Pack up the truck: This BLOG IS MOVING!

Good-bye MINNESOTAGAL Blog, Hello NOVAKISTAN!

Wow, I can’t believe the day is finally here… I’ve been wanting to upgrade my blog for a very long time, but never had the guts to figure it out.  Well, this weekend, for some reason or another, I decided it was time to face my fear!  Nick and I put our heads together to come up with a new blog name that would better capture both of us, not just me.  And so the name NOVAKISTAN was born.  We secured the .com and were on our way… more on the trials and tribulations of this process at the new site!

From here on out, all posts will be going up on Novakistan.  Please check it out and change your bookmarks and links (thanks to all the  blogging friends who send people here).  Over the next few weeks I’ll be copying over the majority of posts on this site to the new one.  Looking forward to seeing you at the new site!

The Link: WWW.NOVAKISTAN.COM

Moving Through Darkness

The following is from DailyOm, a personal development site my friend Liz introduced me to that provides a daily dose of wisdom or inspiration.  What amazes me is how succinctly the authors can write and how spot-on the message often is for what I’m going through.  Here’s the one that arrived in my box today, which beautifully articulates why I’ve chosen the emotion-filled path of coaching Cancer patients.  If you like it and want to receive it daily in your inbox, just click on the link I provided above!

In life, most of us want things to go to the places we have envisioned ourselves going. We have plans and visions, some of them divinely inspired, that we want to see through to completion. We want to be happy, successful, and healthy, all of which are perfectly natural and perfectly human. So when life takes us to places we didn’t consciously want to go, we often feel as if something has gone wrong, or we must have made a mistake somewhere along the line, or any number of other disheartening possibilities. This is just life’s way of taking us to a place we need to go for reasons that go deeper than our own ability to reason. These hard knocks and trials are designed to shed light on our unconscious workings and deepen our experience of reality.

Often it takes something major to wake us up, to shake us loose from our ego’s grip as it struggles to maintain an illusion of control. It is loss of control more than anything else that humbles us and enables us to see the big picture. It reminds us that the key to the universe lies in what we do not know, and what we do know is a small fraction of the great mystery in which we live. This awareness softens and lightens us, as we release our resistance to what is. Another gift gleaned from going to these seemingly undesirable places is that, in our response to difficulty, we can see all the patterns and unresolved emotional baggage that stand in the way of our unconditional joyfulness. Joy exists within us independently of whether things go our way or not. And when we don’t feel it, we can trust that we will find it if we are willing to surrender to the situation, moving through it as we move through our difficult feelings.

We can take our inspiration from any fairy tale that finds its central character lost in a dark wood, frightened and alone. We know that the journey through the wood provides its own kind of beauty and richness. On the other side, we will emerge transformed, lighter and brighter, braver and more confident for having moved through that darkness.

Jewel Goes Undercover At a Karaoke Bar

I thought we needed a good laugh after the heaviness of the typhoon yesterday.  Watch this – it will crack you up!  People are so funny…

Typhoon Trauma

Typhoon season came in with a bang last night.  The weather service had predicted the typhoon to hit north of Manila, so no one was really prepared here for anything more than a few heavy showers.  While it was no Ondoy in terms of the scale and scope of the damage, poor Nick and I experienced significantly more damage than anything we’d faced last year.

Here’s how the evening played out.  I woke up around 2 AM to find our building swaying slightly in the wind (like California, the structures are designed to flex back and forth to protect against typhoons and earthquakes).  Let’s just say that it feels really creepy when you’re in it.  Our aircon had shut off, so I knew the power must have gone out and we were using a generator (we are very lucky to have one in our building, by the way).

I walked over to the window to look at what was going on (the wind was howling and rain was pelting our windows 39 floors up).  All of a sudden I was standing in water.  Uh-oh.  I immediately woke Nick and we surveyed the damage.  It turned out that water was seeping up through the floor boards and pooling in both our master and guest bedrooms.  It was the most bizarre thing ever.  The window wasn’t even leaking, just this mysterious stream coming out of the floor.

What did we do?  We mopped!  And mopped and mopped and mopped.  Until the fire alarm started ringing.  And then we panicked.  Now, it is common knowledge in the building that  the alarm often goes off when there is no fire.  However, Nick and I are both of the mindset of “Better safe than sorry”.  So we dropped the mop and kicked into high gear – we got dressed, Nick grabbed the escape bag (I told you it’s handy), and we bolted for the stairs.

So down we went, all 39 floors.  Surprisingly, no one else was joining us.  We arrive panting in the lobby to find calm, cool and collected guards who inform us that there is no fire in the building.  You can imagine our frustration at hearing this, especially when they couldn’t explain why the alarm was going off.

But here’s where it gets really fun.  We walk back to the elevators only to discover that they are not working and there’s no ETA as to when they’ll be back up.  Crapistan.  Looks like we are spending some time in the lobby.  As minutes turned into hours I cozied into the plush micro-fiber cushions.  I would estimate we were there from 2-6 AM.  Here’s a little visual to bring the story to life:

Now, Nick got frustrated around 6 and made the trek up 39 floors.  I decided I was waiting it out until the elevator was back up – I was settling in nicely to my make-shift bed.  About 20 minutes after Nick made the climb, I was back up there too via the elevator.

Time to survey the damage.  Our bedrooms smelled like wet dog, but were not leaking nearly as bad now.  In addition, we now had water coming out of the ceiling in the guest bedroom.  I spent the day airing things out, catching up on sleep and contacting the Embassy to come out and look at it.

Some stats for Typhoon Conson:

• 90% of the city was without power for the majority of today
• 20 known dead thus far
• winds were up to 120 kph
• 1st typhoon of the season done, 20 or so to go

And that’s it folks.  There is no inspiring moral to this story.  Typhoons suck!  I’d take a blizzard any day…  :)

Getting Ready to Be Ready…

Like the picture above, I’m at a place with my coaching where certain elements are crystal clear and others are just beginning to come into focus.  Ever since I found coaching 3 years ago, I knew that, without a doubt, I had found the vehicle to get my message out.  The thing was, I just didn’t know what that message was or who it was supposed to reach.  3 months ago when it became clear to me that Cancer Patients were my people, there was this amazing sense of peace; a screeching halt to the non-stop searching I’d been engaging in for years.  The message materialized magically from there and I knew that I did indeed have the engine to power my vehicle now.

Oddly, once I decided to accept the “calling” to be a Cancer Coach, something strangely unfamiliar showed up in my life, namely: Paralysis.  Now fear I was familiar with, but this paralysis thing was an entirely new beast.  It sweet-talked me into taking naps instead of working on programs.  It whispered that there was “no rush” and then quickly changed tactics and made me feel overwhelmed.

This puzzled me because in the “World of Sarah” once I say yes to something and have a plan of action it’s really only a matter of weeks, if not days before I’ve manifested that thing and turned it from an idea into a reality.  Lag time is non-existent in my world.  So how to explain this inability to move forward with the thing I’ve been waiting forever to find??

It was only after talking this week with a mentor coach of mine that I was enlightened to a new way of looking at my perplexing behavior.  She listened to me articulate the above and instantly responded, “Oh, of course.  You’re simply getting ready to be ready!”  I think I responded with something like “Come again?  What the heck does that mean?”

She went on to explain that similar to having a baby, a major life choice can require a preparation period in advance.  A gestation period, if you’d like.  It is during this period that we make alterations in who we are being, so that we can consciously step up into the new path we have chosen. (ie: being a parent, coaching Cancer patients, etc.)  It made perfect sense once she said it, because there really was no other explanation to justify this abnormal behavior.  It also correlates with a common thing that frequently trips me up – failing to see value in “Being”.

As I’ve explained before, I’m a do-er.  My family were do-ers too and at some point I created a belief that my time was only being spent valuably if I was do-ing.  So you can imagine the tension that’s been inside me for the last 3 months since I knew exactly what I was supposed to be DO-ing, but could only seem to BE.  It was insanely frustrating, to put it mildly!

Instead of continuing to beat myself up, I’ve decided to change my perspective and see this “Being” phase that I’m in as something of value.  Just because I can’t SEE something happening, doesn’t mean that shifts aren’t taking place, right?!

I AM STATING THIS FOR THE RECORD: Starting today I will accept that I’m not ready yet (and be 100% OK with that)….. because, you see, I’m simply busy getting ready to be ready!  And when I am finally READY, my actions are going to spark something that will be felt around the world… and that kind of impact, my friends, takes some time to get ready for!

Readers- Let me know what you think …. In what areas of your life are you “Getting Ready to Be Ready”?  Is this a useful concept for you?

Ear Candy!

Can’t get enough of this new song by Sara Bareilles!  It’s on continuous play in our house at the moment…. enjoy!

30 Years Young: Starting the Decade Off Right!

You are all well aware of the fact that I don’t really believe in doing anything small, especially when it comes to milestone birthdays.  All it took was 5 months of hinting on my part before Nick caved and graciously agreed to host a 30th birthday bash for me (against his better judgment).  And what fun we had…

But before we go into all the juicy details of the night, let’s first explore why 30 is such a big deal for me.  Now, I find birthday conversations a bit frustrating at times because most people expect you to be depressed about getting older.  You see, that’s never been a fear for me.  Actually, for as long as I remember, I’ve wanted to be an adult.  This goes back as far as age 10 when my parents would be hosting dinner parties and I’d sneak down and put my ear to the wall of the adjacent room and revel in the adult conversation.  In high school I remember leaving the party in the basement and going up and chatting with the host’s parents (yup, I was a full-fledged dork).  Dare I say I even preferred talking to adults over my peers.  It was a sad day when mom sat me down and told me I need to spend more time with people my age!

I thought the 20′s would finally get me into the “adult club,” but it always seemed to elude me.  I still found that more senior adults disregarded my opinion because I was a 20-something or questioned my ability to coach them because of my lack of life experience.  And that proved to be insanely frustrating because what I’ve known for a long time is that is that age is irrelevant –  I just happen to be an OLD SOUL…..who now has the digits to back it up!  No more writing me off as a mistake-making 20-year-old because 30 is the REAL DEAL.  30 is maturity.  30 is baby-making time (a very grown-up thing to do).  And 30 is above-all-else, not the 20′s!

And so I’m sure you can see now why this was such a HUGE DEAL.  This was my débutante ball, my adult coming-out party and my day of birth all rolled into one.  Happily, the hubby came through big time on this one!  He started by surprising me with my gifts the night BEFORE my birthday.  This is unheard of in the Novak family, I might even go so far as to say it’s prohibited.  And since I believe in opening a gift as soon as it’s given, you can imagine that this has created some tension in our newly-joined family.  So imagine my delight when he proposed that I open it early!?!  YES PLEASE!

Again, I need to fill you in on some background details.  Being that we’re traveling like mad this year, we both agreed that we’d just spend $100 on birthday gifts.  Being the rule follower that I am, I stayed perfectly within the budget for his 30th birthday last December.  He got some very cool sandals, a fab new briefcase and an electronic helicopter (okay, it even sounds pathetic when I write it – but I swear, it seemed very adequate at the time).  Well, imagine my surprise when I unwrap my gift and discover a beautiful new phone (for texting, of course – I do now live in the texting capital of the world) that was well above the limit.  I was tickled pink and only feeling mildly guilty until we’re laying in bed later that night and he mysteriously pulls out another package.  Yup, you guessed it, that little punk totally broke the rules and got me the most gorgeous new long-range camera lens (a 55-250 mm).  I couldn’t decide whether to be pissed or delighted, as this was totally and completely unexpected (and inappropriate).  He looked so excited about it though that I just melted and buried my shame at giving him such crap gifts (stupid rule following – never again)!

Fast forward to my actual birthday: I decided to take a nice ‘n easy Manila pampering day since the evening was going to be very people-filled.  I managed to fit in a manicure, lunch out and a massage (of course).  Nick had rented a place called Nicotina’s for the evening.  It’s a favorite hang-out of the Embassy folks that we were introduced to earlier this year.  I immediately fell in love with the open-air setting, good food and live band!  When Nick suggested it for my birthday, I knew that was the perfect spot.  Here’s what it looks like inside:

The venue was AMAZING to work with.  We had about 30 RSVP’s, so Nick had pre-ordered 10 pizzas.  They allowed us to bring in our own cake as well, which was really nice.  Best of all though, Nick arranged the opportunity for me to sing with the band!  Talk about dreamy… that’s 1000 times better than regular karaoke!

Traffic was bad, so people trickled in throughout the night.  We started with lots of eating, drinking and dancing.  Once I was sufficiently relaxed I was ready to rock (I get insanely nervous when I haven’t soloed in awhile).  I started with my signature Karoake song, Alone by Heart.  Nothing like a classic 80′s ballad to belt out.  Once I was feeling good, we moved into some duets (with the band’s lead singer).  We took on Hopelessly Devoted To You from Grease and One Sweet Day by Mariah Carey.  To close down the set, my friend Jen came up and dueted with me on Alison Krause’s When You Say Nothing At All.   What you’ll notice as you watch the progression of these pictures, is that I’m getting more and more into it with my ENTIRE BODY.  Hands, eyes closed, head back – I brought it, diva-style!  :)  I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect night!  Thanks to everyone who made it so magical….

PS- Nick was on picture-detail for the night, so check out his work at SMUGMUG.

Bring it on 30, I am SOOOO ready for you!
It’s going to be a fan-frickin’-tastic decade ahead!

Blast from the Past: Retro Candy in the Mail!

Guess what arrived in the mail as my very first Birthday gift???  The biggest box of Retro ’80s candy I had ever seen!!  Thanks to my oh-so-hip in-laws, I was the recipient of an assortment of popular candy from my childhood.  I tell you, I was tickled pink by all the memories that came with this thoughtful gift.

Here are some of my favorite ones that emerged:

• Getting a goody-bag of treats for the 90 minute drive home every time we visited Grandma (we always politely overlooked the fact that some of the candy was quite stale)
• Spending entire afternoons biking to Snyder’s Drug Store with the neighbor kids to pick out a treat (we could peruse their selection for hours, I tell you)
• Begging my mom to let me try candy cigarettes (as you might imagine that was a big, fat N-O)
• Enjoying a candy necklace on a perfect summer’s day
• Buying Laffy Taffy’s for 1 cent at the Campground store and then getting them stuck in your teeth

I had forgotten how many good memories were associated with candy!  Do share a few of your favorite stories that these images spark!  I segmented the items I got into two categories: the favorites are on the top and the “just ok” ones are on the bottom.

Which ones were your top picks?  Any you’d forgotten about?  I want to see some discussion going on this!

PS- Just in case you were wondering, I had to share the joy of this much candy with the kiddos in my life.  I picked out a few of the most unique ones for Norma to take home to her daughter (Pop Rocks, Candy Necklace, Fizzies).  Can I just say that those were a HUGE hit with 2 year old Norland!

Then, after getting my fill of sugar, I took the remaining ones to Friendship Home and used them as prizes for my Birthday Bingo game.  I couldn’t stop laughing as they spit out the Atomic Fireballs and Good ‘n Plenty’s after trying them for the first time.  I love knowing that the response to those candies is universal!  :)  Definitely an acquired taste…

Sam’s Summer Pop Medley

In celebration of being back in Manila, I thought we’d all enjoy a little Sam to start our day off right!  It’s been at least two weeks since I shared something of his with you, so I figured it was about time….

Day 2: The Beauty of Perspective

Ahhhh, Day 2 in Shanghai.  Despite the challenges of Day 1, Nick and I were determined to start this day with a positive attitude.  To get things kicked off on the right foot, we decided to indulge in a delicious breakfast at the Sofitel.  :)

I particularly enjoyed the dessert buffet, which made up 1/2 of my meal selections.  Sometimes I just LOVE being an adult!  :)  Doesn’t it look scrumptious??

The coolest part of the buffet was that it took place on the 47th floor of the hotel, which happened to be a rotating restaurant.  I was way stoked about this concept and couldn’t wait to enjoy the varying views of the city from our ringside seat – alas, I forgot to consider that the smog would make the views negligible (note the picture above – you can vaguely make out the shape of buildings).  Oh well, great views are over-rated anyways!  On to the Expo…

Now, before we get on to the Expo, I should set the scene a bit.  I failed to mention yesterday that both Nick and I had mysterious ‘pains’ that started plaguing us.  I had this perpetual foot cramp that ached with each step and Nick had a knee pain that was bothering him.  We are quite the pair, aren’t we?  We were also “homeless” for the remainder of the day, having had to check out of the hotel after brunch…

We arrived at the Expo around 1 PM.  We were told to expect horrendous crowding, but were pleased to find otherwise.  Little did we know that we had started on the unpopular side of the Expo and the crowds were waiting for us across the river….

For those of you not familiar with the Expo, it’s essentially a collection of 200 Country Pavilions where individual countries show off the best of what their nation has to offer.  They may show a movie, display artifacts and traditional costume or have a performance.

There is also a “Passport Booklet” in which you can collect stamps from each country.  Somehow, that got turned into an unspoken contest to collect every stamp, because we saw numerous examples of people coming into the pavilion, collecting their stamp and running out the exit.  Kind of defeats the purpose of the Expo, doesn’t it???

The thing that surprised us most was the lack of foreigners that we saw at the Expo.  It was about 98% Chinese attendees.  As you might imagine based on yesterday’s post, we ran into much of the same bad behavior that we’d experienced the day before, only on an amplified scale due to the massive crowds.  The umbrellas were back in full force, as was the pushing, line cutting and spitting.  Nick’s patience expired in about 30 minutes and I spent the afternoon reminding him that it was a waste of energy to yell at our impolite friends as they a.) didn’t care and b.) couldn’t understand him.

The lines for many of the pavilions were nightmarish.  Some, like the Chinese Pavilion pictured above, gave out ticketed slots at the start of the day, so that wasn’t even an option for us.  The Saudi Pavilion was the most popular, with wait time ranging from 2-6 hours.  Many people had collapsible stools that they’d pull out when stopped.  There was also a lot of card-playing going on.  Nick and I decided that there wasn’t anything inside those pavilions that we wanted to see bad enough to wait in line for 2 hours.  By hour 3 we were both starting to reach our max (pathetic, I know).  It was the combination of the heat, crowds, and lack of manners that really got to us.

Then, in the distance, we saw it – the Philippines Pavilion!  We ran towards, needing something, anything really, to lift our spirits.  And just as expected, it came through for us!  It was by far our favorite pavilion, really capturing the essence of what the Philippines was all about – Food, Shopping, Massage and Performing.  The had a cute cafe offering all the Filipino favorites, a Hilot Massage room where you could try a sampling of this indigenous massage style, and an entire market area of fun Filipino wares for purchase.

The highlight of the Expo for me was going up to get my picture taken with a group of Filipino Performers.  When it was my turn I walked up to them and said Good Afternoon in Tagalog and they immediately replied, “You speak Tagalog!” and started hugging me and shouting in typical Filipino fashion.  When they found out we lived in Manila it became a major love-fest.

After days of being pushed and stepped on, I can’t tell you how good it felt to be embraced in the arms of a Filipino.  It didn’t matter that I only knew 20 Tagalog words or had white skin; all that mattered was that we shared a love for the amazing country that is the Philippines!

It was on that high note that we decided to leave the Expo.  We were both feeling nostalgic for Manila and ready to get on the airplane.  Too bad we still had 7 hours to kill before our flight took off….

We decided to kill a couple of hours with dinner.  We found a curry restaurant near People’s Square that appeared to have recognizable food.  No luck on communicating though, so we resorted to the old “Point and Pantomine” method.  Everything was going fine until I created an international incident, as my husband loving put it, by asking for a fork.  Granted, I know this isn’t the culturally savvy thing to do, but I’d had a long day and damn it I wanted to enjoy my food with a fork, not chop sticks!

This request was not understood by my server, but the guy at the table next to us (who was apparently eavesdropping on our conversation) started laughing out loud.  Oh sure, I thought, we finally get someone who understands English and all they choose to do is laugh at me, not assist.  Being the nice midwestern gal that I am, I flashed him my brightest smile and EUREKA – he translated for the waitress!  YAY – SARAH GETS HER FORK!  The night was looking up.

All of a sudden a 3 piece band starts playing (singer, bongo drum, guitar).  It was very haphazard and they were basically standing in the entryway of the restaurant, so they had to move frequently for people to enter and waiters to go by.  That said, they were absolutely entrancing despite looking so out of place.  Not a Chinese person in that restaurant was looking at them but boy were they rocking out.  I felt so bad for them that I started bopping my head and smiling at them, letting them know that someone appreciated their efforts.

It was somewhere in the middle of Alicia Keyes’ “No One” song that it dawned on me – this band had to be Filipino!  They were radiating too much JOY not to be.  :)  I ran up there and over-enthusiastically asked them where they were from.  My hunch was right: Filipinos!  Nick and I were beaming as we left the restaurant.  It was the second time that day that joyful Filipinos had pulled us out of our slump.  You would have laughed to see us – we kept hugging each other and whistling Alicia Keyes.  We even started talking about a timeline for adopting a Filipino child of our own!  :)

And that, my friends, is why travel (even when painful) can be a very good thing – because it reminds you of exactly what resonates with you and helps you fall in love with it even more.  In our case, that just happens to be what we already have, our beloved Philippines!

And just in case that wasn’t enough gushing, you will be pleased to know that our Filipino stewardess on Cebu Pacific had handed in Nick’s Kindle to the lost and found and it was waiting for us when we returned to the airport!  :)  A sweet ending to a bitter-sweet trip…

Day 1 in Shanghai: In Over Our Heads

I desperately tried to like you Shanghai, I really did.  I know it’s cool to like China right now, with you being a rising super power and all, but I just wasn’t into being a part of your 20 million person free-for-all.  You see, as a mid-western girl I place high value on things like smiling and saying sorry when you hit someone with your umbrella.  I’m not trying to be a complainer, I just want to give my blog readers an honest impression of you.  My mom always says you should sandwich the bad with some good, so let’s start with some of your positives…

Things You Have Going for You:

1. Stunning modern buildings in a vast array of geometric designs
2. A FABULOUS, clean subway system
3. Good infrastructure – roads, sidewalks, etc.
4. A Clean and Safe Environment
5. A Great Circus!

Ok, now that we’ve put that out there, I think I’ll take a moment and explain to my readers why we just didn’t click.  Here goes…

Nick and I took an 8:30 PM flight out of Manila on Friday night, so we got to our hotel around 1 AM.  Not the best way to start a trip, but the tickets were so cheap that it seemed like a fine compromise ($150 round trip).  Not sure I would do it again, especially the return trip on Monday morning which went from 1 to 5 AM.  DOUBLE YUCK.  I would have slept well that first night had Nick not realized (once we got to the hotel) that we had our first “casualty of travel” – he had left his $300 Kindle behind on the airplane.  AWESOME honey.  Not a good way to start our trip.  We took a moment to say thanks for the insurance we had purchased on the item, but I still couldn’t seem to shake the fact that this was a bad omen.

Saturday morning arrived too soon and we set out to explore the city on foot and subway.  We were struggling to find anything that remotely looked like a breakfast food, so we ended up indulging ourselves in a little Starbucks as we got our bearings.  As I’ve mentioned before, Nick does everything in his power to try and blend in a city (which I never excel at, by the way) and even this early in our trip we were recognizing that we were horribly out of our element.  The shot above is one of my favorites – zoom in on 2 glaring white people in a sea of Chinese sipping our Starbucks and attempting to decipher the biggest city map we’ve ever seen.  It was not a pretty picture….

With some food in our bellies, we were ready to attack the city.  First up: The Shanghai Museum, full of classic Chinese art forms.  Let me start by saying that the building was stunning.  The lines however, were not.  We queued up only to realize that the Chinese weren’t so much into the concept of lines.  In fact, they thought it was perfectly acceptable to lift the rope and enter the line ahead of you.  Or try to bypass you on a corner.  And don’t even get me started on the umbrellas.  Hats or sunglasses are not in fashion, so they all carry umbrellas instead.  This would be fine if we a.) weren’t in a line and b.) squished together like sardines.  Nick started to lose his cool really fast after getting poked in the head by the umbrella prongs close to a 100 times.  Things were rapidly going south and we were only at our first stop of the day!

At this point I attempted to ask a guard how long the wait would be and he put his fingers together in an “X” formation and held them in front of my face, apparently signaling that he was not a question-answering guard, just one that was there for decoration.  It was at this point that I started to lose my cool…..thankfully, we finally got into the museum a few moments later.  Lots of pictures on SMUGMUG of the museum and its historical contents.

Next up was a stop on the Bund, which is a beautiful walking area on the river.  According to our map, the distance to the Bund seemed relatively short.  It was not.  Add to that the 95 degree heat that was emerging and you were left with two sweat-drenched tourists (who did not have an umbrella).  It was approaching 12 noon by the time we got here and since this was supposed to be one of the biggest tourist areas, I assumed we’d have no trouble finding lunch and some water to hydrate ourselves.  Wrong again.  Not a restaurant in sight.  We walked for 30 minutes down the riverwalk (which was not looking beautiful to me anymore) and I started to get delusional from the lack of hydration.  No kidding, I was losing it….and Nick knew it.  I just could not fathom how there could be no restaurants.  Didn’t the Chinese need to eat?  Apparently not!  There are a lot of things I can do without, but food is not one of them!

We did eventually manage to find a cafe for lunch and then proceeded to get stuck there as we waited out a 2 hour down-pour.  I didn’t mention this yet, but take a look at the above picture and you’ll see that it appears like the city just stops after that first row of buildings.  Oh yes, the smog was that bad.  It was like nothing I’d ever experienced, even in Manila.  The air always seemed to be filled with fog and when you looked at the sun, it was covered by a yellow-orangish haze.  We didn’t even wear sun screen because we decided the sun couldn’t get through that muck.  And did I mention that I even started having random coughing attacks?

I don’t know if I was just being a naive American or what, but I was not expecting the language barriers we encountered.  I figured, hey, this is an international city and Chinese students are all learning English in school, so how hard can it be to communicate?  Answer: Damn near impossible.  Take our dinner experience for example, where we were supposed to look around a cafeteria with 200+ plates of plastic food to choose from.  I recognized maybe 5 things out of 200 and there were no translations on the description cards.  Meanwhile, once you had decided on  your choices, you needed to flag down a roaming lady who would write down your selections.  We tried politely waiting our turn near the lady, but inevitably someone would cut in right before our turn and steal her away.  We were seething….

When we finally snagged a roaming lady, we ordered a few dishes, one of which was the item pictured above which we thought was Sweet and Sour Chicken.  Turns out it was battered chicken feet or something like that.  It was DISGUSTING!  Gritty, impossible to bite through.  Let’s just say that we didn’t eat it and that left me with noodles and a pastry puff for dinner.  SOMEBODY FEED ME PLEASE!

The one high point of the day was going to see the ERA: Intersection of Time Show at the Shanghai Circus World & School.  It was a remarkable performance; far beyond anything I could have imagined.  It was simply mind-blowing to see the various ways they could contort their bodies!  I’ve been told this is similar to Cirque De Soleil, but at an even higher caliber level.  It definitely met and exceeded our expectations and would be the one thing that I’d recommend as a “must-do” to visitors.  I did manage to find a highlights reel of the acts from our show (note: it was illegally filmed so the quality is not the best).  It will give you a good sense of what we experienced.

Sorry for the negativity in this blog post – it’s very unlike me!  I feel better now that it’s out of my system.  Tomorrow I’ll put together a review of day 2, when we went to the World Expo.  Lots more to come!  In the meantime, check out the pictures at SMUGMUG.

Guest Blog Post: Pampering, Manila Style

Note: The following post is a guest post from my visitor Karolanne.  It details her experiences with the various treatments we tried.

I should begin by telling you that I’ve only had a couple ‘real’ massages in the States.  They were nice but nothing compared to the treatment and ambiance in Manila.  When I first arrived, Sarah took me to ‘The Spa,’ which had the best ambiance of all the places we visited.  You walked up the stairs into a dimly-lit hallway with running waterfalls and proceeded to enter the changing room where you got your lockers, robes, towels and slippers.  You could either take a steam bath or shower at this point.  The showers were really beautiful, as they had natural black stone lining the area where you stood.  Then you relaxed with a cup of ginger tea while they prepared your room.

I had a hot coconut oil massage there, which is called the Hilot.  They warmed the coconut oil on their hands by holding them over a set of candles.   They also placed warm coconut covered banana leaves on your back during the massage.   The massage was definitely luxurious and more of an experience that anything I’d had previously in the states.   A note for future visitors: I would recommend ‘The Spa’ for anyone that wants the complete experience of a Spa, not just a good treatment.

A few days later Sarah and I went to Coras Dermatology for skin treatments.  We each got a facial and diamond micro-dermabrasion.  This was my first real facial experience.  The part I found most intriguing was when they used this little tool to get out all the black and white heads.  I really didn’t think I had any, but I am sure they were getting something as the pressure was intense sometimes. When I went to the mirror after the facial, I could definitely tell that my pores were smaller.   After the facial came the diamond micro-dermabrasion.  During this process they take an object that looks and feels like a small vacuum cleaner hose to your face.   The end of the tool is about the size of a dime and the edges are lined with small diamonds around the nozzle.  They move this up and down your face and gently exfoliate off dead skin cells, which the vacuum then sucks up.   Having the equipment used on my face made me a bit uneasy, so it was not really that relaxing.  I had them try it on my hand to show me what was going to happen.  After that, they put on some lotion and went over my face with a laser to reduce the redness.   I can definitely tell that my pores are smaller and skin dramatically smoother.

My favorite treatment by far was the 90 minute massage at Qi Wellness Spa.  The entire spa was very mod.  White walls, glass walls and glass sliding doors.  Very chic!  Like ‘The Spa’, they too had a little waiting area with white leather sofas to sit in while they prepared our room.   The amenities like a shower, locker and robe were not provided like ‘The Spa’ but the Lymphatic Massage itself was great.  They used long, circular strokes to work on the muscles.  The music was just the right volume and rhythm to keep my mind from wandering.  It really kept me in a relaxed state the entire time.

Last but not least was the acupuncture.  We arrived in a one-room office that was partitioned up so they could serve about 7 patients at a time.  It was actually pretty amazing to see how many staff and patients they had crammed into that room!  They way they had it set up though surprisingly made you able to relax and tune out what was happening around you.  First up was 20 minutes of holding two electrodes.  He said they worked on the parasites in my body but it did not seem like an exact science.  The technician said, “Is that okay?” and I replied, “I can feel the tingle.”  I was not sure if I was supposed to try and take as much tingle as possible or just let her know when I could feel it.  Anyway, I looked at the machine and it read 7 volts.  There was another meter but it did not have units to it so I am not sure what it was measuring.   20 minutes of tingles.  Then a 20 minute foot bath with salt to detoxify.  After that he pressed on 5 parts of my hand and I told him the one that hurt the most and he told me that it is associated with digestion.  Then he pressed on my calf and ankle in 5 parts (they were already sore from the massage) and I told him the back of my lower calf was the part that hurt the most and he said that was associated with sweets.  I do like sweets but I have not had many on my three weeks of traveling in Asia so maybe that indicates I am going through withdrawal.  Note to self: must eat copious amounts of ice cream when I get back to Wisconsin.  That should not be a problem.

Then it was finally time for the therapy part.  They warmed up the backs of may legs with heating pads and he pressed on some areas and then did some stretching.  I am pretty flexible so it did not hurt much.  He went easy on me because I have hives and a lot of pressure would inflame them.  For the acupuncture, he inserted the needle in my 90 degree bent elbow.  He said this would stimulate my auto-immune system and hopefully help with the hives.

The lifestyle discussion with the acupuncture doctor was helpful.  Nothing earth shattering really, except that you should not drink with your meal, or if you must drink; only warm or hot water in little sips.   I really enjoyed that a doctor wanted to take the time and talk about holistic healing which includes things like posture, exercise, stretching, fiber, diet, water, electrolytes and what bowel movements should look like.  I really do believe it is all connected so it was refreshing to hear a doctor talk about them all in one visit.

Sorry for the really long post.  I tend to get too descriptive when I am writing about something new.   All in all, I loved all these treatments and would recommend them to anyone that wants to get back on the health wagon and start paying attention to their body more.  Manila pampering and healthy healing rocks!

One Year Ago Today: The Top 40 Milestones from Our First Year Overseas

Since it’s become obvious that I can’t stop time and prevent the one year mark from happening, I’ve decided that for today’s 1 Year Commemorative Post we’ll take a more positive slant instead and celebrate all the milestones that have happened in the last year.  Kind of a “Year in Review” with links and pictures… thanks for joining us on the journey!  It’s been so much fun to share it with you all…  XOXO, Sarah

Here’s the audience participation part: Please leave comments as to which were your favorite to read about and why!  I’ve made it really easy for you by linking to the posts/milestones referenced!

Milestones from Our First Year Abroad

1. 9 Trips within the Philippines including: Batangas, Puerto Galera (twice), Bohol (twice), Donsol, Batanes, Boracay, and Cebu
   
2. 5 International Trips including: Kota Kinabalu, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Bali and Bangkok
   
3. Learned to shoot with a Digital SLR and can now officially call myself an amateur photographer
4. Received 52 massages and can articulate what the finer points are of each different style
5. Can tell the difference between different types of rice (and now own a rice cooker)
6. Embraced eyebrow threading and swore of waxing for good
7. Learned how to select a good set of pearls and put those new skills to use when purchasing my 3 sets!
8. Witnessed the death of Corazon Aquino and the Inauguration of her son NoyNoy (both major historical events in the Philippines)
9. Fit WAY TO MUCH SH*T into one tiny condo (and started the process of simplifying our material life)
10. Successfully hired and managed a household staff of 2 (whom we adore and everyone wants to steal when we leave)
    
11. Found Corn Dogs
    
12. Determined that I was NOT meant to be a SCUBA diver
13. Found Friendship Home
    
14. Survived my first Typhoon
15. Mastered the art of drinking High Tea and noshing on scones
    
16. Attended my first Hoe Down
17. Survived the Neighborhood Shoot-out Unscathed
18. Custom-designed my very first Chaise Lounge!
    
19. Picked up the ‘Manila Crud’ and started visiting the Emergency Room (a lot)
20. Attended my first marine ball
    
21. Chose our first Xmas Tree as a married couple
22. Rode an elephant
    
23. Watched Nick fall in love with the Friendship Home Kids (and realized he’s going to be a great Dad)
24. Survived my first Christmas Away
    
25. Welcomed 5 guests: Rachel, My Parents, Sarah J, Jenna and Karolanne
    
26. Survived another MELTDOWN
27. Successfully made it through my first year of marriage (and enjoyed every minute of it with my amazing partner)
    
28. Had our wedding published in MN Bride!
29. Swam with the Whale Sharks (and didn’t die!)
    
30. Taught Norma how to make Tator Tot Hotdish (a proud moment indeed)
    
31. Witnessed poverty on a level previously unimagined and allowed it to change me
    
32. Turned Blog Readers into Friends (instead of vice versa)
33. Enjoyed my first Earthquake
34. Found Carewell!
35. Swam with Dolphins!!!
    
36. Celebrated as the last Miller graduated from CSB
37. Rocked my first Corporate Retreat in Malaysia
38. Started the spiritual practice of tithing
39. Stepped into my calling as a Cancer Coach
40. Tried Acupuncture!