Stay Classy San Diego

Having been home for a week, I've decided it's time to sign out. As I'm no longer in India or traveling, it's time to shut 'er off. I have been meaning to blog about Bangalore, the Maldives, and Bangkok so this final post will be pretty scattered. My time in India had its ups and downs, but the one lesson I've learned is the value of relationships, in all its forms. There is a lot of love and kindness in the world, and the people I've met and my old friends have inspired me to be kinder and more generous. There is never a reason not to be nice to someone, even if the other person doesn't recognize or reciprocate, the world could always use a little more kindness. Both new friends and old have been so kind and generous with me, I hope I can be as supportive to them as they have to me.

On to Bangalore. This trip was with a friend who visited earlier in the year, I just never got around to blogging about it. To be honest we didn't do much in Bangalore, although the exciting highlight was Taco Bell! When my friend first told me about Taco Bell in Bangalore I was so excited. Then I remembered it's India so I asked if there's beef, to which the response was a sheepish, "There's chicken!" I was a little bummed but when I actually had the chicken tacos and the nachos, it hit the spot.

My new favorite place on earth is the Maldives. Having grown up in San Diego, I'm a little bit of a beach snob. A beach as a vacation destination is not enough, it should be a really pretty beach with turquoise water and white sand. I've only been to two beaches that I would call actual beach destinations: Maui and Nice, France. Planning our trip to the Maldives with friends, I knew the beaches wouldn't disappoint. And they didn't. The Maldives are utterly stunning, with turquoise water and white sand. I also love when the water changes from a rich turquoise to deep blue as the ocean floor drops off. The Maldives had that too. It was amazing. After flying into Male, we had to take a 20 minute speedboat ride to the resort, which was its own island. My very generous friends covered our stay at the resort with their free hotel nights, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford the Maldivian experience. The next five days were spent eating, sleeping on the beach, snorkeling along the different coral reefs, and wakeboarding. All in all, it was pretty effing amazing.

Water bungalows.

Stairs directly into the ocean.

Back balcony.

Sharks!

From there we went on to Bangkok. Another generous friend put us up in the Grand Hyatt, I didn't do so bad on this vacation as an NGO worker. We had suites and access to the Grand Lounge with free drinks and food. Later he also gifted us a spa afternoon and I got a nice massage, scrub, and mani/pedi. (I mean seriously don't I have the most awesome friends? I really am a very lucky girl.) We went to the crazy weekend market and got Thai massages everyday. We also hit up the red light district of course. But I think my favorite part was going with all my friends to the bespoke tailor. Bespoke clothing in Bangkok is pretty cheap so my friends decided to stock up on dress shirts and suits. I was planning on maybe going sightseeing or shopping while they were there but they asked me to come for some consulting. I was ok with that but it turned out to be so much fun! Getting to choose the colors of the shirts and suits, as well as giving input on general design as well as analyzing fit is my dream come true. The only way it could have been more fun is if I was buying clothes for myself.

Delicious curry crab.

Soi Cowboy

Grand Palace

So now I've been home for a week, and I'm really happy to be back. I've been feeding my Nordstrom habit, and was greeted by the Zappos shoes I bought while in India. (Though now I have to find a place to put all my shoes.) I've also checked off In N Out, Mexican food, ramen,  and Korean food off my list. I still need to hit up IHOP, Taco Bell, and sushi. I've started sewing again, and I'm almost done with a dress already! But again, I'm happy to see old friends and faces. It's been really great to see people who have had my back this whole time. I'm so blessed to be surrounded by so much love and support.

Truly Thankful

So it's been a while, I've been busy. Every so often my stomach gets a little upset but it passes. Beginning in early November I had another round, and I thought it was great to lose a little weight, but this time it didn't go away for more than two weeks. After it got to the point of not being able to hold anything I ate, I decided I should go to the hospital (yes I probably should have gone earlier). So the doctor says I can be admitted to the hospital now for five days, or wait two days until my test results came back and probably have to be admitted for five days after that. I knew my friends were coming to visit in a week and I wanted to get better before they got here. Plus my great American friend was cooking a Thanksgiving feast and I had been looking forward to her amazing cooking. So I decided to get admitted to the hospital then and there. I mean I didn't want to eat or even drink water because it was so painful. Turns out I had E. coli and I had Dengue fever (pretty much worse than malaria). Since I have health insurance under VSO, I got the clear to stay in the swanky private room. However when I came to be admitted, the private room was unavailable so I started out in the ward. It really wasn't fun. I guess seeing a foreign girl in a hospital is new to most Indians so I had about 30 pairs of eyes on me the whole time I was there. Plus there were no fans or A/C. Plus you're just in the hospital. So I made a few calls to my allies (you need to have allies in India who can throw some weight around) and they came to my rescue. They brought me food, visited with me for a few hours, and made sure I got my private room. I am so grateful because I had a TV, ensuite bathroom, and A/C! The hospital I was in didn't have a cafeteria, plus most hospital food isn't know for being great. So this is the best. My friends brought every meal for me and visited me. One friend brought me a goody basket made out of a Corn Flakes box with many issues of OK! magazine, plus tons of food goodies. After five days of sleepless nights and a constant IV (turns out it might take my hands up to one month to heal because of the IVs and my Dengue), I was released. My friend insisted I stay with her for the two nights before I had to meet my friends to rest up for my trip. I mean the hospital part sucked, but man I am totally blown away by the generosity and kindness of my friends. I haven't been here very long, and they know I am not going to stay much longer but they cooked gourmet meals for me, brought meals to the hospital, and stayed to keep my company while I was cranky and incoherent. I'll admit that I had become pretty jaded at my circumstances and with people, but I am just so touched by these friends, they have really restored my faith in people and the love that's out there. I can never fully express my gratitude for their kindness, company, and support through a difficult time away from home.

Apple pie, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin cake for Thanksgiving dessert!

Viva La Singapore, Mumbai Edition

Back in Mumbai, we had another extravagant weekend of food and drink, but this time in Mumbai. And yes this included going out in Mumbai, which I never thought I would do but turned out to be a lot of fun! So after my most exciting ride on the train to date, I arrived at the very nice Ramada on Juhu Beach. This was quite the departure from my more simple life as an NGO worker. After getting ready we hit up Rock Bottom, though the name was a little intimidating, it was nice and really happenin. I saw lots of young Indian people drinking and wearing western clothes, something that was a shock to my new conservative sensibilities. My favorite part of the night was probably the DJ. I have been itching to hear and dance to American pop music for months now, and that’s what I got! It was great. So at about 1AM the club shut down, but there was an after-party upstairs! Wow! So after some more dancing, we were exhausted and collapsed in our nice Ramada hotel room.

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed to make it to the breakfast buffet. Which was delicious of course. Then onto Juhu Beach. After making the rounds on the beach, and getting some coconut water, we decided to head down to the Fort area. From there we had our first extravagant meal. And it was amazing. Peppered fish and squid, so good.

Lots of people hanging out at Juhu Beach.

$35 meal in Mumbai! But so, so good.

From there we wandered to Colaba and through the Taj Mahal hotel and eventually found ourselves at Leopold’s. Turns out Leopold’s has a second-story bar I never knew about. Tons of expats of course. Then we called it a night.

The next morning was delicious vegetarian thalis. Then we did some actual Mumbai stuff and saw dhobi ghat. After a nice stroll through Chor Bazaar, where we discovered a new sect of Islam, we decided it was too hot and sunny to stay outside and went to the Intercontinental on Marine Drive. The rooftop bar had beautiful views. After watching the sunset we headed back south to get kebabs. And of course those were delicious too. That was the end of our gluttonous weekend in Mumbai, and I probably gained about 8 pounds.

Vegetarian thalis with dosa (not pictured.)

Dhobi ghat.

Lonely guy in dhobi ghat.

View of Marine Drive right before sunset.

View of Marine Drive right after sunset.

Kebabs! It's just a stand on this side street.

But you can't miss it because there are lots of people milling around.

Viva La Singapore, My Deadliest Sin: Gluttony

I just returned from a four day whirlwind trip to Singapore, and I had an amazing time. The newness and the buildings of Singapore remind me of the over-the-top feel of Vegas buildings, plus I was a little indulgent. I had been looking forward to the trip for a few weeks for several reasons, most significantly for food and drink (I live in a dry city). And Singapore did not disappoint. I arrived very early Thursday morning and slept until the afternoon. First up: Korean BBQ buffet. I’ve had Korean BBQ many times, but never a buffet of meat where you choose the quantity of every type of meat you want to grill. The restaurant also had some non-meat Korean items which hit the spot for my Korean cravings. Anyway after we stuffed ourselves, we went out for drinks. Drinks in Singapore are ridiculously expensive. Like, really expensive. I’m a lightweight so it’s not a huge deal, but it’s still pricey. My lychee martini was SGD 18, which is about $14. Yea, ridiculous. Anyway we had drinks and I also checked off the next item on my food list: waffles covered in chocolate and fresh strawberries. It was delicious. After debating whether to stay out later, we ended up going home and watching Arrested Development in celebration of the new episodes. We rested up for night #2.

Korean BBQ

After about 4 hours of sleep, I woke up to go to the American embassy to pick up our passports. We had gone the day earlier because we both needed to add more pages to our passports. After that, I shopped in the Orchard area. I went a little crazy; it had been so long since I had been in a Western style mall. Shops in India generally don’t have many Western clothes, and the ones they have aren’t very fashion-forward. That and for some reason they only have like one or two of each item of clothing. The Singapore stores were overflowing with really cute shirts, dresses, and SHOES! I went pretty crazy on the shoes. I spent about two hours in the first store I went to trying on shoes, and forced myself to only buy two pairs. From there we went to sushi. Again, absolutely delicious. I also had udon and donkatsu to make sure I got my fill of Japanese food. From there, more shopping. About 4 more hours of shopping. Then, more Korean food. I love soondubu, it’s my favorite restaurant food. So my friend did some research and we ended up at a restaurant with good soondubu. Then onward to home to shower and go out for the night. We met up with my friend’s friend, and his friends, and went to Zouk, where apparently a big-name DJ from Japan was spinning. That’s cool. My friend’s friend’s friends left at around 4AM to make their 7AM flight (crazy people!) and we went on to a bar for a few more drinks.

 After about an hour of sleep, I force myself awake so we can make our 8:30AM bus to Melaka. I pretty much am a zombie through most of the sight-seeing we did, but we had some good Malay food and satay for dinner. We had planned on seeing the Kung Fu Doctor, this amazing kung fu master who swallows knives and can pierce a coconut shell with his finger. However it started raining pretty heavily so the night market was not very lively. We ended up at a bar (surprise!) where I got some amazing apple pie, check. From there we wandered a few more bars and made it to the hotel.

Trishaws in Melaka.

After my longest night of sleep, 6 hours, we get up to catch our bus back to Singapore. I had a quarter pounder at McDonalds (more meat!), then slept a little while we made our way into Singapore. After a little respite at home, we had ramen at Ramen Challenge. There were six ramen iron chefs from Japan who set up shop in a part of a mall. The chef with the most votes wins the Ramen Challenge gets to set up a restaurant in Singapore. Needless to say, the ramen was delicious. Then onto a building that looks like it’s from Gotham where we had a drink at its beautiful bar. The last stop of the weekend was a bar on the river where we passed out on a daybed while sipping Singapore Slings.

Ramen!

Ok so maybe I didn’t see much of Singapore, but I did have a nice break from my daily grind. I am predictably exhausted and wondering when I can make it out to Singapore again.

View from our daybed at Lantern.

My First Monsoon, I’m a Real Indian Now

After a few posts on traveling, I decided to write about my roots. After months of downpours and cloudy skies, I saw the sun for the first time.  It was great! I actually kind of forgot how bright it could be. This is cause for a celebration of another milestone, I’ve survived my first monsoon. I loved the monsoon, when I didn’t have to go outside. But I loved listening to the rain and the way it would wash my feet when they inevitably got dirty from walking on the street. It made the once brown and dead fields lush and green, right now everything looks like a rain forest and it’s so pretty! The rain also helped keep the dust down so now my eyes are itchy and watery as ever. But it’s still nice to see the sun. This also means that the solar-powered water heater for my building is also seeing sun which means no more ice cold, but lukewarm showers! I am really living the life now. This also means my laundry will get some warm water too. Laundry probably means something different to me than it does to you. I remember being lazy and piling up a month’s worth of laundry and doing five loads over two days. I now do about two loads every week. Laundry consists of soaking my clothes in water, and then wringing them out to get the excess dirt out. Then it requires a nice beatdown with a bar of detergent. From there it soaks in detergent water overnight. Then I have to manually rinse all the detergent out of the clothes, which is the most time-consuming part. What I usually do is squeeze all the soapy water out of the clothes that I can, and then soak them in water, and then squeeze out all the soapy water again. I do about four or five iterations of this until the water in the bucket is absolutely clear. Then I leave the clothes in regular water for about an hour to get the detergent smell out of them and wring them one last time before finding creative ways to hang them in my bathroom. Once they have been hanging in the bathroom for a few hours, they have stopped dripping and I move them out to my kitchen area where there is a long bar that I use to hang the clothes for the next day while they dry completely. One load of laundry takes about three days from start until being completely dry to wear. So I have to plan, running low on underwear now means only having a week’s worth left. I don’t mind it, I actually enjoy it and I feel that there is a lot of energy and water wasted with washing machines and dryers. But don’t get me wrong I will be using those appliances when I get home. I just think it adds to my Indian cred.

The second thing about Indian cred is using public transport. I’ve written before that the bus numbers are in Hindi script and they don’t really stop so you have to know and commit to getting on the bus while it’s still moving. I live near a small mall, but there is a really large one about ten miles away. It has nice stores and good restaurants. So if I need something Western, or am looking for good food, or just want to kill a few hours I make my way over there. I also usually meet friends there for the same reasons. Thus I developed the habit of going over there pretty regularly, and usually by auto or taxi. This costs about Rs. 250 each way, which is $5. Not so bad for a 20 minute ride. But this has been eating into my meager stipend so I decided I would get there by public transport. For me that means I still take an auto to the train station, take the train, and then take another auto at my destination. But I decided I was going to go at it totally Indian style. So I walked out to the point where I usually get my auto because I knew the bus goes by there. The bus started rolling up and I decided to hop on. Indians are so nice, and I knew people would help me if I asked for help. Sometimes I get help without asking for it too! Anyway I asked “rail station?” and the fare collector bobbed yes and I paid my Rs. 4 for my ride to the train station. That’s 8 cents. I got to the train station and was debating whether I should pay for a roundtrip rail ticket because I might change my mind and still come home by cab. Well each way costs Rs. 7 so I would only lose about 14 cents if I changed my mind later. So I decided to get the Rs. 14 roundtrip and spent the next half hour on the train. I got off at the rail station, and I did my research beforehand so I knew I could just walk to the mall. After my shopping, I decided I would take the train back home. I walked back to the train station, took the train, and then took the bus home. We were squeezed like sardines on the bus, and I prepared to get off at my stop. Well the fare collector didn’t have a chance to get to me so he didn’t know anybody had to get off at that stop, and the bus wasn’t slowing down. I made my way to the edge of the stairs, and once the bus slowed down at an intersection I jumped off. Well when I jumped it turns out the bus started moving again so I actually jumped off a moving bus. I was fine though and made my way home. I spent Rs. 19 to get to and from the mall I usually spend Rs. 500 getting to and from. I was grinning while walking home because I did it! I felt authentic and that I accomplished what I set out to do. Part of being here is to have the real Indian experience, and taking air-conditioned cabs just made me feel a little like a fraud and elitist. But now I can navigate the public transport with the best of them. Plus it helps knowing that people will have your back.

Expats and the Monsoon

Before coming to India I told myself I would make an effort to make friends with locals and limit the number of American friends I had. After leaving France I wish I had spent more time with French people and made some French friends. Part of an international experience is making international friends and speaking the language right? Well in India I have found it a little harder to make local friends. Firstly, men and women don’t usually hang out together so that eliminates half the population. Because of this, I’ve found that their attitude and interaction toward me tends to feel awkward and uncomfortable. I’m thinking that if single men only associate with women for romantic reasons, then that’s the way they are accustomed to interacting with women. Also, I’ve found that our interests and preferred topics of conversation don’t usually align so that is another obstacle to overcome. Anyway so that leaves women. But walking around India you will notice there are very few women just walking around outside. Add to this the same difficulty with topics of conversation and language and there is a real difficulty in meeting people.

After spending the day working with locals, I’ve decided that it won’t be so bad to have some expat friends here. It’s not France where I would spend class time and free time with Americans, here I can spend work time with locals and free time with Americans. So I’ve found a great group of women, all who are here because their husbands are here for work. This is the main difference between us but it’s been great talking with people who are going through the lifestyle changes I am. One of them is an American who has opened a shelter for street children (www.tenderhands.org). The best part may be that she also runs an American bakery, the proceeds from which benefit the shelter. This bakery is amazing, I have been missing American desserts the whole time I’ve been here and now I get to treat myself to the cupcakes, pies, and cookies I’ve been missing. I get a taste of home and supporting a good cause. Can’t get much better.

Otherwise the legendary monsoon has arrived. I was told the first couple days would be worse than the heat because it would be combined with the rain, making you feel like you’re in a steam room. But, knock on wood, it is now very cool. The cloud cover provides a buffer for the heat and there is a very refreshing cool breeze that comes with the rain. The only down side to the rain is that all the streets are muddy and going anywhere will mean you get soaked. Oh well, so far I am enjoying the relief from the heat. Hopefully I won’t be discouraged to do my regular grocery shopping. My coworker told me which shoes to buy for the monsoon. When we think of footwear for the rain we think of rain boots and galoshes so that our feet and clothes stay dry. He told me I should buy sandals made out of either rubber or plastic that have straps both around my foot and heel. The sandals are so that your feet will dry more quickly once you get out of the rain, and the rubber and plastic is so your shoes will also dry. Most shoes here are sandals, and most of these sandals only have on strap going across the top of your foot. However it is important to have these two sets of straps because when you walk on the streets, the water and mud levels will rise, and you risk getting your shoes stuck at each step because of the mud. Thus, the two straps will secure the shoes to your feet, and your feet, shoes, and pants will dry with the mud caked on them. I love the approach. In the States we avoid getting wet at all, with galoshes that sometimes go up to our knees or higher, and making sure we tuck our pants in. In India, you know you’re going to get wet, avoiding the water is almost impossible so face the problem head on and make preparations to make the aftermath easier. It’s great, I just need to get used to being muddy sometimes.

My awesome monsoon-proof shoes.

The view outside the entrance of where I work/live.