Thursday, January 17, 2008

The Token White Girl

Over the holiday break I stopped by my dad's house in Cali for literally a day. Since I was in town my dad decided it was a prime opportunity to get family pictures taken. Apparently this is "the family picture he always wanted" or so he kept saying during the photo shoot. As much as I love getting my picture taken I especially love family pictures where I stand out like a sore thumb. Luckily with the white background it isn't so obvious.His, hers and oh yeah that one child from his young, wild, mormon days (that would be me)!
Me and my Dad (precious)
Me and my bros Tones and Mateos
My favorite thing about this day was that no one had anything "matching" to wear so Matt suggested wearing a white t-shirt and jeans (because that is what he wanted to wear) but Tony vetoed it by saying that we would look like cholos. That would have been awesome!

An Elephant Blessing!

As previously mentioned, my most favorite experience in India was receiving an elephant blessing in the Meenakshi Hindu Temple. Well we weren't allowed to take in cameras without paying a fee so Rafiq offered to get us a few snaps of the occasion and he sent me these today!!! Imagine my surprise when we rounded a corner and there stood this real live elephant.... ...decked out for the occasion, of course! The Hindu reverence for the elephant intrigued me as it might for others. Here is a little background: One of the Hindu Gods, Ganesh, the son of Shiva and Parvati, has an elephantine countenance with a curved trunk and big ears, and a huge pot-bellied body of a human being. He is the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. He is also worshiped as the god of education, knowledge, wisdom and wealth. Receiving an elephant blessing is a sign of good luck and fortune. I think I have had pretty good luck since I am just waiting for the "fortune" part to kick in.
Here I am patiently waiting my turn while Rochelle gets slobbered on (I mean blessed)!

Monday, January 7, 2008

India- Kondu Vanga!

Over the Christmas break I went on a mini-vacay to India. Rochelle, Tara, David and I flew together from L.A. to meet our Indian friend Rafiq (whom we are pretty sure is in the Russian Mafia. He was always on his phone and he often spoke Russian ironically enough). I had the time of my life. India was a fascinating place. I loved learning about the people, customs, language. Not so much the food except the naan, "You can't go wrong with naan". That was my motto.
I also learned a little Tamil from Rafiq while I was there. I
learned a few useful phrases like "I like your mustache" but my favorite was "Kondu Vanga" which means "bring it on". That is exactly what we did. Here is a brief synopsis of the trip...







December 23rd: Layover in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur was a surprisingly nice and clean city. They even had public sinks such as this one.










But for some strange reason we kept having this reoccurring urge to "kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia".







December 24th: Day trip to see the 5 Rathas in Chennai followed by an evening of...







Midnight Mass at the Santhome (St. Thomas) Basilica.








December 25th: Meenakshi Hindu Temple in Madurai. The highlight of this temple was receiving a blessing from a real live elephant. It only cost 2 rps. Totally worth it!
Unfortunately cameras were not allowed in the elephant blessing room.




We met some people who were doing their end of the year pilgrimage. They walk over 400 miles to visit different temples all while "fasting" which means just eating vegetarian.






December 26th: Another Hindu temple in Madurai. Worshipers were washing themselves in the water that came down from the mountain.






We were feeding bananas to the monkeys.











December 27th: After a 6 hour car ride up a windy mountain we arrive at Coir Village Lake Resort.








Sippin' on coconuts!







December 28th: We stayed on this posh
houseboat on the Kerala backwaters.
We even had man-servants on the boat with us to cook and clean. Need I say more.






They even let me steer for a while.







December 29th: A hot and sticky ride on the Indian Railways from Alappuzha to Calicut. Total time on the train... 6 hours.







December 30th: We stayed at the Vythiri Resort in the mountains of Calicut.







It was a health resort so we enjoyed Ayurvedic massages and mehandi body art aka henna tattoos.







December 31st: New Year's Eve BBQ on the beach in Goa... indi-style!







January 1st: On the beach in Goa...











plus some on-beach entertainment.








January 2nd: The Taj Mahal...











via camel cart.








January 3rd: City tour of Delhi. Main highlights were homeless people camped out on the side of the road...







and men holding hands (that is common and very normal, also not gay).







January 4th: Stranded in Singapore!
I had a 10 hour layover but for some reason the airlines didn't have a confirmed seat for me on the flight out so I had to wait it out in their luxury suite. Poor me!