It's about that time... I'm strappin on my boot straps and getting ready to leave for a three week long vacation in India! I am traveling with Alex, my room mate, and the five boys in my group to Goa for 6 days, then my friend Justin and I are heading north to visit Jaipur, then we're skipping over to Delhi where we'll meet our other friend, Jackson, and then the three of us are heading to Kathmandu in Nepal to see a few mountains and hit the club scene...... crickets.....
Anyway! I am so excited for all of it. Beaches in Goa, pink sand in Jaipur, a billion people in Delhi, and the Himalayas in Nepal, what more could I ask for? Before I return I want to ride a camel AND an elephant. Other than that I don't have many trip goals. I suppose avoiding kidnappers and wherever those people in the movie Hostel went are on my list. Mainly I'm excited to get out of Mysore, away from annoying chaperones and get to see some more of India!
I won't be taking my laptop with me on my vacation, so this might be my last blog post for a few weeks. I'm sure I'll be stopping at an internet cafe sometime, so that might be a good opportunity to let you, dear fans, know that I'm still alive.
Love,
Julia
Monday, October 18, 2010
Highlights from our tour of North Karnataka
My group and I got back Friday morning from an 8 day excursion through the state of Karnataka. We visited Badami which has Buddhist and Jain cave temples (and lots of monkeys), Bijapur which is known for its Muslim architecture, and Hampi which is an ancient city. Here are some photo highlights!
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| Here I am showing off my mad skillz at the Badami caves. I forget who the statue is of sowwy! |
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| In Bijapur at Gol Gumbaz which means "round dome".........heh. |
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| On top of Gol Gumbaz at around 7 am. |
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| Makin' friends in Hampi! |
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| After a sunrise hike to the top of a rock hill to visit a shrine or pretend to contemplate life if you're Sara. |
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| Makin' MORE friends in Hampi! |
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| Sunrise hike deux to an ancient natural land bridge in Badami. |
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| Justin and Matt (I'll let you attempt to pick them out) swimming in the sacred pool at Aihole, pronounced a-hole. Fine, it's actually ai-ho-lay. The pool is naturally fed through springs which flow through up through the sandy bottom! |
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| Sara being a superstar on top of a temple in Aihole. |
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Great Day with my Dad!
Man... today has been a great day for so many reasons! Partially because it started off kind of crappy...but let's skip that part! It's boring anyway. So today was my dad's first full day in Mysore. We had breakfast with my group mates at the hostel, and then we got ready and went shopping. We went to my favorite clothing store- Parampare- where we stocked up on gifts and clothes and fun stuff for ourselves. After a tea break we headed back to the hostel so I could attend a meeting about my upcoming trip to Northern Karnataka. While I was there I got a wonderful piece of news-- the due date for the term papers that I have been stressing about has been pushed back to Dec 2nd from Oct 20th. THANK GOD. So I get to actually relax and enjoy my trip to Northern Karnataka and just BREATHE for a second. I feel like I haven't taken a real breath in like three weeks... and that's hard to do in yoga.
So anyway, then we went downtown and got some street food-- samosas, pani puri, and juice. Well... I forgot that they don't use filtered water in the juice, and in my valiant attempt to keep my dad from getting sick before his Himalayan trek, I chugged (literally) both glasses myself. I am such a good daughter, plus the juice is really good, whatever. But anyways, then we headed to Karanji Lake and walked around for awhile, saw some sweet birds and let our food coma settle in. It turns out Karanji Lake seemed like kind of a hot spot for young couples to go and make out. OK, hold hands. But still, clearly not the best father-daughter excursion in the city.... moving on.
So then, like the old men that we are, Dad and I were totally beat so we bussed it back to the hostel in Hebbal and took naps before dinner. We ended up being too tired to even go out for dinner so we just ate dinner with Sara, Justin, and Alex at the hostel. It turned out to be a lot of fun and laughing. I'm so glad that some of my friends here got to know my appa (not a typo) a little bit better. He even got to meet a few of the Indian girls I am friends with. Tomorrow I think we'll probably take it easy, and I'll show him my school and maybe have him sit in on some of my classes.
But overall, even though his visit is so short, it's wonderful to see my dad! I was worried that since I've been feeling homesick that seeing him would just bust the cap off that simmering pot and I'd break down into tears like the adult that I am. But I'm ok. I'm great actually. And I can't wait to get out of Mysore!
Oh, another good thing from today. My friends and I finalized our travel plans for our three-week long independent vacation. The plan is to go Mysore to Goa to Jaipur to Delhi to Kathmandu and back to Mysore. Preeeeeeeeeeetty exciting eh?
Love,
Julia
So anyway, then we went downtown and got some street food-- samosas, pani puri, and juice. Well... I forgot that they don't use filtered water in the juice, and in my valiant attempt to keep my dad from getting sick before his Himalayan trek, I chugged (literally) both glasses myself. I am such a good daughter, plus the juice is really good, whatever. But anyways, then we headed to Karanji Lake and walked around for awhile, saw some sweet birds and let our food coma settle in. It turns out Karanji Lake seemed like kind of a hot spot for young couples to go and make out. OK, hold hands. But still, clearly not the best father-daughter excursion in the city.... moving on.
So then, like the old men that we are, Dad and I were totally beat so we bussed it back to the hostel in Hebbal and took naps before dinner. We ended up being too tired to even go out for dinner so we just ate dinner with Sara, Justin, and Alex at the hostel. It turned out to be a lot of fun and laughing. I'm so glad that some of my friends here got to know my appa (not a typo) a little bit better. He even got to meet a few of the Indian girls I am friends with. Tomorrow I think we'll probably take it easy, and I'll show him my school and maybe have him sit in on some of my classes.
But overall, even though his visit is so short, it's wonderful to see my dad! I was worried that since I've been feeling homesick that seeing him would just bust the cap off that simmering pot and I'd break down into tears like the adult that I am. But I'm ok. I'm great actually. And I can't wait to get out of Mysore!
Oh, another good thing from today. My friends and I finalized our travel plans for our three-week long independent vacation. The plan is to go Mysore to Goa to Jaipur to Delhi to Kathmandu and back to Mysore. Preeeeeeeeeeetty exciting eh?
Love,
Julia
Monday, October 4, 2010
Cue the Camera Crew
In a few short hours my noble father, Doug Gouge, will arrive in Mysore! We will be gallavanting around the city for three whole days! Expect situations similar to those of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in The Simple Life. (Since we'll be conducting a car wash in our bikinis and driving a pink truck across the country). Fun fotos and blog updates to come :)
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Ayodhya Verdict Follow-Up Post
So... to make a long story short. Nothing happened with the Ayodhya verdict. I am definitely happy that everyone in the area was safe and that there wasn't any violence in a potentially sensitive case ruling, but at the same time... THAT was anti-climactic!
So the way the court ruled is that they split the land into three parts. To give a little bit of background, the three judges who ruled the case were two Hindu and one Muslim, and all were very old dudes. They gave one part of the land to the followers of Ram Lalla (Hindu), one part to the Nirmohi Akhara (Hindu), and one part to the Sunni Waqf Board (Muslim). How ironic that the judges who are two-thirds Hindu and one-third Muslim divided the land into two-thirds Hindu and one-third Muslim. The judges gave a ruling that was over 8,000 pages long. I think that's really just excessive! I mean... Sometimes I feel like courts and the government makes complicated issues overly-complicated so that the public can't sit down and read the decisions themselves and interpret them on their own! Who has time to read an 8,000 page case ruling? Besides me, I mean! I'm sure it's a real page-turner. So the judges also decided that the Babri Mosque that is still on the land is in fact a mosque... that must have been hard to decide... but that the Hindus have a right to build a temple there.
It seems that most Indians have taken the side of peace in the issue. It may have been a good thing that the case was being judged for so many years. The fire seems to have mostly burned out, and it seems that this case ruling may have extinguished the tension once and for all. For any of you that were worried... I am definitely safe! Except from the wrath of these term papers I have to write.......
Love,
Julia
So the way the court ruled is that they split the land into three parts. To give a little bit of background, the three judges who ruled the case were two Hindu and one Muslim, and all were very old dudes. They gave one part of the land to the followers of Ram Lalla (Hindu), one part to the Nirmohi Akhara (Hindu), and one part to the Sunni Waqf Board (Muslim). How ironic that the judges who are two-thirds Hindu and one-third Muslim divided the land into two-thirds Hindu and one-third Muslim. The judges gave a ruling that was over 8,000 pages long. I think that's really just excessive! I mean... Sometimes I feel like courts and the government makes complicated issues overly-complicated so that the public can't sit down and read the decisions themselves and interpret them on their own! Who has time to read an 8,000 page case ruling? Besides me, I mean! I'm sure it's a real page-turner. So the judges also decided that the Babri Mosque that is still on the land is in fact a mosque... that must have been hard to decide... but that the Hindus have a right to build a temple there.
It seems that most Indians have taken the side of peace in the issue. It may have been a good thing that the case was being judged for so many years. The fire seems to have mostly burned out, and it seems that this case ruling may have extinguished the tension once and for all. For any of you that were worried... I am definitely safe! Except from the wrath of these term papers I have to write.......
Love,
Julia
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