Red Sox

Everyone knows that if you live in Boston you have to become a Red Sox fan. People here love it...it's a city-wide obsession. Well, I guess I am not a "true" Bostonian because I never became obsessed (or even mildly interested!) in the Red Sox. If I am going to cheer for any baseball team, I would still go for the Padres. I guess I am a San Diego girl at heart, even though I have been away for so long (over 12 years! gasp!) because no team will ever be better to me than the Chargers or the Padres.

Anyway, since this is my last summer in Boston, I figured it was now or never...so Matt got some tickets and we headed to the game with our friends, Kevin and Christine. They are real sports fans and they keep track of the stats and everything. We played in a fantasy football league with them this summer but neither Matt nor I paid much attention to it. I tried to get into it, but then I headed to India and it seemed like a world away, so I lost track. I ended up in the middle of the league, woo hoo! And poor Matt was at the bottom. Oh well. He is a soccer guy, anyway.


Kevin and Christine

I kept hearing about the "Green Monster" at Fenway Park...I thought it was going to be something really cool and amazing...but then it was just a green wall that people sat on. I was like....Oh...Ok. And the game was...just like every other baseball game I have been to. Not that that's bad, but I think I had it built up in my mind, like because the city is so obsessed with the team and everyone talks about them All. Day. Long. that the game would be an extraordinary experience. I built it up in my mind too much! But, it was fun, because baseball games are fun...And any time you can sit outdoors comfortably in nice weather in Boston is wonderful. And the Red Sox won, woo hoo! Yay team.


The Green Monster


Kevin, Meagan and Matt

100 Chinese Foods to Try

This is from Appetite for China. Copy the list and bold the ones you have tried.
1. Almond milk
2. Ants Climbing a Tree (poetic, not literal, name)
3. Asian pear
4. Baby bok choy
5. Baijiu
6. Beef brisket
7. Beggar's Chicken
8. Bingtang hulu
9. Bitter melon
10. Bubble tea
11. Buddha's Delight
12. Cantonese roast duck
13. Century egg, or thousand-year egg
14. Cha siu (Cantonese roast pork)
15. Char kway teow
16. Chicken feet
17. Chinese sausage
18. Chow mein
19. Chrysanthemum tea
20. Claypot rice
21. Congee
22. Conpoy (dried scallops)
23. Crab rangoon
24. Dan Dan noodles
25. Dragonfruit (YUM! I miss dragon fruit!)
26. Dragon's Beard candy
27. Dried cuttlefish
28. Drunken chicken
29. Dry-fried green beans
30. Egg drop soup
31. Egg rolls
32. Egg tart, Cantonese or Macanese
33. Fresh bamboo shoots
34. Fortune cookies
35. Fried milk
36. Fried rice
37. Gai lan (Chinese broccoli)
38. General Tso's Chicken
39. Gobi Manchurian
40. Goji berries (Chinese wolfberries)
41. Grass jelly
42. Hainan chicken rice
43. Hand-pulled noodles
44. Har gau (steamed shrimp dumplings in translucent wrappers)
45. Haw flakes
46. Hibiscus tea
47. Hong Kong-style Milk Tea
48. Hot and sour soup
49. Hot Coca-Cola with Ginger
50. Hot Pot
51. Iron Goddess tea (Tieguanyin)
52. Jellyfish
53. Kosher Chinese food
54. Kung Pao Chicken
55. Lamb skewers (yangrou chua'r) (Ugh...Matt lived on these in Xinjiang)
56. Lion's Head meatballs
57. Lomo Saltado
58. Longan fruit
59. Lychee
60. Macaroni in soup with Spam
61. Malatang
62. Mantou, especially if fried and dipped in sweetened condensed milk
63. Mapo Tofu (I lived on this in Beijing)
64. Mock meat
65. Mooncake (bonus points for the snow-skin variety)
66. Nor mai gai (chicken and sticky rice in lotus leaf)
67. Pan-fried jiaozi
68. Peking duck
69. Pineapple bun
70. Prawn crackers
71. Pu'er tea
72. Rambutan
73. Red bean in dessert form
74. Red bayberry
75. Red cooked pork
76. Roast pigeon
77. Rose tea
78. Roujiamo
79. Scallion pancake
80. Shaved ice dessert
81. Sesame chicken
82. Sichuan pepper in any dish
83. Sichuan preserved vegetable (zhacai)
84. Silken tofu
85. Soy milk, freshly made
86. Steamed egg custard
87. Stinky tofu
88. Sugar cane juice
89. Sweet and sour pork, chicken, or shrimp
90. Taro
91. Tea eggs
92. Tea-smoked duck
93. Turnip cake (law bok gau)
94. Twice-cooked pork
95. Water chestnut cake (mati gau)
96. Wonton noodle soup
97. Wood ear
98. Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings)
99. Yuanyang (half coffee, half tea, Hong Kong style)
100. Yunnan goat cheese

What is Natto?

Copy the list, and bold everything you’ve tried.

1. Natto
2. Green Smoothie
3. Tofu Scramble
4. Haggis
5. Mangosteen
6. Creme brulee
7. Fondue
8. Marmite/Vegemite
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Nachos
12. Authentic soba noodles
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Taco from a street cart
16. Boba Tea
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Gyoza
20. Bobotie
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Ceviche
24. Rice and beans
25. Knish
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Caviar
29. Baklava
30. Pate
31. Wasabi peas
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Mango lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Mulled cider
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Fast food french fries
41. Kombucha tea
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans
43. Dahl
44. Homemade Soymilk
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Stroopwafle
47. Samosas
48. Vegetable Sushi
49. Glazed doughnut
50. Seaweed
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Tofurkey
54. Grasshopper (the insect, not the cookie)
55. Cotton candy
56. Gnocchi
57. Piña colada
58. Birch beer
59. Scrapple
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Soy curls
63. Chickpea cutlets
64. Curry
65. Durian
66. Homemade Sausages
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake
68. Smoked tofu
69. Fried plantain
70. Mochi
71. Gazpacho
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies
73. Absinthe
74. Corn on the cob
75. Spirulina
76. Pomegranate
77. Hostess Cupcake
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy
79. Jerky
80. Croissants
81. French onion soup
82. Galletes
83. Tings
84. A meal at the French Laundry
85. Moussaka
86. Sprouted grains or seeds
87. Macaroni and cheese
88. Flowers
89. Matzoh ball soup
90. White chocolate
91. Seitan
92. Kimchi
93. Butterscotch chips
94. Yellow watermelon
95. Chili with chocolate
96. Bagel and lox
97. Potato milk
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Raw cookie dough

Demolition Derby

After I got back from India, I had a little bit of time to enjoy the end of the Boston summer. Summer in New England is glorious! I am sad that I missed most of it, since I will probably never live here again. I got a good dose of Americana at a country fair south of Boston. It was a lot of fun, and I got to see my first Demolition Derby. I was really excited to see the derby, but it was sort of anticlimactic....it is boring to watch after a few minutes because allof the cars seem to get stuck in gridlock! Maybe other d-derbys are more exciting...There were also a lot of fun rides there, but I couldn't even look at them. After I got back from India (and while I was in India) I was very sick...even looking at the rides made me feel queasy.

I'm Scared of Monkeys

While I was in Mamallapuram, this monkey came out of no where and stole my bag of fried chickpeas. Naughty monkey!

Pictures from the Villages

The beach in Mamallapuram.



This is me with some very, very cute kids and my translator.



This is how people get their water. It comes twice a day, and they collect enough in pots to meet all their needs.



This Muslim family lost everything during the tsunami and they were relocated to a new village by the government. They are standing in front of their new home, which was built by an NGO. Many of the people that lost homes to the tsunami are now living for the first time in concrete, permanent shelters rather than in thatched huts, cardboard shanties, or on the streets. They seemed very happy. The new hoes had bathrooms, fans, and electricity. One man described it as "a dream". I can only imagine how great it must have been to go from living on the streets to living in a house with electricity and a fan. These Muslim ladies are a minority in the village, which is composed of over 3000 people that lost everything after the tsunami and were relocated to the new village. The new village is extremely diverse, but most of the people are so happy to be in their safe, new homes that no one seems to mind living in close proximity to other castes and cultures that previously they would not associate with. The only exception is the tribal groups...sadly, the other villagers say they don't want to associate with the "tribals".



Here I am speaking with a farmer. I guess I am a giant with bright orange hair, haha! No wonder I got stared at so much while I was there. Haha!

Making Henna

I have had my hands decorated with henna many times, but I had never seen it made before. I would have never suspected that the henna is green...it makes your hands and hair red or black, depending on how long you let it sit! Here is e on oa previous trip with my hands decorated:

Rotary Club in Action

These ladies live in a village that is affected by annual flooding: every year, their village is completely cut off from the rest of the state by flood waters. Their village becomes like an island, and sometimes they don't have enough food to last for the entire duration of the flood. These lovely ladies were telling me that during the floods, the Cuddalore (a nearby city) Rotary Club brings them food by boat. I told them that my grandfather is very involved in the Rotary Club in the US. I was so proud! They told me to tell him "thank you".

Tales from the Villages

It has been a few weeks since I have returned from India, so I will just share a few of the stories of my time there. This amazing woman was a fish vendor before the 2004 tsunami, which meant that she purchased fish from fisherman along the coast and brought them back to her home village to sell them. She was purching fish in a coastal village when the tsunami struck. The first wave hit and she was left stranded at the top of a coconut tree. Then, the second wave struck and she was thrown out of the tree and she rolled with the wave for nearly 500 meters. This left her in a coma, and she was brought with all of the other dead people to the morgue. Luckily, her family came to look for her. They couldn't find her anywhere in the hospital, so they looked in the morgue; luckily, while they were identifying the body the doctor noticed that her body was warm and she had a pulse. They moved her out of the morgue and she fully recovered about a week later. Crazy! Thank goodness her family came to look for her! Now she is afraid of the sea and does not work as a fish vendor anymore.

Auroville, continued

Another coincidence for me with Auroville, is that when I returned from my June trip to India, the substitute yoga teacher at my studio was from Auroville! It was kind of crazy...I had never heard of this place...then Matt said he wanted to live where everyone relies on each other...then I meet a man in Pondicherry who is associated with Auroville...then my yoga teacher is from Auroville. So, I had the nice chance to visit Monica at her home in Auroville in August and it was great to see a familiar face.

One of the things I like about Auroville is that they grow a lot of their own food, and it is organic. I ate the most delicious things while I was there...lots of fresh salads and delicious vegetarian food. They also have their own spirulina farm, and I discovered that I like spirulina. Also, they make and sell their own Kombucha tea. I became addicted to kombucha in Boston. Everyone in my yoga teacher training group was raving about it, so I tried it at Whole Foods and and loved it...which is very unfortunate because at Whole Foods it is more expensive than I would like to publish on my blog!! If you go to Whole Foods you can check it out. The Kombucha in Auroville was good and much more affordable than Whole Foods.

The unfortunate thing about the good food in Auroville is that one of the delicious things made me very ill...my first time being ill due to food in any of my travels throughout Asia!

The other thing that I liked about Auroville is that I could ride my bike everywhere. I love being in places where I can get around without relying on a car.

New Creation Guest House

While I was in Auroville, I stayed at the New Creation Guest House. I loved it! I loved it so much...it was an oasis of calm after spending 3 days in Chennai. It is a guest house, but primarily a school for Tamil kids that have lost one or both parents. You can eat lunch and dinner with the kids, and that was a lot of fun. Except...I don't speak French! Auroville is a universal city but it seemed more heavily populated with French and Tamil speakers! Still, I loved it. The class rooms were in these funny little space age-looking huts. There were also people that lived in New Creation, in some very modern and fancy looking homes -- I can assure you that my guest room did not look like this!


I also met a lovely family from Germany. They were so kind to me...even though we couldn't communicate very well (they only spoke German and very fragmented English) they included me in all of their activities. I had work to do, so I couldn't always join them, but they would knock on my door to ask if I wanted to go, which always made me feel good! They were in India because the daughter had been adopted from an orphanage in Bihar (one of the poorest, most corrupt states in India), and they had returned to Bihar to try to find her mother. It was unsuccessful and emotionally difficult, so they were recuperating in Auroville.

Auroville

Before I headed down to Nagapattinam, I spent a few days in Auroville. I first became aware of Auroville in my Lonely Planet book on my firsti visit to Tamil Nadu in June. During that trip I went to Pondicherry for a weekend getaway, and met a very nice man who was part of the group that has settled Auroville. Coincidentally (or not!), at about the same time Matt was telling me that he wanted to live "in a place where people rely on eachother for everything", including livelihod, childcare, and everything else. So, we were both intrigued by the concept of Auroville. I didn't have time in June to visit Auroville, so I vowed to return in August to check it out.

The city was started by Sri Aurobindo and a french woman that they call the Mother, and they started Auroville as a community where human unity can be achieved...regardless of race, nationality, etc. No money is exchanged here; residents work for the community and exchange goods and services. I am not sure f exactly all of the details, but that is my impression. To be part of the community you have to go through a 1 year "newcomer" phase and then you can join. When you oin they determine how you can contribute to the community (ie, teaching, farming, cooking, etc). You can also start a business, and give a certain percentage tot he community.

The center of the community is a structure called the Matrimandir. I didn't get a chance to go inside, but I head that you can go sit inside and meditate.

India, Again

So...here I am....in Chennai again. It's only been a few days, but I am already very lonely! It is pathetic...when I was in India in Jne I was so excited to arrive, and then only got lonely towards the end of the trip. This time, I have been lonely since the moment Matt dropped me off at the airport. I talk to Matt twice a day, which is nice, but in a way it makes it worse! I think part of the problem is that because of the problems with the project, I am not able to useit for my thesis, and the project is even more delayed than it was originally, so I don't have much to do at all. But while I am not doing a lot of work, I am not exactly free to go anywhere or travel. Hmmm.... I am amazed by people that go into the peac corps. One of my friends was in the Dominican Republic for 2 years in a small village, without electricity and not much to do. She said she learned how to "do nothing" and enjoy the slow pace of life. I think that is amazing!

Tomorrow I am heading down to Auroville, then down to Nagapattinam. Hopefully I will begin some field work soon after I get to Nagapattinam so that I feel productive!

Another thing about being here the second time around is that I don't seem as inspired to take pictures...so my blog may not be that interesting for the next month!