Posts by admin
China Through My iPhone – 798 Art Zone
My better half has a thing about looking back. The key component to this “thing” is basically, don’t. At least, not on her blog. I don’t have such qualms. What I do have, is a slew of photos I took while we were in Beijing burning a hole in my hard drive, begging to be let out so friends and strangers can tell me how wonderful and interesting my life is (I’m deeply approval driven).
Not long before we fled Beijing’s harsh winter, we took a stroll up the street from our apartment to visit the 798 Art Zone, an artist’ haven in the Chaoyang District of the city.
The above photo is my favorite from the day. The crazy thing about this space is that artwork is just everywhere. Wherever it can be placed, people put their work. This statue was up against a building where cars were parked all around it, as you can sort of see from this image. The statues ranged from stately to grotesque, with at least one statue being insanely racist. I didn’t get a picture of that one, sadly. I was sort of in shock and sort of in baby wrangling mode at the time.
We were able to get Cole clothed for this – not an easy task putting a toddler who wants to be naked into several layers of clothes. As has been our experience throughout Asia, Cole gets the rock star treatment. China has been somewhat less receptive to Cole than we have experienced in South East Asia, but something about the free artistic spirit running through this neighborhood got everyone VERY excited about seeing a Laowei toddler running around.
Eventually Cole helped fend off some wolves.
Cole, wondering what the hell these ladies are looking at up there.
The Best Money I Ever Spent
I’ve spent money on lots of things, most of them truly regrettable. For instance, the 200 or so CD’s I purchased as a young, single professional, flush with disposable income and incredibly bored. I would take a drive over to HMV every Wednesday, browsing new releases. If nothing looked interesting, by god I WOULD FIND SOMETHING. So every week, that business got at least $15 of my paycheck. Most weeks it was more like $30-45.
Do the math: about $15 x 200 = $3000. This is over a few years, and does not take into account all the $20 DVDs I purchased.
As an older, more *ahem* responsible adult, I’ve grown wiser. This has probably less to do with time + knowledge, and more to do with the fact that our lifestyle now means I carry everything we own from place to place. I simply do not have the physical stamina or strength to schlep non-essential crap from one place to another.
In my last post, I talked about Cole’s discovery of amazing things. One such amazing things which I forgot to mention was the MP3 playing cell phone. I first noticed it used by the waiters at our favorite Goan beach shack, who would babysit Cole throughout our meals there. I would hear some tinny sounding music coming from somewhere behind me, and turn to find Cole on the snooker table, cell phone in hand, grooving out to Rihanna, or whatever pop song was currently blaring from every shack that week.
It was a great way to keep him happy, but it meant he now expected to be able to pick up my iPhone and have tunes playing for him while he whirled around shaking it in his little sausage link fingered hand.
Did I mention that when he gets bored he tends to let whatever he’s holding drop on the floor?
Something needed to be done. I couldn’t have him dropping this phone on a whim. Queue the Rishikesh shop where I added money to my pre-paid phone. I noticed a cheap looking MP3 player in the shopkeeper’s glass counter.
“is that an MP3 player? How much?”
“Uh, 700 Rupee.” about $15US
I got cold feet and walked away, not buying the fairly reasonably priced device. When my son dropped my iPhone off the bed again that night, I immediately regretted it, and vowed to go back the next day and make it right.
The next day, the shop was closed. And the next. And the next day. I was in a panic. I had utterly blown my one chance at having something for Cole to throw around while listening to rockin’ tunes.
One our second to last day in Rishikesh, I went back one more time, not expecting anything, but he was there!
“How much for the MP3 player?” I asked again as if I hadn’t already played this out with him. a week before.
“Uh, 600 rupee.”
Woah, okay. $13 bucks is better than $15, as long as it works. He was eyeing it up glumly though, like he knew it wasn’t going to work. I was scared. I took it back to our room in the Ashram we were staying, and after some frightening false starts, I got it to work!
And as it stands right now, this is the best money I have ever spent. No more stress about the phone, a nice long battery life, and Cole loooooves it. Don’t believe me though, watch him loving it right here.
PS: I am incredibly proud to also announce that I made an ebook that takes all of what I wrote about here on the blog from my time going around India by train. Not only is all the material from the blog (cleaned up nicely) but a lot of tips for how to create your own train adventure in India, what to expect when you get here, how to navigate the toilets (hello essential information!) and a wrap up of how the gear held up and my thoughts on India and the trip, in a way I never got to do on the blog.
Surviving the Indian Railway also has tons, and tons of photos I never got to show on the blog, all laid out really nicely. I am really proud of how great it looks, so much so that there is a ten page preview available on the book’s page. Please give it a look, and you know where to find me to tell me what you think! Thanks guys!
Eating from the tree of knowledge.
I am reasonably sure that in the Garden of Eden, Eve didn’t bite into an apple. The “forbidden fruit” had to be a righteous waterslide.
“Hey Adam! You have to come with me RIGHT NOW there’s this amazing tube with water running through it that is SO FREAKING FUN COME ON ALREADY!”
“Uh, okay?”
“Yeah, and we’re going to have to get something to cover your bits up.”
“What? Why?”
“Because there’s a dress code! Come on!”
And from then on, it was all waterslides and sibling rivalry. They could not go back from knowing all that amazing water slidey fun was out there to be had.
Cole is at an amazing age that fills us with incredible joy. It seems like every few days he levels up, gains some new awareness or ability or skill. He’s not going to Xavier’s School for Gifted Children or anything (Geek humor anyone? Hollaaa!), but the world is clearly amazing to him, and it’s wonderful to see him becoming aware of seemingly everything going on around him. Being with him all the time at this stage of his life, where he shows he understands what is happening around him more every day, I am like, 95% incredibly appreciative for.
The other 5% is a pain in the ass. Or back, depending on what is going on. The pain started when he discovered stairs. He loves them. So, so much. In Rishikesh, where we were up until a couple of days ago, this meant going up and down rooftop restaurant stairs endlessly. I am a good dad, I help accommodate this sense of wonder by holding his hands as he walks up, and he walks down, avoiding the ever constant attention from the locals who want photos or to pinch his cheeks. My back doesn’t feel awesome after much time spent doing this.
I decide after the fifth dinner walking up and down stairs that we must must must eat at the Ganga Freedom Cafe, where we usually ate breakfast, and where there are no more than two stairs to be had. When we arrive, I am surprised to be greeted at the entryway by a small blonde kid riding a small toy scooter. Cole is surprised by this as well, but more importantly, he is IN LOVE. And not with the small blonde kid.
It seems the owner of the Cafe brought it in to entertain his daughter. Awesome. For our final days in Rishikesh, I had the choice of going up and down stairs, or pushing Cole around on this thing for as long as it took for our food to be brought out, and then a little more. I had hoped it might be gone, or at least out of sight in subsequent visits, but no dice. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, Cole can never un-know this existed, this amazing daddy-push-me-around-machine.
He ate from the tree of knowledge, and sampled that forbidden righteous waterslide.
A Dip in the Ganges: The Ultimate Attitude Adjustment
I was brought up a Baptist, which meant I got to choose when I was ready to receive my baptism. I remember that moment well, and apparently I enjoyed it so much that I continue to find new ways to clean away my “sins” and begin anew.
Being possessed of a certain curmudgeonly, uptight demeanor (a good friend and college roommate of mine summed me up this way: “Drew is the most pessimistic optimist I know.” Thanks Tim.), while I do ultimately believe that everything will work out for the best (yay!) I do it while complaining or generally being not-particularly-fun to be around (boo!).
It’s been a problem, and something I have had to fight to change for years. I’m not clinical, you won’t see me taking meds for being a grump (though if you hear of any, you know who to call). Still, I needed to figure out how to hit the reset button once stress built up and had nowhere to go but at friends and family. I created The Attitude Adjustment.
The Attitude Adjustment entailed first, taking a long, hot bath. Once I decided I was well and cooked, I turned on a very cold shower and let the water in the bath drain, making sure I am submerged in the hot water when it starts. As the hot water lowers, I become more exposed to the cold water until I decide to stand up and embrace the cold shower. It was fantastico.
Ten gallon head, two gallon hat.
As I’ve grown older, my coping mechanisms have developed more, which is great, because the places that we have been traveling to these last few years now, they don’t really have bathtubs. Still, raising a kid has upped the stress considerably, especially when you consider he just started walking and effing loves going up and down stairs, man. SHEEEIT.
We came to Rishikesh over a week ago, and were supposed to have left by now, but we are fairly smitten with the place, so we have extended our trip here a bit. Even though this is an incredibly spiritual town, full of western hippies coming to get their yoga and ayurvedic massage-on, we’ve used this time to work our asses off. Those first several days, I did not do a good job at all handling the stress of getting used to a new place, having a child who’s fifth tooth was on it’s way out, and working until 1:30 in the morning.
Something needed to be done. I knew I was being a pain in the ass. Which is to say, I am pretty sure I would have known I was a pain in the ass even if Christine hadn’t pointed it out to me. A few times… Thankfully, Rishikesh comes equipped with it’s own reset button, it’s own baptism, a place millions, if not billions have washed away a lifetime of sin throughout history:
The Ganges.
When I envisioned getting to see Mother Ganga, I figured it would be in Varanasi, a place where the Ganges is known for it’s filth as much as for it’s beauty, and where I would never dare bathe. I am already full-on equipped with major paranoia about India’s water, so I wasn’t expecting what I found in Rishikesh – that the water coming down from the Himalayas seemed relatively clean and bracingly cold. I knew I had to do it, but even then, it took watching the wife go through it that I finally mustered the nerve.
c-c-c-C-C-C-C-COLLD-D-d!
The day after Christine went in, I excused myself during one of Cole’s naps and made my way for the beach. I could have walked ten meters to go in where the ghats allowed people to step in gingerly, but felt that since this wasn’t a “spiritual” sort of experience for me, I should leave the ghats for those who find them more holy than I do.
Fully clothed in shorts and t-shirt, I walked in. I did not stop until I was neck deep in, and I immediately flashed back to the Tough Guy race, the main difference being I knew when I stepped out of the water, the weather would be warm. IT WAS SO EFFING COLD. I was distantly aware of laughter coming from an Indian swimming a little further out from where I was. I looked over, trying desperately to stop gasping for air and looking foolish, at this kid who was swimming freestyle around me. Taunting me I immediately thought.
“It’s cold!” He says. Genius.
“Yea-ah-yeah!” I replied with the best casual smile I could muster, not being able to get a single word out smoothly.
I dunked my head under three times, as I had seen others doing. I needed to make it “official”. FFFFFFFffff crap, so cold. Then like the stubborn showoff I am, I decide to float around for a minute just to show I could keep my sh*t together. I wasn’t pulling it off. I went in a fourth time just to make sure I was good to go, and headed back up to shore. I came out sopping from head-to-toe, my entire body tingling from the cold, now exposed to warm air.
I felt alive. I felt fantastic. I went back upstairs, took a shower, shaved my head and face and went back to work.
Happily.
Nothing new under the Rishikesh sun.
A confession: While I keep a blog going (albeit poorly) I don’t read that many blogs. I just don’t have the time, and very few blogs grab my interest long enough for me to make time in my day to spend reading other people’s accounts of what is happening with their lives. One of the few blogs I do try to read once in a great while is Wes Nations at JohnnyVagabond.com He takes sharp photos and knows how to tell a story without boring me.
This is high praise, I promise. I have the attention span of a pigeon.
Coming back from lunch today, we ran into a man with a small box and cotton behind his ears. The box read EAR CLEANER and he offered to clean our ears out. I remembered reading about something like this from Wes, and knew I had to do it. I knew I couldn’t blog about it – that any account I might have of the experience had already been done better than I could do. Still, Wes had made it sound… if not fun, than at least worthwhile. We agreed to 50 rupees (about $1 US) for the cleaning.
The horrible aftermath.
The experience was about what I remember reading from Wes, the guy kept saying “oh my god” and pulling out disgusting things from my ear-hole, then hard selling me on how I need “medicine” to get out a very big, dry piece that is too lodged in to be removed by normal means. I expected this, and agreed to pay 150 rupee total (a little more than $3US) for the medicine and the cleaning. He went to town once more and extracted more disgusting things from my ear.
Then he got me good when he moved to the other ear. He made the same pitch for “medicine” with the next ear, and said it would be more money for the second ear.
Now, I could have taken a stand, gone about my business after the cleaning and not gone for the extra for more “medicine”, but part of me wanted to see it through, and more importantly to me, I felt this was my “idiot tax” for not making it clear when we first negotiated that the service was all inclusive, rather than per-ear. Additionally, there is the added stress of negotiating with a man who is using very sharp objects near your body cavities.
Well played, Ear Cleaner. Well played.
The total came to 220 rupee, nearly $5 US, for an experience I would have with me forever, something I could tell at a party instead of talking about the time I jumped off of a bridge to get away from angry dogs with giant orange bows on their backs.
I am so effing sick of that story. So is my wife. You can ask her.
I went back to the room, eager to compare my experience with Wes’ story. I should have paid better attention when reading that post the first time.
IT WAS THE SAME DAMN GUY. No, really. From Wes’ blog:
So there it is. I am a copycat. The world is small, and there is one Ear Cleaner in Rishikesh and HE IS EVERYWHERE. I hadn’t recalled Wes’ story was also from Rishikesh, and had I remembered what he ended up paying for his service, I probably wouldn’t be crying as I type this.
100 rupees total, both ears. With “medicine”.
Ah well. Like I said before, lesson learned. In deference to a superior storyteller who got to this very accomplished ear cleaner first, I am making every image in this post link to his site. Go read some of his stories and enjoy them.
I will be waiting here for your “thank you Drew”s.
Lifestream
-
Shared Taken with instagram.
