-Tihar > Dashain, in my opinion, in terms of fun. The equivalent of Christmas carolers came to the house on Wednesday to sing for us. We would head up to the terrace after receiving blessings and light candles all over the railings. It was amazing to look out over the expanse of the valley and see every house lit up with candles and string lights and firecrackers/fireworks exploding all around. Christmas + 4th of July makes for one sweet holiday. We went to Thamel for dinner on Thursday and EVERY building was completely draped in lights. I wish the flash on my camera worked, as is was like Christmas had been rained on Thamel. (For the Salem girls) While walking to Cafe Mitra, Shehrish and I randomly bumped into Marvin and Linda, who were being shown around Thamel by Manisha. We knew they were in Nepal, but to run into people out of the blue is always quite strange. Small world.
-Tihar was a lot of fun. Family and friends arrived to Shehrish's house around 12 for the festivities and once the blessings were performed everybody had lunch. The meat eaters had some sort of pork dish that everybody loved and I was treated to vegetable biryani, my current favorite food ever since Anmol Foods got shut down for using inedible ghee in their cooking. Everybody ate and then gathered around to play marriage, a staple of any Nepali festival. I went into Dashain as a sucker but came out a little ahead for the festival. The Tihar crowd seemed a bit more fired up to play and I was not looking forward to getting cleaned out. The game started out rough, but I never lost my initial Rs. 1000 buy-in. When we were on for doubles I made a 56-point hand, which paid huge and put me way in the black. We played all day long, and my stack of money kept fluctuating, as it's quite the swingy game and I was playing with much better players than myself. My brain was scrambled by the Nepali banter after several hours of play. I can follow the dialogue back and forth for a time, but having to focus on card playing with all the chatter got to be too much. I cashed out around 6 o'clock, up a whopping Rs. 10, or about 15 cents. Not the greatest end result considering at one point I was up a few thousand, but at least I didn't lose. The big winners walked away with 6000-7000.
-John Dewey (my school) recently has installed the system of 'housing' kids, much like in the Harry Potter films. I was skeptical toward the practice at first, but am now thrilled to be the House Master of 'Habrok', which means something along the lines of legendary hawk. Since sorting hats don't really exist, we had the kids come up four at a time to select one of four colors which would put them into a house. I selected blue for the Habroks and we anxiously watched to see which kids would join our respective houses. I wasn't hoping for anybody specific, as I like probably 95% of the kids; rather, I was hoping to NOT get certain kids. In the end, everything worked out well for me and I avoided all of the undesirables. Since copyright laws are largely ignored in Nepal, I may just customize the Seattle Seahawks or Atlanta Hawks logo. We're essentially the Gryffindor from Harry Potter; full of the best and brightest. I'm only kidding, but I did get a really solid bunch. Habroks forever, happy Halloween.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
TV Shows: What to Watch
Tihar is shaping up to be a lot of fun: good food, string lights everywhere, firecrackers going off at all hours, drinking, gambling, etc. We all got to give Missy (Shehrish's dog) a blessing yesterday and she wore a necklace of marigolds and was fed countless treats throughout the day. Tonight, people come around the neighborhood singing and they are given money, sort of similar to trick or treaters getting candy on Halloween. It's kind of a blend of Christmas, 4th of July and Halloween rolled into one; something for everybody.
Shehrish and I finished up a series last night and got into a discussion about the TV shows that we have watched recently. We watch TV series instead of movies because I have a horrible attention span and can only enjoy movies that are REALLY good or gripping, eliminating about 95% of what comes out these days. We started ranking the last ten shows that we have watched together and had lots of different opinions about the order of rankings. I woke up today still unsure of some of my placements, so I'm writing a blog in order to 'hash it out' for myself. If you read my blog only for Nepal experiences, exit now. I will do my best not to spoil anything unless absolutely necessary, as I hate spoilers. These are the last ten shows I have seen in entirety, not necessarily my overall top ten. Starting with #10 and going to #1...
10. Oz Oh, how I hated this show. I bought it in Thamel because it was on discount, I knew it was HBO and I had heard some positive things about it. The first season is okay, as characters are established and you feel like a narrative is coming together. Shocking things happen, with important characters being killed/executed/raped, etc., but season one ended with the show feeling like it had maintained some direction. Seasons two through six follow the exact same paradigm except with no connection to anything that came earlier. A new prisoner would come in, do some shocking things and eventually get whacked. Each season would outdo itself with countless scenes of violent imagery: swastika tattoos carved on an unwilling recipient, murders of any variety, defecating on someone's face, gang rapes etc. Stupid cameos include LL Cool J as an incarcerated drug dealer and Rick Fox (NBA guy) as a convicted rapist. One of the most important characters gets killed off in the sixth season with the murderer explaining that he did it because nothing matters in the world. The most telling scene of the entire series involves a naked Detective Stabler (Christopher Meloni, who has a big role in Oz) from Law and Order urinating into a trash can while being held in isolation. No dialogue, just five to six seconds of him actually pissing into a trash can. It symbolized the whole series: gratuitous and pointless, unless you like terrible writing and graphic violence. Big fail on my part in buying this garbage.
9. Masterchef Australia 3: This show combines three of my least favorite things in the world: reality television, cooking on television and Australian accents. It comes on cable at 9:15 nightly and I watch it with Shehrish because she sits through hours of football matches with me these days. The show basically follows the same structure as any of the other cooking shows, except for all of the contestants are smiling and beaming ALL OF THE TIME. I don't know if it's contractual for them to perpetually exude joy or Australian chefs are just the happiest demographic of humans anywhere on the planet, but everything and everyone is/are 'amazing' and 'life changing'. The show must have some serious pull somewhere in the world, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama came on as a guest judge, which I can't decide is somehow a testament to the show or a completely depressing example of how much is wrong with humanity. Watch it if you like cooking competitions and smiley Aussies.
8.Big Love: Not as well-known as the rest, but I started watching season one while visiting a friend in DC and stuck with it for awhile. I never was completely sold on the premise being particularly compelling (exploits of a polygamist family with an ambitious patriarch), but the acting and writing were good and it was filmed well with a good soundtrack. I put the last sentence in past tense because the show completely fell apart after two seasons. I Netflixed the third season about a year ago just to ride it out and passed over season four because I was into other shows and really didn't care about what happened anymore. It started being shown on HBO in Nepal, which was a pleasant reprieve from the usual prime-time movie that is shown (recent ones including Double Team with Jean Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman), and I rode out season five until it ended two nights ago.
**Spoiler time (I doubt anybody cares, but still), but I have to talk about it**
With about five minutes left in the episode, Bill, the protagonist whom the entire show is built around, gets killed by a disgruntled neighbor that did nothing important over the course of the series. Nine months later, we see that the family has remained intact and life goes on, and the show ends with a Dixie Chicks cover of the theme song. I have never been more astoundingly appalled by the ending of anything fictional in my life. The sole highlight of season five was a return cameo by Aaron Paul (Jesse of Breaking Bad), whose character was written off along with Amanda Seyfried after the third season. Only watch this show if you are intrigued by polygamy or are bed-ridden with mononucleosis and have watched everything else imaginable. You will tear out your hair over how bad it gets.
(#7-#1 are all high-quality)
7.Dexter: I know there are many out there who love this show and defend it passionately, but Dexter began to decline midway through season three, held on throughout season four due to a fantastic performance by John Lithegow as the Trinity killer and COMPLETELY fell off during season five with Julia Stiles playing serial killer sidekick throughout a comparatively weak story line. I loved the first two seasons and I think the acting is good overall, but the shows best days are long gone. The Batista-LaGuerta romance is awful, Quinn is a terrible character and Dexter's sister is just obnoxious. I think season six is currently airing, and I will watch it eventually but am certainly not missing it. I would recommend it to anyone, but would tell people to give up the moment they think the magic is gone, as it will only get weirder and cheesier.
6. Lost: I actually dropped Lost a spot down after writing about it and giving it more thought. I loved the first two seasons and most of the third, even amid some bad acting and bad characters. The show is suspenseful, innovative and becomes really intriguing as the plot thickens and layers. I remember blazing through season one with a roommate in college and immediately running over to Wal Mart to get season two, which is a strong indicator that the show is really good. Midway through season three, I felt like the show had still not really figured out what was going on, which was confirmed through a fourth season that introduced a slew of new characters and really did nothing to begin answering any of the mysteries established by seasons one through three. Then came season five, bringing a new wrinkle into the mix that literally enabled the writers to do anything and convoluting the plot to the point that it became more of an effort to follow than a show to watch and enjoy. I was so disappointed when time traveling became part of the narrative, as the mysteries of the first two seasons deserved far better treatment. It ended okay, and if the main purpose of TV is to entertain, Lost succeeds, but I still feel that the middle of the series was poor writing.
5. Boardwalk Empire: I have only seen the first season and will buy season two as soon as it comes out. This has been an amazing period piece so far with fantastic acting and is filmed in a really clever, intriguing manner. Steve Buscemi is perfectly casted as the unofficial head honcho of Prohibition-era Atlantic City and is surrounded by a great array of character actors that make for an entertaining hour of television. Having recently gone through season one, my only real complaint is a lack of real 'substance' that sets it apart. The show lacks a certain autonomy that makes better shows stand out. It's a really GOOD show, but I don't find much about it that is unique or different than many of its HBO predecessors; as much as I want to see more of Omar from The Wire, casting Michael K. Williams in a highly similar role is a bit disingenuous. But unless something I don't know about yet has surpassed it, Boardwalk is the best show that is currently halfway through a season; catch up and enjoy it.
3a. Mad Men: Dropped it a spot after really looking long and hard at what I replaced it with at #3. Mad Men is an incredible period drama that would be the only show on this list that I would recommend to anybody I know regardless of age, politics etc. Jon Hamm is simply flawless as the savvy Don Draper, the opening theme is the best of them all and the writing/directing makes an otherwise monotonous subject manner (at least compared to other top shows) seem fascinating. I would argue that of my top four, Mad Men has the largest collection of interesting characters and does the best job of balancing out story lines while maintaining direction. A character like Joan the secretary could easily become expendable (see Vito Spatafore: Sopranos) but the writing is balanced out and every single episode from season one to the present is compelling and leaving you wanting more. The ONLY negative is January Jones, the wife of the protagonist who simply cannot act to save her life. If you haven't seen it, put down what you are currently watching and rent/buy/Netflix/iPad Mad Men. I've talked myself back into it at #3.
3b. The Sopranos: I missed the bandwagon, growing up without HBO and went into the series knowing how it ended and knowing certain elements about the plot already and it still became my favorite show ever until I saw 1 and 2 on my list. Everything about the show is critically fantastic and it was the first of its kind to succeed with an antihero who is both charming and revolting at the same time. I may be off a bit on this, but it definitely was the first to thrive due to the freedom of airing on HBO; an edited episode of Sopranos simply isn't the same. It boasts the single best character in television history in Tony Soprano, a multi-faceted sociopath portrayed as a dad, mafia boss and susceptible patient in treatment for panic attacks whom you genuinely like. The only drawbacks to the series are a couple of cases of bad acting (mainly AJ Soprano) and a couple of unnecessary story lines (Ralph Cifaretto overall, Vito being outed as gay etc.), but any hate toward this show is ill-deserved. The ending is brilliant, and if you've seen the show and want to read more about it, read this. One of the only shows I would ever pay top dollar to own, and one of the best shows of all time.
2. Breaking Bad: I put it at #2 having not seen the fourth season and staying in the dark about what happens, but randomly discovering this show has been like striking oil in a field of television garbage. Shehrish was given it off of somebody's hard drive, and I went into it not knowing anything about it. I've since decided that it's the second best series I have ever seen with the best characters (debatable) and the most visually artistic/innovative style of any of the other shows (not debatable). I said that Tony Soprano was the best character ever, but Walter White of Breaking Bad is more compelling, as through three seasons he has gone from a cancer stricken family man to a ruthless drug lord who craves power and money. Unlike Tony, who constantly spills his guts to us as viewers through his psychiatrist, we can only deduce Walt's motivations through his actions. I said that Mad Men has the largest collection of good characters, but Breaking Bad has the best characters overall. The dynamic between Jesse and Walt is perfectly dichotomous and hysterical, Saul Goodman is the funniest sleazy character I have ever seen and Hank the DEA agent is incredible. Watch this show, it's the best thing currently going.
1. The Wire: I've been obsessed with this show ever since buying episode one on iTunes because I had just finished Sopranos and wanted more HBO. I was immediately hooked, but was able to watch it at the rate of one episode a night until toward the end of season one, when something absolutely crazy happens that pulls you in all the way. The Wire cult is a bit sanctimonious about its superiority, but I would argue that it deserves every bit of praise and more. The writing is hands down the best and riskiest of any show I have ever seen, and the way that different worlds of society (bureaucrats, police, drug dealers, gangsters, addicts) function under the same set of rules makes for fascinating TV. The acting is flawless, and in some cases, not really acting. The way that each season is a different narrative with different characters sets it apart. Season four largely leaves out the (arguable) protagonist of the entire series, and it is widely considered the best of the show (I say it's season 3, but whatever). I've seen it three times, read The Corner and am certainly biased, but I don't really think it can be passed by anything unless Breaking Bad turns up the quality and somehow passes it. I could write about The Wire and specific characters/scenes for hours, just watch it and thank me later.
Shehrish and I finished up a series last night and got into a discussion about the TV shows that we have watched recently. We watch TV series instead of movies because I have a horrible attention span and can only enjoy movies that are REALLY good or gripping, eliminating about 95% of what comes out these days. We started ranking the last ten shows that we have watched together and had lots of different opinions about the order of rankings. I woke up today still unsure of some of my placements, so I'm writing a blog in order to 'hash it out' for myself. If you read my blog only for Nepal experiences, exit now. I will do my best not to spoil anything unless absolutely necessary, as I hate spoilers. These are the last ten shows I have seen in entirety, not necessarily my overall top ten. Starting with #10 and going to #1...
10. Oz Oh, how I hated this show. I bought it in Thamel because it was on discount, I knew it was HBO and I had heard some positive things about it. The first season is okay, as characters are established and you feel like a narrative is coming together. Shocking things happen, with important characters being killed/executed/raped, etc., but season one ended with the show feeling like it had maintained some direction. Seasons two through six follow the exact same paradigm except with no connection to anything that came earlier. A new prisoner would come in, do some shocking things and eventually get whacked. Each season would outdo itself with countless scenes of violent imagery: swastika tattoos carved on an unwilling recipient, murders of any variety, defecating on someone's face, gang rapes etc. Stupid cameos include LL Cool J as an incarcerated drug dealer and Rick Fox (NBA guy) as a convicted rapist. One of the most important characters gets killed off in the sixth season with the murderer explaining that he did it because nothing matters in the world. The most telling scene of the entire series involves a naked Detective Stabler (Christopher Meloni, who has a big role in Oz) from Law and Order urinating into a trash can while being held in isolation. No dialogue, just five to six seconds of him actually pissing into a trash can. It symbolized the whole series: gratuitous and pointless, unless you like terrible writing and graphic violence. Big fail on my part in buying this garbage.
9. Masterchef Australia 3: This show combines three of my least favorite things in the world: reality television, cooking on television and Australian accents. It comes on cable at 9:15 nightly and I watch it with Shehrish because she sits through hours of football matches with me these days. The show basically follows the same structure as any of the other cooking shows, except for all of the contestants are smiling and beaming ALL OF THE TIME. I don't know if it's contractual for them to perpetually exude joy or Australian chefs are just the happiest demographic of humans anywhere on the planet, but everything and everyone is/are 'amazing' and 'life changing'. The show must have some serious pull somewhere in the world, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama came on as a guest judge, which I can't decide is somehow a testament to the show or a completely depressing example of how much is wrong with humanity. Watch it if you like cooking competitions and smiley Aussies.
8.Big Love: Not as well-known as the rest, but I started watching season one while visiting a friend in DC and stuck with it for awhile. I never was completely sold on the premise being particularly compelling (exploits of a polygamist family with an ambitious patriarch), but the acting and writing were good and it was filmed well with a good soundtrack. I put the last sentence in past tense because the show completely fell apart after two seasons. I Netflixed the third season about a year ago just to ride it out and passed over season four because I was into other shows and really didn't care about what happened anymore. It started being shown on HBO in Nepal, which was a pleasant reprieve from the usual prime-time movie that is shown (recent ones including Double Team with Jean Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman), and I rode out season five until it ended two nights ago.
**Spoiler time (I doubt anybody cares, but still), but I have to talk about it**
With about five minutes left in the episode, Bill, the protagonist whom the entire show is built around, gets killed by a disgruntled neighbor that did nothing important over the course of the series. Nine months later, we see that the family has remained intact and life goes on, and the show ends with a Dixie Chicks cover of the theme song. I have never been more astoundingly appalled by the ending of anything fictional in my life. The sole highlight of season five was a return cameo by Aaron Paul (Jesse of Breaking Bad), whose character was written off along with Amanda Seyfried after the third season. Only watch this show if you are intrigued by polygamy or are bed-ridden with mononucleosis and have watched everything else imaginable. You will tear out your hair over how bad it gets.
(#7-#1 are all high-quality)
7.Dexter: I know there are many out there who love this show and defend it passionately, but Dexter began to decline midway through season three, held on throughout season four due to a fantastic performance by John Lithegow as the Trinity killer and COMPLETELY fell off during season five with Julia Stiles playing serial killer sidekick throughout a comparatively weak story line. I loved the first two seasons and I think the acting is good overall, but the shows best days are long gone. The Batista-LaGuerta romance is awful, Quinn is a terrible character and Dexter's sister is just obnoxious. I think season six is currently airing, and I will watch it eventually but am certainly not missing it. I would recommend it to anyone, but would tell people to give up the moment they think the magic is gone, as it will only get weirder and cheesier.
6. Lost: I actually dropped Lost a spot down after writing about it and giving it more thought. I loved the first two seasons and most of the third, even amid some bad acting and bad characters. The show is suspenseful, innovative and becomes really intriguing as the plot thickens and layers. I remember blazing through season one with a roommate in college and immediately running over to Wal Mart to get season two, which is a strong indicator that the show is really good. Midway through season three, I felt like the show had still not really figured out what was going on, which was confirmed through a fourth season that introduced a slew of new characters and really did nothing to begin answering any of the mysteries established by seasons one through three. Then came season five, bringing a new wrinkle into the mix that literally enabled the writers to do anything and convoluting the plot to the point that it became more of an effort to follow than a show to watch and enjoy. I was so disappointed when time traveling became part of the narrative, as the mysteries of the first two seasons deserved far better treatment. It ended okay, and if the main purpose of TV is to entertain, Lost succeeds, but I still feel that the middle of the series was poor writing.
5. Boardwalk Empire: I have only seen the first season and will buy season two as soon as it comes out. This has been an amazing period piece so far with fantastic acting and is filmed in a really clever, intriguing manner. Steve Buscemi is perfectly casted as the unofficial head honcho of Prohibition-era Atlantic City and is surrounded by a great array of character actors that make for an entertaining hour of television. Having recently gone through season one, my only real complaint is a lack of real 'substance' that sets it apart. The show lacks a certain autonomy that makes better shows stand out. It's a really GOOD show, but I don't find much about it that is unique or different than many of its HBO predecessors; as much as I want to see more of Omar from The Wire, casting Michael K. Williams in a highly similar role is a bit disingenuous. But unless something I don't know about yet has surpassed it, Boardwalk is the best show that is currently halfway through a season; catch up and enjoy it.
3a. Mad Men: Dropped it a spot after really looking long and hard at what I replaced it with at #3. Mad Men is an incredible period drama that would be the only show on this list that I would recommend to anybody I know regardless of age, politics etc. Jon Hamm is simply flawless as the savvy Don Draper, the opening theme is the best of them all and the writing/directing makes an otherwise monotonous subject manner (at least compared to other top shows) seem fascinating. I would argue that of my top four, Mad Men has the largest collection of interesting characters and does the best job of balancing out story lines while maintaining direction. A character like Joan the secretary could easily become expendable (see Vito Spatafore: Sopranos) but the writing is balanced out and every single episode from season one to the present is compelling and leaving you wanting more. The ONLY negative is January Jones, the wife of the protagonist who simply cannot act to save her life. If you haven't seen it, put down what you are currently watching and rent/buy/Netflix/iPad Mad Men. I've talked myself back into it at #3.
3b. The Sopranos: I missed the bandwagon, growing up without HBO and went into the series knowing how it ended and knowing certain elements about the plot already and it still became my favorite show ever until I saw 1 and 2 on my list. Everything about the show is critically fantastic and it was the first of its kind to succeed with an antihero who is both charming and revolting at the same time. I may be off a bit on this, but it definitely was the first to thrive due to the freedom of airing on HBO; an edited episode of Sopranos simply isn't the same. It boasts the single best character in television history in Tony Soprano, a multi-faceted sociopath portrayed as a dad, mafia boss and susceptible patient in treatment for panic attacks whom you genuinely like. The only drawbacks to the series are a couple of cases of bad acting (mainly AJ Soprano) and a couple of unnecessary story lines (Ralph Cifaretto overall, Vito being outed as gay etc.), but any hate toward this show is ill-deserved. The ending is brilliant, and if you've seen the show and want to read more about it, read this. One of the only shows I would ever pay top dollar to own, and one of the best shows of all time.
2. Breaking Bad: I put it at #2 having not seen the fourth season and staying in the dark about what happens, but randomly discovering this show has been like striking oil in a field of television garbage. Shehrish was given it off of somebody's hard drive, and I went into it not knowing anything about it. I've since decided that it's the second best series I have ever seen with the best characters (debatable) and the most visually artistic/innovative style of any of the other shows (not debatable). I said that Tony Soprano was the best character ever, but Walter White of Breaking Bad is more compelling, as through three seasons he has gone from a cancer stricken family man to a ruthless drug lord who craves power and money. Unlike Tony, who constantly spills his guts to us as viewers through his psychiatrist, we can only deduce Walt's motivations through his actions. I said that Mad Men has the largest collection of good characters, but Breaking Bad has the best characters overall. The dynamic between Jesse and Walt is perfectly dichotomous and hysterical, Saul Goodman is the funniest sleazy character I have ever seen and Hank the DEA agent is incredible. Watch this show, it's the best thing currently going.
1. The Wire: I've been obsessed with this show ever since buying episode one on iTunes because I had just finished Sopranos and wanted more HBO. I was immediately hooked, but was able to watch it at the rate of one episode a night until toward the end of season one, when something absolutely crazy happens that pulls you in all the way. The Wire cult is a bit sanctimonious about its superiority, but I would argue that it deserves every bit of praise and more. The writing is hands down the best and riskiest of any show I have ever seen, and the way that different worlds of society (bureaucrats, police, drug dealers, gangsters, addicts) function under the same set of rules makes for fascinating TV. The acting is flawless, and in some cases, not really acting. The way that each season is a different narrative with different characters sets it apart. Season four largely leaves out the (arguable) protagonist of the entire series, and it is widely considered the best of the show (I say it's season 3, but whatever). I've seen it three times, read The Corner and am certainly biased, but I don't really think it can be passed by anything unless Breaking Bad turns up the quality and somehow passes it. I could write about The Wire and specific characters/scenes for hours, just watch it and thank me later.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Jazzmandu, Manchester dArby
After being back in school for one week after the Dashain holiday break, I am now on another break because of Tihar, which seems like it will be a lot of fun. The autumn weather in Kathmandu is sunny and pleasant, but I am missing the fall weather in America, particularly the leaves changing and the crisp drop in temperature (at least in NC). I was going to say that it has gotten quite chilly in Nepal, but I Googled the temperature and it is currently 75 fahrenheit. The only drawback to losing weight is that I get cold all of the time; I was expecting it to be about 65 at the moment and it's 12:45 pm.
Shehrish and I went to Jazzmandu this Saturday in Gokarna. A free shuttle was offered and we got to the Hyatt hotel as it was filling up. I knew we would be in for an interesting day as a gentleman toward the front was smoking ganja and singing "Danny Boy" at the top of his lungs. The shuttle was mostly comprised of foreigners who were quite displeased that the bus wasn't departing at the scheduled time. One gentleman was particularly incensed, spouting off profanity at a poor Nepali volunteer in a language that made Brad Pitt's pikey in Snatch sound like pretentious English. I'm not exactly sure what he was saying, but the profanity came out clearly. I later found this gentleman camped out at the bar for the majority of the day, perhaps explaining his irascible behavior. We got there around 2 and were lucky to snag a piece of carpet to sit on before the music began. I don't really like jazz, but any live music is good. The first couple of acts were traditional Nepali bands and then the jazz started. The first band was really slow, describing a couple of their songs as 'walking through a rice field' and 'riding on a bus'; more appropriate names would have been 'watching grass grow' or 'hanging wallpaper'. I got up to get something to eat and discovered that completely overpricing everything at concerts is not just an American phenomenon. A plate of 8 momos was Rs. 450, about 4.5 times the normal price. The music went on and as the sun went down it got really cold. The hotel had anticipated this and set up several small bonfires, conveniently locating one right next to the bar. We spent the last couple of hours or so hovering around one of these fires talking with some of Shehrish's friends. Following signs to the gentlemen's restroom, I found myself in the middle of the woods looking at a small trench that was dug on a downward slope. I have never had a problem with communal urination, having grown up going to ball games at Wrigley Field and concerts at Ziggy's where the 'urinals' are essentially metal troughs, but this 'bathroom' also had posted a warning sign to watch out for monkeys. The state of the bathroom worsened as the concert went on, and toward the end I just went deeper into the woods. Fortunately, the monkeys left me alone and we left the venue at 10:00 pm chilled to the bone but otherwise unscathed.
I woke up on Sunday and went for an especially long run, fired up for the football later in the day (I can't call it soccer anymore, people have started to make fun of me). My friend Paavan has been organizing events the last couple of weeks for the big matches, and we went to Cafe Reena in DurbarMarg for the Manchester Darby. It makes my skin crawl to hear the Brits refer to the word 'derby' as 'dArby', and most Nepali people do it as well. The Manchester clubs are kind of like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox of baseball; you either love one of the two or hate them both passionately (I fall into the latter category). However, both teams are world class and it seemed like it would be a classic game. The derby/darby started and the crowd at the restaurant was a sea of red Aon jerseys, almost everyone supporting Manchester United. When Manchester City scored around the 25th minute, the room became deathly silent except for me jumping up and screaming. I was hoping for a high-scoring draw but the obnoxious behavior of the Manchester United fans the week before had me rooting against them. City kept scoring and the final tally was 6-1, a ridiculous score for an English match featuring two of the best teams in the world. The United fans were devastated and I left thoroughly satisfied. Then Chelsea played and killed my fun, but I'm not going to write about that. Happy Tihar!
Shehrish and I went to Jazzmandu this Saturday in Gokarna. A free shuttle was offered and we got to the Hyatt hotel as it was filling up. I knew we would be in for an interesting day as a gentleman toward the front was smoking ganja and singing "Danny Boy" at the top of his lungs. The shuttle was mostly comprised of foreigners who were quite displeased that the bus wasn't departing at the scheduled time. One gentleman was particularly incensed, spouting off profanity at a poor Nepali volunteer in a language that made Brad Pitt's pikey in Snatch sound like pretentious English. I'm not exactly sure what he was saying, but the profanity came out clearly. I later found this gentleman camped out at the bar for the majority of the day, perhaps explaining his irascible behavior. We got there around 2 and were lucky to snag a piece of carpet to sit on before the music began. I don't really like jazz, but any live music is good. The first couple of acts were traditional Nepali bands and then the jazz started. The first band was really slow, describing a couple of their songs as 'walking through a rice field' and 'riding on a bus'; more appropriate names would have been 'watching grass grow' or 'hanging wallpaper'. I got up to get something to eat and discovered that completely overpricing everything at concerts is not just an American phenomenon. A plate of 8 momos was Rs. 450, about 4.5 times the normal price. The music went on and as the sun went down it got really cold. The hotel had anticipated this and set up several small bonfires, conveniently locating one right next to the bar. We spent the last couple of hours or so hovering around one of these fires talking with some of Shehrish's friends. Following signs to the gentlemen's restroom, I found myself in the middle of the woods looking at a small trench that was dug on a downward slope. I have never had a problem with communal urination, having grown up going to ball games at Wrigley Field and concerts at Ziggy's where the 'urinals' are essentially metal troughs, but this 'bathroom' also had posted a warning sign to watch out for monkeys. The state of the bathroom worsened as the concert went on, and toward the end I just went deeper into the woods. Fortunately, the monkeys left me alone and we left the venue at 10:00 pm chilled to the bone but otherwise unscathed.
I woke up on Sunday and went for an especially long run, fired up for the football later in the day (I can't call it soccer anymore, people have started to make fun of me). My friend Paavan has been organizing events the last couple of weeks for the big matches, and we went to Cafe Reena in DurbarMarg for the Manchester Darby. It makes my skin crawl to hear the Brits refer to the word 'derby' as 'dArby', and most Nepali people do it as well. The Manchester clubs are kind of like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox of baseball; you either love one of the two or hate them both passionately (I fall into the latter category). However, both teams are world class and it seemed like it would be a classic game. The derby/darby started and the crowd at the restaurant was a sea of red Aon jerseys, almost everyone supporting Manchester United. When Manchester City scored around the 25th minute, the room became deathly silent except for me jumping up and screaming. I was hoping for a high-scoring draw but the obnoxious behavior of the Manchester United fans the week before had me rooting against them. City kept scoring and the final tally was 6-1, a ridiculous score for an English match featuring two of the best teams in the world. The United fans were devastated and I left thoroughly satisfied. Then Chelsea played and killed my fun, but I'm not going to write about that. Happy Tihar!
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Dashain, etc.
The 30th of September was the last day of school before Dashain, the rough equivalent of Christmas for the people of Nepal. Many people leave Kathmandu to be with their families in India or elsewhere and the city was rather empty during the main days of the festival. One ritualistic aspect involves elders blessing the younger ones with tikka to encourage good fortune and happiness. The basic tenets are the same as the Christmas season (or 'holiday season' for the sanctimonious bunch): get together with family, cook and eat a lot of stuff, drink, hang out, exchange gifts, etc. The main differences are the 'hanging out' part involves gambling instead of watching sports on TV and the gift part comes in the form of money rather than wrapped presents. The card game of choice is 'marriage', a 21-card variant of gin rummy where the optimal number of players is 5. The objective is to accumulate as many points as possible at the end of a hand. It started rough, but toward the end I felt as if I was holding my own. I lost a bit on the first day and won a lot on the second day. I still contend that it's much less skillful than something like poker, as paying attention to what cards are played and knowing basic odds are the only things that separate players, but the sharks maintain that much more skill is involved.
My favorite part of Dashain is that it coincides with the end of monsoon season. The last couple of weeks have been hot and sunny as opposed to the perpetual gloominess that I had become accustomed to and I couldn't be happier with it. Running in the hot sun has given me the sickest farmer's tan ever, and strangely I have actually gotten dark(er) as opposed to my usual pink/red color from sun exposure. I'm torn on my new color; in America, paleness is undesirable, but in Nepal everybody wants to be white. Women walk around on sunny days with umbrellas to shield themselves from darkening UV rays. With the recent influx of tourists, I may no longer hold the crown of Whitest Cracker anymore, which was one thing that set me apart from every other non-trekking white person.
Unfortunately, my latest quirk was a negative one. Recently, my forehead decided to go through puberty and had broken out pretty thoroughly. I'm not sure if it was related to the sun, my diet, sweating from running every day or what, but until recently I have looked like a 'before' individual in a Proactiv commercial. I had pretty bad acne as a teenager, but never on my forehead. Thankfully, my regimen of apricot scrub-echinachea-cream is clearing me up. The kids kept asking me if they were mosquito bites...
Having days off with nothing to do has given me a lot of time to think and write about stuff, so I'll update the next few days with random lists, rants etc.
Things I Don't Miss that I Thought I Would:
-A/C: I used to be a big fan of conditioned air, keeping my thermostat at an expensive 67-68 (F) in the Winston apartment. The summer months in Kathmandu have been hot and most places in Nepal don't have air conditioning. The only time the heat has ever bothered me was at night, as my room is on the top floor and the thermometer on my clock would hover around 85 (F) at night for the majority of May and June, but I adjusted pretty quickly. I think drinking probably 3x more water here than I did in America somehow helps. Nowadays when I am around A/C (in hotels, malls, movie theatres etc.) I find it artificial and uncomfortable. I would now rather be a little too hot than be chilly from air conditioning.
-Food: Not fully applicable since I became a vegetarian but still noteworthy. I thought I would miss things like Utz Crab Chips, italian food, nachos etc. but the alternatives in Nepal are just as good, if not better. Chaat is my current favorite snack food and I get it everytime I go to Bhat Bhateni.
Shehrish, on the other hand, really misses American food, including funny things like McDoubles, Arby's roast beef, Chili's and Hooters, and recently expressed a desire for Andy's Hot Fries and fried food from the fair.
NFL: I miss watching it, but I can't say that I miss it overall because I seem to be better at handicapping games when I don't actually see them play out. I'm currently 41-33-3, crushing my pick 'em league, in 2nd place in normal fantasy and 6-2 in Bodog wagers. A small sample size, but still. I've drifted from the NFL the last few years due to getting into soccer, but only going by what I read and hear seems to be a formula for success. Who knew that the Vegas books actually want you to watch the games?
More blog tomorrow..
My favorite part of Dashain is that it coincides with the end of monsoon season. The last couple of weeks have been hot and sunny as opposed to the perpetual gloominess that I had become accustomed to and I couldn't be happier with it. Running in the hot sun has given me the sickest farmer's tan ever, and strangely I have actually gotten dark(er) as opposed to my usual pink/red color from sun exposure. I'm torn on my new color; in America, paleness is undesirable, but in Nepal everybody wants to be white. Women walk around on sunny days with umbrellas to shield themselves from darkening UV rays. With the recent influx of tourists, I may no longer hold the crown of Whitest Cracker anymore, which was one thing that set me apart from every other non-trekking white person.
Unfortunately, my latest quirk was a negative one. Recently, my forehead decided to go through puberty and had broken out pretty thoroughly. I'm not sure if it was related to the sun, my diet, sweating from running every day or what, but until recently I have looked like a 'before' individual in a Proactiv commercial. I had pretty bad acne as a teenager, but never on my forehead. Thankfully, my regimen of apricot scrub-echinachea-cream is clearing me up. The kids kept asking me if they were mosquito bites...
Having days off with nothing to do has given me a lot of time to think and write about stuff, so I'll update the next few days with random lists, rants etc.
Things I Don't Miss that I Thought I Would:
-A/C: I used to be a big fan of conditioned air, keeping my thermostat at an expensive 67-68 (F) in the Winston apartment. The summer months in Kathmandu have been hot and most places in Nepal don't have air conditioning. The only time the heat has ever bothered me was at night, as my room is on the top floor and the thermometer on my clock would hover around 85 (F) at night for the majority of May and June, but I adjusted pretty quickly. I think drinking probably 3x more water here than I did in America somehow helps. Nowadays when I am around A/C (in hotels, malls, movie theatres etc.) I find it artificial and uncomfortable. I would now rather be a little too hot than be chilly from air conditioning.
-Food: Not fully applicable since I became a vegetarian but still noteworthy. I thought I would miss things like Utz Crab Chips, italian food, nachos etc. but the alternatives in Nepal are just as good, if not better. Chaat is my current favorite snack food and I get it everytime I go to Bhat Bhateni.
Shehrish, on the other hand, really misses American food, including funny things like McDoubles, Arby's roast beef, Chili's and Hooters, and recently expressed a desire for Andy's Hot Fries and fried food from the fair.
NFL: I miss watching it, but I can't say that I miss it overall because I seem to be better at handicapping games when I don't actually see them play out. I'm currently 41-33-3, crushing my pick 'em league, in 2nd place in normal fantasy and 6-2 in Bodog wagers. A small sample size, but still. I've drifted from the NFL the last few years due to getting into soccer, but only going by what I read and hear seems to be a formula for success. Who knew that the Vegas books actually want you to watch the games?
More blog tomorrow..
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Indra Jatra, Fashion Show, Earthquake
We celebrated Indra Jatra, a Hindi holiday which Wikipedia summarizes better than I could:
Indrajatra (Devnagari:इन्द्रजात्रा, Sanskrit: Indrajatra) is a festival celebrated in Kathmandu, Nepal. The main attraction of the festival is the procession of chariots and masked dancers representing deities and demons.
Indrajatra is a holiday related to Hindu god king of heaven, Indra. The festival begins with the carnival-like erection of Yosin, a ceremonial pole, accompanied by the rare display of the deity Aakash Bhairab, represented by a massive mask spouting beer and liquor. Households throughout Kathmandu display images and sculptures of Indra and Bhairab only at this time of year. Finally, the Kumari, or virgin goddess (living goddess), leaves the seclusion of her temple in a palanquin and leads a procession through the streets of Kathmandu to thank Indra the rain god.
We went to a hotel in Durbar Square and had a Vo'ye feast, which was diverse and wonderful. This happened about a month ago and I am feeling lazy today, so here is another link : http://theweek.myrepublica.com/details.php?news_id=35793
After the meal, we were walking thru the Square when the living goddess came out (see image in Wikipedia article). She was being swarmed by people looking for photographs but was smiling and waving. The whole evening was unique and enjoyable.
A couple of weeks later, we were all invited to a fashion show at the famed Yak and Yeti hotel for the first ever Kathmandu Fashion Parade. I put up a weak protest because there was soccer I would miss and to ensure the preservation of my manhood, but part of me was secretly excited to attend. Everyone got dressed up and we got to the hotel, where in attendance were all of the elites and "celebrities" of Nepal gossiping and eating hor's doeuvres. We were seated in the front row and proceeded to wait for the show to begin. 45 minutes after teh scheduled starting time (welcome to Nepal!), the models started walking. My high expectations were quickly dashed as the first model proceeded to awkwardly walk the runway in high heels as if she were trudging through wet cement. The first couple of designers sent down variants of modernized 'kurtis', which were colorful and well-fitting (what else can be said?) Subsequent designs were office wear and business casual. One of the last showings was a series of girls in white t-shirts who appeared to all be wearing the same thing. I was struggling to appreciate the 'vision' of such a repetitive series until I realized that they were modeling the bags they were carrying.
Overall, I would give my entertainment rating a 6.8/10. The hotel itself is fantastic, and the excitement in the room before the show was palpable. The show itself lasted about 45 minutes, and I was entertained for about 15 of them before mentally checking out and pretending to score the outfits on my program like they do on Project Runway. My overall opinion of the clothes is irrelevant (as I know nothing about fashion) but I did notice that some of the items were unfinished, which I believe is a big fashion no-no. It also seemed like anyone with a pulse was allowed to be a model in this show, which is awful to say, but if ugliness distracts from the clothes something is wrong. All of the females that we went with were underwhelmed by the showing, but everyone had fun.
Two Sundays ago, Shehrish and I were walking back from the grocery store when suddenly everyone behind us started screaming and running. As I followed suit and started to run, I first thought of a truckload of gangsters approaching wielding assault rifles and machetes like in Blood Diamond due to all of the screaming. While running, I felt everything to start to shake, which then made me think a stampede of cattle were about to trample me. Only afterwards did Shehrish and I look at each other and realize that what we had felt was an earthquake. We got back to her home and quickly pulled out the earthquake survival kit that is kept in storage in the event of an aftershock that could have been worse. Amid the chaos, Shehrish had dropped her phone in the street, and we went back out to try and locate it with a flashlight. The streets were jammed with people (one of whom snatched up her phone) and the tension of the crowd was akin to that of my high school after the 9/11 attacks, where everyone felt scared, confused, helpless and full of adrenaline all at the same time. Post-earthquake aftershocks are oftentimes more devastating than the initial earthquake, so everybody was on high alert. We loaded up on bottled water and more Ramen noodles for the earthquake kit and went back to her home. Once my adrenaline cooled, I started feeling dizzy and nauseous from the shaking, which stayed with me into the next day.
The next day at school we accessed the earthquake kits and ran through a drill with all of the children. Some of the younger ones were still upset and scared, but my class of second graders were riled up and everyone shared their experience of where they were when it happened. There were some aftershocks, but I didn't feel any of them. The epicenter of the quake was in Sikkim and around 75 people died in India, Tibet and Nepal (six in Nepal). The magnitude was 6.8, making it the biggest earthquake to hit Nepal since 1934. I still find tornadoes scarier, but I'm thankful that everyone around me was fine.
Indrajatra (Devnagari:इन्द्रजात्रा, Sanskrit: Indrajatra) is a festival celebrated in Kathmandu, Nepal. The main attraction of the festival is the procession of chariots and masked dancers representing deities and demons.
Indrajatra is a holiday related to Hindu god king of heaven, Indra. The festival begins with the carnival-like erection of Yosin, a ceremonial pole, accompanied by the rare display of the deity Aakash Bhairab, represented by a massive mask spouting beer and liquor. Households throughout Kathmandu display images and sculptures of Indra and Bhairab only at this time of year. Finally, the Kumari, or virgin goddess (living goddess), leaves the seclusion of her temple in a palanquin and leads a procession through the streets of Kathmandu to thank Indra the rain god.
We went to a hotel in Durbar Square and had a Vo'ye feast, which was diverse and wonderful. This happened about a month ago and I am feeling lazy today, so here is another link : http://theweek.myrepublica.com/details.php?news_id=35793
After the meal, we were walking thru the Square when the living goddess came out (see image in Wikipedia article). She was being swarmed by people looking for photographs but was smiling and waving. The whole evening was unique and enjoyable.
A couple of weeks later, we were all invited to a fashion show at the famed Yak and Yeti hotel for the first ever Kathmandu Fashion Parade. I put up a weak protest because there was soccer I would miss and to ensure the preservation of my manhood, but part of me was secretly excited to attend. Everyone got dressed up and we got to the hotel, where in attendance were all of the elites and "celebrities" of Nepal gossiping and eating hor's doeuvres. We were seated in the front row and proceeded to wait for the show to begin. 45 minutes after teh scheduled starting time (welcome to Nepal!), the models started walking. My high expectations were quickly dashed as the first model proceeded to awkwardly walk the runway in high heels as if she were trudging through wet cement. The first couple of designers sent down variants of modernized 'kurtis', which were colorful and well-fitting (what else can be said?) Subsequent designs were office wear and business casual. One of the last showings was a series of girls in white t-shirts who appeared to all be wearing the same thing. I was struggling to appreciate the 'vision' of such a repetitive series until I realized that they were modeling the bags they were carrying.
Overall, I would give my entertainment rating a 6.8/10. The hotel itself is fantastic, and the excitement in the room before the show was palpable. The show itself lasted about 45 minutes, and I was entertained for about 15 of them before mentally checking out and pretending to score the outfits on my program like they do on Project Runway. My overall opinion of the clothes is irrelevant (as I know nothing about fashion) but I did notice that some of the items were unfinished, which I believe is a big fashion no-no. It also seemed like anyone with a pulse was allowed to be a model in this show, which is awful to say, but if ugliness distracts from the clothes something is wrong. All of the females that we went with were underwhelmed by the showing, but everyone had fun.
Two Sundays ago, Shehrish and I were walking back from the grocery store when suddenly everyone behind us started screaming and running. As I followed suit and started to run, I first thought of a truckload of gangsters approaching wielding assault rifles and machetes like in Blood Diamond due to all of the screaming. While running, I felt everything to start to shake, which then made me think a stampede of cattle were about to trample me. Only afterwards did Shehrish and I look at each other and realize that what we had felt was an earthquake. We got back to her home and quickly pulled out the earthquake survival kit that is kept in storage in the event of an aftershock that could have been worse. Amid the chaos, Shehrish had dropped her phone in the street, and we went back out to try and locate it with a flashlight. The streets were jammed with people (one of whom snatched up her phone) and the tension of the crowd was akin to that of my high school after the 9/11 attacks, where everyone felt scared, confused, helpless and full of adrenaline all at the same time. Post-earthquake aftershocks are oftentimes more devastating than the initial earthquake, so everybody was on high alert. We loaded up on bottled water and more Ramen noodles for the earthquake kit and went back to her home. Once my adrenaline cooled, I started feeling dizzy and nauseous from the shaking, which stayed with me into the next day.
The next day at school we accessed the earthquake kits and ran through a drill with all of the children. Some of the younger ones were still upset and scared, but my class of second graders were riled up and everyone shared their experience of where they were when it happened. There were some aftershocks, but I didn't feel any of them. The epicenter of the quake was in Sikkim and around 75 people died in India, Tibet and Nepal (six in Nepal). The magnitude was 6.8, making it the biggest earthquake to hit Nepal since 1934. I still find tornadoes scarier, but I'm thankful that everyone around me was fine.
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