The few wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them.” - Charles de Lindt

2009-06-03T11:37:00.013+08:00

Post by: Beth
(Gear up.. this one's long, but it's The Great Wall.. What else can I do?!)

Last Thursday was a holiday, so to make it a really long weekend, Raja took off Friday and we planned a trip to the capital of China: Beijing! We were lucky enough to have friends (Ada & Stefano) that were also considering that weekend for the same trip, so we got together, made travel plans, and then we were off!

I'm posting the obligatory trip to the The Great Wall of China first. I have to admit that on our vacations, I'm much less likely to get excited about the tourist-y activities that include staring at old buildings, monuments, and concrete creations. I much prefer exploring the more tucked away "souls" of each city... tiny bookstores, small cafes passed down through generations of family members, and I'll even vote for dinner/nightlife and shopping options over staring at a building alongside thousands of other tourists. I was forewarned by Raja to not try to feign sickness and secretly waste away my time in my bathtub reading my books (more on the bathtub to come in a later post) when it came time to visit the major tourist attractions in Beijing. Luckily, I was pretty enthusiastic about visiting The Great Wall... It's one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the weather was great that day, a tour with a guide had been arranged, and all four of us (Raja, myself, Ada, & Stefano) were going together.

A little background info:

First built in the 7th century B.C, rebuilt and maintained between the 6th century BC and the 16th century, the great wall was built to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire from Mongolian attacks during the rule of successive dynasties.

The Great Wall stretches over approximately 6,400 km (4,000 miles)from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia, but stretches to over 6,700 km (4,160 miles) in total.

It was built by over a million people who happened to be peasants, prisoners and soldiers and thousands of them died in the process.

It used to be called the Ten Thousand Li Wall which referred to the wall’s length. (1 li equals half a kilometer or one third of a mile).

A list of facts can't come close to summing up how it feels and what it's like to climb a portion of this wall. We visited the Mutianya site, which is visited by less tourists, is a little further away, and is much less crowded than the popular Badaling section. In order to reach the site we wanted to visit, we rode in a chair lift for about 10 minutes, then were let off on the ground once we reached our site. From there, we climbed up hundreds of brick and stone steps to reach several watchtowers and explore the area.

Lots of photos to share... I don't think any of them TRULY capture the steepness of some of the walls, the vastness of the land around the site, the size of the mountains surrounding you, or the enormity of the wall itself, but hopefully it will give a general idea. :) It was an amazing experience... Hope you enjoy the photos!

Our first unobstructed view of the wall is depicted below. We drove up into the mountains for about 20 minutes or so before we got to the parking area. We could see little glimpsed of the wall every once in a while while driving up, but there was always forest or hills in the way, keeping it from being a very clear view.

Ada & Stefano getting onto the chair lift ahead of us:

In order to get back down the mountain to the main entrance of the wall area, you can take this huge slide that winds down and around. You operate the sled by pushing a large lever forward to go, pulling backwards to brake, and leaning left or right to turn. It's really fun, and a quick way to return to the bottom. You're not allowed to take pictures while sledding, but here are Stefano & Ada loading into their sleds.

I took this shot while we were riding up on the chair lifts. You can see this man sliding down the huge slide to get to the bottom:

We took all these stairs all the way to the last watch tower at this site, which you can see in this photo:

Looking up into a stairway to leads to the top of a watchtower:

Here, we're on top of one of the watch towers. You can follow that beige line snaking along behind us... That is the wall curving around the mountains. It seems to go on forever, in multiple directions!

“When you look at a city, it's like reading the hopes, aspirations and pride of everyone who built it.” -Hugh Newell Jacobsen

2009-05-05T12:33:00.009+08:00

Post by: Beth

Our move to Hong Kong was smooth and uneventful... After a 4-hour flight, we landed safely and took our first HK taxi to our new home. From the plane and taxi windows, huge mountains were surrounding and hiding much of the city. About 3/4 of the way through the taxi ride, we drove between two mountain ranges and all of a sudden, the city was in front of us and HUGE. My camera was all packed up in the trunk, so I didn't get to get any pictures as we entered the city for first the time, but as soon as we got to our apartment, I took lots of pictures from our window:

The next day, we had the usual errands that need to be completed after a move into a new city... Buying subway passes, finding Raja's work building, locating cell phone providers and sorting out plans, etc. It's not so bad since it's a good way to see a new city and learn how to navigate the area. The day's activities took us all over Central, Hong Kong, and I took lots of photographs of our first day out and about in Hong Kong.

The metro stations are modern, clean, and efficient.. much like the subway cars themselves. Digital screens tell you how many minutes until the next train arrives, and despite my research leading me to believe that there'd be much pushing and shoving as people try to load the subway at the same time as passengers are exiting, it's organized and people wait their turns to load until all departing passengers have stepped off the trains.

Many of the buildings in Hong Kong are VERY tall... It's an amazing skyline to view, and at any point you can look up in the sky and see buildings towering above you. Most of the buildings in the Central area look very modern, and are well taken care of.

We're on the way to the IFC (Int'l Fiancial Center) buildingto check out some of their stores, visit a bookstore for a guide to HK, and eat lunch.

The IFC building contains a huge mall, plenty of restaurants, and many floors of office and commercial space.

After lunch and some shopping in the IFC mall, we're off to locate Raja's office building. Before too long, we found it right outside of a metro station:

Since Citi's office building is in a large business district, there are lots of huge buildings all around... Before we headed back home to Kowloon, I took a few pictures of the office buildings in Central.

We had a good time exploring the city and taking photographs for the blog, and got some of our errands done at the same time. First impressions are that Hong Kong offers lots to do, has a public transportation system that's very easy to figure out, and is every bit as large and energetic as we'd heard.

For more facts on Hong Kong, I took some info from chinahighlights.com, in case you're interested:

Hong Kong is the Pearl of Orient and an economic centre of Asia. For tourists, Hong Kong is a shopping paradise because most of the goods in Hong Kong needn’t to be tariff. The famous Hong Kong attractions are Disneyland Park, Kim Tin Walled Village, Kowloon park, and Victoria Peak.

Location: Hong Kong is located at latitude 22°15′N and longitude 114°10′E. It lies in the southeast of China and borders on Shenzhen to the north and South Sea to the south.

Area: Hong Kong covers an area of 1.07 thousand square kilometers.

Terrain: Hong Kong is hilly. North of Hong Kong is lowland. About 200 islands exist in or around Hong Kong. The Dawu Mountain is 959 meters in height and it is the highest peak in Hong Kong.

Climate: January, with an average temperature of 15℃, is the coldest month and July, with an average temperature of 28℃, is the hottest month.

Number of Population: 6.6 million

Languages: Mandarin, Cantonese and English

History of Hong Kong: For thousands of years, Hong Kong was a small fishing village. In 1842, Qing Dynasty's army lost Hong Kong Island to Great Britain after they were defeated in the first Opium War. In 1860 Qing Dynasty's army were defeated in the second Opium War and the whole Hong Kong was occupied by Britain. In 1970s, Hong Kong's economy developed rapidly. On July 1st, 1997, Britain returned Hong Kong to China.

Update on our next move....

2009-05-05T12:07:00.005+08:00

Post by: Beth

We're in the process of moving from Singapore to Hong Kong, which signals the final 6-month rotation period for Raja's job. So far, we've rotated through Manhattan, St. Louis, Bombay, and most recently, Singapore.

Singapore has been great.. It's given me a totally different perspective than India lent, which is one of the cool things about all this moving around. India was crazy, hectic, dirty, and really challenging. Singapore is calm, quiet, extremely clean, and a REALLY easy lifestyle. There's good to both, really.. Singapore is so simple and I get around so easily by myself and everyone speaks English so the days and nights are easy and fun. India was a lot tougher, but I feel like I really stretched myself and learned so much from the place and its people. I've gone from one extreme to the other, and both are good experiences. I survived in both, that's what's important!! Haha!

From what we can tell about Hong Kong, it should lie somewhere in between the two, as far as lifestyle and environment goes. A lot busier than Singapore, but probably not as chaotic as India. There will be much fewer English-speakers than are here in Singapore, but probably still enough to get by without any MAJOR problems, due to it being a fully-developed nation with a lot of influences from the West, along with a strong ex-pat presence. We also know a few people already located in Hong Kong, so that will be quite a change from our experiences in India and Singapore, where we initally knew no one. All in all, we've done about as much research as we can, and the only thing left to do in Hong Kong is to live it and find out for ourselves what's ahead.

"It is so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun?" -Matthew Arnold

2009-05-05T11:39:00.006+08:00

Post by: Beth

Our last weekend in Singapore was jam-packed with fun things we wanted to do before we left... Here are some pics from the highlight of our weekend: a trip to Sentosa Beach. :)

We took a tram over from a mall to Sentosa. Along the way, out the windows, we could see strings of cable cars that also take people to Sentosa... Each of these little dots on the line is a cable car carrying passengers across the water.

After a 30 minute tram-ride, we're in Sentosa! You can see the yellow tram below, ready to take passengers back to the city.

The merlion is a well-known icon of Singapore. It's an imaginary creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. Its name combines "mer" (meaning the "sea") and "lion." The fish body comes from Singapore's ancient name back when it was a fishing village — Temasek — meaning "sea town" in Javanese. The lion head represents Singapore's original name — Singapura — meaning "lion city" or "kota singa" in Sanskrit and Malay.

We spent a few hours at a restaurant patio on the beach, and then headed back to the tram to ride back to the city. Here's Sentosa at night, just before we left:

"You're not the boss of me!" -Little children everywhere

2009-04-20T10:04:00.007+08:00

Post by: Beth

The other day we dropped in to Haagen-Dazs for an ice cream mid-afternoon. This was our first visit to Haagen-Dazs in Asia, so we plopped down and looked over the menu. It was one of the most extensive menus I'd ever seen in my life. Pages and pages of creative desserts, ice-cream laden creations, fruit-inspired concoctions, tempting milkshakes.. it went on and on. Raja and I were eyeing several different selections, and neither of could make up our minds.

It wasn't long before I hesitantly tested out the idea of coming back later for say.... dinner... ?? I mumbled it quietly, ready to break into laughter and say "Joke!" when he looked at me incredulously. He was silent, and I kept my eyes focused downwards, holding my breath and waiting for his reaction. People could expect this from me.. but this wasn't exactly Raja's style. He kept flipping a few menu pages and said "Well.. there are some items on here that are quite large for only a snack." I knew I had to strike fast. My eyes darted over to his menu and I sneakily saw that he was on page 17 of the menu. I casually flipped to page 17, and nonchalantly mentioned "Yes.. like this fondue dish here on page 17.. this is MUCH too large for a snack.. even too large for lunch probably!" He looked up in surprise and said "That's what I was just looking at, too!"

I read the description silently: 16 mini scoops of ice cream (4 flavors total), chocolate chip cookies, warm chocolate brownie chunks, fruit pieces (strawberries, bananas), warm pound cake pieces, choice of toppings (chocolate sprinkles, almost slivers, etc), all to dip into warm chocolate fudge. Raja must have been reading the same thing because he looked up with a small smile and said "This is exactly what parents tell you not to do when you're little. Not to eat ice cream for dinner. But we can pick what we want for dinner. We don't have our parents bossing us about these things anymore." I grinned and slammed my menu closed, grabbed my purse and Raja by the hand, and rushed over to the waiter. "We're coming back for dinner instead," I announced. He looked a bit taken aback, but smiled and nodded and opened the door for us with a "See you then!" Sure enough, 6 hours later... we sat in front of our fondue dinner and happily plunged in.

And that's how a married couple of 26 and 29 comes to say "You're not the boss of me!," just like little children everywhere.

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." -Annie Dillard

2009-04-20T09:46:00.006+08:00

Posted by: Beth

I sometimes run outside in the couple of miles surrounding our apartment. There's a river that runs for quite a while, and a pathway that follows it on both sides. It winds through a riverwalk area with several malls and lots of waterfront restaurants, and also through the Robertson Quaye area, with lots more restaurants and shops. There's always people running, dining, relaxing, reading, and shopping all along the path. I took my camera along my route the other day to take some photos, since it's a pretty good way to show what we see during our everyday lives.

“If you're going to live by the river, make friends with the crocodile.” -Indian Proverb

2009-04-20T09:29:00.013+08:00

Post by: Beth

One of the good things about traveling so much is the opportunity to see things that you just wouldn't see in the U.S. Like touring a crocodile farm where the animals are bred and reared.

From the website (www.singaporecrocfarm.com):

Six decades ago, not long after the end of the Second World War, an enterprising Chinese man, Mr. Tan Gna Chua, decided that he wanted to share his home with these unloved reptiles. With the help of his family, he transformed the one acre of land that surrounded his home at Upper Serangoon Road into a reptile farm, which was the first of its kind in Singapore. They started with only ten crocodiles. With careful breeding, the numbers grew rapidly. Being the entrepreneur he was, Mr Tan opened his farm to the public. Within its premises he set up a factory, where the crocodile skin was processed, made into various products, then sold at the gift shop as well as overseas. Visitors were free to come in to take a look around, without having to pay an entrance fee - and this is still the case today.

By taking a walk on a path surrounded by trees, one can find well-known species such as the Tomistoma, Caiman, Prosus, and many more. One can also learn here, the differences between the various species of the Crocodylus family. After viewing our scaly friends, one can take a walk through the now defunct factory, where crocodile skin was once processed at the time the farm was established, in 1945. We no longer use these equipment and methods to do the job, but have maintained everything in its original form, for your viewing pleasure. This is something you will not be able to see anywhere else!

Ok, so how do you say "no" to that, right? We trekked on down and had our look around. Raja and I were both surprised that I was a bit alarmed.. the crocodiles aren't all completely surrounded by fencing as they are in the zoos, and you can get really close to these huge creatures. Not that much, animal & wildlife-wise, really makes me nervous.. but these did the trick. I ended up hanging around in the dead center of all the crocodile pens, so I could see them all at once, and my back was to none of them if I continuously moved in a circle. (I may have looked crazy, but I felt less in danger.) Raja had a great time and fearlessly took photos for our memory preservation and your viewing pleasure. :)

This little guy was my favorite crocodile of the day. He was much less scary than the others, what with his being made of stone and all. ;)

Restaurant Review : Billy Bomber's Classic

2009-04-20T08:56:00.008+08:00

Post by: Beth

Billy Bombers Classic (The Central)
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#02-78 The Central @ Clarke Quay

In a word.. well, two words.. "Not Good."

We picked this place in a bout of American nostalgia.. Think Johnny Rocket's, but in Asia. Diner-style, primary colors, old rock memorabilia, quarter-slot jukeboxes on the tables, and classic oldies (Elvis, Buddy Holly, etc) playing over the speakers (including a rousing rendition of... "Jesus Loves the Little Children"... ? Makes no sense, but we sang along anyway, despite blatant discrimination made evident by the lack of "brown children" in the song. I took offense as this dawned on me, as my husband is neither red, yellow, black, OR white. But I digress.)

We scoured the menu, and should have gone with the obvious, traditional choice: hamburgers. But as most of you have probably noticed by looking at us, Raja and I aren't the go-to's for picking the "traditional, obvious" choice. Usually it works out for us... usually.

Our order:

Raja decided on a philly cheesesteak sandwich, and I, in a surprising twist, picked their "famous Buffalo wings." In a not-so-surprising twist, that was a mistake.

Raja got along okay with his philly cheesesteak sandwich.. It came topped with mushrooms and onions, and fries were served alongside. He shrugged and said "It's okay considering I'm about as far away from Philadelphia as I could get." The fries were bland and flavor-less, quite the disappointment from an American-style diner.

I hated my "famous" chicken wings... Raja hated them more. The menu touted them as "marinated with cayenne pepper and vinegar," and I was allowed the freedom to pick between a hot or tangy sauce (woo-hoo). I picked the tangy sauce, hoping to balance out all that "cayenne pepper" I was expecting. Upon first taste, I chalked it up to a fairly-awful Chinese sweet-and-sour chicken dish. With bones. Raja pronounced it the worst thing he's had since arriving in Singapore.

The service at the restaurant wasn't fabulous, either. They did the bare minimum.. no asking us "Is there anything else you need? How is everything?" or any of those niceties. No sir. And despite my huge plate of saucy "famous" buffalo wings, they didn't provide any napkins other than the one that came with the place setting. I had to reach over and snag a napkin from the table next to us.. I guess they spied that maneuver, since more napkins were delivered to me about 1 minute later.

Overall, not a great experience, and not one I'd recommend. The only reason we would maybe venture back in Billy Bomber's is to try the hamburgers and shakes. And that's only a shaky "maybe."

Our Rating: 4/10

"No, Watson, this was not done by accident, but by design." -Sherlock Holmes

2009-04-05T15:47:00.005+08:00

Post by: Beth

At noon today, I woke up and discovered Raja was not still in the bed. This was unsurprising, as I knew basketball was coming on this morning around 7am-ish Singapore time, and he'd been anxious to make sure he could watch the games online. That privilege is, of course, dependent on how fast the internet connection speed is at the time of the game. He was a bit worried, as sometimes it's really fast here in our new apartment, and at others, it's too slow for streaming video to play properly. After all, these were the final four games coming on this morning, so tensions were running high in our home.

This is what I walked into when I stumbled blurry-eyed from our bedroom into the living room:

When I squinted up at the ceiling and back at Raja, he simply said "The internet wasn't fast enough before I did this." I silently walked back into the bedroom and retrieved the camera. That was the end of that conversation.

Restaurant Review: Coffee Club

2009-04-05T15:28:00.008+08:00

Post by: Beth & Raja

Next restaurant up for review:

Coffee Club
#01-18, 3B River Valley Road S(179021), Clarke Quay
Tel: 6336 5663
www.coffeeclubworld.com

We visited the Coffee Club for lunch on a rainy day... Since the Clarke Quay area (just an area that has lots of restaurants/lounges/pubs/etc near the Riverwalk) is covered with huge white round screens, it's an area you can still eat outside in, even in inclement weather. You can dine inside as well. The restaurant serves wine & beer... not sure about liquor as we didn't really check.

Our order:
Raja: Fiery Garlic Prawn Pasta
Beth: Alfredo Pasta

The dishes here were okay... Beth's alfredo pasta (served with ham and mushrooms) had a baked cheese layer on top which she pretty much pulled away, but that's only because she doesn't usually like baked cheese layers anyway. It lacked flavor for the most part. Raja's prawn pasta was advertised as "fiery," so there was a little spice, but still couldn't really call it "fiery." What flavor WAS there tasted fairly artificial. So if the rest of the dishes are about the same, you can expect either little to no flavor, or artificial flavor.

Service was fine... Nothing to write home about, but there's really nothing negative to say. We ordered, they brought our food, we asked for a side of bread, they brought our bread. Our water glasses did stay filled throughout the meal, so that's a plus. All pretty cut and dry for the most part, but at least our orders were correct, served pretty promptly, and our requests were delivered upon.

Our verdict: We probably won't be back here for a meal. We MAY come back to try some of the coffee drinks and desserts, as their menus for both of these sections looked extensive and yummy. But we'll be eating our meals somewhere else. As Raja said "We should have gone back to Antonio and just ordered another of his pizzas."

Our Rating: 6/10

Restaurant Review: Bella Pizza

2009-04-05T14:45:00.005+08:00

Post by: Beth & Raja

So we've decided to do something a bit new on the blog, in addition to the regular posts. One of our favorite things to do in a new city is try out some of the new restaurants and cuisines. We throw diets to the wayside, agree to eat things we never thought we'd try, and ask a lot of questions (i.e. Raja: "How do you actually eat a fish head?"). We always make it a point to take pictures of the restaurants and the dishes, since it's a major part of our experience each time we move. So we've decided to post a mini-review here and there of some of the restaurants. This way, if anyone we know ends up visiting any of these places we spend time in, they'll have a couple of restaurant recommendations and also a couple to stay away from. (Plus, it's just fun for us, but we prefer to seem chivalrous and helpful, rather than self-indulgent. :) ) We are NOT food connoisseurs, and don't know jack about how a restaurant should be run, how many minutes should lapse between courses, etc... But we have a good time trying out the restaurants, and have our own little things we do and don't like when eating out. If it helps anyone that's traveling at any point, all the better. :)

First up...

Bella Pizza
30 Robertson Quay #01-14 Riverside View
Tel: 6734 0139

This small Italian restaurant located at the river's edge serves up pizzas, pastas, appetizers, and desserts in an exposed-kitchen setting. There's seating available both inside and outside, and liquor, wine, & beer are all available.

Our order:
Bruschetta appetizer
Pizza - mushrooms, Parma ham, and mozzarella cheese
1 glass of Chardonnay, 1 glass of Pinot Grigio

Our opinions:
The bruschetta was wonderful... It was served on piping-hot bread that was slightly crunchy in the middle and crispy around the edges, and the tomato topping tasted fresh and flavorful. (Forgive us.. We didn't have plans at the time of doing little reviews on our blog, so we didn't pay much attention to what went into the topping. Next time, we'll pay closer attention and give you more detailed facts.)

The pizza was equally as good... It was served immediately after we finished our appetizer, and had a good covering of Parma ham and mushrooms. The sauce was just right -- not bland, and not overpowering, as the ham, cheese, and mushrooms carried lots of flavor and it would have been a shame to have the sauce be competing with the yummy meats and cheese. The size was perfect for us to share since we'd ordered an appetizer to share first.

Service was REALLY fast and the waiters were nice and helpful. The owner, Antonio, even stopped by our table to ask us how our food was and if it was our first time in the restaurant. He was very personable and seemed genuinely interested in ensuring his patrons were having a good experience. He even personally dropped off a couple of complimentary after-dinner treats to our table, plus happily posed for a photo for Beth.

Final verdict: The food here is definitely good enough to stand alone, but the service and personal touch provided by the owner & staff made it even better. We hate to start repeating at restaurants so early in the game here, but we can safely say we'll definitely go back to Bella Pizza, and it'll be a battle over whether to order the same dishes and risk missing out on something new, or ordering something new and missing out on the dishes we loved so much the first time.

Our Rating: 10/10 (This simply means there's really nothing missing, and nothing we would have changed.)

"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind." -Seneca

2009-04-02T22:20:00.007+08:00

Post by: Beth

So we're here and survived our first day and night in Singapore! It's a really cool city to explore, so we've had a good time over the past 24 hours.

First impressions so far:

1. It's as clean as everyone said it would be.. There's not a piece of trash or paper on the ground anywhere.
2. Many Asians wear tiny pieces of clothing, and little of it. It's quite a change from the conservatism of India's streets.
3. The amount of shopping is unbelievable. There are malls, shops, and stores EVERYWHERE. "BSpend" is in trouble...
4. There's pretty much every kind of food available, at a huge range of prices.
5. It feels incredibly safe. It's well-lit, organized, and has lots of people walking around and taking public transportation.
6. It's surprisingly quiet for such a bustling city. Your eyes take in lots of energy, but to your ears, it seems fairly quiet and calm after the chaos that is Bombay.
7. It is REALLY expensive compared to Bombay. Gone are the days of the 400 rupee meal...

So far, I think we'll have a great time here. Lots of shopping, fun nightlife, pretty scenery, and it's clean and organized. Not too many negatives going on here... :)

Here are some pictures we've snapped so far. More to come, of course. :)

Almost time to take off... We're excited! :)

Bye bye Bombay....

Flying through sunset....

First glimpses of Singapore:

I know it's blurry but taking pictures from a plane isn't always easy. All those dots you see in the water are boats, docked close to the main island.

The public transport buses in Singapore are really clean, air-conditioned, and efficient.

Inside a mall called "Plaza Singapura" :

Raja picked a restaurant advertising "St. Louis-style Ribs!" for dinner tonight. Since we arrived, we've already noticed an eating pattern: Raja's eaten nothing for dinner besides what I lovingly refer to as "meat feasts." I've latched on to the salads. Those are 2 things we missed quite a bit in Bombay. :) For lunch, we did eat a traditional Singaporean lunch of Sambal fried rice with seaweed soup.

Outside of the shopping mall:

And, finally, here are some more scenes from the streets as we walked around after dinner. Singapore seems great so far, and we're excited to continue exploring and making our way around. :)

"Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you..." -Roald Dahl

2009-03-30T11:55:00.005+08:00

Post by: Beth

As an update to anyone who may not yet know, Raja and I are about to set off for the next rotation destinations: Singapore and Hong Kong! The business in which he'll be working for his final rotation has 1 team in Singapore and 1 team in Hong Kong. Since the rules of Singapore state that a person can work in Singapore on a tourist visa for 30 days, Raja will be working with that half of the team until the work visa for Hong Kong is finished processing. Once the HK process is complete, we'll move to Hong Kong and settle in for the next 5 months or so.

We're scheduled to fly out Wednesday at 11:45am (India time), and we'll be landing in Singapore after a 5-hour flight. Neither of us has ever been to Singapore or Hong Kong, so we're excited to see what these parts of the world hold!

I'm changing the world clocks at the bottom of the blog to reflect Singapore's time zone., and we'll keep everyone updated as we start this new part of our journey. As always, thank you so much for reading our blog. Always feel free to post comments and let us know how you're doing... We miss everyone from our homes! :)

"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation..." -Leonardo da Vinci

2009-03-24T23:47:00.007+08:00

Post by: Beth

So we've done adventure (wildlife preserve), and we've done part adventure/part relaxation (houseboating)... all that's left to do in Kerala is to partake in sheer relaxation, and we've set aside 3 days to do just that. With neither Raja nor myself having visited Kerala before, we could only rely on recommendations, tripadvisor.com reviews, and our gut instincts when selecting the hotel for our "relaxation" portion of the trip. We read dozens of reviews... sifted through pages of feedback.. asked everyone we could find that had traveled to Kerala... and finally settled on Lemon Tree hotel. We were really on searching for a few elements, and on paper, Lemon Tree seemed to have them all: seclusion, a large pool, a restaurant on the property, and favorable reviews.

We made our way to Lemon Tree by rickshaw (the scenic route!), immediately after we stepped off of the houseboat. Upon our arrival at the hotel, I knew right away that we'd made the right choice on hotels, and that this was going to be my favorite part of the vacation. Here in India, things are quite a bit different, if you haven't figured that out already by the blog posts from the past 6 months. Not at Lemon Tree! It felt like I stepped into a beautiful resort that could rival anywhere I'd been on vacation from America... everything was white and sparkling clean, the bed was an old English canopy-style design, and the pool was an infinity pool that seemed to go on forever since it gave the illusion of flowing directly into an enormous lake that had no boundaries. I bounded about happily, turning on the massaging shower while still in my clothes... rapidly flipping on and off the tv that boasted MTV and several other American channels... dashing out to the pool and dipping my toes into the warm water... running back in and hugging the fluffy white towels to myself. I flipped open the room service menu and saw french fries.. ice cream sundaes.. caesar salads.. shrimp cocktail.. hamburgers.. club sandwiches.. the list of familiar favorites went on and on! I was ecstatic, and knew the trip would end with me imploring Raja to let us stay "just one more night!"

We had an amazing time... The entire first day, we essentially only left the pool area to eat and sleep. One night, we had a candlelight dinner thoughtfully put together by the staff of Lemon Tree. We lounged in the hammock by the pool and read our books under a set of huge coconut trees. We even found a recent NASCAR race on TV and happily piled up on the fluffy comforter to watch -- We haven't seen one race on TV since we left St. Louis! This portion of the vacation took so many of the comforts from home and splayed them in front of us continuously... It was the perfect end to our 6 day vacation in Kerala. I begged Raja to leave me behind there, since he insisted he had to get back to work... but he refused. :-/ I can only hope that our next vacation is as wonderful...

“Follow the river and you will find the sea.” -French Proverb

2009-03-24T22:40:00.010+08:00

Post by: Beth

Shortly after our adventure in the wildlife preserve, we were headed for the second part of our vacation: part adventure/part relaxation. Houseboats are quite famous in the state of Kerala, or in the Alleppey area to be more specific. So much so that everytime a driver or wildlife guide asked us where we were off to next, each gave a knowing nod and toothy smile in response to our chirps of "Alleppey!" "Ahhh.. houseboating" they said automatically. When we got to Alleppey and saw literally hundreds of houseboats lined up for rent, we realized just how popular this adventure is for tourists in the area.

A houseboat trip is typically an overnight stay on a Kettuvallam, which is a boat made of thatched roof covers over wooden hulls. Each houseboat is constructed using the ancient principles and techniques of boat building by the local carpenters using ‘Anjali` wood. Coir ropes are used for tying the wooden boards together. Boats in a variety of shapes and sizes have traditionally been the main means of transport of men and materials in the Kerala Backwaters since olden days. In particular, the house boats were used to ship rice and spices and other goods. Today, Kettuvallams, or houseboats, are used mainly to promote the tourist industry; guests from all over the world clamber on board these ecofriendly boats made of bamboo poles, coconut fibre, ropes, bamboo mats, carpets, and of course the Anjali wood. There's quite the variety of amenities available: Guests can pick A/C or non A/C boats.. 1, 2, or 3 bedrooms.. balcony or single story.. Hopping from one boat to the next in search of the perfect boat is quite an adventure in itself. After viewing about 10 boats, Raja & I collaborated to pick our favorite: The Venice Tours II. With A/C (Kerala is REALLY hot by this time of the season), 2 bedrooms, and a balcony, we had everything we needed and we were ready for our first trip down the backwaters of Kerala.

The backwaters are a chain of lagoons and lakes lying parallel to the Arabian Sea coast, otherwise known as Malabar Coast. The lagoons and lakes are connected by canals and inlets, and salt water from the sea meets with fresh water from the rivers. The waterway takes you past various towns in Alleppey, and offers a glimpse into a very different lifestyle. Women wash their family's laundry by dipping it into the backwaters, then slapping it against the rocks that line the canals. The communist flag flies in front of many of the homes. Men perch on the rocks and fish with cane poles or sticks with a simple string tied to the end, catching fish for their family's meals. The scenery is beautiful, as the canals are often filled with water lilys, and a dense line of palm trees line the canals on either side. It's very peaceful out there, and guests can simply relax and take in their surroundings.

The houseboat trip isn't the same without pictures, so I put together a little "story by photos" that may help give images to the words... I had no idea what to expect from our trip to the backwaters, so took lots of photos in hopes of conveying our trip to you. :)

We've now picked our houseboat, and our luggage is being taken to the boat of choice. You can see how many houseboats are lined up here.. This trail of boats goes on for almost an entire mile!

Below, you can see the boat we selected. It was a carefully evaluated process, with a mental checklist and much debate over the interior colors. We got THAT particular when choosing our boat. Since it's technically the very end of the houseboating season, less tourists are in the area, so we were able to tour through lots of boats and find just the perfect one for us.

Here's another view of the houseboats... At this point, we're settled into the balcony and waiting to untie and drive away from the docks.

And we're off! Only in real life, it's not quite so sudden or exciting... It's more of a gliding away from the dock, and it even took us a minute to realize we were moving. Very relaxing, and the amazing scenery is there right from the beginning.

After about 3 hours of coasting down the backwaters, it was time to stop for lunch. The boat stops for meals and the overnight portion of the trip. For meals, freshly caught seafood is prepared by the boat crew, along with some traditional Keralan rice and staples. Here's where we docked for our first meal:

And here's the first meal!

After lunch, the sailing continues... more beautiful views to take in, and Raja & I mainly relaxed, read our books, and chatted about the views around us.

Below, you can see where we docked for dinner and the overnight portion of the trip. We were under a canopy of palm trees, and overlooking rice fields that go on as far as the eye can see. We got off the boat and toured some of the area, getting a close look at the rice plants. I forgot to take pictures during dinner, but we had massive prawns and more Keralan rice, along with a chicken curry dish.
After an early dinner, we sat on the balcony and watched sun go down. GORGEOUS sunsets happen over the backwaters, and the twilight hour comes alive with the sounds of birds, crickets, and other sounds from nature.

In the morning, the boat sailed off promptly at 7:00am, with a breakfast of omelettes and toast with jam served shortly afterwards.
We were up before breakfast, and luckily got to watch the sunrise.. It's amazing how quiet it is in the early mornings there, until the birds and roosters wake up with the sun.
It only took about 1 hour to get back to the boat docking area, as the crew takes a much shorter route back in than they do on the way out. All in all, the houseboat trip was definitely what we'd been going for: half adventure/half relaxation, and it was amazing to be surrounded only by nature for an entire 24 hour period. We know now why it's such a popular tourist activity in Kerala... Hope the story by pictures helped detail our take on this Keralan adventure. :)

"There is a way that nature speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough to pay attention to the story." -Linda Hogan

2009-03-17T01:26:00.008+08:00

Post by: Raja

One of the first things that we did on our trip to Kerala was head to the Periyar Tiger Reserve in the middle of the Gavi (pronounced Gay-Vee) Rainforest. The Gavi Rainforest sits in the valleys of the Western Ghat Mountain Range which is one of India's largest. The mountain range extends from India's Southern tip all the way up to Mumbai - that is roughly the same distance, or a little longer, than the Appalachain Mountain Range in North America.

The safari "tour" that we did consisted of a jeep safari ride through the fringe of the Gavi Rainforest at 5:30AM, a hike through the jungle, breakfast and lunch at the "Green Mansion," and then a return trip through the rainforest around 5PM. What was it like? You can see everything below!

We got up early for the safari (5AM!), but look how excited we look!

We drove about 40 minutes from the edge of the rainforest where our cabin was to get to the entrance of the preserve. Along the way, hundreds of tea plantations dotted the landscape. Here is a picture of one.

Here we are about to enter the preserve.

Our first "Catch" of the day - a baby owl!

Here we are atop one of the highest ridges in the Preserve - the view from here is great.

Our jeep that we rode in during our safari.

This is where we had breakfast and lunch. A nice little garden area in the middle of the Preserve that provides a touch of civilization (and nourishment!) for visitors.

After breakfast, we set out on our trek!

A few pictures of things we saw throughout the trek - a giant ant nest (yes, nest), Beth and our crew picking their way through the dense jungle, a breathtaking view from a ridge.

This is a jungle camp. Visitors to the preserve can spend the night here and go out on night treks. This is actually one of the best ways to see some of the wildlife as many of the animals nap during the day to avoid getting out in the blazing sun. Notice the big moat around the camp. They just built that last month because an elephant actually came into the camp one night and started pushing on the hut. I can't imagine how exciting (and frankly a little scary) that would have been!

This waterfall is REALLY high up and during/just after the rainy season they say that it is gorgeous. Unfortunately, we came just at the end of the dry season so by this point it had all dried up. At least it was a great place for us to stop for a bit and rest our feet!

We saw a bunch of monkeys in these trees while we were sitting on top of the waterfall...more to come on that later.

Giant Spider...more breathtaking views.. ho hum ;)

Now this - the highlight of the trip so far. Luckily, I was able to capture this big guy swinging from tree to tree. Trust me...this took lots of skill...these buggers are fast!

This is me chillin' in the jeep. Time to finally head home...but the fun isn't over yet!

This is a giant squirrel and a massive bison (the guide said it probably weighed about 4000lbs - thats like the size of an Accord) that we saw on our way home that evening.

That's pretty much everything that we did on our 12 hour Rainforest/Jungle Safari. I have to let everyone know that Beth was a real trooper on this adventure. She wasn't feeling well due to a little stomach bug that she had left over from our Delhi/Punjab trip, and started feeling really ill towards the end of our 4 hour trek, but she toughed it out and made it back to the camp. I was really proud of her (her nose was even bleeding for some reason although I don't think it was from the stomach bug - I really have no idea why it was bleeding)!

All in all it was a great day and we definitely saw some very neat and different things. After we got back to the cabin, we had a nice shower to refresh ourselves, had a great dinner, and went to bed listening to the sounds of the jungle. The next morning, we were up at 5AM again and headed towards our next adventure - a night on a houseboat on the Kerala backwaters!

"The Ultimate Tribute to Everlasting Love..."

2009-03-03T12:41:00.010+08:00

Post by: Beth

A couple of weeks ago, Raja and I got to travel around India quite a bit. He has many family members that are still in India, mostly around the Delhi area, so we combined some family visits with a chance to see some of the sights in India. I didn't take as many pictures as I normally would have, largely due to getting some typical "Indian illness" that I've somehow avoided up until this point. I still have a few pictures to share though, especially from the first parts of our trip (pre-illness). First up, the Taj Mahal! Raja had seen this before, but about 10 years ago, and of course I'd never laid eyes on it.

For quick background, the Taj Mahal (meaning "Crown Palace") was built by Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his 3rd and favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Mumtaz died during childbirth while bearing their 14th child in their 19th year of marriage, and it's said that upon death, she requested that he build a monument of their love and that he never marry again. Shah Jahan promised, and construction on the Taj began that very year. Twenty thousand people were deployed to work on it, and the Taj was completed 22 years later.

What stands today is a symbol of Shah Jahan's love for his favorite wife, the structure that houses both of their tombs. The structure was constructed using materials from all over India and Asia. Over 1,000 elephants were used to transport building materials during the construction. The translucent white marble (which forms the entire structure) was brought from Rajasthan, and jewels and stones were used for in-lay work on the exterior and interior: the jasper from Punjab, jade and crystal from China. The turquoise was from Tibet and the Lapus lazuli from Afghanistan, while the sapphire came from Sri Lanka and the carnelian from Arabia. In all, twenty eight types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the white marble.
It's sort of cool because as you park, make your way up the pathway to the gates, etc you never get a glimpse of the Taj Mahal. You even walk through the main gate and into ANOTHER area that has architecture and the tombs of Shah Jahan's other wives, as well as the tomb of his favorite servant, and you STILL can't see the famous landmark. You must walk through another gate, and all of a sudden, it's looming in front of you, surrounded by the gardens and the long reflecting pool. It's amazing to see in person, both from a distance and up-close, and we were pretty much awe-struck. None of the pictures can really do it justice, but we were excited to show you anyway. :)

(above) The walk to the Taj Gates from the road is about 3/4 of a mile or so... Not a bad walk, but we took the opportunity to ride in a rickshaw driven by a man on a bike. Lots of fun, and much quicker. :)

(above) Waaaay on the very top of the main dome was an artisan doing some restoration and cleaning work. It was fascinating looking up THAT high on top of something THAT big, and barely being able to see this tiny man working away in the sun.

(above) Here, we're sitting where Princess Diana posed for photographs during her solo visit to the Taj in 1992.

(above) Here's what your feet must look like before going into the Taj Mahal. No shoes are allowed, and they provide little booties for you if you wish to keep your shoes on.

(above) Here's Raja with our guide... He was wonderful and spent about 2 hours with us giving us all the history and background of the Taj. (Unlike what you may have seen on Slumdog Millionaire, he did not refer to the missing lifts or the 'swimming pool' at any points during our tour. ;) ) Just as an example of price point in India, when the guide approached Raja to see if we would use him as a guide, his ASKING price (and usually negotiating ensues to bargain down someone's... anyone's... asking price in India) was Rs. 100. That is TWO U.S. DOLLARS, for a 2 hour tour of one of the 7 Wonders of the World. Raja snatched him up since he spoke perfect English, seemed nice and knowledgable, and would be there to take pictures of Raja and me together anytime we wished. Of course we paid him more because he did a great job and the tour lasted so long, but these kind of prices never cease to amaze us here!)

Visitors are not allowed to take photos inside the Taj Mahal, so I went to Wikipedia to get a couple professional photos so you can see some of the interior shots.:

(above) These are the cenotaphs of the two tombs. Mumtaz Mahal's cenotaph is located in the exact center of the inner chamber, with Shah Jahan's larger cenotaph placed to the west side of his wife's. Muslim tradition forbids elaborate decoration of graves, so the bodies of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan are laid in a relatively plain chamber beneath the inner chamber of the Taj Mahal, known as the lower tomb chamber.

(above) This octagonal screen surrounds the cenotaphs of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. It's made of marble and is extremely intricate. All of the work was done by pierce work, and the remaining areas are inlaid with more precious and semi-precious stones.

And finally, some more random shots of us around the gardens and in front of the Taj:

More to come soon from our trip.. We hope you're all doing well! :)

A desert is a place without expectation. -Nadine Gordimer

2009-02-24T14:38:00.007+08:00

Post by: Beth

Yes, yes, I know.. it's been almost a month since my last post! Uncharacteristic for me, but in my defense I will say we've been busier this month than we've been our entire stay here in India. I do hope some of you are still reading, after my long absence.

To catch everyone up, I'm adding in some photos I couldn't leave out from our Dubai trip. We got the opportunity to go on a desert safari, which for Dubai, means riding over the dunes and through the desert in a 4X4 vehicle. The experience is a bit like a roller coaster.. just a lot longer and a bit more scary at times. The drivers are trained to do all of these daring stunts in the sand and on the edge of the sand cliffs. There's constant bumping and tossing around, often feeling like you're about to tip over, and much sliding sideways down the sides of the cliffs onto lower desert sands. After the "drive" (read: harrowing experience), which lasts about 45 minutes, you're taken to a large flat area of sand, where there's a BBQ, henna artist, camel riding, belly dancing, etc. I couldn't leave off the photos from this fun experience!

Above is a picture from our arrival to the desert, just before the drive. There are usually about 4-5 4X4's containing 6 passengers and 1 driver that start around the same time, and the drivers actually deflate the tires a bit prior to the drive -- This gives the tires less pressure and more surface area, allowing more ground contract and increased traction for better control.

Here's our driver, Abi, deflating our Land Cruiser's tires.

At some points along the way, the drivers stop so riders can get out and see the camels or the sunset, and the views of the deserts.

I'd never been in a desert before, and there's simply no way to capture by photo the expansiveness I experienced when stepping out onto the sand. There's just miles and miles and miles of sand as far as you can see. You feel so tiny standing in there as you look around and see nothing but sand and the sunset.

I'd really been excited after learning we'd get to ride on a camel after the drive! Of course, I had never been on a camel, either... I quickly claimed the spot of sitting on the "hump" of the camel, to be up higher. Raja got the less fortunate seat of the back, where it feels like you may fall off at various points during the ride.

We look all happy here, but I was a bit nervous.. Riding a camel is actually a pretty scary experience once the camel stands up off the ground and begins walking. Until the camel stands up fully, you don't realize just how high up the ground you're going to be (I began to quickly regret my selection of the "hump" seat), and there are 3-4 camels harnessed together in a line. The camel behind ours was rather aggressive and I kept worrying about what would happen when she decided to break away and run into the desert horizon, dragging our sweet camel with her. All was well, though, and it was pretty fun... a bit unnerving compared to the sheer excitement I'd felt earlier, but still a good experience. :)

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." -Vincent Van Gogh

2009-01-28T21:33:00.009+08:00

Post by: Beth

Raja had told me fairly early on before we left for this trip that he'd picked a special restaurant for us to eat at for our anniversary. I usually can't help doing secret research or requesitng hints about "surprises," but being REALLY excited about Dubai, I went along with it and didn't ask any questions or try to figure it out. I knew the date, the time to be ready, and that's it.

So Saturday night we climb into the taxi and Raja tells the driver where to go -- He's specifically picked an area AROUND the restaurant as the destination, rather than giving the actual restaurant name. I'm still oblivious and we happily ride along, about 20 minutes, to our destination. We are let out at a huge hotel called "Madinat Al Qsar" and its gorgeous. The bottom floor of the hotel is made up of high-end Arabian home decor stores, which houses amazing (and amazingly expensive!!) decor products. We wind through the bottom, peeking in stores and looking all around. Finally we get to a door that leads to a path outside, with a stream running along the pathway. A golf cart is waiting for us, and we get in and zoom along the pathway about 5 more minutes, until we're let off at the end of a huge pier. I can't quite make out what's at the end of the pier, but just slightly to the right of whatever building is at the end, "floats" the Burj Al Arab. I've seen plenty of pictures of this 7-star hotel that's designed in the form of a sailboat, but they just can't compare to seeing it in person. I'm REALLY excited by this point, as there's only one way we can go at this point, and that pier is going to be right in line with the Burj Al Arab.

We walk down the pier, and I see the sign of the restaurant: "Pierchic." We're taken to our table, which sits right along the side of the man-made island, and waves roll right up to the under-side of the restaurant, where our table is. I discover from the menu that it's mainly a seafood restaurant, and there are lots of things I can't pronounce, and some of them I'm not even sure what they are. With a little help, I make my decision and we order our salads and dinners. The food is amazing, and the scenery around us is gorgeous. I don't think I've ever been in a "prettier" spot in my life.

The night was wonderful and I didn't want to leave at the end, but I was really happy that I didn't spoil the surprise by asking questions and begging for hints. I think the next time a "surprise" is in the works, I'll remember this and be content to let it play out as the surprise it should be. :)

Below: The pier we were walking down to get to the restaurant. The hotel you see here is the one we walked through to get to the golf cart, then drove through to get to the pier.

Below: We just sat down to dinner. You can't see very well behind us because the setting isn't set properly yet, but the Burj Al Arab is just behind me, in the upper left corner of the photo.
Below: Behind Raja, you can see another shot of the hotel we walked through to get to the pier. Below: water under the restaurant Below: Burj Al Arab... the lighting changes from purple to teal to pink, etc. Actually really pretty in person.

Below: Another view from our table. I just happily turned and snapped photos all thorugh dinner.. It was impossible not to!
I'm aware I have 70 photos of this hotel, but it's just too pretty!
And you guessed it.. more surprise cake! This was a mousse cake -- really light and fluffy! Diet was officially in "off" mode during this trip, in case you hadn't noticed. ;)

Above & Below: We stopped and took some pictures on the way back through the hotel grounds after dinner. You can't really see it in this photo (again), since the setting for night portraits and setting for buildings are different, but the Burj Al Arab is back there behind each of us in these photos.

2009-01-26T16:40:00.008+08:00

Post by: Beth

Just a few quick pics from our arrival into Dubai.

The Dubai airport is pristine.. It's much different from any airport I've been in before... Everything is white, shiny, and sparkly. It's also strangely quiet in the terminals and baggage areas; we found ourselves whispering and so as not to disturb the peace. The baggage belts are soundless... the luggage carts glide smoothly and noiselessly across the floor... and the security points are quick and efficient. It was quite a change from the cacophony that is Bombay's airport! ;)

Below are some pictures from our hotel, which is positioned in the new area of Dubai. There are new hotels everywhere and there are so many new buildings being constructed. We were conveniently located across the street from "The Dubai Mall," and right in the middle of many restaurants and area attractions.

Below are some pictures from the pool area at the hotel, and the view surrounding the pools.

Since our 1-year anniversary is only about a week away, we used this trip to celebrate that. It's a tiny bit early, but a holiday Monday meant an off-day for Raja, plus the Dubai Shopping Festival is going on now. Raja had a couple surprises arranged for the trip, starting with a cake and fruit basket delivered to our room on our first night. Yummy!

More to come soon from our Dubai trip... :) Hope everyone is well!

" 'Home' wasn't built in a day."

2009-01-20T17:53:00.008+08:00

Post by: Beth

One of the most difficult parts in the beginning, for us anyway, about living in India was literally... living in India. We stayed in a hotel for a couple of weeks upon arrival, until we'd had time to look at apartments and pick the one we wanted for our stay. Once we found the proper apartment, it was time to move in (what an adventure THAT was!) and actually furnish it. It was essentially just a shell to start with -- exposed light fixtures, stickers still on windows, no kitchen cabinets initially, etc. Making our home here was quite a bit of work and we pretty much devoted about a month to making our apartment actually FEEL like "ours."

Many stories along the way are really comical. Things are just done differently here when moving into a new home, and you really have to drop all expectations of what you're used to in America... otherwise, you'll just suffer, and badly. Most of you probably saw the blog post about the internet "installation" that took place from our living room window. I'm not kidding when I say that this is how many of the processes went after our move. For example, a guy came to hang our bathroom light one day and after his installation, he motioned me into the bathroom to inspect the job. I flipped on the light and to my surprise, the light flickered constantly... on, off, on, off, on, off. I looked at the worker questioningly and he nodded his head from side to side, smiling with pride, asking "thik hai???," which means "ok???" in Hindi? I shook my head and said "No thik hai," and opened and closed my fists rapidly, to signal a flashing light. He said "on, off, on, off??" I said "Haan" ("yes" in Hindi) and he promptly began the re-install. Luckily, it went better this time and his proud smile was actually warranted. This was my daily routine, more or less, for about 3 weeks. Raja finally took to standing over and actually watching them do the job on the weekends .. literally just standing and watching and making sure no one left until lights didn't flash, curtain rods were hung straight, and cabinet doors actually opened and closed.

Eventually, little by little, the major things got marked off the list. We now had our kitchen cabinets and drawers.. we had curtain rods and light fixtures.. we also had proper living and dining room furniture. Then came the fun stuff... We spent hours and hours scouring art galleries, climbing over dusty antiques in Chor Bazaar, picking out the softest towels we could find in Shopper's Stop, communicating in broken Hindi & English in plant nurseries, drawing furniture plans, picking out wall hangings in home shows... And finally, things started coming together. We'd scheduled a major repainting of the walls and trims since so much furniture had come in and out, and the painting got done while Raja was visiting Delhi and I was still in America. So when Raja got back into Bombay, he did some last minute finishings by buying more plants, having the final drapes hung, making sure all of the artwork and hangings were hung, etc. When I got back and saw our apartment, it was much less a work-in-progess and actually felt like a real home! It looked like a different place and it's so nice to come home to now.

Since everything is finally all set (for the most part), we wanted to take some pictures to show our family & friends where we live. We still laugh about some of the things, all in good fun, but overall, we're really happy with how our work paid off. :)

Above: living room

Curtain pattern in living room windows

Art that hangs over the couch

Dining room area ... it's connected to the living room space

Bamboo is really easy to find here!

Kitchen... very traditionally Indian. Every cupboard, shelf, etc made by hand.. sloowwllly.. ;)

Hallway sink.. note the swan figure on the mirror. This must be quite popular in India, as the landlord was so proud of the "fancy mirror" that was installed here. We laughed, but it's not so bad once we're used to it. It sort of grew on us! ;)

Curtain pattern in bedroom windows

"The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win."

2009-01-19T17:21:00.006+08:00

Post by: Beth

I never imagined that I'd one day be able to see the Mumbai Marathon, but here we were, getting up at 5:30am on Sunday morning to head to South Mumbai for the start of this annual race! CHIP Mumbai - the NGO for which I volunteer - had several of their team members running, so some of the staff & volunteers gathered to support them. It was such a cool experience to just sit and take it all in. Some participants walked a short distance and carried signs for organizations for which they'd raised money... many participants carried flags and anti-terrorism signs... other participants ran for the love of running and had been training for months to complete a half or full marathon. It was as chaotic and exciting as most things in Mumbai, and I feel so fortunate we got to experience this event.

(Above are some of the CHIP staff and volunteer members.)

"Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one." -Dr. Seuss

2009-01-19T16:36:00.006+08:00

Post by: Beth

I know it's been a while since we posted, but we have just been incredibly busy! I spent a month at home over the Thanksgiving holidays and came back to Bombay on Christmas Eve. Since I stepped off the plane, it's really been a whirlwind and we've barely had time to sleep! We're really enjoying our time in India, and I have to say that the city of Bombay continues to grown on us each and every day. Along with work, volunteering, and the usually daily tasks, we've been able to do lots of fun things... so despite the lack of posts, I do still have photos, and am happy to finally get to blog some of them! My posts may be a little shorter for a bit due to being so busy, but I'm sure some of you will actually really appreciate fewer words and more photos. :)

Recently, Kristen's sister, Kimberly (yes they are twins.. I literally cannot tell them apart) got to visit Bombay for about 10 days. For much of the trip, they stayed at the JW Marriott and this came with the great benefit of being able to wear a real bathing suit next to a swimming pool --- Believe it or not, despite the oceans and heat in India, this is a rare treat! We hung out for 3 or 4 days at the pool and it was so relaxing and nice. Raja and Beej even got to join us one day since they were off work for a holiday!

Beej's parents have also been in town visiting from the States, so one night was devoted to meeting them over dinner. A large group of us went to "Oh! Calcutta," which is a traditional Bengali restaurant in South Bombay. The food was great and seemed never-ending, and it was nice to meet Beej's family and spend time with friends.

Gateway of India / Taj Mahal Palace

2009-01-19T16:13:00.005+08:00

"Cooking may be as much a means of self-expression as any of the arts."

2008-11-21T13:27:00.008+08:00

Post by: Beth

NOTE: 3 posts so far today... trying to get caught up before my trip home where I'm sure I'll take many more photos! :) This is the first of three.. keep scrolling for the others.

For every challenge presented to us in India, there is a unique experience that serves as a balance and keeps our little life here moving in a forward motion. The chance to make friends and learn more about the area has brought along the opportunity to try different things, and I hope to take advantage of these more and more during our time here.

I'd been planning to visit the city of Powai as one of my friends, Sarah, lives there. Sarah and I met at an American Women's Club coffee morning and shortly after, she came to Bandra for an afternoon to visit and see the area. We immediately planned a day's trip for me to Powai, which is about an hour away by car. A few days before my scheduled trip, Sarah emailed me and said she'd found out about a Rajasthani cooking class that would be taking place in the hotel next to hers, on the day I was planning to go see her! We enrolled right away and were excited to see how this would pan out.

When we arrived, we learned that this class only had 2 people, so we would be able to receive pretty personalized attention. We met our chef, Bhairav Singh Rajput , and he was immediately welcoming and so friendly, despite the high designation of Master Chef and a long list of accomplishments under his belt. We got started right away, with a book of about 7 recipes he was going to make while we watched, helped, and asked questions. All of the dishes were authentic Rajasthani dishes, and it was so much fun to watch how many spices and flavors he used in the recipes. He made a small portion of each dish so we could learn, and Sarah and I got to try everything as we went along.

After about 2 hours of cooking, we'd made small portions of all the dishes and it was time for lunch! We were carried to the bar area where a mixologist taught us how to make a traditional Rajasthani cocktail, and Chef Bhairav cooked our lunch. After the cocktail lesson, it was time to eat, and Chef Bhairav came out and sat with us and chatted while we ate. All of the apprentices, waiters, and assistants were so nice to us during our lesson and meal, and it was a great experience. They offer a different type of class each month, so maybe we'll get to go back and learn a different style of cooking as well. :)

Here are some photos from our day:

"I got stuck in paradise; I'm free in my head..."

2008-11-21T12:11:00.008+08:00

Post by: Beth

*NOTE: multiple posts today... make sure you scroll down past the first post to get caught up!

Goa might well be the most relaxing place I've ever vacationed. There's a very strong emphasis on service in this beach town, and the attitude towards customers seems to be "Don't move.. We'll come to you." From little shops and stalls built in the sand, to beach shacks that bring your food as you lounge in chairs on the water's edge, you can pretty much get anything you want without stepping away from the sand.

This is one of the shops that is built on the beach. We bought some thin blankets to lay on our sunbeds and some towels from these women. It's not a "fixed price" store... There are no prices on anything, and the whole idea is to bargain with them until a price point is reached. The price scale for fabric goods in India is WAY lower than in America, and most shop clerks know that American tourists/visitors are used to paying a much higher price for these items. Because of this, Kristen and I are absolute magnets for shop clerks, peddlers, and store owners. To them, white skin equates with a high profit margin, so they can't wait to show foreigners their products in hopes of making a sale. This turns into a fun game for Raja and Beej, who enjoy the challenge of the bargaining process.

There are many girls and ladies that walk up and down the beaches offering you different amenities. Some offer massages, others manicures and pedicures. Their prices (after the bargaining) are unheard of by American standards, so it's a great way to take advantage of these fun experiences. These two women in the pictures above (look how beautiful they are.. they're stunning in person!) were so sweet and fun to talk to... The girl in the yellow is 17, and the girl in the pink is 21. They walk up and down the beaches all day offering manicures and pedicures. The quality of their trade skills was questionable, but the experience was really fun. As Beej said... "They're beautiful girls and very nice... but they really shouldn't be 'in manicure.' " ;)

The picture above is from one of our dinners on the beach. Beej and Kristen have been coming to Goa for a while, so they have favorite beach shacks picked out. The above waiters are from a shack called "Lucky Star" and their food is REALLY good. Mostly serving traditional Goan and Indian food, there's a huge menu, and they have yummy chicken korma, lucky for me!! We usually got to dinner around 6pm and stayed a long time to watch the sunset bring evening.

Above, here's a view of our table during one of our lunches at a beach shack.

This was printed in one of our menus when we were ordering lunch one day. It totally goes with the Goan attitude of "Whatever... whenever... no big deal." They are flat out telling you that this is going to take a while. When eating at these beach shacks, the food always takes a REALLY long time to arrive. None of the visitors really care, because you're just sitting on the beach relaxing, with nothing else to do. Beej and Kristen had given us a heads up about the wait for food, and we all finally asked one of the shack owners for the reason behind the typical wait at these beach shacks. It turns out that since they're built in the sand, they don't have any cold storage supplies, like fridges or freezers. Which means that every menu, no matter how extensive, offers only food that can be cooked fresh, rather than thawing or warming up preserved and frozen goods. It made sense after hearing this... It explains why you may wait a while for food, but once you get it, it's so yummy and fresh-tasting and hot!

And of course, most of our days were spent lying on sunbeds or playing near the water. We brought books, magazines, cards, ipod docking stations... whatever we wanted to do that day to fill up our days of relaxation. Such a fun time to be able to just hang out with friends and talk all day, play cards, listen to music on the beach... It's definitely one of the most laid-back, low stress vacations I've been on. Truly feels like a paradise... :)

"Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going to fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why."

2008-11-21T11:46:00.006+08:00

Post by: Beth

Here are some more pictures of our trip to Goa... The next shots are mostly just the scenery around the area, which is gorgeous! No matter what time of day -- morning, noon, or night-- the sky, water, and sands were beautiful, and the views almost automatically slow you down and force you to enjoy. It's nearly impossible to feel hurried or pressed for time when you're surrounded by the never-ending ocean, miles and miles of sand, and a sun that rises and drops with such grace.

"A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic." - Max von Sydow

2008-11-11T14:20:00.011+08:00

Post by: Beth

When we learned that Bombay would be our next destination for Raja's rotational program, people familiar with India promptly began urging us to visit the vacation destination known as Goa. Our location made it a perfect pick for our first weekend trip, as it's only a 45 minute flight. There was a holiday approaching, so Raja and I began making plans with our friends, Beej & Kristen, to go for the long weekend. (Funny story: The very first day we met Beej and Kristen, Beej said "You guys have never been to Goa? We should do Goa together." And 3 weeks after that expat brunch... there we were, planning to do Goa together. That's how you know you've made good friends!)

Kristen & Beej have been visiting the area for a few years so are familiar with hotels, beach areas, restaurants to visit, and so on and so on. Raja and Beej teamed up and started looking for a place to stay, and much to their surprise, most of the town was booked solid due to the long holiday weekend. They had to start looking for options that were unchartered territory for Beej & Kristen, which is a bit scary in a place like India. When you see a company's "website," or hear an advertisement, you can pretty much rest assured that what you see and what you hear is NOT going to be what you get. Nevertheless, they found a place and booked tickets, and we were headed to the airport for a 5am Thursday departure to Goa!

The flight was incredibly quick, and before long, we were at Goa's airport. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief when we saw a responsible-looking driver holding a sign that read "Casa Maya - Goa," which was the name of the villa we ended up renting. If there's a driver for the villa, there must really be a villa, yes?? Here we are at the airport and packing our luggage into the car that would take us to our villa.

After about 40 minutes of driving, we arrived to Candolim Beach area, which is where we were staying. Another collective sigh of relief when we saw our villa. It a) actually existed and b) was actually pretty nice. We had no idea what to expect by booking sites unseen in India, so we were pretty happy with our situation's outcome.

This is the entrance to the villa.. The den/living area is on the left, there's one bedroom directly to the right, and you can sort of see into the other bedroom in this picture.

This is the outside patio area.. We ate breakfast here each morning, as well as held a cookout here later in the weekend (stay tuned for THOSE pictures.. they're hilarious).

Here's the pool area, and below you can see the sunbeds. There was also a roof terrace with more sunbeds, but we didn't even spend anytime up there since we spent so much time at the beach.

The lady in the red shirt is Maria. She lives at the villa 24/7 and does the cooking, cleaning, maintenance schedules, grocery shopping, etc. She is such a sweet woman and really made the house feel like a home.

This is the kitchen area through this window.

And here we are relaxing on the patio one morning before heading to the beach.

We spent pretty much all day, every day, relaxing on the beach... We typically only wandered far enough from the water to eat at beach shacks that lined the sand. Most dinners took place in beach shacks as well, and it was so great to sit in a cane-chair eating dinner and watching the sunset. We got to see the sunset each evening, and it's a beautiful time of day in Goa. I took about a dozen photos of the sunsets and Kristen took equally as many, I think. Here are some of my favorites:

More to come from Goa later, but that's about enough blogging for today. :) Hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for reading our blog!

"Who can feel poor when the sails are full and the spirit is full?"

2008-11-10T03:27:00.012+08:00

Post by: Beth

A couple of weeks ago, I got to see the famous Gateway of India, which is a major landmark and tourist site in Bombay. I'd heard Mr. Gupta talk of this, and he kept asking me if we'd seen this yet. I had no idea what the big fuss was all about (I'm not entirely educated on landmarks in Bombay, but I'm getting better!) and I'm not big on major tourist attractions, museums, famous statues, etc. Needless to say, I hadn't seen this Gateway of India. That all changed when we got a Facebook invite (thank you, Stacie!) to "take an evening boat tour, complete with drinks and dancing, launching from the Gateway of India!" I may not care much for huge tourist traps, but I certainly am up for any "evening boat tours." I immediately badgered Raja into texting our friends, Beej and Kristen, to let them know that I simply was not missing any "evening boat tour" in India. Luckily for us, they're flexible, and they were up for the boat, so off we went on a Saturday night, all the way down to South Bombay and the great Gateway of India.

We boarded the boat after meeting with friends for dinner, and I was very excited and actually impressed with this Gateway of India. It's a huge arch located on the waterfront, and is the monument that earlier people saw first when arriving to the (literal) lands of Bombay. It's quite impressive in person. Unfortunately, I can't really prove that since being on a moving boat didn't lend itself to still pictures of such a lit up monument at night. In lieu of any of my blurry photos, here's a professional shot so you can see what it REALLY looks like.

Before too long, the boat pushed away from the dock and we were coasting along the waterway. Gorgeous night, and after we'd traveled for a while, it was so pretty to look back on land and see all the lights sparkling from the city. The land pictures turned out a bit blurry of course since we were constantly moving, but at least one turned out decently enough to see the view.

It was a great trip... The boat took us out about an hour, turned around and came back to land to drop off anyone that wanted to return to the city, and then followed the same path back out again for those that wanted to continue. Of course we stayed on, and we had a great time.

Also notable and very exciting for me: I got to see Orion's Belt, which (if you're not familiar) is a constellation also known as "The Hunter" due to the sword hanging from a "belt" made of 3 bright stars in a line. Of course no pictures because it's just impossible to take a flash digital photo of a constellation, but it was really amazing to see and I'm glad Raja knows his constellations well enough to point it out to us. One of the best parts of being that far out in the water is all the stars that are visible... It makes you realize what you sometimes miss by living in such large cities.

After we arrived back at land, everyone was hungry and some of our friends that have lived here longer knew of a place to get food so late at night. The place was called "Bademiya" and its a roadside restaurant well known for late night eating. It's been in business for almost 70 years and is a local favorite. Several men bring around tiny paper menus with all of these rolls and kebabs listed. Each one is either a meat, a vegetable, or a combination of the two, wrapped in a thin type of bread similar to a roti. I was a bit unsure about whether this was okay for me to eat or not, so I only took a few bites, but Raja and Beej had their fair share. The workers make these rolls and kebabs really, really quickly and they have a system down that apparently works pretty flawlessly night after night. From the little bit I had, the rolls were actually pretty good, and Raja definitely didn't leave any to spare so he can vouch for them.

These nights are so fun... Where you just see all kinds of things that are so different from what I've seen anywhere in the States. Sometimes I really miss the U.S. and the familiar... what seems normal and simple, but India definitely has its charms. :)