U want a tuna?

Relaxing on a grey Saturday watching the seas from the balcony of Hotel Dhammika, Unawatuna.

Emelie and Alex relaxing under a tree in front of the Happy Banana.

Well, I would offer you a piece of my tuna, but it's overdone and dry like jerky. That's what the tuna I had this weekend on my skewer was like. Aside from that, I had a lovely weekend in Unawatuna (you-na-wa-tu-na). Another gorgeous Sri Lankan beach and with great company yet again. I was invited out by Alex and Emelie, a couple from Sweden to join them and what was going to be a few others. Those few others turned into eight so they broke off and did their own thing. Glad I brought a friend, Laura, along so I wasn't a third wheel!

The view from our guesthouse on Sunday morning!

Arrived on Saturday to rainy skies and great big grey clouds. We checked-in at the wonderful Hotel Dhammika (recommended by Alex and Emelie - 3rd time in Una I think?) and got a room without air conditioning for a reasonable 2500LKR (22CAD) that included a little mini fridge and a TV - not common at guesthouses. After sitting through the afternoon at the laid-back Bong Spice Chili Cafe (which was beside Happy Banana, who is neighbours with Lucky Tuna ... all restaurants), we retreated to our rooms to wait out the rain and enjoy the view from our balconies.  Cooler yet was an adventurous American/Australian couple (hi Jennie and Greg!) knocked on their door on Saturday afternoon and asked if Alex and Emelie wanted to have dinner with them and then of course Alex and Emelie invited us along. Good times! Dinner on the beach with a couple torches in the sand and under the stars. Awesome. Sunday was a much nicer day, but alas, it was time to head back to the city to get ready for the week.

What Unawatuna really is all about. Blue skies, blue waters and soft sandy beaches.

Got back late afternoon on Sunday and wasn't feeling great so I rolled into bed instead of going to yoga. Ended up feeling pretty sick and slept all night and basically until Tuesday morning (yeah, 36 hours-ish) only waking up occasionally to boil some water, take some Tylenol, and freshen up to feel better. I think it was another case of stomach flu/food poisoning. To make matters worse, the traffic authority had changed the traffic pattern in my area permanently as of Monday so I now live on one of the busiest roads in Colombo. As I was trying to recover, dozing in and out of sleep, I would occasionally get a really loud honk from those crazy bus drivers, along with a bunch of honk honks from tuk tuks, cars, and motorbikes, that interrupted my rest. I found some solace that I wasn't the only one who thinks this arrangement is crazy: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/110717/BusinessTimes/bt10.html. I'll have to try and do some before and after photos of the traffic difference for you guys later.

Unluckily through all this, red ants decided it would be nice to binge on my protein stash in my cupboard. They broke into my soybeans, cashews, crackers, noodles, rice, and oatmeal! Buggers! They ate through both plastic and foil packaging. GEEEZ.

Observe the holes in the foil packaging. They ruined my crackers. :( 

Those are all (dead) ants after I sprayed a dishwash detergent & water solution on them.  And that wasn't even the worst of it. I was too freaked out then to take a photo!

An eventful week!

This past week has been busy and in a good way! I met a lot of people doing a few new things so I'll just quickly recap!

Wednesday: I went for my first Hash House Harriettes of Colombo run (it's a mixed Hash). The Hash House Harriers/Harriettes is commonly known as "a drinking group with a running problem". A group of people come together at some location that is decided by some Hares (leaders) who lay a trail (and can include trick ones), do the trail walking or running, go through some club traditions at the end (recognition of milestones, drinking, and pranking), then eat and drink some more. One of the organizers arranged a ride for me there and then got a ride back which was awesome. I had a lot of fun walking and socializing and being a part of the debauchery that is Hashing! For those of you who are thinking "Denise drinking!?!?!" the answer is no beer for Denise. Just soda/pop and water.

Thursday: It was a Poya day so it was a day to just relax which was good! I really slept in after getting home a little late from the Hash the night before.

Friday: Was invited to happy hour at the Hilton Colombo by Emelie, a Swede that I met at last month's Internations.org event. It was fantastic. Happy hour here actually meant cheap booze and snacks (no, again I did not drink).  Met a bunch of people including one guy from the Isle of Man (where the Youth Commonwealth Games will be in less than two months!) who is interning with an NGO here. After that, I went to hang out on the rooftop patio of Julia, a girl who is training as a diplomat from the German Embassy here and met some of her friends.

Saturday: Slept in again and had a pretty chill day. Went to yoga as usual!

Sunday: There was an Ayurveda expo here in Colombo which I checked out in the morning before meeting with Michelle (cousin of a friend of a soccer teammate) for lunch. We had a great time over lunch and looking a bit around Odel. More Yoga, then a bit of cooking and cleaning! In talking to my yoga instructor, I'm thinking about taking a yoga & Ayurveda course if the scheduling works with my schedule!

Tonight: I had attended my 2nd Internations event. Internations meets monthly; it's an online forum essentially for "global minds" to meet. These gatherings brings out all sorts of people!

So this past week I feel like I'm finally having a bit of the routine I had back at home again. Going out for lunch, after work/weekend activities, and being a bit more active again. It feels good. :) Hoping to continue this routine in the weeks and months to come!

Mirissa

Click on the above photo to go to my Picasa photo album of Mirissa!

Last week I attended an Internations.org (a online network for "global minds") event in Colombo and met an awesome Canadian named Jaimie who is interning at the Asia Foundation here until August. She had been travelling every weekend since being in Sri Lanka with another intern who is from the US. Anyhow, the other intern had to work last weekend so she was planning on finding a beach and R&R time. I asked if I could join her so her, myself, and another intern Jaimie works with (Grace), went on a 3.5 hour bus journey to Mirissa after some advice from the coordinator of the local Internations group.

It's monsoon season here on the West Coast of Sri Lanka so it is also the low tourist season (May - November). That means, the waves are bigger at the beaches on this coast and smaller on the east coast. Then it's the opposite in December - April where I've been told the waters are super calm on the West Coast and the water gets really clear. Didn't matter to me. The low season meant the beaches of Mirissa were deserted and we got dirt cheap accommodations. We paid 1000LKR (about $9 CAD) per double room with a private bathroom when it usually would likely cost around 3000LKR in the high season.

Personally, when we had arrived in Mirissa I felt this feeling of euphoria. I had been deprived of nature since getting back from New Zealand and have been a bit frustrated that way. Living in Vancouver, nature was always only a short distance away and not having that convenience has been hard to adjust to. Spending the weekend in Mirissa was really energizing to me. I was in such a good mood at work on Monday; I felt amazing.

What was also refreshing were how nice and welcome the locals were. Whereas in the city boys tend to be really obnoxious (like today, walking home from the bus stop a boy steps right in front of me, bends down, looks and me and says "hello lady" like I'm stupid) these guys seemed like they've embraced the beach bum life, listening to Bob Marley and are just chill. They weren't looking at us like objects, but were genuinely interested in showing us their way of life and learning a bit about ours. I'm sure it helps that it's the low season and they've got a bit more spare time to just hang out and not have to work. You'll see in my photos of them showing us a blowfish with their smiles that they are a really happy and laid-back bunch!

I also think that it's a town that has mostly been untouched by major tourism. There are no major resorts in Mirissa ... mostly guesthouses. However, I don't think it will remain that way for long. Despite most locals being nice, there are signs that some are becoming more aggressive with tourists. We had one guy who really was trying to get us to follow him to some accommodations. He ended up following us to where we were staying and wanted to pretend that he showed us there and I think wanted some commission from the place we were staying at. In any case, I do plan on going back at some point to enjoy more peace and quiet on the beach where I can hear no honking or shouting. Just the waves.

Canada Day!

Well, I can't say this is my first Canada Day away from home, as in 2007 I was somewhere in Asia for Canada Day. But, this probably was more significant as I was celebrating here at my workplace as the lone Canadian. It was fun though; I had brought a a Canada flag with me for my travels this time around so I brought it into the office and hung it up in the front of my cubicle. Also, having met my first Canadian connection just a couple days before who talked about ordering a "Canada" cake where she is interning, inspired me to bake my own (well, I was going to order one, but I ran out of time!). So after keeping my colleagues guessing what Canada Day really means I finally revealed it was indeed Canada's birthday/independence day and we celebrated with the cake I baked! Here's a photo of some of us before we dug into the cake.

L to R: Dinushi, Chethana, Me, Hiruni, Gayathri

For those of you are wondering, this probably worked out better than ordering the cake since I could eat it! It's an egg-less and dairy-less chocolate cake with coconut flavoured icing. Texture was more dense, but it tasted just like cake mix cake - moist, sweet, and chocolate-y. Go to allrecipes.com for the recipe to Eggless Chocolate Cake II and food.com for Regular White Icing. For the icing I used margarine to make it a bit creamier and coconut milk powder to make it whiter. Then the red I just used a bit of red food colouring!

I'll post about my weekend trip to Mirissa later this week. :) Happy Belated Canada Day!

McRice?

After work one day last week, the girls in the office decided to head to McDonalds for some burgers and chips. It was good times ... 6 of us in a booth, 3 large extra value meals (so we could share the large pops and fries), 2 burgers and my selection.So while they had their burgers and chips, I went for the special offering as McDonalds does to cater to regional tastes. The McRice with Chicken.

The McRice and I.

The lovely ladies I work with! (L to R: Rasani, Hiruni, Gayathri, Dinushi, Shammi)

Basically, it was Uncle Ben's type rice (seasoned) with a McChicken patty on top, with a side of spicy sauce which I think is meant to imitate masala. I couldn't tell. But, it wasn't bad, especially for 240LKR (about $2.20 CAD).

Since consuming the McRice, the following week has been pretty crazy (no, the two are not correlated although I imply it is - a consequence for eating McDonalds?). Commonwealth Youth Games accreditation deadline is looming so this week has been filled with more selection stuff, training representatives from National Sports Federations to enter information on Zeus, plus completing my work plan for the year and this month's report! Anyways, that's all in as of 15 minutes ago and I'm off to Mirissa, a small beach town 4 hours south of Colombo (only about 140km though) for one night and two days with a Canadian (Jaimie) I met this week at an Internations (a networking site for "global minds") event and a Taiwanese girl who is interning with Jaimie at the Asia Foundation. Hooray for my first real adventure out of Colombo!

Alright. Off to bed now as I'll be up in about 7 hours until departure. I promise photos ... but how quickly I'll get them up is another story. Sorry for being so lazy on posting photos, especially on Facebook!