"Hello Madame!"

My initial intention was to write aboutthe beef-n-deets of India, but I kept getting side-tracked (not to be confused with the gay night club in Chicago). Soooo, that's enough of my random stream of consciousness for now.  Let's chat about India!! (Don't worry, after I get you guys caught up on my life, my ramblings will continue...so keep your pants on.  Or don't, that's your call.)

Liz, Chera and I had to leave our apartments in Seoul around 5:00am on Sunday morning.  Luckily it was raining, so that was perfect for walking with my gigantor backpack in the puddles.  We had stopped at JJ's the night before (for a final brew and farewell) and I got home around 1:00am with swollen red eyes from the goodbyes.  I was a hot mess.  I looked like a toddler post-tantrum, snot-stained t-shirt and all.  I stopped back in the bar at 5:00am to see everyone still there drinking (that's Korea for ya!).  The girls and I (plus Elyse & Sarah) met for 'breakfast' (cheesy ramen, spicy noodles, fried mondu, all the usual suspects) at our favorie Korean fast food place, "Yellow".  Open 24 hours, for cheap yummy deliciousness, and friendly old lady workers.  What more could a weigooken (foreigner) ask for??

It was a sad morn.

Sooooo we take the airport shuttle (a seriously luxurious ride for a mere 10,000 won) and fly to China (Guangzhou) for a few hours, then to New Dehli.  BY THE WAY, Korea's airport can be likened to a spa getaway.  It's clean and fancy with great food, stores and amenities (free swanky internet lounges anyone??).  It's like the rest of Korea : flippin awesome.  TAKE NOTES WORLD!

When we arrived in India, our hostel had arranged for a taxi pick-up (thankfully, because airports and transportation in general are efficient CRAZY INSANE in India.)  You get completely attacked by rickshaw and cab drivers when you step outside, and you really don't know what anything should cost, let alone where you're really going or if they will really even take you there.  It seems like a hundred voices shouting to you at once,

"Taxi, madaaame?"

"Where you going?"

"Very cheap!"

"I take you, Madame.  Follow me.  This way, ok, ok."

"Rickshaw?  Rickshaw?  Rickshawwww?"

We stayed at the Nirvana Hostel, and the guy who ran it was hilaaaaarious.  His name was Vicki and he was this over-confident, personable guy who lounged on the couches all day chatting in his cell phone.  He was the first (of many) people to tell us, "In India everything is possible!"  Every once in a while, I would catch him squirting copious amounts of this "oil" onto his hands, and he would proceed to rub it into his (already greasy) hair rather vigorously.  It was disgusting interesting...

Here's a couple random photos of our first delicious samosa treat in India.  Mmmmmm mmmm good!

 

Our hostel  was a little outside of Dehli, but it had a subway stop about 20 minutes away walking.  It was an interesting walk, to say the least.  As we ventured down this long dirt road the next morning, dodging cows and stray dogs every 20 steps, leaping over giant 3 feet-deep holes in the ground filled with stagnant trash-water, we first started to feel the burning of HUNDREDS of Indian eyes staring us down.  This was the only city where I felt seriously overwhelmed by the staring and attention, but it was something I simply had to accept and embrace, in a weird "this is how it's gonna  be" way.  If I had let it truly bother me, I probably would have been on the next flight out of that shit-hole place.  Based on the stares, I figured I must have grown several alien heads, or perhaps my hair had ignited in a hideous raging inferno, but neither was the case.  We were just foreign white girls.  "Take a picture, it'll last longer", I said.   Most people did.  We were an absolute spectacle everywhere we went.  Whatevvvvs!

Here's a picture of a barely-congested street in Dehli.

In our days touring Dehli, we started to get a feel for the chaotic city, and saw some pretty crazy shit.  We spent a day at the Chandni Chowk (which is a nutty street bazaar) consisting of hundreds of winding, connected alleys full of madness, animals, and shopping, where your nose is continually filled with the aroma of spices and cow shit.  It was a straight-up adventure.   From the bazaar, we took a bicycle rickshaw (there's one in the picture below on the left)...

to some touristy palace place nearby, and en route, we witnessed a little fender bender between 2 man-pulled carts.  One guy took a turn a little too close and brushed against the other guys cart.  The bazaar was so packed that we had been at a standstill for several minutes in our rickshaw by this point, so we got to sit back, relax and enjoy the show.  The man who's cart got scraped went Tom Cruise crazy.  He started shouting at the other guy at the top of his lungs, and although I couldn't understand the actual verbage, I imagine their conversation to have gone a little bit like this:

Indian Man # 1: "You gently scraped my shitty cart with your shitty cart, ya jerk-off!"

Indian Man# 2: 'I didn't do it, YOU DID IT!"

Indian Man# 1: "Me??  Are you INSANE?  Who do you think you are, Tom Cruise?"

Indian Man# 2: "Your cow was all up in my junk, now I'm maaaaaaaaad."

[Indian Man# 1 then angrilly removes his sandal and begins jacking Indian Man #2 on the head with it.]

Each irate Indian man's respective friends hold him back, the traffic begins to inch forward in the alley, and all is right in the world once again.



Our new buddy, Scooter



In Dehli, we also had the once-in-a-lifetime (gasp!) opportunity to visit a serious terra-cotta wonderland, AKA the Jantar Mantar Observatory.  It has something to do with old school time-telling using the sun, or some other bull crapola.  Whatever, it was kind of neat, and then we took a sweet nap on the grass.  All-in-all a successsful visit.



We also stopped by "The Taj Mahal of Dehli" which was really beautiful.  Not much to say about it, though.  Here it is:

Alright, I'm sick of writing, and Maddie (my dog-niece) will NOT stop farting.  I almost passed out after one of them.  Britney Spears would probably call them toxic.  Heading out to dinner with Marty, Grandpa & Grandma at Smokey Bones soon.  YUMMMM!

More to come later!!  <3 Smooches <3

It's the Final Countdown (Do do dooo do, do do DO DO DOOOO)

This Is Just a Tribute.

In my last week in Korea, I accomplished a major life goal.  I made it to the local watering hole (J J's) for 8 days straight.  (Quick shout out to Alex-I couldn't have done it without you, brah!)  I went out in true T-Money style.  Let me paint a picture of JJ's for my readers (yes, you three!)  In the bustling, people-packed, jet-black-haired, electronic-media-engulfed Korean culture, this place was like a little Harry Potter portkey escape to my American culture of drinking, fried-food-eating, juke-boxing and darts.  Now, I don't want to mislead you to thinking this place was filled with whiteys, or people speaking "English-y" (as the crazy kids say), but the feeling was there.  We were comfortable, cozy and always content.  We could order jumbo beers (that's the only size they had...heaven!) WITHOUT ordering food.  (Places with this opportunity are few and far-between in Korea.  Bars solely for drinking, as we know them, don't really exist in Korea.)  JJ's had without a doubt become my second home in Korea.  By the end of the year, the staff had become my good friends (except those, flirty, skanky waitresses who barely spoke English, although Alex seemed to think they were great!)  I kid, of course.  Even the waitresses were unbearably beautiful  kind, and ended up being the last people in Korea crying about my departure (How sweet is that???).  JJ's had 2, count 'em 2, high-class electronic dartboards (approximate retail value upwards of 13,000 won) and I obviously played about 100,000 games throughout my year.  There was even a camera, so that you could play a game with someone who was at a completely different bar in Korea, seeing them throw and everything! WHAT WILL THEY COME UP WITH NEXT?  We'll probably have life-sized holograms of worthy competitors from Kazakstan, beamed into the bar.  Soon enough, people!

My "Seoul mate", J, is the owner of the bar.  He is adorable, insanely considerate, and wears classic, black-framed Korean glasses.  For our going away party, everyone in our group got free draft beer until the keg was gone, and he showered us with free shots and drinks all night.  (Granted, I probably put half of each paycheck into this place.  I guess he still owes me, huh?)  Once be brought me complimentary nachos with just nacho cheese and salsa.  The guy loves  knows me.  Although the bar was always filled with Koreans, they were somehow always the friendliest Koreans in the world, who absolutely loved meeting and talking to foreigners (as do I...weird!)  I made new friends there every single night I visited, and there was never a dull moment.  The jukebox ROCKED and always had the latest American and Korean music for our listening pleasure.  It was...the best.  And I really miss it.  I wonder if they miss me, too, or if they've moved on to some other overzealous, extroverted, big-drinking blond girl.  *sigh*

How the HELL did you end up in India, woman??

SHOCKER ALERT: As my year in South Korea was wrapping up, I didn't really have any plans for my life.  I figured I should travel a little, since I was already on the other side of the world, and let me tell you, I worked HARD just South of North Korea this year.  Meghan's wedding wasn't until April 2nd, and I finished at the end of February, so I had over a month to travel somewhere super awesome, clean and friendly.  These words almost always make people think immediately of India, riiiiight?  The reality of India is pretty much the exact opposite of these words, BUT I DIGRESS.


My BFF's (baby-faced friends, obviously) in Korea, Chera and Liz were finishing at the same time, and were SET on traveling India for a month or so, but initially I had no interest.  I didn't even think Indian boys were cute, and let's be honest, eye candy is a huge part of any sane person's travel plans, no??  On top of that, it was going to be uber hot, and my extensive academic research had shown that India smells like flowers shit. (Encyclopedia Brown's words, not mine!).

Ya-da ya-da ya-da, I figured anywhere I went would end up being interesting, and I'm all about embracing new weird-ass cultures, so I decided to go for it.  If over a billion people live in India,  it must rock pretty hard.  Plus traveling with great friends makes any location a blast, and The Ganges River is well-known for being filled with dead bodies hygienic.  So I said, 'LET'S DO THIS!  LET'S MAKE INDIA OUR BEYOTCH!!!'  And boy, did we.

Here I am World!!

So for quite a while, people have been tellling me (nay, demanding) that I should write a blog. 
"Oh, you're so hilarious, Tricia!" 
"She IS, isn't she?" 
"Not to mention beautiful..she's quite beautiful." 
"Ain't no denyin that, sista."
"You need to share your crazy with the world!"

So I say, ENOUGH ALREADY!  I'll do it.  I'll write the damn blog.  I'll do it...for the people.  They need me right now, what with the state of the economy, and the growing frequency of natural distasters these days.  The American people need a pick-me-up, and I'm just the spastic, overly-emotional, dog-eating, (see below) unemployed gal to do it.

So here goes.  I realize I've been fairly out of touch with the world, having lived 7,000 miles away for the last year, but I'll get to that later.  As many of you know, I spent the last month travelling the trash-infested, cow-dung-covered streets of India.  My first several blogs will be devoted to taking you on that insane journey with me (except you won't have to hold your nose the whole time like I did).  Later, I'll be sure you catch you up in more detail on my amazing year in South Korea and trips to China, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Aaaaaaaaaaand, if my reading community so demands (BTW, I expect readership to reach 1 million by my birthday, which you all know is JUNE 27th!) then perhaps I'll continue sharing my adventures, mishaps and escapades well into my nursing home days. *sigh*

THERE'S SO MUCH TO TELL, I'm already overwhelmed and sweating just a little bit.  Then again, this laptop is super warm and blowing hot steam on my legs.   Chicken?  Egg?  You be the judge.

Let's do this.