Le fotografie: a fairly pointless blog about my spectacular day.

I had a day off today. Like an actual sleep-in and do whatever I like kind of day off. No work, no uni, no obligations. It was incredible! I don't think this has happened since my last shoulder reconstruction in November 2011, and that was only because I couldn't get out of bed for more than 10 minutes without needing a nap.

I took my time eating breakfast. I went to the gym (to fend off dislocato girl and make sure there are no more pesky surgeries). I did some Italian study and had a bit of a snooze. I played Mario Bros on the wii! Can you believe it? I had time to play Mario!! I'm still a little in shock.

I baked anzac biscuits with my dear older brother, Rohan, and then I caught up with Nageena to chill out, drink coffee and - the best part - steal my little brother's longboard and skate around the park near my house. I'm so chilled out right now it's ridiculous.

Hope you all had (or have) an absolutely lovely day :) Rhi xx

If you like, I might be able to talk Rohan into guest posting his anzac recipe?
They're pretty tasty!!

Climbing up arbours.
Life is better when you're somewhere off the ground.

The only way to wear vans - minus the laces :D

How have your days been? Regale me with your stories! Good? Bad? Meh? I want to know!

Also, if you're a regular reader who hasn't done so already, please follow the blog!! Just keep scrolling and you'll find a "Join this site" button. Click it and follow the links!! Thanks all you rad people :)

Feeling relaxed and mellow :)

Now that all my major essays are (almost) done and dusted, I feel so relaxed and mellow! I'm still a little stressed - in the back of my mind I'm thinking about my exchange application that is due in two weeks, the impossible politics quiz due next week, and the upcoming week of doom for Italian (when they've set us about a thousand tests in one week), but it doesn't seem to matter right now because my essays are done! Finito! Finally! :P

And all I want to do, is laze around. I want to get excited about the units I'm planning to study in Milan next year. I want to read the latest Frankie magazine, and my brand spanking new copy of A Tale of Two Cities, that have been sitting on my bedside table for the past 6 weeks begging to be read. I want to go to Fremantle with my brothers or my friends, eat crepes at Fidel's Cafe for breakfast, get coffee from Tim (the brilliant barista from Black Cherries espresso) and then traipse around the markets, buying fruit and buckwheat flour to make banana bread. I want to test out some new recipes, keep teaching myself how to sew, and watch a movie. And I really would like to catch up on all the blogs that I've recently discovered, but have been too busy to keep up with.

Piccolo Lattes.
Tim's Handiwork & Nageena's photography.

Now that I've finally started exploring the blogosphere - 50 blog entries and a year after I started this thing - I'm really excited to make some new friends. There's so many fantastic pages out there, with fantastic tales of travel and fashion, of cooking and of life just in general. There's beautiful photos, recipes and links to hilarious and inspiring things. I've never been that excited about the internet - I like paperback books and handwritten letters. I like catching up with friends in person, and meeting people for the first time in real life, without the awkward 'I have seen your face in my facebook feed. It appears there almost every day and so I know an awful lot about you'.

But blogging seems so different! It's a way of getting to know people from all over the world, who have actually put themselves out there to be found - who want to share the things that they are interested in. And I'm so excited about it!

First though, I should probably do that quiz. And the exchange application... But I can't promise I won't be sneaking in a few glances at all of your rad blogs while I'm at it :P

Over and out.
Rhi xx

Reasons I shouldn't let my friends use my phone :P

Taking hipster photos of uni at night.

PS. Scuse the iphone-edited, hipster photos. I have a bit of a thing at the moment for grainy photos and so I get a little overexcited using camera+ :P

The India Project: Days 5 & 6

We're getting to the part of India where I couldn't find time to write anything but small notes, and honestly it seems like so long ago and the memories are a bit of a blur already (how I wish I could go back!) So, I shall endeavour to write about my adventures as fully as I can, (all while pretending I'm writing them while I was there) because I really would like to share them with you, but instead it might be that as well as these posts, every now and then, a random blog will appear with a story that I forgot to tell you all :)


By far the most two exciting things that have happened over these two days are visiting an orphanage, owned and run by my Uncle's friend, Mohan, and going to a tea factory. In the tea factory, I was lucky enough to have another of my Uncle's friends, Luke (whose family I am hoping to go back and stay with :D) telling me how the process worked instead of attempting to read the small signs without my glasses. It was also great because it helped me to gain an insight into more of the culture of India.

The Tea Process
1. Use humidifiers to dry out the leaves.

2. Transfer leaves to boxes,
so tourists can take hipster photos :P

3. Pour down a chute to the next floor.

4. Something, cut and roll the leaves.
I can't remember the first part.

5. Dry the leaves.
I think the long tube machine had a cool name, like 'googy'
but I could be wrong...

6. Pour the dried, rolled tea leaves down the next chute,
so they can go to the final floor.

7 (not really). Cram many people into the room.

7 (yes really). Sort leaves into their types.
Finito!

I asked Luke if he'd been to the tea factory many times, which was apparently a bit of stupid question. He told me that he and his wife and two sons go there quite often, about once a week, just to have a cup of tea together. I'd honestly never thought until then about the apparently worldwide significance of something as simple as sharing a drink together, whether it be with family, friends or someone who you're just getting acquainted with. In a bizarre way, it was kind of comforting to know that this isn't just something that is confined to my own culture. It made me feel even more at home in Ooty, and makes me all the more excited to return.

The orphanage was fantastic. It was saddening, but it was brilliant. In the past few posts I think I've mentioned the need in India, and while there is still definitely that need, there is also so much good going on! All these people see the poverty and the injustice and they set out to do something about it, completely selflessly. Mohan and the Mizpah home is a great example.

Mohan was orphaned as a young boy, and was lucky enough to be taken in by a good orphanage. He said that it was this experience, and knowing how lucky he was, that made him want to open his own orphanage if he ever got the chance - to give to the society. There are 29 kids at Mizpah homes, and two brothers, whose mother had abandoned them in the woods, temporarily there while he found a new place for them so they wouldn't have to be separated. The work that he is doing for them, on a wage so small, is truly remarkable. Mohan and his wife, Jenny, ensure the children are educated, have good medical care, learn good English and most importantly, that they are loved.

Mohan, some of the kids from Mizpah homes, and Me.
It took a bit of convincing to get the littley with rad orange
pants to stand in front of me :P

And another one, just because I can :P

My visit to Mizpah homes was so inspiring - the fact that there is so much need is heartbreaking, the fact that it has revealed so much of the good in humans makes me want to scream and shout and dance in the streets. I feel the need to tell everyone about it! (I also feel the need to adopt a little girl, Adithya, who was 3-years old and had the most fantastic smile, but that's another story) :P

Adithya.
It was hard work to get her to stand far back enough from
the camera so that I could get more than just one of her eyes :D

And on that joyous note, I shall leave you all. For tonight, we are going out for dinner and tomorrow should be a wondrous day of shopping, and yet a terrible day because we will be leaving Ooty. Just thinking of it makes me want to go and hide somewhere so that I can stay and explore for longer!

With love from India,
Rhi xx

PS. Today I discovered that when it rains, it pours.

The India Project: Day 3

Where we spent our 2nd night.
Night train from Chennai to Mysore.

Today, we visited Mysore palace. The place is huge and when it was built, in the very early 1900s, it only cost 55,000 pounds which seems like so little now!! But as our tour guide told us, you couldn't even get one of the doors from the palace for that much today. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed inside, so I just have two of its front, which is a shame because the detail in every tiny little corner of the palace is just so incredible. Words can't even begin to describe! I suppose the lack of photos will mean you all just have to go and visit Mysore and India yourselves :P haha, if only!

All dressed up in my Indian garb :D

I started to feel at home in India today, and it all began on the climb up the mountain and the road's 36 hairpin bends...

There is an image etched into my mind of a woman standing on a cement block on the edge of the hairpin turns. Her clothes are billowing in the wind - a long green skirt and a bright long-sleeved shirt. She's one of the first people I've seen and I'm still wondering what possessed someone to build a town at the top of a 7500ft tall mountain. Her feet are bare as she stands surveying the world around her, she catches me watching. I smile and she returns the smile bashfully. It's strange to think that because I'm white a smile means so much.

As we go further up the mountain, it feels like going home. There were eucalypts and the smell of wood fired smoke. Horses, cows and dogs walk around as they please. Of course it isn't home though. In Australia, people would find the old, colorful houses - bright pink, blue, purple, green, yellow - to be garish and out of place, even though they're so beautiful here. The people at home don't roam around the streets like they do here. There's more than one road rule, and there wouldn't be the faint smell of incense. It doesn't matter though, this part of India is the most beautiful I've seen yet. I just wish I could jump out of our car and explore, take photos of the architecture, the winding roads, the plantations, and most importantly, the people.

Mountainside

Hebron School
Apparently that's white washed.

Paradise.

The India Project: Days 1 & 2

Well I'm back, and I didn't post any blogs while I was in India which is terrible! Unfortunately though, internet is quite rare and my attempts to set up roaming failed miserably so there you go. To make up for it though, I do have a few posts ready to go that I wrote while I was over there so I'll be posting them over the next few days along with a few photos :) Hope you're all well!


April 12, 2012

It's unbelievably hot down on the plains. I get in the shower, eager to cool off. Feel better, and then the moment I step out of the bathroom I feel sticky again, but that's ok.

I'm not quite sure what I've gotten myself into. India is home to a very patriarchal society. There's separate security checks for men and women, and while it's safe for my cousins to go out and roam around, I always need somebody with me. I understand why, it just feels very strange to me.

There's people and lights and cars everywhere! Power lines are just one big mass of wires and cables, there's only one road rule that anyone cares about and I am, apparently, a rare commodity to be openly stared at. Everyone told me that this is how it would be, but it's not something you understand until it's been experienced. I've had men shoving cameras in my face and others just gaping at me as they walk past. It's a little confronting to say the least.

Just your average power lines.

By the same token, there have been parts that have just been absolutely incredible.

We went to see silk weaving yesterday, which was done in a cottage industries style. Basically, men work in rooms with these old looms, they also live there with their families with bathrooms and kitchens close by. My uncle reminded me that as Westerners, we would usually be calling these sweat shops, but actually, it's standard living in India. It's a good stable job, the provision of food, and a house for these men and their families to live in which is really something.

The silk loom

It's encouraged me a lot in what I went to India this time to achieve, although I'm still in a bit of culture shock I think. I'm also tired. Would be so nice to get a decent sleep...

The cottage industries also showed me how much Indians value education which is great to know. One of the men higher up in the business was showing us the looms, when he suddenly got very excited and took us to meet a young girl, the daughter of the man in the photos with the loom, who'd done extremely well in her exams (488/500) and had also won a talent contest. It was great to know she had that support around her :)

Then we went to Kings and Queens School, a boarding school where most of the kids are from really poor families. It was fun talking to the kids, and seeing their faces light up when I went to take a photo. At one stage, all these boys just poured out of their dorm when they realised I was getting my camera out.

Kings and Queens School
These are the boys that rushed out of the dorm :D

And then there's the joy of the Indian Premier League (i.e. the cricket) which is just a whole new thing in itself. The excitement and the noise and the cheering and the dancing is bizarre! It's utterly fantastic though :D I don't really know how to describe the experience except to say, if you get the chance, go. Even if you hate cricket it's an experience not to be missed, especially when there's guys dancing bollywood style in the seats in front of you (see the shoddy quality video for more) :P

Anyhow, I'm off to catch a casual midnight train that we'll be on for 8 hours or so.

Even though I only left a couple of days ago I am missing everyone at home ever so much. Looking forward to seeing you all again! Much love from India :) xx