Back to the future (with lots of photos)

Whether it was on the streets of Mumbai or NYC, there were tons of people to entertain me on my travels.

I’m back in Regina (pause for snickering from all the immature readers).  With less than 48 hours back in the Queen City here are some things I’ve noticed.

• Everyone has an iPhone or the Samsung equivalent. Not sure how I feel about that but I’m going to see if I can get minutes for the cell phone I was using in Sri Lanka just to rebel. I purchased it in India in 2008 for about $5 and the only special feature it has is a flashlight (which I might add is very useful.)
• There are only about two degrees of separation in this city. You can’t go anywhere without running into someone you know and stopping for a chat. It’s really great to catch up with everyone. In fact, I bet I wouldn’t even need to phone any of my friends. If I just walked around outside long enough, I would see everyone I know or ever have known in this city.
• People in Saskatchewan love to complain about the weather. All winter Facebook was filled with posts of how horrible it was and given the winter they had it was warranted. Now I’ve overheard people complaining about the heat. Come on people it may be getting up to 34 degrees today but that will only be for about 5 minutes! Try jogging outside in that 34 degree heat while blow drying your hair and then immediately cram into an unmoving city bus with 1000s of people packed like sardines and then you might have an idea of what Sri Lanka hot is.
• I start every sentence with “In Sri Lanka . . . .” That could get really annoying for people to listen to.
• The internet is super duper fast.
• Our condo seems really big and really clean. I haven’t seen a single ant on our counter top. Weird.
• There is no traffic. I haven’t seen a single cow or elephant on the road. But I do already miss the ability to hail down a tuk tuk to take you anywhere you want to go.
• The prices are killing me. Okay, it is cheaper than New York City, but my money is going really fast.  I won’t get a proper pay cheque until the end of September and there is not a single place you can get a $1 lunch packet.
• The new Safeway in our area is a cornucopia of food and other convenience items. Some of the items I love having easy access to are good deodorant, lip gloss and proper hair elastics. It is all so exciting that I feel the need to use multiple exclamation points even though over use of the exclamation point is one of my pet peeves!!!

The past month has been full of blog worthy experiences, but with either limited time or reliable internet access, I just haven’t been able to keep up. So I guess I’ll just begin with a photo montage of South India and New York and then write about some of the juicy details later.

Trina

The ashram near Trivandrum, India was fantastic. It gave me a chance to collect my thoughts and prepare for the next challenges life has in store.

This is a statue of a person in the head stand my nemesis pose (as I’ve written before). During the high season, they actually do yoga by this spot on the lake but right now there is too much rain and crocodiles. BTW, I managed to accomplish the head stand for the first time during my last morning in NYC. So there was a Hollywood / Bollywood happy ending after all.

This is the lake right next to the ashram.

Jennifer, Indrani and Mayura all pose for a picture in Kanyakumari, the southern most tip of India. I was trying my best to see Sri Lanka in the distance. This was during our day off in the ashram. The trip was amazing not necessarily because of the sites but because of the amazing people I was able to go with. “Only connect.” E.M. Forster

Natlaie, Indrani and Mayura pose for a photo.

I”m attempting to get all artistic but I’m not sure the lighting is good enough to see the colours in her beautiful saree.

This picture was taken at the entrance to the wooden palace’s temple.

Thank goodness South India resembles Sri Lanka a lot so I was able to showcase my “rice and curry hand eating” skills.

This site off the coast of Kamyakumari is where Swami Vivekananada saw the footprints of the reincarnation of Parvithi (Shiva’s goddess wife) and swam out to meditate for three days before he headed to Chicago to spread the word.

This is a statue of a famous Tamil poet and scholar off the coast.

Tamil Nadu is the area from which many Indians were brought to Sri Lanka by the British to work the tea plantations. Therefore, seeing this type of dress and the flowers in the hair was a very familiar site.

I love the contrasting colours on the coast.

Mumbai is a world of contrasts. Just next to the airport is Asia’s largest slum. Yet across the river you can see some of the richest real estate in the world.

This gives you a bit of an idea about the architecture and infrastructure of Mumbai. It is very different from anywhere else in India I’ve been.

The Gateway to India was built to comemorate the visit of King George V in 1911. Ironically construction wasn’t completed until 1924 and all that was ready for the King’s visit was a cardboard model. However, the full structure was completed in plenty of time for the British to depart through it in 1947 symbolically ending their rule.

This is part of the famous Marine Drive strip in which many love scenes have been shot in Bollywood movies.

This is a great view of the Taj Hotel and the Gateway of India. Interesting story is that the Taj hotel was built by a local Indian in the early 1900s when he was denied entrance into a British run posh hotel. His revenge was to build a hotel even more decadent and steal away their business.

Elephanta caves are located on an island an hour ferry ride away from Mumbai. The caves have been around since the 8th century (although historians dispute the date). It was built as a site of worship to Shiva and ruins of several statues and Shiva lingas (penises) can be found inside.

This is a statue of Brahman, Krishna and Shiva (the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer) that make up the underlying power of the universe. I think I’ve got that right but it’s very hard to describe.

Since it was the low season I hired Samir to be my tour guide for the day. He was very informative and I treated him to a beer afterwards.

Vendors will never miss out on a chance to sell you something. The people of Elephanta Island line the path selling their wares as tourists make the trek up the 120 steps to the caves.

This is the view of Mumbai from my upgraded hotel room. The last night in the city, I splurged on a nice hotel. Considering I got a deal on Agoda and then was upgraded to an Oceanview room with a king size bed for my birthday, it was a great deal.

People were trying to sell just about anything on the streets of Mumbai. I’m not sure what I’d do with such a large balloon but it didn’t stop many men from telling me what a fantastic deal it was.

Our first night in NYC we perused time square. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much of it as I may have took one too many Ativan on the plane ride from Mumbai.

It was so cool to see so many spots that we recognized only from the movies before.

One of the first things we did was go to a Yankee’s game. I was on the lookout for George Constanza but didn’t see him.

Unfortunately the Yankees lost to the Rangers. Don’t ask me what the score was. I was too busy people watching which is why people really go to sporting events isn’t it?

We might have been sitting in the nosebleed section but the Yankee fans were still in fine form.

Every morning I loved jogging in Central Park. We also spent one full day exploring all the spots including the art at the Met.

The off Broadway production of Murder Ballad was fantastic. This bar was actually part of the set and the actors were in amongst the audience. The entire show was narrated through an original rock ballad. Wow!

This night it was enchiladas, ceviche and tequila cocktails.

Ok, I laughed so hard I cried. Book of Mormon was comedic genius even though the humour definitely crossed the line at times.

We went for sushi and sake sangaria’s after the show.

This old rail line was converted into a mile long green space for the city. It is an amazing park with fantastic street food and views. I highly recommend the homemade ice cream sandwiches and the Taco Truck.

View from the Highline Park.

This installation art work along the Highline was actually photos of the different colours of the Hudson River at different times of year.

I made Elysia snap a few of this shot until I got one I was pleased with for a Facebook profile. Is it sad that so much of our lives are controlled by social media?

I like to pride myself in the quintessential photo of downtown NYC. It’s got tall buildings, the Empire State, yellow taxis and an American flag. What more could you want?

I probably shouldn’t admit this but the Statue of Liberty was a lot smaller than I was expecting. Still pretty cool though.

The best (and only) free thing we did was ride the Staten Island Ferry to see the views.

These street performers had great moves and jokes to entertain the crowd. The grand finale involved conning me out of $20 and doing a flip over Elysia. I’m not even making this up!

Advertisements