day one: the one i spent looking drawn and tired the whole time and asking lots of ignorant questions

india is amazing.

that seems like such a trite thing to say but i am still wrapping my head around everything. i wonder if i'll ever stop wrapping my head around everything.... there's so much. seriously.

yesterday, when everyone else woke up, rheea made breakfast and the five of us perched around the table, spilling toast crumbs and slurping on fresh mangoes.

on the news and in the paper, the public transit in india had declared a bandh. a bandh is a form of protest used in india by political activists or communities to declare a general strike. this meant a few things: first, the roads would have far less traffic since a bandh meant most people stayed home. second, we would need to be careful for mobs; especially given that activists had already set three buses aflame by ten in the morning. and third, a bit of a hiccup to our plans, most businesses would be closed.

rheea calls bandhs the snow days of india. this seemed accurate... well if you added in a certain level of uncertainty of danger.

anyhow, thambee wasn't feeling well so we took the morning slowly... seeing if his tummy repaired itself. by early afternoon, the air was getting a bit restless and, with thambee feeling much better, we trooped out into the world. rheea and arun took chrissy, nick and i into town where the roads were mostly deserted, something i was told vehemently NEVER was the case. we ended up having lunch at this chinese food place. it was really fancy schmancy. i told them that when we were inside there eating, it felt like we weren't in india, it felt so westernized. chrisssy said it was kind of like a p.f. chang's. i think she hit it on the nail, actually. except for there was no beef or pork on the menu AND the fried rice used long grain rice and corn. the food was interesting. actually tasty, really, but not if you were looking for authentic chinese food. coming from san francisco and growing up with two different chinese grandmas, i needed to put my chinese cuisine snobbery on massive check. but, i knew this and did it before we even sat down at the table; thus, the meal was yummy. most things on the menu were of some level of spicy. my poor companions... familystyle eating with this girl who has the spice tolerance of an infant must be a tad obnoxious sometimes.

when we left, the shops and bars all around were still closed. they decided to take us to cubbon park. bangalore is often unofficially called the "garden city" because of all of its parks and gardens. cubbon park is located in the very heart of the city. both rheea and arun say it is the central park of bangalore. and really, it is.

there are long tree-lined avenues and original vintage lampposts. the broken cobblestone is covered in dust and the park itself houses the high court (bangalore's justice system building) and is adjacent to both a cricket stadium and the state capitol building of karnataka, vidhana soudha. 

lush green leafy avenues

there was a horse running free in the road outside of the vidhana soudha. its owner, this young boy, was awkwardly trying to capture him with a thin, frayed plastic rope. later, we saw the horse prancing about the gardens with some of the stray dogs.

i asked rhee if i could take this horsey home.

but then this little boy came and claimed her.

with the strays.

the left side of her body was convulsing and there was a slight limp on her right hind leg. poor beautiful girl.

cubbon park was beautifully crumbling. a clear sign of this would be the trash that is just so carelessly scattered in thick piles throughout the park. it really broke my heart.

we wandered the park for awhile, wide-eyed and observant. or maybe just i was wide-eyed and observant. nonetheless, there was much to observe.

a couple weeks ago, tinted windows were banned so now the park is covered in signs advertising "car paper remover"s.

the trucks and autorickshaws often have colorful messages on the backs of them.

cheesin'.

i'm pretty sure there are like several pictures of us over our entire friendship that look like this. ridic.

this is such a beautiful picture of chrissy!!

 after the park, we went to a few snazzy bars. the first one, the biere club, is at lavelle rd and vittal mallya rd- an intersection/area that rheea and arun say is the most expensive street in bangalore. the second bar was in this monstrously huge high-end designer plaza called UB city. it was a lot of fancy for one day. 

at this point, i was sooooooo tired. sooooo jet lagged. soooo ready to fall asleep in the booth.

after UB city, we went home. in the ride over, i passed out and then crawled upstairs and just slept from 830pm onward. all of them are being adorably sweet about my intense jet lag. 

so far, a few things immediately have stood out to me about india, in general. there are SO MANY MEN everywhere. and most of them are seriously just milling about, staring. by the end of our walk, i was telling rhee that i'd give anything to just have a group of women pass by, to just make things feel a bit more balanced. it's strange... being surrounded by that many men constantly is going to take some adjustment. i don't know how to say this without saying what i'm saying. okay... it's like it's threatening without it being threatening, does that make any sense? i wasn't afraid at all but it made me feel very... aware, very wary almost. how interesting to have your gender but what qualifies you as the odd man [no pun intended] out. 


the other thing is that there are so many stray dogs. i want to save them all. i want to go up to every single one of them and hug them and save them and roll around in the grass with them. i know, it's ludicrous and completely impossible but there are so many and i just want to love them, all of them. a friend of mine once told me that i have an extreme case of puppyitis; the thing about india though is that the strays are skittish and on the defense, understandably so. they're not all safe or clean and there are so many that it'd be impossible to save them all. the unwashed canine masses, poor things. one with a chunk of his ear lopped off made my little heart sink. 


[almost all photos courtesy of the fabulous, talented nick johnson from this day [who allowed me to even request certain pictures and not make me take them myself]; one is courtesy of arun nagarajan.]

jet lag: part two

right now it is 5 in the morning. i woke up about forty minutes ago: @ 4:20am. i hate my body's clock right now... so bad.

there is much to update about my first day in india... so much. but right now, i am a little too lost/confused/frustrated for that.

i want to sleep but i cannot. it probably doesn't help that i couldn't stay up any later than 8:30 pm last night but let me tell you, it was ROUGH making myself stay up even that late. seriously rough. i was dying from about 4pm on. SO EXHAUSTED. how do jetsetting businessfolk do this all the time?!

so i finally slept a good amount of time... 830-430ish... what is that... like eight hours? ok, yes, eight hours. the first time in days of having a full night's sleep... of course unfortunately, again, i am awake in the pitch-darkness of night. it took me twenty minutes to find a light switch [still adjusting to rhee and arun's house]. i have to pee but i can't get the bathroom door to open without it making a ton of noise so i'm... waiting it out? then i thought, okay i'll update the blog about yesterday BUT i can't seem to find the camera bag. i think it's in the guestroom with nick [which also has another bathroom] but i don't want to wake him up... i think he's as light a sleeper as i usually am.

so instead... i'm whining. i know. it's appalling. i'm appalling. i think it's just one of those moments where i need a sec to be like AHHHH what do i do with myself at this godforsaken hour when everyone is sleeping and i can't even figure out a way to go to the bathroom?!

UPDATE: nick saw the light [knew he was a light sleeper] and came out to check on me. "of course you can use the bathroom, bovee!" and he gave me the camera bag. sometimes, i'm an idiot... i know. thank goodness he saved me from a tiny bit of a "feeling sorry for myself" moment. alleluia.

OK.... shortly, i will follow this whining bit with a real post about yesterday. <3

jet lag: part one.

it is around 6:30am bangalore time.

everything still feels unreal. so unreal. rheea and arun picked me up from the airport last night and as we drove the fifty minutes home in the absolutely most ridiculous driving conditions i've ever seen, it felt like maybe we were in the car in san bruno [where they used to live] or maybe on a speakerphone call. again, aside from the fact that three lane roads, red lights, and pedestrian crossing are all merely SUGGESTIONS in indian driving. that part didn't feel very san bruno-y.

when we got to their flat and i met [see: absolutely and completely loved up on] their doggies, rheea and i went on to the rooftop terrace that is their patio with sweating glasses of whiskey swimming in already melting ice and looked out at the black night, in silence.

r: i seriously cannot believe you're here.
me: i know right? like i don't even know what to say.
r: me too!
me: it is like the best kind of silence.
r: yes.

we stood on a concrete bench, nursing our drinks, just content to be by one another.

nick and his friend chrissy, who happens to be traveling in india at the same time and is a complete and total doll, came back to the house and the five of us talked story, took pictures, drank [indian whiskey, so far, is horrible, btw. watered down and prone to leaving a slightly sterile aftertaste... like a hospital, yum.], jammed out on acoustic instruments, and cuddled with the doggies.

i wasn't tired but rheea didi ["big sister" in hindi] was insistent at 2am that i must get to sleep. i was laid out on the terrace floor, thambee the golden retriever sprawled asleep in my lap, listening to arun play nani, my ukulele, and staring up at the polluted sky, just breathing. but no, rheea was not having it.

"jet lag is going to make you worthless tomorrow if you don't rest and we have lots planned."

but... but.... i want to revel a bit more, i want to swim in the sweetness of the first night, i want to feel all of my limbs stretched out and grounded, i want to....

"to bed yobo!"

so to bed we all went. and of course, like i mentioned at the beginning, it is 6:30am bangalore time and i am WIDE AWAKE. so awake. so so so awake.

anyhow, here are a couple shots from last night's reunion. i am going to return some emails [keep 'em coming, gems. i heart them all.], eat something so i can take my malaria pill, and then crawl back into bed to see if i can get a bit more sleep.

jet lag really is no joke.

together again. tired but ohsohappy pose.

group shot #1: normal [ish]

group shot #2: "excited face" meets "fobby face" except for nick... who only does "G face" <3

group shot #3: i can only shake my head at whatever is happening here...

group shot #4: we've fallen into chaos... sigh.

yobos. yes, THIS ONE is veryveryvery much us.

before the beginning has even begun: en route

it takes thirty-two hours to get to bangalore from san francisco.

no, scratch that. that isn't true. it takes ME thirty-two hours. with transfers and layovers, i left SFO late monday night (PST) and will arrive in bangalore sometime wednesday morning (PST). of course, it will be late night wednesday in bangalore.

anyhow, this is the beginning before the beginning.

i've never left the country, albeit for some rather reckless trips to mexico during my undergraduate years. in a few hours, this will change. actually, i suppose its already changed. after a thirteen and a half hour flight to hong kong, an hour and a half layover there, and a three and a half hour flight to singapore, i've been roaming about singapore's changi airport for the past seven hours. my layover here is eight and a half hours.

singapore airlines IS everything everyone says it is. fancy and doting and the stewardesses totally make you feel like you're near delicate porcelain. the first leg of the journey to hong kong, i slept probably a total of 5-6 hours, watched a bunch of movies, drank lots of apple juice and daydreamed about short story ideas. i sat next to an older woman traveling with her husband and teenage kids. she didn't speak a bit of english and was the sweetest thing. it was nice to be next to someone's mom, as odd as that sounds. 


on the way over from hong kong to singapore, the flight was not even halfway full and i really began to start to feel the disgustingness of being on airplanes that long.


the first thing i did when i stepped off the plane was spend 35 USD on a bed to sleep in for three hours [they have transit hotels in the airport. so rad, right?] and a shower. it's funny how long periods of traveling make expenditures that would normally seem luxurious now instead seem completely and totally acceptable. i would've sold my body to the first bidder for a hot shower and a quiet room; in that light, 35 bucks is a bargain.

changi airport is amazing. like mindblowing. i think i look like some lost twelve year old girl wandering around the vast hallways, clutching my dinosaur pillow, every so often consulting the guidebook for some sense of direction. yes, there is a guidebook. you thought i was exaggerating about the insanity that is this airport. ha, no, not even.


anyhow, india is soon to be. very soon, in fact. there will be much to update on when that time comes.



in the meantime, here are a few treasures i found here at the airport:

there are multiple gardens in changi. the most adorable, i think, is the butterfly garden.

the butterfly garden is a two level lush sanctuary for exotic plants and multiple types of butterflies.

pssh, i mean cmon now, there's a freaking waterfall?!

there's a long koi pond in the middle of terminal 3. these koi are HUGE. like chemically engineered huge or something.

this is for you, baby sipster, victoria malia. it's our three fave guys. <3 so adorable. and so overpriced, lol.

the second garden i stumbled on is this orchid garden.

the sunflower garden, the last of the gardens from what i could tell, is on the top level of terminal 2. the deck is both an open air viewing area and has a smoker's lounge. well, and sunflowers, of course. lots and lots of sunflowers.

seriously, i cannot even describe the amount of amenities in this airport. if i wasn't so enamored, i think i'd be scandalized by this. i mean, there are movie theatres that show free movies, a rooftop swimming pool, every designer store known to man, etc etc etc. here i think is something that i found adorable: the free gaming room, complete with a flatscreen to hookup consoles to AND a pod of computers specifically for lan gaming. talk about thinking of everything.

okay listen, like i said, i haven't internationally traveled before so duty-free is still pretty snazzy to me. and of course, so are these three different types of special reserve jamesons. if only mitchell the dinosaur pillow wasn't taking up so much room in my carryon bag. le sigh.