Saturday, December 30, 2006

TONS of new India Pics!

TONS!!!! of India pics posted below - click on the pic below to go to my new Picasa page for my India photos!


Monday, December 25, 2006

india/thailand food pics

many food pics from my india and thailand trip below. more pics to come as i just signed up w/ google's picasa and recommend you do the same. just google picasa..

my food pics below, click on image:

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

neighbor

question:

what would you do and think if your 87 year old neighbor that was supposed to feed your cat whle you were gone told you this upon your return: While you were gone, he saw an asian mom and her two kids inside your house and when he asked who they were, they gave him a mean look and pretended they didnt understand him? he says he saw them coming down the stairs, as if they just spent the night.

Now, let's just say absolutely nothing was missing from your house, and nothing looks disturbed at all. the neighbor is also quite old and regularly repeats himself, and you think he has alzheimers?

i think he's gone wacko. i called my landlord and he has no clue who that is/nobody else has keys, and he thinks the old neighbor needs some serious help. he also thought the neighbor would have called him or the police if he really did see anything like that. plus when the landlord ran into the neighbor a few days ago, the neighbor said nothing of this to the landlord, but did mention he was taking care of the cat... man i think the neighbor dreamt this story up last night...his mind is replacing real memories w/ delusional ones...a definite symptom of alzheimers... rest in peace to my grandfather, who was a victim of alzheimers. at one point, alzheimers hit him so bad he was talking into the remote control, trying to pass it around to other family members in the room saying the phone was for them, and that he just had a nice conversation with someone on it....its a crazy disease...

so what do you think?

Monday, December 18, 2006

india videos

2 videos from india:


1) here's some video from the streets of mumbai/bombay:



2) a video of a snake charmer near Ghandi's cremation site:

end of trip

i'm so tired...too tired to type momre and upload pics from the camera...but not the cellphone camera, we have 2 nice ones for you now...just got back to portland this morning instead of last night...LAX airport is the worst in terms of directions. our flight to the states was late also. that and miscommunication in terms of picking up bags when arriving in the states / customs/ checking into domestic flights made us miss our flight last night. the two awesome upsides, however are:


1) I met Kanye west in the airport and he was really cool. he was w/ his fiance/wife. he let me take a pic with him. peep:






















2) we got to eat at In-N-Out burger, which really does stand up to all the hype. order your cheeseburger "animal style" off the secret menu!





Wednesday, December 13, 2006

more india and some thailand

before i forget, 2 days ago, i had an awesome 2 hour butt naked aromatherapy hot oil massage from a blind lady. no you dirtballs, there was no happy ending. at one point, she did pick it up though and say something in thai, but i have no clue what she said. i laughed and she laughed and she put it back down and kept massaging my legs or whatever. yesterday we hit the custom tailor. i am getting 2 suits custom made, 3 shirts and some ties. mel is getting a suit, a skirt, a shirt and a jacket i think.

back to india... i left off the day Rajeev was showing us around... so at that muslim monument, there were tons of gorgous wild parrots flying around. bright green. we went to the spot where Gandhi was cremated. we paid our respects. Rajeev brought us home to his crib and introduced us to his wife and mom and pops. his wife showed me how to make chapitas, an indian bread similar to naan or roti, either fried or grilled. we made both. we also had an awesome raita w/ yellow split peas, a very good potatoe curry, a mixed vegetable dish, a cashew desert, and more. i learned about the 5 spices in garam masala (secret) and more...we drank lassi (yogurt drink) without the rumored bhang (cannabis). anothony bourdain drank some bhang lassi in rajisthan, india.

we went back to the hotel and walked to a night market and bought some things like ayurverdic hair products/lotions for melenie from this store that had a signed johnny depp poster there saying everytime he comes to india he buys hair crap from this place and loves it.

more to come about taj mahal, food, mumbai, bankok, etc. i have some really really good pics and video as our new camera w/ a 2gb memory card is the shiiiiiiiiit. we took about 750 total pics/videos.

Monday, December 11, 2006

india

back in thailand now after some crazy adventures in India. I don't even know where to start. I guess by city descriptions. New Delhi is the political capital of India and less modern than Mumbai/Bombay, aka the Washington DC of India. Mumbai was the New York/business capital of India, though it's on the coast, so there are palm trees everywhere. We LOVED Mumbai, didn't care too much for Delhi, though the food was amazing everywhere in India.

We spent 5 or so days in Delhi and 2 in Mumbai. we arrived in delhi at around 11 or so at night, so we just passed out that first night. we stayed at a gorgeous hotel, The Ambassador, since our trade mission for Siam International was hsoted by Food Export USA. We were there to promote US foods in India, through Mel's moms import/export division. the hotel had awesome food and breakfast was included, I ate many dosas for breakfast, which are kind of like a crepe, though filled w/ a potato curry, if you get a masala dosa. They typically come with sambor i think it's called, which is like a minestrone soup, minus the noodles, and then 2 chutneys, a coconut chutney and a tomato chutney, though it's more like a paste you spread on the dosa. very, very good.

we hit connaught place the next day. mel bought some saris. i bought a little antique tiger. we did a lot of haggling. our associate, got poop thrown on his shoe. this is a scam we read about it our india travel guide. someone throws poop on your shoe, says its monkey poop, then offers to clean it up for 10 ruppees, which is only about a quarter in US money. i have a pic to show later on this. i ate some really good street food, a plate of spicy lentils with good grilled chapita bread. connaght place has a crazy underground, indiana jones type of shopping too, which just looked like all corny bootleg stuiff that is way cheaper in bangkok at MBK mall anyway.

next day we called up my uncle jay's client's brother, Rajeev, who lives in New Delhi. This guy was so cool and gracious...he hired a cab for the day, took us around to some sites then brought us to his house for a big home cooked indian lunch. we saw a huge temple in the shape of a lotus for all religions, the Bahá'í House of Worship. We saw Iskon temple, a huge krishna temple, where I got some good pics and video of music. we then went to a really sick muslim monument, which i have to dig for the name of the place. a former king built this as a memory ...

gotta run in mid sentence, be back later, lots more to come...

p

Sunday, December 03, 2006

thailand

whats goin on my good readers?

first day in thailand, super long 17 hour flight from LA, a 2 hr one before that from portland. arrive in bangkok, not as hot as last time, only about 80 or so. some super blazing koh mon gai, and then the fried version too... koh mon gai = boiled chicken w/ garlic, ginger, sugar, salt and scallions, then use the stock to make rice, serve you a side of chicken stock/soup w/ radish/daikon, then a heap of rice chicken flavored from the stock, w/ the chicken on top (boiled or fried), we had both, w/ a side of cucumber, a blazign sweet/hot sauce, then we had some moo satay also (pork grilled on a stick served w/ a peanut sauce and a little side of cucumber, chili and red onion in vinehar w/ sugar.)

holler. shit was blazing.

ive got about 5 singha's in me right now. im passing up seeing dj jazzy jeff perform at Que bar (www.quebar.com) where matt is manager cause mel is feelign sick on our first night here and is downstairs sleeping. its 12 midnight. im about 13 hours ahead of yall right now or something.

copped an ill new digital camera for about $180 today. a super slim fit in your pocket sony cybershot 5.1 mp.

also coppd my favorite little tapioca balls stuffed w/ panuts, eaten w/ cilantro and a striahg tlittle thai chili.

mel ate her favorite juk soup.

the electronics mall was sick. forgot to mention a 2 gig mem card i bought also for the new cam...specifialyl for all the video i'm a record in india...watch... but yo, 5-6 floors of all little electronics boutiques...sensory overload....

im ghost...more to come.