Jan. 24th 2009
Here I am sitting in a Starbucks in a Malaysian mall typing on my Mac. I feel strange here. First of all, I actually miss working. I have come to a time in my life that I want to be dedicating a majority of my energy to a project, to a cause, to the things I care about most. The only question is, what are the things that I care about most and where exactly can I go to focus on these things? The first thing that comes to mind... inside... it is what my dad would say. Ya ya, go inside, get clear and then the universe will provide the logistics as long as you do the “foot work”. So first step, am I clear? I love kids. I love teaching and watching someone learn. I love being around children who make no bones about being honest. I love photography. I love finding the shot that says something beautiful or meaningful in the place you least expect it. I love moving through the crowd or the event and seeing the thing that speaks to me and then capturing that in one single moment. I love yoga, running, dancing. I love breathing so much that I remember I have a body and that I can feel things. I love working with a team of inspired people. I love the energy of people who are creating something important and know that what they do makes a difference. I want to part of the solution for the human races’ evolution. So what is that? What “job” is that?
Do I have to go back to school to get that job? Will I like that job once I have been there for five years? Is it working for a magazine that deals with children/yoga/the evolving planet? Is it teaching at an International/Green School? I want to sink my teeth into this thing... whatever it is and I want to do it fast. I think that is my biggest problem I am feeling old at 28 because I don’t have this figured out... I am not even 28 yet... I still have six weeks for God’s sake! I make it sound like I am dead. It is like I feel stuck in honey and the only thing that is changing is my age. Weird! I am young, I have time, things change and I change with them, I am useful right in this moment on the planet and figuring this out is part of the whole journey... RELAX!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
It turns out that this post is about malls.
January 20th, 2009
Tonight included an Obama Inaugural Party for Democrats of Asia at the “Salsa Havana” Club in the oldest hotel of Kuala Lumpur, with Kenyan food served and free salsa dance lessons... say what?
Who says that four months and four days into our journey our blog couldn’t become current? We are in Kuala Lumpur otherwise known as KL. It is in Malaysia... just in case you didn’t know... because I didn’t. Malaysia is underneath Thailand and above Singapore. We just came from Singapore. Singapore is an island that is a city/country... which didn’t make much sense at first but after being there for four days I kinda get it. It is totally different than Malaysia and has enough going on to claim it’s country-ship. Both of these cities are super modern and beat Denver’s transit on any day of the week. I have to say that Americans, specifically myself are clueless to how modern Asia really is.
In KL specifically they have the tallest buildings in the world (or second tallest to Dubai... Steve is still doing research),
they have malls that are 8 floors high... and in Singapore you literally will see more malls than you will see pieces of trash....It is crazy! Although I am not a big mall fan, I have to say that Singapore has the coolest mall I have ever seen. It is called Vivo City and it is fully loaded with a lake on the top level of the mall, restaurants with a view of the ocean, a Swiss market replica restaurant, and a ridding track for rolling horses and other various animals...I could go on but basically Asia kicks our ass at malls...
Stay tuned... Steve and I shook today on our next goal of the journey...that is all I am giving you for now!
Tonight included an Obama Inaugural Party for Democrats of Asia at the “Salsa Havana” Club in the oldest hotel of Kuala Lumpur, with Kenyan food served and free salsa dance lessons... say what?
Who says that four months and four days into our journey our blog couldn’t become current? We are in Kuala Lumpur otherwise known as KL. It is in Malaysia... just in case you didn’t know... because I didn’t. Malaysia is underneath Thailand and above Singapore. We just came from Singapore. Singapore is an island that is a city/country... which didn’t make much sense at first but after being there for four days I kinda get it. It is totally different than Malaysia and has enough going on to claim it’s country-ship. Both of these cities are super modern and beat Denver’s transit on any day of the week. I have to say that Americans, specifically myself are clueless to how modern Asia really is.
In KL specifically they have the tallest buildings in the world (or second tallest to Dubai... Steve is still doing research),
they have malls that are 8 floors high... and in Singapore you literally will see more malls than you will see pieces of trash....It is crazy! Although I am not a big mall fan, I have to say that Singapore has the coolest mall I have ever seen. It is called Vivo City and it is fully loaded with a lake on the top level of the mall, restaurants with a view of the ocean, a Swiss market replica restaurant, and a ridding track for rolling horses and other various animals...I could go on but basically Asia kicks our ass at malls...
Stay tuned... Steve and I shook today on our next goal of the journey...that is all I am giving you for now!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Driving in India: Explained
In order to drive in India you must break down the act of driving into it’s most bare essentials. i.e. How wide is your car? and I don’t mean how wide is the lane or any broad guess, but exactly, to the inch(or centimeter in India). This is important because the exact width of your car is the
exact width of your “lane”... always. Every time you were driving in the West and you had that momentary burst of heart rate because that reckless bastard in the SUV almost ran into you, guess what?, they didn’t “almost hit you”. Not even close. In India they were hogging the lane. Driving up a pothole strewn mountain road with steep thousand foot drops and no guard rails while a brightly painted semi-truck bares down on you from the other direction will quickly teach you how narrow a real “two-lane” road is. If you aren’t rolling down a mountain than there is plenty of room.
These same bare essentials refer to other parts of traffic and driving as well. Speed limits are determined by how fast your car can hit one of the chasm’s that would terrify an American pothole without disintegrating the entire poorly made Indian vehicle (luckily the speed you can hit these potholes without destruction is, “not very fast”, or I’d be dead already).
Remember how the width of your car is the exact width of your lane. Now here’s the real kicker. The exact length of your car is the length of your lane. Take a moment to digest this. It means that two cars can be hurtling down the highway dodging cows dogs and donkeys simultaneously aiming for a direct head on collision with each driver calm and composed with the knowledge that they’re well within their lane.
In practice these few rules account for just about all of the rules of the Indian road. Oh, one last rule. DON’T HIT THE COWS. that’s it, all the rules. If this seems like too few rules to you, if you think the end result of the rules would be total chaos... then you are definitely correct. Good luck. Buckle-up... just kidding your car doesn’t have seat belts!
Back and Better Than Ever!
I guess most of you have noticed that we haven’t been blogging much in the past month/s. I could say that we’ve been overloaded, or too busy, but the truth is I am still unsure as to what topics I should even be writing about for a blog. So... luckily for you... I’m just going to rant I guess.
First off, second time in India is definitely the charm. Though India is still India, maybe it’s the South or maybe it’s our far more relaxed itinerary (read: no plans at all), but I’m really enjoying the chaos this time around. We just had a wonderful visit from my mother and my brother in the southern state of Kerala. Kerala is known for it’s labyrinth like canals that stretch from the middle of the state around Kochi all the way to the far southern state capital, Thiruvananthapuram (trying saying that 10 times fast, just kidding, you can’t say it at all). Us white people are thankfully aloud to use the colonial name Trivandrum. Anyway, Kerala is a completely lovely state, and, like most states in India, it has an entire language all it’s own called Malayalam, but as far as I know it’s the only language that is also a palindrome. We stayed in the Portuguese colonial town of Fort Cochin also known as Kochi, because every place in India has at least three names in order to confuse foreigners. Fort Cochin was very interesting because the city had one part that was all colonial buildings and white tourists, and another hidden side which Jasleen(Tara) and I discovered only after Evan and my mom left... sorry guys.
The touristy side had beautiful buildings and churches as well as an amazing line of Chinese Fishing Nets that make for a pretty amazing site backlit against the rising sun, while all the sinewy fisherman haul in net after net of sparkling fish/algae. We learned that we were visiting in the dry season so the fishing was not all that great, but the typically entrepreneurial fisherman also had a side business of inviting weakling tourists onto the fishing platform to give the whole process a try... for a small donation.
Because my Mom was in town, an additional aspect of Fort Cochin took on more importance... Shopping! Hooray! Ok, so those were sarcastic exclamation points. Though I’m not immune to the array of very cheap and beautiful trinkets, statues, shawls, rugs, etc. on sale, I am always very aware that my home’s square footage at the moments is the whopping 6 sq. ft. that is my backpack. Not much room for intricate teak carvings or bronze dancing Ganeshas in the 2 bags that make up all my major possessions in the world. Oh well, it was fun to shop vicariously through my Mom, and to a lesser extent through Evan. A quick side note: can anyone explain why practically all Indian shopkeepers are from Kashmir? I mean you can’t get much further from Kashmir in India than Kerala, but there they were, Kashmiri shop after Kashmiri shop. Anyway, they may be nonsensical, but they sure have great rugs, right Mom?
Jasleen and I discovered the hidden side of Fort Cochin when we took our long awaited walk to the synagogue in “Jew Town”(don’t be offended, I didn’t make it up). On the way there we moved further and further out of the tourist track and Jasleen summed up our local very well when she said, “It looks like we just landed in Bagdad!” Yah, it took only a 10-15 minute walk away from the tourist center to get from beautiful cafes and craft stores to middle-eastern war zone. However, despite the derelict buildings around us, there was something beautiful about the fading pastel paint on the buildings and the contrasting brightly Sunday sari’d woman passing by on their way to church. Sure most of the buildings didn’t have roofs, or had a pile of antiques (read: trash) under the stairs, but in a perfectly Indian way, all the entropy and seeming disrepair created a scene that in it’s entirety was as beautiful as any five-star colonial, neo-classically furnished restaurant.
K, that’s all for now... but I’ll actually be adding updating soon as we’re forcing ourselves to stay put until we actually make our blog something worth reading. Also, please enjoy the Driving in India explanation I wrote after our first trip through the sub-continent.
First off, second time in India is definitely the charm. Though India is still India, maybe it’s the South or maybe it’s our far more relaxed itinerary (read: no plans at all), but I’m really enjoying the chaos this time around. We just had a wonderful visit from my mother and my brother in the southern state of Kerala. Kerala is known for it’s labyrinth like canals that stretch from the middle of the state around Kochi all the way to the far southern state capital, Thiruvananthapuram (trying saying that 10 times fast, just kidding, you can’t say it at all). Us white people are thankfully aloud to use the colonial name Trivandrum. Anyway, Kerala is a completely lovely state, and, like most states in India, it has an entire language all it’s own called Malayalam, but as far as I know it’s the only language that is also a palindrome. We stayed in the Portuguese colonial town of Fort Cochin also known as Kochi, because every place in India has at least three names in order to confuse foreigners. Fort Cochin was very interesting because the city had one part that was all colonial buildings and white tourists, and another hidden side which Jasleen(Tara) and I discovered only after Evan and my mom left... sorry guys.
The touristy side had beautiful buildings and churches as well as an amazing line of Chinese Fishing Nets that make for a pretty amazing site backlit against the rising sun, while all the sinewy fisherman haul in net after net of sparkling fish/algae. We learned that we were visiting in the dry season so the fishing was not all that great, but the typically entrepreneurial fisherman also had a side business of inviting weakling tourists onto the fishing platform to give the whole process a try... for a small donation.
Because my Mom was in town, an additional aspect of Fort Cochin took on more importance... Shopping! Hooray! Ok, so those were sarcastic exclamation points. Though I’m not immune to the array of very cheap and beautiful trinkets, statues, shawls, rugs, etc. on sale, I am always very aware that my home’s square footage at the moments is the whopping 6 sq. ft. that is my backpack. Not much room for intricate teak carvings or bronze dancing Ganeshas in the 2 bags that make up all my major possessions in the world. Oh well, it was fun to shop vicariously through my Mom, and to a lesser extent through Evan. A quick side note: can anyone explain why practically all Indian shopkeepers are from Kashmir? I mean you can’t get much further from Kashmir in India than Kerala, but there they were, Kashmiri shop after Kashmiri shop. Anyway, they may be nonsensical, but they sure have great rugs, right Mom?
Jasleen and I discovered the hidden side of Fort Cochin when we took our long awaited walk to the synagogue in “Jew Town”(don’t be offended, I didn’t make it up). On the way there we moved further and further out of the tourist track and Jasleen summed up our local very well when she said, “It looks like we just landed in Bagdad!” Yah, it took only a 10-15 minute walk away from the tourist center to get from beautiful cafes and craft stores to middle-eastern war zone. However, despite the derelict buildings around us, there was something beautiful about the fading pastel paint on the buildings and the contrasting brightly Sunday sari’d woman passing by on their way to church. Sure most of the buildings didn’t have roofs, or had a pile of antiques (read: trash) under the stairs, but in a perfectly Indian way, all the entropy and seeming disrepair created a scene that in it’s entirety was as beautiful as any five-star colonial, neo-classically furnished restaurant.
K, that’s all for now... but I’ll actually be adding updating soon as we’re forcing ourselves to stay put until we actually make our blog something worth reading. Also, please enjoy the Driving in India explanation I wrote after our first trip through the sub-continent.
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