Belated Thanks December 9, 2009
Posted by KG in Etc., FS Life, Family, Food, Friends, Travels, Yoga.2 comments
Crazy time — parents and sister in town, then out of town with my parents and sister, then arranging for the parents to travel while staying in town, all the while transitioning to a new position in the office. Deep breath.
In the madness I forgot to give thanks this year, quite literally. Despite hosting two lovely strangers and my family for Thanksgiving, we forgot to go around the table and give thanks. Despite the chance to be with my nuclear and extended family, all at the same time, in our ancestral city for the first time in years, I didn’t think to thank anyone. Despite being able to show my family my workplace, introduce them to my coworkers, and take them to a rather unique local holiday celebration, not once did I think “I need to feel grateful for this.”
Here’s a corrective, banking on the spiritually evergreen nature of thanks.
Thank you Orville and Wilbur Wright, Otto Lilienthal, Samuel Langley, and all the other parents of modern aviation, for making the two week holiday half way across the world possible.
Thank you random farm in Pune, for providing amazing Thanksgiving turkeys two years running.
Thank you Michael Graglia for being the best yoga teacher I’ve had, ever. (we’ll miss you!)
Thank you cell phone deregulation and competitive market, for making it so darn cheap to call home.
Thank you Bandra for your ample bounty of cheap and delicious food, just a phone call away.
And thank you to all the family and friends who have visited us in Mumbai over the last year and a half, for making India feel a little bit like home.
I Fully Admit: I am a Suit November 18, 2009
Posted by KG in Etc..5 comments
I’m upgrading my wristwear. For years, I’ve worn a $50 Fossil watch — accurate, aesthetically unoffensive, and generally acceptable. For the first few years of having a real job, the watch admirably told me when I was on time, and more often when I was running late. But now the face is scratched and the band is looking increasingly cruddy. It’s time for something new.
Here’s the problem: when it comes to businesswear, I’m still terribly cheap. And the prices of nice watches have thrown me for a loop. The math just doesn’t make sense!
A cheap, utilitarian, but ultimately mediocre dress shirt costs around $20. After much agonizing, I’ve finally come around to spending four times that ($80) on occasion for something really, really nice. Shoes work out about the same — dropping a bit of money for a nice pair of shoes buys some nice footwear. That 4x multiplier has been applicable to most of my work wardrobe. Thus I thought nice watches — whoops, I mean timepiece — would run me, at most, around $300. Clearly, I’m an idiot.
So now I’m stuck. I’ve been complaining about my watch for months and the wife is sick of it. At the same time, we’ve been watch shopping in Singapore, Australia, in India and on the ‘net, and I’ve come up empty. I’m about to give up and just get a G Shock.
Am I in an intractable position? Is my wife just dragging me into really expensive places? Advice from fellow suits, or from watch connoisseurs, is appreciated.
66 Years Later, It Still Works October 28, 2009
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It’s a stressful time for a significant proportion of my Foreign Service colleagues, and to lighten the mood, here’s record of a great moment in the history of diplomatic correspondence:
Best read along with the awesome valedictory despatch story, which has already made the diploblog rounds.
I Have Never Seen So Many Prayer Flags October 21, 2009
Posted by KG in Travels.1 comment so far
We spent five days total in Nepal, stretching Columbus Day weekend on either end to put together a mini-vacation. The trip was good, but it felt as if we didn’t give Nepal enough time. Time restrictions meant we didn’t get out of the Kathmandu Valley, which was the biggest bummer. It’s difficult to do justice to a country so rich in culture — and so very different from where we call home — in five days
Not that the Valley wasn’t itself amazing. We saw more temples than I’ve seen during all my time in India, representing Hinduism, Buddhism, and everything in between; got to smell clean, fresh mountain air; and combined predictable outings like a day’s hike to a hilltop with things a bit more inexplicable — specifically, going to a performance that was part of the annual Kathmandu Jazz Festival (aka “Jazzmandu”). I’m not even that big of a jazz fan, but the chance to watch live jazz under starlight in Nepal was just one of those things we couldn’t pass up. Our last day was spent on a mountain flight, circling the Himalayas to get a look at Mt. Everest. I can now confirm that Everest is indeed very, very large.
A few photographic highlights: faces, temples, mountains, and prayer flags from The Roof of the World. For all my pictures from Nepal, click here.
Mountains! October 10, 2009
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Prayer flags! Momos! Stupas! Backpackers! Iconoclastic headwear! A fifteen minute time difference!
We’re in Nepal and in case you were wondering: absolutely, postively, totally nothing like India.
A Vacation Aquatic September 28, 2009
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Our trip to Australia was decidedly marine themed. When we weren’t in the water, we were near the water, or enjoying the bounties of the sea. In Sydney, this meant visiting the aforementioned fish market (where we dined next to a pelican), walking with crabs on the beach, and taking in the lights of the city at night:
After Sydney we went north to Port Douglas. Our apartment was thirty seconds from a gorgeous beach, a few minutes cruise from crocodile infested waters, thirty minutes from a major fishing town, and an hour from a stretch of Devonian-era mangrove forests and deserted waterfront alcoves:
But that was all prologue to the undisputed highlight of our trip, snorkeling by — in? around? — the Great Barrier Reef. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am absolutely not a good swimmer. I hold my own, but swimming’s never been a big thing for me. It’s a bit of a sore subject. Those few hours in the clear waters of southern Pacific, surrounded by the technicolor life of the Reef, make me want to change that.
There was a full moon the first night we were in Port Douglas. It’s reflected light shimmered on the face of the waters, brighter than any moon I’d ever seen before. My mistake, going to bed that night, was to think that was going to be the most beautiful thing I’d see all trip, when it was really the first of many.
Can’t Sit Still September 20, 2009
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A long flight back from Australia, a day moving “offices” (even “cubicle” would be an overstatement), a flight to Delhi, a conference, a flight back, and two job interviews.
That was tiring.
But the timing gods have been munificent. It’s that awesome time in India when every other day seems to be a holiday, and so we’re getting things done. Miraculously, I’ve uploaded all of my pictures (click), though the task of naming, captioning, geotagging, and all that good stuff remains. Oh yeah, and the ever popular “vacation wrap up” blog post, which my tens of readers are no doubt anticipating with baited breath. Sorry! Not this post. All that uploading has made me hungry, and we have little in the name of food at home. Time to go rectify that. To put you all in the same boat, here’s a photo of some awesome and exotic flavored ice creams we ate on the Daintree Coast — chocolate sapote, wattleseed, jackfruit, and the rare and mysterious apricot.
Hello from the Reef! September 11, 2009
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Despite the fact we’re leaving (*sob*) tomorrow….
A Clean, Less Populated Place September 1, 2009
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Sydney is a beautiful, small city. Somehow before coming here I pictured it as New York-like, an antipodean metropolis full of hustle and bustle, with endless options for things to do. The reality is substantially different. We’ve walked the whole of central Sydney over the last few days easily, as the major sights are all well enclosed in a single area, with a few notable outliers like Bondi Beach. Not that this is a criticism. I don’t know if I’d have enjoyed another megacity, especially when trying to relax from the crush of Bombay. The small-town charm of Sydney is alluring. We’ve been talking about this in our own, inimitable Foreign Service way — something my FS colleagues have all indubitably done. “Could we live here?’ she asks.
We had dinner with a good friend last night who is doing just that. He expressed some frustration with the very things I’ve found so charming. “You see the same people all the time,” he said. Maybe living here wouldn’t be so great.
Then again: yesterday for lunch I had a dozen raw oysters, a half pound of sashimi-grade fish that was sliced right in front of me, and a seaweed salad. We bought the lunch fresh from the fish market, where we saw an endless variety of impossibly fresh seafood and had our pick of what to eat. We ate sitting on a bench, next to a cove of clean(ish) blue water. We had walked there, a 20-minute stroll where we passed a beautiful harbor and some charmingly run-down residences. It was almost summer-warm in the sun, almost autumn-cold in the shade. Cars stopped for us at crosswalks and I don’t recall ever hearing a horn. While eating, my wife commented: “You do realize nothing in your lunch was really cooked, right?”
Maybe I could live here.
India, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down August 25, 2009
Posted by KG in India, Travels.add a comment
Crossing fingers: parasite count is now low-to-none. I gave the doctor another liter of blood today, and they’re running it through whatever graviton, microscope, macroscope, or other bizarre instrument to determine how many bugs are left in my system. Malaria sucks, and the treatment sucks almost as much. And I was sick so long that now feeling well feels… weird. Like I’m not supposed to be healthy.
That is soon to be fixed. The wife and I are hurtling towards vacation at full throttle. I started packing Monday night for a flight Thursday evening. Three days early? Previously unheard of. The timing is bad (what with the whole bidding thing) but we’re nonplussed. I’ve spent — brace yourself — 447 of the last 451 days of my life in India. The fact that I’m counting is pretty indicative of how I’ve been feeling. This is a great place to visit, and not a bad place to live. But I’m western and spoiled, and I need some time away.
