Off to the South Pacific

Tonight I'm heading down to Raratonga, the capital of the Cook Islands and the first stop on my 3-month adventure in the South Pacific! I'm going on a studio art program that focuses primarily on printmaking and mixed media drawing, but throughout the entire trip we hike and snorkel and SCUBA and explore! Other places on the agenda are New Zealand (mostly the North Island) and Australia. So yesterday I took a flight from DC to LA, and after a brief visit with my family I am flying south towards summer weather. Internet will be intermittent since I am not bringing my computer (instead I have five homemade sketchbooks and flippers), but I will try to post when I am in larger cities, the first being Auckland sometime early next week. Wishing everyone a most joyful 2013!

PS: Everyone should see South Pacific, the musical! It's grand.

A Cuppa Chai

So it's definitely been getting colder up here in Minnesota. We had a beautiful first few weeks of October, and then last week the temperature suddenly dropped. It was an overcast week and weekend, but today (even though it's still chilly) the sun finally came out again!

In celebration of the cooler weather, I've been making more and more warm things to drink and eat. Sunday is the evening that I cook for my house, and two Sundays ago I made my mom's delicious pot roast for the first time! It was the perfect cold weather food, though ironically I think it was rather warm that day...

I also made some delicious chocolate pudding, and in a moment of inspiration added a scoop of peanut butter and some chocolate chips to the middle of each cup. Heated up in a microwave, the peanut butter and chips melted into the pudding, YUM.

This past Sunday I made a traditional Ethiopian sweet potato and lentil Wat (stew) along with some lachha parathas, which were so yummy. I forgot how easy it is to make parathas/chapatis once you get into the swing of them. Definitely going to go back to making chapatis when I want a dipping vehicle.

Over the summer I was making a lot of chai when I got back from India, but I stopped after making it a couple of times at the beginning of the school year. Today I was really in the mood for some nice hot, spicy and sweet chai so I made a cup. I forgot how much I love it: the smell of crushed cardamom, the way the liquid slowly turns from pale white to a creamy gold as the tea leaves boil, and the way the first sip warms your whole body. Drinking chai is almost like a spiritual experience for me. Drinking it immediately calms me. I feel cozy and refreshed afterwards.

If I have learned anything from my attempts at cooking Indian food, it's that there is no objectively "correct" recipe for anything--everyone has their own combination of spices that they use to make each dish. Here's a recipe for chai that works well for me, but freshness of spices, type of milk, variety of tea, and even what kind of pot you are using will change the flavor.


Chai Tea (makes one large mug of tea)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup milk (I have been using 1%)
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 tsp black tea (darjeeling is good)
3 whole cardamom pods
2 small pieces cinnamon bark
1 whole clove
TINY piece fresh ginger (about the size of one whole clove, but add more if you like spicier tea)
Sugar to taste (I use 1-2 teaspoons, depending on my mood)

Put the water, milk and tea leaves in a small pot on stove over medium heat. Crush the spices (does not need to be fine--just make sure the cinnamon and cloves are broken up a little and the cardamom pods are open) with a mortar and pestle and then add them to the pot. Stir. Bring the mixture to a boil and turn heat off or very low. Add ginger and stir in sugar if using. Let sit for about three minutes and then bring to a boil again. Pour and serve immediately!

good song

Made in China

Written September 18, 2010

So I’ve been in China for exactly a week today, and what a week it has been.  I feel like I’ve been here for months.  I’ve strolled along paths lined with willows and lotus ponds, passed by elderly couples dancing the Chinese waltz in the park, climbed the knee-length steps of the Great Wall, wandered through the palaces of the Forbidden City, walked the longest corridor in the world, tried my hand at Chinese calligraphy, navigated the crowded Beijing subway and bus system, eaten five types of dumplings and Beijing Kaoya (roast duck), peed in seatless toilets, and bargained with the vendors in the silk street market.  Every day is new and exciting.  In fact, because each day varies so much from the day before and is so different from what I’m used to, I have no field of reference, making it nearly impossible for me to form a solid opinion about the country and my experience here so far. 

I will write more about daily life later.  Let’s talk about the name of this entry for a second: Made in China.  Most things that you buy in America are made in China.  You go into a store and buy a washcloth or a pair of headphones and you don’t think twice about where they come from, that someone--who probably makes less than a dollar a day and lives in a run-down room in the outskirts of a small town, perhaps close to the Great Wall, halfway around the world, with no clean water and breathing air containing the amount of tar equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day--made that object available for you to buy.  That one washcloth is that person's sole means of survival.  He or she can’t afford it but can make it for someone else. 

Most things that you buy or use in China are also made in China.  Except these things are different.  China is known for cheap prices but items of often poor quality.  You can probably buy that exact same pair of headphones in China, but rather than producing high quality sound, they might turn fuzzy after a day or two, or one of the ear pieces might fall off.  These items are often the rejects: the ones with defects that weren’t deemed good enough to be exported.  Why is it that the country that makes the items doesn’t even get to have the first pick of them?

Chinese products are full of irony.  For example, one thinks the purpose of a shower is to clean.  Well, your shower head might be functional, but instead of spreading the water out in a flow that easily washes shampoo and soap off of you, it might let the water flow in a trickle that isn’t really strong enough to clean off any bath products, even if the water pressure in your bathroom is generally relatively strong.  The object itself works, but not in such a way that fulfills its intended purpose. 

Someone said to me that the Chinese just have lower expectations for what they buy and that Americans expect more quality for their dollar.  Do we as Americans expect too much? If you buy a lamp and it works but it doesn’t illuminate your desk enough to read, is that okay?

In a way, both societies are materialistic.  The common saying repeated here is that Americans work and live to acquire objects, and the Chinese make objects to work and live. 

Maybe its better not to put so much importance on having things that work.  If your bed breaks, maybe it shouldn’t be such a big deal.  At least you were lucky enough to have that bed.  Or maybe the bed isn’t important at all.

Next time you buy something or use something, look at where it was made. Think about it.

Qingdao Midterm Break

***Written during my trip to China in Fall 2010***

Right now I am in the lounge of Kaiyue International Youth Hostel in Qingdao, China.  Qingdao is a coastal city in between Tianjin and Shanghai known for its beaches and its beer.  In fact, they sell Tsingtao (old spelling of Qingdao) beer in the States.  Everywhere you go, you see tons of kegs of beer sitting on the streets outside of restaurants and little convenience shops.  Our most recent discovery is beer in a bag.  A little old Chinese woman who calls herself “Mama” (we have now dubbed her 'Mama Pijiu') has this tiny little store the size of a small walk-in closet from which she sells drinks, shampoo, ice cream, and cigarettes.  She has a couple of kegs of beer outside and pours it into plastic bags, which she then weighs on a tiny scale to determine how much the beer costs.  She then pokes a hole in the bags with a straw so you can sip as you walk.  The real problem arrives if your bag breaks while you are walking.  

The group with Mama Pijiu

The beaches here vary from dirty sand and cloudy water crowded with tons of people to beautiful light-sandy beaches with relatively clear water and fewer people.  The latter is readily available to us a couple of blocks down from our hostel.  Beach #6 is right next to the train station and a bus stop, and the boardwalk above it is crowded with vendors selling a sort of stale pita bread and fried squid on a stick.  Lots of vendors have loud speakers and shout at you, trying to sell English-speaking tourists boat rides. There are also people dressed up as characters (i.e. sheep) from a Chinese animated children’s show called Xi-Yang-Yang.  It’s funny because even though locals say “hello” whenever they see foreigners like us walk by, they really don’t know if we speak English, or where we are from in general, which is kind of comforting.  I heard someone ask one of their friends if they thought I was French.  My friend was asked if he was Australian.  I’m glad that people don’t look at me and immediately know I’m form the States, though I don’t think being from the U.S. leaves the same negative impression here that it does in other countries, since people here seem to generally look up to the U.S.

Xi-Yang-Yang characters, Beach #6 in the background

On one of the first few days here, a couple of the guys in our group met this Chinese woman named Ping Ping who runs a business that helps Chinese students get into and study in universities in the States.  She lives in Beijing but is currently in Qingdao on holiday, plus she grew up in Qingdao.  She speaks English very fluently because her husband is American.  She sort of took us under her wing since her nephew is trying to learn English and she wanted him to practice speaking with us.  So on Monday we all met at the bus stop close to our hostel and hopped on the 2-hour-long #304 bus (standing the whole way!) to Laoshan, a beautiful mountain on the coast of Qingdao known for its fresh spring water and beautiful scenery.  We all sort of wandered along part of the road until we came to a little pathway that took us down onto some cliffs above the water.  We climbed the cliffs down to the water and sat there for a bit, which was very nice, and the views were spectacular.  We then got lunch, which Ping Ping ordered for us since we have no idea what any of the characters for shellfish are, and sat on the beautiful sandy beach for a while.  I collected some shells and the boys went swimming and then we caught the 2-hour bus back.  The bus was so crowded on the way back that even though I was standing up I didn’t need to hold onto anything because there was no space for me to fall into.  For dinner we went to a place run by a Chinese woman with HUGE hair, sort of like Marge from the Simpsons, but not blue.  Our final dish was a whole fish cooked in some sort of sweet sauce.  Two guys from a group of three other Americans that we have been hanging out with ate the eyes, which are supposed to be a delicacy here!

Cliffs we hung out on at Laoshan

Fish DEVOURED, no eyes left

Yesterday we got up even earlier (my alarm was set for 6:47!) and went to the same mountain again with Ping Ping and her nephew, but this time to a different side. We ended up at someone’s vacation home on a cliff on the mountain.  It’s still unclear to me whose home it was, but  it was one of Ping Ping’s friends.  One of the men staying in it took us all fishing off the coast of the mountain in a little wooden boat.  We didn’t catch very much, but the views were spectacular and it was a beautiful day to spend on the water.  We came back to the house in the late afternoon and the family cooked us a feast of shellfish (I tried some very interesting looking creatures including some sort of very large sea snail in a beautiful shell the size of my fist! It was pretty gross.).  We were then driven back to the hostel in a van (an eventful ride trying to sit on a stool in the the back of a car speeding down windy, rocky mountainsides), and I immediately crashed when we arrived home because I was so exhausted.

The farm of the family that took us around

Our boat for the day

Ji and me, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

Pablo's huge fish

 

Yummy sea snail.

  Today I think we are going to visit the Qingdao brewery, which should be cool to see!

dawn breaks like a bull through the hall

So it's been awhile since I've written because I've been savoring the last few weeks of summer before heading back to school next Monday. Since I came home from India a little sooner than anticipated, I used the extra time to spend a weekend visiting some friends in New York! I arrived on Friday afternoon and visited Alex at the UN! We heard Beyonce singing through the walls of the General Assembly room, no big deal. On Friday evening I met Jackie (who I hadn't seen since I left India!) at the Natural History Museum and we went out for a delicious dinner (highlights were a watermelon/feta salad and a barbeque buffalo slider). After that we went to a club and danced the night away! It was so nice to see her for the first time in the US :D.

On Saturday morning I took the subway (no mistakes!) from the Upper West Side to Brooklyn to meet Sandra for a bagel brunch (delish)! We then took a long walk through Prospect Park and went to Williamsburg to sight-see (aka watch all the hipsters). We went out for some wine and a late dinner, ending in ice cream just before midnight when the dude at the counter gave us all of the leftover baked goods that he was going to throw away (nice). On Sunday morning I met up with Alex and her aunt and uncle for brunch. Basically the weekend involved lots of eating, lots of subway-ing, and lots of friends, so it was delightful.

This past week I was with the fam + Sara in Rehoboth Beach, where we go every August. We had some nice sunny weather and again more delicious food so it was wonderful as well. Being in Rehoboth always makes me feel so at peace, I think because of my proximity to the ocean (there were some sweet waves this trip). Thinking about the ocean and the beach makes me think about other random things that have struck my fancy recently, so I thought I'd share a few. Maybe they make you happy too! Or at least remind you of things that make you happy. These are not in any particular order of preference, just written down as they come to my mind.

~Water. I just can't get enough. Drinking it, submersing myself in it, throwing it at people, it's just all so good.

~Hindi devotional music: bhajans, qawwali. I recommend Jagjit Singh, especially his version of Dama Dum Mast Kalander (on iTunes). Listening to this always calms me down. I like listening to it when I first wake up, or when I'm doing yoga. I feel like I can always smell a hint of daal and incense when I play it...

~This song when I'm feeling reflective.

~This song to bump to (@1:10). Also this one (yeah).

~This song when I'm just happy!

~Talking to foreigners in their native language. Along with this, surprising foreigners when I can actually say something in their native language (even if I can't understand their response...).

~AVOCADOS.

~Watercolor painting, even though I struggle.

~Trying new recipes. Just tried to replicate this butternut squash/goat cheese terrine the fam had at a restaurant at the beach. It was somewhat successful? I mean, it's hard to go completely wrong with something that involves squash, goat cheese, and butter...

~Green things, especially dark green things. Or this new dune sage-scented candle that I just got which makes my room smell like an evergreen forest and which also happens to be green.

~Crunching leaves! I'm so excited to have a real fall! I haven't been in the US for fall since freshman year, and that's all a blur since I was so preoccupied with starting college. Favorite season, I can't wait. Also I have a kitchen this year so I can go to the orchard and pick tons of apples and make pie and applesauce and everything else apple, hooray!

Okay well I hope this makes everyone think of some recent favorites :). I'll post some pictures soon!

sailing words on conjured ships