The Further Adventures of Ms. E: Nepal week 2

A shrine. There are lots of religions and lots of shrines in Nepal.

So this week was significantly less eventful, at least s regards big adventures. There was some rain, some protests, and some Jacob having to do work things to get ready for our trip to Thailand. Also I've had stomach cramps on and off since about Tuesday- so I've spent a lot of time chilling at the apartment, having a "staycation" over a "docation". It's still been nice- aside from stomch pains, I've been enjoying the bootlegged dvds and books and lolling around.

However, we did go to Thamel- the touristy part of town for a fun jaunt. Highlights include:

picking out fantasy novels for Jacob's education in the genre,In return for me picking out some fantasy novels for Jacob, he introduced me to Tungba. Tungba is a big container (on the left) of fermented millet, which you pour hot water (in the pink thermos on the right) over in order to make a hot mildy alcholic drink. Jacob thinks it's delicious. I think it tastes like if you mixed hot apple cider and milk together. I also think a good English name for Tungba would be "Tea Beer".

disparaging the overall dorkiness of all tourists who tend to dress for all contingencies of weather while in the middle of the downtown (hats with neck flaps? Hiking sticks? Rugged sandals and those pants which zip into shorts? Come on! Its so embarassing.)

Here is a interestingly worded sign, a typical storefront in Thamel and some dirty dirty hippy backpacker type. It ecapsulates the neighborhood quite nicely.

Getting an overload of rainbow colored hippy goods on sale to tourists. Its a little like being in Santee Alley- the stores just repeat in a confusing blur along circular streets- you quickly loose any sense of direction you were pretending to have. Mask store, felt store, jewlery store, rug store, patchwork skirt store, singing bowl store and then, yes! Back to mask store again- but is it the same one, or new one?

Buying a Kashmiri silk rug from Jacob's buddy's brother. It's gorgeous.

My rug, sneak preview.

Also fun this week we went to the North Korean state-owned restaurant- one of five rumored outposts maintained by the goverment where all the waitresses are supposedly groomed at elite North Korean hospitality colleges. After our kimchi, dumplings and BBQ pork we were treated to the surreal "show" which included deafening performances by singers, accordian players, drummers, keyboards, dance routines, costume changes and all accompanied by a huge karaoke machine. We assume the songs were paens of praise to the dear leader. All the performers were also the waitresses. And there were sequins galore. Totally bizarre and Jacob is correct in pointing out that it is not to be missed if you are KTM. I hear rumors that there is another branch in Cambodia.

And that's about it for now.

Traffic in KTM is crazy. I took a picture of this intersection because they had stoplights and sidewalks here neither of which are usually part of the equation.

Recap: First Week in Nepal

I've been in Nepal a week now and I guess you could say I've started to get my "mountain legs". Travel to Foreign Lands is always discombobulating, and in Nepal there are such things as the traffic (Kathmandu begs for urban infrastructure, streetlights and sidewalks would be amazing), the food, and the sheer overwhelming strangeness of the day to day - nothing in my head prepares me for the sights and sounds of Asia.

That said however, since about Thursday or so I've stopped visibly flinching when Jacob suggests leaving the confines of the apartment. But let me take this in order:

On Sunday the 14th I arrived in Nepal after about 20 plane hours, and 12.75 hours time difference. I slept most of Sunday and a good chunk of Monday. Jacob took me for a short walk through his hood Monday, and it completely freaked me out- car horns and motorcycles and everyone moving according to their own internal traffic rules.

After that Jacob whisked me off to a resort outside of Kathmandu. On our way there we stopped in Bhaktapur which is outside Kathmandu, the former capital of one of the old kingdoms. It was very scenic and interesting- they got some money to fix up the center of the town and the traffic was much less.

Pottery Square in Bhaktapur

A view of Bhaktapur from a rooftop restaurant.

Then we went to our resort which had damp rooms (Dulikhel Lodge Resort Official Motto: "Cold, but Damp"), ginormous spiders, mostly cold showers and indifferent food (Nepali menus offer everything from Indian and Chinese food to Beef Stroganoff- very little of it done particularly impressively.). That was the hard part. The great parts were impressive views (I have seen the Himalayas and they are really big mountains, just like the books say.) , hawks, pretty birds, a short hike that totally wiped me out, time with Jacob and a beautiful setting. Also lots of pooris for breakfast. (Mmm fried foods).The Himalayas! (It was cloudy in Dhulikel)

We came back to town on Thursday, and ate spicy chinese for dinner. Then yesterday Jacob took me to Boudhanath- which is a temple to Buddha in the Tibetan neighborhood of town. It was beautiful and we spent a lot of time talking to people who worked at a shop painting Thankas- a type of Buhhdist religious paintings- it was fascinating- Jacob was into the religious symbolism, and I was obsessed with getting a sense of how the paintings were put together.

And today we're going to the touristy center of KTM:Thamel for fun and games, so this is it for my post of the week. There is so much more detail I can't possibly convey.

Things I regret.

• I truly regret that my most successful sushi making attempt was a solitary endeavor. I think a sushi party will have to happen if I ever clean the apartment enough to have guests.

• I regret being absent from this blog for so long, as apparently Mom and Dad would prefer to follow my life remotely in picture format, and I have been chastised.
  

So for my folks, here are a few things I have been doing. I have been running many errands to get ready for the trip. One of those errands took me to Pasadena, where there is Yoko Ono installation of trees with wishes tied to them (reminds me of the New Year wish jar). It was pretty cool. My favorite wishes were the two tied next to each other which read, "I wish for everything/ I wish for nothing". Tres Zen. I also made a wish.

I have also been working on a baby quilt for April. While the below sketch was not in the end incorporated into the actual quilt, I can't post photos of the quilt itself until after she gets it. There is something dinosaur in the actual quilt, so I thought I'd show off some fun I had drawing dinosaurs. Hey Mom and Dad! Remember all that money you chipped in for that BA degree I got?! Look at those baby dinosaurs, look how cute they are, see how much I appreciate and utilize that expensive training! And for the record, I drew heavily on both Michelangelo's Pieta and Picasso's Blue Period for inspiration.

• I regret not learning about sub-irrigation gardening in time to set up sub-irrigation in my planters before the trip.

Here is a photo I took a few weeks back. We have one windowbox and 2 pots, and one coffee cup.

These are photos from this week. Thuy and I transplanted the peas to a new pot with a bamboo and rubber band trellis, and I added a new window box to hold the new addition of spinach and to transplant the poppies which were living in the plastic coffee cup. The role call is as follows:

Window Box One:
Sage
Salad Mix
Thyme
Basil
Chives (the most weakly of all the plants)

Window Box Two:
Spinach (most recently planted, not yet sprouted on my desk, but sprouted at Thuy's)
California Poppies (our only non edible)

Individual Pots:
Tomato (white lightning hybrid)
Sugar Snap Peas (with trellis)
Nasturtiums

• Finally: I either regret posting these photos during work hours, or I regret giving my boss the URL address to my blog so he can "snark" at me, as he promised to do.