Chai, food, nap, chai, nap, food, food, nap, chai, chai.

Ah India - how I missed thee. between all the chai, napping and food there wasn't much time to even relax during my CNY vacay in india! geez.

No but seriously...talk about a true vacay - relaxing, amazing food, family, friends, bad hindi, yoga, naps, chai and servants.

I'll start with a bit of hilarity - woke up one morning with a nice little bug bite on my eye lid. yes i would indeed admit, this more resembles a turn-your-face-fat-iphone-app photo (hey, i ate my weight's worth of food while i was there), but i seriously couldn't open my eye for the whole day. sexy.

luckily this was the last day of my trip so it did not interfere with the eating, sleeping, eating routine i had.

the main purpose of my trip was to visit my grandparents in ahmedabad staying with my uncle and aunt (uncle happens to be my mom's brother and aunt is my dad's sister). my mom is also there for a couple months to stay with my grandparents and is also volunteering/consulting at a museum there to fill in the gaps between eating and napping. here's a pic of me and gma. i showed her and my gpa how to use the ipad and they were so confused/intrigued. perhaps because my broken hindi didn't quite explain it properly "hindi hindi APPLE hindi hindi AWESOME hindi hindi TECHNOLOGY hindi hindi EXPENSIVE" hahaha. alas, we got some good pics

aside from being the jolliest grandmom around, she is also an amazing cook and has trained our house cook and my mom very well. upon my arrival, i was asked to make a list (and scream it to her...hey she's in her 90s and often doesn't wear her hearing aids) and every single thing was fulfilled x10 - aloo paratha, cabbage subzi, doodi, eggplant subzi, bakari, besin ladoo, meeti dahl, black dahl, dahl with chonk, biryani, pulao, rus malai, and at least 5-6 chapathis with each meal. holy crap. seriously i havent eaten like that since i had a 2" growth spurt when i was 13 (and i'm not talking about height).

in the midst of the eating, i also finally reunited with devanshi and her fam after 1 full year of being apart. she came for the weekend to stay with her fam and hang with me. we had a jolly time frolicking the city, getting facials and also spending some QT with both of our families.

we went from museum tours with the fams...

to mockail shots in the new mall food court.

now if you know anything about india, gujarat (where ahmedabad is) is a dry state. no alcohol sold or allowed in and out. EXCEPT if you're a foreigner. my mom gave me a tall order to bring stuff in (a handle of vodka or gin, a bottle of dry red wine) but unfortunately some flight problems prohibited me from attaining said goods in time for my trip. in search of some fun, dev, ani and i went to the mocktail bar at the mall - the busiest of stalls - to have a drink. the bartender was handy with his mixing and within several minutes we had three very syrupy, sweet, non-alcoholic mocktails. partayyy. actually now that i think about it, we all got sick after this - similar to having real cocktails back in nyc. good times.

i mentioned we visited a museum with our fams - it was a really wholesome day. we went to the museum where my mom is working and got some great tours of the grounds/exhibits. the concept is really cool; this lady lost her daughter when she was very young and to help her cope, her parents gave her some money to dedicate to helping other children in india. the lady started an orphanage and school in ahmedabad. the concept of the school is very experimental - they don't use text books or exams, but learn solely from experience. they invested in artifacts, costumes, props, etc for the kids to learn from and used those to create some really cool museums for the students to learn in and for outsiders to enjoy. in the children's museum there is a full skeleton of an elephant. huge and probably the coolest thing ive seen in awhile - imagine if you were 10 yrs old learning from that! so cool. there is also a peacock area and a deer farm (along with a pool, library, amphitheater, etc). in the gujarat exhibit, this fine peacock decided to join our tour.

after the museum, our fams went to feast at Bikanerwala (a famous snack chain in india) for lunch - pani puri, veg manchurian, hakka noodles, dahi puri, dosas, paneer tikka, rus malai, all washed down with a fresh lime soda. hot damn. how could i leave such an oasis of food.

from our jolly trip to the museum, i found out that devanshi's mom does yoga every day at a nearby temple. i asked her to take me the following day. she picked me up in a rickshaw the next morning at 10 am and i crashed a super serene yoga sesh. now you might wonder what yoga is like in india. well, i'm told, it is without doubt, 'real yoga'. second, this particular one is mixed with some religious spiritual prayers, and third, it is amazing. this is the hall in which it is held.

beats yoga to the people in the astor place walk up or even the beloved studio anya in flat iron. needless to say, i was the only one that couldn't touch my toes or really do any of the poses properly but it was surely an experience i will not soon forget (mostly bc it will be the last time i exercise for awhile).

along with all these great things, i got to eat more, hang out at the equivalent of a nice country club, spend qt with my grandparents, go shopping and take lots of naps. it's to the point that i actually need to rest my eyes every day at 3 pm now and promptly need a caffeine shot and a snack immediately after. it will take a few months to get over this amazing trip.

this week i have my first shanghai guests coming and i'm moving into my own place! overwhelmed with excitement and furiously researching places to go so i look a bit more local than i actually am. to preemptively celebrate i had a vodka/grape drink today (vodka via duty free shop, grape drink via costco-like store across the street, i bought it in bulk so i must finish it before i leave this place). photos of new place + familiar faces to come.