..SouthAsiaRocks..

Sorry for the lack of posting... This Meniere's Disease has been killer... ugh! Anyway... just though I'd post something :)  I wasn't sure what to post (I've been in bed with vertigo a lot)... so I thought I'd post something that I see daily... This time of year there is quite a bit of humidity in the Capital.  Since we don't have central heating or AC, the humidity is in the house also ... which means that air-drying clothes can be challenging!   The other day Adam got creative and made a "clothes dryer" for us :)    He put all the wet clothes on our clothes drying rack and then covered it with 2 double sheets and pinning it with clothes pins.    Then we put our blower heater under it... and even have a vent on top (this wasn't a good pin job this day... we've gotten better) :)   And there you have it!  A (really ugly) Clothes Dryer! :)  It works awesome!  And just for fun.... Here's one of the markets next t...

The other day I was in a rickshaw and my driver stopped and pulled over at the median and told me it would be one minute. Rickshaw drivers tend to pull over every now and then to get snacks, tobacco or to relieve themselves, so I wasn't surprised he was stopping... but it was weird we were stopping in the middle of the street! The driver got out and paid for a bowl full of birdseed and then started feeding the birds. He fed the birds, did a short puja (worship) and got right back in the auto and we drove off... After living here almost 6 years, that was definitely a new thing for me :) I love how this country consistently surprises me :)

I had a few random pictures to post... It's been raining a LOT lately! Even if it's raining, people have to work. This guy (below) had a creative rain guard :) It's hard to tell in this picture, but it was like a funny hat :) Here is one of those weird funny fruits... This is Lychee . It has a pink/red outer rind. You peel it off and there is a white fruit inside with a huge black seed. It's a funny fruit! Just some plums, cherries & lychees for sale at a night market :) OK, that post as a little boring... oh well :)

Last weekend we were at the mall and saw these large red giraffes. We had heard that they were doing some sort of performances there, so we decided to stick around and see :) A group from France had come over to do these performances. They did them on Saturday & Sunday night ;) It was an opera, but not sure what else to call it. It was very unique! There were two people inside of every giraffe making it move all around (their legs are the giraffe's legs). This lady (below) was the lead actress/opra singer. She was singing in some language (not sure) and she actually spoke in Hindi (there wasn't much speaking though - mostly singing) - it was very interesting. See all the people! It was crazy! They were moving everything around over and through all the people! They would push them out of the way when they needed to move! The main characters were this lady in white and a clown in red that played a bass drum. I didn't get it at all, and Aashini was terrified o...

I bring my camera with me everywhere - you never know when you're going to see something interesting :) So I have a bunch of pictures that I've taken randomly around town :) These guys were sitting in the parking garage - I thought it was fun the way they were sitting :) This is the broom guy :) He goes down our street every day selling brooms, squeegees and a few other things like that on his bicycle :) There are certain times of the day that the buses are very crowded - especially if it has been raining. You can see the guys hanging out of the bus - one guy only has one hand and one foot to hold on with!! This monkey was chillin' on some parked cars at a market the other day :) You never know what will be on the road. There are always different carts (like the one below) on the roads. This one was a motorized bicycle with a whole family on the cart :) It was cute :) It was really fast too, this was the best pic I could get of it :) This is a slum in an area of th...

Have you ever wondered how they clean the tent-like roofs at some places? The mall that is in our part of town has one of those roofs over half of it... you know, the ones that are kinda like a circus tent, but more permanent? Anyway, I always wondered how they clean those. I never really wondered how they did that in America... I mean, it rains there pretty often where I lived, so it never seemed dirty... BUT where we currently live it is SUPER dusty and only rains 2 times a year.... so cleaning is necessary. Anyway, the other day we went there for lunch after my Doc appointment, and we saw they were cleaning it. It actually looked really fun (and maybe a little scary)... They aren't hooked onto that rope or anything, just holding onto it while they clean! One guy slid down from the top like it was a big water slide! It was pretty crazy! Random, I know, but I thought it looked kinda fun :)

Here's a couple of random pics from the things I've been doing lately :) My mom teaches ESL (English as a Second Language) at FBC in Tally, so when I'm in town, I go with her to her class and help out. We have the very beginners that don't really speak any English at all. It's a very fun class! Anyway, this past Tuesday night, we had a Thanksgiving banquet with the Students and their friends. We met some new South Asian friends and had a lot of fun! :) At the end, some of the students played instruments and some sang. One lady from Russia played the accordian and sang - it was so fun! The picture below is of my friend from Japan playing the Sanshin and singing - it was really neat! Aashini loved all the music :) The pic below is of me and my friend Nisay. She's from Cambodia. She's really cool and has a really cool story. Right now she's at school at Florida State. Adam & I want to visit her in Cambodia when she's back there in a few yea...

Our friends Deepak and family just had a baby :) They had a baby boy and named him Ashish - it means "blessing". Here he is :) He's definitely a cutie! He's only 3 weeks old :) I took this pic this week and I liked it :) thought I'd share... This lady's job is to carry bricks (on her head) from place to place. I love how ladies here will still wear saris while doing hard manual labor! You guys ROCK!!!

I LOVE ice cream! I've especially loved it lately... Yesterday Adam and I were out and about and decided to get some gelato... we had only been to this store once before, but when we went in this time, it had changed!! It now has a part of it called "GelatOnStone".... like Coldstone or Marble Slab if you've had that... they have a big cold slab of marble there and they mix the ice cream or gelato on the stone with your toppings! You can see the guy below making mine :) I got white chocolate gelato with oreos... but then he started adding all sorts of great stuff... he poured on chocolate magic shell stuff and white chocolate magic shell stuff (you can see it in the pic below)... Man! Talk about sweet!! It was AWESOME!!! He mixed it all up and put it in a waffle bowl! It was great!!! This store (below) is in the same market - it's called the "dollar store"... they sell everything for 99 rps.... which is closer to $2.50... but they do have imported th...