unforgettable... in toronto!

So Toronto was... amazing. The whole trip was fantastic, and the Bollywood show was the best thing I've ever seen in my life. We had a great week - Alex and Kim were awesome enough to let us stay with them again, and I spent most of the week just shopping (I love you H&M) and eating good food. Friday night was the show, we met up with Shikha and her friend Diljeet for dinner beforehand. Then we all went to the show... where I basically just screamed my face off for 3 hours because I couldn't contain myself.

Here are some before photos, in which we are all very excited.

We had a bit of a panic when we first got there, because our original seats in Row 2 ended up disappearing. They actually cut out our whole seating section, because it was too far to the side of the stage. But they moved us into 11th row in a section closer to the stage, so we ended up with a much better view. They did ALL the songs I ever wanted to hear, and the energy was incredible. It was a total nightmare for the Rogers Centre staff, as they couldn't control the crowds. People were rushing the stage, stealing other people's seats, physically moving their seats to different rows, etc. Shikha got into a fight with a little old man behind her, who was mad because everyone was standing up and he couldn't see. It was hilarious. The man was INSANE. He was hitting Shikha with his program booklet. And he tried to pull a chair out from under someone else who was pissing him off. Indian film fans are psychotic. (Myself included, haha.)

I posted photos from the concert here, for those who care:

http://s302.photobucket.com/albums/nn102/choohi/UNFORGETTABLE%20TOUR/

I also took a bunch of videos, which you can see here: (Edit: Apparently the nice people at Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt Ltd are mad at me for posting concert footage and infringing on their copyright. They have deleted all the videos and are threatening to close down my account. So there's nothing to see right now! But I'll see if I can get them back up again later.)

http://www.youtube.com/user/maliceandmannie

Other highlights of the week include dinner with Shikha and Gaurav (we meant to go see a Hindi film but ran out of time so opted for dinner/drinks instead), "special" milkshakes with Alex, and Canada's Wonderland! A bunch of us went there Sunday. It rained a bit which was good because that meant smaller lineups. We rode the Behemoth, which is Wonderland's new roller coaster, and apparently the highest and fastest one in Canada. It was sooooo much fun - best roller coaster I've ever been on! Photos below: Everyone looking like dorks before the Spongebob Squarepants 3D Adventure, and the 4 ladies who conquered the Behemoth, next to a photo of the beast itself. We're awesome.

It kind of sucks being back home again and going back to work. I've been doing all the opening shifts, which is cool because I finish around 2pm every day, but also horrible because I don't go to bed any earlier to compensate for the early start, and end up exhausted beyond all reason after a few days. Oh well. Money is needed for future travels. This used to be a travel blog. I need to get back to that.

island photos

I meant to post these a few weeks ago - just a few random photos from the trip to Prince Edward Island in June for the family reunion.

And here are a few pics from the night that Tiffany and I thought it would be a good idea to take the dog to the beach. He misbehaved and ate a lot of sand.

2 days till Toronto vacation!! And UNFORGETTABLE TOUR!! I am dying of excitement.

india vs. canada

I just found this gem on Youtube - the scene for the TV show I worked on when I was in Mumbai! You can't see me anywhere in it, so don't try. I was very tiny in a crowd scene, so tiny in fact that I can't even see myself. But you can see the soccer game, all of which was filmed when I was there. And you can see the cheerleaders dancing. You may remember I was fired from being a cheerleader, for the combined reason of me being too fat, and also being mouthy with the crew.

The scene is HILARIOUS though. India VS Canada in a soccer game. Don't ask me why the Canadians are wearing green and yellow, and have British accents. And why they are apparently assholes who try to injure other players on purpose. I have tears in my eyes from laughing at this. Indian TV is... special.



Random update: Toronto on July 17th! Yay. Went to Prince Edward Island last weekend and it was great, will post some photos once everyone e-mails them to me.

punjabi wedding crashers

So, today I was looking through some of Micah's photos from the trip - he has thrilling photos from the wedding we crashed in Amritsar, which was one of the coolest random things that happened to us in India. (To recap: Micah and I met two girls in the Golden Temple, became friends over the course of the afternoon, then they brought us to a wedding where we dressed all fancy and ate a load of food, despite not knowing anyone.) Pictures abound!

1) Here we have myself and new friend Ruby arriving at the wedding in style. 2) Followed by the groom arriving in even more style, atop a decorated white horse. 3) And here we have a dance party gathering around the horse and groom. That's how they roll there. 4) Inside there was a giant mountain of fruit. It was awesome.

5) I wasted no time in stuffing my face. 6) The marriage happened and everyone was joyous.

7) Micah and I pose for what I am pretty sure is the only photo from the whole 2 months that has both of us in it, actually looking nice. 8) Ruby and I leave the wedding, still stylish in an auto-rickshaw. We were singing a Hindi song and I was laughing because I wasn't very good at it.

9) We stay overnight with our friends, then leave the next morning by motorcycle. 10) Vroom vroom. 11) Holy crap I'm on a motorcycle!

And finally, just for fun, random shots of Micah and I being dorks at the Taj Mahal, and Micah sporting a very fetching faux beard in front of the Red Fort in Delhi. Haha.

That is all I have for now! In other news, I have no other real news. I am still trying to figure what to do next in life, which is a slow process. I've been stressing out a lot. On the plus side of life, I now have the dorkiest summer of concerts ever lined up - along with the Bollywood Unforgettable tour, I will also be attending the Backstreet Boys Unbreakable tour when they're in Halifax. Unforgettable and Unbreakable... it's like we have some kind of theme going on. Gloriously, we managed to get 10th row BSB tickets online! My inner 13-year-old self is squealing with excitement.

Also, I have yet to book plane tickets, but have booked off a week from work in July from the 17th-23rd, which is approximately when I will be in the Toronto area for the Bollywood show, among other things. Kim wants to go to Canada's Wonderland - oooooh. I am glad I will get at least one week of summer in Toronto. I forgot Nova Scotia doesn't actually have summer. It's cold here. Very very cold. Brrrrr. I miss India.

update and unforgettable tour!!!

Oops, it's been nearly a month again. I fail as a blogger. Actually, I am just sparing others the boring details at the moment. I am still working at Second Cup, and am contemplating what I will do next in life. Korea is definitely the plan right now. I'll get that sorted out at some point in the very near future. I also found a wonderful Master's program at the University of London that would let me combine South Asian Studies with Film Studies - I could do a Master's degree in Bollywood! Amazing. It also lets you include a language course in your program, so I could take proper Hindi classes. It's pretty much my dream program. Unfortunately international tuition is going to cost me about 25,000$ per year, so it'll be a few years of saving in Korea before this is possible.

Unrelated, in random scary news this week - a bunch of bombs went off in Jaipur, supposedly in touristy areas, too.

Bomb attacks in Indian city kill at least 50, injure 150

This is very sad, but also really weird to imagine because Micah and I spent a few days in Jaipur in February. Only 3 months ago. All the memories are still very vivid. It is hard to think of it as a place where something like that can happen.

However, in better news... I am going to see the Unforgettable Tour in Toronto in July! This is basically a grand coming-together of Bollywood stars on stage, where they all dance and lip-synch to songs from their films. Shikha managed to get us 2nd row seats, and I am practically peeing my pants with excitement. Amitabh Bachchan (my co-star) will even be there! Maybe he'll remember me and wave, since I'll be so close to the stage. (Let me live with my delusions, please.) The following video gives you an idea of what this thing is:



Could it be ANY better? No it could not.

And finally, on a completely different note, my Dad got married two weekends ago! It was a nice little ceremony with a sweet after-party, at which I took full advantage of the "open bar" thing. I'm such a binge drinker. And what's a binge drinker without a social life? Just a big loser, that's what. I need to get out more, is what I am saying. I have become a hermit (albeit a productive one) since I've been back.

Oh well, I'll attempt a social life in Korea.

photos, and a mini-soundtrack

That photo is the movie poster for the Amitabh Bachchan film I'm in! They seem to have forgotten my name in the cast list though... no idea why. I'm the next big thing. Watch for me in theatres everywhere. (Or at least in India... I can't imagine it getting a wide release in North America. Arghhhh.)

Anyway, I didn't really mean to go a month without posting. It just sort of happened that way. I didn't want to blog again until I got my photos uploaded, and that took a long time. Also, I'm lazy. Oops. I've been semi-busy for the last few weeks. I had a good time visiting everyone in Toronto and Ottawa, then came back home and got a job working at another Second Cup. So I am back in the coffee business. Which I like, but it's not nearly as exciting as traveling so it doesn't give me loads to write about. I've spent most of my free time in the last month just reading, watching Bollywood films, and working on my Hindi. I'm productive, but temporarily very boring.

But, as I said, I did upload the majority of my travel photos. So people can look at them if they feel like it. I've got them all organized by city or place that we visited. They can all be found here:

http://s302.photobucket.com/albums/nn102/choohi/

Going through them all was fun, I got to relive large chunks of my trip as I went along. The pictures don't do justice to anything... you really need to be there to get the whole idea of it, because you're missing the sounds and smells and everything which is a big part. But hey. Sort of on that topic, I decided I am going to relive, for the blog, the Top 3 Musical Moments of the trip, with Youtube video accompaniment! So basically I am just going to link to 3 Bollywood videos! Yeahhhh!!

But seriously, music is everywhere in India and Bangladesh. Mainly Hindi film music is everywhere, on buses and trains and in the streets. People walk around singing songs constantly. It's just part of the culture. Which obviously works for me since I listen to tons of Bollywood music anyway. But there are certain songs that almost made up a mini-soundtrack for the trip. Enjoy. :) (Or not, if you are like my brother who thinks Hindi music sounds like hamster singing.)

So, the first one... there was one day in Bangladesh where we were visiting some villages, and we went to one village in the evening to interview a woman there. We rode out to her house on a rickshaw type thingy... it was basically like a flat board on wheels, pulled by a bicycle in front. Four of us could fit on it comfortably. It was almost dark when we rode back, and we were just slowly rolling down this small, foggy dirt road through the village, past rice paddy fields where the only light you could see came from tiny lanterns in houses faraway on the fields. And Yunus, our translator, had his cell phone with a bunch of songs on it, and he was playing them as we went along. He played this song, and it was just so pretty and the tone fit the setting so nicely... it was just a really cool, peaceful moment. I can't describe it properly, but here's the song:



Secondly, here is the song that could easily stand alone as the soundtrack for the trip - this is basically the biggest song of the year from the biggest Hindi film of the year (maybe the highest grossing Bollywood film ever, not too sure of the numbers) and it played EVERYWHERE. It was the first song we heard when we landed in Bangladesh, in our car ride to the hotel, and we heard it constantly blaring all over Bangladesh and India for the next two months. (Jenn, I dedicate this one to you, of course.)



And lastly (for now), this song brings back memories of Amritsar, when we met some girls at the Golden Temple and ended up crashing a wedding with them. The girls were singing this song in the afternoon, then sang it again on the auto-rickshaw ride to the wedding. There were 8 of us crammed in the back, all singing along to this song. (Well, not Micah and I, obviously - but everyone else was!) Also, since I love the movie it's from, I made it my mission while we were in Delhi to visit every single location in this video, so it's extra special. I'm a nerd.



There are dozens more but that's probably enough. More photos to come though, if and when Micah ever gives me copies of his - he has good photos of us at the wedding and us on a motorcycle that I'm dying to see. Ooooh.

happy birthday to me... from toronto?!

Uhhh, yes. Because I apparently can't manage to stay still for more than a week, I am now in Toronto. On a whim I booked a plane ticket and flew here... somewhat irresponsible, but definitely fun. I did manage to line up a job interview for when I get back (at a Second Cup! Yay!) so that makes me feel a bit better about hurling myself even further into debt by randomly purchasing plane tickets. I swear, after this trip is over I will stop having fun and concern myself only with finances.

Anyway... today is my birthday! 24 on the 24th, so that makes it like, special or something. I probably won't do anything overly special, because you know, I'm poor, but I am going for dinner with Alex and Kim (who are also letting me stay at their place again, they are awesome) in the evening. They are taking me for poutine, mmm. Unfortunately before all that, I need to go locate and then visit a doctor. Something is wrong with my left ankle... it got a bit sore my last week in India but I kind of disregarded it. It doesn't hurt to walk on or anything, just when you push on it or stretch the muscle behind it. But it's been getting more and more swollen. Which still doesn't hurt, but I realized last night that you almost can't even see my left ankle anymore because the swelling is so much. I showed Alex and Kim and they both insisted I see a doctor. I don't think it's a huge deal, but they were pretty vehement about it, being that I've just come from a foreign country and maybe some kind of giant poisonous creature bit me. That would be... unfortunate, so I am hoping I just sprained something without noticing. 

On a different note, whenever it's my birthday, I get all lame and feel like reflecting on the past year, and then get depressed because I feel like I've accomplished nothing. Which is never really the case. So, for my own reassurance, I have accomplished the following things while being 23: graduated University, had the best summer of my life thus far, successfully ran a 10km race, discovered Bollywood, learned a new alphabet and make decent progress learning Hindi, wrote a 40 page screenplay treatment (even though it won't be used, still an accomplishment for me to have finished), got another tattoo, travelled to Montreal and Toronto (multiple times), New York City, London, Dubai, backpacked Bangladesh and India, met a Nobel Peace Prize winner, met the biggest movie star in India, got to be in 2 major films (I know being an extra is not seriously an accomplishment, but let's pretend), met a million new people, and made a bunch of genuine, really good friends that I will keep for a long time and can't even imagine not knowing. So I would say that 23 was a massive success. Actually, having just written it out, I think this has probably been the best year of my life thus far. Which is good, since the next 3 years at least are going to be devoted to paying off the horrific debts I've built up while having such a good time. 

Enough of that.

Yesterday I went to see Race (the latest Hindi blockbuster, of course) with my friend Shikha. It was complete crap but in the best way possible. Ridiculous plot, pointless action scenes, overly attractive and scantily-clad characters who burst into song and dance every 25-30 minutes, and a ludicrous climax in which the two lead characters decide to settle their differences with a car race. Basically everything you could hope for from Bollywood. (It was, however, a bit short on romance, and a lot short on the usual Indian family values/morals, but hey.) It was also super fun to see Shikha again! :)

On Tuesday, it's my plan to take the overnight bus to Ottawa to visit, so I should be there all Wednesday and Thursday. I want to visit everyone! In only 2 days... ahhhh!! No idea how I'll manage that. Please melt your 15 feet of snow before I get there though, I can't handle that. Euhhh.