Grand Adventures and Household Chores
Reflections on our family’s adventures as we live, work, and play around the world
If I had to pick one country’s cuisine to eat for the rest of my life, it would be India’s, no contest. (I do understand that I’ve only experienced a small slice of the amazingly varied cuisine of this country. However, based on everything I have eaten, I stand by my choice.)
Our Air B&B hosts connected us with Jaya, the woman who cooked for them when they lived in this apartment, and so we have super fresh, tasty meals in our apartment for most meals.
(Above photo credit to mom!)
India has many, many holidays, perhaps in large part because of its many, many religions. Wednesday November 25th was Guru Nanak Gurpurab, which celebrates the birthday of the first Sikh guru. Here is Theo’s Guru Nanak coloring sheet from school.
Hauz Khas village in South Delhi is a trendy place for shopping and eating where we visited a “chocolate vault.”
In this photo, Brian is holding Theo’s head because Theo fell asleep on a tuk-tuk drive home. Later, Theo explained, “I think I fell asleep because of all the honking. The honking made me sleep”
In the 1950s, traveling puppeteers from Rajasthan set up a tents in a field on the outskirts of Delhi. Today that space is Kathputli Colony, which has been enveloped by the expanding Delhi and is now home to around 30,000 people. The colony’s name points to its history – Kathputli means puppet in Hindi. The colony is still home to puppeteers, and also to magicians, snake charmers, acrobats, musicians, wood carvers, and many other types of artists.
I find it hard to write about our time in Delhi without worrying that I’m oversimplifying or misrepresenting the city or its residents… but here it goes!
We left Delhi last week after spending a month in a cozy, lovely apartment in the south part of the city.
Continue reading “An Attempt to Summarize Our Experience in Delhi (Gulp)”
Our four days in Bangkok were a bit of a blur, reminding us why we normally stay in place for a whole month. However, in addition to trying to keep on top of our usual lives, we managed to explore a high-tech play space, eat a tasty vegetarian/Thai lunch sans child (who we enrolled in preschool for two days), speak about Neo-4j (Brian), and even do a tiny bit of sight-seeing (Amanda).
We took the overnight train from Bangkok to our new home-for-a-month, Chiang Mai. While it wasn’t ideal that the train was delayed 2 hours (keeping Theo awake way past his bedtime), it did give him plenty of time to make friends at the station.
Lots of people. Lots of food. Lots of things to buy. We aren’t big shoppers, but we enjoyed walking, gazing, and tasting our way through the Sunday night market.
Leaving India was hard, not the least because we love Indian food and were spoiled by the ubiquity of amazing vegetarian options. (Okay, we also were spoiled by having a really good cook.)
However, I’ve been surprised by just how much I’ve been enjoying Thai food as well – and after two cooking classes, how competent I feel at cooking several Thai meals at home.