*Chili Feed; created to boost attendance at the winter meeting. Board members are required to cook chili and there is of course some competition associated with it as well.
For those of you that were not there I went to the chili feed* just tonight and got to see my sailing family. I don't think most of them realize how much I really do miss them. I had so much fun just catching up with people a little bit and enjoying their company. I was also happy to attend the meeting afterwords and see what the club was up to :) I wish in part that I was still living here so that I could do more with the club and volunteer. Though there may be an opportunity for me to volunteer while I'm here visiting so I might get to support them anyway :)
*Chili Feed; created to boost attendance at the winter meeting. Board members are required to cook chili and there is of course some competition associated with it as well. And the travel begins. Charith told me that it would be much more effective to get a driver and our own car as part of the trip instead of public transport, which is effective, but not nearly as comfortable or as efficient. Our driver and guide is named Elyian which sounds like (eel E on) Elyian was an amazing driver and guide and had so much knowledge about everything that we saw.
The first day of traveling we spend a lot of time in the car, which is to be expected when you are trying to cover a country. I ended up completely passed out in the car while snuggling with my big stuffed leopard which by the way if you don't have much shame in bring a stuffed animal with you to travel I highly suggest, best pillow and all over support ever. We did however stop for lunch at this beautiful lake side restaurant called Kurunegala. When traveling in Sri Lanka you must be cautious in regards to food. This is another reason why a guide is so great. While we were there there were two couple getting their wedding photos done. The first couple was leaving but the next was sticking around so I cheeped around and took quite a few photos. The women is wearing a tradition Sari with the appropriate head dressing, but the groom is wearing a traditional Indian frock. Either way they were quite stunning. After more driving and no more sleeping we arrived at our first destination :) Which was a gigantic statue of a Buddha in the blessing position which is a standing pose with the right hand turned sideways to the viewer. The site is called Aukana Buddha Statue. The statue itself is more than 40 feet tall making it rather spectacular. This is also where I got my first lesson in proper behavior around depictions of Buddha. Basically you must never turn your back to the Buddha as it shows a lack of respect and you must never make the buddha or any other feature (including stuctures such as stupas*) as the background of a photo. This being said it makes walking away from something like this very difficult as you are supposed to at least be turned side ways.... Finally after going off the beaten path a bit we found some rather poisonous lizards (don't worry nothing happened) The neat thing about them was their coloring which was not actually bright, but more Iridescent. We also had a massage and then checked into the first place. *A stupa (from Sanskrit: m., स्तूप, stūpa, Sinhalese: ස්ථූපය, Pāli: थुप "thūpa", literally meaning "heap") is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the ashes of deceased, used by Buddhists as a place of meditation. For those of you who do not know I have been in Sri Lanka for the past 10 days. I'm sad to say that I fly out tonight at 1 am and with the bad flu bug going about I'm going to be an absolute weirdo and wear a face mask on my flights....
Sri Lanka though has been truly magical. The country is 3rd world, but the vibrancy of the sarees and the amazing weather keeps you too distracted to notice. The first day I got here I arrived here I got in a 9pm, so not too much happened met Charith parents, had dinner, which is customary to have around 9 pm and then went to bed. Also a common custom is to get up before the sun.... Needless to say after not really sleeping the night before my flight and a few shenanigans that happened that same night as well getting up at 6:00 am was not really something I was doing too well with. Also I'm a super light sleeper so actually I was awake at about 4 am when my friend was coughing. In a way it was nice though because I was able to chat with Charith's family and get to know them better. The rest of the day was spent doing errands and a few special items that needed to be done first. We changed money (at a black market currency exchange place, which gives better rates than the banks) then we went to look for a saree for me! (*see saree situation at bottom for more info :) ) I'll add a picture of my saree, but it is a very bright, rich pinky red color. I don't admit that it is pink so it's pinky red ;) Around lunch time (which it should be noted this list is not in chronological order) we went to visit Charith's grandparents. Which was so interesting as his grandparents live in a primarily Muslim community and as they say sort of a poorer part of town. That being said I was excited because I really got to see how most people live. Even though they were in that part of town it was still just bursting with color and life. His grandparents live by themselves without any assistance and they get around quite well. His Grandmother is an expert crocheter and made a a fantastic top that is short sleeved and white in color. The pattern is a flower and she links them all together. Apparently this particular top took her about 2 months, but it fits shockingly well. She also goes to the local temple at around 4:45 to 7 in the afternoon. First she sweeps the temple and after she prays and gives blessings for the family and others as well as participates in some chanting. Chantings include 3 basic categories of; blessings for everything, improving our minds, and impermanence** as I was told my Charith's mom. The Grandparents are both extremely nice and accepting. And have a wonderful sense of humor. I greatly enjoyed visiting with them. The next morning we started the trip... *A sari or saree is a strip of unstitched cloth, worn by females, ranging from four to nine yards in length that is draped over the body in various styles which is native to the Indian Subcontinent. The word sari is derived from Sanskrit (an ancient form of writing) शाटी śāṭī which means 'strip of cloth' and शाडी śāḍī or साडी sāḍī in Prakrit, and which was corrupted to sāṛī in Hindi.The word 'Sattika' is mentioned as describing women's attire in ancient India in Buddhist Jain literature called Jatakas. **Impermanence (Pāli: अनिच्चा anicca; Sanskrit: अनित्य anitya; Tibetan: མི་རྟག་པ་ mi rtag pa; Chinese: 無常 wúcháng; Japanese: 無常 mujō; Korean: 무상 musang; Thai: อนิจจัง anitchang, from Pali "aniccaŋ") is one of the essential doctrines or three marks of existence in Buddhism. The term expresses the Buddhist notion that all of conditioned existence, without exception, is in a constant state of flux. This is a very simplistic way of stating it, so please feel free to look into it more :) I'm coming to visit you! Yes that is right I will be visiting home in just a matter of weeks! I'm so excited to see everyone :D Also I want to go to the beach and have a bond fire. Also for my dancing friends I will be going down to San Francisco to the 5th Salsa Rueda Festival Feb 14-17th. For my sailing friends; I will be at the chili feed, but be warned that will be the first weekend I'm back so the jet-lag may be a little wicked still. I also may e taking a trip up to Portland to see all my Portland friends! Ok well I hope to see as many of you as humanly possible! I can officially now tell you all what has been happening for the last month. I know myself well enough that when I'm making a video I must review my life and although I try to keep an upbeat or at least positive swing to it I'm also fairly honest about what is happening. Which leads us to now.... Now I know I have been bad and I have not made a video for far too long. Well I knew that if I made one I would spill the beans. Now that everyone knows what is going on I can tell you all now; I have quit my job here at the University and am getting a new one at a private language school. The great thing about the school is that it's not just English, but also Spanish, and French, if not more. I will also get more than 2X my current salary. It will also be only a few blocks away from where I will be living (about 1.5 hours closer than my last job) As implied; I'm going to be living in the heart of the city! I'm looking at a part of town called May 4th Square (the history of the square is pretty cool too, but I'll let you all look that up) I'm also getting a roommate!!!! My roommate is German and he is an engineering inter at a German based business in Qingdao. Germany occupied Qingdao for quite some time and there is a long history there, which is still very pre Together we have a pretty high budget for housing so we should be able to get a rather nice place :) I'm so excited for a roommate as I have been wildly lonesome living by myself. I've found out that I cannot entertain myself to save my life! I'll add some pictures of places that I'm looking into and a picture of the May 4th sculpture. Well another year has indeed passed and I must say it's been an interesting one. Looking back I feel more like more than a year has passed. I've gone from being in school and on a performance team with many people around me and many many friends. To being across the world and have far few people around me and good friends who live far from me. There have been ups and down and adventures, missed most of the disasters, but all in all I yearn for change. New years eve (and the early morning) was amazing and exactly what I needed. I've been wanting for some more social interaction and that is exactly what I got! We stated at LPB, a favorite place of ours. We had a good turn out (Megan, Bri (my Canadian friends) Mike, and Cade (Americans from Texas) Nic, George, and myself) Though on the way we picked up a few others. One guy named Hector who lives in my neck of the woods, and one other guy, honestly can't remember his name. Anyhow LPG was quite something. Everyone was of course quite crazy and the bar handed out sparklers. I greatly enjoyed the sparklers till some of them got dropped on my arm. I got a bit of a burn on my arm from it and some singed hair. Not so bad though :) At the middle of the night right after the sparklers the DJ started playing Baby One More Time, by Brittany Spears so it was a total throw back. In the very instant that the song started a Chinese lady started dancing on the bar itself, to be fair she was working it and stripping. I figured the bar had paid her to do this, but about half way through the dance the music was cut and she looked rather distressed, instead of stopping she basically transitioned into some sort of finalé and then worked through the crowd dancing with others in her bra and thong. It was quite a show. Apparntely though behavior as such is not really tolerated by most Chinese and I guess they were telling her that she was going to hell or something about the same. Either way it was a show for sure. After that we went to a night club that is known for dancing and I can say that I have never seen anything like (I feel like a teenage, or just someone who grew up in a place where night clubs don't really exist) Anyhow I had an absolute blast and I danced nearly the whole time. Once we were there for a while there was a group of guys, who I later found out are from Congo, or at least one of them was and my goodness could they dance! For a while I just watched them as they moved and played off of each other. I wanted to dance with them but was rather intimidated. Eventually I got over it and decided well if they don't wnat to dance with me that's fine and I will get off the floor. Luckily they were so nice and we all had a lot of fun! We are planning on going dancing again! I felt so good after the whole night and I could have kept going, even though it was already 3 am when we left. I danced rather hard, my abs hurt today, but it's all good because I still feel like a million bucks now. I now have a new friend who is Chinese. Her name is Elaine and she is originally from the south of China. She has done lot of fun stuff with me and we met at an English corner that I work at on Sundays in the afternoon. I asked her if i could see her dorm room and she said that I could. A Chinese dorm room usually holds about 6 to 8 people and they have no carpet. The floors are concrete and they basically look like barracks. They have very little space other than a desk, and bed. They do have a toilet, but for the rest of their facilities they must use the community bathrooms, which still do not have a shower, for a should you have to walk to the edge of campus to the shower hall... Elaine and I also went to a beautiful part of town. It's the old German part which is the furthest away from where i currently live. There are trees everywhere and mansions. There was one that was run down with no one living in it, maybe a new investment? lol jk for now ;) At the end of the tour of the park we met a lovely young lady who is in high school, though she looked like a university girl to me. Anyhow she was doing some painting, so mom maybe I can get her to do something for you :) I got a bikini modeling job for this Tuesday, I literally just got off the phone. Only downside is that I need to be at my company's office at 6am.... takes 30 minutes to just get there. Oh boy I'm gonna be tired, but I'm so excited! I also get 1000 rmb :) which if I was in the apartment I was talking about in my video I would only have 100 in rent left! Alright should be a very interesting couple of days. I'll keep you all posted. My dear friends George (who is Chinese) turned 21 this last Monday. Being in China 21 years is not as important as it is in the United States, but still we felt like we should make a big Western deal of it :) I even almost missed it because I was supposed to be out in Gaomi for Monday night as well as Tuesday all the way through Wednesday. The reason I was out there on a Tuesday is that I was hosting an English translation competition at the school. It's easier and cheaper to stay at the school than go home. Thankfully I got a call from George early enough to get myself on the bus back to QD (Qingdao) Nic had purchased a funfetti cake from one of the Western markets and we decided that we should make it for George. The only issue was that we did not have any pans. Chinese don't really bake in general so coming across baking items is less than easy. On the bus on the way home I got to thinking how could we get are this whole pan issue. I realized I had one pot that didn't have any handles on it so that is what we used. I can safely say that my oven works just fine :) Yes that is right I will be coming home in February to see everyone! It will be sometime mid month. While at home I want to do some certain things; *dance (to a ridiculous amount) *go to the beach *Ummmm otherwise I'm open to ideas. *lastly 2 of my dinners have already been claimed. So If anyone has any ideas please let me know! I'm excited to see you all. If you are my friend on faceook there is an event that will update you more :) |
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January 2014
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