lulu in ganga ma

lulu is taken from alight's flickr page, and the following william stafford poem as well, "climbing along the river".

willows never forget how it feels to be young

do you remember where you came from? gravel remembers
even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean

exactly at midnight yesterday sighs away

what i believe is, all animals have one soul
over the land they love they crisscross forever

bassets of india

bassets in goa?! surfing. this is lulu, taken from alight's flickr page.

also, i found preeti narayanan, she's a basset breeder in bangalore.

"i was seven when i decided that i was going to have a home filled with dogs. everyone thought it was very amusing. my parents even bought me a dog figuring it would take care of it. hmmm...don't think it did. we are a family of 27! raj, my daughter - tapasya, our 24 dogs and myself. our crowded little home is in suburban bangalore and we are fortunate to have understanding neighbors who don't have a fit evey time the dogs decide to do a rendition of 'who let the dog's out'! there are no kennels in our house and all our dogs live together. i also board dogs and guess what they too live with my dogs while they are here!" omg.

www.wintershillbassets.com

coconut lions in mysore

the subcontinent coconut lion has a fat nose to help it smell distant coconuts. i was not going to mention it as they are treasured and not really to be talked about, like yoga:) but now that i've drunk cobra blood i'm told i will smell different to the coconut lions and they will not mind me. they are pretty grouchy and dangerous by all accounts. powerful jaws that can open coconuts and feisty dispositions keep people away even though the lions are only about the size of a koala bear. the 27th pasha of ponchigorom wrote a great booklet about the lions but it's out of print and he's dead. and krishnamacharya's patron, and by way guruji's, s.a.s. wodeyar, maharaja of mysore, is said to have had some in the mysore palace gardens. they're still around southern india and a big part of my wanting to go there is just to see one.

chitta meme, google your name plus "needs" and see what comes up

eeyore needs prozac.
eeyore needs a zoloft.
eeyore needs a hug.
eeyore needs to kill himself. ?!
eeyore needs a bumblebee duvet cover. (chitta!)

i also googled my other self to see if this could get better.

robbie needs to collect 5 different girls throughout woods, desert and ice.
robbie needs your help.
robbie needs rehab.
robbie needs good manors. [thanks, you moreon]
robbie needs therapy.
robbie needs a gf.
robbie needs to find an easier way to date.

bangalore golf club

i'm already thinking about mysore and all the troubles i will cause there. i wonder if golf is ok on a moon day? i love the idea of bangalore gc's emblem, the bangalore crow. seems the course doesn't need hazards. it has the bangalore crow, a big bird that picks up and flies away with players' balls from the fairways thinking they're eggs, and when they realize they're not they drop them from on high. who knows where? maybe they land with the FUR! or in the hole. i vote this as the best course in the world. i am not bringing Big Pinkie with me, though. Big Pinkie is my driver and she has betrayed me for the last time. if norman allen won't let me bring my mat to mysore Big Pinkie can't come either!

if you do read dylan on the plane

why does he have this effect? much better off listening to flo-rida, "lo lo lo lo lo"

drdotp

don't read dylan on the plane.

din tai fong, king of dumplings, taipei

bestest dumplings ever.

taipei 101

101 storeys of FUR! tallest in the worlds.

may i take your order please?

the sommelier life is never easy.

drc & uhp (not a good combo)

florida's(flo-rida, "low, low, low") favorite domaine. wine dinner, chez hubert keller. "boots with the fur.."

ingots of bean curd

frozen tofu, ready to be simmereded in the spicy cauldron!

cobra soup, snake alley, night market,

taipei. not quite my favorite, and not nearly as good as din tai fong's dumplings. the empty reddish glass had the poor cobra's blood in it, and the green had the liquid (bile?) from its gall bladder, mixed with rice brandy. oooohhf

in the ER
dumpling hospital

night market corn

ahh roasteded formosan corn, water spinach, papaya milk, and eggs with oysters?

most famous tofu pudding, yum!

i used to think hk air was hong kong airways

wtf, hello kitty airlines, gate c3, departing hong kong..!

there goeth my vegan street cred

my favorite, spicy water spinach.
these were very "jinki", tasty and special.

i'm not even going to attempt to explain what this is or how i got here in sanakeses alley, taipei, with hcc.

taipei

first thing you see getting off the plane.

birthday wishes

snoopy says happy birthday annabella and susananda!

mysore in the penthouse, pure yoga taipei

60 purple manduka mats laid out in perfect rows every morning on the ninth floor of pure's yoga castle. the first morning i went up to our teacher, master ping, introduced myself and picked out a mat close to an ashtangini who happily turned out to burp loudly all through standing, which gave me a certain pace i probably needed after the long flight. only about 15 people were practicing that morning and it was a little eerie, all those empty mats in formation. i was the only westerner there. master ping was very generous with me, and gave me lots of help in supta kurmasana, arranging my feet then my paws.

the night before, i managed to go to pure for a restorative class and to check out the place since it was only a couple of blocks from my hotel. i went up to the fifth floor, after my 'interview' with a receptionist and opened a door to a huge room full of asian ladies all sitting in padmasana! with, i counted after, 80 purple mats organized in perfect checkerboard design. there were about sixty women , and not one guy. i hid in a corner spot, was asked how my mandarin was(non-existant) by miss lai, our teacher, and was an almost endless source of amusement to my classmates. i did sleep well though after this kind of nerve wracking restorative class.