Take a break and hit the city...

We had a nice getaway weekend to San Francisco. Thanks to my mom, we were able to stay at the Inn at the Opera, right by the Civic Center and next to the SF Ballet. We had fun walking around, meeting up with friends who were in the city for a concert, and ate "spicy thai" thai rice which we couldn't finish even though we ordered beer, thai iced tea, water, and ice cream to take away the heat. We ended up giving it to Paul when we stayed at Paul and Eileen's in San Rafael. He said it was pretty hot but he could handle worse.

Different pasta sauces at FIERA's The Boss of the Sauce competition in North Beach.

Who will be the boss of the sauce?

Saturday was a wet rainy day in the city, but this is what we saw on our drive back in from San Rafael on Sunday morning.

The view from Alamo Square

Putting the tree up in Union Square

Check out these shoes from the Nike store!

Halloween #2

Here are some photos from our second Halloween celebration...(this was actually on Wed the 31st).

Garrett the Pirate and our friend Vince the 80's breakdancer

Garrett with his parrot

Garrett and our friend Nick

Halloween #1

We dressed up this Saturday for an early Halloween celebration.

Mary came to visit and we did some costume hunting in Woodland. Woodland is a very interesting place. I'm excited because it has a bowling alley, and lots of good looking taco trucks. I was really surprised at how big the town is.

I dressed up as a Pirate, and I made a costume for my parrot, Garrett.

Arrgh matey

Garrett and I won the costume contest at our favorite bar, Little Prague. The prize, a nice bottle of champagne.

Mary found an awesome hat at the goodwill store

Thank goodness for $1.99 glue guns!!

A trip to Napa

This Sunday we took our friend Eduardo to Napa. Eduardo is visiting from Spain on an international postharvest technology scholarship and has been working in my lab for the past few months. He has been almost everywhere in California except Napa, so we decided to take him on a day tour through the area.

The vineyards as seen from Castello di Amorosa

We started off by visiting the Napa Visitor's Center, always a good idea, and decided we'd visit some of our favorite wineries as well as a few new ones that we had never been to. We enjoyed champagne tasting at Domaine Chandon, the free self-guided tour and smell-a-vision kiosks at St. Supery , the sun and the views and delicious cabernet sauvignon at the Robert Mondavi winery, and had burgers and fries at Taylor's Refresher (one of our favorite places to eat). Their Ahi Burger is amazing, as are their sweet potato fries. We also visited the Culinary Institute for the Arts at Greystone in St. Helena, which was a beautiful old Hogwart's style building with lots of culinary goodies inside.

Tasting champagne at Domaine Chandon

The long lines at Taylor's Refresher, well worth the wait!

During our last visit to Napa with Andy and Patti, we saw as Castle in the distance from the Sterling winery views. We asked about the castle at the visitors center and learned that one of the owners of a winery down the road had a love for Italian history and Italian castles, so he had a few shiploads of Italian rock sent over and built a castle, the Castello di Amorosa. It was sort of strange, but very cool. They do have tours of the castle for an arm and a leg, but we did the $10 tasting only deal and were able to wander around the castle a bit. I thought the best part was seeing a little girl who came to visit--she was dressed up in her snow white costume and running around the castle like she was a little princess. Quite cute.

Castello di Amorosa

It was an enjoyable trip, one of our longer times spent in Napa, and it was nice that we got to see some new places. We're so grateful that Napa is so closeby! So that means all of you come visit us in Davis so we can do a day trip to Napa!

Happy Birthday Garrett!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you!
Happy BIRTHDAY dear Garrett!
Happy birthday to you!

On October 7, 25 years ago, we have many thanks to give to a most wonderful Theresa Flynn. Thank you for your labor! :)




We celebrated early on Saturday with dinner at Cattleman's in Dixon with Felix, Eduardo (a spanish exchange student who works in my lab), Dov Alima, and Eileen and Paul.

Dinner at Cattleman's in Dixon. Steak. It's what's for dinner©

On the actual birth day, we had brunch at Cindy's with Vince and Felix, and watched Vince and Garrett's soccer team win (3-1, Davis v. Berkeley), and later had some wine and smelt at Seasons and then watched Shaolin Warriors at the Mondavi Center. It was a nice weekend of food and festivities. Happy day!

On the East Coast

Yea so to comment on our trip as seen from some of the photos below...

We have a travel bug that leaves us itching to get out of Davis every chance we get...Since we've returned to the states we've only spent one full weekend in Davis! We've camped at Tahoe, traveled down to Santa Barbara for a wedding, visited Bodega Bay on Labor Day, and most recently visited New Jersey and New York for Jeremy and Durba's state side wedding ceremony. We took a long weekend off to have a small reunion with Garrett's friends and to join in the celebrations of yet another ceremony, this time a very heart felt Quaker ceremony, to celebrate the union of Jeremy and Durba. We met up with Devin on his ridiculous flight pattern (Seattle-Reno-Phoenix-Pittsburgh-Philadelphia) in Phoenix, picked up our upgraded rental car (yay Toyota Highlander and yay for Alamo being out of cars!), and drove out to Long Beach Island off the coast of New Jersey. It's a nice little island, a bit eerie, but I'm sure it's poppin' in the summer time. We got to swim in the Atlantic, cry at the ceremony, eat good food and dance the night away, then swam in the ocean again at night, and drove to Brooklyn the next day to drop some friends off and chill in the city. We hung out in Bedford, eating delicious Italian food and had after dinner wine and coffee at a cute hipster cafe. Then it was out to Brooklyn Heights to check out the view and get breakfast, and before we knew it we were back at the Philly Airport, heading home. (Home to waking up at 6am to pick apples in Stockton for Sylvia and to a doctors appointment and work work work for Garrett). Sigh...back in Davis again. Ah well, it's gotta end sometime right?

Weekends out of Davis!

Some photos from our weekends away from Davis...

At Bodega Head

At Portugese Beach--Luckily the sun came out for the drive up north!

Enjoying the view from Brooklyn Heights in Brooklyn, NY

Before Jeremy and Durba's ceremony, in Long Beach Island, NJ

Before the third marriage ceremony
(Yes, court marriage, traditional Bengali wedding, and a Quaker ceremony)

Professing his love, it was a teary and heart touching speech.

Us at the dock by Jeremy's grandmother's house, where the ceremony was held.

At the reception (they had some delicious scallops there...)

Congrats Alf and Laura!

Congratulations to our friends Alf and Laura on their wedding day, held in Santa Barbara at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on August 25, 2007. It was a great excuse to have a small reunion of old friends, and a great excuse for allowing white people en masse to dance.

Old friends together again...minus a few.

With the lucky man

Laura and Alf

Day at the beach after the wedding

Pictures!

Yay! I put these up on Facebook a bit ago...turns out they had links to share the albums with others! Here are a ton of our pictures! Enjoy!


Hong Kong and A Taste of Delhi

Jeremy and Durba's Wedding 1

Jeremy and Durba's Wedding 2

Jeremy and Durba's Wedding 3

Jeremy and Durba's Wedding 4

Puri, Konark and the Rath Yatra

Finally, a minute to concentrate on this...

Whew...well it's been a good few weeks of going right back to work/moving back in/job searching, and now we finally have the chance to sit and work on this blog a bit. I have to make sure I keep an eye on the rajma curry (think: kidney bean curry) that i'm trying to make, although it seems to have turned into more of a "chili" with all of the tomato paste I added. Oops.

We're looking towards a busy schedule, Garrett and I. We enjoyed a welcome visit from Garrett's Dad during our first weekend back, and last weekend we made a trip out to Tahoe to go camp in Emerald Bay State Park--a trip planned back in May after our day trip to the Rubicon trail. Oh my Tahoe was gorgeous. True the lake was a bit cold, but nonetheless I didn't want to get out of the water, although the orange streaks flying around told me that it was time to warm up.

This next weekend we're off to Santa Barbara for our friends Alf and Laura's wedding. It will also be a small reunion for Sylvia and her old friends (old?) from Davis. In between these fun fulfilled weekends I've been working away in the lab with some enzyme determinations and trips to the field for pear harvesting while Garrett plans out his personal training work. It's starting to look pretty good for him, with all sorts of forms, business cards, referrals, and other "professional" stuff starting to happen.

Hopefully we can get this updated...i'll give myself one more week. At least i'm finally moving our photos onto the computer! step #1!

Back to cow town...

Sadly or Happily, we're safely back in Davis. Sylvia's back to work and Garrett's getting things back into our apartment. We'll be in the process of updating and uploading in the next week or so, it will be nice to have our computer up and running. I suppose we'll go through and add pictures to the blog and update that as well, so check back soon and go through it all again, we know you love it.

At the Wan Chai (i think) MTR...

Hi, we're at the MTR (Mass Transit Railway) in the clubbing ("clubbin") district in Hong Kong. Sylvia is amazed at all of the ladies of the night walking around, and at all of the "hostess" bars up and down the street. It's all very, interesting.

Today we went to the HK Museum of History to see the Hong Kong story, a nice interactive walk through exhibit going from the beginning of time all the way to the modern metropolis. It was interesting learning about the history of the city: Opium wars, the Japenese Occupation, etc. We ate at Genkei Sushi after, got cool Hong Kong haircuts, then wandered down the Mong Kok area to see the bird and flower markets, and ended up having Malaysian food for dinner in Wan Chai. Now we're about to head back to Kowloon, to get a drink at Panorama, the schnazzy hotel restaurant with a 220 degree view of Hong Kong and the bay.

Tomorrow is Lantau to see the big Buddha, we'll hopfully find a beach, eat some Peking duck, re-visit the Peak at night to see the night time views, and head to the more classy area for a night on the town.

Goodbye from a free internet stand in the subway, Hong Kong is awesome.

We're a little behind...

But we're in Hong Kong! Really haven't found many net places, surprisingly, but Sylvia spotted one in an arcade center close to our hotel. We'll update soon, but so far it's very hot, humid, clean, organized, and very nice here, with too much shopping and awesome food (we went out of our way to find AWESOME thai food last night, and Garrett ate some stinky stinky durian and a 1,000 year old egg yesterday). Yay!

We saw the Taj!

Well, we're here. After time spent in Agra (the nasty grubby city that is home of the world famous Taj Mahal), we made it to Delhi. I guess I should backtrack a little though...

Khajuraho. An interesting place. Known for their 10th-12th century massive temples, it is the erotic carvings of the kama sutra that draw many foreigners, domestic and international, to the area. It's located in the state of Madhya Pradesh, towards the north of India, and is a 3 hour ride by taxi from the nearest train junction, Jhansi, which is on the main line towards Agra and Delhi. We were lucky enough to meet a man in Darjeeling who worked at a hotel in Khajuraho, and when we rolled in at 10pm from Hyderabad to Jhansi, we called him up and took the advice that a taxi driven that late at night would get us to our final destination safely. We did indeed take a taxi (pretty costly but we weighed out the options...staying in Jhansi, a bustling city with hotels all booked up for some written examination the next day, or heading to Khajuraho, on a road free of traffic in a vehicle that would take 3 hours instead of 5 to get there). We stayed at Hotel Casa di William, and met our friend Veeru there at about 1am. We ended up spending 3 days in Khajuraho, seeing the temples, eating at the same restaurant that had really good food and catered to mostly Indians, having a few gifts sewn up, and overall chillin and trying to stay cool (hah!). We hung out with Veeru quite a bit, and he was kind enough to take us to a real "Indian" only place to eat...which was pretty delicious. We had spicy fish, mutton, and chicken curry, finished off with the local brew.
Much to Veeru's dismay, we decided to take off to Orchha, another small town in MP outside of Jhansi that has old palaces and temples that are currently under renovation to open up and draw the crowds in the next few years I'm sure. It was a nice quite little little little little town, with these huge old palaces and cenotaphs littered around, and it was quite gorgeous. The big draw was that it was sort of untouched still, although you can see that the tourist trail will blaze through very very very soon. Garrett was a bit ill around this time, so we took it easy in the, oh, 20 hours we had there. We stayed in Hotel Sri Mahant, the one behind the Rama Mandir, which wasn't as good or as friendly as the one in front of the temple was. But it was good, a nice stroll through the village to the main part of town. And i must say, the egg curry at Ram Raja was the best i have ever eaten in my life. It was quite an enjoyable experience that I would love to have again...but i suppose i'll have to go back to have it eh? Tomatoes, onion and garlic paste, methi (fenugreek), oil, some corriander, and boiled eggs...good lord it was so tasty. Poor garrett and his toast and curd and rice.
We took the baller Shatabdi Express from Jhansi to Agra. It was an interesting ride. It was right before dinner, so we were pretty hungry from our day wandering around Orchha, so we thought we'd get some tasty food on the all inclusive AC chair train. It was a sad sad time when everyone else (going past Agra, to Delhi) got 1 liter bottles of water, and the "Agra" peeps got a little cup of water. But some chai and biscuts, and some tomato soup later, we were still hungry and Garrett was a little delirious...probably from his stomach bug. It was all very entertaining.

Agra. i'll have garrett write about that.


Delhi? Well we did get our dinner on the Agra to Delhi leg of the Shatabdi, and we got hooked up with a sweet hotel, Hotel India International Dx (Deluxe?) by Veeru (we got the special "Veeru price"), and went around the city today after a delicious breakfast consisting of South Indian food (upma for me, rava masala dosa and mango juice for the man, and dahi idly shared between us). We saw Connaught Place (baller status shopping circle), Palika Bazaar (where this guy followed Garrett all the way down to Janpath to see if he would purchase a belt), the Delhi Tourism office, then off to Swaminaryan Akshardham (which i feel bad about seeing cause apparently i supported the dislocation of hundreds of destitute people, how the hell am i supposed to know that? guilt guilt guilt, as it also uses up tons of electricity, and is too subjective in it's information about Indian history and Indian Nationalism), and to Dilli Haat, a crafts-cum-shopping center with some pretty good food to pick up some souvenirs and eat. We ran into Durba, the bride (and half the reason we came to India...the other half being Jeremy i guess). Super random running into her, in Delhi, amidst what, any of the 13.7 million people we could have run into during our visit here? I guess it's fate!
Tomorrow we wake up early for a morning tour of the city via the Delhi Tourism Corp. for us lazy souls, then we'll wander over to the Old City in search of fried chicken, recommended to us by a friend we met on our train ride from Bhubaneswar/Puri to Hyderabad, and to see the craziness that is Chandi Chowk. Yay! Oh, also on the list of this to, um, purchase? Pressure cooker, tawa (indian griddle), another duffel bag for all of our crap, and spices galore. maybe a few cookbooks as well?

See you in Hong Kong!

Abhi, hum Khajuraho men hai.

Small update ya? And another note of apology for the lack of pictures. It seems that the internet speeds in this country are not up to par with ours...maybe we'll be of luck in Agra to do some uploading. I especially would like you to play the "Find the White Man/GB in the crowds of Indians".

After spending a day of sightseeing in Hyderabad with my old friend Mohan Krishna, who did his Mas. Communications in Hyderabad while I was studying there, we headed towards Khajuraho. But first, a little on Hyd nah? Garrett and I headed towards Chutney's, a nice South Indian restaraunt in Panjagutta, an area of Hyd that is full of big brand shops and big malls. The food was quite delish, with me getting a rava dosa on which i heaped loads of coconut, ginger, and groundnut chutneys, and garrett getting a south indian thali. But i think his tummy has been sort of bothersome lately, which was too bad. We met up with Mohan Krishna and it was off to the Old City to see Charminar and do some chudi shopping. Ok, so a LOT of bangle shopping...tsk tsk tsk. Anyhow, the city is building a lot of new flyovers around Hyderabad, and i think the population as like doubled in size since two years ago, so it is very crowded and the traffic is absolutely ridiculous, with motocrycles waiting on the sidewalks! It was very interesting to see, but it made me happy cause that means a lot of people like the city, and it IS a wonderful place. But now it's even more congested and polluted...so it goes. Mohan and Garrett enjoyed talking about various subjects while i wandered around Lad bazaar trying to find this certain type of bangle i wanted to bring back. Haggling was fun, difficult, but i held my ground and was probably only cheated about half as bad as i would have been otherwise. Ah we also went up Charminar to see views of the old city...we paid our special privilege ticket which got us some fancy printed piece of paper. After the Old City we went to the Birla Mandir to see Sri Balaji, one of the most powerful gods for Andhra Pradesh (ok maybe for india? i dont know these things). The Birla Mandir is this beautiful peaceful temple overlooking Hyderabad and Secunderabad's big lake, the Hussain Sagar. It's constructed out of white marble and is just gorgeous, and a perfect place to visit and chill at during sunset. We then had a nice thali for dinner and headed to Nampally station to shower up and wait for our train to take off, sharing Blonde jokes and Sardar Jokes (jokes about sirs from Punjab, very similar to blonde jokes). Good Time Pass. and a great time spent with another old friend!

Our 22 hour train ride towards Jhansi in Madhya Pradesh was also eventful. Garrett met two very nice and curious boys, Abrar and Majaz, who were on their way to Ajmer, which is an important Muslim pilgrimmage site. We enjoyed talking about the states, learning some hindi, and practicing english. Once in Jhansi, we decided to go ahead and take a taxi towards Khajuraho, a 3 hour ride at 10pm at night. So not the safest, but hey we made it and didn't have to spend a night in Jhansi.

Khajuraho has been interesting. We are at a hotel where one ouf our friends we met on the trip works...and yestertday was a hot day seeing the temples. We'll write more about that soon. Tomorrow we're off to Agra, then Delhi....then out of India. Too saad...boo!

Hyderabad

We are back in Sylvia's old stomping ground, Hyderabad. The weather here has been a pleasant surprise. Very comfortable compared to the more humid areas (along the coast) we just came from.
A friend of Sylvia from school helped us get a place for the last two nights in a guest house in the city. It was a very nice place owned by the Tobacco Board of India (random). Getting there was a little frustrating since communicating with the man running the guest house was near impossible. In the end it worked out great.
While in the city we decided to do some tourist activities; we visited a 17 meter Buddha made from one piece of stone, a modern mall facility, and Golconda fort. Golconda was a fort constructed in the 1200's and most of the foundation, many of the walls and some of the buildings were still remaining. It was quite a site to see. One of the more impressive archaeological sights we have seen on our trip.
In the evening we went to Central University of Hydrabad were Sylvia spent two semesters studying. There we met up with some of Sylvia's friends she had made and spent the time talking, catching up, drinking chai, and just hangin out. After hanging our with her friends we are both regretting not staying in Hydrabad longer. We will only have been here for a total of 52 hrs. Definitely not long enough.
We leave tonight by train to Jhansi (20hrs) en route to Khajuraho by shared jeep (4-5hrs). Khajuraho is famous for Kama Sutra and within the town there are dozens of old temples still standing.


(S) Ah yes, Hyderabad. It's really a great city...but I guess I am also biased since I studied here. I was really happy to swing by campus last night...a lot has changed, new buildings, and more students are there as they've expanded their scope of study to include bachelor's programs, which is good to hear. We saw Ganesh, who looks like he's doing really well. He is working hard with the Study India Program. His English has also improved by %200 it seems, and he has overcome his shyness that was so typical of him two years ago. We were also able to meet up with Kumar Swamy, Sami, Kareem, and Tabassun, students who are now doing their PhDs in Urdu and Hindi. It was great fun catching up with them, seeing where life is taking them, drinking chai, and hanging out. Although everyone i recognized from campus gave the ever expected, "you have gotten fat" comment I thought i would hear. It's good to be back.

This afternoon we'll try to meet with a few more old friends, before going to the Old City, Charminar, to pick up some souvenirs and see the old Muslim area of Hyderabad, before going to a Hindu Temple that is at a great vantage point for the city. I'm not really looking forward to the long train ride ahead...it will be hot. We spoiled ourselves the last train ride (spending 2800rs for the tickets!!!!) but this time we've spent under 1000rs, which is much more on budget. Ah well, it gets us from A to B, although the bus ride from Jhansi to Khajaraho is supposedly pretty darn terrible....until next time!

Orissa on the sea.

Hello from Puri, Orissa. After a 11 hour train ride from Kolkata we found ourselves in a tropical and lush country side; rolling hills, larges lakes and coastal towns. The first place we visited was Gopalpur, a small fishing village littered with beach hotels and small patio restaurants. The town was very quite and without many tourist. Our hotel manager was a little pushy at times (trying to make a buck) but the rest of the town was very nice and relaxed. A typical beach community.
We left Gopalpur after one night for Puri; rick shaw ride for 40min, bus ride for 5hrs, and another bus ride for 2hrs. A very long day. Waking up in Puri the next day we then took off the the Sun temple in Konark, a small tourist destination about an hour away by bus (only 15 Rs per person). The temple was functional in the 13th century through the 16th century with a main structure reaching 72 meters in height. Now there are only remains of what was once there. The primary remains of the temple is a 36 meter tall structure once built as the primary area for praying and worship. The temple was built with great precision mapping the pattern of the sun and surrounded by 3meter diameter sun dials with the ability to keep track of time by three minute intervals. There were also large and small carvings of mythical beings, depictions of everyday life, and kama sutra.

After the sun temple we came back to Puri and headed to the beach. The beach was full of people swimming, eating, selling, and relaxing. There were horses, camels, and a market set up in the sand on the far end of the beach. While we were there I went swimming while Sylvia looked after our stuff and took pictures of the scenery. We also ran into a friend we had made on one of our bus rides and talked about the differences between American and Indian cultures.

By the end of the day we had eaten many prawns, mutton, fish, coconuts, pineapple, and other yummies. We were enjoying Puri immensely.

We woke up the next day to experience perhaps the most amazing sights we may ever see in our lives. The Rath Yatra is a festival that takes place once a year where up to a million people come to see Jaggernath leave his temple and get pulled on massive chariots. It is hard to grasp the magnitude of the event even after being there and seeing it in person. Imagine that your god, in it's most powerful representation, comes out for everyone to see and worship in person. During the course of the year only a very small population is allowed near Jaggernath, but it is believed that in order for your "soul" to be freed from continuous reincarnation you must come in contact with the Jaggernath. The way that this can be achieved is by being a servant to Jaggernath and help pull on his chariot. A man told me that even though I am not a believer by pulling on the rope attached to the chariot and helping Jaggernath down the street I will, at the very least, be reincarnated as a human. So I battled the crowds and with both hands tugged on the massive rope while hundreds of thousands of people were attempting the same feat. Now I "won't come back as a dog".

Jaggernath has a sister and brother that are also pulled down the street by the masses of people. Each chariot had by my estimation 100 people on board. Plus the structures them selves were made entirely of wood and were about 15-18 meters high. The weight for each chariot must have been in multiples of tons. You can You Tube the festival to get a visual if you are curious. Hopefully there will be time to upload video that we took of the event so you can see what we saw while we were there.

*A big thanks to Sujata, Santosh, and their sister, some friends we made during the Rath Yatra. We sat next to them on the rooftop of Jaggernath Hotel, and they took very good care of us, explaining various parts to the story of Rath Yatra, and making sure we were hydrated and fed. Santosh also kept a watchful eye out for Garrett when they went down into the crowd. It was funny, in the hundreds of thousands of dark haired Indians surrounding the ropes to pull the main chariot, Garrett really stuck out like a sore thumb. He was about a head taller than everyone else, and of course, was super white, and you could see his big grin from even a few hundred meters away (and thanks to the ultra zoom on the camera). I asked Sujata how she was supposed to find Santosh in the crowd, quite impossible! It was indeed an amazing event, and I am happy to witness it. I hope to see it again sometime, but then to stay in Puri for a bit longer. Really, the festivities really gave the town lots of life and excitement, and to see all these devotees travel so far just to get a glimpse of the god is truly amazing. Such a devout act of faith. While in Puri we also met up with a fellow IndiaMiker (indiamike.com...if you ever go to India it's the ultimate resource), Brandon and his friend Tommy, who seemed like they were having a great time traipsing throughout the country as well.

For the love of idlis...

Sylvia's idli count so far: 11 in the past 3 days, thanks to the buffet breakfast we wake up to every morning here at the Vedic Village.



Garrett enjoys his fistfuls of papaya and mango, and hard boiled eggs.

Today we participated in Dinacharya, the Sanjeeva Spa's morning Ayurvedic ritual. We woke up at 5:45am to brush our teeth with an herbal paste, used a copper tongue scraper to get the night's filth off of our tastebuds, and drank an herbal concoction (300ml, to be exact), which Sylvia puked up shorty after. We went for a small walk to the spa center, where we got our second day of Yoga, this time, focusing on channeling our prana (or energy) in hopes of learning how to control it. Then it was off to our massage and oil treatment, Abhyangam Shirodhara . And they were not light with the oil. We were brought into separate rooms where our masseurs proceeded to douse us with oil, working in sychronizing strokes that felt as if we were massaged by one person. Our entire bodies were worked over, including an extensive eyelid massage for Sylvia. The Shirodhara treatment, which is where warm oil is constantly poured onto the forhead for about 10 minutes, was quite relaxing and the feeling it produced was undescribable. Then it was off to the shower for a full body scrub, some nose drops and ear drops, inhalation of tumeric smoke, and application of kajal and vermillion--Garrett came out looking like an Egyptian pharoh with his black eye makeup. We also had a consultation with Dr. CM Pradyumna, who suggested practical lifestyle routines to follow in eating, sleeping, yoga, and bowl movements.

Other events of the day so far? Ping pong, reading magazines, and lounging. We did go into the city yesterday for a hectic afternoon with the Internet on Chowringhee to upload pictures, Garrett's trip to the Foreigners Bureau to book train tickets, re-visiting the New Market and getting some souvenirs, and eating at the Blue Sky Cafe on Sudder St., which was full of white people and East Asians! It was a sight we haven't seen in awhile. We're here until the 12th, when we'll travel to Orissa to prepare for Rath Yatra. Until then...peace and love.

Back in the chaos...ok well not really

Well, we're back in the India that I almost forgot we left behind after escaping to the calm and cool in Darjeeling and Sikkim.


The jeep ride from Namchi, the South Sikkim district capital we hung out in for a few days, was sort of hectic. Garrett got a little ill presumably from the plate of chicken drumsticks he ate at our hotel (which was really nice by the way...really good food, ok so maybe too good). We stayed at Hotel Samdruptse, which was pretty decent and had really nice staff that catered to us. Most memorable was our driver for our first day there who took us to see the local sights, he was a really kind man and took us to see the statue of Guru Padmasambhava, the Rock Gardens, one of the local monasteries, and to the construction site of what will be a Hindu religious/cultural center called the Char Dham, which will soon have a large Shiva statue. The site was really incredible, so much manpower behind it all. We'll post pictures soon hopefully when we get into the city to a faster internet place!

Back to the jeep ride, which was pretty awful. Poor Garrett was pretty sick though he toughed most of the ride out. We were stopped twice for two accidents, one that happened earlier in the day where a car drove off the side of this hill, and the second when we got back to the lowlands and a jeep had sideswiped a big truck and caused a pretty bad road block. But man, i had forgotten how crazy it can be here on the ride back. We just kept running into more traffice, more trucks, more pollution, more dirt, people, trash, craziness....ahh! Really, I asked Garrett if he was ready to go back to the India we left behind! After our jeep arrived at the stopping point in Siliguri, West Bengal, we had to find a rickshaw to take us to New Jalpaiguri for the rail station...and we were just harrassed almost by a ton of cycle rickshaws. We walked a bit down the street off the main street (thank goodness) and were soon able to find a crowded shared rickshaw to take, which zipped us about 6km deeper into a soot filled city.

The train ride to Sealdah station in Kolkata was nice, but a bit warm. I was pretty unhappy with the greasy funk all over my body, but what to do? It was Garrett's first ride in second class, and he was interested in all of the activity going on around us. Chai wallahs, men selling everything from pens to desk lamps to electronic keyboards, eunuchs who apologized to G for asking for money, and various types of beggars. We have another overnighter coming up when we go to Puri, but I think our longer ride from Puri to Hyderabad will be in an AC car just to keep cool...it's pretty worth it in this weather! As we arrived in Kolkata this morning at about 6am, we came upon nonstop rain. And it didn't really stop all day, nor has it stopped in the past 7 days, causing a waterlogging of the old city. Getting a cab to our present location, the Vedic Village (ah relaxation, again...?) was also sort of hectic, with cab drivers telling us the prepaid booth was closed (it wasn't). The ride over was long and overpriced, but we made it to the Vedic Village, a little eco-hub of homes, resorts, mudhuts, villas, and suites, with a day spa (yay) and really good food. We're indulging. It's sort of weird to be doing that in India of all places, but it is also nice to be out of the chaos that is Kolkata. We'll go there soon enough.

A visit to Pelling in West Sikkim (July 2)

Pelling has been recentely earned a spot on the tourist map due to an interest in the area for its easy access to Sikkim's monastic trek and the beautiful sights of Kanchendzonga, the world's third highest peak. In the high season it's packed with foreign and Bengali tourists, and in the low season, it's like a deserted Shangri-la, as we found out. Our friendly jeep seat mate informed us that only 5 or 6 years ago Pelling was just like any other small farming hill town. Now the land is full of hotels and guesthouses that now cater to it's main form of income, tourism. He showed us to Hotel Norling, a very nice isolated hotel away from the what would be hustle and bustle in the high season, with a staff that was very friendly.

After seeing early morning views of the Himalayan peaks before the afternoon fog rolled in, we went on a walk down to the local sights, mainly Pemayangtse Monastery and Rabdengtse, the ancient ruins of Sikkim's second capital from the 1600s to mid-1700s. When we entered Pemayangtse Monastery, a nasty dog with an eye out of it's socket started barking and growling aggressively with a moutful of drool, freaking Garrett out and sending him smack into a 30ft prayer flag pole, which he broke and knocked over. The whole experience was witnessed by a young lama, who just stared until Garrett gave him the "I'm ok and I'm sorry" gesture. After nerves were settled, we went into the gompa which was incredibly decorated inside, and also had some monks making butter sculptures. On the second floor was an intricate and ornately carved 7 tiered representation of Guru Padmasambhava's (the man who brough Buddhism to Tibet) spiritual residence. Upon leaving the monastery, Garrett had another experience. He noticed there was blood all over his foot while putting his shoes on, only to find a fat and full leech attached to his foot.

At the ruins, we took in the view of the surrounding hills, and met a nice Bengali family who were also staying in Pelling. It proved to be a fun (free of cost) day despite the animal attacks.

Sights of Sikkim

Early morning on the 27th, we piled into a jeep and left for Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, in the northeast of India between Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan, and north of West Bengal. It was a bumpy 4 hour drive, with sights of tea country and rivers. On our arrival, Andrew and Sylvia passed out due to fevers, and Garrett, Jeremy and Durba had a look around town. Andrew left the next day after going with the gang to see Ganesh Tok, a local Hindu temple and a high vantage point over Gangtok. Sylvia and I said farewell to the newlyweds the next day, and Sylvia was finally feeling well enough to see some sights. During our stay in Gangtok, compliments of Hotel Zi on Tibet Rd., we rode the ropeway gondola over the city and visited the Dharma Chakra Center at Rumtek. The monastery holds the remains of the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa Lama of the Black Hat sect of Buddhism in Sikkim, and there is a throne that awaits the 17th Karmapa, who currently resides in Dharmsala, in northwest India. He's not permitted into Sikkim as his presence will create conflict with China.

The next day we went to Changu Lake, also known as Tsomgo Lake, at an elevation of 12,400 ft. The lake is also 18km from Nathula Pass, the Indo-China border and the historic Silk Road. We weren't able to visit Nathula Pass since it's only open to domestic tourists, and instead spent a few hours at the lake, in all it's foggy glory. Usually the sights are clear and the lake is frozen over, as the high tourist season is in winter, not in the middle of the monsoon. Nonetheless it was serene and beautiful. We also got to sit on yaks, because who doesn't want a picture with a yak?

Our 2nd (and last) day in Darjeeling (June 26)

We spent the day touring around town, enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the markets and neighborhoods in Darjeeling. In the evening the Kaplan-Lyman's treated everyone to dinner at the Darjeeling Planter's Club. It was a nice send off, although Andrew fell ill with a fever, something he probably caught from Jessica during our travels.

Superheros wear fannypacks (June 25)

After a day in Darjeeling, we were relaxing in our hotel room when an uncle and cousin of Jeremy rushed in. Sylvia thought they wanted to join the "party", but instead they told us that their hotel room had just been robbed while they were out. They asked if we'd seen anyone carrying a black suitcase on our walk home from dinner. This suitcase had their passports and airline tickets for their return journey to Australia in the next two days. Anxiety levels rose as we all set out to see if there was anythign we could do to help. Durba and Jessica went out first to head to the police station, while Garrett and Sylvia hung back so Garrett could put proper clothes on. While we were walking out of the hotel, we spotted a porter walking very quickly down the hill above our hotel, with a black suitcase on his head. The timing and circumstance seemed too bizarre, so Garrett went after the guy at Sylvia's prodding (although she had originally told him to tell Durba and Jess who were heading to the police station). Garrett disappeared into the fog, yelling out "Stop...hey, stop".

--Garrett's experience--
The young lad was hurrying down the hill and not responding to any of my comments. I had to run in front of him in order to make him stop. He seemed nervous and may or may not have been pretending that he didn't understand me. I asked him who the suitcase belonged to, and he said he was carrying it for somebody in the hotel. At that point I put my hand on the suitcase and made him put it down, granted that I was twice his size, but I was still nervous because one of his hands was in his pocket and who knew what was in there. I checked the luggage tag and saw it was from Sydney, just then the guy ran away. I brought back the luggage, to find out that he had also taken a backpack with other valuables, so Jeremy, Andrew and I ran back down the hill to find the thief. When we got to the bottom a jeep made a quick u-turn and went driving down the road away from us. This concluded the unfortunate event in Darjeeling. Luckily, the suitcase with the important documents was saved, by the man with the orange fanny pack.

Clubbin it up Kolkata style

We forgot to tell you about this: In Kolkata a few of us went out to eat at Bar-b-que on Park Street. Funny it was BBQ for the tandoori dishes, but we ate on the Chinese side of the restaurant. There, we met up with our friend's friend, this movie producer named Rana, who decided to take us out on the town. He got us into 4 of the hottest clubs in Kolkata for free. 3 were at the Park Hotel, where we watched a psychadelic rock cover band (Pink Floyd, the Doors, and whoever sings Teenage Wasteland), danced to hip hop is a sexy club, and pretended we were ravers at the third place. After a few hour we were taken to yet another club, the Underground, and at about 3am Garrett passed out amidst the loudest hardest Hindi/Technopop, fog machines, and crazy strobe lights. Good times.

Ooo can it be? a picture!

Ok ok...finally we're settled and i'm trying to figure out what photo sharing site to use...right now it's a debate between flickr and picasa/google. Well, i'll do some photos for now and see how it works out, but hey look, it's at least one picture up of us along the Hong Kong skyline. Yay!

We are currently in Darjeeling for the next few days. I think unfortunately that Sikkim might be out of our trip due to time constraints...ah well we'll go on our next trip here! We took the #2343 train up, the Darjeeling Mail, which was an overnight 8 hour train ride, Garrett's first! We rode in 3 tier AC, while the baller shot callers rode in First Class! We hung out with them in their posh James Bond style car before heading back to our bogie (that is, train car) and climbing up in our bunks to go to sleep. Garrett really is to tall for India. He didn't really fit on the top bunk, but he made out well. After our arrival to a gloomy New Jalpaiguri, we hired out a jeep to take us up up up and away to Darjeeling, which was about 75km away. It was a bumpy curvy foggy ride, and we saw our first automobile accident in India? Ok, so it wasn't too bad, just a few broken headlights that was easily taken care of by one driver paying the other after a bit of a heated argument...although it was our driver's fault as he refused to back up to let those vehicles coming down the road to pass. We arrived safely nonetheless, and after a refresher at Keventers ("sausages" anyone?), we found the Bellevue hotel where we are staying in doubles priced at Rs. 550/night. We have a pretty sweet room overlooking the main gathering area of town, where one of the competitors for Indian Idol happened to be performing. I guess he's a local who made it onto the show and the town was having a moral booster/sms your vote for him type event. It also happens to be that Jeremy's family is also staying at this hotel, so it was nice to see them again and hear about their time in Darjeeling.

We have the next few days here to sightsee. Hopefully the weather will clear up so we can see the stunning peaks of the Himalays. I guess if this never happens though, I can post an old picture of Kanchenjunga, the world's third tallest peak, from my last visit here. Now where are those momos...?

Hello to all the ballahs and shot callahs.

India!!!
-Full of people, color, life and smells (both incredibly good and incredibly bad). We have been learning to adapt and except the unexpected. I thought driving in Trinadad was trecherous, I have now learned that there are places where people prefer to risk their lifes in order to save time on a trip. The hospitality has been unmatched, the people have been very kind and thus far we have been acclimated to the culture. We are looking forward to showing you very soon the sights and sounds of India. Until next time, much love, GB.


-We are heading to Darjeeling tonight....via first class!!!! i guess there were no seats left...it shall be interesting, 007-style. We'll only speak in British accents during the entire trip. Salt Lake, where Durba's (the bride) grandmother stays, is a nice place. we've wandered into the city proper, to go to a few clubs thanks to this film producer a friend of a friend met. we were treated like ballers and the cover fees were waived. we also went to new market to see the hustle and bustle...it was interesting with very persistant "coolie's" always at our side making suggestions of shops for darjeeling tea, silk scarves, spices, you name it. It also ended with myslef and a few others feeling quite ill after dinner (that quick 20 minute onset of nausea) but I think i'm ok now. Again the hospitality is amazing....we met some very wonderful folks, and it was almost a teaful goodbye...ah well. we'll definitely come back soon. see you in darjeeling!

conGRADulations!

He made it! Garrett walked this morning at the College of Biological Sciences Commencement Ceremony, held at the Pavillion on campus today (and thank goodness it wasn't outside in the 98º weather). We celebrated Thursday night with a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant called Biba in Sacramento, and with an urban picnic this afternoon in our apartment. It was really great to see family this past week...thank you for the love and support! Well...I guess we'll see you all stateside in about 5 weeks! We'll try to give you updates at least once or twice a week :)


*Oops...our pictures aren't quite uploading correctly, and it's much too late to start...so, I guess we'll put the graduation pictures up in August!

The festivites begin...

This weekend Andy and Patti came down for the weekend to celebrate Garrett's graduation. Paul and Eileen also came into town for dinner on Friday night. Our weekend included a visit to the farmer's market, a visit to campus, dinner in Winters, and the morning in Napa Valley.

After dinner at Seasons with Andy, Patti, Eileen, and Paul.

Pretty red carrots at the Saturday morning farmer's market in Downtown Davis

Barrels of wine at Sterling Vineyards in Calistoga, Napa Valley

Dad and Patti took Garrett to their summer home in Napa Valley. Their home is the new castle over Patti's shoulder.

Epic Quad Battle

we will put our video up soon, apparently it is having problems with YouTube. See another here for now

Sylvia's first hat

Last night I finished my first hat, although I got a little lazy sewing up the seam. Next project is learning how to increase, which should result in a nice little kerchief.

Now we can legally go!

Yay!

Garrett finally got his super patriotic new passport! We also picked up our visas from the Indian Consulate in San Francisco. We were able to get our "endorsement" to visit Sikkim for 15 days-- that is one less hassle we have to deal with in India.

On the way home we had a nice visit with Genesis, going to a local coffee shop on Piedmont Ave, and eating at Barney's, a nice burger joint. Afterwards we hung out a little more at G's place where we hung out with Anakin and talked about Patagonia. So much for the proposed man date...

Greetings from Tahoe

Click To Play

*Lake Tahoe's average elevation is actually 6,225 ft

Some pictures from the past few weeks...

Here's a few pictures from the past few weeks of random events, including more fire spinning at Whole Earth Festival, Sylvia's Alumni Rugby game, Garrett's 3-on-3 Basketball tournament, and our visit to Tahoe on Memorial Day.

Pretty fire spinning during WEF.



This is pretty much the old team Sylvia played with from 2004-2005 (the team that made it to Nationals). We killed the UCD team, cause we're awesome like that.



Garrett during his tournament. It was a fun day in the sun, but Garrett left with probably the worst sunburn he's had since he was 13.

Garrett accidentally tripped while coming down this rock. But he's like a cat, always landing on all fours. (Just kidding, he jumped down).


View of the lake from the Rubicon Trail in South Lake.

After lunch on the rocks at DL Bliss State Park.