post from the north country

Back in the saddle here in Toronto. Only three days until we have to go back to Delhi and we've finally gotten settled into our Canadian lifestyle. Feeling humble without our driver and fancy car and back in our putt-putt black Suzuki and on the crusty-yet-still-beloved TTC. Feeling - to put it politely - rather, um, full shall we say from our vast ingestion of meat and treats. Feeling chilled to the point that we're all wearing double pairs of pants today. Mmm TTC, meat, and double pants. We must be in Toronto!

Always, always weird to travel around the world and leave one universe and re-enter another one. Always surprising. This time, even though I knew it would be cold when we arrived, I still couldn't help but just wear a thin jacket to exit the airport with Pheuy and Betsy and then was shocked at how actually truly COLD it was. This Canada, it's no Hyderabad Snow World. Fer shure. The flights to Canada were actually not so bad. I am now enjoying making totally obvious and banal statements about European countries. London this summer? Well, the food was crap and expensive but the transit system was top-notch. Flying with the German airline Lufthansa? Always on time, straightforwardly good service, absolutely zero sugar on the top, nice wide flat seats for large buttocks. (Air Canada flights to and from Europe? Bitter, large, and very tired flight attendants, superior in-flight entertainment, really quite tasty food and drinks). We were scheduled to leave Delhi at 3 am, so we put the kids and myself to bed and Phet puttered around until departure time when he woke us all up and we hauled our big bag of gifts and our smaller bags of inordinately large winter clothes into the car and then John drove us out to the airport.

The airport in Delhi has been renovated and is in many ways better than it used to be. The entrance area is easier to navigate, the check-in counters are more convenient, and the passport stamping dudes shuffle everyone through quite quickly. The bathrooms are much more spacious and always have a couple of ladies standing at the ready to go and clean things up (this, for the record, does NOT happen in Canada...people only wait to give you paper towels in Delhi and in that fancy restaurant in Ferris Bueller's Day Off). Some things still suck: the business class lounge never has enough seats and the crazy Russians still sit around drinking beer in their undershirts at the gates. One of Ji's classmates, Aagam, was waiting with his folks and his elder brother who used to be my student, so Ji played with him for awhile, and then we all just kind of hunkered down to wait. Of course the flight was delayed, but only an hour, so that wasn't so bad. Two of my drama students were on our flight - funny to see middle school kids with their parents after being used to seeing them act insanely in class. They're always super well-behaved and calm and polite around their families. Or, if they're nearing the end of grade eight, they sometimes get that yecch-parents face at times.

The stop over in Frankfurt was stupid, of course. They only let one guest in with Phet to the business class lounge, so Seung Yi and I went to wander around and play on the moving sidewalks. That was fun, but the airport itself is still crappy. I had this really elaborate plan to post up "THIS AIRPORT IS HORRIBLE" posters in the bathrooms, but then I forgot to make the posters before leaving Delhi. I don't know about any of you readers out there, but when I'm angry about stuff, I stay up at night and lie in the dark composing virulent letters or I design really awesome payback posters. I find it very soothing. This summer, I had a whole pro-Big Box poster plan for "Leslieville". It went something like, "YES to BIG BOX STORES...long time east enders DO like baloney and Wal-Mart and crackheads and those restaurants that only serve beer to senior citizens on zippy wheelchairs with oxygen tanks on the back". The Anti-Frankfurt-Airport posters were supposed to have key points on them, chief of which was to be WHY DON'T YOU HAVE ENOUGH FREAKING CHAIRS? Indeed, when we got to our gate, everyone was stuffed in like so much thyme scented bread up a turkey's back end, half of the passengers milling around with nowhere to sit. The flight from Frankfurt to Toronto was just fine; very full but with the stop-and-start movies that I love. I watched Tropic Thunder and just about fell out of my seat when there was the line, "Guys, we're not even in Vietnam anymore. We might be in Myanmar. Or Lao!" followed by, "What the f**k is Lao?" Hyaw hyaw ha ha.

Arriving in Toronto was weird. It always is. The weather is weird. The wide open roads are weird. The lack of people sleeping under the underpasses and in the parks is weird. The way that everyone's clothes are really, really clean is weird. The beef is weird. The ability to breathe the air without coughing is weird. Feeling like a teenager - cause I'm doing stuff in the same places I used to do stuff when I was a teenager - is weird. Listening to people speak Spanish and Ethiopian is weird. Seeing Ethiopian words written on the sides of Ethiopian shops is really, really weird. Seeing our family, though, is great.

The first few days in town we spent getting over our jetlag and enjoying SNOWMAGEDDON. The very day after we flew in their was a HEEEYUUGE snowstorm that basically shut down Pearson airport. I don't know which gods were looking out for us, but whoever they were: thanks. On the snowiest day of the year, we took a cab up to Dad's school and went to visit him on his last day of classes. Seung Yi and Ji Hong ate their own weight in treats and had fun watching Wallace and Gromit with Grampa's students. Then, I figured we'd kick it Canadian style and we walked home the whole eight blocks to my folks' place. It was nuts. The snow was piling and pelting down, only Seung Yi had boots, and we couldn't see farther than two houses in front of us. Seung Yi naturally had no interest in walking, and so I had to grab her by the scruff of her incredibly slippery snowsuit (note to self: must send the angry 'where are the snowsuit handles?' letter to the snowsuit making consortium) and carry her most of the way. It's kind of like how people go on retreats to get away from their hectic lifestyles, or do Outward Bound to get in touch with their inner caveperson; I figure the eight block snow walk allowed me to experience - if just for a half hour - the incredibly cold and brutal life I would live if I were in Canada year round. Must admit, thought, that the exertion sure does make a hot cup of tea and a nice slab of beef taste good.

Shortly after snowmageddon melted, we drove up to Don and Frances' place for Boxmas Day. It was marvellous, as always. Phet did HIS Canadian parent thing and spent most of the day outside with Ji snowshoeing, snowballing, and fort-building. They both came in with frozen ankles and lovely rosy cheeks. I stayed inside and chatted and read magazines and the newspaper and a cook book. I kind of passed out after 9 due to the ongoing jetlag, and then got up with Dad the next morning as he started crepe preparations (creparations?). First, though, I had to have some of Dad's INSANELY delicious cheesecake from the previous evening. OMG. So. Good. The spring time relinquishment of carbs and fats that always follows our winter time trip to Canada is entirely worth it. I like to do my bit for that remaining part of me that needs to build up a nice layer of fat before hibernating. Speaking of that part of me, I realized that there are some really key skills that Ji lacks because he doesn't live in a country with really cold weather. He doesn't kick the snow off of his boots at the side of the house before coming in the door. He doesn't understand that thin and stretchy gloves won't be the best handcovers when making snowballs and playing outside for hours. He never remembers to zip up his jacket before he exits the house. Oh dear. Anyways, after the cheesecake it was onto crepemageddon: crepes, smoked salmon, cream cheese, mmm.

The crepe fest was followed, very soon afterwards, by a Randy-led meat fest. Mum, Seung Yi and I went home in one car (the Healthy Mobile, I like to call it) while Dad, Phet, Ji and Grampa Paul when in the van (the Meat Mobile). Dad took them first to Starky's marvellous eastern european mart, and then to some insane place that I think Ji referred to as the Royal Meat Palace. Phet came back clutching his gut after eating the one pound burger, and Dad kindly sent me a wee treat back from the take-out section: a "kaleidoscope-sized" (those are Dad's words) snack made up basically from a piece of schnitzel which had been rolled up, stuffed with a very tasty kind of garlicky cream cheese and then (of course!) deep fried. I had a few bites and then was so full I couldn't eat for the rest of the night.

Christmas eve showed up shortly thereafter and Dad put on a banquet fit for a Czar. Everything was delcious, but I have to admit that the really best thing was eating fried up, left over perogies and onions the next morning. (Uncle Pat sent around a joke the other day: an old Polish man is on his death bed...he's lying there, sure he's about to die, when he smells the wonderful aroma of perogies. Ah, he thinks, my wife is trying to keep me well by cooking, she is truly an angel. He crawls down the stairs, sees the perogies on the table, reaches up to take one, and his wife whacks his hand with a wooden spoon. "Those are for the funeral," she says.) The perogies were out of this world they were so good. It was also so wonderful to have Grampa there with us, and then on top of both of those marvellous things, EMMA had the day off and was there for Christmas morning. Hurrah! We'd also been lucky enough to see Jake not only at Christmase eve dinner, but he and Ryan also took Ji out for a day on the town and took him climbing on some very very scary and high pretend mountain climbing ranges. I'll try to post the pictures soon.

Christmas day was perfect. Seung Yi LOVES presents now and is happy about every single item she got. Whenever there was a present lull over the holidays, say she didn't get one for a day or something like that, she'd go around saying "Where my present?" Ji, as always, loved opening his gifts and his stocking and was thrilled with his gifts. I even stepped it up a notch and got him not only a book but also an address book! Red letter day for the Jimeister. In lieu of post-Christmas Boxmas day, we had an unfortunate few days of bad health. Mum had a massive flare-up of her arthritis and had to get some help from the kindly crew at East York General's festive emergency department. Apparently morphine's going to be high on her christmas list for Santa next year so she can get it from the comfort of her own stocking rather than through a drip next to a cranky, coughing, shouting Russian grampaw. Despite Mum's illness, the feasting continued unabated. We had some prime bowls of pho, insanely delicious grilled lamb, christmas shortbreads (thanks, Jake, Adam, Ryan, and Emma!), leftover chocolate mousse, many kinds of mouthwatering cheese, and naturally more beef.

Must run and nap. More soon.

[Toronto-29-December-2008]

a letter for gramma

[From Seung Yi]

SY: Where's the letter? I have it. In there, there.

TN: But let's send it to her on the computer.

SY: No, in my home. No, I send it for Damma. Yesterday I put special letter on the this this this.

TN: The computer?

SY: I will stick it!

TN: But I'm writing it right now. What should we tell Gramma?

SY: Where's Gramma? I want to see Gramma.

TN: Where is she?

SY: In my home.

TN: In your home? Where's your home?

SY: In Delhi.

TN: I don't think you're making any sense.

SY: I'm making no sense. [Ji walks by with a gingerbread man] Ooooh, I like it. Nice, nice nice. Where's Gramma now? Gramma now is in Toronto, dat side, Mummy.

TN: What do you think she's doing in Toronto?

SY: I want to sit.

TN: What are you going to do in Toronto?

SY: Brrrr! And mittens and tafff, and you wear tafff and your big mittens and I wear little mittens.

TN: But what will you do with Gramma?

SY: Tafff for Damma also. I will put the tafff for Damma. Damma want tafff because br, br br br. And my feet is cold there. And every...Miles house.

TN: What about Miles house?

SY: Big Miles house. Member I go to Miles house. I play there. Member I play da fire? Tary! (scary!). I'm all done letter for Damma.

[17-December-2008]

mummy, mummy, where's my mummy?

[Warning: caps ahead]

Boo, Mum has returned to Toronto and we are now grandparent-, mom-, and m.i.l.-less. Wah wah wah!

We had a marvellous time with Mum and really, what a treat it has been having first Emma come for such a long visit and then to have Mum come for nearly a month. We are very, very lucky to have the chance to hang out with them. If only they had more free time. Wait...Mum's retiring! How handy will that be? Apparently it should be SUPER handy. She's already agreed to come and babysit the first week of February when both Phet and I will be out of the country. If only it didn't get up to 44' celsius here, I'd kidnap her for good. Speaking of good, Mum got to fly home via the motherland. No, dummy, no Ireland...UKRAINE! How about them perogies? She got there before me OR Emma and we're the actual semi-eastern europeans. Apparently she was the only passenger in business class on the Kiev - Toronto leg and she was very well taken care of. Meanwhile we have to fly by stupid, rotten Frankfurt this winter. (I'm starting to think / hope that maybe since now I have such incredibly low expectations of Frankfurt that maybe it will seem slightly better in comparison. I just always remember being there when Ji was still little-ish and I think Seung Yi was a wee infant, and there weren't enough SEATS at the airport for all the passengers to sit down, and so we went to the horrible, awful, ugly, dirty McDonalds "play area" and I kind of deliriously propped my head up against a tube slide while Seung Yi lay in my arms and Ji got grimy from the never-wiped surfaces that sixty kids had already drooled on that morning. Oh, and on top of all that? Smoking is allowed in Frankfurt airport in "designated areas" which are totally UNseparated from the rest of the airport. Like, if you stand in one spot and smoke and blow smoke all over everyone else, there's NO PROBLEM. Frankfurt = Poopy).

While Mum was here we mostly took it easy. We made an effort to cook more at home, although Mum did just fine with food outside and even ate at the outdoor market, Dilli Haat. She had a crappy cold, very sore hands, and a headache on one occasion, but no double kidney infection so we scored the trip as a winner. Aside from the jaunt to Hyderabad, we stuck close to home. Mum made a couple of touristy forays with Ji, but our main outings were to go shopping. And we did great shopping! My closet is stuffed to the brim with christmas presents, yay. Mum went to Khan Market, Santushti, Connaught Place, Lajpat Nagar, and many shops and handicraft fairs. We hit the great American Women's Association fair at our school, the German christmas fair, and also the International fair at the Ashok Hotel. The latter was definitely my favourite. I didn't actually buy any gift items - I was a little gifted out by that point, and the fair was really heavy on sparkly spangly stuff - but had the most awesome bowl of chicken pho there. I was walking around the stalls in the embassy-run section (opposite the spangly side) when I suddenly caught the scent of broth. It wafted over and I couldn't take a step in the direction I'd been headed, I had to go to the Vietnamese booth. Ooooooh, it was so good! It was real Hanoi-style pho, which I have never had outside of Hanoi. In Canada the pho is all southern style, and while southern style pho is certainly delicious, it just isn't the same, and the first pho I really came to love was Hanoi-style pho. It was so good that I actually got teary-eyed slurping it up. And it came with little side bowls of garlic marinated in vinegar. Ah, Hanoi pho.

Back when I was teaching in Hanoi I wrote textbooks for our tourism faculty and then I recorded the reading portions with Phet, Emma, and some friends. They still tease me to this day (yeah, I know, that's so unlike my family to tease someone about something for, like, more than ten years) about this one bit where I said, "I've had pho in Paris and pho in America and pho in Saigon, but nothing compares to pho in Hanoi."

It's getting late and Seung Yi is still yapping and yapping away to herself..."Dat funny! Oh my gosh! I'm bald. I'm Zuko. I fighting. Ha ha!" She is a very amusing child, that one. But she goes to sleep way to late.

In honour of Mum's safe departure, I'm putting up my top three favourite product packages here in Delhi. Two are from last year when Mum was in the hospital, and one is from my kitchen cupboard. I actually had one even favourite-er box, but it's gone now. It was also from the period of Mum's illness, and it was a big brown cardboard box on it and it was printed in huge block letters: LIFE SAVING DRUGS. I think Phet kept his stash in it for awhile. (Just kidding if you're reading this, Phet's boss!)

Exhibit 1: Woodward's Gripe Water
This just looks so very soothing and old fashioned. I love the paper packet around the bottle, and it really lets me know that there must be SOME alcohol in the product. I like the engraving-type picture of the happy baby on the top, and the fonts are all excellent. Plus, the gripe water smells amazing. Points off only for the snickety-snick sharp metal band near the cap that will cut your hands as soon as you try to open this up for a swig.

Exhibit 2:
"Solar" Active Dried Yeast packet. Nothing says homebaked cakes like a...OH MY GOD! Like a crazy Kung Fu actor in baker's drag from nineteen sixty eight! With some kind of massive graduation-style bling around his neck and a sparkly look in his eyes! That is gonna be some angel food cake with lemon chiffon icing, baby. "Best for baking"? You bet!

Exhibit 3:
And now, my all time favourite (after the LIFE SAVING DRUGS, of course), the Sat-Isabgol psyllium husk. Check this out. No seriously: check it out. In detail. Not only does it have a truly great colour scheme (honestly), it has the best layout of any package I've ever seen. It's called "telephone brand" psyllium, and check out the telephone on the front. Woah! It's like, I've had daily BMs since great-great-Grampaw George stepped in for tea after placing an order for his first Model-T. And the, the factory in the back with smoke a-sweeping from its chimneys. How many companies do you know that put their factory on the packaging? Not many I bet.

But really, the piece de resistance is not even a graphic at all. It's just two simple words. And here they are (this punctuation mark is for you, Adam):

Hm...I'm here, at the shop, at the pharmacy looking for something to help regulate my bowels, and I'm wondering what to buy...I look at the Metamucil...nah, too dull...I think about getting some of those new fangled, fancily-named laxative products, but they're not what I need...what I really want is...yes...this is it, here it is....PSYLLIUM HUSK! Score!

I think that all foods should come with an exclamation mark. It would make opening the fridge or cupboard so much more exciting. Enthusiasm previously set aside only for describing the actions of really awesome superheroes and supervillains now available for use on your groceries. Dairy aisle...YOGURT! MILK! CHEESE! Holy crap, I LOVE buying food. Down at the bulk barn...CORNSYRUP! BAKING POWDER! FLOUR! No kidding? Really? Flour? Yes, FLOUR!

Wicked.

[Delhi-10-December-2008]

hydera-not-so-great-but-really-not-so-bad

Thanks to the family and friends who wrote to find out how we were doing with the crisis happening in Mumbai. We are all fine but hearing about the situation there was of course very, very scary. Our friends at school and work are also safe, but there were a number of my students who reported really close calls. Several had family members who were supposed to be in the areas that were struck by the terrorists but happened to not be there at the time of the crisis. One student did have her father staying at the Taj on the night that it was attacked, but he managed to escape and got back to Delhi safely. I'm sure that the events will translate into much higher security at school and probably will impact on Phet's work, but all that will be long term. In the short term, just very scary and so awful for the people who were affected.

We were in Hyderabad during the attacks. We actually arrived at about 11 pm and we found it really weird that there were police check points all the way into town. We were sort of like, huh, Hyderabad is serious about security. It was strange.

The new airport in Hyderabad is AWESOME. I propose that rather than go into town, tourists should just stay out at the airport. It is set in a lovely countryside-ish landscape, there are rolling hills covered in beautifully arranged flower gardens, and the sky was briskly clear blue with big puffy clouds. I think they (ie the powers that be) should just shift a bunch of shops and a few hotels and a carefully selected collection of biryani restaurants out to the airport and then no one would ever have to actually go into the city if they were just touring. Hyderabad wasn't really that bad, but there just wasn't alot to write home about. It is a very busy and extremely sprawling city. It's the fifth biggest city in India, but also seemed to be the one with the least amount of character that I've seen. There were some neighbourhoods that were quite interesting and the sights to see were pleasant, but it was just that the city itself was so endless and without alot of distinction between areas. Still and all, we had a very pleasant visit and I had a wonderful time hanging out with my Mom (who is in town, yipee) and my kids and my husband.

On our first day in Hyderabad we went out with Phet's colleagues to do a little touring. We were pretty tired and that meant that we probably didn't make the very best use of our one sunny day, but we still did get around to check out both the Charminar and the big local museum. Here's the Chariminar, a four-minarretted tower that is the key landmark for Hyderabad:

It was busy around the Charminar but we weren't unpleasantly accosted by the touts around the site. I'm happy to report, also, that there were lovely white cauliflowers available for sale at a fruit and veg stand right at the foot of the tower. Too bad we couldn't put those in our luggage! Instead we went on to visit a pearl shop. Hyderabad is apparently known for its pearls, its biryani, and its relative tolerance towards boys who like boys. Pretty decent combination, really. The pearls, I have no idea why those are so common...Hyderabad is way far away from any ocean. I could google that and find out, I guess, but I am SUPERLAZY. At the pearl shop, everyone ended up buying the same necklace and pearl earring sets. I took Seung Yi out for a little walk and Phet almost bought me this massive string of pearls, but I forced him not to buy them -- not really to my taste, but to the great sadness of the shopkeeper. It was funny, the shopkeeper had only taken out the fancy jewellery box when Phet said he'd buy the big string of pearls, and then when I rejected them everyone else gave him back their little jewel bags and made him give them fancy boxes too. Hee hee hee.

In the afternoon, we all conked out and had deathly deep naps, except for Mum, who stayed awake and on alert. In the evening we took it easy and ate a big buffet dinner at our hotel. The hotel (as Mum notes below) was great. Excellent value for the money given the usual situation in India. Weirdly, hotels here tend to be very expensive and extremely packed. I used to work at the tourism faculty at Hanoi Open University and several of my colleagues taught hotel management. They would tell their kids to aim for something like 60% of the hotel rooms to be filled during the good times and around 30-40% to be full during the low season. Here in India, hotels are routinely full. Like, completely full. This in turn seems to have (duh) led to a corresponding lack of competition between hotels. You get decent enough rooms but you pay about three to twenty times as much for a room here than in South East Asia. The hotel we stayed in Hyderabad was about a hundred bucks a night and the rooms were great. Clean, nicely furnished, delightfully hot baths, TV with all the fun channels. In addition, with the daily room rate we got not only a free and massive buffet breakfast, but also a free and even more massive buffet dinner. Every day we could call room service for a free fruit plate and every day at 5:00 pm they brought around a free plate of baked goods for tea time. I pretty much spent my entire day scarfing down a variety of delicious carbs. Croissants and iddlies for breakfast, biryani for lunch, naan and papad and more biryani (with a side of rasmali) for dinner. To paraphrase the Beastie Boys, my pants are tight and that's ok.

[The whole time we were in Hyderabad I kept thinking about how Anne had volunteered at an orphanage there back when I was at Guelph, and especially I kept thinking about how I drunk dialled her one stupid night and I think I finally got through and man, I had no clue what Hyderabad was like at all that night...]

The next day dawned rainy and wet. Mum and I spent the morning playing with the kids and watching the ladies in the apartments nearby do their chores and hang their laundry. It was really - really! honestly! - pretty interesting. After lunch we took Phet out and went to the biggest local movie complex we could find. Before going to see the movie Phet took Seung Yi and Ji to explore the crazy other attractions at the mall, which included a house of mirrors, a scary house, and a "believe it or not" (no Ripley's) house. On our third day it was rainy again but we went out to a nearby mall and then to a handicrafts shop up in Banjara Hills, the posh neighbourhood. Hyderabad had nutty traffic, no areas for pedestrians to walk, seeingly no parking on the main shopping streets, and the city has also been hobbled like Delhi with the construction of a massive Metro project. We spent alot of time sitting in our rented car with our driver jostling for position and us racketing back and forth with the hem and haw of the traffic.

Speaking of traffic, I stupidly decided that we should go out for dinner that evening and got everyone into the car to go to a restaurant called Punjabi By Nature that also has locations in Delhi and which has always been recommended highly to me. The drive took FOREVER and of course we were all really hungry and tired. When we finally got to the restaurant, we sat down and ordered and it was really, really loud (it's sort of a bar/restaurant) and so the waiter added in an extra dish that we really didn't need and we ended up with way too much food which we then gave to our driver so at least I didn't feel terribly guilty about wasting it, but I was still irritated. But I digress. The really important thing about our visit to PBN was that I ordered us these drinks that they are famous for here. I have to explain what the drinks are like in detail so that you understand them in their entirety. Ok, here goes: there are these common snacks that I often eat in Delhi called golegappa. To make the snack, the snackmaker takes a wee little thing about an inch and a half wide and an inch high. This wee thing looks like a pouri; it is a roundish kind of a deep fried bread object. But unlike a pouri it is hard and the dough is thin. It's a bit like a spherical cracker of sorts. Anyways, the snackmaker takes it and pokes in the top, so there's a little hole in it. He then spoons in a mix that is made of cooked potatoes and some herbs and spices and salt. So far so good. Then, the last and final and only at the very last minute step is that the eater of the snack takes a thin green salty and spicy liquid and pours it into the golegappa and then kind of eats and drinks it all in one go.

They're really weird but really yummy. I like them on a plate, covered with yogurt and sweet tamarind sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds.

Now, back to the drinks. This restaurant is famous for serving vodka shots in golegappa. I had sort of imagined that they would use the spherical cracker as a vodka shotglass, but in reality they still fill the cracker with potato mix, and they serve that with the vodka on the side and you put it into the cracker. Not only that, but the vodka is mixed with your choice of thick spicy sauce. We tried it with tamarind and then also with the salty green sauce. But they weren't thinned 'essence' type of sauces. No, they were thick, sludgey, full-of-spices sauces. The result was spectacularly awful. I seriously almost hurled. Mom didn't even make it to the pouring-the-vodka-into-the-golegappa, she quit after just tasting the vodka. Here, you can see for yourself the face she made:

Oh. My. Goat.

Just looking at that gives me the shivers.

On our last day in Hyderabad, we made an effort to enjoy the not-quite-rainy weather and drove down to the lake at the centre of town to go to a park with the kids. Sadly, the park was only open at 12:30. Why? Who knows. But at any rate, we couldn't get in. Instead, we wisely followed Mum's suggestion and drove up to see Golkonda Fort. I hadn't read anything about Hyderabad before going (and surely that's obvious to you, gentle reader, by now) and I was happily surprised by the fort. The drive out there was capital L long and meandered through some teeny tiny streets, but the fort itself was great.

This photo above is taken from the lovely gardeny grounds at the base of high part of the fort; the gardens and other areas are enclosed by further walls. The fort was really cool and as you can see was built on top of this roundy rolly rocky outcropping. We all climbed up about halfway and paused to enjoy the view. Here's a picture of Mum and the kids with - oh, is it someone we know? Nope! Just another random guy who wanted a picture with Seung Yi. How many people wanted pictures with Seung Yi? Hm, I'd say at least seven. This guy was very sweet and after he posed with us he swapped spots with his friend and then took a picture of his friend with us. Here's to you, random yellow shirted Hyderabadian!

Margie here: I've been told I can guest blog. Don't know if I have to be as intereting and funny as Thaba but here I am.

I liked going to Hyd'bad also. It was about a 2 hour flight very pleasant, much better thaan 18 hours! The hotel was great, do stay there if you're ever in H'''bad. It's called the Aditya Park and the staff were super nice to the kids, they all knew Ji Hong and Seung Yi's name the second day we were there. The weather.... not too great kind of rainy but warm...ish. Sadly we couldn''t go to the great parks for kids but the kids and T. & P. went to see KUNG FU PANDA at the Imax theatre which they liked a lot.

I tried to buy pearls but ehhh something just held me back. I really wanted to buy black Tahitiian pearls with a small diamond on them but nehhhhhhhhh just kind of didn't like the jeweller so much, plus he had a 3 inch long baby finger nail which kind of grossed me out, he told Ji (who had asked him) that it took him 6 years to grow it. So, I remain 'pearless in Delhi'.

Today John and I drove hither and yon in Delhi out to the tailor's back to the shopping mall where you can buy meat. Then I made nummy sphaghettin and meatballs for dinner (not aas good as your's Phet).

I am having a lovely time here, but definitely could do with out the horrible smog.

And finally, a few quotes from the kids for you tonight:

Upon hearing that our landlord Mr. Singh's Mom had pneumonia but was recovering at home, Ji said, "If someone had pandemonium in my family, I'd send them to a hospital. You know, like, pandemonium breaks out in the cities down below."

And a conversation between Seung Yi and Mum:

SY: What is it?

Mum: A ukelele.

SY: What is it?

Mum: A ukelele.

SY:What is it?

Mum: A ukelele.

SY: No. It a guitar. What is it?

My mother is so very patient. So. Very. Patient.

[On The Road-1-December-2008]

finally: not hot! and a new post

I have been thinking and have come to the conclusion that there are four main reasons (aka excuses) for me being so quiet lately. 1: Holy moley it's been busy at school. In four of my five classes, I'm doing entirely new curriculum and I'm the only one teaching these subjects. Then, in my other class, I've added in a completely new class into my previously existing old class. I used to just have the yearbook class, but now I've gone ahead and added in a video yearbook class. At the same time, in the same place. It was a teeny bit of a "challenge" as we like to say to get that off the ground when I had no idea how to edit video. Which leads me to 2: I had to learn how to edit video. To do that, I made Mum a video for her 60th birthday (Happy Birthday, Mum!) and it took eight trillion years to finish it. Because I didn't know how to edit video. But now I do. And now the video class is coming along pleasantly. But the busy-ness and the learning-something-new meant that I had, oh, less than zero percent interest in getting onto the computer after getting home from work. The busy-ness also includes a number of after school activities (like: video editing!) which are only going to increase as the year goes by and as our drama performances and yearbook deadlines come up and steal all my brain time. This past week we finished auditions for our travelling drama group which will be going to an awesome conference in Shanghai come February. Mm, cold! Mm, hot noodles! It's also been difficult because 3: Phet has been out of town for so long it's not real. He's back now, which is why I'm here relaxing and writing, but he was travelling like a madman for almost two months. Mongolia (lots of meat, gorgeous cashmere gifts), Rome (brought home a 2 kilo block of parmesan along with salami and prociutto), Australia (returned with booze and lovely gifts from his family in Sidney), and I think he also hit Sri Lanka somewhere along the way. While he was gone, very very very happily Emma came to visit. Of course we would have loved to have her stay with us anytime, but it was especially wonderful to come home to a house guest with Phet out of town. Seung Yi and Ji had a FANTASTIC time with their auntie and she played with them hour after hour after hour, which leads me to my final point which is that 4: Anytime that I have had to kick back, I've been spending playing with Seung Yi and Ji. Seung Yi is so much fun these days. She talks up a storm, she now plays by herself (and does stuff like 'read' her books and make comments like "Awesome!" when she finds a picture she particularly likes), and is just generally entertaining as can be.

Today, she woke up and snuggled in bed with her Pa. She has wonderful bed head each and every day. It's so fluffy and cute. And she's currently obsessed with wearing the bunny pajamas that Phet's aunts sewed for Ji, so every morning she's a fluffy headed little bunny baby who giggles and snuggles so sweetly it is almost too perfect to be true. After she got up, she helped Phet make pancakes. She's very insistent on doing everything herself so she pulled her own chair into the kitchen, carried her own plate out to the table, poured her own syrup on the pancakes, then went back into the kitchen to get her own knife (saying loudly while opening the cutlery drawer, "MY knife. MY knife. MY knife."), and then cut her pancake up and ate it all by herself. Then, it was time for a little playing. She got out some playdough and pulled little bits of it apart, saying "puuuullll....puuuulllll". Then, she took out her puzzles and put together three 7-piece puzzles (ie interconnecting, not just those oh-so-simple stick-the-shape-in-the-hole puzzles) a few times. Later on we hung out outside, then we wrestled for awhile, we danced a little bit to the playlist I made for the Halloween party we're hosting this Friday, then we had lunch, and now she's conked out on the living room mats wearing her adorable kelly green sweatpants and a matching t-shirt. How could I not want to hang out with her ALL THE TIME?

Meanwhile, Ji is doing all kinds of great stuff. He is still getting in trouble on a daily (if not hourly) basis for being aaaassss slllllloooooow asssssssss molaaaaaaasssssesssss to do anything. Seriously. If I say, "Ji, could you go get me a glass of water?" before Ji so much as blinks, Seung Yi will have run to the kitchen, climbed up on the counter, pulled open the cupboard door, pulled out a cup, climbed down, filled the cup with water from the dispenser, and then run back to me with the cup of water. He's like, I don't know, living in a universe that moves at an entirely different speed than the one I live in. But I digress. Generally, he's doing great. He learned how to throw a baseball and to catch one too. With a glove! He's practicing his batting with a cricket bat, though, because we can't buy a baseball bat here. He's been swimming like a champ, and this semester he's brushing up on his basketball skills after school (and continuing the knitting too, of course). He's reading much more fluently now, and is working on books with a couple of paragraphs of writing on each page. I bought him a new book the other day about Ulysses, and he came back home and read three chapters of it without being prompted to do so. He's continuing to do gorgeous artwork - he made a good copy of his comic book hero, "The Crosser" and got me to frame it for him. (In exciting framing news, we found a spectacular framer here, who framed an oil painting and a print that one of the high school kids gave me last year, plus several of Ji's art pieces and man, do they ever look great. Oh, and also these very cool cut-paper artworks from Mongolia that Phet brought back...will try to take a photo once the carpenter comes to hang stuff up). At school he seems to be making friends with kids in his class. We were supposed to have a playdate with his friend Matthew today, but his Mum didn't know the driver wouldn't come in because today's Diwali, so hopefully he'll come over tomorrow.

And speaking of Diwali: Happy Diwali! Tara, we sure we wish we'd been with you for your party, but at least we feel content that we helped pick out the candles that Emma brought to you. Our Diwalidays have been just lovely. The week before Emma left the weather finally took a turn for the normal, and now it is drop dead gorgeous season in Delhi. It's warm and sunny and dry during the day and pleasantly cool in the evening. We haven't had the fans on since Emma left. Mind you, it's still hot enough that the kids went swimming at Ji's buddy's birthday on Sunday. (His friend, Karl, was in his class last year and his lovely parents - Lee from Texas and Vanessa from the Philippines - made a point of still inviting Ji to this year's party. I made triple sure that we went because Vanessa is an insanely good cook. Phet rarely goes to birthday parties with us, but this time he hopped on the loot bag limo and came along and was very happy he did. Karl is a very nice young man, but the best part was that we had ooh so good homemade kind of crispy not-potato-but-something-else chips served with two chunky toppings, coconutty spicy meat topping and corn, cheese, and egg topping, and then this was followed by savoury beef stew and the most incredibly delicious fried chicken ever cooked in the history of man.)

Ji and I had a weekend plus three days off and we've mostly just been relaxing and hanging out at home. We did a little shopping and we took the kids in for shots on Saturday. Ji never gets bothered by shots and Seung Yi watched him get his done and then laid down without a peep for her first shot. I was so impressed. She cried a little tiny bit for the second one, but still: wow.

*Later, the next day*

Man, oh man, Diwali is INSANE. Last night the kablooming started just after dusk and continued well on into the evening past midnight. It literally sounded like we were in the middle of a hard-fought battle. There were the long-distance, far-away earth rumblers, then there were the random rat-a-ta-rat-a-ta-ratters mid-distance, and then right next to us were both the cha-cham bam-bam-bam bangers and the incredibly loud sudden-blasters. Our house looked beautiful. Mr. Singh's droopy-eyed son, Angad, went around all the balconies, laying out tealights everywhere. They lined the garden, our walkway, and the gates around the house as well. We went outside to watch a big series of colourful fireworks set off a couple of doors down from us, and then after I kicked it in and went to bed to read yet another romance novel set in the early 1800s (curse you, Emma, curse you!) Phet took Ji and Seung Yi to watch our adolescent neighbours blow up an unbelieveable series of crackers. The best one was the one that had TEN THOUSAND CRACKERS in one long series of blowing ups. Apparently, on a previous year, they had had one with a HUNDRED THOUSAND but they scaled things back this year. See? Insane. Lying down on the mat with Seung Yi at home, all I could hear was Ji's wild laughter and screams of excitement as the guys set off blast after blast after blast. It was a great Diwali.

And today, on our final day off, Phet got his birthday present: tickets to see Russell Peters live in Delhi. Pretty nice, huh? I ordered them and everything. It was funny - no, not the show, of COURSE that was funny - but before the show, on the way there I got really anxious because we were late. I had counted on double the usual amount of time to get to the auditorium but it ended up taking quadruple the time. Stupid traffic. We got there at 6:11, and the tickets said "Six PM Sharp". I was worried we wouldn't get let in. But there were a good number of people lined up to get in through the door...so many, in fact, that I pulled a "Huh, I don't live here, I don't understand how line ups work" and cut into the front of the line. We got into the auditorium (which was about double the size of Danforth Tech's but with less fancy seats and shabbier atmosphere) and only about a quarter of the guests were seated. In the end, the show didn't start until SEVEN. Good ol' me.

The show itself was very amusing. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Actually, I kind of have a headache from laughing so much. But a good headache. I was pleased that - hm, how do I refer to him? Russell? Peters? just "he"? - anyways, I was pleased that he did a good amount of India-specific bits and kept the har-har-Irish-people-are-so-white kind of stuff to just a part of the show. I have no problem with Irish jokes, but I think he's funnier when he riffs on stories rather than just ha ha pieces. Anyways, he got in a ton of great jokes and kept everyone in stitches and it was just awesome to see him up there representing - Canada, of course - in India.

And that, my friends, brings me to the end of my post for today. Let's hope they get frequenter now that I've shovelled away the backlog.

[Delhi-29-October-2008]

guest host...

This is my first-ever blog post!

Thaba smells!

This morning Thaba, Ji Hong, Seung Yi and I had a wonderful Sunday brunch of coddled eggs, toast fingers, duck pate (16 EUROS!), prosciutto, and brie-like cheese. Last night around 2 am Phet flew in from Rome, left lots of yummy food, picked up some presents for family in Sydney and then left again for business at 6 am. The whole situation was very reminiscent of Christmas Eve, with Phet playing Deli Santa. Of course, the taking away of presents is a bit backwards, but maybe with the toilet water going counterclockwise, the whole Santa thing is also muddled up here....

Now that we are all full to the gunnels, Ji is riding Seung Yi around on the trike, while Thaba is trying to finish editing her school's play.

Yesterday, the kids had swimming lessons, and we all went and watched Ji play baseball. He made it home one time up at bat, and the second time his hit brought in two runs. Afterwards we went over to Monica and Allan's house for pizza and brownies and sparkle glue! Mmmm...sparkle glue pizza. Lovely time all around, except when I tripped over two beer glasses creating a giant mess of glass and Kingfisher.

So far, the visit to Delhi has been wonderful. Lots of time just hanging out with Ji and Seung Yi. Ji's really excited about the upcoming Hallowe'en/birthday party. Some ideas he wanted to mention about the party:

"Well, we're going to have tomato juice, but we're going to put salt in it, so it will taste like blood. You know how when a door opens, we could have a string, when the door opens and a ghost atteched to a string, so then the door opens the ghost floats in midair because it's still not fully to the ground.

And there's another thing we thought we could do. We have a robot suit that we made, then we're going to put a Frankenstein around it so it looks like the tools used to electricute him, attach phone wires to the helmet and the chest and gears and stabilizers and 'zzzzz' and buttons.

I'm going to go as Zuko, someone in Avatar. The fire-prince guy with the long ponytail thing. The guy who wants the avatar with the big fat uncle. The guy who owns that ship.

Elementary doesn't have a Hallowe'en party because people might come with guns, like a bad guy with guns. If someone dressed up as batman, like violent batman, it would be not so good. The elementary doesn't want the violence. And so I think it would be better if they did have a party, but I can't change that."

Seung Yi is super-cute these days. This morning she was toddling around saying "Shooto" when she wanted more prosciutto. When Thaba and I were having a little chat, she sat in the kitchen and drew all over her shirt and face with yellow highlighter. It was very funny until she got in trouble. Seung Yi really enjoys washing dishes, tidying up, finding my long hairs on the floor, and watching the dog in the alley play ball.

"Puppy! Ball puppy! No eat ball Puppy! NO EAT!!"

The only sad news is that the big adventure trip to Rishikesh has been cancelled due to the recent bombings in Delhi. The parallel sad news is that Thaba told me to pack clothes for colder weather (Rishikesh) and I assumed she meant that Delhi would also be chilly. So I packed turtlenecks, and socks, and long pants, and a fleece. It's 30 degrees. Everyday. Or higher. Now, at this point, many would say: "But Emma, are you not a flight attendant? Do you not check the weather before you leave on a trip?" And the answer is no. I arrived in Chile with shorts, during their winter. Capri pants in Edmonton during a snow-storm. Winter coat in Miami...the list goes on. So now I'm in Delhi stealing all of Thaba's clothes (to be fair, many of which were formerly mine) and rolling my eyes at the stupid fleece and 3 pairs of closed-toes shoes.

Thus ends my first blog post. Emma.

[Delhi-15-October-2008]