« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
September 30, 2005
Picture link
Again I am not even going to try and post them directly so here is a link to shutterfly with more pics:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8Acs27Fy5atWFX¬ag=1
Posted by Tara at 06:29 AM | Comments (0)
Getting Around Town:
First keep in mind that driving around Mysore is like being in space and not having the laws of gravity apply because it is just crazy to drive around here. Rules of the road as we know them DO NOT APPLY. If there happen to be painted lane dividers on the roads they DO NOT MATTER. The only time they might matter is if the lane dividers are made of concrete and jutting out of the road. The stop signs painted on the roads also DO NOT MATTER. People pull into oncoming traffic without looking all the time. I am convinced it is because the Indian people are very fatalistic in their thinking. Whatever the reason it can be unnerving to have a family of four riding on a motorscooter pull right out in front of you with very little awareness of what is going on around them. (and you will see families of four: father driving with a kid between his legs holding onto handlebars, mother riding side saddle on the back holding a baby - we are currently doing our own version of this but involves strapping Rowan to me and putting a helmut on her).
What else? Oh, there are very few stoplights here, but get ready for some Indie 500 action when you do actually pull up to a stoplight. They have an actual countdown clock by the light that lets you know in seconds how long it will be before it turns green. Many people turn off their bike's engines and wait, but once the clock gets down to about 20 seconds or so the bikes get turned on and everyone starts revving their engines and pushing towards the front of the line. Then at about 10 seconds or so people start honking and pushing even more and before the light even turns green there is a mad dash and horns are honking and people driving off.
Rickshaws are pretty fun too. I watch them drive kids home after school and I have counted as many as nine children crammed into them. I am sure they could fit more if theywanted too. They are basically like a motorscooter with a box built around it so that is is enclosed. Like a miniture taxicab. We don't take them too often because we have a scooter, but they can be convenient to travel. Gas is pretty expensive here as well (probably twice what we pay at home), so it can be a better way to travel in groups because you can fit 3-4 people in them.
Oh and pedestrians here are nuts! Jason is always wondering why someone's sense of self-preservation doesn't kick in at some point but it is obvious that pedestrians here do not care. They walk in front of your moving vehicle that outweighs them by one hundred pounds ALL THE TIME. Jason is ona mission at this point to not give in. He thinks it shows weakenss and they will walk out in front even more. I try to explain to him that his logic is faulty, but he doesn't listen...
Well, I could write more but my battery on the computer is about to die. Pics are on their way...
Posted by Tara at 05:50 AM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2005
Things are picking up..
It seems more people are showing up at the shala this week. Sharath is still gone and will not be back until the 8th of October (so the rumor mill says). However, more people keep coming. I have met a few people who are only here for 3-4 weeks and can be quite bummed to hear Sharath is not here and that the family will be gone at the end of October on vacation. Still it has been nice with just Guruji and Saraswati.
Guruji helped me with backbends today and yesterday. He dropped me all the way back today and left me there. I thought my nose might break :) but luckily he remembered to bring me up just in time! Of course I get the hug at the end and it is nice to hear him breath. He gives a big squeeze at the end that just about cleans your lungs out of air! He asked, "where from?" and I said "Encinitas". He said, "Encinitas?" and I said "yes, with Tim". His face lit up when he said "Tim? You Tim's student?" He smiled and laughed and walked off.
It has been super hot the past week during the early afternoon and we have been hibernating then. We might try the zoo this week for Rowan and Jason wants to visit the Sandaldwood factory. Me? I am getting a Coconut oil hair treatment Friday. I can't wait!
Posted by Tara at 07:05 AM | Comments (2)
September 23, 2005
Chocolate lovers...
Today there were about 50 – 60 students in class. It was the Friday led first series class. The shala has been losing students every week, but things will probably pick up when Sharath returns from his tour. Everyone says that Guruji has been more active and hands on since Sharath has gone. This being my first time here I just have to go on what others say. He does seem very alert these days for a 90 year old man.
There is a couple here, George and Jean, who have a daughter the same age as Rowan. George and Jean do not have a nanny for Isabel, so they switch off in the mornings. George practices at 5am and Jean comes in about 6:30. At this time because there are so few students she ends up finishing with Saraswati’s students.
Every morning when Jean comes in with Isabel to wait for George to finish Guruji is quick to give the girl chocolate. This morning we were in headstand and Jean is out in the hall with Isabel. Guruji is counting 1…2….3……….and there is a long pause as he walks into his office to get chocolate. Then you hear him from his office call out …4……5, etc. Everyone started laughing.
Too bad we don’t get to bring Rowan in the mornings because I am not opposed to getting chocolate from Guruji (since I couldn’t possibly let Rowan indulge in chocolate!:)). Maybe if he starts doing conference again on Sundays I will bring Rowan in hopes of procuring some of that chocolate.
Posted by Tara at 07:55 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2005
Mommy time
Yesterday was Rowan's first day at a local nursery school. I was feeling like I needed to have a bit of me time and I also wanted Rowan to have interactions with other kids. She hasn't gotten that much lately - at least not as much as we did at home. So I scouted around a bit and found a nursery school right down the street from our house. I walked in and asked them how old they kids have to be. They said, "We will take" before I could tell them how old she was. She is a good year younger than most of the kids there, but they made a point of telling me that they had taken Western yoga students children before and they were Christian. I found the last part kind of funny.
Anywho, they seemed very nice and so I brought her around yesterday for a half hour trial run. She cried a bit at first. I think it was a bit overwhelming to have so many kids around her. They were all fascinated with her and wanted to hold her hand and touch her hair. Once they backed up a bit and gave her some breathing room she started to loosen up. I left her playing in the sandbox with some girls who looked to be about 3 years.
I just dropped her off for her second day and will leave her for about an hour. As soon as we walked up she wanted to be put down and practically ran over to where some kids were playing. I went in to fill out some paperwork and when I was leaving she was playing again with some girls and didn't even care that I was not there. This may be good for her as long as I can get over my fear of leaving her! She can go Monday - Friday from 9:30 - 12:30, but I don't think I will take her that much. Just a few hours for a few days a week is all I need. And it only costs around $12 a month!
While we practice yoga in the mornings my downstairs landlady watches Rowan. I wasn't intending for her too, but I asked her one day if she knew of anyone I could hire to watch her while we did yoga and she offered to do it. She has a grandchild the same age as Rowan who lives far away - so I think this is her way for her to use those grandmother skills before they get rusty. She is great with Rowan. We have to bring her very early (around 5:15am) and Nirmala is awake and ready. She also has a son around 21 that lives with her and he loves to play with Rowan as well. We are usually back before 7:30 to pick her up and she always seems happy.
Overall, Rowan has some pretty great people watching her and she seems to be responding to all this love and attention!
Posted by Tara at 05:42 AM | Comments (1)
September 20, 2005
Picutes again...
Okay, it has been hard to try and upload pics directly on this site, so I have uploaded them to an album in shutterfly. Try the link below...
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8Acs27Fy5atWEx
Posted by Tara at 06:58 AM | Comments (2)
A typical day...
So far our day goes something like this:
Jason and I get up around 4am or 4:30. We chill for a bit and then wake Rowan up about 5am. We drop her off downstairs to our landlady (our nannie - she rocks!) and then we are off to the shala to get their by 5:30,just in time for the opening chant with Guruji.
We practice until about 7 or 7:30am and hang out in front of the shala for a bit drinking coconuts (except I just hang - coconuts are gross!). Then we head home and pick up baby. She is about ready for a nap usually at that point so I put her down. When she wakes up we go for breakfast. Breakfast can be one of a few different spots, all good, including Tina's, Anu's, the KevInn, GokulChat, or others I can't spell.
We hang out for an hour or two then head home. We hang at our pad for a bit and Rowan usually takes another nap at some point. Next we plan our lunch! (It is all about food here if you haven't guessed that already). Lunch is usually some kind of thali meal (don't know if that is spelled right). Or we have lunch at some ladies houses that cook meals for yoga students. Those are my favorite. They always seemto love Rowan too.
We eat lunch around 1:30, and if we are going to do anything that we usually end up doing it after lunch or we head home for a bit and get out after 4pm to tool around. So far things seem to take time- for example, if you want a bedspread, that might take you all afternoon to find one. We went to Chamundi hill one day and to the dam and dam gardens one day. We also seem to read alot and watch bootleg movies we get from the video store.
We usually have fruit salad for dinner and go to bed around 8pm. Very much the laid back lifestyle I would say.
Update on internet: Not yet. We have been blown off by the dudes for days, but supposedly they come today. :)
Posted by Tara at 06:45 AM | Comments (3)
pics
Posted by Tara at 06:16 AM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2005
Internet
Well, right now I am typing from an internet cafe. They are pretty common here, but it is hard for me to find the time to come down without Rowan to type. So I haven't posted for a few days. She is asleep now and Jason is on duty. However, we should have internet at our apartment in the next few days. Let me tell you how it has gone down...
We heard it was cheap to get broadband hooked up to your pad - and Jason is still working long distance for his job and Andrew would like to do web chats with his wife and kid - so we thought it would be a good investment. We call to get a quote from 2 different companies. One thing to keep in mind is that things don't actually run by any clock that I am aware of. We keep missing the guys who are coming to give us quotes because they never actually give us a time they are coming. Or they give us a time and don't show up. Finally we get one to come, and they have to come back the next day to actually give us the quote so they can ask there boss about a deposit. We don't want to pay one and they want us to.
It goes back and forth like this for a few days. Somehow, and we don't know how, our downstairs neighbor talks to the dude on our behalf and gets us the internet without a deposit and without an instillation fee. Plus it is cheaper per month than what he originally told us. Yeah for the neighbor.
Okay, so we have an agreement to get internet and they are going to come the next day to hook it up (of course we don't know what time). They do come eventually though. There are 2 of them. They unscrew something on the wall. Talk amongst themselves. Go walk around outside. Come back in and talk amongst themselves. Walk outside again. We wait. Wait some more. Oh, it turns out they have left. Didn't say anything. Just left. Next day they drop by to tell us they will be coming on the following day at noon. We still have no idea what is going on.
By the third day we pin down the instillation guys and they tell us that they are waiting for a work order. They actually have to dig a ditch to install some wire that runs to our house. Sounds easy enough. The next day we have (and I counted them) Eleven men outside our house digging a ditch with shovels and their hands. I am not kidding. And it is not just any ditch mind you. They have to dig the ditch from half way down the street on the opposite side as our house. They are digging up people's driveways and then they just dig up the concrete street to cross the wire over to our side. Once they are done digging and laying the wire they put the dirt back on in big mounds and don't even pat it down. So people have to go over these big mounds to get in their driveways. Let me tell you how indulgent this whole internet thing is seeming right about now.
So that was yesterday. The wires been laid, but not connected to our house. We are still waiting for someone to come and do that. They were supposed to come this afternoon, but didn't show up. I am assuming that since they went through the trouble of having 11 men dig this massive ditch for us that they will eventually show. Then I will be able to sit in the comfort of my own home and write more and post pics for all you readers our there. How American is that????
Posted by Tara at 12:31 PM | Comments (1)
Pics
Tara & Rowan in Kuala Lumpur
Shala Gates
Rowan Starting Yoga
Rowan & Tara in living room
Our living room
Our kitchen
Guys walking around playing music with cow
Guys & cow outside our patio
Front door view & the fridge
Andrew walking down shala street
Andrew & Jason in Kuala Lumpur
Posted by Tara at 04:45 AM | Comments (2)
September 10, 2005
Yoga practice
Yoga
Jason and I have yet to figure out the perfect system for practicing yoga with Rowan, but we are working on it. The first 3 days we were here the shala was closed for the Ganesh festivals. We were practicing at our apartment and one of us would practice while the other watched Rowan.
Our first day of class on Thursday we did the same thing. But when we had gone the evening before to register and pay Guruji he told us to both come at 6:30 and we asked for different times since we had the baby. He said, “okay, you come at 6 and you come at 6:30�. We weren’t down for that either, so he told one to come at 6 and one at 7. To make a long story short we both had the fastest practices of our lives �. Friday, Jason went to the led first class and I practiced at home. Sunday I think we will both go to led first and have someone who is taking led second watch Rowan. Our goal for next week is to hire a nanny so we will be able to practice comfortably.
There are still quite a few people here, but it seems like a lot of people will be leaving on Monday. I will report later how full the shala is next week. Sharath is gone for the next 2 – 3 weeks so it is just Guruji and Saraswati at the shala. And the family is going on a safari in October for 2 weeks (the last 2 weeks), but they will all be here teaching the first couple of weeks of October.
Posted by Tara at 04:44 AM | Comments (2)
Jetlag
Jetlag
Rowan has jetlag. I don’t remember ever thinking about jetlag for her when I was planning this trip. I was worried about the flight out here and that maybe she would get sick, but didn’t really think about jetlag. Well, it sucks �. It is getting better day by day, but basically it feels like having a newborn again.
The first couple of days she hung around my neck like one of those monkeys with Velcro hands. I couldn’t put her down she was so needy. Her nap cycles were off and around 5pm she would get sleepy and fall asleep no matter where we were or what we were doing. It was like trying to wake the dead. Then she would wake up about 2am and want to play.
I wasn’t getting much sleep the first couple of days and I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a few breakdowns. Jason was great though and would take her for me when I was on the verge of a meltdown. The past 2 days have been much better though. She is starting to get a schedule and sleeping better at night. She is getting back to her normal happy kid self and everyone here loves her.
Everywhere we go people want to see her and touch her hair or pinch her cheeks. We went out to lunch at this lady’s house one day and while we were eating the ladies who were cooking came and got Rowan and took her around to everybody showing her off. Of course Rowan loves the attention, being a Leo and all.
Posted by Tara at 04:43 AM | Comments (0)
Gokulum
Gokulum
We are staying in a part of town known as Gokulum. I would say it is the ritzy part of town for Mysore. This is where the shala is that we are practicing yoga at. It is about a 5 minute walk to the shala from our pad.
What to say about the area. The houses are amazing. They are huge and have all this really intricate detail to the gates and windows and each house is very different from the next. No cookie cutter houses here. They combine many different types of materials into building the houses which gives them a unique look. They also have tons of potted plants all around the outsides of the houses which makes them look really lush and green.
The best way to get around town is on a scooter or bike. People also have these super small cars, but the streets are crowded and there are lots of pedestrians and it seems safer to me to have a smaller mode of transportation. It can be a little disorienting at first to drive around because it seems like there is no order, but after a while you realize that there is a method to the madness. Maybe not the best method, but still a method.
We also have an umbrella stroller here and have been taking walks with Rowan. It is nice to walk around and soak everything up and also unsettling sometimes to see beautiful houses and cool parks and mounds of trash on the side of the road. You always here about cows roaming free – and they do – but I haven’t seen that many. I have seen more wild pigs than anything. They eat the trash. There are also TONS of dogs. People keep them as guard dogs for there house, but then there are just tons of street dogs running around. I also have not seen any monkeys YET, but I have heard them early in the morning.
\
Another thing I like is to see the women of the households every moring draw these amazing mandalas with this white chalk powder on their front stoops. Then the family walks across them throughout the day (I think to bring good luck) and every morning they wash off the one from the day before and draw another one. Some are so intricate and beautiful.
Posted by Tara at 04:43 AM | Comments (0)
The trip...
I have not been able to post on the internet very frequently so I have been writing posts and saving them as word documents until I could put them online. So there will be a few posts on the same day as this one.
The “trip�
The flight out here went really well – better than expected. We flew on Malaysian Airlines out of Los Angeles. We had a 12 hour flight from LA to Taipei and then a 2 hour layover in Taipei. From Taipei we had a 4 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur and had a 10 hour layover there. The final air trip was from Kuala Lumpur to Bangalore and that took almost 4 hours. The last leg of the journey was by taxi from Bangalore to Mysore. In all, it was almost a 40 hour journey to get to our final destination.
Breakdown:
As you all know I was traveling with my boyfriend Jason, my daughter Rowan, and a friend of ours from Encinitas, Andrew. I was initially VERY worried that Rowan might have problems on the journey, or at the very least that I might suffer a complete meltdown from having to tend to her. However, nothing could be further from the truth. She was GREAT. I mean she was REALLY GREAT! On the first flight she slept for almost 10 hours. She enjoyed walking around during our layover in Taipei and on our next flight she slept another 2 hours and played the rest of the time. She didn’t cry at all. There was a family next to us with a daughter a little older who screamed her head off for the entire time. Blood curdling screams. That was rough.
Our layover in Kuala Lumpur was fun. It is a beautiful airport and we had a hotel room in this swanky place. We got to shower and take naps and they had the best buffet of all sorts of foods and a dessert bar that rocked. The flight from there to Bangalore was again fine and the difference in being in Taipei and Kuala Lumpur to landing in Bangalore was noticeable. Chaos is the word I would use to describe it ï?Š.
The worst part of the trip was the taxi ride. We had a ton of luggage between all of us and we were in this taxi that I am sure was one of the original Model T’s and we were crammed in the back seat. Rowan again slept the entire ride, but it was so uncomfortable. It was raining the whole way and that made it a bit sketchy since the windows kept fogging up and of course there was no defrost so the driver kept wiping the window down with a rag.
We made it safely around 4am Mysore time and found the apartment we are staying at. It is on the second floor of this house. The family who owns the house lives downstairs and there is a small apartment above ours that I think the maid lives in. We have 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and 2 bathrooms with showers. We have one western toilet and one squatter, as I like to call it. I haven’t used the squatter in the house yet. One of the showers will get warm water if you are lucky. It is spacious and has a cute balcony out front. I will try and post some pics soon.
Posted by Tara at 04:41 AM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2005
We're here
Okay, I just tried posting a grip of pictures and it didn't work. I will try again later. WE made it yesterday early morning and have a few days off of practice while the shala is closed. WE practiced in our living room today. I am sitting in a very hot and muggy internet cafe and would like to write more, but Rowan is very tired and I must get her to bed. I will write more later.
Posted by Tara at 02:49 PM | Comments (3)
Pictures so far
Posted by Tara at 02:48 PM | Comments (1)
September 02, 2005
Leaving tonight!
Well, it is finally the "big day". We leave tonight around 9pm to drive to LAX and we fly out around 1:30 in the morning. I called one of my best friends today to say goodbye and she couldn't believe today was the day. She said it seemed like I have been about to leave for over a month. Very true. I just want to get on the plane.
Highlights of my week (which I totally blame on having too much to do...) 1. Getting a ticket for making a left turn while not in the turning lane. In my defense, it was the last day of the month - QUOTA TIME. 2. Lost my ATM card yesterday and freaked out a bit. 3. Found my ATM card just a few minutes ago. 3. Lost my keys today and freaked out a bit. Had to have someone come and bail me out. 4. Realized I had locked them in the car shortly thereafter. 5. Been sick and about to have my period. :) Yeah!
Okay, well I will probably try and post more when we get in to Mysore. From what I can tell, I think our apartment is internet ready. We shall see...
Posted by Tara at 08:29 PM | Comments (2)