Do you enjoy singing in the shower, but sometimes forget the lyrics? Would you like to enjoy the fun of karaoke without the embarrassment in performing in front of strangers?
Enter Star Karaoke. This fine Raleigh establishment, located way in the back of a small ethnic shopping center on Capital Boulevard, might at first glance appear to be a front for some kind of illegal activity. You walk in the place, only to encounter a few rows of rooms (with doors – think doctor’s office) and a bar all the way in the back. Surely this isn’t a place for Friday night fun.. or is it?
Turns out you can rent one of these rooms for your own private karaoke party! (This is a quite common type of establishment in Asia called a Karaoke Box.) Sure, the controls to the machine are completely in Korean, but the (somewhat) friendly karaoke master dude will show you the buttons to add, stop, and start a song. Who knows what the rest of those buttons on that remote are for? And who really cares?
Let the karaoke party begin. Your room is equipped with comfortable couches, a table for holding your drinks, and even a DISCO BALL! For the rhythm-oriented karaoke stars, a tambourine is provided to showcase your percussion talent. Two binders full of songs house an index of artful musical pieces, but be sure to browse the English section and put in the number correctly, or you might end up trying to sing something in Korean.
Perhaps the best part of this setup is that you are not forced to sing the entire song. Forget how Bohemian Rhapsody goes? Realize that you do not have the vocal range of Christina Aguilera? Just fast forward to the next song on the list. The only downfall to this is that your friends can also “boo” you off of the song by fast forwarding to the next song. Apparently the guys did not appreciate Belinda’s and my rendition of Summer Lovin‘ from the musical Grease. Sigh.
What really ended up happening is that we all sang EVERY song, so in reality, you never had the performance anxiety of going on stage. An unfortunate effect of this is that all of our voices were completely hoarse at the end of the night, despite our best attempts to soothe them with sake (which – buyer beware, seemed extremely expensive).
All in all, it’s a fairly inexpensive evening out. The charge for the room was about $20/hour (as far as we could figure… it seemed like they made up the price in all their shadiness). All this means is that the more people you bring, the better and cheaper your karaoke experience will be!
This blog title has multiple meanings. At work, things are a bit “interesting” to say the least! Oak says I’m a NINJA… Exciting! Despite the mania, we went to our very first Carolina Hurricanes hockey game last week. Though they play only a few miles from home, we haven’t felt the urge to spend the money to go see a game (heck, after going for practically free in college it’s hard for me to actually pay to go to any sporting events). Anyway, one of Oak’s coworkers passed along some tickets, so we got to attend our very first ‘Canes game.
I forgot that I do actually enjoy watching hockey. We went a lot at school because there wasn’t much else better to do, plus I enjoyed eating the chipwiches (two chocolate chip cookies with ice cream sandwiched in the middle! delicious!). There’s always a lot of action, and the plus to the NHL games is that they actually allow some fighting. Of course everyone stands up and gets worked up when that happens! I was surprised to see some things that I thought were unique to college hockey – the group chants (“you suck!”), the big ugly-sounding horn when there are goals, the screaming of the word “RED” during the star-spangled banner (perhaps just an effect of both teams having red as their color), and the ridiculous happenings in between periods. All a good time. It made me slightly RPI-nostalgic. Except there were no chipwiches. Sigh! Maybe we’ll find them next time.
Now that I’ve told you what not to wear, in a true Clinton and Stacy fashion, I am going to tell you what you should wear in India.
- Sneakers. In particular, a comfortable, but not brand new pair. They are likely to get covered in India Funk.
- A pair of sandals or flip flops that can be easily rinsed. I had my crocs cleo sandals, and Oak wore some Teva-style sandals almost constantly throughout the trip. Ones that slip off easily are good for places that make you take your shoes off, like caves and temples.
- Spants. I know they’re not highly fashionable, but they’re usually made of a breathable and quick-drying fabric. Breathable handy because as a woman, you’ll most likely have them in pant form most of the time, and quick-drying because laundry is done manually and by hand. (Either by you in the hotel sink or by the hotel, where they’ll beat it against a rock and hang it up in the sun to dry). In the rare occasion where shorts feel OK, you can easily convert yourself.
- As I said before, t-shirts that aren’t too form fitting. Combined with the spants, what a fashionable ensemble.
- My Indian clothing tips: There are two things of Indian clothes that I consider practical for western women:
- The first is a kurti, which is a blouse that you can wear with your spants or jeans. They come in a bunch of different styles, fabrics, and colors and can easily be adapted to wear at home.
- The second is a salwar kameez. A salwar kameez (in India, at least) is a combination of very wide drawstring pants, a knee-length shirt, and a scarf. I first read about these on the India Mike forums as something very practical to buy on the trip. I both agree and disagree with this statement, depending on what you’re doing. First of all, a salwar feels like wearing pajamas. (a definite plus). However, the scarf is a required element of the outfit, and I found it to be quite bothersome, even when just walking around. Unless you want to be a fashion faux pas, you have to wear sandals with your salwar. Only old ladies wear sneakers with their salwar. So, for hikes and things like that, I was much more comfortable in western clothes. The salwars did come in handy for overnight train trips, and I imagine they’d be good to wear in a city or when you’re moving around at a fairly slow pace. Just my thoughts. Indian women wear salwars everywhere, but then again, they also wear extremely uncomfortable looking sandals on 3 mile hikes. Go figure.
- Bring lots of underwear. At least two weeks worth, so you never run out of clean ones! Same with socks if you plan on wearing sneakers. I wore sneakers a lot because I hated my feet feeling so dirty from wearing sandals.
- Makeup in India should be pretty minimal. Because it was so hot, it got sweat off a lot and I stopped bothering with it for the most part. One thing I found very handy was a tube of Burt’s bees lip balm in my pocket. It was dry season, and added to the heat, it’s important to keep your lips moisturized. (and feel at least a tad presentable) In addition, a tube of sunblock is a must. Bring it from home because I didn’t see it many places while we were there. Indian people don’t use sunblock. Also, ditch the pedicure in the states. See my other comments about dirty feet for obvious reasons. Bring along some nail clippers and a file, and leave the rest at home.
- An easy to carry tote bag became a must, to stylishly yet subtley carry “Lonely Planet” around, I ended up buying what we called “the hippy bag” – one of those big bottomless pit style purses. It came in handy.
- Though this isn’t really something you WEAR, per se, a bottle of hand sanitizer is essential. Most of the bathrooms didn’t have soap at the sinks. Plus, I used my pomegranate scented one that smelled yummy.
So, that’s what to wear in India. Make sure these rules are only followed outside of the country, because if they are tried here it’s quite possible that Clinton and Stacy will be hunting you down for some public humiliation!
As a woman traveler in India, what to wear is an issue. You won’t get kicked out of the country for inappropriate dress but you’ll certainly feel out of place. Luckily I did read about some of this stuff ahead of time, but I did find a few things I packed ended up being basically useless. Here’s a rundown of what NOT to wear in India:
- Anything that shows legs – including shorts, capri pants, and skirts or dresses that are anything less than floor length. Indian women keep their legs covered at all times, despite the fact that it’s over 90 degrees every day. No, you will not get a leg tan in India. The only places I saw other women wearing or felt comfortable shorts were on strenuous hikes (basically to avoid overheating), and at the beaches in Varkala and Kovalam. Guys can wear shorts, but it’s a noteably “western” clothing item.
- Anything too revealing on top. That includes tank tops with skimpy straps, anything with a v-neck, or anything too fitted.
- Jeans. Actually, it’s quite common to see jeans on Indian women (especially in the cities), but it’s more of a practicality issue. If you need to wash them, they take forever to dry (washing machines/dryers are extremely uncommon in India). If you do bring a pair, save them to go out at night, but not during the day.
- Don’t bother trying to wear a sari. I didn’t see any Western women attempting to wear them, and I can’t imagine they would be very easy to get used to while travelling. (See my next post of what TO wear for a viable Indian clothing option).
- Any sandals you can’t easily rinse off. The stupidest thing I brought were these cloth white sandals. I think I wore them twice in three weeks. Even in cities and populated areas, your feet and shoes will get very dirty and need to be rinsed off /washed at the end of the day. It was a standing joke that our feet were covered with the “India funk.” Oak’s feet were always the worst.. ewww! haha (sorry hon!).
- A raincoat. We were in India in the “dry” season, and the one time it did rain, we weren’t expecting it so we didn’t have our raincoats with us. Sigh!
More soon! Life has been a little crazy lately, but I’ve got a list of more India posts in my brain that I’m hoping to get to eventually!
While we were in India, we saw our share of poorly translated English. The bad grammar, the misspellings… but, we could usually get the gist of what was meant by it. Well, in one restaurant, we were trying to be adventurous, when we came across this item on the snack menu:
“Green Peace”
Well, holy moly! What could that be? Some kind of hippy-worthy concoction? Every green vegetable combined into one delicious dish? We were in Aurangabad, not exactly the most touristy city, when we came across this mysterious menu item. Because of the untouristyness of this locale, of course, the waiter relied mostly on our ability to point at the menu items. So, of course, we tried to ask “What is green peace” only to get a response something like “green peace….”
Well, weren’t we surprised when a plate of fried GREEN PEAS came to our table. And they were delicious! They were battered, deep fried, crispy and delicious! We considered letting management know about their translation issue but instead decided to leave it and give other travelers this lovely anecdote!
Here are a few pictures of pages I’ve completed lately… Belinda and I went to another ScrapMania last weekend, and I did 3 or 4 more pages there that I haven’t taken pictures of yet. This weekend Oak and I completed an exciting craft room makeover that I will also post some pictures of soon… as soon as I finish getting it all organized, that is. Woohoo!
Last night I finally used the paper kit we got from the ScrapMania in December (pieces from BasicGrey’s Figgy Pudding collection – oh so exclusive, believe me. Yes, paper crafting also has “designer lines”). I started pretty much following the template they gave us – it’s nice because there will be a lot of paper left over, and you get a decent looking page to start off with! I’m trying to get more into embellishing this one, since I don’t have to think as much about design related factors.. Results soon.
In India, we ate almost as many Thalis as we did idlis!
Thalis are a lunch that is always served on a metal platter, with several types of sauces, curries, curds, and so on in small metal bowls around the circumference of the platter. You usually get a piece of pappadum (a crispy chip, similar to a tortilla chip) and a big ‘ol pile of rice in the middle of it all. We also usually ordered some chappati (flat bread) to go with it.
The contents of these bowls vary both between restaurants and between regions, so there’s never knowing what exactly will be in your thali. In most of the restaurants we went to, there’s only one option for Thali, which makes ordering easy when the waiter doesn’t speak English (You only need 3 words: Thali, chappati, mineral water – they all get those ones!). One place we went had different thalis from different regions (Punjab thali, Rajasthan thali). We tried to ask what the difference was, but didn’t get an answer, just a confused look like, “Duh, you should know the difference!” Oh well. We didn’t find a remarkable difference, so we’ll never know.
So, how do you eat this thing? Well, the methods vary as much as the ingredients. Most of the locals would just take a few of the sauces, dump it on the rice, and dig in with their right hand. Then again, they knew what they were in for. What the three of us did was that we would normally take a spoonful of rice or pick some rice up with the pappadum or chapatti, and dunk it in one of the containers. I’m sure this is wrong but we didn’t get kicked out of the country at least, or politely told that we were eating it incorrectly… (In the farmer’s market in Bombay, which I will have to write about, I got reprimanded for drinking water after eating a piece of guava. It’s believed that this will give you a cold!)
Anyway, if you actually do finish the mountain of rice or one of the containers of goodness, the thali is almost always all you can eat, so if you ask, they will bring you more of whatever you’re missing. All of this for a fine price between 40-70 rupees ($1-2!). You can’t even make a lunch for that much here!
This particular thali was at a cute little place outside of the cliffside beach in Varkala. This was actually a fancier thali because it had the lovely banana leaf presentation on the tray – tres chic!
When we were in Ooty, we took a hike of the countryside and happened across a small village along the way. The kids there kept bugging us to take their pictures and show them the picture as it came up on the digital camera screen. While the more urban areas of India are pretty high tech, you can definitely tell that rural communities are behind technology-wise. (Even though having a cell phone is pretty common, even for rural people, because it’s so cheap to own a cell phone there.) For awhile, we did go along and take photos of the kids. It’s kind of funny how some of them look so serious in the pictures but were so happy and smiling like 5 seconds before! Are they trying to show some funky attitude? I have no idea. Of course after we took the photos we got the normal set of questions by any Indian child:
- What is your name?
- Where are you from?
- Do you have a pen?
- Do you have any candy?
- Do you have any chocolate?
- Do you have a coin?
Obviously we got tired of answering these questions (NO! We do NOT have a US coin! Oy!), but it just went to prove that in general Indian people are a lot more inquisitive and outgoing than their US counterparts. Then again, I’m sure that kids in the US would be like this if we didn’t drill that whole “Don’t talk to strangers” thing into them at an early age. I’m pretty sure that us walking through their village was the most exciting thing that happened to them all day.
I have the address of one of these little girls (I forget which one) – I guess I will order an extra set of these photos to send to her!
I’ve been wading through the world wide web (haha.. does anyone actually call it that anymore?) searching for the most useful blogs and sites on scrapbooking. I’m still working on narrowing this list down to what I want to regularly read, but here are two keepers:
ScrapHappy – Laine is one of those scrapbook industry folks, but I enjoy her blog because she posts her real layouts (as opposed to those that are magazine-worthy and take 6 hours to make) and doesn’t take herself too seriously. 
She also has a podcast that’s fun to listen to.
Craft critique – The world of scrapbooking tools can be both intimidating and confusing. Craft critique regularly reviews these tools and explains exactly what you do with them. (No more wondering if the crop-a-dile is a castration device, or if fastenator is meant for good or evil). It’s not all scrapbooking stuff, but it’s fun to read the reviews either way.
See the scrapbooking tag on my del.ici.ous links for all the links I’m collecting.. some are just links to certain ideas instead of an entire site/blog. Good stuff! Now if I can only remember some of this stuff when I’m actually “cropping”..
In Thekkady, we were in desperate pursuit of elephants. As soon as we arrived, though, our driver recommended that we go take an elephant ride. I was quite surprised that Oak, Nirav, and I could fit on ONE elephant…. who Oak immediately gave the nickname “Stampy.” We learned that elephants make only two footprints because their back legs hit the exact same spots as their front legs. Tricky, no? After our ride we got to meet a baby elephant, who took a special liking to Oak and Nirav. Aaah, elephant love.
As fun as this experience was, we were ready to see elephants in their native habitat. The next day, we visited Periyar National Park. We arranged a “jeep safari and jungle trekking adventure.” The jeep picked us up at our hotel at 5 AM (seriously too early for me). We got in the jeep and began the hour long journey to the park entrance. It was freezing, even though we were quite bundled up. Luckily at the halfway point we stopped for some tea. About 3/4 of the way through the journey we entered the jungle portion, where we saw some sambar (indian deer) and a few birds from a distance. No elephants.
When we arrived at the pavilion, we ate breakfast (oh! More idli. The guy that was running the food show was hilarious.. he stood in front of the buffet saying over and over: “This idli, like indian rice cake. You try. If you like, you take more.” Seriously he said it like 60 times. He started saying it to us and saw Oak taking like 6 idlis… I said.. “I think he already knows he likes them.”). Then, off for the jungle trek. Our little guide guy tried so hard to find us some elephants, but all we found were lots of elephant poo piles. Oak even found one that had a mushroom growing out of it! How delicious. On the trek, a British family informed us that we had to go on the boat ride to see all the animals. Little did we know.
On our jeep ride home, though, we did see monkeys! They were pretty cute, but they were WAAY up in the trees, obviously hiding from us. I did get a good glimpse of one that had a black body with a white face.
That night we went on another hike in the dark. Supposedly, we were supposed to see the “animals eyes glowing.” However, the only thing we found was a disgusting spider and a white bird that we woke up by shining our flashlights on him. Poor thing. So, we turned in early with hopes that the boat ride the next morning would be our key to elephant-ness.
The next morning – another freezing venture, this time out on Periyar Lake. It is quite a pretty ride. We saw some more sambar and lots of birds, but apparently elephants are not morning creatures. I don’t blame them!
So, Stampy, you were the only elephant we saw in India. That’s OK though because you were very cute and I enjoyed how your ear was slapping me in the foot for our entire ride!
