2016, My Year of Bravery

2016 has been quite the year for me. I think I will call it my "Year of Bravery". I have been doing a lot of things that I would consider brave, but most of it has to do with leaving my previous job. It all started back in October, but didn't reach full momentum until December/ January. Being coupled with holiday time and a new year, a lot of things have changed for me. I not only knew that I was leaving a very (surface) good job, but also had to decide how I wanted to conduct myself as I left. I knew that I would be leaving for a while and tried to be the best employee that I could be throughout. I don't want to get too much more into that, but will say that I am proud of the work I did there. Maybe one day I will be able to write more about it publicly.

In January, I completed a month long yoga teacher training at Sonic Yoga in Hell's Kitchen NYC. I am going to write a separate post about my experience undergoing teacher training, but I will say here that it is something I have been aching to do for a long time.

I am so proud that I am making my dreams come true: I am so fortunate to live in NYC with the man of my dream in a dope apartment, teaching ice skating and yoga. I love coaching more than anything else I have ever done and am excited to add yoga to my repertoire. I still love writing, but I have developed a laziness for it. Like stretching, I am going to try to do a little bit every day. I can truthfully say that although I am not wealthy by any means, I am rich in happiness. I choose to live my life how I want every day.

So that is what I have been doing for February and March- living deliberately and happily. I coach when I can and eat what I like and live how I want. It is so freeing and so scary to be running my coaching/ teaching business as my main gig. I don't think I have ever been so continuously scared and excited about anything in my life. There is so much uncertainty and opportunity before me. I have gotten very creative in gaining new students and hope that I will never stop. I always thought of myself retiring to only teach skating, so in a lot of ways I feel retired- I am living the dream like an old lady. And there isn't a better feeling in the world!

The latest

What's been happening in my life?

Well first of all, I haven't written for a while.

              print("Hello, internet!")

I think I am being funny because I am trying to brush off the little bit of coding I know. In fact, lately, I have been thinking a lot about learning- about the body, exercise, teaching, marketing, and other stuff from casual internet searches to taking various online courses.

3 months ago I moved in with Osho. Our apartment looks really nice and I am so happy we live together now. He sometimes works long hours, but we often cook together. Basically, I love living with my best friend.

This weekend is our 2 year anniversary and I couldn't be more excited. We have a lot of nice meals planned and some dancing :)

Last weekend, I went to AC with Shelly, Michelle, and Shelly. Had never been before and it was interesting. We hit the beach, casino, outlets, and clubs.

The weekend before, I stayed in a Castle in Elmira, NY with Osho and his family. We did a bit of hiking and a ton of driving.

In August, I am going home to CT with Osho to visit relatives who are in town because Josh, Lilian, and Mooney will be in town from Israel.

I am going to be coaching throughout the summer and am holding this job strong for now.

I think I need to take up a new challenge, so I am writing out some new immediate goals:

• Continue to write on my blog
• Meditate
• Continue to go to the gym regularly
• Challenge myself to continue to learn/ read more books, educational articles
• Figure out my life
• Eventually get a puppy (my building is holding me back)

Thailand: Bangkok

Our last day in Chiang Mai, we headed over to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, which is the biggest temple there. It was amazingly huge and gorgeous. We went up the huge stairs onto the mountain and looked down onto the city. It was so gorgeous and hard to describe, so here is a picture:

After, we headed to a local park and hung out by the waterfalls. Before leaving, we got some food at our hotel and headed over the Bangkok.

Our host, Suparp, picked us up from the airport and took us to the apartment. He was a very nice, older Thai man who told us he went to university in Germany and was retired. He lived in a house nearby the 2 units he owned in the building, which helped fund his beer habit. He was very informative about the neighborhood and Thai life. It was nice because he showed us around the area where we were staying. No one really spoke English (or at least, not as much as we were used to), so it was nice to have a friendly Thai person showing us around. Suparp was Isaan, which is an area of Thailand with our favorite kind of food- larb and papaya salad (som tum). We love Som Tum Der in NYC (which also apparently has a location in Bangkok), so were pumped to try it in Thailand. It was a bit hard to find Isaan Thai food that was on par with what we had in NYC until Suparp guided us. We we shown around the local neighborhood and I literally felt like Anthony Bourdain, being shown around by a local where no tourist had gone before. Suparp and everyone making our food was shocked by our love for spiciness despite our 'Westerness'. We ate just what we wanted- chicken larb and blue crab papaya salad with 4 chili peppers each (you have to specify number of peppers rather than how generally spicy). That night was one of our favorites in Bangkok because we got to see the Thailand we were craving seeing. That really made up for not being in a main area.

Besides, we also found that Bangkok was really spread out (everything seemed to be a 30 minute cab drive away) and it was much more expensive than Phuket and Chiang Mai. Some things were shockingly expensive- not just for Thailand, but even compared to America. The city was truly huge. It was harder getting around in Bangkok because we didn't know where we were going and fewer people spoke English. We figured it had to do with the fact that in comparison, Chiang Mai and Phuket were cities with the majority of revenue coming from tourism (hence a need to speak English). On the other hand, Bangkok is a major city less reliant on tourism (need to speak English) for revenue and more spread out, so English is less prevalent. People did speak English in Bangkok, but much less often and not as well as we were getting accustomed to. We also noticed that outside of the neighborhood, we were often denied service- whether it was goods, food, or cabs. These were not one off occasions, but happened frequently. I found that pretty ridiculous and insulting. Osho was less offended. I would say for these general reasons, I liked Bangkok less than Chiang Mai and Phuket. However, things got better despite our constant frustrations in Bangkok.

After our awesome neighborhood adventure, we spent the day exploring the city. First, we headed to Chinatown and did not love it. Even getting there was unpleasant. It was hard to figure out the buses and the ride took over 1.5 hours in traffic- not what I was expecting early in morning heat as I felt myself starving. It was kind of like Chinatowns everywhere, but with more shark (food). We got fruit and snacks on the street. Then, we headed to MBK by Siam Square. It was a crappy mall of markets with low quality goods in a multiple football stadium length, 8 floor building. I was unimpressed with Bangkok at that point, only to soon realize the first 2 suggestions were bad for what we wanted to do. We walked through Siam Square (technically MBK is connected), which actually connected a ginormous collection of shopping malls, including Siam Square 1, Siam Paragon, Siam Center, Little Siam, Siam Square, Central Plaza, and about 6 more malls I can't remember. Little Siam was a little market with small stalls like the Chinatown. The sheer size of the malls were incredible. The other malls had more stores we were used to. Siam Center had boutique stores with local designers, Siam Center had mid-range stores like Gap, and Siam Paragon had luxury stores like Chanel (but also Maseradi and Patek Phillipe). Basically, each mall was the same giant size as MBK, but much better and all connected to another. The malls had movie theaters, convention centers, hotels, aquariums, and museums inside. It was pretty unbelievable how large it was. I keep writing about the magnitude of shopping, but you really had to be there. You could literally fly into Thailand, take the train to the malls, buy a suitcase, stay in the luxury mall hotels, and shop and eat all day.You can even buy luxury apartments from inside the mall. It was pretty crazy. This is something people do- shopping holidays to Bangkok where they literally just come in for a day or two to shop. That in itself blew my mind. We didn't really buy anything other than food, but did walk over 9 miles within the malls according to the pedometer on my phone because the malls were that big. From the malls, we headed over to Banyan Tree hotel, which is the tallest building in Bangkok. We headed up to the sky roof for drinks, but were unimpressed and didn't buy anything. We were recommended to go on the hotel's river cruise, which we did. However, we were also unimpressed by that. The price was too much for subpar food, so they discounted the meal. They were trying to charge us $200 for bad wine and the ilk in terms of pricing in a place that you can get massages for $6. It was clearly a rip off, but the service and cruise itself were nice because we got to see the city from a boat (p.s. we bought our own wine from the mall the river boat left from, another mall). The cruise was another semi-disappointment.

The next day, we headed to Chatachuk Weekend Market, which is the largest market in the world. I know, more shopping where we don't really buy anything. I am very happy we did most of our shopping in Chiang Mai because the prices were WAY better. Nevertheless, Chatachuk Weekend Market was just as insane as the malls. It was so big that there were maps color coding categories on things you can buy. We saw that it was true you can literally buy anything there. The first section (and my favorite section) that we stopped in was 'Creatures', where there were everything from small pigs to pygmy monkies for sale. We even saw meerkats and sugar gliders. There were many puppies and kitties. I also happened to see the biggest dogs I have ever seen- Tibetian Mastiffs, which were literally the size of horses. It was unbelievable. The market also had a ton of food and was oppressively hot, so we sweat and drank coconut water (nom). I did buy a few shirts at the market. Later, we left the market to go to Khao San Road, which is a dive-y bar, backpacker area. Everyone kept telling us to go, but we drank a few beers, ate some food, and were over it. It was kind of like the crappy part of the street I live on, so I could have skipped this part looking back. We felt bored, so asked around for recommendations of what to do/ where to go for clubs. We headed for Sukhamvit Soi KaBoi (cowboy), but our cab driver took us to the wrong area (we didn't know until someone told us we were in a different area). There were lots of people, but then we headed over to Soi Nana per another recommendation and wound up in Bangkok's version of Little Arabia. It was wicked cool. We got tea and flan at an Egyptian restaurant with giant screen tv's. There were also clubs in the area, but by that point, we were pretty tired and headed back to the Airbnb apartment. We had a weird last night in Bangkok/ Thailand.

The following day, we packed up our stuff for the plane home and got one last meal in the neighborhood of larb and papaya salad, with the addition of salted egg, sticky rice, and grilled catfish. It was our favorite meal in Thailand and even ordered a second larb. For 4 entrees, 2 appetizers, and one large beer with tip, the total price came out to less than $9 USD. Everything in the neighborhood was cheaper. We didn't have enough time to head to the floating markets or the beach at Pattaya (and cab drivers didn't understand Snake Farm), so we decided to head back into the shopping district of Siam Paragon to see a movie. I know you are thinking, why would they go to the movies on their epic vacation? The answer is because the movie theater was one of the best in all of Asia. We had a few options of ways to watch the movie of our choice and we opted for watching Penguins of Madagascar in 4D. I literally just looked up 4D movies and it seems like there are very few large theaters that show full length 4D movies (http://www.mediamation.com/projects_x4d.html). Watching the movie literally was like being at an amusement park like Disney World. It was quite the experience and 100% worth it. The chair moved when the characters moved in the movie, water and wind spit at me, and even things smelled like they should have in the movie. I felt like I was inside the movie itself. Osho also loved both the movie and the 4D experience (includes 3D movement and had Thai subtitles in English). We walked around the mall a bit more before heading back to the apartment and then the airport.

Penguin salute from the movie 🐧

We did Bangkok to Tokyo to New York on the way back and watched a lot of movies, including One Hundred Foot Journey, This is Where I Leave You, You've Got Mail, and part of The Hangover Part 2 (because it was set in Bangkok). One Hundred Foot Journey was Osho and my favorite because of the emphasis on food. The food on the airplane was pretty gross. We landed in NY one hour early and headed for my apartment. After showering and unpacking, we got lunch at Cafe Mogador across the street. I fell asleep for 5-6 hours thereafter and then started answering emails. I feel like I am tackling a lot now that I am back. Osho also has a lot on his plate with the new apartment and other person stuff, but more should be revealed by the end of the week. I had a great time and I am happy to be back. I would say if I had to recommend places in Thailand, go to Phuket for outdoors/ relaxation only, move to Chiang Mai for the chillness and cheapness, and only go to Bangkok if you want to shop and/or party hard. Bangkok was my least favorite and Chiang Mai was my favorite. The way there was long, but worth it. Taking the long vacation was much needed. Back to real life now.

p.s. Here are the scuba diving pictures: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8ag1ywpcmu3equ4/AABUmnhFLfE9ChaBjbeZS9MSa?dl=0 (woooo!)

Thailand: Chiangmai

We have been loving Chiangmai. It has all of the Thai culture and history we have been craving seeing. It is very chill here and the people are very nice. 

The first day here, we arrived in the afternoon from Phuket via Bangkok Airways, which apparently is the best regional airline in the world- who knew? At the airport, we were a little early, so we sat in their lounge. When we arrived, we were stunned by how gorgeous our hotel- Ruen Come In- was.

View from our hotel room balcony

We headed into the city by trying to walk to a mall to find a mythical bus. The bus didn't exist (theoretically), so we explored the mall a bit- it was huge with six floors and lots of interesting stores. We ended up taking a red taxi bus into the city center and found that there were many temples. We walked through Tai Pei Gate and stopped by a few temples, which we gorgeous. I enjoyed a fresh coconut. 

A lot of the temples had gardens and puppies that the monks tended.

We also met a few kind people at the temples who gave us great advice of where to explore, eat, and shop. Two people recommended one tailor in particular called Chiangmai Fashions. Another person we listened to was a monk, who was part of the local temples' program to talk with visitors about life as a monk and Buddhism. This was a really cool experience for several reasons: 1) other religions are not usually this open in their dialogue with outsiders, 2) it put so much more context to the place we were visiting and understanding of monk life, and 3) the monk really didn't push religion on anyone but instead recommended his philosophies (but also amended his comments to explain everyone had valid interpretations and that is ok) which were more about living a simple life and finding internal happiness vs. pushing religious fervor. Overall, it was a really positive experience. 

Also, the food, shopping, and tailor that were recommended to us were excellent. Over the next few days, we found great deal and cheap eats at the night bazaar. Osho also got a custom purple blazer and special burgundy blazer from the tailor, which look awesome. It's crazy how cheap things are here in Chiangmai. 

Our second day here, we went elephant trekking. It was probably Osho's favorite thing we did. We got to learn about how the reserve called Baan Chang saved the elephants from abuse and how they were being taken care of properly. We also got to meet, feed, pet, wash, and ride them. It was awesome. Our tour guide Jimmy really made the tour because it was clear he really loved the elephants and knew all 44 of their likes and dislikes. It was really cool to see how similar they were to humans. One elephant even loves to give kisses. 

Riding the elephants was much more unbalanced than I had anticipated, but I loved it. Didn't love the outfit we had to wear, but it makes sense to protect our clothes.

The next day, we did a cooking class with a company named Basil. It was great because they took us to a market, explained different ingredients, and made everything so simple. We made curries, noodles, salads, vegetable dishes, curry paste, coconut milk, and dessert. Osho and I tried to make different dishes in each category to try more foods. My favorite thing I made was the Tom Yum Shrimp soup. 

After the class, we chilled at the hotel for a little bit and watched the movie 'Rio', which was so funny. Probably going to Rio next on vacation ;). We spent the rest of the night eating and hitting up the tailor for final fittings.

We planned on spending the rest of the next day keeping everything chill before heading into Bangkok. 

Thailand: Day 3- Phang Na

We went on an organized trip to Phang Na (James Bond Island), which took us to a private pier and we speed boated around several islands. Our tour guide was totally useless in the sense that he knew nothing more than the names on the places we passed- and nothing else. We were jammed in pretty tight on that boat, but the view was very pretty.

We also stopped by a place called the ice cream caves, which had odd stalactites and bats. The bats were cool. Parts of the cave were cool and everything supposedly looked like ice cream (too dark for photos to come out). Then, we made it to touristy James Bond Island where 'The Man with the Golden Gun' was filmed. It was another little island/ rock and was way too touristy. 

Osho is being a goober

Next, we stopped by a Muslim village to get lunch. They literally had thousands of seats at the restaurant we went to- also very touristy. The food was room temp and ok at best because it clearly was made in mass quantities and had been sitting out. We weren't worried about food poisoning because it had been cooked and so many other people were eating it. The interesting part of the small village ( all houses mounted on a huge, elevated pier) was that the people thought they were protected by God because their village was the only place in the area to be unaffected by the hurricane of 2004. We also found out that Phuket has many natural pearls and the village people sold them for very cheap. Osho and I both bought real (the seller lit them on fire so we knew it was real and showed us the oyster shells) pearls for almost nothing. It was insane. The bats and pearls were the highlights at that point, but then everything got way better. It is safe to say that the first half of the day was disappointing and he second half is what we were expecting. 

The next stop was sea canoeing, which I wish we did the whole time we were out for the first half of the day. It was awesome! Everything was so peaceful and we just drifted through little caves, and came right up close to the rock of the island so we could see the little crabs, algae, and oysters that lived in the area. There were oysters everywhere we looked, which is also why we weren't skeptical about the pearls. Next, the speed boat took us to a private beach I don't know the name of (also wish we spent most of the day here). It was somewhere you see and can't really believe is real, something that must be fake in photos. The sand was soft and white, the water was clear and blue, with layers of a more saturated shade the further you looked, and mountains hiding in the background. Gorgeous. 

When we got back to Patong, we stopped by a food market and got crab. Then we lounged by the pool and researched a place to eat. We went to Home Delivery, which was epic. We got delicious chicken larb, pad Thai, Tom yum soup with shrimp, masaman curry, and iced green tea for about $24. This was the kind of meal I had been waiting for. We packed a little for our flight to Chiangmai and went to sleep.

Thailand: Day 2- Phi Phi Scuba

Our second real day of the trip, we went scuba diving with Super Divers at Phi Phi Island. We did 3 dives and it was a wonderful experience. On the drive up, we went through Patong, Karon, and Chalong. I got to see the Big Buddha from far and it still looked huge! When we got to the pier, we had to take an amusing pink bus down to the boat because the pier was so long. The boat had food and drove out about 2 hours from shore. Our instructor named Allen was awesome and walked us through the details of scuba diving, where we were going, and marine life. It was really impressive how much he knew and loved scuba. He really made the experience for us. Osho had never scuba diver before, but started loving it by dive 2. I can't spell the names of the places we dived, but we saw plenty of coral, anemone, catfish, clownfish, purple-green- rainbow fish, eels, starfish, split fish, and more. Allen took plenty of underwater photos, which he will send us later by email. 

We loved being on the boat!

By the end of the day, we were exhausted. We were out and back to the hotel roughly from 7:15-5:30. It was a long day. I made sure to book sea canoeing at Phang Na (James Bond Island) for the next day since we loved being on the water so much and didn't want to do the typical touristy things. We also walked around the area a bit new, got a very cheap dinner, and I bought some super cheap, designer eye shadow. I found out that a lot of factories are in Bangkok, so we should wait until we are there to buy more stuff for a better price. Regardless, I wanted to buy everything because prices are so good. We also walked on the beach at night. Overall, it was a great day :)

Thailand: Day 1!

Getting here has literally been a journey. We tried really hard to get the best flight over possible by price and time. I think we did a good job, but it was still exhausting. New York to Tokyo to Bangkok to Phuket. We watched 'how to train your dragon 2,' 'gone girl' (I read the book and it matches), half of 'whiplash' (fell asleep). Osho got really into a golf game on the plane. I also finished 'the Rosie effect', which was a good, light read. It was funny and sweet- perfect for the trip. The rest of the time we slept and ate. Japan airlines have us so much food and we got to try so many snacks and drinks like Japanese kiwi drank, plum wine, picked plum, seafood shaped fishy crackers, seaweed rice crackers, and a lot more. Trying the Japanese snacks was really fun, but we needed to eat some real food. Also, briefly having a layover in Tokyo was actually really cool. The stores had so many things I had never seen before- like hello kitty everything and various snacks. I wanted to buy everything, but refrained. It is better if I wait until we come back. That way, we won't be carrying extra weight all over Thailand. Even the Bangkok airport had so many goodies. We tried papaya salad and shrimp coconut soup with rice noodles at the airport and they were surprisingly awesome. Same with iced coffee and dried fish skin. We had the opportunity to pose various places because there were a lot of set ups for Valentine's Day. Overall, it was tiring, but we made it to Phuket.

Airplane food on Japan airlines. Could be worse

Airport food- salted egg papaya salad and shrimp coconut soup with rice noodle

We made it to Japan!

Cutest and most tired couple who might have slept at the airport during their layover?

Our hotel has a ridiculous free breakfast buffet. They have American and Thai food in various forms and a ton of fruit, including these tiny bananas, tiny Chinese clementine, and dragon fruit. 

When we finally arrived in Phuket, we took a mini bus service to our hotel. Is was cheap and very weird- in the sense that they stopped the journey half way through to take us to a tourism station to try to sell us packages for swimming. It felt a little weird, but when we got to our hotel, it was totally worth it. We are staying at the Bursari Phuket and the hotel is absolutely beautiful. It has two pools, a bacony view from our room, great service, and is right outside from Patong Beach. 

Yes, this bird lives at our hotel. 

We immediately booked an epic couples massage at the spa here to get over our jet lag. It was amazing and probably the best massage of my life. We also got a good deal. After eating and massaging, we walked a whole 30 seconds to the beach. We Layed out in the sun and in front of the many blue layers of water. The weather was perfect- warm, but not unbearable. We went swimming for a while, too. The water was nice and warm. Osho saw a baby shark in the water and there were a few little fish swimming around. 

Osho is actually a fish. 

After, we went for a walk around the area, which was mostly markets. There was so much to see. I ended up bargaining hard for a pair of cute fisherman's pants at 300 baht or $9 USD. Then, we got some food (the first meal we have paid for so far, shockingly since everything has been inclusive so far). We ended up getting Indian food, which was awesome. We got veggie samosas, this lamb thing, amazing garlic naan, and two entrees (veggies and lamb).

We returned to the hotel to sleep. Since I woke up in the middle of the night and am still not adjusted to this time zone, I am writing this blog post. In a few hours, I will be off to scuba. So excited!