Jumping Jellybeans We're in Jaipur!

December 20, Day 3: Agra and Jaipur

Woke up around 6:15am today and had a toast, Puri bread, orange jelly I didn’t try, a spicy macaroni dish, and some curry sauce. After, we set off to another fort in Agra where we had to take off our shoes to go in! We bought postcards here. This fort was special because it had a prayer/tomb area where the King was granted three wishes by Salem and his wife finally bore a son after being barren. There was more filigree designs and people were very reverent when receiving a blessing. 

We had lunch at Rainbow City, where we tried South Indian Dosas. It’s a big crepe-like dish filled with potato and I had the onion marsala flavored one. I also had the mango lassi which is delicious! A famous Indian dessert delicacy is the Golab Jamun, which is a very sweet donut ball which has some paste inside, and in sitting in syrup.
 I wasn't a big fan because it is very sweet!

We then had to drive for another 3 hours at least before we got to the third fort of the trip in the Pink City, Jaipur. A 14-yr old recently became king which is crazy! We saw some really cool weaponry and bejeweled scabbers. We saw different clothing of the royalty and one of the kings out of the 14 kings was really fat, 4 feet wide!!! We took a picture with a Christmas tree with the King’s guards, and saw a traditional Indian puppet show! 

Also, there was a snake charmer who had two cobras in his basket to charm. Arveen and I were invited to go sit next to the snake charmer while he charmed the snakes. WE DID NOT however accept the offer to hold them. They instantly went in to bite repeatedly at the charmer when he finishes charming them. However, they were defanged. Later when the snake came out under the basket it made a HUGE poop which was green and white…we were very surprised it could poop. 

We got henna from a not so nice lady, but it didn’t show up TOO well after we peeled off the dried up henna outer layer

Buland Darwaza, Great Gate of Agra

Holy Area for Prayer

Later, after the tour with the stylish tour guide, I really had to use the bathroom because my stomach was hurting…so I went to the public bathroom there…let's just say it was a nightmare with no tissue. We went to a few shops outside and bought more elephant figurines, tea lights, turtles, postcards, and bangles. We also went to have dinner at a very fancy place near our really nice hotel in Jaipur. It was outdoors and had live traditional Indian dancing and entertainment. The female dancer picked Kim and I to go up on stage to dance with her and another audience member.  We were dancing in the circle so it wasn’t as embarrassing but still we were really bad compared to her! She seemed to like us and we even asked her for a picture with us, her name is Indira. We came home and no wifi, hot water, and discovered a broken flush for such a nice hotel! 

Oh well, when in India! :) 

Adventuring in Agra

December 19- Day 2: Agra (Taj Mahal and Agra Fort)

Woke up at 4:15 am with only about 3 hours of sleep before leaving for Agra! It took us three hours at least to get there and we were so tired. I slept a lot of the way; we went in a 12 seater van that was very bumpy. We got to Agra around 10am and we had breakfast at the hotel, naan bread and another kind of bread, with a potato curry sauce and yogurt. Starting the tour in Agra, we had the choice to get a camel-driven cart or an electric cart to the Taj, so we chose the camel! We were even able to take turns riding the camel but only me and Curtis took the opportunity. I went first and nearly slipped to my death trying to get on the camel. I only had two long poles to step on to get on the camel’s back with my yellow slippers on so it was terrifying!!! I had two people helping me and I still nearly fell! Eventually I got onto Raju (my camel) ok and it was so awesome riding a camel! It felt very funny moving up and down to the camel's walking speed. 

We went to see the Taj Mahal and had a wonderful tour guide who taught us a lot! We learnt that the Moghul emperor Shah Jahan built it out of love for his third wife Mumtaz Mahal (“Mumtaz= Excellence”), she was supposed to be very beautiful and bright. The Taj Mahal is well-known for its beautiful symmetry, as there are mirrored smaller palaces; the wife’s body is buried in the middle of the building line of symmetry. Filigree design was popular inside the palace, gemstones and part of the Qur’an design the palace. Nailian gemstones were used so that when light shone on it, would light up and it was so beautiful! The Blank oynx stone can tell if silver or gold is pure or not. Also, the most precious gem, is the Black star of India which when moon shines on it, a star appears. There are three black stars, the normal one, sapphire, and ruby. The tour guide briefly got into a huge loud argument with a few people over something about not telling me what to do, so that was a bit awkward and scary. 

OH so at the Taj, we had to wear shoe coverings and then we had a photographer follow us around to take professional photos for us, a lot of people do that job to make money from tourists. He took all these individual posing shots for us and then some group ones. Afterwards he developed them, we choose, pay, and we get them on a disc. It was so great because they were amazing pictures! Kim and I got so close in a picture with a monkey later that day too, amazing! Arveen got in trouble by Dilpreet when she tried…hahah. There are less beggars than I thought around the touristy hot spots of Agra, but it was still difficult to see all the dogs laying around that were stray, and all the children/poor selling tourist items. You just have to ignore them because they are very smart and persistent, amazing at reading people’s emotions/faces. 

One of the side mrirored palaces next to the Taj Mahal

Closer look at the Taj Mahal design

Along the way in the city, you see so many monkeys hopping around in public as well as cows. We had a late lunch at a nearby indian restaurant and had similar food to the morning. I went to the bathroom with Kim and oh my, it was our first hole toilet! After meals, you get sugar crystals and mint leaves to chew on which refreshes you after a meal. I thought it was to wash your hands with due to misinterpreting someone else's actions whoops! Restaurants are equipped with napkins, but they are so thin and cheap that it falls apart when you use them. 

We caught a quick dinner where we had Indian and Chinese, but the Chinese was Indian-style. We got mixed meat fried rice which was good, garlic naan, and chicken tikka marsala. We tried a salty yogurt lassi which wasn’t that tasty, but the sweet one was.

A magical day all in all! 

Start of an AMA-zing trip to India!

WHERE DO I EVEN START...

To give a brief abstract/purpose of my trip to India, was to participate in a medical/surgical camp with my home university (University of California, Irvine) club, Anteaters Medicine Abroad (AMA). We had a week of touring around India and the second week involved the three day medical/surgical camp in different parts of the city Bangalore, in Southern India. 


December 18 -Day 1: London Heathrow to Delhi Indira Airport and First day in Delhi

Flight was 7 and a half hours long and I just watched The Dark Knight Rises then slept the rest of the way (or kept trying to). The girl next to me slept almost the whole way through!  Baggage claim at Delhi took about 30 minutes for me to get my luggage L it was bad. Arveen, her dad, uncle, and our tour guide Dilpreet met me to take me to settle down at Arveen’s aunt’s house in Delhi. I was so thirsty after the flight I drank a big pepsi and I don’t like pepsi! We had a home cooked Indian meal (garbanzo beans with potato gingery sort of curry, a yogurt dish, a mint spiced dish, naan bread, vegetables, and paneer,cottage cheese). They made me eat so much and eat correctly which was quite embarrassing, but it was really nice to learn their culture! I learnt a lot of Punjabi/Hindi words as well! Dilpreet, Paramveer (Dilpreet's friend), Arveen, and I went to a really luxurious mall called Ambience Mall in Delhi to watch The Hobbit. 

We felt like we were in California because it was so nice. Observation though, security is very tight in India because of recent issues with Pakistan, so everywhere we went we were searched/scanned/made to go through the beeping airport check machine. That's always separated male and female too. Back to the theatre, the seats are velvet and lean way back, reclining movie seats for ya!! THE HOBBIT WAS AMAZING. We tried nachos (indian spiced chips, cheese, and salsa) and had a starbucks coffee latte. After, we sat for a bit at Dilpreet’s house and met all his family too! Everyone is quite friendly in the sense they hug you and talk to you J 

We had some indian sweets called Mithai, didn't like it too much though. After that, we had street food dinner called Gol Gappay or Bani Purri, which translates to water balls. It’s a pastry shell filled with a big of sugar and spicy water, potato and bean veggie mix. You're suppose to eat it all in one bite each time and it’s a big mouthful! I was a bit under pressure eating it, so I did each one in a mouthful and yeah...I'd be lying if I said it wasn't painful and if I didn't feel like crying from the spiciness. You get 6 for less than 50 cents CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? 

 Streets of Delhi

Gol Gappay!

 Then we went to pick up Daryl, Akash, Curtis, and Kim.(almost the whole group in AMA)

So far, Delhi is much more modernized than I thought, although along the car ride, you;ll see the streets laden with the poor in tents or sleeping on the street, fires made on the side of the roads, stray dogs EVERYWHERE, no rules in traffic yet there are not many crashes, and a honk from at least two people every 2 minutes! Weather was surprisingly nice, sunny but not too hot! Everyone stared at me as well, being Chinese is a rarity in India! Food has been surprisingly good so far and no sickness yet.

Punjabi/Hindi words I've learned today!

Gol Gappay (Punjabi)/ Bani Purri (Hindi)- Water Balls street food

Bus- Enough, Stop

Hanji- Yes

Nemastay (Hindi)/ Sut Sri Acal (Punjabi)- Hello, greeting

Thighee-G= Older Aunty

Thigha-G= Older Uncle

Gagee-G= Younger Aunty

Gaga-G= Younger Uncle

Christmas House Dinner and Christkindlmarkt in Leeds

8th December, 2012: Leeds Christkindlmarkt

WOOPS finally updating, but going back to fill in everything I forgot to, so I'm starting here with Christmas festivities :)  

Our House planned a house trip to Leeds, a nearby city to York, to go to the German Christmas Market they were having there! Throughout England, they have Christmas Markets, but only a couple are the German style ones, which would be the closest thing we get here to the authentic wonderfully Christmassy markets in Germany!

First, we explored a little bit of the city centre in Leeds, which is where this big christmas tree decorated with massive baubles was. It's a lot bigger and more modern architecture/layout than York city centre. It has more of the pricey stores and variety, in contrast to York's classic, medieval, specialty shoppes. 




This is all of us waiting in line for Nando's, a yummy Portuguese restuarant, famous for it's spicy grilled chicken and peri peri sauces. 

Nao took amazing pictures with his massive professional camera! 







After, we walked a bit to the outskirts of the city centre to where the Leeds Christkindlmarkt was being held, in Millennium Square. Wow, it was really packed with visitors dressed in snug christmas jumpers and coats. They had numerous stalls of holiday cheer like an onion stall, sausage/meats, donuts, marshmellows, potato pancakes, german sausage hot dogs, profiteroles, mulled wine and German beer, roasted mixed nuts (they had many cool flavourings of every kind of nuts, like a baileys irish cream flavor and cinnamon, and lots of cute toy/cold weather accessory stalls. There were also carnival rides, so a few of us went on Disco Fever, where we would be circled around in the air on this weird contraption, but it was a lot of fun!

 Left: Big O Tannenbaum decorated with shiny lights!



Right: Marieke and I

We finished this night with some drinks at the local pub around campus when we got back, the Charles XII. We were very exhausted :)









12th December 2012: Christmas HOUSE PARTY!

It's that time of year where I play Christmas songs every second of the day until Christmas day!!! Our wonderful House A put on a Christmas Dinner and Secret Santa gift exchange night for the 10 of us housemates. On the menu, we had a Halal chicken roasted with vegetables, roasted parsnips and potatoes, brussel sprouts (yakk...), gravy, stuffing (instant but it was amazing), carrots simmered in honey, homemade garlic bread, with apple pie and raspberry pavlova for dessert! You can imagine we were all overstuffed turkeys afterwards. We all exchanged secret santa gifts and I got lovely gifts from Marieke! She drew me James Morrison in a frame (ze best musician!!!!), got me a knitted jumper, and a necklace. We also had party crackers to pull to get very oversized party hats we all tried to wear anyways. Emma also brought a little christmas tree from home, and we dubbed him Herbert. Poor Herbert got knocked over many times...but he survived through the holidays I'm glad to say!! I also discovered I do not like the Baileys irish cream that night, yakk. The kitchen was very warm and full of cheer that I can say, especially with the 10 of us squishing around the table. 


 Here's the 10 of us, the merry bunch!

Back Row (L-R) Alio, Graeme, Sam, Ant
Middle: (L-R) Emma and I, Marieke, Belle, Sabrina
Bottom: Nao



EARLY! MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEARS FROM YORK!!

 

Soon after, we all parted ways for our separate winter holidays with out families in various parts of the world!

Land of the Highland Cows, Loch Ness, Scotch, and Cashmere

Guid eenin!

One of the gorgeous views while on the train

No I didn't just horribly misspell good evening, but that's how the Scots speak! :) I've just spent about two half days and a night in EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND! I still have to pinch myself once in a while to make sure I'm not dreaming...but I'm not! God is so amazing, he's giving me opportunities of a lifetime like studying a year at York, and getting to travel all over! Just hopping on a train for less than 3 hours gets me to another country!!

      
                                                                                  

Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel

My study abroad program, UCEAP, put together a Scottish Thanksgiving and Ceildh event for all the UC American students studying abroad in the UK/Ireland. They even paid for our hostel, dinner, and reimbursed a little for our travel to Edinburgh with Scottish pounds!

Dustin and I arrived at our hostel with enough time to check out a pub before the Thanksgiving event. Being the first hostel experience for me, I was expecting the worst with the movie Taken being illustrated into a hostel!! It definitely wasn't bad and was decent accomodation! We just dropped off our things and went to the Elm Bar, not too far from our hostel to order a Scottish lager each, Tennents. I'm definitely not a drinker and have no experience from the States, so I had only managed to dent my drink before Dustin helped me 
finish it! Whoops! 

Soon enough, we went back to the hostel to get ready to be picked up in style by the Big Red Buses provided for us! The actual venue is called the Castle Hub, because it's really close to the Edinburgh Castle. It's used for lots of major events and was very fancy! I also caught up with some friends from UCI and others I met from orientation. Dustin and I got to try another traditional Scottish drink, the Drambuie. It's a liquer made with aged whiskeys, honey, and a secret recipe of herbs and spices. It's suppose to be "the drink that satisfies." Oh my, it was very very strong and full of flavor, so in the long run it was a nice experience, but not enough for me to try it again...

Iris, Lilla, Michelle, and I

                         Dustin and I tasting our Drambuie

We had a really nice Thanksgiving Dinner with turkey, chestnut and apricot stuffing, buttered string beans, boiled potatoes, sweet potato mash, bread, and gravy. Dessert was a chocolate tart with cream and raspberry coulis. 

After that, the program went straight into the traditional Scottish dances, the Ceidlhs! We usually need a partner or two to go to the dancefloor and await directions on how to perform each dance! It was really chaotic since there were over a hundred students bouncing about to something they have never done! You end up swinging with many many different partners, sweating a lot, but all in all, having a big hoot of a time doing Scottish dances! 





 Dancing the Ceidlhs! 








We called it a night afterwards but I woke up really early at 7:30am so that I could eat breakfast quickly, then explore the Royal Mile with Dustin. Nothing was really open until 9:30-10am and we were celebrating Armistice Day (Veteran's Day) in Scotland! They have many people in Scottish uniform, memorial services going on, and many red poppies. After searching a bit for Royal Mile (famous tourist street in Edinburgh), we were able to visit some tourist shops so I was able to pick up mini scotch whiskey bottles, a small bottle of Drambuie for the housemates, malt whiskey fudge, scottish terrier shaped walkers shortbread, an Edinburgh t-shirt, and postcards! FINALLY, we reached Edinburgh castle! That was a very exciting moment because Dustin and I didn't really have a plan to explore because we had so little time before our 10:55am train, but we found the Royal Mile, saw some sights, AND saw the castle! It was absolutely breath-taking! I really hope to see more castles, but it was so wonderful to see my first one in Scotland! 

View of the city from the castle! 

                              
                                   

Edinburgh Castle




Weather: A bit frosty but bearable!

All in all, a wonderful short trip to Scotland, wish I could have saw more of Scotland! Nevertheless, many more adventures to come, so stay tuned! :) Continuing to thank my Father up above for the blessings in my life, never cease to thank and praise him!!

Guid night an sweit dreams

Cheers!

xxx

It's Week 5 and I'm Stayin' Alive!

Sorry for a really late update, but a lot has been going on lately! Classes are definitely picking up with lab practicals to attend, mice to dissect, blood samples to examine, and species to compare. We got to tour the technology facility in the Biology department and saw a lot of expensive equipment worth over £600,000!! I would not want to be that student who brings a cup of water in the limited access rooms...and you know what would happen next.  

<---My partner Jacyln from Singapore and I in our lab coats


I also bought a lot of flashcards, markers, and other supplies to start on that study grind since my India trip will be stealing half my revision time away from me! I'm hoping to use those flashcards whenever I have free time in India (how little it may be...) At York Uni, every 1st and 2nd year student is assigned a tutorial group with a lecturer to learn study/research skills, so I was able to join one for this year. I have a German lecturer, Dr. Julia Ferrari, who also teaches one of the modules I'm in so it's a great chance to get to know one of my lecturers personally! I of course assumed she was Italian...but she told me everyone assumes that as well haha. She's a very good lecturer and has high expectations in our tutorial group (of about 3-4 students). We've already had to do a short presentation on bacterial symbionts, and now I have an essay due Monday for it as well! I'm at a bit of a disadvantage from the other more experienced English students, so I'm going to have to work harder to achieve good marks/feedback from Dr.Julia.


Secret Santa: My lovely housemates and I picked secret santa out of Emma's peter pan hat this week so we have until Week 10 to get presents for our secret santas! We recently did a housemate walk to the closest pub to our college, Charles XII. The food was really cheap and not bad quality! Drinks weren't too expensive either, so I can imagine why the pub was packed to the brim. I'm still not a fan of alcohol, but minuscule amounts in drinks like flavored ciders I like! It tastes like soda to me :)

Emma's mum came from Manchester to see Emma and brought Marieke, Emma, and I to the York Designer Outlets for half a day to walk around and get lunch! We had yummy bagels, mcflurries, but didn't get too much shopping done. It was a good bonding experience anyways and were too afraid to shop for our secret santats together since we can't tell each other! haha. We did see one of the most horrendous works of dresses ever though....

 

                Nao in the nurse's room

Another day when I had a day off, I took my housemate Nao to the St John's Hospital near the city centre because he sprained his ankle badly from football. He could barely walk by himself so we took the taxi together. We had to wait two hours to get Xrays and his ankle examined...but get this, EVERYTHING WAS FREE! They even let him borrow crutches for free as well! Perks of a NHS!

Emma and I have been going to weekly Tuesday Christian Union (CU) meetings for small group and it's been great! We've looked into passages of Luke about God showing his power and remembering everything points to God's power. We've each received this AMAZING little book to study Luke with friends and share the gospel with them! We're hoping to get some of our housemates involved to just share about our faith together.

http://uncover.org.uk/start

Weather update: a couple weeks ago IT SNOWED FOR A NIGHT! in OCTOBER!!! WOW. I was flabbergasted. and yes my face is so timely covered with a snowflake.

Other that that, it's been quite windy and chilly. Today was just an exception and we had a bit of sunshine! It gets very dark by 4pm as well...yikes!

This coming weekend I'll be heading off to Edinburgh for two half days and a night with Dustin, a friend from UCEAP who also studies at York. Next blog update will be that hopefully! :)

Cheers!

xxx