30th Birthday Party

Here are some pictures from my 30th birthday party in Singapore! A great time was had by all! You can also check out my apartment in these photos...the house keeper took the one of me by the window before the party started...yep, that's my view! Isn't it amazing! I had some great friends help me put my party together and clean up after! I owe them many thanks! Check out the cake...made to look like a Dom Perignon bottle! How cool!

India

I never thought I'd live in a place where I could go to India for a long weekend...but here I am! Two girlfriends and I boarded a budget airline flight last weekend and headed o

ut to Chennai.

 Chennai is on the East coast of India, it was about a four hour flight. Upon our arrival we had a car pick us up and take us to Pondicherry, a former French colony about two or so hours south of Chennai. We had a wonderful weekend, the people were amazing, the food was delicious and the beer was cheap! Our trip included two nights in Pondicherry and one in Chennai. We roamed around and saw old temples from the fifth and sixth century, as well as more modern buildings and explored a bazaar in Chennai! We even saw the tomb of St. Thomas! The normal two plus hour drive to Chennai from Pondicherry took us about six on Saturday afternoon! We stopped in at every touristy type attraction between the two cities! One of my favorites was Auroville...this giant Epcot looking ball. (See photo of me looking like I'm at Disney) Apparently these people have decided to search for peace and unity in the universe, so they built this huge gold ball with the world's largest crystal in it where they go to meditate and find peace. As my friend Tara said, we came too far and we're too close to weird not to go see it. So we did...we even had to watch a video on it before we were allowed to walk the 1 kilometer (which in hot Indian sun felt more like a marathon) to view the ball from a distance. However, totally worth it...I've now really seen weird. The pictures here are some of my favorites from the weekend. We saw so many colorful and beautiful things! It was truly an amazing trip! I would love to go again before I leave Asia! The pictures are: streets in Pondicherry; the beach in Pondicherry; old confessional in Pondicherry; Ghandi (what trip to India would be complete without a pic of a statue of Ghandi); the bazaar in Chennai; a street vendor in Chennai; the Shore Temple and me with weird! Enjoy!