Ashram Life

Our Swamiji at Ganga Arti

Dear Lulu,

It is great to be back in India.  Although being here without you and Sofi is a bit strange.  The moment I arrived I felt like I had come home.  While riding in the cab through the streets of Delhi I had a wonderful calm feeling settle over me.  It was all so familiar and comfortable.  The Ashram life has been amazing so far.  I have been here for two weeks now, although it feels like I have been here for a month.  We literally have class from 6am till 9pm every day except Sunday.  I am learning so much about yoga and pranayama (breathing), Ayurveda, and spirituality.  We have two yoga sessions a day that are each about two hours long.  Then we have two Ayurveda classes, a chanting class, a class on the Bhagavad Gita, and a meditation class to end the day.  We only have three breaks, one for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for dinner.  I have to say though all the classes are starting to take a toll.  I am physically and mentally exhausted.  On the plus side I am getting into amazing shape…but I guess that’s not really what it’s all about. 

The dinning hall

Getting ready for afternoon asana practice

Learning how to make Ayurvedic concoctions

 Michelle, the Irish woman we met and traveled with in Peru, decided to do the course as well and we are sharing a room.  It is really great having her here.  I can’t believe that we got to meet up again. You meet so many great people on the road and wonder if they will ever come back into your life.  It’s nice that one finally did.  My other two suite mates, Heather and Piya, are extremely nice as well.  They are both Canadian and two of the sweetest girls I have met.  All three have really helped to make my time here a lot of fun. 

Since we only have one day off from classes, we really don’t get to experience too much outside the ashram.  We did have an amazing time last Sunday for Holy.  Holy is a religious day where people take to the streets and throw large amounts of colored water and powder at each other.  It is a crazy paint war!  We couldn’t miss it.  We ran around throwing powder and laughing like little children.  It was so much fun!  I wish you could have been here for it.  By the end we were all covered head to toe in pink, yellow, green, purple, and red.  

Me Piya and Michelle taking a break from Holy by the river

Heather and Me after the Holy War

Me playing with one of the local kids on Holy.  They were so much fun!

   

I hope all is going well in Austria and Ireland.  I am sure you are having a great time as well.  Fill me in when you have a chance.  I am curious to know what you are up to.

Xxx,

Kiki

P.S.  I got to see our American bungee friends, Toby and Zack, and our favorite palm reading gemist, Puneet again.  It was really nice seeing them.  They all say hi.

Friends in Viennese places

Sorry that I am just getting this out. I am about two weeks behind. As Christina said I am now in Ireland WWOOFing on a lovely but intense organic famliy farm, but before that I went to Vienna to meet a friend. This was written when I was there but due to lack of time in Vienna and lack of internet on the farm I am just now posting it. 

Leaving China 

Dearest sister

After a long travel day I arrived in Vienna. There Larissa, a friend from Thailand was waiting for me at the airport. She took me to get a typical drink gespritzer or white wine spritzer. It was just what I
needed after the last two days of non stop traveling. The next day was filled with walking around and seeing the city. We went to Stephansdom cathedral at the center of the city, past the Natural History and Art museums, Hofburg, and then picked up dinner at Naschmarket. That night we went to the ballet to see Don Quixote. I wish I was not so jet lagged but either way I loved it and want to go again as soon as possible. It was a wonderful day and not nearly as cold as I thought it was going to be. The thing that was strange was the absence of: people spitting on the street, horns honking constantly, people staring at you, and the cheap prices. I feel that I had reverse culture shock. It only lasted a day or maybe even just an afternoon but it was odd to feel so out of place in a place so similar to home. The market for instance was so clean and
neat. Everyone waiting there turn to order and not making a mad rush for the counter. No old woman yelling at you in a strange language or kids pointing at you. I loved both India and China but those our some of the things I will not miss.

Outside the Hofburg

Vienna is a lovely city filled with culture and history. I have to say that I was embarrassingly ignorant to the history of the city and the country before I got here. Larissa my friend and extremely good tour
guide helped me out and basically gave me a walking tour the first day. It also made me ashamed at how little I know about Corinth or Miami. I definitely could not have given such detailed information  about either city. 


She has to work so during the week I am on my own to figure out what to do. I went to Schonbrunn palace one day. It was beautiful like everything in Vienna and another day I went to the art history museum. It was really funny but on the audio guide for the art museum they would always start saying something like "this is the largest gold hord found in..." and I would think that the next part was going to be Europe or Austria but they would finish with "in the hills outside Vienna or the small island of so and so." It was so anticlimatic. Like they were trying to trick me into thinking that it was important. Even with that it was still a great museum filled with great works by Titian, Caravaggio, and lots of others.

Horrible picture of my at Schonbrunn palace

I decided that since she was letting me stay in her apartment that I would cook dinner for her. So every night I make dinner and go to the grocery store. I have to say that shopping in a country where you can not read the labels and you need certain ingredients is a pain. I have made great friends with the only English
speaking worker at the local grocery store. I feel that maybe we have just been lucky but every country we have been to has had the nicest people. There are so many good people in the world and I think without them we would have been lost.

This weekend Larissa and I went to the outskirts of the city to have a traditional meal. Let me just say that I still have not found a country where I do not LOVE THE FOOD. We had Wiener schnitzel, a thin
piece of pork breaded and fried served with ketchup and/or marmalade, Tiroler Köndel (not sure on the name, she ordered), a cast iron dish of spinach dumplings and ham, and a plate of cold salads all washed downwith Gespritzer. I have to say it was amazingly good and I left nothing on any plate. Just talking about it is making me hungry. I am sorry I don't have that many pictures but you know how I am with pictures. I promise to take more starting today.

Larissa and I after a few glasses of wine

Laura

The New Format

Hi all you followers out there.  Just a quick update on Laura and I.  Currently we are no longer traveling together.  It has been an amazing eight and a half month, but sadly it was time for us  to go our separate ways.  Don't worry  there was no big, dramatic falling out.  We just have two different plans from this point on.  I wanted to go back to India and Laura wanted to go to Europe.  So I am writing you from Rishikesh, India, which I have come to consider one of my homes away from home.  I am currently taking a month long intensive yoga course at Parmarth Niketan Ashram.  It is amazing and will hopefully post more about it soon. Laura is in Ireland WOOFING.  We will have a new format to the blog in order to keep it going. So from now on we will be posting letters to each other.  So you can keep up with both of us.  Since we are both extremely busy with our current endeavours our posting might not be as frequent as we would like, but that is nothing new.  Thanks for following and we hope that you continue.

Christina

China... The Short Version

Me drinking Bubble tea on the busy Hong Kong streets

Ok so due to lack of access to our blog we have decided to post one long post with lots of pictures to catch you up on Hong Kong and China. It would take too long to do each place one post at a time.



Hong Kong from the Peak

Hong Kong

So our first stop after Thailand was Hong Kong. Laura and I fell in love with this city almost instantly. It is so dynamic and stylish and alive. There is a constant buzz of energy in the city that is absolutely intoxicating. We were there for about 13 days and stayed through Chinese New Year. We were lucky enough to find a couch surfer short notice. The rooms there were so expensive! We were paying $20 plus dollars a night each for a small room in the city. This may sound cheap but we had been paying on average $5 dollars a night before. So we stayed with a couch surfer on one of the islands off of Hong Kong. It was just a 25 minute ferry ride to the mainland and it was really laid back and relaxing so it was a nice combination to have the excitement of the city but be able to come home to a quiet cozy home.

Bruce Lee has some competition

Vegetable Market

The Butcher Shop

Lamma Island, our peaceful island home

As usual one of our main objectives in Hong Kong revolved around food. We were on a mission to find amazing Dim Sum. One of the ladies at our Hostel told us about a place nearby. We went there probably five times it was so good! The menu was completely in Chinese but we managed to find an English menu from another dim sum restaurant and could order some things by using that. When that failed Laura and I resorted to going from table to table asking people to check off dishes from there table that we liked on our order card. It was a bit embarrassing but everyone we asked thought it was really funny and were more than eager to help. I think we ate dim sum almost every day we were in Hong Kong and I am not ashamed!

Dim Sum!!!

We had a blast for Chinese New Year. The celebrations started the 3rd of February and would last for two weeks. The two main days were the 3rd and 4th though. The 3rd there was a big parade to kick off the celebrations. We were near the end of the parade route so by the time the performers got to us they were pretty tired and not very enthusiastic. Needless to say the parade was a bit of a letdown. We did meet some really cool people who were standing next to us during the parade. We all went out for dinner and drinks after and made plans to meet up for the fireworks show the next day.

Dragon's in the Parade

More Parade

Marching band... one of the few groups with energy

The fireworks more than made up for the parade! They were the most impressive fireworks I have ever seen and we all felt like little kids afterwards. We didn’t want our high to end so we went out to dinner then dancing after. It was such a fun night! I didn’t make it home till 9:30 the next morning. I don’t think I have ever partied so long, but none of us wanted the night to end. The next day… or I guess that same day, Laura and I left to head to Beijing.

Best Fireworks Ever!!

Massive crowd leaving the fireworks show

In Beijing we stayed with Stephanie and her family. She was a good high school friend, who unfortunately, I hadn’t seen since. So it was nice to finally meet again and catch up. Laura and I had so much fun playing with her adorable son, Quinn. They showed us around and took us to have amazing Peking duck! (Another food mission checked off our list!) We saw a lot of amazing historical sights, but it was hard to get motivated to get out of our comfy warm beds when it was freezing and snowing outside. When we went to see the Great Wall it had snowed all night and was still snowing when we got there. We almost didn’t make it there because the roads where so icy our driver couldn’t make it up the hills. We had to take an hour long detour trying to find a new route. We did make it and I am so glad we did. It was freezing and neither of us could feel our feet, but the wall was beautiful covered in a white fluffy layer of snow. We had a once in a lifetime experience seeing it like that and having it all to ourselves. Because of the cold we were two of only a handful of people on the wall that day. Most times we were absolutely alone. I don’t think many people get to see the wall like that.

Great Wall covered in snow

Laura inside one of the wall towers

Us trying to look warm

Another view of the wall

We also went to see the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and the Temple of Heaven. All were amazing and overwhelmingly huge. They were all massive. We spent most of the day at the Forbidden City and maybe saw only a fourth of it. I will let the pictures explain the rest. Thanks to Stephanie and Adam we had a fabulous time and they went out of their way to make us more comfortable getting around the city.

Forbidden City

I love all the colors

Guard at the Forbidden City

Olympic "Bird's Nest" Stadium

Olympic Aquatic Center

Street food Beijing

After a week in Beijing we had to move on. We went to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors and stayed for a few days before we moved on again. We crossed the country and went to Huangshan, the yellow mountains. We stayed in a little city about an hour away from the mountains. The city had a really beautiful old street that we stayed on. We went hiking one day and I don’t think I have ever seen mountains so spectacular and dramatic before. My pictures don’t do them justice. We were so enamored we took way too long admiring the views and taking pictures. By the time we made it to the cable car that would take us down the mountain it had closed. We had to hike down then and it was getting close to dark. About a million stairs and almost three hours later we were still hiking and it was completely dark. It is not easy going down stone stairs on the side of a mountain in the dark. It wasn’t much fun either. We had been hiking for 10 hours straight now and I was having horrible knee pain from all the stairs. Laura kept almost falling and scaring the crap out of me! We finally made it down only to find that there were no busses and no taxis and almost no people, accept one security guard that couldn’t speak English. After some time we were able to get him to understand that we needed a taxi to take us back to Tunxi. We ended up getting home at around 9pm and we hadn’t had anything but some oranges to eat all day. We devoured our dinner and went home and passed out. It was an amazing experience though and we have a good laugh about it now. It’s just another one of our crazy adventures.

One of the excavation pits for the Terracotta Warriors

Tourists crowded around a warrior

A warrior and his horse

One of three pits containing warriors

The biggest of the three pits

Us in front of the biggest pit

Adorable dog in old town Huangshan

Old town Huangshan

Old town Huangshan

Amazing Huangshan Mountains

Worker carrying goods up the mountain

Crazy Horizon line

Locks left at the top of the mountains as a symbol of a bond of love

Cool crevasse

Ice cover tunnel

Steepest stairs I have ever seen...and they were covered in snow

Cool rock formations everywhere you turn

Sunset on our way down

So beautiful...but it also meant that we would be walking in the dark soon!

After a few days we left again. This time Laura and I split ways because I needed to get to Guangzhou to apply for my Indian visa and she wanted to see the mountains and river of Yangshuan. So I boarded a train to Guangzhou and she to Guilin. I spent the rest of my time in Guangzhou waiting for my visa and Laura arrived after 5 days of being in the mountains. She said they were beautiful. I will have to take her word for it. Hopefully one day I can make it there. Guangzhou was so much fun though. I was staying with a couch surfer from Canada. She had been there teaching for 8 years. I spent my days being lazy and pretending to have a normal life and going out having amazing food at night. I was doing yoga everyday trying to get ready for India. I am going back to stay at an ashram and participate in an intensive month long yoga program. I am so excited and can’t wait. Laura is headed to Austria and then Ireland. So we are going to split up. After a year of living together in Miami and over eight months of traveling we are going our separate ways. It is time. Don’t worry we haven’t had a fight or fallen out with each other. We just have different plans from here on out so we have to split. We are going to keep the blog going but we are going to change the format a bit. I will fill you in on the next post.

Laura in Yangshuan

Laura's beautiful marks after getting hot cupping done

Christina